Note: A beloved 14-year-old member of the congregation, +Adam Mitchell Clack+, died suddenly in his sleep earlier in the week.

The author, playwright, and Christian, Dorothy Sayers, wrote in 1939 an essay entitled “Strong Meat” (the title from some words in the King James translation of Hebrews 5) which contains a somewhat tongue-in-cheek catechism-like set of questions and answers. Sayers writes the question, “What is the doctrine of the Trinity?” And her answer? “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the whole thing incomprehensible.”

Though intended as hyperbole, Sayers nails down the reality of God: incomprehensible. I suppose she’s in some way paraphrasing what St. Paul writes about God in Holy Scripture: ”Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

And this week we are confronted with just how deep, just how inscrutable, just how much beyond us our Lord truly is. The Lord says, ”my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

When we face death – the death of whomever, but especially a death of someone young like Adam that is so sudden and unexpected – then the inscrutableness, the not-our-thoughts-and-not-our-ways-ness of the Lord is right here in front of us, unavoidable, demanding us to pay attention to it. We can’t escape it. God is God, we are His creatures and subject to Him and His will; and that can be a terrifying and mournful – even infuriating! – place to be.

But God does not leave us without comfort. He does not leave us stuck insofar as His thoughts and ways are higher than ours. He reveals Himself to us in the Scriptures and tells us what we need to know; He gives to us what we need to receive.

He comforts us with these things which will truly comfort us, because they deliver to us His Holy Spirit, the Comforter; because they give to us peace and joy, even amidst our mourning and weeping; because they fill our ears, eyes, hearts, and bodies with Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus, who has conquered death; Jesus, who has won the victory; Jesus, who has taken our sins upon Himself and paid for every last one of them with His holy precious blood and by His innocent suffering and death.

We need this comfort. We cannot live without this comfort. And so there are two places we’re going to go for Christ’s comfort this morning. We’re going to go to two of the places where Christ gives to us His forgiveness which He won for us on the cross. These are tangible, real, physical places with tangible, real, physical things that God uses to give us forgiveness and life. God gives to us the comfort of knowing that He loves us and He has accomplished all the work of saving us from death and from our sins.

First we’re going to look to the Baptismal Font for comfort. Jesus tells Nicodemus that ”unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Of course, this means that one enters the kingdom of God through the new birth of water and the Spirit. Jesus is talking about Holy Baptism.

What else does God promise us about Holy Baptism? Christ teaches us that ”Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” As we heard last week in Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, in Holy Baptism you receive ”the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Elsewhere our Lord promises you through Peter that ”Baptism now saves you”; that Baptism is ”an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Paul assures us about the comforting gift of Holy Baptism in Romans chapter 6. We’ll hear this again and talk about it again tomorrow, but we need to hear it today, too: ”Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

The giving into death of Jesus and the belief in Jesus and the life in Jesus is all given to you in your baptism. Behold how God loves you and reveals His mysteries to you there. ”For God loved the world in this way” – and have no doubt, that you are included when Jesus says “the world.” ”For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that all who believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.”

The second place at which we will seek God’s comfort today is here at His altar and at the rail where we receive from Him the Sacrament of the Altar; or another name for it is the Holy Communion.

Here at the Altar, Christ gives us His Body and Blood. His true Body and Blood, the real thing, the same which hung on the cross of Calvary, laid in the tomb, and was raised on the Third Day.

Jesus wants us to eat and drink – he wants us to receive His flesh and blood – because with this meal comes His gift of the forgiveness of your sins. Again, just like in Holy Baptism, Christ gives to you the forgiveness of your sins. He promises this: ”Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. Drink of it, all of you. This cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”

In the Divine Service the Pastor, after speaking Christ’s words, then adds the promise and blessing, ”The peace of the Lord be with you always.” That’s because these holy things of God – the Body and Blood of Christ – are taken from the altar and touched to your lips in order to make you clean. You are able to confidently stand in God’s presence, able to assuredly know that when the Lord calls you to Himself you will go with no debt, no transgressions, no corruption, but instead you are ransomed, righteous, and holy. You are no longer God’s enemy, no longer opposed to Him. Instead, God is reconciled to you through Jesus, and that reconciliation is given to you in the Body and Blood of Christ.

Now the forgiveness is comforting enough, but there’s more than just forgiveness in the Sacrament of the Altar. Especially now, when we mourn and grieve the loss of one member from our presence; this is when we need the other comforting part of this Sacrament: it’s what we’re describing when we talk about it as Holy Communion.

When we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, we are made one with Jesus. And just as while you and I eat we are made one with Jesus, we also are made one with one another and with the whole Christian Church on earth…and with all the believers in heaven. This is why the Pastor prays in the Proper Preface ”with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven…”

We are joined into the entire timeless majesty of the eternal worship of Christ when we come to the Altar and feast on the Lord’s Supper. And we do it alongside one another who are here and alongside everyone who has died in Christ and now rests from their labors, waiting for the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.

So come to this altar today and be united with one another, and also with Adam, Wilma, Kenne, Irma, Jimmy, John, Charles, Woody, Tom, Peg, Eugene, George, Isaac, Elijah, Bobby, Pastor Martin, James, Elizabeth… When you come to eat and drink today you come and share in the everlasting feast of victory with all believers in Christ.

What comfort our Lord has for us today:

”He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.”

“Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Thanks be to God in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. He loves the world. He loves you.

+INJ+

Note: Finley Monroe Williams and Ellasyn Reece Williams were both baptized during the Divine Service.

