IN NOMINE JESU

BEHOLD, IN FAITH, CHRIST LIFTED UP FOR FORGIVENESS

Christ is Risen!

Hear again the Word of God for this Rogate (Prayer) Sunday, And YHWH said to Moses, “Make for yourself (a) fiery serpent and set it upon (a) pole. And (it will be that) everyone being bitten and sees it, will live.1

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Christ

This is a day that precedes three days of penitential prayer that have been held in the Church during the Easter season. It is a day that received its name not from the opening words of the Introit Psalmody. It’s name was given it on account of an ancient practice, one that is still used, in the Church for this particular Sunday of the Church Year. That is one that continues to be given to be celebrated by all in the Christian Church. This Sunday has traditionally been observed as a somewhat reflective day. As one of our Men’s Bible Study participants indicated, its tone is opposite of one of the Rose/Pink Sundays that appear in the reflective seasons of and . It is a day that shifts the Resurrection season from joy to penitential reflection, but it does not have special color! Remember, each Sunday of the Church Year is truly a “Little Easter.” So, in the season of Easter, we don’t shift from white to black in the chancel! All of that help us to remember that today’s prayer theme runs through the Rogation days of Monday through Wednesday as we prepare to celebrate the Feast of Christ’s Ascension. Those three days are given to us to move us to reflectively consider anew the Father’s sending the Son to pay the price to ransom us from our jailer, to give the price of manumission to him even as Jesus offered Himself to the Father to take away His wrath at our sins. These days’ theme of penitential prayer calls us to step back a bit from the exuberant joy of Easter. They call us to reflect more deeply concerning our, and the

1 Numbers 21:8. Church’s, responses to God’s giving us all we need for this body and life. They remind us of our right response to Him in the Faith for His beautiful gifts. That should move us to think more deeply upon the petitions, prayers, approaches and thanksgivings that God’s people, His Church, are called to offer to Him through the

Holy Spirit.2 These rogation days serve to remind us that, as the 50 days of Easter celebration near their end, our spiritual offerings are acceptable to God on account of that which He did for us. Because of the ultimate Sacrifice He offered to Himself our sins have been covered over. His judgment at our sins has also been taken away. He continues to declare us right with Himself. Those realities call us to look up from the sinfulness of this fallen world, to behold, in faith, Christ exalted to bring us forgiveness. To that end, this Sunday, each year, the Church puts reminders into the ears of the faithful that there truly is One God, One Mediator between God and men, (the) Man, Christ

Jesus, the One having given Himself (as a ransom) for all…3 That means that today also provides an annual reminder for the people of God to behold, in Faith, Christ lifted up for forgiveness for the whole world. Here, in images of Christ-crucified, we behold the price God paid to fulfill His desire that all people would be saved and come to the knowledge of Him. That Jesus was offered to God for the sins of all people is one of the reasons we celebrate this Sunday with petitions, prayers, approaches, and thanksgivings for all men. That leads us to continue to reinforce the divine truth that the Church prays for those who cannot rightly pray. All men, for whom we are called to pray are not just those souls in the Church who are not mentally competent to offer the Word of God back to Him. Our prayers are also, and most especially, offered as spiritual sacrifices to God on behalf of, and for, the unbelieving multitudes who are not in unity with Him. This day, with its special emphasis, in a special one in which the Church is called to pray for the

2 I Timothy 2:1. 3 I Timothy 2:6. 2 multitudes of the living descendants of Adam who remain bound in his and their own sins. They are those whose prayers God’s Word reveals that He does not hear. That is because they continue to reject the Sin-bearer, the Son of God Who died and rose from the dead. They are the heathen multitudes do not believe in Him as the One True God. Therefore, today’s penitential prayer theme sets the rogation tone for you, the faithful. It is given to remind you to pray for those who cannot, in themselves, pray rightly to God. This theme continues through the Church’s prayers that you are free to offer on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. More on that in a bit…. (You should know that a few of hearers of such sermons as that being proclaimed today, have, over the years, indicated that a lot is often packed into one sermon. That is true. They note that such sermons call for reflection and discussion after the service. That is the intent. A few have noted they needed to re-read the sermon notes during the week to discover how much is in them. Good. Have you never had a meal with different courses and multiple flavors that you took time to discuss after the fact? Did that not imprint the beauty of that meal into your memory? Is not the Word of God the bread of Life)? The tradition for this Rogation (prayer) day has been handed down through the Church to our generation across time spanning some 1,700 years. As alluded to earlier, it is a day whose seriousness contrasts with the exuberant joy of the Easter season. That was so much the case that a 9th century theologian declared his amazement that the Church fathers allowed a time of fasting to continue occurring during the time of the 50 days of Resurrection feasting!4 Think about how that shift is reflected in the readings of this day. Red colors the texts—the red of Edom which the Israelites had to bypass; the red of the fiery serpents; the red of a copper/bronze serpent; the red of the blood that flowed during Jesus’ exaltation, all these reds are revealed through the texts of the day. Those speak of

