Text: John 5:31-39 I. N. I. Sermon #1843

Lord God, Your Word fills us with the joy of believing in the One whom You have sent for our salvation. We have heard Your voice declaring us forgiven of all our sins and also righteous through the holiness of Your Son. Not only are we informed of these blessed works of our Savior in our place, but through Your powerfully effective Word we possess even now eternal life. Prepare our hearts aright to celebrate once again the birth of our precious Savior. Amen.

[Jesus said:] “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true.There is another who bears witness about me, andI know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.Not thatthe testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.He was a burning andshining lamp, andyou were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.Butthe testimony that I have is greater than that of John. Forthe works that the Father has given meto accomplish, the very works that I am doing,bear witness about me thatthe Father has sent me.And the Father who sent mehas himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard,his form you have never seen,andyou do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; andit is they that bear witness about me”

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our salvation. Amen.

In Christ Jesus, the holy One sent by the Father for our salvation, dear fellow redeemed:

Did you ever notice that in our Hymnary when we sing the fourth stanza of“Now sing we, now rejoice” we do not have the common refrain – “Oh that we were there!”.It is like the spiritual“Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” What may be implied is that being present in the stable standing next to the manger is the same as the spiritual implying that being present at the foot of the cross on Calvary would bring us closer to Jesus. But our Lord teaches us much differently. He draws closer to us in Word and in Sacrament instead.

The Jerusalem unbelievers in our text were physically close to Jesus. They had just witnessed the healing of a lame man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. This only caused them to want to kill Jesus all the more, especially because He was “calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”

Besides challenging their refusal to believe the witnesses of His divine identity, like John the Baptizer and the heavenly Father based on the miracles He did, Jesus brought up the fact that they search the Scriptures which testify about Him. Sadly, they did not find Him there. As we now prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ-child, let us not wish that we could be transported back over 2,000 years ago to Bethlehem, but rejoice that: Scripture Isthe Cradle Bearing the Precious Bundle of Eternal Joyfor us right here and now.

Martin Luther is credited for the expression:“The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.”It is, after all, what Jesus teaches in our text: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; andit is they that bear witness about me”. What was true for the Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ day is still true for us today. Throughout the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, Christ Jesus is the heart and center of all that we read. It is not a dead letter book, but a book through which the Holy Spirit works, so that it gives us life in Jesus’ name.

We might ask ourselves the question – “why did these enemies of Jesus refuse to come to Jesus and find the life He so freely offered them?” The answer is found in the natural condition of all sinners. By nature we are proud beasts demanding that our creator God accept us for who we are. Most of you do not remember when you were ruled by your sinful flesh, because many of you were baptized in the first few weeks of your life as an infant. But there are some of you who remember your arrogant approach to God because you were converted and received the life of Christ in adulthood. So some of you could testify to the rest of us, what it was like thinking about your relationship with God your Creator but knew not Christ and how you assumed God would look upon you as being sufficiently righteous on your own before Him.

However, all of us, if we are honest, whether given this eternal life in Christ early or later in our earthly lives, still struggle with our sinful natures. From there, deep within each of us, we are tempted to look down upon others thinking that God too must notice how superior we are in attitude and behavior. Consider the Pharisees who sent a delegation of priests and Levites to John in our Gospel lesson. As much as they had concerns about John, it was beneath them to travel out to the wilderness; they were not about to endanger or even soil themselves on the other side of the Jordan riverin any way and jeopardize their self-perceived superior status before God.

My fellow sinners, consider how your attitudes of heart and mind have on occasion despised these sacred Scriptures, viewing them as some dead letters of information which you already know. It is easy to dismiss the hearing of the Word again and again, when we think we have mastered its basic concepts. But by such neglect, the living Word of God is not permitted to work upon us, and thus we are prevented from thegiving of Christ and with Him the gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation.

But despite our many sins of neglect, we are here, hearing once again of God’s great love for us in His Son. He has done the work His Father has sent Him to do, especially the work of living a perfect life, sacrificing that perfect life unto death for us, and rising again to give us life. Hearing what our Lord was doing for us is not just information, for as we hear we receive of the very blessings, which are declared to us. Our sins, like despising His Word, are all forgiven and the death we deserve on account of our sin, is driven from us and life, eternal life is given to us.

The Bethlehem manger was a rustic cradle for the newborn King to be sure. But it was easily accessible to those lowly shepherds who came in from the surrounding fields. It was the sign, which God had given them to find the Savior, Christ the Lord. We are not given that same sign today. The cradle of our Lord we have, as Luther reminds us, is that book which most of us have at home, perhaps gathering dust or stacked under more popular books containing dead letters.

Dust that Book of books off or un-stack it and read it in your daily devotions, bring it to Bible Class and hear its life-giving words declared throughout the year not just around Christmas and Easter. Your hearts will be lifted up in joy. Our Lord promises us this. In the midst of this life with all of its misery, you and I get to rejoice that we have life in Christ, which is beyond what we know here, it is life eternal.

Paul, in our Epistle reading from Philippians, known as the Epistle of joy, encourages us to “Rejoice in the Lord always!” Why? He goes on to declare: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” In the sacred Scriptures we are all confronted with our sin and its deserved punishment of death, eternal death. But it is beyond all understanding that God still loves us and has declared peace with us sinners in His Son. It is this blessed message that predominates on all the pages of Holy Writ. We, the hateful rebels, who offended God our King, were reconciled by Him taking the first steps through the actions of His Son for us.

The Babe born in Bethlehem became the crucified One on Calvary. That holy perfect life sacrificed for all your sins was truly the work of which Jesus patiently once again declared to His enemies, so that they might believe and be saved. Now sing we now rejoice because in the Holy One whom God has sent we have eternal life, we have eternal peace and we have eternal joy.

Oh that we were there? No. We are here where the precious bundle of eternal joy is found. God’s saving Word contains and gives to us the swaddling clothes of righteousness and the holy flesh and blood that was given and shed for the forgiveness of all our sins. Do not refuse to come and have life. Come, come regularly and often and receive what your Lord has prepared for you now and for all eternity in that Babe born of the Virgin for us all. Amen.