God is known in holy scripture by many names. We usually hear only a few of them. For example, the word “Elohim” in Hebrew means the same thing as the word “God” in English. It’s used in the account of Creation at the very beginning of Genesis. Another name is “Adonai,” which means “Lord.” Then there’s the name given to Moses at the burning bush: “Yahweh,” which means “I am.” In contrast to every other god that is worshipped, Yahweh lives, and lives eternally.
There are other names from Old Testament times too, but we don’t have time to search them all out today. Let it be enough to notice that these names all imply a relationship between God and those who use them. If we call Him God, or Lord, we acknowledge His position above us. His names carry meaning, and the Church summarizes that meaning in commonly-accepted statements of faith. These are called “creeds,” and one of the oldest is the Apostles’ Creed. It did not come directly from the Apostles, but indirectly, since it states the things that they taught.
Today we begin exploring the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, which describes Jesus, the Son of God. As our theme, we’ll use three names for himself that He gave to His disciples: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Creed describes how He is all of these.
The Way, the Truth, and the Life: God reveals Jesus as our Savior, and Jesus reveals God’s love for sinners.
It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.
Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Since we confessed the [Apostles or Nicene] Creed just a few minutes ago, and since our catechism insert today contains only the creed itself, I’ll just refer you to that insert for the text of the second article.
Those apostles were like the prophets in Old Testament times: God’s representatives to people living on the earth. They were sent by Him (for that’s what the name “apostle” really means) to carry His message and teach it to people like you and me. So men like Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Nathaniel, and six more were really the mouthpieces of God Himself. Many of them wrote or supervised the writing of God’s Word.
Today, many people have the false impression that the Bible can’t really be pinned down on anything. They think that so many hands have been in the pot that now nobody can really be sure what it originally said, or what was meant. But people have been trying to twist and turn holy scripture from before we had the New Testament. St. Peter wrote (2 Peter 1:20–21), … no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
In this sermon series, we’ve covered many things revealed in the Bible. But today we hear about the central point. In all His Word, God is doing one main thing: He reveals Jesus as our Savior. We learn that Jesus is indeed the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Notice how that threefold name of Jesus relates to the rest of us. He’s the Way for us to reach our eternal home. He’s the Truth for us to learn, know, and believe. He’s the Life for us to live both now and forever. But notice also the word repeated three times in that threefold name. It’s the definite article, the word “the.” Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. These names are exclusive. He does not share them with anyone else, no matter what anyone may think or believe. There can be no competing truth. Jesus is the only One.
At the beginning of the Gospel according to St. Mark, we are introduced to John the Baptist. Mark tells the story of these events in an epic style: not wordy, but grand, and full of the importance they hold for every human being ever to live on the face of the earth. Everyone was going to hear John. He was controversial, popular, and filled with God’s spirit of prophecy. But John’s main purpose was to prepare the way for someone even greater. Then Mark introduces Jesus, who came to John and was baptized. This is the climax of this first chapter in Mark.
Here we see that John was not alone in identifying the man Jesus as the Jews’ Messiah and the world’s Savior. The Holy Spirit of God made a personal appearance to demonstrate the same thing: And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. By this Spirit, Jesus would proceed into the work for which He had come. When He had finished that work, Jesus would send the same Spirit to build and protect His Church in the world. He inspired the writing of the New Testament, and from early on, the Church has confessed her faith in the words of the Apostles’ Creed.
But the Holy Spirit was not the only one to confirm that Jesus is the Christ of God. The Father also spoke. Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The way Mark describes these things, it’s like a fireworks display on the Fourth of July, ending with a grand finale. Who can argue with God when He identifies the Messiah not only through His prophet, but even in person? We would naturally think that Jesus would immediately enjoy the honor and respect that the Messiah ought to have. He’s a king, after all! But His kingdom is not of this world, and His first work comes from His other office as High Priest. Jesus came to bear the sins of the world and provide the atoning sacrifice that would secure forgiveness for us all.
There was no delay. Mark writes, Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him. By this work and others, Jesus made Himself into the Way, the one path from earth to heaven. He became Jacob’s ladder upon which the angels ascend and descend, connecting a rebellious earth to a gracious God.
