Exaudi Sermon 2020
Exaudi – John 15:26-16:4
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
24 May A+D 2020
If I say, “My foot slips,”
Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.
In the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul.
We confess every day that Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. What does this mean? Christ fulfilled what David prophesied of Him in Psalm 110, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.” The right hand of God is also called in the Scriptures “the right hand of the Power.” (Matt. 26:64) It signifies God’s power and majesty and the authority to rule. So Moses sings in Exodus, “Your right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power; Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces.” We still have this understanding in English when we say, “He is my right hand man,” and we mean someone who is our strength. Jesus is, as Paul tells the Corinthians, “The Power and Wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. 1:24)
But how does God use His power? We can see it in the thunderstorm and the tornado, in the flood and God’s wrath against nations throughout history. We can see power that is frightening and that we don’t understand, power that has always made the heathen imagine gods of lightning and storms on the sea. We can see power that is above us, and Christ rules over all of this. But God reveals His true use of His power not to sight, but to faith, in Christ our Savior. Peter explains this to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5(:30-32),
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”
Do you see the purpose of Jesus being at God’s right hand of power? It is to be Prince and Savior. What kind of Prince? “His name shall be called Prince of Peace.” He gives peace by sending His Holy Spirit who testifies through Paul to the Colossians (1:19-20) and us,
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Jesus sits at God’s right hand to give sinners peace through repentance and the forgiveness of sins. That is why God exalted Him to His right hand, to be your Savior from sin and death and devil and fear and misery – and these enemies are all under His resurrected feet. (Psalm 110:1)
The epistle to the Hebrews (8:1-2) is making this same point with reference to Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament shadows of the Temple,
Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
We must not think that the heavens are so high above us, because Christ is in the heavens, and Christ says, “Surely I will be with you always, even to the end of the age,” and “Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of you.” And so let us contemplate the beauty and loveliness of the Temple of God today, which is Christ Himself, and understand what it means for Christ to be seated at the right hand of the power of God.
The right hand of the Father is the right hand of the mercy seat. The Temple of the Old Testament was divided into two chambers, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place. The Most Holy Place was divided from the Holy Place by a curtain or veil. It was dark in the Most Holy Place. There was no light. The Ark of the Covenant that held the Bible was in the Most Holy Place, and on top of the ark was the mercy seat. The High Priest entered here once a year to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat.
Who sits on the mercy seat? God the Father does. It is a throne made for Him without hands. The right hand of God is His glory and majesty and power. God reveals His glory and majesty and power to us in His mercy for poor sinners. When Jesus died the curtain in the temple that separated us from the Most Holy Place was torn in two from top to bottom. This means that Jesus had sprinkled His blood once for all on the mercy seat. As it is written in Hebrews (10:19-22),
Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Jesus is our High Priest. He has won for
us righteousness and purity, and He has clothed us in Himself in our baptism,
as it is written, “As many of us as have been baptized into Christ have put
Christ on.” (Galatians 3:23) He has sent
the Spirit of truth into our hearts with the Gospel and sacraments, so that we
are justified, made righteous, by trusting in Christ as our righteousness, so
that we have access by faith into this grace, this Most Holy Place of God’s
mercy, in which we now stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
(Romans 5:1-2)
Last week we learned that Jesus tells us to pray, to ask, that our joy may be full. This week we ask. “Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Alleluia! Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide Your face from me. Alleluia!” (antiphon for Introit, Ps. 27:7-9)
But it often appears dark in the Most Holy Place, as if the curtain is still there. The beautiful picture of God at peace with us and desiring to hear us, is covered by our own fears and anxieties, by our sins that confuse us and drive faith from our hearts, and the world, who flaunts her pride and power, does not know the Father or Christ, and she is constantly repeating the old mantra, “Is there knowledge in the most high?” Psalm 73:11
But it is for precisely times of doubt and sadness that we need to remember that Christ has sent His Holy Spirit to His Church to comfort her, and that means to comfort you who have come to hear the Holy Spirit’s testimony about Christ, since “We have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit.” The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. This means that the Holy Spirit is God, because from forever He has been going out from the Father. This means that when the Son sends the Holy Spirit from the Father, He is sending the true God to you, to comfort you with the knowledge of who God is, when He is dark in your mind, when He seems to hide Himself from your heart, and you feel comfortless. And so it often seems that way, as Isaiah says, “Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!” (Isaiah 45:15)
But God hides Himself from us for a little while only to increase in our hearts the desire for the truth about Him. This is why David sings (Ps. 30:7) “You hid Your face, and I was troubled.” But then he goes on to say, “I cried to you, O Lord!” God hides Himself so that we might pray. Pray for what? For the Holy Spirit, for the Comforter, for all that is God’s that Christ won for us, for our life which is hidden with Christ in God at His right hand.
Because it is the Spirit of truth who tells us the truth about God. As Paul says, “But God has revealed [the truth] to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” (1 Cor. 2:10) This is why He call the Holy Spirit the Giver of Life. God is life, and He gives us God. He teaches “us to know our God aright / and call Him Father with delight.” (Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord)
And we know the Holy Spirit gives us God because He proceeds from the Father and the Son. He is called the Spirit of God’s Son in Galatians 4. And the word for “proceed” in the Greek (ἐκπορεύεται) also means to flow, as a river does from a spring. So the Holy Spirit is the living water of eternal life that Christ teaches if your drink of it, you will never thirst again. This sweet and divine Comforter flows from the eternal Spring of Love, which is God Himself. He is pictured in Ezekiel as water flowing from the Temple, and “along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
So the Holy Spirit flows from the Temple of Christ’s body, as blood and water flowed from His crucified side, and He testifies about Christ, that is He takes what belongs to Christ, His purity, His righteousness, His forgiveness, His life, His mercy, and the Son sends Him from the Father, that is, from the mercy seat in the Temple, and He tells you about God, and so He gives life. What does He tell you about God?
