“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all!”
Prayer: Lord, open my lips that my mouth may proclaim your glory. Lord, open our ears, hearts and mind that we hear and believe your word, and live accordingly. Amen.
Text: Hear the Word of God which is written in 1 Petr. 1:3-9: (It was read as Epistle) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed on the last time. In this you rejoice. Though now for a little while. If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. So that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire- may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” Amen.
Beloved in the name of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Latin name of today’s Sunday reminds us of another word written by St. Peter which reads: Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, as we sang it in the introit of today.[1] I would prefer. The translation to read as: to long for the pure milk according to the word of God.
Therefore let us long for the genuine, pure milk according to the word of God and not according to our logic, not according to our own spirit, but according to God’s word and according to God’s Spirit. Let us always long for what God has told us in his Word, we only need to consider what we have heard during the Easter weekend from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday in this congregation in order to acknowledge how much love God has invested in all of us to keep our longing, our wishes, our desire to be his believing and obeying children, in order to be regular guests at his table where the body of Christ und his holy blood are distributed for the forgiveness of our sins, as we heard on Maundy Thursday. The Epistle of Good Friday urged us to long for the word and ministry of reconciliation with God, which was prepared for us by God himself through the death and resurrection of Christ, the word of reconciliation through which we are invited and called always anew to be reconciled with God, through which God has made everything new in those who believe in Christ who died for us and for our transgressions, who was raised from the dead for our righteousness. Easter we were reminded to keep our longing, our wishes, our desire alive to hear and learn with great zeal and joy the gospel of Jesus Christ who died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead according to the scriptures and according to the witness of those who saw the risen Lord alive with their own eyes, and on Easter Monday the reminder never to doubt that all who already died and who still are going to die before the Lord comes back to judge the living and the dead will be raised to appear before the judgement seat of our Lord.
Today the Lord urges us with his word which was written by his apostle to long for what today’s epistle tells us. Right from the beginning let us be aware of the fact that St. Peter talks about gifts of God that have been made available for everyone of us long ago, when Jesus Christ died for us on the cross and was raised from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. Let us never doubt that God the Father sent his Son into our flesh to bear all our sins, never to forget what he has prepared for us, always to long even to crave to partake in what God promises us, what he prepares for us when he invites us to hear his word, to remember our baptism, to confess our sins and to receive forgiveness in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as we have heard in today’s Gospel reading, and to receive the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.
He promises us to be made convinced of his mercy, of our rebirth and living hope, to be made convinced of the resurrection of his Son from the dead and of our own resurrection, to be made convinced of the inheritance in the eternal life, of the promise and power of God to keep and preserve us through faith unto salvation. He want us to be made convinced even if we experience the cleansing and purifying fire of all kinds of temptations, sorrows, and various trails with the aim and goal to praise, glorify and honour him because of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though we do not see him, we believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.
With his word God wants to revive the longing and desire every day anew, every Sunday anew when he invites us to listen to the preaching of his word, to partake in the Lord’s Supper, to long for his mercy. Let us clarify first: Who is longing for God’s mercy according to his word? From Scripture the answer is clear. All who admit that they need the mercy of God, all who admit that the revealed law of God is accusing us always; it accuses every transgressor of God’s law, all whom God’s Holy Spirit revealed the truth that we are unworthy servants even after doing all that we were commanded, if we have done what our duty was. We are going to be convinced that we need the mercy of God if God’s Holy Spirit reveals to us the truth of Psalm 49 saying: Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice. Nobody can pay the ransom. We all need the mercy of God. There is no distinction, for all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
We need to hear the other Word of God, the Word of his mercy, the Word of his love, the Word of his grace. Do we long to hear it? Do you want to hear this other Word? It is written. God, the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us. Christ has come and paid the ransom for us. He was made sin for us. He was cursed on our behalf and now he is our righteousness before God. We are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
All who long for the redemption and propitiation by the blood of Jesus through faith in him have all reason to join in the praise song of St. Peter, to praise the mercy of God the Father, to praise Him that he has accepted und adopted us to be his children, that he has reborn us with water and Spirit when we were baptized with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, to praise the Triune God who made our rebirth possible through the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Triune God revealed to us that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death and 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. This did not happen because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to God’s own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. We are not able to do away with our sins, or to kill old Adam in us. God himself has to do the killing. He himself has drowned him in the water of baptism and drowns him every day anew if we creep back into our baptism as Luther advises us to do every day anew. There God performs the great miracle daily to kill old Adam to die with all his lusts and sins and the new man is revived to live a new life in the power of the resurrection of Christ to praise God for what he has done for us in creating a new living creature, convinced of the promise that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance is prepared and kept for us in heaven. We have not the time to compare this inheritance with perishable, defiled, and fading inheritances of this world. Such comparison would perhaps help us to admire our heavenly inheritance a little more. Important is that we praise God for his mercy to keep for us this imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance in heaven.
