Acts 17:1-15 - Where Will You Go From Here? - May 9, 2021

Nick and Mya: what are you thinking about right now? I’m guessing that at this moment you’re probably not thinking about much more than just getting through this service, going home, changing out of your dress clothes and having lunch. But for a few minutes I want to expand your horizon, I want you to think beyond today – to high school, college, a career, marriage, kids. Believe it or not, those things are not as far away as you may think – just ask your parents! Today marks the conclusion of your formal childhood training in the Christian faith. After today I won’t make you memorize any more Bible passages or parts of the Catechism or take quizzes to test your knowledge. That might seem like a huge relief. But here’s the thing. Life only gets more complicated from here and when you walk out those doors as confirmed Christians, the devil will have placed a huge target on your backs. So the question I want you, Nick and Mya – and really all of us – to consider this morning is: where will you go from here?

Our text contains the familiar comparison of the Thessalonians and the Bereans – giving the Thessalonian Christians the reputation of being rather lazy and complacent when compared to the eager beaver Bereans. This reputation has endured through the ages: there are all sorts of Berean churches – have you ever heard of Thessalonica Lutheran Church? But is that reputation accurate? Probably not; at least not completely. In a letter he later sent to the Thessalonians, Paul wrote: when you received God’s word, which you heard from us, you did not receive it as the word of men but as the word of God (as it really is), which is now at work in you who believe (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Is that you, Nick and Mya? Is that the rest of us? Do we receive the words we hear in worship and Bible class as the word of God and not just as the words of men? How about a little test? Which do we remember more often: the CDC reminder to wash our hands regularly or the washing the Triune God gave us in Holy Baptism? Which of these do we spend more time discussing with family and friends: the proclamations handed out by the county health department or the proclamations given from pulpits like this? Which do we really regard as irrefutable, undeniable facts: the Covid-19 statistics splashed on our TVs, smartphones, and radios or the fact that God delivers forgiveness, life and salvation through the Gospel in Baptism, Absolution and Holy Communion?

The Thessalonians can serve as an example for us in this regard. They received the preaching of Paul as the very word of God. They received, according to Luke’s description here in Acts 17, the three basic truths which are necessary to believe if you are to be saved from eternal death in hell – the same basic truths you, Nick and Mya, were baptized into, learned in Sunday school and confirmation and will be confessing in just moments. Truth 1: the Christ had to suffer on the cross for your sins; Truth 2: the Christ had to…rise from the dead for your justification (Romans 4:25); Truth 3: this Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ. This is the Gospel. This is what God has done to save you. This is what you will be confessing here today.

Now, in spite of the fact that the Thessalonians received Paul’s message as the Word of God – their failure to dive deeply into Scripture on their own left some dangerous gaps in their faith and understanding: about the resurrection of the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), the signs of the end of the world (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11), the importance of individual work-ethic (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15) and even intimacy within marriage (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8). (I mention that last one just to tempt you to go home and read 1 and 2 Thessalonians for yourselves.) The point, however, for you, Nick and Mya (and all of you) is that it if you simply sit in that chair and swallow everything said here without carefully examining the Scriptures for yourself – then it will simply remain something that your pastor or your church believes and confesses. If you fail to examine the Scriptures for yourselves, then you will always be vulnerable to false teachers – for example: high school and college teachers who take great joy in targeting Christians and attempting to shake them from their faith. Don’t get me wrong – I do pray that you receive the means of grace here at church as they are: the words and works of God. But, if one hour a week is your only contact with God’s Word, there’s the very real danger that your faith will remain shallow – and you will be vulnerable to the deceptions of the devil and the troubles and worries of life in this world (Matthew 13:18-23). Martin Luther himself warned about this kind of faith. He called it “coal miner’s faith.” When asked what he believed, the coal miner said he believed what the church believed, and when asked what the church believed, he said it believed what he believed. Luther said, “God preserve us from such faith” (F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, II, 429). Why? Because it’s faith in faith, not faith anchored in what God has said, done and promised in his Word.

So, Nick and Mya, where will you go from here? Do you want to go to Thessalonica? Do you want to receive what you learned in confirmation class as the Word of God and just leave it at that? Are you satisfied with just knowing the basics – some of which are probably already beginning to slip from your minds? (For example: could you still recite the 10 Commandments like you could last fall?) Will you take your Catechism and Bible and shove them onto a shelf somewhere, never to be seen again until the day you move out? How about the rest of us? Last week’s examination was pretty revealing, wasn’t it? How many of us were humbled or even humiliated by our own lack of knowledge of the basics of Christian doctrine? Where will we go from here?

That’s not just the question I’m asking you today, it’s the question Paul was probably asking himself after some jealous Jews in Thessalonica stirred up a riot, forcing Paul and Silas to flee the city. Paul may not have known where he was going, but the wisdom of his Christian friends and the will of God guided Paul and Silas to another city in Macedonia: Berea.

Luke says that the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians. How? Why? They received the word very eagerly and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so. Do you see the distinction here? It’s not that the Bereans were believers and the Thessalonians unbelievers – Paul repeatedly calls the Thessalonians believers in his later letters to them (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1:4; 2:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 1:3; 2:1; etc.). It’s not that the Bereans were smarter than the Thessalonians. It’s not that Paul delivered a different or more eloquent or convincing message to the Bereans than he did to the Thessalonians. So if the difference wasn’t the speaker or the message, what’s the difference? What they did with that message! The Thessalonians, apparently, heard it, accepted it, said “amen,” went home – and left it at that – at least some of them. In contrast, the Bereans not only received the word eagerly but they examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true. They were obedient to God’s command through the apostle John: dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).

What sorts of things do you think they were examining about Paul’s message to them? Well, at the very least it had to include the three truths Paul had proclaimed in Thessalonica and everywhere else he went: 1) the Christ had to suffer and die for their sins; 2) the Christ had to…rise from the dead; 3) this Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ. Paul told them that through faith in Jesus they would be free from sin, death and the power of the devil. Isn’t it important to know with certainty if that’s true or not? Is there anything in the world it’s more important to be sure about than that Jesus is who he said he is and did what he said he was going to do in order to forgive your sins and give you eternal life? If that’s not true, then, Mya and Nick, you’ve just wasted two years of Wednesdays with me in confirmation class and you should never waste your time here again. But, if it is true, then how could there possibly be anything more important? (In fact, in a few moments I’m going to ask you to swear that these things are true in front of God, your families and this congregation. You’re going to swear that you’d rather die than fall away from these truths about Jesus. It’s not an exaggeration to say that your eternity hangs on whether the things you will confess about Jesus are true or not.)

But there’s also a very practical aspect to aspiring to be like the Bereans in their careful examination of the Scriptures too – for you, Nick and Mya, and for all of us. Last week’s examination was a thorough test of your faith – but it won’t be the last. You’ll be tested by your friends, your teachers, your coworkers, by boyfriends and girlfriends – by the godless and depraved culture around you. The testing will never end. How are you going to respond? In large part, that depends where you go from here. When it comes to the origin of the universe, you could simply say that you don’t believe in the “big-bang” or evolution; it’d be better to say that the only eye-witness testimony we have tells us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). When your friends are wondering why the world is so filled with discrimination and violence and evil, you could get sucked into a debate about systemic racism and economic inequality; but the reality is that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies and blasphemies (Matthew 15:19). When it comes to LGBTQ issues, you could say that your church forbids them; it’d be better to say God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27) and do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor…[homosexuals]…will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). When it comes to the temptations that come with dating, you could say, “My parents don’t want me to do that;” it’d be better to say marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers (Hebrews 13:4). I know you know these things because we spent two years together learning them. But you will only be able to give these responses if you become like the Bereans and make the Christian faith you learned in confirmation class your personal Christian faith. And, when you are personally, deeply rooted in Scripture, not only will you always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15), but you will be ever more firmly rooted in those three basic facts that provide the only sure foundation for salvation: 1) the Christ had to suffer and die for the sins of the world; 2) the Christ…had to rise from the dead; 3) Jesus…is the Christ.

For decades now the church has been plagued by and has endlessly complained about the loss of young people like you, Nick and Mya, from the church once you’ve been confirmed. The so-called “silver bullets” have been as countless as the losses: start a youth group, engage them in social service, get them more involved in the church, have them assist with Sunday school – recently there’s been a trend of shifting confirmation class from a comprehensive study of Christian doctrine to a discussion of contemporary cultural issues. None of those is inherently wrong, but I do have two big problems with that last “silver-bullet.” 1) It’s impossible to guess what moral and ethical and cultural issues Nick and Mya will be facing in five years. (Five years ago did anyone think we’d be arguing over whether biological boys should or shouldn’t be competing in girls’ sports?) 2) I contend that being firmly rooted in basic Christian doctrine is the only way to prepare young people to face the challenges they will face in the future. It’s not about equipping them with specific arguments for specific issues – especially when the issues are changing on a daily basis. It’s about equipping them with the tools necessary to formulate answers and arguments based on Scripture for themselves. And that’s what Risen Savior is all about: rooting this generation and every generation in the Scriptures that testify about Jesus (John 5:39), which is the only name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

Nick and Mya, I know that right now you’re probably only thinking about getting through this service, getting out of those clothes, having lunch and maybe eating some cake. But I want you to know that your parents, your family, your brothers and sisters here at Risen Savior and I are thinking about where you will go from here. It might seem like I’ve set up an either/or choice: either go to Thessalonica or Berea. Actually, it’s both/and. I pray you go to Thessalonica by coming here regularly to receive the means of grace for what they really are: the words and works of God for you (1 Thessalonians 2:13). But I pray it doesn’t stop there, I pray you go to Berea and eagerly…examine the Scriptures every day to see if these things [are] so. And as you come here to receive the means of grace and examine the Scriptures for yourselves, it really doesn’t matter where you go, because rooted in that threefold truth that Christ had to suffer, Christ had to rise, and Jesus is the Christ, wherever you go, you can be sure that your Savior is leading you to your true home in heaven. That’s really where you’re going from here. Amen.

John 15:1-8 - Lies Christians Tell Themselves - May 2, 2021

Everyone knows that lying is wrong. I can state that categorically because the Bible tells us that God has written his Law in the hearts of every last human being (Romans 2:15) – including the 8th commandment, which forbids lying (Exodus 20:16). Every lie told is damaging, they damage marriages and families and friendships, they can destroy reputations and careers – most importantly, they damage a person’s relationship with God, who hates a lying tongue (Proverbs 6:16). And yet, as damaging as lies are to our relationships with other people, I would argue this morning that, based on Jesus’ words in John 15, some of the lies we tell ourselves can be just as, if not even more, damaging.

We all lie to ourselves – some of them are so common that I ran across a website that catalogued some of them. Here are a few examples: 1) “If I could just do / be / have ________, then I would be happy.” What was it for you? The degree, the spouse, the children, the house, the vacation, the promotion? If you’ve managed to fill in that blank – are you really happy now? 2) “If I had more time, I would do _________.” Let’s be honest, if you wanted to exercise, take up a new hobby, spend more time with your spouse or children, take care of your “to-do” list, or even spend more time reading your Bible – you would. The problem is almost never time; the problem is desire. 3) I would change ________ about myself, but I can’t because of ________.” Again, in most cases, that second blank is just an excuse for not doing something you don’t really want to do anyway. [1]

But enough with the lies that are common to mankind – that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to discuss the lies Christians tell ourselves. Here’s the first: “I don’t have to bear fruit as a Christian.” I can live like the rest of the world who doesn’t know or believe in Christ. I can call myself a Christian without living as a Christian. I can live without letting my light shine (Matthew 5:13-16) and expect to go to heaven even as I intentionally live contrary to God’s will (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). That’s not what the Bible says. In Isaiah 5 God says that after he planted a vineyard on a fertile hill, he looked for it to produce a crop (Isaiah 5:1-7). In Luke 13, Jesus says that God is like the owner of a vineyard where there’s a fig tree – and for three years he waited to see it produce fruit (Luke 13:6-9). In Matthew 25, Jesus says that those who are saved have an abundance of good fruit and those who are damned have none (Matthew 25:31-46). Paul puts it bluntly in 2 Corinthians: we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he did while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).

It’s a damned lie that it isn’t necessary for Christians to bear fruit. Damned because that’s where it leads: damnation. The Lord declared that he would destroy his unfruitful vineyard in Isaiah 5 (Isaiah 5:5-6). In Luke 13, this was Jesus’ verdict on the unfruitful fig tree: cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil? (Luke 13:7) Here in John 15, Jesus says that his Father cuts off unfruitful branches, gathers them and throws them into the fire. And in Matthew 25, what does he tell those who have failed to produce good works? Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Judgment, death and destruction are all that lay in store for Christians who think they don’t have to produce fruit.

That shouldn’t be shocking, should it? Isn’t that what we do with the plants and bushes and trees in our own yards? If they’re unfruitful we dig them out and cut them down. Why? Because an unfruitful branch is a dead one. In fact, they’re not really branches at all, are they? They don’t do what branches, by definition, are supposed to do. They don’t carry moisture, nutrients or life – they don’t produce fruit. We saw them off for the good of the rest of the tree. In the same way, unfruitful Christians are dead Christians – and dead Christians are really just deluded unbelievers.

There’s a subset of this lie. It’s to tell yourself at any point in life that you’ve produced enough fruit. We’ve all seen this lie manifest itself, haven’t we? The confirmand who believes that they’ve learned it all – and don’t need to attend worship or Bible study anymore. The parents who go to church until their children are out of the house and then fall away to pursue other interests. The members who feel that they’ve done their share or taken their turn serving and that now it’s someone else’s turn. That’s not Christianity – that’s not what one sees in a vibrant vineyard planted and tended by the Father through the means of grace. Again, just consider your own yard. Say you have an apple tree that’s produced abundant fruit for over a decade – then suddenly it produces nothing. Do you spare that tree because of its past fruitfulness? No, you cut it down. Now imagine standing before Jesus Christ who gave his soul, his life, his all to save us from hell and looking him in the eye and telling him: “I’ve produced enough fruit; I’ve taken my turn; I’ve done my part.” It’s unimaginable, isn’t it? And yet, how many times don’t we tell ourselves that lie?

“I don’t have to bear fruit / do good works / live according to God’s will in order to be a Christian” is a damned lie. But just as bad is the second lie we tell ourselves: “Bearing fruit makes you a Christian.” This deception gives fruit too much credit, arguing that doing good works can give you what only Christians possess, what the Bible says you can only receive through faith: the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, new life now and the assurance of eternal life (Ephesians 2:8-9). And it’s another damned lie.

No matter how many good things you do, there will never be a day that you can tell yourself: “I’ve done enough to make up for my sins.” No matter how much you do for others, for the church, for Christ, you’ll never do enough to find peace with God. No matter how much you sacrifice to serve your spouse, your children, your boss – it can never assure you that eternal life is yours. Those wonderful gifts can’t be found in your doing, sweating or striving. Bearing fruit – no matter how abundantly or publicly or extravagantly – does not and cannot make you a Christian, or bring you the gifts only Christians possess.

Fruit doesn’t make Christians – fruit marks Christians. Isn’t that Jesus’ point in our text? I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him is the one who bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. I don’t know much about trees – but I do know that bad trees bear only bad fruit and only good trees can bear good fruit (Matthew 7:17-18). Practically speaking, while you may know all sorts of people who are good parents, faithful spouses, decent neighbors, good citizens – that doesn’t make them Christian and that doesn’t mean that they will be saved and go to heaven. Again, that’s not my opinion, that’s God’s Word: without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

And yet, hasn’t this lie swept through our culture like wildfire? That if you just do all the “right” things – that makes you a good person? Isn’t that the basic premise behind “virtue-signaling” – that if you drive the right car, eat the right diet, support all the “right” movements and causes, even, this past year, if you wear the right mask and eagerly get yourself vaccinated – that you are, therefore, a good, moral person? Here’s the thing: whenever morality is brought up, the implication is that you can make yourself right with God by what you do. In many cases, “virtue-signaling” is just works-righteousness by another name.

Please don’t take those words out of context. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t support positive causes, wear masks or get vaccines. In fact, those may be very good works. But they don’t make you right with God; they don’t make you a Christian. Good works don’t make Christians; Christ makes Christians. Jesus spoke these words to his disciples in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday. Did you notice that he didn’t once tell his disciples to make themselves branches? Why not? Because the Father, through Jesus, had already made them branches: You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I am going to remain in you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Likewise, you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me. Jesus isn’t encouraging them – or us – to become his disciples; he’s speaking about bearing fruit to those whom he has already made his disciples through the word.

This is why, unlike the unbelieving world, Christians don’t spend their lives “virtue-signaling”; they don’t focus on their fruit, they focus on the Vine – which gives them life. Jesus, the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:10), sprouted into this world through the womb of the virgin Mary – and, unlike anyone else, he was fruitful. He obeyed his Father’s will perfectly and he produced grapes of love, joy, peace and hope in abundance. And yet, even more was needed; even Jesus’ perfect fruit wasn’t enough to satisfy God’s justice. The justice of his Father, the gardener had determined that unfruitful, dead branches – branches like us – had to be gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned – and so God took his only Son and crushed him in the winepress of Gethsemane and hung him to wither and die under his burning wrath on Calvary. And the good news is that the blood that flowed from Christ’s crushed body both covered our sins and satisfied God’s wrath – and Easter is the irrefutable proof.

This is the message – the only message – that can give us what our good works can never give. This is the only message that can silence those horrifying uncertainties that arise when you consider how fruitful your life has been: “I’ve tried to do my best, but is it enough?” It is finished (John 19:30) tells you your sins are forgiven even when your conscience haunts you. Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1) – gives peace to your uncertain heart. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) – assures you of your salvation even when your fruit appears rotten. You cannot do enough good works to make up for your sins let alone pay for them; you can’t suffer enough, even in all eternity, to pay for your sins – and you don’t have to, because that’s why Jesus came, to produce fruit that is perfectly acceptable to God – which he credits to your account; and to suffer the fire of death and hell that you deserved – so that you never will.

If it all depends not on what we do but on remaining in Jesus then the real question is: how does one become and stay connected to Jesus, the Vine? We’re not born into him; like all the others, we were by nature objects of God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Paul says that we – especially we Gentiles – were grafted in (Romans 11:17). How? Through Baptism you have been grafted into Christ (Romans 6:3-5). Through Confession and Absolution the Father forgives your sins, pruning away the dead parts of your life that get in the way of producing fruit. Through this bread and wine Jesus feeds you so that you may be even more fruitful. It’s not your good works, but the perfect means of grace which connects you to, and keeps you connected to, Christ. Remain in these means of grace and Christ will remain in you, and you will be and remain fruitful.

All lies are destructive, but especially destructive are the lies we tell ourselves. Psychologists can warn you about some common self-destructive lies. I’m here to tell you not to believe the twin lies that you don’t have to bear fruit in order to be a Christian nor that bearing fruit makes you a Christian. Christians will bear fruit; but bearing fruit is not about you, the branch, as much as it is about Jesus, the Vine. He makes Christians. He grafts and feeds his branches. He forgives sins, grants peace with God, gives the assurance of eternal life – and he produces bountiful fruit. Remain in him through his Word and you will produce more fruit that you could ever imagine. That’s not a command, that’s a promise. And that’s no lie. Amen. 

[1] https://markmanson.net/9-subtle-lies-we-all-tell-ourselves

John 10:11-18 - "Good" Shepherd? - April 25, 2021

“Good” is one of those words that we throw around without really thinking about it. Your spouse or child walks in the door and you ask them how work or school was: “good.” Back when teams could shake hands after a game, you would run through the line saying, “good game.” Many of you asked me, “How was your vacation?” “Good.” But “good” is a pretty bland word, isn’t it? It’s pretty vague, it’s not very descriptive. Today Jesus calls himself the “Good” Shepherd, but what does that mean? Given who he is and what he does and where he leads us, we might be tempted to wonder how good Jesus really is at the shepherding business.

Don’t get me wrong, sheep need a shepherd. For a long time I was under the impression that it was because sheep were dumb. But having read the accounts of some actual shepherds and scanning the Bible’s assessment of sheep, it doesn’t appear that sheep are necessarily dumb, but another “d” word: dependent. Isn’t that how David, a shepherd himself, portrays himself in Psalm 23? He’s completely dependent on the LORD, his shepherd, to lead him to green pastures and quiet waters, to guide him with his rod and staff, to feed and bless him. And, in fact, this dependent nature of sheep is rooted in reality. In Palestine, weeds grow that are poisonous to sheep. The shepherd must either lead the sheep away from those pastures or go in and pull them up – because otherwise they’d eat them. It’s the same with water. Swiftly running water can be dangerous to sheep, should they fall in (imagine trying to swim wearing a heavy wool sweater) – they need the shepherd to find quiet pools to drink from. On their own, they are defenseless. Lacking fangs, claws, speed or stealth, they have no protection from wolves. Without a shepherd, sheep are easy targets – and, even if the wolves don’t kill them, they do, as Jesus says, scatter them – and the big, wide, dangerous world will kill the sheep just as surely as the wolves will. This is us. We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way (Isaiah 53:6) – we are in desperate need of a shepherd.

Who is this shepherd? Jesus states categorically I am the Good Shepherd. Now to our ears, that sounds like a pretty simple, innocent statement. But to his original audience, especially the Jewish leaders (John 9:40; 10:20), this was a loaded, jarring, offensive, statement. By using the phrase “I am” (Greek: Ἐγώ εἰμι) Jesus is identifying himself as, equating himself with Jahweh, the LORD of the OT. He is declaring himself to be the one who told Moses You will say this to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you (Exodus 3:14) from the burning bush. He’s also claiming to be the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s OT promise: This is what the LORD God says. I am against the shepherds…I will remove my flock from their hand. I will remove them from taking care of the sheep, and no longer will those shepherds take care of themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, so that they will no longer be food for them (Ezekiel 34:10). Jesus is claiming that the people of Israel were like helpless sheep who had been abused by their so-called shepherds – the teachers of the law and the chief priests, the Sadducees and Pharisees – and that the situation was so bad that the LORD himself had to come to earth in human flesh and blood to gather and shepherd his people. The LORD is our shepherd. The question is: is that a good thing?

We know who the LORD is and what he is capable of, don’t we? The LORD created the universe and everything in it (Genesis 1); the LORD destroyed the world and all its inhabitants – except for eight – in the days of Noah (Genesis 7:1-5); the LORD plagued Egypt and killed it’s firstborn (Exodus 7-12); the LORD smoked and thundered on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19-20). No human can see the LORD and live (Exodus 33:19-20) and yet the LORD is present everywhere and sees everything you think, do and say (Psalm 139). The LORD does not leave the guilty unpunished and threatens to punish the children for the sins of their fathers to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 34:7). That’s who the LORD is. Does this sound like a “good” shepherd?

