FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY: Homily

“FOR IN HIM DWELLS THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD”

Saint John 3. 1-15

THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY: 15 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In the Name + of Jesus

   Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity: let us give glory to Him because He hath shown mercy to us.

   What Adam knew of the Holy Trinity before the “fall” is not recorded for your edification. It is sinful to be preoccupied in speculating on that which The Lord has not revealed.

   Theology is words about God but theology is not the study of God. God is not an insect under a microscope to be studied—He is Creator who shares Himself with His creatures; through the Word.

   If even your closest friends, your spouse, your parents, don’t ever truly “know” and understand you—the inner you—the real you—like only you can; because only you are inside your head; how much less can any created being truly know the full depth of Trinitarian essence? The answer is one cannot. Thus, the Word of God comes to give the love and mercy of God to man. You have been given faith to respond with the angels: Holy, Holy, + Holy, is the Lord of hosts; of Him and through Him + and to Him are all things! Hallelujah!

   The Word came to a man of the Pharisees.

   Nicodemus was a secret supporter of The Christ, along with Joseph of Arimathea. Nicodemus wanted to know more about Jesus because Nicodemus believed in God…he was like Philip and Bartholomew of Bethsaida BEFORE they had been brought into the presence of Jesus.

   Nicodemus was a Pharisee because he belonged to the Pharisee “party” of the day.  Was this man a sinful hypocrite? Yes he was most certainly just like all of us. He visited Messiah at night for fear of being seen just like he and all of us sin in darkness so others won’t know what we’re really “up to.” A dark and midnight heart pumps out not blood but black brackish trespasses. Nicodemus and we need the Light of the world which brings Life.

   Nicodemus was aware of the miracles of the Rabbi from Nazareth. He knew they were incredibly awesome and that no one could do them apart from God “being with him.”  Nicodemus is close to THE TRUTH of Jesus.

   The Feast of The Holy Trinity is a later feast day in the Churches history appearing in the fourth century to combat the heresy of Arianism. Arianism denied the true Divinity of Jesus. This Feast bespeaks the only saving reality—the truth about Jesus of Nazareth. One can believe what He did… leading a life of obedience and dying on the cross; but unless one believes WHO lead the obedient life—and that it was PERFECTLY and SINLESS in law-keeping; and WHO died for the sins of the entire world—shedding Blood and giving a Body that would atone for all men…then believing in Jesus is meaningless.

    Knowledge of The Trinity, of God, cannot be obtained by mans knowledge or work. Man does not discover but rather God reveals and gives. God bestows faith and trust; by The Word. Saint Peter could never have made his famous confession, said Jesus, had not the Father given Him the revelatory knowledge of The Son.

   At this night-time meeting Jesus gospels Life—how one is made alive—really alive unto life everlasting. Jesus is talking about the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and the work of God The Holy Ghost.                     Unless a baby is born, which happens from conception to delivery without cooperation of the baby, it does not live a natural life. Unless a man “be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” says Jesus.  So Who is Jesus?  Nicodemus own answers prove the Lords point. The Pharisee is clueless and lost in darkness of death. Jesus speaks God, Jesus speaks the Holy Trinity’s message: “I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

   This is a mystery. Yes. Creatures are no mysteries because they can be weighed, x-rayed, probed, recorded, and even dissected and analyzed at the most elemental levels. The Creator cannot be so apprehended. The gifts of The Holy Ghost cannot be claimed, decided for, chosen, or boxed up. Of course the true God is a mystery—He is Sacrament: “The wind bloweth where it listeth…”

   Nicodemus and all of us do not understand. Jesus gives us understanding by coming to us and making His home with us. His presence gives us faith to trust and cling to Him.

   Nicodemus was not a “master of Israel.” The Sanhedrin were to have been faithful teachers of The God of the Scriptures but they had failed to cling to the true understanding of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. To believe in the Old Testament means to believe in The Christ Who is the entire content of Hebrew Scripture.

   The Father talks to no one directly. The Holy Ghost speaks to no one directly. The Blessed Three-in-One speaks Law and Evangel through The Only-begotten and ever existing Son by His Word. Jesus speaks and witnesses of what He knows and sees…of the things of God, for He alone is THE WORD.  Jesus alone has descended from Heaven, from the right hand of majesty, to make known the heart of God, the true mind of TRINITY.  “What does this mean?”

