He is the same in his person.  When the eternal Son of the Father became incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man, he joined our flesh and blood forever.  He didn’t just adopt the body of a man named Jesus.  He became a man.  He, the eternal God, became flesh and blood, as St. John teaches us in the first words of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God . . . and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1&14)  Jesus Christ is the eternal God, begotten of the Father from eternity.  Jesus Christ is the Son of Mary, born from her in time, approximately 2000 years ago.  He is one and the same Jesus Christ.  Mary gave birth to a baby who was the true God become flesh and blood.  So the Church rightly gives to Mary the title, Mother of God. 

Jesus did not stop being God when he suffered and died on the cross.  Jesus did not stop being a man after he rose from the dead.  In confessing the great mystery of God joining us as a man, Paul Gerhardt, the great hymnist wrote,

            God is man, man to deliver
            His dear Son now is one with our blood forever.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is the same in his teaching.  What Jesus taught in the first century is exactly the same as what he is teaching us in the twenty-first century.  How could the teaching be different?  Jesus does not change.  The truth he teaches us cannot change. 

This, of course, flies in the face of today’s so called post-modern way of thinking.  People sincerely think that the truth can change from one generation to another or even from one individual to another.  I was watching Fox News the other day listening to Bill O’Reilly talk to two guests, a lesbian activist for “gay rights” and the conservative editor of Human Events magazine.  Now Bill O’Reilly is regarded as quite conservative, but whenever Human Events editor, Terry Jeffrey, said that homosexuality was wrong, Bill O’Reilly kept correcting him by saying, “Wrong for you.”  The idea was that Jeffrey could define for himself what was right and wrong but that he couldn’t insist that there were standards that applied to all people of all time. 

But God cannot change.  Truth cannot change.  What is right for one generation is right for another generation and what is wrong for one generation is wrong for another generation.  “Wrong for you” is just another way of saying there is no right or wrong and we are our own gods.  And that, of course, is how people create hell on earth.  Sinners make very bad gods.

Jesus teaches the pure law of love that will not change because it cannot change.  He teaches us to love even those who hate us.  He teaches us to pray for those who lie about us.  He teaches us to bless those who curse us.  This teaching flows from the heart of the One begotten of his Father’s love from all eternity. How can love change?  And since love’s demands cannot change, the law that Jesus teaches must continue to put into bold relief the sin in our own hearts, words, and actions.  We have not loved.  The unchanging truth of God’s law stands against our own constant efforts to make ourselves first over others.  Jesus’ teaching of the law does not change.

 His teaching of the gospel does not change.  Lord, have mercy upon us!  This is our plea. Behold the Lamb of God!  This is God’s reply.  “I, a poor miserable sinner,” is our confession.  “I forgive you all your sins,” is God’s absolution.  The law won’t change because the nature of God’s demands on us won’t change.  And the gospel won’t change because the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his victorious resurrection from the dead stands as the central event of all history.  Jesus has blotted out the sin of the whole world by his blood.  When he died, the sin of all was reckoned to him.  It was as if he were the sinner.  But he who was delivered over for our offenses was in fact raised again for our justification.  Where were the sins that he bore on Easter Sunday?  Buried in Joseph’s tomb! 

This remains the gospel truth and no power in the world can ever make it false.  Those who promote salvation by human works have littered the history of the church with their falsehoods, and throughout the history of the church the pure gospel has always shined forth.  Contrary to popular opinion, there have always been truly evangelical Christian believers who have been trusting solely in the blood and righteousness of Jesus.  At no point in the long history of the church has faith ever died.  At no point has the truth been utterly covered up.  At all times and in all places the unchanging Lord Jesus has sent faithful preachers to preach the faithful word.  Sinners in need of a gracious God have found that gracious God in the preaching of the gospel.  This gospel makes no demands on the sinner, but presents to the sorrowing sinner the sin bearer, Jesus, who fully, finally, and without any doubt took away the sin of the world on the cross.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

He is the same in his sacraments.  Jesus binds himself to the holy sacraments.  If the water that is poured over our heads were poured by human authority, it would be simple water and nothing more.  But Jesus claimed all authority in heaven and on earth before giving to his church this holy sacrament.  He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.  These are Jesus’ words, and so they are confessed by his church as true words.  When Jesus stood in the Jordan and was there identified by St. John the Baptist as the Lamb of God, he became that Lamb ordained for slaughter.  There he took on himself our sins so that he could put into the waters of this sacrament his own righteousness and the saving power of his blood.  And so St. Paul teaches us in Romans 6 that we are baptized into union with Christ’s death and resurrection.  He teaches as well in Galatians 3:27 that in baptism we are clothed with Christ.  He covers us with his righteousness.