I think it’s fair to say that we all question his shepherding ways at times. Jesus claims here to save the sheep from the wolves, but in Matthew 10 he tells his disciples: I am sending you out as sheep among wolves (Matthew 10:16). Psalm 44 says that we are sheep, sheep to be slaughtered (Psalm 44:22). Or just think of Psalm 23. He doesn’t lead us around or over but right through the valley of the shadow of death. He feeds us, but he does it right in front of our enemies. Consider what that means, practically speaking. Jesus isn’t just leading you through what you consider the good times in life – but even and especially in the hard, painful, bad times. He doesn’t just lead us to green pastures and quiet waters – he leads us right into times of sickness and crisis, of depression and death. Isn’t that a rather strange way for a supposedly “good” shepherd to be leading his sheep? What earthly shepherd would send his flock into a pack of wolves? What shepherd, who is raising his sheep for their wool, would point at them and say, “You, you and you are going to be slaughtered tomorrow?” What shepherd would guide his flock into a valley filled with death?

This is the “good” shepherd we’re supposed to follow? What’s so good about him? Remember, Jesus is contrasting himself – the good shepherd – with the Jewish leaders, the hired [men] who care nothing for the sheep – except to become rich and powerful by fleecing them. So what is it that sets Jesus apart from them, that makes him unique, that qualifies him as “good”? You know how if you want to get a point across you repeat yourself? Well, Jesus answers the question of his goodness by repeating himself five times in our text. Did you catch it? Five times he says I lay down my life for the sheep. That’s the mission his Father had given him (10:18); not to kill the wolves, not to save the sheep from sickness or suffering, not to build a bridge over the valley of death – but to lay down his life.

The Greek is even more vivid. Jesus literally says, I lay down my life instead of the sheep. Jesus didn’t die for us like a soldier dies for his country – he died in our place. Why? Because we are sinners who prove it every minute of every day. Someone had to suffer and die for those sins. Someone had to go to hell for our rebellion against God. It should have been us. But it wasn’t. Jesus laid down his life in place of ours. He endured the wrath of a holy God, he suffered the torments of hell so that we never would. That’s what the Lord Jesus, our Good Shepherd, came to this earth to do for us. This is what distinguishes him from the useless hired [men].

But even here, don’t you have to wonder: is this really what a good shepherd should do? Wouldn’t you expect a truly good shepherd to kill the enemies of the sheep – not be killed by them? Doesn’t that just leave the sheep at the mercy of the wolves? What good is a dead shepherd? Don’t we sometimes think that it would have been better if Jesus hadn’t died – that he would just have continued living on this earth, personally defending us from the wolves of persecution; personally providing everything we could possibly need for a pleasant life in this world; personally guiding us – telling us where to go and making all of the difficult decisions for us; personally healing all of our sicknesses and diseases? In fact, isn’t that exactly the type of Jesus that is sold in all-too-many churches – a Jesus who lives to make life in this world as easy and pleasant and prosperous as possible? Wouldn’t it have been better if Jesus didn’t lay down his life, but kept it – so that he could solve the problems we face here and now? What good is a dead shepherd?  

Here’s the thing: our shepherd is not dead! He says this is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. Now it’s becoming clear how Jesus really is a “good” shepherd, isn’t it? Our sins stood as an impenetrable barrier between us and God (Isaiah 59:2). From the design of the tabernacle and temple to the demands for daily ritual and sacrifice to the limitation of access to one high priest one day per year visibly and viscerally declared to the people that they could not access God as they were, covered in their sins. God couldn’t and wouldn’t hear any of our pleas, any of our prayers, any of our tears for mercy. But by laying down his life Jesus cut through, paid for and wiped away the sin that separated us from God. He died and then rose so that he could represent us, intercede for us with God. Paul writes: Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us (Romans 8:34). Jesus is the LORD of the Old Testament who came to earth to die on a cross on Good Friday so that he would rise again on Easter – all so that he could live on to defend and justify us before God in heaven. Jesus served as our shepherd by living, dying, rising and continuously interceding for us – to accomplish, win and guarantee our salvation from start to finish. In comparison to the hired [men] who require you to lay down your life to earn your own salvation, that’s pretty good, isn’t it?

The reason we question the “goodness” of Jesus’ shepherding is that we all-too-often have a wrong idea of what the Good Shepherd came to do or should do for us, his sheep. He didn’t come into this world so that we would never have to face the wolves of persecution or the wilderness of sadness, sickness, or depression. It doesn’t mean that all of life will be green pastures and quiet waters. David understood this. David didn’t say that the LORD would come to restore his home, family, health or happiness – but his soul (Psalm 23:3). David didn’t say that his Good Shepherd would save him from experiencing the pain of heartache, loss or death – but so that he would live in the house of the LORD forever (Psalm 23:6).

So here’s the reality we have to come to grips with on Good Shepherd Sunday: Jesus is the Good Shepherd, we are his sheep; and…sheep follow the shepherd. We are going to have Good Fridays in this life; they can’t be avoided – and Jesus says that from time to time he will even lead us directly into them. But on those days, remember these two things. First, our Good Fridays’, no matter how painful, long or severe are never punitive – that is, Jesus doesn’t lead us into them to make us pay for our sins – that could never happen (Psalm 49:7-8). Jesus already paid for our sins on his Good Friday (John 19:30). Second, our Good Fridays – again, like Jesus’ – have a purpose – they lead from death to life. Your Good Fridays, your losses, illnesses, and sadness aren’t the point, the goal, the end of the story. Easter, resurrection and the never-ending joy of heaven are – and that’s where your Good Shepherd is leading you! And that’s why the Holy Spirit leads you back here week after week. It’s not to provide some quick and easy answer – or some complicated and burdensome program or process to solve whatever temporary issue or problem you’re facing at the moment – it’s to follow the voice of your Good Shepherd – in Word and Sacrament – as he leads you through the wolf-infested wilderness of this world to the house of the LORD forever. And it doesn’t get any better than that.

In the phrase I am the Good Shepherd, the Greek word translated “good” is not the ordinary Greek word for good. While this word sometimes hints toward external beauty (Luke 21:5), its basic meaning is “useful” or “just right for a given task” (see Mark 9:50; 1 Timothy 4:6; Matthew 5:16). While Jesus’ shepherding ways may not always seem “good” to us – he’s just right for sheep like us who love to wander. Yes, sometimes he whacks us upside the head with his rod or leads us places we’d rather not go, but he’s always there to soothe our wounds with his mercy, our guilt with his forgiveness, our weakness with his strength. He does whatever it takes to bring us through the wilderness of this world to the house of the LORD forever (Psalm 23:6). Yes, Jesus is a “Good” Shepherd – the very best – better than anything we could have imagined or hoped for. Amen.

John 20:19-31 - Gain Confidence from Doubting Thomas - April 11, 2021

Do these words sound familiar to you? If not, they should. This same text serves as the Gospel lesson for the second Sunday of Easter in each year of our three year lectionary. And each year, the temptation is to turn this Sunday into a day to beat up on Thomas. He’s an easy target, isn’t he? He was an apostle who had spent three years with Jesus – and yet he didn’t believe. Even seeing wasn’t enough for him – he insisted on touching Jesus in order to believe in the resurrection. It’s tempting to kick poor Thomas while he’s down. Well, today, we’re not going to do that. Today we’re going to try to see Thomas as he really is so that we can see ourselves as Jesus sees us.

Over the centuries, the phrase “doubting Thomas” has become as common and ubiquitous as the phrase “social distancing” is today. But that’s giving Thomas credit he doesn’t deserve. Thomas wasn’t “doubting.” He wasn’t just on the fence about Jesus’ resurrection. He doesn’t say, “I doubt Jesus rose from the dead,” or “I’m not sold on the fact that he appeared to you last week.” No, Thomas says I will never believe. The original Greek is actually even stronger. It’s a double negative – a big no-no in English, but perfectly acceptable in Greek. “There ain’t no way I will believe that you have seen the risen Lord.”

Thomas isn’t a doubter. By his own admission, he’s an unbeliever. There’s a big difference between doubters and unbelievers. Doubters can still be members of the Church; unbelievers stand outside of it. Doubters litter the pages of Scripture. Moses doubted that he was capable to lead Israel (Exodus 3:11-4:17); Elijah doubted that there were any other believers left in Israel (1 Kings 19:9-18); Peter doubted that he could survive the wind and waves of the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:22-33). But Thomas had unbelief – and that placed him outside of the Church. The text confirms this: after eight days, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Thomas isn’t counted as one of Jesus’ disciples at this point. To seal this sad truth, Jesus didn’t literally say do not continue to doubt – he says, “do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

What’s more, his fellow disciples had been trying to convince him that [they had] seen the Lord for seven days now. How hardened an unbeliever do you have to be to reject the eye-witness testimony of your best friends for an entire week? They were telling Thomas that they had seen the holes in his hands and feet and side (Luke 24:39); that he had eaten food in front of them (Luke 24:43); that he had breathed the Holy Spirit onto them and gave them the authority to forgive or not forgive sins (John 20:22-23). But Thomas remained obstinate in his unbelief. He would not believe unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side. Curious desires aside – I mean, who, other than a medical professional, wants to touch someone else’s scarred body – Thomas wasn’t just bold in his unbelief, he was militant in it.

Again, I’m not putting Thomas in this light just to kick him while he’s down from the safe distance of 2000 years. I just want you to have an accurate picture of him. He was not only an unbeliever, he was a militant evangelist of unbelief.

What makes this situation all the stranger is that if you page back just a few chapters in John’s Gospel, you see a very different portrait of Thomas. In John 11, when word came to Jesus that his friend Lazarus had died and Jesus decided to go back to Judea to help, the disciples urged him to reconsider: Rabbi, recently the Jews were trying to stone you. And you are going back there again? (John 11:8) The disciples were understandably worried; they were scared. But what about Thomas? He says let’s go too, so that we may die with him (John 11:16). That’s not doubt we see in Thomas there; that’s devotion; that’s bravery and loyalty.

There’s one more thing that makes Thomas’ case especially tragic. When Thomas bravely suggests that they should all go to die with Jesus, John mentions for the first time that Thomas was known as the Twin (John 11:16). Here’s the strange part: despite calling Thomas the Twin at least three times (John 11:16; 20:24; 21:2), John never identifies this twin. A few heretics in the early church suggested that Thomas was Jesus’ biological twin. But we know that can’t be true, because that would mean that Thomas was also God in human flesh. So what are we to make of this? I can’t prove this with a chapter and verse but it’s quite possible that this is Thomas’ nickname. Just as Jesus called Peter the rock (Matthew 16:17-18) and James and John the Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17), so it’s definitely possible that the other disciples called Thomas the Twin because he was determined to go wherever Jesus went, even to death.

If you’re willing to grant that bit of speculation on my part, then here’s the picture we have: you’re as close as twins with Jesus; you’ve proven that you’re a brave man, you’ve sworn with the other disciples that you’d rather die than deny or abandon Jesus (Mark 14:31) – but when the rubber hit the road in Gethsemane, you ran away like a coward. You were too afraid to follow Jesus to the Temple courtroom like Peter and John did, and, unlike John, you couldn’t even bring yourself to stand by Jesus as he suffered and died on the cross. It’s been over a week since all this happened. This has been a miserable week for you. Guilt and shame and self-loathing smother you. You can’t stand yourself. And, to add insult to injury, all week long your fellow disciples can’t stop talking about how they’ve seen the risen Lord. But you haven’t seen him. And, you think, maybe that was on purpose. Maybe Jesus didn’t show himself to you because you abandoned him when he needed you the most. Maybe Jesus was trying to tell you that you’re beyond his love; barred from his forgiveness for your disloyalty. We all know what that’s like, don’t we? To imagine yourself beyond Jesus’ love? That’s why Thomas is one of God’s greatest gifts to us – because in Thomas not only are we looking in a mirror, but, more importantly, we see how Jesus sees him and us.

Let’s zoom out a bit to see how this event fits into the big picture. All of human history up to this point has been the story of God keeping his promise to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15), to stomp out the reign of sin, death, and the devil once and for all. And he did this on Good Friday by stomping down the foot of his justice on his only Son, Jesus.  

Because God so loved the world (John 3:16), he delivered his only-begotten Son into the world through the womb of the virgin Mary. God placed all of the requirements that he had placed on humanity – and that humanity had been utterly unable to obey – on him (Galatians 4:4). And then, after he had lived a perfect life under God’s Law, his Father put him to death without mercy on a cross. What all of our guilt, our shame, our self-loathing, our striving and trying and crying could never do – Jesus did by dying on the cross. And, because he did, because he paid for the sins of the world with his blood, God raised his perfect Son from the grave to life (Acts 2:24). One man died in place of the world. His resurrection proves that the sins of the world have been paid for in full. I want to be sure that you see the world-wide nature of this. The whole world could now be told that their sins had been wiped away and forgiven (1 John 2:2); that death and the devil had been defeated forever. And yet Jesus puts the entire world, the mission of his church on hold…for what, for who? For unbelieving Thomas.

Stick with me here. Remember last week? The angel told the women to tell his disciples: he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you (Mark 16:7). Do you remember what happened there in Galilee? Jesus commissioned his disciples to go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to keep all of the instructions I have given you (Matthew 28:19-20). And yet, what do the disciples do? They stall, they delay for more than a week! Do the math. There are only 40 days between Easter and Jesus’ ascension into heaven. During this time Jesus taught his disciples everything they needed to know in order to carry out their mission to the world. And yet, Jesus gave up a week of his teaching time for the sake of one guy: Thomas.

It may seem strange at first, but this is a pretty familiar storyline, isn’t it? Books have been written, movies have been made, awards are given out every year to the teachers, the coaches, the mentors who single out the difficult child, who bear with their bad attitude, who make extra time for him – to reach him and prepare him for a successful life in this world.

Don’t forget, this is not “doubting” but “unbelieving” Thomas. He’s not just struggling, he’s as good as damned because of his unbelief. In today’s church, “outreach” is all the rage. Well, Thomas was beyond reach; his friends had tried and failed. But in that place where no man, no disciple, no friend could reach him – sunk in the depths of despair – Jesus did. Step by step Jesus gives into Thomas’ unbelieving demands. He invites him to push his finger into the nail holes that had streamed the blood which covered his sins; he welcomes him to press his hand into the wound in his side which poured out the water that forgives and the blood that nourishes. (Whether Thomas actually reached out and touched Jesus is immaterial, in the end.) And from the mouth of a formerly militant unbeliever, the church’s mission is advanced and her confession is solidified. Whereas the other disciples had only called Jesus Lord (John 20:20), Thomas confesses Jesus as [his] Lord and his God. With just his Word, Jesus saved Thomas from the depths of despair and unbelief and brought him to the joy and confidence of faith!

Gain confidence from Thomas today. Be confident that Jesus sees you and loves you just as much as he loved Thomas. Be confident that when you are struggling with sin and guilt and shame and doubt – even unbelief – that Jesus hasn’t abandoned you, that he still loves you. Be confident that Jesus is still willing to put the whole world on hold just for you. Be confident that Jesus can reach right through to the deepest depths of guilt, despair, unbelief, and doubt that you have fallen into even if no one else can. Above all, be confident that he uses his Word to do this. Be confident that these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Be confident that you don’t need to see Jesus’ hands and side – because Jesus put the world on hold and showed himself to you personally in Baptism; because Jesus was thinking about you when he commanded me to absolve you of your sins (John 20:22-23); because Jesus comes to you here on this altar with his true flesh and blood to assure you of your forgiveness, life and salvation. Be confident that no matter how far you’ve fallen, you haven’t fallen beyond Jesus love. Be confident that Jesus was talking about you when he told Thomas blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. See yourself in Thomas today – but even more than that, see how much Jesus loved him – and loves you!

Where would we be if Jesus didn’t come to us through these objective means day after day and week after week? We would have no lasting confidence, no lasting joy, no lasting certainty concerning his victory over our sins, death, or the devil. Like Thomas we would be locked up in a prison of our own guilt and shame and unbelief. Jesus knows that. Jesus sees you. And he loves and cares about you more than you could ever realize. That’s why he’s given us the means of grace. Don’t doubt, but be confident that Jesus has put the world on hold for you, too – to come to you in the Word of Absolution, the water of Baptism, the bread and wine of Communion. Doubt is not a virtue – and unbelief certainly is sin – but because Jesus appeared to dispel Thomas’ unbelief, we gain the confidence to say with conviction seven days after Easter: My Lord and my God, because unbelieving, doubting Thomas proves that Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

Mark 16:1-8 - Do Not Be Alarmed! - April 4, 2021

I don’t know about you, but I’m about sick and tired of this modern culture and climate of alarmism. When did we all become such sniveling cowards? Oh, I know, when everyone – from politicians to the media to so-called “experts – starting telling us that fear is the new #1 virtue. Be afraid that one mask isn’t enough – so put on two or three more. Be afraid that each new virus variant might be more deadly than the last. Be afraid to go to work and school and travel. Be afraid to visit your grandparents and grandchildren. Be afraid that our economy is floating on the top of a bubble that’s about to pop. Be afraid that our nation is so divided politically and racially and morally that it may never heal. Enough! It’s Easter. And the command of the angel to those three women on that first Easter morning is also the Lord’s command to us this Easter morning: Do not be alarmed!

Why not? Well, let’s start at the end. Mark tells us that after the angel spoke to the women, they went out and hurried away from the tomb, trembling and perplexed. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. That’s a rather strange reaction, isn’t it? These women were privileged to be the very first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, his empty tomb – and they run away trembling and afraid? Why? Why weren’t they dancing and shouting to each other: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” I suppose, if we take a step back, we can understand their fear. They’d woken up early in the morning with the goal of giving their Lord a proper burial. The biggest question on their minds is who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb for us? But then, when they get to the tomb, the stone is already rolled away. That’s not right! And there’s a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side. That’s not right, either! Jesus’ body is gone! That’s really not right! Imagine if you were heading to a cemetery to put flowers on a loved one’s grave and when you get there the grave has been dug up, some guy is sitting nearby and when you look into the casket, it’s empty. You’d be alarmed too! You’d be convinced that something is not right here – because you know exactly what those women knew: dead people don’t rise to life.

But the fact is that this dead guy did. Did you notice how transparent and straightforward the angel was? He didn’t try to spin it or sugarcoat it at all. He just tells it as it is: you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. In a culture flooded with fake news, isn’t it nice to get the straight facts? At this point I could cite the many eyewitness testimonies preserved for us in the Bible as validation of the resurrection (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11), but today, I’m not going to do that. These are the inspired words of the Holy Spirit, they can stand on their own. The angel said that the same Jesus who was nailed to a tree and died has risen and he invited them to see the empty place where his body had been laid. Those are the facts, you can take them or leave them.

I suppose the question today shouldn’t be “why were the women alarmed” – but why are we still alarmed? Oh, we may blame our alarm on the uncertainty of our times – that we don’t know if these vaccines will work, when or if we’ll ever be able to burn these masks, when or if life will ever go back to normal. But if we’re honest – and here in God’s house we should be – those aren’t the real reasons for our alarm. The reason for our alarm is that even though we’ve been baptized, even though we’ve been absolved, even though we’ve received Jesus’ true body and blood we live like our sins aren’t forgiven. They prowl our consciences; they haunt our thoughts; they disrupt our sleep. The people we’ve hurt, disappointed and wronged are always in front of us (or maybe sitting right next to us). We know the kind of people God expects us to be and yet are not. Oh, sure, we know the facts. We know that Jesus has paid for our sins, that sin and the devil have been defeated, that God is satisfied and heaven is open. But it’s one thing to know the facts – it’s another to live them. I’m sure I’m not the only one who knows that Jesus has reestablished peace between God and sinners (Romans 5:1) – but often struggles to let that truth soak in and live in that confidence. And if ever there were reason for alarm – this is it! If being uncertain about where you stand with God isn’t cause for alarm, then nothing is!

So why do we, who just minutes ago fearlessly shouted “He is risen, indeed!” still act alarmed and perplexed and afraid like those women? Paul tells us why: if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins (1 Corinthians 15:17). There it is. That’s our problem. Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. He’s still lying, cold and dead and decaying in that tomb. He isn’t really the Son of God; he didn’t really live a perfect life in our place; he didn’t really pay for our sins (1 John 2:2); and, therefore, we’re still in our sins and when we die, we’re going to hell forever. Is that putting it too bluntly? No! Because if your conscience and your memory and the devil can still cause you alarm over your sins – then, for all intents and purposes, that’s what you believe.

So what should you do when your conscience terrorizes you, when your memories haunt you, when you feel like a slave to your sins? You go back to the facts: He has risen! He is not here. This fact means that you are forgiven – whether you feel it or not. Jesus left that tomb empty – not a sin in sight. And here I want you to think big. Don’t just think about the biggest, blackest, most shameful sin you’ve ever committed – the ones you can’t forget. Don’t just think about the biggest, blackest, most evil villains who have ever lived: Judas and Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, Stalin and Hitler and Osama bin Laden. No, think about the people you will see this afternoon as you gather around your Easter ham or Easter bunny – who reject the Gospel and refuse to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection at church and yet have the gall to wish you a “happy Easter.” What about them? Are their sins forgiven?

Well, what does Easter say? C.F.W. Walther once said that “Easter is the absolution which has been spoken by God himself to all men, all sinners, in a word, to all the world.” (Romans 3:23-25; 4:25) There is not a sin that has or will ever be committed that wasn’t hung on Jesus. Jesus suffered and paid for them all. If that weren’t true, he’d still be in the grave. If his suffering and death weren’t enough to pay for the sins of the world, death would still hold him as it does all damned sinners. But Jesus isn’t in that grave! He’s not here! He’s risen! Let that fact place a muzzle on Satan and silence the siren of your conscience! Let that serve as fodder for your conversation later with those people who don’t think they need or want Easter. (I’ll even give you the ice-breaker: “You know, pastor talked about you in his sermon today.” That should get their attention, right?)

Let me show you how completely you have been forgiven. Look at our text. Jesus had told his followers several times that he would go to Jerusalem, be handed over to the his Jewish enemies, be handed over by them to the Gentiles, be convicted and tortured and crucified – but that three days later he would rise again (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34), but they didn’t believe him. But look at how forgiven they are: The angel doesn’t offer one word of rebuke to these women. No, “Oh, you of little faith!” On top of that, the angel doesn’t tell the women to go and scold his unbelieving disciples – and especially that miserable denier Peter – but just the opposite: go, tell his disciples and Peter that Jesus is risen and therefore his sins are forgiven! Did you catch that? He still calls those deserting and denying sinners his disciples. So silence the alarm! Jesus still calls denying and deserting sinners like us his disciples!