   Jesus does not talk about triangles, schematic charts, triquetas or trefoils. The Christ is the face of the Trinity. The Creed named after blessed Martyr Bishop Saint Athanasius, confesses it the way The Word reveals it in Scripture. The Apostle Paul speaks the Truth of: The Father, in The Spirit, by The Son, the Word, when he writes to the Colossians “for in Him (Jesus the God/Man) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Yes.

   It has been said that all Theology is Christology! Yes. But even more focused, ALL CHRISTOLOGY is CROSSOLOGY.  To know The Holy Trinity, to believe in GOD, is to cling to the Crucifix and He Who is enthroned thereon. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” This is a scandal to the pagan, the mixed-up monotheistic heresies of Judaism (and Islam); and this is foolishness to the tri-theists, and multi-theists of Greeks and all their heathen brood (from pantheists to atheists). But we know nothing and preach nothing save JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED! [1 Cor. 23; 1 Cor. 2.2].

   God is love and God is mercy and God is forgiveness. God is three-in-one and one-in-three. The Father is God, The Spirit is God, The Son is God. There is One God. There are Three Persons. It is mystery, it is Sacrament. To believe this is pure gift; GRACE!  Look to the Cross to find The Christ. Not the Cross of 2,000 years past only, but the Cross today in your midst as the Fruit of the Tree, the Presence of the Body and Blood of your

Crucified, Risen, Ascended, and PRESENT LORD as it is placed into your ears (draped about, with and in you) and as you receive Him in His precious Body and most Holy Blood.

   Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity: He gives glory to His own in absolving, forgiving, clothing + and feeding because He shows mercy to us…in the Name + of Jesus…which is

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

FRIDAY OF THE OCTAVE OF PENTECOST: Homily

This sermon was preached at the Society of Saint Polycarp annual retreat; St. Cecilia's Chapel, Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center, Columbia, IL

“THE NEW HEAVEN IN CHRIST”

Isaiah 65. 17-25

Friday of The Octave of Pentecost: 13 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   Everything you touch is blighted by sin—hubris and ego rotting and decaying an already diseased creation. It’s Adam fault. It’s your fault.

   The airs pollution is not carbon dioxide and smog but the stench of your sin. The higher heaven of outer space is not littered with rocket and satellite debris but with your malice and covetousness—and the smugness of your prideful good deeds; filthy menstrual rags indeed!  But as smog does not do away with the sun, your trespasses cannot blot out the true Sun of Righteousness.

   Is Saint Esaias writing for the doomed Kingdom of Judah, Hezekiah and the remnant, all those who then and later (as Saint Nathanel) would seek the consolation of Israel? Yes. Is the Holy Prophet writing to and for you? Oh yes.

   The Lord Who Fatherly spoke the Word of the Second Person creating all from nothing is the Creator who spoke the Life of That Uncreated Word into your souls at the restorative waters. The Third Person Who hovered over the deep, Who hovered over the font, hovers over the Pentecost Church—THEN & NOW: This day!

   The Christ creates “new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered…”

   His original Kingdom of Eden was perfect—and will be again at the Parousia. His Kingdom of Power is awesome, but “awesomeness” is not the point. His Kingdom of Glory—the eternal heavenly mansions are guaranteed in the Crucified and Resurrected tent/tabernacle/temple of the Nazarene which He Himself rebuilt on the Third Day—The Eighth Day—The 50^th Day—and This Day!

   Jesus’ New Heaven is now in His Catholic Church of the New Testament. His Heaven is in the new earth—filled with new Adams in, with, and under The Second Adam. 

   You steward The Mysteries of this inchoate and becoming heaven as you minister its King to the royal priests. 

   There would be weeping in Babylon (al naharoth Babel) not long after The Prophets words were uttered. There is weeping now amongst you and your people as your journey through the desert of Sin constantly tempted and attacked by the Jezebels, the Ahabs, the mammon, the flesh, the world, and the devil. There is weeping in the long dark night of the Cross.

   He lives. He is risen! Christus Rex.

   You rejoice in the New Jerusalem from above which is heaven on earth where the Spirit of Pentecost calls, gathers, and enlightens you and your people around what Christ has built. He has labored and you rest in Him. He wept and you joy in His tender absolution and His comforting arms. He crushed the wolf and laid down in the tomb that you might sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob every Sunday eating not straw, not even deliciously roasted bullock—but living on The Lamb Himself.

