The Pure Milk of the Pure Word :: 1 Peter 2:2

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Hallelujah! He is risen! ... (He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, your acknowledgement of this means that you are like (the) newborns of our Introit. In the new birth of life, (you are being) caused to sing aloud to God our strength (Ps 81:1a). You ... the Baptized of Christ ... have been baptized into the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, and now you walk in the newness of life (Rm 6:3-4). 

It’s hard to wrap your head around this idea, isn’t it? ... This pure milk of God’s pure Word for you? The idea that you died and now live? The idea that you who feel old, or maybe just older, that you are in fact a newborn, wholly and utterly dependent upon the pure milk of the pure Word of God? ... You may think you are 90 or 80 or 70 or 60 or 50 or 40 or 10. You may think you are a meat-and-potatoes kind of man with no time for Bible study, let alone fun and games. But you have new life NOW! In distress, [you call] and he delivers (Ps 81:7). You may look at yourself in the mirror, and feel the aches and pains of age, OR you may long to be grown up. But you have new life now! 

Why? Because Hallelujah! He is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!) And we have heard from the witnesses to the resurrection who saw him and touched him (Jn 20:27-28). More than that ... today we will again taste that the Lord is good (1 Pt 2:3) and gracious, abounding in covenantal love. Therefore ... Saint Peter, one of the first witnesses of the resurrection, writes ... 

LIKE NEWBORN BABIES, LONG FOR THE PURE MILK OF THE PURE WORD.

This is our word of the day, taken from the antiphon of our Introit on this Eighth Day of Easter, this Second Sunday of Easter. It is GOOD to enter the Divine Service in this way!

I.

Many centuries ago, the Sundays following Easter were once counted as “after Easter” probably because we are all too often trying to move on with our lives ... trying to grow up and be adults ... being mature and logical and rational and spiritual. But today the seven Sundays “of Easter” are counted as one. Today, we recognize that Easter is one long awesome Sunday ... a single joyful day in which to celebrate the Feast ... the Feast of Weeks (Lev 25:8-13), so to speak, that ends on Pentecost. Although technically, our calendar will ultimately focus on the days after Holy Trinity Sunday ... or Pentecost in some circles ... Easter never really ends ... even during Lent ... because Sundays aren’t counted among the Forty Days of Lent. 

Easter is the central feast of the liturgical year. Easter is honored ... and should always be remembered as the greatest of all the feasts ... the Queen of the Feasts ... the feast that never ends. Is it any wonder we long to celebrate the Feast of Victory every Sunday? 

This is the day that ... when Jesus took bread and broke it, the Emmaus disciples suddenly realized that our Lord was actually with them ... that he was NOT dead ... but that our Risen Lord of Heaven and Earth is the LIVING God. Death has lost its sting (1 Cor 15:55).

It’s still no secret that many people do NOT recognize this. They allow rational thought to triumph. They want to grow up and graduate from confirmation. We invariably tell ourselves that we want to move on with our lives. ... That we have more important things to do than to answer God’s Invitation to the Feast of the pure milk of the pure Word of God (Lk 14:15-24). Then we begin acting like we don’t have any sins to confess ... any sins to burden us. We tell ourselves that we are not demanding. ... That we don’t need gifts of The Living God. ... We then get angry that the Father celebrates the return of the prodigals (Lk 15:28). Do you identify as a prodigal? All too often we tell ourselves I can take care of myself. ... I can read God’s Word all by myself. ... That I don’t need the Father’s care. Besides, I WAS baptized once. What more do I need?

How about recognizing NOT that you WERE baptized, BUT that you ARE baptized.

II.

Please now turn to page 325 in your [Lutheran Service Book] and join me in confessing this faithful doctrine from the Fourth Article of Holy Baptism. ... What does such baptizing with water indicate? ... Where is this written? 

III.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, since therefore you have tasted the pure milk of the pure Word of God ... that it is good and gracious ... heed the voice of Saint Peter ... and repent in the name of Jesus, the crucified one. He is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!) 

Don’t allow yourselves to whitewash the sin in your life ... to ignore the sin in your life ... to hide the sin in your life. Jesus died for those sins ... yesterday’s, today’s, tomorrow’s. As Peter said immediately before our antiphon, When you have put away all evil, and all deceit, and hypocrisy and envy, and all slander (1 Pt 2:1) ... believe the Gospel that Jesus was crucified for all those sins and more ... Then, like newborn babies, [you will] long for the pure milk of the pure Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us for one purpose ... that you may come to know God in truth and be saved.

In the newness of life, like newborn infants, [you will be caused to] sing aloud to God our strength. [You will be caused to] shout for joy to the God of Jacob! In distress, [when] you call, [he will deliver] you. [He will answer] you in the cover of thunder. [He will cause you] to open your mouth wide, in order that [he will] fill it, with the honey from the rock [that] satisfies you (Ps 81:1, 7a, 10, 16b; paraphrase). 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is pure milk of the pure Word of God that we still proclaim today. Like Ezekiel, we proclaim this so that you will know that [Christ] is Lord ... and that he has spoken, and that he will not only do it, but has done it ... for YOU (Eze 37:14). He breathes new life into his creation. This is the pure milk of the pure Word that we should always long for ... This is the pure milk of the pure Word that we will never outgrow. This is the pure milk of the pure Word which the Lord will continue richly supplying. He will continue lavishing on his own the very best of heaven ... feeding you the finest wheat and with the honey from the rock (Ps 81:16) ... who is Christ. This passage hardly needs further comment. He who has faith in him will not be confounded (1 Pt 2:6). He is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!). In Jesus’ Name. Amen!

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