Celebrate the day of your victory

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Reading #1: Genesis 1:1-2:3
Reading #2: Genesis 7-9
Reading #3: Exodus 14:10 – 15:1
Reading #4: Isaiah 54:5-14
Reading #5: Isaiah 55:1-11
Reading #6: Ezek. 36:16-28
Reading #7: Daniel 3:1-30
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Sermon for the Vigil of Easter

Yesterday, Good Friday, was the day on which we commemorated our Lord’s victory over the sin the held us captive and over the devil who thought we were his for eternity. On this Easter Sunday Eve, it’s His victory over death that we celebrate. But more than that, it’s our victory, the Church’s victory, that we celebrate this evening. Because, in His Mercy, God has brought us to Holy Baptism, where He took us and united us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. The day of your Baptism was the day of your victory over sin, death, and the devil.

Oh, not your final victory. Not yet. The Church on earth is still “Militant.” We’re still fighting, still vulnerable, still able to be led into temptation and away from the faith into which we were baptized. And so we watch and pray. We keep vigil, as we are doing tonight. We stay vigilant, as our Lord told us to do. We trust in His power and protection, and we use the Means of Grace that He has appointed to keep us in the faith until the final victory, when we are taken out of this life, one way or another, to be with the risen Lord forever, to live under Him in His heavenly kingdom, even as we now live under Him in His kingdom on earth.

And that itself is a monumental victory. We were trapped in the devil’s kingdom. But our Father in heaven has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. We have that redemption in Christ, through Baptism, through faith, through the blood of Christ, shed on the cross. And now Christ lives to preserve us in the faith and to rule over all things so that we reach our final victory.

Until then, watch and pray. Keep vigil. And seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. A blessed Easter to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ! Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Holy Saturday, April 8th

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Mark 15:42-47

42 Now when evening had come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate marveled that He was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him if He had been dead for some time. 45 So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. 46 Then he bought fine linen, took Him down, and wrapped Him in the linen. And he laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. 47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observed where He was laid.

Even after death Jesus fulfills this Old Testament prophecy:

And they made His grave with the wicked—

But with the rich at His death,

Because He had done no violence,

Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

(Isaiah 53:9 NKJV)

Normally, Jesus’ body would have been thrown into a mass grave with the two robbers. God, however, took care of His Son’s body through Joseph of Arimathea. Having finished all of the redemptive work to acquire man’s salvation, Jesus’ body is wrapped in fine linen and laid in an unused tomb.

Even as Jesus’ body most thoroughly observes a resting on the Sabbath, thus fulfilling the 3rd Commandment of God, He brought it to rest there for you! Not only did a transition take place from the Old Testament Temple to Jesus body as the temple that would be destroyed and He would raise it up again in three days. But He has now transitioned the Sabbath rest to be located within Himself now as well.

What a blessed freedom Christ’s fully atoning merits have ushered in for His believers. As all of God’s Commandments  bring conviction and point out how man’s sinful flesh will never fulfill them. So the relief of them being fully observed comes through Christ Jesus! Do you desire to not have any other gods? Then get in Christ Jesus! Do you desire to not misuse the name of the Lord your God? Then get in Christ Jesus! So it goes with keeping the Sabbath. Get in Him! Jesus is the Mercy Seat to which sinners flee in faith for refuge.

Let us pray:  O God, creator of heaven and earth, grant that as the crucified body of Your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this Holy Sabbath, so we may await with Him the coming of the third day, and rise with Him to newness of life, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen

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A sad day for some

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Good Friday

As I said in Bible class on Sunday, Good Friday is not a sad or somber day. The first Good Friday was, of course. When any innocent person is openly hated, or treated unjustly, or abused, or tortured, or mocked, or killed, that’s a sad thing. When that person is an especially kind and decent person, it’s even sadder. When that person is the very Lord of life, the God of creation, who specifically came into human flesh to save fallen humanity—the word “sad” doesn’t come close to describing it.

But for whom was it really sad? Some of the women in Jerusalem were sad for Jesus. They wept over Him and mourned for Him as He made His way to the Place of a Skull. But Jesus corrected them, didn’t He? Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, indeed, the days are coming in which they will say: ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts which never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains: ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills: ‘Cover us!’ For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? In spite of all He had suffered and was still about to suffer, things would turn around for Jesus in just a couple of days. Yes, even by the end of that Good Friday, although His body was lifeless and lying in a tomb, Jesus’ soul was at peace in Paradise. So if you’re going to be sad, if you’re going to weep for anyone on Good Friday, don’t weep for Jesus. Weep for the world. If the wood was green at the time of Christ, it has certainly dried out by now. If men received the ministry of the sinless Son of God and hated Him for it, how will they react now to the far weaker members of His Church? If men were able to sell their lies and deception while the Truth Himself was in the world, what limits will there be to the lies they can sell now?

