"Jesus' Power Brings About Faith" (Sermon on John 2:1-11) | January 19, 2025

Sermon Text: John 2:1-11
Date: January 19, 2025
Event: The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year C

John 2:1–11 (EHV)

Three days later, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. 2Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.

3When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.”

4Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My time has not come yet.”

5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6Six stone water jars, which the Jews used for ceremonial cleansing, were standing there, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. 8Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” And they did.

9When the master of the banquet tasted the water that had now become wine, he did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew). The master of the banquet called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have had plenty to drink, then the cheaper wine. You saved the good wine until now!”

11This, the beginning of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

Jesus’ Power Brings About Faith

If you’ve ever adopted a pet from a group like the Humane Society or an animal rescue, you’re probably familiar with all the hoops you need to jump through to complete the adoption. These groups will not just hand over an animal to you because you walked through the door and had the cash for the adoption fee. They ask for information, if you rent your home they want clearance from the landlord that it’s ok for you to have a pet. They want to know who your vet is to get a clear idea of how you’re caring for any current pets or pets from the past.

Why do they go through all of that work and make you supply that information? They are looking out for the well-being of the animals They want clear indications, clear signs, that you are a person or family that would take good care of an animal. They don’t want you to have a pet if it will be overwhelming (a large dog with behavior issues probably isn’t right for a family with newborn twins) or if you simply are not fit to take care of the animal. This process ideally indicates both the pet’s fit in your home and your home’s fit for the pet.

In Catechism, we learn that one of the significant differences between God and people is that God can read the heart while we cannot. The people at the animal shelter can go on some signs, but they can’t actually know that someone is a suitable adopter because they can’t know the person’s heart and mind. So they have to go on outward signs, outward indications of what’s happening inside a person, their ability ot care for and their intentions with an animal, and make a judgment call.

Have you ever wondered why there seemed to be so many more miracles throughout the Old and New Testaments than we see today? On the one hand, I think we get a little bit of a misguided sense of that, because the Scriptures tend to cover those special events and tend to skip over more “quiet” times of history. It’s not like God was turning rivers to blood every other week—that happened once in Egypt. But the miracles, whether in Moses’ or Jesus’ day, served a purpose. They were authenticating to the message that was being proclaimed. Essentially, every miracle performed through one of God’s messengers was God setting up a giant flashing neon sign pointing at that messenger, telling everyone around, “HEY! LISTEN TO HIM!”

Why was that more important then than it is now? Because they didn’t have the Scriptures written, complete, and preserved, like we do today. Consider Moses’ day—there was no written Bible. Moses himself wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, so the people had nothing to go on to check to see if what Moses said was true. One of Moses’ big concerns when God called him at the burning bush was that no one would believe God had sent him. So, God equipped Moses to work miracles with the staff that was in his hand.

This is the same reason that Jesus worked his miracles. It wasn’t because he had come to heal people from their physical ailments or because he wanted everyone to have a nice meal when they were far away from being able to purchase food. No, they were to draw attention to and underscore the validity of Jesus’ claims. They made it clear to the people that they should listen to what Jesus had to say.

But even that is jumping far ahead into Jesus’ ministry, isn’t it? Where we are in our Gospel is at the very start. Jesus has been baptized—anointed and installed for his work as the Messiah—as we saw last week. He’s called a couple of his disciples to follow him. But there were no crowds. Few people would have known his name. This scene in the wedding at Cana in John 2 is one the earliest moments in Jesus’ public ministry.

Jesus and his disciples attend the wedding with Mary, Jesus’ mother. Jewish weddings, especially at this time, could be a week-long celebration. Running out of wine early on in the celebration would point either to the family’s poor planning or slim resources. Whatever the reason, running out would have been an difficult embarrassment.

Before anyone knows that the wine at the wedding is gone, Mary asks Jesus to help. Jesus clarifies that his mother does not get to dictate when and how he conducts his ministry, but we also see Jesus’ heart to help this family. So he works a miracle. This miracles has become so well-known that it transcends the Christian faith so that even pop culture will refer to “turning water into wine” as a phrase to describe doing the impossible or turning something of seemingly low value into something of high value.

This was the first miracle of Jesus’ public ministry and very likely his first miracle ever. As we go through this Epiphany season, as we see Jesus do his work, Jesus will show us who he really is. He is not some charismatic guy who was able to get people to follow him because of his personality. He is the one who was worthy of the angelic announcement at his birth, the long journey of the Wise Men, and the joyful praise of the Father at his baptism.

Can you trust Jesus? When he promises that his death paid for your sins, can you believe that? Is it reliable when he promises that his resurrection has also opened your grave and that because he lives, you too will live? Well, journey again to Cana. Enjoy the wedding reception and note that the one who has promised your sins are forgiven can turn giant jugs of water into the finest wine that the sommelier of the day had tasted.

That power is a résumé that speaks volumes. What authority does Jesus have to make such audacious claims about your sin? Look at what he has the power to do; look at the signs. He can turn water into wine. He can heal the sick, feed the hungry, and even raise the dead. And he does so not because God is doing it for him or through him; he’s doing it of his own accord because he is the promised Savior, true God and true man, that you and I need.

That power reveals Jesus to be trustworthy—worthy of our faith. Jesus’ disciples at the banquet understood that. After this singular miracle, we’re told he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. Of course, in the end, it wasn’t the miracles that did that, was it? It was the Holy Spirit. They didn’t just believe because of the miracles but because of the Word Jesus preached. The miracles, from the very first one, did their job, though. They pointed out that this Jesus was worth listening to, and through that lisenting, the Spirit worked faith—trust—in the hearts of his people.

He does the same for you and me today. By faith, we know that the accounts in God’s Word are not just fables and myths but actual events. The miracles that Jesus worked, as inexplicable as they may be, were real and happened. Even after being removed from these miracles by about 2,000 years, they still hold value as signs revealing Jesus to be trustworthy.

So, Jesus’ power brings about faith. You know Jesus’ power and authority and that he can be trusted. So his promise of complete forgiveness in his death for you is unquestionable. His promise that he’s applied his perfect life to your record is sure. His promise that because he’s been raised from the dead you, too, will rise, is inevitable. The one who turns water into wine turns your hell into heaven. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Do You Laugh with the Lord?" (Sermon on Psalm 2:1-7) | January 12, 2025

Sermon Text: Psalm 2:1-7
Date: January 12, 2025
Event: The Baptism of Our Lord, Year C

Psalm 2:1–7 (EHV)
Why do the nations rage?
Why do the peoples grumble in vain?
2The kings of the earth take a stand,
and the rulers join together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.
3“Let us tear off their chains
and throw off their ropes from us.”
4The one who is seated in heaven laughs.
The Lord scoffs at them.
5Then he speaks to them in his anger,
and in his wrath he terrifies them.
6“I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7I will proclaim the decree of the LORD.
He said to me:
“You are my Son.
Today I have begotten you.”

Do You Laugh with the Lord?

Have you ever been in a situation so bad, frustrating, or seemingly hopeless that all you could do was laugh? Why is that a gut reaction for us sometimes? I assume it’s a response to things we can’t control, things that are sometimes so out of reach that it almost begins to be funny.

That laughter or “humor” (if we can call it that) is a dark, hopeless laughter. I can’t do anything but laugh. But it’s not expressing the joy that laughter often communicates. It’s certainly not expressing something funny or entertaining. So, there are many reasons someone might laugh at the situation around them, some of them positive but sometimes very negative.

In Psalm 2, we get some behind-the-scenes look at God’s actions, and perhaps one of the most surprising is that the one who is seated in heaven laughs. What kind of laughter is this? Joyful? Funny? Hopeless? What is going on here? And if God is laughing at the events surrounding him, do we join him in that laughter?

The psalm writer sets a scene that was familiar in ancient days and continues to be familiar today: Why do the nations rage? Why do the peoples grumble in vain? The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers join together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. “Let us tear off their chains and throw off their ropes from us.” The nations, and especially the powerful people in them, are taking their stand against God. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? When was the last time you saw someone who was truly influential in the world and you thought, “This person really has their moral compass calibrated completely correctly. What they say and do is in line with God’s will!”? I don’t know that I could list many examples...

Being on this side of it, that’s kind of scary. When the world around us seems to have their sights set on God’s will, trying to rebuff it, ignore it, and even change it, what will we do to stop them? To redirect it? If the most powerful, influential, and wealthy people in the world want to try to rip off what they see as chains and ropes from God and even encourage others to do so as well, so that the nations and people rage and grumble against God, what can we do? Does this feel like a hopeless situation?

It might. But then we look at God’s reaction. The one who is seated in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. The Lord laughs. But what is in this laugh? Is it a laugh of fear and hopelessness because all of these powerful forces have taken their stand against him? No! This is the laugh that might come out of me when I see one of the cats reaching and reaching and reaching under the refrigerator to retrieve a lost toy that is hopelessly out of their reach. They’re trying so hard, but it’s never going to work. It’s almost funny, but there’s also a little sadness at the effort’s futility.

This reaction from God helps us to understand precisely what the psalm writer is getting at in the first verse of this psalm. When he asks, “Why do the nations rage?” it’s not an inquiry about motives. He’s not wondering what drives someone to do this. It’s “Why?” more like “What are you doing? What do you hope to accomplish? What is the point?” Because he knows that no matter how powerful you are, to take a stand against God is to lose.

That point is driven home by what God says next and how he says it, “Then he speaks to them in his anger, and in his wrath he terrifies them. ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.’ ” This raging of the nations against God is not laughable to be ignored and dismissed. This open rebellion against God is a real problem he doesn’t allow to stand. So, in his anger and wrath, he points to the King—the real ruler—he has placed over everything.

This installation, placing, and anointing of this King is what we are focused on here this morning. What is spoken of as true from eternity here in the psalm happened in time as Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. This moment—as Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends as a dove, and the Father’s voice booms from heaven—is the formal start of Jesus’ ministry.

Why is the Messiah’s installation pointed to as proof that no rulers of this world can do anything against God? We do well to pay close attention to a very small detail in our text, one that might not have stood out at all when we read these verses and honestly could be chalked up to a typo in our worship folder, but it’s not. It’s very important.

Look at the word “Lord” in our psalm. In vv. 2 and 7, it’s in all capital letters (LORD), and in v. 4 it’s in normal lettering (Lord). This is intentional because it reflects the careful wording of the Hebrew verses of this psalm. When that name is printed in all capital letters, it is God's special covenant name. This is God’s unique name, Yahweh, that emphasizes his grace and his mercy. So who are the nations and people raging against in v. 2? The covenant God of grace. Whose decree is the Messiah proclaiming in v. 7? The covenant God of grace.

But then, in v. 4, God is responding to this open rebellion. His name is no longer listed as the God of grace, but a more generic “Lord,” which we might sometimes translate as “master” or “ruler.” This name emphasizes God’s sovereignty and his authority. This name reminds the nations that they are not in charge; God is. He is the Lord.

So, the rebellion is against the God of love and mercy. The peoples of the earth don’t want to hear from God about anything, and certainly not about sin and forgiveness. And while that might strike us as a touch strange, we need to carefully consider how unpleasant it is to be told we are not only not in charge, but that we are accountable to someone else—to God—and that we haven’t met his expectations. The message of God’s law is deeply unpleasant, so much so that the sinful nature will do anything it possibly can to get rid of it, even trying to stage a coup against God. If we are accountable to God and we can get rid of him, then we would be free, right?

Well, as we said before, to take a stand against God is to lose. So, no, the path to freedom doesn’t go through open rebellion against God because you won’t get rid of him. And people with that mindset and goal will be crushed. But even the sovereign, ruling God points to the Messiah as proof that he can’t be thwarted. Why? Because the Messiah is the solution to all of this. “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.”

Jesus’ work is one of mercy, but it’s also one of exclusivity. If you and I want to be rid of our sins and be right with God, Jesus is the only way. So, from a law perspective, if you’re not with Jesus, you’re lost. But from a gospel perspective, Jesus is everything you could need for eternity.

This part of the psalm ends with the Messiah speaking. I will proclaim the decree of the LORD (the God of grace!). He said to me: “You are my Son. Today I have begotten you.” Sound familiar? We heard essentially this exact phrase from the Father at Jesus’ baptism, “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.” What does it mean for the God of grace to call the Messiah his Son? It shows their profound unity of purpose.

God’s plan is not just to be the vengeful, terrifying, wrath-filled God that punishes open rebellion. If it comes to that, he certainly will, but he prefers a far different approach. He would much rather solve this with his grace. So he sends his Son to take the place of these rebellious, sinful people—you and me included. We hear more details about this relationship at his baptism: I am well pleased with you. If God is well-pleased with anything, it is perfect. So here, in Jesus’ anointing, we have not just a connection shown, but Jesus’ value is made clear. Here is the perfect Son of God who has been sent to rescue us and all mankind from our sins.

What does all of this mean for us? Let’s return to our original question: do you laugh with the Lord? When it comes to what some might call the crumbling of society, living in a post-Christian world, or however else people might choose to despair when they see what they view as the downfall of society, do we need to panic? No! This is not anything new. It’s been happening since the beginning, and it will continue to happen until the end. But in the meantime, we can laugh with God. This can be a laugh of certainty, not despair and hopelessness. These nations, these people, these powerful forces raging against God are no more than the kitty desperately trying to get the ball from under the fridge with no hope of ever reaching it.

Because Jesus, God’s Son, won the victory over sin, death, and hell, we know that we do not need to join the nations in this rebellion against God. The solution to our eternal problems is not getting rid of God; rather, it’s the plan God has set in place. He has installed his King, his Messiah, our Savior, as champion and ruler of all. He is the one who willingly started this formal work at his baptism, knowing full well it led to the cross. The one who judges the earth, who rules all things, is the same one who loved you and me enough to die in our place. And so complete was his victory that not even the grave could hold him.

So, my brothers and sisters, do not despair over your sins or how they affect your relationship with God. The covenant God of grace forgives you for Jesus’ sake. And as you see the world in open opposition to God, do not fret or fear. Instead, you can laugh with God. Laugh, knowing how hopeless their raging is in the long run, how they will not be able to overthrow God or do anything to change his promises or his work. With that confidence, we can approach those who rage with the comfort and assurance of God’s mercy in Jesus to show them they are not chained or bound by God but that he has released them from their sin just as he has released us from ours.

The results of sharing the gospel can lead to real, joyful, even ecstatic laughter as we and many more join in the perfection of eternal life that Jesus has won for us. Here before us is God’s Son, God’s King, the one who, despite appearance to the contrary, will conquer sin, death, and hell in his death so that all of us, purified from sin, can be called the children of God. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Do You Consider Yourself Worthy of Eternal Life?" (Sermon on Acts 13:46-49) | January 5, 2025

Sermon Text: Acts 13:46-49
Date: January 5, 2025
Event: The Epiphany of our Lord (Observed), Year C

Acts 13:46-49 (EHV)

Then Paul and Barnabas responded fearlessly, “It was necessary that God’s word be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, look: We are now turning to the Gentiles! 47For this is what the Lord has instructed us:

I have made you a light for the Gentiles,

that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.”

48When the Gentiles heard this, they were rejoicing and praising the word of the Lord. All who had been appointed for eternal life believed.

49And the word of the Lord was being carried through the whole region.

Do You Consider Yourself Worthy of Eternal Life?

Have you ever gotten a gift, maybe this Christmas just finished or sometime in the past, that you felt unworthy to receive? Maybe it was something so personal, so dialed in to you, that you knew you could never, ever give such a thoughtful gift, and rather than appreciating the love and care that went into it, you felt only guilt over the generic nature of the gift you had prepared. Maybe there was a gift so costly that you were embarrassed to think that someone gave you a gift of such value. Perhaps it even left you wondering why they did.

The answer is probably pretty simple: because they care about you. They have talents or resources that they wanted to use for you! But even that can leave us feeling unworthy, that we don’t deserve what has been given to us. But it wasn’t given because you met some standard of worth; it was given because the giver loves you and cares for you.

So it is with God’s gifts. We can be overwhelmed by the unmeasurable scale of all that God provides, physical, spiritual, and eternal. This morning, we want to pause to take a fresh look at those gifts and consider whether or not we should consider ourselves worthy of them.

Our brief Second Reading takes us to Pisidon Antioch, a city in the south-central region of modern-day Turkey, very early on the apostle Paul’s first missionary journey. This city had become important in the area, serving as the region's capital in the Roman Empire. As such, it had a diverse population. As a major Roman city, it would have been predominately populated by Gentiles, people who were not Jewish. But, like most prominent cities in the empire at the time, it served as home for many Jewish people living in the “diaspora” of God’s people worldwide.

So, Paul’s initial audience was the Jewish people worshiping in the synagogue in Antioch. He summarized God’s promised plan of salvation and how it was accomplished through Jesus. Afterward, both Jewish people and Gentile converts to Judaism continued speaking with Paul. Luke records that the next week on the Sabbath, “almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of God” (Acts 13:44). What an audience to hear the good news of God’s forgiveness!

However, as would be an unfortunate theme throughout many of Paul’s missionary journeys, a segment of the Jewish people did not want to believe in Jesus as Savior or even allow this message to be shared. Here in Psidian Antioch, we’re told that the Jewish people who rejected this message were filled with envy and began to contradict what Paul was saying by slandering him” (Acts 13:45). To these actions, Paul and Barnabas responded fearlessly.

Paul’s fearless message is short and cutting, “It was necessary that God’s word be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, look: We are now turning to the Gentiles!” For many of the Jewish people, they would not have considered Gentiles to be worthy of God’s mercy; they viewed that as their special privilege. But that’s far from the truth. On this festival of Epiphany, sometimes called Gentiles’ Christmas, we see the nations coming to worship the Savior first in the Wise Men's faith. Jesus wasn’t a Savior for some—he’s a Savior for all.

But Paul’s warning to the Jewish unbelievers in Antioch cuts even for us today. “You … consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life.” That is harsh. But why did their actions show this? What attitudes or thoughts show that someone considers themselves unworthy of eternal life? Are we ever guilty of that?

Let’s begin where Paul begins. Why did he say that his Jewish opponents in Pisidan Antioch considered themselves “unworthy of eternal life”? Because they heard the Word of God, the gospel of the good news of God’s plan of salvation, and they reject[ed] it. This rejection of God’s Word is a rejection of God’s work. In this case, they are doing so because they think they are above it—smarter than it, better than it, or at least know better than the message being proclaimed. But such hubris and belittling of God’s promises and works results in disaster. Rejection of the Word of God is the rejection of eternal life.

We may not see this often as a real likely danger for us (and I hope that we don’t), but we do well to be mindful of this attitude. Does it not happen occasionally that we hear a part of God’s Word and say, “Ehhh… I’m not sure about that. I don’t know if I agree or think about it that way.”?

But this may show up in our lives differently. Maybe it’s not an out-and-out refusal to believe God’s Word, but not giving it a place of priority. We get busy with things or problems crowd out God’s Word in our hearts, minds, and daily lives. And so as we slowly, almost subconsciously, separate ourselves from the promises of God, we are no different than those who rejected Paul’s preaching. By not prioritizing it, we essentially admit that we don’t consider ourselves worthy of this eternal life given by God’s grace.

But perhaps the word “worthy” is a sticking point for you. I know it is for me! Because am I worthy of eternal life? Have I lived my life in such a way that God would look at me and say, “Tim, you deserve to be in heaven! Come on up here with me!”? No! I’ve been as far from worthy as can be! I’ve been sinful and rebelled against God. To be worthy of eternal life on my own would mean to be perfect, a life of literally flawless obedience to God’s commands. I know that’s not me, and I’m sure that’s not you. So, in that way, are we worthy of eternal life? No!

But, if I stick to that thinking, I’m ignoring the work that God has done for the whole world, me included. In my misguided “piety” and “humility,” I could, perhaps, exclude myself from eternal life. If I consider my sins not only real and constant (which they are), but actually so bad that they’re unforgivable, that will lead to real problems. If I think that I’m so unworthy that not even God can forgive me, I don’t consider myself worthy or even eligible for eternal life. I can convince myself that somehow, I’m so bad, that I am unique among all the history of humanity, of every person from every nation, and that when Jesus died for the sins of the world, I managed to exclude myself.

