In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Dear Redeemed in Christ:
One of the aspects of parenthood more and more neglected — even rejected — by more and more parents is the calling, the responsibility, the duty to protect those placed by God under their care. Parents can be great friends to their children and grandchildren, important mentors and confidantes and guides and resources for their kids. But before any of that, there's the matter of protecting those who can't fend for themselves: those who are most vulnerable and at risk. Care-taking, protecting, and watching out for those who cannot yet take care of themselves is a constant responsibility, a 24/7 job, a life-long labor of love for the sake of those to whom we will pass the torch, in the same way our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were called to protect and defend and sacrifice for us and for all to whom they left their legacy.
"To serve and protect" is not some slogan only for the side of a police cruiser. That is why, last Sunday, we not only gave thanks to God for the good confession given by this year's five Confirmands, but also, by God's grace, renewed our pledge to pray for them and, as a congregation, continue to watch over them as they grow up in their Christian faith and life.
We take Confirmation — and youth group, and Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School and Preschool — seriously because we take seriously the spiritual welfare of those placed under our care, by parents and grandparents and by God himself. It's what we've been called in Christ and his mercy to be and to do.
And that means not only putting a security fence around the preschool and providing adult supervision when the youth group goes to Six Flags.
We, as Christ's Church, are called to "serve and protect" those placed under our care, those most precious to our Lord. That's the command part, the Law part, of the Great Commission given to us by the One who has been given all power and authority in heaven and on earth. "As you are going," Jesus says, "make disciples of all nations." It is as if our Lord is saying, "I am sending you out into the world, that I may graciously work 'in, with and under' you to create and sustain saving faith in my own dear children from every language and nation and people. I am calling you to be my ambassadors and servants entrusted with all that you will need to bring salvation to the ends of the earth."
And, as I have said before, Christ does not leave it up to our imaginations how he will accomplish this miracle of creating trusting hearts and minds from spiritually dead and rebellious people.
What does he say? "I will, through my Church, make disciples by means of healers who can talk with the dead."? By means of the believer's own will-power to turn their life over to God and believe in him with their whole heart and mind and soul."? By means of what my own fallen intuition tells me is the leading of the Spirit."? By means of what make the most sense to the world or the world's own religions."?
Christ clearly announces to Peter and the Disciples and the entire Christian Church on earth that disciples will be graciously made by the Lord of heaven and earth by means of — what? By means of Word and Sacrament, by means of the entire Word of God Christ has revealed to the Apostles and by means of the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper that is naturally to follow in the lives of the Baptized.
Christ makes disciples through his own, divinely appointed means: Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. "Salvation," Jesus says, "is to be found where I have established it and sustain it: in the grace offered and given through my Word of forgiveness in, with, and under water, my Word of forgiveness in, with and under bread and wine. Here you will find me with my gracious gifts, working in you and all my children the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Look for me here — at the Baptismal font, in that same life-giving water created from my all-powerful Word that water that gave birth to creation, to the heavens and the earth."
And, this morning, we are once again reminded that not only was the gracious creation of the world a trinitarian event, the work of the One true God in the persons of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but the even more gracious salvation of the world was won in Our Lord Christ winning what he had been sent by the father to accomplish: redemption through the giving of his perfect life upon the altar of the Cross, that Cross upon which Christ handed over to his Father the Spirit, that it might be poured out upon all God's children on the day of Pentecost.
Our creation and our re-creation is by the gracious hand of our trinitarian God. That is what he has revealed to the prophets and apostles to be proclaimed and believed and defended by his Church until Christ comes again.
That's why every service here begins in the name (singular) of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. That's why every Baptism in this sanctuary is administered in the name of the Trinity — because in his grace and loving-kindness, the greatest gift given to us by the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit is, as the second commandment reveals, his saving Name.
And that name is not kept holy when we smother it in bubble wrap and put it in the church's safety-deposit box. It is kept holy when used by Christ's Church and each of us Christians when we wake up in the morning and when we go to bed at night, when we gather for fellowship around the table and around the Scriptures, when we share the Word of God with ourselves and with our families and with our neighbor. When we use it daily (and this is the catch) — in God-given faith.
God the Father has called each of us and all of us together to treasure and protect and defend all that he has revealed about himself through Christ and his Word and Spirit. And, at the most fundamental level, that means upholding and guarding and singing and confessing and sharing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: one God in three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
And we keep and treasure Scripture's teaching of the Trinity as our precious treasure because so much of what calls itself Christian or spiritual or religious or uplifting has no need of Scripture's teaching of the Trinity, or even teaches against it.
The doctrine of the Trinity was the first great struggle of the early Church. And, by God's grace, the Church's confession as spoken in the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed was a faithful one, one that reflected the truth of the Holy Scriptures and no more than that.
In many congregations this morning, Holy Trinity Sunday is no longer recognized as anything special or great or precious or worth observing. It is simply another Sunday in some new series of sermons on how individual Christians can earn God's favor by making themselves nicer people.
But this morning, here, in this place, around lectern and font and pulpit and altar, God again reminds us of who he is and what he does as our gracious, redeeming, life-giving God — with his Word in, with and under water and bread and wine.
God has called us to treasure those he has placed under our care. And, by his grace, he will continue to preserve among us the teaching of the Holy Trinity, that we might feed the youngest among us with the pure, clear and sustaining Word given to us by Christ himself.
May we be found faithful in treasuring the only Name under heaven by which we must be saved, for God's glory, and the salvation of many, especially those entrusted to our care.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Holy Thursday - "The New Testament in My Blood."
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Fellow Redeemed and Heir of Heaven:
"Therefore [Jesus] is the mediator of a new testament, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first testament. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death ... ." (Hebrews 9:15-17a)
God doesn't really mind it that much when we remind him of what he has promised to us. Actually, God loves it when we remind him of his promises. That's the difference between fallen people such as you and me and our gracious gift-giving God. Too often we have little patience when someone goes on about what we have promised to them, especially when it makes our lives more complicated and difficult and stressful and burdensome. "I know, I know. You don't have to remind me!" we think or even say out loud. But, as Martin Luther once said, God loves it when we rub his promises in his ears and — in faith — allow him to do what he loves to do: be faithful to what he has promised on behalf of undeserving, wandering and wayward sheep.
That's the life of true faith: to hold on, come what may, to the promises — the promises that come not from our mouth, but the promises that come from the merciful mouth of the Lord. It's his promise, his commitment, his doing, his faithfulness, his follow-through, his sacrifice of himself on behalf of a people who could not even begin to make amends for their sins and sinfulness.
When the children of Israel heard the Book of the Testament read at the foot of Mount Sinai, they mistakenly believed that it was all about them. "Do this and don't do that, and then you'll be saved." is what they heard. But everything outside of faith can only go one way, and that is the way of the Law and contract and two-way deal. "I'll do this for you if only you first do that for me." is the way a fallen world and a fallen nature always operates — a way that can only lead to one of two spiritual dead-ends: pride or despair.
But God announced his one-way covenant with his people and desired that they would respond with a simple "Amen." But in their fallen-ness the children of Israel replied, "We'll do our duty. We'll fulfill our part of the bargain God, and then we expect you to keep yours."
Yet, for even that sin of believing our redemption begins and ends with our decision and commitment and will-power and action, God freely offers forgiveness undeserved.
Tonight we again hear and take to heart the covenant God made with his people at Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary, a covenant like no other covenant in it's character and its effect. A testament given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob — a testament that is, from beginning to end, a one-way arrangement: from a faithful God to unfaithful sheep caught tight in the brambles of their sin.
The covenant of the Lord is a one-way covenant. It is the Lord's covenant and promise and testament, in the same way it is the Lord's Word and the Lord's Baptism and the Lord's Supper — despite all our foolish attempts to make it something that we do and accomplish.
The Lord will have no talk of two-way deal-making when it comes to the deliverance of his enslaved people. At Passover he comes to save — simply because he loves to show grace and mercy and forgiveness, even when it costs us nothing and costs him everything.
That was the Gospel at the foot of Mount Sinai and that was the Gospel as Jesus stooped at the feet of the disciples in the upper room. "Salvation will be secured eternally through one great sacrifice for your sin and for the sin of an entire fallen world." Jesus is saying. "But it was to my blood that the sacrifices under Abraham and Moses pointed. I have come to not only usher in another covenant and testament and promise; I am that new testament and the final Word on salvation. I am that gracious, saving promise first given to Adam and Eve and to all who would receive it in faith. In the giving up of my life-blood, blessed communion between God and his people is restored. Fellowship at heaven's table is, this night, resurrected with my sacrificial death and the pouring out of my life before God's altar."
On the night of the Passover, the Lord delivered sinful, undeserving people through his Word of grace and promise in, with and under the marks of life offered up and blood shed. There was no "Do this for me and then maybe I'll get you out of your helpless situation." — at least from God. God saves because he loves to save. God forgives because he loves to forgive. God offers up his beloved Son because he is a God of abundant grace who will spare nothing that his people might again enjoy that perfect fellowship given to man before the Fall.
Scripture is very clear: there is no redeeming testament without the shedding of blood. There is no purification without the death of the appointed sacrifice.
God has little need of our great-sounding but empty promises to perfectly obey him and make him proud of us by never sinning again. Christ came to wash us from our sins and take upon himself the dust and dirt of our transgressions.
Christ came to establish forever the eternal, once-for-all new testament, a last will and testament that could only go into effect with his death on the altar of the Cross. And he bids us to simply respond in faith with the words, "Amen. Let it be so for me."
Everything in this miserable world that will not acknowledge and receive in faith the verdict of the last will and testament established by the Lamb of God stands condemned.
Because, when it comes to your salvation, God will hear nothing but the voice of his Son, our High Priest. His cries for us from the manger. His cries for us as he submits to circumcision and the Law. His cries for us as he looked upon helpless and wandering sheep. His cries as he looked to heaven, gave thanks and broke bread as he fed his own with — himself.
Tonight we have been gathered to receive God's pure and saving gift. We have been gathered to hear salvation announced, salvation promised, salvation offered, salvation secured, and, trustingly receive it — as the last will and testament of our Lord is spoken, and the fruits of his death are taken in and extolled with cleansed lips and hearts.
Tonight, around the Lord's Table, we take to heart again the great and final Word on our salvation from John the Evangelist:
"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." (John 13:1 ESV)
Dear Fellow Redeemed and Heir of Heaven:
"Therefore [Jesus] is the mediator of a new testament, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first testament. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death ... ." (Hebrews 9:15-17a)
God doesn't really mind it that much when we remind him of what he has promised to us. Actually, God loves it when we remind him of his promises. That's the difference between fallen people such as you and me and our gracious gift-giving God. Too often we have little patience when someone goes on about what we have promised to them, especially when it makes our lives more complicated and difficult and stressful and burdensome. "I know, I know. You don't have to remind me!" we think or even say out loud. But, as Martin Luther once said, God loves it when we rub his promises in his ears and — in faith — allow him to do what he loves to do: be faithful to what he has promised on behalf of undeserving, wandering and wayward sheep.
That's the life of true faith: to hold on, come what may, to the promises — the promises that come not from our mouth, but the promises that come from the merciful mouth of the Lord. It's his promise, his commitment, his doing, his faithfulness, his follow-through, his sacrifice of himself on behalf of a people who could not even begin to make amends for their sins and sinfulness.
When the children of Israel heard the Book of the Testament read at the foot of Mount Sinai, they mistakenly believed that it was all about them. "Do this and don't do that, and then you'll be saved." is what they heard. But everything outside of faith can only go one way, and that is the way of the Law and contract and two-way deal. "I'll do this for you if only you first do that for me." is the way a fallen world and a fallen nature always operates — a way that can only lead to one of two spiritual dead-ends: pride or despair.
But God announced his one-way covenant with his people and desired that they would respond with a simple "Amen." But in their fallen-ness the children of Israel replied, "We'll do our duty. We'll fulfill our part of the bargain God, and then we expect you to keep yours."
Yet, for even that sin of believing our redemption begins and ends with our decision and commitment and will-power and action, God freely offers forgiveness undeserved.
Tonight we again hear and take to heart the covenant God made with his people at Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary, a covenant like no other covenant in it's character and its effect. A testament given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob — a testament that is, from beginning to end, a one-way arrangement: from a faithful God to unfaithful sheep caught tight in the brambles of their sin.
The covenant of the Lord is a one-way covenant. It is the Lord's covenant and promise and testament, in the same way it is the Lord's Word and the Lord's Baptism and the Lord's Supper — despite all our foolish attempts to make it something that we do and accomplish.
The Lord will have no talk of two-way deal-making when it comes to the deliverance of his enslaved people. At Passover he comes to save — simply because he loves to show grace and mercy and forgiveness, even when it costs us nothing and costs him everything.
That was the Gospel at the foot of Mount Sinai and that was the Gospel as Jesus stooped at the feet of the disciples in the upper room. "Salvation will be secured eternally through one great sacrifice for your sin and for the sin of an entire fallen world." Jesus is saying. "But it was to my blood that the sacrifices under Abraham and Moses pointed. I have come to not only usher in another covenant and testament and promise; I am that new testament and the final Word on salvation. I am that gracious, saving promise first given to Adam and Eve and to all who would receive it in faith. In the giving up of my life-blood, blessed communion between God and his people is restored. Fellowship at heaven's table is, this night, resurrected with my sacrificial death and the pouring out of my life before God's altar."
On the night of the Passover, the Lord delivered sinful, undeserving people through his Word of grace and promise in, with and under the marks of life offered up and blood shed. There was no "Do this for me and then maybe I'll get you out of your helpless situation." — at least from God. God saves because he loves to save. God forgives because he loves to forgive. God offers up his beloved Son because he is a God of abundant grace who will spare nothing that his people might again enjoy that perfect fellowship given to man before the Fall.
Scripture is very clear: there is no redeeming testament without the shedding of blood. There is no purification without the death of the appointed sacrifice.
God has little need of our great-sounding but empty promises to perfectly obey him and make him proud of us by never sinning again. Christ came to wash us from our sins and take upon himself the dust and dirt of our transgressions.
Christ came to establish forever the eternal, once-for-all new testament, a last will and testament that could only go into effect with his death on the altar of the Cross. And he bids us to simply respond in faith with the words, "Amen. Let it be so for me."
Everything in this miserable world that will not acknowledge and receive in faith the verdict of the last will and testament established by the Lamb of God stands condemned.
Because, when it comes to your salvation, God will hear nothing but the voice of his Son, our High Priest. His cries for us from the manger. His cries for us as he submits to circumcision and the Law. His cries for us as he looked upon helpless and wandering sheep. His cries as he looked to heaven, gave thanks and broke bread as he fed his own with — himself.
Tonight we have been gathered to receive God's pure and saving gift. We have been gathered to hear salvation announced, salvation promised, salvation offered, salvation secured, and, trustingly receive it — as the last will and testament of our Lord is spoken, and the fruits of his death are taken in and extolled with cleansed lips and hearts.
Tonight, around the Lord's Table, we take to heart again the great and final Word on our salvation from John the Evangelist:
"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." (John 13:1 ESV)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Palm Sunday — Passion Sunday 2008
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Everything was going as planned. Jesus of Nazareth had performed many signs as Messiah, from the changing of water into wine at Cana to the healing of the man born blind. And now, rumor had it, that he had even raised the dead man Lazarus. Nothing could stop what was now in motion. Jesus was coming to the holy city, God's own city, to deliver God's holy people. No more oppression! No more slavery! No more suffering under the foot of foreign enemies who had made life pure misery for the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The wheels were beginning to turn as Jesus of Nazareth approached Jerusalem in grand style, with his disciples cheering, with the children of Jerusalem singing, with the crowds making a royal highway with their cloaks and palm branches. Soon it would be the time for battle as God's people followed the Messiah in rising up to defeat the foe who had their foot on Israel's neck.
"Hosanna!" they shouted. "Lord, save us!" Save us from our political enemies. Rid this land from the stench of the Romans that we might be free to live as we wish, worship as we want, believe as we desire to believe.
On that first Palm Sunday, Jerusalem was on edge. The Jewish religious leaders were anxious and the Romans were tense with anticipation. The crowds could feel it in the air. The time was ripe for battle and rebellion and insurrection. The normal population of the holy city and the outlying suburbs had grown from about 20,000 to 60 or 80,000. And everyone knew more than a few Jews on that Palm Sunday were armed with more than a palm branch just in case the fighting broke out that afternoon. "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Bring it on, Jesus!" they cried. "Now save us!" Begin in ernest what we've wanted you to do since the beginning of your public ministry! Put us back in power. Restore the glory we once enjoyed as a people in the days of Solomon and in the days of Solomon's Temple. Bring it on. We're ready to follow you into battle!"
That Palm Sunday everything was going as planned. God had finally sent the One to overturn the tables and bring the good life back to the children of Israel. Jesus would make the Romans respect the power of the Lord and his chosen people. No more suffering. No more doubt. No more sadness and disappointment and uncertainty. And it all would begin with this triumphal entry by the anointed Son of David.
But the royal steed on which the conquer rode ... . Couldn't have his disciples found something a little more impressive? A young donkey that seemed to be noticeable uncomfortable with this small stature of a man upon his back? A young donkey that still needed to have its mother lead the way? A much too common-looking beast of burden for the conqueror's procession? How was that going to put fear into the Romans and instill the desire for battle in the hearts and minds of the Jewish population? A poor, miserable donkey?
But, everything was going according to plan. For, you see, although there was no one in and around Jerusalem that Palm Sunday that had a clue what this triumphal entry really meant, everything was going according to plan. God has sent his beloved, his one and only Son from heaven, for just this day and just this entry on just this kind of animal.
There had been no last-minute mix-up. The Anointed One, the Christ, the Son of David and David's Lord, processes into the City of David, Mount Zion, to take it by storm: mounted on a donkey.
Not many years after Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, Roman soldiers mocked Christians as they were led into the Coliseum to be torn apart by bears and lions. They mocked them in hurling insults at them, and they mocked them by drawing graffiti of their Savior: Jesus of Nazareth, ridiculed by being depicted as a donkey crucified upon a cross.
A donkey king? How is it that for two thousand years the Christian Church has seen fit to glory in a donkey king?
That's what the last six weeks and the next seven days are all about. For even today, everyone sees the signs Jesus revealed, but no one sees where those signs actually point.
