“Christ’s day,” is our theme for today.
It especially comes from our Gospel lesson when Jesus is in a conversation with Jews who did not believe in Him, called Him a liar and would eventually want to stone Him. He says, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, “He is our God.” But you have not known. I know Him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep His Word. Your Father Abraham rejoiced that He would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
It would seem that Jesus is perhaps referring to the day when Abraham saw that the Lord would indeed provide, would keep His Word, would make him glad. The day from our Old Testament Reading when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son, his only son, but the Lord provided a ram caught in a thicket of thorns to offer as a burnt offering instead of his son.
That day is the day of Christ’s sacrifice for us, so that He might receive the wrath of God for our sins instead of us. Our Epistle says it this way: When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come…He entered once for all into the holy places…by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Today’s your day.
When has that ever been said to you?
Your wedding, your birthday, your graduation or some other celebration of life or accomplishment or transition.
It’s your day.
It’s going to be about you.
It’s a fulfillment of a lot of waiting and a lot of times a fulfillment of a lot of hard work.
When I was ordained as pastor of Christ’s church and installed here, someone told me, “It’s your day,” and one of my first thoughts was I can’t wait until tomorrow, when it’s not my day.
I didn’t like all the attention.
Maybe you’re like that, maybe you love your days (your celebrations, your birthdays) or maybe you can’t wait for tomorrow when people will be looking at someone else.
Because we all know this assumption, that when someone tells your it’s your day, there’s also that assumption built into it, that tomorrow is not your day.
Abraham, Jesus says, rejoiced that he would see My Day. He saw it and was glad.
For the Christian, whether it our day and we like the attention or don’t like it or whether its the next day and we like it or don’t like, for the Christian we always have Christ’s day. And His day will always make us glad.
To be sure, we look back on Christ’s day when He lived and died for us and rose again.
And to be sure, we look forward to Christ’s day when He will come again and we will see Him face to face.
But Paul tells us to This is the day, the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Rejoice in the Lord always because The Lord is at hand.
There is an ever gladness for the Christian knowing that Christ’s Day is yesterday and today and tomorrow.
Christ’s Day was and is and always will be.
The Lord did provide.
The Lord is providing.
The Lord will provide.
When we make our lives centered around us, gladness and joy too often take on the form of an emotion, it becomes dependent on how things are going around us and inside of us.
Some days are our days and others we’re not feeling it.
Some days are day to celebrate accomplishments and others show us our failures.
Some days are so easy because the gifts that God has given us are obvious to our visible sight and other days we have only to lean on the faith and promises that God is good and will provide because what we see is sin, suffering, death, sickness, no happy ending, lots of enemies, lots of pain for those we love.
But Abraham saw Christ’s Day and was glad.
Abraham has the joy of believing that God is faithful to His promises.
He had Isaac to prove it, for one.
The name Isaac means “he laughs,” because Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old and Sarah who of ninety years old, bear a child (Gen. 17:17)
I think many of our husbands gathered here would do the same if their wife told them that they were pregnant.
They would laugh.
But there’s Isaac. God was faithful to His promise. And part of that promise was also that Isaac would have children and down his family line would be the Savior of the world, the One in Whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
You are blessed in Christ. Laugh at that in great joy.
When sin, death and devil mock you, laugh at them because you are baptized into the great I AM, because you hear the Word of God, and whoever hears Christ’s Word will never see death.
So, when God says, Go, sacrifice your son, Isaac.
Abraham went trusting that God would provide. Somehow, some way. His son would not die, or at least not stay dead.
Hebrews says that by faith, Abraham, when he was was tested, offered up Isaac…he considered that God was able to raise him from the dead.
You gotta think that as Abraham was going up the mountain with his son Isaac he was saying,
God will provide for Himself the Lamb.
The Lord will provide.
God can even raise Isaac up.
I believe the Lord and it was been counted to me as righteousness.
Jesus say that Abraham saw His day, and he was glad.
There is gladness in the midst of testing.
There is gladness in the midst of tribulation and suffering.
For the Christian, there is even gladness, even in the face of death.
Even if you die, God will raise you up from the dead.
Even if others you love die, for those who hear the Word of God and keep it, they will never see death.
By His own blood He has secured for us an eternal redemption.
Let God turn your souls back to see Him and His day today.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Joy lives because Jesus lives this day and as long as long as it is called today.
It’s not that you always have to put a smile on your face.
Much less does it mean that you have to fake until you make.
There’s good here, to be sure, but there’s also heart ache’s and head aches, there’s weariness and toil and trouble.
What it does mean, is that God gives you gladness and joy that no one can take away.
No death, no sickness, no job loss, no family problems, no sin, no struggles.
Abraham saw Christ’s day and was glad.
And by faith that looks back to Christ bearing all your sin and guilt and making payment for it on the cross,
by looking forward to the day when you the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father,
and by seeing that Christ’s day is still now, this the day when you hear His living voice and receive His blessed feast, He gives you gladness of heart