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With All Your Graces Now Outpoured Text:
John 16:5-11 When you make a hotel reservation they always give you a confirmation number. Though I have always dutifully written it down, I've never really known why they do that because I've never been asked for it or used it. When you make a reservation on an airplane flight you need to confirm it so that they know you're really going to be there. When you pay bills or buy something over the internet there's usually a final, last button to press to confirm your payment or order with the instruction not to press the button more than once or you will be charged twice. When someone is labeled a “confirmed” bachelor, it means it's unlikely they are going to change in the foreseen future. To say you are a “confirmed” Lutheran should mean at least as much—that is, that you're going to be there, you know and mean what you've promised and it's unlikely that you're going to change or waver from that confession in the foreseen future.
This year we are blessed, because, what better festival for the Rite of Confirmation than the Day of Pentecost, the commemoration of the outpouring of the “promise of the Father,” the Holy Spirit on the first disciples? The rite of confirmation is directly related to the sacrament of Holy Baptism with the emphasis on the imparting of the gift of the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands. Oh, it's not as if the Holy Spirit hasn't been present and active in the lives of our children or our adult candidates until now, no! In fact we have relied on this very promise in our time of teaching and instruction, that, the Holy Spirit creates and strengthens faith, when and where he wills in those who hear the Gospel. In the Rite of Confirmation the baptized confess their faith before the world for themselves, even as their Savior confesses their name before the Father himself! Though one is only baptized once—for God is faithful to his promise and work—Christians make confirmation of their faith daily, the hand of faith receiving the forgiveness of all your sins every Sunday, every time you hear a sermon or Holy Absolution or receive the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Holy Communion.
That's what it's all about—receiving faith and forgiveness, salvation, justification and the love of God. That's what you receive even now as you hear the divine Word: the forgiveness of all your sins solely for the sake of the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; the gift of salvation for all who believe and are baptized; justification before God by faith in Christ alone; the love of God that is displayed no where more clearly than on the Cross of Christ. All this is received simply by faith.
Today we hear Jesus say the words, “I tell you the truth.” It's not just a parenthetical statement. It's not just that these few words he speaks in today's Gospel are the truth. Not only are all his words the truth, but, as he said, He himself is “the way, the truth and the life.” When Pontius Pilate muttered that skeptic question, “What it truth?” he was echoing the original Satanic challenge and deception, “Did God really say?” The new Pope, Benedict XVI, put his finger on the problem, right off the bat, when he criticized today's “tyranny of relativism,” the common and widespread belief that there is no such thing as objective truth. Our generation (like all previous generations, but maybe to a more public and “acceptable” degree) does not believe in the truth.
One of the best hymns in Hymnal Supplement 98 , which we will sing today as the Offertory Hymn, is the F. Pratt Green text, “This Is the Threefold Truth.” Amazingly our Commission on Worship has decided NOT to include it in the coming Lutheran Service Book. In the words of the hymn, when it all comes down to the bottom line, here is the truth that sums up “the hope we have in Him: Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!” “This is the threefold truth which, if we hold it fast, Changes the world and us and brings us home at last: Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!” Together we boldly proclaim to the unbelieving world that there IS an objective truth and reality that surrounds and gives meaning to all life, and that truth is centered in Jesus Christ.
In today's Gospel our Lord tells us of a threefold truth that the Holy Spirit reveals to us. It is the truth, he says, concerning sin, concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment. The Holy Spirit revealed this threefold truth to the apostles and led them to write the New Testament, which serves as the standard for the church's teaching.
But the first thing we need to know about this threefold truth is that it is centered in Jesus. When Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will guide the apostles (and us!) into all truth, He says: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” [John 16:13 (ESV)].
The sole function of God the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus Christ! He takes what belongs to Christ and makes it known to us. He does not speak of Himself. He speaks of Christ, because Christ is our connection, our cornerstone.
Now, the truth is not merely a moral code of conduct, as important as morality is. In our day of moral relativism it seems everything is up for grabs, because, “what is truth?” The truth is not found in mere agreement among those who support “traditional morality” (though that's part of it). There are many folks across denominational lines that agree with us in matters such as the sanctity of human life, the lifelong union of a man and a woman in marriage, and the binding authority of the Ten Commandments. But that agreement in morality is not yet agreement in the central and most important doctrine of the Christian faith.
Our text says that, in teaching us about Christ, the Holy Spirit acts like a prosecuting attorney. He convicts the world of three things: sin, righteousness, and judgment. In other words “the world” is basically wrong about the subjects of sin, righteousness, and judgment. What is it about the world's view of sin that makes it wrong, and why must the Holy Spirit show this? Jesus says, simply, “because they do not believe in Me.” All sin, our sinful separation from God and from our neighbor, is “convicted” because of the world's refusal to believe in Jesus! This is the ultimate root of sin that convicts sinners.
For this is the threefold truth: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. In his death, he has taken away the sin of the world—taken it away! It's gone in Him! Jesus was and is the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world! Faith receives Jesus and the forgiveness that He has won for us all. That means to still persist in unbelief, then, is the one and only sin that cannot be forgiven: rejecting the forgiveness Christ has won. Therefore it can be said that the world doesn't understand sin because it doesn't know or understand Jesus. Only when we, through faith in Jesus, receive the forgiveness of all our sins do we understand the true nature of sin. It is as the Holy Spirit sets you free from the burden and guilt of sin that you learn what sin really is. For it doesn't consist merely in violating a few rules of conduct. Sin is the turning away from God altogether, to worship ourselves. The Holy Spirit shows us, through the Word of Christ, what sin is as He relentlessly shows us how Jesus, the Lamb of God, bears all our sins away.
Then, the Holy Spirit convicts the world as “guilty” when it comes to the subject of what makes for righteousness before God. The world is wrong. For the world teaches that people can make themselves righteous by just doing good things. The truth is that it is because we cannot do good things “good enough” that it was necessary for God to send his Son to fulfill all righteousness for us, on our behalf, and then to offer himself as the only sacrifice for our disobedience and sin. Now, Jesus says, “I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer.” We see him no longer. But the Father looks at Jesus' righteousness and, solely because of Him, he then turns and proclaims righteous all who trust in him for their salvation. True righteousness is not earned. It is declared, bestowed by the Judge of all for the sake of Jesus.
Finally, the Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Satan, the ruler of this world, rules in the hearts of those who do not know or who outright reject Christ. He rules by means of his false, anti-Christ teaching, namely, convincing people that sin is not that bad of thing, that a person can become righteous by his own deeds and that God isn't really going to judge and condemn sin and the sinner. Again, left on our own God's judgment and condemnation of sin looms with a clear warning that, without forgiveness of sins, you will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21). The Good News is that, by faith in Christ, the judgment has already happened. It happened on His Cross for the life of the world. The shepherd knows his own and his own know him, and at the last judgment he will separate his sheep from the goats before even a word of judgment has been spoken.
This past week Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer was extended the call to serve as the 10 th President of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. In his remarks he recalled a line in a sermon he had heard decades before. “We know precious little about God, but the little that we do know is precious.” I think I've emphasized enough, maybe even overemphasized, to our young confirmands this truth; that God is mysterious and hidden. There is so much we don't know about God. But the little that he has revealed to us in his Word is precious and takes a lifetime to learn and to believe. Because before and after all it is by this strange, wonderful, mysterious, miraculous thing called “faith in Christ” that we are enabled to live with confidence and daily be ready for his return. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” [2 Cor. 4:6 (ESV)]. God bless you; bless you all in this light, this truth “which, if we hold it fast, Changes the world and us and brings us home at last: Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!” ____________________
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