St. Peter reminds us that the power of God is needed to guard our faith and hope, never to doubt what has been prepared and is kept for us in heaven. He writes: We have to be guarded through faith by God’s power for the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Let us never be tempted to doubt the power of God. It is not an unqualified power. It is the power of God according to God’s Word. The Gospel of Jesu Christ is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Do you see how necessary it is to long for the genuine, pure milk according to the Word of God, to long and even crave to hear the Gospel always again, to make use of the power of God to be guarded through faith for our salvation, especially if we remember that Christian faith and hope are put on the test.
St. Peter in today’s sermon text talks of being grieved by various trails and even tested like gold in fire, we read: Who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The genuineness of our faith is tested. Today’s sermon text talks of grief by various trails. Jesus talks about the cross his disciples have to bear, or to carry. St. Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh, the messenger of Satan who harassed him. Thrice he pleaded with the Lord about that, that it should leave him. And the Lord said to him: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. I do not know the trails and temptations that harass you. I do not know the fires in which your faith is tested. Terrible hot does the fire of temptation burn, if we think that our prayers are not effective, especially if we pray and pray to overcome certain sins, if all our good intentions to live a God pleasing life are not fulfilled, but are lying as rouble before us, if we all of a sudden become aware of how unworthy servants we are, what terrible power our inherited corruption still has over us, if we commit a sin which burns as fire in our consciences as the Lutheran Church sings with Luther: Free will against God’s judgement fought, dead to all good remaining. My fears increased till sheer despair left only death to be my share; the pangs of hell I suffered. - That happens when all our good works come to naught. What a fire that is testing our faith and hope! The power of God is needed to extinguish this fire, and to quench the thirst caused by this fire. These deliberations remind us to long for the pure milk according to the Word of God which has the power to quench this thirst. It is available because of Jesus Christ. Although we do not see him, we believe in him and love him, and hearing his promise we rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.
Let us always thank and praise God who prepared our salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and sent his Holy Spirit to make it known also to us. It is astonishing to hear and to see how St. Peter was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write his letter and to urge us in such an evangelical way to long for th good gifts God has prepared for us through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. Let our ears, hearts and minds be wide open to believe the mercy of God, to hope for the imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance which is kept for us in Heaven, and let us be convinced that the power of God will guard our faith in order that he who began his good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Then our praise songs will be in full harmony with the will of God when we will see what we believe today: eternal life and salvation in the name of Jesus Christ. We will see him, our heavenly Father, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit who prepared all these good gifts for us. Amen. The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. +
[1] This I had prepared, but not said, before I carried on as above: It would be good if all who depend on English translations of the Bible would know Greek to understand what the Greek word which was translated as spiritual milk in this context really says. As such it is used in the NT only twice, here in the first letter of St. Peter as quoted, and also in Romans 12 where St. Paul urges us Christians to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. In both cases I blame the English translations of the Bible that they open the way for many possibilities to understand what kind of milk we should long for, or what kind of worship St. Paul does envisage. I admit that it is not easy to translate the Greek word λογικός. The German translation talks of vernünftiger Milch and vom vernünftigen Gottesdienst. It should be wortgemäße Milch und wortgemäßer Gottesdienst, because in the Greek Adjective we find the stem λόγος which means word, because of the German and English logic - Logik and the meaning which is given in the Greek-German lexica we read in the German translation about vernünftiger Milch und vernünftigem Gottesdienst where I would prefer the translation: to long for the pure milk according to the word of God, and worship God according to the word of God. Let us worship God always according to his Word and not according to our logic. not according to our own human spirit, but according to God’s word and according to God’s spirit.
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