Palmarum—Suffering Now, Glory to Come
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“And they put over Jesus’ head the accusation written against Him, ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’ Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.
And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself. If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’
Likewise, the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, “I am the Son of God.”’
Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.”
Our Lord Jesus suffered in His conception as a vulnerable child in His mother’s womb. He suffered as a crying child, as an infant. He suffered threats upon His life, even as a young child.
When He had come to adulthood, He suffered in fasting and the temptations of the devil in the wilderness. Right after His baptism, He suffered the lawyers, scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees who constantly sought to test Him and catch Him in some crime.
He suffered their constant judgmental glances and thoughts as our Lord ate with tax collectors and sinners. And as He forgave sins and healed on the Sabbath, when our Lord out of great love for His human creatures healed them, He suffered the accusations of crowds of unbelievers that said He performed great miracles, not by the finger of God, but by the power of the devil and his evil angels.
In the last hours our Lord lives before He is put to death to save us, He is betrayed by His own disciple, unjustly arrested, falsely convicted of the capital crime of blasphemy, violently beaten and spat upon. He endured the mocking of the Roman soldiers who crowned Him with thorns, clothed Him in a purple robe, and acted like they were bowing to Him and worshiping Him, acknowledging Him as the King of the Jews.
He is abandoned by His closest friends and disciples, denied by them, rejected by His own people, handed over to pagans to be murdered, made to carry the instrument of His death to a hill outside the city, stripped naked, nailed to a cross.
Finally, as our Lord is languishing, as He is finally fixed on the cross, past the point of no return, the suffering continues as He bears the wrath of God the Father on the cross for our sins and the sins of those who tortured Him, mocked Him, and rejected Him. He continues to suffer their blasphemy, wagging heads and reviling. Even the two robbers nailed to the cross along with Him, who would soon have their legs broken and die with our Lord in the same miserable death, even they reviled Him with the same things.
What happens to the physical body of Jesus in His earthly ministry recorded in the Gospels, in His passion and death, whatever happens to His physical body will and must happen to His mystical body. That is the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, all who believe in the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who confess the Lord Jesus as their God and Savior from sin and death.
What happens to Christ’s physical body will and must happen to us who belong to His mystical body, us who have been joined to Christ in Holy Baptism.
First Corinthians 12 says, “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ and members individually.”
We are so joined to Christ as His true body that He confesses that what we suffer on earth is suffered by Him. When St. Paul was still called Saul and he was on his way to Damascus to find Christians, and whether they be men or women, bring them bound to Jerusalem for being Christians, Jesus stops him on this road and says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
And Saul asks Him, “Who are You, Lord?”
And the Lord says, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Not why are you persecuting My people? Why are you persecuting Me?
What happens to Christ’s body will and must happen to those who are members of His body. And what happens to the members of His body will and must happen to Christ.
The Scriptures tell us that the Christian will suffer. St. Paul says in Second Timothy that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer.
If you confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior and believe in the heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will suffer. If you strive to bear the fruit of good works in keeping with repentance, you will suffer in this in various ways.
If you prioritize this gathering of Christians, the hearing of God’s Word and Divine Service and catechesis and the receiving of the Holy Sacrament over relaxing or getting ready for the week or getting ready for a trip, recovering from a trip, over youth sports or spectator sports, over family visiting from out of town that do not want to come to church with you, if you make God, His Word, and His Church and His gifts the highest priority in your life, even over your own spouse and children and others, all things, if it becomes the highest priority for you, you will suffer.
If you commit to praying with your family and reading God’s Word together every day, you will suffer.
If on the basis of God’s Word you warn your neighbor, whether they be family, friends, coworkers, and the like, if you warn them about the need to repent from certain sinful actions and be joined to a faithful congregation and be served by a pastor who preaches God’s Word faithfully and administers Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper according to Christ’s institution, if you call them to repentance and to a life in these things, you will suffer in all of this.
You will miss out on some worldly benefits.
You might not move up as far in your company because you were unwilling to sacrifice Sundays and time with your family in God’s Word, prayer, and quality time.
You might not get to live where you want or go to the church that you would like to go to because it is not faithful or there is not a faithful church in the place you currently live.
You might not get to live where you want because there is not a faithful church close enough, or because you know that the way a Christian ought to live, devoid of immoderation and covetousness, means that you will not have the kind of lifestyle that the unbelieving world around you strives after.
You might suffer in that way.
