The sermon for May 24 was based on John 15:26-16:4.

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Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wouldn't it be nice to have physical evidence of God's strong, reliable, unwavering, merciful love for you? It would be nice, and the Holy Spirit's testimony points to just such evidence. That is what He declares and proclaims - in the hour of your suffering, in the hour of your happiness, in the hour of your death, and finally, in the Day of Judgment. The Holy Spirit's testimony comforts and helps you, not just because it smoothes things over and makes life bearable and sets your heart and head straight. The Spirit's testimony, His preaching that points to the physical evidence, comforts and helps you because it is the truth. It is no empty promise. It is more than just words. The Holy Spirit's testimony is trustworthy and sure. You can depend on it.

Physical evidence is that to which the Holy Spirit's testimony points. He does not testify about lofty ideas. He does not testify about warm hopes. He does not testify about theories that make your head spin. The Holy Ghost testifies about hard, concrete, solid, real, physical evidence. The Holy Ghost testifies about a thing, not a thought. He testifies about physical evidence that engages your senses, not that only engages your brain or your heart. He testifies about physical evidence you can actually hear with your ears, see with your eyes, and handle with your hands. That is the physical evidence which the Spirit of Truth presents and holds out in front of you.

Of course, you cannot see or hear the Holy Ghost making His case and presenting the evidence. The Holy Ghost is a spirit, and so He has no hands and no mouth. He is the Breath of God breathed into the world to bring your soul to life, to make God's Word come alive in your heart. Since you cannot see Him, the Spirit of Truth uses the mouth and hands of physical men -men chosen by the Spirit, declared worthy by the Spirit's Church, ordained and anointed by the Spirit's breathing. These men whom you call Pastors - such men are the hands and the feet, the mouth and the tongue that the Spirit uses to tell the story, to declare the facts, to explain the details, to tell their meaning, to hold up the data, to deliver the proofs, to present and deliver the physical evidence. You can thank God that the Spirit has given His testimony of this physical evidence among the saints of Bethany for nearly sixty years, and throughout the world for six millennia.

And what is that physical evidence? The mystery of Christ's Incarnation; His nativity; His baptism, fasting and temptation; His agony and bloody sweat; His cross and passion; His precious death and burial; His glorious resurrection and ascension; - all these things are physical things, things which God accomplished in His physical Body and Blood. And now all these things are concentrated and delivered to you in His most holy, precious Body and Blood. All these things are freely given to you in this holy Supper. This is the physical evidence to which the Spirit's testimony points. This is how and where your God and Lord comforts and helps you. This is how Jesus lives up to His Name, which means, "God saves." This holy Supper is how your God comes through for you and forgives you all your sins.

God does not save you by shouting down from the sky, but by taking your flesh into Himself. God does not save you by feeling sorry for you, but by becoming your sin, enduring your hell, and taking up residence in your grave. God saves you by going through what scares you most and coming out unharmed. God saves you by living in your flesh so that your flesh might live again and remain alive. God saves you by meeting you where you are - in skin and bones, in tears and laughter, amid toil and suffering. That is how your Jesus helps you. For what He did not become He did not heal or restore or glorify. And so the Lord became a Man like you, and takes it all upon Himself - everything you face - all so that He might be the God who loves you in and through your blood, your sweat, and your tears.

The physical evidence is on the cross. There is God crucified for you. That is the cold, hard fact. From that cross you receive the physical evidence in the Lord's Supper. You receive God bleeding, God suffering, God dying, God buried, God rising, God ascending. In the Supper, you receive God in Christ, with you hidden in Him. In this way He does for your good what you can never do on your own. That is the physical evidence about which the Spirit through His Pastor testifies.

But this testimony is not just a history lesson. Jesus telling the disciples, on the night of His betrayal, what has happened and what will happen and what it all means does help make sense of it all, but it really is no comfort. There must be more than just the historical facts and meaning. There must be something that makes this evidence come alive, that breathes life into the story so that it is as true and real and beneficial today as it was that night. There must be something or Someone that changes the evidence from hard facts and data into a lively, life-giving, life-saving Word.

And so here comes the Spirit of Truth. He doesn't just tell the truth. He proceeds from the Father and the Son to bring home the evidence, to bring alive the facts. And that is what the Holy Ghost does. He opens your eyes and shows you that the Body and Blood on the cross is now right before you in the Supper. He opens your ears so that you hear not my voice, but the very voice of God resounding from heaven with strong and soothing Absolution. He breathes into you the saving faith, which receives His testimony and is convinced by the physical evidence.

You see, the cross by itself does you no good. No forgiveness, no rescue from death and the devil, no help in time of need, no life, and no salvation is found in the wood of the cross, nor in the facts of 2000 years ago, nor in the details of the story. Even the Devil knows the facts and details. To be sure, the facts and details are truthfully recorded by the Holy Ghost in the Bible. But He doesn't leave you with just facts and details. He is the Spirit who testifies of Jesus. And so He points to the Jesus who now stands before you, the Jesus who now speaks His Word into you, the Jesus who now feeds you with His own Body and Blood, the Jesus whose suffering, death, resurrection and ascension becomes real and true and good for you here and now.

Hear the Absolution with your ears; feel on your brow the Blood in baptismal water washing over you; and taste with your mouth the Body and Blood in bread and wine; and take to heart the Gospel preaching which now rings in your ears. That is the ultimate physical evidence which the Spirit presents. That is the testimony the Spirit gives by the mouth of His faithful Pastor. Thanks be to God that the Spirit continues to give His testimony among the saints of Bethany.

Ultimately, the Gospel is the only testimony that is both the truth and your real help and comfort. For this Gospel in the concrete and physical evidence of your Lord Jesus, this Gospel in His preached Word, in His Body and Blood, in His Baptism - this Gospel is your comfort in every time of need, through every trial and suffering. So let false teachers put you out of their synagogues. Let the time come when whoever kills you thinks he is offering God service. Let the devil attack you with whatever he can. Let all manner of evil and hardship, sickness and distress, grief and sorrow, heartache and death come. For when that happens, the Spirit of Truth brings to your remembrance and points to and delivers into you the physical evidence of the Lord's passion, death and resurrection. And when that happens, the Holy Ghost comforts you - not just with pious thoughts or warm feelings, but with the most holy, precious Blood of Christ poured from His side into your mouth. That is the physical evidence that will carry you through even the worst. And that physical evidence, Christ's precious Body and Blood, is the only evidence that stands up in the hour of death and in the Day of Judgment. Amen.

The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Last Updated: 5/27/2009