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[00:00:00] Christ is risen. He is risen Indeed. Alleluia. Blessed seventh Sunday of Easter. Dear saints of St. Paul Lutheran Church, this is the Sunday Drive to church podcast for June 1st. Whoa.
[00:00:11] Year of our Lord 2025. This, I suppose, settles the question of whether we have one more week in Easter. We have seventh Sunday in Easter, or sometimes Sunday after Ascension. Exaudi was the name for this Sunday in the Old Latin naming. I want to start with a collect because it's beautiful. Remember how most prayers that we have are prayers to the Father, but we also pray to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
[00:00:38] And sometimes there will be prayers directed to all three persons of the Holy Trinity. But the beautiful thing about the collect is we have the address and then we have the doxology, which brings in the other persons of the Holy Trinity. So normally the prayer is something like, to God the Father, who lives and reigns with or through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We have that all brought together.
[00:01:08] This prayer is directly to Jesus.
[00:01:12] And you'll notice how the Father is mentioned and the Son. Sorry. And the Spirit. And they're all three brought together. In the end, it's a prayer that Jesus would use his exaltation to comfort us.
[00:01:25] Let's pray.
[00:01:26] O King of glory, Lord of hosts, uplifted in triumph, far above all heavens, leave us not without consolation, but send us the spirit of truth whom you promised from the Father, for you live and reign with him and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:01:44] Amen.
[00:01:46] Amen. Looking at the front of the bulletin, by the way, has this cool picture from the catacombs, like 300 and something.
[00:01:52] I thought catacombs were everywhere in the world, but they're not. They're especially in Rome because.
[00:01:58] Well, because, number one, in Rome, it was illegal to bury anybody inside the city. And number two, outside of Rome, they had all these kind of pumice fields, or the ground was made out of this volcanic material that was super easy to dig into. And so they dug all these.
[00:02:15] These underground caves. They dig them out and then put burial places in them. So they're still there. You can go visit all these little underground chambers.
[00:02:23] And the Christians would go and hide down there and have services down there.
[00:02:27] Pretty wild.
[00:02:28] This little painting is early alpha and omega on either side of Jesus.
[00:02:34] That indication of the catacombs as the place of Christian worship. Okay, we're into the readings now. The psalm for. Oh, this is beautiful. The psalm for today is a short, little beautiful Psalm 133, which it's three verses. I think it's. Yeah, three verses.
[00:02:53] It's super condensed.
[00:02:56] It's a hymn of praise on the unity of the church.
[00:03:01] It starts out with that, and it's going to be basically, lord, we praise you for unity.
[00:03:07] And then it gives two pictures of how beautiful that unity is. It says, verse one, behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.
[00:03:20] By the way, if you wanted to use this psalm every day this week, that would be great because we have our Texas district convention on Thursday and Friday and Saturday morning.
[00:03:32] And that convention is supposed to be an expression of. Of the beauty, beauty of unity that the Lord gives us as sinad as we walk together.
[00:03:43] Sometimes it's hard to see. And here's the two pictures of the. Of that unity, the beauty of it. The first, you think to yourself as you picture it in your own imagination. I'm not sure how that's so beautiful. It says it's like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard.
[00:04:01] On the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. So you got a picture Aaron, brother of Moses, and Moses is pouring olive oil on his head. And that oil is dripping down his head onto his beard. And there's his beard soaked with oil, and it's soaking into the collar of his. Of his shirt.
[00:04:27] Now you think to yourself, well, what is so beautiful about that?
[00:04:33] But remember this anointing is when the Lord sets apart Aaron as the high priest and authorizes him to conduct the divine service in the Old Testament and to offer the sacrifices, especially the high sacrifices of the Day of Atonement and other like sacrifices, so that now the blood of the bull and the goat and the lamb can preach to the people the forgiveness of their sins.
[00:05:05] This is why it's so beautiful. This is the ordination of Aaron. It points to the ordination of Aaron and this great.
[00:05:15] The great preaching of the blood, of the sacrifice that comes from his ordination.
[00:05:20] And then the second picture, it's like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing. Life forevermore. So Mount Hermon was the mountain that was northernmost in Israel.
[00:05:36] It was the highest peak. It was really the place where they would get snow. I think now there's like a little ski resort on Mount Hermon which you can go to.
[00:05:46] So that mountain would reach high enough that it would scrape off a lot of the moisture, especially during the winter. And that would feed into the headwaters of what would become the Jordan River. It would feed into the Headwaters of the three streams that ran together into the Sea of Galilee, which then pooled and became the headwaters of the Jordan River. So this water on Mount Hermon was basically what irrigated the whole land and made it fruitful.
