The text this morning is from the First Epistle of Peter, the second chapter:
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! And if you know this to be true, then you also know that we are to live in Christ’s righteousness, reveling in all that He would have for us. If you know that the Lord is good, gracious, and merciful, then you know that He has given to you gifts.
If your wife came to you and gave you a brand new Mercedes, would you just say, “Thank you, my dear. I shall always look at it fondly,” but never drive it? If your husband gave you a brand new necklace, would you say, “Thank you, honey, I shall cuddle up with it every night,” but never wear it? If your parents gave you the pony, the computer, the gaming system you always wanted, would you say thank you but never use it? If you meet the love of your life, would you just say, “Oh, it’s so good to meet you, but now that I know what you look like, that’s enough for me?”
Of course not. Yet, that’s how we often treat the gifts of Christ, isn’t it? He has given us the wonderful blessings of His Word, His own revelation, the stuff He wants us to know and to know about Him, and we think that we can just do with it what we please. We think we can use it just a couple times, or when its convenient for us, and the rest of the time, we just ignore it or keep it on a shelf or gaze at it lovingly while paying it only lip service.
Or worse, perhaps we add to it. We think that God might reveal something to us that comes from outside the Bible. Maybe He’ll tell us His plan for our lives. Maybe He really wants us to have the desires of our hearts. And may, just maybe, God has sent some preacher into our lives to tell us the things we want to hear so that we can be satisfied with that.
We all want that, don’t we? I mean, wouldn’t it be wonderful if He walked with us, and talked with us, and told us we’re His own? And the joy we’d share, as we tarry there, in the garden, alone, speaking with one another as close as a friend, would be so wonderful, wouldn’t it?
But that’s not what our Lord does. Our Lord Jesus Christ encourages us to hear His voice, and His voice only, and to find that voice where He’s promised it would be found: in His Word. Every word of Scripture is God-breathed, God-inspired, God-directed. And the promises that He has for you in that Word are greater than the desires of our heart, and He keeps asking, begging, commanding that we listen only to His Word for all time. That’s the pure spiritual milk that Peter asks us to long for. And the desire of God’s children is to drink deeply and only from that sustenance forever.
A mother doesn’t give her baby Pepsi instead of milk. A father doesn’t give his son stones instead of bread. We don’t give vipers instead of hugs. We give what is necessary and needed, that the one we care for may have life and have it abundantly. And so, too, does God. He has given you all that you need in Word and Sacrament so that you may have life, life eternal, even now as we await the final revealing of Jesus upon the Last Day. That’s pure spiritual milk.
And as priests of God’s kingdom, the holy priesthood, you are even more than children to God; you are His dear, chosen people, who advance His name for the sake of all people. That’s what priests do. We sometimes start thinking that being a holy priesthood means that everyone is a minister. You’ve heard that before, right? Everyone a minister. Sometimes it gets played in our Lutheran churches as saying that Luther’s reformation made it so that every person is able to interpret the Bible for themselves, we all have access.
And while that’s sort of true, while we have the right and responsibility to hear and dwell and meditate upon God’s Word, it’s not true that everyone is a minister of the Church, a pastor to their own chosen people. That’s where all these denominations go wrong, and it’s where we go wrong, too. We don’t have the ability to interpret the Bible for ourselves. There is a right interpretation, and then any other interpretation is absolutely wrong. We have the right to hear God’s Word taught in its truth and its purity and no more. We don’t make up doctrines or teachings, though certainly that’s what our hearts desire for us.
But we fight against that desire. We hear what God has to say for His people, for you, the way He said it, why He said, and how it points us to Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected for you. Think back to the Old Testament. Nowhere there are the priests described as interpreting the Word of God. That’s the job of the prophets, if you will. The priests do what? They speak the Word of God to the people, lifting them up in prayer, making the sacrifices that God told them to do so that the sins of the people would be forgiven.
And you have that right. Peter says it. You are a holy priesthood, built up into the house of God Himself, so that the sacrifices you offer, the sacrifices of your prayer, would accomplish their purpose: to point people to Jesus, the cornerstone who, when any would believe in Him, they would have life, and have it abundantly.
And how do you lift up these prayers? Simply by doing your work, doing your vocation. As a mother, as a father, as a son, a daughter, a teacher, a doctor, an employee, an employer, a deacon of the Church, a pastor, a wife, a husband, you have tasks that no one else has. I get to be Liz’s husband, and no one else gets to do that. I get to be Eli’s daddy, and no one else gets to do that. I serve them with my hands, my words, my prayers, and no one else gets to do that. I sacrifice for them, not only of my time and talents, but out of my prayers.
And I am not perfect. I am a sinner. I am selfish and hard and easily frustrated. But I repent. And I am forgiven. And I come back to do my work because I love Jesus. And because I love Jesus, I know that He desires for me to serve my neighbor through my vocation to the best of my ability, because through my work, He is serving them. And so it is for you. You have a vocation, but you mess up, you sin. Repent of your sin, which you have done today, you are forgiven. I forgive you. God forgives you. Christ forgives you. He loves you. Go back to work.
How can you do that? How can you go back to work knowing you mess up? You are a royal priesthood to God. You have been set apart for His purposes, you have been freed from your sin by His death, you have been given the promise of everlasting life by His resurrection, and you are constantly fed by His Word. You dive deep into His Word, learning all that you can. You use His Word to know more about Him, know about His faithfulness, His mercy, His love for you. You know Jesus because He’s told you about Himself.
And then you go. You go and do. You go and do and be. Whatever your calling, whatever your vocation, you serve and pray. Come back here, meditate on God’s Word, be fed, be forgiven, and go back and do it all again. You have the mercy of Christ on you, and you may then share that mercy with everyone else. You have that right and responsibility. You lift others up in prayer, you forgive their sins, you bring them into the sheepfold of Christ.
And you are lifted, too. You are forgiven. You are brought into the congregation of the baptized. That’s what Christ would do for you here. Long for pure spiritual milk, and you will find it. You will find it here, for the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods, and here He has placed Himself so that you may know Him, hear only His voice, learn about Him, and revel in the gifts of Word and Sacrament and, yes, even vocation that He has given to you. Here you are served by Him, and here you are sent to serve others. Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life, and, should you believe this, it will be true for you as well. And you may know this with certainty, hope in this forever, for He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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