Sermons to the People 233.1–236.3

You have heard the reading of the holy Gospel on the resurrection of Christ. In the resurrection of Christ our faith has been established. Pagans and the ungodly and Jews have believed the passion of Christ; only Christians the resurrection. The passion of Christ signifies the miseries of this life; the resurrection of Christ shows the blessedness of the life to come. In the present let us labor; in the future let us hope. Now is the time of work; then of wages. Whoever is lazy in doing the work is shameless in demanding the wages. You have heard what he said to his disciples after the resurrection. He sent them to preach the gospel, and it was done: the gospel was preached; it reached us. And see, “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” Going and going, the gospel has reached us, and the ends of the earth. Briefly he laid down for us, speaking to his disciples, what we are to do and what we are to hope. For he says, as you heard when he spoke: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” Faith is required of us; salvation is offered: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” Precious is what is promised us; what is commanded is free.

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” What then? Were those who heard this not safe? Do not many believe while safe, and were they not safe even before they believed? Safe indeed; but vain is the safety of men. What kind of safety is this, which you share with your beast of burden? Yet even this, whence is it, but from him of whom it is written: “Men and beasts you will save, Lord”? And he added: “According to the multitude of your mercy, God.” For so great is the multitude of your mercy that salvation comes from you into this mortal flesh of men, and comes also to the flesh of cattle. This is the multitude of your mercy. For your children, what? See, “Men and beasts you will save, Lord.” Nothing more for us? Is what is given to any men whatever, and to cattle, all that is given to us? Not that, certainly. But what? Hear: “But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings; they will be made drunk with the abundance of your house, and you will give them to drink from the torrent of your pleasure. For with you is the fountain of life.” Christ is the fountain of life. We had safety with the beasts until the fountain of life came to us. The fountain of life came to us, and the fountain of life died for us. Will he deny us his life, who has paid out his death for us? That is the salvation which is not vain. Why? Because it does not pass away.

This distinction is to be well noted: “Men and beasts you will save, Lord”: men, belonging to the man. “But the sons of men,” belonging to the Son of Man, “will hope under the shelter of your wings.” Set before your eyes two men. Lift up your faith, let your heart awake: remember the man in whom we were deceived; remember the man by whom we were redeemed. Was that man a son of man? Adam was a man; he was not a son of man. That is why the Lord Christ constantly calls himself Son of Man, to make us remember the man who was not a son of man: so that we may remember death in the one, life in the other; sin in the one, forgiveness of sins in the other; bondage in the one, liberty in the other; condemnation in the one, acquittal in the other. These two men, then, are signified in these words: “Men and beasts you will save, Lord.” Men, belonging to the man; and beasts: together with the beasts you will save them. For man, placed in honor, did not understand, as it is written: “Man placed in honor did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts and became like them.” Therefore men and beasts, to which men became like because they did not understand, and to which they were compared, though they were created to rule them, you will save.

Is that the salvation of which it was said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved”? That salvation is other, far other. The angels have it: do not seek it on earth. It is great, but it is not here. That thing is not of this region; such salvation is not here. Lift up your heart. Why do you seek this salvation here on earth? Salvation itself came here, and found our death here. When our Lord Jesus Christ came to us in the flesh, did he find that salvation in our region? This merchant, coming from his own region, brought something great here: this merchant found in our region what abounds here. What abounds here? Being born and dying. The earth is full of these wares, being born and dying. He was born, and he died. But by what way was he born? He came to this region, but not by the way by which we came. For he came from heaven, from the Father. And yet he was born mortal. He was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. Are we born so from Adam and Eve? We are born through the lust of the flesh, but he was not. For the Virgin Mary conceived without a man's embrace, without the heat of lust; for, that she might not suffer this heat, it was said to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Virgin Mary, then, did not lie with a man and conceive; but she believed and conceived. For he was born mortal for mortals. Why mortal? Because in the likeness of sinful flesh: not in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. What does sinful flesh have? Death and sin. What did the likeness of sinful flesh have? Death without sin. If it had sin, it would be sinful flesh; if it did not have death, it would not be the likeness of sinful flesh. Such he came; the Savior came: he died, but he killed death; he ended in himself what we feared; he took it on and killed it, as a supreme hunter catches a lion and slays it.