This is the lie that Judas believed. Judas is not in hell because he betrayed Jesus on Maundy Thursday night, nor is he in hell because he committed suicide; those were both sins that Jesus died for. He’s in hell because he thought himself excluded from forgiveness, that what he did was so bad that there was no way he could be forgiven. Thus, this deep grief and hopelessness led him to reject the promises Jesus had so clearly taught, and it left him in the state of unbelief. He did not consider himself worthy of eternal life.

Indeed, we do well to take stock of our sins, to hear God’s law, and let it resonate in our hearts. These are healthy things that God wants for us and provides for us. As we mentioned on Christmas Eve and last Sunday, a Savior only has value if you recognize what you need to be saved from. But don’t sell Jesus short. His payment for sin was a global, universal, objective payment. It is done—finished! The Wise Men didn’t travel all those miles to worship an unsubstantiated hope that maybe, possibly, this child would grow into one who could save them. No, by faith, they knew this was the promised Savior who would rescue all people from their sins.

So are you worthy of eternal life by your own actions? No! But are you worthy of eternal life by Jesus’ actions? Absoultely, yes! Jesus has washed and made you clean, purifying you of all sin. He’s given you his perfection so that you are exactly what God expects—demands—that you be. When the Father looks at you, he only sees his Son’s faithfulness. When he looks at me, he does, in fact, say, “Tim, you deserve to be in heaven! Come on up here with me!” because Jesus made me deserving, made me worthy.

That message is not something new for most of us. Many of us have known this for years, decades, perhaps even our whole lives. But the problem of considering ourselves unworthy of eternal life can even creep into that fortress of God’s grace. Because the longer we know this, the more difficult it can be to appreciate it. We can take it for granted. We know all that stuff. We’ve been going to church for how long? We’ve read the promises of God how often? We’ve even, perhaps, read the entirety of God’s Word—even multiple times! Indeed, I do deserve this, Lord; I am worthy of eternal life. Look at what the faithfulness of my life displays!

A life focused on Jesus can, over time, through familiarity and apathy, devolve into a life of self-righteous arrogance. I can start putting more stock in my church attendance than my Savior. I can start pointing to my works, such as my knowledge of the teachings of God’s Word, rather than trusting in the Savior it points to. Even in my ultra-familiarity with God’s Word and perhaps even its constant presence in my life, I can begin to consider myself unworthy of eternal life when faith warps into mere tradition and head-knowledge.

So, do you consider yourself worthy of eternal life? I hope you do because God certainly does. He never would have sent that gift lying in Bethlehem’s manger if he didn't. He never would have given us this King, worshiped and adored by the Wise Men. But he did, and we have him as our certain Savior from sin.

So, where do we want to be now and in the future? See yourself as the loved, blood-bought child of God that you are. No matter how you feel or what you think about things, God’s Word stands true: We were lost in our sins, and God rescued us through Jesus.

And this message doesn’t just apply locally; it applies globally. It’s not just for “good” people; it’s for everyone. It’s not just for members of our congregation or for people who currently share our same faith; it’s even for those who, today, are totally ignorant of and perhaps even antagonistic toward this message. Jesus is for all—even for you and me.

So, let’s not fall into the trap some of the Jewish people in Antioch did as they rejected the gospel from Paul. Let us not let distractions, guilt, or apathy lead us to separate ourselves from this promise and consider ourselves unworthy of eternal life.

Instead, see yourself as worthy of eternal life because God has made you worthy. See yourself as worthy of his love because he loves you. See yourself as worthy of his forgiveness because he died to forgive you. See yourself as worthy of the perfection of heaven because God, who knows you better than you know yourself, as given you this free gift, no strings attached.

Value and cherish your God-given worthiness. Continue to seek it out and look for opportunities to share it with those who might not yet know or understand it or who have been dragged away from it so that they, too, know they are worthy of eternal life, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

"Let Us Tend the Tree of Faith" (Sermon on Luke 13:6-9) | December 29, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 13:6-9
Date: December 29, 2024
Event: New Year’s Eve (Observed), Set 3

Luke 13:6-9 (EHV)

He told them this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it, but he did not find any. 7So he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil?’ 8But the gardener replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. 9If it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down.’ ”

Let Us Tend the Tree of Faith

I was listening to a year-in-review podcast last week, and one of the hosts of the show made a joke at one point along the lines of, “It’s good to know that once January 1 comes, once the clock ticks over to midnight and it’s 2025, all the world’s problems will disappear.” Truly, January 1, 2025 will not really be different than December 31, or December 29, or…

It’s one of the reasons I have no qualms about observing the New Year transition in worship today rather than two days from now. It’s not really that big of a deal. The opportunities for reflection and forward-thinking are not limited to one 24-hour period. It’s one of the reasons I really don’t like New Year’s Resolutions because, if you’ve identified something you want to do or a change you want to make, why not start it on December 29th or November 17th or whatever rather than waiting for this arbitrary point in the future.

That being said, there is a benefit to the themes of taking-stock and planning-ahead that these late days in the years provide. And while things around us may not change all that much as we turn the calendar, we can know for certainty that the God who provides for us, forgives us, and protects us does not change at all. So we move forward into a new year under the same perfect providence that he has provided up to this day. It’s a perfect providence not because our life right now is idyllic but because he is working everything for what he knows is our eternal good.

Since we know the promises and works of God and how important this all is, we do well to prioritize it no matter where in the year we fall. This morning, using Jesus’ parable of the fig tree as a guide, we’ll spend some time considering how we might better tend the tree of our faith today, on January 1, and throughout our lives.

The parable Jesus tells is very simple. There’s a tree in a vineyard that is not producing anything. The owner of the vineyard wants to get rid of it so that soil can be used for something else, while the caretaker asks for some more time to care for the tree and see if starts to produce fruit. The owner agrees—for a time.

The parable's application is pretty straightforward and very much lines up with John the Baptist’s preaching that we heard in the Advent season just a couple of weeks ago. In order for a fruit tree to be worth anything, it needs to produce fruit. Likewise, a person can and should produce fruit of thanksgiving to God—the fruit of repentance. Failure or refusal to produce such fruit in our lives points to a real problem with our faith.

And so it’s not surprising that the parable's context is Jesus preaching a message that sounds very much like the message that John the Baptist proclaimed. In the verses just prior to our parable, Jesus twice repeats the stern warning, “But unless you repent, you will all perish too” (Luke 13:3, 5). “Perish” is a much stronger word than “die.” When God uses this word, it points not to physical death but eternal death in hell.

So, a lack of repentance leads to hell. A lack of fruit causes the tree to be cut down and discarded. What are we to make of this? And how does that sync with biblical truths that we are saved by grace through faith alone?

It’s perhaps a bit of a trite saying, but I think it can be instructive: it is true that we are saved through faith alone, but that faith is never alone. Faith always has works, fruits of repentance, attached to it. The faith that trusts Jesus as Savior naturally produces good works in thanksgiving to God. A problem with thankful good works may point to a problem with faith.

But, in reality, we all have a problem with faith. None of us is entirely governed by the faith given to us by God. We all still have a sinful nature that is vehemently opposed to that faith, that fights it tooth and nail. If, in thanksgiving to God, faith wants us to go left, then the sinful nature wants us to go right; if faith wants us to go down, then the sinful nature wants us to go up. The sinful nature only wants the opposite of what God wants, often to a non-sensical and self-destructive degree.

So, part of us wants to bear excellent fruit in thanksgiving to the God who loves us and has forgiven us, while another part of us wants there to be no fruit at all. This is why you don’t always do the good things you want to do, why sin, at times, is a very tempting path—and perhaps even seems like the correct path! Even after God has created faith in our hearts, on our own, we are not healthy fig trees.

So what is the solution? Well, if we’re looking for the solution of “make there be no sin anymore in my life,” then we are going to be really disappointed. This side of eternity, no matter how genuine our faith is and how much we might want that to be the case, we won’t be able to make that happen. No, the real solution is labor, work with this tree of faith. Just as the caretaker pleaded with the owner, “Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it,” we, too, have work to do.

What does “digging around and fertilizing” faith look like? How do we do that work? Well, just like a tree, it matters what you use. If you dig around a tree to aerate the soil a bit, you don’t want to do so in a way that damages the roots; that would be the complete opposite of what you’re trying to do! If you’re trying to fertilize the tree, you would want to use something that would actually make the soil better and thus the tree stronger. Using something that would poison or weaken the tree is the opposite of your goal.

So, too, if we’re going to tend to our tree of faith, we want to use the right tools and products and in the right way because doing this work in the wrong way could damage faith rather than strengthening it. So, what are the right tools and methods for this work?

First and foremost, tending to your faith is not an exploration of your thoughts and feelings. While our thoughts and emotions are valid and important, they’re not always accurate. For instance, on a really rough day, I may feel like God no longer cares about me. But is that true? No! No matter how deeply, sincerely, and honestly I feel that, my emotions do not dictate reality. My thinking may try to justify my actions, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.

The fruitless tree can’t just will itself into producing fruit; it needs work from the gardener. So, too, we cannot just will ourselves into stronger, healthier faith. We need God to do his work on us.

And while God technically could do that in an infinite number of ways, he has restricted himself to some very specific tools. God tends to your faith and mine through his Word. That Word may be read in our homes, listened to as it’s read or preached, remembered and meditated on, or in the case of the sacraments, connected to earthly elements like water in baptism and bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper.

While God does this work,  you and I have a part to play. We can’t make our faith stronger on our own, but we can put ourselves in a position to be surrounded by his Word, to be in a place where God will do the work he’s promised. So, tending to the tree of our faith means immersing ourselves in his Word.

How will that go? Well, it’s not going to be all pleasant. Remember, we still have that sinful nature in us, and part of combating this part of us is cutting it down to size. But that’s not comfortable because that means addressing the sinful nature’s wrongdoing, which is the same as addressing our own failures and faults. God’s Word is clear what the expectations are for us—perfection—and how far we are from that. That sin is why Jesus warned the people about perishing without repentance. Sin that is cherished, loved, and embraced is poison to faith.

But, of course, the message of God’s Word doesn’t end there. If it did, that would be utterly hopeless. The gardener has to address the problems with the fig tree, but with the goal that things will be better. It is the same with God’s Word.

It’s not until we see our need as made clear through the mirror of God’s law that we can appreciate the gospel. As we noted on Christmas Eve, the message of a Savior being born for you is only significant if you have something that you need to be saved from. Well, God’s law makes clear how hopeless our sinful situation is and how much we need rescue.

So God assures us time and time again, sometimes in direct conflict with our internal dialogue and emotions, that he loves us. While, yes, we have sinned, and yes, we do deserve eternal punishment in hell for those sins, Jesus took our place. Jesus paid the price we owed. Jesus has saved us through his perfect life that he applies to us and his death on the cross that removed every single one of our sins. Now, the soil can breathe and have nutrients rush to the roots.

And what is the result? What could the result be but joyous thanksgiving to God? When we can see and appreicate how great the love of God for us is, how could we possibly respond in joy to him? To be clear, any response, any good works we do are not done to earn God’s love or forgiveness; those have been given to us as a free gift. No, the fruit we produce is the result of thanksgiving to the God who loves us.

This will be a year-long, life-long struggle. The sinful nature will want to squash that fruit and the faith God has given will want to produce it, and you will be caught in the middle. Thus, we need that caretaking that comes only through God’s Word; we need to surround ourselves with the Word and benefit from the caretaking that he, alone, provides.

What will that look like practically? In part, it will look like what we’re doing right now: gathering around God’s Word for the edification that it brings and finding encouragement in the support of our fellow Christians. It will mean digging into God’s truths in the year ahead on a personal level, watering that tree of faith with his promises and assurances.

There are many tools that can help in this end. While you can certainly read your Bible cover-to-cover, or open up to a random page and try to soak in the truths of law and gospel presented there, a more structured, organized approach might be better and longer lasting. The Meditations booklets do a nice job of presenting a daily, bite-sized dose of God’s Word to digest at any point during the day. They also have the benefit of coordinating with the readings that we just worked through in worship the Sunday before.

In addition, I have some tools laid out on the back table that I would encourage you to consider using in the days ahead. Some of these will be new, some familiar, but all have the same goal: get myself into God’s truths to combat that sinful nature and allow the joy of God’s freedom to produce thankful fruit in my life. There are a few different Bible reading plans, be they the whole Bible, the New Testament, or the Gospels. There’s a book that harmonizes all four Gospels into one cohesive narrative. And if none of those are where your interests lie, talk to me and I can get you other recommendations for digging around and fertilizing that tree of faith.

In the end, it’s not the fruit that is the ultimate concern, but the fruit is a sign of the tree's health. The good works in our life are not the goal, but they are a useful metric to gauge the health of our faith. And that faith that clings to Jesus as the only and complete Savior from sin is what is most vital. A healthy tree will produce good fruit; a healthy faith will produce thankful fruit, and we want our faith to be healthy as we look forward to the rescue from this life that God will provide.

So today, tomorrow, and into the new year, prioritize being immersed in the Word and his comforts. Seek out opportunities to express your faith in your life through those thankful fruits. You are the dearly loved child of God. Enjoy that now and always! Happy New Year! Amen.

"I Bring You Good News of Great Joy" (Sermon on Luke 2:1-20) | December 24, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 2:1-20
Date: December 24, 2024
Event: Christmas Eve, Year C

Luke 2:1-20 (EHV)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3And everyone went to register, each to his own town. 4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the town of Nazareth, into Judea, to the town of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was from the house and family line of David. 5He went to be registered with Mary, his wife, who was pledged to him in marriage and was expecting a child.

6And so it was that while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

8There were in the same country shepherds staying out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified! 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people: 11Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. 12And this will be a sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude from the heavenly army, praising God and saying, 14“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind.”

15When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Now let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they told others the message they had been told about this child. 18And all who heard it were amazed by what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

“I Bring You Good News of Great Joy!”

“Can we talk?” What does that question do to you? I’ll tell you what it does for me: my heart leaps into my throat and other questions race through my mind, “What’s wrong? What did I do? What happened? Where and how big is the hurt, and for who?” Now, those questions might just point to my own wrestling with anxiety because could it not just as easily be good news as bad? Couldn’t someone want to spend a few minutes sharing something positive rather than negative, encouragement rather than criticism?

But maybe that is a familiar feeling for you, too. Knowing that there is news, something that warrants a conversation, but not knowing if it’s something you’d classify as good or bad can leave you feeling very uneasy.

The events around Jesus’ birth have several moments when someone is startled by a message (or even the messenger). We were reminded on Sunday of two occasions when the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, to tell him that he and his wife would have a son in their old age. Likewise, Gabriel appeared to Mary to let her know she would be the mother of the Savior. There, Luke records Mary’s internal response for us: The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.” But she was greatly troubled by the statement and was wondering what kind of greeting this could be (Luke 1:28-29). Is this good news or bad news? How do you respond when an angel says, “Can we talk?”

The beginning of our Gospel for this evening tells us the basics of Jesus’ birth. For as popular and romanticized as this account is, even outside of the church in popular culture, in the Bible, it’s really, really short. Just eight verses, the first three of which are really just establishing when in history this took place. Many of the details we have filled in from our imagination or works of art surrounding these events just aren’t there. Did you notice Mary did not have a donkey to ride to Bethlehem? It’s not unreasonable to think that she might have ridden one—being nearly ready to give birth and having to make a trek of more than 80 miles on foot would probably call for some assistance—but it’s not in the biblical account.

In part, that comes because you have to round it out a bit. Just five verses is not a lot of details. However, when it comes to the construction of the Gospel narrative, it makes some sense because the specifics around Jesus’ birth are just not that important. I mean, they’re not unimportant. They show the lowliness and humility that would define Jesus’ entire earthly life and ministry. They show the quiet faith of both Mary and Joseph, trusting that everything would be ok despite a really stressful situation because God had promised that it would be ok. They make clear that distinguishing mark that the Messiah would be born in the Judean town of Bethlehem, where King David was born. But when it comes to the work Jesus had to do, the details of his birth are, in some ways, a footnote.

But when it comes to verse 8, then things get interesting, because there are some sleepy shepherds out in the middle of fields near Bethlehem keeping watch over undoubtedly sleepy sheep. And then someone says, “Can we talk?” There were in the same country shepherds staying out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified! In the middle of the night, an angel from God appears to these half-asleep animal caretakers. Not only that, but even the glory of the Lord, the pillar of cloud and fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness almost 1500 years before, not only appears near them but actually surrounds them. I think you can take Mary’s troubledness and curiosity at what kind of greeting Gabriel had for her and dial it up 1000x for the shepherds. “What is going on? What is going to happen to us? What is this message being announced?”

The angel quickly puts their fears—their terror!—to rest, “Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy.” Whew! Not only is this not bad news, but this is good news that produces great joy! And what is the good news the angel has to share with the shepherds? “I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people: Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord.” Again, terse and to the point, but one that points ahead—a Savior (the Savior) was born; he’s arrived! The Christ—the Messiah—is here!

And yes, more details are given, but again, that is not the point. The lowly state of the Messiah—a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger—is given only as a means of identification, “a sign to you.” That a child is sleeping in a feeding trough is not the message, not the good news of great joy. But what he will be and what he will do is the focus of the angel’s brief message.

According to the angel, this good news of great joy applies to all people. The main joy is that a Savior was born for you. And this is the part of tonight that might not feel very “Christmas-y,” because the good news the angel shares and that we celebrate presupposes some really bad, even hopeless, news.

Perhaps we think of the joy of a severe disease going away, something that threatened life or at least the way of life. What rejoicing there is in that good news! The bad thing is gone! But in order for there to be joy in that good news, the bad news had to be there first. The concerns over future health and living arrangements. Sleepless nights not knowing what would come or how this would turn out. Would the medicine be effective? Were the doctors right? What was tomorrow going to look like? Feel like?

The same is true for Christmas. Good news of great joy to be sure! But that good news stands against the backdrop of the hopeless news we lived with. A Savior was born! Praise the Lord! But for a savior to be worth something, we needed something to be saved from.

The reality is that, on our own, we do need to be saved. We need to be rescued because we’ve dug ourselves such a deep, dark pit with our sin and rebellion against God that we can never get out. The whole reason that Jesus was born, the reason that God took on our human nature in this miraculous birth of a virgin, was so that he could rescue us. And his work would be a true rescue. To go back to the picture of the pit, his mission wasn’t to put a ladder down so we could climb out ourselves. No, his rescue is so complete that it meant climbing down that pit himself, putting us on his shoulders, and carrying us out. The Messiah’s mission was a complete rescue with no help or contribution on our part whatsoever.

So this child in Bethlehem’s manger would live a flawless life in our place during the 30-some years of his life, and then he would take up our sins on himself when he died on the cross. He was and is our substitute, putting himself in the place of the punishment of hell that we deserved. Death and hell are not really themes that we might want to zero in on a serene Christmas Eve, but this part of Jesus’ work is the only reason that the message of the angel to the shepherds could be good news of great joy.

This evening, we rejoice, we celebrate, not just over the birth of a child in wild, surprising, and miraculous circumstances. We rejoice and celebrate because the one who would rescue us from eternal punishment in hell is here. The one who would give our life for ours and then rise from the dead, triumphantly proclaiming his obliteration of sin, death, and hell—that long-promised Savior—has arrived!

Do you want to see him? On this silent night, follow the angel’s directions: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. … He is Christ the Lord. My sisters and brothers, your Savior is here! Thanks be to God! Amen.

"My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord" (Sermon on Luke 1:39-55) | December 22, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 1:39-55
Date: December 22, 2024
Event: The Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year C

Luke 1:39-55 (EHV)

In those days Mary got up and hurried to the hill country, to a town of Judah. 40She entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41Just as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42She called out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44In fact, just now, as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy! 45Blessed is she who believed, because the promises spoken to her from the Lord will be fulfilled!”

46Then Mary said,

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
47and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,
48because he has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed,
49because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
51He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52He has brought down rulers from their thrones.
He has lifted up the lowly.
53He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty.
54He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy,
55as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.

My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord

Well, we’ve reached it. The Fourth Sunday in Advent, the last Sunday before Christmas, finally has a Christmas feel to it. It’s still Advent; we’re still firmly in the preparation phase, but with readings focused not on the end, not on John the Baptist’s ministry, but firmly on prophecy of the Savior’s birth and reaction to the upcoming arrival of the Savior. We’re almost there; the preparations are nearly complete.

