In the Name of Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I heard the voice of Jesus say, "Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, O weary one, lay down your head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was, so weary, worn and sad;
I found in him a resting place, And he has made me glad.
If people today can agree on anything, they can agree on the fact that in these last days there are plenty of voices calling to the sheep, "Come and follow."
We instruct our children who to listen to and who to follow. And at the same time we teach our children who to ignore and who to run away from. We spend millions to educate our young people on the dangers of listening to and following the wrong kind of friends. But, at the same time, we spend even more bringing thousands of voices into our very homes so that we may sit mesmerized by a myriad of voices from cables that snake their way into our houses and into our ears through the screen of the television and the internet: the family altar of our age.
And this morning's Gospel underscores the severity of the problem each of us face in a world bombarded with the voices of all kinds of shepherds calling for the sheep to come and follow. You see, when it comes to salvation, it's truly a matter of life and death which shepherd's voice we listen to.
Scientific experiments have shown it to be true. Sheep recognize their own shepherd not by the clothes he wears, not by the staff he carries, not by the dog at his side. The sheep know their own shepherd by his voice, by the words that come out of his mouth. And its the same thing for the true Christian Church on earth and for each true believer in Christ. That's the way it's been from the beginning, as Saint Matthew's account of our Good Shepherd's transfiguration shows.
While [Jesus] was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well-pleased. Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:5)
It is specifically this blessed relationship between our heavenly Father and his beloved Son that serves as the basis for any blessed relationship we might enjoy between each of us and our Redeemer. The love and grace and kindness within the Trinity is the foundation upon which salvation is set. This Christ reveals as he announces:
I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me: because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father." (John 10:14-18)
The world today needs to hear these clear words of Christ. Your neighbor needs to hear these clear words of Christ. You and I need to hear these clear words of Christ and keep them treasured in our hearts today and every day. To the fatherless, to the widowed, to the sick and dying, to the prisoner, to the despairing, to the lonely, to the neglected -- to the sinner -- Christ has something very definite to say: "I am the Good Shepherd. ... And I lay down my life for the sheep."
The Shepherd is the Good Shepherd because only he truly cares for the sheep. Only he truly cares because only he willingly, voluntarily leaves the glories of heaven to lay down his own life for such and undeserving flock of wayward and wandering sheep.
Saint John says it beautifully when he writes these inspired words:
God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live trough him. In this is love, no that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1John 4:9-10)
How do we know the Good Shepherd's voice in the midst of all the other voices calling us to follow? The voice of the Good Shepherd is the voice of the one who defines true care for the dirty, tired and helpless sheep. The Good Shepherd's staff is held by arms with pierced wrists. The Good Shepherd leads his flock to green pastures with pierced feet. The Good Shepherd is the crucified and risen shepherd -- crucified and risen for the poor sheep.
Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther said it this way, "The only duty of a Christian is to know Christ aright." This is the life-long task of the Christian Church on earth. This is the life-long task of this congregation and each one of us here this morning: to know the real Good Shepherd; to know the true Shepherd's true voice, that voice that spoke over us when we first believed.
I heard the voice of Jesus say, "Behold, I freely give
The living water, thirsty one; stoop down and drink and live.
I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in him.
The Shepherd has come and spoke to us with water and his Word. The Shepherd comes and speaks to us through the pages of the Holy Bible. The Shepherd comes to speak over bread and wine laid upon his altar, that his flock may feed upon his very body and blood.
Yes, we have been baptized into the Good Shepherd. Our ears have been baptized and brought to life, and now we are able to hear the voice of our Master. Our ears have been washed with his Word and now we are able to hear the voice of Jesus calling us to follow wherever he may graciously lead. In faith we now hear him as he comes this morning and says, "I am the Good Shepherd. ... And I lay down my life for the sheep."
And, in response, we say back to him, "Yes, you are my Good Shepherd, for you laid down my life for me."
A pastor once wrote:
... even though I must suffer death and all kinds of misfortune, I will not let that thwart my faith. I know and hear and stay close to his voice! For even as a shepherd tenderly calls his little sheep, so Christ also encourages me. "I am your shepherd. I have laid down my life for you. I died for you!" This is the word I hear and believe. This is my one sure guarantee that he knows me and I know him. ...
Never doubt, therefore, that when a person is baptized, they are as lovely and pure in God's sight as is the dear sun, no sin remaining, nothing but eternal righteousness. Christ himself spoke that way. "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." But this, of course, cannot be outwardly observed. Regardless, however, it's true, provided we abide with the word and the voice of the Shepherd. Everything depends, therefore, on our holding fast to the Word ... .
Those words, written by Martin Luther to the flock over 460 years ago are as true today as they were then. Until Christ comes again, it is all about the voice of the Good Shepherd. For wherever the Word of the Shepherd is, there is his flock, the Church. Therefore the Reformers could joyfully confess that even "a seven-year child knows what the Church is, namely, holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd." (Smalcald Articles 3.12.2)
This age continues in its parent's footsteps of fall prey to false shepherds who ravage the flock and entice away any from the flock who begin to doubt in Christ the Shepherd's call, and the results are not pretty. One example stands out.
Years ago, a man journeyed throughout the land, preaching that he was the promised good shepherd, teaching a new religion that exposed the decay and hypocrisy of society while preaching hope of a restored life in the kingdom of God. For years this shepherd called people to follow him and become disciples of his flock. He promised the thousands he prosteletized, "I can be your shepherd, and my father can be your higher shepherd."
The man to whom I'm referring is Marshall Applewhite, co-leader of the religious group known as "Heaven's Gate." This shepherd led his flock to worship him as the great shepherd and savior, to devote themselves to his seductive teachings, and to blindly follow him as he jumped off the cliff of despair and darkness. This infamous shepherd promised to care for the sheep and to give them life, but instead poisoned the herd with a hypnotizing mix of empty promises and misleading words.
Again, Luther:
Recognizing a true christian, therefore, involves far more than outward appearances; it's a matter of hearing the Word. That's exactly how it is with a little sheep. It's very life depends upon hearing. If it doesn't hear the [true] Shepherd's voice, the wolves will soon be there. Without the Shepherd's voice, all joy and assurance vanish and only fear and trembling remain.
That's how it is also with a Christian. If he looses the Word, all comfort is gone. But as long as he is faithful to the Word, he will behold Christ his Shepherd, and therefore everything Christ has earned and promised him, namely, forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
And this enables [a Christian] to live out his life in full and certain hope. He eats, drinks, works, does what he is told to do, yes, will even gladly suffer whatever is laid upon him. He keeps his ears wide open for his Shepherd's voice and more and more trains himself not to judge according to what he sees and feels but solely according to the sound of the Shepherd's voice, "I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep."
This morning the Good Shepherd comes to his own. He comes and speaks, and his sheep hear his voice and follow, living with is Word in their ears and in their hearts, repeating it to themselves and to God and to their neighbor.
Hear again these precious words of Christ. Memorize them. Tuck them into your heart. Hold tight to them every day of your life. Remind yourself of them when you wake up and when you go to sleep.
"I am the Good Shepherd, for I laid down my life for you."
I heard the voice of Jesus say, "I am this dark world's light;
Look unto me, your morn shall rise, And all your day be bright."
I looked to Jesus, and I found in him my star, my sun;
And in that light of life I'll walk till trav'ling days are done.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
Prepared Host and Unprepared Guests (Luke 22:7-20)
In the name of Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters Washed and Fed by Christ:
The diagnosis of our age: an insatiable appetite for everything this very minute. From instant success to instant potatoes, we live on having what we want and having it right now. The world today wants to push a button or swipe a card or grab an item off the shelf and get on with it. What was quick ten years ago is cruel and unusual punishment today. Less than thirty years ago we use to turn on the television three or four minutes before the hour to give time for the television tube to warm up. Now our plasma screens are on standby mode 24/7 -- just waiting for us to flick the switch. Instant on. Instant readiness. Instant availability. And the consequences of our desire to have everything effortlessly within our grasp at a moment's notice? We have become a people that know much too little about proper preparation. We know less and less about get everything ready when it comes to our careers, our adulthood, our parenthood, our meals and our holidays. We have forgotten what's all involved in laying the groundwork as a family member, an employee, a citizen, a Christian. We are under constant temptation to trade in our garden hoe for a magic wand and an empty promise.
It may be an honest athlete, artisan, or musician who reminds us that things don't usually appear out of nowhere without some kind of preparation. Fame, talent, skill, accomplishment and achievement? Not without hard workouts; not without daily struggles and setbacks; not without countless hours of exercise and training and practice and callouses and sweat. Not without weeks and months and years of sacrifice.
The human disease of instant gratification that we all suffer under is, however, nothing new. Our first parents knew a little about trying to rub a lamp and get three instant wishes as they pushed aside trust in God's good and gracious will for a fast chance at having their needs met. And so the plague of instant gratification entered our very DNA. No one needs to train any of us to have it and have it now. It comes out of our fallen mouth and darkened mind and sinful heart naturally enough. Curved by sin into ourselves, we would rather take a chance on the lottery than putting bread on the table using the skills and energies to plan and plant, weed and water.
And this afternoon we look back on our lives and see our daily struggle to delay our own instant gratification for something greater down the road -- for us, for our families, for our society, for the next generations of Bible-believing, Christ-centered, Sacrament-receiving Christians.
No wonder why Advent is a season in the church year that fewer Christians are willing to observe; why more and more congregations want less and less to do with the reserved and seemingly restrictive nature of Lent. Forty days of preparation has been twisted into forty days of convincing ourselves we deserve the up-and-coming rewards of Easter. Times and seasons of preparation are dinosaurs among a people who have taken the lead of the Prodigal Son and cashed it all in for a chance at paradise now.
And so it was for the Twelve -- the twelve tribes. They wanted the promise without the accompanying preparation. They drooled over their inheritance of land and children and a name for themselves without being readied to receive it rightly. And so they grumbled in the wilderness right out of the gates, especially when it came to waiting for a warm bath followed by a grilled piece of meat. The result? Scripture reports that not many of them accepted God's appointed time of preparation. Too many died before they saw what was promised, fighting against a time, a season of training God had placed before them to get them into shape for the heavenly things to come.
Things didn't fare any better for the Twelve disciples. They desired the Passover meal before even having their feet properly washed. They clamored for the roasted lamb and the padded reclining couches, the premium wine and the opportunity to revel in their special status as the entourage of the One who would put the political and religious leaders in their place and, in the blink of an eye, usher in a new age of greatness and glory. In their rush to the table they had pushed aside proper preparation. They had brought their dust-coated feet and sin-stained souls to the table -- to the Passover table, for a meal commemorating God's saving work in Egypt after he had made everything ready.
Now Jesus looked upon this motley band of thick-headed and hard-hearted men more concerned at their place at the table than what Jesus was now settting before them. Even after three years of following, they continued to be spiritually out-of-shape. These were the same disciples who would only hours later quarrel about who deserved to first summon the genie and demand their wish granted. (Luke 22:24-27)
Yes, Jesus could have called the whole thing off that night in the upper room. He could have pulled the plug and sent them away from the table unwashed and unfed. Jesus had every right to say, "You have been with me so long and yet you still will not take the time to properly prepare for this most sacred night? Only those in Egypt who received my instructions, my words of preparation in faith were spared. But tonight, your hearts are pre-occupied with anticipation of what you believe lies just around the corner. Positions and power as princes in my Kingdom -- all without proper preparation. And what John said at the Jordan I now say to each of you. In repentance look to me and what I have made ready for you. Place your trust in what I am finally bringing to completion this night."
And how have we prepared for this Passover afternoon? How many corners have we tried to cut in anticipation of the glories of this year's Easter Sunday? Have we lived our spiritual life by the bell of the microwave oven? Have you and I taken the time for daily devotion to God's life-giving Word? Have you paused from the demands of this darkened world to allow God to prepare you for the heavenly things to come through his services and hymns and Word? Have you shut out the empty promises of the world to take to heart the faithful promises given to the twelve tribes of Israel in Egypt and the twelve disciples in the upper room? Have you truly disciplined yourself as a true disciple? Scripture's diagnosis: we have all failed to properly prepare and make ready for fellowship with God and the One he has sent. We too have been found attempting to sit down with our Maker and Redeemer with the dust of sin clinging not only to our skin but to our very soul. We are exposed as ill-prepared to receive what God has planned from before the foundations of the world. In the words of our corporate confession, we have examined ourselves according to God's holy Word and found in ourselves nothing but sin and death, from which we cannot set ourselves free. How can our fallen hearts prepare for such a night as this? What shall we contribute in the presence of God and his Anointed?
(Luke 22:7-13 ESV)
On Maundy Thursday we see even more clearly that through the entire history of salvation, only Jesus and his Father in heaven came ready to the table of salvation. Only they had prepared and made everything ready for our salvation -- even before the foundations of the world were set. The Gospel promise in the Garden, the saving of Noah by boat and bow, the sparing of Isaac and the baring of God's almighty hand at the Red Sea, David's psalms and Solomon's temple, the Word of the prophets, the return from exile -- all moved towards preparing the children of God for the fulfilment of his promises and the completion of our redemption -- beginning this night, around a table in an upper room. The prepared host and his empty-handed guests. That summarizes Jesus' entire ministry. "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with him!" was the charge laid against him by the religious leaders -- a charge that only faith can embrace.
And now on this last Thursday before his suffering and death, Jesus prepared the meal and prepared his guests in a way only he could. Taking a basin and water and binding himself to the towel that would take away their stains, Jesus washed his own. (John 13:1-17 ESV) These followers were not baptized into their own good intentions, they were washed into Christ and prepared to commune with him at his holy Table. In faith they accepted this washing and, trusting in his words, received this bread and wine, received this new covenant meal, from the hands of the One sent to complete it and fulfill it and give it its final meaning.
Jesus has prepared everything. The bread and wine, his very body and blood as the sacrifice that removes our sin and does what we are unable to do: prepare us for this life, our own death and eternal glories with him in heaven. Come, in faith receive him who prepared everything and gave everything for your salvation. Come to this feast of forgiveness and allow God's wrath over you to pass.
In the name of Christ, the Passover Lamb. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters Washed and Fed by Christ:
The diagnosis of our age: an insatiable appetite for everything this very minute. From instant success to instant potatoes, we live on having what we want and having it right now. The world today wants to push a button or swipe a card or grab an item off the shelf and get on with it. What was quick ten years ago is cruel and unusual punishment today. Less than thirty years ago we use to turn on the television three or four minutes before the hour to give time for the television tube to warm up. Now our plasma screens are on standby mode 24/7 -- just waiting for us to flick the switch. Instant on. Instant readiness. Instant availability. And the consequences of our desire to have everything effortlessly within our grasp at a moment's notice? We have become a people that know much too little about proper preparation. We know less and less about get everything ready when it comes to our careers, our adulthood, our parenthood, our meals and our holidays. We have forgotten what's all involved in laying the groundwork as a family member, an employee, a citizen, a Christian. We are under constant temptation to trade in our garden hoe for a magic wand and an empty promise.
It may be an honest athlete, artisan, or musician who reminds us that things don't usually appear out of nowhere without some kind of preparation. Fame, talent, skill, accomplishment and achievement? Not without hard workouts; not without daily struggles and setbacks; not without countless hours of exercise and training and practice and callouses and sweat. Not without weeks and months and years of sacrifice.
The human disease of instant gratification that we all suffer under is, however, nothing new. Our first parents knew a little about trying to rub a lamp and get three instant wishes as they pushed aside trust in God's good and gracious will for a fast chance at having their needs met. And so the plague of instant gratification entered our very DNA. No one needs to train any of us to have it and have it now. It comes out of our fallen mouth and darkened mind and sinful heart naturally enough. Curved by sin into ourselves, we would rather take a chance on the lottery than putting bread on the table using the skills and energies to plan and plant, weed and water.
And this afternoon we look back on our lives and see our daily struggle to delay our own instant gratification for something greater down the road -- for us, for our families, for our society, for the next generations of Bible-believing, Christ-centered, Sacrament-receiving Christians.
No wonder why Advent is a season in the church year that fewer Christians are willing to observe; why more and more congregations want less and less to do with the reserved and seemingly restrictive nature of Lent. Forty days of preparation has been twisted into forty days of convincing ourselves we deserve the up-and-coming rewards of Easter. Times and seasons of preparation are dinosaurs among a people who have taken the lead of the Prodigal Son and cashed it all in for a chance at paradise now.
And so it was for the Twelve -- the twelve tribes. They wanted the promise without the accompanying preparation. They drooled over their inheritance of land and children and a name for themselves without being readied to receive it rightly. And so they grumbled in the wilderness right out of the gates, especially when it came to waiting for a warm bath followed by a grilled piece of meat. The result? Scripture reports that not many of them accepted God's appointed time of preparation. Too many died before they saw what was promised, fighting against a time, a season of training God had placed before them to get them into shape for the heavenly things to come.
Things didn't fare any better for the Twelve disciples. They desired the Passover meal before even having their feet properly washed. They clamored for the roasted lamb and the padded reclining couches, the premium wine and the opportunity to revel in their special status as the entourage of the One who would put the political and religious leaders in their place and, in the blink of an eye, usher in a new age of greatness and glory. In their rush to the table they had pushed aside proper preparation. They had brought their dust-coated feet and sin-stained souls to the table -- to the Passover table, for a meal commemorating God's saving work in Egypt after he had made everything ready.