Where is death? Look for it in Christ: it is no longer there; but it was, and it died there. O Life, death of death! Be of good heart: it will die in us too. What went before in the head will be rendered in the members: death will die in us too. But when? At the end of the world, in the resurrection of the dead, which we believe and do not doubt. For “whoever believes and is baptized” will himself “be saved.” Follow on to what you should fear: “But whoever does not believe will be condemned.” So death will die in us; it will live on in the damned. Where death will not know death, there will be everlasting death, because there will be eternal torments. In us it will die and will not be. Do you want to know? I will tell you a few words of those who triumph, so that you may have something to meditate on, to sing in your heart, to hope for with your whole soul, to seek by faith and good works. Hear the words of the triumphant, when there will be no death; when in us too, as in our head, death will die. The apostle Paul says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. Then will come to pass the word that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” I told you that death will die in us: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” That is the death of death. It will be swallowed up, so as not to appear. What does “so as not to appear” mean? So that it may not be, neither within nor without. “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Let the triumphant rejoice; let them rejoice and say what follows: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Where is it? You seized, you possessed, you conquered, you spoke to yourself; you struck and you killed: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Did not my Lord crush it? O death, when you fastened on my Lord, then you perished for me too. With this salvation he will be saved who believes and is baptized. “But whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Flee condemnation; love and hope for eternal salvation.

The Lord's resurrection is read in these days according to all four evangelists. For it is necessary that all be read, because each did not say everything; but what one passed over, another said: and in a way they all made room for one another, so that all might be necessary. The evangelist Mark, whose Gospel was recited yesterday, said briefly what Luke says more fully, about two disciples who were not of the number of the twelve but were disciples nonetheless: to whom, as they were on a journey, the Lord appeared and walked with them. For Mark said only that he appeared to two who were on a journey; but this evangelist Luke told what he said to them, what they answered him, how far he walked with them, and how they recognized him in the breaking of bread: all this he told, as we have heard.

What, then, brothers, what are we discussing here? We are being built up to believe that the Lord Christ has risen. We believed already when we heard the Gospel, and we entered this church today believing; and yet somehow what is renewed in memory is heard with joy. How do you think our heart is gladdened, when we seem to be better than those who were walking on the road, to whom the Lord appeared? For we believe what they did not yet believe. They had lost hope, and we do not doubt what they doubted. When the Lord was crucified they had lost hope: this appeared in their words when he said to them, “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another, and why are you sad?” And they: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and do you not know what has happened there?” And he answered: “What things?” Knowing all things about himself, he asked: because he wanted to be in them. “What things?” he said. And they: “About Jesus of Nazareth, who was a man, a prophet, great in word and deed.” See, we are better. They called Christ a prophet; we know him as Lord of the prophets. “He was,” they say, “a great prophet in deeds and words. And how the chief priests crucified him; and see, it is the third day since all these things were done. But we were hoping.” You were hoping: do you no longer hope? Is this all your discipleship? On the cross a thief has beaten you. You have forgotten him who taught; he recognized him with whom he hung. “We were hoping.” What were you hoping? “That he was the one to redeem Israel.” What you were hoping, and lost when he was crucified, the crucified thief recognized. For he said to the Lord: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” See, he was the one to redeem Israel. That cross was a school. There the Teacher taught the thief. The wood of the one hanging became the chair of the one teaching. But may he who gave himself back to you call back your hope. And so it was done. Remember, however, dearly beloved, how the Lord Jesus willed to be recognized in the breaking of bread by those whose eyes were held so that they did not recognize him. The faithful know what I am saying: they know Christ in the breaking of bread. For not every bread, but bread receiving Christ's blessing, becomes the body of Christ. There they exulted; they went to the others; they found them already knowing; telling what they had seen, they added to the Gospel. It was spoken, it was done, it was written: it has come to us.

