What Did Jesus Do?

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fast bound in Satan's chains I lay;
Death brooded darkly o'er me.
Sin was my torment night and day;
In sin my mother bore me.
But daily deeper still I fell;
My life became a living hell,
So firmly sin possessed me (LSB 556.2).

Recently, I watched a television show where science fiction crashed right into the realm of religion. In the show, the main characters crash-land onto a forlorn planet hovering precariously on the edge of a black hole, but mysteriously not being sucked in and destroyed. Some scientists had discovered this planet, and scans found that there was a massive, unexplainable energy source in the middle of it, so they set about drilling down to reach it. What they found was mind-bending: they found the Abyss, the prison of Satan, the great Beast.

Because I Live

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus promises us, “I will not leave you as orphans.” With these words, our Lord invites us to believe and trust that He will never leave us alone in this world, no matter how forlorn or difficult things appear to be. For we know that regardless of appearances, our God is always with us.

Contrary to what many might think, and in contrast to many other religions of the world, our God is not an absentee deity. Despite what the philosophers of the 1960s and on have said, God is not dead. Our Lord has died, but is now living. And our God is not simply a clockmaker who wound up the system, set it in motion, then wandered off and forgot about us. The Scriptures declare that our God made the heavens and the earth, and He directs the movement of each and every particle in the cosmos. He knows the beat of every heart of every living thing, and He daily and richly provides for all our needs of body and soul.