ERO CRAS: He Arrives Tomorrow[ish]

Merry Advent!

Merry Advent and Almost Christmas!

Okay, real quick before things get crazy…

/ The LORD’s Lovingkindness has No End (Psalm 89:1)

/ The Revelation of God’s Mysteries Requires Meekness

From Wordsworth on Acts 7:3; his criticism of the Bible critics!

(Download the Act commentary [all the New Testament, if you like] here. This quotation is on page 30. These old Anglicans where fiery!)

/ The Scriptural Depth of the Great “O” Antiphons

This is a great article. I learned about the secret message ERO CRAS in the Antiphons.

/ A Meditation on the Second Article of the Creed (Dylan Smith)

Candidate Dylan Smith offered this wonderful meditation on Christ our Redeemer in our service last week. Here is the text for your meditation and joy.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Not too long ago, when I was applying to study at a conservative Christian College, I was asked if I could consent to the college’s statement of faith. This statement of faith — which is really just another way of saying their creed —was pretty good. It confessed the Trinity, the virgin birth of Jesus, the bodily resurrection, the Church, the inspiration and historical reliability of the Bible, and many other foundational points of Christian faith.

There was, however, one line about Jesus that I immediately took exception too. “We believe that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, WAS true God and true man....”

WAS true God and true man…

To this statement I emphatically (and kindly) replied, that as a Lutheran, I confess Jesus IS true God and true man. From the moment of the Incarnation, the Son of God is inseparably united to and always works through His human nature for our redemption. This is how it is in the New Testament when Jesus walks the earth, this is how it is now, and this is how it will be forever.  

The reason I bring up this story is to draw attention to a particular aspect of Jesus that is incredibly beautiful and comforting as we consider our redemption with the Apostle’s Creed during this Advent season, and ponder Christ’s coming at Christmas, today in this Church, and on the last day. What does it mean that Jesus IS always man?

And by the way, I had no idea this was going to happen, but just this past Sunday during the Old-Fashioned Christian play we actually confessed this very point several times when we read the Athanasian Creed.

            We said, It is the right faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man.

This is our confession, beloved, that Jesus IS a man, and it surrounds us in in our hymns, in our practice, and in the art in our Church. When we look above the altar, there is depicted Jesus in His human body, standing victorious over our altar as the Lord of His Holy Christian Church.

This isn’t a matter of artistic taste. As we heard in our New Testament reading tonight, it is the good pleasure of our dear Father in heaven to tell us the mystery of His will, in the fullness of time, in the incarnation of the beloved Son.

The fullness of time is here —today - in the holy flesh of Jesus. The incarnation is not simply one point on a timeline between creation and eternity; it is the very center. In Jesus, the heart of the Father is forever revealed. In Jesus is our Redemption, our hope, and our comfort.

So let’s consider this mystery that has been revealed, as we confess the Second Article of the Apostle’s Creed with Luther’s explanation, found on p. 322 in your hymnals.   

[confess creed and explanation]

When we say — And in Jesus Christ

We are missing something in this first phrase that is implied from last week, “I believe.” Faith is at the forefront of the Creed. The word Creed come from the Latin verb “to believe.” By faith we believe the heavens we made by God the Father through His Word, by faith do we confidently believe in and await our redemption in Jesus Christ. And by Faith, we believe Jesus is always God and man.

Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,

We should never forget that the name Jesus means “salvation.” Every time you see the word “salvation” in the Bible, it has to do with Jesus. And this is His human name. It is always as incarnate that Jesus saves us.

In the liturgy during the Sanctus, we say “Hosanna,” which means “save us.” It’s like we’re saying “Jesus – us!”

When we say Hosanna, as Jesus comes to our altar to feed us His body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins, it is just as real for us tonight as it was for the children who cried out to Jesus as he entered into Jerusalem. This is what it means for Jesus to always be man. It means our salvation is not far from us, it is always present.

We confess Jesus is the Christ because at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He submits Himself to John’s baptism of repentance in the Jordan River, where He is anointed, or christened, by the Holy Spirit. In His baptism, Jesus stands in solidarity and vicarious repentance with us sinners and charts a new path for our humanity through the wilderness of life. We are baptized into this life of His, and we become Christians, little Christs, adopted by the Father into the Sonship of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and our brother continues to lead us through this life into the promised land.  

