LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1979, Page 77

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CONVENTION SERMON 71

eternal peace. “Behold, I was dead and am alive and
have the keys of hell and of death.” Jesus Christ has
gone down into the abyss, the prison house, and has
opened for us the door: “The Lion of the tribe of Judah,
the Root of David, has conquered” (Rev. 5:5). “The
power of death He brake in twain when He to life arose
again. Oh! let us sing His praises.”

II. Jesus Summons Us toa Triumphant Faith
He Summons Us to Be His Church Militant

We have gathered here as church. This is not the
meeting of the stockholders of a religious corporation to
develop new religious enterprises. We are church, the
church of the Lion of the tribe of J udah. We have come
here as the gathering of the tribes of God’s new Israel.
We are here not because we have power but because He
“who holds the key of David, who opens and no man
shuts,” has summoned us here to sing the songs of
victory. We are His church, His church militant, the
victorious army of His terrible meek. His church knows
that it struggles with an already defeated enemy. His
church does not withdraw from the world and leave it
once more in the power of already broken tyrants. The
church of the risen Lord is not pacifist in its warfare
against evil; it creates no alliance with the powers of
hell and declares no truce with the prince of chaos and
darkness. The church of the risen Lord makes no
detente for peaceful coexistence with the tyranny of sin.
The church of the One who is holy and true believes and
trusts His promise: “I have set before you an open door
which no man can shut,” and therefore accepts the
assignment of the risen Lord and undertakes its mini-
stry with the same glad and joyful determination with
which He began His own ministry. “The Spirit of the
Lord God is upon Me, He has anointed Me to preach
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives ... to set at liberty those who are
oppressed” (Luke 4:18). With that song of the Servant of
God upon its lips, the church ofthe risen Lord wields the
sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and joyfully
launches its attack upon the citadels of Satan. “I have
set before you an open door”—thus He who has the key
of David summons us to be what He has made us, His
warriors, armed with the whole armor of God, delighting
in the strength which His Spirit gives, raising the
triumphant cry of the saints of the most high. We are
summoned to battle as soldiers of Jesus Christ, soldiers
who delight in the battle and who joyfully sniff the
Easter air from which our Lord has swept away all the
poisonous vapors of hell and death.

He Summons Us to Proclaim Liberty to the Captives
“T will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven;
whatever you shall bind on earth will be bound in
heaven, whatever you shall loose on earth will be loosed

in heaven.” With those words the One who is holy and’

true has given us our assignment and ministry. “The
Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me. He has anointed Me to
open the door of the prison house.” We are church, His
church, appointed to speak the words that open all the
doors that are closed.

To say to those who are caught in the chains of their
own past, held fast by their sin and guilt: In Jesus
Christ you have a new life; He has set you free from your
sins.

To those who can find no open door to escape their
bondage to drugs, alcohol, and sex: Christ has opened
the door and promises His Spirit to fill the emptiness of
your life—He has set you free. :

To proclaim to those who follow the false hope of
liberation movements only to become slaves to their
own passions and chaotic inner compulsions: Christ
has opened the door for you to the true and ordered
freedom of the children of God.

To proclaim to the young woman who contemplates
abortion in her agony and shame: Christ has opened a
door for you, for He has sanctified your life and that of
your unborn child by His own holy obedience to God.

To say to the young who wander like lost souls
looking for themselves that Christ has opened for them
a way to find the very destiny for which they were
created, their true self in Him.

To proclaim to those caught in the trap of their own
ambitions, whose life has come apart and who cannot
get it back together, that Christ has set them free from
their self-serving bondage. He has opened the door for
the true and glorious liberty of the servants of the Most
High.

To proclaim to those whose sweet dreams of marriage
have become a nightmare, trapped in a life of bitterness,
anger, hostility, loneliness, that Christ has opened for
them a door to a life that is completely new—new
through the forgiveness of sins.

To announce to those whose bodies have been torn
by war, maimed by disease, crippled by torture: Christ
has risen, and He is the Promise of your resurrection
when your bodies too will be free from the ravages of
sin’s curse.

To say to those who are the disinherited of the earth,
who can find no open door to escape their poverty, that
Christ has opened for them a door to the eternal
treasures of God and has made them heirs of all that
God has created and will yet create.

To announce to those who have despaired of the
future, for whom there is no hope, that Jesus Christ has
opened the door to the eternal future of a new world of
life and light.

To say to those who sit lonely and oppressed and who
find no justice before the courts of men that Jesus Christ
has the key of David and that He has come to bring
God’s deliverance to the captive and justice to the
oppressed.

To announce to those who are caught in the ad-
vancing years and who sit in dull listnessness waiting
for death to come, that Christ has set before them an
open door, the door to God’s eternal world of life.

To declare to those whose tortured minds drive them
to the borders of the abyss and who are locked in the
prison of their own minds that Christ has purchased
their freedom from all the dark powers that possess
them.

To say to those who are caughtina web of loneliness