That Day

Then you will say on that day, “I will give thanks to You, O LORD; For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.

“That Day” is a day of total turnaround from what is expected when it comes to judgment against sin. It is the same day the Prodigal Son returned home in shame only to find his father rejoicing with great joy. It is the day the Root of Jesse finally came to fruition in the Person and work of Christ Jesus. It is the day you were baptized into Christ Jesus, and every day you receive His perfect benefits through faith and every means God has given for you to receive Him.

It is that day the Father of All has had in His heart from the beginning, when your unrighteousness would be placed upon Christ Jesus who would bear it up as a perfect sacrifice, rise from the dead, and make it known in no uncertain terms that your sins are forgiven. That day is today, and every day.

This summarizes all and everything the Church speaks as she has been given to speak: “Although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away.” The anger that was turned away is a righteous anger. It is an anger that by all accounts ought to result in a fate worse than death, namely eternal death.

But this anger is now turned away because Christ Jesus, the Holy Son of God, steadily and purposely made His way to Jerusalem on your behalf, all the while fulfilling all that was written of Him beginning with Moses, ending with the prophets and Apostles, and continuing with those whom He has placed before you not only to proclaim His real presence but also to assist in distributing His real presence in His Supper. So you may say with great confidence of heart concerning your Creator: “Although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away.”

What is most incredible about all this is the following: Your Father in heaven desires that all people understand and know His heart is this way toward them, even those whom you and I may be inclined to consider excluded from this love, for just as Jesus told the parable to the Prodigal Son in the midst of those who thought Prostitutes and Publicans were unworthy, Jesus speaks today in Holy Baptism and The Lord’s Supper to those who by all accounts are unworthy to receive anything good from the hand of God.

Giving thanks for the gift of salvation comes with little effort once one realizes the enormity of it all. But even this realization comes from God speaking to you concerning who He is, and what He does. What is written in the passage above is only a small portion of what God is given to speak to you and to all people for all time, and it speaks without reservation concerning the heart of God.

As you give thanks in the midst of every kind of trial and temptation, you patiently bear with your neighbor in love, knowing that what you see with the eyes is only the surface. The balance is written and spoken loud and clear. The Word does not, and will not, unwrite Himself. God is faithful.

“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.”