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Make to Us the Father Known Text:
Matthew 28:16-20 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That's the name that was placed upon you at your Holy Baptism. Not “names.” Not three Gods. But the name of the One Triune God. It is what Jesus commanded to say in connection with simple water poured that makes for a valid baptism. This is the indispensable sacred act by which God has declared that he comes to a person, claims him or her as his own, creates faith in the heart, incorporates him or her into his family, the Church, which is the Body of Christ, grants forgiveness of sins, and fills us with his gifts—the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, of grace and prayer, of power and strength, of sanctification and the fear of God; the fruit of the Spirit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” [Galatians 5:22-23a (ESV)]. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” [Mark 16:16 (ESV)]. “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself" [Acts 2:39 (ESV)]. “Baptism…now saves you” [1 Peter 3:21 (ESV)].
Just as indispensable, however, is Jesus' command also to teach the baptized “to observe all that I have commanded you.” And so it is through both the means of the Sacrament and the Word that God calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies, creates faith when and where he wills in those who hear the Gospel.
Today we celebrate the completion and goal of God's plan of salvation for his world. Here is what the whole Bible is all about. After the first eleven introductory chapters of the Book of Genesis as a sort of genealogical description of God's creation of the world, answering the fundamental questions of how we got here and why things are the way they are, the purpose and goal of God's speaking to people through his revealed Word in the scriptures really begins with Genesis chapter 12 with the words, “Now the Lord said to Abram.” That's where the story gets personal. And that's what the Gospel is all about, God getting personal. Suddenly the broad brush strokes of the genealogy of the first eleven chapters of Genesis turns into the language of chronology, the setting and unfolding of God's plan of salvation of his world in the language of personal relationship. In Genesis 12 God's plan is set. Through this “seed of the woman,” this descendant of Adam and Eve;, Abraham, would come the Savior. So God said of him, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” [Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)].
We have just finished our annual telling the whole story of how God's plan worked itself out through Abraham's descendants, fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and Lord. We take six months to tell the story every year, from the Advent-Christmas message of the incarnation and birth of Jesus, the son of Mary, through the Epiphany outline of our Lord's earthly ministry of preaching, teaching and healing, to the most important part of the story outlined in our Lenten meditation leading to the Great and Holy Week in which we proclaim and celebrate the vicarious suffering and death of Jesus as our substitute, the scapegoat, our stand-in sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world and ours. Forty days of Lent is followed by the greater fifty days celebrating the glorious resurrection and ascension of Jesus as victorious Lord of all. Finally, he sends the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost.
Now, today we hear how the ancient promise to Abraham, “in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” is perfectly fulfilled and mirrored in our Lord's final command to “make disciples of all nations.”
So now what? Well, if it takes six months to tell the whole story, it takes another six months just to scratch the surface to answer the question, “now what,” “what does this mean?” Indeed, as we said to our young confirmands last Sunday, it takes nothing less than a lifetime to learn, to know, to understand, to believe.
On this day, every year, we celebrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Athanasian Creed that we say on this day is the most profound attempt to explain this mystery that there is only one, true God. Though he has revealed himself as a Trinity of Persons, there are not three Gods but one. All three Persons of the Holy Trinity cooperate in perfect unity. Yet they can act individually, too. For, not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit but it was the Son of God Who, according to his divine nature is “begotten and not made” from eternity, came and took on our human flesh received through the Blessed Virgin Mary and was “made man.”
It may seem strange that the ancient hymn we sing today, written around the year 800 a.d., has us ask the same question for which Jesus once rebuked Philip when he asked, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus told him, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” [John 14:8-9 (ESV)]. Yet today we sing to God the Holy Spirit, “Oh, make to us the Father known; Teach us the eternal Son to own” [LW 156:6]. To Whom has all authority in heaven and on earth been given, but to Jesus only. Jesus is the center of attention. It is only through Jesus that one can know God the Father. And the sole role of God the Holy Spirit is always to point the world to Jesus. That is to be my goal as a preacher and our goal as a congregation—to point people to Jesus.
After all was said and done, after all righteousness had been fulfilled in Jesus' life (Matthew 3:15), after the perfect sacrifice had been finished in Jesus' death (John 19:30) and the victory of life over death proclaimed by his resurrection from the dead (1 Peter 3:18-20; Matthew 28:5-6), now must this Good News be preached, spoken, testified, witnessed and applied to each individual of all nations of the world. And the tools he has given us are these: Holy Baptism and teaching, Word and Sacrament. For all the other things that go on in this thing, this living Body called “the Church,” the main thing is the distribution of God's gift of salvation through the forgiveness of sin. As we say very simply in the beginning of our proposed Constitution revision, “It is the mission of Saint Mark Lutheran Church to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all people and to administer his Sacraments to those who follow Him.” Through the “foolishness of preaching” [1 Cor. 1:21 (KJV)] God calls, gathers, enlightens and saves sinners, and through preaching and the administration of the Sacraments the baptized are strengthened and sustained in the constant flow of grace and forgiveness of their sins so that we may live now with confidence and be truly and fully prepared for our entrance into eternal life.
It is in Jesus Christ and him alone that a person can see and know God the Father and know that the Father is both just and merciful, that is, that though he will by no means clear the guilty (Ex. 34:7) in his love he has provided the way that our sin can be dealt with so that we are reconciled to the Father and restored to his original design which is eternal life. The word is “justification.” We speak of executions using that word. A criminal can be justified by the sword, justified by hanging, justified by the firing squad, justified by lethal injection. God says to be “justified by faith” is a way of being killed so that we will live forever. That way was through God himself taking on our human form in perfect, sinless righteousness, and yet taking the punishment, the wages of sin in our stead on the Cross of death. In Christ, then, and because of his perfect, holy righteousness and his perfect sacrifice, on the evidence of his shed blood, God turns and declares sinners righteous for Christ's sake, free from sin's grip and condemnation. And as Christ rose again as victor over death, so will all who are baptized into Christ be raised with their bodies to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
It is in Jesus Christ and him alone that a person can see and know God the Father. And it is by means of the Holy Spirit working through the Word that Jesus Christ comes to each and every person, washes and feeds us with his blood, and dresses us in the white robes of his perfect righteousness. Baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit the believer is given spiritual light and understanding and knows God and God knows him. The point of contact is in the man Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Because of him those baptismal waters are made alive with his blood, for it is “the blood of Jesus” that “cleanses us from all sin” [1 John 1:7 (ESV)]. Because of Jesus' own institution the old Passover is now the communion in nothing less or other than his very body and blood given for us Christians to eat and drink for the continual forgiveness of our sins and our source of life and salvation.
Because the whole story has been done, has been and continues to be told, we can pray, “Oh, make to us the Father known” knowing that this is how the Father deigns to be known, namely, by the working of the Holy Spirit through baptism and teaching, Word and Sacrament, revealing to each soul Jesus Christ whom he has sent. ____________________
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