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First
Sunday in Advent
The
Installation of Joseph Abrahamson as Pastor of the Clearwater Parish
“The Pastor:
Christ’s Minister to Us”
December 2,
2001
“Then, the same day at evening, being
the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples
were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst,
and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side.
Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace to you! As the Father has
sent Me, I also send you.’ And
when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive
the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if
you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” John 20:19-23
Today is the First Sunday in Advent.
The Gospel for today is the account in St. Matthew’s Gospel of
Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem.
The donkey was a beast of burden.
On his back was the Son of God who would bear the burden of the
world’s sin. He came to
his own people and they rejected him.
His lowly appearance offended them.
They had their own ideas about what the Son of God should be
doing. When Jesus was
finally nailed to the cross and held up for scorn one wonders how many
in the crowd that screamed for his blood had been among those who sang
Hosannas to his name just a few days earlier.
Jesus came in humility because that is the only way we can meet our God.
He must humble himself. If
he came in his native glory we couldn’t bear it.
Of course we are too foolish to realize this.
It is a folly of sinners who cannot take their own sin seriously.
We foolishly think that we have problems more pressing than the
evil that exists within our souls and bubbles up into every kind of sin
of thought, word, and deed. We
think we need more money or a better job. We think we need better friends or a healthier body.
We think we need a better break and the opportunities others have
that we never had. We think
all sorts of things, and we ignore what we really need because we
don’t want to see our need.
Jesus came to serve us.
He is the One who decides the kind of service we need.
We cannot make this decision for ourselves.
Jesus said, “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but
to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.”
The verb “to minister” means to serve.
A minister is a servant. Jesus
is the suffering Servant foretold by Isaiah the prophet:
He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief. And we hid, as it
were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we
esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his
stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every
one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us
all. (Isaiah 53:3-6)
Christ’s ministry was, in a sense, completed when the LORD laid on him
the iniquity of us all. There
was no more service to be rendered to God.
The ministry of Christ to his Father as the representative of the
human race was fully accomplished.
When Jesus died in the bitter agony of bearing our sin, he gave
his life up to God as the ransom for many, that is, for the whole world
of sinners. That part of
Christ’s ministry was concluded.
Nothing more needs to be offered to God so as to placate him, or
satisfy his justice, or gain his approval.
Nothing more can be done. Any
notion of a ministry today that is designed to win over God’s heart is
a blasphemous denial of the all-sufficient merits of Christ’s blood
and righteousness. In other
words, Jesus’ ministry for us is finished, just as Jesus said it was.
But Christ’s ministry to us is not finished.
It continues to the end of time, just as Jesus promised, “Lo, I
am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
Jesus has promised to remain with his church.
This is a presence like no other.
It’s not just that Jesus lives in our hearts.
Many of our loved ones who have passed away continue to live in
our hearts. We remember
them and we feel a great affection for them.
Christ’s presence among us is different.
Jesus is here and Jesus is here to serve us.
He is here to minister to us.
By that ministry Jesus intends to save us by giving us
forgiveness of all our sins and setting us at peace with God.
Just as Christ’s first coming was under the cover of great weakness,
so is Christ’s coming to us today.
Folks didn’t believe in him then because his manner of coming
was so unpretentious, so common looking, so very ordinary. And so folks don’t believe in him today for the same
reasons. But Jesus comes
today, make no mistake about it. Jesus
serves today. His ministry
for us was finished when he suffered and died.
His ministry to us is here and now.
Jesus serves us, he ministers to us, through the ministers that he calls
and puts into office. On
the day that Jesus rose from the dead his disciples were huddled
together behind locked doors. He
said to those fearful men, “Peace be with you.”
He said it again. He
sent them out into the world as his ministers.
Just as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends his ministers.
He breathed on them the Holy Spirit. He said, “Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the
sins of any, they are forgiven them.
If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The authority to forgive sins in Jesus’ name is the greatest treasure
in the world. Jesus gave
this authority to his first ministers on that first Easter Sunday.
He gave this ministry to his Holy, Christian Church on earth.
This is why and how you can know that when you, the Clearwater Parish,
called this man, Joseph Abrahamson, to be your pastor that God Himself
was calling him into this holy office.
Did not Jesus say, “As the Father has sent me, I also send
you”? And didn’t Jesus
give to them the Holy Spirit? Therefore,
wherever God’s church exists, there is Jesus, there is the Father who
sent him, there is the Holy Spirit, and there is the authority of the
Triune God to call and ordain pastors.
You need to know without a doubt that the call of the Clearwater
Parish to Pastor Abrahamson was and remains the call of our gracious God
into the office that God has given to his church.
Our Lord Jesus instituted the pastoral office when he breathed on his
disciples and gave them the office of the keys.
Earlier, he had said to Peter, “I will give to you the keys of
the kingdom. Whatever you
bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth
will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)
“I will give you the keys,” he said.
Then he went to the cross as the Suffering Servant to earn those
keys. Then, on the day he
rose from the dead, having crushed Satan’s head under his feet, he
gave the keys to his Holy Christian Church on earth.
Note what Jesus said. He
didn’t simply say to those men, there is forgiveness to be given.
There is a message to be shared.
You go and tell people about this forgiveness.
You go share this message. That’s
not what Jesus said and that’s not what his ministers do.
Jesus said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven
them. If you retain the
sins of any, they are retained.”
This is what his ministers do!
Jesus gave authority to those men.
He gave them the authority to open heaven and to close heaven.