Our Gospel for this morning takes us to the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, a childless couple blessed with a son in their old age. Their son was John the Baptist, whose adult ministry we’ve focused on for the last two Sundays. But for today, we take a step back in time, still three months or so from John’s birth. The angel Gabriel had announced this unexpected pregnancy to Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband. Because he doubted God’s promises, Zechariah could not speak throughout Elizabeth’s pregnancy and wouldn’t have that ability restored until it came time to name the child.

During these exciting and undoubtedly chaotic times in their home near Jerusalem, Zechariah and Elizabeth have a visitor—one of their relatives from the north, from Galilee. Mary arrives not long after her own angelic encounter, where Gabriel also appeared to her to give her news about another miracle birth. Of course, this birth would be even more jaw-dropping than Elizabeth and Zechariah naturally having a son in their old age. Mary, a virgin, was told that she would bear a son. But not even just a miracle child, but the miracle child—the long-promised Savior. Gabriel described how it would happen in the verses just before our Gospel: Listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end. … The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Listen, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age even though she was called barren, and this is her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible for God (Luke 1:31-33, 35-37).

Mary was undoubtedly and understandably overwhelmed with this news, and given that the angel had told her that her relative, Elizabeth, was in at least a related situation, it made sense that Mary would make the journey south to visit her and Zechariah. It’s clear from the moment Mary first speaks that God is doing something incredible here. As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the yet-to-be-born John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb and Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Spirit. As soon as Mary entered their home, Elizabeth knew what was happening: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Both of these women were basking in God’s graciousness to them. Not only did he love them and promise to remove their sins and bring them to eternal life with him, but he actually blessed them by allowing them to play incredibly important roles in his plan of salvation. Elizabeth was the mother and caretaker of the promised messenger to prepare the way before the Messiah; Mary was the mother and caretaker of the Messiah, God-come-in-the-flesh, true God and true Man, for our salvation.

Mary responds with what we have traditionally referred to as Mary’s Song or the Magnificat. These words show that the enormity of this moment and these events was not lost on her. Let’s take a few moments to walk through her Spirit-inspired words, and let them find application not only for her and the people of her day, but for us as well.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, because he has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed, because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. Her first sentence gives us the whole point of what she’s doing and feeling in the moment: her very spirit within her can’t help but broadcast the greatness of the Lord. And what is she looking to share? That God, her Savior, had looked with favor on her.

Now, we could certainly zero in on the specific blessing of Mary being the mother of the Messiah. But there’s more here than just that. In calling God her Savior, she’s seeing not only the great privilege and honor that God has placed on her, but her very need of it. She was going to be the mother of the world's Savior, yes, but more to the point, she would be the mother of her own Savior. The child she would bring into the world would pay for her sins when he was taken out of the world. His death would save her as it would save all people.

And we don’t want to miss this critical point about our final preparations here today or our celebrations later this week. We’re not just observing a tradition. We won’t just be singing familiar songs or perhaps enjoying special food. We won’t just give and receive gifts with bows, tissue paper, and shiny wrapping. No, this preparation, this celebration, is for a purpose infinitely beyond all of that.

Because the true gift that we have received, the true reason for celebration, is that here is God’s mercy and God’s promise come in the flesh. Here is what God had meant when he first promised that Satan-stomping champion in the Garden of Eden. Here is God putting things into motion what his people had been waiting for for millennia.

And the effects of all of this are crucial for us today. Because salvation and forgiveness were not just for Adam and Eve or Elizabeth and Mary, but for you and me as well. This forgiveness of God—long promised and taking so long to fulfill—is still our confidence of better things to come, even at this late date in history. Those better things are not necessarily here in this life (which is in many ways a deceitful charade, as Mary will explain in a moment), but we are looking ahead to better things in eternity. Jesus took your sin and mine on himself so that even though you and I do not participate in the actual execution of God’s plan to save the world, we can join Mary and say, “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name,” because he has rescued us from hell and will bring us to himself in heaven, forever.

Mary continues: He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones. He has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty. In a world where political and socio-economic standing and power seem to be the only things that matter, the only ways to really get things done, Mary reminds us of the truth hidden behind that façade. Is the ruler of a nation in charge of things? Is the one who holds all the wealth in charge of things? Is the one who promotes themselves and exalts their own importance in charge of things? NO! God is the one with the strong arm that works his will. God is the one that accomplishes what he knows needs to be done. God is not limited by any earthly political power or wealthy influence. He cuts through it all.

In fact, God is so much in charge that he uses those who think they are in charge. The Romans thought that they were in control at the time of Jesus’ birth. The emperor, Ceasar Agustus, declared a census. The rules dictated that families had to go to the origin point of their family lines. This meant Mary and Joseph would need to make that trek down south to Bethlehem Ephrathah, so small among the clans of Judah, but the promised birthplace of the Messiah. God saw to it that the Savior in the line of King David would be born in David’s birthplace and used that as a sign to confirm, in part, who Jesus was.

As we prepare not just for Christmas and not just for the end of time but for anything this next week or the new year might bring, we do well to keep Mary’s reminder in mind. The Lord is in charge of all. That little baby still forming in his mother’s womb whom we’ll see in Bethlehem’s manger? He’s King of kings and Lord of lords. He is, right now, ruling all things for your eternal good, and no one can wrench control away from God. No one in a national or community scene nor even someone in a more local family scene—can oust God as the one who watches you, protects you, forgives you, and will bring you home to himself.

And that’s where Mary leads us: His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. … He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever. That phrase, “remembering his mercy,” looms so large. To be clear, this is not God going through the events that I’m so familiar with: sitting somewhere, perhaps working, perhaps relaxing, perhaps sleeping, when all of a sudden, the memory of that thing you forgot to do comes crashing into your mind and, in a panic, you race to try to get it done before it’s too late. God doesn’t forget; nothing slips his mind. But when God “remembers,” he is keeping his promise; he’s making clear that he didn’t forget.

From Adam and Eve to Noah to Abraham and all the children of Israel, God had promised our ancestors in the faith to save all humanity in the Savior’s work. Here, he keeps the promise. Here in the mission of Gabriel to speak to Zecahariah and then Mary, here in the working of humble faith in Mary’s heart that trusts these promises will be fulfilled, here is our hope for eternity.

Let us all follow Mary’s example, and let us all proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Maybe we won’t burst into poetry or song in the home of a loved one, but those fruits of repentance we spent time with last week are all ways to proclaim God’s greatness. Let us share the good news of this upcoming birth. Invite a friend to worship this week, share the hope you have for eternity, and let your joy in God’s eternal rescue from sin motivate every moment.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, now and forever! Amen.

"Repentance Produces Joyful Fruit" (Sermon on Luke 3:7-18) | December 15, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 3:7-18
Date: December 15, 2024
Event: The Third Sunday in Advent, Year C

Luke 3:7–18 (EHV)

So John kept saying to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8Therefore produce fruits in keeping with repentance! Do not even think of saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ because I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 9Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

10The crowds began to ask him, “What should we do then?”

11He answered them, “Whoever has two shirts should share with the person who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”

12Tax collectors also came to be baptized. They said, “Teacher, what should we do?”

13To them he said, “Collect no more than what you were authorized to.”

14Soldiers were also asking him, “And what should we do?”

He told them, “Do not extort money from anyone by force or false accusation. Be satisfied with your wages.”

15The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might be the Christ. 16John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But someone mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor. He will gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

18Then with many other words, he appealed to them and was preaching good news to the people.

Repentance Produces Joyful Fruit

When young children are first being introduced to the idea of receiving gifts, what do parents often have to instill in them? Showing their thanks. Now, that doesn’t mean they aren’t thankful or appreciating for a present or other kind gestures, but a parent will help the child learn how to express that to the gift-giver. Are you thankful? Say, “Thank you!” For children (or even some adults), this concept can be a bit of a foreign one, and it’s only with modeling and direction that it starts to become ingrained and automatic (though, hopefully not thoughtless) to thank the person giving you something or who has done something kind for you.

This morning, we will be spending time with John the Baptist again as he’s teaching some of the crowd about thanksgiving, not to people, but to God. We are building on the concept of repentnace this morning, and focusing on the fruit of repentance, the things we joyfully do because God has taken away our sins.

The opening verses of our text might sound a little rough, might sound a little harsh. John calls the group gathered before him “offspring of vipers.” It’s even harsher sounding in the more standard English translation, “brood of vipers,” indicating that the people he's talking to are vipers themselves.

However, John’s point seems more about the parentage than the offspring. While it’s completely logical that vipers produce vipers, this dressing down seems aimed at the parents rather than the children, and in this case, it is aimed directly at the spiritual parents—the religious leaders of the day. “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

The assumed answer to that question is, “No one,” because the religious leaders tended to focus on what the people should do to be worth something to God. They directly tied the people’s value to the Almighty with their actions. The Pharisees felt pretty comfortable in their own behavior and thus their status with God. But in a message that is all, “Do better! Do more!” there is no sense of repentance of that U-turn we talked about last week. There is no call to examine your life and acknowledge that there are places where you have sinned, places where you have failed and should do different and better.

It's almost as if the religious leaders lumped people into two groups: those who were doing great and those who were beyond hope. The ones who were beyond hope were the outcasts of society, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the “sinners.” And so John, in his message of repentance, is calling on the people to examine their lives. He wants everyone, no matter their social status or occupation, to recognize that they haven’t been good enough for God because they have been perfect and, just as importantly, to recognize that there is forgiveness for all of those failings from God.

That is repentance: sorrow over sin, trust that it’s forgiven, and a desire to change your ways. This morning John is taking us on the next step of that spiritual journey, to the fruits of repentance. What comes aftewr true, God-worked repentance? The life the rejoices in what God has done! And John doesn't want the people to fall into that false sense of security that the Pharisees may have led them to think that just because now I'm repentant, well, now I must be good with God. Just because Abraham is my father, I must be good with God. There’s no confidence in that! God can generate biological children for Abraham from stones! Being in Abraham’s family line has no impact on eternity.

And in fact, John says, “Now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees.” A life lived in rebellion to God, a life lived in rejection of repentance, a life lived without the fruits of repentance ,will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

With this solemn warning, the crowds began to ask him, “What should we do then?” And I think we do well to take this not as a question of fear, but as a question of legitimate desire for direction. This is not a request of frightened people trying to make God happy with them. This is people who understand the imporance of all of this, and desperately want to live a life filled with the fruits of repentance, to respond properly to God’s love and forgiveness. And so they come to John for some specific direction and guidance

John’s responses are, perhaps, surprisingly… normal? Even boring? There’s no grand spiritual journey and high-falutin ceremony to perform. No, what does it look like to have the fruits of repentance in your life? “Whoever has two shirts should share with the person who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.” The unremarkable direction continues when some tax collectors and Roman soldiers, two groups that would have been reviled by Jewish society then, ask John the same thing. John’s answer to them? “Collect no more than what you were authorized to … Do not extort money from anyone by force or false accusation. Be satisfied with your wages.” Just do your job honestly; that is a life filled with the fruits of repentance.

John addresses this idea of the fruits of repentance vocationally. What does it look like to have a life filled with the fruits of repentance and the joy of knowing that we are forgiven? Well, that will vary depending on the places God has put us in and the opportunities he has set before us. Parents have opportunities to produce fruits of repentance as they raise and nurture their children in youth and contnue to provide stability and direction for them when they're grown. Workers will have the opportunity to do their job faithfully, regardless of what industry or specific occupation and vocation they have. Everyone can be a good, kind neighbor to those who live near us or even to perfect strangers—yes even the person that cuts you off on the road or makes that long flight across the country uncomfortable as your seat-mate.

Living our life in a way that pleases and thanks God in every circumstance is a life filled with the fruits of repentance. Because those works are done not just out of a sense of obligation or because it’s the “right” thing to do but because you know you have a God who loves you, has freed you from your sins, and will bring you home to eternal life. These are actions that we take in joy, in celebration, rejoicing in knowing our sins are forgiven, that the Lamb of God, Jesus, has taken away not only the sin of the world but my sin; my personal failures are gone because the promised Savior came and lived and died for me; he's done exactly the same for you.

Of course, as John started his work and gained popularity and notoriety, there was a little buzz about him. He was a bit weird. He lived in the wilderness; he didn't wear conventional clothing or follow a conventional diet. And so all these things combined with his powerful preaching and teaching made the people wonder if John might be the Christ. Might this be the promised Savior? Might John be the one who came to save us? And John is very quick to deflect and shut down those rumors. “I baptize you with water. But someone mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

We could spend a lot of time this morning trying to parse out the different options of what it means that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. But let’s focus on one option this morning. In this brief discourse, we have fire mentioned three times. The first is what will happen to those fruitless trees that get cut down. The last is the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the good grain from the worthless leftovers. The fruitless tree and the useless parts of the plants are burned up. And then we are also told that that Messiah will come and baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

I would suggest that the difference between the Holy Spirit and fire in Jesus’ baptism is the difference between faith and unbelief at this preaching and teaching. The Holy Spirit comes to anyone who hears God’s Word, his promises, and the work that has been accomplished for us. For some, the Holy Spirit stays and creates and strengthens faith in the hearts of those who hear. For others who reject the message and the Holy Spirit, fire replaces him. The heart that refuses to have fruits of repentance, that refuses to acknowledge joy or see anything special or good in what God has done for us is going to be that tree that's cut down and thrown into the eternal fire of hell, the chaff that's burned up with that unquenchable fire, the one that that our coming king will send to that eternity of abandonment by God, baptized with fire, not in a spiritual or refining sense, but in the sense of condemnation.

But my brothers and sisters, you and I are not destined for that fire. By God's grace, we cling to our Savior as the solution to our sin. We know that we couldn't do anything on our own, and he has done it all for us. So now we have that joy because we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. We have that faith that God has produced in us, whether through our literal baptisms, preaching or hearing and reading his Word, and strengthened by the Lord's Supper. Here the Holy Spirit, given by Jesus, does his work to keep us forever in the true faith.

Your sins are gone. How do you want to live your life? Joyfully, in rejoicing and thanksgiving to the God who loves you. The end is coming. We still have Judgment Day in view here in the latter part of Advent. But that need not be a scary thing. That need not be a fearful thing for us. Instead, it will be a joyful thing because that will be the fulfillment of our forgiveness, the fulfillment of our redemption. And in heaven, we won't need fruits of repentance because we will have nothing to repent from. At that point, sin will be but a distant memory.

Until that rescue, until that day, what should we do? What does it look like to have a life filled with the fruits of repentance? Perhaps Paul’s direction to the Corinthians best summarizes John the Baptist’s teaching. Whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do everything to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Amen.

"The Days Are Coming!" (Sermon on Jeremiah 33:14-16) | December 1, 2024

Sermon Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16
Date: December 1, 2024
Event: The First Sunday in Advent, Year C

Jeremiah 33:14–16 (EHV)

Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promises that I have spoken to the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.

15In those days and at that time,
I will cause a righteous Branch to grow up from David’s line.
He will establish justice and righteousness on earth.
16In those days Judah will be saved,
and Jerusalem will dwell securely.
This is what she will be called:
The Lord Our Righteousness.

The Days Are Coming

The days are coming! How many until Christmas? I’m sure you could ask most of the children and they could give you an exact number. The rest of us could probably do the math, but perhaps we don’t want to think about that just yet. There’s so much to do to prepare—planning, decorating, cooking, emotionally centering ourselves. It’s a lot. But unless the Lord returns before December 25, it will be here. That day is, in fact, coming!

This morning in worship, we are not yet getting into the Christmas season itself, but we are beginning a new church year, and we begin that year in the season of Advent. Advent is a season all about preparation which fits in more ways than one at this time of year. Amid all the preparations that happen for us to celebrate Christmas, spiritually, we are preparing our hearts for a dual purpose. We are, in part, preparing our hearts to hear that glorious Christmas gospel that the angels and shepherds will share that night in Bethlehem. But we also continue to prepare for his second coming, ensuring our hearts are ready to receive him not just as the baby in the manger but also as the returning King of kings and Lord of lords.

In some ways, we begin the new church year in a very similar way to how we ended the last church year this past Sunday. In our Gospel, we saw Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and while there is humility as he rides on a lowly colt of a donkey, it’s still a greatly different picture than what we saw in last week’s Gospel when Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate. Shouts of praise from the Psalms, and specifically praise to the promised Messiah, filled the air!

Our focus this morning takes us back, though, some 600 years before that first Palm Sunday. In our First Reading, we spend time with the prophet Jeremiah, who lived and worked in a dreadful time in the history of God’s people.

The Israelites had lived in the Promised Land for over 800 years, and during that period, there was a constant struggle to keep God's commands and directions. Not only did they struggle with the normal sinful natures that would lead them astray from God’s will anyway, but they also allowed people who worshiped false gods to continue to live among them and influence them. So the pull to fictional deities like Baal, Asherah, Molech, and others constantly distracted from the true God and while also incorporating pure sin in their worship practices.

God sent his prophets to them repeatedly, warning them that he would step in with chastisement using the sword of foreign powers if things did not change. That happened to the northern part of Israel before Jeremiah’s time when the nation of Assyria came and exiled most of the people and mixed in people from other nations with the Israelites who remained.

The southern part of Israel had some brighter spots. A few kings like Hezekiah and Josiah would come in and try to clean up the worship life of the nation. They would clean up and repair the temple. They would reinstitute festivals and sacrifices God had commanded, which the people had long forgotten. But things never fully turned around; the people never devoted themselves back to God reliably.

The real issue was not the faithfulness of one nation or several tribes but God’s global promise of a Savior. Just like when God intervened with the flood of Noah’s day because the promise of the Savior was on the verge of being extinguished, so God intervened here. While his actions were not as dramatic and did not require an ark, it was no less critical. The promise had to be preserved, and it wouldn’t be a pleasant road ahead for the Israelites.

At the beginning of Jeremiah 33, before our First Reading for this morning starts, God outlined what this was going to be like: The Lord, the God of Israel, says this concerning the houses of this city and the palaces of the kings of Judah …  I will fill them with the corpses of men whom I have killed in my anger and my wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness (vv. 4-5). There’s no sugarcoating that. Things would be miserable because the people had abandoned God’s ways.

And this makes up a large percentage of the message God sent Jeremiah to share. The people responded to that message as well as you might imagine they did. They viewed Jeremiah as a liar, a blasphemer, a traitor to the nation and king. Who would say such horrible things about their own country, their own people? And yet, Jeremiah was sharing what God had told him to say. Jeremiah was just the mouthpiece; the words were God’s.

However, there is something important to remember about this downfall God promised for the nation of Judah: God set an expiration date. It wouldn’t be short—70 years—but it would end. The purpose of this was not to punish unfaithful people; the purpose was to purify, to rehabilitate an apostate nation because they had a role to carry out for the good of mankind; it was through them that the Savior of the nations would come.

So Jeremiah had the privilege of describing future days. The terrible days are coming! Babylon would come and carry the nation into exile. The difficult days are coming! A seven-decade-long exile would end all but a select few of that current generation. The trying days are coming! Even in return to their homeland, exiles would find it difficult to endure; as they took a stronger stand against the false religions around them, they would find relationships with the other nations much more difficult in the short and long term.

There’s not a ton to be excited about in these promises. These coming days sound dark and cold. But then, there are other days that Jeremiah is privileged to announce: Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promises that I have spoken to the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah. God would someday keep and complete the promises he made to his people. What would that look like? In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous Branch to grow from David’s line. He will establish justice and righteousness on earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. This is what she will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness. The salvation days are coming! God will come and save his people, and the people, the cities, and the nations will be named to reflect the reality of their spiritual condition: The Lord Our Righteousness.

A branch would grow up from the house and line of King David—Messiah would be the descendant, the son, of David. And he would do what David and the rest of his bloodline couldn’t: bring real justice and righteousness. Justice because sins would be truly and fully paid for; righteousness, because by paying for those sins in his own body, the Messiah would put our broken relationship with God back together and make it right again.

So, this was the answer to the Israelites’ sin problem. They couldn’t make things right by suffering in exile. They couldn’t make things right by turning over a new leaf and suddenly being very faithful to God. No, they would need a Savior to rescue them from their sin, pay for their wrongdoing, and put them at peace with God. In his work, Judah would be saved, and Jerusalem would find a peaceful existence.

