Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Allelujah!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is obvious that we live in an age of rapid change and remarkable mobility. A hundred years ago most people didn't leave the community they grew up in, but today it is rare for a person to make it to adulthood living in the same area, surrounded by the same family and friends they grew up with. If we compare our situation with the history of civilization, we are a strange people because of our rootlessness. Our way of life is sort of an experiment that we have not yet seen the final results of. How will such social mobility affect families in the long run? Will it simply make worse the breakdown of family bonds? And what about churches? Just fifty years ago, people would go to church relatively close to home. What happens when we commute from far away and only spend an hour or two together on Sundays, rather than spending much time with our brothers and sisters in Christ during the week, since they are our neighbors? These are serious questions that only time will give us answers to.

I think that if there is one institution that captures the spirit of our unstable age, it is summer camp. From the time that I was seven or eight up until I graduated from college, I was involved in several different types of summer camp, and here is the common theme: you gather with a group of people that you don't know very well or even at all, and the camp staff gets you all emotionally pumped up through music and pep talks and dancing; they keep you going 16 hours a day; and you are supposed to bond with your fellow campers and develop lifelong friendships. On the last night you're there, everyone is supposed to share how much the week has meant to them, and the next day everyone promises to stay in touch forever and cultivate their newfound friendships. But then what happens? You all go your separate ways, back to your home and family; you might stay in touch with your camp friends for a while, and then usually you lose touch with them.

I'm not saying camp is a bad thing. I'm not denying that some people make friends through camp, and I even know some people who have found their spouses there, usually when they have gone back as camp counselors. But in general, the relationships developed between campers are unstable and transitory—the bonds you make with people there are emotional in nature and therefore short-lived. Of all the thousands of people I went to camp with, there are only a few that I even stay in touch with, and none that I'm really close to.

But family is different, or at least it is supposed to be different. I still talk to my parents a lot, visit my folks when I can, and they come to see us pretty often, too. (Although I have become suspicious lately that they are not coming to visit me or Heidi, but their only grandkids). For me, after I would get home from camp, it was always great to see my family and to enjoy the stability of the household. Was camp more exciting than family life? Sure, no denying that camp can be fun, but you can't keep up that level of excitement without burning out quickly, and where in the Bible does it say that having fun is the overall goal of the Christian life? Last time I checked, the pattern set in Scripture is a life of self-denying faith in Christ and self-giving love toward our neighbor, which certainly may include excitement and fun, but those aren't the goal. Rather, the goal is what Jesus describes in our Gospel reading as receiving complete joy in His name from God the Father, namely, everlasting life in heaven. That's the only place our joy will ever be completely full.

Compared with camp, family life can be boring, but it is far more helpful in leading us to where our joy can be made full. A pious family helps in cultivating faith in God and love of neighbor through years of common worship, common prayer, common meals and conversation, and the discipline of parents. I know that not everyone has been blessed with a stable, loving family; the effects of sin on the family increase every day, with parents divorcing and children rebelling plus all the many other things Satan does to undermine what God instituted in the Garden of Eden. But while you may not have had a stable family life here and may have preferred going to camp, the fact is that God has not gathered us all together here into a temporary camp, but instead into an eternal family, the Holy Christian Church. God has not made us residents of a short term, entertainment-focused camp, but instead in a permanent family, a salvation-focused household, the Church.

And this family starts with the Father. Though today is Mother's Day, in our Gospel reading Jesus speaks not of mothers but only of God the Father. God is not a mother. God the Father simply cannot be a mother because He is the Father of God the Son, the only-begotten One. But even though God is not a mother, we know that He thinks highly of motherhood, first of all because He ordained that each one of us have a belly button—at a minimum we all must give thanks to the Lord for our mothers because of the gift of life—but we see God's fondness for motherhood most of all in that He willed that His only-begotten Son come down from heaven to be born of the Virgin Mary by the power the Holy Spirit. That is quite a vote in favor of the blessedness of motherhood—that God the Son has a mother ever since the Incarnation, and so it is even fitting to call Mary the Mother of God. And then, as if that were not enough, God willed that His Son take a wife for Himself, the Holy Christian Church, the Bride of Christ, who is (as Dr. Luther says in the Large Catechism) "the mother that conceives and bears every Christian through God's Word".

Dr. Luther's description of the Church is quite fitting and consistent with Holy Scripture. The Lord tells us through Isaiah the prophet that we should rejoice in our mother, the Christian Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, when he says, "Rejoice with Jerusalem…that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; [rejoice] that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance…you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you [says the Lord]; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem".