Do you know the only sin Jesus rebuked his disciples for after his resurrection? Not for deserting him. Not for denying him. Not for their secret sins of lust, greed, pride or worry. No, the only sin the risen Jesus rebuked the disciples for was for doubting, for not believing the witnesses of his resurrection (Mark 16:14). Jesus rebuked them for still allowing their consciences to be troubled, for thinking that God was still angry, that heaven wasn’t open. If there is anything I must rebuke you for today, it’s not the sinful things you’ve said, thought, or done – it’s for doubting that those sins have been buried in the tomb and fully and freely forgiven for Jesus’ sake!

But maybe it’s not your sins that are setting off alarm bells but the wages of sin: death (Romans 6:23). Well, I have good news for you, too – Jesus has kicked death’s teeth in – death can’t harm you anymore. That’s the fact. But we have the same problem with death that we do with sin, don’t we? We often live as if the facts weren’t true. Instead, we live as if the poem entitled “The Dash” were true. The premise of the poem is that the little dash between the date of your birth and your death on your headstone is all that there is to life – and that you had better be careful how you spend that dash. It’s a trendy poem to have read at non-Christian funerals. It’s sick and, well, satanic. [1] But isn’t that how we often live? We talk about believers who have died in the past tense. She was a good cook. He had a good sense of humor. She was a great mother. The little dash of their life has been ended by the date chiseled behind it. Rather than seeing the graves of Christians as mere pit stops, as resting places, we view them as permanent.

If that’s true – and if we live as if that’s true – then, as Paul said, we are the most pitiful people of all (1 Corinthians 15:19) – because we have placed our hope in a myth. If that’s true then the alarm bells of death that are sounding from the so-called experts, from our doctors, from our smart watches, from our own creaking and groaning bodies aren’t ringing nearly loudly enough. If our hope in Jesus ends at the grave, then you’d better find all the masks and vaccines you possibly can; then it would be much better to not waste one second believing in him at all!

But did the grave that seems so permanent to us seem so to Jesus? Did Easter end with a sealed tomb? Nope, an open and empty one. Jesus rose. Good Friday wasn’t the end. The women thought so. They went there to – metaphorically speaking – chisel in the date of his death and set the headstone so that they would have a place to come and visit in the future. But their unbelief didn’t stop Jesus – and neither does ours. Just because death seems so permanent, so lasting, so final to us – doesn’t mean it is for Jesus or for those who died in faith. He rose, and Paul tells us that Jesus is just the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). Jesus is the first, but not the last; he’s the first of many. Death is nothing more than a nap, a sleep from which all who believe will awaken. Easter silences the alarm bells of death because Easter means that death has been defeated, swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54)!

That’s a lot to swallow, isn’t it? (And not just because you just ate a big Easter breakfast!) It’d sure be a lot easier to swallow and believe if we could just go to Galilee and see Jesus in the flesh like the disciples, right? No, it wouldn’t! Galilee is a long way away and flights are expensive – and, what’s more, we have something even better. Jesus comes so that we can see him here. We see him at work in the water of Baptism where he takes children and adults in his arms and enfolds them in his forgiveness and adopts them into his Father’s family (Galatians 4:4-5). We see and hear him when his called servants declare that our sins are forgiven week after week after week (John 20:22-23). We see and taste him when we receive his true body and blood in Holy Communion (Matthew 26:27-28). Those women ran away from the tomb afraid because they hadn’t yet seen Jesus. We have seen Jesus, right where he promised to be – in the means of grace, the Gospel in Word and Sacrament (Matthew 18:20) – so there’s no reason for alarm here.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of this alarmist climate and culture. I’m sick and tired of being told to be afraid of everything from social upheaval to global warming to one of you breathing on me. Thank God it’s Easter. Easter silences all those alarms with the assurance that because Christ is risen, you are forgiven, death is defeated, and you need go no further than here to God’s house to see him. You know how satisfying it is to roll over and slap your alarm clock to shut it off? Or how good it feels to shut off the news when every “breaking news” alert seems to announce another reason to be deathly afraid? It’s even more satisfying for us to be here today to stare sin, death, the alarmist world, and the devil himself in the eye and shout (shout with me): Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! (Do you hear that? That’s no reason for alarm!) Amen.

[1] https://thedashpoem.com/

Hebrews 12:18-24 - Significant Blood - April 2, 2021

Is blood significant? Children think so. The slightest scratch or scrape, a single drop of blood demands a Band-Aid or ice and probably a hug. Doctors think so. Even though they make you fill out page after page of health history, they clearly learn far more accurate information about your health from the vials of blood they draw from your arm. Is blood significant? God thinks so. After Cain killed his brother Abel, God confronted Cain and said what have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the soil (Genesis 4:10). God considers blood to be significant – and not just Abel’s either. In Genesis, God declared: whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for God made man in his own image (Genesis 9:6). And, while God thinks blood is significant enough to force Cain to become a nomad and institute capital punishment – that is, he considers blood to be significant enough that he demands blood to satisfy his justice, the Bible tells us that he also considers blood to be significant enough to deliver his mercy. Tonight we are gathered around Calvary’s cross, down which the blood of God’s only Son slowly drips, drop by drop – significant blood, to be sure. But what does this blood, the blood of Jesus, signify? God’s justice or his mercy? Tonight, the author of Hebrews will guide us to see and understand the significance of Jesus’ blood.

First Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                 Hebrews 12:18-22a

He writes: you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to burning fire, to darkness, to gloom, to a raging storm, to the sound of a trumpet, and to a voice that spoke. Those who heard the voice asked that not one more word be added, because they could not endure what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.” The sight was so terrifying that even Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.” It probably goes without saying that this mountain is Mt. Sinai, the place where God laid out the standards of his justice, his 10 Commandments. On Mt. Sinai God established that disobedience to his will demanded a significant payment: the blood of the offender (Leviticus 16; Romans 6:23; Hebrews 3:16-19). If that doesn’t strike terror into your heart, too, then you might want to check if you still have a pulse.

On Good Friday, we have come to a mountain – but, thank God, not that mountain, not Mt. Sinai. As the writer of Hebrews says, instead, you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God. Mt. Zion was the location of the temple in Jerusalem. Unlike Mt. Sinai, which was off-limits to both man and animals, Mt. Zion was accessible to God’s people. It was where God heard the prayers and accepted the offerings of his people and offered them his forgiveness and grace. It was where God accepted the blood of bulls and lambs and goats as sacrifices for the sins of the people (Hebrews 9:11-18). Is that God’s justice or mercy? Yes! God didn’t change his demand for blood to pay for sin – his standard of justice stood firm. But God accepted the blood of animals instead of, in place of, the blood of the sinful people – that’s his mercy. But you might say, “A lot of good that does us. We can’t go to the temple (because today it’s nothing more than rubble under an Islamic mosque), and we don’t slaughter bulls or lambs or goats in worship.” That’s right. And we don’t have to because we have something better. Here in this gathering of God’s people he reaches out through Word, through water and bread and wine to apply the sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God to sinners like us! We go back to Mt. Calvary tonight to see God execute his divine justice on his own Son. But we also come here tonight to receive the mercy Jesus purchased with his own, significant, substitutionary blood.

Hymn 128                                                                                                                                                                       Not All the Blood of Beasts

Second Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                  Hebrews 12:22b

You have come to Mount Zion…to the heavenly Jerusalem; to tens of thousands of angels in joyful assembly;

For over a year now we’ve been separated from each other. Sure, we’ve been allowed by the state supreme court to once again gather for worship. But we’re still separated – by masks, by social distancing, by the alleged fear that even if you’re perfectly healthy you can kill me with your breath. Separation of any kind is the result of sin. God kicked Adam and Eve out of his presence in Eden because of their sin (Genesis 3:23-24). He separated mankind by confusing their languages at the Tower of Babel because of their pride (Genesis 11:1-9). He separated his chosen people from their homes in the Promised Land to exile in Babylon due to their idolatry and rebellion (2 Chronicles 36:15-21). Most significantly, God determined that the wages of sin will be death now, the separation of the body and the soul (Ecclesiastes 12:7), and eternally, separating sinners from himself forever in hell. This separation we are experiencing now pales in comparison to the eternal separation from God we deserve.

But because we have not come to Mt. Sinai tonight but to Mt. Zion – this separation from God and from each other is not permanent. Because on a Friday 2000 years ago just outside of Mt. Zion, Jesus, the holy Son of God, was separated from his Father’s love on a cross, we will never be separated from God’s love in this life (Romans 8:38-39). Because by his death Jesus tore down the curtain of sin that separated us from God (Mark 15:38), we will not be separated from God’s presence eternally. In fact, while we may still be separated from each other by masks and distance and fear – when we come here to God’s house, the author of Hebrews says that we are united in intimate fellowship with tens of thousands of angels in joyful assembly. In our worship, heaven and earth intersect and we, as citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (Philippians 3:20), stand with the saints of old and the angels to sing here on the earth the hymns of heaven, like Glory to God in the highest (CW p. 16), Holy, holy, holy (CW p. 22), and O Christ, Lamb of God (CW p. 23).  These hymns were composed in heaven for us to sing with the choirs of heaven here on earth. We may still be separated from each other here and now, but even here and now we are united with tens of thousands of angels in heaven singing the praise of the Lamb (Revelation 7:10) who has won our salvation with his significant blood.

Hymn 114                                                                                                                                                Christ, the Life of All the Living (st. 1-4)

Third Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                     Hebrews 12:23a

You have come to Mount Zion…to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven;

As we all know, we’re not just separated from others because of viruses and mandates, we’re separated from others – even other Christians – here on earth because of false doctrine. These divisions are the work of the devil and result in untold pain and sadness in many hearts, many homes, and many churches. And while these doctrinal and denominational divisions are sad, they are necessary. Paul says that there also have to be factions among you so that those who are approved may become evident among you (1 Corinthians 11:19). But because of Jesus, the separation we see and feel from other believers is only temporary. In God’s eyes there is only one Church (Ephesians 4:4-5), and this Church consists of everyone whose name has been written in the book of life in heaven (Revelation 20:12). Is your name written there? Yes! When you were baptized, God wrote your name in that book – adding it to the names of the countless saints who came before and will come after you (Galatians 3:26-27). Whereas bloodshed in this world usually separates people and families and nations – the blood Jesus shed on the cross breaks down barriers and unites believers of all peoples, races, tribes, languages, and nations, because the blood of Jesus… [God’s] Son, cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

Hymn 114                                                                                                                                                Christ, the Life of All the Living (st. 5-7)

Fourth Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                   Hebrews 12:23b

You have come to Mount Zion…to God, who is the judge of all;

Well…that doesn’t sound good. Did you know that? Did you know that tonight, of your own free will, you have come to stand trial before God, the judge of all? And you’re not alone. The people in the homes just a stone’s throw from those doors, your own family and friends who have decided that there is somewhere more important to be on Good Friday than worshiping before the bloody cross of Christ are also standing before the Judge of all today and will stand before him on the Last Day. On that Day, his judgment will be perfect and his verdict will be final (John 5:30). On that day there will be only two options: guilty or innocent; and only two sentences: eternity in heaven or in hell. How does Jesus’ blood play into this? Well, I’ll let you in on the little secret we call the Gospel – when God judged Jesus on Calvary’s cross 2000 years ago, he also judged the world – including you and me (John 12:31). God declared his verdict: he declared Jesus guilty…and, he declared you…not guilty. Jesus’ blood served the dual purpose of satisfying God’s justice and providing his mercy to us. Because of Jesus’ blood, God has judged you innocent, has acquitted you, has forgiven your sins. That’s why you can come here and look forward to Judgment Day without fear – because God has already judged you in Christ; and the verdict that he has printed in the indelible blood of his Son is: not guilty.

Hymn 127                                                                                                                                                 Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted (st. 1, 4)

Fifth Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                       Hebrews 12:23c

You have come to Mount Zion…to the spirits of righteous people who have been made perfect;

What does that mean? Your initial reaction may be to think that this sounds either very creepy or very Catholic. Well, it’s neither. In the previous chapter of Hebrews, chapter 11 – the so-called hall of fame of faith – there is a list of the believers who have gone before us, beginning with…Abel. We do not pray to or worship these saints, nor do we trust in them for salvation. However, with the very first Lutherans we confess: “Our churches teach that the history of the saints may be set before us so that we may follow the example of their faith and good works, according to our calling” (AC XXI: 1). Through their faith in [Jesus’] blood (Romans 3:25), the believers who have gone before us have left us a rich legacy. It’s not so much that we should imitate how they lived – for they, too, were sinners – but rather, what they believed and how God in his grace provided for them, especially in troubling times – in times of persecution, pandemic and upheaval. As Lutherans, we may be tempted take this blessing for granted, we may grow bored with the catechisms and the creeds and the liturgy – but we shouldn’t. Because when we come here for worship we are not just standing on the shoulders of our believing predecessors, we are drawing from the same bottomless well of God’s grace they drew from, the water of life that springs from the blood Jesus shed on Calvary’s cross.

Hymn 117                                                                                                                                                                     O Dearest Jesus (st. 1-2, 5-7)

Sixth Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                      Hebrews 12:24a

You have come to Mount Zion…to Jesus, the mediator of a new testament;

When people think they have been wrongly fired, wrongly injured in an accident, or wrongly accused of a crime, they often run to a lawyer who can argue their case on their behalf. We have something even better; we have Jesus. Jesus is not only our defense attorney – he’s our substitute, he’s the one who has taken our sin upon himself and has given us his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). On Calvary he pushed us out of the way of God’s wrath, pled guilty to our sin and endured our punishment, and now he stands before God’s judgment seat equipped with the perfect and only argument that can be presented on our behalf. He presents the new testament written in his blood (Matthew 26:28), a testament that, unlike the testament made on Mt. Sinai, is unilateral - one sided; a testament in which God swears I will forgive [your] guilt and I will remember [your] wickedness no more (Jeremiah 31:34).

Hymn 138                                                                                                                                                                              Oh, Perfect Life of Love

Seventh Lesson                                                                                                                                                                                 Hebrews 12:24b

You have come to Mount Zion…to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better message than the blood of Abel.

Blood is significant. Blood speaks. Abel’s blood screamed from the dust of the earth to the throne of God in heaven for vengeance. Thank God that the blood that drips down Calvary’s cross speaks a better message. What is that message? Well, what’s the opposite of vengeance? Forgiveness! Jesus’ blood cried out for forgiveness from the cross (Luke 23:34). And what’s more, the author of Hebrews says that Jesus’ blood speaks – present tense. Which means that the blood of Jesus didn’t just speak on Good Friday – it still speaks today. Through your Baptism, his blood still speaks to you, telling you that he has cleansed you so that you stand spotless and sinless in the sight of God (Ephesians 5:25-27). It speaks to you in the words of absolution – urging you to lay your sins on Jesus and then saying: come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they will be like wool (Isaiah 1:18; Revelation 7:14). It speaks to you whenever you receive it in the Lord’s Supper – that blood transfusion of immortality, that vaccine against eternal death. Jesus’ blood is still significant. Jesus blood still speaks. It speaks a better message than the blood of Abel. His blood doesn’t cry out for vengeance but for forgiveness; not for the punishment of the guilty but for the justification of the ungodly (Romans 4:5); not for death but for never-ending life. Your blood may tell your doctor many things about you and your health; but your blood, significant as it is, can’t do what Jesus’ blood does. Jesus’ blood, the blood he shed on the cross tells you that you have been saved forever from sin, death and the devil. It doesn’t get more significant than that. Amen.

Hymn 139                                                                                                                                                                         Jesus, in Your Dying Woes

The Burial of Our Lord

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathaea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews. Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent member of the council, was a good and righteous man. He had not agreed with their plan and action. He was looking forward to the kingdom of God. He boldly went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had been dead for a long time. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he granted the body to Joseph. Joseph bought a linen cloth, came, and took Jesus’ body away. Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-two pounds.

They took Jesus’ body and bound it with linen strips along with the spices, in accord with Jewish burial customs.

There was a garden at the place where Jesus was crucified. And in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. So they laid Jesus there, because it was the Jewish Preparation Day, and the tomb was near. Joseph took the body and laid it in his own new tomb that he had cut in the rock. He rolled a large stone over the tomb’s entrance and left.

The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed after Joseph, and they observed the tomb and how Jesus’ body was laid there. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where the body was laid. 56Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

On the next day, which was the day after the Preparation Day, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered in the presence of Pilate and said, “Sir, we remembered what that deceiver said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give a command that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise his disciples might steal his body and tell the people, ‘He is risen from the dead.’ And this last deception will be worse than the first.”

Pilate said to them, “You have a guard. Go, make it as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and posting a guard.

Hymn 137                                                                                                                                                                                          Oh, Darkest Woe

Matthew 26:26-30 - Significant Words - April 1, 2021

Some words that have been recorded in history are so familiar that they need no explanation or introduction. “In the beginning…” “It is finished.” “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” “I have a dream.” Tonight, we’re going to closely examine some of the most significant words ever spoken. Words that have been repeated with a regularity and devotion like no other words in human history. In fact, in Latin, the words before us are simply called the Verba, “the words.” These are the words our Savior spoke when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. Why are they so significant?  

These words are words of proclamation, not prayer. Pastors aren’t praying to God when they speak these words. They aren’t asking, petitioning God to do something. Nor are they asking the congregation to do something. This is what Christian churches of the Reformed tradition believe. John Calvin viewed these words as an exhortation to the congregation to lift up their hearts in faith to where Jesus is – that is, in heaven (Oxford History of Worship, 322). (This is the rather slippery manner in which the Reformed would claim to believe that Jesus is “really” present in Holy Communion.) But you heard Jesus, you heard that these words are neither prayer nor exhortation. They are proclamation. With these words Jesus was simply proclaiming precisely what he was doing on the night he was betrayed and what he is doing right here as often as the church uses them in accordance with his institution and command.

These words are revelation, not incantation. An incantation is a spell. With an incantation, as long as you speak the words the right way, you have whatever they promise. Why would anyone think that repeating Jesus’ words is equivalent to casting a spell? Well, in the medieval church priests tended to consecrate the elements while facing away from the congregation (making it hard to hear what they were saying and see what they were doing) and they spoke the words in Latin – which most people did not understand. Some commentators believe that the Latin for this is my body – “hoc est corpus meum” – was understood as “hocus pocus” by the people – which is why to this day magicians use these words in their acts.

But Jesus wasn’t casting a spell, he was revealing information that couldn’t otherwise be known. Put yourself in the disciples’ shoes. They know a lot about Jesus already. They know that he is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). They know that he came to give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). They know that he will be betrayed, convicted, condemned and crucified (Mark 10:33-34). They know these things, but they don’t really understand them. On this night, however, his last night before his death, Jesus pulls all the pieces together for them. He reveals to them that his body will be given and his blood will be shed in the same way lambs were handed over to be slaughtered in the place of those who offered them in the Passover.

Luther notes in his Small Catechism that the most important part of this Sacrament isn’t our eating and drinking, but the words “given” and “poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.” These words reveal to us why Jesus’ body is being given and his blood is being poured out: for the forgiveness of sins. Of course, anyone who knows the Gospel knows this, but the fact that these words are connected to a visible sacrament makes these words very personal. In this Sacrament, Jesus is not just bestowing forgiveness in general, he is revealing that the forgiveness he purchased and won on the cross is for you: (forgive me for naming names, but this forgiveness is for you _______________, personally). These words reveal that Jesus took your place under God’s wrath and condemnation. These words reveal that you have been given Jesus’ place, as a beloved and holy child of God. In a few minutes, we will join together to confess this truth according to the words of Luther’s Small Catechism. As we do, I encourage you to note how frequently we confess that this sacrament is “for you.” This sacrament bridges the gap between the salvation Jesus won for the world on the cross and believing individuals in all times and places. On the cross Jesus gave his body and shed his blood for the sins of the world; in the words of institution he reveals that in this Sacrament he delivers that same body and blood to you.  

So, these are words of proclamation, not prayer; of revelation, not incantation; and words of reliving, not recollecting. We don’t celebrate Holy Communion merely to remember what happened in an upper room 2000 years ago. We do it to recognize that in the Sacrament Jesus comes to us right here and right now. When you step forward in a few minutes to this altar, don’t imagine yourself in that upper room with Jesus, see through your eyes of faith that in these words Jesus comes here to be with you. In other words, the meal that Jesus instituted in that upper room is still going on today; it’s a meal that hasn’t ceased for 2000 years; a meal that continues every time believers gather to receive it and will continue until Jesus returns in glory.

That’s what we believe and confess. But that’s not what all Christians believe and confess. For the Reformed, for generic Evangelicals, it’s nothing more than a memorial meal; a sacred act done as a reminder of what Jesus did in the past and who is now in heaven but definitely not here and now. In other words, for the Reformed who deny Jesus’ real presence in this meal administered at this altar, the Sacrament is little more than a festival commemorating a dead man. For us, it’s the opposite. We don’t gather at this altar to remember a dead man, we gather here to eat a meal served to us by our risen and living Savior! This Sacrament doesn’t take us in heart and mind back to Jesus in that upper room; it brings Jesus here to us!

The single word, remembrance (Luke 22:19), makes this clear. The Greek word is used in the Bible in only one place outside of the words of institution. It’s in Hebrews 10:3. There the author contrasts the repeated sacrifices done at the Temple with the one and done sacrifice of Christ on the cross. These sacrifices reminded them of their sins year after year (Hebrews 10:3). You know how at the most inopportune times your conscience brings back to your consciousness some sin you’ve committed in the past? So vividly that you can taste it, touch it, taste it – and be flooded with guilt? That’s what Jesus wants this Sacrament to give you regarding your forgiveness. Jesus wants you to come to this altar to receive forgiveness with your mouth so that you can touch it, see it, taste it – and have your conscience flooded with comfort and relief. These words are not words of recollection but reliving.

And, finally, these are words of unity, not division. “Ha,” you may be thinking – because you know that after the consecration I will only invite those who are communicant members of Risen Savior or of other WELS and ELS churches in our fellowship to participate. “Ha,” you may be thinking because the practice of closed communion appears to be one of the most divisive and polarizing practices in all of Christianity. “Ha,” you may be thinking because you’ve had members of your own family here in church and you’ve been divided from them because they’ve had to stay in their seats while you came forward.