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary

The Son of God is begotten of the Father from eternity, there was never a time when He was not Son, and there was never a time when the Father was not Father, but at the fulness of time, the Spirit comes upon Mary, and Jesus is conceived and born.

This is what we celebrate soon in Christmas, where heaven and earth are joined. At His birth, the angels give their voice, the heavens give its star, and the earth gives its manger. And the Son of God is born and shines into our dark world, to be Immanuel, God with us, not just with us for thirty years, but with us always, until the end of the age.

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.

This is the beautiful center. The lowest point of Christ’s humiliation, the almighty creator of man is spit upon, mocked, scourged, stricken, smitten, afflicted, bruised, wounded by His creation, His innocent flesh is mangled, all for our sins, for our sorrows, for our griefs. God loads upon His sinless son the weight of the sins of the world and crushes Him with it unto death, to give us His peace and life.

And so this very moment of the lowest point of Christ’s humiliation is also in a sense the highest moment of His exaltation. The crucifixion is the greatest act of obedience of the Son to the Father. The lifting up of Jesus on the cross — it’s an exaltation, it is the way God loves the world, the public display of God’s love for sinners. There is nothing that demonstrates more clearly who God is, than when He pours out His life for you on the cross.

He descended into hell.

Though Christ’s descent into hell is not spoken of very frequently in the New Testament, it is so comforting and foundational that it is part of our Creed! Our clearest biblical passage on this is 1 Pet 3, where it states that “Christ … was put to the death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which He went and preached to the spirits who were in prison.”  

Because the Son of God is never separated from His human nature from the moment of His incarnation, this means after Christ was buried, He descended into hell as a whole person, both God and man, and He conquered the devil and hell, and took away their power.

Christ’s descent into hell was not to suffer, but in victory! He defeats hell in the human nature you share with Him.   

The third day He rose again from the dead.

So also, he rose again from the death on the third day! In many paintings of the resurrection, Christ stands as a triumphant man with His foot over a vanquished personification of death, or in other pictures, like in the Narthex, he is pulling humanity out of the grave. One hand on Adam and on hand on Eve.

By Christ’s death, burial, descent, and resurrection, Christ has taken away the string of death, He’s ripped out its fangs, and made death nothing but a slumber, which is why we call the places where those who have died in Christ cemeteries. A cemetery literally means a place of sleep, it’s the place where our bodies rest as we wait to follow Christ.

He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

When Jesus ascends into heaven, He brings humanity to a place it’s never been before, and He shows us the new destiny of our human nature, to awake from sleep and to live with God eternally in heavenly joy. Christ is the first born from dead, and as we follow Him out of the grave, so also shall we follow Him into heaven.

We also confess that Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father as a man. As the Father created the world through His Son, so now He rules the world through His Son made flesh. The one who shares your human nature to redeem you, never sets it aside, but remains yours forever, bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh. And from God’s right hand, He comes to you in His body and his blood.

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

In Advent, we not only think of Christ’s birth at Christmas and the significance of His incarnation today, but we also ponder and prepare for Christ’s coming to judge the living and the dead.

Christ’s coming on the last day is to bring your redemption to its completion. There is no fear for you who are in Christ, for the one who comes to judge has the scars of His love for you on his hands and feet. His coming in judgment means that wickedness, persecution, and suffering are brought to an end once and for all.

Let us then ever fix our eyes on the Word made flesh, and pray  “Come Lord Jesus!”, to the one who bears our human nature, who sympathizes with us and knows our weaknesses, though the universe cannot contain Him, He glories to be wrapped in swaddling clothes, though the angels are at His command, He submits Himself to death on the cross, and though He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He comes tonight to serve us in His word, and in His Holy Supper.   

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

St. Paul, Austin, TX, December 13^th, A.D. 2023

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Thank you, again, for your time and attention, and for your prayers. Please keep in touch. 

Christ is Risen! Pastor Wolfmueller

Psalm 27:4

www.wolfmueller.co

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