The crowds that met Jesus that day were caught up in the ecstasy of a Messiah that could heal and raise the dead and provide wine for celebration. The crowds that waved palm branches and shouted "Hosanna!" were caught up in a Jesus of their own making, a glory of their own making, a deliverance of their own making, and not much has changed — even in our day.
Do we really know what Jesus comes to accomplish for us and for all who would, in faith, follow him? Do we really know what enemy Jesus has come to defeat? Do we really grasp the real glory and power and might of the Anointed One sent from heaven?
For anyone here this morning who will listen, the animal upon which Jesus rides is a key into the hidden meaning of this day, the true meaning of Christ and his salvation and our spiritual condition and the world's refusal — our old nature's refusal — to have anything to do with any of it.
Jesus comes to his own, to you and me, on a borrowed beast of burden, as he bears the burden of sins not his own. His entry is not only a humble entry, it is the first step in his great humiliation in delivering us from what really oppresses and strangles us.
This is the way our enemies will be defeated. This is the way we will be released from all that oppresses and binds and smothers and suffocates us. This is the way God promised to save the likes of Adam and Eve and all their poor, miserable, helpless and rebellious children: through the poor, miserable, innocent suffering and death of the One who could change water into wine, heal the blind, cure the lame, and even raise the dead, but could not, would not save himself from the unspeakable horrors of suffering under the burden of our sin.
Everything was going as planned, just as it had the first time Jesus had rode on a donkey: as his mother Mary took the hard road from Nazareth to Bethlehem only to give birth to her firstborn son in a stable cave, among the most unlikely of witnesses: the lowliest beasts of burden, animals fitted with reigns and yokes and saddles, the marks of bondage and hard labor.
We cried out for a glorious Savior, and God sent his King upon a donkey. We clamored for a powerful Deliverer, and heaven sent the most common-looking of men who could do unimaginable miracles and signs, who exhibited unlimited power to restore health and life, but, strangely, refused to out-smart the betrayer's plot, refused to release himself from the bonds of those who arrested and abused him, refused to stand up and defend himself before Caiaphas or Herod or Pilate, refused to even find a horse upon which to ride into Jerusalem. All for your redemption.
"And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it."
Jesus placed all things into the gracious hands of his heavenly Father, and, according to his Father's will, laid aside his glory and the honor due his name, to come to us and do everything in our place, as our substitute.
Jesus was born in your cave. Jesus was born in the chill of your fallen-ness and the poverty of your sin. Jesus lived — to die under the crushing burden we rightly were called by the Law to bear. And he rode into Jerusalem as the donkey king to be fitted with a crown made from the thorny fruit of Adam's betrayal to take his seat on a throne of mercy and forgiveness and nothing-withheld loving-kindness for you and for an entire undeserving world.
God will indeed save his people from their enemies: sin, death and the power of the devil, but he will not deliver them with a war horse and the sword. He will break the oppressor's rod with the blood of his precious Son; he will defeat the captive's chains as his one and only freely offers up his life as the one, eternal sacrifice for sin.
This hour, the King of Israel comes to you. He comes not to shame you or strike a bargain with you or force you into submission. He comes humble and hidden to all but the eyes of faith, in, with and under the most common of means: bread and wine. In his very body and blood, given up for you, offered for you, sacrificed for you upon the Cross, for the forgiveness of all your sins.
Hail, to the Lord's Anointed! Lord, save us!
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Everything was going as planned. Jesus of Nazareth had performed many signs as Messiah, from the changing of water into wine at Cana to the healing of the man born blind. And now, rumor had it, that he had even raised the dead man Lazarus. Nothing could stop what was now in motion. Jesus was coming to the holy city, God's own city, to deliver God's holy people. No more oppression! No more slavery! No more suffering under the foot of foreign enemies who had made life pure misery for the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The wheels were beginning to turn as Jesus of Nazareth approached Jerusalem in grand style, with his disciples cheering, with the children of Jerusalem singing, with the crowds making a royal highway with their cloaks and palm branches. Soon it would be the time for battle as God's people followed the Messiah in rising up to defeat the foe who had their foot on Israel's neck.
"Hosanna!" they shouted. "Lord, save us!" Save us from our political enemies. Rid this land from the stench of the Romans that we might be free to live as we wish, worship as we want, believe as we desire to believe.
On that first Palm Sunday, Jerusalem was on edge. The Jewish religious leaders were anxious and the Romans were tense with anticipation. The crowds could feel it in the air. The time was ripe for battle and rebellion and insurrection. The normal population of the holy city and the outlying suburbs had grown from about 20,000 to 60 or 80,000. And everyone knew more than a few Jews on that Palm Sunday were armed with more than a palm branch just in case the fighting broke out that afternoon. "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Bring it on, Jesus!" they cried. "Now save us!" Begin in ernest what we've wanted you to do since the beginning of your public ministry! Put us back in power. Restore the glory we once enjoyed as a people in the days of Solomon and in the days of Solomon's Temple. Bring it on. We're ready to follow you into battle!"
That Palm Sunday everything was going as planned. God had finally sent the One to overturn the tables and bring the good life back to the children of Israel. Jesus would make the Romans respect the power of the Lord and his chosen people. No more suffering. No more doubt. No more sadness and disappointment and uncertainty. And it all would begin with this triumphal entry by the anointed Son of David.
But the royal steed on which the conquer rode ... . Couldn't have his disciples found something a little more impressive? A young donkey that seemed to be noticeable uncomfortable with this small stature of a man upon his back? A young donkey that still needed to have its mother lead the way? A much too common-looking beast of burden for the conqueror's procession? How was that going to put fear into the Romans and instill the desire for battle in the hearts and minds of the Jewish population? A poor, miserable donkey?
But, everything was going according to plan. For, you see, although there was no one in and around Jerusalem that Palm Sunday that had a clue what this triumphal entry really meant, everything was going according to plan. God has sent his beloved, his one and only Son from heaven, for just this day and just this entry on just this kind of animal.
There had been no last-minute mix-up. The Anointed One, the Christ, the Son of David and David's Lord, processes into the City of David, Mount Zion, to take it by storm: mounted on a donkey.
Not many years after Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, Roman soldiers mocked Christians as they were led into the Coliseum to be torn apart by bears and lions. They mocked them in hurling insults at them, and they mocked them by drawing graffiti of their Savior: Jesus of Nazareth, ridiculed by being depicted as a donkey crucified upon a cross.
A donkey king? How is it that for two thousand years the Christian Church has seen fit to glory in a donkey king?
That's what the last six weeks and the next seven days are all about. For even today, everyone sees the signs Jesus revealed, but no one sees where those signs actually point.
The crowds that met Jesus that day were caught up in the ecstasy of a Messiah that could heal and raise the dead and provide wine for celebration. The crowds that waved palm branches and shouted "Hosanna!" were caught up in a Jesus of their own making, a glory of their own making, a deliverance of their own making, and not much has changed — even in our day.
Do we really know what Jesus comes to accomplish for us and for all who would, in faith, follow him? Do we really know what enemy Jesus has come to defeat? Do we really grasp the real glory and power and might of the Anointed One sent from heaven?
For anyone here this morning who will listen, the animal upon which Jesus rides is a key into the hidden meaning of this day, the true meaning of Christ and his salvation and our spiritual condition and the world's refusal — our old nature's refusal — to have anything to do with any of it.
Jesus comes to his own, to you and me, on a borrowed beast of burden, as he bears the burden of sins not his own. His entry is not only a humble entry, it is the first step in his great humiliation in delivering us from what really oppresses and strangles us.
This is the way our enemies will be defeated. This is the way we will be released from all that oppresses and binds and smothers and suffocates us. This is the way God promised to save the likes of Adam and Eve and all their poor, miserable, helpless and rebellious children: through the poor, miserable, innocent suffering and death of the One who could change water into wine, heal the blind, cure the lame, and even raise the dead, but could not, would not save himself from the unspeakable horrors of suffering under the burden of our sin.
Everything was going as planned, just as it had the first time Jesus had rode on a donkey: as his mother Mary took the hard road from Nazareth to Bethlehem only to give birth to her firstborn son in a stable cave, among the most unlikely of witnesses: the lowliest beasts of burden, animals fitted with reigns and yokes and saddles, the marks of bondage and hard labor.
We cried out for a glorious Savior, and God sent his King upon a donkey. We clamored for a powerful Deliverer, and heaven sent the most common-looking of men who could do unimaginable miracles and signs, who exhibited unlimited power to restore health and life, but, strangely, refused to out-smart the betrayer's plot, refused to release himself from the bonds of those who arrested and abused him, refused to stand up and defend himself before Caiaphas or Herod or Pilate, refused to even find a horse upon which to ride into Jerusalem. All for your redemption.
"And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it."
Jesus placed all things into the gracious hands of his heavenly Father, and, according to his Father's will, laid aside his glory and the honor due his name, to come to us and do everything in our place, as our substitute.
Jesus was born in your cave. Jesus was born in the chill of your fallen-ness and the poverty of your sin. Jesus lived — to die under the crushing burden we rightly were called by the Law to bear. And he rode into Jerusalem as the donkey king to be fitted with a crown made from the thorny fruit of Adam's betrayal to take his seat on a throne of mercy and forgiveness and nothing-withheld loving-kindness for you and for an entire undeserving world.
God will indeed save his people from their enemies: sin, death and the power of the devil, but he will not deliver them with a war horse and the sword. He will break the oppressor's rod with the blood of his precious Son; he will defeat the captive's chains as his one and only freely offers up his life as the one, eternal sacrifice for sin.
This hour, the King of Israel comes to you. He comes not to shame you or strike a bargain with you or force you into submission. He comes humble and hidden to all but the eyes of faith, in, with and under the most common of means: bread and wine. In his very body and blood, given up for you, offered for you, sacrificed for you upon the Cross, for the forgiveness of all your sins.
Hail, to the Lord's Anointed! Lord, save us!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Lenten Sermon: The Cross and the Peculiar Office of the Church
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Redeemed in Christ:
The Christian Church can do a lot of really good things: help people with their loneliness, give parents a place to educate their children, keep teenagers off the streets on Sunday mornings, organize family camping trips, teach people how to sing or play a musical instrument, offer a basketball court to the neighborhood kids, and enjoy potlucks and sauerkraut and jell-o — and dessert.
But what makes a Church that calls itself "Christian" the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is something very peculiar — something very uncommon — something very strange, unexpected and, to more than a few, something very unsettling.
That isn't pointing out to the world our holy living and it's moral failings.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is not that we have some pope or an archbishop or a synodical or district president.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is not that we have a great sanctuary that will take your breath away or a hand-carved altar imported from the Black Forest.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is not the presence of expensive paraments draped over pulpit or lectern or altar or pastor.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church cannot be discerned in silver-plated chalices or gold-plated offering plates.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is "peculiar" because it is something that God has called only his Church to be and to do. Not the psychologist, not the politician, not the welfare agency, not the hospital or the school or university or athletic club.
And, contrary to popular thought, this peculiar "office" is not found among the clutter of the pastor's study. It is not the kind of office with a door, desk, phone and stapler. It is a peculiar role, calling, duty, responsibility, command given only to the Church by the Lord and Ruler of the Church: Christ himself.
And to properly understand that special calling, we turn to two special passages of Scripture: Matthew 16 and John 20.
Now if you attended the Bible studies on the Gospel of Matthew several weeks ago you might remember that Matthew 16:13-20 is the culmination of the entire three year ministry of Jesus with his disciples, a three year ministry of Jesus preaching faith into the disciples, and the resulting fruit of faith as Jesus' asks the Twelve: "But who do you (plural) — you all — say that I am?" Hear what the disciples confess through their spokesman, the first among equals: Peter. (Read Matthew 16:16-19.)
Only upon this confession of faith — a confession of faith that faithfully reflects what God himself has revealed about his Son through his Word and Spirit — will Christ build his Church.
But what a peculiar Church it will be: a Church under Christ exercising it's peculiar calling to bind and release one specific thing: sin.
This is what so much of what calls itself Christian today has forgotten or neglected or disdained as it trumpets it's own ability to release people from a spirit of low self-esteem or a demon of arthritis or the bonds of financial insecurity or the burden of a seemingly unfulfilling marriage.
The forgiveness of sins — real, unconditional, free, no-strings-attached forgiveness of sins — is the peculiar mark of the true Christian Church because only the true Christian Church has been given the call and authority to use the God-given keys that unlock and open — and close and bolt shut — the gates of heaven.
That is why we confess in the Creed that we believe in "the forgiveness of sins" when we talk about the saving work of the Holy Spirit as he creates and sustains the Church of Christ.
No Holy Spirit, no true Christian Church. No true Christian Church, no office of the keys. No office of the keys, no forgiveness of sins. No forgiveness of sins, no chance of heaven for hopeless sinners.
Now maybe some days we aren't all that convinced that the freeing and binding of people and their sins is all that peculiar or special or essential when it comes to the Christian Church. Why else would millions and millions of people walk away from congregations who spotlight the office of the keys in order to join a church that never mentions forgiveness, let alone that little three-letter word "sin"?
For anyone wondering if the office of the keys is a big deal to Christ and should be a big deal to the Church and to each of us as Christians, take a good hard look at John 20 and re-discover the first things Jesus had on his mind as he greets the Twelve (minus Judas and Thomas) on that first Easter Sunday. (Read John 20:19-23.)
The gracious gift of the crucified and risen Christ brings the gift of the peace his Cross secured. The gift of the redeeming presence of Christ brings the gift of the Holy Spirit and the call to be the body of Christ as he — through his Church and his pastors — forgives those who in faith confess their sins and look to Christ alone for their forgiveness — and retains the sins of those who will not lay their sins before the crucified Savior.
Now on some days we might think that the Church can't be the Church if the electricity goes out or the water main breaks or someone forgot to brew the coffee and pick up the donuts. But this afternoon / tonight God gathers us to again remind us that the true Christian Church can actually survive very well without all the conveniences that we've somehow made into necessities.
There is one thing that robs the Christian Church of its peculiarity, its uniqueness, its calling and duty and responsibility and obligation — and gracious privilege — as the Body of Christ: the absence of the exercise of the office of the keys, the releasing and binding, the locking and unlocking, the forgiving and retaining of sin.
Listen to me closely. Christ has not called the Church to make the world admire her or obey her or behave like her.
When it comes to everything outside of Christ and his body, the Church, the only authority any congregation is called to exercise is the authority to forgive the sins of those who look to Christ as their gracious Redeemer and Substitute.
Martin Luther, preaching on John 20:19-31, admonishes us when he says, "Christ's mandate to his disciples was not to have secular authority, but to preach the Gospel and to have authority over sins. Christ himself defined the commission and the authority: preach the Gospel, and remit and retain sins. The power of the apostolic keys, first and foremost, is to preach the Gospel of Christ, to bind and to loose sins." (Klug. Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils. 2:62.)
Well, O.K., the Church may do many things pretty well, but there's one peculiar thing it has been called to carry out: announce forgiveness to those who look to Christ with repentant hearts. — But what does all of this have to do with having our faith strengthened and our hope and comfort in Christ and his grace deepened?
Let's take another look at the Small Catechism, as it shows what Scripture reveals about "the Office of the Ministry."
What do you believe according to these words (John 20:22-23)?
I believe that, when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by his divine command, especially when they exclude manifest and impenitent sinners from the Christian congregation, and again, when they absolve those who repent of their sins and are willing to amend, this is as valid and certain, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us himself.
Yes, there is the stern warning that those who are not repentant, those who will not look to Christ and his work upon the Cross for their deliverance will in no way have their sins forgiven. The Church is called to uphold that truth and prevent it from being watered down or put into the storage shed out back.
But for those who are hear today struggling with a sinful act or an impure thought or a word said that seems too great for even the Church to forgive — I say to you: Christ has given his life, lovingly, for all of your sins and for the sins of the entire world. He has taken upon himself on the Cross the weight of your sin. The sin that terrifies you and gnaws at you and binds itself to you has been — through your baptism — dragged to the Cross of Christ to be forever buried in his tomb.
And the same Christ who forgave his disciples for their unforgivable unbelief and doubt and cowardice and sent his Church out to preach the Cross and forgive the penitent who put their faith in it — that same Christ forgives you and gives you his saving peace as you hear the pastor declare, "Upon this, your confession, ... I forgive you all your sins."
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Redeemed in Christ:
The Christian Church can do a lot of really good things: help people with their loneliness, give parents a place to educate their children, keep teenagers off the streets on Sunday mornings, organize family camping trips, teach people how to sing or play a musical instrument, offer a basketball court to the neighborhood kids, and enjoy potlucks and sauerkraut and jell-o — and dessert.
But what makes a Church that calls itself "Christian" the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is something very peculiar — something very uncommon — something very strange, unexpected and, to more than a few, something very unsettling.
That isn't pointing out to the world our holy living and it's moral failings.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is not that we have some pope or an archbishop or a synodical or district president.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is not that we have a great sanctuary that will take your breath away or a hand-carved altar imported from the Black Forest.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is not the presence of expensive paraments draped over pulpit or lectern or altar or pastor.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church cannot be discerned in silver-plated chalices or gold-plated offering plates.
The peculiar thing about the true Christian Church is "peculiar" because it is something that God has called only his Church to be and to do. Not the psychologist, not the politician, not the welfare agency, not the hospital or the school or university or athletic club.
And, contrary to popular thought, this peculiar "office" is not found among the clutter of the pastor's study. It is not the kind of office with a door, desk, phone and stapler. It is a peculiar role, calling, duty, responsibility, command given only to the Church by the Lord and Ruler of the Church: Christ himself.
And to properly understand that special calling, we turn to two special passages of Scripture: Matthew 16 and John 20.
Now if you attended the Bible studies on the Gospel of Matthew several weeks ago you might remember that Matthew 16:13-20 is the culmination of the entire three year ministry of Jesus with his disciples, a three year ministry of Jesus preaching faith into the disciples, and the resulting fruit of faith as Jesus' asks the Twelve: "But who do you (plural) — you all — say that I am?" Hear what the disciples confess through their spokesman, the first among equals: Peter. (Read Matthew 16:16-19.)
Only upon this confession of faith — a confession of faith that faithfully reflects what God himself has revealed about his Son through his Word and Spirit — will Christ build his Church.
But what a peculiar Church it will be: a Church under Christ exercising it's peculiar calling to bind and release one specific thing: sin.
This is what so much of what calls itself Christian today has forgotten or neglected or disdained as it trumpets it's own ability to release people from a spirit of low self-esteem or a demon of arthritis or the bonds of financial insecurity or the burden of a seemingly unfulfilling marriage.