[00:06:11] So the psalmist puts together these two pictures.
[00:06:15] The oil on the beard of Aaron and the rain, the dew on the top of Mount Hermon.
[00:06:22] And that's the life giving beauty that we're supposed to be reminded of when the Lord's people dwell in the unity of doctrine, let's say unity of faith and love. That's what Vicar's going to preach about today. And that's connected with the Gospel which we can look at now. We have the old. Well this is the last Sunday that we have Acts and Revelation. And then next week Pentecost, we'll go back to the old Old Testament epistle and Gospel. So we do have Acts chapter 1 and Revelation chapter 22. But let's look at the Gospel and then we'll say a few words about those other passages. John 17:20, 26.
[00:07:01] This is the end of this text that we've been studying for a few weeks now. It's what's called the High Priestly Discourse or the Vala victory. How do we say this? Vala victory.
[00:07:11] Vala Victorian Vala Victory speech of Jesus. It's his last great sermon on Maundy Thursday before the prayer in the garden and his arrest and subsequent passion sufferings and crucifixion. And Jesus is praying. And right before this, Jesus has prayed for the apostles, that the Lord would comfort them, strengthen them for the work that Jesus has set them to do.
[00:07:42] And then in verse 20, Jesus is expanding his petitions to not only the apostles, but to all who would believe through the preaching of the apostles. Which means that this is Jesus prayer prayed 1900, almost 2000 years ago for you and for me.
[00:08:03] Jesus says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me, the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory, that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
[00:08:50] O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know you, and these know that yout have sent me.
[00:08:59] I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
[00:09:09] Absolutely beautiful. Now this prayer for unity I remember. I'll tell you a quick story. I was at symposium, which is every winter, every January, the Fort Wayne seminary hosts an event where people are invited to give scholarly papers and pastors and other biblical theologians and students are all there listening. And I remember one time I was at seminary and it was on the unity of the church. And Richard John Newhouse, who had been a Missouri Synod pastor and then became a Catholic and then was famous for starting first things and was a big time public theologian, he was there presenting a paper. And Dr. Markwort, who was my professor and was a classmate of Richard John Newhouse at the seminary, was there. They were talking after one of his papers. And I went up and asked this question to both of them.
[00:10:00] I said, how is the church one?
[00:10:04] And Dr. Newhouse started answering about how the church simply finds herself one by being united to Christ. And so it becomes the pervasive ontological. Something I couldn't remember. It was pretty complicated theological answer.
[00:10:26] And I was thinking about it and I was kind of impressed by it. And I looked over to Dr. Marquardt and he just says, oh, that's rubbish.
[00:10:34] We're united in the word.
[00:10:37] Jesus says, unite them in your truth. Your word is truth, and quotes it in its great simplicity. Oh boy, that was amazing.
[00:10:48] And this is what the unity of the church is.
[00:10:51] The unity of the church is that we say amen to the words that Jesus speaks.
[00:10:57] That's by the way, why it's so hard being a denomination as separated from other denominations, because there are these divisions. But those divisions are because we say different things about what the Lord's word says. So we got to keep plugging away, fighting for that unity. Okay, Acts one picks up with the aftermath of the ascension of Jesus. This is our first lesson. It's Acts 1, 12, 20.
[00:11:23] So Jesus ascends and the story carries on. Then the apostles return to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olive, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey. So they go back into Jerusalem. It names the 12 apostles. And then what happens? This is between the. This is the events, the only events recorded between the 40th day of Easter, the Ascension Day, and the 50th day of Easter, which is Penteco, and the disciples are there in the upper room. And Peter is concerned that Judas has now hung himself. And so the 12 have become the 11. And so they want to pick a replacement. And there's 120 disciples that are all there gathered, and they say, we need a guy who's been with us from the beginning, who's a witness of the resurrection. And so they find two Joseph and Matthias, and they cast lots and the lot falls on Matthias. That's the last time we hear about Matthias. But we hear Peter talking about the importance of another taking his place and so forth. And so we have this account. Now, the fact that we never hear about Matthias is an indication to us that this portion of the Book of Acts is descriptive, not prescriptive, that we're not replacing the 12 apostles whenever they die by casting lots and putting someone in there. The Mormons have this doctrine, and really the. The idea of the office of the papacy is kind of built on this as well, that once Peter dies, he has to be replaced and so forth.
[00:12:49] We understand this to be a description of what they did, but not a prescription for how the church is to.
[00:12:56] How the church is to act.