You may scoff at my saying that closed communion brings about unity not division. But did you know this? We’re not alone. Not only has closed communion been the regular practice throughout the vast majority of Christian history, but to this day not only confessional Lutherans but also Roman Catholics and the Orthodox practice it. Consider this: the only major denominations that are staunchly pro-life, that reject the ordination of women, and that don’t condone homosexuality are also the only denominations that – at least in their official doctrine – practice closed communion. Maybe we’re on to something?

Yes, it’s true, on this side of heaven these words can be divisive. That’s because even though Jesus fills everything in every way (Ephesians 1:23), there’s still only one Jesus present here at this altar. What I mean is that we can’t each have our own version of Jesus that we confess to be present here at this altar. One Jesus can’t be both truly present here and only symbolically present at the same time. One Jesus can’t teach us both to ordain women and not to ordain them, to bless homosexual unions and not to bless them, to pray to Mary and not to pray to Mary, to baptize babies and not to baptize babies One Jesus can’t mean both “When I return I will judge the living and the dead” and “when I return I will establish an earthly kingdom” at the same time. Jesus can be everywhere with everyone all the time, but he can’t be a logical fallacy. He can’t be a living contradiction. He’s not a piece of clay that each of us can mold however we want. There is only one Jesus present at this altar and that is why we can’t possibly stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone who doesn’t confess this one Jesus.

And yet, the same Sacrament that illustrates the division we see on this side of heaven also illustrates our communion with those on the other side. There’s a good reason that the words spoken just before we receive the Sacrament include: “therefore, with all the saints on earth and hosts of heaven, we praise your holy name and join their glorious song.” There’s a reason why in the prayer for communicants we say, “in this sacrament time and eternity meet as we celebrate a foretaste of the feast now enjoyed by all who are in heavenly glory” (CW Altar Book, 245). There’s a reason why many older, especially Scandinavian, churches made the design decision to construct a communion rail that was a half-circle – a visible illustration of the spiritual reality that when a believer is done kneeling on this side of the rail, they simply move to the other to celebrate the same Holy Supper.

This means that when we step up to this altar, we’re not alone. We are joining the great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language who are in heaven around the same altar (Revelation 7:9). Yes, these words may divide us from those in this world who do not believe in and confess the one Jesus revealed in Scripture – the only Jesus that actually exists. But it also unites us with all those around the world and those in heaven in have taken their seat at the wedding supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:1-10). These words don’t primarily divide, they primarily unite us in faith here and now and unite us with believers of all times and places.

Some words don’t need any explanation or introduction. If everyone took Jesus at his Word, the words of institution would need no further explanation. I pray that after tonight you understand and believe that these words are words of proclamation, not prayer; of revelation, not incantation; of reliving, not recollecting; of unity and not division. But most of all, I pray that when you hear these words, you believe that Jesus is really present here for you, to offer you his very real body and blood for the very real and very personal forgiveness of your sins. Amen.

Mark 11:1-11 - The Palm Sunday Paradox - March 28 ,2021

You and I know this day as Palm Sunday. However, at various times in church history and in many churches today other Christians know this day as “Passion Sunday.” They intend the day to serve as a one-day summary of Holy Week. Palms were part of it, but they were only the introductory part – the service ends with Jesus’ death on the cross. Why? While I came across many reasons, one of the most obvious is that they didn’t believe that Christians would be willing to attend midweek services during Lent or come back to church on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to hear the Passion history – so if the people were going to hear it, it had to be today. The Lutheran reformers, however, broke with this tradition. The reformers decided to give Palm Sunday it’s proper due – including the great contradictions this day presents: Jesus enters Jerusalem as a King – a King who comes to die. This is the Palm Sunday Paradox.

Jesus comes into Jerusalem as he never has before: in royal majesty, as a King. Did you catch the majesty in Mark’s words? Go into the village ahead of you. As soon as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it, and he will send it back here without delay. They left and found a colt on the street, tied at a door; and they untied it. Some who were standing there asked them, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” The disciples answered them just as Jesus had instructed them, and the men let them go. They brought the colt to Jesus, threw their garments on it, and Jesus sat on it. Majestic, isn’t it? Jesus commissions his disciples to depart on a curious mission – and they go. He requisitions a colt that belongs to someone else for his own use – and they allow it. And, not only do his disciples and the owners obey his Word, but even the colt does. I’ve never been involved in breaking a colt – or any animal for that matter – but I understand it’s no small feat to ride an unbroken colt. Yet this colt submits to its Creator.

We have no other record of Jesus riding anything, anywhere, at any time, except here. And as he rides into Jerusalem the majesty continues: Many people spread their garments on the road. Others spread branches that they had cut from the fields. People do many things to honor heads of state today, but I’ve never seen people ripping off their coats and throwing them on the ground so that the leader’s feet wouldn’t have to touch the dust of the road. I’ve never seen people run out into the fields to cut down branches to make a royal carpet. But that’s not all. They not only hail him as their King but as their Savior – hosanna means “save us.” And, perhaps the strangest part of all – Jesus accepts their acclamation and praise. Many times before he had told his followers to stay silent (Mark 1:44; 5:43; 7:36) and had even fled in order to avoid being anointed as King (John 6:15) – but today he silences no one and even tells his enemies that if the crowds were to remain silent, the stones would shout out (Luke 19:40). Finally, Jesus rides right up to the temple, goes into it, and looks around like he owns the place – because he does. What power, what royalty, what majesty!

After following Jesus for six weeks of Lent – with all of his talk of betrayal and suffering and death – it makes you wonder: “Who is this guy?” Where’s the Son of Man who has no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58)? Where’s the poor Jew who doesn’t have the money to pay the temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27)? Where’s the despised prophet the people of Nazareth tried to kill (Luke 4:14-30)? No doubt some of the people who were in these crowds – namely, Jesus’ own disciples – remembered these events from Jesus’ humble ministry – but apparently the pomp and circumstance of the moment pushed those memories right out of their minds. Jesus has finally made it – and this is the Jesus the people want. And, if we’re honest, this is the Jesus we often want. The people who follow this kind of Jesus wouldn’t ever get depressed, sick, worried or afraid. A Jesus who is so obviously the Lord of nature wouldn’t let natural disasters – or mutant viruses – harm his people. A Jesus who is universally hailed as King would certainly be able to fill the seats of churches around the world every week. Wouldn’t it be great if this glorious, majestic Jesus were the Jesus we have?

But then there’s the reality that our hymn wasn’t wrong when we sang “No tramp of soldier’s marching feet, with banners and with drums, no sound of music’s martial beat: “The King of glory comes!” (CWS 716:1) Yes, Jesus is King – but King of what? A colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). While David put Solomon on a donkey to prove that Solomon was his rightful heir (1 Kings 1:33), he didn’t put him on a miserable little colt. Have you ever seen a full-grown man riding on a miniature horse? It’s ridiculous. The whole world knows that royal figures don’t ride on donkeys but on stallions or in chariots (or in limousines). Yet King Jesus rides into his capital on a small donkey.

Jesus may have come as a conquering King, but you don’t see the Jewish leaders or the Romans falling on their knees begging for mercy or running away in fear. Nor do you see sin, death, or the devil fleeing from his presence. In fact, they’re all here and they’re all licking their chops. At last the One whom God had said would crush their skulls (Genesis 3:15) has landed on their home-turf. He’s no longer preaching and teaching in outlying areas of Israel. He’s no longer using his divine power to foil their wicked plans. At last it’s their hour. There’s definitely something besides majesty on the scene here – something that we can relate to very well. Beyond the cheering crowds, the storm-clouds of death are gathering, the devil is prowling, and the suffocating weight of the sin and guilt of the world are looming for Jesus.

There’s something other than majesty at the temple, too. Yes, Jesus goes to the Temple like he owns the place – but he’s not going there to be crowned or enthroned. The crowds didn’t worship him as Immanuel… “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23). And he couldn’t even stay in the Temple. No, like the condemned criminal he would soon be declared to be (Numbers 15:32-36; Hebrews 13:11-13), Jesus had to spend the night outside of the Temple, outside of the city limits of Jerusalem (Mark 11:11). Someone to whom God had charged the sins of the world (John 1:29) wasn’t fit to stay in the holy city much less the temple.

And that proves that this Jesus is the King we really need. This Jesus of shame and suffering, of bleeding and dying is the One who brings you back here Sunday after Sunday. What comfort, what help, what salvation could Jesus provide if he had only come to Jerusalem in majesty, only as the King of kings and Lord of lords? Yes, there would be glory, laud and honor for him – but what would there be for us? Only judgment. We don’t just need a mighty and majestic King – we need a sacrifice. We don’t just need a Good Shepherd – we need an unblemished Lamb (1 Peter 1:19). Actually, we need a scapegoat (Leviticus 16). We need God to heap our sins on Jesus (John 1:29). And he could only do that if Jesus was sinless. You can’t bear anyone else’s sins if you have your own to bear. You can’t answer for anyone else’s sins if you have to answer for your own.

The devil knew this and that’s why immediately after Jesus’ Baptism he pounced on him in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). If somehow, someway the devil had been able to make Jesus sin just once in thought, word or action – then he could no longer be our Savior. But the devil failed, Jesus didn’t sin – and now he comes here to Jerusalem as the sinless Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world and appease God’s wrath against sinners like us (1 John 2:2). He comes to Jerusalem as the answer to sin, as the one who will put death to death (1 Corinthians 15:54-55), as the one who will silence Satan’s accusations once and for all (Revelation 12:10). You can see why sin, death, and the devil can’t wait to get a clear shot at him, can’t you?

Of course, we know that, in the end, Jesus will defeat this unholy trinity – but do you see the comfort there for us in how Jesus wins? He doesn’t win by his majestic entrance; he doesn’t win by the acclamation of the crowds; he doesn’t win by being crowned at the Temple. Jesus doesn’t win by being any of the things that crowd that day and the world today looks for in a King: power, fame, wealth, glory. And Jesus doesn’t win apart from suffering, hardship and affliction. Instead, Jesus overcomes sin, death and the devil by means of suffering, hardship, and affliction.

Do you know what that means for us? It means that suffering, hardship and affliction are not out of place in our lives. If Jesus had conquered by being beyond suffering, by being accepted by the crowds, by being above hardship – he would be majestic and, likely, popular today, but he wouldn’t be any comfort to we who are suffering, who are rejected and persecuted, who endure hardship and sadness. If Jesus had only entered Jerusalem with majesty, he would only appeal to the precious few who experience majesty in this world.

Do you know anyone like that? Is that what you see when you look in the mirror? More importantly, have you known anyone who looked majestic as they’re lying in a casket? Jesus had every right to claim majesty for himself – but then he would have been worthless to us; because the Bible is clear that none of us are majestic, rich or famous enough to impress God, our judge (Romans 3:10-18; 2 Corinthians 5:10). We are real people. Real sinful people. Real, sinful people need a Jesus who comes in lowliness and humility to do what we cannot do: to defeat sin, death and the devil by paying for our sins, by dying our death and by enduring hell in our place.

And that is why we continue to let Palm Sunday stand in its own right and don’t try to cram all of Holy Week into one hour. (It’s not only because we are confident that confessional Lutherans are eager and happy to return to church on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to listen as Jesus completes their salvation.) No, it’s because Palm Sunday gives us reason to rejoice in its own right. There is a very good reason for us to sing loudly, to wave our palm branches, to walk out of here singing, not weeping – because Palm Sunday reveals Jesus as a King, yes; but a majestically humble King – a King who comes to die for common, run-of-the-mill sinners like us.

This day is a day of paradox. Yes, there’s majesty. There’s the rightful recognition that Jesus is Lord. There’s the praise due to him as Savior. Jesus stands in his rightful place in the Temple today. So we properly sing “all glory, laud, and honor” to him. But there’s something else in the air on Palm Sunday. There’s a hint of suffering, sacrifice and death. There’s a theme of humility mingled in the majesty. And it’s not the majesty but the humility of Jesus on Palm Sunday that speaks to us; because the suffering, the sacrifice and the death that hangs in the air on Palm Sunday promises the smell of Easter lilies. And that’s where we find the glory in this Palm Sunday Paradox. Amen.

Luke 22:1-6 - Significant Deal - March 24, 2021

From the time it premiered in 1963, Let’s Make a Deal has been one of the most popular game shows on television. Contestants dressed in flamboyant costumes and host Monty Hall (and today Wayne Brady) asked them to choose between a prize they could see and one that was hidden behind a door or under a box. At times, contestants would make great deals, trading the prize they could see for something far more valuable. Other times, the deals they made weren’t so good. They would trade a great prize for something worth nothing, a prize known as a “zonk.” [1] Like most of you, I don’t have the time or desire to watch daytime game shows – so if any part of that description is inaccurate, blame Wikipedia. Why bring it up? Because “let’s make a deal” is essentially what Judas said to the chief priests and officers of the temple guard in our text this evening. It’s the sad and shameful account of Judas making a deal to betray Jesus to his enemies; a deal that turned out to be far more significant than Judas could have ever imagined.

We believe our text takes place at some point on Wednesday of Holy Week. By now, the chief priests and experts in the law were hell-bent on finding a way to arrest and kill Jesus. Why? For a variety of reasons – reasons that are pretty typical motivators for those in power to want to get rid of their rivals: because he was a threat to their power and prestige; because he threatened their control of the people; because he had made them look bad in public on several occasions. Finally, and probably most importantly, because he was not speaking and behaving in the way they thought the Messiah should speak and behave. He wasn’t concerned about their nit-picky, manmade rules regarding the Sabbath and ritual washings (Mark 7:1-23). He hung out with and even ate with all the wrong kinds of people, including tax collectors and prostitutes (Mark 2:16). Rather than emphasize obedience and sacrifice as the way to get right with God, Jesus proclaimed a message of God’s grace and mercy (Matthew 9:13) – and it got under their skin. But the last straw was Jesus’ miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44). This miracle led to a meeting of the Sanhedrin in which they concluded: what are we going to do, because this man is doing many miraculous signs? If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation (John 11:47-48) – which led to Caiaphas’ unwitting prophecy: you know nothing at all. You do not even consider that it is better for us that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish (John 11:49-50).

In their minds, Jesus was dangerous. He had become far too popular with the people. They had witnessed what had happened on Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem and the crowds gathered to shout blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! (Luke 19:38) Jesus was so popular that the Pharisees said to one another, “You see? You are accomplishing nothing. Look! The world has gone after him” (John 12:19). It was Jesus’ popularity that prevented the chief priests and teachers of the law from carrying out their plan to arrest and kill him prior to this. They feared a violent backlash if they tried to take Jesus away publicly. They needed help with their evil scheme – a way to get rid of Jesus quietly and discreetly.

So it was a dream come true when Judas came to them out of the blue and offered to betray Jesus to them. Satan had entered Judas (Luke 22:3) and led him to meet with the chief priests to hatch a plan to do away with Jesus once and for all. Their scheme would come to fruition within 24 hours. On Maundy Thursday, as Jesus was celebrating the Passover and instituting the Lord’s Supper Judas left the Upper Room to alert the chief priests that the final piece of their plan was about to fall into place (John 13:30). He would lead the temple guard to Jesus as he and his disciples were worshiping and praying in the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane, away from the crowds in the city. And then, in the ultimate act of betrayal, Judas would walk right up to Jesus and identify him to the soldiers with a kiss (Luke 22:47-48). All for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15).

As shocking as this all is, the truth is that it was not the first time Judas had betrayed Jesus – or his fellow disciples, for that matter. In John 12, when Jesus was eating at the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with very expensive perfume. Judas objected to this act of faith and worship. He claimed that the perfume should have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. John exposed his real motivation: he did not say this because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. He held the money box and used to steal what was put into it (John 12:6). Long before Judas made a deal to lead the temple guards to arrest Jesus, he had already made a far more significant deal with his own conscience. He had made a deal that instead of fearing, loving and trusting in Jesus as his Savior he would manipulate his relationship with Jesus to serve his own greedy heart. Judas is a cautionary tale of how sin, when coddled rather than confessed, when toyed with rather than put to death in repentance, continually mutates and grows. Judas is a living example of what James later wrote: when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death (James 1:15) – death for Jesus and eternal death for Judas (Acts 1:25).

But Judas isn’t alone. I’ve betrayed Jesus and so have you. I’ve manipulated my relationship with Jesus to serve my own interests, and so have you. How? Jesus gives each of us 168 hours of life every week, how many of those have I spent serving myself rather than serving God by serving others? Jesus has given me every ounce of my talent and every cent of my money – how much of that capital do I use serving myself rather than God and others? Jesus has given me the good news of his victory over sin, death and the devil for sinners – all sinners – and how often don’t I keep that life-saving message to myself rather than communicating it to unbelieving family and friends? How many times have I used my attendance at worship and Bible class or my offerings and service as a justification to continue practicing my pet sins, thinking, “Jesus will forgive me on Sunday, so it’s ok to sin today.” How often do I expect that my relationship with Jesus should make my life here and now better, sometimes demanding it in my prayers, rather than understanding that following Jesus now means taking up a cross and following him to the glory of heaven only after this life is over? Judas is certainly not alone in his betrayal of Jesus. We’ve all made deals with our consciences to betray Jesus. Judas had his price, and so do we.

But here’s perhaps the most surprising part: God would use Judas’ betrayal and the subsequent events to make a payment that Judas could never have imagined. Not a payment of silver coins but the payment of the holy, precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19) and innocent suffering and death of Jesus that would serve as the payment for all sin of all people of all time (1 John 2:2). While Judas – and we – have betrayed Jesus for a moment of pleasure, a few dollars, or the illusion of freedom – Jesus would never betray us; and he would never betray his Father. In fact, Jesus would instead be forsaken by his own Father so that his Father would never forsake us to the horrors of hell (Matthew 27:46). He would voluntarily shed his blood and offer his life as the ransom price for our souls (Matthew 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18-19). And, just as he predicted, he would rise again three days later to prove our forgiveness, our justification – to declare once and for all that we are no longer guilty of betraying our God and Savior (Romans 4:25; Hebrews 10:12).

We betray Jesus on a daily basis – but there has never been a day, nor will there ever be a day – on which Jesus will betray us. Jesus has promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Jesus has promised to never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). At this very moment, Jesus is standing before his Father’s throne in heaven, interceding for us, arguing for our innocence and righteousness based on his merits (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Even now Jesus is ruling everything in this world for our benefit – for the good of the church – so that we might remain in the faith and that many more would come to faith (Ephesians 1:22). And, one day, just as he promised, he will return to deliver you and me and all believers out of this world of sorrow to himself in heaven (Matthew 24:29-31). That’s the significant and amazing deal that Jesus has made with us – inked in the blood he shed on the cross, sealed by his resurrection from the dead, delivered to us in Word and Sacrament. I’d say that’s a pretty good deal!

Judas didn’t really know what he was doing when he met with the chief priests and officers of the temple guard to concoct a plan to betray Jesus. He thought he was simply going to make some easy money. By God’s grace, we do. We know that this deal was of significant help to the devil and the chief priests in their goal of doing away with Jesus. We know that this deal reveals the deals we make in our own lives to betray Jesus. We know that God used this deal to bring about the greatest good of all: the death of his own Son for the salvation of traitorous sinners like you and like me. It might be entertaining to watch people dressed in goofy outfits make a deal on a game show – but it’s vital that we understand that there has never been a more significant deal made in human history than the one made between Judas, the chief priests and the devil – because this deal leads directly to our salvation. Thank God for orchestrating this deal. Amen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_Make_a_Deal

Hebrews 5:7-10 - Learn Submission from Jesus - March 21, 2021

One of the hottest of the currently hot-button words these days is “injustice.” Injustice is a fact of life in this fallen world. And from the time we are old enough to speak, we are quick to speak out against it. “He took my toy, tell him to give it back.” “I deserved the starting spot on the team, but the coach gave it to his son instead.” But children aren’t alone in their sensitivity to real or perceived injustice. For around a year now, people throughout the country have been protesting what they saw as the unjust death of George Floyd in police custody. On January 6, dozens of people illegally entered the U.S. Capitol building to protest what they regarded as an unjust, unfair election result. From someone cutting us off on the highway to being passed over for a promotion – there are few things that get us more fired up than injustice, especially when it’s personal. But none of the injustices we’ve ever faced in our lives can compare to the injustice Jesus faced in his – not only from his enemies, but from the church, the government, and God himself. But rather than incite a riot or protest his treatment, Jesus submitted to it, down to his very last breath. In doing so, Jesus both saved us from God’s justice and gives us a lesson in submission.

These verses of Hebrews offer us peek behind the curtain of one of Christianity’s deepest mysteries: the interplay, the relationship between the two natures of Christ: true man and true God. The author of Hebrews writes that in the days of his flesh, that is, during his life of humility here on earth, [Jesus] offered prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears. Why? Because as true God Jesus knew exactly what the future held for him and his humanity recoiled in horror from it. The Gospel writers give us the text of the prayers Jesus offered: from Tuesday of Holy Week: now my soul is troubled (John 12:27); from the Garden of Gethsemane: My soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death (Matthew 26:38); Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me (Mark 14:36). In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed with such passion that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). Have you ever prayed so passionately that you were physically worn out, so intensely that you broke a sweat? I’ll be honest – I haven’t.

Is that a problem? Yes, it is; not the sweating drops of blood part, but the intense, focused, frequent, submissive part. There are two ditches we can fall into in our prayer lives. It’s easy for us to think of prayer as a Sunday morning thing; maybe a mealtime thing and forget that God commands us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) for everyone and everything (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Why would we think that way? Well, there’s an element of pride and an element of distrust. We proudly imagine that we can handle life on our own and we don’t really think that prayer does any good; that God will really hear and answer our prayers. And so our prayers become more and more infrequent and less and less confident. Imagine if we communicated with our spouses like we often communicate with our heavenly Father: sporadically at best, and usually only when we need something or have something to complain about. That relationship probably wouldn’t last very long, would it? On the other hand; maybe you do have a consistent prayer life. You know the Lord’s Prayer and the meal prayers and Luther’s morning and evening prayers so well that you don’t even have to think about them anymore. When that happens, we can find ourselves slipping into the ditch on the other side of the road: do not babble like the heathen, since they think that they will be heard because of their many words (Matthew 6:7). If we speak the words but our mind is somewhere else, that is exactly what God hears: babbling. If our prayers are sporadic, filled with doubt or insincere; we are sinning against the 2nd commandment. And that is a problem.

Our problematic prayer life is part of why Jesus was in such a struggle in Gethsemane. His suffering had already begun; the weight of the world’s sin was on him and his human flesh was weak. So what did he do? Did he protest against the injustice of it all? No. He prayed. He prayed to the one who was able to save him from death. Jesus knew that his best friends had fallen asleep, the betrayer and the mob were on their way, the cross was waiting and that his heavenly Father was the only one who could help. He prayed that God would take this cup of suffering from him and he was heard because of his reverence. Jesus’ perfect prayer life covers our sins and makes our prayers acceptable to God. His blood, his sweat, his tears in Gethsemane were all on our behalf. 