If we compare ourselves to the Israelites, we note there’s not much difference. Perhaps we’re not building altars to Baal and participating in pagan worship services. But aren’t we often prioritizing other things, letting matters other than God be king in our hearts? When we allow work or school, money or influence, entertainment or relaxation to become the dominant focus of our lives at the expense of God, we’re making that thing or goal our god in his place. We are no better than the Israelites visiting shrine prostitutes to worship fertility gods or sacrificing their children in the fire to Molech. It just takes different forms for us: pornography use and sex outside the bonds of marriage, neglect of family or children due to work, play, alcohol, drugs, or anything else that pulls us from our God-given responsibilities. All of these sins can become our gods.

And so, what do we do? Well, nothing. We should not be surprised if we find ourselves in a really bad situation at some point—now or later. Maybe not exile in Babylon, but perhaps something God uses to wake us up from our spiritual apathy or unfaithfulness. Why does he do that? Because the days are coming, or more to the point, the day is coming. Be it the end of our lives here through death or his return at the Last Day, there is a moment when we will have no more time left, where the clock on our time of grace here in this life will stop ticking, and then we will face judgment before our God.

Because that day is coming, Jesus rouses us from our sleepy and sinful spiritual state. He warns us that that day is coming like the day of exile was coming for Judah. But he also points us to himself and reminds us why we do not need to be afraid. All of our unfaithfulness to him, every time we have made other things our gods rather than him, all of our sins of weakness and willful sins of desire, they are all forgiven in him. The days were coming and have in fact come when the King of kings and Lord of lords took on our human flesh, lived and died in our place. By that life and death, he destroyed our sins, justified us, and made us righteous. That branch from David’s line, Jesus from Nazareth, is the long-promised Messiah, the Savior we desperately needed.

My brothers and sisters, because of Jesus, the days are coming when we won’t have to fight this battle inside of us and around us to be faithful to our God. The days are coming when he will pluck us out of this life of misery and bring us to himself in heaven. The days are coming when we will live and bask in the complete fulfillment of everything Jesus accomplished for us, when “The LORD Our Righteousness” will also be the name given to us.

Until that day when we have it in full, hold on to what we have in part. Guard the good deposit of the Holy Spirit that God placed in you. Value God’s work and promises to you above all else. Prioritize him above everything, even in (and perhaps especially in) these busy days before Christmas. The days are coming. Lift up your head! Your King will come to you! Amen.

"Absolute Power for Our Eternal Good" (Sermon on Revelation 1:4-8) | November 24, 2024

Sermon Text: Revelation 1:4b–8
Date: November 24, 2024
Event: Christ the King Sunday (The Last Sunday of the Church Year), Year B

Revelation 1:4b–8 (EHV)

Grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is coming, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne, 5and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his own blood 6and made us a kingdom and priests to God his Father—to him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.

7Look, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. And all the nations of the earth will mourn because of him. Yes. Amen.

8“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, the one who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.

Absolute Power for Our Eternal Good

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If you are watching a movie or reading a book and a character in the story has or acquires the ultimate power to rule, and they don’t start to use that selfishly, at least a little bit, your suspension of disbelief may flounder. We can’t believe anyone who had control of everything around them—all the wealth, all the political and social power—would be truly generous, selfless, and altruistic, using the power to help others rather than helping themselves. It doesn’t make sense because we know that’s not the way things work in this life.

We know what people are like; we even know ourselves. I’d love to think that if I had access to near-infinte money and could pull all the political strings of a nation, I would be kind and loving and use all of those resources for good. But I know that, like you, I have a sinful nature inside of me that would at least try to seize onto that and use it to serve myself rather than others, and perhaps even non-sensically use that large amount of power to try to get more at the expense of others. No, I’m probably good being far removed from that situation.

Sin corrupts everything. Sin is the reason that those in positions of power will often use it for their own advantage. But this morning on the last Sunday of the church year, we have the chance, the privilege, the joy to focus on the one who has literally all rule, power, and authority and yet had no sin, so that he uses that position and power for the good of others. Today, we focus on Christ as our King—the one who defeated our enemies, the one who cares for us in the present day, and the one who will return to rescue us from this life and bring us safely to himself in heaven.

Our Second Reading for this morning comes from the very beginning of the book of Revelation and is really setting the tone for the whole book. Revelation is filled with wild (and sometimes scary) pictures of events, but many of these vivid details picturesquely portray what has already happened or point ahead to what Jesus clearly promised would happen. In fact, there is no teaching in Revelation that is not taught elsewhere in Scripture, and often, we will use the more straightforward, more direct passages in the Bible to help unpack and explain the visions in this book.

But at the very start of this book, which is really one big letter, John sends greetings to those who would read what the Spirit inspired him to write—including us today. His greeting begins, “Grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is coming, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” Here is a greeting to God’s people from the Triune God himself. The one who is, was, and is coming—the Father, the seven spirits (or perhaps better translated, “the seven-fold Spirit”)—the Holy Spirit, and, of course, Jesus Christ.

The description of each person of the triune Godhead is worth spending a moment on. The Father is described as the one who is, who was, and who is coming. The tenses of those verbs are all very intentional: who is (present), who was (past), and who is coming (future). It speaks to God’s eternal nature. He is here; there was never a time when he wasn’t, and there will never be a time when he will not be. It’s a very similar word picture to the one God used when he revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush as “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14), the forever-present God.

The Holy Spirit is described as being before [God’s] throne. This connects very closely to God’s promises about the Holy Spirit’s work in the book of Romans, where we’re told that he intercedes, prays for us even when we don’t know what to pray for, and even knows the very heart and mind of God (see Romans 8:26-27).

And then Jesus is described as the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Here we see the three-fold office or work that Jesus holds: prophet, priest, and for our focus this morning, king. He is a completely reliable prophet who was and is a faithful witness to God’s Word. He is the perfect priest who offered himself as the sacrifice for sin and then became the firstborn from the dead at his resurrection. And finally, Jesus is not just a king, but the King, even the ruler of the kings of the earth in that, despite all appearances, he has authority well above every earthly power.

All of that coalesces around our focus for this morning of Jesus as our King. Jesus’ work all points to his power and authority. Now, we have examples when he didn’t look like that all-powerful king. We have the example from our Gospel of him on trial before Pontious Pilate—it didn’t look like he was in charge. In just a few weeks, we’ll celebrate his birth again, and the baby in Bethlehem’s manger will not look like the King of kings and Lord of lords.

During his first time being present among his people, Jesus didn’t look the part of the king because he wasn’t here to promote his divine, regal authority. He was here as our loving King to save us from our spiritual enemies, so he humbly laid aside the full use of that divine power for a time to save us. John, thinking about that work, bursts into words of praise to Jesus: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his own blood and made us a kingdom and priests to God his Father—to him be the glory and the power forever. Amen. The humble sacrifice of his life, the shedding of his blood, means we are freed from sins. That weak-looking man standing before Pilate, who eventually will be nailed to a cross, is still the one who has and deserves all glory and power because he is our God who created us, preserved us, and redeemed us from sin, death, and hell. Jesus’ victory was a baffling blowout, where despite appearances, our enemies never had even the remotest chance of winning.

So now we are a kingdom, his kingdom. He rules us, but not in a way that means trouble for us; he rules us in love and for our eternal good. He preserves and protects us at this very moment, but this feeling of an absentee King, or at least an invisible King, will not remain. There will come a time when he will return as he left, with the clouds of the sky, but now visible to everyone on earth. Look, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. And all the nations of the earth will mourn because of him. Yes. Amen.

But why the mourning from the nations? Doesn’t this speak to Jesus being scary? Doesn’t this support the idea that his rule means something negative for us rather than positive? Later in Revelation, we will hear of the massive collection of people in heaven, an uncountable number from every nation and tribe (see Revelation 7:9 and the following). There will be people in eternal life from all over the world. But these nations, these tribes themselves? They are those who, collectively, have separated themselves from the promises and work of God. They sought earthly power above all else and rejected anything perceived as standing in their way, including the King. For them, at the King’s return, they will mourn because his appearance proves all of their aspirations failed and every delusion of their mind and heart false.

But not so for us. That day for you and for me will not be a day of mourning because it will be the return of our King in visible fashion, and it will mean the ultimate rescue from this world of sin, sorrow, and pain. In that moment, we will fully experience all that Jesus did for us. Whether we are caught up to heaven directly from this life or whether that day will mean the resurrection of our bodies laid in the earth with our souls that had been safe with God in eternity, the King’s return will mean the full experience of the peace he won for us—and the final, public defeat of our enemies, especially Satan.

We can and should look forward to that day. It will come soon when we are not necessarily expecting it, and he will bring us home to heaven where we will live forever seeing our loving King’s face every moment of every day.

But what about now? What about until that time of rescue and release? What about that time until we fully experience the victory our King has won for us? Well, all of these things are still true. Our King died for us and rose from the dead victoriously for us. We are still his people, citizens of his kingdom right now, even as we eagerly await his return.

But right here and right now is difficult. There is hardship and sorrow. We see sin corrupt everything that could be good in this life and leave it, at best, as ehhhh. But in this brief introduction, Jesus has another promise for us. Listen to how he describes himself, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” and for those of us who don’t live in the Greek alphabet, we might hear him saying, “I am the A and the Z.” What does that mean?

It means precisely how he described himself—the one who is, and who was, and who is coming, the I am who I am. God is eternal, filling all time and even beyond time. For us, he is the beginning and the end of all things. Our whole lives, start to finish, are wrapped up in the care, compassion, love, and power of the Alpha and the Omega. Our King doesn’t lack anything to help us, provide for us, or save us because he is before and after everything. No matter how much the bully at school, that oppressive boss, or the terror of some world leader might make us think we are in trouble, we are not. Our God fills all things. No one else's power even comes close to God’s power—not even Satan. He’s been defeated in the lopsided victory where Jesus crushed his head, and now we are safe here and forever because our King continues to provide for us and work things for our eternal good until we see that eternal good with our own eyes.

My dear fellow loved citizens in our Savior’s kingdom: lift your heads from these miserable, trying times you are going through. See your King providing all that you need now but also keeping us ever mindful and longing for that ultimate rescue when he will bring us to himself. The Alpha and the Omega, the Lord God, is the one who loves you with eternal love. He’s won the victory over your enemies. All that remains is for us to join the victory celebration that will ring out in his kingdom forever.

Lord Jesus, quickly come. Amen.

"One for All Won for All" (Sermon on Hebrews 9:24-28) | November 17, 2024

Sermon Text: Hebrews 9:24-28
Date: November 17, 2024
Event: Proper 28, Year B

Hebrews 9:24-28 (EHV)

For Christ did not enter a handmade sanctuary, a representation of the true sanctuary. Instead, he entered into heaven itself, now to appear before God on our behalf. 25And he did not enter to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own. 26Otherwise he would have needed to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once and for all, at the climax of the ages, in order to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And, just as it is appointed for people to die only once and after this comes the judgment, 28so also Christ was offered only once to take away the sins of many, and he will appear a second time—without sin—to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.

One for All Won for All

It can be very difficult to look beyond right now to the future. If things are going well right now, it can be hard to think of a time when maybe they will be more difficult. If life is challenging and complicated right now, it can feel almost impossible to think of a time when things will be going better and easier.

This morning on the second-to-last Sunday of the church year, we are attempting to look beyond right now to what is coming. We heard the promise of Jesus in our Gospel that there will come a time when he will return and call us to himself. Daniel also pictured this final rescue and resurrection, when God will deliver his people from a life corrupted by sin to a home in heaven where we will shine like the brightness of the sky and … like the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:3).

Our focus this morning, though, is on our Second Reading which is no less future-looking, but it also offers us some very specific direction and encouragement for us right here, right now. The last day and rescue are coming, but what do we do until then? How do we stay focused until then? As it so often is, the answer is to keep our focus on Jesus. His victory means our eternal security and even our temporal comfort and peace.

The writer to the Hebrews takes us back to Old Testament worship. There was a special day, one of the (if not the) highlights of the Israelites’ worship life. It is a holy day that is still obsereved in our day, which you probably will see marked on your calendars in the fall, Yom Kippur, or in English, the Day of Atonement.

The Day of Atonement was a celebration focusing on the forgiveness of sins and what the Messiah would provide. This was the one day of the year that anyone was allowed in the Most Holy Place, the most inner room in the Tabernacle or Temple, where the Ark of the Covenant sat. Only the high priest could enter there on this day, and only with blood. He would offer two special sacrifices: first, a bull sacrificed for his own sins, and then one of two goats as an offering for the people's sins. The goat that wasn’t sacrificed was known as the scapegoat, and the high priest would place his hands on this animal to symbolically transfer the people's sins to the goat and send it out to wander away into the wilderness (see Leviticus 16). It served as a picture of how God would send away sin, never to be seen again.

There’s a weakness to this celebration that was present from its establishment. You can even see the weakness as you find Yom Kippur on your calendars—this was an annual event. It happened over and over and over again. If it has been observed annually since it was commanded, it has been celebrated roughly 3,500 times up to this day. And that’s because this holy day is promise, not fulfillment. This was not the actual removal of sins but a picture of how God would remove the sins. And so, while it was undoubtedly important for the Old Testament believers looking forward to the promised Savior, the Day of Atonement always carried with it the idea of something that would happen later that hadn’t been accomplished yet. It was future-pointing to something bigger and better than the high priest, the temple, the sacrifices, and the scapegoat.

This is a constant theme throughout the letter to the Hebrews because it was written to Jewish converts to Christianity who were finding it challenging to stay connected to Jesus. They were tempted to “backslide” into the promises of Judaism while ignoring Jesus' fulfillments. So, the writer repeatedly points out how Jesus fulfilled and is far superior to everything that came before him.

And this idea of repetition looms large in that discussion. If you have to do something repeatedly, it means there is a continual wear and tear. There’s a decay that hasn’t been fixed and a problem that hasn’t been solved. You must do car maintenance with tires, brakes, and fluid changes because things wear out. What if you had brake pads that never wore out? What a blessing that would be! Likewise, the repetition of the sacrifices, specifically on the Day of Atonement, meant that something was still wearing out and broken. If things had been really fixed by the animal sacrifices and other ceremonies, well, then there wouldn’t have been a need to do them over and over again. But they did have to do them over and over again because they weren’t actually fixing things—they pointed ahead to the full repair that God would eventually accomplish.

The writer to the Hebrews latches on to this point at the beginning of our Second Reading and shows how different Jesus is from all that came before him and pointed to him: Christ did not enter a handmade sanctuary, a representation of the true sanctuary. Instead, he entered into heaven itself, now to appear before God on our behalf. And he did not enter to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise he would have needed to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once and for all, at the climax of the ages, in order to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Jesus’ work didn’t take him into the temple in Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice; he entered God’s true temple in heaven to provide the sacrifice. And it wasn’t something done over and over again. Instead, this sacrifice was once for all, over and done.

On the cross, Jesus offered the singular and complete payment for sin before God in heaven. His life was the payment that had been promised and that we all desperately needed. And Jesus’ work is truly one for all. There is nothing left to do. No further sacrifices have to be made. We are not here this morning trying to make things right with God; we don’t go about our day-to-day lives trying to “earn points” with God. The work is done. Sin is forgiven. We have a perfect relationship with God because Jesus paid for every sin.

We can know and cherish this, but it can be difficult to remember. The problems and heartaches of this life are a constant distraction from this reality. As we slog through this life of sin, heartache, illness, and sorrow, we can start to lose our grasp of it, and the “so what?” question about Jesus’ work starts to loom large.

And then you can again sympathize with the original audience of this letter to the Hebrew Christians. The “so what?” question is especially hard to wrestle with when you are undergoing persecution for the faith, and the temptation to retreat from it. The pull to find solace and comfort somewhere, anywhere, is powerful. And because we can’t see and interact directly with Jesus on a daily basis, our human nature starts to pull us away from him to something more concrete in this life.

We’ve seen this struggle a few times in our readings toward the end of this church year. Satan is relentless in trying to separate us from what God has said, done, and promised. This is nothing new, but it is our lived reality.

And so the writer to the Hebrews encourages us with a look ahead, a reminder of what is coming: And, just as it is appointed for people to die only once and after this comes the judgment, so also Christ was offered only once to take away the sins of many, and he will appear a second time—without sin—to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him. That last verse of our reading is our theme and focus for this morning. Why is this important? What do we want to stay committed? Because while Jesus’ work was one for all, his visible, direct interaction with this world was not a one-time thing. He’s coming back. But unlike the priests dealing with the sacrifices in Israel’s worship system, he’s not coming a second time to deal with sin—that’s done!—instead, he’s coming this second time—without sin—to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.

And the end, we will see the proof that Jesus won the victory for all through his one-for-all work. Jesus promised in our Gospel for this morning, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out” (John 5:28-29). This Judgment Day will be the unavoidable, undebatable public proclamation of what Jesus did and who will benefit from it. Jesus said that those who have “done good” (John 5:29) will rise to live, and we know that the only way to do anything God considers good is to be perfect. So those who will rise to live, those who have “done good,” are those who cling to Jesus by faith for the forgiveness of every sin. They are those that God himself as purified in the blood of Jesus, shed for us.

This is open to anyone and everyone. Jesus didn’t pay for a limited amount of sins or die for only a special, select group of people. No, he died for all, which means the victory over sin, death, and hell has been won for all—you included!

And so on that day when he returns (or at the end of our earthly life, whichever comes first), we can look confidently toward our Savior who loves us because that will be the end of this horror show of a sin-corrupted life. Instead, that will be when Jesus bring[s]salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him. At that moment, we will experience and enjoy in full what Jesus won. Then, we will be free from sin. Then we will be with our Savior forever.

Until that day, my dear sisters and brothers, find comfort in knowing that your salvation is complete, your sins are totally forgiven, and that Jesus finished all the work that you needed him to do. Jesus has truly won salvation for all by his one-for-all sacrifice of sin. Find comfort in that for yourself, encourage each other with that certainty, and seek to share this victory with others because no matter who they are, Jesus won it for them too. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"The Sanctified Heart Trusts God" (Sermon on Mark 12:38-44) | November 10, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 12:38–44
Date: November 10, 2024
Event: Proper 27, Year B

Mark 12:38–44 (EHV)

He also said to them in his teaching, “Beware of the experts in the law who like to walk around in long robes and receive greetings in the marketplaces. 39They love the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40They devour widows’ houses and offer long prayers to look good. These men will receive greater condemnation.”

41Jesus sat down opposite the offering box and was watching how the crowd put money into it. Many rich people put in large amounts. 42One poor widow came and put in two small bronze coins, worth less than a penny. 43He called his disciples together and said to them, “Amen I tell you: This poor widow put more into the offering box than all the others. 44For they all gave out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all that she had to live on.”

The Sanctified Heart Trusts God

Does life ever feel chaotic? A family conflict might do that. An election might do that. A job loss, illness, struggles in school, or falling out with a friend might do that. We have so many things that we count on for stability in our homes, our government, employment and other vocations that any changes (or even threats of change) to those things can cause you to feel like you’re standing on quicksand. It feels uncertain. s

And that can be what life feels like sometimes—or always. We’re trying to guess the future. We’re trying to weather those personal or communal storms. We’re trying to figure out how to tend to our responsibilities to self, family, and neighbor. Maybe things are severe enough that you feel a strong connection with the woman in Zerphath, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I have no food except a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a pitcher. See, I am gathering a couple of sticks so that I can go and prepare it for myself and my son, so that we can eat it and then die” (1 Kings 17:12). There is nothing left; I might as well just give up and surrender myself to the chaos and whatever that might mean for me.

And, boy, does Satan love to hear us think and talk like that. He would love nothing more than for short-term problems to separate us from God’s eternal solutions and promises. And really he doesn’t care what does it; if something divides us from God, he’s in. He delights in it. He longs for it.

This morning I suggest we take stock of our lives, our own hurts, pains, and struggles. They are different for each of us, though we are unified because we all have them. Yours are probably different than mine, and we don’t do any good trying to compare who wins the “trauma championship.” If something is difficult for you, it is difficult for you, no matter how you rank it compared to others’ difficulties. The same is true for others; just because you might view your problems as more significant by comparison doesn’t mean their heartaches and worries aren’t real and legitimate.

