Bethany Lutheran Worship

 

 

Misericordias Domini – 

The Second Sunday after Easter, 2022 

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

 

Bethany Lutheran Church, 

10AM Central Daylight Time

 

The Hymn #436         The Lord's My Shepherd

The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16

The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord: by the word of the Lord were the heavens made. Psalm. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.

The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19

 

God, who by the humiliation of Thy Son didst raise up the fallen world, grant unto Thy faithful ones perpetual gladness, and those whom Thou hast delivered from the danger of everlasting death do Thou make partakers of eternal joys; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth, etc.

The Epistle and Gradual       

 

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

V. Then was the Lord Jesus known of the disciples: in the breaking of bread. Hallelujah!

V. I am the Good Shepherd: and know My sheep and am known of Mine. Hallelujah!

 

The Gospel              

Glory be to Thee, O Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
The Sermon Hymn #305:1-5 - Soul, Adorn Thyself

Unity of the Gospel

 

The Communion Hymn # 328          O Jesus Lamb of God Thou Art - CPE Bach

The Preface p. 24
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn #50              Lord Dismiss Us    

 

Prayers and Announcements

• Medical Care and Concerns - Pastor James Shrader and his wife Chris, Kermit Way and his wife Maria Ellenberger Way, Callie and her mother Peggy, C.
• Glen Kotten received the news that his fiancé can fly to America for their wedding this summer. Congratulations and God's Blessings!
• Pastor Jackson's has cut his online teaching in half to make more time for video lectures, etc.
• We all have one thing in common - we are here because of our mothers. Anyone with a living mother should thank her, pay attention to her needs, and realize how much she has done. Only those - who can only visit the grave and hear the kindly remarks of mom's relatives, friends, co-workers - fully appreciate those facts.

 

 

Second Sunday After Easter

Lord God, heavenly Father, who of Thy fatherly goodness hast been mindful of us poor, miserable sinners, and hast given Thy beloved Son to be our shepherd, not only to nourish us by His word, but also to defend us from sin, death, and the devil: We beseech Thee, grant us Thy Holy Spirit, that, even as this Shepherd doth know us and succor us in every affliction, we also may know Him, and, trusting in Him, seek help and comfort in Him, from our hearts obey His voice, and obtain eternal salvation, through the same, Thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.

 

KJV 1 Peter 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: 24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

 

KJV John 10:11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. 12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. 13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

 

Three of Luther’s sermons on this text:

• Misericordias Domini. Second Sunday After Easter. John 10:11-16. Christ’s Office and Kingdom; or How Christ is the True Shepherd
• Second Sermon: Preachers, Civil Authorities, and the Knowledge of Christ
• Third Sermon: The Good Shepherd and his Sheep; or Christ’s Person, Office and Rulership

Unity of the Gospel

KJV 1 Peter 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

Luther noted in his commentary on 1 and 2 Peter that Peter's letters should be carefully studies because the short letters have some of the great passages of the New Testament.

One writer recently stated that the problem with modern translations is easy to describe - the unknown collections of translators do not accept or teach the basics of the Scriptures, that -

1. The Word is clear, authoritative, and divine;
2. The Word is one harmonious whole, the Book of the Holy Spirit, always efficacious because the Word and the Spirit are always together, never apart.
3. The Bible judges all books and is not judged by any other book;
4. The passages we do not understand are illuminated by the plain, clear passages.

I did not include inerrant or infallible, because both terms are tossed about by the modernists, and those adjectives are necessarily part of the description of the Sacred Scripturas.

Once translators (collected by that particular Bible business - NIV, RSV, ESV, NRSV, etc.) accept the falsehoods of the apostate professors, they nave plenty of reason to distort and mock the text of the New Testament, not to mention the Old Testament. The translators favor the fraudulent Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus - which conflict with each other, but dismiss the 5,000 Majority (Traditional, Byzantine) texts that agree. In fact, the two fake codices disagree with each other.

So we have in this 1 Peter passage a message which reflects John 10 - I AM the Good Shepherd, using different words, a slightly different presentation of the same message, which began with the blood of the lamb and the Passover Meal so many centuries before Christ.

First Peter is very much concerned with the problem of persecution. It is thought that he was executed in Jerusalem, and the persecution there pushed the Christians out of the hostile city. Later, due to the arrogance of some zealots, they brought the Roman Imperial Army down of them, and Jerusalem was destroyed, people carted off into slavery, and the Temple laid flat from the soldiers looking for gold.

Jesus is first of all our example in suffering, though ours is so little compared to what He did. To this day experts call crucifixion the cruelest form of death possible. And that was a horrible beating, insults, punches, and the abandonment of the disciples (except John). 

No matter what happens, we are to follow In His Steps. (That is the name of a famous best-seller.)

22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

Here is the definition - He was without sin, yet He was judged guilty and worth of death. He was reviled and yet He did not return the hatred.

In fact, Jesus warned them time after time, that faith in Him is faith in God the Father, that all things happening were the will and grace of God the Father and God the Son participating. 

He suffered horribly and did not do anything He could have done, which made the enemies and the crowd insult Him even more. Is it no surprise that a Roman soldier confessed his faith in Jesus as He was dying?

Jesus - instead of throwing the hatred back - let God the Father carry out the divine purpose.

24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

The temptation is to say, "But I know all this," when we should consider and repeat to ourselves what this one verse says. In carrying our sins, taking them on Himself, atoned for the sins of the world.

One person who writes to me had trouble with Objective Justification, because of information merged together and distorted. One illustration from a Robert Preus book destroys OJ. Christ is the righteousness of God, but His righteousness does not become ours until we believe in Him.

 Preus loved the works of Quenstedt, and the truth came through Preus' last book.

25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

Many of us wandered in the wilderness of false teachers, because each sect promised to be real, pure, and had so much to be adored. We did not know it then, but each bad experience was an energizing push in the right direction. In many cases, it took very strong and hurtful forces to move us toward total reliance on the Scriptures. We can identify with the lost sheep of Luke 15, the trusting sheep of Psalm 23, the sheep dying for our sins in Isaiah 53, supported by the details in Psalm 22.