The forgiveness of sins — real, unconditional, free, no-strings-attached forgiveness of sins — is the peculiar mark of the true Christian Church because only the true Christian Church has been given the call and authority to use the God-given keys that unlock and open — and close and bolt shut — the gates of heaven.
That is why we confess in the Creed that we believe in "the forgiveness of sins" when we talk about the saving work of the Holy Spirit as he creates and sustains the Church of Christ.
No Holy Spirit, no true Christian Church. No true Christian Church, no office of the keys. No office of the keys, no forgiveness of sins. No forgiveness of sins, no chance of heaven for hopeless sinners.
Now maybe some days we aren't all that convinced that the freeing and binding of people and their sins is all that peculiar or special or essential when it comes to the Christian Church. Why else would millions and millions of people walk away from congregations who spotlight the office of the keys in order to join a church that never mentions forgiveness, let alone that little three-letter word "sin"?
For anyone wondering if the office of the keys is a big deal to Christ and should be a big deal to the Church and to each of us as Christians, take a good hard look at John 20 and re-discover the first things Jesus had on his mind as he greets the Twelve (minus Judas and Thomas) on that first Easter Sunday. (Read John 20:19-23.)
The gracious gift of the crucified and risen Christ brings the gift of the peace his Cross secured. The gift of the redeeming presence of Christ brings the gift of the Holy Spirit and the call to be the body of Christ as he — through his Church and his pastors — forgives those who in faith confess their sins and look to Christ alone for their forgiveness — and retains the sins of those who will not lay their sins before the crucified Savior.
Now on some days we might think that the Church can't be the Church if the electricity goes out or the water main breaks or someone forgot to brew the coffee and pick up the donuts. But this afternoon / tonight God gathers us to again remind us that the true Christian Church can actually survive very well without all the conveniences that we've somehow made into necessities.
There is one thing that robs the Christian Church of its peculiarity, its uniqueness, its calling and duty and responsibility and obligation — and gracious privilege — as the Body of Christ: the absence of the exercise of the office of the keys, the releasing and binding, the locking and unlocking, the forgiving and retaining of sin.
Listen to me closely. Christ has not called the Church to make the world admire her or obey her or behave like her.
When it comes to everything outside of Christ and his body, the Church, the only authority any congregation is called to exercise is the authority to forgive the sins of those who look to Christ as their gracious Redeemer and Substitute.
Martin Luther, preaching on John 20:19-31, admonishes us when he says, "Christ's mandate to his disciples was not to have secular authority, but to preach the Gospel and to have authority over sins. Christ himself defined the commission and the authority: preach the Gospel, and remit and retain sins. The power of the apostolic keys, first and foremost, is to preach the Gospel of Christ, to bind and to loose sins." (Klug. Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils. 2:62.)
Well, O.K., the Church may do many things pretty well, but there's one peculiar thing it has been called to carry out: announce forgiveness to those who look to Christ with repentant hearts. — But what does all of this have to do with having our faith strengthened and our hope and comfort in Christ and his grace deepened?
Let's take another look at the Small Catechism, as it shows what Scripture reveals about "the Office of the Ministry."
What do you believe according to these words (John 20:22-23)?
I believe that, when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by his divine command, especially when they exclude manifest and impenitent sinners from the Christian congregation, and again, when they absolve those who repent of their sins and are willing to amend, this is as valid and certain, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us himself.
Yes, there is the stern warning that those who are not repentant, those who will not look to Christ and his work upon the Cross for their deliverance will in no way have their sins forgiven. The Church is called to uphold that truth and prevent it from being watered down or put into the storage shed out back.
But for those who are hear today struggling with a sinful act or an impure thought or a word said that seems too great for even the Church to forgive — I say to you: Christ has given his life, lovingly, for all of your sins and for the sins of the entire world. He has taken upon himself on the Cross the weight of your sin. The sin that terrifies you and gnaws at you and binds itself to you has been — through your baptism — dragged to the Cross of Christ to be forever buried in his tomb.
And the same Christ who forgave his disciples for their unforgivable unbelief and doubt and cowardice and sent his Church out to preach the Cross and forgive the penitent who put their faith in it — that same Christ forgives you and gives you his saving peace as you hear the pastor declare, "Upon this, your confession, ... I forgive you all your sins."
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
"My Eyes" Sunday - John 9 - March 2, 2008
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters Enlightened in the waters of Baptism:
It is confessed every time we sing "Amazing grace."
It is confessed every time we remember our Baptism or receive the Lord's Supper.
It is confessed every time we gather as the sun sets for the service of Evening Prayer:
"Jesus Christ is the Light of the world; the light no darkness can overcome."
We have heard it since our days in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School.
We have seen it depicted in our illustrated Bibles and stained glass windows.
We have joined the disciples on the road to Emmaus as we find ourselves in the saving presence of Jesus and cry out to him,
"Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening, and the day is almost over.
Let your light scatter the darkness and illumine your Church."
For generations this Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, has been referred to as OCULI Sunday -- "My eyes" Sunday -- ever since the words of Psalm 25 were used as the Introit for this particular week in Lent: "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, ... ." (Psalm 25:15 ESV); and the words of Psalm 123 were read or sung as the congregation readied itself for the reading of the Holy Gospel: "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!" (Psalm 123:1)
But even though today is referred to as "my eyes" Sunday, the object of the verb is not our eyes but the object upon which our eyes are drawn. "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!"
This morning God has, in his abundant grace, gathered us around his Word and his Son and his Light and his Sacraments, that we might receive them with the eye of faith and put our trust in his saving treasures: the enlightening work of our compassionate Lord on behalf of all who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. (Luke 1:79)
The ninth chapter of John has always enjoyed a special place in the hearts of God's redeemed people. As it is with many other sections of the fourth Gospel, this chapter soars in setting before our eyes a sign -- a manifestation -- of Christ's glory, that we might see salvation come not only from the hand of Christ, but especially his mouth, and respond with both our mouth and hand in an offering of thanksgiving.
Sadly, such is not the case with everyone who sees with their eyes and hears with their ears God's final revelation of salvation in his Son. We see that clearly and dramatically in this chapter of John's Gospel account, but for the catechumen, the believing student, of the fourth Gospel, it is no surprise.
For you see, everything has already been laid out before our eyes in the first few verses of Saint John's inspired Gospel. Redemption by the very Word of God taking upon himself our fallen flesh, that the light of God's grace might shine into the darkness of our sin-diseased hearts. Notice the themes of light and darkness and the gift of sight as we read together the first 18 verses of John. (Read John 1:1-18)
Those 18 verses reveal more about God and his grace and Moses and Christ and the wretched state of this fallen world and our spiritual blindness than just about every book sitting on the shelves in today's Christian bookstores.
In our Gospel today we see Jesus confront the darkness that has not only clouded and obscured our minds and our hearts but made us rebels that rage against the light, the light that exposes so that it might then illuminate, the light that uncovers our wretchedness so that it might be covered with the righteousness of God's Son who came to tent -- tabernacle -- among us.
Now the Gospel of John is structured around seven signs that shock all who see it and provoke a response that is attentive to the Word that follows, the word from Jesus that scatters the darkness and illuminates our darkened souls.
The first "sign" John presents is the miraculous gift of wine during the wedding at Cana, and the healing of the man born blind is the sixth, to be followed by (seemingly) the final sign as Jesus brings forth Lazarus from the dead.
But as we see in this ninth chapter, the miracle is given as an occasion to look upon the greater revelation from the lips of the Savior -- the gracious promise hidden to all but the eyes of faith as Jesus says: "Go, wash."
This section cannot be properly used to argue that we are not born sinful any more than it can be used to argue that it was the blind man's obedience and good work of following orders that ultimately account for his healing. Hidden in Jesus' instructions is his promise that creates trust to go and wash, just as it does when we hear the words, "Take, eat. Take, drink."
The Word made flesh created the heavens and the earth from nothing. He spoke and by his gracious will it was. And that same Word, now made flesh, created faith in the man born blind -- faith that believes Jesus as he says, "Trust in me and my salvation. With the same clay from which I created your first parent, I now re-create your sight and the greater gift of faith that looks to me for the redemption of this sin-blinded world."
A man born blind suffered the debilitating effects of a dark and dying world and to it was added the judgment of neighbors and passers-by who believed that somehow he -- or someone else in the family -- had deserved it.
My family is, today, in the Lutheran Church because -- in the midst of a family member born deformed and dying -- good-intentioned Christians told my parents that this was a direct result of some secret sin the two of them had committed -- a sin that they needed to make amends for before my brother's condition worsened.
In my parent's struggling with what Scripture revealed about sin and the effects of sin they were guided to the faithful counsel of a Lutheran pastor who simply sat down with my parents and a Bible and said, "Every one of us has been born into a sinful and fallen world and every one of us manifests that fallen-ness in different ways. I don't know why your son was born so sick. But let me tell you what I do know: God is a God of grace who has allowed this tragedy into your lives for the strengthening of your faith and ultimately for his glory."
We are, outside of God's grace and the redeeming Word of his Son, spiritually-blind people suffering in many and various ways the effects of our first parent's fall.
And regardless of what the TV and radio evangelists say, our hope is not that we have opened our eyes and decided to think good thoughts and make the world a little more like heaven.
Our hope begins with the confession that we were conceived and born with sin-infected eyes that refused to see anything farther than the illusion of gaining heaven by our own good works.
Our hope, this Fourth Sunday in Lent, or any other day, is to be found not in our fallen eyes, but in the eyes of another, who, passing by, saw us with the eyes of divine grace: the great I AM who's eyes are eyes of mercy and forgiveness, eyes of a loving-kindness that will not rest until all has been given to secure and offer son-ship in the kingdom of glory.
Jesus ... having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:35-39 ESV)
Christ comes to reveal signs and wonders, that he might then reveal the glory of his redeeming grace. He is the great I AM. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is your healing substitute and sacrifice. And he has looked upon you with his eye of forgiveness -- from the Cross.
A blessed OCULI Sunday to each of you — in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters Enlightened in the waters of Baptism:
It is confessed every time we sing "Amazing grace."
It is confessed every time we remember our Baptism or receive the Lord's Supper.
It is confessed every time we gather as the sun sets for the service of Evening Prayer:
"Jesus Christ is the Light of the world; the light no darkness can overcome."
We have heard it since our days in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School.
We have seen it depicted in our illustrated Bibles and stained glass windows.
We have joined the disciples on the road to Emmaus as we find ourselves in the saving presence of Jesus and cry out to him,
"Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening, and the day is almost over.
Let your light scatter the darkness and illumine your Church."
For generations this Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, has been referred to as OCULI Sunday -- "My eyes" Sunday -- ever since the words of Psalm 25 were used as the Introit for this particular week in Lent: "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, ... ." (Psalm 25:15 ESV); and the words of Psalm 123 were read or sung as the congregation readied itself for the reading of the Holy Gospel: "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!" (Psalm 123:1)
But even though today is referred to as "my eyes" Sunday, the object of the verb is not our eyes but the object upon which our eyes are drawn. "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!"
This morning God has, in his abundant grace, gathered us around his Word and his Son and his Light and his Sacraments, that we might receive them with the eye of faith and put our trust in his saving treasures: the enlightening work of our compassionate Lord on behalf of all who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. (Luke 1:79)
The ninth chapter of John has always enjoyed a special place in the hearts of God's redeemed people. As it is with many other sections of the fourth Gospel, this chapter soars in setting before our eyes a sign -- a manifestation -- of Christ's glory, that we might see salvation come not only from the hand of Christ, but especially his mouth, and respond with both our mouth and hand in an offering of thanksgiving.
Sadly, such is not the case with everyone who sees with their eyes and hears with their ears God's final revelation of salvation in his Son. We see that clearly and dramatically in this chapter of John's Gospel account, but for the catechumen, the believing student, of the fourth Gospel, it is no surprise.
For you see, everything has already been laid out before our eyes in the first few verses of Saint John's inspired Gospel. Redemption by the very Word of God taking upon himself our fallen flesh, that the light of God's grace might shine into the darkness of our sin-diseased hearts. Notice the themes of light and darkness and the gift of sight as we read together the first 18 verses of John. (Read John 1:1-18)
Those 18 verses reveal more about God and his grace and Moses and Christ and the wretched state of this fallen world and our spiritual blindness than just about every book sitting on the shelves in today's Christian bookstores.
In our Gospel today we see Jesus confront the darkness that has not only clouded and obscured our minds and our hearts but made us rebels that rage against the light, the light that exposes so that it might then illuminate, the light that uncovers our wretchedness so that it might be covered with the righteousness of God's Son who came to tent -- tabernacle -- among us.
Now the Gospel of John is structured around seven signs that shock all who see it and provoke a response that is attentive to the Word that follows, the word from Jesus that scatters the darkness and illuminates our darkened souls.
The first "sign" John presents is the miraculous gift of wine during the wedding at Cana, and the healing of the man born blind is the sixth, to be followed by (seemingly) the final sign as Jesus brings forth Lazarus from the dead.
But as we see in this ninth chapter, the miracle is given as an occasion to look upon the greater revelation from the lips of the Savior -- the gracious promise hidden to all but the eyes of faith as Jesus says: "Go, wash."
This section cannot be properly used to argue that we are not born sinful any more than it can be used to argue that it was the blind man's obedience and good work of following orders that ultimately account for his healing. Hidden in Jesus' instructions is his promise that creates trust to go and wash, just as it does when we hear the words, "Take, eat. Take, drink."
The Word made flesh created the heavens and the earth from nothing. He spoke and by his gracious will it was. And that same Word, now made flesh, created faith in the man born blind -- faith that believes Jesus as he says, "Trust in me and my salvation. With the same clay from which I created your first parent, I now re-create your sight and the greater gift of faith that looks to me for the redemption of this sin-blinded world."
A man born blind suffered the debilitating effects of a dark and dying world and to it was added the judgment of neighbors and passers-by who believed that somehow he -- or someone else in the family -- had deserved it.
My family is, today, in the Lutheran Church because -- in the midst of a family member born deformed and dying -- good-intentioned Christians told my parents that this was a direct result of some secret sin the two of them had committed -- a sin that they needed to make amends for before my brother's condition worsened.
In my parent's struggling with what Scripture revealed about sin and the effects of sin they were guided to the faithful counsel of a Lutheran pastor who simply sat down with my parents and a Bible and said, "Every one of us has been born into a sinful and fallen world and every one of us manifests that fallen-ness in different ways. I don't know why your son was born so sick. But let me tell you what I do know: God is a God of grace who has allowed this tragedy into your lives for the strengthening of your faith and ultimately for his glory."
We are, outside of God's grace and the redeeming Word of his Son, spiritually-blind people suffering in many and various ways the effects of our first parent's fall.
And regardless of what the TV and radio evangelists say, our hope is not that we have opened our eyes and decided to think good thoughts and make the world a little more like heaven.
Our hope begins with the confession that we were conceived and born with sin-infected eyes that refused to see anything farther than the illusion of gaining heaven by our own good works.
Our hope, this Fourth Sunday in Lent, or any other day, is to be found not in our fallen eyes, but in the eyes of another, who, passing by, saw us with the eyes of divine grace: the great I AM who's eyes are eyes of mercy and forgiveness, eyes of a loving-kindness that will not rest until all has been given to secure and offer son-ship in the kingdom of glory.
Jesus ... having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:35-39 ESV)
Christ comes to reveal signs and wonders, that he might then reveal the glory of his redeeming grace. He is the great I AM. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is your healing substitute and sacrifice. And he has looked upon you with his eye of forgiveness -- from the Cross.
A blessed OCULI Sunday to each of you — in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Monday, February 04, 2008
"Jesus Alone." Matthew 17:1-9 The Transfiguration of Our Lord
In the Name of Jesus our Saving Glory. Amen
Dear Fellow-Redeemed:
Just this week a member here at Redeemer commented on the unhealthy fascination given by many Christians to the possibility of a physical, brick and mortar temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount so that animal sacrifices might resume and thereby usher in the Last Day.
Why people professing to put their faith in Christ so easily slide back into putting their faith in signs and types and foreshadows while abandoning the real, honest-to-goodness thing that everything else pointed to may be sad, disappointing and lamentable, but not completely surprising.
Guided by the Spirit of Christ working through the Word of God, we should be grieved but not shocked when we see Christians — sometimes even ourselves — hankering for a return to the former things and the old ways with which our old nature, the fallen world and wily Satan will always feel most comfortable: the glory of gold and silver, the glory of institutions and ceremonies and personalities and talents that impress the world and give us what we think we want — what we often think we need: a vehicle to prove to God and our neighbor and ourselves that we are deserving the good things of this life and the next.
God comes to us this morning to reveal to the disciples of Jesus the true place of Moses and Elijah and the true glory of salvation. God comes this morning that each of us might see through the eyes of Peter, James and John, the saving distinction between God's Law and God's Gospel and the difference between salvation by two-way contract and salvation by God's gracious, unmerited gift.
May God mercifully bless the preaching of his Word and the reception of it by faith. Amen.
It's a special Sunday, whether you look at the Christian calendar or the television program schedule. For us brought into this sanctuary by our Lord himself, it is a special, glorious, once-a-year commemoration of the Transfiguration of our Lord on this last Sunday after the Epiphany; for much of the nation, it is a special, glorious, once-a-year commemoration of the best the sports world has to offer: the arena of no second chances, may the best man win, winner take all competition sprinkled with cheerleaders and million-dollar-a-pop commercials.
Today we find ourselves in the middle of two kinds of glory, two kinds of prestige, two kinds of basking in the light of praise and honor and adoration, two kinds of dazzling performance and brilliant achievement. One strengthens the American ideal that with hard work and determination and a little luck, we are ultimately rewarded with the fruits of our effort; and the other strengthens our belief that being rewarded with what we actually deserve is the worst thing that could ever happen to us.
One kind of approach is by two-way contract: sweat and hard work for a glorious reward; the other sees sweat and hard work as the reward for our fall from glory.
One kind of approach desires to live and die by transactions and barters and contracts and deal-making; the other approach desires a different kind of life: one that transforms and remolds our own minds and hearts through something completely unmerited, something completely undeserved, something that is pure grace; pure glorious gift.
The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the 17th chapter:
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. (Matthew 17:1 ESV)
A good question to ask ourselves upon hearing this introductory verse to our Gospel this morning is, "Six days after what?" And for that we need to open the Scriptures and retrace what important event had occurred just before Jesus grabbed the three disciples who made up the inner circle of the Twelve and lead them up this high mountain in Galilee.