You might be more stressed on Sunday night or Monday morning because you decided it was more important to go to Divine Service and to stick around for catechesis when it is offered than it was to skip or leave early to pack and get ready for the week.
You may feel bored, anxious, uncomfortable, or mentally and physically drained because you came to Divine Service and stayed for Family Catechesis even though your own sense of self-care and well-being thought otherwise.
Your kids might end up being less successful in athletics because you refused to let sports take priority over Divine Service, catechesis, youth, or midweek services.
Your mornings might feel more rushed or you might be late to work or school sometimes because you decided you would rather be late than skip praying with your family.
Your evening might feel a little more chaotic and you might feel more exhausted or your kids might make you want to pull your hair out because you insisted on praying and reading the Bible and memorizing the Catechism, hymns, and Scripture together as a family before going to bed.
You may be insulted, lied about, avoided, because people see your Christian behavior and write you off as a goody two-shoes or a Ned Flanders type or an Angela from The Office type of person, a Jesus freak, one of those hypocritical religious types.
You might lose friendships, or your relationships with certain family members might grow cold because you rightly called them to repentance according to God’s Word, speaking the truth in humility and gentleness, and they refused to hear that Word and keep it and decided to cast you out and exclude you in response.
That may very well happen to you.
You might suffer just for holding to Christian positions against abortion, unjust wars, homosexuality, transgenderism, free market capitalism devoid of God and His demand to the neighbor, or socialism or communism or some other system devoid of the same things.
You may suffer as a wife under a harsh, bitter, lazy, or seemingly incompetent husband.
You may suffer the same under the authority of a ruler, employer, pastor, or parent.
You may suffer as a leader, whether ruler, employer, pastor, husband, or parent, and having to deal gently and patiently with contentious, overly critical, disrespectful, or rebellious citizens, workers, parishioners, wives, or children.
If you desire to live a godly life in this world, you will suffer no matter what.
If you strive to live as a Christian and make living out your Christian faith through active participation in this congregation and bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, regular reception of the Means of Grace, working out your salvation with fear and trembling according to your various stations in life, always being ready to give a defense for the Christian hope that lives in you and to speak the truth in love according to that station in life, if you do all of this and it trumps all other parts of your life, you will suffer.
You will miss out on certain financial, social, physical, and mental benefits by the world’s standards, and you will be hated by people, excluded, reviled, and your name will be cast out as evil, unloving, or some other label meant to delegitimize the truth of God’s Word as we receive it in every single word written by the prophets and apostles in the Bible.
If you live as a true Christian according to the Word of God, you will suffer. According to the Scripture, you not only will suffer, you must suffer.
Jesus tells us, “He who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”
Paul and Barnabas, when strengthening the converts in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, said to them, “We must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God.”
Must.
It is not optional if you are a Christian, if you believe that Jesus died for your sins, rose from the dead, and is coming again to raise up all the dead and bring you and all believers in Christ to the eternal kingdom.
If you believe all that and live as one who believes all that, you will suffer. Indeed, you must suffer.
This is the case because we who believe and are baptized are members of the body of Christ, and whatever the Scriptures say Christ endures in His physical body will and must be endured by His mystical body—you.
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.
“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and be killed.”
“And how is it written concerning the Son of Man, that He must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?”
“He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.”
As the Lord Jesus said, the Scripture foretold that He must suffer. So also He says that this means we will suffer too.
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household?”
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”
You will suffer. You must suffer.
The Lord says so, and His suffering and death show you what you can expect when you are a member of His body as a baptized and believing Christian.
What He endures and suffers, we will and must endure and suffer, each in our own way, according to our calling, each to varying degrees, but no Christian will avoid it and remain a Christian.
None.
“All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
Persecution from the unbelieving world, a rebellious spouse, disobedient children, an abusive spouse, the lies in their own mind, their own sinful flesh telling them that they do not have time or head space or bandwidth for God’s Word or prayer right this second because of their job being too crazy.
You will suffer these things.
Your kids will not get up, or you will not feel up to it, or they cannot miss their sports or practice or game—at least you think.
The persecution can come like it did for saints Peter and Paul and so many saints who stood before governors and kings and suffered death for the sake of Christ.
But for most Christians, their suffering, persecution, and death for the sake of Jesus will take place in more subtle ways—more subtle.
But the choices we make with our priorities and what we are willing to suffer or not have just as much eternal significance as if your head was on the chopping block.
They are that important.
The Law and the Prophets foretold that the Messiah would suffer. Jesus Himself said that He must suffer. Jesus did suffer.
