Easter 7

John 15:26–16:4 - Exaudi (Confirmation) Sunday - May 8, 2016
Remember That I Told You So

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Jesus does not want you to stumble.  He wants you to stand firm.  That is why he has spoken to you in the Holy Scriptures, in the preaching and teaching of the gospel, and in the simple instruction of the Catechism.  This is what he intended when he commanded that his saving grace be preached to all creatures.  He teaches you where you may stand and walk secure, and follow him without tripping and falling.  The prophet Isaiah prophesied that Christ the Lord “will make each of [His] mountains a road, and [His] highways shall be elevated” (Isaiah 49:11).  This is his way of promising that your pilgrimage will be safe and your path will be level as you follow him through life, death, and into heaven.  He makes your journey safe and your path level, however, not by making life easy, though, or even by removing the great dangers that threaten you and your faith along the way.  Oh, no!  They will be plenty, as we sing:

I walk in danger all the way.
The thought shall never leave me
That Satan, who has marked his prey,
Is plotting to deceive me.
This foe with hidden snares
May seize me unawares
If ever I fail to watch and pray.
I walk in danger all the way.

St. Peter teaches us the same in our Epistle lesson, “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’”   Instead of removing all dangers, Jesus makes your journey safe and your path level by clearly teaching you what you need in order to navigate through this valley of sorrow.  He teaches you the love with which he fervently loved you and covered the multitude of your sins.  Jesus says, “Abide in My love” (John 15:9).  This is paralleled also by his command, “Abide in My word” (John 8:31).  This in turn is fleshed out in his promise, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56).  By this eating and drinking he is referring to faith while also giving us insight into the great value of the Sacrament of the Altar.  The flesh and blood of God is the only flesh and blood that does us any good, as he says later, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4). 

Christ’s word alone enables you to silence and confound every enemy of your salvation.  His word alone is your safety.  His word alone bears God-pleasing fruit in your life.  St. Paul calls the word the sword of the Spirit.  This same word serves also as a rod and staff that comfort you.  They comfort you by warding off the devil who murders by lying.  They comfort you also by leading you to green pastures and still waters, which themselves are nothing other than where his word is preached purely and his sacraments administered rightly.  As the first Psalm says:

[You] shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever [you do] shall prosper. (Psalm 1:3) 

This is where your Good Shepherd leads you.  His word of grace and forgiveness is a table prepared in the presence of your enemies.  It is God’s word that brings down the mountains and raises your path above all who seek to do you harm.  This is what St. John the Baptist accomplished when he came preaching repentance.  This is what Jesus accomplished by bearing the sin of the world.  The law causes mountains of pride to come crumbling down.  The gospel lifts poor sinners out of the valley of guilt and despair.  God’s word – the law and the gospel – sets you on a level path above your enemies that leads to heaven.  By standing firmly on his word, Jesus ensures that you will not be made to stumble.  That is why he has told you the things he has told you. 

Who seeks to harm you?  What are these enemies of yours?  To be sure, in the most obvious sense, your enemies are those who hate and persecute you because you believe and confess the gospel.  Jesus says, “for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:12), and, “you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus warns that those who persecute you will think they are serving God by doing so.  So yes, our enemies are actual people who set themselves against Christ.  They reject the gospel that saves them because they are blinded by their own pride and self-security. 

The devil is behind their hatred.  He is the prince of this world.  The devil is behind the opposition to the gospel that seeks to consume the world in unbelief and make it an unpleasant place for Christians to live.  The devil is behind the false doctrine that seems to divide the Church and make it hard to identify where the true Church is to be found.  But what is the real power that the devil has?  How is it that the devil has so much sway in the world to cause it to persecute Christ’s Church and harass his lambs so harshly? 

The answer lies in what we confess in the little Catechism.  We call it the unholy trinity:

“We pray … that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.  Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.” 

What your Catechism calls sinful nature, the Bible simply calls flesh.  As our Lord said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).   All flesh is grass.  The breath of the Lord blows upon it and we wither (Isaiah 40:6).  This is because the wages of our sin is death.  We are born in sin from sinful parents.  God’s law condemns us.  In his word of mercy and forgiveness, however, God breathes life.  He gives us a new birth.  He himself took on human flesh and blood in order to do what we could not.  He wins our salvation.  He wants you to hear this and know it.  This is why he breathed on his disciples and told them to forgive you.  He gave them his Holy Spirit so that through their word he gives his Holy Spirit to you as well.  This heavenly breath revives you.  You must know how to recognize it. 

