Quasimodo Geniti—Peace in the Holy Wounds of Jesus
Transcribed by TurboScribe.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus came and stood in their 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. Christ's words here establish what's called the office of the keys. Binding unrepentant sinners to their sins as long as they do not repent.
And loosing every sin. Releasing the repentant from every sin when they repent and want to do better. And the use of this binding and loosing key in the church by her ministers is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us himself.
We know this binding and loosing key, the office and power to bind unrepentant sinners to their sins and to release the repentant from their sins. We know that this was given by Christ to his apostles. From John chapter 20 here.
He also, you heard it in the gospel, The Lord Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
So we know that he gave that power and authority to the apostles. We are also certain that the Lord has given this binding and loosing key to Saint Peter in particular, based on Matthew chapter 16. Where our Lord Jesus, after Saint Peter, makes the good confession that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God.
After this, Jesus says, you are the after he says that, Jesus says to him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I tell you, singular, that you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it.
I will give you, singular, Saint Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you, singular, bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you, singular, Saint Peter, loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
That's Matthew 16. And we can be certain that these keys to bind unbelievers, the unrepentant to their sins and release believers from their sins, was given to the entire church when Christ spoke these words in Matthew 18. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you.
If he listens to you, you have regained your brother. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.
And if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. Amen, I tell you, whatever you, plural, so y'all, bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you, plural, loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Amen, I tell you again, if two of you on earth agree to ask for anything, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. In fact, where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am among them. John chapter 20, Jesus gives the keys to the apostles.
Matthew 16, he gives the keys individually to St. Peter. Matthew 18, he gives the keys to the church. St. Paul involves the entire church in Corinth in exercising the key of binding, and then eventually loosing the sins of this open and manifest sins of a man who was taking his stepmother as his romantic partner.
In 1 Corinthians, because the man refused to repent, St. Paul told the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 5, even though I am absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as one who is present, I have already decided about the man who has done such a thing. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together and my spirit is there, along with the power of our Lord Jesus, hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that their spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.
Whoever's sins you retain are retained. Immediately following this charge are the words that we heard in our Alleluia verse this morning, and we heard it on Easter and in the prayer offices during Easter season. You hear it all the time from 1 Corinthians 5. This next part, your glorying is not good.
Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Talking about this one man that was sexually immoral that was in the congregation. Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. And then St. Paul will go on to say this. When I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral, I did not at all mean the sexually immoral people of the world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world.
But in this situation I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother, so a fellow Christian, if he is sexually immoral or greedy or an idolater or verbally abusive or a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. For what business is it of mine to judge people outside the church? Do you not judge those inside? God will judge the people outside the church.
Purge the wicked man from among you. Like he said about the leaven, purge out the old leaven. This judgment that we are to exercise toward those in the church, not outside the church but in the church, and the purging or removal of the wicked man from among us that St. Paul speaks of here is what the church calls excommunication.
This excommunication consists in this, that open and hard-hearted sinners are not admitted to the Lord's Supper and other fellowship of the church until they amend their lives and avoid sin. If we break up the word excommunication into its basic parts, you've got ex, which means out of, and communication or communicatio, that's communion, participation, fellowship. Those are the two words.
So you could say the person that's to be excommunicated is to be placed out of communion with the church until they repent. This use of the binding key is a last resort when calling a sinner to repentance, but it isn't the only way we see the keys exercised in the Christian congregation. There are multiple ways in which our Lord Jesus would have us exercise both the binding and loosing of sins, placing a person out of communion or in communion with the congregation at one time or another.
Pastors execute the office of keys to bind unrepentant sinners to their sins and warn them to repent so that they would turn from sin, trust in Christ, and live. Pastors loose repentant Christians from their sins so that they would be strengthened and confirmed in the knowledge that Jesus truly has taken away all their sins and blotted them out in the blood of His cross. Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross.
Like He said this morning, peace to you. He declared this peace to the disciples, showing them His wounds in the gospel this morning. And He declared the same peace and declares it to you, to all of us.
He declares the same peace by His wounds in the sacraments, the Paschal Mysteries. He shows us His wounds in these. He shows us His wounds in Holy Baptism since Scripture says that baptism is being washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, being washed in water and the Word by Christ who loved us and gave Himself in death for us as the Pascha, the Passover.
He shows us His wounds when the pastor absolves us of our sins in confession and absolution. This is certain because our Lord establishes this absolution, the holy office of the keys, when He foretells His death and resurrection in Matthew 16, when He had to end up rebuking St. Peter just after that great confession. And that's the Lord's Passover, His death and resurrection.
And He also establishes that office of the keys when He appears to the disciples in His resurrection in John 20. And He shows us His wounds in the Holy Supper because the Holy Supper, the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, is truly His body, which is given in death for us. And it's truly His blood, which He poured out for our sins, the blood that He offered by the eternal Spirit to God the Father to take away God's wrath for our sins.
The paschal mysteries, they're all connected to the wounds of Jesus. Every time you remember your baptism or you receive holy absolution or you partake of the body and blood of Jesus, Jesus is standing there showing you His wounds and saying peace to you. The Lord wants His wounds to bring us gladness in His Word and sacraments, not wailing or fear.
