Audio of the sermon is here:
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Whom are you seeking? Whom are you seeking here today? Or maybe, what are you seeking? To fulfill an obligation? To have an experience? Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus asks the question of those who have come to arrest Him. Judas, the betrayer, was standing with them, instead of with Jesus’ disciples. “There the wolf in sheep’s clothing, permitted by the deep counsel of the Master of the flock to go among the sheep, learned in what way to disperse the flock, and ensnare the Shepherd” (Augustine).[1] Whom are you seeking? Jesus asks. Jesus of Nazareth, they say. “I am He,” or, simply, “I AM.” They come to arrest a man, but they find God in the flesh. And when Jesus speaks that word, they go back and fall on the ground.
See clearly that everything that happens to Jesus is under His control. Jesus knew everything that was going to happen to Him. He tells Peter to put his sword away: Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given Me? For this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice. You would have no authority at all if it were not given you from above. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” When He had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head and handed over the Spirit. He knows exactly what He is doing. As He had said, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father” (John 10:17-18).
But why does He do all this? It is not for Himself. It’s a very complicated and unnecessary way simply to say “I love you.” He doesn’t do all of this so that we can know how to live our lives in this world. God says and does all that in a thousand ways before Jesus’ incarnation and birth. In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old by the prophets. Was it just that God forgot to tell them something, so He sent the Son to be born, suffer, die, and rise from the dead? That would be overkill—no pun intended. It is not for Himself, and it is not so that you would know something more about God, or about how to live.
He asks them again, Whom are you seeking? Jesus of Nazareth, they say. Listen to what He says: I told you that I am. So if you are seeking Me, let these go—in order to fulfill the word which He said, ‘Of these whom You have given to Me, I have not lost any from them.’ “This is the will of Him who sent Me,” Jesus says, “that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:39-40). He does all of this so as to lose not one of all that the Father has given to Him. And so Jesus prays in the Upper Room: “While I was with them, I kept them in Your Name, which You have given Me. I have guarded them, and none of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12). “(For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And He said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:64-65). All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out (John 6:37).
The Father has drawn you here to Jesus by His Spirit and gives you into His hand. It is the thief who comes to steal you from the hand of the Father and of the Son, to kill you in body and soul, to destroy—that is, to cause you to be lost. But Jesus has come and He says to sin, death, and the devil: You have Me; let these go. And for a brief moment, they did. The devil found his opportune time. Sin weighed Him down, and fastened Him to the cross. And death spoke its cold word over Him. Jesus does all this so that you may have life and have it abounding. It is to gather you to Himself, hold you in His hand, and keep you until He raises you up on the last day. He does all this to keep you in the midst of this age, and to guard you until the new and eternal age. He says, “I am giving [you] everlasting life, and [you] will certainly not be lost into eternity, and no one will seize you from My hand” (John 10:28).
Even so, it cannot be denied that many who hear Jesus, even among the disciples, go back and no longer follow Him. Will you turn back? Will you go away also? Jesus asks. And Peter says, Lord, how could we turn back? To whom would we go away? You have the words of eternal life—the words Jesus speaks are Spirit and Life—and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God (John 6:68-69, 63). You can seek anything and everything in this world, and you can try to hang on to it. But those who try to keep their lives in this world will lose them. Death will pry every last thing from your hands. Instead, Jesus keeps your life in the midst of death. He goes to the cross to carve out a place of life in the Spirit. He never loses those whom the Father gives Him into eternity. He says, Father, forgive them—that is, let these go. Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for you. So we pray with Him: Father, always behold and keep this, Your family, for whom our Lord, Jesus Christ, was willing to be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men to suffer death upon the cross. Whatever you thought you were seeking, whatever you want to seek, listen to what He says: I am He. I lay down My life and take it up again, to keep you into eternal life and to fulfill My word that I spoke over you: I have not lost one of those the Father has given Me.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.
– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 4/2/26
[1] Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. John, ed. John Henry Newman, vol. 4 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1845), 546.
Bishop and Christian 