Blessed Are Those Who Hear and Receive this Word
Blessed are those who read and those who hear the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, as recorded by His bond-servant St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist. For by this Word you also now receive the grace and peace of the One who was, and is, and is to come. You walk in His Light as an heir of His Life and Salvation, clothed in His Blood and Righteousness forever.
For all of this, it is truly meet, right, and salutary to remember St. John with thanksgiving unto our God and Father in heaven. For the Lord has chosen to reveal Himself and give Himself to you by the hand of this beloved Disciple and holy Apostle. And do not underestimate the significance and benefit of these apostolic Scriptures, which are uniquely foundational to the Christian Church.
What St. John and his fellow Apostles saw and heard and even touched and handled — the only-begotten God, the Word-made-Flesh, the incarnate Son of the Father, your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ — no less than He is manifested and communicated to you in the apostolic Scriptures, as these have been written and as they are proclaimed within the Church. As the Father has spoken His Word to us in the Person of His Son, so is He now spoken to you in the apostolic preaching of the Gospel, whereby you have entered into the joyous friendship and glorious company of the holy Apostles, and into the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Father, and His Holy Spirit.
You cannot separate your Savior, Jesus Christ, from this apostolic Word of His Gospel. Nor can you have the One without the other. Nor do you have God as your Father apart from this Word of His incarnate Son, Christ Jesus. But as it is, you have been given and you have this Word by way of the Apostles of our Lord, whom He called, ordained, and sent to preach in His Name.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. And by the preaching of that Word, that is, by the preaching of the Gospel for the forgiveness of sins in His Name, you have believed that Jesus is the Christ, the incarnate Son of God. And by such faith you live and abide in Him forever. Not metaphorically, rhetorically, or theoretically, but actually and tangibly. For real.
In the apostolic Word of Christ that is preached to you by His grace, through faith in that Word, you are given everything that the holy Apostles beheld and heard and grasped in the Person of Jesus Christ, the one true God who was conceived and born of St. Mary. Which is to say that you, also, are a beloved disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you, also, are given to recline with Him at His Supper, cleansed and sanctified by one and the same Christ Jesus, by the washing of water with His Word and Holy Spirit, and fed from His own hand His holy Body and precious Blood.
The only-begotten God who has come from the bosom of the Father, who reveals the Father to us, He has taken you into His embrace, to rest upon His bosom, to find your shelter and protection, your Life and your Salvation, there in Him, in His own Flesh and Blood.
As you are thus called by His Word of the Gospel, by His forgiveness of all your sins, to live and believe in Him, so it is that you shall never die. For so long as you abide in Him by grace through faith in His Gospel, so do you continue to live, even though you die! Not by any reason or strength of your own, but by the good and gracious Will of God for you in Jesus Christ, your Savior.
The life that you now live, therefore, you live no longer for yourself, but for Him who for your sake died and was raised. And you live that life — in Christ — in whatever office or station to which He has called you. Whatever it may be, and however it may seem to the world or to you, that is the place where you glorify the Name of Christ and serve your neighbor in faith and love.
It will be different for you than for your fellow Christian disciples, as it was different for St. Peter than it was for St. John. So, neither look back to see where you have been, nor look around to see how you compare with your neighbor. Simply follow Christ Jesus wherever He shall lead you by His Word and Holy Spirit, whether for life or death, knowing that your true life is now hidden with Christ in God, and when He appears in Glory, so shall His Life be fully manifest in you forever.
Take heart, dearly-beloved disciple. Repent of your envy and jealousy, your coveting, your doubts and fears, denials and betrayals, your haughty arrogance and faithless despair. And in repentance, not only sorrow for your sins, but take heart in Christ, and do not be afraid.
By the Word of His Apostles — by the Word as written by St. John, and by the preaching of that Word — Christ Jesus fills the world with His gracious deeds of Life. And so does He fill you.
When the bright Light of His Law exposes and condemns you, know that He remains faithful and righteous to forgive your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. For He is Himself the Propitiation for all your sins, and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world; and the merciful Light of His Gospel shines yet more brightly upon you than even His Law.
You are already clean, therefore, by this Word that He has spoken to you, by this Holy Absolution of the Gospel: All of your sins are forgiven!
It is in that Light of Christ that you have fellowship with St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist, and with all the saints who have gone before us in the faith, and so also with one another, and with the whole Christian Church in heaven and on earth. For at His Word, once heard and received by the Apostles, now spoken and delivered to you here, you have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and, in Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is for the sake of this Holy Communion, and to this Holy Communion — this Fellowship with God in His Word-made-Flesh — that these things have been written and are preached to the close of the age, unto eternal Life in body and soul.
Come, then. Recline here at His Table, and lean upon His breast, and eat and drink the Flesh and Blood of that very dear Savior who loves you — and so taste and see that He is good!
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.