Easter 6 2018

Numbers 21:4-9; James 1:22-27; John 16:22-33

May 6, 2018 + Confirmation Sunday

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

Today changes nothing in your life. Confirmation, vows, all the work you’ve done, isn’t over.  It is the same faith you confess today that you have received and believed confessed since your baptism. Sometimes you probably felt like those Israelites in the Old Testament reading, wandering around in the desert wondering what in the world you are doing there.  That’s not an uncommon feeling in the life of a Christian.  Get used to it, if you’re not already.  And get used to God’s answer to such things. The Old Testament people brought sickness and poison upon themselves because of their sin.  God provided the antidote, that any who would look up to His chosen means in faith would be healed.  All that takes place in catechesis, all that we do in Bible study and Sunday School, is to know Christ and Him crucified, to have the benefits of the cross delivered to you personally by the means of His Word and the Sacraments and received by faith for your good. We study the Catechism and God’s Word because it teaches us how to repent, believe, love, pray, and fight the devil.

In studying Christ, we see ourselves, our defects, our errors, our sinfulness in our character and lives.  He who does not know Christ does not know Himself.  In Christ, we see how we ought to be, and yet how we fail. We see the way that humanity was created to live.  In Christ, we see how the Lord is making humanity whole again, restoring the image of God. Your life, your eternal life, began at your baptism. It was there in those waters combined with the very Word of God that He declares sinners forgiven, adopts into the family of God, makes heirs of the kingdom of God along with all believers in Christ.  All the grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, life, and salvation of Christ is yours already by virtue of God’s giving in your baptism.

You make these vows today in the rite of Confirmation, but these are not new.  Almost everyone here made these same promises, in the same faith, and share the same hope in Christ. This is no different than what you did yesterday, last month, last year. It is simply living your Christian life by the grace of God.  It is being a doer of the word, as St. James explains.  The imitation of Christ is not chains that weigh you down. His commandments are not meant to spoil our fun or limit our freedom, but to set us free to be our better selves, finding our righteousness not in our words or actions, but in Christ. The world, even some in your family and among your friends, and at times your heart, will think you crazy.  Remember Jesus’ words, “Take heart, I have overcome the world.”

Any Christian that is serious today to follow the Bible, to live by the Bible, to teach the Bible, has to recognize that we do not fit into this culture. We cannot fit in. Pray for yourselves, and for one another that we would never give the truth of the Gospel up.  That no goods, fame, child or wife is worth it.   There is no compromise to the most basic fact of reality and life: Jesus lives, and He is the Truth, the Way, and the Life, and salvation is found only in Him.

All this may seem like an impossible task. And truth be told, it is.  You cannot live a perfect life this side of eternity.  You will grumble and complain and worry, just like God’s people of old, and those still today. When you feel the bite and poison of sin, the burden of worry, the complaint of living life in a broken world, look to Christ who lived His life for you. You live a life of repentance and forgiveness in Christ. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so Jesus was lifted up that you may believe in Him and have eternal life (John 3:14-15).

Today changes everything in your life. All of us here today witness the confirmation of four young men in our congregation. And this is a big deal.  But keep in mind this simple fact.  All that happens today, all that has been leading up to this point, isn't about your commitment to God. It is about fully understanding and believing in God's commitment to you in Christ.  More important than your vows today, tomorrow, or the rest of your life are the vows of Christ. These promises are for you, stretch back to the beginning, both your beginning and that of the world, when the Lord promised Christ after the Fall into sin.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus speaks of two great gifts He gives to God’s children. They will find the Father’s heart wide open when they pray in Jesus’ name, and the Holy Spirit will speak the inmost truth plainly. Jesus says, “in that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26-27). Jesus consoled His disciples this way, that His disciples will ask in His name, and the Father will hear and answer.  Why should it be difficult to believe Jesus’ words? Why not trust the Father’s love? That is your glad news, the Lord’s assurance that your prayer in His name will be heard. That you are not alone, nor forgotten, nor ignored.

The Spirit of Christ was given at your baptism and by God’s grace is still with you today. You are not alone.  The Lord is with you. God has blessed you by making you part of His body, the one, Christian, and apostolic Church in which He daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers.

You who are being confirmed today will receive the Sacrament of the Altar for the first time.  Here you taste and see that the Lord is good, you taste His promises, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. There is no more personal of a union with Christ than what happens here.  For the strengthening of your faith, we come to the Lord’s Table and commune with Him in fellowship with Him and in unity of faith with one another.