4 Adam, Adolph. 1990. “The ,” Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, quoting Amalarius of Metz, 190-191. 3 burning snake bites; a reddish bronze serpent lifted upon a pole; of Jesus being lifted up from this world; of scattering, tribulation and Christ’s overcoming the fallen creation. They declare the power of God that He gives to His people to sustain them through such times—the Faith. From that the readings lead us into the prayers of the faithful that are to be continually offered for the salvation of all people. The prayer tradition through which we will reflect the day’s readings this day is the litany. It is a powerful vehicle through which we will offer our petitions, prayers, approaches and thanksgivings to God.5 Its pattern was firmly established in the Western Church long, long ago. You, in your home devotions, are free to follow that helpful tradition. The words of the Litany drive you to look in the Faith to Christ-crucified for the forgiveness of your sins. This can be done simply by praying the same Litany on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week as we do this day. The Litany is written, as we will soon see, in your hymnals. They are truly the prayer book of the congregations of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. The hymnal is one special gift that helps unite us with our sister congregations all around the country and in parts of the world where English is spoken. It unites us in our common confession of the Faith in the One Whom we behold in the faith lifted up for our forgiveness. You who freely choose to daily pray the Litany before the will be following a helpful and devout practice that can be dated to 469 A.D. in Gaul. It is a prayer practice that has continued in various parts of the world ever since. In a genuine way, praying the Litany can help you to faithfully remember the time Apostles spent in prayer as they awaited the Promise from on High after Jesus’ Ascension.6 Today’s beginning of the Rogation days prayers gives us the opportunity, through our public praying the Litany, to give public thanks to God for all His benefits to us. This

5 I Timothy 2:1 6 c.f. Luke 24:49f 4 we will do even as we pray for the needs of all people. We will ask for God’s protection of the produce of the earth. Our petitions and requests, prayers and intercessions will be offered before this Table of the Lord this year. As we do so, we are also called to hope that next year, on the sixth Sunday of Easter, should the Lord continue to bless this congregation, her members and friends as He has through all her years, and most especially through this past year and a half, we will offer the Litany outdoors on this property. (Yes, Easter falls later in the calendar next year. That means that it will likely be hotter outside. But our highly talented diaconate and musicians will present us with a workable plan to follow that ancient Christian tradition). As our building plans continue to progress, next year’s Rogate Sunday will put us much closer to the time to break ground for the new Church than we are this year. So, over the next three days, let us pray that the Lord will enable us to follow a most ancient Christian practice of praying the Litany, in a new way, around the boundaries. We will need to consider that carefully as many of our members and friends come from so many miles away. Actually, traversing the couple of hundred miles that would encompass all our homes would be very impractical! Therefore, we have begun to plan to reflect the ancient rogation days prayer practice in a new way next year. That will be done through a plan to offer our prayers around the outline of the new Church that we, God-willing, plan to dedicate on Resurrection Sunday, 31 March 2024. We pray that we will remember to then, as we offer the petitions, prayers, approaches and thanksgivings for all people, that we will present them to the living God as we follow that image of the exalted Christ around the property. Today we recall such a graven image of the Christ Who is the very Image of the Living God is irrevocably connected to the graven image of the bronze serpent proclaimed from the Old Testament reading for today. In the Old Covenant era, the faithful, repenting of their sins that moved God to discipline them through the bites of fiery seraphs (yes, that is the word we translate, serpents), looked up to the symbol of the