Now Jesus looked upon this motley band of thick-headed and hard-hearted men more concerned at their place at the table than what Jesus was now settting before them. Even after three years of following, they continued to be spiritually out-of-shape. These were the same disciples who would only hours later quarrel about who deserved to first summon the genie and demand their wish granted. (Luke 22:24-27)
Yes, Jesus could have called the whole thing off that night in the upper room. He could have pulled the plug and sent them away from the table unwashed and unfed. Jesus had every right to say, "You have been with me so long and yet you still will not take the time to properly prepare for this most sacred night? Only those in Egypt who received my instructions, my words of preparation in faith were spared. But tonight, your hearts are pre-occupied with anticipation of what you believe lies just around the corner. Positions and power as princes in my Kingdom -- all without proper preparation. And what John said at the Jordan I now say to each of you. In repentance look to me and what I have made ready for you. Place your trust in what I am finally bringing to completion this night."
And how have we prepared for this Passover afternoon? How many corners have we tried to cut in anticipation of the glories of this year's Easter Sunday? Have we lived our spiritual life by the bell of the microwave oven? Have you and I taken the time for daily devotion to God's life-giving Word? Have you paused from the demands of this darkened world to allow God to prepare you for the heavenly things to come through his services and hymns and Word? Have you shut out the empty promises of the world to take to heart the faithful promises given to the twelve tribes of Israel in Egypt and the twelve disciples in the upper room? Have you truly disciplined yourself as a true disciple? Scripture's diagnosis: we have all failed to properly prepare and make ready for fellowship with God and the One he has sent. We too have been found attempting to sit down with our Maker and Redeemer with the dust of sin clinging not only to our skin but to our very soul. We are exposed as ill-prepared to receive what God has planned from before the foundations of the world. In the words of our corporate confession, we have examined ourselves according to God's holy Word and found in ourselves nothing but sin and death, from which we cannot set ourselves free. How can our fallen hearts prepare for such a night as this? What shall we contribute in the presence of God and his Anointed?
(Luke 22:7-13 ESV)
On Maundy Thursday we see even more clearly that through the entire history of salvation, only Jesus and his Father in heaven came ready to the table of salvation. Only they had prepared and made everything ready for our salvation -- even before the foundations of the world were set. The Gospel promise in the Garden, the saving of Noah by boat and bow, the sparing of Isaac and the baring of God's almighty hand at the Red Sea, David's psalms and Solomon's temple, the Word of the prophets, the return from exile -- all moved towards preparing the children of God for the fulfilment of his promises and the completion of our redemption -- beginning this night, around a table in an upper room. The prepared host and his empty-handed guests. That summarizes Jesus' entire ministry. "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with him!" was the charge laid against him by the religious leaders -- a charge that only faith can embrace.
And now on this last Thursday before his suffering and death, Jesus prepared the meal and prepared his guests in a way only he could. Taking a basin and water and binding himself to the towel that would take away their stains, Jesus washed his own. (John 13:1-17 ESV) These followers were not baptized into their own good intentions, they were washed into Christ and prepared to commune with him at his holy Table. In faith they accepted this washing and, trusting in his words, received this bread and wine, received this new covenant meal, from the hands of the One sent to complete it and fulfill it and give it its final meaning.
Jesus has prepared everything. The bread and wine, his very body and blood as the sacrifice that removes our sin and does what we are unable to do: prepare us for this life, our own death and eternal glories with him in heaven. Come, in faith receive him who prepared everything and gave everything for your salvation. Come to this feast of forgiveness and allow God's wrath over you to pass.
In the name of Christ, the Passover Lamb. Amen
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Parable of the Wicked Servants (Luke 20:9-20)
In the name of Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Chronologically, the Gospel for this Sunday belongs after next Sunday, after Palm Sunday. So what's it doing on this side of the palm waving and hosanna shouting? Why has the Christian Church (the historical, creedal, liturgical Christian Church) placed this section of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke here, this morning, on the Fifth Sunday in Lent? That's a good question to ask this morning as it is on any Sunday in the season of Lent. "How is God in Christ through the Holy Spirit using this passage his Word to better prepare me for the pivotal events just around the corner, beginning with Palm Sunday and cumulating on Good Friday and Easter Sunday? As we heard on Ash Wednesday: "Let us pray that our dear Father in heaven, for the sake of his beloved Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit, might richly bless this Lententide for us so that we may come to Easter with glad hearts and keep the feast in sincerity and truth." (Lutheran Service Book Agenda 483)
May the same Spirit that inspired the prophets and apostles attend us this morning as we hear, read, learn and take to heart the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.
The situation? A day or two after Jesus had arrived at his destination - his final destination. He hadn't left his carry-on luggage on the plane for a short pause before resuming his flight again. This time he knew he wouldn't be leaving Jerusalem to continue another three years of his public ministry. It would all end here. It would all be fulfilled now. And the only luggage he would carry out of the holy city this time around would be what he lugged to the hill outside the city gates: the crosspiece of his won cross and a plackard around his neck announcing the charges laid against him.
Jesus had arrived with fanfare, and although this week he spent the nights outside Jerusalem's walls, every day he walked the city streets, wrapping up his three year ministry in and around the hub of the city's social and political and religious life: the Temple. Jesus had hinted at the finality of this visit to Jerusalem when he had repeated the same action with which he had inaugurated his three year ministry - his cleansing of the Temple.
And now, in a way that would cap his entire public teaching, he would announce to the crowds who followed him one of the most unexpected, one of the most shocking parables that had ever come from his lips: the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9-20)
Well, that parable didn't go over very well . . . . . . Maybe Jesus should have stuck with the sayings about the lillies of the valley or the birds of the air. But now the situation was so much more critical. The time was so much shorter than it had been even a few weeks ago. Everything was now so close at hand. Jesus knew his "earthly story with a heavenly meaning" would not be joyfully received by the vast majority of the Jewish religious leaders, but even though he had meant it as a clear and unavoidable warning for them, his heart was now upon those he wished to strengthen and shepherd, those who were already ripe to produce and place before God's emmisary the fruits of true faith.
We are told in verse seventeen that Jesus looked straight at the crowd. He looked with eyes of compassion and mercy and self-sacrificing concern. And it was to their Word of God-generated faith that he ultimately addressed this parable.
Now at first blush, the meaning given in this parable seems pretty cut and dried. We could outline it in three simple lines: Bad people do bad things to good people sent by the King. Bad people do even worse things to an even beter person sent by the King. Good king comes and wipes bad people out. Fairness and justice prevail. But is this really where Jesus is going with this parable?
Yes, the reaction of the religious leaders who were listening in seems pretty predictable, but wht of the crowd's reaction? "Lord, fobid it!" "May it never be!" "Tell me it will never happen like this!" Why all the shock and inability to accept this parable as a window into the realities of salvation? Because it wasn't all justice and fairness. Something in this parable was far from just and far from fair. That's why the parable took the crowd's breath away, and that's why this parable should do the same with each of us.
Now Jesus would have gotten a much more successful reaction from both the Pharisees and the crowd if he would have first formed a focus group or took a poll, but the script had already been written, the die had been cast long, long ago, back in the Garden with Adam and Eve. God had promised these two and all their children that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent despite the fact that the serpent would bruise the heel of the Man. Jesus was announcing in this parable the way in which this promise would all work out, and it is to that "way" that the crowd drops its jaw.
Jesus is announcing that he is completing what is lacking in Isaiah's "Song of the Vineyard" (Isaiah 5:1-7). Here Israel is depicted as the vineyard that received grace upon grace, but, nevertheless, produced only bitter fruit for the Lord of the Vineyard. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants simply unfolds what Isaiah had already proclaimed. In offering this parable, Jesus completes his public ministry the same way he began it in Nazareth: in pointing to the words of the prophet Isaiah and announcing: "In me this Word shall be fulfilled."
Jesus tells this parable to frame his entire ministry. In it he gives his followers a clear picture of how his followers are to approach his arrest, his trial, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection, ascension and second coming. This is not a parable of fairness and the world's brand of justice, but a parable that reveals the twin themes of humiliation and exultation, rejection and fulfillment. Here we see the unexpected reversal of fortunes as God's redeeming plan unfolds toward its completion in Christ.
More shocking are two elements that make this parable unique to Christ and his unique mission of redemption: the willing desire of the servants to carry out what they've been called by the King to do, and the irrational, reckless, seemingly wasteful will of the Lord of the Vineyard.
Countless Old Testament prophets went out, sent by God, not because they were so blindly obedient but because they put their faith in the irrational, wreckless, seemingly wastelful behavior of their Lord. The prophet's behavior was a direct result of faith saying, "Despite all appearances, it must happen this way. This is the way my Lord's plan of salvation will be fulfilled." In this way the Old Testament prophets foreshadow the sending of the Son, the beloved. He was finally called to go, and knowing full well the probable outcome, he went, whole-heartedly trusting the Word and will of his Father. Jesus rode into Jerusalem resolute. He set his face towards the vineyard and he never looked back.
As Jesus neared the walls of Jerusalem, he undoubtedly knew this was the place where palm branches and cloaks would be strewn for his triumphant arrival. He also knew, however, this was the place where the prophets before him had been dragged and thrown out as they announced, "Give to the Lord of the Vineyard the first fruits of his harvest."
And what were those firstfruits desired by the servants and their King? For a clear understanding we go to the greatest of the prophets, the last of the prophets, John the Baptist. At the Jordan River, John addresses unbelief and faith, judgment and grace, the present and future tenants (Gentiles were derogatorily refered to as "stones" by the Jewish contemporaries of John and Jesus) of his vineyard in these words:
And [John] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ’ ” Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:3-14 ESV)
The fruits desired by the Lord of the Vineyard? The first fruits of faith: repentance. That's the major theme of this parable, and that's a major theme of the Lenten season and our entire life as believing Christians.
But not all to whom Christ came were interested in giving the Lord of the Vineyard such fruit. Through the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist — and ultimately through Jesus himself — God came looking for what was "meet, right and salutary" and found, instead, bloodshed. God came looking for what was proper and true and found only the cry of his mistreated servants (Isaiah 5:7).
On this Fifth Sunday in Lent we hear again that whenever God's Word is sent to us, that divine Word creates a "critical time," a "right season" for the fruits of repentance and faith.
Why did Jesus, hours before proclaiming this parable, weep over the inhabitants of this God-chosen city?
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44 ESV)
They will not, they refuse to recognize the appointed time of God's visitation to the Vineyard in the person of his Son. Lent is to teach us and further our conviction that when it comes to our redemption, there has been and will never be any more critical season than this last journey made by God's Son to his wayward and rebellious people. In this passage Jesus is announcing that the critical season for faith and repentance has ultimately arrived. Now Jesus will take upon himself all the beating and the shameful treatment and abuse and rejection of every prophet sent before him (Romans 15:3). Jesus willingly rides into Jerusalem. God does the unthinkable, the reckless, the incomprehensible. He sends his only-begotten Son, his beloved Son, to the vineyard.
In an act that will fulfill the sacrifice of Abraham's only-begotten, Jesus will be offered up just outside the city walls for the undeserving, unfaithful tenants as a testimony to the kind of treatment Jesus would receive (Hebrews 13:11-12).
It is no coincidence that Christ asks the crowd the same question the king asks in the parable: "What, therefore, shall the Lord of the Vineyard do with those wicked tenants?" Unbelief and rebellion, will, after the time of grace has ended, be done away with, that faith and its fruits might have opportunity to appear. This is the same saving work God has begun in you, at your Baptism. The drowning of the old, rebel nature, that a new, fruit-producing nature might arise and live to God.
This is how the Lord of the Vineyard saves: exultation through humiliation, redemption through rejection, the bringing down of those who believed they had plenty of their own self-produced good works to parade before God, and the lifting up of those who confess they have nothing in their hands save their many sins, all through the lifting up of the Son upon the cross.
In this season of Lent we hear of our Lord's agony in the garden, his shameful treatment at the hands of evil men, and we cry out, "Let it never be!" "God forbid that such an unfair, unjust, unacceptable thing happen!" "So many mistreated prophets sent! And now, the spotless sacrifice comes to be bound and shorn and killed."
Only God-given faith can confess a week before Palm Sunday — Passion Sunday — that the sending of God's beloved was the reckless act of a reckless God. But such is his grace for me and all people. He loved me that much. And for that I will respond freely in repentance and faith and a heart-felt "Amen" to the sacrifice of his very life outside of the holy city.
Jesus comes to you this morning and announces through this surprising parable that only his final journey to Jerusalem, only his own suffering and death, only his sacrifice can rightly interpret this quite disturbing parable (or any other passage of Holy Scripture).
You see, Jesus' rejection will be the very means by which he will become the Cornerstone upon which God's eternal kingdom of salvation will be built. The Stone's rejection by the tenant-builders is the Stone's own glory — its exultation — as he bears the weight of the entire building, of all the building's stones.
Jesus has come to bear the weight of my sins and your sins and the sins of antire fallen people. Let him bear your burden. Let him carry your load. Trust in him and his rejection for you, and with it offer to God the fruits of faith: repentance and trust that truly believes, "Though Christ breaks, he will heal; though he drowns me, he will raise me up to eternal life."
In his abundant mercy and overflowing grace, may God continue to prepare us through his Word for the coming of his very Son to receive not only our firstfruits, but our very souls into his eternal care.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Chronologically, the Gospel for this Sunday belongs after next Sunday, after Palm Sunday. So what's it doing on this side of the palm waving and hosanna shouting? Why has the Christian Church (the historical, creedal, liturgical Christian Church) placed this section of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke here, this morning, on the Fifth Sunday in Lent? That's a good question to ask this morning as it is on any Sunday in the season of Lent. "How is God in Christ through the Holy Spirit using this passage his Word to better prepare me for the pivotal events just around the corner, beginning with Palm Sunday and cumulating on Good Friday and Easter Sunday? As we heard on Ash Wednesday: "Let us pray that our dear Father in heaven, for the sake of his beloved Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit, might richly bless this Lententide for us so that we may come to Easter with glad hearts and keep the feast in sincerity and truth." (Lutheran Service Book Agenda 483)
May the same Spirit that inspired the prophets and apostles attend us this morning as we hear, read, learn and take to heart the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.
The situation? A day or two after Jesus had arrived at his destination - his final destination. He hadn't left his carry-on luggage on the plane for a short pause before resuming his flight again. This time he knew he wouldn't be leaving Jerusalem to continue another three years of his public ministry. It would all end here. It would all be fulfilled now. And the only luggage he would carry out of the holy city this time around would be what he lugged to the hill outside the city gates: the crosspiece of his won cross and a plackard around his neck announcing the charges laid against him.
Jesus had arrived with fanfare, and although this week he spent the nights outside Jerusalem's walls, every day he walked the city streets, wrapping up his three year ministry in and around the hub of the city's social and political and religious life: the Temple. Jesus had hinted at the finality of this visit to Jerusalem when he had repeated the same action with which he had inaugurated his three year ministry - his cleansing of the Temple.
And now, in a way that would cap his entire public teaching, he would announce to the crowds who followed him one of the most unexpected, one of the most shocking parables that had ever come from his lips: the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9-20)
Well, that parable didn't go over very well . . . . . . Maybe Jesus should have stuck with the sayings about the lillies of the valley or the birds of the air. But now the situation was so much more critical. The time was so much shorter than it had been even a few weeks ago. Everything was now so close at hand. Jesus knew his "earthly story with a heavenly meaning" would not be joyfully received by the vast majority of the Jewish religious leaders, but even though he had meant it as a clear and unavoidable warning for them, his heart was now upon those he wished to strengthen and shepherd, those who were already ripe to produce and place before God's emmisary the fruits of true faith.
We are told in verse seventeen that Jesus looked straight at the crowd. He looked with eyes of compassion and mercy and self-sacrificing concern. And it was to their Word of God-generated faith that he ultimately addressed this parable.
Now at first blush, the meaning given in this parable seems pretty cut and dried. We could outline it in three simple lines: Bad people do bad things to good people sent by the King. Bad people do even worse things to an even beter person sent by the King. Good king comes and wipes bad people out. Fairness and justice prevail. But is this really where Jesus is going with this parable?
Yes, the reaction of the religious leaders who were listening in seems pretty predictable, but wht of the crowd's reaction? "Lord, fobid it!" "May it never be!" "Tell me it will never happen like this!" Why all the shock and inability to accept this parable as a window into the realities of salvation? Because it wasn't all justice and fairness. Something in this parable was far from just and far from fair. That's why the parable took the crowd's breath away, and that's why this parable should do the same with each of us.
Now Jesus would have gotten a much more successful reaction from both the Pharisees and the crowd if he would have first formed a focus group or took a poll, but the script had already been written, the die had been cast long, long ago, back in the Garden with Adam and Eve. God had promised these two and all their children that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent despite the fact that the serpent would bruise the heel of the Man. Jesus was announcing in this parable the way in which this promise would all work out, and it is to that "way" that the crowd drops its jaw.
Jesus is announcing that he is completing what is lacking in Isaiah's "Song of the Vineyard" (Isaiah 5:1-7). Here Israel is depicted as the vineyard that received grace upon grace, but, nevertheless, produced only bitter fruit for the Lord of the Vineyard. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants simply unfolds what Isaiah had already proclaimed. In offering this parable, Jesus completes his public ministry the same way he began it in Nazareth: in pointing to the words of the prophet Isaiah and announcing: "In me this Word shall be fulfilled."