What we find in the second half of chapter 16 is the completion of three years of instruction that began way back in chapter 4, instruction by Jesus that finally produces in them a God-given recognition that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Matthew 16:16) Jesus commends the confession given to him by the Twelve through the lips of Peter their spokesman, and announces that upon this true faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah himself will build his eternal Church, through which he will do the double work of binding sins and forgiving sins. And Peter begins to dream of wearing a gold champion ring that would put anything given at the Super-bowl to shame.
But Jesus will not keep the Twelve in the dark when it comes to how this reign of God's saving Word in Christ will be eternally established:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Matthew 16:21 ESV)
Peter again speaks for the Twelve. After three years he still wants salvation by negotiation and vote. "No, Lord! That can't be the way the reign of heaven will be established! That's not fair and that's not what you deserve. Your suffering and death is the last thing we need. We're all waiting for your glorious kingdom, and we'll give even our lives to make it happen."
For the next six days Jesus' unexpected answer kept ringing in their ears:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24b-25 ESV)
Jesus had thrown a bucket of cold water on the disciples' wild dreams of a grand parade into glory hanging on the coattails of triumphant Jesus. It was time to show his little band of followers the difference between salvation by contract and salvation by grace at the top of a high Galilean mountain.
It very well may have been night by the time they reached their destination. As was his habit, Jesus removed himself a stone's throw in order to pray. Saint Luke tells us that Peter and James and John were heavy with sleep, but awoke sometime later to behold a sight that would not only take their breath away but drive them to fall on their faces in fear.
And [Jesus] was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. (Matthew 17:2-3 ESV)
Now this event in which Jesus was transfigured before the disciples was like, well, nothing else during the earthly ministry of Jesus. The Evangelists Matthew and Mark and Luke can only try to describe for us this heavenly scene in earthly language as Peter, James and John get a glimpse of that heavenly glory the divine Son of God had laid aside since the manger as he talks with Moses and Elijah about the greater exodus he was to fulfill at Jerusalem.
It is sleepy-eyed Peter who quickly wants to set up shop for Jesus and Moses and Elijah and get everything ready for the reign of heaven and the coming glory of deliverance for God's special people. But God himself will have no more of Peter's mistaken notions and intervenes with the bright cloud of his hidden majesty.
Falling to the ground, Peter now recalled the reality of his precarious situation as the voice of Yahweh himself thundered from the cloud. He remembered the pleas of the Israelites under Moses after he had come down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments:
Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Exodus 20:18-21 ESV)
This is not the time for Peter to make-a-deal or do some good work to get the Lord's attention and impress the dignitaries. This is a time for the maker of heaven and earth to strengthen his only-begotten:
... behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5 ESV)
This is the center of salvation and the core of life eternal. No talk of you do this for me and then I might do this for you. No talk of a building committee or setting up phone lines for a praise-a-thon. The Almighty re-affirms the verdict on Jesus' one-of-a-kind mission given at his Baptism, while also re-affirming the inspired words given his people through Moses:
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen." (Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV)
And as Peter and James and John raised their heads at the touch of Jesus and his word of comfort, "Rise and have no fear," (Matthew 17:7 ESV) they saw with their eyes what they had heard from the cloud of divine majesty: no longer was there Moses the Law-giver; no longer was there Elijah the prophet who was to usher in the glory of the Messiah and his redeeming kingdom. No glorious cloud. Only the hand and touch of Jesus.
This is one of the most glorious Sundays of the entire year. But it is faith in the Almighty's faithful Son, the Beloved One — God-given and sustained faith in the Word and touch of the only-begotten Son of God come in human flesh—that sees what is truly glorious and redemptive and eternal.
The Word and hands of Christ — as he prays at his Baptism, as he comforts and leads the disciples at his Transfiguration, as he washes and feeds them in the Upper Room, as he announces and embraces his calling to freely lay down his life in the most unfair of exchanges and the most unimaginable deals: our sin for his righteousness; his glory for our shame, his death for our eternal life.
This afternoon, on the gridiron, eleven men will gather to get what they deserve and revel in it. This morning, in this sanctuary, God announces anew — through the glory on the mountain and the glory of the cross and empty tomb — that not only the Twelve but all who put their faith in the Word and touch of Christ with water, with bread and wine, receive the ring of son-ship, the crown of eternal life, the gift only God's grace can give: victory over death, Satan and the grave.
A glorious Transfiguration Sunday to each of you in the name of Christ.
Dear Fellow-Redeemed:
Just this week a member here at Redeemer commented on the unhealthy fascination given by many Christians to the possibility of a physical, brick and mortar temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount so that animal sacrifices might resume and thereby usher in the Last Day.
Why people professing to put their faith in Christ so easily slide back into putting their faith in signs and types and foreshadows while abandoning the real, honest-to-goodness thing that everything else pointed to may be sad, disappointing and lamentable, but not completely surprising.
Guided by the Spirit of Christ working through the Word of God, we should be grieved but not shocked when we see Christians — sometimes even ourselves — hankering for a return to the former things and the old ways with which our old nature, the fallen world and wily Satan will always feel most comfortable: the glory of gold and silver, the glory of institutions and ceremonies and personalities and talents that impress the world and give us what we think we want — what we often think we need: a vehicle to prove to God and our neighbor and ourselves that we are deserving the good things of this life and the next.
God comes to us this morning to reveal to the disciples of Jesus the true place of Moses and Elijah and the true glory of salvation. God comes this morning that each of us might see through the eyes of Peter, James and John, the saving distinction between God's Law and God's Gospel and the difference between salvation by two-way contract and salvation by God's gracious, unmerited gift.
May God mercifully bless the preaching of his Word and the reception of it by faith. Amen.
It's a special Sunday, whether you look at the Christian calendar or the television program schedule. For us brought into this sanctuary by our Lord himself, it is a special, glorious, once-a-year commemoration of the Transfiguration of our Lord on this last Sunday after the Epiphany; for much of the nation, it is a special, glorious, once-a-year commemoration of the best the sports world has to offer: the arena of no second chances, may the best man win, winner take all competition sprinkled with cheerleaders and million-dollar-a-pop commercials.
Today we find ourselves in the middle of two kinds of glory, two kinds of prestige, two kinds of basking in the light of praise and honor and adoration, two kinds of dazzling performance and brilliant achievement. One strengthens the American ideal that with hard work and determination and a little luck, we are ultimately rewarded with the fruits of our effort; and the other strengthens our belief that being rewarded with what we actually deserve is the worst thing that could ever happen to us.
One kind of approach is by two-way contract: sweat and hard work for a glorious reward; the other sees sweat and hard work as the reward for our fall from glory.
One kind of approach desires to live and die by transactions and barters and contracts and deal-making; the other approach desires a different kind of life: one that transforms and remolds our own minds and hearts through something completely unmerited, something completely undeserved, something that is pure grace; pure glorious gift.
The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the 17th chapter:
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. (Matthew 17:1 ESV)
A good question to ask ourselves upon hearing this introductory verse to our Gospel this morning is, "Six days after what?" And for that we need to open the Scriptures and retrace what important event had occurred just before Jesus grabbed the three disciples who made up the inner circle of the Twelve and lead them up this high mountain in Galilee.
What we find in the second half of chapter 16 is the completion of three years of instruction that began way back in chapter 4, instruction by Jesus that finally produces in them a God-given recognition that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Matthew 16:16) Jesus commends the confession given to him by the Twelve through the lips of Peter their spokesman, and announces that upon this true faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah himself will build his eternal Church, through which he will do the double work of binding sins and forgiving sins. And Peter begins to dream of wearing a gold champion ring that would put anything given at the Super-bowl to shame.
But Jesus will not keep the Twelve in the dark when it comes to how this reign of God's saving Word in Christ will be eternally established:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Matthew 16:21 ESV)
Peter again speaks for the Twelve. After three years he still wants salvation by negotiation and vote. "No, Lord! That can't be the way the reign of heaven will be established! That's not fair and that's not what you deserve. Your suffering and death is the last thing we need. We're all waiting for your glorious kingdom, and we'll give even our lives to make it happen."
For the next six days Jesus' unexpected answer kept ringing in their ears:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24b-25 ESV)
Jesus had thrown a bucket of cold water on the disciples' wild dreams of a grand parade into glory hanging on the coattails of triumphant Jesus. It was time to show his little band of followers the difference between salvation by contract and salvation by grace at the top of a high Galilean mountain.
It very well may have been night by the time they reached their destination. As was his habit, Jesus removed himself a stone's throw in order to pray. Saint Luke tells us that Peter and James and John were heavy with sleep, but awoke sometime later to behold a sight that would not only take their breath away but drive them to fall on their faces in fear.
And [Jesus] was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. (Matthew 17:2-3 ESV)
Now this event in which Jesus was transfigured before the disciples was like, well, nothing else during the earthly ministry of Jesus. The Evangelists Matthew and Mark and Luke can only try to describe for us this heavenly scene in earthly language as Peter, James and John get a glimpse of that heavenly glory the divine Son of God had laid aside since the manger as he talks with Moses and Elijah about the greater exodus he was to fulfill at Jerusalem.
It is sleepy-eyed Peter who quickly wants to set up shop for Jesus and Moses and Elijah and get everything ready for the reign of heaven and the coming glory of deliverance for God's special people. But God himself will have no more of Peter's mistaken notions and intervenes with the bright cloud of his hidden majesty.
Falling to the ground, Peter now recalled the reality of his precarious situation as the voice of Yahweh himself thundered from the cloud. He remembered the pleas of the Israelites under Moses after he had come down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments:
Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Exodus 20:18-21 ESV)
This is not the time for Peter to make-a-deal or do some good work to get the Lord's attention and impress the dignitaries. This is a time for the maker of heaven and earth to strengthen his only-begotten:
... behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5 ESV)
This is the center of salvation and the core of life eternal. No talk of you do this for me and then I might do this for you. No talk of a building committee or setting up phone lines for a praise-a-thon. The Almighty re-affirms the verdict on Jesus' one-of-a-kind mission given at his Baptism, while also re-affirming the inspired words given his people through Moses:
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen." (Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV)
And as Peter and James and John raised their heads at the touch of Jesus and his word of comfort, "Rise and have no fear," (Matthew 17:7 ESV) they saw with their eyes what they had heard from the cloud of divine majesty: no longer was there Moses the Law-giver; no longer was there Elijah the prophet who was to usher in the glory of the Messiah and his redeeming kingdom. No glorious cloud. Only the hand and touch of Jesus.
This is one of the most glorious Sundays of the entire year. But it is faith in the Almighty's faithful Son, the Beloved One — God-given and sustained faith in the Word and touch of the only-begotten Son of God come in human flesh—that sees what is truly glorious and redemptive and eternal.
The Word and hands of Christ — as he prays at his Baptism, as he comforts and leads the disciples at his Transfiguration, as he washes and feeds them in the Upper Room, as he announces and embraces his calling to freely lay down his life in the most unfair of exchanges and the most unimaginable deals: our sin for his righteousness; his glory for our shame, his death for our eternal life.
This afternoon, on the gridiron, eleven men will gather to get what they deserve and revel in it. This morning, in this sanctuary, God announces anew — through the glory on the mountain and the glory of the cross and empty tomb — that not only the Twelve but all who put their faith in the Word and touch of Christ with water, with bread and wine, receive the ring of son-ship, the crown of eternal life, the gift only God's grace can give: victory over death, Satan and the grave.
A glorious Transfiguration Sunday to each of you in the name of Christ.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
"Faithful, but in unexpected ways." Matthew 4:12-17
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Brothers and Sisters Baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus:
For eight hundred years the Jewish residents of the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali had vainly attempted to forget the memories of the Assyrian invasion recorded for us in the 15th and 17th chapters of 2Kings. During that military strike, residents who possessed skills that might be of use to the Assyrian Empire were ripped from their family and land and hauled off to the capital of the kingdom of the north. Oppressive conditions at the hands of Babylon followed. Both farmers and fisherman were brutally deported, only to be replaced by settlements of Assyrians who brought with them their distasteful customs and language and religious beliefs and practices.
This northern section of the promised land given to the twelve tribes of Israel was one of the first to suffer at the hands of Israel's pagan enemies. And, in many respects, one of the last regions to begin to recover. Even in the days of Jesus, eight hundred years later, the area was still considered by the rest of the Jewish nation as backward, colloquial, less Jewish, more infected with heathen influences, and, at the end of the day, less important to God and his continuing kingdom. "Galilee of the Gentiles," although predominantly Jewish, was a frontier territory inhabited by many different kinds of peoples, languages, customs and religions; a region of continual temptation to abandon the Word and Sacraments revealed by the God of Scripture. (Remind you of any place in our nation today?)
The region of Galilee, particularly the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, was disdained by much of the southern kingdom of Judah. The northerners dressed differently, spoke with an accent, and their family and religious pedigrees were not as pure as those enjoyed by the Jewish residents in the regions that surrounded Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon.
No doubt that even in Jesus' day, generations —centuries —after the brutal siege that tore apart the Jewish fabric of the these northern regions, the residents of Zebulun and Naphtali had little hope that they would ever regain what they had lost: their status as true children of Israel and the life-giving promises from the hand of Israel's gracious God. A darkness and gloom had settled over these northern districts, and the results upon the faith of their residents was as devastating as that experienced at the hand of the Assyrians.
Nevertheless, even though many had thrown in the towel on God's merciful intervention, the prophet Isaiah was called to send word to Zebulun and Naphtali. Isaiah had a word of hope for those who had given up on God's salvation, for those who had sat down in hopeless resignation. God would surely come and restore his people who lived oppressed in the shadow of death. The Lord had not forgotten these pitiful people, despite their unfaithfulness and failed attempts to resist the temptations presented by their new Assyrian neighbors.
Through his prophet, the Lord of Israel had announced life-giving Good News to hopeless people who could do nothing but sit in their own no-win situation. God's glorious Light had come to break through the darkness of believing that God had forever abandoned his people to suffer the loss of their families, their land, their culture and language — their connection with the Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. "The God of your fathers will restore you." Isaiah proclaimed. "The God of David will come through his Messiah to bring back everything you have lost. He will deliver you, just as he did in Egypt. Put your faith in his Word and in his Son — in the One who will surely come for you."
You see, the appearance of being forsaken and handed over to one's enemies by the God who revealed himself to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is nothing new in the history of salvation. Hope — in the midst of hopelessly being "handed over" to evil men — was a saving gift of God given to our first parents and to those who followed them in faith: to men and women such as Joseph and Ruth, Moses and Samson, David and the prophets that followed him.
And so we are surprised, but not completely surprised, when we hear this morning that the public ministry of Jesus is set into motion with the news that with John the Baptist, again, God has allowed one of his own to be handed over, to be seized and arrested and taken by evil men into the land of darkness and despair.
We had a feeling this is the way it might end for John as he followed in the way of the Old Testament prophets of the Lord, prophets who were subjected to abuse at the hands of those who had no intention of receiving their God-given proclamation in obedience and faith. We had a feeling this is the way it might end for John as he pointed to the coming of a Messiah hunted down by King Herod and despised by his sons who ruled after him; the Christ who had to flee to Egypt and then to Nazareth, and now withdraws to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee.
But just when all hope in rescue from the hands of the oppressor has seemingly vanished, God's trusting people hear that their Lord is on the move. This unexpected Good News, this undeserved Gospel of our God's gracious intervention — his breaking through to rescue and save and restore — was placed in the mouth of Isaiah and fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah, in the coming of Jesus to set up his base for ministry at Capernaum.
John had been handed over, and now, in Jesus, the gracious reign of heaven has come near. His epiphany, the manifestation of his redeeming light, has dawned on a hopeless people who can only sit in the darkness of their despair and wait for the merciful intervention of One more powerful than their sin and doubt and empty promises to remain faithful to the perfect will and law of God.
It is Saint Matthew, guided by the Holy Spirit, who sees the same Immanuel, the same "God-is-now-with-us," manifested to betrothed Joseph in a dream now rising with healing in his wings to the inhabitants of forsaken and despised Zebulun and Naphtali. "God-is-now-with-us" to complete and fulfill all that John the Baptist pointed to, but in a way that takes our breath away.
The Lord of heaven and earth is faithful to what he promises — in his time and in his way. That revelation is written on every page from the inspired pen of Saint Matthew. God is — unexpectedly — faithful. From the inclusion of five unexpected women in Jesus' genealogy to the unexpected visitation of the angels to Mary and her husband Joseph; from the unexpected faith of foreign star-gazers and the unexpected hatred of Herod to the handing over of the infant children of Bethlehem to the flight into Egypt and the sudden appearance of John at the Jordan, God is suddenly on the move to redeem and rescue and save — in a way unheard of, in a way we would never have expected.
Jesus came to do what we did not expect in a way our old nature will never accept. Jesus came to reveal his Gospel light of deliverance to sinners, to those who have not been faithful, to those who have given in to the evil ways of their spiritually heathen neighbors. Jesus has come for all who have given up and now can only hope against hope that an undeserved Champion over darkness and death will graciously arrive.
Jesus is that Victor. True God, that he might conquer forever the forces of death, devil and world, and true man, that he might atone for our sin in our stead. But how he conquers shuts our mouths and brings fear to our hearts: he — the spotless Lamb of God, the innocent One, the righteous One, the beloved One — is handed over to evil men in our place to suffer the separation from God's love reserved for not only the unfaithful inhabitants of Zebulun and Naphtali, but for an entire wayward race, for you.
Christ, handed over and abandoned, that his saving light might shine upon the darkness of your sin.
That is the Christian faith; that is our confession and belief and song:
The people that in darkness sat
A glorious light have seen;
The light has shined on them who long
In shades of death have been. ...
Lord Jesus, reign in us, we pray,
And make us Thine alone,
Who with the Father ever art
And Holy Spirit, one. ... Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters Baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus:
For eight hundred years the Jewish residents of the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali had vainly attempted to forget the memories of the Assyrian invasion recorded for us in the 15th and 17th chapters of 2Kings. During that military strike, residents who possessed skills that might be of use to the Assyrian Empire were ripped from their family and land and hauled off to the capital of the kingdom of the north. Oppressive conditions at the hands of Babylon followed. Both farmers and fisherman were brutally deported, only to be replaced by settlements of Assyrians who brought with them their distasteful customs and language and religious beliefs and practices.
