Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine, never was love, dear king, never was grief, like thine. This is my friend, in whose sweet praise, I all my days could gladly we spend.
Dear saints, we spend this day praising God for the death of His Son, Jesus, and for the gifts that flow from Christ’s cross to us today in baptism and communion and of boldness in confession in confirmation.
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
The story of Jesus is about the God-King who came to us in love.
And the story of Christ’s Church, our story, is about the God-King who is still coming to us in love.
So, I have a short story for you.
A Lutheran pastor I know was visiting a member in a nursing home and was bringing her Holy Communion. He had a little box that carried the bread and the wine.
He checked in at the front desk. And the lady there seemed like she wanted to say something, but she kept deciding not to.
The pastor visited and communed his dear sainted member there and when he came back to sign out, that lady was finally ready to say something.
She said, “You think you have Jesus in that box, don’t you? I don’t need Jesus in that box. I have Jesus in my heart.”
My pastor friend wanted to say back a number of things, but he didn’t. He only said, “I believe you do have Jesus in your heart, maa’m. God be praised for that.”
Now, what he wanted to say this: “I believe you do have Jesus in your heart, maa’m. God for be praised for that! But let me ask you, “How did He get there?”
Indeed, if we want to stay and sing His story, how did that story get there?
How does that story stay there?
You see, as Christians, we thank God that we can confess that we had a King who came to us.
We can look back and hear the Passion of Christ cross today and say, “That’s God – that’s the King, my King – who came for me – in love!”
“Jesus is God, not in a box, but God is in the flesh. The Son of God took on a heart long before He entered my heart.”
Blessed is He who came in the name of the Lord
And, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
We can sing God’s praises today to Him, because, He’s here.
He still comes to us in His Word – For the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4).
He still comes to us in Baptism – He cleanses us with water the Word (Ephesians 5); He saves us through the washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3); Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3).
He still comes to us in His Holy Supper Jesus says, This is my body…this is my blood…whoever eats of this bread and drinks of this cup has communion with the body and blood of Jesus (Matthew; Mark; Luke and 1 Cor. 10-11).
We don’t say, “I don’t need Jesus in there….or in there….or in there, because I have Jesus in here.”
We say, “I have Jesus in here because He came and comes to me in there and in there and in there.”
We do believe Jesus is dwelling in our heart. Every Christian does.
But every Christian is also warned that if He stops coming to us from outside the heart, He won’t be dwelling in here for long because Jesus isn’t the only thing dwelling in our heart.
The Passion Reading from Matthew today shows us some of things that dwell in our sinful hearts – from the cowardice of Pilate,
to the fickleness to follow the world in the crowd who once yelled “Hosanna” and now yell “Crucify,”
to the lies, jealousy and rage of the Pharisees and chief priests and elders,
to the cruelty of the soldiers and the criminals who mock and speak evil things
Jesus does dwell in your heart, dear Christian. God be praised for that.
But He doesn’t dwell there naturally.
Scriptures says that out of the sinful heart come evil thoughts, …murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
Scriptures says out of our sinful heart comes hopelessness and despair.
Scripture says out of our sinful hearts comes hardness and slowness to believe God’s Word or even a straight out unbelief of God and His Word.
Our hearts can be weighed down by the cares of this life alone.
God be praised that we have Jesus dwelling in our heart so that He can begin to do battle against some of this ugly stuff we also have dwelling in our hearts.
So one of the promises these young people will make is that they will, with the help of God, keep coming to church.
One of the promises you will make, dear congregation, is that you will allow God to use you to help them keep coming to church, too. You will lead by example, you will encourage with words, and you will pray.
Jesus is here.
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
The story of Christ’s cross and passion is that Jesus couldn’t come into our hearts without first answering for what we and our hearts deserved.
God’s wrath and anger. Separation from God now and forever. Condemnation and temporal and eternal punishment.
You hear that clear and see it clear in the Passion story.
Pilate tried to wash his hands of Jesus’ death because he was a coward.
Jesus needs to keep coming in our hearts through the water and Word of baptism and His promises He once made there to keep washing me of all of my cowardice and present me holy, blameless and give me His continually so I can also be bold in front of God and the world and say…
Yes…I renounce the devil, I renounce his works, I renounce his way, I believe….
The crowd yelled in a fickle rage, “His blood be upon us and our children.”
Jesus needs to keep coming to me and my children with His blood to continually purge our rage and fickleness and sin
in create in us a clean heart from the outside in and then from inside out.
Today is another day in which we sing God’s praises.
We praise God for what He has done and is doing for us and we look at these young ones today and rejoice in what He has done and is doing for them.
We rejoice that they have come to Jesus,
and that they love Jesus,
and that they believe in Jesus.
But even more, today is a day we rejoice that we have a Lord who came and still comes to us,
who loved and still loves us,
and He is the one who began faith in us and He still comes to bring it to completion.
We keep needing Jesus to dwell in our hearts and we rejoice that we know how He got there and how He’s going to keep getting there.