Jesus, in our Gospel, uses the model of the widow in the temple courts and contrasts it with the general attitude of the experts in the law to show us where our trust should be centered. Where do we find relief, confidence, and true hope in the chaos of this life? In our God who loves us.

Our Gospel is set in the middle of Holy Week. Jesus is spending these last few days of his earthly ministry with his disciples, doing a final round of teaching and preparing them for what will happen. But he’s not just with the Twelve—Jesus’ opponents are also around peppering him with questions, hoping to get him to trip up and say something they can condemn him for or at least discredit him in the eyes of the people.

And so it is in this context that Jesus begins our Gospel for this morning. He warns against the attitude and actions of the experts in the law, the scribes, who liked to garner earthly acclimation for themselves. They felt secure in their fancy clothes, friendly greetings in public, and the best seats at different gatherings. They had everything they needed, and everything went well for them.

You and I might look at other people and still insist on playing that comparison game. We see others who don’t seem to have the problems, fears, or struggles we do and we long to be like them. Might the disciples have felt that way as they looked at the influential religious leaders while Jesus seemed constantly pushed to the side? Can you imagine the widow we’ll meet later looking at those in billowy, expensive garments and longing to have a bit of the wealth and comfort that they had? I think I might be more surprised if she didn’t.

But what does Jesus say?  “Beware!” Why? Because they are focused on the here and now at the expense of the eternal. This warps them so that they even see sin—devouring[ing] widows’ houses—as justified when it would get them ahead. Jesus warns, “These men will receive greater condemnation.” That’s not the position we would want to be in, so earthly comfort at all costs is not where we want to focus.

After making these statements, Jesus looked across the temple courts to the offering box where people were putting in their gifts—not unlike the plates we use here at church. And there were no envelopes or checks or electronic giving methods to mask the amounts; it was pretty clear who was giving a lot and who was giving less. So Jesus watched as wealthy people came and gave significant sums of money. But then a widow, who had nearly nothing, came and gave two small bronze coins, worth less than a penny. Money comparisons are a little bit difficult across 2,000 year gap, but Mark notes that this gift is worth less than 1/64th of an agricultural worker’s daily wage, and yet, this was everything—all that she had to live on.

Now, why is Jesus pointing this out? The point is not to give all we have to the church. About a month ago, in our Gospel, we wrestled with this when we heard the rich young ruler talking with Jesus, and Jesus directed him to give away all his wealth. Jesus was not pointing out that you need to have nothing in order to have saving faith or to get into heaven; rather, he was showing the man that money was his god and was distracting him from eternal blessings.

The point here with the widow is the inverse. Again, Jesus is not setting up a necessity to give away all she had, but he points out that her trust in God was so strong that she was able to take the minuscule amount that was to her name, entrust it to God, and then trust that God would provide for her needs. Jesus’ praise of the woman’s actions doesn’t lead us to think that this was done in a “this is the end of my life; I give up” kind of way as the widow with Elijah initially approached it. Instead, this gift was given in trust for what God would do for her.

Let’s consider the widow’s attitude toward this offering. First and foremost, she trusted God to do what he said he would. He did not promise daily bread and earthly care as long as you stockpile money. No, she trusted that he would do that regardless.

That trust in God’s promise led to the second aspect of her attitude: thankfulness. She didn’t have much, but she was thankful for what she did have. Did she have what her neighbors or leaders had? No. But she trusted God’s gracious hand and that what he provided was for her eternal good.

That trust and thankfulness to God led to another aspect of her giving—she would not make excuses. She wasn’t intimidated by the large gifts others gave or the meekness of her offering. No, she focused not on those around her but only on her relationship with God. From what he had given—not much by earthly standards—in joy, she gave to God.

All of these aspects of the window’s gift are good for us to keep in mind. God asks us to give out of what he has given. We want to be generous! That means if he has given us much, perhaps the gifts or time will be more significant. If he was given little, they may be smaller dollar or hour amounts. But this is not a comparison game when we talk about trust in God’s promises and stewardship of the things he’s given. You don’t give relative to those around you; you give relative to what God has provided. If you have fewer financial resources or less time, that doesn’t mean your gift is somehow lesser than someone who has more. Regardless of the amount, a gift given in thankfulness to God is a pleasant sacrifice to him.

That spirit of thankfulness goes well beyond the gifts we give to God in offerings, the amount of volunteering we do, or the time we set aside to help our neighbor. Because this trust in God is produced by the sanctified heart that he provides. We know that regardless of our earthly blessings, we all stand on equal footing with God. We are all sinners who deserve his eternal punishment in hell, and the blessings around us are not indicative of what God thinks about us. By nature, we are his enemies, wrapped up in an eternal war with God that we will lose.

But like the widows, both in the temple and in Zerphath, God’s promises and actions change that. What had he promised these two women, separated by nearly 900 years of history? God pledged to them both a Savior from sin to solve this spiritual war we were waging against God. The only difference was that the widow giving her offering was seen by the physical eyes of the incarnate God; in just a few days, he would be laying down his life to keep that promise and pay for the world’s sins.

And so God has forgiven your sins and mine. He sanctified our hearts, setting us apart, when the Holy Spirit worked faith in our hearts through his Word and sacraments. We believe in God's promises not because of us but because of him.

If we are looking for trust, confidence, and peace in the world around us—earthly blessings, human relationships, political policy—we are looking in the same place the experts in the law were looking. And if we do so, it’s no wonder the world and our lives feel utterly chaotic. This corrupted world, with its misguided messages, can never bring the comfort that God provides. But, if, as the children of God, we find our confidence in God’s promises and work, and trust him to do what he said, then every earthly prop can fall away, and we will still stand with confidence in God’s promises. We still look forward, completely sure that God will, in the end, wipe every tear from our eyes.

So, with the faith God gives, trust what he’s promised you. In that trust, support others in their times of difficulty, both to provide immediate relief and to help them see the fullness of the love of our God that provides in all times—be they times of trial or blessing. You, dear Christian, are forgiven. Stand in that forgiveness and trust God to do what he’s promised. Amen.

"Stand Confidently in God's Grace" (Sermon on Daniel 3:16-28) | October 27, 2024

Sermon Text: Daniel 3:16-28
Date: October 27, 2024
Event: Reformation Day (Observed), Year B

Daniel 3:16-28 (EHV)

Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “We have no need to answer you about this matter. 17Since our God, whom we serve, does exist, he is able to save us from the blazing fiery furnace. So, he may save us from your hand, Your Majesty. 18But if he does not, you should know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue that you set up.”

19Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, and the expression on his face changed against Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego. He said to heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was usually heated. 20He ordered some men, who were soldiers from his army, to bind Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego in order to throw them into the blazing fiery furnace. 21So these men were bound in their coats, their pants, their turbans, and their other clothing, and they were thrown into the middle of the blazing fiery furnace. 22Because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace was extremely hot, those men who carried Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego were killed by the intense heat of the fire. 23But these three men, Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who had been tied up, fell into the blazing fiery furnace.

24Then King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and immediately stood up. He said to his advisors, “Didn’t we throw three men, who had been tied up, into the middle of the fire?”

They answered the king, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

25He said, “Look! I see four men, who are untied and walking around in the middle of the fire, unharmed. What is more, the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”

26Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the blazing fiery furnace. He said, “Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out!” Then Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego came out from the middle of the furnace. 27The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the royal advisors gathered together and looked at these men. The fire had no power over their bodies. Not a hair on their head was singed, their robes were not damaged, and the smell of fire had not stuck to them.

28Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who sent his angel and saved his servants, who trusted in God and ignored the king’s command. They gave up their bodies and did not pay homage or worship any god except their God.

Stand Confidently in God’s Grace

Our First Reading this morning takes us back thousands of years in history, but it might take you far back in your personal history as well. The Three Men in the Fiery Furnace is an account that is in almost every children’s Bible and Sunday School curriculum. Despite the grim possibility of three young men being burned alive in a furnace, it is often referred to encourage both young and old to stand confidently, to follow in the pattern of these young men and their trust in God’s promises. This morning, as we observe this Reformation festival, let’s join them in standing confidently in God’s grace, his undeserved love for us.

To properly understand what is happening here, we need to back up a bit. Or, maybe a lot. This event occurs in the late 600s or early 500s BC, centuries before Jesus was born. But it was something that God had said was a possibility almost 1,000 years before it happened when the Israelites first settled in the Promised Land. Moses warned the people just before they entered the land God would give them that if they were not faithful to God and even served false gods, this would happen: The LORD will lead you and the king, whom you will set over you, to a nation that you and your fathers have not known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone. You will become an object of horror, the subject of proverbs, and the butt of sarcastic taunts among all the people to whom the LORD will send you. (Deuteronomy 28:36-37).

And so it was. The Israelites were unfaithful and ignored God’s continued calls to repentance through his prophets. And so, finally, God sent the nation of Babylon to exile the people to this faraway land where they would be cut off from their homes.

But this exile didn’t happen all at once. Babylon rolls through and makes several deportations, and in the earliest of these deportations, they examine who among the Israelites is perhaps worth having as servants in the government—pillage the best and the brightest to be a blessing to Babylon. The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar directed one of his officials to choose young men who had no blemish, who were good looking, who had insight into all kinds of wisdom, who possessed knowledge, understanding, and learning, and who were capable of serving in the king’s palace, in order to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. … In this group of young men were the Judeans Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. (Daniel 1:4, 6). This is how Daniel (who much later as an old man would be thrown to the lions yet saved) and the three men in our reading end up coming from Judah to Babylon.

And the Lord was with them and blessed them. They were shown to be very adept at many things; God blessed the work of their hands so much that they rose to be the cream of the crop in the king’s service, not just of Israelites but of all the officials in the land. You can imagine how this might have left some of the other officials feeling—especially those who looked down on these men from Israel as inferior to themselves. The king highly favored our three young men.

And then trouble came. At the beginning of Daniel chapter 3, we're told, “King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue. … [T]he satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all of the rulers of the provinces assembled for the dedication of King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. … The herald called out loudly, “To you peoples, nations, and languages, this command is given: When you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the harp, the triangular harp, the drum, and all kinds of musical instruments, you will fall down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace.” (Daniel 3:1, 3-6). It’s a lot of words, but it boils down to this: the king commanded that when the special music played, everyone gathered had to bow down and worship this giant golden statue he had made.

You can see the problem for these young, faithful Israelites. They knew not only that the worshiping of idols was forbidden, but that was primarily why their nation was in the mess it was currently in. Their people had largely been unfaithful to God, and now here they were, exiles in a foreign land. They resolved to not continue that pattern, be it bowing to sinful weakness or the command of a foreign king. They would be faithful to God and would stand confidently in his grace.

And so, their enemies see an opening! They tattle on the three young men, saying that these guys would not bow down and worship the statue when the music played. The king is furious, but also you can see his love and admiration for these men because he doesn’t just throw them into the furnace as he had declared. He summons them, questions them, and then gives them a second chance to do what he had commanded rather than immediately hurling them into the furnace. And the men’s response to this second chance is where our First Reading picks up: “We have no need to answer you about this matter. Since our God, whom we serve, does exist, he is able to save us from the blazing fiery furnace. So, he may save us from your hand, Your Majesty. But if he does not, you should know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue that you set up.”

There’s a little phrase that we should not miss in that statement, “But if he does not…” That phrase speaks volumes. God had not given them a heads-up about this. He had not appeared to these men the night before to say, “Don’t worry about the furnace; I will save you.” For all these men knew, they were staring death straight in the face and they would not budge. They stood confidently in God’s grace, either to save them from physical death or, at that moment, to bring them to eternal life.

And it’s really that, rather than the rescue itself, that I want us to focus on this morning. Yes, God did intervene very directly to save these men from fire so hot that it killed the soldiers throwing them in. Yes, a fourth person was there to protect them, whom Nebchadnezzar described as the “son of the gods,” whom we might assume is one of the angels or perhaps even Jesus himself before his incarnation. And yes, they were so protected from the furnace that they were spared even the negative effects of a grill or campfire—they didn’t even smell like smoke! But on this Reformation Day, let’s focus on their dedication to God in the face of not knowing any of that would happen, their firm stance to do what was right in the face of immense pressure to do what was wrong.

I won’t speak for you, but I can assure you that no one has threatened my life with fire or anything else because of what I believe. No one has held me over the flames, or put a sword to my throat or a gun to my head and said, “Abandon your God or die.” And for so many reasons, that is reason to give thanks. But then when I consider the faithlessness that is still present in my life, it brings even greater shame.

How often haven’t I remained silent when I had a chance to share God’s comfort? How often haven’t I let my faith and life of thanksgiving fade into the background so that I could blend in with the people or even the world around me? How often haven’t I slunk back from boldly standing for what I believe in not because my life was on the line, but maybe it was my reputation, my family relationships, my friendships, or even just the commradrie of strangers I’ve only just met. How quick I am to bend the knee to save my own hyde and my own comfort. I truly fear what I would have done had I been in the place of these three young men.

Perhaps some of those points resonate with you, too, and sound more familiar in your life than your comfortable thinking about or admitting. The reality is that the temptation to give up on God’s truth can come from many different and varied places. For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it came from their king, demanding them to sin against God. For Luther and the other reformers 500 years ago, it came from the false teaching of Rome that said people could earn and even buy their way into forgiveness and a proper standing with God.

Perhaps none of those resonate with you. Perhaps neither your boss nor your government nor (I pray) leaders in your church are leading you into false worship or even demanding it from you. But, all of us struggle with a temptation to veer off course from God’s path in our hearts. Because all of us have a sinful nature that would rather serve ourselves than God, that would rather seek our own ways rather than God’s ways, that would do what seems right to us rather than what God says is right.

And so the sinful nature might lead us to think highly of ourselves, perhaps that we have no real wrongdoing before God or, even if we do, that we can do a few things to make it up to him. We might make compromises to fit in with those around us and avoid scrutiny or justify our actions by thinking that our sin isn’t so bad because it doesn’t seem as bad as what other people around us are doing.

These compromises, big or small as they may seem, are all bowing down to a giant golden statue. Because anything that takes priority over the true God is our false god. Whether we worship money or work or fame or grudges or entertainment or anything else, it all distracts us from God’s truth.

And so, truly, this is why Jesus came for us. Because this situation was as hopeless as it sounds. On our own, we are lost with no abilitiy to get ourselves back on course. In fact, you and I are no more able to make God happy with us by our own work than the people in Babylon could have made God happy by bowing down to that statue. And any time we or someone else might try to fget us to think that we can, Jesus’ warning from our Gospel should ring in our ears, “Be careful that no one deceives you” (Mark 13:5).

Eevn for these three men, with their amazingly brave and bold faith to face near-certain death rather than veer from it, that did not come from themselves. They were not so amazing on their own that they had the courage to stand confidently in God’s grace come what may. No, that faith and that resolve were the gift of God as well. Jesus promised his disciples that before those who persecute them, boldness and courage to speak and even the words themselves would come from the Holy Spirit. So it was for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So it is for you.

Whether you face a maniacal king trying to get you to worship his latest art project, or those who would seek your life because of your faith in Jesus as Savior, or simply the fear of mockery and rejection by those who are close and important to you, be bold and stand confidently in God’s grace. Not only do you have forgiveness for every time you have caved to internal or external pressure to turn from God, but you also have forgiveness for every sin. That forgiveness won by Jesus in his life and death in your place and given to you as a free gift gives you the boldness and the confidence to stand in God’s grace against anything or anyone who would threaten it, even if that attack comes from within you.

So, stand confidently in God’s grace. He loves you and will protect you from all spiritual harm until that day when he brings you home to heaven—that free gift won for and given to you by your Savior, Jesus. Give thanks for those who have confidently stood on this truth in the past, and pray that we may also pass down this same confidence to the generations that come after us. Amen.

"Jesus Served Us; Let Us Serve Each Other" (Sermon on Mark 10:32-45) | October 20, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 10:32–45
Date: October 20, 2024
Event: Proper 24, Year B

Mark 10:32–45 (EHV)

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was leading them. The disciples were amazed, and the others who followed were afraid. He took the Twelve aside again and began to tell them what was going to happen to him. 33“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the experts in the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles. 34They will mock him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”

35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him and said, “Teacher, we wish that you would do for us whatever we ask.”

36He said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?”

37They said to him, “Promise that we may sit, one at your right and one at your left, in your glory.”

38But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with?”

39“We can,” they replied.

Jesus told them, “You will drink the cup that I am going to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with. 40But to sit at my right or at my left is not for me to give; rather, these places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

41When the ten heard this, they were angry with James and John.

42Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43But that is not the way it is to be among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave of all. 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus Served Us; Let Us Serve Each Other

There are a lot of ways to measure greatness in the world that we live in. It could be greatness in the sense of earthly power. It could be greatness in the sense of wealth. It could be greatness in the sense of our family's size or success. And even the word success might have a variety of definitions for people. What does it mean to be successful in this life? Well, you could probably ask ten people and get ten pretty different answers.

But there is a commonality among people: We want to succeed rather than fail. We want to accomplish our goals rather than ignore them or throw them away. Perhaps, in a more selfish mindset, we want to gain favor. We want to be better, or at least better than someone else. In our gospel for this morning, we see the disciples wrestling with that temptation while, at the same time, Jesus is trying to show them how he will be great for them by serving.

Perhaps we struggle with the same things the disciples struggled with. And I know for certain that we all need the same encouragement and reminder of what Jesus has done to save us. So this morning, let's gather around Jesus and learn from him what service and greatness look like. And then let us seek to follow in our Savior’s service path, motivated by his service for us, serving the people that God has placed in our lives.

In our gospel this morning, we meet up with Jesus and his disciples almost at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. We are just a few verses away from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in the beginning of Mark chapter 11. This is the end of Jesus' time with his disciples to teach them and help them understand what is coming.

And so that's where he begins. Now, Mark's writing style is very abrupt. He jumps from subject to subject very quickly, moving from main point to main point. But it doesn’t seem to be a stylistic choice that puts the disciples’ bickering at odds with what Jesus is teaching. Jesus tells them how he is going to be killed and give his life as a ransom for many. And then James and John approach him with that perhaps selfish request, “Promise that we may sit, one at your right and one at your left, in your glory.”

Now, on the one hand, they did get it; they did understand that Jesus was going to be in glory. They knew that he would not be defeated by whatever was coming that he had just explained. But you want to say to James and John, “Guys, read the room a little bit here. This is not the time to be talking about things like this.” And Jesus really does that. He says, “Things are going to go really badly for me. And guess what? They're also going to go really badly for you. You will drink the cup that I am going to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with.”

The other ten were indignant with James and John. And it's unclear whether they're resentful because they realize the inappropriateness of this request or because James and John were requesting what the rest of them wanted for themselves. Regardless, this was a source of conflict among the Twelve. And if I were Jesus, and I were on the brink of this catastrophe of being betrayed and murdered by my government, I think I would be pretty short with them. Thankfully, Jesus is not me; Jesus is perfect; Jesus does not sin. He uses this as a teaching moment.

“You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But that is not the way it is to be among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave of all.” We've heard Jesus over the last several Sundays emphasize similar points. Just four week ago in our Gospel, all of the disciples were arguing among themlseves about who of them was the greatest. Jesus continues to patienly correct and them. What is the goal of the believer’s life? It's not glory. It's not being the best. It's not finding recognition in the world or even among other believers. The goal of the Christian life is service.

We heard it two weeks ago when Paul addressed Christians, especially Christian families, and encouraged them to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21). Put each other ahead of yourself. Consider others' needs more important than your own. Submit. Sacrifice. Serve. Jesus underscores this point in the last verse of our gospel: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

If there was ever anyone who walked the face of this earth who deserved to be honored and acknowledged as the greatest of all, to have glory ascribed to him, it was Jesus. Not only was he perfect and sent by God, but he is God. And so it would have been justified (and perhaps to our way of thinking, maybe more appropriate) for him to come to this earth and demand honor and tribute and glory and praise from anyone and everyone that saw him. You might think of the wise men when he was a little child coming and bringing their gifts only on a much grander scale. If we're talking about who deserved earthly glory, well, no one deserved it more than Jesus.

But that's not why he came. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. His time on this earth was not about himself. It was not about his glory, praise, or ego, if you want to put it that way. Everything about what he did while he was on this earth was about laying aside what was rightfully his to serve you and to serve me.