Now, obviously, we aren’t in Jesus’ situation. Often the injustice we suffer is our own fault. More than that, unlike Jesus, the only justice we really deserve is a lifetime of suffering in this world followed by an eternity of suffering in hell. But we can learn a few things from Jesus about prayer. Over the course of his earthly life, Jesus prayed in good times and bad, day and night, both for himself and for others. He honored his Father by praying without ceasing. Sometimes he pleaded with His Father, but he never once questioned his Father’s will (Matthew 26:39). Now, you might say, “A lot of good it did him; he still ended up crucified; apparently God didn’t answer him.” But God did answer Jesus. His answer was ‘no, there is no other way.’ We have to be grateful for that answer and grateful that Jesus didn’t respond to this injustice with resentment or rejection – because if He had not suffered, we would have no hope of salvation. God also answered Jesus by sending an angel to strengthen him for his torturous journey ahead (Luke 22:43). From Jesus we learn that the proper way to respond to injustice is to pray often, to pray confidently, and to pray in submission to God’s will – knowing that his will is best – even if his will is that we suffer (Matthew 7:11). 

Jesus gives a powerful lesson on prayer; but he also gives a powerful lesson on obedience. Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. It’s impossible to comprehend how Jesus, the all-knowing Son of God, could learn anything. The author of Hebrews concedes: it is difficult to explain (Hebrews 5:11). But learn Jesus did, and his education came through suffering. Why did Jesus need to learn obedience? Had Jesus ever been disobedient? Of course not. The proof of Jesus’ innocence is overwhelming: the Sanhedrin struggled for hours to fabricate some crime to charge Jesus with (Mark 14:56); Pilate testified to Jesus’ innocence over and over again (Matthew 27:15-26); when he had died, even the centurion who had supervised his crucifixion had to confess truly this man was the Son of God (Mark 15:39). We could say that up to this point Jesus had been perfectly obedient, but not yet fully obedient, because he had not yet suffered for the sins of the world. One translator paraphrases this way “And even though Jesus was God’s Son, he had to learn from experience what it was like to obey, when obeying meant suffering.” 

If Jesus could learn obedience through suffering, what does that tell us? It says that we should probably get to class, right? Jesus’ suffering is a reminder that because of sin, there is no corner of this world safe from suffering. You will suffer. I will suffer. There will be painful events in our future. The question is: how will we react? And now, during this brief reprieve from life, is the time to prepare ourselves to face suffering. If we react to suffering the way the rest of the world does – with rioting and protesting – then we are not learning the lessons God is teaching. When Jesus suffered he trusted his Father’s wisdom and leaned on him for help. So when it doesn’t seem fair that no matter how hard you work you can’t get ahead financially – learn to trust God to provide (Matthew 6:25-34). When God allows pain to linger or sends sickness after sickness – learn that this world is not your true home (Philippians 3:20); learn to long ever more intensely for the glory of heaven. When friends or family or colleagues betray you – learn to lean on God as your refuge and strength, a helper who can always be found in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1).

And when it seems like you are failing every course in God’s school of suffering – turn to Jesus, whose perfect obedience covers your disobedience. Who after he was brought to his goal, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him. What was Jesus’ goal? As we heard in our gospel lesson (John 12:24, 32-33), Jesus’ goal was not to live but to die; to save us from our sins by his death on the cross. By his death, Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him. This is why the cross is the central symbol of Christianity; this is why when we are suffering we should look to the cross – for in the cross we find the meaning and purpose of our own suffering; in the cross Jesus meets us in our suffering; in the cross we find forgiveness, peace with God and the hope of eternal life.

If you were listening closely, that last phrase might have struck you as odd; that salvation comes to those who [obey] him. I thought that a person is justified by faith without the works of the law (Romans 3:28). I thought that the gospel message is that we can’t and don’t have to do anything to be saved. Now salvation is only available to the obedient? What’s the deal? A little context will help. This letter was originally addressed to Hebrews, to Jews – to people who were being tempted – because they were suffering persecution – to turn away from Jesus and back to their Old Testament roots – roots which placed their hope of salvation in their own obedience to the Law. As a result, many of them were disobedient to God’s most basic command, spelled out by the Apostle John: this then is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 3:23). This is not the obedience of works, but the obedience of faith (see Romans 1:5). (The Greek term used here is related to the Greek word that means “to listen” to someone – so this obedience is listening to Jesus say It is finished (John 19:30), and responding: “Amen! Yes it is!”) Faith is not an obligation or a burden; it’s God’s gift to us (Ephesians 2:8-9). In good times and bad, we cling to faith in Jesus as the only thing in this world that won’t change, won’t increase in price or lose its value, that no act of injustice can steal from us. Only through faith in Jesus can we learn to be obedient to God’s will – especially when it is God’s will for us to suffer.

We will fail in our prayer life. We will fail to submit to God’s will. That’s why Jesus agonized in Gethsemane and why carried our failures to the cross. He obeyed his Father because we haven’t. He suffered hell so we wouldn’t. He paid for the sins we couldn’t. That’s the gospel. That’s the ultimate lesson God wants us to learn. It’s the lesson that fuels our prayer life. It’s the lesson that that leads us to obediently submit to God’s will. When we think of it that way, when we understand that Jesus willingly submitted to the greatest injustice in history to save us from God’s justice – then the minor injustices we suffer in life don’t seem quite so outrageous, do they? When life seems unfair and unjust learn from Jesus to submit in prayer and with obedience; and, above all, look to him as the source of eternal salvation, the one who will come again to save you from this unjust world. Amen.

John 12:23-36 - Significant Appearance - March 17, 2021

If you knew you had only one last chance to speak in public, send one last Tweet or make one last Facebook post before you died, what would you say? How would you want to be remembered? What would message would you want to send to the world? Our text tonight brings us to the end of the day on Tuesday of Holy Week. It marks the final public appearance of Jesus before he is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, placed on trial and crucified. Tonight we will focus on three statements which make Jesus’ final public appearance very significant.

First, Jesus says: the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it continues to be one kernel. But if it dies, it produces much grain. For three years, Jesus had repeatedly said that his time had not yet come (John 2:4; 7:6; 7:30; 8:20). But now, the time was right, his time had come. Everything was now ready for him to complete the mission for which his Father had sent him into the world.

He says that his mission will end in glory – but not in the way many were hoping or expecting. He would not incite a rebellion and conquer his enemies and rule with subjects bowing down to him. No, instead, his enemies would rise up against him, conquering him until his head was bowed in death on a cross. He would voluntarily offer his life as the perfect payment for sin (John 10:18). For Jesus, like a kernel of wheat, the path to glory led through death.

This is the theology of the cross that Jesus came to both teach and to live. He would not reign in a palace but hang from a cross. He would not lie on a bed of roses but on the cold stone of a tomb. He would not be wrapped in a robe of the finest fabrics but in burial cloths. While many would consider this theology anything but glorious – here is where we see his glory most clearly. Because through his death, Jesus would produce much grain. This is the central paradox, the key mystery of Christianity – that both Christ and Christians must die to this world in order to gain life – and the reason that many shake their heads in disgust at the theology of the cross. But, as Jesus’ analogy proves, it’s true – both in agriculture and salvation – life comes through death.

What’s the grain Jesus is talking about? We are. Life comes to us by way of Jesus’ death. By his death, he has destroyed sin’s power to enslave us. He has destroyed the law’s power to condemn us. He has destroyed death’s power to hold us. For us, death is no longer the end. The grave is not our final home. As Jesus told Martha just one chapter earlier: I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish (John 11:25-26). As we wade ever deeper into Lent, Jesus wants us to have a clear understanding of his purpose: that he didn’t come to live, but to die – so that by his death he may produce a harvest of life and salvation.

The second thing we see in Jesus’ final public appearance is his humanity, his vulnerability, his honesty, his transparency. He reveals to the crowds the emotions that were boiling up in his heart: now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? This is something of a preview of the words he would speak in roughly 48 hours in the Garden of Gethsemane: my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me (Matthew 26:39).

Jesus knew the horrors the future held for him. He knew that it would include being beaten and whipped, being spit on and mocked, and suffering the excruciating pain of being nailed hand and foot to a cross. None of us can possibly imagine what those final hours were like for Jesus. But he knew every gory detail far ahead of time. Can you imagine knowing ahead of time that you were going to die an excruciating death? Without a doubt, we’d do anything and everything in our power to avoid such an end. But not Jesus. Jesus is not like us. Jesus marched steadfastly toward it.

And yet, as bad as the physical suffering would be, it could not compare to the spiritual and emotional isolation he would experience. Not just abandoned by his disciples, but abandoned by his own Father. It would be so agonizing that he would cry out My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) That’s a good question, isn’t it? Why did God forsake his only, perfect, beloved Son? Jesus had never sinned; never hurt anyone. He spent every minute of every day carrying out his Father’s will down to the last letter. Why did God forsake his Son? You know why. In fact, you are why – and so am I. He was forsaken by God because he was bearing our curse, the curse of sin that demanded that we be abandoned by God to hell forever (Galatians 3:13). Knowing this, is it any wonder that Jesus’ soul is troubled?

And yet, just like later in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus does not allow his emotions to undermine his Father’s will or sabotage the mission he came to accomplish. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus qualified his petition with the submission of perfect faith: yet not as I will, but as you will (Matthew 26:39). In the same way, here he says no, this is the reason I came to this hour. Yes, this is the reason Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. This is the reason he spent three years preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons. He didn’t come into this world to live, but to die. He said it himself: the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). The reason Jesus came into this world was to endure the full horror of hell – separated from his own Father’s merciful presence – so that we never would. See Jesus bear his soul tonight – note how fully human, how vulnerable, how transparent he was – and give thanks that he was determined to do whatever it took to save your soul.

Which brings us to Jesus’ final words in his final public appearance before his arrest and crucifixion. He reveals the ultimate goal of his entire life, his entire mission on earth; he says: the light will be with you just a little while longer. Keep on walking while you have the light, so that darkness does not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light. What is Jesus’ ultimate goal as he presses forward to the goal of suffering and dying? Is it that we would pity him? Is it that we would imitate him? Is it that we would be motivated to live better, holier lives? No. His goal is very simple: that we would believe in him. Isn’t that amazing? In many cases, people who know they are dying might tell their friends and family to keep building the family business or to be responsible stewards of their inheritance or to somehow carry on their legacy. In other words, their concern is basically selfish –intended to influence the behavior of those who hear them. But here is Jesus, knowing the horrors that lay ahead, and his concern is not for himself or his legacy but for others; for us – that all who hear these last words would believe in him and be saved. Jesus’ last public words demonstrate that his will was in perfect harmony with his Father’s; they both want all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

Jesus’ ultimate goal is our goal too. Our message to the people of this dying world is not selfish or self-centered. We don’t do what we do to bring ourselves glory or to maintain our legacy or for our own benefit. Nor is our goal here to simply lead people to pity Jesus or try their best to imitate him or motivate people to live better and holier lives. No, our message to the world is identical to Jesus’ final message: while you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light. There’s a sobering warning here, a warning I pray this pandemic has brought to the forefront of many minds – including the minds of our own families, friends and neighbors. The truth is that the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking for everyone personally and for this world generally. The light of the Gospel of Christ crucified for sinners will not be with us forever. Sadly, it appears that this light is fading in our own country right before our eyes. God has put us in this place at this time so that we might let the light of the Gospel shine. Let’s take Jesus’ last words to heart. Let’s make raising our children in this light, inviting our family and friends to bask in this light, to hearing and supporting the proclamation of this light to a very dark world the highest priority in our lives – just as Jesus did in his.

And so concludes Jesus’ final public appearance before his arrest, his suffering and his death. An appearance in which he explains his purpose – that he hadn’t come to live but to die – and through his death produce a harvest of live and salvation. An appearance in which he bears his soul – expressing his very real fear and revulsion toward the horrors he will endure in the coming days – but also his determination to go through with it for you and for me. An appearance in which he reveals his ultimate goal: that many would be drawn to him in faith as the light of the world so that they may become like him: sons of light. These are the very important things Jesus leaves with us and the world at his final, significant, public appearance. Let us take them to heart. Amen.

John 3:14-21 - Find the Joy in Faith - March 14, 2021

Joy. That was the traditional theme for this Sunday in the early church. The first word of the introit – what we call the “Prayer of the Day” – from Isaiah 66:10 (“rejoice with Jerusalem…”) began with the Latin word for rejoice, laetare, and so this Sunday was called “Rejoice” or “Joy” Sunday. It was intended to serve as a kind of rest stop, a respite from the serious and penitential nature of Lent. Can you feel the joy? As you came through those doors this morning, I asked many of you: “How are you?” And not one person responded, “Pastor, I’m joyful.” Why not? Is it because of some trouble in your personal life? Disillusionment with this fallen world? Pandemic fatigue? Are you just cranky because you were robbed of an hour of sleep last night? Whatever the reason, it’s good that you’re here, because today Jesus helps us find the joy in faith.

Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council (John 3:1). Nicodemus had come to Jesus at night, probably out of fear of being associated with this man whom his colleagues despised and wanted to get rid of. Later, this same Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, took upon themselves the privilege of taking Jesus’ dead body down from the cross and giving it a quick but proper burial (John 19:38-42). However, at this point, Nicodemus is still an unbeliever; curious and inquisitive – a “seeker” some might say today – but still an unbeliever. So, what subject do you think Jesus zeroed in on with unbelieving Nicodemus? Believing. Faith. Jesus refers to believing three times in our text – in verses 15, 16, and 18.

Jesus spells out the benefits of faith in him: never being condemned, never perishing and having eternal life. Seems to me that there’s a whole lot of joy to be found there, right? So what if our lives here are plagued by the threats of viruses and violence? By faith we possess a life that will not be plagued by threats of any kind (Revelation 21:22-27). So what if I can feel death’s cold grip on my body and see its dreadful symptoms in the mirror? Jesus says that through faith in him we will never perish. So what if my conscience or the devil himself accuse me of being beyond God’s love? Jesus says the one who believes in him is not condemned. What Jesus says is true. It’s true no matter what is going on in the world, in your life, or even in your own head or heart. Aren’t those rock-solid reasons to rejoice? Then why is joy such a rare and endangered species in the lives of many Christians; even in our own?

One big reason is that by nature, we give our personal faith too much credit; that is, we tend to think of faith as kind of the “finishing touch” of our salvation. Think of our first lesson, did you place the emphasis on the bronze snake or the necessity of looking to it to live (Numbers 21:4-9)? Or in verse 8 of our second lesson, which struck you as the key to salvation: it is by grace you have been saved or through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Even here in our Gospel lesson, did you focus on for God so loved the world or that whoever believes in him? In each passage, God is clearly telling us that he has provided completed salvation for his people. And yet, what’s often our takeaway? That God has simply made salvation possible for us; that it’s up to you to believe it. And what does that do? It makes faith a cause or source of our salvation.

Have you ever heard anyone say: “Jesus did it all. All you have to do is believe.” It sounds good, what’s the problem? The problem that it is a terrible mixture of Law and Gospel. “Jesus did it all,” is Gospel. “All you have to do is believe,” is Law (As is anything we have to do!). You see? Whenever you hear that faith is needed for your salvation, Jesus is no longer sufficient– you still need to do your part. In fact, it makes Jesus a liar. If your faith completes your salvation, then Jesus lied when he said it is finished (John 19:30). Sure, Jesus may have completed 99% of salvation for you; but you’ve got to provide that last 1% with faith.

And what happens when you’re faith has to fill in the gaps? Well, you’re left staring into the depths of your own heart to see whether or not you have this abstract, nebulous thing called faith glowing there. If you can see it, if you can feel it then you can conclude that you are saved. If you can’t see it, if you can’t feel it, well, then you can’t really be sure, can you? Do you really want to hang your salvation on your faith? Just consider how tenuous faith feels in the face of the realities of life. When the budget is tight – do you really trust that God will provide your daily bread? When you’ve treated your spouse like dirt or broken another promise to your children – do you really believe that you are forgiven? When the entire world out there has dismissed Christianity as a fairy tale – do you really believe that the word of the Lord endures forever (1 Peter 1:25)? When you’re standing at the grave of a loved one – do you really believe in the resurrection? In theory, faith is easy; in practice, there’s nothing harder. Our faith can’t stand up to the realities of life, much less death and hell.  

I understand that this may be shocking to many of you; that it challenges everything you’ve ever been taught about faith. If you grew up in a generic, Protestant church, you were either explicitly or implicitly led to believe that the faith in your heart is a cause of your salvation. (That’s why Evangelicals are fixated on “feeling” faith and your personal decision). If you come from a Reformed background, you were taught that Jesus only died for believers (Limited Atonement), so you have to do good works in order to “prove” your faith. You may have even gotten that impression if you’re a Lutheran – after all we place faith alone alongside Scripture alone and grace alone as the Reformation pillars on which we stand. But allow me to quote one of our American Lutheran forefathers, C. F. W. Walther, from his book The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel: “You may run through the whole Bible, and you will not find a single passage which states that man is justified on account of his faith. Wherever the relation of faith to justification is spoken of, terms are used which declare faith a means, not a cause.” (274)

Think about what you’re saying if you think you’re saved because you believe. Then your salvation isn’t hanging on the cross; your salvation hangs on how perfectly you fear, love and trust in God. Then the thin line that stands between you and eternal death is your faith – and you must spend every waking minute wondering if your faith is strong enough. That’s where Lent comes in. Lent provides an annual shock to our system which reminds us that Christianity is not about us; it’s about Christ. It reminds us that God urges us to look outward to Jesus, not inward to our faith for salvation. So where is your focus today? On your faith or the object of your faith?

Actually, you don’t have to answer that question, your behavior speaks for you. Those who focus on their own faith treat the means of grace kind of like they treat the Emergency Department: “I’ll go and get help when I’m really sick, when the over-the-counter drugs don’t work, when I’m really desperate. Otherwise, I’m fine on my own!” When we should really treat of the means of grace like we think of food, water and oxygen – “If I don’t get these, regularly, I’m dead!” Why? Because the means of grace: baptism, absolution and communion are the only places God has promised to offer his faith creating and sustaining grace and forgiveness. Now, admittedly, there’s not much to see here: some water, some words, some bread and wine – they’re about as unimpressive as a bronze snake on a pole. That’s why people who need to “feel” their faith focus on things that stimulate their emotions: sappy music, motivational sermons, creating an atmosphere that makes them “feel” close to Jesus. But feelings are a poor substitute for certainty.

The pandemic hasn’t been good for much – but it’s been great for sermon illustrations. Take the Covid-19 vaccine, for example. What role does faith play in getting vaccinated? At most, it determines whether you go and get it or not. But does your faith make it effective? Of course not! The efficacy of the vaccine doesn’t depend on you at all – it depends on the scientist who brewed it in a lab, on the technicians who stored it and the nurse who administered it. Your faith doesn’t give the vaccine its power. In fact, whether you believe in the vaccine or not is absolutely irrelevant – it’s either effective or not, regardless of what you believe. (And no, I’m not advocating for or against getting it.)

In the same way, the source, the power, the cause, the efficacy of salvation is not your faith. I’ll repeat. The source of your salvation is not your faith. Listen again to Ephesians 2:8, with the emphasis in the proper place: it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is the conduit for, not the source of your salvation. In other words, even while Jesus is emphasizing faith here to Nicodemus, he’s not directing his attention to his own heart, but to God’s. Isn’t that the logical progression of John 3:16? God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Who’s the subject of that sentence? God; not you. God sent his Son to live a perfect life and die on the cross for your sins and rise again for your justification – apart from yours or mine or anyone else’s faith. Your salvation was completed long before you could ever make a decision for Jesus, “feel” faith in your heart – long before you were even conceived and born. And that, dear friends, is what makes it certain.

When you know that what you believe is certain; you don’t have to focus on your believing. That would be as foolish as someone claiming to be immune to Covid because they believe it is effective – without ever have gotten the shot. People who understand that faith is the “open hand” which receives completed salvation focus instead on Jesus. How? By focusing on where Jesus has promised to be: where people have gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20), around Word and Sacrament. They don’t gather around things that make them “feel” good; they gather around the means through which Jesus promises to come to them. Sometimes they feel great about their faith, sometimes they don’t, but it doesn’t matter. Because whenever God’s Word is preached and his Sacraments are properly administered, Jesus, the “source” of salvation, is there for you, personally, whether you “feel” it or not.

Our focus needs to be outward – on Jesus, not inward – on ourselves. Because you know as well as I do that there are times in life when you look for faith and all you see is doubt; when you want to trust but all you do is worry; when you long for joy and all you feel is fear. The only hope, the only cure at these times is outside of you: it’s in Jesus. He says that he joined you to himself in Baptism (Romans 6:3-5), so he’s there with you, even if you can’t feel it. He says that whoever hears the words of his disciples hear him, so Jesus is there speaking in the Absolution even though you can’t see him (Luke 10:16). And, he says that Holy Communion is his body and his blood, and that remains true whether you see (or believe) it or not (Matthew 26:26-28). Through these means God really gives his free, unconditional gift of salvation – whether you feel it or not.

See? There is a good reason to rejoice in Lent – because Lent shows us the joy of faith. Not in your believing – because your believing, like mine, is as unpredictable and erratic as the weather. But what you believe – that God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life – that’s not going anywhere. That’s certain. And where there’s certainty, there’s certainly reason to rejoice. Amen.  

Matthew 23:1-12 - Significant Teaching - March 10, 2021

We’ve all heard the saying “You are what you eat.” If you eat cream-puffs all day, you can be sure that you’ll end up looking like a cream-puff. Well, no disrespect to nutritionists, but while it’s certainly important to monitor what you are consuming with your mouth – it’s ultimately more important to monitor what you are consuming with your eyes and ears (Matthew 15:1-20). To modify the saying: “you are what – or who – you listen to.” Oh sure, we like to imagine that we are all perfectly impartial and independent thinkers – we’re not. What we are is a diverse stew of the messages and media, the stories and music and movies we consume. We are always consuming, always learning and therefore we need to be careful who our teachers are. Some are good and some are bad. Some we should avoid and some we should imitate. In our text for this evening, Jesus, the one Teacher, helps us differentiate between the two.

