Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
He Cares for You (John 17:1-5; 1 Peter 5:6-7)
He Cares for You. Yes, he does, God cares for you
very much. St. Peter tells you this when he
encourages you to be casting all your anxieties on
him, because he cares for you. So thats what we
want to do today. We will cast all our anxieties on
God, and we will hear how, and how much, our God cares
for us. What are your anxieties, and what is Gods
care that deals with those anxieties? Those are the
questions well be asking.
The first and greatest anxiety that people have--or I
should say, the anxiety people ought to have, if
theyre honest with themselves--that anxiety is this:
How do I stand before God? I mean, who is God, after
all, what is he like and how does he regard me? What
will happen to me when I die? How can I know that God
is favorably disposed toward me? How can I know that
death is not the end? These are the Big Questions,
arent they, the ultimate questions.
People struggle and strain to come up with answers.
Its like theyre groping around in the dark, not
knowing God, so they come up with answers of their own
making, what sounds and feels right to them. They
think that if they are good enough, or at least better
than the other guy, then God or the gods--whoever
he/she/it is or they are--then God will be pleased
with me and will reward me in the end. That is
natural religion, and its what all religions except
Christianity believe. But that still leaves you with
a lot of anxiety about the big questions, because deep
down you really dont know who God is, or if he cares
for you, and you dont ever know if you have done
enough or are good enough to please him.
What some people do, then, is to simply try and block
out the anxiety and not think about it. They dull the
pain and numb themselves by escaping in various ways:
drugs, alcohol, the pursuit of pleasure, fun, fun,
fun--whatever it takes so I dont have to deal with
the big questions.
Even as Christians, maybe we sometimes revert to the
old ways, the ways of the world, and we let those old
anxieties creep in and try to take over. We forget
who God is, and we forget how things are between us
and God. We doubt Gods goodness: Does he really
care for me? Or else we take his goodness for
granted, and use it as a license to do whatever
pleases us. Or maybe we push out the big questions,
the life-and-death questions, because theyre too
scary for us.
But God wants you to know the answers. He wants you
to know who he is, and he wants you to know how things
stand between you and him. He wants you to know how
it is he is favorably disposed toward you, and why.
He wants you to know how, and how much, he cares for
you.
So in the Holy Gospel for today, Jesus, in his High
Priestly Prayer to his Father--Jesus prays for you,
that you would know the answers to these big
questions. Listen to what he says: Father, the hour
has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify
you, since you have given him authority over all
flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given
him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I
glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work
that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me
in your own presence with the glory that I had with
you before the world existed.
Here Jesus is praying for you, although at first
glance it doesnt sound like he is praying for you
directly. He is saying things like, glorify your
Son, and glorify me in your presence. Jesus is
praying about himself there, but in so doing, he is
really praying for you too. What he is praying about
himself is for your ultimate benefit.
Its the night Jesus will be betrayed that hes
praying this prayer. The hour has come, the hour
Jesus had spoken of all along. The hour of his
suffering, the hour of his death. The hour when he
will be lifted up from the earth, lifted up on a
cross. And Jesus knows it. So he prays to his
Father, for now he is coming to the conclusion of the
mission for which he came from the Father. This is
what he came for. So he sees the hour of his
suffering as really his being glorified. What Jesus
is about to do, what he is about to suffer, will bring
glory to his name, bring glory to both the Father and
the Son. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify
you.
Jesus had spent his ministry glorifying the Father,
revealing God to people. By his words and by his
deeds, Jesus showed what God is really like, so people
dont have to be groping around in the dark, wondering
and wandering. You see Jesus, you see God. For the
Son of God, who was with God in the beginning, comes
from the Fathers side, comes in the flesh, and makes
God known. Jesus was bringing glory to the Father in
this way.
Jesus had work to accomplish, and now he was
completing that mission. I glorified you on earth,
having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
And now the culmination, the completion and
fulfillment, of that work is right at hand. It all
leads to this. And in a few short hours, Jesus will
cry out, on the cross, It is finished. The work is
accomplished.