The apostle Paul, in Philippians chapter 2, says that Jesus did not consider equality with God as something that had to be retained, gripped with all his might. Instead, he willingly put that aside. He put aside the full use of his glory as God to become a servant, serve you, and serve me. And this was always the plan; this is not a departure from what God promised. We heard those familiar words in Isaiah 53 in our first reading as a reminder that the Messiah’s task was always to serve you: Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and to allow him to suffer. Because you made his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring. He will prolong his days, and the Lord’s gracious plan will succeed in his hand. It was the Lord's will to crush him and allow him to suffer. Because you made his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring. He will prolong his days. And the Lord's will be the Lord's will to serve you. And the Lord's will to serve you. And the Lord's will to serve you. And the Lord's will to serve you.

From the beginning, the Messiah was coming to be crushed. To offer his life as a guilt offering. To empty himself to serve us. And we should be really clear about why he did this. He's not just giving us a model to follow. He's not just saying, “Here’s how you should treat each other or prioritize others ahead of yourself,” though surely we can learn that from him. But Jesus did not come to be primarily a model for us; he came to save us.

Jesus’ service is not just about him being humble; it’s about him being and doing what we needed. Our sin had trapped us in an impossible place; we were headed for eternal punishment in hell with absolutely no way to change course. So Jesus took our place. He humbled himself and served us by enduring the hell we deserved on the cross. He served us in our greatest need so that we would be spared from hell and instead be with him forever in heaven.

He did this because he loves you, and he loves me. There is no guilt trip here. And you can see that in how he patiently explains to the Twelve what will happen. He doesn’t lash out at their selfish goals and conversations. No, he tells them what he will do to save them from even this sin.

James and John would drink the cup of Jesus’ suffering in some ways. James would be the first of the twelve to be martyred, and while John might be the only of the twelve to die a natural death, he would endure persecution and exile and face challenges to the sound teaching of comfort and sins forgiven in Jesus during his long life. The Twelve would learn to serve for Jesus and about Jesus.

We, too, can serve in this way. We can serve by sharing the good news of what we’ve come to know and believe with those who don’t know it. We can serve by encouraging our fellow Christians with the message that brings true, lasting, eternal comfort—Jesus was crucified for our sins and raised from the dead. We can serve by not seeking personal glory but by striving to support those around us. We can serve by bringing people to Jesus’ feet so they, too, can hear and, by God’s grace, believe what Jesus has done for them.

Dear Christian, rejoice, for Jesus has served you. Let us serve others by sharing what he has done for all people so that many may join us in eternal celebration, away from this world of sin and with our Savior forever in heaven! Amen.

"You Are Safe Now; Rejoice in Eternity!" (Sermon on Luke 10:17-20) | September 29, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 10:17-20
Date: September 29, 2024
Event: Festival of St. Michael and All Angels

Luke 10:17–20 (EHV)

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

18He told them, “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19Look, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing will ever harm you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.”

You Are Safe Now; Rejoice in Eternity!

The young child walks with his parents in a shopping center on a hectic day. The crowds are thick, and the adults are almost shoulder-to-shoulder, to say nothing of the young man whose head barely comes up to the adults’ hips. Suddenly, there’s panic. He looks up in the sea of people, and he’s no longer walking with Mom and Dad. Where did they go? How does he find them? And then he hears his name in a familiar voice and finds himself scooped up by one of his parents. Safe.

There are many minor festivals in the church year. We don’t celebrate all of them yearly; in a given year, we may only celebrate one or two in our congregation. These festivals center on most of the twelve disciples; the apostle Paul; John the Baptist; Mary, Jesus’ mother; Joseph, Jesus’ earthly caretaker; Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ close followers; and even celebrating the first reading of the Augsburg Confession, one of the standard Lutheran confessions of faith.

These minor festivals tend to focus on people and other earthly events, yet they are not praise of the person or event itself; they praise God for his work done through these people or at these events. This is also true today on the minor festival of St. Michael and All Angels, where our focus is mainly on the spiritual forces that God uses as messengers and for our protection. We are not here to worship angels this morning—we are here to worship God for his love for us and, in a special way, to remember his protection given to us by this heavenly host.

Our Gospel for this morning helps to give us that focus because Jesus is directing the disciples away from the awe of the spiritual realm (and the power he had granted over it). He wants us primarily focused on what is eternally meaningful: rejoice that your names have been written in heaven. As we focus on God’s temporal promises and his work for us through the angels, we want to keep that in mind. Our primary awe should not be in what the angels do, but our awe should be centered in God’s love for us, the forgiveness he won for us by Jesus, and the fact that our eternal safety in heaven is secure.

Our brief Gospel for this morning comes at the end of Jesus sending out seventy-two of his followers to spread his good news in the towns he would travel to next in his earthly ministry. While Jesus is God, he limited himself during his time on earth so he was not always present everywhere. So, as is true for us, more people working meant more people hearing the message Jesus sent them to proclaim simultaneously and in different places.

The seventy-two come back, awestruck and excited to share what had happened: “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!” Jesus had often driven demons out of possessed people, and these men discovered, as they went and met people suffering from that very affliction, that in Jesus’ name, they, too, were able to drive them out. Jesus gave them authority to trample … over all the power of the enemy, at least for a time.

Where would these demons have come from? Originally, what we now call angels and demons were one unified group. While God never pinpoints for us exactly when, he created the angels at some point during those six, twenty-hour days of creation. And then, at a moment that is not narratively described in the Bible, a whole group of those angels staged a rebellion against God, and the lead architect of that rebellion was Satan. It seems that the chief issue Satan had was that of pride and conceit—he wanted to be recognized as greater than he was; he wanted to be recognized as God’s equal. So Satan stages a coup of sorts, which fails; so it goes when anyone wages war against the almighty God, the angels included.

Satan is jealous of God’s power and status. It seems possible that Satan is also envious of the standing that mankind has in God’s creation, so one of his first goals after he fell was to get the precious crown of this new world to fall as well. He brings to Eve and Adam the temptation that caused him to fall: The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die. In fact, God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). In other words, “God is holding out on you! You, too, can be like God, even have equal status with God. Just take the fruit and eat!”

After the fall, we can see the clear difference between angels and human beings in God’s heart and perhaps understand Satan’s envy a bit better. Peter describes the fall of the angels and God’s judgment on them this way: “God did not spare angels when they sinned but handed them over to chains of darkness by casting them into hell, to be kept under guard for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). In fact, hell did not exist until the angels fell; it was not part of God’s perfect creation. Jesus describes hell as the eternal fire, which is prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Do you see the difference between us and the angels? The angels sin? Boom. Hell. What happened when Adam and Eve sinned, though? God promised a Savior; God promised that he himself would rescue his people from their fallen state. That is an immeasurable difference.

Back to our Gospel, when Jesus says, “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” the tense of that verb is very important. This is not a description of Satan’s rebellion and being cast out of God’s presence near the beginning of creation; Jesus is describing a current event, something he was just doing. As the seventy-two were going out, Jesus was then watching Satan fall. So, what caused this fall, this weakening of Satan’s power?

To answer that, we need to understand Satan’s true purpose. He wants us in hell. But as we noted above, he doesn’t want us in hell to rule over us; he wants us in hell to suffer like he will suffer. He wants us in hell because he knows it hurts God to have the precious crown of his creation separated from him forever. And so what undermines Satan’s power? What causes him to stumble and fall dramatically like lightning toppling out of the sky? God’s Word—specifically, the gospel message proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in Jesus.

As the seventy-two proclaimed that God’s forgiveness, which had long been promised, was now present among them, they were undermining Satan’s power. They were causing his plans to stumble and fall because, in sharing that message, the Holy Spirit was working faith in the hearts of those who heard. People who God brought from unbelief to faith were snatched out of that slavery to sin and death; people whose faith was strengthened were put even farther away from Satan’s eternally destructive goals. The weapon most effective against the old evil foe is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

So, we are safe from Satan’s attack because the Holy Spirit placed faith in us to trust Jesus’ forgiveness. When Satan or one of his cohorts would try to convince us that God doesn’t love us, that we are not forgiven, the words of Jesus’ promise and certainty of our status in his family is enough to send Satan toppling down the hill. Even if Satan were to appear in front of you in a gruesome, Hollywood version of demonic power, you could overcome him simply by stating who you are, “I am the baptized child of God.” Or, if even that seems too long, the name of your brother and Savior, “Jesus,” would be enough to send him scurrying away with his tail between his legs.

Not all of the angels rebelled against God; not all of this heavenly host followed Satan down his path of destruction. In fact, many angels are yet devoted to God and his will. We saw some of them with Elisha and his servant in our First Reading this morning. However, the primary role of the angels is more straightforward than even that narrative account might communicate.

When the term “angel” is used in the Bible, be it in Hebrew in the Old Testament (מַלְאָךְ, malak) or Greek in the New Testament (ἄγγελος, angelos), the primary meaning is the same: the angels are first and foremost messengers for God. We have many notable examples of this throughout Scripture. Angels were sent to bar the way to the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve fell to communicate that they were not allowed back into where the Tree of Life grew (Genesis 3:22-24). When God called Isaiah to be his prophet, Isaiah saw a vision of heaven when an angel announced that God had taken away the his sins (Isaiah 6:1-7). One of the few named angels in Scripture, Gabriel, is the messenger to Zechariah that he would be the father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:11-20) and to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:26-38).

But God attaches a special promise to these messengers. Not only will they communicate the messages that God sends them to deliver, but he also sends them on missions of protection, as we saw against the forces of Aram. As we sang earlier, God makes specific promises to his people in Psalm 91, “Yes, you, Lord, are my refuge! If you make the Most High your shelter, evil will not overtake you. Disaster will not come near your tent. Yes, he will give a command to his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (vv. 9-12).

Does that mean that the angels protect us from every possible harm? Well, if you’ve banged your head or skinned your knee recently, you know that, no, God doesn’t protect us from anything that could cause us pain. But in many ways that we cannot measure or even understand, God sends his angels to tend to, guard, and protect us. Were the angels involved in making it so the skinned knee wasn’t a broken leg? Were the angels engaged in ensuring that the incident on the road was just a fender-bender where no one was hurt rather than something tragic? We can’t say for sure, but we do have God’s promise that this is precisely the kind of work that he will send them out to do.

In our Second Reading, we heard about one of the visions from John’s Revelation. John looked up and saw a battle taking place in the sky. Michael (who seems to be a created angel in a leadership role among the angels) directs God’s forces against the ancient dragon, Satan, and his minions. This is not an account of the fall of Satan. Instead, this vividly depicts the battle waged at the cross, the battle won by God. It was the final battle in the war that Satan initiated both with his personal rebellion and especially at the tree in the Garden of Eden. God promised at that time that this serpent’s head would be crushed (Genesis 3:15), and here in this vision, we see that take place: The great dragon was thrown down—the ancient serpent, the one called the Devil and Satan, the one who leads the whole inhabited earth astray—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Revelation 12:9). As is the theme of all of the book of Revelation, so it is in this account: Jesus wins, therefore we win as well.

The declaration that follows the vision makes that understanding clear: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser [a literal translation of the name “Satan”] of our brothers has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God day and night. They conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:10-11).

But if this is a depiction of the battle of the cross, if this war is between God and Satan, what role do the angels have in that? Undoubtedly, the angels didn’t suffer for our sins; the angels did not win forgiveness for us in their victory. Those blessings come entirely from Jesus; as was declared, mankind
conquered [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb.

We have glimpses, little tastes in the Gospels, of the angels’ activity during this time. As Jesus was so distressed in the Garden of Gethsemane, pleading with his Father for another way to save us from our sins that his sweat was like drops of blood, we’re told that an angel came and tended to him before this confrontation began in earnest (Luke 22:43). As he rebuked Peter for using his sword to try to prevent his arrest, Jesus was clear that more than twelve legions of angels, more than 72,000 of them, stood ready to defend him if he wanted, but that was not the plan (Matthew 26:53).

But I believe the most prominent role that the angels played in this battle was like the seventy-two’s role in weakening Satan’s power in their preaching. What special role did some of the angels get assigned? On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women went to the tomb, carrying the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. When they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothing. The women were terrified and bowed down with their faces to the ground. The men said to them, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised! Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again?” Then they remembered his words (Luke 24:1-8). The angels’ power is seen most clearly here, not in a battle or protection or anything like that, but in their messenger role that day—Jesus is alive! He won!

So we can “ooh” and “ahh” over the power of the angels, the descriptions of their might, and their sometimes wild physical descriptions in the Bible. We can get shivers when we think of Satan and the other fallen angels, the demons, slinking around the world like prowling lions, looking to deceive, distort, and tempt us away from God. But all of that must be in service to the real story, the most important work God has done for you: your sins are forgiven. You are safe, not just now for a moment, but for eternity.

Let Jesus’ words to the seventy-two find a permanent home in your mind and heart, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.” At the end of Romans chapter 8, the apostle Paul gives what is essentially a commentary on Jesus’ words: We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 37-39).

My brothers and sisters, God commends his angels concerning you to guard you now and will send them to bring you safely to his side on the last day because Jesus has paid for your every sin. Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven. You are safe now! Rejoice for eternity! Amen.

"Be Great; Serve All" (Sermon on Mark 9:30-37) | September 22, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 9:30–37
Date: September 22, 2024
Event: Proper 20, Year B

Mark 9:30–37 (EHV)

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know this, 31because he was teaching his disciples. He told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. But three days after he is killed, he will rise.”

32But they did not understand the statement and were afraid to ask him about it.

33They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they remained silent, because on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35Jesus sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he will be the last of all and the servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and placed him in their midst. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not just me but also him who sent me.”

Be Great; Serve All

We don’t live in a society that values service much. Sure, there was that window of time early in the pandemic where, as a society, we tried to be grateful for the people who served us, whether they were the first responders and medical professionals, folks making pizza and hamburgers, or those delivering orders from stores when we weren’t allowed to go in person. But it seems as if that has largely gone away in society, so we seem to be back to this unspoken (or spoken right out loud) hierarchy between those serving and those being served. There can be the impression that the person staying at the hotel outranks the one working the front desk or the one ordering the food is of greater importance than the one bringing it to the table.

Of course, that’s not what everyone thinks, and I hope that you’re not among the people who look down on those serving you. Yet, it wouldn’t surprise me. We all have a sinful nature that latches on to every opportunity to exalt self over everyone else. So, it would make sense if, at times, you might see yourself as “outranking” your fellow people. I know that line of thinking hides in me and can appear even if I hate it; maybe it’s familiar to you, too. As we saw in our Gospel this morning, it was occasionally present in the twelve disciples.

The theme of our worship this morning centers around this idea of service and its relationship to stature and importance, or even simply the view of self. If you serve should you consider yourself lowly? If you are served, should you consider yourself lofty? How should we view ourselves and our relationship to other people? What does it mean to be great? What does it mean to serve?

In our Gospel, we’re quickly approaching the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry; he’s making haste toward the cross. We’re only a chapter and a half away from Palm Sunday in Mark’s breezy narrative account. Jesus is clear and direct about what is coming, especially as his end draws ever closer: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. But three days after he is killed, he will rise. Despite being very upfront, this statement communicated ideas that the disciples didn’t understand and perhaps didn’t want to think about. Fear led them to keep silent rather than to ask for more clarification or detail. Perhaps no one wanted to admit out loud that they didn’t “get it,” so no one got it.

You might imagine the awkward silence around Jesus’ words as the group made their way through the region of Galilee to the town of Capernaum. But eventually, the uncomfortable silence is broken by some quiet squabbling. Jesus knew full well what was going on, but he wanted to create an environment to make this a teaching moment, so once they arrived at their destination, he asked them: “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent, because on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. They knew that their argument had not been the most pious and sanctified topic of discussion—in fact, just about as far from it as you can get!—so, in shame and guilt, they were quiet.

Jesus takes the lead, “If anyone wants to be first, he will be the last of all and the servant of all.” The one striving for the head spot, the most significant place, the most recognition, will find himself with none of it. If a person’s goal is to be “someone” in society, to be respected or adored, that will probably backfire tremendously. Consider a modern-day example—how many people long to be movie stars or famous singers and performers. And yet, how often don’t you hear of people who have had their lives ruined by that type of fame, that they despise it and hate it, that it might even lead to physical or mental illness, or even worse? If you have a moment this week, I recommend reading through the brief book of Esther in the Old Testament. The antagonist in that account, Haman, embodies Jesus’ warnings clearly; it is the downfall of someone who would stop at nothing to get recognition from others.

Now, if the president of the United States or the governor of California wanted to have dinner with you, you’d probably do some things to prepare. You’ll be hosting someone very important! Whether you agree with their political ideas or not, you will have an opportunity to have direct contact with them. Perhaps your ideas would stick in their mind! Maybe you could reinforce their resolve on some issue where you agreed, or get them to see your thought process in places where you don’t agree and enact some meaningful change!

But notice that hypothetical serving is at least a little bit self-serving. You’re serving, hoping to influence the political realm or at least to have a story to share with others. You’re serving, but you can get something out of it. But, Jesus says, that’s not service. What about serving someone who can’t pay you back, who offers little tangible things in return? Then he took a little child and placed him in their midst. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not just me but also him who sent me.”

Perhaps a parent taking care of a child now will mean the child can take care of the parent later, but what parent thinks that way? What parent would see their child’s needs and address them only because they hope to get something in return? Instead, the parent provides for the child because the parent loves the child. Does the parent “outrank” the child in the family? Sure. But even to think along those lines, the greater serves the lesser. And to welcome and serve the little child is as if we are welcoming and serving God himself.

Biblically speaking, “service” does not mean a lower status or position; “helper” does not signify someone lower than someone else. It’s not about position; it’s about attitude. How do I view others? How do I view myself? When God created our first parents, Adam and Eve, God described Eve as a “helper who is a suitable partner” (Genesis 2:18). But again, this helper and partner status is not about rank or importance. In fact, the Hebrew word God uses to describe Eve in Genesis, eyzer, is most often used in the Bible to describe God himself and his work for us; God is our helper.

Jesus’ sacrifice demonstrated this point perfectly. Jesus was the only one to have a claim of superiority. After all, he is God and man, perfect, without sin. Yet what does he do? He doesn’t go to a castle and have worldly and heavenly pomp bestowed on him. No, he goes to the cross to suffer the eternal punishment of hell because otherwise, you and I would have faced that for our sins.

Elsewhere, Jesus spells out this relationship between his people serving others and his serving the world, “You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It will not be that way among you. Instead whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25–28). His love for you prioritizes you even above his own life so that God himself bleeds and dies, not because he was powerless to stop it but because he wanted to do it because he wanted to save you and me.

Jesus served me. Do I outrank Jesus? Hardly! He is my Creator and Redeemer! He is my God! But his work is not linked to his status, his work is linked to his attitude to you and me, and that attitude is one driven by unilateral and selfless love for us.

So, that should be our approach to other people. We should seek out service rather than being served; we should reflect Jesus’ attitude in our lives, not the attitude of our selfish, sinful nature. But humility in our lives cannot and should not lead to self-loathing and self-hatred. To respect this direction from God, to not worry about myself as being the greatest, doesn’t mean that I have to think of myself as scum. God loves you and me and values you and me above everything that he created. Should we, in a misguided sense of humility, tell God that he is wrong for loving us or caring about us or even dying for us? May that never be!

Instead, let us seek the attitude that the apostle Paul spoke of, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility consider one another better than yourselves. Let each of you look carefully not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). In our Second Reading, James urged us to be driven by heavenly wisdom—knowing that our sins are forgiven by a God who loves us—so that we can see selfish ambition as being what it really is: worldly, unspiritual, and demonic (James 3:15).

You, my brothers and sisters, are those who have been rescued by the selfless sacrifice of your Savior. You have forgiveness for every sin—even those sins of pride and selfish ambition—because Jesus lived perfectly for you and suffered hell in your place. You are free from the punishment of sin because Jesus took it on himself. You will be with him forever in heaven!

How can you reflect the love of God in how you love others? How can you find peace and satisfaction even if the world may not view you as the “most important” person in the room? How can you love yourself and others as the blood-bought souls that you are? Where has this been difficult for you? Where, my God’s grace, have you excelled in this?