It’s Tuesday of Holy Week, just three days before Jesus is arrested, tried, convicted, tortured, crucified and buried. He chooses this moment to draw the attention of his listeners to the experts in the law and the Pharisees [who] sit in Moses’ seat. While the Old Testament doesn’t contain any details about anything specifically called “Moses’ seat,” it seems to simply be a reference to holding an office of teaching authority in the synagogue.

Jesus says regarding these teachers: Practice and observe whatever they tell you. But do not do as they do, because they do not practice what they preach. Jesus isn’t pulling any punches, is he? “Do what they say, not what they do.” As long as the teachers were simply reading and properly interpreting the Word of God, Jesus encourages them to listen carefully. But Jesus also makes clear that the application and the resulting behavior of these teachers didn’t align with the Word of God. In other words, they read one thing from the Scriptures, but the application they made in their sermons and their behavior outside of the synagogue didn’t line up with the Scriptures. There’s a term for this; it’s call hypocrisy. And where you have hypocrisy you almost always find self-righteousness. We’ve seen this in recent months when government officials who commanded average citizens to stay locked in their homes and not celebrate holidays with family were exposed as traveling internationally and celebrating holidays with their families.

Jesus goes on to describe some of their hypocritical practices: First, they tie up heavy loads, burdens that are hard to carry, and place them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to help them. What does that mean? Well, sadly, many Christians today know and experience exactly what Jesus is describing. The Pharisees piled 613 commandments on top of the 10 God had given – today teachers pile the 10 steps to a better marriage or the 5 steps to raising decent children on their listeners. The Pharisees elevated the actions of humans over the actions of God (Matthew 23:13-39; Mark 7:1-23) – today many teachers suggest that your decision, your response, your behavior is more important than what God has done for you. Worst of all, having burdened the people with law after law, they didn’t lift a finger to help them, that is, they didn’t preach the Gospel that God had promised to send a Savior to rescue them from the unbearable burden of the law. They never once said: come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).   

Second, they do all their works to be seen by people. They were 1st century virtue-signalers. Third, they make their phylacteries wide and lengthen the fringes of their garments. A phylactery was a small leather box containing quotations from Exodus or Deuteronomy. They were tied around a person’s forehead or arms. The fringes were blue strands that attached to the corners of their garments to remind them of the Ten Commandments. Because these customs had their origin in God’s Word (Numbers 15:37-41; Deuteronomy 6:8) there was nothing inherently wrong with them. What was wrong was that they made their phylacteries wide and their fringes long. In other words, they did it to draw attention to themselves. They wanted to be seen as superior to your average Jew. Fourth, they love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues. (Which was one of the reasons they despised Jesus – Jesus sat and ate with tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:9-13).) Fifth, they love…the greetings in the marketplaces, and being called ‘Rabbi” by people. Apparently ours isn’t the only era of “celebrity pastors.”  

Do not do as they do, Jesus says. But Jesus isn’t just hurling stones of criticism at his enemies here; in fact, he’s not even talking to the experts in the law or the Pharisees, he’s talking to his disciples. He’s warning his disciples because he knows that hypocrisy and pride are a temptation for anyone and everyone. Pride is a result of the sinful nature we’re born with. If you have any doubt at all that this is a natural human tendency, just spend five minutes on Facebook and see how many people promote how cute their children or dogs are, how great their craft or cooking skills are, how wonderful their vacations are – pride and self-promotion are everywhere. In fact, there’s a brand new line of work known as “social influencing” that consists of nothing but promoting yourself and your talents and your tastes to the world on social media.

Pride is not surprising when we see it in the world. But it’s sad when we see it in the church – because we, of all people, should know better. “How do we do this?” We work on a project here at church and nobody notices or nobody gives us any praise. So we throw a tantrum and vow to never volunteer again. Others get their names in the bulletin for the things they’ve done and we resent them because we haven’t gotten that recognition. We calculate how often we’re in church and Bible class and volunteering for various duties at church against others and we deem ourselves worthy of more and better blessings from God. At the root of all of those attitudes is hypocritical pride. We mistakenly think we deserve better than others because of what we do. “Well, pastor, that’s the way the world works. What’s the problem?” The problem is that when God looks at us he sees that there is no difference, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:22-24). That’s the greatest danger of proudly exalting ourselves over others – if I’m so busy comparing myself against others, who am I not looking to? Jesus! Those are attitudes Jesus tells us to avoid – in order to save us from ourselves.

Do not do as they do. So what should we do instead? You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. Also do not call anyone on earth your ‘Father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. And you are not to be called ‘leaders,’ for you have one Leader, the Christ. But the greatest among you will be your servant. Jesus isn’t literally forbidding the use of these terms. What he’s saying is that since we are all equal before God (Galatians 3:28), no one should exalt themselves above others. Instead, the greatest in God’s kingdom are those who serve others. So here’s the question: why should we listen to Jesus? What makes him any different than the experts in the law and the Pharisees?

Remember, Jesus spoke these words on Tuesday of Holy Week – just three days before he would be falsely arrested, wrongly accused, illegally tortured, and unjustly crucified. Jesus has spent three years proving, by his behavior, by his preaching, by his miracles who he really is: the Christ, the Son of God. He proved himself as the one who is actually deserving of all glory, honor, and worship. And yet, as Paul says: though he was by nature God, he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed, but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant…he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8). Jesus is the only speaker, leader, preacher, pastor, teacher who ever not only said all the right things but did all the right things. He spent his life serving others in word and action, ultimately by serving up his life as the ransom for our lives (Matthew 20:28). By his humble life and his innocent death he has earned our attention, he has proven that he is the only one worthy of imitation.

Impossible, right? How can we possibly imitate Jesus’ humility and service, he’s the sinless Son of God? We can’t. By nature we are turned in on ourselves – always looking to place ourselves above everyone else. For us, pride and self-righteousness and hypocrisy aren’t just bad attitudes to be on the lookout for, they are hardwired into our very nature. From the cradle to the grave we are wired to believe that if we can just prove ourselves better than others that we can gain God’s favor. So what can we do about this genetic disease? There’s only one thing we can do: own it, confess it, repent of it – and look to Jesus to forgive the burden of our sin.

The good news is that Jesus’ death on a cross covers all our sin – even our own misguided pride and hypocrisy. The slate has been wiped clean – even if your Facebook page hasn’t been – so that no sin or guilt remain. Because of Jesus, God has removed them as [far] as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). The one who humbled himself by climbing down from heaven, into a virgin’s womb, and up onto a cross has cleansed us from our sins of arrogance and pride – so that after we have been humbled in repentance, he will exalt us through his forgiveness.

It’s always been true, but even more so in recent years that you must be very careful of who and what you consume with your eyes and your ears. Yes, you don’t want to get drawn into the “fake news” trap. But even more importantly, you don’t want to listen to anyone who makes it seem like your status before God relies on you and your behavior. Instead, listen to Jesus. He humbled himself to the point of death so that we might be exalted to eternal life. We shouldn’t only listen to him and imitate him but, when we fail, we should unload the burden of our sin and guilt on him to be forgiven. To him, and him alone, be the glory. Amen.

John 2:13-22 - Turning the Tables - March 7, 2021

Given that there’s been basically nothing to do for the past year, many people have turned to television and movies for a distraction from the doldrums of pandemic life. I’ll admit, I’m no exception. But what I discovered about my taste for entertainment is that I can’t stand predictable storylines. They’re not worth my time. I prefer the shows where things aren’t what they appear to be; where the bad guys turn out to be good and the good guys turn out to be bad; where what seemed to happen didn’t really happen at all. I promise I am not launching a sermon series based on a TV or movie series. I only bring it up because the text before us is a lot like those shows: in the end everything gets turned upside down.

This is a different situation than the one we considered two Wednesdays ago. This one takes place near the beginning of his ministry. Jesus goes into the most holy city on earth, Jerusalem; into the most holy building in that city, the temple; during the most holy time of the year, Passover; and he trashes the place. He turns over the tables of the vendors and money-changers providing the necessities for the celebration of the Passover. The Jewish leaders were understandably upset – they didn’t think the tables needed turning over. They saw it as a pragmatic, convenient and profitable practice. Where else could the pilgrims who had traveled so far purchase the sacrificial animals they needed for the Passover? Can you imagine trying to haul a bull or a lamb dozens or hundreds of miles from your home to Jerusalem? It could run off or be stolen or get sick on the way. Or the priest might tell you once you got it to the temple that it was unacceptable for sacrifice. They saw the buying and selling as a necessary convenience – as well as the money changing. The temple tax had to be paid in a specific type of shekel that was minted only in Jerusalem – therefore, pilgrims who had come from any distance were unlikely to have them on hand. It all seemed pretty innocuous and, well, necessary. How else could the Jewish pilgrims pay the temple tax? Why shouldn’t they be able to change their money – for a fee, of course – and purchase their sacrificial animals – at a premium – all in one place? It was all very convenient for the worshipers and very profitable for the priests.

The whole arrangement was just fine with everyone until Jesus showed up. He made it clear that everything wasn’t just fine. He wasn’t buying the convenience argument. Since when was worship supposed to be convenient? Since when was it supposed to be easy? Since when was the worship of the Lord supposed to be something that didn’t interfere with the rest of your life? Nor was Jesus buying the argument that this was how the priests received their livelihoods and provided for the upkeep of the temple. Is this how God had revealed that his temple and his ministers were be provided for? Were they supposed to turn the church into a for-profit business? Were they supposed to profit from selling things that were necessary for worship? No, the Lord’s temple and his ministers were to be provided for out of the fruit that the Word of God produced, then and now (Leviticus 7:28-36; 1 Corinthians 9:14).

Would you believe that this wasn’t the worst thing Jesus found in the temple that day? As corrupt and immoral as the business dealing in the temple courts was, the worst thing was that it interfered with the temple’s primary purpose. God’s house was to be a place of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:7). The animals, with their braying and baaing, their stink and their flies and their manure, were being bought and sold in the court that had been set aside for the Gentile converts to pray and worship. The money-changers with their clinking coins and bickering about exchange rates made the Gentile place of prayer anything but peaceful.

So Jesus turned the tables on those who had turned his Father’s house into a farmer’s market. Yes, the church leaders might have thought it was a great idea, but Jesus showed them what God thought of it. And he didn’t do it gently. He made a whip out of the short ropes used to tether animals and drove them all out of the temple. The original Greek makes clear that he didn’t just use the whip on the animals but on the people buying, selling, and exchanging money. Jesus wasn’t kind; he wasn’t polite. He didn’t say “Please gather up your things and head for the nearest exit.” No, he bellowed get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a place of business!

It just makes you want to cheer, doesn’t it? It makes you long for this kind of Jesus to show up today, doesn’t it? Don’t you want Jesus to storm into the many “progressive” churches and shout, “How dare you turn my Father’s house into a haven for homosexuality?” Don’t you want Jesus to rush into the mega-churches that have turned God’s work into big business – with pastors and board members becoming wealthy by fleecing the flock and shout: “How dare you use my Word and my flock to enrich yourselves”? Don’t you want a Jesus who gives a voice and a fist to the outrage you feel toward the churches that safeguard sin and turn God’s house into a business? “Yes! Finally! Go get’em Jesus!”

Don’t grab the popcorn just yet. Contrary to popular opinion, confessional Lutheranism is not primarily about pointing out the specks in the eyes of the world or even of heterodox – that is, false-teaching – churches. No, before we can even think of judging others, we need to see the planks that stick out of our own eyes (Matthew 7:1-5). Are there tables in your own life that Jesus could turn over? Are there things in your heart and mind that should be drive out? Are there things and behaviors in your own life that Jesus could take a whip to? Before we get too excited about Jesus turning over the tables out there, we better check our own tables.

“No, pastor, you’re preaching to the choir here. We have the pure gospel in Word and Sacrament. We don’t safeguard sin or turn God’s house into a farmer’s market.” Here’s the thing: God is just as interested in what’s going on in his dwelling place in our hearts as he is with what happens here in his house. In fact, we are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). You heard the 10 commandments from Exodus 20; how long did it take for you to be convicted? How about the 1st commandment? Martin Luther explains that we should fear, love and trust in God above all things. Fear? A whole lot of people seem to fear viruses and being shamed on social media and losing their jobs than they do God today – are you one of them? Trust? Do you worry…about anything? That’s not trust. Love? Show me your calendar and your bank statement, and I’m pretty sure I can tell what you love, after all, Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21).

And that’s just the 1st commandment. What about our worship lives? Are they God-pleasing? The Jews thought their worship was pleasing to God. And Jesus trashed it. If Jesus walked into the temple of your heart, what would he find there that would need to be driven out? We may publicly confess that we believe that God’s Word – and the Lutheran Confession of what it means – is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; but in how many areas do we really think – “yeah, that’s what my church says, but I don’t really believe it”? How many of us pray “thy will be done” in here but once we’re out those doors we are only interested in doing our own will? How many of us have rationalized and minimized the sins in our own lives because we can see so many other people committing so many more and so many worse sins? How many times do we worship God with our lips while are hearts are far from him (Isaiah 29:13)? We may think that our hearts and our lives are acceptable to God – but Jesus shows us the truth: they’re not. We are not acceptable to God as we are – no matter what we may delude ourselves into thinking.

It kind of makes you want to run away – like those vendors and money-changers – and never come back, doesn’t it? Why should I come here to have my life, my thoughts, my words, my actions trashed? I’ll admit, as I wrote this sermon, I was thinking: “who am I to stand up here and say these things to anyone? I need to have these things said to me! I’d be better off resigning than preaching this to anyone.” But then I remembered that this text is like those shows where everything is not what it seems. Where Jesus turns the tables not once, but twice.

Jesus wasn’t just posturing, he wasn’t just virtue signaling by his actions in the temple that day. He was deadly serious. The penalty for defiling God’s house was death (Acts 21:28). The penalty for just going through the motions of worship – that is, hypocrisy – was damnation (Matthew 7:21-23). But not a single vendor died that day even though they were guilty of defiling God’s house. Not a single banker was damned in spite of their hypocrisy. I didn’t have a heart-attack while I was writing this sermon – even though it’s what I deserved. Not one of you has dropped dead for allowing your mind to wander while God’s Word was being preached. Not one of us has gone to hell because we stepped forward to receive the body and blood of our Lord Jesus with only pretend repentance – fully intending to continue going about our lives of sin. That’s because the tables were turned on Jesus.

When the tables were turned on Jesus, when he went from beloved Son (Mark 9:7) to wretched sinner (Psalm 22:1-2), it was not gentle or tender. Jesus did not have a whip made of small ropes applied to his back; he had a long, leather one embedded with flesh-shredding shards of metal or stone. Jesus did not have the opportunity to turn over his tables and pour out his sin in confession for forgiveness. No, he had all of our sins dumped on him and was forced to spill his holy, precious blood to pay for them (1 Peter 1:18-19). Jesus wasn’t just threatened with the Law; no, the full punishments of the Law were brought down on him like a sledgehammer until he cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Mark 15:34) and broke down and died.

The tables are turned during Lent. The holy, righteous Son of God is treated like the worst sinner on earth; guilty sinners like us are treated as the righteous, holy sons and daughters of God. Jesus got what we deserve; we get what he deserves. Jesus is driven out of God’s house to die; we are invited into God’s house to find life. We should come to church expecting to get a tongue-lashing for our sins. Instead, for Jesus’ sake, we’re told that we have been forgiven. We should come to the baptismal font expecting to be drowned. Instead, for Jesus’ sake, our sins are drowned and we are given new life. We should come to Communion expecting to be poisoned for the sins we’ve committed this week. Instead, Jesus gives us his body and blood as the life-giving food of immortality. We should expect to walk out those doors under God’s curse. Instead, because Jesus was cursed in our place, we walk out with God’s blessing.

This is Lent. Lent is where things aren’t really as they seem; where the tables are turned. In Lent Jesus comes into our comfortable, convenient lives and turns over the tables to show us that we aren’t as good, as acceptable to God as we think we are – to lead us to repentance. But once Jesus has flipped over our tables he invites us to come back to see and believe that the tables have been turned again. Jesus has gone to the cross to suffer the punishment we deserved while we come here to receive all of the grace, mercy and love that he earned. Because Jesus has both turned the tables on us and for us, we can be certain that we have a place at God’s table in heaven. That’s why Lent is a show worth watching. Amen.

Mark 12:28-37 - Significant Questions - March 3, 2021

Questions. They’re a big part of our everyday lives. Many of them aren’t all that important: “What’s for dinner?” “Did you check the laundry?” “Did you see the game last night?” And yet, there are those times in life when the questions we ask – and their answers – can be life-changing: “Did you get the job?” “Is the cancer in remission?” “Will you marry me?” Tonight, however, we aren’t focused on either of those categories of questions – either the unimportant or the life-changing. No, tonight we’re focused on two questions of eternal significance, one asked to Jesus and one asked by Jesus.

Just before our text, Jesus had been involved in a discussion with the Sadducees, the elites of the Jewish clergy, whose most notable belief was that they rejected the resurrection of the dead (which, if you ask me, makes religion kind of pointless) (Mark 12:18-27). As Mark tells us, one of the experts in the law approached after he heard their discussion. Apparently, he was impressed by Jesus’ answers and decided to pose a question of his own. Before we get to his question, however, we should come to a better understanding of what an expert in the law was. Experts in the law were responsible for two things: 1) making copies of the original manuscripts of the OT Scriptures – as well as other writings of the rabbis; and 2) interpreting these words for the people, who were, by and large, illiterate. Sounds like a pretty straight-forward job, right? Study the Word of God and teach and preach it. However, the experts in the law had made their job far more difficult than it needed to be by dividing God’s Law into 613 commandments, known as the mitzvoth. Instead of simply repeating God’s Word, the experts in the law endlessly debated which of these 613 commandments was most important. And, unfortunately, like today’s Supreme Court justices, these experts often referred to the precedent, the opinions, of other rabbis rather than the written Word of God. Therefore, this expert in the law was most likely just searching for another opinion, another precedent, another interpretation to refer to in his own work.

But, in spite of that baggage, he asks a good question: which commandment is the greatest of all? Jesus gives a two-part answer: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ Jesus answers him with a verse this expert undoubtedly knew very well, it was the most basic Jewish confession of faith, from Deuteronomy 6. Do you know what’s most interesting about Jesus’ answer? He doesn’t begin by directly addressing the expert’s question, that is, what we should or should not do. No, he begins with the identity of the one, true God: The Lord, our God, the Lord is one. Why start here? Because if, as Paul says in Romans 13, love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10), then your love had better be directed to and directed by the one, true God! He’s making the point that if your love is not directed at and by the one, true God, then whatever love or worship you are showing is utterly worthless. (This is extremely relevant to our world today, where many wicked behaviors and beliefs are defended and justified under the blanket of “love.”) The one, true God is the only God we should love with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength – anything else is idolatry.

Then Jesus expands, going beyond the teacher in the law’s question: the second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. Here again, Jesus is quoting directly from the Old Testament, specifically, Leviticus 19:18. Why include the second table of the Law – that is, commandments 4-10? Because love for God and love for neighbor can never be separated. The Apostle John writes: if anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar (1 John 4:20).

As the expert recognized, Jesus is right. These are the greatest commandments because if you do them, you will live (Leviticus 18:5; Luke 10:28)! If you fear, love, and trust in God above all things; if you never use God’s name to curse or swear and instead use it to regularly pray, praise and give thanks; if you always – daily and weekly – gladly hear and study God’s Word. If you always honor your mother and father – not to mention your pastor, governor and president; if you not only never commit murder but you never lose your temper; if you keep both your body and your thoughts free from lust; if you never steal – not by “massaging” your taxes or by skimming time from your employer; if you never gossip on social media to do anything to hurt anyone’s reputation; if you never have a sinful desire for something God has given to someone else – then you can punch your own ticket to heaven. So there you have it; there is Jesus’ perfect answer to the question of the expert in the law: which commandment is the greatest of all?: love the Lord your God with all you have and love your neighbor as yourself.

The expert in the law commended Jesus on his answer: well said, teacher. But Jesus’ closing words are curious, aren’t they? The lawyer agreed with him, then why does he tell him you are not far from the kingdom of God? What’s getting in the way? Two things. First, instead of simply patronizing Jesus by complimenting his wise answer – he should have fallen down on his knees and confessed: I haven’t and I can’t do these things and asked – “how then can I be saved?” Secondly, he didn’t yet recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the only one who could save him from his sins against God’s Law. In other words, the expert in the law had a totally backwards understanding of how a person gains access to God’s kingdom. This man, and, sadly, most people believe that a relationship with God is based on our doing something for him – when the reality is that the only way we can have a relationship with God is by him doing everything for us! This is called divine Monergism – that God alone must do everything for our salvation.

In other words, while these two commandments are great, they’re not good; that is, they’re not good news. It’s one thing to know God’s will. It’s a completely different thing to do it. And I can state with absolute certainty that none of us here – myself included – have kept either of the two tables of God’s law perfectly. That’s why even having a clear understanding of what the greatest commandment of all is, is not gospel – because it will never help you get to heaven (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16).

So where’s the good news to be found in this text if it’s not found in Jesus’ answer? In the one giving the answer…in Jesus. The good news is that the one who gave this answer to the expert in the law is the one, true God. He is the one who came to do what we could never do. He came to keep God’s law – both the first and second tables of the Law – perfectly. He alone loved God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength. He alone loved his neighbor as himself. In fact, in regard to both, he most fully loved God and his neighbors (including us) by giving up his life on the cross. In that one act Jesus showed perfect love to God by submitting his will fully to his Father’s will and he loved us even more than he loved himself, by laying down his life for our sins (John 15:13)! And because of that one act, you and I now possess perfect righteousness before God in regard to both tables of God’s law. Jesus’ righteousness has become ours (2 Corinthians 5:21). And believing this good news – and not obeying or doing anything – is the only thing that can bring sinners like us into the kingdom of God.

But now Jesus has a significant question of his own; a question that gets to the heart of the issue that enraged Jesus’ opponents and led directly to his crucifixion: How is it that the experts in the law say that the Christ is the Son of David? David himself said by the Holy Spirit: the Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet.’ Like many lawyers today, the experts in the law were expert at quoting Scripture – but because of their unbelief, they were blind to the fact that the Christ had to be both true God and true man. They would agree that the Messiah was the Son of David – that is, true man – but they believed that he would come to set up an earthly, not a spiritual kingdom. However, rather than giving them the answer, Jesus asks leaves them hanging with a question, David himself calls him Lord, so how can he be his Son?