Jesus came from the Father, and now he is returning to
the Father. The Father sent him on a mission, and
that mission involved us. Again, listen to what Jesus
says to his Father: Glorify your Son that the Son
may glorify you, since you have given him authority
over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you
have given him.
To give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
Thats it! Thats the mission, thats the work Jesus
came to accomplish. To give eternal life. And he
gives it to you! Thats how much God cares for you!
How does he do it? What does eternal life have to
do with the hour of suffering Jesus is about to enter?
It seems like a disconnect, life and death. But that
is precisely how Jesus does it! By his death he gives
you life. By his death he overcomes death, the power
and the sting of death, and he gives you eternal life.
He does it by dealing with the sin problem, which is
the source of our death problem and the source of all
our anxieties. We decided we knew better than God,
and thereby we lost what we had: We lost the true
knowledge of God. We fell into darkness, where we
were groping around. We fell from life into death.
And thus we fell into endless anxiety and uncertainty
about the big questions. Who can rescue us from this
pit of anxiety and darkness? Only Jesus can. Because
only Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, can take away the
sin of the world. Only Jesus can overcome the grave
by his resurrection. Only Jesus, the only Son of God,
who has life within him and is the source of life, can
bestow this life on others. God has given his
enfleshed Son authority, authority to give eternal
life to all whom the Father has given him.
What is this eternal life? When we think of eternal
life, maybe we think of this life, just a lot longer.
Like for a bazillion days or a bazillion years. We
think of quantity instead of quality. But Jesus
defines eternal life in terms of quality, what its
like: And this is eternal life, that they know you
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have
sent. The right knowledge of God, being in a right
relationship with God--that is what defines eternal
life. It is a new kind of life. Knowing who God
really is, knowing that Jesus is the one whom God sent
to accomplish our salvation for us--that is what makes
eternal life what it is. Now of course it will also
last forever, because Jesus has overcome death and the
grave for us. This then is eternal life, and Jesus
gives it to you, as a free gift.
Now do you see how much God cares for you? The big
questions, the anxiety-producing questions, the
ultimate life-and-death questions--Jesus gives you the
answer. Jesus himself is the answer. God wants you
to know him, to know that you have eternal life, to
know that he cares for you.
But what about Gods care for all the little anxiety
questions? Can we know that God cares for us in the
midst of them? I mean the death by a thousand cuts
that we suffer in this life. All our little
anxieties, which may seem very big and looming at the
time. Anxieties about finances: Will we have enough
money, what with all the rising prices and our income
isnt rising to match them? Anxieties about health:
How many more trips to the doctor can I make? Its
just one thing after the other. Anxieties about time:
I dont have enough of it, to accomplish all the
things I have to do or want to do. And when I have
the time, I dont have the energy. Where is God in
all of this? I lose sight of God. Im distracted and
preoccupied with all of my anxieties.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand
of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares
for you. St. Peter takes us back to the basics.
Know who you are, know who God is. Hes God, youre
not. You are his dear child, he is your dear Father.
You know his care already, dont you? Youre a
Christian, arent you? God baptized you and took you
as his own. God put his name on you. You know his
care already on the big questions of life and death.
For you know the one big answer, which is Jesus.
Therefore, if God cares for you in the big things, he
also cares for you in the little things, which may
seem big at the moment. He knows your suffering,
whatever it may be. God is watching over you, to
guard you in all your ways. For the greatest danger
you face--the greatest danger is not the suffering
itself, but that because of the suffering you might
despair of Gods goodness and fall away from the
faith. God is guarding you from that, he is keeping
you in the faith by this Word and Sacrament he gives
you to keep you strong.
Today remember this, my friends: God cares for you so
much! He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be the answer
to all the big questions of life and death. He gives
you eternal life. Now you know who God really is.
And therefore you can know for sure that God is with
you also in all the little questions of life. Dear
Christians, God cares for you so much! Cast all your
cares, cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares
for you.
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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