These are all very personal, self-reflective questions. I cannot stand here and make a blanket proclamation to you all because we are all in different circumstances, positions, and situations. But you, this week, can take Jesus’ words and ponder them in your heart. You can look for ways to love and serve those around you in thanksgiving for the love and service God has given you. You can identify those haughty places of your heart that hate serving, bring them back to Jesus’ cross, and let him deal with them.

In Jesus’ death and resurrection, you see your actual status: you were worth the suffering and death of Jesus, the very blood of the Son of God. Take that status and let it empower and influence your decisions, attitudes, and actions this week until our Lord calls us home. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Be Strong In the Lord" (Sermon on Ephesians 6:10-18) | September 15, 2024

Sermon Text: Ephesians 6:10-18
Date: September 15, 2024
Event: Proper 19, Year B

Ephesians 6:10-18 (EHV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the Devil. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13For this reason, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to take a stand on the evil day and, after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness fastened in place, 15and with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace tied to your feet like sandals. 16At all times hold up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One. 17Also take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18At every opportunity, pray in the Spirit with every kind of prayer and petition. Stay alert for the same reason, always persevering in your intercession for all the saints.

Be Strong in the Lord

Strength is a subjective concept. Maybe it’s objective on the bench press where the strongest person can lift the most. But what if that person who is physically strong cracks very quickly under pressure so that when they need that strength to help someone else, they can’t act? Are they still truly strong if that strength is never used? What if that person uses his strength at every opportunity rather than showing restraint? Are they truly strong if they can’t control their impulses?

How much of strength is optics? Can a leader who struggles in appearance and speech be strong even if they don’t appear that way in person or on camera? Can someone meek be considered strong when they are working tirelessly for the good of others? Is someone who replaces substance with emotion and passion to rile up people actually a strong leader, or just a manipulator?

Even the sentiment we might share with someone going through a tough time, “Be strong!” can be confusing. What do you mean by that? Don’t let things get you down? Maintain a positive attitude despite the circumstances around you? Identify where you need support and help, and go seek that out? Operate as if the bad things aren’t happening? Strength is subjective.

This morning, we have some examples of strength from God’s Word. We heard the classic (and narratively, one of my favorite) accounts from the Old Testament in the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, where Elijah demonstrated unwavering faith and strength in God against the prophets of a false god. Jesus showed his power over even the demons his disciples lacked the strength to drive out. In our Second Reading, which is our focus for this morning’s meditation, we have Paul’s encouragement to put on the armor of God. So, what does it mean to truly be strong? And more to the point, what does it mean to be strong in the Lord?

We first need to establish that we are in a battle. But this battle is not against other people, our neighbors in the human race. We are not set against them; instead, we are at war with the forces of spiritual evil. Paul explained it this way: Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the Devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

This is important to remember in an increasingly polarized world. Never mind the upheaval that we find in politics, people pitting themselves or being pitted against each other. But think about things from a spiritual standpoint, of matters of faith and eternity. You don’t have to look very hard to find someone who doesn’t see eye to eye with you on who Jesus is and what he did, how important that is, or what it means to be a Christian. You don’t have to search very long to find someone who considers your faith foolish, your focus on eternal, spiritual things misguided, and your desire to share your faith with others manipulative. But, even as you find so many people set against you and your faith, your battle is not with them. Your battle is with those things that would lead them away from God’s truth and into these misguided beliefs.

However, the focus on other people is, in many ways, missing the true point. We want to be aware of where there is a threat to our own souls and faith in the attacks waged by these spiritual enemies. After all, we can’t help others if we are in need of help ourselves. And so as we walk through this life where spiritual battles rage around us and even inside of us, Paul has one clear direction: Put on the full armor of God.

Paul lists several pieces of this armor set, and this imagery likely originates in Isaiah chapter 59, where God’s intervention for his people is described this way: The truth is missing, and anyone who turns from evil makes himself prey. The Lord looked and saw something evil—there was no justice. He saw that there was no one. He was appalled that there was no one who could intervene. So his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness supported him. He clothed himself with righteousness like armor and wore a helmet of salvation on his head. He dressed in garments for vengeance, and he wrapped himself with zeal like a cloak. … Then a redeemer will come for Zion and for those in Jacob who turn from rebellion. This is the declaration of the Lord (Isaiah 59:15-17, 20). God himself puts on the helmet of salvation, cloaks himself with righteousness, and serves as a Redeemer for those who had turned away from him.

Jesus was that armor-bearing Redeemer, although he didn’t look well-equipped for his battle. Stripped of his garments rather than decked out in armor, nailed to a cross by his enemies, he looked like he had lost the battle before it started. But, as is true for us, so it was true for Jesus: his battle was not against flesh and blood. He didn’t lose the battle against the Jewish leaders or the Roman authorities because he was never actually in conflict with them. Instead, he was making the ultimate stand against the Devil. There at the cross, our Redeemer won despite the apparent loss. His death paid for all sin, and his victory would take just a few days to prove when his tomb was empty because he rose from the dead.

So now we take out stand not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness. The battle that rages around us is a battle for our souls. Satan is trying to pry us away from God, to get us distracted from him, his love, and his forgiveness so that we end up losing our souls the same way he lost the battle with God. So he cowardly launches his flaming arrows of temptation at us—both to sin against God’s will and to doubt God’s goodness to us. Everything that comes from our spiritual enemies is meant, one way or another, to undermine our confidence in God, to separate us from him so that we turn our back on his forgiveness.

This battle may not always feel like a battle. Perhaps we are being pried away from God by luxuries and joys in this life, so we start greatly valuing entertainment, leisure, work we love, or anything else that captures our imagination. These things that, at first blush, feel like blessings, not danger, may lead us to value them more than we value God, to seek them out rather than be concerned about what God says and has done.

Other times, this doesn’t feel like a battle because it feels like we’ve already lost, as our spiritual enemies use fear and desperation for things in this life to pry us away from the comfort of God’s love. Anxiety goes to the extreme, fears and worries sink us into deep depression, and we may approach this life as if the battle is already over and we lost because we’ve stopped considering what God has done and can only see where we have failed.

So whether we feel it or not, see it or not, acknowledge it or not, this battle rages around us; it is enflamed within us. And as a result, we might speak of the fighting as if the outcome is uncertain. Two enter, and one will leave. It’s us against Satan, us against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. But that gives our spiritual enemies far, far too much credit. It ignores what Jesus has already accomplished. Our confidence is not that Jesus will win; it’s that Jesus did win. As a result, our confidence is not that we will win, but because of Jesus’ victory in our place, we have won. This isn’t actually a contest anymore; Jesus won! We win!

How would knowing the outcome change the way you feel about entering a contest? If you knew your team would win the championship, would you sweat the ups and downs of the playoffs? If you knew your nation would win the war, would you despair in the ebb and flow of the battle? Knowing the outcome would make weathering the storms of conflict much easier. There might still be times of distress, especially if the inevitable end slipped your mind briefly, but you could always return to the certainty of the outcome you already know for comfort.

Such is the case with these spiritual battles. Jesus already won; the conflict just has to wind down. Satan and his cohorts will rage and scream and act like they have not lost; they will try to get you to think that they have not already been defeated, but they have been. They die defeated at the foot of your Redeemer.

And your Redeemer does not leave you alone. He gives you his armor to wear to weather the storms of Satan’s death throes. Stand, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness fastened in place, and with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace tied to your feet like sandals. At all times hold up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One. Also take the helmet of salvation. All of those pieces of armor serve as defense, not offense. You won’t attack anyone with a helmet or try to whip them with a belt. That’s not going to be effective at all. But that belt will hold your clothing together safely, the plate armor will protect your vital organs, the shield will render the enemy’s assaults worthless, and the helmet will protect your head.

This ultimate defense is what God provides. He doesn’t promise that we will not face trouble, hardship, or sorrow, but he does promise that they will not eternally and mortally wound us. Satan is not able to drag us away from God. Like a dog on a chain, he is limited, and like a violent criminal awaiting sentencing, he will be locked away. God is our sure and certain defense. To use a slightly different picture, we might call our God a mighty fortress.

But there is one piece of this armor set that is for offense. We are to take … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The one tool, the one weapon we have to ward off all the ill of this life, is the only one we need—God’s Word. God’s Word is the certainty of our salvation—it tells us of Jesus’ already-completed victory. God’s Word is the thing that Satan cannot stand against. James encourages us, “Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Jesus himself met Satan’s head-on temptations with the promises of God from his Word and stood his ground perfectly (see Matthew 4). So, too, you and I have that sword in hand, ready at all times, to ward off the attacks of our spiritual enemies. And if we look at the description of the other pieces of the defensive armor: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation—all these, too, flow from God’s Word. God’s Word is for us both offense and defense, unbreakable and undefeatable in both uses.

Remember where we started? What is strength? How can we be strong in the Lord? His Word. Clinging to his promises, clinging to the work he’s done for us, allowing your weak self to find strength in God’s almighty power that forgives your sins and rescues you from all doubt—that is strength.

Personally, I feel like every day I understand the father speaking to Jesus in our Gospel a little bit better, not as a parent, but as a person, “I do believe. Help me with my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). This is how and where God tends to that unbelief and doubt in all of us: his Word. He wraps us in the armor of his protection and assures us of his promises to make our way through this spiritual battlefield. The end is certain; the end is victory in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

So, my brothers and sisters, today, this week, the rest of this year, and until the Lord calls you home, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. How? Put on God’s armor. Amen.

"God Will Come and Save You" (Sermon on Isaiah 35:4-7a) | September 8, 2024

Sermon Text: Isaiah 35:4-7a
Date: September 8, 2024
Event: Proper 18, Year B

Isaiah 35:4-7a (EHV)

Tell those who have a fearful heart:
Be strong.
Do not be afraid.
Look! Your God will come with vengeance.
With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you.

5Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be unplugged.
6The crippled will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.
Waters will flow in the wilderness,
and streams in the wasteland.
7The burning sand will become a pool,
and in the thirsty ground there will be springs of water.

God Will Come and Save You

“How are you doing?” We’ve all had that question asked of us, but depending on the context, the answer can be very, very different, even if asked by different people on the same day. If it’s small talk with the cashier at the grocery store, a simple “Good” or “Fine” might come out. But if you’re sitting with a trusted friend, a dear family member, a counselor, therapist, or pastor, the answer might be just a bit… more. It can be terrifying to be open and honest about how we’re really doing, what we’re really feeling, and only in the safest places might we feel secure enough to be vulnerable and honestly share our hearts.

Why are we hesitant to share our fears? Why are we fearful of letting people know what is really going on in our hearts and minds? Maybe it’s shame—we know that the way we’re thinking or the attitudes we’re holding on to are wrong, and we don’t want to be rebuked, even as we might desperately need support to help make some changes. Maybe it’s fear—how will people judge me, or what will they think of me if I let them know what’s happening inside me? Maybe it’s protection, either protection for self or protection for others—if I share what’s really going on between me and that other person, will I hurt the person’s reputation? Or what will the person I’m talking to think about me?

What does my fear or apprehension or anxiety or depression or whatever say about my trust in God? Can someone really be a believer and wrestle with any of those things? Don’t they all, in their own way, betray a lack of faith in God, or at least a faith that is frighteningly weak? Would any true believer, any true Christian, ever have thoughts or feelings like that?

This morning, we will spend some time with a few verses from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s book is one of both judgment and peace, harm and restoration. We might know many of the rich gospel promises in his book: A champion is promised, born, astonishingly, of a virgin. He calls himself our Redeemer and reminds us that he is the one who formed us even in the womb. He promises that he will be pierced and crushed to save us from our sins.

But a significant portion of Isaiah’s words also speak God’s condemnation on the world's nations and even God’s own people. He rebukes their hardheartedness and their rebellion. We heard Jesus quote Isaiah last week, saying that his people paid him lip service but did not serve him with their hearts. Isaiah is an Old Testament book overflowing with both law and gospel, God’s anger with sin and his mercy in sending a Savior to rescue us.

Chapter 35, from which our First Reading is drawn, comes near the end of an extended section of law in Isaiah. In fact, while not entirely law, most of the book up to this point is heavy condemnation. Chapters 13 through 23 call out judgment against many different nations on the earth, and chapters 23-35 are primarily focused on a more general judgment upon the earth for sin. It’s necessary to hear but difficult. Consider just these verses from the chapter before our reading, “The Lord is angry with all the nations, and he is furious with all their armies. He has condemned them to destruction. He has handed them over for slaughter. Their fallen bodies will lie unburied, and the stench of their corpses will linger. The mountains will flow with their blood.” (Isaiah 34:2-3). That’s not exactly the pick-me-up we might hope for from God’s Word.

But then, chapter 35 begins with a different tone. It speaks of gladness on the earth where there had been so much destruction proclaimed. And there is a direct command from God in the verse just before our reading, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make the shaky knees steady” (Isaiah 35:3). If the wrath and judgment of God made you afraid, here is God coming to strengthen and uphold you.

And so then our reading begins with pure comfort, “Tell those who have a fearful heart: Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your God will come with vengeance. With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you.” There are still some harsh, condemning words: vengeance, retribution. But these are in your favor, not against you: he will come and save you. This vengeance and retribution are against those who threaten you, against those who are your enemies, or perhaps even more directly, against those who are God’s enemies.

Why would our knees be weak? Why would we have a fearful heart when considering the judgment of God? Because we know who we are. We know that, by nature, we stand as those deserving of this vengeance and retribution. Our sin makes us God’s enemies. So when you hear about God’s wrath and anger over sin, your conscience loudly (and correctly) screams, “This is you! He’s mad at you! He’s coming for you!”

So you, by nature, are the enemy of the almighty God. We asked earlier if fear or apprehension or anxiety or depression would ever have any part in the Christian’s heart. And here we can say resoundingly, yes! When you know what you are by nature, when you know what you deserve, who wouldn’t have their knees buckle? Whose hands wouldn’t shake like leaves? You are held accountable for sin that you can do nothing about by a Judge who has no lack of power or resources to carry out his just punishment.

Then what, in all the world, would there be to strengthen these hands and bring stability to knocking knees? What could possibly make us confident, not fearful, in God’s presence? What could make such a change that we would go from fearful despair and hopeless depression to confidence and joy? What could ever change this fearful heart in us?

God illustrates this change in the latter verses of our reading. Here, the gospel images are a total reversal from bad to good: Blind eyes seeing, deaf ears hearing, the crippled dancing, the mute singing, and where there is just dryness and desolation, there will be life-giving water. What had been broken is fixed; what had been a disaster is now a blessing. This is the change God works when he works for us.

In our Gospel for this morning, we saw Jesus literally doing a bit of this as he opened the ears of the deaf man. “Ephphatha!” (Mark 7:34). Likewise, Jesus gave Peter the ability to help that man who was crippled from birth, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I will give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” (Acts 3:6). Jesus’ mission was not to simply work healing miracles like this, and the promise in Isaiah was not for someone who would heal these physical ailments and provide physical water. As we heard Jesus speaking of himself as the Bread of Life for weeks in our previous Gospel readings, these promises also point to spiritual rather than physical concerns.

Because that sinful nature leaves us blind, deaf, mute, and crippled spiritually. More than that, sin causes spiritual death so that we are left not just in a bad spot or in a difficult situation but as helpless as a corpse. Our sin means eternal death in hell, unless God intervenes, unless God saves. And what is God’s promise to you? He will come and save you.

Jesus took up this reversal work in full at the cross. There, God suffered for the sins you and I committed against him. The punishment that brought us peace was whipped into his back and pierced through his hands and feet, pinning him to that cross. When God the Father abandoned God the Son, there was the truest punishment we deserved, which Jesus took in our place. There was the inevitable judgment of our sins, but God himself suffered it instead of us in the most baffling of reversals.

Everything changes because Jesus paid for every sin—even sins of doubt, fear, weakness, and lack of trust in him. Spiritual blindness to spiritual sight: look at your Savior crucified yet risen from the dead! Spiritual deafness to spiritual hearing of his gracious words, “I forgive you.” Spiritual lameness to spiritual strength, healed and empowered to move by God’s love and mercy. Spiritual muteness to spiritual shouting praises to the God who saves. Spiritual desolation to spiritual water, raised from spiritual death in our sins to eternal life by God’s gracious gift.

Do the thoughts of fearing God, depression over what is to come, and so forth make sense? Certainly. But, my dear sister, my dear brother, you need not be controlled by them because the one who died and was raised is greater than all—even greater than the thoughts and feelings of your mind and heart. When your heart is overwhelmed with guilt that doesn’t feel like even a loving God could forgive, call out your heart’s lies or at least its misunderstanding. When Satan whispers to your mind that God could never love or forgive someone like you, send him and his lies and deception packing. You, after all, are a baptized child of God; Satan knows nothing about God’s forgiveness.

We were in a desperate, helpless, and hopeless place, but the one who has done everything well (Mark 7:37) certainly accomplished your soul’s salvation well. It is finished, complete. There is nothing for you to pay. So my dear friends in Jesus, let your fearful hearts find rest in your Savior’s love and work for you. That work will not mean the end of sorrow and hardship in this life—sin will always be present with us on this side of heaven—but it does mean peace with God forever. It also means that God stands by you every moment of every day, no matter how trying and difficult the circumstances, to make even earthly things work out for your eternal good.

We don’t need to fear God or the future because our God is a God of love and forgiveness, and the future is as certain as Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your God will come with vengeance. With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you. Amen.

"Joyful Service Comes from Within" (Sermon on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23) | September 1, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Date: September 1, 2024
Event: Proper 17, Year B

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (EHV)

The Pharisees and some of the experts in the law came from Jerusalem and gathered around Jesus. 2They saw some of his disciples eating bread with unclean (that is, unwashed) hands. 3In fact, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they scrub their hands with a fist, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions they adhere to, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches. 5The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead they eat bread with unclean hands.”

6He answered them, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. As it is written:

These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

7They worship me in vain, teaching human rules as if they were doctrines.

8“You abandon God’s commandment but hold to human tradition like the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things.”

14He called the crowd to him again and said, “Everyone, listen to me and understand. 15There is nothing outside of a man that can make him unclean by going into him. But the things that come out of a man are what make a man unclean.

21In fact, from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual sins, theft, murder, 22adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, unrestrained immorality, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. 23All these evil things proceed from within and make a person unclean.”

Joyful Service Comes from Within

Cause and effect and correlation can be tricky to figure out. What is caused by something else and what happens along side it? For instance, since our family moved here in 2012, there have been zero Bengal tiger attacks in Belmont. Now, I don’t want to take credit for that, but it is interesting that our living here has coincided with zero tiger incidents, isn’t it?

Of course, that’s ridiculous. But some things are harder to tell. Did that new, experimental drug really help that person’s disease, or would they have gotten better on their own, and they just happened to be taking the medicine while their body did the work it would have done anyway? Did that questionable fast food burger make you sick, or did you pick up a stomach virus somewhere else along the way?

We can ask related and even more difficult questions about spiritual things. Did this thing happen to me because I did that other thing? Is God upset with me, so he’s letting trouble come my way? Are these positive things in my life because of my devotion to God? What is cause? What is effect? And what just is?

This morning, Jesus has an opportunity to address the Pharisees’ concerns and help them to see the true origin point not only of sin but also of proper, thankful, joyful service to God. Our problems come from the inside, not the outside, and once God has purified us from sin, our thankful life also comes from within us.

We’re in the second “half” of Jesus’ ministry, where his earthly popularity is waning, and more than ever before, everything is heading toward the cross. As a result, Jesus is increasingly more direct and blunt both with his disciples and those who are opposed to him. This morning, Jesus very directly confronted a sinful problem and misunderstanding that the Pharisees had.

A crew of religious leaders, some of the Pharisees and some of the scribes (who were experts in the law), came up from Jerusalem to where Jesus was teaching. They were continually looking for reasons to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people so that either the people would stop following him and this nuisance would just disappear on its won, or they might concoct some “justifiable” way to get rid of him. And so on this opportunity, this group zeroes in on traditions, or in Jesus’ group’s case, lack thereof. The Pharisees and some of the experts in the law came from Jerusalem and gathered around Jesus. They saw some of his disciples eating bread with unclean (that is, unwashed) hands. … The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead they eat bread with unclean hands.”

