4th Sunday of Easter

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Context is important. The word oversight can mean supervision or it can be an unintentional error, an oversight. To dust, well, that can be the act of removing dust or the act of applying a fine powder. We need context to determine meaning. Context is important. Context is important for the theme of today's readings. This Sunday gets its name Ubilate from the first lines of the intro, shout for joy. So you'd think this Sunday would be all about happiness and uplifting feelings. Psalm 66 gives reasons for this imperative to praise God. His deeds are awesome. Great is his power over his enemies. Come and see. Verse 6 tells us of the specific awesome deeds. He turned the sea into dry land. They passed through the river on foot. This brings up the context of God's deliverance of his people from slavery when he parted the Red Sea, bringing out a people called his own, and drowning his enemies in defeat. It also brings up when the people finally crossed the Jordan River and entered into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. What did we miss, though, from the Red Sea to the Jordan River crossing? The wilderness wanderings. Psalm sixty six verses ten and following provide more context. For you, O God, have tested us, you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. You let men ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water. God has done awesome deeds. Our Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples, A little while and you will see me no longer, and again a little while, and you will see me. When we hear this, we know the context. It's the upper room discourse. He'd go to Gethsemane to pray, he'd be betrayed. By morning, he'd be tried and crucified. It was a little while. And when Jesus was buried in the tomb, his disciples didn't see him. But on the third day he rose. It was just a little while, wasn't it? He appeared to them behind locked doors and showed them his hands and his side. Jubilate, shout for joy! How awesome are God's deeds! Look at what he has done. We hear these words, a little while and you will see me no longer, and again a little while and you will see me. And we understand them in a different context. Christ has risen, hallelujah. Christ has ascended, hallelujah. We don't walk by sight, but by faith, right? We walk as sojourners and exiles in this world. We've traveled through the waters of holy baptism. Today we've seen the awesome deeds of the Lord. Awesome, not according to worldly standards, or that splash of water and word that sounded and looked so mighty and so booming. All of Pensacola took notice that God was doing something at 24 West Wright Street. Boom, right? But these are awesome deeds, because the one doing them is awesome. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As believers in Christ, we have rejoiced in God's mighty deliverance. And then we find ourselves in a wilderness, much like the Israelites of old. We find ourselves in a Canaan full of other gods and temptations. There's worry about God's provision. There's the allure of the world and its ways. It's tempting for us sojourners and exiles to fall into error, to emigrate fully and transfer our citizenship back to the world, back to unrighteousness. We find ourselves after Christ's ascension in another little while when we don't see the Lord, when we have trials and temptations, when we weep and lament and are sorrowful. In this little while the world rejoices and scoffs. Meanwhile, we Israelites find ourselves like those in the Old Testament reading, weeping and lamenting. My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Context is important. The very night that Jesus was betrayed and told his disciples about this little while of weeping and lamenting, that's the very night he fed them and gave them drink. The same Lord who provided bread from heaven and water from the rock in the wilderness, the same Lord who led them into the land of milk and honey, the same Lord instituted his holy supper. This same Lord invites us, his people, who are sojourners and exiles in this world, to receive the sustenance that he provides. He gives his true body and true blood under bread and wine for you, for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord hasn't forgotten about you. He sees you and he knows you. He isn't sick of you. He has engraved you in the palms of his hands, and he will never leave you, never forsake you. He hasn't abandoned us, but promised to be with us always. It's a promise he's made in his word. It's a promise we've seen today and heard at the font. And so God is with us always, in word and sacrament, still doing awesome deeds for us and for our eternal rescue. The Lord Jesus used the example of labor and delivery. I'm glad it was Lee that took a lab, and you're still here, Helen, yeah, because I think you were more important for that labor and delivery part. It's rather close to home for the Poppy family. And while epidurals and pain blockers and hospitals have eased many worries about childbirth, it is a dangerous matter still. There's pain and even anguish. And sadly, even grief at times. But when the little one is laid upon the mother's breast, the mother who has gone through that pain and anguish, what joy. So, dear Christian, do not give in to grumbling against God in this short time in the wilderness. Instead, listen to his word. For the journey is too much for you to go it alone, you'll collapse. And so receive the food and drink that he provides at his table. He instituted it for those that he just told, a little while, and you will see me no longer. Don't let the world and fleshly passions win the war for your soul. Don't let the world win the war for your soul. It's passing. It'll be destroyed by fire. Come and see what your God does for you. Your God has set you free from sin to be his own, to love him, to love your neighbor. To you, exiles in this world, baptized citizens of no obscure kingdom, your king has told you this you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.