He convinces you of the truth. For us who may be holding onto sins that kills us, He rebukes us. He says, “No man can serve two masters. If you want to see God, then you cannot love your sin. Repent! or you will not taste this water. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.”
He convinces you of the truth. The Law comes and tells you, you must be holy to go before God, and you are not holy. You have worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator. You need to get your life better, be a better person, make yourself righteous, before you can come before God. But the Holy Spirit flows out from the Temple of Christ’s risen body, from the Father’s right hand (since the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father); this clean water flows from the mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled to turn God’s wrath away from you, where Christ’s obedience to the Law in your place has established peace between you and God, and the Holy Spirit enlightens you, He drives out the darkness, He shows you God sitting on the mercy seat by telling you that there is nothing God requires of you before you come to Him for help in time of need. All that is required of you is flowing in a pure and clean river of the Holy Spirit, which is yours in your baptism, because the Holy Spirit brings all that is in the Temple, all of that mercy and love and pity which Christ showed on the cross, He pours the love of God into your heart and you can see again.
You can see that the sins that have held you and into which you have fallen, that have hardened your heart in times past so that you can’t trust in God, these sins the Holy Spirit washes away in the water and blood that He testifies with to you about Christ. He says, “What sins are you mourning? It is good that you grieve for your sins, but not so that you think you can take them away and not so that you despair, but only so that you see Christ’s grief for you. Listen and see, His tears that He shed are in this water that I sprinkle on you to make you clean. His blood that He poured out in love for you is in the cup that I invite you to drink. His words of pardon and mercy are Mine to carve out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh to believe that God is not your enemy, but is reconciled to you through the death of His Son.”
So the Holy Spirit flows from the Father and the Son. He comes with words. He comes with the truth. God is love, and the Holy Spirit pours that love into your heart that covers the multitude of sins that you can see and a greater multitude that you don’t see. He pours it into your heart so that you believe and therefore you speak, “Abba, Father.” You call the God who seemed so far from you your own Daddy, whom you can approach with boldness before the throne of grace to ask for help in time of need. Because your body has been washed with pure water and your heart has been sprinkled from an evil conscience by the blood of Christ. The same Gospel the Apostles testified to, and the same sacraments they administered, have been preached and given to you. You have the same Holy Spirit, as it is written (Acts 4:4-6),
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
And so you pray, “Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Your face, Lord I will seek. Do not hide Your face from me!” You ask for the Holy Spirit, and He gives Him to you. He gives you comfort. He gives you all that belongs to God, His thoughts toward you of peace, His desire for you to know Him as Your Savior, who has poured out His Holy Spirit on you in your baptism, and who daily sends Him to your heart to lead you to repentance, and to see in all trials and tribulations that the curtain in the temple is torn from top to bottom, that God and the Lamb are seated on the mercy throne, and He lifts His countenance upon you and gives you peace.
This means that when people attack you and revile you for being a Christian, for speaking the truth, for showing love to those who are being attacked, this is not a sign that God is hiding Himself from you. This is a sign of God’s love for you. The world will always excommunicate those who cling to Christ. They excommunicated God when they condemned Christ to die. This is what John says in His first epistle,
Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. 1 John 3:13-14
It is when we are persecuted for the sake of the truth and for the sake of love, that we learn to love the truth and love even our enemies. With every injustice, with every insult, with every attack on us for the sake of righteousness, God is conforming us to the image of His Son, who was attacked for His love. God is making us look like Jesus, and blessed are we when we suffer for righteousness’ sake, for love’s sake. This is how God works. He plunges you into the darkness of the world, her hatred of the truth becomes directed against you, and He teaches you that not even in the depths of sorrow and persecution and rejection and loss of family and loved ones and reputation and job or anything else in all creation, can the world’s darkness overcome the light that the Holy Spirit ignites in our hearts through faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus. He was there in the lowest parts of the earth, and even then God was with Him. He despised the shame of the cross; He looked at it as nothing compared to the joy set before Him, which is you for whom He died, and therefore God has highly exalted Him at His right hand and given Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, at the name of “The Lord Saves” every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)
If you are holding hate in your heart, a grudge, or bitterness, then cry out to God, “Abba, Father!” You don’t need to know exactly what to pray for you, or how what gives you anger and resentment will be sorted out. You only need the river flowing from the mercy seat to cleanse your heart with the forgiveness of your own sins. So practice before the Day. Kneel now before the mercy seat, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Reconcile in your heart to those who have sinned against you, and those you have sinned against. Pray to your Father. Say to Him, “Hear!” You have the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for you with groanings too deep for words. Pour out your complaint to God, and He will pour His Holy Spirit into your heart, bringing all the riches and treasures of the Temple of Christ’s body, even placing Christ’s body in your mouth, comforting your heart with His defending you against your own sin, against your enemies, – and they are under His feet - against your fears and anxieties – in the multitude of your anxieties within you, His comforts will delight your soul, so that you will look in victory over all your enemies. More than that, He will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, where you will feast on the body that bore your sin and overcame the world, and you will drink the blood that washes you clean and spotless, and no one can bring any charge against you whom God has justified and forgiven.
And so you find yourself today at the right hand of God with Christ, in the Most Holy Place, where God has made you holy, where He has the joy of beholding you and calling you His own dear child and heir, and you have the joy of believing it. Amen.
~Pr. Mark Preus