Let us believe in Christ crucified, but in him who rose on the third day. That is the faith which distinguishes us from them, distinguishes us from pagans, distinguishes us from Jews: the faith by which we believe that Christ rose from the dead. The Apostle says to Timothy: “Remember that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, from the seed of David, according to my gospel.” And again the same Apostle: “For if you believe in your heart,” he says, “that Jesus is Lord, and confess with your mouth that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” That is the salvation which I discussed yesterday: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” I know that you believe: you will be saved. Hold in your heart and utter with your mouth that Christ has risen from the dead. But have the faith of Christians, not of demons. For see, I distinguish these for you; I distinguish what is my part to distinguish; according to the grace of God given to me I distinguish them for you. When I have distinguished, choose, love. See, I have said it. This faith by which we believe that Christ Jesus rose from the dead distinguishes us from pagans. Ask a pagan whether Christ was crucified: he cries, Indeed. Whether he rose: he denies it. Ask a Jew whether Christ was crucified: he confesses the crime of his fathers; he confesses a crime in which he too has a share. For he drinks what his fathers poured out for him: “His blood be on us and on our children.” But ask him whether Christ rose from the dead: he will deny it, mock, accuse. We are distinguished. For we believe that Christ, of the seed of David according to the flesh, rose from the dead. But did the demons not know this, or did the demons not believe these things, which they also saw? Even before he rose, they cried out and said: “We know who you are, the Son of God.” We distinguished ourselves from pagans by believing that Christ rose: if we can, let us distinguish ourselves from demons. What is it, I beg you, what is it that the demons said? “We know who you are, the Son of God.” And they hear: “Be silent.” Did they not say what Peter said, when Christ asked them and said, “Who do men say that I am?” And when they had answered with the opinions of outsiders, he went on to ask: “But you, who do you say that I am?” Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The demons said this, and Peter said this; the evil spirits said this, and the Apostle said this. And the demons hear, “Be silent”; Peter hears, “Blessed are you.” What distinguished them, let it distinguish us. Why did the demons cry this out? From fear. Why did Peter? From love. Choose, love. That is the faith which distinguishes Christians from demons; not just any faith. For the apostle James says, “You believe”; the letter of the apostle James has this: “You believe that God is one: you do well. The demons also believe, and tremble.” He said this who wrote in the same letter, “If someone has faith but does not have works, can faith save him?” And the apostle Paul, distinguishing, says: “Neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through love.” We have discerned, we have distinguished; or rather we have found it distinguished, read it distinguished, learned that it is distinguished. As we are distinguished by faith, so let us be distinguished by morals, so let us be distinguished by works, set on fire by love, which the demons did not have. With that fire those two on the road also burned. For when they had recognized Christ and he had departed from them, they said to each other: “Was not our heart burning on the road, when he opened the Scriptures to us?” Burn, lest you burn with the fire in which the demons will burn. Burn with the fire of love, so that you may distinguish yourselves from the demons. This burning snatches you up, lifts you up, raises you to heaven. Whatever troubles you suffer on earth, however much the enemy presses down a Christian heart humbled below, the burning of love seeks the heights. Take a comparison. If you hold a burning torch and hold it upright with the head up, the crest of flame rises toward heaven: lower the torch, and the flame goes toward heaven; turn the torch head downward, do you bring the flame down to the earth too? Whichever way the burning torch is turned, the flame knows no other way: it seeks heaven. Fervent in spirit, be kindled with the fire of love: make yourselves fervent with God's praises and with the best morals. One is warm, another cold: let the warm kindle the cold; and let him who burns little desire an increase and pray for help. The Lord is ready to give: let us with open hearts desire to receive. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Yesterday, that is, during the night, the Savior's resurrection was read from the Gospel. It was read from the Gospel according to Matthew; today, as you heard the reader announce, the Lord's resurrection has been recited to us as the evangelist Luke wrote it. As you often need to be reminded, and ought to hold in memory: it should not disturb you that one evangelist says something which another passes over; because he who passes over what another says says something that the other had passed over. Some things single evangelists say and the other three do not; some things two say and the others do not; some things three say and one does not. But such is the authority of the holy Gospel that, because one Spirit spoke in them, what even one has said is true. What you have just heard, then, that the Lord Jesus, after he rose from the dead, found two of his disciples on the road, talking with each other about the things that had happened, and said to them, “What are these words that you are speaking with one another, and you are sad?” and so on: Luke the evangelist alone has said it. Mark touched on it briefly, that he appeared to two on the road; but what they said to the Lord, or what the Lord said to them, he passed over.

