John 16, 5-15

It is arguably the most well-known passage in all of Scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” The words are clear. Everlasting life, which is life in blessed communion with God, is not earned by what one does for Jesus but is freely given to those who trust in what Jesus has done for them.

This Gospel is proclaimed throughout the Old Testament. Adam named his wife Eve, which means “living,” because he believed God’s promise that the Woman’s Seed would restore life to fallen man, crushing the serpent’s head by allowing the serpent to strike his heel in the process. Of Abraham it was said, “He believed in the Lord, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Abraham was not righteous; he still sinned. But God counted him as righteous because he was blessed with faith to believe that the Messiah, who would come into the world through his seed, would win his salvation. Earlier, the prophet Isaiah confessed the same when he said, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust in him and not be afraid.”

The New Testament proclaims that the Messiah God promised of old is his Son, Jesus Christ, who declared to Martha, as she grieved over the death of her brother Lazarus, “Whoever lives and believes in me, though he may die a physical death, shall never die an eternal death.” St. Peter, not long after Pentecost, stood before the Jewish Sanhedrin—the very same body that condemned Jesus—and confessed, “Salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” And a few years later, when a jailer in the Greek town of Philippi asked Paul and Silas what he had to do to be saved, they didn’t reply, “Be a good person and keep the commandments as best you can,” but rather, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”

So why do so many who profess to be Christians look not only to their Savior’s redemptive work but also to the works of men—whether their own or those of another—for their salvation? Why do more and more people today want the funeral of their loved one to be a celebration of his earthly life, which was a life of sin (or else he wouldn’t have died), rather than a celebration of what Christ has done to give him eternal life? And why is it that an alarming number of Lutherans, who were taught that salvation is the gift the Son of God won for them by his sufferings, death, and resurrection, find so many excuses not to come to Christ in his service, where he is present to give this gift to them?

In a word: unbelief. The sinful flesh—passed down to every one of us through the sinful seed of our fathers—refuses to believe that we are so corrupted and so lost in sin that we can do nothing to merit or contribute, even in the tiniest bit, to our salvation. All we have earned for ourselves by our deeds—and all we can earn—is God’s temporal and eternal punishment.

But do not despair. Our sinful flesh may be hostile to God, but God is not hostile to us. On the contrary, he is a God of grace, a God who desires our salvation—and not only ours, but the salvation of the world.

That should be evident to you in this promise, which Jesus made to his disciples on the night he was betrayed. They were filled with sorrow because he said he was going away. He told them, “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper (whom he later identified as the Spirit of truth) will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you.” Then he explained why this was to their advantage: “He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you.”

Last week, I heard a local Roman Catholic bishop, when interviewed by a newscaster, say that God speaks to us not only in his Word but also through the Pope. Nowhere does Scripture make such a claim. Listen again to these words of St. James: “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Do you hear anything in that about the Pope’s words? No! It is through the preaching of God’s Word alone that the Holy Spirit takes what is Christ’s and declares it to you. And it is through your hearing of his Word that he blesses you with faith to believe what it says: that life and salvation come not by what you do for Christ—as the Pope and other false prophets teach—but solely by what Christ has done for you.

But because your flesh does not want to believe that, the Holy Spirit must first convict you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment through the preaching of the Law, which is part of his Word: of sin, because you who were conceived in sin are under the power of sin; of righteousness, because everything you do is so tainted by that sin that it’s impossible for you to make yourself righteous in God’s sight; and of judgment, because whoever trusts in his own deeds for salvation will be judged and condemned with Satan to the unquenchable fires of hell.

Now, once the Holy Spirit convicts you of that through the preaching of the Law, then he, through the Gospel, declares what Christ Jesus has done, still does, and will do for you as your Savior. What he did was bear your sins even to death on the cross, and by this, he merited God’s full and free forgiveness of all those sins. What he does for you today is come to you in the Word that is preached and, even more personally, in the Holy Feast of his Body and Blood, which is served to you so that the forgiveness he merited for all by his salvific work might be given to you for life and salvation.