This northern section of the promised land given to the twelve tribes of Israel was one of the first to suffer at the hands of Israel's pagan enemies. And, in many respects, one of the last regions to begin to recover. Even in the days of Jesus, eight hundred years later, the area was still considered by the rest of the Jewish nation as backward, colloquial, less Jewish, more infected with heathen influences, and, at the end of the day, less important to God and his continuing kingdom. "Galilee of the Gentiles," although predominantly Jewish, was a frontier territory inhabited by many different kinds of peoples, languages, customs and religions; a region of continual temptation to abandon the Word and Sacraments revealed by the God of Scripture. (Remind you of any place in our nation today?)
The region of Galilee, particularly the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, was disdained by much of the southern kingdom of Judah. The northerners dressed differently, spoke with an accent, and their family and religious pedigrees were not as pure as those enjoyed by the Jewish residents in the regions that surrounded Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon.
No doubt that even in Jesus' day, generations —centuries —after the brutal siege that tore apart the Jewish fabric of the these northern regions, the residents of Zebulun and Naphtali had little hope that they would ever regain what they had lost: their status as true children of Israel and the life-giving promises from the hand of Israel's gracious God. A darkness and gloom had settled over these northern districts, and the results upon the faith of their residents was as devastating as that experienced at the hand of the Assyrians.
Nevertheless, even though many had thrown in the towel on God's merciful intervention, the prophet Isaiah was called to send word to Zebulun and Naphtali. Isaiah had a word of hope for those who had given up on God's salvation, for those who had sat down in hopeless resignation. God would surely come and restore his people who lived oppressed in the shadow of death. The Lord had not forgotten these pitiful people, despite their unfaithfulness and failed attempts to resist the temptations presented by their new Assyrian neighbors.
Through his prophet, the Lord of Israel had announced life-giving Good News to hopeless people who could do nothing but sit in their own no-win situation. God's glorious Light had come to break through the darkness of believing that God had forever abandoned his people to suffer the loss of their families, their land, their culture and language — their connection with the Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. "The God of your fathers will restore you." Isaiah proclaimed. "The God of David will come through his Messiah to bring back everything you have lost. He will deliver you, just as he did in Egypt. Put your faith in his Word and in his Son — in the One who will surely come for you."
You see, the appearance of being forsaken and handed over to one's enemies by the God who revealed himself to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is nothing new in the history of salvation. Hope — in the midst of hopelessly being "handed over" to evil men — was a saving gift of God given to our first parents and to those who followed them in faith: to men and women such as Joseph and Ruth, Moses and Samson, David and the prophets that followed him.
And so we are surprised, but not completely surprised, when we hear this morning that the public ministry of Jesus is set into motion with the news that with John the Baptist, again, God has allowed one of his own to be handed over, to be seized and arrested and taken by evil men into the land of darkness and despair.
We had a feeling this is the way it might end for John as he followed in the way of the Old Testament prophets of the Lord, prophets who were subjected to abuse at the hands of those who had no intention of receiving their God-given proclamation in obedience and faith. We had a feeling this is the way it might end for John as he pointed to the coming of a Messiah hunted down by King Herod and despised by his sons who ruled after him; the Christ who had to flee to Egypt and then to Nazareth, and now withdraws to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee.
But just when all hope in rescue from the hands of the oppressor has seemingly vanished, God's trusting people hear that their Lord is on the move. This unexpected Good News, this undeserved Gospel of our God's gracious intervention — his breaking through to rescue and save and restore — was placed in the mouth of Isaiah and fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah, in the coming of Jesus to set up his base for ministry at Capernaum.
John had been handed over, and now, in Jesus, the gracious reign of heaven has come near. His epiphany, the manifestation of his redeeming light, has dawned on a hopeless people who can only sit in the darkness of their despair and wait for the merciful intervention of One more powerful than their sin and doubt and empty promises to remain faithful to the perfect will and law of God.
It is Saint Matthew, guided by the Holy Spirit, who sees the same Immanuel, the same "God-is-now-with-us," manifested to betrothed Joseph in a dream now rising with healing in his wings to the inhabitants of forsaken and despised Zebulun and Naphtali. "God-is-now-with-us" to complete and fulfill all that John the Baptist pointed to, but in a way that takes our breath away.
The Lord of heaven and earth is faithful to what he promises — in his time and in his way. That revelation is written on every page from the inspired pen of Saint Matthew. God is — unexpectedly — faithful. From the inclusion of five unexpected women in Jesus' genealogy to the unexpected visitation of the angels to Mary and her husband Joseph; from the unexpected faith of foreign star-gazers and the unexpected hatred of Herod to the handing over of the infant children of Bethlehem to the flight into Egypt and the sudden appearance of John at the Jordan, God is suddenly on the move to redeem and rescue and save — in a way unheard of, in a way we would never have expected.
Jesus came to do what we did not expect in a way our old nature will never accept. Jesus came to reveal his Gospel light of deliverance to sinners, to those who have not been faithful, to those who have given in to the evil ways of their spiritually heathen neighbors. Jesus has come for all who have given up and now can only hope against hope that an undeserved Champion over darkness and death will graciously arrive.
Jesus is that Victor. True God, that he might conquer forever the forces of death, devil and world, and true man, that he might atone for our sin in our stead. But how he conquers shuts our mouths and brings fear to our hearts: he — the spotless Lamb of God, the innocent One, the righteous One, the beloved One — is handed over to evil men in our place to suffer the separation from God's love reserved for not only the unfaithful inhabitants of Zebulun and Naphtali, but for an entire wayward race, for you.
Christ, handed over and abandoned, that his saving light might shine upon the darkness of your sin.
That is the Christian faith; that is our confession and belief and song:
The people that in darkness sat
A glorious light have seen;
The light has shined on them who long
In shades of death have been. ...
Lord Jesus, reign in us, we pray,
And make us Thine alone,
Who with the Father ever art
And Holy Spirit, one. ... Amen
Monday, January 21, 2008
"A Faithful Pointer." John 1:29-41
In the Name of Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters washed white in the blood of the Lamb:
The dictionary gives several meanings for the word "pointer," ranging from a star in the Big Dipper to a long tapered stick; from a breed of hunting dog to the hands of a clock. But regardless of the details, a pointer is, simply, something that points. It is an indicator, an arrow. It functions as a guide, as a compass.
And whether it is composed of burning gas or sharpened wood a pointer is judged to be a good or a bad pointer based on just one thing: the precision of it's point. No one wants a sloppy pointer. No one wants directions from someone who keeps his hands in his pocket and answers, "I think it could be over there somewhere — I think." We want to know if it's nine o'clock or eleven o'clock, if it's northwest or northeast, if it's something to shoot or something to shoo, if it's the woman with the ponytails or the man with the baseball cap. If a pointer is going to be a good pointer, it must point to something, something definite and specific. It must be accurate.
That's why only a handful of watches are given the name "chronograph." That's why hikers these days use GPS units and not bread crumbs to find their way home. That's why law enforcement personnel match DNA and not shoe sizes. Sometimes — often — it just not good enough to be "somewhere in the ballpark" or headed in a general direction. Except for horseshoes and hand grenades, "almost" counts for very little.
Now when it comes to people being pointers, there are always an uncountable array of guides out there running around and saying, "It's not over there, it's over here!" And when it comes to the realm of salvation, just when we think we've seen and heard it all, up jumps another self-proclaimed spiritual expert yelling, "Hey, everybody, this way!"
This morning God through his holy Word comes to get our attention, that it might be placed upon his only-begotten Son come in the flesh. And this morning he does that life-and-death work through the mouth and the finger of a man named John.
Generations have watched the old television series with Raymond Burr as master defense attorney Perry Mason. And like other classic "who-done-it" dramas, the court case suddenly comes to a head as Perry scans the room, casts his eyes upon the unsuspected culprit and says, "My client actually didn't commit the crime he is accused of. Isn't that right Mr. Phillips?"
And so it was with John the Baptist. He was called by God himself to guide others through his riveting look and boney finger. He was to be "a voice calling out in the wilderness" — a prophetic pointer.
For the evangelist of the fourth Gospel, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus played out much like one of those courtroom dramas we listened to on the radio and watched on television. The scenario is similar, but those who take part in the biblical drama are even more real. Saint John presents the setting, and we are called to be the jury as we hear and watch Jesus on trial. Witnesses are called to testify — to give witness. The attorneys make their next move as they announce, "Your honor, for the next witness, I call — John the Baptist."
The Holy Gospel According to Saint John, the first chapter:
The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:29-34 ESV)
This faithful testimony of John the Baptist is one of the most endearing statements in the entire Scripture. It doesn't begin with a "Hey!" or a "Yo!" or a "Look guys!" It begins, intentionally, with the distinctive word "behold," the announcement that the words just about to be proclaimed are from none other than the Lord of heaven himself. "Behold!" he says. "I come with the Word of God. This is the one who has come to bring comfort to repentant hearts! This is the holy Lamb of God, provided by heaven as the eternal sacrifice for sin — for you and for the world!"
By the grace of God, John the Baptist was allowed to do more with his little right index finger than many of us have done with our entire lives. The same hand that was used by God to scoop up water during the Baptism of our Lord now points others to the one whom the Bible and the prophets and the Father and the Spirit all give witness: Jesus, the Redeemer of the children of Israel and the nations that surround her.
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). (John 1:35-41 ESV)
That pointing finger and the accompanying proclamation of John the Baptist set into motion one of the first events of Jesus' public ministry: sinners receiving Jesus — not as another coach or another policeman or another prophet or another cheerleader, but the Lamb of God.
Luther is un-moveable on this point:
This [announcement, "Behold! The Lamb of God!"] is an excellent and splendid testimony of John regarding the introduction of the new rule and kingdom of Christ. It is a powerful statement. The words are clear and lucid. They tell us what one should think of Christ. ... This [proclamation by John the Baptist] is an extraordinary fine and comforting sermon on Christ our Savior. Neither our thoughts nor our words can do the subject full justice, but in the life beyond it will rebound to our eternal joy and bliss that [this] Son of God abased himself so and burdened himself with my sins. ... Despite its show of holiness, virtue, power and glory, the world continues to be under the dominion of sin and [its human works] are completely discounted before God. [Therefore,] anyone who wishes to be saved must know that all his sins have been placed on the back of this Lamb! ... If you really want to find the place where all the sins of the world are exterminated and cancelled, then cast your gaze upon the Cross. The Lord placed all our sins on the back of this Lamb. As the prophet Isaiah declares, 'We have all strayed like sheep, each of us going his own way, but the Lord laid on him the guilt of us all.' [Isaiah 53:6] ... Isaiah says that the right way is this: 'God placed all our sins upon him and struck him [down] for the sins of [all who] went astray. God put all our sins on the back of this Lamb and upon no other. ... Therefore a Christian must cling to this verse [in the Gospel of John] and let no one rob him of it. For there is no other comfort either in heaven or on earth to fortify us against all attacks and temptations, especially in the agony of death. ... This is the basis of all Christian teaching. Whoever believes it is a Christian; whoever does not is not a Christian. ... The statement is clear enough: 'This is the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world.' " (Am. Ed. of Luther's Works 22:161-64)
It was the all-powerful Word of God given to John the Baptist that animated his finger and his voice as he guided the disciples to Christ and then quietly stepped back out of the spotlight. Faith creates pointers who guide others to the Word of God, and then get out of the way. That's a lesson that each of us needs to learn and take to heart. Each of us has been given a voice and an index finger that we might point others to one specific thing.
Will that be our own human abilities and accomplishments? Will it be the things of the kingdom we have built around ourselves? Will it be our certificates of merit or trophies of achievement?
Or will we allow God to place before our eyes his faithful pointer, the greatest of the prophets, the forerunner with the forefinger calling all lost and condemned creatures to receive the One who has come to place upon his shoulders all our fears and failings?
Will you allow John the Baptist to be your guide? Will you point to Christ as you daily remember your Baptism and hear his life-giving Word? Will you point to Christ as you live under his mercy and grace? Will you faithfully give witness as you receive the forgiveness of sins through his very body and blood?
Hear and hold tight to the object of John's undivided attention as he says to you this day,
"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.1
Dear Brothers and Sisters washed white in the blood of the Lamb:
The dictionary gives several meanings for the word "pointer," ranging from a star in the Big Dipper to a long tapered stick; from a breed of hunting dog to the hands of a clock. But regardless of the details, a pointer is, simply, something that points. It is an indicator, an arrow. It functions as a guide, as a compass.
And whether it is composed of burning gas or sharpened wood a pointer is judged to be a good or a bad pointer based on just one thing: the precision of it's point. No one wants a sloppy pointer. No one wants directions from someone who keeps his hands in his pocket and answers, "I think it could be over there somewhere — I think." We want to know if it's nine o'clock or eleven o'clock, if it's northwest or northeast, if it's something to shoot or something to shoo, if it's the woman with the ponytails or the man with the baseball cap. If a pointer is going to be a good pointer, it must point to something, something definite and specific. It must be accurate.
That's why only a handful of watches are given the name "chronograph." That's why hikers these days use GPS units and not bread crumbs to find their way home. That's why law enforcement personnel match DNA and not shoe sizes. Sometimes — often — it just not good enough to be "somewhere in the ballpark" or headed in a general direction. Except for horseshoes and hand grenades, "almost" counts for very little.
Now when it comes to people being pointers, there are always an uncountable array of guides out there running around and saying, "It's not over there, it's over here!" And when it comes to the realm of salvation, just when we think we've seen and heard it all, up jumps another self-proclaimed spiritual expert yelling, "Hey, everybody, this way!"
This morning God through his holy Word comes to get our attention, that it might be placed upon his only-begotten Son come in the flesh. And this morning he does that life-and-death work through the mouth and the finger of a man named John.
Generations have watched the old television series with Raymond Burr as master defense attorney Perry Mason. And like other classic "who-done-it" dramas, the court case suddenly comes to a head as Perry scans the room, casts his eyes upon the unsuspected culprit and says, "My client actually didn't commit the crime he is accused of. Isn't that right Mr. Phillips?"
And so it was with John the Baptist. He was called by God himself to guide others through his riveting look and boney finger. He was to be "a voice calling out in the wilderness" — a prophetic pointer.
For the evangelist of the fourth Gospel, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus played out much like one of those courtroom dramas we listened to on the radio and watched on television. The scenario is similar, but those who take part in the biblical drama are even more real. Saint John presents the setting, and we are called to be the jury as we hear and watch Jesus on trial. Witnesses are called to testify — to give witness. The attorneys make their next move as they announce, "Your honor, for the next witness, I call — John the Baptist."
The Holy Gospel According to Saint John, the first chapter:
The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:29-34 ESV)
This faithful testimony of John the Baptist is one of the most endearing statements in the entire Scripture. It doesn't begin with a "Hey!" or a "Yo!" or a "Look guys!" It begins, intentionally, with the distinctive word "behold," the announcement that the words just about to be proclaimed are from none other than the Lord of heaven himself. "Behold!" he says. "I come with the Word of God. This is the one who has come to bring comfort to repentant hearts! This is the holy Lamb of God, provided by heaven as the eternal sacrifice for sin — for you and for the world!"
By the grace of God, John the Baptist was allowed to do more with his little right index finger than many of us have done with our entire lives. The same hand that was used by God to scoop up water during the Baptism of our Lord now points others to the one whom the Bible and the prophets and the Father and the Spirit all give witness: Jesus, the Redeemer of the children of Israel and the nations that surround her.
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). (John 1:35-41 ESV)
That pointing finger and the accompanying proclamation of John the Baptist set into motion one of the first events of Jesus' public ministry: sinners receiving Jesus — not as another coach or another policeman or another prophet or another cheerleader, but the Lamb of God.
Luther is un-moveable on this point:
This [announcement, "Behold! The Lamb of God!"] is an excellent and splendid testimony of John regarding the introduction of the new rule and kingdom of Christ. It is a powerful statement. The words are clear and lucid. They tell us what one should think of Christ. ... This [proclamation by John the Baptist] is an extraordinary fine and comforting sermon on Christ our Savior. Neither our thoughts nor our words can do the subject full justice, but in the life beyond it will rebound to our eternal joy and bliss that [this] Son of God abased himself so and burdened himself with my sins. ... Despite its show of holiness, virtue, power and glory, the world continues to be under the dominion of sin and [its human works] are completely discounted before God. [Therefore,] anyone who wishes to be saved must know that all his sins have been placed on the back of this Lamb! ... If you really want to find the place where all the sins of the world are exterminated and cancelled, then cast your gaze upon the Cross. The Lord placed all our sins on the back of this Lamb. As the prophet Isaiah declares, 'We have all strayed like sheep, each of us going his own way, but the Lord laid on him the guilt of us all.' [Isaiah 53:6] ... Isaiah says that the right way is this: 'God placed all our sins upon him and struck him [down] for the sins of [all who] went astray. God put all our sins on the back of this Lamb and upon no other. ... Therefore a Christian must cling to this verse [in the Gospel of John] and let no one rob him of it. For there is no other comfort either in heaven or on earth to fortify us against all attacks and temptations, especially in the agony of death. ... This is the basis of all Christian teaching. Whoever believes it is a Christian; whoever does not is not a Christian. ... The statement is clear enough: 'This is the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world.' " (Am. Ed. of Luther's Works 22:161-64)
It was the all-powerful Word of God given to John the Baptist that animated his finger and his voice as he guided the disciples to Christ and then quietly stepped back out of the spotlight. Faith creates pointers who guide others to the Word of God, and then get out of the way. That's a lesson that each of us needs to learn and take to heart. Each of us has been given a voice and an index finger that we might point others to one specific thing.
Will that be our own human abilities and accomplishments? Will it be the things of the kingdom we have built around ourselves? Will it be our certificates of merit or trophies of achievement?
Or will we allow God to place before our eyes his faithful pointer, the greatest of the prophets, the forerunner with the forefinger calling all lost and condemned creatures to receive the One who has come to place upon his shoulders all our fears and failings?
Will you allow John the Baptist to be your guide? Will you point to Christ as you daily remember your Baptism and hear his life-giving Word? Will you point to Christ as you live under his mercy and grace? Will you faithfully give witness as you receive the forgiveness of sins through his very body and blood?
Hear and hold tight to the object of John's undivided attention as he says to you this day,
"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.1
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Matthew 3:13-17 "Baptized—but into what?"
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Christians, baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ:
For thousands of years this Sunday has been celebrated in Christian churches as the Sunday of the Baptism of our Lord.