Yes, weep for the world. Weep over the lies that have passed off for truth. Weep over the wickedness and depravity and violence of men, which will only get worse, just as it did leading up to the Great Flood and the destruction of nearly all life on earth. Weep for yourself, if you refuse the path of escape and salvation that God has been offering for so long, because judgment is coming. And if God allowed judgment to be brought down so severely on His beloved, perfect, innocent Son, what will it be like for sinful men who have rebelled against God and earned His wrath and displeasure?

So what is path of escaping God’s righteous judgment against sinners? I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t the path of denying your own sinfulness. It isn’t the path of self-righteousness or self-improvement. It isn’t the path of making up for your own sins or finding redemption in your own deeds. The path of escape from the judgment and condemnation that is coming on the world, because of the sins of everyone in the world, is faith in Jesus Christ. His agony, anguish, suffering, and death on Good Friday is the thing that makes up for the sins of mankind. His blood, shed for you, is what satisfies God’s just requirement that the sinner must suffer and die.

On Good Friday, the sinless One died for the sinner. As St. Paul wrote, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. The same Jesus who became sin for us and suffered for us and died for us now is risen from the dead and calls out in Gospel, “Repent! Come to Me for forgiveness and rest! I offer it freely! I gave My life so that you might have it!”

And that is why Good Friday isn’t a sad day for those who hear God’s gracious invitation. Because you know that Jesus chose the suffering and death, on purpose, so that you could have rest and forgiveness and a place in His kingdom. You know that, by believing in Him who was crucified, you are safe from God’s wrath, you are a beloved child of God, and you are even safe from the wickedness and depravity of men, because, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? So celebrate this day, because it’s the day of our Lord’s victory over the sin that held us captive and over the devil who thought we were his for eternity. Celebrate this day, because it’s the day our Lord went into battle for us, and won. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Good Friday, April 7th 

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Luke 23:43-49

43 And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

44 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. 45 Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. 46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ ” Having said this, He breathed His last.

47 So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous Man!”

48 And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. 49 But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

There are four interpretations that have been applied to the tearing of the curtain: (1) It’s a foreshadowing of the judgement that will befall Jerusalem in AD 70… (2) It’s the opening of salvation to all through fully atoning merits of God’s Son… (3) It’s the ending of the ceremonial and ritual laws of the old covenant… and (4) It’s marks the replacement of the Old Testament Temple with the temple of the body of Christ Jesus. Now those all can certainly be offered as an explanation (for they hold to the analogy of faith). But since God so ordained not to reveal the exact meaning, we must not say that any of them are certain.

As you have read earlier this week of how Jesus has fulfilled a very many Old Testament prophecies throughout His crucifixion. Not surprisingly, that continues in the events of this text. Most specifically would be Jesus’ final words from His cross.

In You, O Lord, I put my trust; Let me never be

ashamed; Deliver me in Your righteousness… Pull me

out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For

You are my strength. Into Your hand I commit my    spirit;

You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.

(Psalm 31:1,4-5 NKJV)

Psalm 31 is a psalm of trust. Such a cry reveals how, even in His death, Jesus was in control. Reemphasizing how His life was not taken from Him, but rather, He was trusting His Father’s will and gave up His life. And He did it for you! It’s really no wonder why it shouldn’t be called anything other than Good Friday.

Let us pray:  Almighty God, graciously behold this Your family for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men to suffer death upon the cross; though the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reins with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen

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Jesus suffered the bad choices of men

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Maundy Thursday

Tonight we watched the Lamb of God, the King of the Jews, suffer mistreatment at the hands of men. He allowed Himself to be mistreated in various ways, all due to the bad choices of the men involved.

He suffered the crowd’s choice of Barabbas, a murderer, to be released to them instead of Jesus. “Give us Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!” When the choice is between the kind and caring King who healed and a robber who murdered, and the crowds would rather have the murderer living in their midst than the King, you know that darkness reigns in the world.