And what happens to His physical body will, must, and does happen to His mystical body, His congregation of saints here on earth.
That same Law and Prophets and that same Lord Jesus also foretold that on the third day Christ would rise from the dead, not as a spirit or a ghost, but His physical body would rise from the dead.
And that physical body of Christ did rise from the dead. This is absolutely true.
And the Scriptures foretold that this Lord Jesus would reign forever on the throne of His father David, and His kingdom would have no end.
And this has happened. Most certainly He sits at the right hand of the Father. He rules over all things.
All authority in heaven and on earth that belonged to the Son of God before He took on human flesh as He is God, He also has in His physical body as the God-Man—all authority, all rule, all power and might, all glory.
“Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
What happens to the physical body of Jesus in His resurrection, in His glorification, in His being seated at the right hand of God, in reigning forever and ever—all this that truly happens to the physical body of Jesus will and must happen to His mystical body—you and me.
When we pass through this valley of sorrow and death and tears with our Lord Jesus, when we take up our cross daily and follow after Him, this is not to suffer just for suffering’s sake.
Our end is Christ’s end.
Because we are His, His own body, His own flesh and bones in Holy Baptism.
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.”
Jesus tells us that those of this world who persecute us unjustly for the Christian faith will be made by Him to come and worship before our feet and know for a fact that He has loved us.
Unless they repent, the Lord will take vengeance against those who commit evil against His people by words and works that cause them distress, sorrow, and pain.
Unless these enemies repent, the Lord will destroy those who pressure you at work, school, and elsewhere to place vain things that pass away with this world’s imminent destruction over and above Christ.
And the things included in that list are your flesh, including your brain, including your mental health, and what the world says about it taking priority—even that.
And the Lord will punish those enemies of His Church who try to trick you into thinking that that is more important than being here, to place these vain worldly things that are passing away above Christ, His preaching, His teaching, His Sacraments, and this gathering.
Through Christ’s suffering and death, Satan’s head has been bruised, and the Scriptures tell us, “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”
Under your feet—you who belong to His mystical body.
Christ suffered and died to save you in His physical body. He rose again and reigns at the right hand of God for you in His physical body.
So you can know for certain that everything that He has suffered and gained belongs to you.
You will and must suffer as His body. You will and must die to sin as His body. And you will and must live and reign for all eternity as His body.
Christ will return very soon, sooner than any of us expect, to bring all His mystical body into the new and heavenly Jerusalem.
All of us who have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world—all of us shall experience no more cross or curse.
“The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.”
Because the Lord has made us members of His body. He has washed us from our sins in His own blood. He has made us kings and priests to God the Father.
To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Take up your cross, whatever that cross may be, knowing that you who suffer as a Christian with the Lord Jesus, who suffers with you in it—know that you who suffer with Jesus here and now will certainly be glorified with Him hereafter, without a doubt.
He who has washed you in His blood and given you a death like His in Holy Baptism will certainly give you a resurrection, a glory, and an everlasting kingdom with Him.
He will do it.
Let us pray. O Jesus, Son of the living God and Captain of life, You were stripped naked in the place of corruption on Golgotha, pierced in hand and foot, and hung up like a cursed worm between heaven and earth to redeem us from the ancient venomous wound of the serpent in Eden and from the curse of the Law, and instead to bring us the eternal blessing. Alas, our faithful Savior, how great Your suffering is, how heavy Your pain, how numerous Your torments, how deep Your wounds, how bitter and stinging Your death, and yet how fervent Your love. O our Lord Jesus, who did patiently die for us on the cross and gain us salvation and the eternal kingdom of heaven for us all, draw us to You as You did say of Your crucifixion, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” Fix us to Your holy cross by true faith and fervent love for the sake of Your bloody crucifixion. Help us to crucify our sinful flesh together with its wicked lusts and desires that they may not have dominion in us with their power. Comfort us also when for the sake of Your holy Word and Name we are afflicted, tormented, and crucified by the world, and pierced through with venomous nails of falsehood, or else hindered, hemmed in, and constrained in our calling and Christian resolve. O how can we grow reluctant or faint-hearted in our cross when we see You on the cross, since You have blessed our cross with Your cross and made it a holy thing. Surely it is better to suffer with You and afterward to reign with You forever than to have good days with the world and afterward go to the devil. O Lord, by Your cross and death strengthen us in all distress and deliver us from everlasting death. For You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
For more about who we are and what we believe, visit the St. Thomas homepage.