   In this, In His Holy Mountain of The Cross, The Pulpit, the Font and the Rail, you have Peace.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

SAINT BARNABAS, APOSTLE: Homily

This sermon was preached at the Society of Saint Polycarp annual retreat; St. Cecilia's Chapel, Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center, Columbia, IL

 

“BARNABAS’ BLOOD POINTS TO THE BLOOD OF AGNUS DEI”

Saint Matthew 10. 16-22

Saint Barnabas, Apostle, 11 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   You are not paid gladiators earning tribute, fame, and imperial privilege for your exegetical mastery and homiletical brilliance.  You are slaves—douloi.

   Your quickness of intellect doesn’t matter. Whether or not your “political” and “people” skills has placed you in basilica, cathedral, or some other place of power, beauty, and ethos; none of that is what you are truly about!

   You are not lion-kings surveying all of your pride. You are sheep. It is not to be said amongst us, prideful chest puffing, “I am Spartacus” but rather breast striking, “I am Barnabas,” Kyrie Elieson.

   But you know all of this—at least your New Man, your reborn baptismal creation so believes, teaches and confesses. Good. Gracious!

   The real King, The “Lion of Judah” speaks however to your “old Adam,” your “ass” (as the Reformer would say) with the big ears twitching to hear compliments and self-affirming platitudes. Repent!

   The supreme honor you have been given is the gift to icon The Good Shepherd—The King of Sorrow & Suffering on your behalf—to and for your own respective flocks.

   You are called by the Paraclete through The Shepherds Word to go into the midst of Satan’s wolf-pack. May the ultimate jewel of martyrdom be yours…if and when it comes: Maranatha!

   You are equipped. You are draped and mantled and soled with authority, in heaven and earth, because He who first washed + you clean at the Holy Womb of Mother Church, has also washed your feet clean with the Easter-eve Breath of His Holy Ordination. You have been claimed and placed into the fighting order of His Apostolic Band—of brothers—of blood.

    In His stead you bind and you loose. In The “cruciform” you proclaim, catechize, and administer the Holy Things of The Holy One.

   You are not as wise as serpents, though you behave many times like a snake in the grass. You are not as harmless as doves, but many times are as belligerent as chicken hawks and as noisy as thieving Jays.

   Barnabas’ Lord and God is your Lord and God. The Christ is the perfect Creator, the Perfect God/Man and most certainly, He Is wise…far wiser than the old ancient foe. Christ is harmless and gentle (Agnus Dei). He is the active beast of burden and the passive paschal victim.

   “They sent forth Barnabas.” The Church, the Apostles, the Bishop sent forth Presbyter Father Barnabas. The Bride of Christ has sent you forth as well.

   “Their line has gone out through all the earth.” That line is an unbroken trail of blood—salvific atoning Christ-Blood! The wet footsteps of this crimson path comes from His riven side, from the five wounds of the Redeemer forever trumping and satisfying the five books of Torah. These words of Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of sins are the words of Barnabas, the Apostle Paul, and all of you; and they do go to the ends of the world.

   This man we commemorate and honor today is deserving; he was a faithful soldier this Apostle to Antioch. His testimony was ultimately his martyrdom as he was stoned to death in Salamis A.D. 61.  Fittingly the Symbols state “the memory of Saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works.” [AC XXI, Jacobs p. 46]

   “For he, (Barnabas) was a good man” writes Saint Luke. He was a poor miserable sinner in thought, word and deed—like this small assembly. You have neglected visits to the sick and homebound. You have failed to pray for your attackers. You have envied your brother priests. You have back-bitten and thought evil of your recalcitrant members. You have treated blood-bought lambs as goats. You have lusted. You have erected idols of straw and have stood with Peter in blasphemy “I do not know the man!”  Repent!

   Barnabas was “good” only like Abraham and Job were good—“full of the Holy Ghost and faith,” that is, covered in the Blood of Jesus, and filled with the Flesh and Blood of His Eucharist!

   This Evangel is what you exhort your sheepfolds with; this proclamation you cleave to and you preach—for the Lord is with you and always cleaves to you that you might cleave ever more to Him and His Words.

   Your desert separation by sin from the Trinity is remedied. His separation from heaven, peace, and life itself on the Tree has sufficed. He is remedy incarnate and continues to bring peace and rest to His own by separating you out and sending you out, like Barnabas, as bloody sheep into the midst of hungry wolves.