Jesus tells this parable to frame his entire ministry. In it he gives his followers a clear picture of how his followers are to approach his arrest, his trial, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection, ascension and second coming. This is not a parable of fairness and the world's brand of justice, but a parable that reveals the twin themes of humiliation and exultation, rejection and fulfillment. Here we see the unexpected reversal of fortunes as God's redeeming plan unfolds toward its completion in Christ.
More shocking are two elements that make this parable unique to Christ and his unique mission of redemption: the willing desire of the servants to carry out what they've been called by the King to do, and the irrational, reckless, seemingly wasteful will of the Lord of the Vineyard.
Countless Old Testament prophets went out, sent by God, not because they were so blindly obedient but because they put their faith in the irrational, wreckless, seemingly wastelful behavior of their Lord. The prophet's behavior was a direct result of faith saying, "Despite all appearances, it must happen this way. This is the way my Lord's plan of salvation will be fulfilled." In this way the Old Testament prophets foreshadow the sending of the Son, the beloved. He was finally called to go, and knowing full well the probable outcome, he went, whole-heartedly trusting the Word and will of his Father. Jesus rode into Jerusalem resolute. He set his face towards the vineyard and he never looked back.
As Jesus neared the walls of Jerusalem, he undoubtedly knew this was the place where palm branches and cloaks would be strewn for his triumphant arrival. He also knew, however, this was the place where the prophets before him had been dragged and thrown out as they announced, "Give to the Lord of the Vineyard the first fruits of his harvest."
And what were those firstfruits desired by the servants and their King? For a clear understanding we go to the greatest of the prophets, the last of the prophets, John the Baptist. At the Jordan River, John addresses unbelief and faith, judgment and grace, the present and future tenants (Gentiles were derogatorily refered to as "stones" by the Jewish contemporaries of John and Jesus) of his vineyard in these words:
And [John] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ’ ” Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:3-14 ESV)
The fruits desired by the Lord of the Vineyard? The first fruits of faith: repentance. That's the major theme of this parable, and that's a major theme of the Lenten season and our entire life as believing Christians.
But not all to whom Christ came were interested in giving the Lord of the Vineyard such fruit. Through the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist — and ultimately through Jesus himself — God came looking for what was "meet, right and salutary" and found, instead, bloodshed. God came looking for what was proper and true and found only the cry of his mistreated servants (Isaiah 5:7).
On this Fifth Sunday in Lent we hear again that whenever God's Word is sent to us, that divine Word creates a "critical time," a "right season" for the fruits of repentance and faith.
Why did Jesus, hours before proclaiming this parable, weep over the inhabitants of this God-chosen city?
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44 ESV)
They will not, they refuse to recognize the appointed time of God's visitation to the Vineyard in the person of his Son. Lent is to teach us and further our conviction that when it comes to our redemption, there has been and will never be any more critical season than this last journey made by God's Son to his wayward and rebellious people. In this passage Jesus is announcing that the critical season for faith and repentance has ultimately arrived. Now Jesus will take upon himself all the beating and the shameful treatment and abuse and rejection of every prophet sent before him (Romans 15:3). Jesus willingly rides into Jerusalem. God does the unthinkable, the reckless, the incomprehensible. He sends his only-begotten Son, his beloved Son, to the vineyard.
In an act that will fulfill the sacrifice of Abraham's only-begotten, Jesus will be offered up just outside the city walls for the undeserving, unfaithful tenants as a testimony to the kind of treatment Jesus would receive (Hebrews 13:11-12).
It is no coincidence that Christ asks the crowd the same question the king asks in the parable: "What, therefore, shall the Lord of the Vineyard do with those wicked tenants?" Unbelief and rebellion, will, after the time of grace has ended, be done away with, that faith and its fruits might have opportunity to appear. This is the same saving work God has begun in you, at your Baptism. The drowning of the old, rebel nature, that a new, fruit-producing nature might arise and live to God.
This is how the Lord of the Vineyard saves: exultation through humiliation, redemption through rejection, the bringing down of those who believed they had plenty of their own self-produced good works to parade before God, and the lifting up of those who confess they have nothing in their hands save their many sins, all through the lifting up of the Son upon the cross.
In this season of Lent we hear of our Lord's agony in the garden, his shameful treatment at the hands of evil men, and we cry out, "Let it never be!" "God forbid that such an unfair, unjust, unacceptable thing happen!" "So many mistreated prophets sent! And now, the spotless sacrifice comes to be bound and shorn and killed."
Only God-given faith can confess a week before Palm Sunday — Passion Sunday — that the sending of God's beloved was the reckless act of a reckless God. But such is his grace for me and all people. He loved me that much. And for that I will respond freely in repentance and faith and a heart-felt "Amen" to the sacrifice of his very life outside of the holy city.
Jesus comes to you this morning and announces through this surprising parable that only his final journey to Jerusalem, only his own suffering and death, only his sacrifice can rightly interpret this quite disturbing parable (or any other passage of Holy Scripture).
You see, Jesus' rejection will be the very means by which he will become the Cornerstone upon which God's eternal kingdom of salvation will be built. The Stone's rejection by the tenant-builders is the Stone's own glory — its exultation — as he bears the weight of the entire building, of all the building's stones.
Jesus has come to bear the weight of my sins and your sins and the sins of antire fallen people. Let him bear your burden. Let him carry your load. Trust in him and his rejection for you, and with it offer to God the fruits of faith: repentance and trust that truly believes, "Though Christ breaks, he will heal; though he drowns me, he will raise me up to eternal life."
In his abundant mercy and overflowing grace, may God continue to prepare us through his Word for the coming of his very Son to receive not only our firstfruits, but our very souls into his eternal care.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Luther the Orange Monk Products Now Available
Point your browser to http://www.printfection.com/lutherstuff for products with my redo of Albrecht Durer's engraving as Martin Luther the monk.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Blessed to be a Blessing.
The Dead Sea is 48 miles long and between 3 and 11 miles wide. Noting lives in it. No plants and no fish. Technically, the Dead Sea is dead because the salt content of the body of water is almost six times that of the world's oceans. But how did it get that deadly? Has the Dead Sea always been a dead sea? Experts believe that long, long ago the Dead Sea was much bigger and much less salty, but even then it began suffering from a fatal flaw: while the Jordan River and some small canals feed into it, there is no outlet for the rainwater, carrying minerals from the surrounding mountains, to escape. The result: a slow, shrinking death as the only escape for the stagnant water is through evaporation.
Yes, the Dead Sea is great if you're merely afraid of drowning, but today it cannot sustain any form of life in its waters -- and so it is with any congregation that calls itself "Christian."
A few Sundays ago we hear of God continually coming to his chosen people, looking for the God-enabled fruit of repentance. To the tree's judgment, God didn't find any. Like the Dead Sea, the tree was found without any outlet to share the nutrients given it from the ground and in the air. It was an unfuitful tree beacuse it was a stingy tree. It drank in water and food from its roots and sunlight from its leaves, but kept all these blessed things to itself. No fruit. No sharing. No fruit of repentance and thanksgiving.
Christ has come to dig around our roots and aereate the ground, to fertilize the ground and water us with his Word. He comes to shine the bright beams of his mercy on our leaves and sprinkle us with the forgiveness of sins. He nurtures us and, sometimes, even prunes us that we might produce even more fruit.
Our Gracious Savior has poured out his lifeblood and given his all for us, even the gift of faith that believes and receives with joy and thanksgiving his unbelieveable, unreasonable, unimagined gifts.
And miracle of miracles, our Lord gives us the ability to reach out and share these treasures with others. He comes with the promise of breaking down the walls that make us a dead sea with no outlet to allow the waters of God's mercy to spill over into the lives of others.
I've served in congregations where God's chosen people have not allowed the Word of Christ to dwell in them richly and spill over into their families and neighbors and community. Congregations can give into the temptation of receiving the bounty of God's good and gracious gifts and then turning around and becoming stingy with sharing salvation with those who are in spiritually lifeless situations.
The pastors and the congregational leadership are committed to helping us as a church family stay grounded in the good soil of God's Word, drink in the life-giving food of eternal life, forgiveness of sins and salvation. Why? So that each of us, as God himself gives opportunity, can make a difference in this community and beyond by sharing the Gospel as freely as it has been shared with us.
Pray that, in the light of Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter morning, we may, by God's all-sustaining grace, not become a Dead Sea, but move forward with courage to individually and corporately allow Christ to bubble up and spill over into the lives of others.
God promises that in Christ through his Spirit he will work in us faith and the fruits of faith through his Holy Word, Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Don't hold back the work Christ desires to do through you become the stagnant pond. Place yourself where you will be blessed to be a blessing. See you at servies and study!
Yes, the Dead Sea is great if you're merely afraid of drowning, but today it cannot sustain any form of life in its waters -- and so it is with any congregation that calls itself "Christian."
A few Sundays ago we hear of God continually coming to his chosen people, looking for the God-enabled fruit of repentance. To the tree's judgment, God didn't find any. Like the Dead Sea, the tree was found without any outlet to share the nutrients given it from the ground and in the air. It was an unfuitful tree beacuse it was a stingy tree. It drank in water and food from its roots and sunlight from its leaves, but kept all these blessed things to itself. No fruit. No sharing. No fruit of repentance and thanksgiving.
Christ has come to dig around our roots and aereate the ground, to fertilize the ground and water us with his Word. He comes to shine the bright beams of his mercy on our leaves and sprinkle us with the forgiveness of sins. He nurtures us and, sometimes, even prunes us that we might produce even more fruit.
Our Gracious Savior has poured out his lifeblood and given his all for us, even the gift of faith that believes and receives with joy and thanksgiving his unbelieveable, unreasonable, unimagined gifts.
And miracle of miracles, our Lord gives us the ability to reach out and share these treasures with others. He comes with the promise of breaking down the walls that make us a dead sea with no outlet to allow the waters of God's mercy to spill over into the lives of others.
I've served in congregations where God's chosen people have not allowed the Word of Christ to dwell in them richly and spill over into their families and neighbors and community. Congregations can give into the temptation of receiving the bounty of God's good and gracious gifts and then turning around and becoming stingy with sharing salvation with those who are in spiritually lifeless situations.
The pastors and the congregational leadership are committed to helping us as a church family stay grounded in the good soil of God's Word, drink in the life-giving food of eternal life, forgiveness of sins and salvation. Why? So that each of us, as God himself gives opportunity, can make a difference in this community and beyond by sharing the Gospel as freely as it has been shared with us.
Pray that, in the light of Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter morning, we may, by God's all-sustaining grace, not become a Dead Sea, but move forward with courage to individually and corporately allow Christ to bubble up and spill over into the lives of others.
God promises that in Christ through his Spirit he will work in us faith and the fruits of faith through his Holy Word, Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Don't hold back the work Christ desires to do through you become the stagnant pond. Place yourself where you will be blessed to be a blessing. See you at servies and study!
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
"I must go my way." (Luke 13:32a, 33)
In the name of Jesus
Dear brothers and sisters redeemed by Christ:
"And [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees], 'I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following." (Luke 13:32a, 33 ESV)
Feigning care for the well-being of their enemy, the religious leaders advise Jesus to run away from the Holy city. "Save yourself." they command. "Herod, the one who threw God's final prophet into prison and delivered his head on a plate, Herod, who comes from the family of ruthless rulers bent on keeping their power at all costs, Herod, supporter of the pagan Roman Empire and its oppression of the Jewish people, is out to get you."
During Lent we are reminded again that only Christ Jesus himself and his Father in heaven understood fully the way that he was sent to willingly walk. Jeremiah, the most Christ-like prophet of the Old Testament, got a sense of it. John the Baptist, the embodiment of all the prophets before him, struggled and ultimately accepted his role of foreshadowing the way of Christ. But the world, and the world's religious leaders, and the nations of the world, and the human natures of the world just didn't get it, and ultimately didn't want to get it.
Jesus' way had been marked out for him by the One who had called him. And Jesus, knowing full well what that road entailed, had said, freely, willingly, "Yes Father, I will do what you have asked of me. I will walk the road you have laid before me."
The best advice of financial gurus following the billions of dollars lost in the stock market last week: set on a plan, and then, come what may, stick to it. That was also Jesus' approach when it came to living out what he had been called to do.
The resolve shown by Jesus here before the Pharisees is unimaginable. As we saw last Sunday, Jesus' resolve is the fruit of his prefect trust in the Word of his heavenly Father. In the wilderness it was all he had. In our wilderness it is all we have. His call to us, his will for us, his way for us and for our salvation.
But what is this way that Jesus must walk if he is to consequently give us the undeserved gift of heaven? The way of example for us to imitate? The way of encourager and cheerleader? The way of moral teacher? The way of ..... ?
That's the million dollar question during Lent -- and any other time of the church year -- and any other time of our life here on earth. What is that way Jesus set out to walk? Where do we turn to find the answer to this life and death question? The Scriptures? The Discovery Channel?
Well, Jeremiah reveals what it isn't. (Read Jeremiah 26:8-15)
As Jesus knew from the first days of his public ministry at Nazareth, everyone loves a prophet, until our favorite haunts are judged desolate and empty and without the ability to save. Everyone loves healing without accompanying repentance, miracles without confession of sin, Easter without Lent, the empty tomb without the Cross.
Jesus learned that very quickly as he walked among the porticos of the Jerusalem temple and discussed the way of salvation with the Pharisees and Saducees and scribes. "The little kingdom you have set up here will become desolate." Jesus revealed to the religious leaders of his people. "Your desire to be saved by your own glory and good deeds and outwardly spotless life is, literally, a dead end. You will not embrace by faith anyone's righteousness other than your own. That is why you silenced the prophets and killed those sent to you to announce the Word of the Lord. Therefore, you have been warned. Do what you wish. Attempt to build your own ladder into God's holy presence. But know that I must do what I have been sent to do: accomplish salvation for all who would confess themselves as sinners and offer it freely --irregardless of social position or pedigree."
We all have our memorable scenes and lines from the movies. As we were reminded during the Youth's talent show after the Spaghetti Dinner this year, Star Wars continues to influence even the youngest among us. And what was the struggle portrayed throughout each intergalactic episode? More than simply the battle between good and evil, it is the personal struggle presented to each of us: the acceptance or rejection of our God-given calling. Who can ever forget the towering figure of a tormented father crying out to his wounded son: "It is your destiny, Luke."
We will never know, even in heaven, the full extent of the temptation presented to our Savior to run away or side-step or utterly reject the calling he was sent to faithfully fulfill. Whether in the wilderness without food and water, among well-meaning but misguided disciples, before rulers of earthly kingdoms who demanded a performance, or religious leaders who pretended to be concerned for Jesus while actually plotting his demise, Jesus was constantly tempted with the possibility of trading in his undying love for you in exchange for saving his own hide.
"And [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees], 'I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following." (Luke 13:32a, 33 ESV)
One of the most frightening things in the Lenten season is the bone-chilling realization that the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem thought they were doing a great service to God and the state by placing Jesus upon the Cross and leaving him there alone -- desolate and deserted and destitute. They bartered away Jesus' very life to save their own necks.
This was the destination of Jesus' way of salvation: alowing himself to be driven out from the loving presence of even God himself, that God would relent of carrying out what we had, by our own thoughts, words and deeds, deserved.
Desperate people do desperate things. Do you find yourself in desperate straits this morning as you realize anew that you are completely unable to fix your own fallen spiritual condition? Are you at your wits end trying unsuccessfully again and again to bail out your own spiritual boat and paddle you way into the calm waters of God's almighty favor?
Look to the One who walked your road, put on your weakness, clothed himself with your failures and frailties and your sin-wrought fate. Look to the One -- the only one -- who was called to establish an everlasting kingdom and make satisfaction for the transgressions of an entire fallen race. Look to Christ and his indestructable love for you.
Look to the One who was faithful in completing his way -- for you.
Look to the One proclaimed from the pen of Jeremiah and Isaiah and hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt, who's 400th birthday we will celebrate in one week:
A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth,
The guilt of sinners bearing.
And laden with the sins of earth,
None else the burden sharing;
Goes patient on, grows weak and faint,
To slaughter led without complaint,
That spotless life to offer.
He bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies,
The mockery, and yet replies,
"All this I gladly suffer."
God gather you under the outstretched arms of his Son, at the Cross, at his Supper, at the end of this life. Amen
Dear brothers and sisters redeemed by Christ:
"And [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees], 'I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following." (Luke 13:32a, 33 ESV)
Feigning care for the well-being of their enemy, the religious leaders advise Jesus to run away from the Holy city. "Save yourself." they command. "Herod, the one who threw God's final prophet into prison and delivered his head on a plate, Herod, who comes from the family of ruthless rulers bent on keeping their power at all costs, Herod, supporter of the pagan Roman Empire and its oppression of the Jewish people, is out to get you."
During Lent we are reminded again that only Christ Jesus himself and his Father in heaven understood fully the way that he was sent to willingly walk. Jeremiah, the most Christ-like prophet of the Old Testament, got a sense of it. John the Baptist, the embodiment of all the prophets before him, struggled and ultimately accepted his role of foreshadowing the way of Christ. But the world, and the world's religious leaders, and the nations of the world, and the human natures of the world just didn't get it, and ultimately didn't want to get it.
Jesus' way had been marked out for him by the One who had called him. And Jesus, knowing full well what that road entailed, had said, freely, willingly, "Yes Father, I will do what you have asked of me. I will walk the road you have laid before me."
The best advice of financial gurus following the billions of dollars lost in the stock market last week: set on a plan, and then, come what may, stick to it. That was also Jesus' approach when it came to living out what he had been called to do.
