Through Word-and-Sacrament Worship God Motivates His People in Their Vocations

Some Christians have been known to sing: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Well, actually, no, you weren’t there.
“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” I wasn’t. I did hear about it, though. That’s when I learned that, though I myself was not there, my sins were. They were taken up in Jesus. They were lifted up in Him and put to death, to the very last sinful impulse and wandering thought. My sin caused His suffering and death. I know this. You do, too. That is why you sing as you do.
Why is it, though, that you tremble? Is it because you must, in order to be assured that what happened there is actually going to benefit you in some way? Does it seem a bit strange that with all that the Lord is doing, you focus so much on yourself? Does it bother you that, if sometimes it causes you to tremble, then, sometimes it doesn’t?
Tremble or no, from the smallest infant who cannot articulate her faith; to the penitent in confession, who trembles, but with grief; to the communicant who looks up for the Host [consecrated bread] in Holy Communion, even in your receiving, what makes all the difference is Christ and what He does for you. Not what you do for Him.
Think like a child would. Before I even came home from school, mother thought about me. She planned a meal for me. She killed a chicken, plucked it, and roasted it before I even gave supper a thought.
Then she called me. At the table she put the meal in front of me. The food itself was sustenance for me. It saved me from going hungry. I’ve come to believe that it keeps me strong and living.
Spiritually speaking, that is the benefit we have in being sacramental Christians. Your Jesus, roasted for you on the Cross, cooled in the tomb, began to serve Himself up as soon as we found Him alive again! “Receive the Holy Spirit,” He said. “Whosoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven” (John 20:23). He promised this: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19). He puts the Spirit and the Word together.
False teachers, by their teaching, separate them. Words without the Spirit are just information. Water without the Spirit is just symbolic. Bread and wine apart from the Body and Blood of Christ can only memorialize an absent Jesus. That’s what men do.
What does God do? He puts His Spirit and Word together for you to know when you hear it that sins are truly forgiven. He puts water and His Spirit together to wash sins away and grant new birth. He puts His very Body and Blood in the bread and wine to be received by you for the remission of sins. Then you are being taught to look outside of yourself to Jesus, present here and now, to benefit you by what He did for you on the cross so long ago.
Reverend Aaron Hamilton
Concordia Lutheran Church
Eau Claire, WI