And because you—whom the Holy Spirit has blessed with faith to believe this—are accounted as righteous in God’s sight, you live in the sure and certain hope of what your now exalted Lord will do for you when he comes again in glory. He will welcome you to live in blessed and eternal communion with him.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

John 16, 16-23

Seven times the Holy Evangelist used the phrase “a little while.” Do you think he’s trying to tell us something?

Jesus, who spoke these words, certainly was his disciples. In a little while, the very next day in fact, they would experience the sorrow of losing him in death. But in a little while, on the third day to be exact, he would rise from the dead, and they would see him again. And their sorrow would turn into joy.

However, forty days later Jesus would ascend into heaven. And though we do see his gracious acts, which he after Pentecost carried out through his Apostles and continues to do so today through his ordained ministers, we do not see him. But, in a little while we will see him, when he returns in glory to bring us home with him into heaven.

A little while? It’s already been over 2,000 years! How can you call that “a little while”? “Beloved, do not forget this one thing,” St. Peter explained to the Christians of his day, “that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.”

There’s no doubt that our Lord’s definition of “a little while” is not our definition. After all, we are creatures of time. We judge when things happen by hours, days, weeks, months, and years. But God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, dwells in eternity, which is outside of time. With him there is no, “What was,” or, “What will be;” but only, “What is.”

He confessed this when he revealed his name to Moses at the Burning Bush, and through Moses to the Children of Israel in bondage, as I AM. And our Lord Jesus Christ applied that same name to himself, when he said, “I AM the Bread of life,” “I AM the Light of the world,” “I AM the Good Shepherd,” and so on. He does not call himself, “I was,” or, “I will be,” but rather, “I AM,” which led his OT people to call him, “Jaweh,” a Hebrew verb form, which translated means, “HE IS.”

I know. To us who live in time, that goes way beyond what we can comprehend. But in heaven we will, for there we too will be living in the realm of eternity. In heaven, as well as in hell (for the damned also live outside of time), there is no past or future; only what is, whether that is the suffering and despair of hell or the bliss and glory of heaven.

Compared to that, everything here in time lasts only for “a little while.” And for us Christians, that means that in a little while all our suffering, pain, and sorrows will pass away. Our Lord used a rather vivid—and on this Mother’s Day I would say a most appropriate—illustration to impress this truth upon his Apostles: “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a man has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”

The disciples did believe that Jesus is I AM, the God who delivered their ancestors from bondage in Egypt and led them through the wilderness for forty years to the Promised Land of Canaan, and so also believed him to be Immanuel, that is, “God with us.” So when he explained to them that in a little while they would not see him, which implied he would not be with them, they were confused: “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me; and again a little while, and you will see me?’ We do not know what he is saying.”

What they did not know at the time, yet would in a little while, we by the grace of God know and believe today. Our Lord would go the way of the cross. He would offer his life for our life, suffer God’s wrath over our sins, become the One cursed of God to redeem us from the curse we sinful creatures brought upon ourselves, then be buried in a tomb far out of their sight. But in a little while, they would see him again, when he rose from the dead. And on that day their sorrow would turn into joy.

Then, forty days later, they would not see him again—in fact, not for the rest of their earthly life—for he would ascend into heaven. Yet this time they were not overcome with sorrow, just the opposite. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy, because of this promise he made to them before his Ascension, “And lo, I will be with you always even to the end of the age.”

Dear Christian, I AM is still Immanuel. The fact that you don’t see him doesn’t change that. He is still with you. In fact, you’ve met him and continue to meet him. You met him, for most of you years ago, in the waters of Holy Baptism, where he washed and cleansed you of all your sins. And you’re meeting him today, in the Word that is preached to you, for he is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, as well as at this Altar, where you feast on his Body that was given and his Blood that was shed for you, for forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you won’t experience suffering, pain, and sorrows in this life. Everyone does, believer as well as unbeliever—for that’s the consequence of living in a world ruined by sin.

But this is your hope—and it’s a hope only Christians have—that in a little while, I AM will return to deliver you from every evil and bring you safely into his heavenly kingdom.

And on that day, that wonderful day when you see your Lord coming in the clouds with power and great glory, you will no longer remember the anguish you had to endure in this life. Instead, what Jesus said would happen to his disciples when he rose from the dead, will also happen to you when you are raised from the dead: Your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.