The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity

Hymns: 245, 394, 390, 396

Hosea 13:14 — “Repentance Shall Be Hid from Mine Eyes”

      Grace, mercy, and peace to you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

      The sermon text is the Old Testament reading appointed for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, Hosea 13:14:

     “I will ransom them from the hand of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O Sheol, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”

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

Introduction

      Life is from the Lord. More directly stated, as Psalm 27 declares: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

      Life is not a choice that we make. Life is not in our hands. The Lord is our Life. Jesus Christ, the Lord, is our Life. This is and shall remain true forevermore.

I.      I Will Ransom Them from the Hand of Sheol

      In the beginning, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” This was what they knew. They knew nothing beyond the goodness and love of God, their loving Creator and Father. They knew themselves in relationship to Him and all that He is. In this knowledge they lived and had their being. Then the tempter came and they made their first choice. They chose to be and to live other than they were created to be and to live. They chose death and destruction, for in that choice they ended their life with God in His holy image. They bound themselves and their descendants to another way, a way of slavery to death and destruction.

      The Lord their God, however, was not willing to permit this. He came to them and called for the man to come out from the darkness of the life that he and the woman had chosen. By the power of His Word the Lord called to them and ransomed them. By His holy presence He restored them. He came to them when they dared not even think of coming to Him. He came to them in the same way as before, but they could only hide from His holiness. They tried to cover the nakedness of their shame, but could not undo the evil that they had done. They hid from God’s holiness but could not hide from their own unholiness. Therefore, the Lord came to them and called them out of the dark life that they had chosen. He called them to come into His presence, where the light of His holiness exposed them completely. By His Word He called them to stand in the judgment that they wanted to avoid. By His Word He showed them the inescapable Truth. By all that they had chosen for themselves, even according to their best efforts to do better for themselves, they stood in the darkness of condemnation. They had given themselves over into the hand of the grave and beyond the grave. They were everlastingly cut off from the One who is Light and Life. They were now in the horribly powerful grasp of Sheol.

      But God’s Will was not that they should remain in the hand of Sheol. He confronted them in the order of their creation and in the order of their life. First the man was confronted as the head of the woman. When the man admitted that he had given his authority to the woman, the Lord confronted the woman. When the woman admitted that she had listened to the deceiver rather than the man whom God had placed over her, the Lord confronted the serpent. Then the Lord reversed it all. He condemned the serpent and established that from the serpent’s bite and from the power of the devil mankind would be ransomed by the Seed of the woman. Then the Lord spoke to the woman and restored her to her life in communion with her husband. Then the Lord spoke to the man and restored him to his life in communion with the Lord through the promise of the Seed that would be born of the woman. The Lord cursed the ground for man’s sake, so that the very ground from which man was created now was cursed as Sheol. When the man would return to the ground from which he was created, the curse would remain with Sheol.

      This wonderful promise of the ransom from Sheol was transmitted throughout the generations. In our text, the people of the promise had again chosen the way of Sheol. They had turned aside from the promise of ransom, and had again imagined their own choices and works to be better than the life that exists in the unadulterated communion of the saints. They had again trespassed out of the Life into the hand of Sheol.

      Thus we again hear the Lord coming to His beloved children and saying, “I will ransom them from the hand of Sheol.” Notice that just as with the first two rebellious ones, the act of ransom is entirely beyond their grasp. “I will ransom them,” is the declaration of the Lord. This is the way of the Lord. This is His good and gracious will. What we cannot do for ourselves, He does for us. It is the same for all of mankind. No one can ransom himself from the hand of Sheol. The Lord is the only one who has the power to force open the grasp of Sheol and to lift us from the everlasting separation so as to restore us to the life of His holy Communion.

II.      I Will Redeem (Ga’al = to Redeem, Act as Kinsman-redeemer) Them from Death

      The second part of the Lord’s declaration is: “I will redeem them from death.” While this is directly connected to the first declaration, it addresses something more. Not only is the hand of Sheol broken of its everlasting grasp upon us, not only does the Lord strip hell of its power over us, but God declares Himself to be our kinsman-redeemer from death.

      This is like when Abraham redeemed Lot who had been taken captive.

     And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. (Genesis 14:12-16)

      This is what the Lord does for His people regarding their slavery to sin, just as when He redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt. For this the same word is used, as in the first part of our text, Padah. This is the word used for ransoming the people from Sheol and from slavery.

      But in this second act of God for His people the word for redemption of kinsmen is used. This word is Ga’al. Here the Lord declares, “I will redeem them from death.” Not only does God ransom His people from the hand of Sheol, but He steps in as a brother to pay the price of their redemption from death.

      This is the fullness of what Jesus has done for us. In the body of Jesus, the Lord took up residence as one of us. The Lord took into Himself the form of the creation, the form of the servant. The Lord made Himself to be man to live among us as a man, as our brother. As our brother, the Lord offered Himself as our kinsman-redeemer from death. By His own death He declared, “O death, I will be thy plagues; O Sheol, I will be thy destruction.”