   You will be delivered up to the councils (and not just testy parish councils and mob-like voters’ assemblies).  Good!  You will be scourged in their synagogues.  Good!  You will be brought before governors and kings for His sake.  Good!  It is men like Barnabas that Tertullian correctly spoke “the Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church!”

   As the Spirit spoke Your Father in The Word of The Son through your brother Saint Barnabas, “son of encouragement” He will speak through you.

   “Ye shall be hated of all men for His Names sake.” Good…God’s gracious good, in the True Son of not just encouragement but of Victory.

   He endures to the end…the end of the age..His Blood continues to cover and nourish. Thus you are saved.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of the Holy Ghost.

WHITSUNDAY: Homily

“ARISE, LET US GO HENCE”

Saint John 14. 23-31

WHITSUNDAY—THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

 8 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   Your “old Adam” does not love Jesus. The fact that this very statement “rankles” you proves that. If Adam who could have resisted sin—treason—patricide, and didn’t, why do you doubt that your sinful nature resists, rebels and yes, hates the Lord? Repent!

   The Law says clearly both in Torah and in Christ’s summary: love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. You don’t and the fact that this doesn’t bother you more than it does is absolute proof that you don’t!  Repent!

   And how do you truly have contrition and Godly remorse? How do you sincerely confess with real repentance and not just feigned ritualistic motion?

   Jesus! And what does God’s Name mean? Not the name of a generic and amorphous “god” but the Name of The God/Man Messiah in flesh and blood? His Name is The + Name above all names. Jesus = Savior. Jesus saves you from your un-love by His love—Love Incarnate—“doing and active love.” The Lord’s Christ loves you in keeping the two Great Commands. The Savior saves you from your hate and murder by being hated, persecuted, tortured and murdered in your stead at Golgotha! He fills you with this, what is the Gospel, by His Paraclete who proceeds from Him and His Father.

   The Father and Son witnessed the Holy Spirit hovering over the face of the deep at the beginning. The same Father, as Jesus promised, sent this Comforter to the Apostles that Sunday in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.  The promise, The Word of Truth, given to Saint Joel bore fruition amongst the “12” and those gathered in the upper room.

   The Spirit’s Wind, the “breath” of God but not in an impersonal way, rather in a Personality of Love and advocacy does the work of Trinitarian ministry by delivering the Second Person in all of His Ascended and Glorified fullness. This Third Person once looked, or appeared as a dove; He was not a bird, but God, fully God. He, on the day we celebrate this morn, looked, or appeared as cloven tongues of flame; He was not fire, but God, fully God. He came to the Apostles and made His abode with them. The Holy Ghost filled Peter and the rest with God. “What does this mean?” Jesus told them and He tells you, for the same Spirit, not dove, not flickering fire, but The Word in all His saving presence, descended upon you too at the + Holy Font—where you once gathered with the Saints. There also, was a rushing wind, the moving waters, not of the Pool of Siloam, but of Christ’s gushing water and Blood, and you were made an apostle, a God-talker, a “little ambassador” of your Brother the High King. Jesus told all His Church: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.”  That peace is Jesus Himself.

   Pentecost is not a past Holy Day but a daily and highly active reality. Pentecost is both your Baptisms filling and animating you moment by moment and it is also Christ’s restoration of all things beginning in His children—His first fruits, His branches, His living stones, His brothers and sisters. It is His work and His Blood transfusions bringing to life His beloved—you! Pentecost is also the very life of the Church, the ever-present Office of the Holy Ministry in your midst until the end of the age. For in the Apostolic Office the Holy Ghost is ALSO ever present stewarding the gifts of Christ which gather His people in Mass and Gottesdienst (God’s Service). The priest, pastor, New Testament Apostle, does nothing but serve as “house attendant” so that the Paraclete might “call, gather, and enlighten” you in/with/under Jesus—the Jesus Who really is present—for you!