The resolve shown by Jesus here before the Pharisees is unimaginable. As we saw last Sunday, Jesus' resolve is the fruit of his prefect trust in the Word of his heavenly Father. In the wilderness it was all he had. In our wilderness it is all we have. His call to us, his will for us, his way for us and for our salvation.
But what is this way that Jesus must walk if he is to consequently give us the undeserved gift of heaven? The way of example for us to imitate? The way of encourager and cheerleader? The way of moral teacher? The way of ..... ?
That's the million dollar question during Lent -- and any other time of the church year -- and any other time of our life here on earth. What is that way Jesus set out to walk? Where do we turn to find the answer to this life and death question? The Scriptures? The Discovery Channel?
Well, Jeremiah reveals what it isn't. (Read Jeremiah 26:8-15)
As Jesus knew from the first days of his public ministry at Nazareth, everyone loves a prophet, until our favorite haunts are judged desolate and empty and without the ability to save. Everyone loves healing without accompanying repentance, miracles without confession of sin, Easter without Lent, the empty tomb without the Cross.
Jesus learned that very quickly as he walked among the porticos of the Jerusalem temple and discussed the way of salvation with the Pharisees and Saducees and scribes. "The little kingdom you have set up here will become desolate." Jesus revealed to the religious leaders of his people. "Your desire to be saved by your own glory and good deeds and outwardly spotless life is, literally, a dead end. You will not embrace by faith anyone's righteousness other than your own. That is why you silenced the prophets and killed those sent to you to announce the Word of the Lord. Therefore, you have been warned. Do what you wish. Attempt to build your own ladder into God's holy presence. But know that I must do what I have been sent to do: accomplish salvation for all who would confess themselves as sinners and offer it freely --irregardless of social position or pedigree."
We all have our memorable scenes and lines from the movies. As we were reminded during the Youth's talent show after the Spaghetti Dinner this year, Star Wars continues to influence even the youngest among us. And what was the struggle portrayed throughout each intergalactic episode? More than simply the battle between good and evil, it is the personal struggle presented to each of us: the acceptance or rejection of our God-given calling. Who can ever forget the towering figure of a tormented father crying out to his wounded son: "It is your destiny, Luke."
We will never know, even in heaven, the full extent of the temptation presented to our Savior to run away or side-step or utterly reject the calling he was sent to faithfully fulfill. Whether in the wilderness without food and water, among well-meaning but misguided disciples, before rulers of earthly kingdoms who demanded a performance, or religious leaders who pretended to be concerned for Jesus while actually plotting his demise, Jesus was constantly tempted with the possibility of trading in his undying love for you in exchange for saving his own hide.
"And [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees], 'I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following." (Luke 13:32a, 33 ESV)
One of the most frightening things in the Lenten season is the bone-chilling realization that the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem thought they were doing a great service to God and the state by placing Jesus upon the Cross and leaving him there alone -- desolate and deserted and destitute. They bartered away Jesus' very life to save their own necks.
This was the destination of Jesus' way of salvation: alowing himself to be driven out from the loving presence of even God himself, that God would relent of carrying out what we had, by our own thoughts, words and deeds, deserved.
Desperate people do desperate things. Do you find yourself in desperate straits this morning as you realize anew that you are completely unable to fix your own fallen spiritual condition? Are you at your wits end trying unsuccessfully again and again to bail out your own spiritual boat and paddle you way into the calm waters of God's almighty favor?
Look to the One who walked your road, put on your weakness, clothed himself with your failures and frailties and your sin-wrought fate. Look to the One -- the only one -- who was called to establish an everlasting kingdom and make satisfaction for the transgressions of an entire fallen race. Look to Christ and his indestructable love for you.
Look to the One who was faithful in completing his way -- for you.
Look to the One proclaimed from the pen of Jeremiah and Isaiah and hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt, who's 400th birthday we will celebrate in one week:
A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth,
The guilt of sinners bearing.
And laden with the sins of earth,
None else the burden sharing;
Goes patient on, grows weak and faint,
To slaughter led without complaint,
That spotless life to offer.
He bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies,
The mockery, and yet replies,
"All this I gladly suffer."
God gather you under the outstretched arms of his Son, at the Cross, at his Supper, at the end of this life. Amen
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Wandering in Your Wilderness (Luke 4:1-13)
In the name of Jesus.
Dear Brothers and Sisters redeemed by Christ:
Down the street, Christians continue to sing and shout and scream: "Praise, praise, praise, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia." And tonight, down the street, Hollywood will continue to sing and shout and scream it's "alleluias" before the flash bulbs and cameras.
But here, this morning, something has changed. The alleluias have been put on hold for a season. The great shouts of praise to God from his people on earth have, for a time, become silent.
For a season, we will refrain from singing "Glory to God in the highest." For a time, we will refrain from singing "This is the Feast" and the alleluias that accompany it. For a while, we will refrain from singing "Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia."
But why? Why deny God's people the opportunity to loudly shout alleluias to God and the Lamb? Why - for a time - does the Church close the door on boisterously reveling in the happy, clappy Christian life?
Benny Hinn isn't observing Lent. Trinity Broadcasting Network isn't airing some annual "Ash Wednesday Praise-a-thon." Alleluias are not silenced in the mega-churches that are regularly featured in our newspapers and magazines. Why have they been reserved until a later time here?
Purple adorning the sanctuary. The absence of flowers on the altar. Hymns sung in minor keys. Children of God entering church still hiding a few ashes in the pores of the skin of their foreheads. "Oh, it's that time of the year again."
And something deep down inside us asks, "Didn't we do this Lent thing last year? Can't we just get on with it and fast-forward ourselves to the glories of Easter lilies trumpeting a Christ-less cross and empty tomb?"
Many in New Orleans and many more in Rio de Janeiro have plunged themselves into the excesses of Carnival or Mardi Gras, wishing they would finally wake from their stupor on the other side of Lent.
And so it is with Christians in our communities. A voice inside says, "I want a church that affirms me and allows me to do what I've already decided makes me feel good. If the liturgy is going to mention sin every Sunday then I'm just going to skip Sunday services until Easter. I know what I'll do. I'll simply go find a congregation that projects on their jumbo-tron a blood-less, cross-less -- handsome and hug-giving Christ."
But the absence of the alleluias, the Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent has been placed before us this morning for a reason, for a most-important reason: to highlight how Jesus' redeeming mission actually all began, that we would put our faith in his subsitutionary work in our wilderness and gain strength as he leads us through the barren wasteland of this world and into paradise.
This first Sunday in our Lenten journey with Christ sets the stage for not only his forty days in the wilderness but his entire public ministry: one of struggle, one of self-denial, one of wrestling with the possibility -- the tempting possibility -- that salvation could be won another way outside of the Savior's "innocent, bitter suffering and death."
"There's an easier way." the devil whispers into Jesus' ear. "If you are the Son of God, get yourself off this road that leads only to hurt and struggle and blood and sweat and tears. Reject this silly notion of offering yourself as the sacrifice for sinners and grab the glories you deserve as God's Son - now. Give in to the exciting side, the glorious side, the reasonable side of the spiritual life."
Saint Luke documents three final temptations that capped forty days and nights of struggle with his human nature, the devil and the world. These were the same temptations others before him failed to win against.
In these forty days of temptation, Jesus undoes what Adam failed to do in the Garden: firmly trust in the Word of God as it was revealed from heaven. In these forty days of temptation, Jesus restores what the children of Israel failed to carry out: as he believed firmly that, even despite appearances, God's leading was good and gracious and ultimately for his own good.
And how are you doing during your forty days of wandering in the wilderness -- the wilderness of your weakness and sin and consuming concern with self and self-obtained security?
Christ was tempted in the place of Adam and Israel and you - and came out of it faint, but not faint-hearted towards the will of his Father in heaven.
Scripture tells us that the devil left Jesus after those excruciatingly difficult forty days, until a more opportune time. And what was that more opportune time?
And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (Luke 23:33-37 ESV)
Everything hung in the balance. Would Jesus give in to the tantalizing lie that our salvation could be won without the Savior's death upon the cross?
Yesterday I was reminded that the daily Scripture readings suggested in the bulletin for the last few weeks have included the book of Job, a book that reveals Job's faith in his Redeemer-to-come, his Redeemer that would take upon himself Job's own human nature and helpless situation and overwhelming temptation in order to bring him -- and us -- through the wilderness of the unimaginable to rest in the eternal land of promise.
Do you find yourself in a wilderness of disappointment and hurt and anxiety and fear? Do you find yourself giving in to the temptations and trickery of Satan, your old nature and the world?
Then flee to the Christ that takes center-stage in the season of Lent. Watch as he is attacked by those who would rob him of his proper place as redeemer and, in so doing, rob you of any hope of heaven. See him as he gives up all in order to give you and all fallen children of Adam and Eve hope in this world and life in the world to come. Journey with Jesus these forty days, take hold of this man and his way of saving you: from your wilderness, from your hell, from your death.
Bind yourself to Christ and to his Word and his life and death and resurrection, for he has bound himself to you and your helpless condition. Salvation is all tied up in this Son of God and Mary's son, in his rejection of attempting to do things the easy way, the glorious way, the risk-free way.
Christ was found faithful at the end of his forty days because Christ was found by his Father in heaven holding on to the word of promise: "Through your innocent suffering and death, my people's many sins will be atoned for. By your perfect life, my people will stand forgiven and righteous before me."
One thing I'm convinced of after Ash Wednesday: there are a lot of different looking foreheads around Redeemer Lutheran Church and School. All kinds of foreheads - but the same spiritual condition. "We all like sheep have one astray, and the Lord has laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all."" Each of us received the same announcment this last Wednesday: "Because of our sin, we shall return to the ground from which God created you." Yet each of us received that announcment with a mark: a mark not of the Ten Commandments, a mark not of our great promises to God, a mark not of Moses, but the mark of Christ's sacrifice upon the cross.
This week you are beginning forty days of allwing God in Christ through the Holy Spirit to put everything in Christ's life -- and your life -- into sharp focus. Our great need. God's greater solution for it. God's unmeasureable gift of love in the giving up of his only-begotten Son.
Next time someone asks you, "What's your favorite season of the year?" will you reply, "Lent."? Next time someone asks you, "Where is the clearest, surest, most comforting revelation of our sin and God's forgiving love?" will you reply, "Christ upon the cross."?
God be with you these forty days, as he promises, to defend you and save you through his all-giving Son. In the name of Jesus.
Dear Brothers and Sisters redeemed by Christ:
Down the street, Christians continue to sing and shout and scream: "Praise, praise, praise, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia." And tonight, down the street, Hollywood will continue to sing and shout and scream it's "alleluias" before the flash bulbs and cameras.
But here, this morning, something has changed. The alleluias have been put on hold for a season. The great shouts of praise to God from his people on earth have, for a time, become silent.
For a season, we will refrain from singing "Glory to God in the highest." For a time, we will refrain from singing "This is the Feast" and the alleluias that accompany it. For a while, we will refrain from singing "Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia."
But why? Why deny God's people the opportunity to loudly shout alleluias to God and the Lamb? Why - for a time - does the Church close the door on boisterously reveling in the happy, clappy Christian life?
Benny Hinn isn't observing Lent. Trinity Broadcasting Network isn't airing some annual "Ash Wednesday Praise-a-thon." Alleluias are not silenced in the mega-churches that are regularly featured in our newspapers and magazines. Why have they been reserved until a later time here?
Purple adorning the sanctuary. The absence of flowers on the altar. Hymns sung in minor keys. Children of God entering church still hiding a few ashes in the pores of the skin of their foreheads. "Oh, it's that time of the year again."
And something deep down inside us asks, "Didn't we do this Lent thing last year? Can't we just get on with it and fast-forward ourselves to the glories of Easter lilies trumpeting a Christ-less cross and empty tomb?"
Many in New Orleans and many more in Rio de Janeiro have plunged themselves into the excesses of Carnival or Mardi Gras, wishing they would finally wake from their stupor on the other side of Lent.
And so it is with Christians in our communities. A voice inside says, "I want a church that affirms me and allows me to do what I've already decided makes me feel good. If the liturgy is going to mention sin every Sunday then I'm just going to skip Sunday services until Easter. I know what I'll do. I'll simply go find a congregation that projects on their jumbo-tron a blood-less, cross-less -- handsome and hug-giving Christ."
But the absence of the alleluias, the Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent has been placed before us this morning for a reason, for a most-important reason: to highlight how Jesus' redeeming mission actually all began, that we would put our faith in his subsitutionary work in our wilderness and gain strength as he leads us through the barren wasteland of this world and into paradise.
This first Sunday in our Lenten journey with Christ sets the stage for not only his forty days in the wilderness but his entire public ministry: one of struggle, one of self-denial, one of wrestling with the possibility -- the tempting possibility -- that salvation could be won another way outside of the Savior's "innocent, bitter suffering and death."
"There's an easier way." the devil whispers into Jesus' ear. "If you are the Son of God, get yourself off this road that leads only to hurt and struggle and blood and sweat and tears. Reject this silly notion of offering yourself as the sacrifice for sinners and grab the glories you deserve as God's Son - now. Give in to the exciting side, the glorious side, the reasonable side of the spiritual life."
Saint Luke documents three final temptations that capped forty days and nights of struggle with his human nature, the devil and the world. These were the same temptations others before him failed to win against.
In these forty days of temptation, Jesus undoes what Adam failed to do in the Garden: firmly trust in the Word of God as it was revealed from heaven. In these forty days of temptation, Jesus restores what the children of Israel failed to carry out: as he believed firmly that, even despite appearances, God's leading was good and gracious and ultimately for his own good.
And how are you doing during your forty days of wandering in the wilderness -- the wilderness of your weakness and sin and consuming concern with self and self-obtained security?
Christ was tempted in the place of Adam and Israel and you - and came out of it faint, but not faint-hearted towards the will of his Father in heaven.
Scripture tells us that the devil left Jesus after those excruciatingly difficult forty days, until a more opportune time. And what was that more opportune time?
And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (Luke 23:33-37 ESV)
Everything hung in the balance. Would Jesus give in to the tantalizing lie that our salvation could be won without the Savior's death upon the cross?
Yesterday I was reminded that the daily Scripture readings suggested in the bulletin for the last few weeks have included the book of Job, a book that reveals Job's faith in his Redeemer-to-come, his Redeemer that would take upon himself Job's own human nature and helpless situation and overwhelming temptation in order to bring him -- and us -- through the wilderness of the unimaginable to rest in the eternal land of promise.
Do you find yourself in a wilderness of disappointment and hurt and anxiety and fear? Do you find yourself giving in to the temptations and trickery of Satan, your old nature and the world?
Then flee to the Christ that takes center-stage in the season of Lent. Watch as he is attacked by those who would rob him of his proper place as redeemer and, in so doing, rob you of any hope of heaven. See him as he gives up all in order to give you and all fallen children of Adam and Eve hope in this world and life in the world to come. Journey with Jesus these forty days, take hold of this man and his way of saving you: from your wilderness, from your hell, from your death.
Bind yourself to Christ and to his Word and his life and death and resurrection, for he has bound himself to you and your helpless condition. Salvation is all tied up in this Son of God and Mary's son, in his rejection of attempting to do things the easy way, the glorious way, the risk-free way.
Christ was found faithful at the end of his forty days because Christ was found by his Father in heaven holding on to the word of promise: "Through your innocent suffering and death, my people's many sins will be atoned for. By your perfect life, my people will stand forgiven and righteous before me."
One thing I'm convinced of after Ash Wednesday: there are a lot of different looking foreheads around Redeemer Lutheran Church and School. All kinds of foreheads - but the same spiritual condition. "We all like sheep have one astray, and the Lord has laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all."" Each of us received the same announcment this last Wednesday: "Because of our sin, we shall return to the ground from which God created you." Yet each of us received that announcment with a mark: a mark not of the Ten Commandments, a mark not of our great promises to God, a mark not of Moses, but the mark of Christ's sacrifice upon the cross.
This week you are beginning forty days of allwing God in Christ through the Holy Spirit to put everything in Christ's life -- and your life -- into sharp focus. Our great need. God's greater solution for it. God's unmeasureable gift of love in the giving up of his only-begotten Son.
Next time someone asks you, "What's your favorite season of the year?" will you reply, "Lent."? Next time someone asks you, "Where is the clearest, surest, most comforting revelation of our sin and God's forgiving love?" will you reply, "Christ upon the cross."?
God be with you these forty days, as he promises, to defend you and save you through his all-giving Son. In the name of Jesus.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Color of Sin
I asked the preschool kids in chapel this morning, "If you had to pick a color to represent sin, what color would it be?" One child in the first pew quickly replied, "Dark." Actually, that's quite Scriptural as we hear the chain of events that Friday when the sins of the world came to rest upon one man suspended between heaven and earth. (Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44; John 1:5, 19; 8:12; 12:35, 46) May God in Christ Jesus bless your Ash Wednesday observance.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Caught in the Net of Christ's Word (Luke 5:1-11)
In the Name of Jesus
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:
This entire event with boats, nets and fish gets its cue from the section of the Gospel that immediately precedes it:
[Jesus] said to them, "I must preach as the Good News the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose." (Luke 4:43 Just)
In the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke, Jesus' preaching, Jesus' heralding the Word, always takes center stage. Despite what our worldly nature thinks of it, this event is not ultimately concerned with Jesus' authority over perch and bluegill. This event is an epiphany, a manifestation of the glory Jesus will ultimately reveal upon the Cross. It is a sign that points to something infinitely greater and more glorious. Here, with boats and nets and fish, our Lord gives a sign that points to his saving Word — that saving Word that alone can gather in and send out. Here, Jesus orchestrates a "parable in motion" as he uses common, earthly things to announce that the heavenly kingdom of grace and redemption has come, and it has come in the person and work and word of God's one-and-only Son.
