The Fugue of the Faith

 

Jesu Juva

Revelation1:4b-8                                                        

 November 21, 2021

Last Sunday B               

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Johann Sebastian Bach composed music in many different forms and styles.  And, of those forms and styles, my favorite is the fugue.  Bach’s fugues are not simple, but complex.  Every fugue is complex.  However, a fugue is all based on one, simple theme.  Typically, at the beginning of the fugue, that theme is sounded clearly by one voice.  But then other, additional voices are added, each voice sounding the theme in its own unique way.  That theme appears repeatedly throughout the fugue, in different voices, beginning on different notes and in different measures.  Sometimes the theme gets inverted or reversed, or perhaps it switches from a major key to a minor key, or vice versa.  To the untrained ear, the fugue can sound like organized chaos at times—at least, that is, until the end when it all gets distilled into a grand and glorious conclusion.

          Today happens to be the grand and glorious conclusion of another church year—the last Sunday of the church year.  And on this Sunday, from the last book of the Bible no less, the fugue of the faith sounds out with perfect clarity.  The faith we confess is much like a fugue.  It is all built around one, beautiful theme.  From cover to cover in the Bible, the theme of this fugue gets sounded out by different voices in different keys and in different times—major and minor, backwards and forwards.  The theme of this fugue rings out with clarity in the midst of chaos.  It is the truest tune of all.  It resonates in every Christian heart.  It is the supreme subject, the theme above every theme.  And today we hear it transposed into life-giving nouns and verbs by St. John, in Revelation chapter one:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

          This is the theme.  This is the theme on which the fugue of the faith is built.  This is the melody that sounds out from all 66 books of the Bible.  Amidst all the jumble from Genesis to Revelation, between the lines of plagues and parables, pointed-to by prose and poetry alike—this is the enduring melody of the faith—the theme of the fugue that is leading us onward and upward to a grand and glorious conclusion.

          Listen again to this theme—because it is your theme, the theme of your life:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory forever and ever.  Amen.  In the fugue of the faith, this theme tells us everything—all we need to know about God and about ourselves; about the past, present and future.  It tells us that in Jesus Christ, you are winning.  You are marching onward toward eternal victory.  In Christ, we live.  In Christ, we die.  In Christ, we rise.  In Christ, we are winning.

          In the fugue of the faith, this theme sings out God’s love for us—God’s love for sinners.  That’s how the theme begins:  To Him who loves us.  Jesus Christ loves us.  And please note how that verb is in the present tense which, in the original Greek, indicates ongoing, continual action.  Nothing can change the fact of His love for you.  Nothing can separate you from that love.  And God’s love is not a feeling, but a doing.  God’s love is always expressed in action.  He is for you, directing your decisions, shaping your outcomes, working all things for your eternal good.

          The fugue of the faith also rings out with freedom.  It’s not the freedom to do whatever you want—not the freedom to keep on sinning—but a far better freedom:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood.  Jesus has freed you from your sins.  And please note that this verb is past tense which, in the original Greek indicates completed action—a done deal, mission accomplished, once for all time.  It is finished.  Jesus has freed you from your sins.  As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 

          This is what happened at Calvary’s cross.  You and your sins were separated.  All that would weigh you down and pull you down to the depths of hell can drag you down no longer.  At Calvary, your sins became Jesus’ problem, Jesus’ burden, Jesus’ curse.  The shackles of your sin have been unlocked and removed.  Hell has no hold over you.  Your sin condemns you no longer because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was condemned and crucified for you.  Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  You are forgiven.  You are free. Can you hear it?  In the midst of life’s chaos this is the melody—this is the theme—that matters most.  The fugue of the faith will not let you forget:  You are loved by God, and He has freed you from your sins by His blood.

          You need to watch out for those who sing a different tune and who sound a different theme.  There is, I’m sad to say, a different refrain that gets repeated about you and me.  And if it is repeated often enough, you just might come to believe it.  Instead of the great fugue of the faith that you are loved by God and freed from your sins, there is a dissonant and deadly tune that sounds like this:  “You are not good enough.  You do not measure up.  You are a disappointment.  You are flawed—an unforgivable failure—worthless, hopeless, useless.”  Have you heard that tune before?  It can come from your own conscience.  It can come from someone who is supposed to love you.  But whoever would dare to say these things about you is just a mouthpiece for Satan. 

          Sadly, many Christians believe these lies and take up this tune about themselves.  They refuse to believe God’s love and they shackle themselves with sin and guilt—which inevitably leads to more sin and more guilt. 

          I once knew a man who grew up in an abusive household where an alcoholic father routinely trumpeted the tune that this boy was a worthless failure.  And the boy, like so many other Christians, was tempted believe it.  (After all, the words came from his own father.)  But the boy also spent time with his grandparents in the country.  And his grandparents were devout believers who knew the great fugue of the faith.  And knowing the boy’s difficult life at home, they taught their grandson to sing hymns—hymns that the boy would learn by heart—hymns that would sustain him during horrible times at home. 

          Decades later, when the little boy was an old man, he still held tightly to one particular hymn stanza which his grandparents had taught him.  The simple words of this hymn changed everything for him.  The hymn stanza began, “Lord Jesus, who dost love me, now spread your wings above me.”  Those words declared something almost too good to be true.  It was music to the boy’s ears:  Lord Jesus, who dost love ME.  Those words changed everything.  He wasn’t a flawed failure.  He wasn’t worthless.  He was loved—loved by the Lord Jesus.  Those words eventually led that boy to become a pastor.  Those words drew him into the great fugue of the faith—a fugue he now sings together with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

          To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  God loves you.  God has freed you from your sins.  We sing and confess this theme every time we gather here.  And we take it with us when we leave here.  For you have been made to be a kingdom.  You are not alone.  In your baptism you became a part of God’s kingdom.  Your citizenship is in heaven; and we eagerly await the return of our Savior from there, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. 

          In your baptism, you also became a priest.  That means that the work you do is holy work.  God has given you vocations—holy work—sacrificial work—marching orders for you to carry out in your family, in your church, in your neighborhood, at school and on the job.  You belong to the priesthood of the baptized.  Your work is holy work.  It can be hard and difficult work too.  God is using you and your life and your work so that the great fugue of the faith gets sung out and rung out until the Lord Jesus comes again.  God has a plan for your life.  God has a purpose for your life.  You can’t always see it.  You can’t always feel it.  It’s something we can only believe by faith.

          But God does give you gifts you can see and hear and taste and touch and smell.  God gives you a pastor to preach to you.  God gives you the splash of your baptism.  And God gives you the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.  The very blood that was shed to free you from your sins—that blood is given from this altar so that you might not doubt, but firmly believe, that you have a place of honor and privilege in God’s eternal kingdom.  For the fugue of the faith with its grand and glorious theme is still sounding.  God’s greatest composition still rings out loud and clear—until we all sing it anew in the life of the world to come:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.