      Death, with all of the suffering that death inflicts upon our bodies and souls, has been rendered bound to the ground. The Word of God became flesh and tabernacled in a human body so that He could bind death and all of the suffering of death in His own body and die in our place, as our kinsman-redeemer, and bind sin and death and suffering everlastingly to the ground which has been cursed for our sake. Now, when we die in Christ, having been buried with Christ through Baptism, the curse remains with the ground and no longer with us. We are set free to be raised with Christ in the resurrection from the dead, leaving sin and death and the curse buried forevermore. By the death and burial of the Lord Jesus Christ, Death has been bound to its own plagues and the grasp of Sheol has been broken through Christ’s resurrection. This is what the Lord our God has promised. This is what the Lord has accomplished.

III.      Repentance Shall Be Hid from Mine Eyes

     “I will ransom them from the hand of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O Sheol, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”

      The Lord declares that He shall never repent of His promise of ransom and redemption. What He promised to the first two sinners He has repeated throughout history. What He has declared for all, He also inspired holy men of God to record for us in the Holy Scriptures so that we can take up His promises and read them and hold them before us and before the world.

      “Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes!” This has been recorded for us so that even today we read it as a part of the blessed lectionary. The very possibility of repentance, the very notion of being sorry for this promise, the very thought of ever reversing this Word of Life, is hidden from the eyes of the Lord. He buried all possibility of such repentance in the grave and left it there forever when He rose from the dead. God will not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His Word stands forever. His goodness and mercy endure forever.

      Furthermore, the Lord never repents of His Gospel. He continues to proclaim His Gospel throughout this evil age. No matter how many times Israel turned from the true faith, no matter how many times the Church has compromised the purity that Christ has purchased for it, the Lord continues to proclaim the purity of His Holy Communion. The Lord will not repent of His pure Gospel. Never.

      His pure Word, His pure Gospel, will never stop being proclaimed. His Holy Catholic Church shall never be abandoned by the Lord. No matter how many people compromise, no matter what the church bodies assembled by men choose for themselves, the Lord shall never repent of His promise to keep His one true Church on earth with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. Wherever two or more gather to the pure administration of the Word and Sacraments of Life, the Lord will come to His people and ransom them from Sheol and redeem them from death.

      Let all the others go their own way. Let all the others compromise as they choose. Let all the others mingle impurity with the preaching and practice of their churches. Let them all build their places of gathering in the name of their various church bodies.

      The Lord declares that repentance is hid from His eyes. While they repent of His pure Word, He will not look upon such repentance. He will be true to His Word. He will ransom us from Sheol and redeem us from death. He will not suddenly abandon His holy communion of the saints and bind Himself to the way of compromise. He will turn to the compromisers at the Last Day and say, “I never knew you!” But to His remnant, those who have forsaken all so as to remain in the narrow way of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, He will say, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

      Dear child of God, of whom the Lord has declared Himself your kinsman-redeemer, never fear. No matter what others do, no matter what others say, no matter what others choose for themselves, no matter how others repent of the purity of Gospel, no matter how the anxieties and pains and sufferings of this world surround you, no matter how your own heart becomes fearful and weak and filled with doubt, the Lord will never repent of His pure Gospel by which you are assured of the things that can be known only through faith. He has solemnly declared, “Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes!”

Conclusion

      So then, even as we have been gathered by the Holy Spirit this day through the pure Gospel to partake of the blessed Sacrament, be assured that the Word of the Lord does not change and His promise has endured to this very day and shall continue evermore:

     “I will ransom them from the hand of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O Sheol, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”

      Prepare now to receive the food of heaven that the Lord has set before you at His Table. By this Holy Supper He has promised you forgiveness and life, ransom and redemption. He has declared that this is His body into which you have been baptized and this is His blood through which you have been ransomed and redeemed. He has promised to come to you through this blessed Sacrament and make His home within you. He has promised to renew you in the one true faith by which you are joined to Him in His Holy Communion. He has promised to nurture you and preserve you evermore. Repentance is hidden from His eyes. He will never go back on His Word. Feast upon His goodness and His life. Live in the comfort of His grace, mercy, and peace. For as often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you do proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. He has and continues to ransom you from Sheol and to redeem you from death, and repentance is hid from His eyes. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

      The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus forever. Amen.

The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity

Hymns: 245, 394, 390, 396

The Introit       (Apoc.Esther 13:9-11; Ps.119:1)

The Collect     

Lord, we beseech Thee to keep Thy household, the Church, in continual godliness, that through Thy protection it may be free from all adversities and devoutly given to serve Thee in good works, to the glory of Thy name; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

The First Lesson      Hosea 13:14 (KJV)

      I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

The Gradual     (Ps.90:1,2;125:1)

The Epistle     Ephesians 6:10-17 (NKJV)

The Sentence for the Season     (Ps. 119:124)

P:/C:     Hallelujah! O Lord, deal with Thy servant according unto Thy mercy and teach me Thy statutes. I am Thy servant, give me understanding: that I may know Thy testimonies. Hallelujah!

The Holy Gospel      St. John 4:46-54 (NKJV)

Hosea 13:14

      “I will ransom (padah) them from the hand of Sheol; I will redeem (ga’al = to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer) them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O Sheol, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”

Corinthians 15:54-57 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (NKJ)

Hosea 13:14 — “Repentance Shall Be Hid from Mine Eyes”

Introduction

I.      I Will Ransom Them from the Hand of Sheol

II.      I Will Redeem (Ga’al = to Redeem, Act as Kinsman-redeemer) Them from Death

III.      Repentance Shall Be Hid from Mine Eyes

Conclusion