And it came to pass, while the crowd was crowding upon him and hearing the Word of God, he was standing by the lake Gennesaret, and he saw two boats standing by the lake. And the fisherman, having gone out of them, were washing the nets. And after stepping into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out from the land a little. And after sitting down, he went on teaching the crowds from the boat. (Luke 5:1-3 Just)
The crowd that crowds in around Jesus is a mixture of faith and unbelief, a hodgepodge of hunger for heaven and for the immediate wants of stomach and the comfortable life. Nevertheless, despite the double-natured hearts of the people. Jesus continues to cast out his Word. Without him, the crowds (and each of us) are merely aimless drifters in a sea of chaos, darkness, and despair.
For many that day, Jesus was seen as just another prophet, just another in the long line of men with special abilities to speak a Word from God. But, for the eyes of faith, Jesus was so much more than even Moses himself. Moses had parted the Red Sea; Jesus prepares to divide doubt from trust, human wants from eternal necessities, as he preaches the difference between the Kingdom of Power and the Kingdom of Grace and Mercy.
His desire that day, and his desire this day, is that in the casting out of his Word, people would truly hear — as the Word of Christ goes out into our ears, into our minds, into our hearts and souls.
And when he had stopped speaking he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a catch." And answering, Simon said, "Master, working hard through the whole night, we took nothing; but at your word I will lower the nets." And having done this, they enclosed a great number of many fish, and their nets were at breaking point. And they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they were almost sinking. (Luke 5:4-7 Just)
Jesus will now call for an act of trusting faith from someone to whom he had been preaching his saving Word. That same word from Jesus' lips will now be revealed as the same divine Word that created the heaven and the earth, that almighty Word that breathed life into our first parents, that gracious Word from heaven that forgives and restores and promises eternal life.
You see, Jesus' was called to preach the Good News of the Kigndom of Grace, from the boat, on the road, from the moutainside, the Good News that defies all logic and reason: "God has come in his Son to forgive the unforgiveable, to heal the incurable, to secure the wandering and wayward in the net of the preaching of Christ.
"At your Word, I will." summarizes the entire Christian life. "At your Word I will believe. At your Word I will receive simple water connected with the promise of heaven. At your Word I will receive common bread and wine connected with the promise of forgiveness and strength. At your Word, Master, Lord, I will."
And the results under the direction of Jesus' Word are not only complete, but they are overwhelmingly complete. This is the "overflowing" praised in the Twenty-First Psalm. This is the abundance of wine provided at the Wedding Feast at Cana. This is the richer-than-imagined generosity of salvation given in and through the Word.
In this miracle of nature, Jesus is revealing to Simon and to you and to me, how he will establish his Church: by calling his own through his almighty and gracious Word.
And when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus, saying, "Depart from me, because I am a sinner, Lord." For awed amazement had seized him and all those with him at the catch of the fish that they had caught, and likewise also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were companions to Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not fear; from now on you will be catching men... ." (Luke 5:8-10 Just)
Peter saw, and then he really saw. Peter heard, and then he really heard. Before anything else, he was swept away with the almighty presence of the Almighty. This was not just another prophet. This was the One who commanded the world and the people of the world. Peter not only saw a glimpse of who Christ was, he saw clearly who he was before God: an undeserving sinner.
That's a God-given reality only faith can accept: we are in desperate need of rescue from our own dark and cold sea of weakness and sin and rebellion against the will of our Creator.
We swim so much in our sins we don't realize how much they are a part of us. It's like asking a fish, "How does it feel to live in water?" "Water? What water? What weakness and sin and rebellion?"
But, by the grace of God, Peter gets his confession out of his mouth and before God. "I can't catch a thing if left to my own understanding and abilities," he says.
And with that confession, Peter will now know not only something about his own heart, he will see and hear about the heart of his Master, his Lord, his Christ.
"Do not fear." Here is holy, saving Absolution for Peter, as Jesus begins to reveal to his disciple, "I have proclaimed my Word to you. Your sins are forgiven. Now you are mine and I am yours. Now you're in my saving boat, caught in the net of my Word."
Peter went from believing in Jesus the miracle-worker to Jesus the sin-forgiver.
This same Jesus comes to you this morning, and says, "Receive what I have won for you upon the Cross through the proclaiming of my Word. Receive my hold upon your heart and upon your soul. And in faith, keep — treasure — my Word always.
Only Christ-engendered faith can say, "Amen." to being caught by this fisherman with nail-pierced hands.
And having brought the boats to land, having left all things, they followed him. (Luke 5:11 Just)
May Christ, in his mercy, proclaim his redeeming Word into our hearts, that we might be saved in the net of his Gospel and abide under his care forevermore. Amen
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:
This entire event with boats, nets and fish gets its cue from the section of the Gospel that immediately precedes it:
[Jesus] said to them, "I must preach as the Good News the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose." (Luke 4:43 Just)
In the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke, Jesus' preaching, Jesus' heralding the Word, always takes center stage. Despite what our worldly nature thinks of it, this event is not ultimately concerned with Jesus' authority over perch and bluegill. This event is an epiphany, a manifestation of the glory Jesus will ultimately reveal upon the Cross. It is a sign that points to something infinitely greater and more glorious. Here, with boats and nets and fish, our Lord gives a sign that points to his saving Word — that saving Word that alone can gather in and send out. Here, Jesus orchestrates a "parable in motion" as he uses common, earthly things to announce that the heavenly kingdom of grace and redemption has come, and it has come in the person and work and word of God's one-and-only Son.
And it came to pass, while the crowd was crowding upon him and hearing the Word of God, he was standing by the lake Gennesaret, and he saw two boats standing by the lake. And the fisherman, having gone out of them, were washing the nets. And after stepping into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out from the land a little. And after sitting down, he went on teaching the crowds from the boat. (Luke 5:1-3 Just)
The crowd that crowds in around Jesus is a mixture of faith and unbelief, a hodgepodge of hunger for heaven and for the immediate wants of stomach and the comfortable life. Nevertheless, despite the double-natured hearts of the people. Jesus continues to cast out his Word. Without him, the crowds (and each of us) are merely aimless drifters in a sea of chaos, darkness, and despair.
For many that day, Jesus was seen as just another prophet, just another in the long line of men with special abilities to speak a Word from God. But, for the eyes of faith, Jesus was so much more than even Moses himself. Moses had parted the Red Sea; Jesus prepares to divide doubt from trust, human wants from eternal necessities, as he preaches the difference between the Kingdom of Power and the Kingdom of Grace and Mercy.
His desire that day, and his desire this day, is that in the casting out of his Word, people would truly hear — as the Word of Christ goes out into our ears, into our minds, into our hearts and souls.
And when he had stopped speaking he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a catch." And answering, Simon said, "Master, working hard through the whole night, we took nothing; but at your word I will lower the nets." And having done this, they enclosed a great number of many fish, and their nets were at breaking point. And they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they were almost sinking. (Luke 5:4-7 Just)
Jesus will now call for an act of trusting faith from someone to whom he had been preaching his saving Word. That same word from Jesus' lips will now be revealed as the same divine Word that created the heaven and the earth, that almighty Word that breathed life into our first parents, that gracious Word from heaven that forgives and restores and promises eternal life.
You see, Jesus' was called to preach the Good News of the Kigndom of Grace, from the boat, on the road, from the moutainside, the Good News that defies all logic and reason: "God has come in his Son to forgive the unforgiveable, to heal the incurable, to secure the wandering and wayward in the net of the preaching of Christ.
"At your Word, I will." summarizes the entire Christian life. "At your Word I will believe. At your Word I will receive simple water connected with the promise of heaven. At your Word I will receive common bread and wine connected with the promise of forgiveness and strength. At your Word, Master, Lord, I will."
And the results under the direction of Jesus' Word are not only complete, but they are overwhelmingly complete. This is the "overflowing" praised in the Twenty-First Psalm. This is the abundance of wine provided at the Wedding Feast at Cana. This is the richer-than-imagined generosity of salvation given in and through the Word.
In this miracle of nature, Jesus is revealing to Simon and to you and to me, how he will establish his Church: by calling his own through his almighty and gracious Word.
And when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus, saying, "Depart from me, because I am a sinner, Lord." For awed amazement had seized him and all those with him at the catch of the fish that they had caught, and likewise also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were companions to Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not fear; from now on you will be catching men... ." (Luke 5:8-10 Just)
Peter saw, and then he really saw. Peter heard, and then he really heard. Before anything else, he was swept away with the almighty presence of the Almighty. This was not just another prophet. This was the One who commanded the world and the people of the world. Peter not only saw a glimpse of who Christ was, he saw clearly who he was before God: an undeserving sinner.
That's a God-given reality only faith can accept: we are in desperate need of rescue from our own dark and cold sea of weakness and sin and rebellion against the will of our Creator.
We swim so much in our sins we don't realize how much they are a part of us. It's like asking a fish, "How does it feel to live in water?" "Water? What water? What weakness and sin and rebellion?"
But, by the grace of God, Peter gets his confession out of his mouth and before God. "I can't catch a thing if left to my own understanding and abilities," he says.
And with that confession, Peter will now know not only something about his own heart, he will see and hear about the heart of his Master, his Lord, his Christ.
"Do not fear." Here is holy, saving Absolution for Peter, as Jesus begins to reveal to his disciple, "I have proclaimed my Word to you. Your sins are forgiven. Now you are mine and I am yours. Now you're in my saving boat, caught in the net of my Word."
Peter went from believing in Jesus the miracle-worker to Jesus the sin-forgiver.
This same Jesus comes to you this morning, and says, "Receive what I have won for you upon the Cross through the proclaiming of my Word. Receive my hold upon your heart and upon your soul. And in faith, keep — treasure — my Word always.
Only Christ-engendered faith can say, "Amen." to being caught by this fisherman with nail-pierced hands.
And having brought the boats to land, having left all things, they followed him. (Luke 5:11 Just)
May Christ, in his mercy, proclaim his redeeming Word into our hearts, that we might be saved in the net of his Gospel and abide under his care forevermore. Amen
Friday, February 02, 2007
Funeral Sermon for Jean - February 1, 2007
In the name of Jesus
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
This day we mourn the loss of Jean. We mourn the loss of her presence with us. We mourn the loss of her no-nonsense work and devotion for her friends and family. We mourn the loss of her determination to never give up. And we mourn the loss of her conviction that there is something greater than even the physical death of those we love.
Just like the soup in a Chinese restaurant, this day is both sweet and sour. Funeral services, are by their very nature, bitter-sweet events.
Now that's not the way all funerals go. Too many — from beginning to end — are just plain bitter. Like some of the home remedies we had to take as kids, some funerals don't give an ounce of comfort or peace and strength. They just drain us and leave a bad taste in our mouths. Too many funerals are non-stop speeches of what will always be missed and what could have been if things would have turned out differently. And after those kind of bitter events, we seem to feel a part of us has died along with the one we loved. That's the power of despair and death. That's the difficult but necessary realization that there will be — at least in this life — no more visits to say, "Hello," no more cards to send at birthdays, no more camping trips, no more kids coming in the kitchen door asking for "Mrs. D."
It is a bitter day today. The many years God graciously gave Jean have finally come to a close. The time allotted for her to carry out her calling as a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, has now ended. For Jean, the sun has now set. God has brought us here this day to hear the last chapter of her life read and the book closed.
It's a dark day. The sickness and struggle that made up so much of Jean's last years has, sadly, brought us to this final event. And now that it's all ended, Jean stands before God at the entrance to heaven — a heaven without disease and sickness — a heaven without bitterness.
Only One knows better than any of us here today the realities of Jean's life and mind and heart: her strengths and her faults, her doubts and her faith. Before God, Jean's life is laid bare.
And it will be obvious for Jean, as it should be for each of us, that if heaven must be earned — if heaven must be worked for and won by our fallen human works — none of us have the slightest chance to demand entrance. That's just the way it is. Living before a holy and righteous and perfect God demands our holiness and righteousness and perfection.
Being the "pull-no-punches" person she was, I'm confident Jean honestly believed none of us can ever buy God's freely-given, gracious gifts.
Now the worst days for me as a Christian pastor are the days on which I am asked by a grieving family to preach a sermon during the funeral service that will convince everyone attending — including God himself — that the person who has died had done enough good things to earn heaven. Heaven can never be bargained for. And, for any of us, if left to our own far-from-perfect abilities, the doors of heaven will always remain shut.
That's the clear reality to which Jean gave witness whenever she sang the words of the hymn "Amazing Grace." Before God we are spiritually lost and blind — spiritually wretched people. That's the bitter reality Jean needed to swallow and that's the hard reality each of us needs to accept. And no one stated the sweet and the sour better than the apostle Paul in his letter to the Church at Rome:
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
That's the only reason we can sing "Amazing grace" at Jean's funeral service. Eternal life is a free gift based not on our performance but on God's gracious heart and the sacrifice of his Son in our place.
The sweet in the bitter-sweet is to be found in God's Word of promise, God's Word that declares: "The impossibility of climbing your own way to heaven doesn't ever have to be the final word. My Son, Jesus Christ, came to be the last word — of forgiveness and life and salvation."
Despite our confession to God that we have not lived our life loving God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, despite our confession to God that we have not lived our life loving our neighbor as much as we loved ourselves, despite our wayward and wandering spiritual life, there can be true comfort, even on a dark day like today.
You see, Jean was baptized into Jesus Christ. And on the day of her baptism God gave her a sure and certain promise. Not the kind of promise we so often are tempted to make, "If you first do enough good for me, then, and only then, I might reward you with some nice prize."
God gave Jean a promise that was one-hundred percent gift, with no strings attached. "Jean," God said, "I wash away your sins simply because I love you with a love you will never fathom. I wash away your sins as I connect you with Christ and his sacrifice on your behalf. Because of my grace, I have made you my dear child."
In Sunday School and in Confirmation Class Jean heard it was on the basis of Jesus' performance for her that she was declared an heir of heaven. Jean's trust in that promise of God has become the great legacy in the family as her children and their children have also been brought to God's altar and their received the washing away of their sins and the unmerited promise of eternal life with Christ.
That's the only comfort for any of us on a day like today. Not the promises that Jean may have made, not the promises that you or I may have made.
Yesterday the family shared Jean's love of the Gospel songs of Aretha Franklin. One of those songs, an old Christian hymn, puts the reality of how our salvation works this way:
"Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be, for me a blood-bought free reward." (There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood")
This is the reason we mourn, not as the world mourns, but with hope. We mourn, yet give thanks that Jean was, in her baptism, buried with Christ, that she might also be raised with Christ.
Where is your hope this afternoon? Where is your comfort this day? In weak and fallen abilities of ourselves or others?
The Scriptures reveal that hope and comfort and faith are to be found in only one place: in the forgiveness of Christ and in his saving gifts.
I didn't know Jean, but I'm sure that if she were brought back to be with us here today she would, in no uncertain terms, tell each of us of the one enduring legacy she has passed-on to those she loved: a simple, strong trust in the amazing things Christ has won for her and for you.
Hear again the gracious, amazing promise of Christ to all who put their trust in him:
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14)
May Jesus strengthen us as we fight the good fight of faith, taking hold of that eternal life won for us by Jesus — by the great Good Shepherd who willingly, lovingly, gave his own life-blood for the sheep.
May we say, "Yes" as Christ comes and says, as he came and said to Jean: "Allow me to do the work of saving you. Simply put your trust in me and in what I have promised to do for you. Let me take your weakness and your wanderings — and give you heaven."
And we say trustingly, "Yes. Amen. Let it be so."
In the name of Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
This day we mourn the loss of Jean. We mourn the loss of her presence with us. We mourn the loss of her no-nonsense work and devotion for her friends and family. We mourn the loss of her determination to never give up. And we mourn the loss of her conviction that there is something greater than even the physical death of those we love.
Just like the soup in a Chinese restaurant, this day is both sweet and sour. Funeral services, are by their very nature, bitter-sweet events.
Now that's not the way all funerals go. Too many — from beginning to end — are just plain bitter. Like some of the home remedies we had to take as kids, some funerals don't give an ounce of comfort or peace and strength. They just drain us and leave a bad taste in our mouths. Too many funerals are non-stop speeches of what will always be missed and what could have been if things would have turned out differently. And after those kind of bitter events, we seem to feel a part of us has died along with the one we loved. That's the power of despair and death. That's the difficult but necessary realization that there will be — at least in this life — no more visits to say, "Hello," no more cards to send at birthdays, no more camping trips, no more kids coming in the kitchen door asking for "Mrs. D."
It is a bitter day today. The many years God graciously gave Jean have finally come to a close. The time allotted for her to carry out her calling as a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, has now ended. For Jean, the sun has now set. God has brought us here this day to hear the last chapter of her life read and the book closed.
It's a dark day. The sickness and struggle that made up so much of Jean's last years has, sadly, brought us to this final event. And now that it's all ended, Jean stands before God at the entrance to heaven — a heaven without disease and sickness — a heaven without bitterness.