[00:12:59] We carry on in the apostolic doctrine, not in the apostolic person.
[00:13:07] Really. It's Galatians one that teaches us that where Paul says, look, if I or an angel from heaven preaches a different doctrine, let him be anathema, we stick to the doctrine. That's where the unity is found in the doctrine.
[00:13:20] And then we have the Epistle. This is a beautiful one. I'm trying not to have a super forever Sunday drive to church today. How are we doing?
[00:13:28] 13 minutes. We got some time. Here's the last chapter of the whole Bible for some reason.
[00:13:34] We have Revelation 22:1 20. There's 21 verses in the chapter.
[00:13:41] The last verse, verse 21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen is left out of this.
[00:13:49] I don't know why, but here's what I'd like to suggest when you're listening to this text. Revelation 22:1. 20.
[00:13:59] Listen for the parallels between the end and the beginning, between how things started and how things end.
[00:14:08] For example, the angel showed me the river of the water of life.
[00:14:14] Now we remember. Wait a minute. I remember the Garden of Eden, and there was four rivers surrounding it.
[00:14:20] And it is clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
[00:14:28] So you imagine the city. Remember the Lamb is in the midst of this garden city. It's beautiful. And flowing from under the throne is this crystal clear river. And on either side of the river is the street. And lining the street is the tree. Through the middle of the street, the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree. Which tree? The Tree of life, with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month.
[00:15:00] So the Tree of Life is. How about. This is interesting. Remember when we were reading in the beginning in Genesis, the Lord put the angel there to keep Adam and Eve from going back into the garden, lest they eat the Tree of Life and live forever in their sins. But it wasn't that the Lord never wanted them to eat from the Tree of Life. We were always headed towards the Tree of Life. But now we get to the Tree of Life through the forgiveness of our sins.
[00:15:25] Not in our sins to live forever in our sins, but now to live forever in the forgiveness of sins and the grace of God. And this tree has 12 fruits. Adam and Eve never. I don't even think they tasted it once.
[00:15:38] So they never even got one of the fruits. But every month it bears a new fruit. How there's months in the new heaven and the new earth, even when there's no sun because the Lamb is the light, I don't know. This is beyond us.
[00:15:51] And not only was the fruit good, the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations.
[00:15:58] This is the anti fig leaf which was there to hide sin and shame. Now even the leaves of this tree are healing. It's pointing to this beautiful restoration.
[00:16:09] No longer is there anything accursed but the throne of God. And the Lamb will be in it. And his servants will worship him. They will see. Oh, this is my favorite. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads.
[00:16:23] This is the Lord's name that was given to you in baptism.
[00:16:27] And you're marked by him as his child.
[00:16:31] And you will see his face. Of all the dulce no mane morte. Remember that list of the sweet names of death.
[00:16:38] To depart in peace. Gain live as Christ. To die is gain to join with the fathers. That's how Abraham talks about it.
[00:16:46] To pass from death to life. This is my favorite. They will see his face.
[00:16:53] Night will be no more. There will be no need for the lamp or the sun. For the Lord God will be their light.
[00:17:00] They will reign forever and ever.
[00:17:03] And he said to me, these words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets has sent his angel to show his servants, what must soon take place. And behold, I am coming soon. Behold, blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book so good so that it's this promise that the Lord is coming back to make all things new.
[00:17:27] I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star. The spirit and the bride say, come. And let the one who hears say, come. And let the one who is thirsty come. Let one who desires take the water of life without price.
[00:17:49] So we have a share of the tree of life and the glory and the glory of the new heaven and the new earth which is on its way.
[00:18:00] So good boy. The hymn of the week is this old Christ is the world's redeemer. It's attributed to Saint Columba, this old Irish saint who evangelized Scotland back in.
[00:18:14] Did I say Scotland with a Scotland?
[00:18:18] The Irish saint who evangelized Scotland back in. Who knows? 580. Whoa. Way back there they sailed across in a reed boat. The old stories tell you. Now, this hymn is an amazing hymn.
[00:18:32] I mean, first of all, it's rousing. Christ is the world's redeemer, the lover of the pure, the fount of heavenly wisdom, Our trust and hope secure the armor of his soldiers, the Lord of earth and sky, our health while we're living our life when we shall die.
[00:18:50] Now, this second stanza talks about the death of Jesus and the purpose of it, but it's in very militaristic terms which is going to be especially reflected in the third stanza, which I want us to focus on. But here's the second one. Christ has our host surrounded with clouds of martyrs bright who wave their palms in triumph and fire us for the fight. I think this is talking about the martyrs here as the apostles who are going to be witnesses of Christ's death and resurrection and then die for it. And they're waving their palms as Christ goes into Jerusalem to die. And it says, then Christ the cross ascended. That's the language of John.