But for most churches and most Christians today, it's just another Sunday with just another sermon and just another bunch of hymns and prayers.
But, just like many other important things, it's an important day in the church year, whether we recognize it or not. The Baptism of our Lord was a big deal and will remain a big deal for all eternity.
To emphasize the importance of this day we have special music and special hymns and a special children's message and a special sermon and a special time of sharing after each morning service.
Just like the adults gathered around the Passover table, every one of us here should be able to give a good Biblical answer if a child should ask us, "Why is this Sunday different than all the other Sundays of the year?" Our answer should be much better than: "Well, the pastor likes to mix it up a bit from time to time."
It's like I told the Sunday morning adult Bible class last week: any visitor should know very quickly when coming to services that this is a trinitarian congregation. And so it is with Christ's Baptism and our own. People shouldn't be able to leave Redeemer without hearing about the Word of God in, with and under simple water.
Jesus' baptism and your baptism is a regular feature of what we "believe, teach and confess" as a Church, as a congregation, as a church family. It's part and parcel of what we say and hear and sing and do — and remember.
One of the saddest experiences I have as a pastor is visiting someone who has forgotten even their own family name. Sometimes I wonder: "How can they have forgotten their own name?" But this is a reality in the fallen world we live in. And it's the same with our spiritual life as well.
Not a day should go by when we don't remind ourselves of Christ's Baptism and our own. That's one of the assignments in Confirmation class: write three things that you can do to daily remind yourself of your Baptism." That's a good assignment for each of us here today as well.
And so this morning we fight against the threat of spiritual amnesia by first and foremost, focusing our attention on the Baptism of our Lord. The "what" and "so what" of Jesus' wading out into the Jordan to John the Baptist and the once-for-all-time event that followed; the one event that put into motion the mission of the only-begotten Messiah.
Read Matthew 3:13-15
John refused. Jesus called for faith in fulfilling all righteousness, then John consented. Not very different than what Jesus calls each of us to do. "Follow my word," he says. "Even though you don't really get it, put your trust in my direction and my word of assurance. This needs to be done. Say 'Amen' to me and my instructions and my way of ushering in salvation. "Let it now be so." Jesus says. And John consents.
Maybe there's someone here who secretly doesn't believe in Christian Baptism — especially of infant children — or has serious concerns about what Jesus calls us to do and say and believe. Unlike any one else, Jesus' comes with a Word that has the ability to create faith that responds to his direction by saying, "I give my consent, despite my questions and doubts and inability to understand fully. Despite it all, Jesus, I will say 'Amen' to your Word and call."
Now we want to state clearly up-front that Jesus didn't need to come to John to say a word of repentance and have his sins washed away.
Jesus, from his very conception, was the spotless Lamb of God. Hebrews 4:15: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Then, if not for cleansing, then for what purpose was Jesus baptized?
Twenty-four chapters later in the Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, someone will submit to a washing to publicly announce that he will have no part in the fate of the one put under his protection. In Matthew 27:24, Pilate washes his hands of carrying out justice on behalf of Jesus. "I am innocent of this man's blood." he cried.
This Baptism of our Lord, this particular Sunday in the Church Year, stands as the direct opposite of any washing away of sin or any washing away of personal or judicial responsibility.
Jesus' Baptism is a public proclamation, a public submission, a public consecration into his unique mission of redemption. Here, in the Jordan River, Jesus says "Amen" to the heavenly Father's call to become the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of a weak and helpless world.
For anyone asking, "Who is Jesus?" "What did he come to do?" no one need look any farther than his Baptism. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan, but, more importantly, he is baptized into his calling, his mission, his office as Redeemer and Savior and Sacrifice. His atoning work all begins in ernest here.
Read Matthew 3:16-17
Through his Baptism, Jesus does not walk away from protecting and saving those placed under his care. He does not wash his hands of your fate or mine. He is baptized into your place, into your stead, into your condemnation, that he might redeem each of us from it and its deadly consequences. Though equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit according to his divine nature, Jesus, according to his human nature freely submits to the Father's call to go down and rescue you and all people by the giving of his life-blood upon the cross. That's the call and mission and assignment Jesus said "Yes" to at his Baptism. And we, through the four New Testament evangelists are brought to the shore of the Jordan to watch and hear and bow our head and knee at the unbelievable: the holy Son of God taking on our burden as he begins to make good on God's gracious promise to win us back.
Satisfy the wrath of God's holy will against sin. That's an assignment that would have crushed even the best of us. But Jesus, at his Baptism, as water is poured over him, prays, "Yes, Father. I willingly will give my life for these, your wandering and wayward children."
And the Holy Spirit hovers over Jesus as the Father responds: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
This is the Jesus you and I have been baptized into. The "incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried" Jesus.
The most shocking thing in preparing for a Baptism here at Redeemer is often telling the excited parents desiring a "Christening" of their pure-as-the-driven-snow baby that Christian Baptism is a Baptism into Christ's death. That will get their attention, as it should get ours this morning. "What were you baptized into?" "The perfect life and sacrificial death of Christ."
That's the only way out of this dead-end life in this dead-end world. Baptized into the life and death of Christ.
That's why it has been a Christian practice for as long as anyone can remember to make the sign of the cross in remembrance of one's baptism. Not some sign of the empty tomb, or some sign of Pentecost, but the sign of the Cross.
And if you're wondering to yourself, isn't that making-the-sign-of-the-cross a Roman Catholic thing that we Lutheran Christians got rid of a long time ago, take a look at Martin Luther's instruction of how to begin each and every day as it's outlined in the Small Catechism.
Why is reminding ourselves of our Baptism and the Cross such a big deal? Because it is only after Jesus fulfilled his redemptive mission upon the cross, and the heavenly Father's seal of approval at his resurrection, that the Crucified One commands his Body, his family, his own, the Church, to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
At your Baptism, you have been born into the family of Christ, his Body, the Church. You have been given the family name for all eternity — whether you remember it or not, the name "Christian."
In the Jordan, God the Father, through John, through the Holy Spirit, anointed his very Son. In the Jordan, Jesus bound himself to your sins, that he might bind you to his righteousness.
Be who you are as a Baptized child of God. Live under your family name. Hold tight to Christ's promises. Bind yourself to him and his sacrificial work on your behalf.
Remember your Baptism. Remember which family you have been born into. Remember who you have been united with: Christ, the Lamb of God, who graciously remembers you, even on those days you forget him and his Cross.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Christians, baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ:
For thousands of years this Sunday has been celebrated in Christian churches as the Sunday of the Baptism of our Lord.
But for most churches and most Christians today, it's just another Sunday with just another sermon and just another bunch of hymns and prayers.
But, just like many other important things, it's an important day in the church year, whether we recognize it or not. The Baptism of our Lord was a big deal and will remain a big deal for all eternity.
To emphasize the importance of this day we have special music and special hymns and a special children's message and a special sermon and a special time of sharing after each morning service.
Just like the adults gathered around the Passover table, every one of us here should be able to give a good Biblical answer if a child should ask us, "Why is this Sunday different than all the other Sundays of the year?" Our answer should be much better than: "Well, the pastor likes to mix it up a bit from time to time."
It's like I told the Sunday morning adult Bible class last week: any visitor should know very quickly when coming to services that this is a trinitarian congregation. And so it is with Christ's Baptism and our own. People shouldn't be able to leave Redeemer without hearing about the Word of God in, with and under simple water.
Jesus' baptism and your baptism is a regular feature of what we "believe, teach and confess" as a Church, as a congregation, as a church family. It's part and parcel of what we say and hear and sing and do — and remember.
One of the saddest experiences I have as a pastor is visiting someone who has forgotten even their own family name. Sometimes I wonder: "How can they have forgotten their own name?" But this is a reality in the fallen world we live in. And it's the same with our spiritual life as well.
Not a day should go by when we don't remind ourselves of Christ's Baptism and our own. That's one of the assignments in Confirmation class: write three things that you can do to daily remind yourself of your Baptism." That's a good assignment for each of us here today as well.
And so this morning we fight against the threat of spiritual amnesia by first and foremost, focusing our attention on the Baptism of our Lord. The "what" and "so what" of Jesus' wading out into the Jordan to John the Baptist and the once-for-all-time event that followed; the one event that put into motion the mission of the only-begotten Messiah.
Read Matthew 3:13-15
John refused. Jesus called for faith in fulfilling all righteousness, then John consented. Not very different than what Jesus calls each of us to do. "Follow my word," he says. "Even though you don't really get it, put your trust in my direction and my word of assurance. This needs to be done. Say 'Amen' to me and my instructions and my way of ushering in salvation. "Let it now be so." Jesus says. And John consents.
Maybe there's someone here who secretly doesn't believe in Christian Baptism — especially of infant children — or has serious concerns about what Jesus calls us to do and say and believe. Unlike any one else, Jesus' comes with a Word that has the ability to create faith that responds to his direction by saying, "I give my consent, despite my questions and doubts and inability to understand fully. Despite it all, Jesus, I will say 'Amen' to your Word and call."
Now we want to state clearly up-front that Jesus didn't need to come to John to say a word of repentance and have his sins washed away.
Jesus, from his very conception, was the spotless Lamb of God. Hebrews 4:15: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Then, if not for cleansing, then for what purpose was Jesus baptized?
Twenty-four chapters later in the Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, someone will submit to a washing to publicly announce that he will have no part in the fate of the one put under his protection. In Matthew 27:24, Pilate washes his hands of carrying out justice on behalf of Jesus. "I am innocent of this man's blood." he cried.
This Baptism of our Lord, this particular Sunday in the Church Year, stands as the direct opposite of any washing away of sin or any washing away of personal or judicial responsibility.
Jesus' Baptism is a public proclamation, a public submission, a public consecration into his unique mission of redemption. Here, in the Jordan River, Jesus says "Amen" to the heavenly Father's call to become the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of a weak and helpless world.
For anyone asking, "Who is Jesus?" "What did he come to do?" no one need look any farther than his Baptism. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan, but, more importantly, he is baptized into his calling, his mission, his office as Redeemer and Savior and Sacrifice. His atoning work all begins in ernest here.
Read Matthew 3:16-17
Through his Baptism, Jesus does not walk away from protecting and saving those placed under his care. He does not wash his hands of your fate or mine. He is baptized into your place, into your stead, into your condemnation, that he might redeem each of us from it and its deadly consequences. Though equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit according to his divine nature, Jesus, according to his human nature freely submits to the Father's call to go down and rescue you and all people by the giving of his life-blood upon the cross. That's the call and mission and assignment Jesus said "Yes" to at his Baptism. And we, through the four New Testament evangelists are brought to the shore of the Jordan to watch and hear and bow our head and knee at the unbelievable: the holy Son of God taking on our burden as he begins to make good on God's gracious promise to win us back.
Satisfy the wrath of God's holy will against sin. That's an assignment that would have crushed even the best of us. But Jesus, at his Baptism, as water is poured over him, prays, "Yes, Father. I willingly will give my life for these, your wandering and wayward children."
And the Holy Spirit hovers over Jesus as the Father responds: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
This is the Jesus you and I have been baptized into. The "incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried" Jesus.
The most shocking thing in preparing for a Baptism here at Redeemer is often telling the excited parents desiring a "Christening" of their pure-as-the-driven-snow baby that Christian Baptism is a Baptism into Christ's death. That will get their attention, as it should get ours this morning. "What were you baptized into?" "The perfect life and sacrificial death of Christ."
That's the only way out of this dead-end life in this dead-end world. Baptized into the life and death of Christ.
That's why it has been a Christian practice for as long as anyone can remember to make the sign of the cross in remembrance of one's baptism. Not some sign of the empty tomb, or some sign of Pentecost, but the sign of the Cross.
And if you're wondering to yourself, isn't that making-the-sign-of-the-cross a Roman Catholic thing that we Lutheran Christians got rid of a long time ago, take a look at Martin Luther's instruction of how to begin each and every day as it's outlined in the Small Catechism.
Why is reminding ourselves of our Baptism and the Cross such a big deal? Because it is only after Jesus fulfilled his redemptive mission upon the cross, and the heavenly Father's seal of approval at his resurrection, that the Crucified One commands his Body, his family, his own, the Church, to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
At your Baptism, you have been born into the family of Christ, his Body, the Church. You have been given the family name for all eternity — whether you remember it or not, the name "Christian."
In the Jordan, God the Father, through John, through the Holy Spirit, anointed his very Son. In the Jordan, Jesus bound himself to your sins, that he might bind you to his righteousness.
Be who you are as a Baptized child of God. Live under your family name. Hold tight to Christ's promises. Bind yourself to him and his sacrificial work on your behalf.
Remember your Baptism. Remember which family you have been born into. Remember who you have been united with: Christ, the Lamb of God, who graciously remembers you, even on those days you forget him and his Cross.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Epiphany, the Glory of Christ and the Magi. Matthew 2:1-11
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Brothers and Sisters Enlightened with the Light of Christ through Water and the Word:
Well, the Magi are in the Narthex, and that can mean only one thing: it's Epiphany.
Now Epiphany — just like many other Christian words and phrases — has both a narrow and wide meaning. Narrow: The Feast Day we celebrate today, on January 6. Wide: the entire season after the Feast of the Epiphany (This year from JAN 6 to FEB 6—five Sundays between the twelfth day of Christmas and the first day of Lent: Ash Wednesday.)
So don't be surprised when someone comes up to you later today or for the next five weeks and says, "A blessed Epiphany to you." It's O.K. It's just part of the Church Year Christians have been observing since the 3rd century).
But now that we've established that we're now in the season of Epiphany, what is it, what does it point to, and what difference does Christ wish it to have in our lives and those around us?
First, then, what is it?
"Epiphany," like: "Wow! I just had an epiphany!" You don't need to be a Christian to use the word, but it doesn't have the same meaning for the world that it does for us here this morning. Epiphany is much more than a light going off in our head when we discover something enlightening, like, "If I go to the grocery store and hardware store at the same time, I'll save on gas." or "If I wouldn't bring up that sensitive subject in front of my wife during the dinner party, I wouldn't be sleeping on this couch."
Epiphany means for the Church what it means in the Old and New Testament: It's Greek for manifestation, appearance, revelation, especially Christ's manifestation of his saving glory to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi. That's why it is today, January 6th, that the Queen of England makes a journey to the Chapel Royal and there presents offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ and his saving glory is proclaimed throughout the entire Scripture, but especially in one very special place in the New Testament Gospel accounts: John 2:11, at the Wedding at Cana. Here we read that: "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him."
But this morning's Gospel reminds us that Jesus' glory was revealed way before water was miraculously changed into wine under the direction of a thirty-year old Messiah.
The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the second chapter:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:1-2 ESV)
The Magi had been enlightened by the star that came to rest over the city of David: Bethlehem. Through the Old Testament Scriptures brought to their distant nation by the exiled children of Israel, these astrologers had picked up on something that had gone unnoticed by the one who occupied the throne in Jerusalem: the light of salvation was being revealed in the heavens, for not only the eyes of those living in and around Jerusalem, but the eyes of all nations. And so it was that foreign dignitaries inquired at the doors of the Jerusalem palace: "Where shall we join you in worshipping the King of the Jewish nation?"
When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’” (Matthew 2:3-6 ESV)
Great King Herod, impressive builder, glorious ruler, terrible reader of Holy Scripture. "Where is the Messiah-King to be born? Assemble those of the court who know their Scripture and have taken it to heart. Ask them where we should expect the One Anointed by God Himself — the very Son of God — to be born!"
Poor, unbelieving King Herod, now besides himself as he wondered what all this would mean for the kingdom he was slowly but confidently building. Would he have to step down from his position of power and prestige? How could this be — right in the middle of his great efforts to make a name for himself. What would he do now that these foreigners had somehow beaten him to the punch and were first in line to greet the newborn Messiah of Israel? What to do?
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. (Matthew 2:7-10 ESV)
The strangeness of King Herod's questioning of them, when he should have already held all the answers concerning the birth of his very Messiah — the Messiah who's birth was manifest to all the nations from heaven itself — all of that took a back seat to the joy these Gentile emissaries experienced as the star guided them to the goal of their months of searching: the house in Bethlehem where the infant Jesus lay. "Our journey has reached it's end: Behold! The newborn King of Israel! The Messiah of the Jewish people and all who would come to put their faith in his redeeming work! Behold! The Christ-child!"
And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11 ESV)
We don't really know how many Magi there were, but we know three things.
First, they found Jesus and Mary his mother in the house they had settled into after that eventful night of the child's birth in the stable of the inn.
Second, they brought three gifts, sacrifices of thanksgiving that communicated their appreciation that this Son of God and Mary's Son would bring salvation to many, to as many as would put their faith in him. Gifts that also foretold what kind of Messiah Christ would become — no, what kind of Messiah Christ was, beginning at his lowly birth: a King deserving of the gold of the nations, a Priest deserving of the sacred fragrance of frankincense, and a Prophet deserving of the myrrh used to give honor to the sacrifice of God's prophets at their death.
But, third, these foreigners from a distant land got it right when it came to the order in which gifts are received and given. They saw, they received the Christ child and the gift of salvation manifest in him, and then — and only then — did they respond in faith-created joy as they gave their humble gifts to the lowliest of kings. Their gifts did not appease God's wrath or convince the newborn king that the magi had sincere hearts worthy of heaven. Their gifts did not motivate the Messiah to put in a good work for them with "the man upstairs." It was a pure, adds-nothing-to-their-salvation response of joy and thanks and freely-given appreciation.
Through the star in the heavens, a gracious God sent out an epiphany, a manifestation, an appearance of his mercy and heart of forgiveness for, first his chosen children of Israel, but also, at the same time, all nations who would receive in faith the redeeming light beaming from the star and the manger.
This was the King of Kings who would fulfill what the gifts of these Gentiles pointed to: a King who would complete his priestly calling by the offering of his very self for the sins of the world. For it is at the Cross where this King fulfills his calling to be the glory of his people Israel and a light to lighten the Gentiles.
What difference does Christ wish his Epiphany to have in our lives and those around us? When and where in our day-in, day-out lives do we as Baptized Christians give witness to Christ's saving Epiphany for all people?
Every time we join Simeon in his song of joy and thanksgiving as we take the Christ child into the arms and into the hearts as he comes to us, the undeserving, at his altar.