We could not overcome forty days of temptation in the wilderness. We usually can’t overcome forty seconds of temptation in the comfort of our own homes. But Jesus overcame Satan completely on our behalf. Through Him, there is now a way for us to appear before God in righteousness, actually deserving eternal life! Jesus received our guilt — and its full punishment. We receive His righteousness. Death can no longer claim us, so Jesus has also become our Life.
When the Church calls Jesus her Lord, we mean that He is our one Redeemer, our Savior from sin, death, and the devil. We believe that the Bible is the very Word of God, so that we can trust it completely. That means Jesus is truly born of the Virgin Mary. He was conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit. Yet despite this glorious entrance into the world, God’s Son came in humility to die in the stead of sinners. Yet He remained the Son of God, and since the Law was satisfied with His sacrifice in our place, Jesus rose to live and reign forever.
Because He lives, you also will live. By His life and word, by His deeds and His resurrection, God reveals Jesus as your Savior.
But now, if you have received God’s testimony about His Son, we must turn our attention to Jesus Himself. What would He teach us? Well, Jesus reveals God’s love for sinners. He taught other things too, but everything He taught served this one main theme: God’s love for sinners.
The way Mark puts it is less specific. In our text, he wrote, Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Remember that Mark is writing in a compact, epic style. He’s not spelling everything out every time he mentions it. It forces us to read elsewhere in Mark or in the whole New Testament to understand what he means by “preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.”
Today, people are split about what the gospel actually says. Some would say it only applies to the afterlife: whether you will be in heaven or not after you die. Meanwhile, in life on earth, each person must live the way he thinks is best. Others say the gospel requires us to show mercy toward the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden before all else. The purpose of the Christian faith is to help disadvantaged people throughout the world with things like housing, jobs, and medical care. Still others say that the gospel is meant to bring freedom from tyranny and injustice, whether to entire populations on the Earth, or to certain categories of people within those populations.
But to cut through the confusion, why don’t we let Jesus tell us what the gospel really says? His apostles wrote quite a bit about that, and Jesus Himself taught it too. In fact, the human writer of this text, Mark, began the whole work shortly before our text with these words, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” But this was the beginning of Jesus’ story, an official eye-witness account of what Jesus did and taught.
Could the Gospel really be nothing more than the message about Jesus? Well, consider also what the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15: Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
So Paul was setting up to repeat the Gospel itself, the main message He brought in his missionary journeys to the Gentile cities. What’s more, Paul even claimed that by this message, the believers in Corinth stand in their faith and are saved! But what is this message he went on to write in 1 Corinthians 15?
… that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
Some may say that such a Gospel doesn’t help anyone: not the poor, not the sick or disabled, not the oppressed. But Paul disagrees. In Romans 1, he wrote (1:16), For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. This message about Jesus is God’s power for salvation?! What a foolish-sounding claim! But that wasn’t lost on Paul, either. He wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians (1:18), For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Jesus disagrees too. He says to all, (Mat. 11:28–29) Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. He came (Mat. 21:28) to give His life as a ransom for many. In fact, Jesus even gave the certain hope of life to a dying man on the cross beside Him, with the words, (Luke 23:43) Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise. He was applying the same Gospel message to that man that He would apply to you every week here in the Divine Service. To the grieving sisters of dead Lazarus, Jesus said (John 11:25), I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.
All of this is the proof that Jesus brings of God’s love for sinners. As Paul wrote (Rom. 5:8), But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The apostle John wrote the some thing (1 John 4:9), In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. And it should be no surprise that Jesus taught much the same thing, which is often called “the Gospel in a nutshell.” For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
This love of God not only changes our prospects for eternity. It gives us a new life to live even here on the earth. In revealing God’s love for sinners, Jesus opens the door to a life of faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit. He is the Way for us to eternal life, but now we may follow Him on that Way, bearing our crosses as we daily approach our resurrection from the dead. He is the eternal Truth which we may now confess in our daily words and actions, as we live in the muck and mire of the fallen world. And of course, Jesus is our Life, a light that shines in the otherwise pitch-black darkness. Through faith in Him, we reflect the light of His life and God’s love upon our fellow sinners in this world.
The Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed defines for us the name of Jesus. It reminds us what we mean when we call Him our “Lord.” It sums up the substance that empowers our living hope for now and forever: Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!