There was a tradition among the leaders and forefathers of the people that, before you eat, you gave your hands a ceremonial cleansing. This had little to do with hygiene in the modern sense of that term (although, we certainly see some hygienic benefit for this tradition) and it had more to do with being having cermonially clean hands so that the food you ate would also be ceremonially clean. Without that, you might pollute yourself spiritually by eating unclean food, which brought with it all sorts of other challenges and requirements in the ceremonial law and in the traditions of the people.

What’s the issue here? The leaders’ question to Jesus is, “Why do you let your disciples sin by allowing them to eat without doing this traditional ceremonial washing?” They were equating man’s traditions with God’s commands. And Jesus, using the words of the prophet Isaiah, condemns them for that: These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching human rules as if they were doctrines.

Jesus is really getting at the heart here. For the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day, the widespread consensus was that it was enough to look good, but they would often ignore the heart. If the lips said the right thing, the heart's motivations didn’t matter. If you were pious and upright by all outward appearances, that must be what you were.

But this is a legalistic mindset that presumes we can be right with God through our conduct. Even if we could control our words and actions perfectly (which you and I both know well we cannot), there is still the problem of our sinful hearts. Even doing good things to make God happy with us betrays a total misunderstanding of our relationship with God and why we would do things God deems to be “good.”

Our natural state is as sinners at war with God. We are by nature not honoring God with our lips, but indeed, our hearts are from him. We bring God’s wrath down on ourselves in this hostile conflict with the Almighty. Because God is a just God, our sin needs to be punished; God would violate who he is if he just turned a blind eye to our disobedience. And so there is no escaping the punishment for sin, and no matter how good we might try to look on the outside, we will never be perfect on the inside.

And so, the principle issue we have is not so much the sinful actions we commit or sinful words we say, but the origin point, the cause of those sinful words and actions: our corrupted hearts. Jesus describes who we are by nature: “Everyone, listen to me and understand. There is nothing outside of a man that can make him unclean by going into him. But the things that come out of a man are what make a man unclean. In fact, from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual sins, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, unrestrained immorality, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and make a person unclean.”

What is Jesus’ point? Your traditions are worthless because a ceremonial splash in the water does not fix the true source of your uncleanness. Dirty hands didn’t make you unclean, nor even the things you eat, but the spring of spiritual corruption and poison is deep in your hearts. So, if our lives, actions, and words are being corrupted at the very source, if our very motivation is being poisoned by sin, there will be nothing we can do to change that status unless that corruption is removed, unless the spring of raw sewage that bubbles up from inside of us is purified.

Jesus wanted them to see this because until they could see the corruption of their hearts for what it was, they would never understand the purification he was bringing. They had to see themselves as God sees them—hopelessly lost sinners—rather than as the models of good living they thought they were.

The same is true for us. Jesus has very little value for us if we don’t recognize our own complete corruption by sin. Not realizing that is what produces ideas like, “I can be good enough to make God happy with me!” or “I’m not so bad! In fact, I’m mostly good!” This mindset that so easily creeps in is the exact one that Jesus is trying to purge from the hearts and minds of the religious leaders.

No matter how hard we try, we cannot make God happy by how we live our lives. Because God’s requirements are not “do your best” or “give it your all” or “be better than most other people.” God’s requirement is perfection. You and I have not been perfect, and the sinful hearts inside of us prevent us from even making it possible to be perfect from this moment forward—not that that would be what God was looking for anyway.

But Jesus is not trying to get the religious leaders of his day and us today to see this corruption and despair. He wants us to see how we can do nothing about this cause of sin so we can rely on him completely. Because this is the good news that Jesus came to bring and the work he came to do. Yes, God’s justice would never be satisfied if sin was not punished, but God’s love would also never be satisfied if we were condemned to hell with no hope. And so, from the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden onward, God’s plan and purpose was always a rescue mission—to save us from hell, to save us from ourselves.

And that’s what Jesus did. He put his face toward the cross, scorned the shame that would come from it, and endured what you and I deserved. In his mercy, Jesus took our place. The one who had no internal corruption and sinful nature suffered hell as if he were the only sinner that ever lived. Because he lived and died for us, our sins are forgiven. Despite this spring of poisonous sin inside of ourselves, we are healed and made whole again. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead proves that he paid for all our sins and that we will be with him forever in eternal life.

And now, we do what is right, not to try to make God happy with us but because he is happy with us. We live lives that honor God, not to try to make him love us but because he loves us. We seek what is good and avoid what is evil, not to try to prove our worth to God but because he values us so much. The cause of sin was internal, and the cause of joyful service to God is also from within because he has purified us. We obey God in joy, not fear; we follow God’s law in thanksgiving, not terror. As Paul said in our Second Reading, “To everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the law, resulting in righteousness” (Romans 10:4). The law’s purpose of making us right with God has long since become impossible. Its purpose now is to guide our thankful living to God.

So, my brothers and sisters, recognize that the source of your sin doesn’t come from things around you—the company you keep, the things you read, or even this wildly corrupt world in which we live. No, your sin stems from inside of you, from the sinful nature you were born with—conceived with! But see that your service to God also comes from within—from the joy that God instilled in you by forgiving all your sins and assuring you that you’ll be in heaven. Let us not go through the motions of looking like we’re living a Christian life; let us embrace and value the complete forgiveness Jesus gives and let that cause our lives to be ones of joyful service to him.

Lord, keep this motivation ever in our hearts and minds. Thank you for your patience, love, and forgiveness. Amen.

"Jesus, Jesus, Only Jesus!" (Sermon on John 6:51-69) | August 25, 2024

Sermon Text: John 6:51–69
Date: August 25, 2024
Event: Proper 16, Year B

John 6:51–69 (EHV)

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52At that, the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

53So Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day. 55For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. 56The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”

59He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 60When they heard it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?”

61But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this cause you to stumble in your faith? 62What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh does not help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray him. 65He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is given to him by my Father.”

66After this, many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore. 67So Jesus asked the Twelve, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”

68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus, Jesus, Only Jesus!

What is your most valuable tool? Maybe it’s a trusty hammer you’ve had since forever. It’s well-made, solid, and will probably outlive you. Maybe it’s a set of cookware that is made to last generations—it cooks well, cleans well, and properly maintained, could probably be an heirloom in your family. Maybe it’s something a bit more ephemeral and temporary but very useful. Maybe it’s a cell phone that keeps you in touch with people near and far away. Maybe a computer allows you to do your necessary work and do things to unwind and relax.

But no matter how useful any given tool is, you would be hard-pressed to get rid of everything else and rely on that one thing. That hammer might be awesome, but it won't do much good when it comes time to cut something. And trying to drive that nail with your laptop? That’s not going to end well.

For the better part of the summer, we’ve been with the crowds around Jesus’ miracle of feeding more than 5,000 people. In our Gospel readings, we’ve seen the people’s helpless reality like sheep without a shepherd, Jesus’ overwhelming compassion for them, and then the crowd’s misguided hope, thinking that Jesus was providing what they wanted—physical food—not what they needed—eternal life.

This morning’s Gospel is the culmination of all of this. This conflict comes to a head as Jesus stresses why he had actually come and faces the fallout for that. This morning, we will ideally learn the lesson that the Twelve did and showed through Peter’s confession: that when it comes to any needs, there’s one tool, there’s one solution for us: Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus!

In our Gospel, we pick up exactly where we left off last week, repeating verse 51, where Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The people listening were really confused about what Jesus was talking about. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Then, Jesus goes further and gets more graphic in his depiction. He says, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.” Now, that sounds grotesque, and you might well sympathize with the people who reacted negatively to this.

Because what does that mean? Do we have to eat and drink Jesus' flesh and blood? This is the sort of thing that was forbidden by the law that God gave to his people when it came to animals for food. They weren't to eat raw meat but to cook it. They weren't to leave the blood in it, but to drain it out. And this is to say nothing of the raw horror of thinking about what it means to ingest parts of another human being.

Jesus here is not speaking about literal physical eating and drinking. He says, “My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” This is a picturesque (albeit alarmingly graphic) way for Jesus to describe what it means to receive him, to believe in him. You're so connected to him for your spiritual needs that you might as well be gnawing on his flesh and drinking his blood that he would dwell in you wholly like food and drink dwell in you after you've swallowed it. Jesus is very clear about the results of this receiving, this eating and drinking: Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”

Physical food and drink come and go. That’s not what Jesus is offering. This is not physical food, something to chew with the teeth and swallow. This is only something that can be received by faith.

The people are not pleased with the direction of this conversation. When they heard it, many of Jesus's disciples said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?” The people who were following Jesus wanted something easy. They wanted a solution that made sense to them, a solution that they had come up with. And their thought was, “Hey, if we just have an unending supply of physical food, things will be good.”

But Jesus knew that wasn't true. Even if one did have an unending supply of physical food, death would still come. And with death comes judgment. And judgment because of sin means that we stand condemned before God. No, we don't need a solution to the problem of physical hunger and thirst; we need a solution to the problem of spiritual hunger and thirst. And when meeting those needs, Jesus says, "The only thing you get is me." There's no alternative path. There's no way for anyone to do these things on his own. We need Jesus. Jesus is all we get. And Jesus is all we need.

Jesus says, Does this cause you to stumble in your faith? What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh does not help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. It becomes very clear to the crowd gathered around Jesus that he won't do what they want. No amount of arguing will lead Jesus to give them more to eat.

This is where Jesus' earthly popularity dropped off a cliff. Many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore.  Jesus lost followers when he presented himself as the sole thing they needed, and they needed to be more focused on the spiritual than the physical. He was the sole thing that they would get from him and the only thing that they truly needed, but it didn't meet their expectations, so off they went.

Not much has changed in the intervening 2,000 years because the message from Jesus is still the same. He's all you get. Truly, he's all you need. But what is it for you that pulls you to turn away from Jesus? What causes you to think, "Ah, this Jesus is not really worth it. This faith is not something I want to dedicate myself to. This is a hard teaching. This is harsh. Jesus is stubborn. He's not going to do what I want him to do. Who could stand to listen to him?”

This will vary wildly among each of us here this morning. Maybe it is some command from Jesus when he says that something that I want to be right is wrong or something that I want to be wrong is fine. Maybe it is dissatisfaction with my lot in life, the reality of where I am, the struggles I have to deal with, and the crosses I have to bear. Maybe you're not dealing with physical hunger like the crowds, but maybe you're really, really tempted to withdraw from Jesus because he's just not doing what you want him to do. He's not making this part of your life better. He's not bringing healing to that loved one. He's not bringing to fruition what I think should be done in my life. And if this is how it will be as a follower of Jesus, it's really, really easy for me to say, "You know what? Enough is enough. I can't do this anymore. I'm done." And to turn back and to not walk with Jesus anymore.

There may be some immediate gains by doing that from our human perspective. Maybe I’m happier ignoring Jesus and seeking my own will and joys. By turning away from Jesus, I might find some temporal joy, some earthly pleasure, some way to satisfy the longings of my heart. But if I do that, what have I just traded away?

Not only do I say thanks but no thanks to Jesus in terms of the day-to-day things of life, but I also say thanks but no thanks to Jesus when it comes to his forgiveness. Unless I eat that flesh and drink that blood, I have no part with him. Unless the Spirit-given conviction, trust, and faith in Jesus are alive here, in my heart, I don't benefit from what he did at all.

As the crowds were leaving, Jesus turned to the twelve and asked them, "You do not want to leave too, do you?" What is Jesus asking? “What are you looking for? Is it me, or is it something else?”

Peter knows that there’s no solution besides Jesus. That was clearly illustrated for Peter just hours before when he asked Jesus to call him out to walk on the surface of the Sea of Galilee. Everything went wonderfully when he was focused on Jesus, but when other things took Peter’s attention, he began to sink into the water. The disciples that were leaving were looking at the wind and the waves of this life and saying, "I don't think Jesus is going to do what I want him to do." They were taking their eyes off of him and found that they were content to fight their own way through the stormy sea.

But again, Peter knows that there's no help outside of Jesus. It is Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus. “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

This trade, giving up the eternal for the temporal, is not a wise move. We don't want to do this. Jesus, and Jesus alone, has the words of eternal life. Jesus is all that you get, my brothers and sisters. He's all you need, and by God's grace, he is all you want. Because here is your God, who, yes, provides for you physically (even if it might not always be precisely what you or I want). But more to the point, here is the one who provides for you for eternity.

God was not content to let us eat bread in this life for a time and then die and face the punishment for our sins in hell. And so Jesus took our place, becoming this bread of life, as he said, by offering and giving his flesh for the life of the world. And in that sacrifice, Jesus pays for your sins and mine, for every time that you and I have wanted to turn tail and go away.

Every time I have sought to serve another master, whether my own whims and desires, money, power, fame, accomplishments, peace, or security in this life. All of those times that for me, it has not been Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus, that those are sins for which Jesus died, sins that are gone.

And now the Spirit gives life to you and to me by connecting us to the bread of life. By his Word, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit creates and sustains our faith in Jesus so that you and I have what we need. And by God's grace, we have what we want because we have Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus!

Lord keep us ever focused on you and content that no matter what happens in this life, we are safe with you forever. Amen.

"Learn from God’s 'Culinary' Wisdom" (Sermon on John 6:35-51) | August 19, 2024

Sermon Text: John 6:35–51
Date: August 19, 2024
Event: Proper 15, Year B

John 6:35–51 (EHV)

“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But I said to you that you have also seen me, and you do not believe. 37Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up on the Last Day. 40For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the Last Day.”

41So the Jews started grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They asked, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? So how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

43Jesus answered them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the Last Day. 45It is written in the Prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46I am not saying that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He is the one who has seen the Father. 47Amen, Amen, I tell you: The one who believes in me has eternal life.

48“I am the Bread of Life. 49Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat it and not die. 51I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Learn from God’s “Culinary” Wisdom

“Empty calories.” Perhaps you’re familiar with that term. Whether you’ve heard it or not, you’ve undoubtedly experienced the concept. Some foods provide a significant source of energy—calories—but that energy is very short-lived. You can eat 100 calories of candy and 100 calories of carrots, but which will be more food and which will keep you full and energized for longer? As I typed this introduction in my office, I was munching on a couple of little chocolate candies, the very epitome of empty calories!

Not all fuel is the same. Things will go poorly if you put lighter fluid in your car’s gas tank—or coal. All are fuels, all burn, but only one will actually power an internal combustion engine in an automobile. If you have an electric car, what outlet you plug it into will make a huge difference, not in what type of electricity gets into it, but how much gets into it. Certain chargers may fill a car’s large battery in under an hour; others may take all night just to put a few percent back into the battery.

So whether it’s our bodies, our cars, our phones, or our grills, we want to use the right kind of fuel—fuel that will endure, get the job done, and get us where we need to go. And we know that using the wrong fuel, even if it’s close, can be disastrous. A goof at the gas pump to put diesel in an unleaded car will not go well.

So it is for our spiritual “fuel” that we put in us. Not everything claiming to be spiritual, or Christian, or even Lutheran is of the same quality and has the same benefit. In fact, some things in those spheres will be downright dangerous to your eternal well-being. So, how do we know what to do, what to trust, what food will be good for us? When it comes to nourishing our souls, how do we distinguish between a wholesome meal and junk, between safe food and poison? Jesus has direction for us, “Learn from God.”

Earlier this week, I came across an online video account posting supposed messages the person was receiving straight from God. The person used a lot of spiritual and even Christian language, stressing (at times) that we need to be connected to “the Christ,” but when you listened to what was being said, the message was just gobbledygook. It didn’t track with any internal logic. It just felt like a blast of words, almost in a random order, and notably (when the message was making sense), it was really focused on the here and now rather than the eternal. The messages would talk about hurts and harms that you’ve experienced now, a concept that the “One” would help you with them and that you were strong enough to endure.

What was notably missing from any of this was, well, Jesus. The word “Christ” that was thrown around a bunch didn’t seem to be talking about our Savior so much as an abstract concept of a force of nature or something. (It was really difficult to follow.) But it struck me that this is not so different from some of the crowds’ thoughts about Jesus after the feeding of the 5,000.

In our Gospel last week, we heard Jesus urging people to receive the true bread from heaven, to look not to just the here and now, not just to fill their bellies for a day, but to seek after “bread” that endures to eternal life. We closed that reading with the same words from Jesus that we began our Gospel for this morning: “I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus is clear that this is not some arbitrary, subjective thing. This is not an invitation to cram your spirit full of junk food or other garbage that may even hurt you. No, this is a call to come to him and to him alone, to eat the bread that he provides—that he is!—because he is the only solution to spiritual hunger and thirst.

But this is not so easy or so automatic. We know the crowds were not on board with everything Jesus said and taught. Jesus himself comments, “You have also seen me, and you do not believe.” They were not trusting in Jesus for forgiveness and eternal security; as we saw last week, they were only looking to Jesus to satisfy their physical hunger. And so Jesus continues, trying to get them to rework their thinking, seeing their need for what he provides and what God the Father does through him: Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up on the Last Day. For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the Last Day.”

There’s a tremendous amount of comfort and security in these words. The Father gives people to Jesus, and Jesus will not lose any of them. Jesus and the Father are united in this goal: “everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the Last Day.” Three times in this brief reading, Jesus says that he will raise up the believers on the Last Day. This is in keeping with Jesus’ focus, not on physical food and drink, but on that which prepares for eternal life—himself, the Bread of Life.

We are all too aware that physical death will come. Each ache, pain, sickness, and sorrow is a reminder of what lies ahead for all of us. That is what happens to all who live in this sin-corrupted world and have inherited sinful natures like ours—death comes as the wages of sin. But, when you are not just looking for the temporal and the physical but for the spiritual and the eternal, physical death is not the end. Jesus was blunt: Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. Despite eating miracle food, the Israelites all eventually died while wandering in the wilderness for 40 years or after they entered the Promised Land. Those who ate the miracle food that Jesus provided for the 5,000+ people would grow hungry again (clearly, because that’s why they sought Jesus out), and they, too, would eventually die. Proximity to and even ingesting a miracle does nothing to rescue from the results of sin. Death is coming to all because all sinned.

But the Bread of Life is different. The one who feasts on this meal will endure to eternal life, for Jesus himself will raise him up on the last day. We will spend more time with these illustrations next week, but for now, it will suffice to say that eating the bread of life is to do exactly what Jesus described as his Father’s will: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.

How do we see and believe in Jesus? How do we feast on this eternal-life-giving Bread from heaven? Jesus describes this: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the Last Day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. See what agency you and I do not have! No one can come to Jesus unless God the Father draws him. That word translated as “draws” might even have a stronger hint of meaning—no one can come to Jesus unless the Father drags him. This is not our will cooperating with God; this is not us doing a little part to connect ourselves to God. It can only be God’s work—and his alone—to connect us to the Bread of Life.

God himself must teach us this “culinary” wisdom of eating the Bread of Life. On our own, this is foolishness. Paul said in our Second Reading this morning, “An unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually evaluated” (1 Corinthians 2:14). God must drag us to his truth against our natural will, against our natural inclination. On our own, if we see any good in God at all, we can only see him as the giver of a free lunch. But with God's wisdom, we know Jesus as he is, the Bread of Life, the Savior of the world.

The Father gave people to Jesus to save them. His mission of rescue and grace was to save all people from all sin. And so, the Bread of Life was crucified; the one who came to save the world was rejected by the world he came to save. But in that rejection, God worked the greatest good. Because on that cross, Jesus took all of our failings on himself: every time we’ve misunderstood him, misappropriated him, felt confident in our own selves, or felt that we didn’t need him. All of those ignorant and willful sins were laid on Jesus; there on the cross, he suffered the eternal death—hell—that our sins truly deserved and made a full payment for them all. The Bread of Life died that we might feast—believe—and live.

We are rescued in Jesus’ body, in his flesh, nailed to the cross. He gave his life to rescue us from death, and by his death, we live forever. God’s wisdom allows us to see Jesus not as a pitiful, crucified victim but as a triumphant Savior. God’s wisdom allows us to see Jesus’ empty tomb and know what that means: he is victorious. And because he is victorious, my brother and sisters, so are we!

God teaches us to see Jesus as he is, not as a miracle worker or bread provider, but as the Sin-Destroyer. “I am the Bread of Life... This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Thank you, Lord Jesus! Amen.