The Epistle to the Hebrews calls the Church "the heavenly Jerusalem," and this is what Isaiah is speaking of in this passage. How beautiful it is that the Lord compares His care of us through the Church with the care a mother shows to her children. What a fitting image that we can all relate to. The Lord shows that He will exercise maternal care leading to our salvation through the Holy Christian Church, our Mother, the Bride of Christ.

But this only was able to happen for us because of the redemptive work of Jesus, who purchased the Church to be His own Bride by His bitter sufferings and death and with His holy, precious blood, which has wiped out every one of the Church's blemishes. He laid down His life for the Church to defeat the devil and win Her back once and for all. He washed Her clean with His own blood, and now through His Bride we are born as God's holy children through the waters of Baptism, brought into God's everlasting family of believers in Christ.

And here in this Christian Church, Christ bids that our Mother apply the forgiveness of sins that He accomplished on the cross to us as often as we need it so that we may remain safely within God's household. There is one thing that God cannot tolerate in His house, and that is sin, so when we have dirtied ourselves with sin, the Church bathes us with Christ's forgiveness in Holy Absolution, scrubbing off all our sin and guilt to make us presentable to God the Father. The Church nurses us with the pure spiritual milk of the Gospel to strengthen our faith in Jesus. And She feeds us with the solid food of Her Husband's true body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of all of our sins.

But besides the Word and Sacraments, there is another great thing that our Mother, the Church, does for us, and that is to pray for her children. Camp counselors might pray for their campers during the week they are there, but soon they are forgotten. But faithful Christian mothers pray for their children fervently, and even more so does the Church pray for Her children. As Jesus commanded and promised His Church in the Gospel reading, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you…ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."

In King James English, "you" and "ye" are plural. In other words, Jesus says, "Whatever y'all ask the Father in My name, He will give it to y'all…y'all ask, and y'all will receive, that y'all's joy may be full." Jesus is not only speaking to individuals here; He is speaking to a group of disciples, to a family, to His Church. Prayer is certainly an individual responsibility for each of us, but it is also a corporate one that Jesus here commands us to join together and do. "Y'all do this," Jesus says to us as a group. This is one of the reasons it is a Christian duty to come to the Divine Service. Not only does the Lord desire for us to gather to hear His Word and receive His life-giving Sacraments, but He also loves to hear His children call upon Him through corporate prayer. This also is how we learn to pray. Just as a mother teaches her children to pray by praying along with them, giving them an example, so also do Christians learn to pray by praying along with the Church in the liturgy and the prayer of the Church.

So the gathered Church prays for her children, asking the Father in the name of Jesus. And not just us here at Grace Lutheran Church, but the whole Christian Church throughout the world. Isn't it comforting that around the world, around the clock, the Church is praying as the children of God, saying, "Our Father, who art in heaven," just as Jesus taught them to pray, asking that His name be kept holy, His Kingdom come, His will be done, and so on. You are not alone, dear friends, for the whole communion of saints joins together in one great "Our Father," praying for you. You also join that great prayer here at church, and even during the week, every time that you say, "Our Father." The "Our" in "Our Fahter" reminds you that your prayer is not made for yourself alone but for all of God's children. And when that prayer is made in the name of Jesus, that is, when it is offered with faith in Him as the Savior, then there is no doubt that the Father says, "Yes, My name will be hallowed among you, My Kingdom will come to you, My will shall be done among you."

And so, on this Mother's Day, let us give thanks to the Lord for our mothers here on earth, from whom we received life and love, but even more, let us thank the Lord for giving us new birth into the Kingdom of God through the Baptism carried out by our heavenly Mother, the Holy Christian Church; let us thank the Lord for bathing, feeding, and nourishing us by the Word and Sacraments here in the Church; and let us join the Church throughout the world in praying, even as Jesus has commanded and promised: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you…Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."

That complete joy can only be found in the name of Jesus, for as St. Peter said, "there is salvation in no one else [besides Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved". Notice how Peter says that the name of Jesus is how "we" are saved. Not only me individually, but all of us, together. Ask a mother when she has the most joy, and most likely she will tell you that it is when all of her children are gathered together, at peace, enjoying the blessings of family life. This is true also of the Church. Her joy will be full only when all of her children have been gathered together into the Father's household, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, rejoicing eternally in the blessings of our salvation in the name of Jesus. On that Day we won't be just a bunch of kids leaving camp going in different directions, never to see each other again, but we will be a family that never has to be apart. So keep on asking in the name of Jesus that your joy may be full in your heavenly home, and most assuredly, He will give it to you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.