What, with one

Of our pastors feeling a tad under the weather, I was privileged to serve at St. Paul’s this week more than is my wont. I assisted as deacon at the Mass on Wednesday morning, was the liturgist and preacher for Matins on both Thursday and Friday (I wish you folks could hear the school children belt out Venite and Te Deum!), and I’ll be celebrant at tonight’s Mass with Pr. Daenzer preaching and Pr. Heller also assisting, and I’ll serve as deacon tomorrow as usual at 8 o’clock liturgy.

Here are the two short homilies from the Matins:

Thursday (1 Thes. 5:1-10):

You are not in the dark, boys and girls, about the fact that the Lord Jesus will return in glory.

Why, you confess it every single time you say the Creed: “and He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.” And so, since you’re not in the dark about that, you, “look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” You know that’s what’s headed your way and mine. And since you know that that’s how it will be, St. Paul tells you to live your lives toward that glorious appearing as the children of light that you already are.

When many of you were baptized, a lighted candle was given you. It was to show that you had received Christ, the light of the world, and you were now a child of the light, one of those who wait for the dawning of that glorious day of His appear.

The children of the darkness are those who are in the dark—that is, who don’t know—about the Lord Jesus and about His appearing. They either don’t know about it, or they don’t believe it and so they don’t expect it or prepare themselves for it.

You, however, are not like them. You know He will appear exactly as He promised. You know how He has fulfilled every promise He ever gave and so you know He will fulfill that one too. Then every eye will see Him, including those who nailed Him to the tree. That day there will be a lot of sorrow for those who find out that what they weren’t expecting is actually happening.

Because they didn’t look for it, they sort of snoozed their way through life, sadly never realizing that this life was all given so that they might be prepared for that day so that they could welcome it with joy. They miss out on that.

But not you. You’re not that way, St. Paul insists. You are children of light. Children of the day. You’re not destined for the night or appointed for wrath, that is for the darkness of hell. Instead, God has appointed you to obtain salvation by your Lord Jesus Christ.

So it matters not one whit whether you’re alive or dead when that moment you’ve been waiting for finally dawns. If you’re sleeping in your grave that day, Jesus will waken you and take you home. And if you see His coming with your very eyes, He will transform your lowly body to be like His glorious body, as we heard yesterday, and He will take you home. You will live together with Him forever either way.

This is big comfort and St. Paul urges us to share it with each other and so build each other up in faith. Always remember the One who is coming and look for Him. Though He delays He hasn’t forgotten. You will see. All will see.

Blessed are those children of the light who are waiting and looking forward to that day and greet its arrival with songs of joy. Zion hears the watchmen singing and all her heart with joy is springing. She wakes, she rises from her gloom, for Her Lord comes down all glorious, the strong in grace, in truth victorious, Her star is risen, her LIGHT has come. Now come, Thou blessed One, Lord Jesus, God’s own son. Hail hosanna. We enter all the wedding hall to eat the Supper at Thy call.” Amen!

Friday (Psalm 149):

O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth will declare your praise.

Your mouth is not just there to be a pie hole, as they say. To stuff the food down. Your mouth is created for a higher task. It’s created for praise.

Have you ever pondered, boys and girls, how often the Psalmist tells you to “praise the Lord!” It’s his way of saying: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And his way of saying “it is a good to sing praises to the Lord.”

When we praise the Lord together, when He opens our lips and our mouths show forth His praise, when we sing of what He has done for us, His mighty works in creation and redemption and sanctification, when we look forward, as we thought about yesterday, to the day of Christ’s appearing, it all comes to this. We praise Him because He,

“the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He adorns the humble with salvation.”

We praise Him because astonishingly, the Maker of all of this, of the earth and the wide sea, of the far nebulae and the nearer sun and moon, He actually takes notice of you. And more than notice, He delights in you. And He’s tickled pink that He made you, and that you have been joined to His Son, and that you are robed in the garments of salvation. And in response all that, what’s left but praise?

So, let the high praises of God be in your throats and a two-edged sword in their hands, that would be the Word of God. This is how you reign with Christ among the nations and how you rule with Him over everything, seated with Him on the throne. You sing your Te Deums. You chant our Venites. You hear and proclaim His Law and His Promises. And so you reign with King Jesus, and you join Him in His life of praise to His Father. This is honor for all His godly ones. For those who belong to Him.

O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth will declare your praise. May that high praise of God ring on in your hearts upon your beds and in your living rooms and even at your thanksgiving tables. May you never forget that because He has delighted in you even to the gift of His Son, you have cause to praise the Lord now and forever. Praise the Lord! Amen. 

Now let’s stop yakking about it, and do it: we join in the Te Deum Laudamus.