That's what He wants. He wants it to bring us gladness when we see His wounds and hear Him speak, just like the disciples reacted in gladness when they saw His wounds and heard Him say peace. They were afraid, but then they rejoiced with gladness when they saw His wounds and heard Him say peace.
And that's what God wants. Christ wants to bring us blessings by His wounds, not cursing, forgiveness, not judgment. And that's the point of Christ giving the keys and the exercise of those binding and loosing keys in the church by her called pastors.
This is why those who attend churches that teach false doctrine and have no intention of avoiding those gatherings in the future are not admitted to the Lord's Supper in this congregation. Scripture says, watch out for those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the teaching that you learned and keep away from them. The Bible says that.
If I give no warning and allow such a person who may be a sincere Christian, just acting in ignorance, didn't realize the church that they belonged to was teaching false teaching, or didn't realize that that was really important, did not know that passage I just read to you from Romans 16. If I don't warn them, I don't say something, I just allow them to come up in that ignorance and partake of the Lord's Supper, I would not be warning them as a watchman, like God told Ezekiel to warn the people as a watchman. I would be an unfaithful steward giving food out at the improper time.
Because it's not a no, never. It's not yet. But if I just gave it out in a situation like that, I'd be an unfaithful steward giving food out to someone who wasn't ready for it yet.
I'd be derelict in my office as one who is to exercise the keys, and I'll have to give an account for it on the last day, as Hebrews 13, 17 says. This is why a pastor would withhold the Lord's Supper from a member of that church whom he has admonished to repent of this or that sin and who refuses to repent. They may not be excommunicated yet because that sin may not be known to the whole congregation.
So it's not public. But if that person were to be communed by that pastor, even when the pastor knows and has admonished them to repent and knows that they're not repenting of that sin, and so is an unbeliever, and the pastor still gives them the Lord's Supper, he would be unfaithful in his stewardship of God's mysteries, derelict in his duty that he's called to in exercising the office of the keys in the congregation. Rather than warning them and driving them to repentance by withholding the blood of the covenant from them until they repent, the pastor in this situation would be confirming them in sin, in their trampling, as Hebrews 10 says, in their trampling of the Son of God underfoot, counting the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, an empty thing through their unrepentance.
This pastor would make the wounds of Jesus a curse upon such one. And that would be a disaster, a tragedy, the opposite of what the Lord Jesus wants. But I would also be just as unfaithful in my stewardship of the keys of the kingdom if I were to withhold the precious body and blood from a true, believing, and baptized Christian who confesses their sins, repents of them, trusts in Jesus for salvation, believes that the actual body and blood of Jesus are given in the sacrament for their forgiveness, truly desires to receive that gift, and confesses the faith that's preached and taught here.
If I were to withhold the Lord's Supper from such a one, I would also be derelict in my exercise of the keys. That is a time, the proper time, to give that food to a person. A pastor must instruct a person in the faith, examine their confession of faith and their public life to see as best as they can through conversation and observation that that person knows what it means to examine themselves, that they are an orthodox Christian in faith and life, and that they believe that Jesus' true body and blood are in the sacrament and it's for the forgiveness of sins, and that they desire this for themselves because they know they're a sinner and they need it.
And that's it. That's it. I didn't say one word that maybe we thought I'd say.
The C word, confirmation. Confirmation isn't in the Bible. There isn't an age requirement for receiving the Lord's Supper.
You do not have to memorize, although I highly recommend it, you do not have to memorize Luther's small catechism before receiving the body and blood of Jesus. Confirmation and a period of intense instruction in a young adult's life is very valuable in edifying, and it's why we have senior youth. And I encourage you to really invest in that and really pour into your children if they're that age group.
And so it's very beneficial. But to make something that is neither commanded nor forbidden into a prerequisite for receiving the fruit of Christ's holy wounds in the Lord's Supper is problematic. Imposing a burden that the Lord has not imposed.
Setting up a standard that he's not set up. Traditions are powerful and traditions can be valuable. They might, and if they're ingrained, it might take time to move in a better direction.
You don't go in and burn everything to the ground if there's a tradition that's set up as this prerequisite in a way that's not right for receiving the body and blood of Jesus like confirmation in some churches. But a faithful exercise of the keys in administering the Supper to Christians who belong to an Orthodox congregation simply requires that those who desire to receive the Lord's Supper be instructed, examined, and absolved by the pastor who is administering the body and blood of Jesus. Biblically, that's it.
As Luther put it in his reforms of the worship service of his time, he said this about communing of the lay people. They should request in person of the pastor to receive the Lord's Supper so that he may be able to know both their names and manner of life and let the pastor not admit the applicants unless they can give a reason for their faith and can answer questions about what the Lord's Supper is, what its benefits are, and what they expect to derive from it. In other words, they should be able to repeat the words of institution from memory and to explain that they are coming because they are troubled by the consciousness of their sin, the fear of death, or some other evil such as temptation of the flesh, the world, or the devil, and now hunger and thirst to receive the word and sign of grace and salvation from the Lord himself through the ministry of the pastor so that they may be consoled and comforted.