Have you joined these Magi in confessing your faith in the lowly Christ-child and his reign of grace and mercy and forgiveness through his substitutionary sacrifice? Will you again confess him as the saving glory of Israel and the Light that brings light to souls throughout the nations of the world? Then hear Christ himself as he says of Peter's confession, and the Magi's confession, and your confession this hour:
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will." (Matthew 11:25-26 ESV)
This morning, arise, shine, for your Light has come, even Christ Jesus our Lord and King!
A blessed Epiphany to each of you,
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Brothers and Sisters Enlightened with the Light of Christ through Water and the Word:
Well, the Magi are in the Narthex, and that can mean only one thing: it's Epiphany.
Now Epiphany — just like many other Christian words and phrases — has both a narrow and wide meaning. Narrow: The Feast Day we celebrate today, on January 6. Wide: the entire season after the Feast of the Epiphany (This year from JAN 6 to FEB 6—five Sundays between the twelfth day of Christmas and the first day of Lent: Ash Wednesday.)
So don't be surprised when someone comes up to you later today or for the next five weeks and says, "A blessed Epiphany to you." It's O.K. It's just part of the Church Year Christians have been observing since the 3rd century).
But now that we've established that we're now in the season of Epiphany, what is it, what does it point to, and what difference does Christ wish it to have in our lives and those around us?
First, then, what is it?
"Epiphany," like: "Wow! I just had an epiphany!" You don't need to be a Christian to use the word, but it doesn't have the same meaning for the world that it does for us here this morning. Epiphany is much more than a light going off in our head when we discover something enlightening, like, "If I go to the grocery store and hardware store at the same time, I'll save on gas." or "If I wouldn't bring up that sensitive subject in front of my wife during the dinner party, I wouldn't be sleeping on this couch."
Epiphany means for the Church what it means in the Old and New Testament: It's Greek for manifestation, appearance, revelation, especially Christ's manifestation of his saving glory to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi. That's why it is today, January 6th, that the Queen of England makes a journey to the Chapel Royal and there presents offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ and his saving glory is proclaimed throughout the entire Scripture, but especially in one very special place in the New Testament Gospel accounts: John 2:11, at the Wedding at Cana. Here we read that: "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him."
But this morning's Gospel reminds us that Jesus' glory was revealed way before water was miraculously changed into wine under the direction of a thirty-year old Messiah.
The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the second chapter:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:1-2 ESV)
The Magi had been enlightened by the star that came to rest over the city of David: Bethlehem. Through the Old Testament Scriptures brought to their distant nation by the exiled children of Israel, these astrologers had picked up on something that had gone unnoticed by the one who occupied the throne in Jerusalem: the light of salvation was being revealed in the heavens, for not only the eyes of those living in and around Jerusalem, but the eyes of all nations. And so it was that foreign dignitaries inquired at the doors of the Jerusalem palace: "Where shall we join you in worshipping the King of the Jewish nation?"
When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’” (Matthew 2:3-6 ESV)
Great King Herod, impressive builder, glorious ruler, terrible reader of Holy Scripture. "Where is the Messiah-King to be born? Assemble those of the court who know their Scripture and have taken it to heart. Ask them where we should expect the One Anointed by God Himself — the very Son of God — to be born!"
Poor, unbelieving King Herod, now besides himself as he wondered what all this would mean for the kingdom he was slowly but confidently building. Would he have to step down from his position of power and prestige? How could this be — right in the middle of his great efforts to make a name for himself. What would he do now that these foreigners had somehow beaten him to the punch and were first in line to greet the newborn Messiah of Israel? What to do?
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. (Matthew 2:7-10 ESV)
The strangeness of King Herod's questioning of them, when he should have already held all the answers concerning the birth of his very Messiah — the Messiah who's birth was manifest to all the nations from heaven itself — all of that took a back seat to the joy these Gentile emissaries experienced as the star guided them to the goal of their months of searching: the house in Bethlehem where the infant Jesus lay. "Our journey has reached it's end: Behold! The newborn King of Israel! The Messiah of the Jewish people and all who would come to put their faith in his redeeming work! Behold! The Christ-child!"
And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11 ESV)
We don't really know how many Magi there were, but we know three things.
First, they found Jesus and Mary his mother in the house they had settled into after that eventful night of the child's birth in the stable of the inn.
Second, they brought three gifts, sacrifices of thanksgiving that communicated their appreciation that this Son of God and Mary's Son would bring salvation to many, to as many as would put their faith in him. Gifts that also foretold what kind of Messiah Christ would become — no, what kind of Messiah Christ was, beginning at his lowly birth: a King deserving of the gold of the nations, a Priest deserving of the sacred fragrance of frankincense, and a Prophet deserving of the myrrh used to give honor to the sacrifice of God's prophets at their death.
But, third, these foreigners from a distant land got it right when it came to the order in which gifts are received and given. They saw, they received the Christ child and the gift of salvation manifest in him, and then — and only then — did they respond in faith-created joy as they gave their humble gifts to the lowliest of kings. Their gifts did not appease God's wrath or convince the newborn king that the magi had sincere hearts worthy of heaven. Their gifts did not motivate the Messiah to put in a good work for them with "the man upstairs." It was a pure, adds-nothing-to-their-salvation response of joy and thanks and freely-given appreciation.
Through the star in the heavens, a gracious God sent out an epiphany, a manifestation, an appearance of his mercy and heart of forgiveness for, first his chosen children of Israel, but also, at the same time, all nations who would receive in faith the redeeming light beaming from the star and the manger.
This was the King of Kings who would fulfill what the gifts of these Gentiles pointed to: a King who would complete his priestly calling by the offering of his very self for the sins of the world. For it is at the Cross where this King fulfills his calling to be the glory of his people Israel and a light to lighten the Gentiles.
What difference does Christ wish his Epiphany to have in our lives and those around us? When and where in our day-in, day-out lives do we as Baptized Christians give witness to Christ's saving Epiphany for all people?
Every time we join Simeon in his song of joy and thanksgiving as we take the Christ child into the arms and into the hearts as he comes to us, the undeserving, at his altar.
Have you joined these Magi in confessing your faith in the lowly Christ-child and his reign of grace and mercy and forgiveness through his substitutionary sacrifice? Will you again confess him as the saving glory of Israel and the Light that brings light to souls throughout the nations of the world? Then hear Christ himself as he says of Peter's confession, and the Magi's confession, and your confession this hour:
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will." (Matthew 11:25-26 ESV)
This morning, arise, shine, for your Light has come, even Christ Jesus our Lord and King!
A blessed Epiphany to each of you,
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Faith in the Midst of Unfaithfulness - Matthew 1:18-25 - Advent IV
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters Called to Faith in Christ:
We are not the only ones waiting and struggling against doubt in these days before Christmas. There are others who are trusting in God's advent - his coming to save.
It wasn't much of a paradise in Paradise California this last week for a father and three children waiting for someone to come and rescue them from bitter cold. The storms had dumped more than a foot of snow on the woods as the four hid themselves from the elements in the hollow of a forest log. Their quick jaunt into the woods to cut down a Christmas tree had gone terribly wrong. For three days through an almost continual prayer to God to keep his kids alive, Frederick Dominguez fought the doubt that they would not be found until it was too late. Singing Christian hymns with his children, he passed the hours of waiting. And when asked by a rescue worker how he had survived, he replied, "Jesus Christ."
Faith in the midst of the storms of doubt and wandering is not only a summary of a lost family in the midst of deadly winter storms, it is the resume of an entire fallen human race. Faith in the Word of the Lord and his promise to come and accomplish his saving work, even in the midst of the most threatening of conditions.
It is faith and the resulting anticipation it produces that meets our ears and hearts this morning on the Fourth and final Sunday in Advent. Faith and anticipation — in the midst of gnawing doubt — that gives us the ability to sing, "The King of kings is drawing near; the Savior of the world is here," and "The cloudless sun of joy is He, who comes to set his people free."
Faith and anticipation — in the midst of our incomplete comprehension of how and when God will do his heaven-restoring work — makes it possible for us to proclaim together the words of the 45th Psalm, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his Word I put my hope" and "He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities."
Faith and anticipation — in the midst of forces that threaten to shipwreck our salvation — give us the courage to pray, "Come Lord, and help us by your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be lifted quickly by your grace and mercy."
The King of glory comes to his people. But, as Psalm 24 asks, "Who is this King of glory?"
That's the million dollar question in these days before December 25th. That's the heart of the matter that separates faith from doubt, confusion from courage and patience and perseverance and hope.
"Who is this King of glory that comes to rescue?" was the question Mary was asking herself over and over again as she meditated not only on how she was going to break the shocking news to Joseph her betrothed husband, but as she searched the holy Word of the Lord: the psalms and the writings of Moses and the prophets.
It's difficult to know what went through her mind and soul as Gabriel left her after announcing the coming of the Lord in the most remarkable way: through a lowly handmaiden even now the betrothed wife of a Nazarene woodworker. Yes, she had believed in the Word sent by the angel, that she would, by God's pure grace, be the mother of her Lord's anointed.
But how would she approach Joseph with the news? What would she say? She felt speechless when the time finally came. "Please sit down, Joseph. I have a word to share with you." And what a word it was.
Even though we don't know exactly how Mary told her husband Joseph, and exactly how Joseph responded, their faith continued to struggle with doubt and fear and confusion and the unbelief that such a thing could be from God and be a part of his divine plan.
No matter what the exact words were between Mary and Joseph, they were worlds away from the response of wicked King Ahaz as he stood before the Lord and his mouthpiece Isaiah the prophet. "I refuse to put my trust in the Lord's offer to give a miraculous sign of salvation!" the king responded to Isaiah's gracious invitation.
But, thanks be to God, the promise of the Lord's coming was confirmed that day before rebellious Ahaz and God's rebellious people Israel. "This will be the sign: the Virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel."
Eight centuries before Mary and Joseph and Zechariah and Elizabeth and John and Jesus, God reveals that the King of glory will surely come. He will come according to his divine nature, as the Son of God, the divine Word sent by the Father through the Holy Spirit; and he will come according to his human nature, son of David, from the house of David.
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man. All of this packed into the name: Immanuel — God-himself is-with-us.
Now there are two ways to end a seemingly unfaithful marriage: Either loudly with public accusations and stones, or quietly and privately and a legal piece of paper. It appeared that Joseph had the same options as the Lord had with his bride, his Israel, his chosen people: put his beloved under the crushing weight of divine judgment or release her quietly through a legal declaration.
And being a righteous man, Joseph chose the best for his wife and the child she was now carrying: there would be no public humiliation or revenge or finger-pointing. Even in the midst of his inability to believe that the new life growing in Mary's womb was a result of a close encounter with the Spirit of God, he made plans for her sake and not for his own.
Joseph knew the Law of Moses. But, you know what? The Law of Moses wasn't enough to save him or Mary or the Child from this completely unexplainable situation. Joseph had followed the commands of Moses to a "t," but things were still spiraling out of control.
What would everyone say at the carpenter's union? What would the Magilacuty's across the road think? Everyone in the little village of Nazareth would be talking and coming into his woodshop nosing around, hoping to get a glimpse of the child who's father was anyone but Joseph.
With only the Law as his guide, Joseph didn't have a contigency plan for betrothed wives conceiving children without the direct involvement of a human father. The scenario Mary had described was simply beyond him. With only Moses and the Law, the only decision was how to separate himself from Mary his wife. How to prevent her from coming under his roof.
"I will divorce her quietly, with a paper holding a legal declaration of divorce. This way she might have shelter in her household, the opportunity to give birth to a son innocent of any sin of unfaithfulness, and the opportunity to marry another." But it would be a bitter separation any way he cut it.
A husband and wife struggling to please God and his Law in the midst of a seemingly no-win-situation. There was no way the families and the neighbors wouldn't find out. Their pride in living under the Word of God was on the rocks. Now shame would follow the three of them for the rest of their lives.
But in the silence of their speechlessness in addressing their situation, God's advent breaks through, the Lord comes through his messenger to Joseph with a word that strengthens his faith and begins to calm his fears. God intervenes to save Joseph from unbelief — just as he had come in previous generations of believers as they cried out, "Save me and my family from the storms that make my faith numb with cold. I wait for you, my deliverer!"
Joseph in his sleepless sleep of wondering, agonizing, praying, receives another unexpected character in the unfolding drama of God's great plan of salvation: an angel from the Lord.
This was the first of at least four angelic visits Joseph received during the course of these first years of Jesus' life. And appearing, the angel calls to Joseph by his legal name: "Joseph, son of David." Not "Joseph of Nazareth." Not "Joseph, the master carpenter." Not "Joseph, resident of Galilee." But "Joseph, son of David."
This is how this worker of wood from an insignificant northern village of Israel will figure into God's sending of his very Son into the midst of human sin and unbelief — right into the center of a condemned race of estranged and unbelieving people.
Through Matthew's narrative we hear that Joseph was from the lineage, the house of David. As a son of David, Joseph is directed to, by faith, take his wife, Mary, into his house, for the child conceived in her is — even now — a son of David — the Son of David. Jesus is to be the Son of David in a two-fold way: from Joseph, the Son of David by law; from Mary, the Son of David by blood.
Now, humanly speaking, Joseph got the short end of the stick in more than a few ways, not the least when it came to naming his first-born. Following in the path of men like Isaiah and Zechariah, Joseph was told by heaven the name that heaven had already given. "Savior? From this situation? Won't the giving of that name just make things that much worse for everyone?" he wondered.
But with the revelation of God's Word comes the power for unbelieving, doubting, can't-put-all-the-pieces-together people like Joseph to believe. And he allows faith to lead: guiding his hands and feet as he takes Mary under his roof, and guiding his mouth as he gives this child the name that marks him as God's appointed deliverer.
Joseph would have plenty of time to consider the weight of that name in the days and months and years ahead. But all he could think about at the moment was the impossibility of being delivered from this seemingly "no-good-way-out" situation.
While the picture for Joseph was still quite cloudy, Saint Matthew sharpens the focus for us and for all who hear in faith his Holy Spirit inspired Good News.
This whole thing happened in order that what was spoken of by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: Behold! The virgin shall be with child, and she will give birth to a son, and they shall call his name "Immanuel."
And for those listeners and readers whose Hebrew skills are a little rusty, Matthew adds: "Which is translated, "God-is-with-us."
On this final Sunday in Advent, we hear again Scripture's account of God's redeeming intervention in the midst of a confused, weak and doubting people. He graciously sends his Word and Spirit over lifeless water, as he did at the beginning of all time, to create and sustain a people who would be redeemed by the blood of his Son.
Yes this child named "Jesus" is a deliverer of God's helpless people, in the line of Moses and Joshua. But he will accomplish and fulfill and complete what neither Moses or Joshua could even dream of winning: deliverance from sin.
"Who is this King of glory who's advent is now — even now — at hand?"
He is "God-with-us," God-for-us, God-as-one-of-us — born to save and deliver and redeem and rescue as heaven's sacrificial substitute.
May Immanuel be the gift we wait patiently to receive in these days before Christmas: the Son of God and Mary's Son; the Son of David and David's Lord; the Son of Joseph and Joseph's Deliverer — even from doubt and the inability to believe in the unexpected way salvation comes.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters Called to Faith in Christ:
We are not the only ones waiting and struggling against doubt in these days before Christmas. There are others who are trusting in God's advent - his coming to save.
It wasn't much of a paradise in Paradise California this last week for a father and three children waiting for someone to come and rescue them from bitter cold. The storms had dumped more than a foot of snow on the woods as the four hid themselves from the elements in the hollow of a forest log. Their quick jaunt into the woods to cut down a Christmas tree had gone terribly wrong. For three days through an almost continual prayer to God to keep his kids alive, Frederick Dominguez fought the doubt that they would not be found until it was too late. Singing Christian hymns with his children, he passed the hours of waiting. And when asked by a rescue worker how he had survived, he replied, "Jesus Christ."
Faith in the midst of the storms of doubt and wandering is not only a summary of a lost family in the midst of deadly winter storms, it is the resume of an entire fallen human race. Faith in the Word of the Lord and his promise to come and accomplish his saving work, even in the midst of the most threatening of conditions.
It is faith and the resulting anticipation it produces that meets our ears and hearts this morning on the Fourth and final Sunday in Advent. Faith and anticipation — in the midst of gnawing doubt — that gives us the ability to sing, "The King of kings is drawing near; the Savior of the world is here," and "The cloudless sun of joy is He, who comes to set his people free."
Faith and anticipation — in the midst of our incomplete comprehension of how and when God will do his heaven-restoring work — makes it possible for us to proclaim together the words of the 45th Psalm, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his Word I put my hope" and "He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities."
Faith and anticipation — in the midst of forces that threaten to shipwreck our salvation — give us the courage to pray, "Come Lord, and help us by your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be lifted quickly by your grace and mercy."
The King of glory comes to his people. But, as Psalm 24 asks, "Who is this King of glory?"
That's the million dollar question in these days before December 25th. That's the heart of the matter that separates faith from doubt, confusion from courage and patience and perseverance and hope.
"Who is this King of glory that comes to rescue?" was the question Mary was asking herself over and over again as she meditated not only on how she was going to break the shocking news to Joseph her betrothed husband, but as she searched the holy Word of the Lord: the psalms and the writings of Moses and the prophets.
It's difficult to know what went through her mind and soul as Gabriel left her after announcing the coming of the Lord in the most remarkable way: through a lowly handmaiden even now the betrothed wife of a Nazarene woodworker. Yes, she had believed in the Word sent by the angel, that she would, by God's pure grace, be the mother of her Lord's anointed.
But how would she approach Joseph with the news? What would she say? She felt speechless when the time finally came. "Please sit down, Joseph. I have a word to share with you." And what a word it was.
Even though we don't know exactly how Mary told her husband Joseph, and exactly how Joseph responded, their faith continued to struggle with doubt and fear and confusion and the unbelief that such a thing could be from God and be a part of his divine plan.
No matter what the exact words were between Mary and Joseph, they were worlds away from the response of wicked King Ahaz as he stood before the Lord and his mouthpiece Isaiah the prophet. "I refuse to put my trust in the Lord's offer to give a miraculous sign of salvation!" the king responded to Isaiah's gracious invitation.
But, thanks be to God, the promise of the Lord's coming was confirmed that day before rebellious Ahaz and God's rebellious people Israel. "This will be the sign: the Virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel."
Eight centuries before Mary and Joseph and Zechariah and Elizabeth and John and Jesus, God reveals that the King of glory will surely come. He will come according to his divine nature, as the Son of God, the divine Word sent by the Father through the Holy Spirit; and he will come according to his human nature, son of David, from the house of David.