Only One knows better than any of us here today the realities of Jean's life and mind and heart: her strengths and her faults, her doubts and her faith. Before God, Jean's life is laid bare.
And it will be obvious for Jean, as it should be for each of us, that if heaven must be earned — if heaven must be worked for and won by our fallen human works — none of us have the slightest chance to demand entrance. That's just the way it is. Living before a holy and righteous and perfect God demands our holiness and righteousness and perfection.
Being the "pull-no-punches" person she was, I'm confident Jean honestly believed none of us can ever buy God's freely-given, gracious gifts.
Now the worst days for me as a Christian pastor are the days on which I am asked by a grieving family to preach a sermon during the funeral service that will convince everyone attending — including God himself — that the person who has died had done enough good things to earn heaven. Heaven can never be bargained for. And, for any of us, if left to our own far-from-perfect abilities, the doors of heaven will always remain shut.
That's the clear reality to which Jean gave witness whenever she sang the words of the hymn "Amazing Grace." Before God we are spiritually lost and blind — spiritually wretched people. That's the bitter reality Jean needed to swallow and that's the hard reality each of us needs to accept. And no one stated the sweet and the sour better than the apostle Paul in his letter to the Church at Rome:
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
That's the only reason we can sing "Amazing grace" at Jean's funeral service. Eternal life is a free gift based not on our performance but on God's gracious heart and the sacrifice of his Son in our place.
The sweet in the bitter-sweet is to be found in God's Word of promise, God's Word that declares: "The impossibility of climbing your own way to heaven doesn't ever have to be the final word. My Son, Jesus Christ, came to be the last word — of forgiveness and life and salvation."
Despite our confession to God that we have not lived our life loving God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, despite our confession to God that we have not lived our life loving our neighbor as much as we loved ourselves, despite our wayward and wandering spiritual life, there can be true comfort, even on a dark day like today.
You see, Jean was baptized into Jesus Christ. And on the day of her baptism God gave her a sure and certain promise. Not the kind of promise we so often are tempted to make, "If you first do enough good for me, then, and only then, I might reward you with some nice prize."
God gave Jean a promise that was one-hundred percent gift, with no strings attached. "Jean," God said, "I wash away your sins simply because I love you with a love you will never fathom. I wash away your sins as I connect you with Christ and his sacrifice on your behalf. Because of my grace, I have made you my dear child."
In Sunday School and in Confirmation Class Jean heard it was on the basis of Jesus' performance for her that she was declared an heir of heaven. Jean's trust in that promise of God has become the great legacy in the family as her children and their children have also been brought to God's altar and their received the washing away of their sins and the unmerited promise of eternal life with Christ.
That's the only comfort for any of us on a day like today. Not the promises that Jean may have made, not the promises that you or I may have made.
Yesterday the family shared Jean's love of the Gospel songs of Aretha Franklin. One of those songs, an old Christian hymn, puts the reality of how our salvation works this way:
"Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be, for me a blood-bought free reward." (There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood")
This is the reason we mourn, not as the world mourns, but with hope. We mourn, yet give thanks that Jean was, in her baptism, buried with Christ, that she might also be raised with Christ.
Where is your hope this afternoon? Where is your comfort this day? In weak and fallen abilities of ourselves or others?
The Scriptures reveal that hope and comfort and faith are to be found in only one place: in the forgiveness of Christ and in his saving gifts.
I didn't know Jean, but I'm sure that if she were brought back to be with us here today she would, in no uncertain terms, tell each of us of the one enduring legacy she has passed-on to those she loved: a simple, strong trust in the amazing things Christ has won for her and for you.
Hear again the gracious, amazing promise of Christ to all who put their trust in him:
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14)
May Jesus strengthen us as we fight the good fight of faith, taking hold of that eternal life won for us by Jesus — by the great Good Shepherd who willingly, lovingly, gave his own life-blood for the sheep.
May we say, "Yes" as Christ comes and says, as he came and said to Jean: "Allow me to do the work of saving you. Simply put your trust in me and in what I have promised to do for you. Let me take your weakness and your wanderings — and give you heaven."
And we say trustingly, "Yes. Amen. Let it be so."
In the name of Jesus.
Post: An Overture for this Summer's LCMS Convention
February 2, 2007
Dear Fellow LCMS Pastors and Congregations:
In preparation for the synodical convention this summer, and the deadline of March 10 for overtures, the following memorial is being forwarded to you for your consideration. It is hoped that you will prayerfully consider placing this issue before the congregation you serve, document its approval by the voters in assembly in a cover letter, and mail both the resolution and the cover letter to: Office of the Secretary, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 1333 S Kirkwood Road, St. Louis, MO 63122-7295. You are also encouraged to fax the resolution along with your cover letter to: 314-996-1016. Thanking you for your time and consideration, I remain
Your servant in Christ,
The Rev. Dr. Daniel N. Harmelink, Pastor
Redeemer Lutheran Church, Huntington Beach, CA
lutherfest@mac.com
714-846-6330
To Allow Congregations to Include/Retain Standard Language Describing the Nature of Holy Scriptures in Their Constitutions
WHEREAS, the constitution of a congregation of the LCMS is an indispensable document for congregational self-understanding and governance; and
WHEREAS, constitutions of LCMS congregations, LCMS rites of ordination for pastors and installation of church workers (Lutheran Worship Agenda, p 211; Lutheran Service Book Agenda, p 179), and confessional statements of synod (Article I of A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod; A Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles (1973), http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/LCMS/astatement.pdf) have included the descriptive words "revealed," "inspired," or "inerrant" as standard, time-honored language that details the position of Holy Scripture (2Timothy 3:16; 2Peter 1:20-21; 1Corinthians 2:9-13; 1Corinthians 14:37; Acts 24:14; Psalm 19:7; Romans 3:2; 1Thessalonians 2:13; John 8:31-32; John 17:20; John 10:35; 2Corinthians 13:3; 1Peter 1:12) and the position of our Lutheran Confessions (Large Catechism, Part Four: Of Baptism, Paragraph 57); and
WHEREAS, district constitution commitees of the LCMS, directed by the synod's Committee on Constitutional Matters (CCM) to judge whether new or revised constitutions of congregations in their district are "in harmony with Holy Scripture, the Confessions, and the teachings and practices of the Synod", have now prohibited congregations seeking approval of their submitted constitution and bylaws from including such descriptive words as "revealed," "inspired" or "inerrant" in the confessional subscription section of their constitution, judging inclusion of such language as being in violation of the opinion of the Committee on Constitutional Matters (CCM) Guidelines for the Constitution and Bylaws of a Lutheran Congregation and "go[ing] beyond the synod's own confessional standards" (http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CCM/GUIDELINES%20for%20Web.pdf); and
WHEREAS, the recent opinion of the CCM (http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CCM/CCMMin9-06.pdf) has left no other avenue of appeal for congregations seeking inclusion or retention of this descriptive language in their constitutions; be it therefore
RESOLVED, that synod in convention affirm that the descriptive words "revealed," "inspired," and "inerrant" do not go beyond the synod's own confessional standards, and
RESOLVED, that synod in convention direct district constitution committees not only to cease directing congregations seeking approval of their constitutions and bylaws to remove such descriptive language from their confessional standards paragraph, but also to encourage congregations to retain such time-honored language that describes in a clear and helpful way the nature of the books of the Old and New Testament, and be it finally
RESOLVED, that the CCM document Guidelines for the Constitution and Bylaws of a Lutheran Congregation be revised to reflect the freedom LCMS congregations have previously enjoyed to faithfully and unambiguously describe the nature of Holy Scripture in the confessional standards paragraph of their constitutions using the descriptive words "revealed," "inspired," and/or "inerrant."
Redeemer Lutheran Church
Huntington Beach, CA
Approved in Voters' Assembly by unanimous vote. January 28, 2007
Dear Fellow LCMS Pastors and Congregations:
In preparation for the synodical convention this summer, and the deadline of March 10 for overtures, the following memorial is being forwarded to you for your consideration. It is hoped that you will prayerfully consider placing this issue before the congregation you serve, document its approval by the voters in assembly in a cover letter, and mail both the resolution and the cover letter to: Office of the Secretary, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 1333 S Kirkwood Road, St. Louis, MO 63122-7295. You are also encouraged to fax the resolution along with your cover letter to: 314-996-1016. Thanking you for your time and consideration, I remain
Your servant in Christ,
The Rev. Dr. Daniel N. Harmelink, Pastor
Redeemer Lutheran Church, Huntington Beach, CA
lutherfest@mac.com
714-846-6330
To Allow Congregations to Include/Retain Standard Language Describing the Nature of Holy Scriptures in Their Constitutions
WHEREAS, the constitution of a congregation of the LCMS is an indispensable document for congregational self-understanding and governance; and
WHEREAS, constitutions of LCMS congregations, LCMS rites of ordination for pastors and installation of church workers (Lutheran Worship Agenda, p 211; Lutheran Service Book Agenda, p 179), and confessional statements of synod (Article I of A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod; A Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles (1973), http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/LCMS/astatement.pdf) have included the descriptive words "revealed," "inspired," or "inerrant" as standard, time-honored language that details the position of Holy Scripture (2Timothy 3:16; 2Peter 1:20-21; 1Corinthians 2:9-13; 1Corinthians 14:37; Acts 24:14; Psalm 19:7; Romans 3:2; 1Thessalonians 2:13; John 8:31-32; John 17:20; John 10:35; 2Corinthians 13:3; 1Peter 1:12) and the position of our Lutheran Confessions (Large Catechism, Part Four: Of Baptism, Paragraph 57); and
WHEREAS, district constitution commitees of the LCMS, directed by the synod's Committee on Constitutional Matters (CCM) to judge whether new or revised constitutions of congregations in their district are "in harmony with Holy Scripture, the Confessions, and the teachings and practices of the Synod", have now prohibited congregations seeking approval of their submitted constitution and bylaws from including such descriptive words as "revealed," "inspired" or "inerrant" in the confessional subscription section of their constitution, judging inclusion of such language as being in violation of the opinion of the Committee on Constitutional Matters (CCM) Guidelines for the Constitution and Bylaws of a Lutheran Congregation and "go[ing] beyond the synod's own confessional standards" (http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CCM/GUIDELINES%20for%20Web.pdf); and
WHEREAS, the recent opinion of the CCM (http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CCM/CCMMin9-06.pdf) has left no other avenue of appeal for congregations seeking inclusion or retention of this descriptive language in their constitutions; be it therefore
RESOLVED, that synod in convention affirm that the descriptive words "revealed," "inspired," and "inerrant" do not go beyond the synod's own confessional standards, and
RESOLVED, that synod in convention direct district constitution committees not only to cease directing congregations seeking approval of their constitutions and bylaws to remove such descriptive language from their confessional standards paragraph, but also to encourage congregations to retain such time-honored language that describes in a clear and helpful way the nature of the books of the Old and New Testament, and be it finally
RESOLVED, that the CCM document Guidelines for the Constitution and Bylaws of a Lutheran Congregation be revised to reflect the freedom LCMS congregations have previously enjoyed to faithfully and unambiguously describe the nature of Holy Scripture in the confessional standards paragraph of their constitutions using the descriptive words "revealed," "inspired," and/or "inerrant."
Redeemer Lutheran Church
Huntington Beach, CA
Approved in Voters' Assembly by unanimous vote. January 28, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
From surprise to confusion to unbelief to anger. (Luke 4:15-21)
In the Name of Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
From surprise to confusion to unbelief — and then to anger. Can you think of a situation that progression of emotions describes? Deals at the used car lot gone sour? National elections that don't go the way you wished? Newlyweds after the honeymoon has ended? Sermons and Bible studies that challenged what you've always believed to be the way salvation should work?
There are plenty of situations that result in surprise followed by confusion followed by doubt followed by anger. Maybe you've seen it happen with someone you work with or live with. The "what in the world just happened" look giving way to the "I'm gonna put an end to this right now" look.
It's part of the fallen world. It's part of our own fallen nature. We've got it all figured out. We know exactly what's just around the corner. Things are going just the way we want them to go, and then, out of nowhere — wham — someone does or doesn't do what we think they should or shouldn't do, someone says or doesn't say what we think they should or shouldn't say, and our whole plan comes to one screeching, sudden, surprising stop.
Everything was going along so well. Everyone was behaving exactly according to plan. And then all my hopes and expectations — everything I was looking forward to — crashed and burned.
And to add insult to injury, someone had the gall to then announce that the problem lies with me. Me. After all I did and put up with for him. The problem's with me? That's the last straw. Away with him!
That kind of thing happens today. It will happen tomorrow morning. It happened two thousand years ago on the other side of the world. Surprise to confusion to unbelief to anger.
Nazareth was not a big city in Jesus' day. For as long as anyone could remember it held the position of being just another rural town just like a thousand other rural towns. The special thing about Nazareth was nothing special every happened there. People were born, people were married, children were raised, people got old, and were placed next their fathers and mothers in the cemetery just outside the cluster of Nazareth's houses and barns and workshops and markets. That was life in old Nazareth. Life lived on the sidelines of fame and prestige — of greatness and glory. Until, one day, the local newspaper carried the headline: "LOCAL BOY MAKES IT BIG!"
You see, everyone loves a surprise and everyone loves a prophet sent by God to announce his Word (well, at least for a while). Prophets have, for a time, their honeymoon. When the prophets before Jesus suddenly, unexpectedly showed up on the scene there was plenty of interest and excitement, especially among those who could proudly say to everyone in earshot: "He's one of us, you know. He came from our town."
And [Jesus] was teaching in their synagogues, being glorified by all. (4:15)
That's the last sentence of the section of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke immediately before this Sunday's reading. Everything was going according to plan. The young man Jesus was the talk of more and more people troughout the entire region that surrounded Nazareth, and every time they glorified him and his character and his wisdom, they referred to him by the name of his town. The great and glorious Jesus was, of course, Jesus of Nazareth.
And so, at the beginning, when the townspeople's eyes were glazed over with their own future fame and impending glory, they fell over themselves to send their own boy a golden invitation to take a break from his regional road trip and come back to share some of the wealth with his own, to share some of the limelight with those who had raised him and taught him and made him into what he was now: Jesus of Nazareth, the first-born son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21 ESV)
What happened to the "you fair people of Nazareth made me what I am today" speech? Where's the "I owe it all to my own town's possibility thinking and hard work" speech? He's preaching the same sermon here that he preached in those other towns that are less deserving of God's grace and blessing. And did he actually refer to his own townspeople as poor and needy and oppressed and in the bondage of slavery? We built this town up from nothing. Without our great work there wouldn't be a Nazareth or a Jesus of Nazareth! Who does he think he is? And who does he think we are?
Pastor Chad Bird reminds us that when we take a good hard look at the prophets sent by God to proclaim his Word, their first sermon is always hard for their audience to swallow. He writes, "Nobody smiles during a prophet's first sermon. Either your heart is broken or you want to break his neck." (Christ Crucified 97)
And so it was with Jesus' first sermon in his little hometown of Nazareth. He called those who thought they had made him into somebody those who were, before God, spiritual nobodys.
They had been blinded by their sin, their self-centered hunger for something glorious, something they could fashion with their own hands and set before God and then wait for his eternal applause. But Jesus — their own Jesus — calls his own neighbors and relatives to confess their need for God's undeserved grace and unmerited forgiveness.
Surprise to confusion to unbelief to anger. And what about us here this morning? Will God visit us with his gracious presence this hour because of our pedigree and performance? What are we to do with our lists of good works we have done for the church? Don't we deserve a little preferential treatment for keeping God's Word alive and upholding our part of the bargain?
The slogan on our front sign says, "Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone." It isn't a slogan. It's a confession, just like the words that come out of our mouth at the beginning of every Sunday service, as we echo who Jesus of Nazareth says we are, and what he says he has come to do in our place.
It's just no fun to be the doctor that diagnoses a deadly disease in one of your own neighbors or relatives. And it's just no fun being a prophet — the Prophet — that comes back home to diagnose the deadly disease of pride and self-righteousness in those with whom you grew-up. But Jesus knows it's all so necessary that they might then receive the shocking remedy for their chronic condition. His perfect life and innocent suffering and death.
A few years after being ordained and installed at this very communion rail, I received a phone call from my hometown church, a church that had suddenly found themselves without a pastor. It was a conference call from the search committee, investigating to see if their hometown boy had what it took to come back and make them proud.
It reminds me of the old saying about the difference between a mediocre preacher and a brilliant preacher. You know what the difference is? About 300 miles from where people actually know you. There's just something about a preacher and his hometown.
When you actually sit down and read the Gospel accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Mary's son, you quickly discover that he didn't mess around with what came from his mouth — or his hands or his side. He put things in their place. He announced the bitter reality of our sinful nature and its sin-stained fruit, so that he might announce the sweet reality of God's crazy-sounding cure. Jesus put things in their place. He put himself on your cross and placed your sins and pride and doubt and unbelief and anger upon his shoulders and — with the sins of the town of Nazareth — took it all to the grave to bury it there.
Jesus the Prophet fulfills the prophets by announcing their words of prophecy and then pointing to himself. "It is now fulfilled," he said, "by my rejection, here and outside the gates of Jerusalem." "I have come to proclaim: It is now complete — for you and for the world."
Jesus wasn't the prophet Nazareth expected. Jesus isn't the prophet we were looking for either. But as we hear again from God's Word this morning, Jesus is everything we need — and more.
God continue his gracious work in you this day as he strengthens the undeserved gifts of heaven given on the day you first believed.
