Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 2026
At the first sign in Cana, Jesus had said, “My hour has not yet come.” Now, at the second, the Evangelist names the hour: the seventh. And there is another seventh hour. On the day the Son of God was lifted up, darkness covered all the land from the sixth hour until the ninth; and within that darkness, at the seventh hour, the Son of the Father was Himself at the point of death. And there, too, His mockers demanded a sign: “Let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.” He would not come down to Capernaum; neither would He come down from the Cross. The nobleman’s son lived because the Father would not spare His own Son. And so do you.
For you, the Son came down from heaven. For you, He went down into that darkness, down into death itself. For you, the Third Day He rose again. And for you, He is here.
So here, too, Beloved, you receive first the Word, and then the sign. The Absolution you’ve been slow to run to is spoken over you, in the stead and by the command of Christ Himself: your sins are forgiven you. And then that same promise is placed into your mouth. These Elements are His very Body and Blood, the same Body and Blood that hung upon the Cross at the seventh hour, at the point of death, now “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” This is no symbol of an absent Lord. You haven’t summoned Him to your house; you’ve come, as the nobleman came, to where He is: not to your house, rather to His. And here He gives you Himself. And the fever leaves you: the guilt that burns, the sin that has you at the point of death, forgiven at the hour He speaks.
Readings:
Old Testament: Genesis 1:1–2:3
Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-17
Holy Gospel: John 4:46-54
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