Second Sunday of Easter, Quasimodo
Geniti
April 24th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer
Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
The Gospel Is Always Winning
Christ is risen, and so the
Gospel always wins. And the Gospel is always winning.
Grace, mercy and peace to
you, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have the
victory, today, and forever and ever, Amen.
Shall I just end there? I have said it all, haven’t I? The Gospel, the Good News of Jesus’
sinner-saving death and resurrection always wins, and it is always winning. We receive, know, rejoice and rest in this
victory, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit binds us to our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who has redeemed
us by His precious blood, in order to present us spotless and beautiful, a
people worthy of the Father’s favor, forever and ever, Amen.
Why say more?
Thomas, the teacher of human nature, helps
us understand why I need to say more, doesn’t he? The faith which looks to Christ for
forgiveness and eternal victory is a mighty thing. But
faith in Jesus does not come to us sinners naturally, or easily.
Thomas had seen all the miracles, heard all the teaching. He shared a bond with the other disciples, the kind of bond that only comes through shared experience and suffering, a bond of the deepest kind. But Thomas cannot believe his friends. The agony of watching Jesus’ suffering and death had seared Thomas’s eyes, so much so that not even the proclamation of the Resurrection from the mouths of his closest friends could pierce the veil of doubt that covered his heart.
Maybe Thomas demanded to see and touch, in
order to protect himself. Thomas might
have been afraid to believe the good news, this Gospel the other 10 disciples spoke
to him, because he had already suffered such disappointment. “I can’t go through that again.” Like a young man who has given his heart,
only to be jilted and made a fool by the girl he thought would be his life-long
love, maybe Thomas was too much afraid of another bitter disappointment to risk
hoping again.
In response, Jesus does two
amazing things.
First, our Lord gives Thomas exactly what he
needs in order to stop doubting and believe.
The Resurrected Jesus comes to Thomas, and offers him his body to see,
and to touch. “It’s true Thomas, I have
risen from the dead. Here, put your hand
in my side, touch the wound. Stop doubting,
and believe this Gospel.” As Jesus does
for Thomas, He does for all, giving us just what we need to believe.
And if that were not enough, Jesus makes an
even more remarkable promise to us. Blessed
are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Jesus is talking about us. He also means all the Old Testament saints,
from Adam to Abraham right down to Zechariah and Elizabeth, none of whom were
blessed to see God’s finished plan. And
yet by God’s grace they believed and were saved by the promises of salvation
that echo throughout the Torah of Moses, and the Psalms and the Prophets.
And, for you, today, Jesus by implication
makes a wonderful promise. He promises
that later, in the years and centuries to come, others would believe the Good
News. Many, many more would believe, even
though they would not be blessed like Thomas and the other Apostles, not
blessed to witness the Resurrection. However
feeble our faith may seem from time to time, we are blessed, because the object
and source and power of our faith is the Risen Lord Jesus.
And so, the Gospel always
wins, and is always winning.
So, do you feel like a winner? It’s so easy to fall into the pandemic of
“down-in-the-mouth” disease that has been sweeping through western Christianity
for the last 50 years. It seems like
only yesterday when Christian ideas and leaders and institutions predominated
and guided the course of our society. Now,
I think that perhaps we see history through rose colored glasses. But in any case, Christianity is not so
prestigious now. Not so much at all.
But the Gospel is always winning, so there must be
more to the story. And there is.
One of Satan’s most successful tactics
against the Church is to entice us to tie our future and our self-image to
worldly prestige. How tragically ironic
that we, who have been redeemed, claimed and called beloved by Almighty God
should worry about how earthly powers and influencers see us. Unless the world is converted to true faith
in Christ, it is going to Hell, it is doomed.
We are called to be the Spirit’s mouthpieces, to call sinners out of the
world, with the Gospel.
But again and again, the Church, that is to
say, we, are tempted. We say, “Why not
get cozy with the world, won’t that help the Church grow? Why not soften, just a bit, our commitment to
Scriptural truth? Won’t that make us more attractive? We certainly would never compromise on
fundamental issues. But a little
flexibility here and there could really help us reach more people, couldn’t it?”
No. The
problem is, once the Church gives up some of Christ’s teaching to gain worldly
prestige, we get addicted to worldly prestige.