Every day is a great day for a baptism. Yesterday, though, as I finished up this sermon, I was marveling at what a great day today is for a baptism. The various readings and prayers appointed for today, while not specifically about Holy Baptism, nevertheless direct our thoughts to what the Lord did in our midst just a little while ago, and what He did for us when He baptized us and sealed us as His children with the Holy Spirit and ensured that we, his heirs, will receive our promised inheritance.

First, the antiphon from Isaiah 45, which I spoke at the start and end of the Introit:

“Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness.”

Where else does the pouring out of water onto the Lord’s creation give righteousness but in the blessed waters of the baptismal font? The little bit of heavenly drizzle that fell onto the heads of Ellasyn and Finley a little while ago poured Christ’s righteousness all over them.

Peter tells us about this when he writes, “Baptism…now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21)

Your conscience tells you when you have done right or wrong. Baptism has given you a good conscience – a conscience that is not guilty before God – because in your baptism you have been put into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus died for the sins of the world; in your baptism, you now have been in that death. Jesus was raised to show that sins are paid for, eternal life is given, and righteousness is restored to man; in your baptism, you now are in that resurrection.

Paul tells us about this in Romans 6: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

So by the shower of Holy Baptism, Finley, Ellasyn, and you are put into Christ’s death and resurrection; you are righteous and holy and you can count the promise of the resurrection into eternal life on the Last Day to be a promise that is for you.

Second, a phrase in our Collect of the Day. The Collect of the Day is the prayer of the day that collects the prayers of God’s people into one that follows the readings assigned for the day. Here’s the phrase: “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy…”

In Holy Baptism, the Lord has lifted away your sins by His grace and mercy. Do you remember the passage from learning the Small Catechism? Luther brings in this marvelous passage from Paul’s letter to Titus: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)

So even as we pray this prayer, we know that the Lord has already answered it for us. By His power and might He has conquered death and the grave. He has helped us by dying for us. He has poured His Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we would believe that our sins are forgiven and therefore receive the promised eternal life. And He gave all that to you in the Font.

Finally – though I’m sure there’s more – our Gospel reading from St. Luke. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth just after Gabriel has come and told her that she will conceive and bear a son, even though she remains a virgin. And though there’s much to be said about faith being given through the word even to infants – and that certainly is an important promise for us who baptize infants as Scripture teaches! – and we have John the Baptist leaping in the womb, all that we set aside and instead consider Mary for a moment.

Mary, pregnant outside of wedlock. Maybe sent to visit Elizabeth while her parents figure out what to do. St. Joseph has already faithfully listened to the angel and will keep her as his wife. Mary, to all outward appearances, looks shameful and certainly doesn’t appear holy in any way.

But what does Elizabeth tell her, from the Holy Spirit? “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

What Gabriel had already told her Elizabeth now confirms. Mary is blessed. She bears the Savior of the world in her womb. She will be redeemed from all her sins. He shame and sorrow will be removed. She takes comfort in this and sings her Magnificat because God, in His mercy, has gifted her with faith in His promises. Though she appears shameful and unholy, her conscience has been set at peace by the Lord.

This is also true for you. Blessed are you who believe. You who have been baptized, you have faith. Ellasyn and Finley are called blessed by the Lord, and by us. The Lord’s promises are true for you. You are innocent. You are holy. You are clean, pure, immaculate, complete. The life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ stand in your place. All His good and perfect works are credited to your account, and God is well-pleased with and delights in you.

But it may not feel that way. Like a woman just pregnant, it may not show. But it’s true already, whether it feels like it or shows, or not. Finley will be selfish. Ellasyn will throw fits. We all have days where we act or feel like we’re not worthy or don’t deserve God’s love and mercy. That’s when we can remember that God’s promises cannot be broken. He loves us and has made us His children in our baptism into Christ, the Son of God and child of Mary, our Savior from sin and death. “His mercy is on those who fear Him, from generation to generation.” Thanks be to God for that promise. Cling to it always.

+INJ+

For your love of money. For your miserliness. For your hoarding. For your “me-first” attitude.

For your adultery. For your pornography habit. For your sex outside of marriage. For your acceptance, even celebration, of all sorts of sexual immorality and depravity. For your defiling the marriage bed with all sorts of perversion.

For your anger. For your abortion. For your divorce. For your unkind words. For your dirty jokes. For your failure to be a friend.

For your slander of your pastor, your neighbor, your co-worker, your boss, your wife, your husband, your brother or sister in Christ. For your racism. For your murderous tongue.

For your hatred of children. For your despising of the good gifts God has given you in your marriage. For your laziness. For your boredom.

For your lawsuits. For your excuse of “it’s just business”. For the lengths you’ll go to get ahead.

For your Sunday morning sports leagues. For your doubting of God’s goodness and mercy. For your vacations which include everything except hearing God’s Word in the Divine Service. For your schedules which reflect a love of everything except the Word of God.

For your lackadaisical devotion to the Word. For your distracted smartphone browsing in the midst of the Divine Service. For your worship of entertainment. For your spiritual promiscuity.

For your rejoicing in wickedness and evil. For your thirst for vengeance. For your boundless pursuit of pleasure.

For your use of the Lord’s Holy Name in less-than-holy ways. For your trust in government, in the lottery, in the casino, in your own cleverness to provide your daily bread.

For your love of country over Christ. For your fear of confessing your faith. For your cowardice in the face of discomfort, let alone persecution.

For your prayerlessness.

For your lives which look no different than the world.

For your faithlessness.

For your sin.

For all of this, Christ Jesus gave Himself into death.

“What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered Was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, But Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, and grant to me Thy grace.”

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

For you. The Lord did this for you. Because of Christ’s death, your sins are forgiven. All of them. Forever.

Amen.

– Pastor Michael Schuermann
S.D.G.