He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. *[Jesus said:] “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.* *John 15:26* Dear Baptized of God, This promise of Jesus to send the Spirit of Truth from His Father in heaven is for you. The Spirit of Truth is your helper, not only to bring you out of the darkness of sin and unbelief and into the Marvelous light that is Christ Jesus—the crucified, risen, and ascended Son of God—the Spirit of Truth is also your helper to keep you with Christ in the one true faith until your last day as well as to bear witness through you to an unbaptized, unbelieving, condemned world full of sinners for whom this Son of God also died. Yes, Tucker Thomas, I am speaking to you who, like your namesake, have been thrust not just finger and hand but body and soul into the wounds of Christ that you will be able to believe and be saved. But I am also speaking to each and every one of you baptized children of God, as well as those who may not yet have been brought to the Font of Life. For this Word of God that you hear today is an invitation, even a beginning of Holy Baptism for those [of you] who have not yet had the waters of Life crown [their/your] head[s] since the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit whose name with the water makes Baptism the saving means of grace that it is--goes with His Word wherever it is spoken for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. But as effortless and simple as that sounds--and it is that for it comes by absolutely, positively not an hour of labor, neither a penny of investment, nor a fraction of a contribution on your part—it is the hardest thing in the world. How can that be? Because, as we heard a couple of weeks ago the Spirit of Truth comes to convict you of the deadly depth and darkness and damnation of your sin; the infinite breadth and illumination and salvation of Christ’s righteousness; and the everlasting length and authority and certainty of God’s judgment as the Word of God is proclaimed in the preaching, translated in the teaching, and delivered in the sacraments of His holy Christian Church. The Spirit of Truth is not a feeling you get deep down inside, it is not a passion that proceeds from your heart, it is not a power that enables positive thinking to accomplish whatever you can imagine. The Spirit of Truth is not an it at all. The Spirit of Truth is a person of the One True God who is the helper of broken, fallen, hopeless, helpless sinners—Old Testament and new. This is graphically illustrated in our Old Testament lesson today. The prophet Ezekiel speaks to the broken, fallen, hopeless, helpless people of Israel—the very chosen nation of God—after the fall of Jerusalem, the royal capitol city of their nation and kingdom. *24**I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my just decrees. 28You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:24-28* * * Is this not exactly what God does for every sinner to give them life and bring them into the kingdom of heaven? Is this not exactly how Baptism now saves us—how it has saved Tucker Thomas, and each and every one of you? Yes, this is how it is and must be for everyone to be saved and have life in the kingdom of heaven with God now and forever. What’s more, there is another very hard and trying part for the Baptized believers during the earthly, now part of that salvation and life in the kingdom of heaven. It is what our Lord warns us about and exhorts us to face through His apostle, Peter, who knew the trial well.** *12**Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 1 Peter 4:12-14* * * As we confess in the Third Article of the Creed, the Spirit of Truth comes not only to call, gather, and enlighten you with His gifts of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, the Spirit of Truth also comes to sanctify and keep you with Christ at the right hand of the Father in the kingdom of heaven until the Last Day—until *your* last day. In other words, Jesus sends the Spirit of Truth as the Helper · so that you can do the good works God has prepared in advance for you to do and walk in as members of the body of Christ; *you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. John 15:27* · and to battle Satan for you when he comes to tempt you to sin with the allures of this world; or when that evil one comes to burden you with sorrow, or break you with despair in the face of the tribulations of this world and flesh. *16:1“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” John 16:1—4* That is why the Spirit of Truth is called the Helper. He helps the Father and the Son by helping you. And that is the kind of helper that He is, the kind of helper that helps by doing everything you can’t do for yourself from first to last—authoring your faith by bringing Christ to you and you to Christ just as He has done for little Tucker Thomas here today; continuing your faith by working good through your life as a witness to bring Christ to your neighbors; and finishing it by keeping you with Christ in His Church through the preaching and teaching of His Word and giving of His very body and blood for the forgiveness of sins--in the name of the father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen -- Pax in Christo, non te pox; Rev. Kurt Hering, Pastor Trinity Lutheran Church Layton, Utah In an ironic twist, *John Wesley*, on the occasion of being told that he was no longer allowed to preach at a particular church said, "There are few matters more repugnant to reasonable people than the grace of God."