The Lord suffered Pilate’s ill-conceived “discipline,” too. The governor found no fault in Jesus. And yet he was eager to have Him disciplined by scourging, flogging, whipping. Now, was it as bloody and gory as it was depicted in that movie, The Passion of the Christ? Maybe, or maybe not. But it was painful. And it was so wrong, to be disciplined for doing nothing wrong, to be disciplined for doing everything right, for speaking nothing but the truth, for having the purest motives and the kindest behavior. Discipline is supposed to teach someone a lesson, as when parents spank their children. It’s meant to communicate a message: “What you did was wrong. How dare you do that! Never do such a thing again!” What was it Pilate wanted to discipline Jesus for? Nothing. Christ suffered the discipline He didn’t need or deserve. So why did Pilate order it? Because Pilate thought—foolishly!—that he could appease the mob with a flogging, and thus avoid having to put an innocent man to death. He thought he could do something evil, something sinful, in order to create a good outcome. But it doesn’t work that way. Feed the mob, and the mob just becomes more rabid. In the end, Jesus had to suffer both the flogging and the crucifixion because of Pilate’s sinful choices.

The Lord also suffered the mockery and abuse of the pagan soldiers. Jesus became their entertainment for the morning. They twisted together that crown of thorns and put it on His head. They put a stick in His hand and a purple robe on His back. And there He stood in their midst, the true King of creation who had come to save His creatures. But instead of worshiping Him and thanking Him and praising Him, they hit Him and slapped Him and drove the thorns into His head while mocking Him as a pathetic excuse for a king. And the King, who could have snapped His fingers and ended their miserable lives right there and then, stood there and allowed it. He suffered it.

The King of the Jews suffered another bad choice of the chief priests. They were given the choice of having Jesus as their King. Instead, they chose Caesar. “We have no king but Caesar.” Caesar didn’t know them, didn’t care about them, ruled over them as a tyrant. Jesus would have ruled over them with justice, compassion, truth, and love. But they chose the king who didn’t care.

Finally, the Lord suffered Pilate’s selfishness and abuse of power. As Jesus told him, he would have no authority over Jesus unless it had been given to him from above. God maneuvered Pontius Pilate into place for this moment, wanting Him to use his God-given authority for justice, for good, for doing what was right, but knowing that Pilate would choose wrong over right, so that the Christ would not be acquitted, but condemned. Pilate knew that the right thing to do was to let Jesus go free, because He was innocent and not deserving of any punishment, much less death by crucifixion. But doing the right thing would have been hard for Pilate. It would mean making the people of Jerusalem angry. It would mean a riot. It would mean that he might lose his job, or even his own life. And so he chose to do the wrong thing. He chose to gratify the angry mob rather than to obey God, and Jesus was the One who paid for it.

It’s not that different from what Adam did in the Garden of Eden. God had made him the head of his wife, to look out for her. He knew that the right thing to do was to step in and keep his wife from eating the forbidden fruit that was being offered to her by the serpent. And he knew that the right thing to do afterward was to not take the fruit she offered him. But instead of stopping her from eating, he let it go. And then, when faced with the choice of eating the fruit she gave him and displeasing God, or refusing the fruit and displeasing his wife, Adam made his choice. He chose wrong over right, because he thought it would go better for him that way. It didn’t!

It never does. The crowds thought Barabbas would be a better choice for them than Jesus. They were wrong. The soldiers thought that mocking Jesus would give them more satisfaction, in the end, than acknowledging Him as their King. They were wrong. Pilate thought it would go better for him if he allowed an innocent man to be disciplined and then murdered. They were all tragically wrong. And Jesus was the One who suffered for their bad choices.

Is it any different today? People would rather have abortion clinics than churches, drag queen story hour rather than Sunday school, pornography rather than the Bible. They choose divorce over marriage, sexual perversion over marital fidelity, violent protests over reasoned dialogue, obesity and disease over health and fitness, yes, even death over life. You and I have made our own bad choices, too, sinful choices for which we deserve to suffer not only earthly consequences but eternal ones.

But for all mankind’s bad choices Jesus suffered. And God, in His mercy, has been able to take the worst choices of men and turn them around to accomplish something wonderful. Our bad choices landed us a bed in hell. But by suffering and patiently enduring the bad choices of men, Christ Jesus earned for us a reprieve from hell, a pardon for our sins, and a place at His side in His heavenly kingdom. The body that should never have been abused and killed, and the blood that never would have been shed if men had made better choices during Holy Week, are now given to Christians to eat and to drink in this special Supper that Jesus instituted on Maundy Thursday. And with them the Lord offers forgiveness and strength to all who believe.

So see the things your Lord suffered and repent. And believe in Him. And receive the gifts He gives you in His Holy Supper, where, time after time, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Amen.

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