5 reddish image of the serpent on a stick. They did so in faith in God’s promise to heal them. They trusted Him to give them life out of certain death. That truth was reflected even as the ancient Israelites once lifted up their eyes to receive life after having been bitten on account of their sins. They were called to behold that image, not as an object of worship, but in the Faith in the One Who willed to bring them forgiveness and healing. The faithful, suffering the fiery bites, would behold the lifeless form of a real serpent, cast in a reddish metal, having no venom in it. In the New Covenant era, the faithful, repenting of their sins that move God to discipline them through the fiery bites of the Law, look up to the symbol of the bloodied image of the God/Man on a stick. They do so in faith in God’s promise to heal them. There, as you behold the image of Christ-crucified for the forgiveness of all your sins, you can behold your true healing, God’s will to give you life out of death. That is reflected even as the new Israelites, Christians, lift up their eyes to receive life after having been bitten on account of their sins. They are called to behold that image, not as an object of worship, but in the Faith in the One Who continues to will to bring them forgiveness and healing. The faithful, suffering the fiery bites on account of their sins, behold the lifeless form of the One who crushed the head of the ancient serpent. Jesus’ image here is also cast in metal. That reminds us, the faithful of this era of the Church, that death’s sting cannot be ours forever. Such images of Christ-crucified for the forgiveness of sins you may look to in the Faith—as long as they are biblically faithful. They will by God’s design point you to the One Who died to bring life, even as God’s Word foretold: And YHWH said to Moses, “Make for yourself (a) fiery serpent and set it upon (a) pole. And (it will be that) everyone being bitten and sees it, will live.7

Jewish scholars of the intertestamental era taught this concerning the image of the bronze serpent:

7 Numbers 21:8. 6

For when the dire venom of beasts came upon them, and when they were dying from the bite of crooked serpents, your anger did not endure to the end. But as a warning, for a short time they were terrorized, though they had a symbol of salvation, to remind them of the commandment of your Law. For the one who turned toward it was not saved by what he saw, but through you, the Savior of all.8

How right they were is beheld today in the image of the Crucified One. Even so, long after that reddish seraph on a pole was lifted up, Israel’s faithful king Hezekiah ordered the bronze seraph on a pole destroyed. He did that because the Israelites had begun worshipping it. (Just so, some people who would be called Christians more than venerate, they worship, the bones of the saints, the nails of the “true cross,” Longinus’ sword (that which is reported to have been the one that pierced Jesus’ side after His death, etc). Even so, the faithful in both covenantal eras of the Church still remember that true images are given by God to be beheld in the Faith. They, we, you, are to see Him as our Savior, working forgiveness for repentant sinners through the means He has chosen. This too, was foreshadowed in the Old Covenant text for this day of penitential prayer: And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned. For we have worded against YHWH and against you! Pray to YHWH that He take away from us the serpents.” So, Moses prayed for the people.9

The Old Testament faithful, having been punished in their sins, repented. They cried out to their mediator to intercede before God for relief from their just punishment. They desired the forgiveness of their sins. They wanted to live new lives under God’s grace. When we offer our prayers this day, we are interceding for others. Even so, we do not pray alone. We pray with Jesus, the true and eternal Mediator between God and man. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, delivers our petitions to the Father on account of His purity and the divine unity that exists within the Holy Trinity.

8 Wisdom 16:5-7. 9 Numbers 21:7. 7

Behold afresh, the Image of God, our sin-bearer, suspended between heaven and earth, offering Himself to the Father. Jesus alone received the fiery bite of the ancient seraph. He bore God’s fiery wrath that burns against those at those who fall to Satan’s temptations. The ransom price, the price of our manumission from slavery to sin, God has fully paid. Satan, as he dwelt in Jesus’ betrayer, received 30 pieces of silver to compensate him for his millennia of work as the jailer of fallen humans. The Father received the perfect offering of the Son. That frees you to behold, in faith, Christ lifted up for forgiveness. Alleluia! Christ is risen! The peace which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus

Resurrection VI (LSB One-year series)

Numbers 21:4-9; I Timothy 2:1-6; John 16:23-33

May 9, 2021

Pastor Michael A. Morehouse BBA, MDiv, DMin

Soli Deo Gloria

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