It is then so easy, without even thinking, to let that prestige become our
most precious treasure. And then, when the
favor of the world starts slipping through our fingers, as it always does, then
we panic. Because we feel like, instead
of winning, suddenly we are losing. We
feel like we are losing our certainty, our honor, our security, our nation, our
future. All of these feelings are fruit
of not looking to Christ for our every good.
Because, come what may, Christ cannot lose; after all, He is the Lord of the Universe.
Now, it is certainly true that He rules the
universe in a strange way, constantly hiding His glory and His power under things
that appear foolish, shameful, and weak.
·
Jesus calls us to a commitment to a 2,000 year old book, regardless of our
culture’s confident rejection of the Bible, a rejection based on modern scientistic
dogma, and “enlightened” social mores.
·
Jesus calls us to believe that a bit of water and a few words can rescue
a sinner and open the gates of heaven.
·
Then there’s the foolish idea that it is good to suffer for the sake of the
Truth.
·
Or the crazy notion that a tiny meal of a bit of dry bread and a sip of
cheap wine is the most important and powerful thing that takes place on earth.
·
And, of course, there is Jesus’ call to believe the words of a foolish sinner,
who says he forgives sins in Christ’s stead.
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The God who creates with His voice, the God
who can turn a valley of dry bones into a flesh and blood army of redeemed
sinners, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, this God is speaking to you,
bearing witness to the Truth of the Gospel.
Yes indeed, while Christ has ascended out of
our sight, He has not left Himself without a witness, three Witnesses in
fact. The Spirit, the Water and the
Blood. The Holy Spirit, sent by Christ
to enlighten His Apostles, is still present and active in this broken
world.
The Spirit enlivened and inspired the
Apostles, so that through them He might build His Church, through the
proclamation of the ever-winning Gospel.
And the Spirit is still building today.
The Spirit builds with water. Water, combined with God’s Name, bears
witness to Christ’s victory, washing sins away and sealing the baptized into
the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, making saints out of sinners and victors
out of losers.
The Spirit builds with blood. Blood, which flowed from the side of Jesus,
and from His many other wounds, blood flowing to wash away all your sin. The Blood that fills you with Christ, and
washes your robes white again. The Blood
of Jesus, that covers all sin.
The Spirit, the Water and the Blood. These three bear witness. They speak for Jesus on earth today. And, like the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, these three Witnesses agree, perfectly, eternally, and winningly,
for you. And so even when it seems just
the opposite, in fact, especially when it seems the opposite, the Truth is, the
Gospel is winning, all the time.
In a few minutes we will pray the Collect,
the Prayer of the Day for this Quasimodo Geniti Sunday. We will ask God to “grant
that we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection may by Your grace confess
in our life and conversation that Jesus is Lord and God.”
Now, since the Gospel is always winning, doing
that should be pretty easy, right? And
yet, we pray this prayer because we know how we struggle. To our shame, confessing in our life and
conversation that Jesus is Lord and God all too often seems like an
insurmountable task, one we don’t really want to take up. If it weren’t a problem for us, we wouldn’t
need to pray this prayer.
But do not lose heart. The answer is right here, close at hand. The solution is not that you should resolve
to do better, or that you should finally get serious about living and speaking
like a Christian. That you live
according to God’s Commandments and speak of Christ, this is
God’s desire. But you resolving
to do it won’t make it happen.
No, the answer is in our Introit, in that
funny Latin name for this Sunday:
Quasimodo Geniti, “like newborn infants.” Like
newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word. St. Peter instructs all of us: For the rest of your
life, like a newborn infant craves the life-giving milk of her mother, so you
should crave the Word of God, the voice of the Spirit. For by His Word, God will make us into the
confident confessors that He desires, believers who in life and conversation
confess Jesus as God and Lord.
God in His in His bounteous grace chooses to
create and sustain the universe through His Word. He also chooses to rebuke sin and doubt and
create faith and confidence, through His Word.
First and last, whether we have prestige in the society, or whether in
the eyes of the world we are a marginalized bunch of kooks, Christ maintains
His Church through the speaking, reading, praying and singing of His True Word. That Word preaches Christ crucified and
resurrected, for the salvation of sinners, yesterday, today, and forever and
ever. Amen.
The Gospel is always winning. Hear the Gospel, and receive Christ’s
victory, for you, Amen.
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