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man. All of this packed into the name: Immanuel — God-himself is-with-us.
Now there are two ways to end a seemingly unfaithful marriage: Either loudly with public accusations and stones, or quietly and privately and a legal piece of paper. It appeared that Joseph had the same options as the Lord had with his bride, his Israel, his chosen people: put his beloved under the crushing weight of divine judgment or release her quietly through a legal declaration.
And being a righteous man, Joseph chose the best for his wife and the child she was now carrying: there would be no public humiliation or revenge or finger-pointing. Even in the midst of his inability to believe that the new life growing in Mary's womb was a result of a close encounter with the Spirit of God, he made plans for her sake and not for his own.
Joseph knew the Law of Moses. But, you know what? The Law of Moses wasn't enough to save him or Mary or the Child from this completely unexplainable situation. Joseph had followed the commands of Moses to a "t," but things were still spiraling out of control.
What would everyone say at the carpenter's union? What would the Magilacuty's across the road think? Everyone in the little village of Nazareth would be talking and coming into his woodshop nosing around, hoping to get a glimpse of the child who's father was anyone but Joseph.
With only the Law as his guide, Joseph didn't have a contigency plan for betrothed wives conceiving children without the direct involvement of a human father. The scenario Mary had described was simply beyond him. With only Moses and the Law, the only decision was how to separate himself from Mary his wife. How to prevent her from coming under his roof.
"I will divorce her quietly, with a paper holding a legal declaration of divorce. This way she might have shelter in her household, the opportunity to give birth to a son innocent of any sin of unfaithfulness, and the opportunity to marry another." But it would be a bitter separation any way he cut it.
A husband and wife struggling to please God and his Law in the midst of a seemingly no-win-situation. There was no way the families and the neighbors wouldn't find out. Their pride in living under the Word of God was on the rocks. Now shame would follow the three of them for the rest of their lives.
But in the silence of their speechlessness in addressing their situation, God's advent breaks through, the Lord comes through his messenger to Joseph with a word that strengthens his faith and begins to calm his fears. God intervenes to save Joseph from unbelief — just as he had come in previous generations of believers as they cried out, "Save me and my family from the storms that make my faith numb with cold. I wait for you, my deliverer!"
Joseph in his sleepless sleep of wondering, agonizing, praying, receives another unexpected character in the unfolding drama of God's great plan of salvation: an angel from the Lord.
This was the first of at least four angelic visits Joseph received during the course of these first years of Jesus' life. And appearing, the angel calls to Joseph by his legal name: "Joseph, son of David." Not "Joseph of Nazareth." Not "Joseph, the master carpenter." Not "Joseph, resident of Galilee." But "Joseph, son of David."
This is how this worker of wood from an insignificant northern village of Israel will figure into God's sending of his very Son into the midst of human sin and unbelief — right into the center of a condemned race of estranged and unbelieving people.
Through Matthew's narrative we hear that Joseph was from the lineage, the house of David. As a son of David, Joseph is directed to, by faith, take his wife, Mary, into his house, for the child conceived in her is — even now — a son of David — the Son of David. Jesus is to be the Son of David in a two-fold way: from Joseph, the Son of David by law; from Mary, the Son of David by blood.
Now, humanly speaking, Joseph got the short end of the stick in more than a few ways, not the least when it came to naming his first-born. Following in the path of men like Isaiah and Zechariah, Joseph was told by heaven the name that heaven had already given. "Savior? From this situation? Won't the giving of that name just make things that much worse for everyone?" he wondered.
But with the revelation of God's Word comes the power for unbelieving, doubting, can't-put-all-the-pieces-together people like Joseph to believe. And he allows faith to lead: guiding his hands and feet as he takes Mary under his roof, and guiding his mouth as he gives this child the name that marks him as God's appointed deliverer.
Joseph would have plenty of time to consider the weight of that name in the days and months and years ahead. But all he could think about at the moment was the impossibility of being delivered from this seemingly "no-good-way-out" situation.
While the picture for Joseph was still quite cloudy, Saint Matthew sharpens the focus for us and for all who hear in faith his Holy Spirit inspired Good News.
This whole thing happened in order that what was spoken of by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: Behold! The virgin shall be with child, and she will give birth to a son, and they shall call his name "Immanuel."
And for those listeners and readers whose Hebrew skills are a little rusty, Matthew adds: "Which is translated, "God-is-with-us."
On this final Sunday in Advent, we hear again Scripture's account of God's redeeming intervention in the midst of a confused, weak and doubting people. He graciously sends his Word and Spirit over lifeless water, as he did at the beginning of all time, to create and sustain a people who would be redeemed by the blood of his Son.
Yes this child named "Jesus" is a deliverer of God's helpless people, in the line of Moses and Joshua. But he will accomplish and fulfill and complete what neither Moses or Joshua could even dream of winning: deliverance from sin.
"Who is this King of glory who's advent is now — even now — at hand?"
He is "God-with-us," God-for-us, God-as-one-of-us — born to save and deliver and redeem and rescue as heaven's sacrificial substitute.
May Immanuel be the gift we wait patiently to receive in these days before Christmas: the Son of God and Mary's Son; the Son of David and David's Lord; the Son of Joseph and Joseph's Deliverer — even from doubt and the inability to believe in the unexpected way salvation comes.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Monday, December 17, 2007
"Hope Against All Hope." Matthew 11:1-15 Advent III
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Dear Children of God who put their hope in the coming One:
This morning we have three inter-related readings from Holy Scripture that I believe God and his Spirit has guided the Church to hear and to take to heart on this Third Sunday in Advent. From Isaiah the Prophet we hear a breath-taking description of the restoration of the promised land — the restoration of the garden of Eden — ushered in by the coming of the Messiah. This was the restoration longed for by the Old Testament people of God, a re-creation they put their trust in, even though they did not see it's fulfillment before their death.
This specific hope in the One to come and make all things new again was a longing that saving faith produced in the generations of believers from the days of a wandering Adam to the days of those who wandered into the wilderness to receive God's work of preparation through John the Baptist.
And this is the hope that John had himself, even when he was arrested and put in prison: the restoration not only of the land of God's people but the restoration of God's people was at hand. Now everything would be different with the advent of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus. That's why John had instructed his own disciples to now follow the greater One, the One who must increase as John decreases and steps backward, out of the spotlight, that the focus might be on the Son of God alone, come to reign.
May God bless the preaching of his Word this morning, that, we might join all the faithful who have gone before us, hoping for the coming One - hoping with God-given endurance, patience and faith.
The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the eleventh chapter:
When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. (Matt. 11:1 ESV)
Saint Matthew presents Jesus' ministry in two parts, and the first verse of chapter eleven begins the second half. Up until now things had gone pretty well. The crowds had favorable things to say about what Jesus had been saying and doing, but the Jewish religious leaders were becoming more and more determined to gain the upper hand as the crowds were increasingly swayed by Jesus and his forerunner John. Here, Jesus complements the stationary ministry of John the Baptist in the wilderness by the Jordan by sending out his disciples to towns and villages to announce to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 10:7) Having completed his directing of the disciples in their work of preparing God's people for his arrival, he presses on towards the goal, all the while sowing the saving seed of his Word through his teaching and preaching. Jesus has completed the first phase of his coming that Matthew began to narrate way back in chapter 4, and now he will move on to the next. The work of preparation through all the prophets came to completion as the Word of God made flesh finished directing all he has sent out with his Word to prepare hearts and minds for the advent of their redemption. In Christ and his Word, the end-time reign of heaven, the hope of all the faithful, was now breaking through.
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matt. 11:2 ESV)
There is nothing more risky that putting all of your eggs in one basket, in betting it all on one horse, in putting all hope in one thing, and in one thing alone. That's what makes marriages and families and church families built on the foundation of Christian faith a risky affair. Every hope and every dream placed in one direction and goal, placed upon one person. And so it was with John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. John had placed all his chips on the son of Joseph and Mary, the Son of God.
In God-given faith he hadn't considered a "Plan B," a way out, an exit strategy. From the very beginning God had given him the ability to bank it all with his younger cousin Jesus, right from the day he had heard the voice of the mother of his Lord and leapt for joy that the Messiah had come — come to save and redeem John and his parents and his nation. John grew up in the Spirit of the Lord and a contingency plan had never been in the cards. John put all his hopes and expectations in this ordinary-enough looking man who — nevertheless — spoke with the authority of heaven and accomplished works only the Messiah from heaven could effect.
This question John lays at the feet of Jesus is pivotal in the Gospel of Matthew and it's importance continues to be reflected in our own culture and art. From episodes of Star Wars to the Matrix, the question continues to be asked for those who hope against hope as they place their faith in opposition to the world and their old nature and ask, "Are you the One to come, or shall we look for another?"
John, the greatest of the prophets, at the end of his calling, at the end of his life, struggles with the object of his hope. John was asking himself, "Is the one I have pointed to really the One? And if so, how can it all end up like this? No different than any of the other prophets that came before me. I thought, I believed, things would all be different now. He's come. He's here. Everything's in place. But look at me. Poor me. I have given everything and I have, seemingly, very little to show for it."
Can you identify with John the Baptist, chained to a prison cell for endless weeks and endless months?
Have you every questioned the object of your hope? Have you ever thought to yourself, "Christ has come to me, so why isn't my life and circumstances changed? Why do I still doubt? What is God telling me in the midst of my struggles and pains — when I want to throw in the towel, when I just can't seem to live in hope anymore? Where is my Messiah now?"
And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” (Matt. 11:3-5 ESV)
"The poor in spirit," those who have nothing to offer before God, stand as the introduction to the Beatitudes of our Savior, as he preached to his disciples the reality of the kingdom of God being ushered in through God's Son. In Christ, the disciples were, even then, blessed.
And what Jesus attributed to his followers he now attributed to John. It is as if Jesus were saying, "Go and remind John what he has actually known all along: In me the blind receive their sight and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. Even the dead are raised up. And — all this points, just as you have pointed John — to the fact that in me, and in me alone, the spiritually poor have the life-changing, hope-producing Word preached to them."
In Christ, people are delivered from the effects of sin in this life as a testimony to the greater work of Christ as he delivers the faithful, the hopeful, the waiting, from the eternal effects of sin and sinfulness.
"The poor" is shorthand for those who confess that, before God, they have nothing good to show for themselves. They are spiritually bankrupt. They do not possess the human ability to earn God's favor or love or escape from all that they by their sins have deserved.
They must put all their hope — they must put their entire salvation — into the hands and care of another: the Messiah, the One who comes to establish his last-day kingdom of grace and mercy and forgiveness and restoration.
“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matt. 11:6 ESV)
There were plenty in Jesus' day who took offense. Some he grew up with. Others within his own family. Some who were hoping for something better and more glorious and more powerful. Someone who would let sinners and unbelievers have it right between the eyes.
But Christ appeared as we would have never imagined: taking our fallen-ness, our weaknesses and infirmities right from the start through the miserable conditions of his birth. And he took our sins all the way to his innocent sufferings and death.
John suffered because of his hope. And even in that, he pointed to his Lord and the offense that only God can remove: the Lord will restore the promised land, the gracious reign of God, the Garden of Eden, as he comes to establish salvation through the offense of a poor manger and a repulsive Cross.
Each of us here today was created to hope - - to live our lives in hope and longing for the restoration of all things, something humanity has not enjoyed since the beginnings of time.
But we have, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, been given such a great gift and such a great hope. And with that Christ-given hope we can let everything ride on Jesus and his Word of promise.
Only faith in the One to whom John pointed can see us through the days when we say, "I can't make myself hope any more."
Follow John in putting all your hopes and expectations in this ordinary-enough looking man who — nevertheless — spoke with the authority of heaven and accomplished works only the Messiah from heaven could effect. Put your faith in the One who became poor, that you might become rich. Put your hope in his Word and Baptism and Supper. And then, after all, wait for his appearing.
He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 11:15)
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Children of God who put their hope in the coming One:
This morning we have three inter-related readings from Holy Scripture that I believe God and his Spirit has guided the Church to hear and to take to heart on this Third Sunday in Advent. From Isaiah the Prophet we hear a breath-taking description of the restoration of the promised land — the restoration of the garden of Eden — ushered in by the coming of the Messiah. This was the restoration longed for by the Old Testament people of God, a re-creation they put their trust in, even though they did not see it's fulfillment before their death.
This specific hope in the One to come and make all things new again was a longing that saving faith produced in the generations of believers from the days of a wandering Adam to the days of those who wandered into the wilderness to receive God's work of preparation through John the Baptist.
And this is the hope that John had himself, even when he was arrested and put in prison: the restoration not only of the land of God's people but the restoration of God's people was at hand. Now everything would be different with the advent of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus. That's why John had instructed his own disciples to now follow the greater One, the One who must increase as John decreases and steps backward, out of the spotlight, that the focus might be on the Son of God alone, come to reign.
May God bless the preaching of his Word this morning, that, we might join all the faithful who have gone before us, hoping for the coming One - hoping with God-given endurance, patience and faith.
The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the eleventh chapter:
When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. (Matt. 11:1 ESV)
Saint Matthew presents Jesus' ministry in two parts, and the first verse of chapter eleven begins the second half. Up until now things had gone pretty well. The crowds had favorable things to say about what Jesus had been saying and doing, but the Jewish religious leaders were becoming more and more determined to gain the upper hand as the crowds were increasingly swayed by Jesus and his forerunner John. Here, Jesus complements the stationary ministry of John the Baptist in the wilderness by the Jordan by sending out his disciples to towns and villages to announce to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 10:7) Having completed his directing of the disciples in their work of preparing God's people for his arrival, he presses on towards the goal, all the while sowing the saving seed of his Word through his teaching and preaching. Jesus has completed the first phase of his coming that Matthew began to narrate way back in chapter 4, and now he will move on to the next. The work of preparation through all the prophets came to completion as the Word of God made flesh finished directing all he has sent out with his Word to prepare hearts and minds for the advent of their redemption. In Christ and his Word, the end-time reign of heaven, the hope of all the faithful, was now breaking through.
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matt. 11:2 ESV)
There is nothing more risky that putting all of your eggs in one basket, in betting it all on one horse, in putting all hope in one thing, and in one thing alone. That's what makes marriages and families and church families built on the foundation of Christian faith a risky affair. Every hope and every dream placed in one direction and goal, placed upon one person. And so it was with John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. John had placed all his chips on the son of Joseph and Mary, the Son of God.
In God-given faith he hadn't considered a "Plan B," a way out, an exit strategy. From the very beginning God had given him the ability to bank it all with his younger cousin Jesus, right from the day he had heard the voice of the mother of his Lord and leapt for joy that the Messiah had come — come to save and redeem John and his parents and his nation. John grew up in the Spirit of the Lord and a contingency plan had never been in the cards. John put all his hopes and expectations in this ordinary-enough looking man who — nevertheless — spoke with the authority of heaven and accomplished works only the Messiah from heaven could effect.
This question John lays at the feet of Jesus is pivotal in the Gospel of Matthew and it's importance continues to be reflected in our own culture and art. From episodes of Star Wars to the Matrix, the question continues to be asked for those who hope against hope as they place their faith in opposition to the world and their old nature and ask, "Are you the One to come, or shall we look for another?"
John, the greatest of the prophets, at the end of his calling, at the end of his life, struggles with the object of his hope. John was asking himself, "Is the one I have pointed to really the One? And if so, how can it all end up like this? No different than any of the other prophets that came before me. I thought, I believed, things would all be different now. He's come. He's here. Everything's in place. But look at me. Poor me. I have given everything and I have, seemingly, very little to show for it."
Can you identify with John the Baptist, chained to a prison cell for endless weeks and endless months?
Have you every questioned the object of your hope? Have you ever thought to yourself, "Christ has come to me, so why isn't my life and circumstances changed? Why do I still doubt? What is God telling me in the midst of my struggles and pains — when I want to throw in the towel, when I just can't seem to live in hope anymore? Where is my Messiah now?"
And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” (Matt. 11:3-5 ESV)
"The poor in spirit," those who have nothing to offer before God, stand as the introduction to the Beatitudes of our Savior, as he preached to his disciples the reality of the kingdom of God being ushered in through God's Son. In Christ, the disciples were, even then, blessed.
And what Jesus attributed to his followers he now attributed to John. It is as if Jesus were saying, "Go and remind John what he has actually known all along: In me the blind receive their sight and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. Even the dead are raised up. And — all this points, just as you have pointed John — to the fact that in me, and in me alone, the spiritually poor have the life-changing, hope-producing Word preached to them."
In Christ, people are delivered from the effects of sin in this life as a testimony to the greater work of Christ as he delivers the faithful, the hopeful, the waiting, from the eternal effects of sin and sinfulness.
"The poor" is shorthand for those who confess that, before God, they have nothing good to show for themselves. They are spiritually bankrupt. They do not possess the human ability to earn God's favor or love or escape from all that they by their sins have deserved.
They must put all their hope — they must put their entire salvation — into the hands and care of another: the Messiah, the One who comes to establish his last-day kingdom of grace and mercy and forgiveness and restoration.
“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matt. 11:6 ESV)
There were plenty in Jesus' day who took offense. Some he grew up with. Others within his own family. Some who were hoping for something better and more glorious and more powerful. Someone who would let sinners and unbelievers have it right between the eyes.
But Christ appeared as we would have never imagined: taking our fallen-ness, our weaknesses and infirmities right from the start through the miserable conditions of his birth. And he took our sins all the way to his innocent sufferings and death.
John suffered because of his hope. And even in that, he pointed to his Lord and the offense that only God can remove: the Lord will restore the promised land, the gracious reign of God, the Garden of Eden, as he comes to establish salvation through the offense of a poor manger and a repulsive Cross.
Each of us here today was created to hope - - to live our lives in hope and longing for the restoration of all things, something humanity has not enjoyed since the beginnings of time.
But we have, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, been given such a great gift and such a great hope. And with that Christ-given hope we can let everything ride on Jesus and his Word of promise.
Only faith in the One to whom John pointed can see us through the days when we say, "I can't make myself hope any more."
Follow John in putting all your hopes and expectations in this ordinary-enough looking man who — nevertheless — spoke with the authority of heaven and accomplished works only the Messiah from heaven could effect. Put your faith in the One who became poor, that you might become rich. Put your hope in his Word and Baptism and Supper. And then, after all, wait for his appearing.
He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 11:15)
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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