Because this word of absolution is not the only thing blowing.  There are winds of temptation and deceit that build into powerful storms to assail and conquer you in your weakness.  St. Paul says that “we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, … grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (Ephesians 4:14-15).  Talk about a rite of passage.  You two have grown from children, not by growing old, but by learning what makes you wise for salvation.  You know the voice of Christ; you know how to judge and distinguish between lies and truth.  You know how to console your conscience with the gospel when you have sinned and need to know that God does not condemn you.  This is true maturity. 

Patrick and Caelan, it’s hard to be grown up.  But it’s even harder to grow up.  You have made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses – as we were so proud to hear this last Thursday at our Ascension service.  You already have great maturity in Christ.  But you must continue to grow, as St. Peter tells us, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:2-3).  And so you have tasted this grace.  And by this grace of God you will soon vow to remain faithful to it – to acknowledge your need for it, and to identify and make use of where this need is met.  It is met by Jesus who abides with his Church through the gospel that is preached and the Sacrament that you will soon taste.  It is the taste of grace, because it is the very body and blood that bore your sin and made payment for it. 

The reason it is hard to keep growing up, though, we can blame on the devil, we can blame on the world that is increasingly and even surprisingly evil.  But the ultimate reason is because we are sinners.  Your struggles are just beginning.  When God baptized you and marked you as one redeemed by Christ Jesus, the devil targeted you.  God protected you.  But as your bodies grow and your minds sharpen, the devil will have even more than before with which to distract you, flatter your pride, and shame you away from God’s word.  And now especially that you publicly confirm your faith today, the devil knows how to use your flesh against you.  And he will. 

You do not want to be hated by the world.  You do not want to be constantly fighting with those who insist that you bring your doctrine in line with what is popular.  You do not want to be thrown out of the synagogue, which is to say, excommunicated from the popular religious establishment.  Your flesh will hate it.  You want peace and quiet.  But for this, dear children, and dear congregation, you do not seek an armistice with the world.  That is what your sinful flesh wants.  But the devil will never lay down arms.  Rather, you seek peace with God who has all things under his control.  You seek his word that gives to you what Jesus earned when he lived a holy life in your place and paid for all your sins on the cross.  He who reconciled the world to himself teaches you in the forgiveness of sins to likewise be reconciled to him.  And with this – with this certainty in the face of pain and sickness – because it is certainty in the face of sin and death – with this word of God, for the sake of him who suffered all even death so that you might be saved, his grace alone enables you to do the same rather than stumble away from him. 

He helps you — “by the grace of God,” you will answer your vows.  His grace helps you.  He helps you by laying a burden on you.  It is not heavy.  It is light.  It is a yoke that ties you to him so that you may be led where he is going.  He invites you to bear this yoke because he wants you to abide with him.  He says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). 

Jesus tells you beforehand that you will suffer.  But beforehand, he also promises rest.  He tells you beforehand so that you might remember what he said and not be made to stumble, that is, not be scandalized or offended and fall away, but instead long for the rest he promises you.  Jesus also tells you why you will suffer.  As the Apostle wrote, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). 

Jesus tells us that in order to bear our cross and follow him, we must remember what he told us in our Gospel lesson.  The Comforter, the Spirit of truth, proceeds from the Father in order to teach you about the Son.  He comforts you with what is true by bearing witness to what Jesus did to save you eternally.  The world will cause you great grief.  Count on it.  Remember that I told you so.  There is no bait and switch here.  It is because they do not know the Father.  But through Christ who opens his Father’s ears and heart, you do.  And this is what makes Jesus’ yoke easy and his burden light.  You must remember that I told you so, as the Apostle says:

… you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.   (2 Timothy 3:16-17) 

The disciples were not told beforehand what lay in store for them because they had not yet seen what good comes from the cross.  You have.  On the cross of Jesus, the law was fulfilled so that every weapon of the devil is wrenched from his hand!  What has he on you?  You defy him.  You renounce him.  Peter tried, if you recall.  He swore to die with Jesus rather than fall away.  But he ended up denying Jesus with a curse.  You do not do so.  You know what the cross has won.  It gives you the righteousness of Jesus by faith and the approval of God in his faithful word.  You make your vow with the cross of Jesus in full view.  There is your peace and assurance and your beacon of light. 

Now I will cling forever
To Christ, my Savior true;
My Lord will leave me never,
Whate’er He passes through.
He rends Death’s iron chain,
He breaks through sin and pain,
He shatters hell’s dark thrall —
I follow Him through all. Amen.