Christ's Holy Life and Passion Saves Sinners.
During the season Lent Concordia will meditate on the Holy Life and Passion of Christ to save sinners from several Messianic Psalms.
A Messianic Psalm is a Psalm about the Person and Work of Christ to save men from their sins.
The Psalm that will be covered this Lenten season are
Psalm 24,
Psalm 8,
Psalm 22, and
Psalm 69.
Psalm 24: Christ is Holy in thought, word, and deed, and, therefore can ascend into God's Holy Temple. This Holy Life Christ lived not for Himself, He, after all is God and has no need of such human experiences, but rather for all men in order that they have the righteousness that avails before the Holy God.
Psalm 8: Christ lacked or wanted for God in order that men would never lack for God or His Blessings ever again. Because Christ suffered this lack and eliminated it, we never lack for God or any blessing of God. This thought is picked up in another Messianic Psalm,
Psalm 23. "The LORD
is my shepherd; I shall not want."
Psalm 23:1.
Psalm 22: Christ was forsaken of God because He bore the guilt of the sins of all men reckoned to Him. Because Christ suffered this forsaking by God for all men, no man is ever again forsaken of God but enjoys God's Blessed Presence and Bounteous Blessings.
Psalm 69: In the beginning of
Psalm 69, Christ cries out, "Save Me, O God ... ." One might ask, "What kind of a Savior needs to be saved?" The kind of Savior that needs to be saved is the one who goes through the destitution of sin of all men because of sin so that men no longer have to suffer the consequences of their sins. Christ also saves Himself because while True Man He is also the True God who is able to raise Himself up after suffering what all men should have suffered. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
St. John 2:19.
These Psalms show, again, in vivid and dramatic detail
[1], the Christ lived His Holy Life, suffered, died, and rose again not for Himself but for all men in order to deliver them from their sins and give them life everlasting. "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
St. Matthew 20:28.
Ash Wednesday Sermon.
Ash Wednesday Matins Service (Audio).
Vespers I Sermon: “Christ’s Holy Life Saves Sinners.”
Vespers I (Audio).
Vespers II Sermon: “Christ Lacked God on the Cross so that Men would Not Lack God nor His Blessings.”
Vespsers II (Audio).
Vespers III: “No Man is Ever Forsaken by God because Christ was Forsaken Already on the Cross for the Sins of All Men.”
Vespers III (Audio).
Vespers IV: “Christ was Saved in order to Save Sinners.”
Vespers IV (Audio).
The Festival of Maundy Thursday: “God Bequeaths to Men the Forgiveness of Sins of the Cross of Christ.”
The Fetival of Maunday Thursday (Audio).
The Festival of Good Friday: “Christ Suffered on the Cross so No one Need Suffer Again.”
The Festival of Good Friday (Audio).
[1] “Luther and the Lutheran Confessions accepted the teaching of the New Testament that in the Psalms there were numerous predictions about the Messiah. Moorehead wrote concerning this matter: ‘The Psalms are full of Christ. They speak about His humiliation and exaltation, of His rejection by the world and of His final triumph over all opposition. But they go deeper, as we may say; deeper even than the gospels; they
let us into the thoughts and feelings when the billows of wrath were rolling over Him, when the heavy cloud of judgment which was all our own burst upon His devoted Head.’” The Rev. Dr. Raymond Surburg,
Exegetical Essays and Materials Dealing with the Interpretation of the Psalms, Ft. Wayne, IN: Concordia Theological Seminary, Press, p. 28, emphasis added.
