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᛭ INI ᛭

The Lord repeats Himself. You always know that somethings important when that happens. He doesn’t always repeat Himself the same way. Sometimes He does. Other times He piles on the synonyms to drive the point home. The Lord’s doing all of that in our prophet reading this evening, which was also our Old Testament reading this past Sunday:

“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God. Speak to Jerusalem’s heart and cry to her that her warfare is over, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

Buy you also noticed the repetition in the Small Catechism, too. Didn’t you? Luther, taking his cue from the Lord, repeats and repeats the same words throughout the last three questions on the Sacrament of the Altar. It can make it a bit topsy turvy when you’re trying to recite these questions by heart. The refrain for the Lord’s Supper, at least as far as our Catechism is concerned is: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

When the Lord repeats Himself, and the same goes for Luther teaching the Lord’s Word in the Catechism, it’s for two reasons (1) faith as well as (2) the forgiveness of sins.

(2. The LORD repeats Himself for faith’s sake!)

First, the Lord repeats Himself for faith’s sake! That is, to create and strengthen faith. The Lord God who created the universe from nothing, who created everything, visible and visible, did so with a Word! As 2 Peter summarizes Genesis 1: “that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth [was] standing out of water and in the water.” (2-Pet 3) So He creates faith from a faithless flesh through His Word, so that “Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” (2-Cor 4)

Now, even after faith has come, the Lord knows nothing better to do than to repeat Himself. And He needs to repeat Himself even after we have faith because of our flesh! Our sinful nature, our flesh, keeps us forgetful. Even with faith we falter. When we have faith, it means, of course, that we trust Christ for our salvation. Faith in Christ means we believe a great many things about ourselves, about Christ, about what the Bible says. But the flesh makes it so that even when we believe a lot of things were not too confident about them. You know what mean?

That’s why the Lord repeats Himself. He did so even with Abraham. He promised Abraham that the Christ would come from His line and that through Christ, Abraham’s Seed, Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars. “And Abraham believed the LORD, and He credited it to Abraham as righteousness.” After that the Lord had to repeat that promise two more times! For a total of four! In fact, the entire whole Old Testament could be summarized as a constant repetition of this promise: the Savior is coming!

The amazing this is NOT when the Lord has to repeat Himself. The amazing this is when He doesn’t. He repeats Himself because He doesn’t know anything better than to repeat Himself. He repeats Himself out of mercy, love, and pity. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” He repeats and repeats and repeats His promise to establish faith, to strengthen hope, and even to grant some confidence in the promises that He’s repeating.

(Transition)

And now we get to not only WHY the Lord repeats Himself—for faith’s sake, that is, to strengthen faith as we live our lives beset by the unbelief of our own sinful flesh. We get to WHAT the Lord repeats, and WHAT He repeats has everything to do with WHY He’s repeating it. If He’s repeating it because of fleshly faithless forgetting, then He must repeat not only repeat Himself, but He must also repeat the only thing that properly deals with people like us who often have faltering faith and a forgetful flesh. The repeats the forgiveness of sins! Yes, the LORD repeats Himself for faith’s sake, but the LORD repeats Himself for forgiveness’ sake!

(1. The LORD repeats Himself for forgiveness’ sake!)

The Lord’s in the business of repeating the forgiveness of your sins. Hear it again from Isaiah 40:

“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God. Speak to Jerusalem’s heart and cry to her that her warfare is over, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

What double comfort (“comfort, comfort”) is meant to be spoken to Jerusalem, that is, the Christian Church, who is the true Jerusalem. Those who believe in Christ receive the Good News, the Gospel, ”that her warfare is over, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.” The forgiveness of sins flows from Christ’s nail pierced hands, both affixed to the cross for the sins of His people, your sins, and even the sins of the entire world. Now, those same hands nail-scarred—He lives!—scars proclaiming Your innocence before His Father.

And when the Lord delivers that forgiveness it has no end! It’s also the “comfort, comfort” of forgiveness. So it is in the Sacrament of the Altar. “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” is the refrain, the one thing needful in the Sacrament are those words. Besides, of course, “the bodily eating and drinking.” (You really can’t have one without the other.)

Now, when the catechism says, “These words, along with the bodily eating and drinking, are the main thing in this Sacrament.” This means that the Words are the most important thing in the Sacrament, so is actually eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood given by way of the blessed bread and wine. This is why the Words are best chanted, and this part of the Catechism is why I even slow for Christ’s own words. They’re His not mine…

And the Catechism would drill into our hearts, minds, and even souls those words : “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” What were given and shed for you? Christ’s body given into death, as well as His blood shed. Why did He do this? He did it for the forgiveness of sins. For whom did He do it and to whom does He deliver it? For you! And the “comfort, comfort” of the Sacrament abounds! “Comfort”—“My body given for you.” “Comfort”—“My blood shed for you.” And He makes sure it’s yours and you believe it. It’s why He repeats the words and gives the very body He gave and blood He shed to you. And besides all that, whenever the Lord delivers forgiveness, He delivers the forgiveness of all sins! Now, that could be a whole ’nother “comfort, comfort” sermon all on its own! (But it’s getting late…) The LORD repeats Himself for forgiveness’ sake—your forgiveness’ sake!

(Conclusion.)

The Lord repeats Himself. He knows nothing better to do than repeat Himself:

“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God. Speak to Jerusalem’s heart and cry to her that her warfare is over, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

So it was in the Small Catechism, too. Luther, taking his cue from the Lord, repeats and repeats and repeats. “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

The LORD repeats Himself for faith’s sake! That you would have strong faith in Him. He delights to repeat Himself to the faithful. But He also wants you to have faith in something very specific, namely, the forgiveness of all your sins. The LORD repeats Himself for forgiveness’ sake—your forgiveness’ sake!

To put it succinctly:

THE LORD REPEATS HIMSELF THAT YOU WOULD BELIEVE THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

He cares about your faith and your forgiveness that much. Hear it again: “[your] warfare is over, [your] iniquity is pardoned, [you’ve] received from the LORD’s hand double for all [your] sins.” Not only crucified hands, or nail -scarred hands, but “comfort, comfort:” “Take, eat; this is My body given for you. Drink; this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

᛭ INI ᛭