   Holy Pentecost is you reading your Bible where the Spirit fills you with Jesus. Whitsunday is you remembering your Holy + Washing where the Spirit brings to mind what Jesus did at the Tree and at the Sacrament of Baptism—what He does in producing contrition and the daily drowning of “old man Adam.”  Pentecost is where the Spirit given to your Pastor at his ordination, placing him into that “Office” which is “in the stead and by the command of Our Lord Jesus Christ” speaks Holy and perfect and total Absolution of all your foulness.  The sending of the Holy Ghost is when you with un-plugged ears and loosed tongues receive Christ’s Word, both Law and Evangel in homilies and sermons, wherein the Spirit causes your faith to grasp Jesus as tightly as the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Magdalene, Thomas…where you cradle your Savior as dearly as the Blessed Theotokos did!

   Christ went away, visibly, from you and He comes again and again in Feasting and Faith sustaining Absolution.

    Hear the Holy Wind, the Breath of The Trinity? Hear the Son of Righteousness! You now this day unto the Eschaton “speak with other tongues” with New Voices the wonders of His love. You are His vessels of Peace and Reconciliation to all your neighbors. Here in the Church the curse of Babel is reversed and breached as surely as death and hell themselves. The Kingdom restored in devout harmony of prayer, praise and thanksgiving. Assembled in this Mt. Zion you the remnant, righteous In Him, are delivered from all weeping and pain, and you call upon the Name of The Lord. He now pours out His Spirit on all His servants. You drink not new wine but the Immortal and Eternal Blood of The Lamb—for as The Holy Ghost gives me utterance, and Christ Jesus speaks: “I forgive you all your sins…”

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

JUBILATE: Homily

“FOR JOY THAT A MAN IS BORN”

Saint John 16. 16-23

JUBILATE: 11 May Anno Domini 2014

Fr. J. William Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

    No weeping occurred in Paradise. After the choice (that’s what ‘decision’ theology does for one) to pursue self and ego rather than continue in Holy Spirit guided fear, love and trust in God above all things—after the choice to eat the forbidden fruit and join the dragon—there was nothing but weeping.  You know that; you experience that daily.

   Adam and his helpmate hitherto had seen The Lord and had walked with Him in the “garden” (but not in a sappy & sentimental way; in a full communion way). After their rebellion the words were true “ye shall not see Me.”  The curse was on the ground, on the serpent, and on the beatific vision of God…sight of The Lord and intimate table fellowship would now be through God’s appointed and distributed “means of Grace” and not just a daily natural and accepted “present.” Eden is no more.

   But God is Grace and Love and Mercy and Forgiveness. God is Sacrificial Work and Righteousness—the Right Works from The Right God/Man buying back and restoring rebellious Adam and all His rebellious children marked by The Lord from eternity for Salvation.

   The curse of not “seeing God” would be but for “a little while.”  God would come to His children through His Word. This Word would be with Enoch causing the proto-translated one to walk with The Lord. The Word would be with Noah causing God’s righteousness to protect Noah and his family. The Word would call Abram from Ur and planet him, like a proto and typological Israel into the midst of God’s designated land of promise. The Word, as the pre-incarnate Christ, would speak to Moses from the bush which burned but would not be burnt—typological says Johann Gerhard, Saints Jerome, Augustine and most of the Church prior to the 20^th century, of the Virginity of The Virgin which would bear fruit without losing virginity.  The Lord would allow His people to always have His omnipresent “presence” to be sure…God is always guarding and protecting both with His own care and the care of His good Angelic watchers. But God would also allow his grieving and weeping Saints to “see Me…in a little while.” The Word was given, protected, and shared by the Patriarchs, Prophets, and good kings. Wherever the Word is + Baptized, spoken in authoritative and designated + deputized absolving, proclaimed in called & ordained Preaching, and distributed in mandated and Holy instituted Sacramental eating and drinking, there, for “a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to The Father.”  That’s what the Ascension to the right hand of God means for the Christ…that you do truly and actually see Him, by Faith, in His Word and in His Eucharist.

    There was another curse that was “decided for” by those first two enthusiastic “schwermerai” in their attempt to murder their loving Father. The curse of individual, “on my own,” prodigal, MY WAY!  The woman was self-cursed with a rebellious and domineering will to control her husband.  Of course the husband too was cursed with the same cussed and selfish will to abuse, misuse, demean, and control his wife. This is why Saint Paul uses a double exhortation to the Corinthians when he explains that true Scriptural marriage is but an Icon of the perfect marriage between Christ the Groom and His spotless Bride the Church.

    The woman was cursed to want things her own way and to carry within her own gift of reproduction and life, a very painful terminus. To go into labor and deliver a baby would be painful—filled with tears, sweat, blood, noise…and frankly, not very pretty. 

