Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            God has given the Church everything she needs. God has given the Church everything she needs—but sometimes we don’t act like it. I just saw a comment on Facebook—which is where I see most dumb things—and the person was saying that the church is declining and losing members “faster than we can fix it, smh.” And I was also “shaking my head.” Faster than we can fix it? It’s up to “fix” the church? That seems to get things backwards. Certainly members of the church can be unfaithful. Congregations can be unfaithful. There are certainly things that the Church has to be doing, things God has commanded the Church to do. Things like “make disciples by baptizing them into the Name and teaching them to observe everything Jesus has commanded.” God has commanded the Church to proclaim His word, so that repentance and the forgiveness of sins are proclaimed to the ends of the earth. He has commanded His Church to forgive those who confess their sins. He has commanded His Church to “do this,” and celebrate and give and receive Christ’s body and blood. The Church has to do those things or cease to be the Church.

            But there’s a little—or maybe a lot—of atheism in the idea that the Church has to fix the Church. It’s almost as if Jesus is not here at all. He’s either absent or dead. People talk a lot about what the Church should be doing, how the Church should change, what things the Church should say or not say. Sometimes they even show their hand when they say things like, “If Jesus were here today, He would…” It seems sometimes as if the Church has to do things because Jesus has left us here to do it. Jesus gave a list of instructions and then left, and now it’s up to the Church to do the things He said to do.

            But if Jesus is absent; if Jesus only lived a long time ago, and is not alive now; if Jesus is not raised from the dead, then there is no Church. The Church can pretend to be another social service agency; or the Church can pretend to be a place where people go to find community; or the Church can pretend to be another political special interest. In all those areas, the Church might do some stuff. But none of those things is what the Church is. There can be no Church of Jesus Christ if Jesus is not here. He said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” “I am the Vine, you are the branches.” Branches cannot live apart from their vine. Branches have no life and produce no fruit apart from being attached to the vine. So if the Vine is dead, the branches are dead. Some of the churches that think the Church ought to be a social service agency, or make statements on everything that happens in the world, they will literally say that Jesus did not physically rise from the dead. Well, then, all they have is to be just another group in the world doing the things that everyone else in the world is doing, but adding a little religious veneer to it.

But it’s not the Church, which does not exist apart from Jesus—not Jesus far away, but Jesus present, living, and active in and through the Church. And if Jesus isn’t doing His work, then of course we have to fix the Church ourselves, because we’re the only ones here. But we don’t know the whole picture. We can’t see the future. We don’t know what’s happening when numbers go down and there aren’t enough pastors. What is God doing? The only thing I know is what He has already commanded and promised. Outside of that, I have no idea. Jesus had all but 12 of His disciples leave Him in John 6, so declining numbers doesn’t seem to be the thing He’s most worried about.

We do not shake our heads in frustration, because we know that God has given the Church everything she needs. Notice how many times Jesus says the word “give” in John 17, this long prayer that Jesus prays in the Upper Room in the presence of His disciples. He prays for them, in front of them. And He prays for them because He knows that He has given them everything they need. And everything Jesus has is the Father’s, and everything that is the Father’s is also the Son’s. The Father has given the Son all His words. And the Son has given all those words to the apostles for the Church. But you don’t get the words of Jesus apart from Jesus Himself. He has the words of eternal life, and the Church only has them because He’s here. These words of the Father are the Son’s words and the Spirit continues to bring those words to us, to our remembrance, so that we do not forget them and start pretending that other words are God’s words. Part of that is the Spirit causing these words to be written down for us. But these written words have no life unless Jesus is alive. The Scriptures testify of Him. In Him is life, because He is the Life that God has given the world. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwells among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father. God has spoken this Word into the world.

The Father gave the Son His Name, the Name that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share from eternity. And Jesus gave that Name to His apostles for the Church. But the Church can’t have that Name without Jesus, to whom it was given. This is the Name He has put on you, and you have it because He is here.

All that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and vice-versa. And Jesus kept it all and finished His work that the Father had given Him to do. He has authority over all flesh, to give life to all. And the disciples keep that same word and that same name. They have it because they have Jesus. There is nothing to fear, because Jesus has not left us as orphans. He has not abandoned us to ourselves and our own whims and our own dreams of fixing the Church. It is His Church, and He says that He is with all His baptized and instructed children all of the days until the completion of this age. If He weren’t present here, it would be ridiculous to talk about eating and drinking His body and blood—which can’t be here if He’s not here. And so some do think it’s ridiculous. But Jesus is here and His promise stands against all mockery and ridicule. And therefore His Church stands.

The hour has come, He prays; Father, glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. This glory, too, Jesus has given to the Church. The hour was the hour of His suffering and crucifixion. That was where the Son glorified the Father and the Father glorified the Son, when He finished all His work on the cross. It looked like defeat, weakness, foolishness, and death. And so it does in His body, where the Church often looks ineffective, weak, foolish, and dying. But as long as Jesus’ Word and Name are present, and being given as He commanded, it is the same glory of Christ on the cross. And so He says that He was glorified and still is glorified in them, the apostles, and then in the apostolic Church. He is glorified in us, here, not because we’re doing the things He said to do, but because He is here doing them. We are the body of Christ, the hands and feet and mouth of Christ, not because He’s not here and someone has to do it, but because this is how God always works: through the weakness, foolishness, and death of people. When we are weak, then He is strong, because then it’s all His work.

He is glorified in His Church as the Church keeps doing the things He does. We are drawn to gather around Him like blood rushing to the heart, which pumps the blood back out to the body—and we go out, into the world that He has redeemed, over which He has authority, to give life. And we work in our families, in our jobs, in our communities. We do what God puts in front of us to do. And because we know we have no life except in and through Him who dwells in us, then we know where others can find that life too, and we bring them back to the center, to the heart, to hear and receive and Jesus will give them life through His Word. Where else would we go? Said Peter. You alone have the words of eternal life. And this is eternal life, Jesus says: that you know His Father, the only true God, and the one whom the Father has sent, Jesus Christ. To know and have Jesus is life with the Father in the Spirit. There is no life anywhere else. This is why John wrote His Gospel: Jesus did many other signs that He did not write down; but these have been written down so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and, believing, have life in His Name. The Father gives, the Son gives, and we give, because the Father and Son are still giving. Life in His Name by His word: in this we are one with God and with each other. Don’t be afraid of anything: God has given the Church, of which you are a member, everything she needs.

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, 5/15/26