Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the Epistle of the Day: How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. [Hebrews 9.14]

From the Holy Gospel, according to the Greek text: Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. [John 8.27]

This Fifth Sunday in Lent, known as "Judica: Vindication Sunday," gets its Latin name from the beginning of the Introit: "Vindicate Me, O God." The focus of this Sunday is on the vindication that God our heavenly Father gives His people in His Word of Vindication for sinners through the work, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ..

Your dear Lord Jesus speaks these words – "Vindicate Me, O Lord" – just as it is prophesied by Holy Scriptures in the Old Testament. These words indicate that just as Christ is vindicated by God the Father, even so, on this 5th Sunday in Lent, God’s Word invites you to see how, day by day, especially in response to the words of condemning words coming from your conscience, God vindicates you by His authorized Word of Holy Absolution. Holy Absolution covers sin, removes condemnation, and covers you with righteousness. So it is that many in the Lutheran Reformation have included Holy Absolution in the list of Sacraments. Today, you are invited to consider how it is that Holy Absolution is as Sacrament, a blessing for your daily life, and a promise of God’s complete and pervasive forgiveness of all your sins.

I.

What is a sacrament? This is a question that has been addressed in catechisms, Roman, Reformed, and Lutheran, over the centuries. To answer this question, one must first realize that the word "sacrament" is not a Biblical word – the one coming closest to the term "sacrament" is the Greek word "mysterion," from which we usually get the English translation, "mystery."

The term "sacrament" comes from church Latin, where the verb, sacrare – "to make holy," takes place through the adjective, sacratus – the holy things of God, that you might be made holy by God’s decree, sacramentum. None of these are Scriptural terms, but they all teach Scriptural truth. Sacrament becomes a label for several decrees of God, through the holy things of God, to make, or declare, you holy.

Holy Baptism, as we reviewed last Sunday in the Catechism, puts you into the holy family as it forgives all your sins. Holy Communion, as we will review next week in the Catechism, brings you into contact with the holy things that make and declare you holy, namely, the contact with the true body of Christ and the very blood of Christ. Holy Absolution, as we reviewed it today, applies the word of forgiveness through the authorized voice of God, so that through this voice, you are declared holy by the forgiveness of the sins which you confess.

Each sacrament is distinct. Holy Baptism is to happen only once, but by that fact, you dare not draw the conclusion that Holy Absolution and Holy Communion ought to be partaken only once. Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are presented to you through physical things – water, bread, and wine, but you dare not draw the conclusion that Holy Absolution does not forgive your sins, for it to has a specific human encounter, not with human experience of water, bread, or wine, but with the human experience of the voice of God in the voice of the one God authorizes to declare to you the forgiveness of all your sins; and especially in the case of Private Confession, the voice in Holy Absolution is God’s voice in the voice of the Father Confessor especially giving to you the forgiveness of those sins which persecute your inner life. And for that reason, Holy Absolution may clearly be called a sacrament.

II.

In the Holy Gospel of the Day, Jesus challenges the notion of the religious leaders of His day, who wished to impose on people their notions, and not God’s Word. So, He says, "Whoever is of God hears the Words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God." With these words, Jesus asserts the truth that God’s Word is what God gives, regardless of popularity, regardless of what people would rather hear for their spiritual lives. And He sets forth what is, quite frankly, as stark possibility, namely that, if God offers something and you say, "Ah, no thanks!" this very rejection could well be a sign that, in Jesus’ words, "you are not of God."

Those are stark words. But this is a vital issue. Christianity is not a result of mankind’s creation – and therefore it is not a matter of what Christians think that they might want or might not want. Christianity is shaped by the Words and Institutions of Christ Himself. Christianity involves what Christians absolutely need and absolutely must have for salvation. Anyone who gets in the way of what God clearly offers, gives, applies, and certifies, gets in the way of Christ and is not of God.

More than anything else at all times and in all circumstances, sinners need the forgiveness of sins, and they need the forgiveness of sins from all the sources through which God ordains to give it. Christians are sinners – just as much sinners as the rest of the mankind. We are sinners before, during, and after we made into Holy Christians by the Holy Ghost. As we Christians remain sinners in this present life, so also we remain beggars before God, beggars who have no right to pick and choose from the promises of God those which we like and those which we’d just as soon pass by.

We are Christians – that means we are sinners. That also means that we are a constantly endangered species in this life – "Take heed, how you stand, lest you fall!" You have no promise from God, and no future, if you begin to pick and choose among the holy things that God gives you for your spiritual welfare. To do so is to leave open the real possibility that you are not of God – but only playing God-games, as did the religious leaders who opposed Jesus to His face. It is far better to learn to acquire the tastes for the spiritual gifts God has for you.

III.

Holy Absolution is part of the medicine of immortality. It is what God provides for you, on purpose and as result of divine, Fatherly wisdom. That others abuse or reject this gift is no reason for you to miss what God has for you there. It is a remedy for sin and a cause for holiness of living. Holy Absolution is nothing else than the voice of God in your life and in your language. It is a practice that God ordains to occur in His Church and on a regular basis, of Holy Absolution is a channel included in what St. Paul declares in the Epistle: "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God."

That is precisely what the voice of Holy Absolution does in your hearing and for your living: purifies your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." That is precisely what Holy Absolution is doing for you as you hear it. It is God’s personal gift to you, in the ongoing struggle with the conscience that sinners, even penitent sinners, will daily face in this life. Just is God worked in the life of Abraham to provide a lamb for the sacrifice for sins, so God provides by His own voice, spoken through His appointed spokesperson, the forgiveness of specific sins, which otherwise would nag the conscience and wound the spirit. God be praised for the great gift of the Sacrament of Holy Absolution!