May he continue his work of bringing us from surprise and confusion and unbelief — to faith that in this Christ we are made rich, we are made free, we are made to see that with this Jesus, this is the year of the Lord's favor.
Jesus didn't come to earth to be your second cousin or your hometown hero. By his manger he became your brother, and by his Cross he became your Savior.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
From surprise to confusion to unbelief — and then to anger. Can you think of a situation that progression of emotions describes? Deals at the used car lot gone sour? National elections that don't go the way you wished? Newlyweds after the honeymoon has ended? Sermons and Bible studies that challenged what you've always believed to be the way salvation should work?
There are plenty of situations that result in surprise followed by confusion followed by doubt followed by anger. Maybe you've seen it happen with someone you work with or live with. The "what in the world just happened" look giving way to the "I'm gonna put an end to this right now" look.
It's part of the fallen world. It's part of our own fallen nature. We've got it all figured out. We know exactly what's just around the corner. Things are going just the way we want them to go, and then, out of nowhere — wham — someone does or doesn't do what we think they should or shouldn't do, someone says or doesn't say what we think they should or shouldn't say, and our whole plan comes to one screeching, sudden, surprising stop.
Everything was going along so well. Everyone was behaving exactly according to plan. And then all my hopes and expectations — everything I was looking forward to — crashed and burned.
And to add insult to injury, someone had the gall to then announce that the problem lies with me. Me. After all I did and put up with for him. The problem's with me? That's the last straw. Away with him!
That kind of thing happens today. It will happen tomorrow morning. It happened two thousand years ago on the other side of the world. Surprise to confusion to unbelief to anger.
Nazareth was not a big city in Jesus' day. For as long as anyone could remember it held the position of being just another rural town just like a thousand other rural towns. The special thing about Nazareth was nothing special every happened there. People were born, people were married, children were raised, people got old, and were placed next their fathers and mothers in the cemetery just outside the cluster of Nazareth's houses and barns and workshops and markets. That was life in old Nazareth. Life lived on the sidelines of fame and prestige — of greatness and glory. Until, one day, the local newspaper carried the headline: "LOCAL BOY MAKES IT BIG!"
You see, everyone loves a surprise and everyone loves a prophet sent by God to announce his Word (well, at least for a while). Prophets have, for a time, their honeymoon. When the prophets before Jesus suddenly, unexpectedly showed up on the scene there was plenty of interest and excitement, especially among those who could proudly say to everyone in earshot: "He's one of us, you know. He came from our town."
And [Jesus] was teaching in their synagogues, being glorified by all. (4:15)
That's the last sentence of the section of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke immediately before this Sunday's reading. Everything was going according to plan. The young man Jesus was the talk of more and more people troughout the entire region that surrounded Nazareth, and every time they glorified him and his character and his wisdom, they referred to him by the name of his town. The great and glorious Jesus was, of course, Jesus of Nazareth.
And so, at the beginning, when the townspeople's eyes were glazed over with their own future fame and impending glory, they fell over themselves to send their own boy a golden invitation to take a break from his regional road trip and come back to share some of the wealth with his own, to share some of the limelight with those who had raised him and taught him and made him into what he was now: Jesus of Nazareth, the first-born son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21 ESV)
What happened to the "you fair people of Nazareth made me what I am today" speech? Where's the "I owe it all to my own town's possibility thinking and hard work" speech? He's preaching the same sermon here that he preached in those other towns that are less deserving of God's grace and blessing. And did he actually refer to his own townspeople as poor and needy and oppressed and in the bondage of slavery? We built this town up from nothing. Without our great work there wouldn't be a Nazareth or a Jesus of Nazareth! Who does he think he is? And who does he think we are?
Pastor Chad Bird reminds us that when we take a good hard look at the prophets sent by God to proclaim his Word, their first sermon is always hard for their audience to swallow. He writes, "Nobody smiles during a prophet's first sermon. Either your heart is broken or you want to break his neck." (Christ Crucified 97)
And so it was with Jesus' first sermon in his little hometown of Nazareth. He called those who thought they had made him into somebody those who were, before God, spiritual nobodys.
They had been blinded by their sin, their self-centered hunger for something glorious, something they could fashion with their own hands and set before God and then wait for his eternal applause. But Jesus — their own Jesus — calls his own neighbors and relatives to confess their need for God's undeserved grace and unmerited forgiveness.
Surprise to confusion to unbelief to anger. And what about us here this morning? Will God visit us with his gracious presence this hour because of our pedigree and performance? What are we to do with our lists of good works we have done for the church? Don't we deserve a little preferential treatment for keeping God's Word alive and upholding our part of the bargain?
The slogan on our front sign says, "Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone." It isn't a slogan. It's a confession, just like the words that come out of our mouth at the beginning of every Sunday service, as we echo who Jesus of Nazareth says we are, and what he says he has come to do in our place.
It's just no fun to be the doctor that diagnoses a deadly disease in one of your own neighbors or relatives. And it's just no fun being a prophet — the Prophet — that comes back home to diagnose the deadly disease of pride and self-righteousness in those with whom you grew-up. But Jesus knows it's all so necessary that they might then receive the shocking remedy for their chronic condition. His perfect life and innocent suffering and death.
A few years after being ordained and installed at this very communion rail, I received a phone call from my hometown church, a church that had suddenly found themselves without a pastor. It was a conference call from the search committee, investigating to see if their hometown boy had what it took to come back and make them proud.
It reminds me of the old saying about the difference between a mediocre preacher and a brilliant preacher. You know what the difference is? About 300 miles from where people actually know you. There's just something about a preacher and his hometown.
When you actually sit down and read the Gospel accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Mary's son, you quickly discover that he didn't mess around with what came from his mouth — or his hands or his side. He put things in their place. He announced the bitter reality of our sinful nature and its sin-stained fruit, so that he might announce the sweet reality of God's crazy-sounding cure. Jesus put things in their place. He put himself on your cross and placed your sins and pride and doubt and unbelief and anger upon his shoulders and — with the sins of the town of Nazareth — took it all to the grave to bury it there.
Jesus the Prophet fulfills the prophets by announcing their words of prophecy and then pointing to himself. "It is now fulfilled," he said, "by my rejection, here and outside the gates of Jerusalem." "I have come to proclaim: It is now complete — for you and for the world."
Jesus wasn't the prophet Nazareth expected. Jesus isn't the prophet we were looking for either. But as we hear again from God's Word this morning, Jesus is everything we need — and more.
God continue his gracious work in you this day as he strengthens the undeserved gifts of heaven given on the day you first believed.
May he continue his work of bringing us from surprise and confusion and unbelief — to faith that in this Christ we are made rich, we are made free, we are made to see that with this Jesus, this is the year of the Lord's favor.
Jesus didn't come to earth to be your second cousin or your hometown hero. By his manger he became your brother, and by his Cross he became your Savior.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Friday, December 29, 2006
"Who's mission is it, anyway?" (June 2004)
The mission statement of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster reads as follows:
To rule the world, get lots of cookies, eat the cookies, and then get more cookies.
While some churches seem to be pursuing the Cookie Monster's insatiable approach of "getting" more members, more offerings, more land and buildings (the churches of never enough). Redeemer Lutheran is, by God's grace, fundamentally different in its approach to doing ministry in this community — ministry that truly pleases Christ and benefits Christian faith.
In the 1990s, mission statements for businesses were all the rage. Every incorporated entity, from IBM to the Girl Scouts to Weinerschnitzel had its own unique mission statement. This fascination with mission statements spilled over into the realm of managing one's own personal affairs, especially after the success of Stephen Covey's book entitled Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
However, written mission statements can never guarantee "success" or "effectiveness." Enron had a great mission statement that touted respect, integrity, communication and excellence, and everyone knows where they ended up. No wonder why the excesses of this "mission statement mentality" has been the subject of workplace humor, the best example continuing to be Dilbert's interactive "Mission Statement Generator" (see www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/career/bin/ms2.cgi for an insightful commentary on the silliness of this aspect of the culture of corporate America.).
Even the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has not been immune from the mistaken belief that simply "jazzing up" a mission statement will get real Christian ministry any further down the line. (As a member on the floor committee that refined resolutions concerning mission and evangelism for the synod-wide convention held in Saint Louis in 1998,1 was surprised when so many on the committee were adamant in adding the word "vigorously" to the phrase "to make known the love of Christ" in the denomination's newly adopted mission statement.)
When Christ called his Church to graciously participate in his mission, he didn't command the disciples to "vigorously go and enthusiastically make empowered disciples." Why?
One of the precious treasures Christ has entrusted to the Christian Church through pastors and theologians such as Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Martin Luther and C.F.W. Walther (the founding president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) is the proper distinction between the Law of God and the Gospel of God within the Holy Scriptures. That art of correctly understanding the fundamental difference between the role of Moses and Christ has been all but obscured in today's churches, especially when our old, sinful nature is capable of only loving our own efforts to try to vigorously keep all the rules and regulations announced by God (or anyone else) for our salvation.
When Martin Luther published his German translation of the Gospel Accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John he prefaced the sacred text with "A Brief Introduction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels." In this introduction Luther pleads with his reader (and each of us today):
Be sure ... that you do not make Christ into a Moses, as if Christ did nothing more than teach and provide examples as the other saints do, as if the Gospel were simply a textbook of teachings and laws. Therefore you should grasp Christ, his words, works, and sufferings, in a two-fold manner. First, as an example that is presented to you, which you should follow and imitate ... . However, this is the smallest part of the Gospel, on the basis of which it cannot yet even be called "Gospel. " For on this level Christ is of no help to you than some other saint. ... In short this mode [of understanding Christ simply as example] does not make Christians but only hypocrites. You must grasp Christ at a much higher level. Even though this higher level has for a long time been the very best, the preaching of it has been something rare. The chief article and foundation of the Gospel is that before you take Christ as example, you accept and recognize him as a gift, as a
present that God has given you and that is your own. ... Concerning this Isaiah 9:6 says, "To us a child is born, to us a son is given." If he is given to us, then he must be ours; and so we must also receive him as belonging to us. ... See, when you lay hold of Christ as a gift which is given for you for your very own, and have no doubt about it, you are a Christian. Faith [then] redeems you from sin, death, and hell and enables you to overcome all things. Oh, no one can speak enough about this! It is a pity that this kind of preaching has been silenced in the world, and yet boast is made daily of "the Gospel."
Now when you have Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ has given himself for you. ... Therefore make not of this, that Christ as a gift nourishes your faith and makes you a Christian. But Christ as an example exercises your works and does not make you a Christian. (Actually, [good works] come forth from you because you have already been made a Christian.) As widely as a gift differs from an example, so widely does faith differ from works, for faith possesses nothing of its own, only the deeds and life of Christ. (Luther's Works 35:119-20)
In 1995, the synod in convention requested a study be done on the Church Growth Movement. The report of the committee formed to study the issue began with the statement:
"The saving presence of God the Holy Trinity through the means of grace (Word and Sacrament) is the heart and center of the Church's life, worship and growth." (7)
This is a critical period in the life of Redeemer Lutheran Church & School in Huntington Beach, California. Last July we as a congregation marked not forty years of great human efforts to make this a great congregation, but forty years of God's saving presence among us, gathering and maturing his little flock through the Scriptures, Baptism and the Lord's Supper - through the confession of sins and the forgiving of them. And as a new chapter begins to unfold, we need to be reminded that mission statements and vision statements and slogans and buildings and programs are nothing more than simple little human tools that need to be constantly re-measured by the Gospel of God's saving gift of grace - tools that are placed at the feet of Christ, who beckons us to put our faith in his mission, the mission given to him by none other than our heavenly Father.
During these summer months continue to keep Redeemer Lutheran (and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) in your prayers, asking God to continue to be gracious and merciful to us as he continues to send out his life-giving Word into our hearts and the communities around us. As we sing to God in the words of a favorite hymn:
0 Lord, once lifted on the glorious Tree,
Raise us, and let your Cross the magnet be.
(Lift High the Cross)
To rule the world, get lots of cookies, eat the cookies, and then get more cookies.
While some churches seem to be pursuing the Cookie Monster's insatiable approach of "getting" more members, more offerings, more land and buildings (the churches of never enough). Redeemer Lutheran is, by God's grace, fundamentally different in its approach to doing ministry in this community — ministry that truly pleases Christ and benefits Christian faith.
In the 1990s, mission statements for businesses were all the rage. Every incorporated entity, from IBM to the Girl Scouts to Weinerschnitzel had its own unique mission statement. This fascination with mission statements spilled over into the realm of managing one's own personal affairs, especially after the success of Stephen Covey's book entitled Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
However, written mission statements can never guarantee "success" or "effectiveness." Enron had a great mission statement that touted respect, integrity, communication and excellence, and everyone knows where they ended up. No wonder why the excesses of this "mission statement mentality" has been the subject of workplace humor, the best example continuing to be Dilbert's interactive "Mission Statement Generator" (see www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/career/bin/ms2.cgi for an insightful commentary on the silliness of this aspect of the culture of corporate America.).
Even the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has not been immune from the mistaken belief that simply "jazzing up" a mission statement will get real Christian ministry any further down the line. (As a member on the floor committee that refined resolutions concerning mission and evangelism for the synod-wide convention held in Saint Louis in 1998,1 was surprised when so many on the committee were adamant in adding the word "vigorously" to the phrase "to make known the love of Christ" in the denomination's newly adopted mission statement.)
When Christ called his Church to graciously participate in his mission, he didn't command the disciples to "vigorously go and enthusiastically make empowered disciples." Why?
One of the precious treasures Christ has entrusted to the Christian Church through pastors and theologians such as Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Martin Luther and C.F.W. Walther (the founding president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) is the proper distinction between the Law of God and the Gospel of God within the Holy Scriptures. That art of correctly understanding the fundamental difference between the role of Moses and Christ has been all but obscured in today's churches, especially when our old, sinful nature is capable of only loving our own efforts to try to vigorously keep all the rules and regulations announced by God (or anyone else) for our salvation.
When Martin Luther published his German translation of the Gospel Accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John he prefaced the sacred text with "A Brief Introduction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels." In this introduction Luther pleads with his reader (and each of us today):
Be sure ... that you do not make Christ into a Moses, as if Christ did nothing more than teach and provide examples as the other saints do, as if the Gospel were simply a textbook of teachings and laws. Therefore you should grasp Christ, his words, works, and sufferings, in a two-fold manner. First, as an example that is presented to you, which you should follow and imitate ... . However, this is the smallest part of the Gospel, on the basis of which it cannot yet even be called "Gospel. " For on this level Christ is of no help to you than some other saint. ... In short this mode [of understanding Christ simply as example] does not make Christians but only hypocrites. You must grasp Christ at a much higher level. Even though this higher level has for a long time been the very best, the preaching of it has been something rare. The chief article and foundation of the Gospel is that before you take Christ as example, you accept and recognize him as a gift, as a
present that God has given you and that is your own. ... Concerning this Isaiah 9:6 says, "To us a child is born, to us a son is given." If he is given to us, then he must be ours; and so we must also receive him as belonging to us. ... See, when you lay hold of Christ as a gift which is given for you for your very own, and have no doubt about it, you are a Christian. Faith [then] redeems you from sin, death, and hell and enables you to overcome all things. Oh, no one can speak enough about this! It is a pity that this kind of preaching has been silenced in the world, and yet boast is made daily of "the Gospel."
Now when you have Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ has given himself for you. ... Therefore make not of this, that Christ as a gift nourishes your faith and makes you a Christian. But Christ as an example exercises your works and does not make you a Christian. (Actually, [good works] come forth from you because you have already been made a Christian.) As widely as a gift differs from an example, so widely does faith differ from works, for faith possesses nothing of its own, only the deeds and life of Christ. (Luther's Works 35:119-20)
In 1995, the synod in convention requested a study be done on the Church Growth Movement. The report of the committee formed to study the issue began with the statement:
"The saving presence of God the Holy Trinity through the means of grace (Word and Sacrament) is the heart and center of the Church's life, worship and growth." (7)
This is a critical period in the life of Redeemer Lutheran Church & School in Huntington Beach, California. Last July we as a congregation marked not forty years of great human efforts to make this a great congregation, but forty years of God's saving presence among us, gathering and maturing his little flock through the Scriptures, Baptism and the Lord's Supper - through the confession of sins and the forgiving of them. And as a new chapter begins to unfold, we need to be reminded that mission statements and vision statements and slogans and buildings and programs are nothing more than simple little human tools that need to be constantly re-measured by the Gospel of God's saving gift of grace - tools that are placed at the feet of Christ, who beckons us to put our faith in his mission, the mission given to him by none other than our heavenly Father.
During these summer months continue to keep Redeemer Lutheran (and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) in your prayers, asking God to continue to be gracious and merciful to us as he continues to send out his life-giving Word into our hearts and the communities around us. As we sing to God in the words of a favorite hymn:
0 Lord, once lifted on the glorious Tree,
Raise us, and let your Cross the magnet be.
(Lift High the Cross)
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
What’s Left for Us After Christmas? Life After December 25th
Not much seems to be left for us after all the festivities of the Christmas season are gone. Christmas trees are turning brown and loosing their needles. Now they’re more of a fire hazard than anything else. Gifts given and gifts received have already been immobilized by dead batteries, exchanged at the store, or put away in the back corner of a closet. And as we are pushed back into the anything-but-special nature of our daily routine, we understand even more clearly than last year why Janaury is the month in which we are most vulnerable to feelings of disappointment and even depression. As we put the ornaments and Nativity set back into their weathered boxes a voice comes and asks, “What are you left with now?”