There is only one answer to this question, and the answer was standing right in front of the crowd in the temple on Tuesday of Holy Week. The only logical answer is that the Christ had to be both true God and true man. The only logical answer is that Jesus is the Christ. His humanity was obvious to the so-called experts – but so was his divinity. He proved all throughout his ministry that he was divine. He is the one who was there at the creation of the world and with God and was with God in every way (John 1:1-4). He is the one who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He is the one who commanded the wind and the waves to be quiet, and they listened (Mark 4:35-41). He is the one who healed all types of physical diseases and problems, removing them instantly – as if they never existed (Mark 3:1-11). He is the one who demonstrated his power over life and death by raising three people from death to life (that we know of!) (Luke 7:11-17; Luke 8:49-56; John 11:1-44). And, as we will celebrate in a few weeks, he is the one whom death and the grave could not hold. He was and is David’s Son and David’s Lord. He is the one, true God come to earth to singlehandedly save his people from their sins. It’s no wonder the crowd was delighted, is it?

Tuesday of Holy Week presents us with two eternally significant questions: which commandment is the greatest of all? And David calls [the Christ his] Lord, so how can he be his son? In reality, the greatest commandment of all isn’t any of the ten commandments, the greatest commandment of all is that we believe in the name of [God’s] Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 3:23). Only through faith in Jesus, who is true God and true man, David’s Son and David’s Lord can anyone enter the kingdom of God. Which just goes to show us once again that Jesus is the answer to all of our most significant questions. Amen.   

Mark 8:31-38 - The Peter Principle - February 28, 2021

In 1969 an author by the name of Laurence J. Peter developed what is known as the Peter Principle. This principle asserted that in any organization employees tend to rise through the ranks until they reach the level of their incompetence – that is, to the point when their talents and skills are no longer sufficient for the job. [1] Today, we observe the Peter Principle at work in none other than the apostle Peter himself.

So what do we see in Peter today: competence or incompetence? Well, both. Right before our text, in response to Jesus’ question who do you say I am? (Mark 8:29) Peter was the only disciple who answered without hesitation, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). That’s Christian competence at its highest – confessing that this humble carpenter’s Son from Nazareth is truly the promised Savior, the Son of God. But the moment Jesus began to speak plainly about what it meant to be the Christ: rejection, suffering and dying – Peter revealed his incompetence. He dared to rebuke Jesus!

For that reason, Peter often becomes something of a whipping boy during Lent. He’s trotted out as the bad disciple, the weak disciple, the cowardly disciple, the denying disciple. You’re told to see how awful Peter is; to repent of being a Peter; to give thanks that Jesus redeemed you from being a Peter. That’s the typical Lenten Peter Principle, but today, at least at first, we’re going to prove that part wrong; that Peter really displays that he is more competent to be a disciple of Jesus than we often are.

Peter, at least, listens carefully to the words of Jesus. Even though Jesus says if you remain in my word, you are really my disciples (John 8:31), how well do we really know our Bibles? Can we recite the 10 commandments? The books of the Bible? How carefully do we listen when God’s Word is preached? If I were to ask you tomorrow what today’s sermon was about, would you have an answer? Luther picked up on this all-too-common Christian incompetence in his commentary on the 3rd Commandment in the Large Catechism. He criticized those who “listen to God’s Word like it was any other trifle and only come to preaching because of custom. They go away again, and at the end of the year they know as little of God’s Word as at the beginning” (LC 3rd Commandment: 96). This is the sin of indifference. It’s the sin of thinking that you’ve done your duty as long as you sit here for an hour a week. Never mind that you don’t really listen; never mind that your mind begins wandering the moment you sit down. You think you’ve done what God wants just by being present where God’s Word is read and proclaimed. But faith doesn’t come by proximity but by hearing (Romans 10:17). At least Peter listened to Jesus’ words. You can tell how closely he listened by his reaction. Sure, it was the wrong reaction, but a wrong reaction is better than no reaction – it’s better than letting the Gospel go in one ear and out the other (Revelation 3:16).

Before we tie Peter to the whipping post this Lent for daring to rebuke Jesus, for tempting him to walk away from the cross, let’s at least admit that Peter takes the horror of the cross seriously. Peter is utterly appalled that the Christ, the Messiah the church had waited thousands of years for, would be crucified by the very leaders of the church he came to save. Peter could possibly understand the elders, the chief priests, the experts in the law grumbling about Jesus the way their fathers grumbled about Moses (Exodus 16:2), but for them to succeed in murdering him – no, that was too much! The thought of Jesus being nailed to a tree, hanging there slowly bleeding out and suffocating until he died, was too much for Peter to stomach because Peter took those words seriously. How about us?

As Lutherans, we’re kind of spoiled. The cross is everywhere in our worship: it’s in our architecture, in our hymns and liturgies, it’s in the creeds we confess together and front and center in the sermons we hear. And what’s our reaction to this regular diet of Jesus’ rejection, suffering and crucifixion? I’ll confess that, for myself at least, my reaction was often: “Meh. Been here, heard this.” We know we’re supposed to take our Savior’s suffering seriously, but do we? If you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, you may have for a couple of hours had an actual, visceral reaction to Jesus’ suffering and death. I’ve talked to grown men who said that they walked out of that movie with tears running down their faces. But what happens the second, the third, the fourth time you see it? The reaction is dulled. “Been here, seen this.” That’s why one confessional Lutheran pastor called that movie “spiritual pornography.” And the same thing can happen here. Week after week we hear about how Jesus, the Christ, was rejected by the church, humiliated by the church, and executed in the most excruciating manner possible – and it can become old news. “Yeah, yeah, we know all that. Tell us something we don’t know; make us feel something I haven’t felt; surprise us; entertain us.”

For all that Peter does wrong, at least he understands the injustice of it all. He knows that Jesus doesn’t deserve what he says will happen to him. Peter has lived with Jesus for three years. He knows this man. He knows that Jesus never spoke an evil word about anyone, and that he not only never hurt anyone, but he healed and helped many. And that’s really why Peter dares to rebuke Jesus. He knows that neither the church nor the government have a legitimate case against him. He’s competent enough to understand that it would be nothing less than the greatest crime in human history for the church and the government to collude to execute the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16).

How about you? Is your reaction ever: “Why should I be shocked, this is what’s supposed to happen. This is what the prophets said must happen (Isaiah 53). It’s Jesus’ job to die for us.” It’s not that we’re too competent in our faith to rebuke Jesus; no, it’s that we take it for granted that Jesus should suffer and die for us. You don’t rebuke birds for flying or fish for swimming – why should we rebuke Jesus to saying that he is going to do what we expect him to? How would you react if your own child enlisted in the military and was killed in battle and someone said – “Why are you so shocked? Isn’t that what they signed up for?”

I think I’ve got your attention now. I think I can actually hear the contrition and repentance rising from your hearts. Now you’ll listen to Jesus’ words; now you’ll take his suffering seriously; now you’ll confess that Jesus didn’t deserve to die. Be careful! You know where this path leads, don’t you? Right where it took Peter, from competence to incompetence. Yes, Peter was competent enough to actually listen to Jesus’ words; he was competent enough to be horrified at the thought of Jesus’ crucifixion; he was competent enough to know that Jesus didn’t deserve to die; but he reveals his incompetence in failing to understand the bigger picture, the things of God, why Jesus had to suffer and die.

Peter listened Jesus’ words, but he didn’t receive them as divine necessity. To Peter, Jesus was just being a ‘negative Nancy,’ looking at the glass as half-empty rather than half-full. Jesus was trying to prepare Peter for what he would certainly experience, but Peter preferred to hold out hope that there might be another, easier way. He reacted like we often do to the serious warnings the Bible gives us about what it means to follow [Jesus]. The Bible gives these guarantees: we must go through many troubles on our way to the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22); everyone who wants to live a godly life will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12); and dear friends, do not be surprised by the fiery trial that is happening among you to test you, as if something strange were happening to you (1 Peter 4:12). And yet how do we react to these guarantees; especially in the relative religious freedom we enjoy in America? We are surprised – and sometimes angry at God – when the very things he said would happen do happen.

Peter heard Jesus’ prediction of the cross as horrible but not as reality. For that reason, he couldn’t see the resurrection as a reality either. He couldn’t see the glory of Easter’s crown hidden behind the gore of Calvary’s cross. The awful thought of Jesus being rejected and executed was all that he could see. To Peter, Jesus’ cross was especially horrible because, without Easter, it seemed so meaningless.

Are we any different? Don’t we often regard the crosses we carry as pointless and meaningless? The crosses we carry in our vocations as sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and husbands and wives; the crosses of intolerance and ridicule and persecution. Don’t those crosses often seem so meaningless – that they are just getting in the way of living life to the fullest? In Peter’s mind the rejection, suffering, and dying that Jesus spoke about could only get in the way of Jesus truly being the Christ, the Son of the living God. The truth is that these things are precisely what it meant to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. In the same way, the crosses we bear are not things that get in the way of living life – they are the very essence of what it means to live as Christians.

But we’ll never see that until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see what Peter couldn’t. As Jesus noted, Peter’s concern was limited to this life, to the things of men. He could only see how meaningless it would be for Jesus to be rejected, suffer and die. “Couldn’t Jesus do so much more good alive than dead?” What Peter didn’t see is why Jesus had to suffer and die. This wasn’t some tragic accident; this was God’s eternal plan. Jesus was going to suffer for Peter, for me and for you and for the world (Matthew 20:28). What Peter couldn’t see is that from God’s point of view, if we were to be saved from the eternal damnation we deserved – Jesus was going to have to endure it in our place. We necessitated Jesus’ cross. Therefore, the good news of the cross is, as the banner says the punishment that brought us peace was upon him (Isaiah 53:5). This is what Peter didn’t understand. But if you take nothing else away from this sermon, I hope you take this: the shame Jesus endured at the hands of men means that I no longer have to be ashamed for all of the shameful thoughts that have passed through my mind. The torture that Jesus endured means that I won’t have to endure the never-ending torture of hell for the times that I have tortured the people I’m supposed to love. The death Jesus endured means that I won’t ever really die – that is, I will never, ever be separated from God in this life or the next. That’s what Jesus wants Peter and us to see in his cross. From that perspective, Jesus’ cross doesn’t look so meaningless, does it?

And…neither do our crosses. Eventually, Peter saw this too. Today, Peter was repulsed by the cross. During Holy Week he denied and ran away from the cross (Matthew 26:69-75). But many years later, he embraced the cross. He wrote rejoice whenever you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13). Why? Why in the world should we rejoice when we suffer for following Jesus? Because our suffering, our crosses are no less meaningful and purposeful than Jesus’ suffering and his cross. Jesus was rejected, he suffered, he was killed in order to rescue us from sin, death and the devil. We face suffering and trials and pain because we’ve been rescued from sin, death, and the devil. This means that the pain, the suffering, the crosses you and I carry during this life are anything but meaningless and pointless; they are proof positive that we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters and beloved children of God. They also serve as the guardrails God uses to keep our focus on Christ and his cross and on the narrow road to heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). Think of it this way: when is your mind more on the things of God – on Christ and his cross and the salvation he won – when life is great or when its terrible? If God uses our suffering, our crosses to keep us close to himself – that’s not meaningless at all, is it?

Does this clarification make it any easier to embrace the cross of suffering in this life? Probably not. That’s because of the Peter Principle – we’ve reached the point where we’re in over our heads. No Christian can fully comprehend how God uses the cross for our good. That’s why we don’t fix our eyes on the things of men, our own crosses; but on the things of God, on Jesus and his cross, where through the greatest evil ever perpetrated by mankind God orchestrated the greatest good of all: our salvation. Amen.  

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Mark 11:15-19 - Significant Action - February 24, 2021

Because we go through the life of our Savior each and every year, I’m pretty confident that we are all familiar with the major events that took place on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. But how familiar are you with what took place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that holiest week? These days are well worth our time, because these days contain some of Jesus’ most significant words and actions. Starting tonight and throughout the rest of this Lenten season, we will explore what happened on the three days between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.

Tonight’s text takes place on Monday of Holy Week. The day before, Palm Sunday, Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! (Matthew 21:9). But the day ended on a rather ominous note. Mark tells us that Jesus went into the temple courts in Jerusalem and looked around at everything (Mark 11:11). The next day, Jesus would do a whole lot more than just look around. On Monday, Jesus, disgusted with what he saw going on there, took significant action.

On Monday, Jesus went into the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying in the temple courts. Jesus justified his actions by quoting Isaiah and Jeremiah: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:7) but you have made it ‘a den of robbers’! (Jeremiah 7:11) Without a doubt, this is a pretty shocking scene. This is not the meek and gentle Jesus we’re used to. So what’s really going on here? Each year during the Passover festival – a festival God commanded his people to celebrate every year to remind them of his deliverance of their forefathers from Egypt (Exodus 13:1-16) – thousands of Jews would come to Jerusalem to celebrate. Many came from far away, and the practical reality is that it was much easier for them to simply buy the animals they needed for their sacrifices and offerings right at the temple rather than try to transport them dozens or hundreds of miles. To make the process even more convenient, the vendors just happened to have animals that had been preapproved by the priests for use at the temple. Of course, these preapproved animals came at a premium price. There were even rumors that some of the purchase price was kicked-back to the priests and that some of the priests rejected any animals that weren’t purchased from one of their “approved” vendors. In other words, there was clearly unethical, if not criminal, collusion going on in the temple, enabled and even initiated by the very leaders, the priests, who were supposed to enable and assist the Jewish people in worshipping God (Hebrews 5:1) during the highest festival in Israel’s church year.

And that’s not all. The pilgrims who came to Jerusalem with foreign currency in their wallets had to exchange it for the currency that was acceptable to pay the temple tax (which, wouldn’t you know it, was a shekel that was minted only in Jerusalem and nowhere else). You can guess what this led to – in fact, if you’ve ever traveled internationally, you know that currency exchangers charge you to exchange your money. Knowing that they had a virtual monopoly on the currency exchange business right at the temple, the money changers could charge exorbitant fees. All in all, the situation Jesus found in the temple area during Passover week wasn’t focused on God, prayer and sacrifice – but on the “business” that had to happen before there could be any focus on God, prayer or sacrifice. The focus had shifted from the spiritual to the secular; from the things of God to the things of men (Mark 8:33).

As bad as these collusion schemes were, there was something even worse taking place in the temple courts. It was no accident that Jesus quoted this specific verse from Isaiah: my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. The temple was to be a house of prayer not only for ethnic Jews but also for Gentiles. That’s why God designed the temple with a court for male Jews, a court for female Jews, and an additional court for Gentiles (1 Chronicles 28). Of course, when a marketplace needed to be constructed for buying and selling – which court do you think was utilized? The court of the Gentiles. The temple, which God had intended to be a place of prayer for people of all nations had instead become a money-making machine for the religious leaders and their cronies – to the exclusion of pious people – including Gentile converts – who had come to worship and pray. This is the main reason why Jesus launched into action, clearing out the temple area.

Jesus’ actions sent a clear message to the chief priests and experts in the law. But that’s not all it does. It sends a message to us, too. We, too, can be tempted to turn God’s house and the Gospel ministry into little more than a utilitarian operation. No, I’m not suggesting that any of our leaders are lining their pockets with your offerings – although there are many false teachers out there who have and are fleecing God’s flock in order to enrich themselves. No, I’m saying that we can be tempted to view two of the most important elements of Gospel ministry – evangelism and church discipline – as little more than a means to an end. I’m grateful that I’ve never heard this sentiment here, but it’s certainly been said in many congregations that “we need more members to take the financial burden off of us.” But I have heard, from unfaithful members I’ve reached out to, “I know I don’t come to church, but I’ve used the PayPal link on your website to give my offering.” Is the reason we reach out to the lost and to the wandering just to ensure that we end up in the black at the end of the fiscal year?

Even apart from – and, I believe, more dangerous than – the financial temptation, is the temptation to believe that the main reason to engage in evangelism and church discipline is for the survival of the church. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because I believe it is an insidious attitude that has taken root in our own church body – we don’t seek the lost for the survival of the church. Why not? Quite simply, because it’s not our church – it’s Jesus’ (Matthew 16:18). He’s the head (Ephesians 5:23), he promises to provide for her (Matthew 6:25-34), he guarantees that even the gates of hell cannot overcome her (Matthew 16:18). If we ever view Gospel ministry as simply a means for preserving our church, then we’ve reversed the roles. God didn’t put people into our families and office spaces and neighborhoods to serve his church – he put his church in your life and in this neighborhood to serve and save our neighbors with the means of grace. Christ will provide for the maintenance and upkeep and survival of his church – that’s not our main concern. Our main concern should be maintaining this house that Christ has given us as a house of prayer for all nations.

But even those concerns are secondary to the main problem. The problem in the temple courts on Monday wasn’t really that there were salesmen selling doves and bankers exchanging money – those things did have to be done. It was that they were placing an obstacle in the way of both Jewish and Gentile pilgrims to be able to do what they had come to the Temple for: to worship their God. Self-examination time: are there any obstacles in the way of our true and sincere worship of God our Savior today? Is there anything that prevents you from studying God’s Word and praying on a daily basis in your own home, with your own family? When you come here, where do you expect the spotlight to be: on you or on God? Why don’t more of our members come to these Lenten services? Is it because it isn’t convenient enough? That’s the argument the Jewish leaders would have made – we need to make it convenient. Really? Since when is worship supposed to be convenient? Since when is it supposed to be easy? Since when is it not supposed to interrupt your plans too much? Are there all sorts of things running through your mind during your time here, all sorts of obstacles that get in between you and truly hearing God’s Word and receiving his gifts? I know it’s not comfortable to ask these questions, but we aren’t here to be comfortable – we are here to be confronted with our sins and confess them so that they can be forgiven by Jesus’ blood.  

The good news is that clearing the obstacles out of the way of true worship is not really up to us – it’s up to Jesus. Jesus – and not one of his disciples – is the one who took action in driving the vendors and money changers out of the temple and he’s the one who takes action to drive the obstacles out of our lives so that we worship and receive his gifts through Word and Sacrament. While Jesus’ action on Monday was certainly significant, his mission of salvation required him to take even more significant action on Friday of Holy Week. On Friday, the Friday we call “Good,” he didn’t just drive vendors and money changers from the temple, he drove sin, death and the devil from their throne in our hearts and the world. He removed the main obstacle that separated us and others from God – namely, our sin (Isaiah 59:2) – the permanent removal of which was symbolized by the tearing of the curtain in the temple from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). Now we can enter the presence of God in worship and prayer – because Jesus has cleared every obstacle out of the way with his blood (Hebrews 10:19-23).

And, having removed the obstacle of sin objectively – that is, for the world – Jesus also took significant action to apply this redemption to you personally. You may not remember it – I don’t – but nonetheless, when we were baptized Jesus worked through water and the Word to pour the Holy Spirit on you, to call you to faith, to wash away your sin, to claim you as a child of God, and to make you an heir of eternal life in heaven. It would have been fascinating to be there on Monday of Holy Week to see Jesus drive all those obstacles out of the temple. But what we should really focus on is that day in our own lives when Jesus drove all the obstacles out of our hearts that kept us away from God. For you and for me, that’s really the day of Jesus’ most significant action in our lives.

As you might expect, the religious leaders were not exactly pleased with the action Jesus took that Monday. It was not good for business. They were afraid of him – afraid of his popularity and afraid that he was ruining their cash cow; and out of their fear they were looking for a way to kill him. By the end of the week, they would get what they wanted. But, for tonight, give thanks for the significant action Jesus took on your behalf on Good Friday and the day of your Baptism – clearing out the sin that kept you from worshipping the one true God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). Amen.

Mark 1:12-15 - The Heart of Lent - February 21, 2021

You may or may not be aware of the fact that our church follows a lectionary – that is, a list of Scripture readings appointed to be read for each Sunday of the church year. We are currently following a three year lectionary – one year in Matthew, one in Mark, and one in Luke – with selections from John’s Gospel scattered throughout all three years. We don’t have to follow a lectionary, but this practice does ensure that over the course of the year we cover the whole life of Christ and the whole counsel of God – and not just whatever happens to be on my mind on any given Sunday. The reason I bring this up is that in each of the three years, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is the appointed Gospel for today, the first Sunday in Lent. And if you compare the three accounts from Matthew, Mark and Luke one thing pops out immediately: Mark’s account is incredibly brief – just two sentences. There are probably two reasons for this. First, Mark is likely assuming that his readers are already familiar with the details of Jesus’ temptation from reading or hearing Matthew and Luke’s accounts. Second, and more importantly for us today, Mark is eager, almost impatient, to answer that Lutheran question: what does Jesus’ temptation mean for us? The answer is the simple but profound heart of Lent: repent and believe.

Repent. What does that little word mean? It means simply “to change your mind.” What do we need to change our minds about? You may be surprised by the answers to that question this morning. Repent of thinking that God throws you aside after your baptism. We’ve all had that feeling before, haven’t we? If you were baptized as an adult, you probably had a sense of closeness to God. Even if you were baptized as a baby, when you were young you probably remember feeling that God was on your side; that you really felt like “Jesus’ little lamb.” And then life happened. Then some of the things Paul described in our second lesson happened to you (Romans 8:35). Not just life happened but death; not just angels but demons were your companions; not only the problems of the present but the problems of the future terrified you. You felt like the Psalmist did when he wrote: for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered (Psalm 44:22, quoted by Paul in Romans 8:36).

There are two problems with believing that God has abandoned you; thrown you away. First, it appeals to our sinful nature; it makes us feel very righteous; it feeds our ego to believe that we are on our own. Second, there is hardly anyone in the world who will call you to repent of this sin. Which of your friends is going to blame you for feeling like God has abandoned you when your life seems to be falling apart? Which of your family members is going to tell you you’re wrong – and need to repent – for accusing God of being neglectful when you’re sick, suffering or dying? If you see a dirty, bruised, hungry child you have no problem concluding that the parent is neglectful, so why shouldn’t we conclude that about God?

How dare we! How dare we ever believe that the God who adopted us as his children in baptism would ever abandon us as orphans (Isaiah 49:15-16)! How dare we believe that the God who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all would ever neglect us (Romans 8:32)! How dare we imagine that the God who promised I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you (Hebrews 13:5) would ever break that promise! It’s the height of unbelief; a sin against the very first commandment to allege that God doesn’t love us like he says he does; like he’s proven he does in Jesus (Romans 5:8). When we’re suffering, we need to repent of thinking that it means that God has abandoned us; instead we should change our minds and understand that God uses even suffering and trouble as an instrument to keep us close to himself (Romans 5:3-5).

Repent, Jesus went to Galilee to preach. Repent, is also what Jesus sent me here to preach (Luke 24:46-49). Repent of thinking that Jesus’ temptation is nothing more than an example for you to follow. This sin usually arises when the gospel for the first Sunday in Lent comes from Matthew or Luke where Jesus defeats Satan by quoting three bible passages. Now, don’t misunderstand, the Bible does say resist the Devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7) and that we should hold up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One. Also take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:16). But if you’ve turned Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness into a “How-To” guide for defeating the devil yourself, you must repent.