What, then, has this reading brought us? Something great, if we understand. Jesus appeared: he was seen with the eyes and not recognized. The Teacher walked with them on the way, and he himself was the way; and they were not yet walking in the way, but he found that they had strayed from the way. For when he had been with them before his passion, he had foretold everything: that he would suffer, die, and rise on the third day; he had foretold everything; but his death was their forgetting. They were so disturbed when they saw him hanging on the wood that they forgot him as he taught, did not wait for him to rise, and did not hold on to him as he promised. “We,” they say, “were hoping that he was the one to redeem Israel.” O disciples, you were hoping; then you no longer hope? See, Christ lives, and hope is dead in you! Christ certainly lives. The living Christ found the hearts of the disciples dead; to their eyes he both appeared and did not appear; he was both seen and hidden. For if he was not seen, how did they hear him asking and answer him when he asked? He walked with them on the way as a companion, and he himself was the guide. Certainly they saw him, but they did not recognize him. For their eyes were held, as we heard, so that they did not recognize him. They were held not so that they did not see, but so that they did not recognize him.

Come, brothers, where did the Lord will to be recognized? In the breaking of bread. We are secure: we break bread, and we recognize the Lord. He willed not to be recognized except there, for our sake, who were not going to see him in the flesh and yet were going to eat his flesh. Whoever you are, then, who are one of the faithful, whoever you are who are called Christian not in vain, whoever you are who enter the church not without reason, whoever you are who hear the word of God with fear and hope: let the breaking of bread console you. The Lord's absence is not absence: have faith, and he whom you do not see is with you. They, when the Lord was speaking with them, did not even have faith: because they did not believe that he had risen, and did not hope that he could rise. They had lost faith; they had lost hope. Dead men walked with the living one; dead men walked with life itself. Life walked with them, but in their hearts life had not yet been renewed. You too, then, if you want to have life, do what they did, so that you may recognize the Lord. They received him as a guest. For the Lord seemed to be going on further, but they held him back. And when they came to the place they were going to, they said: “Stay here with us now, for the day is declining toward evening.” Hold on to the guest, if you want to recognize the Savior. What unbelief had taken away, hospitality gave back. The Lord, then, presented himself in the breaking of bread. Learn where to seek the Lord, learn where to have him, learn where to recognize him: when you eat. For the faithful know something which they understand better in this reading than those who do not know.

The Lord Jesus was recognized; and after he was recognized, he appeared nowhere. He withdrew from them in body, he who was held by faith. For this is why the Lord withdrew in body from the whole Church and ascended into heaven: so that faith might be built up. For if you know only what you see, where is faith? But if you believe even what you do not see, when you see you will rejoice. Let faith be built up, because sight will be given back. What we do not see will come; it will come, brothers, it will come: but see how it finds you. For it will come, though men say: Where is it, when is it, how is it, when will it be, when is it to come? Be sure, it will come: and not only will it come, it will come even if you do not want it. Woe to those who have not believed; for there will be great trembling for them, and great joy for those who have believed. The faithful will rejoice; the unbelievers will be confounded. The faithful will say: Thanks to you, Lord; we heard true things, we believed true things, we hoped for true things, we see true things. But the unbelievers will say: Where is what we did not believe? Where is it, that we thought the things that were read were lies? [Praiseworthy, then, are those who do not see and believe: because when they see, they will rejoice. For the sake of our salvation the Lord took flesh, in which he took on death too. He rose on the third day, never to die again; and, having taken back the substance of the flesh which he had laid down, he first gave us the example of incorruptible resurrection. Ascending in the same body to the Father, he sits at the right hand of God, sharing in the power of the Father's judgment; and we hope that he will come to judge the living and the dead; so that we too may believe of ourselves that we shall receive from the very dust the same flesh, the same bones, the same restoration of members to remain forever. We shall all rise, but not all will rejoice. “The day will come,” he says, “when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”] So it will come about that punishment is rendered to confusion and reward to confidence. For those will go into eternal burning, but the righteous into eternal life. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle says, “died for our offenses and rose for our justification.” As by his death we are sown, so by his resurrection we sprout. For by his death is signified the death of our life. On this matter hear the Apostle: “We have been buried with Christ,” he says, “through baptism into death, so that as Christ rose from the dead, so we too may walk in newness of life.” He had nothing to amend on the cross, because he went up on the cross without sin. Let us be amended on his cross, and lay there what we contracted badly, so that we may be justified by his resurrection. For you ought to distinguish thus: “He was handed over for our offenses, and rose for our justification.” He did not say, He was handed over for our justification and rose for our offenses. In his being handed over, offense sounds; in his resurrection, righteousness sounds. So let offense die, and righteousness rise.