Well, for those who put their faith in Christ, the celebrations on Christmas Day do not have to end the morning of December 26th. The Church Year, which began with Advent and Christmas Day, continues its journey to Good Friday, Easter Sunday and straight ahead to Ascension Day, Pentecost and beyond. On January 6th the Christian Church around the world will celebrate again the Festival of the Epiphany of the Lord. The word “Epiphany” means “the display” or “the showing” and centers on the appearance of Jesus to the Gentiles -- to all peoples outside of the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This festival of the Epiphany of our Lord continues the celebration of Jesus Christ, with particular focus on the three foreign “wise Men” or “magi” who traveled afar to worship the announced Savior as he ruled from the manger. We too have been given the revelation from heaven that Jesus has been born for all people -- “a Light to the Gentiles and the Glory of his people Israel,” we often sing of Jesus during services.
To all of us threatened by the surrounding darkness and gloom of a Christ-less January, the Light comes to us again through the Scriptures to remind us that, just as the darkness was overcome when God created the world,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1, 4-5)
A blessed season of the Epiphany of our Lord to you and yours!
Well, for those who put their faith in Christ, the celebrations on Christmas Day do not have to end the morning of December 26th. The Church Year, which began with Advent and Christmas Day, continues its journey to Good Friday, Easter Sunday and straight ahead to Ascension Day, Pentecost and beyond. On January 6th the Christian Church around the world will celebrate again the Festival of the Epiphany of the Lord. The word “Epiphany” means “the display” or “the showing” and centers on the appearance of Jesus to the Gentiles -- to all peoples outside of the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This festival of the Epiphany of our Lord continues the celebration of Jesus Christ, with particular focus on the three foreign “wise Men” or “magi” who traveled afar to worship the announced Savior as he ruled from the manger. We too have been given the revelation from heaven that Jesus has been born for all people -- “a Light to the Gentiles and the Glory of his people Israel,” we often sing of Jesus during services.
To all of us threatened by the surrounding darkness and gloom of a Christ-less January, the Light comes to us again through the Scriptures to remind us that, just as the darkness was overcome when God created the world,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1, 4-5)
A blessed season of the Epiphany of our Lord to you and yours!
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Expecting the Unexpected at Christmas
In the Name of Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters Baptized into the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Christ:
Are you expecting any unexpected visitors on Christmas Day?
"There here!" announce the children in front of the television screen in a famous science fiction thriller, and the news is far from good news.
Our reaction to the announcement that someone's coming towards the door or down the chimney all depends on the reason for their advent -- or why we think they are sudden appearing.
If we are expecting the plumber to call and stop the water from gushing out of the back of a toilet tank or the firemen to arrive and douse the fire in the attic, the sound of the doorbell is pure Gospel in the midst of quickly overwhelming chaos and destruction.
We welcome a house call with open arms and loud rejoicing if the dwelling housing those under our care is quickly filling with the smell of natural gas and a strong arm with the right sized wrench arrives to rescue all inside.
But these days, those called to visit our dwellings and rescue from certain calamity find it increasingly difficult to get any response at the door or even gain entry through a window.
Why does the fire truck find windows locked and covered with wrought iron grates? Why does the search and rescue unit find doors locked and bolted -- and double-bolted? Why do those sent to our homes to serve and protect find it impossible to gain access in order to save life and limb?
Deep down inside, we fear visitors. Southern California is not only known as the land of movie stars and stretch limousines, surfboards and fish tacos, it is the land of gated everything; front lawns sporting signs of warning from security companies; back yards darkened by the height of our razor-wire decorated cinderblock. Our neck of the woods has become the land of security cameras and pit bulls and metal detectors and unlisted phone numbers.
Deep down inside, we fear visitors. That's why especially at this time of year we see news reports of inhabitants dying while rescue personnel attempt to gain access to their fortified apartments and condominiums and houses. Neighbor-hood has been replaced by person-hood and privacy.
I remember making my first "pastor call" in Huntington Beach to a couple who had visited services here. I rang the door bell and thanked the family for visiting. In kind, they thanked me for thanking them and then ended the conversation by saying, "Thanks for stopping by, and, next time, please don't show up before calling first."
We don't want unexpected visitors; we want them to stay away and leave us to our own devices. It's almost like it's part of our very nature.
But Christmas Day flies in the face of all our little kingdom building and gate constructing and lock installing. God comes to rescue us, even though we may not yet know that we need a rescuer. God sends his merciful messengers to prepare us for the great visit of his only-begotten Son. We have been visited, not by aliens from another planet, but by harbingers with something heavenly: the Word of God. That's the way it has been since Adam and Eve were barred from Paradise by their own doubting thoughts and rebel acts under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Word of God has come to every generation to announce: your redemption and your children's redemption will be sent from heaven, and through the seed of the woman you will be snatched from your own destruction.
Visits by bearers of God's gracious Word were the order of the day for Abraham and Noah, Jonah and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, David and Daniel. God never tired of the resounding message of his love and care for the un-loveable and the uncaring. "The Messiah is coming. The Messiah is surely drawing near." cried the prophets.
Christmas is a season in which God's Word comes to level valleys and hills and make impassable roads ready for the feet of the Christ Child come to save. Christmas is a season in which God's Word comes to a manger to break down the walls and gates and locks we have constructed in our minds and hearts -- out of self-centered ambitions and spiritual fears.
"He's here!" proclaim prophets and angels, the messengers of God's undeserved mercy and forgiveness. "Despite the fact that you do not love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself, God still comes to take away your guilt and shame and bring back to Paradise all who receive his message in repentance and faith."
Christmas begins with heavenly messengers coming to Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph. "It is time. The advent of the Messiah and his fore-runner is here. Now, the Son of God will visit his people and take upon himself the crushing burden of their sin."
This is the message proclaimed this morning for all mankind, for all languages and peoples, from India to Indonesia to Indiana. From Cincinnati to Singapore to Sydney. A Savior -- for you -- is now coming to visit and rescue his people.
From an Australian paraphrase of the Bible, we hear the miraculous coming of salvation proclaimed in our Gospel this morning:
Mary didn't muck about. She got packed and ankled it up to a town in the hills, where she went straight to Zeck and Libby's place, so that she could say G'day to Lib. When Libby heard Mary's Cooee at the front door the baby in her womb gave a kick like a footie player at a grand final, and Lib was filled with God's Spirit. With a big grin, and a voice that could rattle windows, she said: "Good onya Mary! You beaut! God's chosen you out of all the sheilas in the world, and your baby will be God's toddler. But, stone the crows, why would the mum of my Big Boss, my Lord, come and see me? As soon as I heard the sound of your voice my little bun in the oven went bananas with excitement. Good onya for believing what God told you -- for believing that God can do what he says he can do." (Luke 1:39-45 The Aussie Bible)
By nature -- by our own fallen nature -- we guard our hearts and minds as much as we do our homes. We have convinced ourselves, "It's too risky to trust and care and give and give and give, only to be hurt again. This Christmas I'll play it safe and hang out with only those I know won't make things uncomfortable or draining or risky. No one's going to come and show up unannounced and do something unexpected."
But faith believes that God can do what he says he can do -- even with barrier-building children of Adam and Eve. Faith responds to the announcement of angels by saying, "Why would you send your precious Son, why would you send him to be born in my sorry condition, why would you do all of this -- for me -- for even me?"
Do you find yourself this day before Christmas a prisoner of your own making? Have you barricaded the door to your soul and welded an iron grate over your heart? Have you made yourself unable to open the door for God as he comes knocking unannounced?
The Good News only the Christ Child brings is the Gospel that enables us to do what we were unable and unwilling to do: receive salvation as pure gift, receive our redemption as pure grace, take into our sin-stained arms the babe born in our place to live our life and die our death -- all without trades or deal-making.
This is what Elizabeth and Mary began to put their trust in, the same trust God has created in your heart, and in the hearts of all who would receive the Savior as he comes unexpectedly in the wrappings of a manger.
You see, faith in God and the one he graciously sends simply says and sings of God and the one he graciously sends -- to the poor and undeserving.
And then Mary said, "My soul is as happy as Larry with God and my mind is just buzzing with God my Rescuer because he picked me -- me! And I'm about as important as a bottle washer's assistant! But from now on everyone who ever lives will call me well off -- looked after by God -- for the One who can do anything has done great things for me. His name is the only Name that matters. His gentleness rolls on like a river. He has done great things that would just knock your socks off. The rich, the stuffed shirts, the boss cockies, don't impress God; he knocks them off their perch. But those who don't have tickets on themselves he gives a hand to. He provides tucker for the hungry and sends the toffee noses away without a feed. He has wrapped his great arms around his chosen. He hasn't forgotten his kindness and gentleness. Exactly what he promised yonks ago is what is happening now."
Mary stayed with Libby for a few months and then nicked off back home again. (Luke 1:46-56 The Aussie Bible)
It could be said that this song of Mary was the first Christian hymn sung by the first Christian. No wonder why our hymnals contain no less than five different hymns based on these words from Mary's lips as she joyfully extols the greatness of God's kindness shown to all who are spiritually poor and needy and hungry, having nothing to offer a perfect and holy God save their many sins.
Mary will have nothing to do with extolling herself. She sings of what is most sure: what the Lord has graciously done for her through his unexpected coming.
Are you expecting any unexpected visitors on Christmas Day?
May Christ visit you this Christmas morn to tear down the barriers of sin and doubt and fear and speak his word of peace and forgiveness and reconciliation. I have come to rescue you, just as I had promised, unexpectedly, amazingly, through my manger and my cross, through my life and death and resurrection and ascension.
Christ shepherds from this thistled place / The flocks by thickets torn;
His pierced hands heal all your race / Sore wounded by the thorn.
Embrace the Christ child, and with songs / Bind up the hearts of men.
To shepherd-healer-king let throngs / Sing glorias again.
Dear Brothers and Sisters Baptized into the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Christ:
Are you expecting any unexpected visitors on Christmas Day?
"There here!" announce the children in front of the television screen in a famous science fiction thriller, and the news is far from good news.
Our reaction to the announcement that someone's coming towards the door or down the chimney all depends on the reason for their advent -- or why we think they are sudden appearing.
If we are expecting the plumber to call and stop the water from gushing out of the back of a toilet tank or the firemen to arrive and douse the fire in the attic, the sound of the doorbell is pure Gospel in the midst of quickly overwhelming chaos and destruction.
We welcome a house call with open arms and loud rejoicing if the dwelling housing those under our care is quickly filling with the smell of natural gas and a strong arm with the right sized wrench arrives to rescue all inside.
But these days, those called to visit our dwellings and rescue from certain calamity find it increasingly difficult to get any response at the door or even gain entry through a window.
Why does the fire truck find windows locked and covered with wrought iron grates? Why does the search and rescue unit find doors locked and bolted -- and double-bolted? Why do those sent to our homes to serve and protect find it impossible to gain access in order to save life and limb?
Deep down inside, we fear visitors. Southern California is not only known as the land of movie stars and stretch limousines, surfboards and fish tacos, it is the land of gated everything; front lawns sporting signs of warning from security companies; back yards darkened by the height of our razor-wire decorated cinderblock. Our neck of the woods has become the land of security cameras and pit bulls and metal detectors and unlisted phone numbers.
Deep down inside, we fear visitors. That's why especially at this time of year we see news reports of inhabitants dying while rescue personnel attempt to gain access to their fortified apartments and condominiums and houses. Neighbor-hood has been replaced by person-hood and privacy.
I remember making my first "pastor call" in Huntington Beach to a couple who had visited services here. I rang the door bell and thanked the family for visiting. In kind, they thanked me for thanking them and then ended the conversation by saying, "Thanks for stopping by, and, next time, please don't show up before calling first."
We don't want unexpected visitors; we want them to stay away and leave us to our own devices. It's almost like it's part of our very nature.
But Christmas Day flies in the face of all our little kingdom building and gate constructing and lock installing. God comes to rescue us, even though we may not yet know that we need a rescuer. God sends his merciful messengers to prepare us for the great visit of his only-begotten Son. We have been visited, not by aliens from another planet, but by harbingers with something heavenly: the Word of God. That's the way it has been since Adam and Eve were barred from Paradise by their own doubting thoughts and rebel acts under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Word of God has come to every generation to announce: your redemption and your children's redemption will be sent from heaven, and through the seed of the woman you will be snatched from your own destruction.
Visits by bearers of God's gracious Word were the order of the day for Abraham and Noah, Jonah and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, David and Daniel. God never tired of the resounding message of his love and care for the un-loveable and the uncaring. "The Messiah is coming. The Messiah is surely drawing near." cried the prophets.
Christmas is a season in which God's Word comes to level valleys and hills and make impassable roads ready for the feet of the Christ Child come to save. Christmas is a season in which God's Word comes to a manger to break down the walls and gates and locks we have constructed in our minds and hearts -- out of self-centered ambitions and spiritual fears.
"He's here!" proclaim prophets and angels, the messengers of God's undeserved mercy and forgiveness. "Despite the fact that you do not love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself, God still comes to take away your guilt and shame and bring back to Paradise all who receive his message in repentance and faith."
Christmas begins with heavenly messengers coming to Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph. "It is time. The advent of the Messiah and his fore-runner is here. Now, the Son of God will visit his people and take upon himself the crushing burden of their sin."
This is the message proclaimed this morning for all mankind, for all languages and peoples, from India to Indonesia to Indiana. From Cincinnati to Singapore to Sydney. A Savior -- for you -- is now coming to visit and rescue his people.
From an Australian paraphrase of the Bible, we hear the miraculous coming of salvation proclaimed in our Gospel this morning:
Mary didn't muck about. She got packed and ankled it up to a town in the hills, where she went straight to Zeck and Libby's place, so that she could say G'day to Lib. When Libby heard Mary's Cooee at the front door the baby in her womb gave a kick like a footie player at a grand final, and Lib was filled with God's Spirit. With a big grin, and a voice that could rattle windows, she said: "Good onya Mary! You beaut! God's chosen you out of all the sheilas in the world, and your baby will be God's toddler. But, stone the crows, why would the mum of my Big Boss, my Lord, come and see me? As soon as I heard the sound of your voice my little bun in the oven went bananas with excitement. Good onya for believing what God told you -- for believing that God can do what he says he can do." (Luke 1:39-45 The Aussie Bible)
By nature -- by our own fallen nature -- we guard our hearts and minds as much as we do our homes. We have convinced ourselves, "It's too risky to trust and care and give and give and give, only to be hurt again. This Christmas I'll play it safe and hang out with only those I know won't make things uncomfortable or draining or risky. No one's going to come and show up unannounced and do something unexpected."
But faith believes that God can do what he says he can do -- even with barrier-building children of Adam and Eve. Faith responds to the announcement of angels by saying, "Why would you send your precious Son, why would you send him to be born in my sorry condition, why would you do all of this -- for me -- for even me?"
Do you find yourself this day before Christmas a prisoner of your own making? Have you barricaded the door to your soul and welded an iron grate over your heart? Have you made yourself unable to open the door for God as he comes knocking unannounced?
The Good News only the Christ Child brings is the Gospel that enables us to do what we were unable and unwilling to do: receive salvation as pure gift, receive our redemption as pure grace, take into our sin-stained arms the babe born in our place to live our life and die our death -- all without trades or deal-making.
This is what Elizabeth and Mary began to put their trust in, the same trust God has created in your heart, and in the hearts of all who would receive the Savior as he comes unexpectedly in the wrappings of a manger.
You see, faith in God and the one he graciously sends simply says and sings of God and the one he graciously sends -- to the poor and undeserving.
And then Mary said, "My soul is as happy as Larry with God and my mind is just buzzing with God my Rescuer because he picked me -- me! And I'm about as important as a bottle washer's assistant! But from now on everyone who ever lives will call me well off -- looked after by God -- for the One who can do anything has done great things for me. His name is the only Name that matters. His gentleness rolls on like a river. He has done great things that would just knock your socks off. The rich, the stuffed shirts, the boss cockies, don't impress God; he knocks them off their perch. But those who don't have tickets on themselves he gives a hand to. He provides tucker for the hungry and sends the toffee noses away without a feed. He has wrapped his great arms around his chosen. He hasn't forgotten his kindness and gentleness. Exactly what he promised yonks ago is what is happening now."
Mary stayed with Libby for a few months and then nicked off back home again. (Luke 1:46-56 The Aussie Bible)
It could be said that this song of Mary was the first Christian hymn sung by the first Christian. No wonder why our hymnals contain no less than five different hymns based on these words from Mary's lips as she joyfully extols the greatness of God's kindness shown to all who are spiritually poor and needy and hungry, having nothing to offer a perfect and holy God save their many sins.
Mary will have nothing to do with extolling herself. She sings of what is most sure: what the Lord has graciously done for her through his unexpected coming.
Are you expecting any unexpected visitors on Christmas Day?
May Christ visit you this Christmas morn to tear down the barriers of sin and doubt and fear and speak his word of peace and forgiveness and reconciliation. I have come to rescue you, just as I had promised, unexpectedly, amazingly, through my manger and my cross, through my life and death and resurrection and ascension.
Christ shepherds from this thistled place / The flocks by thickets torn;
His pierced hands heal all your race / Sore wounded by the thorn.
Embrace the Christ child, and with songs / Bind up the hearts of men.
To shepherd-healer-king let throngs / Sing glorias again.
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