This was Christ's purpose when he in priceless love gave and instituted this Supper and said, take and eat, etc. But I think it enough for the applicants for communion to be examined or explored once a year. Indeed, a man may be so understanding that he needs to be questioned only once in his lifetime or not at all.
For by this practice we want to guard, lest the worthy and unworthy alike rush to the Lord's Supper. That's the key thing here. We want the wounds of Jesus to be a blessing, not a curse to us.
And so there's an accountability. The scriptures say, let a man examine himself about the Lord's Supper. And that is not a license for you to come up no matter what and just take the Lord's body and blood.
It's a warning that even if you have been examined by your pastor, even if you have been taught the faith, even if you did memorize once upon a time the Catechism and you got confirmed, every time you partake of the Lord's Supper, before you partake of it, examine yourself. It's a serious thing. You want to partake of it worthily.
Do I believe this is the body and blood of Jesus? Do I believe I'm a sinner in need of the body and blood of Jesus for forgiveness? Am I withholding forgiveness from people? Am I living in unrepentant sin that I need to do something about, confess, and be forgiven for? You ought to examine yourself in that way, and that's what I've told Sarah and Olivia. But just because they might receive the Lord's Supper for the first time today doesn't mean that if they show up for divine service next Sunday and the Sunday after that for the rest of their life, that every Sunday they must go up there and receive the body and blood. There may be Sundays we ought to cross our arms as godly Christians examining ourselves.
So it's a warning. But before you ever partake of the Lord's Supper, a pastor ought to, by virtue of the office given to him by Jesus, his responsibility as a watchman, the fact that I'm going to have to give an account of how I've cared for souls, I ought to do the best I can to make sure that whoever's coming up here understands what it means to examine themselves. At least, you know, Luther says once, maybe.
Or maybe not at all if they're super smart. But I have to do it. I have to, as best as I can, know the people coming up here understand what that means.
It's a conversation. But it's my responsibility laid on me by the Lord Jesus. And it's a way that the keys are exercised in the church.
Because there are two ways, and only two ways, to behold the wounds of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus. There are only two possible outcomes, rewards or results, when a person views the wounds of our crucified and risen Lord. Whether it be here and now in the preaching and the sacraments that we behold his wounds, or on the last day when Christ comes down on the clouds of heaven in great glory.
We either behold the wounds of our Lord as an empty thing through unrepentance and unbelief, or we behold the wounds of our Lord as the precious trophies of our redemption and salvation. The end, reward, or result when a person views the wounds of our crucified and risen Lord as an empty thing are wailing, weeping, and mourning, and fear, and despair. Or if they view them as the trophies of their redemption, their reward, their reaction, the end is eternal gladness, joy, and amazement.
Beholding the wounds of our Lord Jesus, depending on the person looking at and considering these wounds, can be either a curse or a blessing. It all depends on the presence or lack of true repentance, true contrition over their sins and faith in the person and work of Jesus brought about in a person by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. If a person lives in unrepentance, they have no sorrow or regret concerning their sins.
They intend to go on sinning the next chance they get. They do not believe they need the wounds of Jesus to be healed of their eternally terminal disease of being a sinner. For such a person, the wounds of our Lord Jesus are seen as worthless in this life.
And if such a person dies in that state, in that state of unbelief, their sins are retained. They're locked and chained to them. They are not born away for them.
If that is how they enter into eternity, then they will have this experience as they behold the wounds of our Lord on the last day, the experience of the unbelieving nations, where it says in Revelation, Look, the Lord Jesus is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, including those who pierced Him. And all the nations of the earth will mourn because of Him. Yes, amen.
Or as the church sings, Every eye shall now behold Him, robed in glorious majesty. Those who set at naught and sold Him, pierced and nailed Him to a tree, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall their true Messiah see. That's the binding key.
But if a person is sorry for their sins and desires, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to do better, if they know they are sinners, deserve temporal death and eternal damnation, and cannot free themselves from this condition, if they put all their trust in the holy wounds of Jesus, His peacemaking and sin-destroying wounds, and they hunger and thirst for the righteousness that He gives in His precious body and blood, such a person is released from every single sin they have ever committed or will ever commit, even the sins of which we are not aware, all of them completely loosed, taken away, forgiven. The person who enters into eternity in that saving faith, having their sins loosed, beholds the wounds of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus on the last day in a very different way. They see them, and they say to Him who loves us and has freed us and loosed us from our sins by His own blood and made us a kingdom and priests to God His Father, to Him be glory and the power forever. Amen.
And they'll sing a different stanza of that hymn.
The dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears,
Cause of endless exultation
To his ransomed worshipers;
With what rapture,
With what rapture,
With what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars.
That is how we will view the wounds of Jesus, us who have had our sins loosed by His blood.
Let us pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your inexpressible grace. For the sake of Your Son, You have given us the Holy Gospel and have instituted the Holy Sacraments, that we may have comfort and forgiveness of sin. Pour out Your Holy Spirit on us, that we may heartily believe Your Word and through the Holy Sacraments, day by day, strengthen our faith until finally we obtain salvation. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.
For more information about who we are and what we believe, visit the St. Thomas homepage.