This hope, this gift, this promise, this so great grace, his disciples lost from their minds when Christ died, and in his death they fell from hope. See, his resurrection was announced to them, and the words of those announcing it seemed to them like nonsense. Truth had become like nonsense. If at this time the resurrection is preached and it seems nonsense to someone, do not all say that he suffers a great torment? Do not all detest it, shrink from it, turn away, close their ears, refuse to hear? See what the disciples were when Christ died: what we abhor, that they were. The rams had this evil which the lambs abhor. Then these two to whom he appeared on the road, and whose eyes were held so that they did not recognize him: their words show where their heart was; and the voice is witness of what goes on in the mind, but to us: for to him even their heart lay open. They were talking with each other about his death. He joined them as a third traveler; and the Way on the way began to talk with them and mingled in the conversation. He asks what they were saying among themselves, though he knew everything, so as to draw them out to confess as though he did not know. And they say to him: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and do you not know what has been done there in these days, about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a great prophet?” No longer Lord, but prophet. For this is what they thought he had been, since he had died. They still honored him as a prophet; they did not yet recognize him as Lord, not only of the prophets but also of the angels. “How,” they say, “our elders and the chief priests handed him over to the condemnation of death. And see, it is now the third day since these things were done. But we were hoping that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Is that your whole labor? You were hoping; do you now despair? You see that they had lost hope. So he began to explain the Scriptures to them, so that they might recognize Christ there where they had abandoned Christ. For they had despaired of Christ because they had seen him dead. But he opened the Scriptures to them, so that they might recognize that if he had not died he could not be the Christ. He taught from Moses, he taught from the Scriptures that follow, he taught from the Prophets what he had told them: “that the Christ had to die and so enter into his glory.” They heard, they rejoiced, they sighed; and, as they themselves confessed, they were burning: and they did not recognize the light that was present.

But what a mystery, my brothers! He goes in to them, he becomes their guest; and he who was not recognized along the whole road is recognized in the breaking of bread. Learn to receive guests, for there Christ is recognized. Or do you not know that if you receive any Christian you receive him? Does he not himself say, “I was a stranger and you received me”? And when it is said to him, “Lord, when did we see you a stranger?” he answers: “When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.” When, then, a Christian receives a Christian, members serve members; and the head rejoices, and counts as given to himself what has been paid out to his member. Here, then, let Christ be fed when hungry, given drink when thirsty, clothed when naked, received when a stranger, visited when sick. The necessity of the journey requires this. So we must live in this pilgrimage, where Christ is in need. He is in need in his own; he is full in himself. But he who is in need in his own and full in himself brings the needy to himself. There, there will be no hunger, there will be no thirst, there will be no nakedness, there will be no sickness, there will be no exile, there will be no toil, there will be no pain. I know that these things will not be there, and I do not know what will be there. These things that will not be there I know; but what we shall find there “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man.” We can love it, we can long for it, in this pilgrimage we can sigh for so great a good: we cannot worthily think of it or explain it in words. Certainly I cannot. So, my brothers, look for someone who can. If you can find him, take me along with you as a disciple. This I know: that he who is able, as the Apostle says, to do beyond what we ask or understand will lead us there, where what is written will come about: “Blessed are those who dwell in your house; for ever and ever they will praise you.” Our whole business will be the praise of God. What shall we praise, if we do not love? And we shall love what we shall see. For we shall see the True, and we shall praise the True. It will be God whom we shall find there, of whom we sang today: Amen, “It is true”; Alleluia, “Praise the Lord.”