    Childbirth too is typological in a Divine mysterious way of the Cross of Our Lord and His deliverance of you from the curse of death for by His own suffering and death amidst sweat, tears, blood, and cursing of surrounding pagans. It was not very pretty, but it was Good beyond all understanding.

   When Eve, through her pain and difficulties gave birth to her first-born son Cain, she thought she had delivered the promised Savior “I have gotten a Man by the Lord.”  But no, Cain was not to be the Messiah; it would be slain Abel, murdered Shepherd, and blood-spurting sacrificial lesser brother, who would be Christ’s heir in the flesh. The good news is always saturated in blood and sacrifice.

   But Eve was right in one sense…it would be by birth, by motherhood, by a flesh and blood boy-child, that she and all of God’s wayward Israelites would be redeemed.  Every faithful woman in Adam’s line, in Abel’s lineage, carried on the function of proto-mother, typological mother until the fullness of the ages arrived in Bethlehem.

    Your works and deeds do not and cannot save you or bring you God. You can’t see Him by your efforts. No woman becomes a mother by herself. In fact the curse of barrenness, a result of a sin filled and ravaged world, allows God’s Grace and Life Giving to pour out in fecundity and perfect fertileness. Every birth IS a miracle; those aren’t just pious sounding sentiments. It isn’t biology it’s GRACE!

   Sarai was barren. It was The Lord Who opened Sarah’s womb to bring forth a man-child. Rebecca was barren. It was God who drew life from her womb. Rachel bore no boys until the Lord’s Grace overshadowed her. Samson’s mother too was cursed with infertility until the Angel of The Lord gave her, her own annunciation. The same curse befell Hannah.  The Lord of Life opened her dark sepulchre of death to make it a portal, a font of life with the birth of the great Prophet, Priest, and King St. Samuel—another type of The Messiah. These five mothers, following your first Mother, Saint Eve, make the six mothers of waiting, of suffering, of cursed Law, and of anticipation until the Theotokos, the Mother of God, would be selected and chosen, BY GOD, to bring forth The SEED, The CHRIST! The Sabbath Mother, the mother of rest, that is, of The One, The God/Man Who would bring you all rest, and peace, and life, was not just barren, but was VIRGIN.  Saint Mary of Nazareth is your Mother too for she symbolizes the Church of Grace and the Church members who receive Christ her Son, by pure passive and receptive Grace. The Blessed Virgin, the Mother par-excellent, points you this morning not to herself, or even to the woman who gave you physical birth, but to the 8-sided font which is the Eternal and Eternity-producing Womb which birthed you out of the Blood and Water of the God/Man Christ Jesus.  She says: “whatsoever He saith unto you, do it;” i.e. repent and believe!

   Join Mary, and Peter, and Paul, and all those Seraphs and Archangels this happy morn: JUBILATE (make a joyful noise). Your sorrow is turned into joy in Christ Who is here in His Word. And in “a little while”…you will assemble at His throne to eat and drink and See your Lord and your God.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

QUASIMODOGENITI: Homily

“DOUBT NOT; THE NAZARENE LIVE AND LOVES”

Saint John 20. 19-31

QUASIMODOGENITI: 27 April Anno Domini 2014

Commemorating the 10^th Anniversary of Augsburg Lutheran Church

Fr. J. William Watson SSP

In The Name of + Jesus

   Today is Quasimodogeniti—the 1^st Sunday after Easter. Today is the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection, both of His first appearance in the upper room to His 10 Apostles (Judas is dead and Thomas is absent) and of His second upper room appearance the following Sunday (today’s Sunday) to Saint Thomas, Didymus—the “twin;” your twin!

    Today is the (approximately) 1,984^th time Quasimodogeniti has been, or could have been commemorated—and will continue to be commemorated until The Lord returns in glory. Hallelujah!

    Today is also the celebration of the 10^th anniversary of the parish of Our Lord’s Church, Augsburg Lutheran Church! Hallelujah!

    A congregation which is filled with Thomas’s given new life and love just like that most famous doubter; that most famous believer: simul iustus et peccator as Luther informs us—simultaneously sinners and saints.