He gave them authority to speak words that would clothe sinners
with the righteousness of Christ. He
gave them authority to speak words that would condemn the impenitent to
hell. When your pastor preaches Christ to you, it is Christ who is
preaching to you through him. He
speaks with Christ’s divine authority.
And just look at the men to whom Jesus gave this authority!
Whether you’re talking about the ten men huddled in fear in the
upper room behind locked doors or you’re talking about this pastor who
sits before you this morning, consider what kind of men God calls to
give out the forgiveness of sins! Why they are nothing but sinners themselves!
They stumble through life like all other sinners.
They doubt God’s promises.
They are humbled again and again and again by their own failures.
They are beset by every temptation of the flesh, the devil, and
the sinful world. They
don’t make much of an impression on this world, either.
They don’t say anything original.
They say only those things God gave them to say and that’s
nothing more nor less than what God already gave the original pastors,
the apostles, to say.
Yet these ordinary men with no more smarts, no deeper piety, and no
greater faith than many of those they serve say words to you that bring
to you the full forgiveness of all your sins.
They speak words that come from Jesus.
They speak for Jesus. They
have nothing to say but what Jesus says.
And you need to listen to them because you need to listen to
Jesus! Jesus has called
them and Jesus who is your minister and the Shepherd and Bishop of your
soul wants you to listen to the faithful preaching and teaching of your
pastor. Jesus put him there to say what Jesus tells him to say.
So be sure of one thing. You
need a pastor.
And your pastor needs you. Not
just because there can be no pastor without a parish (after all, if you
all disappeared your pastor would no longer be a pastor, for there can
hardly be a shepherd without any sheep!)
But your pastor needs you to support him. He needs to make a living and provide for his family as you
all do. He needs your
prayers. When Jesus teaches
us to pray, “Hallowed by thy name,” he is teaching us to pray for
our pastors. God’s name is hallowed when the word of God is taught in
its truth and purity, so we pray that God will keep our pastor as his
minister. St. Paul tells
the Christians at the Corinthian congregation that they should regard
the pastors as ministers of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.
Only when the pastor is the minister of Christ first and foremost
can he faithfully serve Christ’s church.
The last thing you need is a man-pleaser who says only what he
knows folks want to hear.
Most of all, your pastor needs you to require of him that he do his
duty. His duty is to teach
you God’s word. But the
teaching given to your pastor to teach is not like any other teaching. The gospel the pastor teaches is joined to the font and to
the altar. That is, he is
preaching to those who belong to Jesus by holy baptism.
Listen to the inspired words that St. Paul said to the pastors in
Ephesus recorded for us in Acts 20:28.
“Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among
which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of
God which he purchased with his own blood.”
The church doesn’t belong to the pastor.
The pastor is always the pastor of the baptized, that is, those
who belong to Jesus.
And the pastor teaches a gospel that sends us to the Lord’s Supper.
The pastor isn’t here to give us lessons or lectures so that
those who get the highest marks can call themselves the best Christians.
The pure doctrine that the pastor must preach to you is a
teaching of forgiveness of your sins that comes from the body and the
blood of Christ. This is why Jesus gave to the pastoral office the duty, not
only to preach and to teach, but also to administer the Lord’s Supper.
This sacrament of Christ’s holy body and blood is God’s gift
to us here in this world of sin. It is the same body that Jesus gave for us on Calvary.
Here, Jesus gives it to us to eat.
It is the same blood that Jesus shed for us on the cross to wash
away our sins and to seal our peace with God.
Here, Jesus gives it to us to drink.
Now listen to me. Please listen carefully.
Do you think – do you honestly think – that the same Jesus
who gives you his body and his blood to eat and to drink will ever turn
you away when you come to him with your sinful and broken hearts and
your doubts and your failures? Is
it possible? Do you think
that you could ever fall so far that the Lord Jesus who willingly gave
up his body and blood for you and willingly gives his body and blood to
you would turn away from you and reject you in your sin when you asked
him for forgiveness? Oh, no! Never!
Jesus would not, could not, reject the sinner who desires from
him the absolution of his sins.
And so neither will Pastor Abrahamson.
He won’t do it, brothers and sister in Christ, because he works
for Jesus and he speaks for Jesus and he forgives sins in the stead and
by the command of Jesus. This
is how you are to regard this man whom God has given to you as your
pastor. You are to regard
him as the one whose duty it is always to speak the truth to you from
Jesus. When he lays out the
law plainly and clearly know that it is your Lord himself who would show
you your sin and your need. Your
pastor’s opinions don’t matter much, but when he preaches God’s
law to you, you’d better take that to heart!
Those who will not repent of their sins need to be told by their
pastors that God says heaven is closed to them.
And when the pastor speaks the words of God’s forgiveness,
those who are sorry for their sins need to know that the pastor’s
words are from Jesus and they are true.
The One who came not to be ministered unto but to minister and
gave his life a ransom for many, continues to minister to us through his
called and ordained ministers who preach for him, baptize by his
authority, and give to the baptized the body and the blood that
guarantee everlasting life.
Jesus came in such a humble way, hiding his glory under a cloak of deep
humility as he rode a donkey into the Holy City.
It shouldn’t surprise us to hear that he chooses so to come
still today as he speaks through sinful men to establish, nourish, and
save his Holy Christian Church on earth. Faith sees in the man on the donkey the Savior of sinners.
And so, we sinners, desiring above all else our Savior Jesus,
look to our pastors to proclaim to us this same Jesus.
We will love and honor them when they do, for we know that what
we do for one of the least of Jesus’ brothers we do for him.
Amen.
Rev. Rolf D. Preus
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