Jesus remains the same in his holy absolution.  You hear only the words of a man, but Jesus told that man to tell you that when you confess your sins that burden your conscience that man is obliged to speak words that give you the forgiveness of your sins.  Can a mere man forgive sins?  Not on your life!  But Jesus can, and he does, and he does it through the speaking of the pastor, and this is what he has been doing now ever since he breathed on his disciples on that first Easter evening and gave them this authority.

Jesus remains the same in the Holy Supper.  It has always been what Jesus has always said it is: his body given into death for us, and his blood shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.  The fact that folks cannot understand how this can be certainly doesn’t mean that it cannot be.  God is God.  What he says is so.  The bread of the Supper is not just a sign or symbol of his absent body, but it is his real body.  The body of Christ is put into the body of every communicant at the Altar, and should an unbeliever eat that bread, he will be eating Christ’s body.  Should an impenitent sinner eat that bread, he will be eating Christ’s body.  Should a Christian who in ignorance thinks the bread is only bread and not Christ’ body eat that bread, he will be eating Christ’s body.   Why?  Because it IS Christ’s body, that’s why!  This truth will remain unshaken throughout all time because Jesus cannot change and Jesus is the one who says that his Supper is his body and his blood.

The sacraments are despised.  Folks who have been faithfully taught the truth about the sacraments learn to despise them because they don’t hunger for the forgiveness they provide.  Others are taught to despise the sacraments as if they are only tokens of grace but not really means of giving us God’s grace.  But it was Jesus who said to make disciples by means of baptizing.  What is a disciple of Jesus if not a Christian?  It was Jesus who said, “Whosoever sins you forgive they are forgiven.”  It was Jesus who said, “Take eat, this is my body, drink of it all of you, this is my blood of the New Testament.”  Jesus cannot change.  His sacraments cannot change.  They remain until the end of time the saving, gracious, life giving treasures of heaven, for they bring us into union with our dear Savior, Jesus.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is the same in the way he deals with sinners.  As we celebrate 2000 years of grace, we look at the flow of history.  Consider only the history we have lived through.  Time passes by and with it so much changes before our eyes.  We see our parents grow old and die.  We see our children grow up and have children of their own.  We see the world changing so quickly that we cannot even imagine what life will be like a generation from now.  There is one constant theme that flows throughout all of history.  It is in the way that God deals with sinners.

Every monument to human greatness has fallen.  The Holy Christian Church stands.  Why?  Because Jesus came into this world to save sinners and he hasn’t finished yet.  Oh, he has finished redeeming and justifying and reconciling this sinful world to God.  That he did 2000 years ago.  But he continues to seek and to save those for whom he shed his blood so many years ago.  And he does this through his church. 

When I was a boy I heard many sermons about how we should tell others about Jesus.  At times I almost began to think that to “witness” to others was the equivalent of the 11^th Commandment.  Many people get tongue-tied and don’t know what to say.  Others feel guilty about not saying anything at all.  Some, a very few, do their best to tell folks about how Jesus has died for them and taken away their sin, but they become frustrated when the words don’t come out just right. 

The fact that God uses all of us to bring his gospel to sinners who need it doesn’t mean that all of us have the ability to preach.  But we all do have the ability to pray for our pastors.  Every Christian who has the Holy Spirit in him has the Spirit of prayer.  God answers prayer.  We all have the ability to give a portion of what God has given us in support of the work of the gospel at home and in places far away.  The money that is given in faith for this purpose is a gift that God cherishes and blesses.  And all of us have the ability to invite folks to church and to tell them where they can hear the truth and what they can read that will provide them with the truth. 

Even in this post-modern age of deep doubt and distrust of traditional Christian teaching, there is something in everyone that has never changed.  And that is a lack of knowing God.  The image of God was indeed lost in the Fall, and folks by nature fight against what is good.  They fight against God.  And it is these fighters of God who put God to their own test and who despise his law of pure love and who hate one another and worship at the altar of self-indulgence and human pride – it is these enemies of God that Jesus loves with a burning love deeper than anyone’s sin. 

You see Jesus still loves sinners!  Jesus, whose preaching on the eternal punishment in hell is stronger and more frightening than any other preacher in the Bible, loves sinners!  Why would he have borne their sin if he didn’t love them?  He loves them.  He died for them.  He loves everyone.  He died for everyone.  He calls everyone to repentance, to faith, to trust in him alone. 

He won’t change.  He never changes in the way he deals with sinners.  The proud and the impenitent he condemns.  The humbly repentant he forgives.  To hear his word of forgiveness in faith is to find heaven on earth.  Those of us who know this can testify to it.  

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  We who have known him in his holy gospel and sacraments here on earth will share his glory in heaven.  That’s the unchanging truth of our Christian faith, and it will always be true.  This is why we confess it. 

Amen

Rolf D. Preus

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