    There was a woman, not on the first day of the week, who came where the physical doors were open—to a pastor’s office—because doors were being shut in other locations to Our Lord’s reverential, sacramental, and liturgical gifts.  That pastor was also having doors shut on a Lutheran ministry wherein a genuine Lutheran, i.e. an evangelical and catholic ethos was being rejected. Not the germs of a spiritually elite or inward looking repristination, but rather the seeds of a new congregation were probably planted that very day. The Lord works in mysterious ways to be sure. 

   The Apostles were huddled away in “fear of the Jews” more than simply being assembled by shared and bold conviction and confession.  That’s what sin does—it causes fear; whether due to a raging lake which is instantly calmed, a dead 12 year old daughter, an unnatural draught of fish, or most appropriately (as per Esaias’ vision) the realization that one is in the true Presence of The Lord and has only filthy rags and unclean lips!

   The only thing which banishes fear and brings peace and true joy isn’t a “thing” but a person: The God/Man Christ Jesus. No matter what the church calendar day says, no matter which Saint’s Day or festival designation…or local parochial celebration, every day is the Feast of Crucified and Risen Savior who takes away the sin of the world! And it is only by Jesus taking away sin and your sins that there is any peace.  “Peace be unto you” He said the 10 in the upper room. And what was that peace? Was it peace so that the Jews would never persecute them; that their lives would be tranquil and sedentary—enjoying wives, children and grand-kids; that they would be admired and treated with honors and accolades from ecclesiastical supervisors and the general populace? No! Christ brought them supernal, supernatural, cosmic, i.e. REAL and TRUE peace with God—the Holy Trinity, Father, Son + and Holy Ghost. Christ brought them heaven on earth as a foretaste to everlasting Heaven and its eternal communion of Glory. 

    And how did the Christ of God deliver that peace?  That peace was bought with a price, a worked-filled, commandment keeping, suffering and dying atoning sacrificial deposit that only Christ won.  He won and purchased peace for the Apostles and for their flocks—all of you—on Good Friday. But He delivered that Peace to them in person: IN PERSON—by being with them with His actual Word “Peace be unto you” and with His actual Body and Blood!

    Christ died for them and their sins. Christ died for you and your sins. Christ is risen and is not dead! Another paradox of Peace which stands beside the paradoxes of 3 in 1, the Two-Natures of the Personal Union, the Mystery of the Sacrament, and Genesis 1 to be sure.  Easter and Low Sunday (today) is about JESUS LIVES. But Jesus lives not for Himself, He is the God/Man, He lives for you. He has resurrected His flesh and blood so that you will receive the faith to believe that your flesh and blood, your body and soul will rise from the earth on the Last Day to live forever with Him.  With Him—that is good news. With the Saints—that is good news.

   And what does He do? Does He give them a Francis Pieper lecture on soteriology; does He task them with methods of self-improvement and exercises for deeper spirituality; does He hand them a written historical narrative and personal diary as well as an apologetics handbook to meet all exigencies?  No. He shows them His nail prints and His pierced side and has them touch and handle Him!  He gives them Words from His mouth and He gives them His Body and His Blood!  Hallelujah!  This is church, this is salvation, this is forgiveness, and this is Peace!

    Why was Thomas absent that first Easter Eve? Does it really matter? No. He was absent due to sin—either sin or a particular sin. It’s the same with all of you. Either one is in the room with the Risen Christ or one is not. If one is not, it’s due to sin. There are no excuses in this way of looking at reality because sin is original and actual. Sickness, disease, job conflicts, over-emphasis on your kid’s sports (a Breaking of the 1^st Commandment to be sure), old-age, shut-in status, agoraphobia, or just being mad at the pastor or in a feud with a fellow parishioner…if any of these keep you from gathering with Peter, James and John (all sinners too for that matter), with the angels and archangels, than you are a sinner like Thomas. If one is not at font, pulpit and altar then there’s no Jesus for you.

    But Thomas too was saved…just like you. The Lord had spoken “I kept them in Thy Name; those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost.” [Jn. 17.12]  And again: “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” [Jn. 15.16] What was true for the Apostle, the Shepherd, is true for the flock, for Paul speaks about you: “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.” [Eph. 1.4-6]

    Elected with Saint Thomas from before the beginning to be saved and preserved by the Work of The Blessed Son.  Redeemed at a place, a time: Calvary, the Crucifix, but delivered that faith in the “Upper Room” of His Kingdom of Grace—the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in time: Holy + Baptism, Holy Word of Absolution, and Holy Supper.  He has truly made you acceptable to the Father “in the beloved,” for it is only IN CHRIST and IN His True Body and True Blood that forgiveness and life is found.  Touch and handle His flesh as did Thomas on the following Sunday of Grace when Jesus returned for the one lost lamb. Be carried on the back of the Good Shepherd so that you too can “reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into [His] side; and be not faithless, but believing.”

