Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter - Jn 15:26-16:4

 

Easter 7

                                                                                      Jn 15:26-16:4

                                                                                      5/12/24

 

         

I think most people want to be liked.  I certainly do. There are very few people who really don’t care what others think about them.  Now it is important that we are authentic and genuine – that we aren’t simply trying to gain the favor of others.  But in general, it’s probably not a good thing if a person really doesn’t care at all. 

A person’s reputation – his or her name – is an important thing.  It is the blessing that is protected by the Eighth Commandment.  We should care about our reputation, just as we seek to protect that of others.  Where we have a good reputation, people are going to be positive toward us.  They are going to like us. And that’s a good thing.

However, in our Gospel lesson this morning Jesus tells his disciples that those who believe in him will not be liked by others.  In fact, he says that others will reject them in society, and even try to kill them.  Jesus tells us that we will experience rejection in the world.  But through the work of the Holy Spirit whom the Lord has sent, we know Jesus and therefore we know the Father.  Because of Jesus the risen Lord we have life with God that no one can take away from us.

The texts at the end of the season of Easter prepare us for Pentecost.  In this section of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that he will be leaving them.  He will be returning to the Father. Of course, to the disciples, this sounds like a bad thing.  However, Jesus says that it is actually a good thing for them.  Our Lord says, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

On Thursday we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord.  Jesus ascended into heaven as he returned to the Father and was glorified.  He was exalted as Lord over all as Jesus was seated at the right hand of God.  As he promised, the Lord has sent forth the Spirit.  And in our text today, Jesus tells us what the Spirit does.

He says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” The work of the Spirit is to bear witness about Jesus. 

The Spirit does this through the work of the apostles.  Jesus says that they will also bear witness because they have been with him since the beginning.  The apostles were with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry until his death. Then they were witnesses to the resurrection as they ate and drank with the Lord.  They were with him in the area of Jerusalem, and they were with him in the north in Galilee. They were with the risen Lord for forty days, and then they saw him depart in the ascension.

The apostles were witnesses to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But we learn that their witness is not simply their own.  Instead, it is the Spirit who is at work through them in order to point to Jesus.  Our Lord said, “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

The Spirit has used the apostles to make Jesus known to us.  Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

The Spirit borne witness of the apostles has revealed the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to us.  John the Baptist had declared about Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes the sin of the world.”  The Son of God entered into the world as he was sent forth by the Father.  He became flesh in the incarnation in order to suffer and die for us.  Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” 

Jesus lay down his life as he was lifted up on the cross.  There he cried out “It is finished” as he won for us forgiveness and salvation.  John tells us in his first letter, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Jesus lay down his life. But then he took it up again.  On the third day he rose from the dead.  Because he has, we have life.  We have life with God that will never end.  We will have resurrection life on the Last Day.  Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”  And then he added: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

You have that life now because you have been born again of water and the Spirit.  Because of Jesus, we now know God as our Father.  John said in his first letter, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

This is the blessing that we have.  Yet in our text, the Lord prepares us for what we will encounter.  He says, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”  Jesus tells us that we will receive opposition from the world – even persecution.

          Our Lord tells us that there is a reason for this. He says, “And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.”  We know the Father through Jesus the Son. Christ has revealed him to us.  But for the world, things are very different.

          Our Lord said that the world “hates me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.”  The Lord Jesus reveals God’s will.  Through his apostles he makes known how we are to live.  But John’s Gospel tells us, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

          The works of the world are evil.  This is a world that denies that truth exists.  It denies that God exists, or that he can be known as it revels in agnosticism and rejects faith.  It selfishly kills the unborn in abortion so that it will not be inconvenienced. It perverts the use of sexuality in every possible way. It holds marriage in contempt. It denies the basic difference between man and woman, and threatens all would disagree.

          In the previous chapter Jesus said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

          The Lord has called us out of the world through the work of the Holy Spirit.  We know Jesus, and therefore we know the Father.  We know God’s holy will for life.  Christ prepares us for the fact that the world will hate us because of this.  He said, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” Then he added, “But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”

          We must be ready for this.  We must expect it.  Being a Christian in this world is not going to get easier.  It is going to get harder. This will require us to have a firm faith in Jesus Christ.  We will need to put Jesus at the center of all that we think and do. Our faith in Jesus will have to guide our lives.

          Why can we do this in confidence?  We can because Jesus is the risen Lord.  He said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  Jesus overcame it through his death and resurrection for us.  As John tells us in his first letter: “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

          You have been called out of the world through the word of the Gospel.  The chain of sharing the Gospel began with the apostles.  In the next chapter Jesus prays to the Father for them.  He says, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  The Holy Spirit has used them as witnesses to Jesus. Many bore witness by giving their lives in the confidence that because of Jesus they already had eternal life.

          God loved you in Christ by sending his Son.  He called you out of the world through the Gospel.  Yet this action is part of God’s love for the whole world.  We learn in John’s Gospel, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

         Now, we who have received this love in Christ are sent to share the witness of the apostles with others.  We give witness to Jesus Christ by what we do.  At the Last Supper our Lord said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

        We also share Jesus by what we say.  Sometimes this will mean talking about how Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead in order to give us forgiveness and life with God.  But sometimes – in fact quite often – it is as simple as inviting someone we know to come to church. 

        In our text today, Jesus says that he will send the Helper – the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit will bear witness about Jesus, and he will enable the apostles to bear witness.  Through their witness the Spirit has called us out of the world.  Jesus prepares us for the rejection and persecution that we will receive because of him.  But we know the crucified and risen Lord who has overcome sin and death.  Because of him we already have eternal life now, and he will raise us up on the Last Day.  Confident in our risen Lord, we share him with others in what we do and say.     

 

 

         

 

 

Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord - Lk 24:44-53

 

Ascension

                                                                                      Lk 24:44-53

                                                                                      5/9/24

 

          In a way, celebrating the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord seems to be counter intuitive.  After all, it is a celebration of the fact that the Lord has left us.  That is probably why it is so underappreciated - which is really just a nice way of saying that it is almost ignored.

          It doesn’t help that it always falls on a Thursday.  The ascension of Jesus Christ took place forty days after Easter.  Forty days after Easter always places you on a Thursday, and so every year it is a service that takes place during the week. 

          Between the subject matter of the ascension and its timing, the Ascension Day service is not exactly a big draw for attendance.  In fact, there are many Lutheran churches that don’t even have a service today.

          Yet to ignore the ascension of our Lord is to ignore the exaltation of Jesus Christ.  It is to ignore the reason that God has sent forth the Spirit into our midst.  It is to ignore the comfort we have of knowing that Christ has taken humanity into the presence of God. And it is to ignore the reason for the promise that our Lord will return in glory in the Last Day.

          Our text begins by telling us about what the Lord Jesus said to his disciples after he had demonstrated to them that he has risen from the dead.  He explained, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”  Jesus told them that the events of his ministry – and especially the events of the last several days – were a fulfillment of what God had revealed in the Old Testament.  All of Scripture was about him and pointed to him.

          Next Jesus revealed this to them.  We learn that he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.  He gave them insight and understanding about how he fulfilled the Old Testament.  Then he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

          The Scriptures said that Jesus the Christ must suffer, die, and rise from the dead.  It also said that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.  Our Lord said that repentance was needed.  At the beginning of his ministry Jesus had said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” 

          Jesus’ saving ministry had been about repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  He was here to call people to repentance. He was calling them to confess their sin and turn away from it. And he was here to give forgiveness for that sin to all who repented.

          Your sin was the reason that the Son of God, entered into the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Paul tells us, “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  From the moment of our conception we are fallen people, and as our powers grow so does our sin.  We ignore God as we create false gods that receive more time and attention. We ignore our neighbor because caring for him or her would put limits on the attention we give ourselves.

          The Scriptures had said that the Christ must suffer and die in order to provide forgiveness before God.  Forgiveness was not something that we could bring about.  Only God could provide it.  The great surprise of this fulfillment was the that the Christ was not only a mighty and powerful victor.  He was also the suffering Servant.  Jesus was the Christ, descended from David and anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. 

Yet that anointing with the Spirit had also made him the Servant of the Lord.  He was the One who fulfilled Isaiah’s words, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Jesus had suffered and died to receive God’s judgment against sin.  But on the third day he had been vindicated by God in the resurrection. Jesus had just demonstrated this fact to the disciples. He had shown them that he was the same One who had been crucified.  He said, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me,and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Our Lord then told the disciples, “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”  The disciples had seen the miracles of Jesus’ ministry. They had witnessed his death.  They were now with the risen Lord.  They would be witnesses to the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Yet before they could do this, something else would happen.  Jesus said he would be sending what the Father had promised.  They were to say in the city until they had received power from God.

Next Luke tells us that Jesus led them out the two miles to Bethany.  Then he lifted up his hands and blessed them.  While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.  The disciples were left there below as they watched him ascend.  We learn that the disciples worshipped Jesus and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ ascension does not come as a complete surprise.  When our Lord is transfigured, and Moses and Elijah appear there with him, we learn that they “spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”  Shortly thereafter Luke tells us, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

Jesus’ ascension into heaven is his exaltation.  In Ephesians Paul refers to the “great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

          The incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, suffered and died for us.  On Easter, God raised him up as he defeated death.  But this was not the end of Father’s action.  Jesus who had humbled himself in order to save us has now been exalted to God’s right hand.  Paul told the Philippians, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

          In our text Jesus says, “And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”  It is as the exalted Lord that Jesus sent forth the Spirit on Pentecost.  Peter proclaimed on that day, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”

          Because Jesus Christ has been exalted, he has sent forth the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of Christ with us as he calls us to faith and sustains us in faith.  He has sanctified us by applying Jesus’ saving work to us through baptism and faith.  Paul told the Corinthians, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

          At Christmas we celebrated the incarnation of the Son of God, as the Word became flesh.  Jesus Christ took on a human nature, and so our incarnate Lord is true God and true man.  He did this to bear our sins and die in our place.  He also did this to defeat death because in his resurrection Jesus has begun our resurrection.  Paul told the Corinthians, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

          But the risen Lord did not cease to be true man in the ascension.  He is still true God and true man.  This means that Jesus has taken humanity - human bodily existence - into God’s presence.  Because Jesus has, we know that we too will dwell in God’s presence as transformed and renewed people, body and soul. His resurrection is the firstfruits of our resurrection.  His ascension is also the firstfruits of our life with God in the new creation.

          I said at the beginning of the sermon for rhetorical effect that Jesus has “left us” in the ascension.  But that’s not really an accurate way of describing things.  He is present through the Spirit, and what he has done is to withdraw his visible presence.  For now we know our Lord by faith and not by sight.

          But the ascension of our Lord reminds us that it will not always be this way.  The ascension alerts us to the hope of the Last Day.  In Acts we learn how the angels said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

The risen and ascended Lord will return in glory on the Last Day.  He will return in a way that every eye will see.  Jesus will raise our bodies and transform them to be like his own immortal body.  He will renew creation and make it very good once again.  And we will dwell in God’s presence forever.    

         

 

              

 

 

 

  

 

             

 

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter - Num 21:4-9

 

Num 21:4-9

                                                                                                 Easter 6

                                                                                                 5/5/24

 

          About a month ago, all eyes were fixed on one place. It was the solar eclipse, and during that time most everyone stopped for at least a few minutes and gazed up at the sun. As we know, people came into our area from all over just to see it.

          We had several Lutheran groups who set up on our parking lot in order to watch the eclipse. One group came here from Iowa.  Several set up special telescopes and video equipment so that they would view the entire eclipse and take pictures of it.

          In our Old Testament lesson this morning, we find that all eyes are also fixed on one place.  Yet rather than looking for entertainment and enjoyment, they are looking in order to be rescued and delivered from death.  They are looking at the means to which God has attached his promise.

          Our text begins by saying: “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.”  In the exodus, God had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt.  He had brought them to Mt. Sinai and had taken them into a covenant with himself.  He had declared that they were his treasured possession.  They were a holy nation to him.

          Yahweh had promised to give them the land of Canaan – the land he had promised Abraham that he would give to his offspring.  Israel had arrived at Canaan, but then things had gone all wrong.  Spies sent into the land to do reconnaissance reported that it was a fertile and wonderful place – a land flowing with milk and honey.  Yet they also said that the people who lived there were strong, and lived in large fortified cities.  Most of the spies gave the impression that Israel could not take it.

          Israel rebelled. They refused to enter the promised land.  Only through Moses’ intercession did God spare the nation.  Yet he said their punishment would be that the nation would wander in the wilderness for forty years.  Those who were twenty years and older would never enter the land. They would die in the wilderness.  Instead, their children were the ones who would possess the land.

          Our text says, “And the people became impatient on the way.” Literally, the Hebrew says that “the spirit of the people” became impatient.  Many of them were on a journey to nowhere.  They were going to die in the wilderness and never see the promised land.  They had nothing before them except the journey that was going to stretch on for years.

          We learn in our text: “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’”  In their impatience, the people turned against God and his representative, Moses.  They raised the accusation that God had brought them out of Egypt only to die in the wilderness.  They complained that there was no food and water, and they added that they loathed the food God was giving them.

          The people’s statement ignored how God had given them water.  Twice God had used Moses to bring water from a rock. In fact, the second occurrence had just taken place in the previous chapter!  God could be trusted to provide water. He had in the past.  He would in the future.  Immediately after our text, Yahweh brings the people to a well and tells Moses, “Gather the people together, so that I may give them water.”

          The Israelites said they had no food.  But that was not true.  The reality was that they weren’t satisfied with the food that God was providing to them.  He was giving them quail for meat. And since the exodus, he had provided them with manna.  He had given them bread from heaven. Yet they said, “we loathe this worthless food.”

          Israel’s experience should not sound unfamiliar.  Like Israel, we too are on a journey.  We are on the journey of life.  And like Israel, we too become impatient on the way.  We grow tired of the journey as we encounter difficulties and challenges.  In particular, we are prone to focus on what God is not providing to us. We ignore and overlook the blessings that he does give.

          We want a bigger house and a better car.  We want more and better vacations. We want to be able do those extra things without having to worry about our budget.  And we look around and see that other people have these things.  After all, it’s plastered before us every day on Facebook and Instagram.  We covet what they have, and we blame God for not treating us better.

          Israel had spoken against Yahweh. And so in response, God punished the people for their sin by sending fiery serpents among them.  They bit the people, and many of the people died.  Yahweh’s action confronted the people.  And so they came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.”

          Moses prayed for the people.  And Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”  God told Moses to make a serpent and set it on a pole. He attached his promise to this - that anyone who looked at it would be spared.  So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. As God had promised, if a serpent bit anyone, that individual looked at the bronze serpent and lived.  The people had faith in God’s promise that he had attached to the bronze serpent on the pole.

          St. Paul told the Romans, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”  This text about the bronze serpent on the pole was written for our instruction and encouragement.  It provides us with a type – something in the Old Testament that points forward to what God has done for us in the New Testament.

          This text is easy to interpret, because Jesus has already done the work for us.  He told Nicodemus, “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

          The Son of God descended from heaven in the incarnation in order to save us.  Like the Israelites in our text, our sins deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishment.  They deserve God’s judgment.  But Jesus Christ was lifted upon on the cross in order to free us from sin.  The Lord Jesus has redeemed us through his death.

          Sin brings death.  But in winning forgiveness for us, death was not the end.  On Easter, God raised Jesus from the dead.  God has given us victory over both sin and death through his Son.  And then, as we will celebrate on Thursday, God exalted Jesus Christ as he ascended into heaven.

          Now we receive forgiveness and life by looking at Jesus in faith.  Jesus said, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  We trust and believe in the crucified and risen Lord.

          Jesus has ascended.  Yet he continues to meet us where we are.  Just as God attached his promise to the serpent on the pole, so now our Lord attaches his promise to water, and bread and wine.  He gives us these means that are located in our midst by which he applies his saving work to us. 

          Through water poured on your body in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit you have shared in Jesus’ saving death. Paul told the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  By faith in God’s work of baptism you now have the forgiveness that Jesus won for us you the cross.  And you also have the promise that you will share in Jesus’ resurrection. Paul tells us about baptism: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

          Christ has attached his promise to the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar.  He has said, “This is my body given for you. This is my blood shed for you.”  Through these words, Jesus gives us what he says.  He provides his true body offered on the cross for us.  He gives his true blood shed in death for us.  By faith in Christ’s promise we receive the blessing of forgiveness. Jesus comes to us here and now as he is present in his body and blood.

          Jesus gives us bread from heaven in the Sacrament.  He gives us food for the new man that sustains us in our journey, and gives us hope.  Like the Israelites, we are on a journey in life.  But unlike those in our text who were twenty years and older, our journey is not a journey to nowhere.  Instead, it is a pilgrimage that leads to a destination. 

          Our Lord Jesus has already shown us the destination in his resurrection.  Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of the resurrection of the Last Day.  He is the firstfruits of our resurrection. Because he has risen with a body transformed so that it can never die again, so will we.  Our Lord will return in glory on the Last Day.  He will raise us up and transform this creation so that it is very good once again.  That is where our journey is taking us. That is the hope we have before us because of what Jesus has done.

          In the water of baptism we have been made a new creation in Christ.  We are children of God who receive the forgives of sins through faith.  And while we are on this journey we seek to walk in faith. 

So give thanks to God for the blessings that you have received.  Do you have food today? Do you have clean water? Do you have clothing?  Do you have a roof over your head? Give thanks for these things, and don’t take them for granted.  God is providing you with daily bread.  He is giving you what you need to support your body and life.

Recognize that his blessings go so far beyond just the basic necessities of life.  Don’t take those things for granted. Don’t let the desire of greed govern your life as you are ruled by an endless quest for more and better.

Instead, see God’s blessings as the means he has given by which you can bless others.  God has loved you in Christ.  Use his blessings in order to help those around you.  John said, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

In our text today, God attaches his promise of rescue to the serpent on the pole.  The serpent on the pole directs us to what he has done in Jesus Christ.  Jesus was lifted upon on the cross to redeem us, and then he was raised from the dead to give us life.  Now he has attached his promise to the Sacraments as he gives us forgiveness and sustains us as his people during our journey of life.  We journey in hope as we keep our eyes set on the risen Lord.