The Spirit didn’t send Jesus into the wilderness to show us how to defeat Satan. The Spirit sent him out onto the battlefield to do what we can’t do; what even Adam and Eve in the perfection of Eden couldn’t do. In a lush garden, surrounded by food, without even a molecule of sin in their nature, even Adam and Eve quickly fell to Satan (Genesis 3:6). Eve tried quoting God’s Word against Satan and he ripped the sword out of her hand and stabbed her with it. Repent of thinking that you can overcome temptation on your own (which is why Jesus taught us to pray lead us not into temptation (Matthew 6:13).

Closely related to this sin is the sin of promising to do better next time. I see this most often when I confront people about their unfaithful church attendance. When I say “Do you know that neglecting the means of grace is a sin against the 3rd Commandment?” it’s uncanny how often they respond, “I promise to do better next time.” Here’s the thing: God isn’t looking for promises. He’s looking for repentance. Remember, to “repent” means, first and foremost, to change your mind. Repentance is an act of God, the power of the Spirit, a miracle (Acts 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25). Actions will follow, but you can’t change your mind by changing your actions. In fact, everyone knows that you can change your actions without changing your mind. That’s called hypocrisy.

Lent is a season of repentance – so…Repent! Repent of thinking that God has cast you aside; repent of thinking that you can overcome Satan’s temptations on your own; and repent of thinking that you are in charge of building the kingdom of God. This is another sin that feels so righteous when you’re committing it. It makes us feel big and important to think: “Jesus came and did his work; now the rest is up to us!” But look at our text. Jesus didn’t say: “I’ve brought the blueprints for you to build the kingdom of God!” He preached the kingdom of God has come near! In Jesus, the kingdom of God has arrived.

This shouldn’t be a difficult sin for we Lutherans to repent of, for we confess with Luther in his explanation of the Second Petition, that “God’s kingdom certainly comes by itself even without our prayer” (SC Lord’s Prayer, Second Petition). For example, as you were driving here this morning did you pray that God’s kingdom would come here? Of course not, you took it for granted that where Jesus is, there is his kingdom. Jesus is wherever his Word and Sacrament are, so Jesus’ kingdom is here, even without our prayer, apart from any effort on our part. Repent of thinking that Jesus is quarantined up in heaven just hoping and waiting for you to build his kingdom.

Repent, Jesus preached after his baptism. But that’s not all he preached. He also preached believe. Believe that while God will never throw you out, he did indeed throw Jesus out after his baptism. Our translation doesn’t fully capture the essence of the original Greek. The Greek literally says that “the Spirit cast (or threw) him out into the wilderness.” (It’s the same verb used later of Jesus casting out demons (Mark 1:39; 43; 3:15; etc.)). Why would God do that to his Son? Well, frankly, he didn’t have a choice. At his baptism, which immediately preceded our text, Jesus was burdened with all of our sin and guilt and shame. Saddled with our sins, the sins we blush to remember, the sins we can’t forget, the sins we don’t even know about (Psalm 19:12) – God had to cast Jesus out of his sight (Isaiah 59:2). Believe that God threw his only Son out into the wilderness – so that he might never, ever have to throw you into the fire of hell.

Believe that while carrying the sin of the world Jesus entered into battle with Satan; and he did it all alone. Believe that Jesus took on Satan using only the Word of God as his weapon. Believe that Jesus held onto faith in his Father’s love through every temptation. Believe that he never gave an inch to any sin of doubt or despair or unbelief. Believe that while Satan can lead us into all sorts of sin and unbelief – he couldn’t trap Jesus. And believe that Jesus did this for you. Don’t let Jesus’ victory over Satan in the wilderness go to waste. When you believe that your salvation depends on your ability to overcome temptation or do better in the future, you are wasting what Jesus endured in that wilderness. Don’t think you have to endure loneliness and hunger; that you have to overcome temptation in order to be saved – because you can’t! Instead, believe that Jesus did it for you!

Above all, here’s what you are to believe: you are to believe what Jesus says. What Jesus says – not what you see, think or feel; not what’s happening in your life right now – is real. When Jesus says, as he does today, that the time is fulfilled…the kingdom of God has come near you are to believe this with all your heart, soul and mind. What is the kingdom of God? Paul tells us in Romans 14: the kingdom of God [consists] of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Isn’t this what you have right now through baptism, absolution and communion? God himself promises that these gifts are yours through these means of grace whether you feel or see them or not. In other words, the kingdom of God is unconditional. It isn’t only present if everything is going right in my life; if I have perfect health; if my conscience doesn’t bother me; if my faith feels strong. No, the kingdom is here not because of what is going on my life but because of what Jesus did in his and what he gives us through Word and Sacrament.

You can be sure of this, you should believe this because Jesus brought the kingdom of God to us by dealing with the two things that kept the gates of the kingdom locked to us: the law and sin. First, Jesus dealt with the law. From the moment of his conception Jesus spent his life actively keeping, obeying, fulfilling God’s law perfectly. That’s what he was doing in the wilderness; that’s what he had done as he grew up in Mary and Joseph’s house; that’s what he did day in and day out every day of his life.

And then he dealt with sin. Contrary to what many believe today, God takes sin seriously. He demands that sin be paid for in full. God isn’t some cosmic Santa Claus who laughs and winks at sin. No, his wrath had to be satisfied. Only God could satisfy the wrath of God – but because God wasn’t angry at God but at man, it took God in human flesh to get the job done. Jesus suffered for our sins by bleeding, sweating and crying human blood, sweat and tears – and because his blood, sweat and tears were the blood, sweat and tears of God, they satisfied God – and, therefore, they should satisfy you too! Jesus bled and died to pay for your sins; they are forgiven! Believe it! This is what you are to believe: you are to believe this gospel, this good news, that by his life, death and resurrection Jesus has opened the kingdom of heaven to you and all believers.  

The first Sunday of Lent takes us right to the heart of Lent: repent and believe. Repent of thinking that God could cast you out and instead believe that he has cast Jesus out in your place. Repent of thinking that you must overcome the devil in order to enter God’s kingdom – instead, believe that Jesus overcame the devil to bring the kingdom to you. These two little words – repent and believe – are not only the heart of Lent, they are the heart of our lives as Christians today and tomorrow and every day until we see the kingdom of God with our own eyes. Amen.

Genesis 3:19 - Significant Problem - February 17, 2021 - Ash Wednesday

Why are you here this evening? That may sound like a throw-away question, but tonight, I’m serious. Why are you here? You could be at home watching Netflix or eating a quiet dinner or helping your children with their homework. But…you’re here. Why? There must be a pretty significant reason, right? You may think you’re here because you just come to church whenever there is a service out of habit or because you love singing Lenten hymns or because you feel obligated to be here for one reason or another. But you’re not really here for any of those reasons. This day, Ash Wednesday, pulls off the mask of any superficial reasons we may have to come to church. There is really only one good reason for you to be here in God’s house tonight – or any other day, for that matter. And that reason is the direct result of events that took place on one incredibly significant day thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden. On that day Adam and Eve created a significant problem for humanity – and that’s why we’re here tonight.

For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Those were God’s last words – last curse, really – to Adam after he and his wife had eaten fruit from the forbidden tree. God had warned them that if they ate the fruit from that one tree that they would surely die (Genesis 2:17) – but they didn’t listen, they didn’t believe, they didn’t trust God’s Word and trusted the words of Satan instead. And from that day on, death became the inescapable end of life for Adam and Eve and all of their ancestors – just as God said it would.

For you are dust, and to dust you shall return is a loaded sentence, packed with meaning. First, it recalls the origin of human life, that God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into him to give him consciousness and life (Genesis 2:7). Second, it acknowledges that because of his sin, Adam’s body would return to dust and his soul would return to God, what we call temporal death (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Third, and most importantly for us tonight, it acknowledges the spiritual death that Adam and Eve had brought into the world by their rebellious actions. Adam and Eve would from that point on be banished from the presence of God, separated from his love, mercy and compassion. Adam would have to live the rest of his life remembering those words of God; longing for his presence; wishing that he could travel back in time and reverse what he had done. But he couldn’t. The dirty deed had been done and could not be undone. Adam and Eve’s fates were sealed: You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

This is no myth nor is it just some interesting piece of history. This story has a direct impact on our lives here and now. Because you and I are conceived and born facing the same problem Adam and Eve did. The Apostle Paul writes: Just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned (Romans 5:12). Worse than, as has been alleged, some scientist in some lab in Wuhan, China somehow getting infected and spreading Covid-19 throughout the world – Adam’s sin infects each and every human being – including you and me, my children and yours – so that it could rightly be said at the birth of a child: you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (How’s that for a greeting card?)

It’s a significant problem, to put it mildly. But it’s a problem that we will go to great lengths to avoid thinking about, to prevent, to delay, to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Why are some of the biggest buildings in our country hospitals? (They’re kind of like the cathedrals of the modern western world.) Why do you think we’re still wearing masks – and now, doubling and tripling them up – even though it is highly debatable what, if any, impact they have on minimizing the spread of Covid-19? Why has our nation poured billions of dollars into developing a vaccine, why do we gobble down prescription pills like candy, why do we spend hours each week running and biking and exercising? Because we suffer under the illusion that by doing those things we can prevent – or at least delay – the onset of death. (I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do what we can to live healthy lifestyles, but the truth is that God has already picked the day you and I will die, and there’s nothing we can do to change his timetable (Hebrews 9:27).) The point being that in spite of our best efforts, in spite of thousands of years of medical and scientific advancements, God’s curse still stands undefeated today: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

That’s the first reason we’re here this evening. We’re here to agree with God’s proclamation that we are dust. We’re here to confess our sin to God and to one another – which is the root cause of death. We’re here express our sorrow over our sins. We’re here to ask God for forgiveness. We ask God to help us leave our sinful lives behind and to give us the strength to live according to his will.

And yet, there’s something even more important for you to remember this evening than the fact that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Do you know what that is? It’s that God remembers that you are dust. David says in Psalm 103: [God] knows how we were formed. He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). In fact, God didn’t say those words to Adam just to scare him but to comfort him. God wanted Adam to know that he knew he was dust and promised that he had decided to act on that knowledge. Just four verses before this, on that same significant day, God spoke to Satan and swore that he was going to send someone to crush his head and destroy all his wicked work, including death (Genesis 3:15; 1 John 3:8).

And, as we know, this was more than an empty threat. We know that God has taken action for us on the basis of his knowledge that we are dust. He sent his Son to take on human flesh – to assume our dust, if you will (John 1:14). In terms that even the secular, ungodly world around us could understand, God developed and sent Jesus to earth as the vaccine – not just for a single, mutant virus – but for death itself. Jesus is our vaccine for death because he absorbed all of our sin into his own flesh and suffered the punishment sin deserves. He endured the penalty of eternal death on the cross as he was separated from God’s love, mercy and compassion; separated and abandoned from his eternal Father – which is hell itself – a death he declared with that haunting cry: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) And when he was done, he went into the earth, into the dust of the ground, when he was buried in a tomb (Matthew 27:57-61).

But here’s the good news. Here’s why we’re really here tonight. You don’t really need me to tell you that you and your children and mine and everyone else in the world is going to die. You know that – even if you try your best to forget, prevent and delay it. No, you’re here tonight because you need to hear me tell you that even though Jesus was laid in the dust, he didn’t stay there. Three days after his burial he rose from the dust to life – just as he said he would (Matthew 28:6). And, because he did, so will you (John 14:19). When he returns in glory, you and all who believe in him will rise from the dust of the earth with new, perfect, glorified bodies. Bodies that are imperishable and immortal, no longer bound by sin or enslaved by Satan or doomed to die (1 Corinthians 15:35-49).

That’s why you’re here tonight. You’re here to gather before this cross because on a cross Jesus earned your forgiveness and your salvation and your life – life after death, life without end. You’re here because by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s power (1 Corinthians 12:3) you believe that what is more vital than wearing a mask (or two or three) or receiving a vaccine or staying 6 feet away from “folks you don’t live with,” is to receive this promise, this gift of eternal life through Word and Sacrament. You’re here to stare death in the eye and spit in its face and to shout: death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?...Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Corinthians 15:55-56) (And, trust me, shouting that is much more satisfying than shouting at someone for not wearing their mask properly!)

There’s no denying the truth that we are dust, and to dust [we] will return. We know it – but far more importantly – God knows it. And he has not left us to waste away into dust. He came here as a helpless baby, a powerful preacher, and a crucified and risen Savior to guarantee that one day we will rise from the dust of the grave to never-ending life in heaven. This is Lent. We don’t need Lent to remind us that we are dust – those reminders are everywhere; we need Lent to remind us that God has not left us in the dust. Amen.

Mark 9:2-9 - Last Stop Before Lent - February 14, 2021

When you’re on a road trip, you’ll occasionally see signs issuing rather strong advice. “Last exit before toll road” tells you to get off the road if you don’t want to pay. “Last rest area for 92 miles” tells you if you have to go, stop and go now. “Last gas for 200 miles” tells you to fill up if you’re running low. “Stop here before going on” is the message these signs convey. Well, if we see the Christian church year as a road trip, then Transfiguration is a sign telling us to stop, to pause before we enter the season of Lent.

The question is: why? Why stop here on this mountaintop? There’s no question that this is a pretty fascinating scene. Jesus is transfigured in front of his disciples, revealing his true glory as God. And Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the law and the prophets respectively, are there. These two details combined tell us that this mountaintop is a sample of the resurrection life. It appears to indicate that in heaven we will recognize each other – even saints we’ve never met. It gives definite proof that there is no such thing as “soul sleep” or “conditional immortality” – the false teaching of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other false religions that when a person dies they drop into an unconscious state until the end of time, [1] because here Moses – who died and was buried (Deuteronomy 34:5-6) – and, Elijah who was taken to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2), are both fully alive and fully conscious. Here we see what the believers who have gone before us are enjoying now and what we look forward to enjoying in the future.

And yet, as interesting as all this is, why does our Lord stop us here before he begins his final journey to the cross? Why in the world do Moses and Elijah show up now, just before Lent? The answer is that this scene connects what Jesus is about to do with the OT. As we read in the last verses of the OT in Malachi: remember the law of my servant Moses, which I commanded to him at Horeb to serve as statutes and judgments over all Israel. Look! I am going to send Elijah the prophet to you before the great and fearful day of the LORD comes! He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with complete destruction (Malachi 4:4-6). Here on the Mt. of Transfiguration these words are fulfilled. Moses is here to remind the disciples (and us) of the law. Elijah is here in power to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. In other words, right before Jesus offers up the New Testament in his blood (Matthew 26:28) we are reminded of where we would be if the story ended with the Old Testament. And it’s not a pretty picture.

We are to remember the Law of Moses, summarized in the 10 commandments. We are to remember how Jesus’ clear and forceful preaching of the law throughout his ministry proves that no one, not the disciples, not the Pharisees, not you and not me have kept God’s law perfectly. We are to remember that no one will be declared righteous in his sight by works of the law, for through the law we become aware of sin (Romans 3:20). Well, what about Elijah, what does his presence mean? Elijah was the preeminent preacher of repentance. The disciples didn’t really understand it at the time, but Jesus told them as they’re coming down the mountain: Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they wanted, just as it was written about him (Mark 9:13). John the Baptist was this Elijah, this forerunner. Like the first Elijah he issued powerful calls to repentance accompanied by the sign of baptism. But like, Elijah, John faced nothing but hostility. Herod did with him what he wanted by chopping off his head (Mark 6:14-29). This travesty only served to guarantee that the Lord would eventually come to strike the land with complete destruction.

What does this mean for us? The Lord wants us to make a last stop on this mountain and look back to the Old Testament and come to the sobering realization that if the story ended there, we’d all be lost and condemned. All the laws of Moses cannot save us; all the powerful preaching and miracles of Elijah cannot turn or convert our hearts from unbelief to faith. We need something and someone better. That’s why at this last stop God takes Moses and Elijah back to heaven so that the disciples would stop looking to them and look to Jesus alone. Transfiguration teaches us to stop with the Old Testament, to understand that the OT cannot save us.

Imagine if at the last stop before an especially barren portion of highway they siphoned the gas out of your car and took the water bottles out of your cooler and that all the restrooms were out of order. That’s kind of what happened to Peter. Six days before the Transfiguration Peter had confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). And once the disciples had a handle on Jesus’ identity, Jesus proceeded to inform them of his work. He taught them the theology of the cross: that [he] must suffer many things; be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the experts in the law; be killed; and after three days rise again (Mark 8:31) – and that anyone who wanted to follow him must similarly take up his cross, and follow [him] (Mark 8:34). And Peter’s gut reaction to this theology was the same as mine: “No way! Jesus, you can’t suffer and die and neither can I! There’s got to be a better, easier way.” (Mark 8:32) Well, Jesus turned around and called him Satan and told him to get his head out of you-know-where. No, really. He told him to get his mind off the things of men and set it on the things of God (Mark 8:33).

Peter’s revulsion to the theology of the cross is probably why he wanted to keep Moses and Elijah in tents up there on that mountain. These heroes of the OT were the cavalry who could save Jesus and him from any kind of cross. At Moses’ command the earth swallowed up his enemies (Numbers 16:31-35); by Moses’ word Egypt was plagued and God’s people delivered (Exodus 7-11). And now he was here. And so was Elijah the prophet who had slaughtered hundreds of prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18) and called fire from heaven down on enemy soldiers (2 Kings 1). The cavalry had arrived and Peter intended to keep them around by putting up tents for them. No more of this talk of being betrayed, rejected, and crucified – not with Moses and Elijah on your side. With these reinforcements, Jesus could become the powerful, glorious Messiah he was longing for. But then – poof! – they were gone. And all he was left with was Jesus, Jesus alone. Some rest stop; some last stop before Lent.

Transfiguration impresses on us that we need to stop being like Peter. What was Peter’s real problem? He wanted a shortcut to glory. He wanted to avoid suffering and the cross at all costs. He wanted to stay there in that little slice of heaven with Moses and Elijah and not have to descend the mountain to watch Jesus be arrested, abused, tortured and crucified – and to endure suffering and temptation himself. And he’s not alone. That’s the original sin, isn’t it? Satan led Adam and Eve to seek a shortcut to godly wisdom by eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6). In a way, every sin is a shortcut to God’s will. And we still take these shortcuts with frightening frequency. Why do people fabricate false gods? Because they want the glory of believing they can achieve their own salvation without the humble confession that we are lost and condemned sinners. Why do we fail to praise Jesus’ name before family and friends? Because we want a shortcut to the glory of acceptance, not the long, hard road of mockery and ridicule – or perhaps even being “canceled” from our career or friend group. We seek the shortcut of escape from stress and depression in substances and distractions to avoid the hard work of repentance and prayer. We cohabitate or secretly lust after images on our devices because we seek the pleasure of marriage without the effort and commitment. And the list could go on. But just like on a road trip, these shortcuts always end up in disaster. Just ask Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:16-19). Just ask Peter, who tried to take a shortcut out of a difficult situation in the temple courtyard by swearing up and down that he didn’t know Jesus, only to end up outside the city weeping bitterly (Matthew 26:75).

Transfiguration means that we need to stop being like Peter as we enter Lent. We need to stop following the seductive shortcuts offered up by Satan and promoted by the world. There are no shortcuts to glory for Jesus or for us. Just as Jesus had to leave that mountain to be arrested, tortured, and crucified, so we must pick up the cross of self-denial and repentance and follow him. And it’s healthy for us to do so. For as we struggle and strive against the sinful nature – and fail again and again – we better understand why we don’t need more laws and we don’t need miracles, we need Jesus, Jesus alone.

What do we get in Jesus alone? The voice from heaven tells us. It says: this is my Son; whom I love. Listen to him. First, this is my Son. The poor man that we will see beaten and bloodied, overwhelmed with sorrow, crying and crucified and forsaken by God is none other than God’s Son. This is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made” (Nicene Creed). Why do we have to remember this? Because unless God kept the law for us, it’s not kept well enough and unless God shed his blood on the cross there is no way that our sins can be covered and our curse removed. Unless Jesus is God, Lent and Christianity itself are a complete waste of time.

Second, whom I love. The Father is saying more than that he just loves his Son. The Greek literally says that Jesus is the beloved. God doesn’t just love Jesus, he loves him exclusively. How could he not? He was perfect. The rest of us, we’re terrible disappointments. How could he love us? Why, when we look in the mirror, would anyone love us? But God does. God loved us so much that he sent his beloved Son to bear the curse of sin – the never-ending torment of hell – on the cross, all so that he could turn towards us in love. This is why we need Lent every year. This means that Lent is very personal for each of us. We can’t view Lent with a cold and detached disinterest, as if we were just watching a movie. The hatred, the suffering, the death we will hear in our passion history readings over the course of the next six weeks is the hatred, the suffering, the death that we deserved. But Jesus alone, the beloved Son of the Father, will endure it so that we never will. Lent is for no one but sinners. Lent is for you and for me.

Third, listen to him. Don’t listen to the accusations that Moses’ law levels against you that tell you that you deserve nothing but death and damnation. Listen to Jesus who suffered death and damnation in your place. Don’t listen to the devil’s false promises of glory without the cross; listen to Jesus’ promise that the way of the cross is the only road to glory (Mark 9:34-35). Don’t listen to the world which tries to distract you with earthly things; listen to Jesus who keeps your focus on the never-ending glory of life that awaits you in heaven (Philippians 3:20).  

And where can you listen to Jesus? Not in your heart – your heart is deceitful above all things and incurable (Jeremiah 17:9). Not in the world. The world is under the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19). We listen to Jesus in His Word. Once again this Lent we’re going to hear Jesus say some beautiful things: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34); Today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43); My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34); It is finished (John 19:30); Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46). These are words that Moses and Elijah never spoke. These are words you will never hear from the devil, the world or your sinful flesh. These are words that Jesus alone can and does speak to you. These are words spoken from a cross to people living under a cross that lead to true glory. These are the words of Jesus. As we begin Lent this week, it is well worth our time to make every effort to listen to him.

This is Transfiguration. This is our last stop before Lent. Let’s not waste it. Let’s stop thinking that salvation can be found in either the laws of Moses or the miracles of Elijah. Let’s stop being like Peter, hoping to find a shortcut to glory without the cross. Let’s stop, look, and listen to Jesus alone – for hidden in his cross and ours we find true, lasting glory. Amen.

[1] https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/soul-sleep/