   It was the Lord Christ Who formed Augsburg Lutheran Church a decade ago; Who created it as our Augustana, Article 7 says around His True Presence: “the Church is the congregation of Saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”  Or as Johann Mentzer put it so beautifully in 1726:  “O Lord, let this Thy little flock, Thy Name alone confessing; continue in Thy loving care, true unity possessing. Thy Sacraments, O Lord, and thy saving Word; to us e’er pure retain. Grant that they may remain our only strength and comfort.” [TLH 477 s. 2]

    Thank you Dear Lord for all Thy gifts; for Thy faithful Saints past, present, and future in this parish, as well as friends of the congregation (known and anonymous); for Thy bountiful generosity in 1^st Article gifts and care; and for Thy Grace in giving us faith to receive Thy salvation, forgiveness, life and peace. Through Jesus Christ: “[Our] LORD, and [our] God.”

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

QUINQUAGESIMA: Homily

“THE SON OF GOD MAKES SONS OF GOD”
Saint Luke 18. 31-43

QUINQUAGESIMA: 2 March Anno Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   Peter’s name was Simon; Simon Bar-Jonah which means son of Jonah (i.e. son of John). My own surname has its antecedents in someone who was once the son of Wat; hence also Anderson, Johnson, Peterson, etc. The blind man that Christ encounters is named only by his family name, not his first name, and not yet…by his “Christian” name.

   Blind Bartimaeus…the son of Timaeus, is really to be the son of a man, and, is to be blind. To be Cain, or even Abel, is to be a son of old Adam and to be blind, deaf, dumb, impotent and an enemy of The Lord.

   There was a theory that the last image a person saw before they died was exactly what they saw before they breathed their last breath—a potential boon to crime/murder detection—or so it was thought.

   All men born of man are born dead in their trespasses. Dead men see nothing. Dead men hear nothing. Dead men cannot do anything. Hence the false-teaching of Protestants—Arminianism and even Romanist and Eastern Orthodox synergism—is refuted by nature as well as by Holy Scripture!

   How surprised the blind man must have been. He did nothing and Jesus did everything. Jesus came to him. Jesus came to him even before the Lord’s corporeal Body and Blood walked down the alley way near to where Bartimaeus was begging. The Word of God had been planted in him, somehow, from and by someone, even before that fateful day. The Word works. Only the Word works. Bartimaeus was as surprised and amazed at this gracious gift (GRACE: undeserved mercy) as were the workers hired at the 11^th hour, and as the ground that had fertile seed sown and strewn into it!

   Repent. Only the blind who know they’re blind desire to see. Only the man who laments the fact that he’s always angry and bitter craves to be at rest and peace. Only the gossiper who constantly tastes the bile and acid of a mean tongue and poison heart yearns for a loving voice and a charitable heart. The Law of Christ shows in a mirror of truth and clarity just how fall from the mark you really are. Only those who refuse to forgive are bound in their chains. Hardness of heart only leads to hardness of body in time and in eternity. A stiff neck and an unforgiving soul will be stiff as wood as it’s forever burned over and over again into coal in hell-fire. Repent. Repent not just in cheap words but in earnest Holy-Spirit wrought desire. And when you don’t “feel” that compulsion, pray for more mercy from Jesus the healer of the blind, and come to Confession to speak with the lips which He has opened for you in your own Baptismal healing.

   The Grace that forgives you and Bartimaeus from your sins and sin, is the Grace that restores your spiritual sight to behold the face of God in the face of Christ Jesus. His face, while no longer visible is nonetheless present. His face speaks through His Word of Holy Scripture. His face continues to wet you down + from the heat of the day and soothes your parched trials. His face is the face of your real and true Communion Server who gives you the Blood and Body from the Face of His Cross, the Face of His Resurrection, and the Face of His current enthronement on the Right Hand of Majesty!

^“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”  Come and join the man once known as Bar-Timaeus but now known as a “Son of God”—Abba Father, and abide in the presence of Peace! “Receive thy sight!”

^“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost