photo #8285081

Pastor Tom Steers on May 25, 2025

25 views

THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

May 25, 2025

Pastor Tom Steers

Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto

Our Opening Hymn is: “Come, Thou Almighty King”

Lutheran Service Book 905 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhTs7psy5fE

The Invocation Page 184

Divine Service III – Pages 184-202

Lutheran Service Book

Pastor: Halleluiah, Christ is risen!

Congregation: He is risen indeed. Halleluiah!

Confession and Absolution Page 184

The Introit –

Psalm 55:4, 16-18 (antiphon: Ps. 55:22)

Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

he will never permit the righteous to be moved. My heart is in anguish within me;

the terrors of death have fallen upon me. But I call to God,

and the Lord will save me.

Evening and morning and at noon

I utter my complaint and moan,

and he hears my voice.

He redeems my soul in safety

from the battle that I wage,

for many are arrayed against me.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning is now, and will be forever. Amen. Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Kyrie (Lord Have Mercy)

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Gloria in Excelsis (Glory to God in the Highest) Page 187

Our Collect Prayer:

O God,

the giver of all that is good,

by Your holy inspiration

grant that we may think those things that are right

and by Your merciful guiding accomplish them;

through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord,

who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever. Amen.

Our Bible Readings:

First Reading – Acts 16:9-15

Psalm 67 (antiphon: v.3)

Epistle –Revelation 21: 9-14, 21-27

The Verse (Romans 6:9; John 16:33b):

Alleluia. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. Alleluia. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. Alleluia.

Our Gospel text – John 5:1-9

The Apostles’ Creed –

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried.

He descended into hell.

On the third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven

and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy Christian Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

Our Hymn of the Day is: “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice”

Lutheran Service Book, 556 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJF3xuytmFw

Text: Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

The Sermon –

Many times, in our lives, we ask God for something and wait.

The experience is universal, we’ve all been there.

We wait, and it’s frustrating.

It happens to us, it happened to the Apostles.

Paul prayed for healing from his ‘thorn in the flesh’ he wrote about.

It didn’t happen.

When God doesn’t respond on our timeline, it’s never easy or simple for us.

And the desire for an easy answer, in and of itself, may be unreasonable.

God deals with matters in His time, and in the meantime, we can remember and be comforted by what the Lord told the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Our text today deals with affliction and grace.

A man has been lying beside one of the pools near the Jerusalem temple for 38 years.

There was a legend at the time that an angel would occasionally stir up the water.

The first person into the pool would be healed.

It appears the legend had nothing to do with the Jewish faith; it was essentially folklore.

Those of you who were brought up with the King James Bible might remember that in this passage the angel is mentioned.

However, in the original Greek of John, there’s no reference to it.

That’s one of a number of reasons why we, as Lutherans, use the English Standard version of the Bible – it’s truer to the original Greek and Hebrew.

Our Gospel passage explains it was the feast time of the Jews.

Just as the miracles in the Gospel of John are called “signs” because they point to the divinity of Jesus, the fact that this is a feast time is also important.

These special days pointed to the salvation of God’s people in the Old Testament and to the coming Messiah.

The very location our Biblical account is important.

John’s Gospel was written after the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the year 70 A.D.

Much of the city had been reduced to rubble and ashes.

That meant John’s description of the temple could no longer be easily verified.

The Romans, in their anger at a Jewish revolt, had torn much of it apart, piece by piece.

The Pool at Bethesda described in our passage was considered a myth for many years, or at best a metaphor.

Critical, skeptical scholars would point to the supposed lack of evidence in their larger criticism of the Bible.

Then an archaeologist by the name of Conrad Schick came along in the mid-1800s and began careful excavations of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Schick also happened to be a Lutheran missionary.

And lo and behold he found the Pool of Bethesda with its five colonnades exactly where it’s described in the Bible.

His studies were so well documented that even the most skeptical scholars had to admit he had found the pool.

Once again, archaeology provided evidence that the Bible describes real persons and events.

The name Bethesda comes from the Hebrew.

Beth means ‘house,’ just as Bethlehem means ‘house of bread.’

Bethesda means house of grace, or house of mercy.

And it was the place where many who were ill, crippled, or blind would sit during the day and wait for a cure.

The crippled man in our Gospel passage had waited 38 years, a lifetime, especially in those days.

It was a testament to hope, but was it a testament to the faith of this man?

John does not describe him as praying for 38 years.

Rather, he was waiting, dependent on a legend that getting in the pool first after an agitation of the water would heal him.

Then, one day, along comes the source of true healing, for this man, for the world.

Jesus has compassion on him and asks the man a direct question – do you want to be healed?

But the man misses the point.

Instead of saying ‘yes,’ he complains that there’s no one to help him get into the water at the right time.

No matter. Jesus says, “Get up, take your bed, and walk.”

And the man is healed.

Still, this fellow reveals his human weakness, his lack of appreciation.

We don’t hear him saying, ‘thank you.’

He gets up, and at the time, doesn’t even ask Jesus who He is.

Do we sometimes act the same way?

We’re afflicted in this life.

We ask why, and wait.

But do we wait in faith?

And where do we see the source of our healing?

Our Saviour stood in front of the man lying by the pool.

This same Saviour stands before us today and every Sunday in His Word and Sacraments.

Our health, spiritual health, is in Christ’s hands.

In the Book of Revelation, Christians are reassured of eternal salvation.

We’re given the promise that Jesus will never leave us.

A promise that’s trustworthy and true.

Do we fully take in what that means?

Like the man in our Gospel lesson, we can look for help and salvation in all the wrong places.

Still, Christ has a way of showing up in front of us.

Despite our lack of merit.

Despite our sins.

God is with us now in Toronto and throughout the world.

He comes to us through His Church, offering healing and eternal life.

The Church is where we hear God’s Word correctly preached and taught as Law and Gospel . . .

where we receive forgiveness of sin in the absolution . . .

and are fed the true body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.

At times, God may seem distant . . .

. . . when we feel like the man in the Gospel reading who sees the healing water, but can’t get there.

Yet Jesus makes a promise, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

He is near and will not desert us.

He has united Himself to us.

As the Apostle Paul wrote:

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:4-5)

To Christ alone be all glory, honour, and praise.

Amen.

THE PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH

SERVICE OF THE SACRAMENT Page 194

Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) Page 195

The Lord’s Prayer Page 196

The Word of Our Lord Instituting the Lord’s Supper Page 197

Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) Page 198

The Distribution

Nunc Dimitis – The Song of Simeon Page 199

Post-Communion Collect (Right-hand column) Page 201

The Benediction –