Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter,
Celebrating the Christian Confirmation of the Faith by
Shannon Holsten, Aaron Rottmann, and Evan Whan
Believing By Means of The Apostles’ Word
Theme: Jesus’ Words are the ongoing source of your life.
Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!) Alleluia! In today’s Gospel, Jesus prays
for you Christians, and for all your fellow Christians with you. Just prior to
today’s Gospel, Jesus had been praying for His apostles, whom He was about to
send out to speak His life-giving Word to the entire world. Then Jesus says
today (at the beginning of the Gospel), “I do not pray for these only [that is,
for these apostles only]. I do not pray for these [apostles] only, but also for
those who will believe in Me through their Word.”
When Jesus says, “those who will believe in Me through [the apostles’ Word]”,
He is talking about you. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is praying for you
confirmation students, because you have come to believe in Jesus through the
apostles’ Word. Jesus is also praying for you Christian family members who have
come to rejoice with us today, and He is praying for all of you saints and holy
ones who have gathered to hear the Words of the apostles, which is the New
Testament of God’s Bible.
Dear Christian friends,
If you were to interview a dozen pastors and asking each what he regards to be
some of the saddest and most depressing things about the pastoral office, he
might begin to show you pictures of his confirmation classes. His smile will
probably drain from his face as he begins to point out those children whom he
worked hard to raise in the Christian faith, only to see them disappear from
Christian worship as soon as they were confirmed.
My fellow pastors and I do not have any good explanations as to why this
happens (we cannot understand why anyone would wish to exile themselves from
the life-giving Word of God), but we have our theories:
· Some pastors think that the Christian faith is not engaging or exciting
enough to keep peoples’ attention, especially the attention of the youth.
Today’s kids think church is boring, so these pastors feel like they need to
make God’s Word more lively and more interesting and more engaging for the
youth—so they drag out their bongos and their PowerPoint presentations. [Now
that you are joining the ranks of the confirmed, I feel like I should warn you
students that I not allowed to care whether you think worship is boring or not.
Our Lord Jesus did not send me into this pulpit to show you a good time.]
· Many pastors think that the children of the church quit worshipping
after confirmation day because their parents are behind it. More than one
pastor has heard a parent say to a child, “You must continue in worship and
Sunday School until you are confirmed. After that, it will be your own choice.”
Tell me: Since when do children voluntarily eat their vegetables, wash behind
their ears, and do other things that are good and beneficial to them—even if
they know they ought?
[Why am I ranting about these things today in particular? One of the reasons is
that I can get away with it. I can get away with it because I know you three
confirmation students and I know where you will be seated next Sunday. I know
that, forty years from now, you will still be seated in these pews, or in other
pews like them. I also know your parents, and if you decide you that don’t want
to come to worship next Sunday, I know what pain and suffering will fall upon
you.]
· I have my own theory as to why we see so many young Christians
disappear from worship after their confirmation day. These Christians do not
realize—or they simply do not believe—the astounding miracle that Jesus
continuously performs through His life-giving Word. Stated another way, I think
that many Christians regard God’s Bible as a source of information—and worship
is essentially a weekly review of the information. Confirmation class is for
them somewhat like CPR training—a class you have to take for knowledge that you
hope you never have to use. Of course, you should come back every once in a
while for a refresher course, but for the most part, the Christian faith should
be kept neatly tucked away in your wallet—until you need it.
Such thinking is disastrous to the Christian faith that God has planted in you.
Such thinking will slowly and seductively lead you away from the Christian
faith and into the danger of eternal death, all while you are thinking you are
Christian and without you even knowing you have been led away. [That, my young
Christians, is the REAL reason why I am ranting to you today. You must be
warned about the dangers of abandoning worship because, from this day forth, it
will become increasingly easy for you to abandon worship. You will begin to
think you can put worship off for a time when you are not so busy. You will
soon go through your late teens and early twenties, when most people foolishly
begin to think that they are indestructible and not desperately needy for God’s
Words. You will experience hardship and disappointment in your life, even more
than you have experienced thus far—and these hardships will tempt you to
unbelief. Every one of your
parents and these other Christians have felt tempted to forget the importance
of worship, they still feel tempted to minimize the importance of worship, and
you are about to join your parents and these other Christians in their
temptations.]
Jesus prays for you confirmation students in today’s Gospel. Jesus is also
praying for you Christian family members who have joined us today, and He is
praying for all of you saints and holy ones who have gathered to hear the
apostles’ Words preached to you today. Jesus prays that none of you will ever
“outgrow” your need for Christian worship. Jesus prays that you will never grow
tired of hearing the Words of the apostles. “I do not pray for these [apostles]
only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their Word.”
Jesus wants you to know today that worship is not about hearing an
engaging sermon and it is not about having a sense of fulfillment or power for
your week. Jesus wants you to know that worship is not even come down to
feeling better about your regrets or your burdens or your preoccupations. Jesus
wants you to know that worship boils down to the miracle of faith that He
created for you and now sustains in you through His Word. Jesus wants you to
know that faith is something He must give to you AND continually supply to you
if you are to have His gift of eternal life. This is why Jesus today prays to
the heavenly Father for you students and for all those who will believe in Him
through the New Testament Words of His apostles.
“For those who will believe in Me through their Word,” Jesus prays.
Translated just a little differently, Jesus prays “for those believing in Me by
means of [the apostles’] Word.” Jesus wants you to think of God’s Word as being
the source and constant supply of your faith. That is to say,
· Just as air must continually fill into your lungs in order to keep your
body alive, so also must the Words of the apostles continually flow into your
heart and mind in order to keep your faith alive. In this regard, you might
think of your Baptism as being like a SCUBA tank, through which you receive the
benefits of God’s Word on a daily basis. You could then think of hearing the
Words of the Apostles—that is, God’s Bible—as the way in which God re-fills the
SCUBA tanks for you, so to speak.
· Or again, a person with kidney disease must receive regular treatments
of dialysis. Dialysis is when the doctors hook you up to a special medical
devise that draws your blood out of your body, cleanses it for you, and then
replaces it back into you again. In much the same way, hearing the Word of the
apostles in worship not only performs the miracle of cleansing you free of all
your sins and doubts, but the same Word miraculously replaces and strengthens
and improves your faith through your hearing.
“I do not pray for these [apostles] only,” says Jesus, “but also for those who
will believe in Me through their Word.” Hearing the Words of God is not like
taking a CPR class or a course in high school biology—that is, it is not
something you have to learn but might not ever use. When you hear God’s Words
in worship, these Words immediately go to work on you. It does not matter if
worship seemed to make you feel different; it does not matter if you learned
something new from the Sunday School class or if you find the sermon to be
engaging. (You have heard me say these things to you before, and you are going
to hear them again.) What matters is that the Word of God is at work in you who
believe (1 Thessalonians 2:13). What matters is that your Lord Jesus is ever
mindful of you, wanting only the best for you. What matters is the on-going
supply of Christ’s forgiveness in your life—which forgiveness you now have
through His Word and shall
continually receive through His Word. That, my friends, is your Lord Jesus’
prayer for you—and my prayer, too—that you would be continuously and ongoingly
believing by means of the New Testament Word.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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