[00:19:33] The ascension first happens in the death of Jesus. When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.
[00:19:40] He sits upon the throne.
[00:19:43] Oh, sorry. Christ the cross ascended to save a world undone and suffering for the sinful, our full redemption won.
[00:19:52] So Jesus ascended his cross in triumph and won redemption for all the world.
[00:19:57] And then what happened?
[00:19:59] There's a lot of conversation lately about the descent of Christ into hell.
[00:20:04] Maybe not in Bible class or around our church, but in our circuit there's been conversation about it that people have. A lot of different people have been asking me about it, in fact, new member class, we've been talking about it a lot. Here's this ancient testimony of what happens after Jesus dies. He goes and he makes a victory lamp in hell.
[00:20:25] We talked about it on Ascension on Thursday about how Jesus first has a triumphal entry into hell, the demonic realm, and then has a triumphal entry into into heaven itself.
[00:20:37] And so here it is spoken of so clearly. Here's how it goes in the third stanza. Down through the realm of darkness he strode in victory.
[00:20:47] And at the hour appointed he rose triumphantly so to the realm of darkness to stride in victory. And now to heaven ascended, he sits upon the throne whence he had never departed, His Father and his own. This idea that Jesus goes to the throne from which he never departed is really important. That's an important thing. Theological point.
[00:21:07] It comes from John chapter one, where it says, the only begotten God who sits in the bosom of the Father has made him known.
[00:21:17] So that Jesus is always with God, even when he's on the earth, because he is omnipresent.
[00:21:24] But remember this descent into hell, there's three real different ways of thinking about he descended into hell. The first is that he descended to suffer. And that's wrong. Jesus on the cross said, it's finished today, you'll be with me in paradise.
[00:21:37] The second idea is the Catholic idea of the harrowing of hell. And that's the idea that in the Old Testament there was kind of a holding tank for the Christians and Jesus had to go down there and get all the people out of that place and bring them up into heaven.
[00:21:51] The third idea is that Jesus is showing his triumph and victory over those that he's conquered. This is our Lutheran position, although we don't get too detailed about it. But that's exactly what's here. Down through the realm of darkness he strode in victory.
[00:22:08] That's great.
[00:22:10] And then the last final stanza is a beautiful doxological stanza. Glory to God the Father, the unbegotten One. All honor be to Jesus, his soul begotten, Son, and to the Holy Spirit, the perfect Trinity. Let all the worlds give answer. Amen.
[00:22:28] So let it be.
[00:22:30] So let it be. God be praised.
[00:22:33] That is pretty good. Let me look over the bulletin to see what else we got. We got the Acts, chapter one. We got Revelation 22, John 17, the alleluia verse. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. That's important. Jesus ascension is not leaving us. He remains with us forever and ever.
[00:22:52] I think that looks pretty good. A couple of announcements. We have the bishop of Uganda coming to teach our Bible class today. That'll be a real blessing. We'll get to hear what's going on with the Lutherans in Africa and ask questions about him.
[00:23:08] No Sunday school today, but next summer or, Sorry, next Sunday, June 8th, we'll have our Sunday summer school class. Make sure to look at all the announcements in the bulletin, including fire pit, which will be tonight for the guys back behind the church, and landscaping next day. Also, don't forget to keep the district convention in your prayers. It's in Houston this Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I'm going over Wednesday night to be there after church on Wednesday night to be there Thursday morning for the floor committee hearings. Our congregation sent seven resolutions.
[00:23:47] I haven't added them all up, but I bet there's probably only 14 or 15 resolutions. So we got about half of them. But one of them was rejected and two of them were heavily edited that they're going to suggest to the convention. And then four of them.
[00:24:05] They're asking the convention to respectfully decline consideration. So I got to go over there on Thursday morning and try to fight and get some of the things that we sent there on their radar and on their attention. So say a prayer for that, that it goes well. There's elections.
[00:24:22] I'm on the ballot for regional vice president of the district. So you guys can pray that.
[00:24:28] Well, I don't know. You can decide how you want to pray that I get it or don't get it. I'm not sure which is better or worse. But that's all happening Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So I'll give a good report or I'll give at least a report of all of that going on next week. But your prayers are going to be very helpful.
[00:24:50] All right, that should do it. That's the Sunday drive to Church for June 1st year of our Lord2025. God's peace be with you.