"Help as God has Helped You!" (Sermon on Hebrews 3:1-6) | October 17, 2021

Text: Hebrews 3:1-6
Date: October 17, 2021
Event: The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Hebrews 13:1–6 (EHV)

Continue to show brotherly love. 2Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it. 3Remember those in prison, as if you were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were also suffering bodily. 

4Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. 5Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For God has said: 

I will never leave you, 
and I will never forsake you. 

6So then we say with confidence: 

The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. 
What will man do to me? 

Help as God has Helped You!

“Hey, could you help me with something?” What’s your immediate, gut reaction to that question? Perhaps it’s excitement to lend a hand and to feel needed. Perhaps it’s a bit of caution—am I going to be holding one end of a measuring tape or loading a moving truck? Or maybe it’s somewhere in-between, with a willingness to offer assistance, but also wanting more information to figure out how possible that would be.

Why do people ask for help? Rarely is it because they are too lazy to do it themselves. More often, it’s because it would either be impossible or much less efficient to do it with one set of hands compared with two or more, right? Think of how much easier it to measure something that is long and off the floor with two people on the measuring tape rather than just one. Possible but not easy to do for just one person. But then consider moving a heavy piece of furniture. Size and weight may make that task absolutely impossible for one person to do on their own, no matter how strong they are. 

But when someone needs help and you rise to the occasion to do it, what a blessing for all involved! You are helping that person in need and they are rescued from their difficult or even impossible situation! 

And this is the general area where the writer to the Hebrews wants us to be focused today. We can depend on a lot of things for safety and security, especially money as was made clear in our Gospel. But that’s not where we want our focus to be. We want our focus to be on God who is our eternal helper, who then empowers us to be helpers to others in their earthly needs and to point them to the eternal help given by God.

These are near the closing words to this letter written to Jewish Christians near the end of the apostolic era. These Christians were being pulled away from the faith by trouble and persecution for being Christians. And the author’s letter is, in part, an encouragement to not get whisked away from the faith but to bear those crosses in the here and now for the blessings that will come in heaven.

And at the tail end of our reading, he makes clear what those blessings are. What are the promises of God? He quotes from Deuteronomy, “I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.” And again he quotes from the Psalms, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?” And there’s where our motivational focus for life and eternity is. God has promised to be our helper who will never leave nor forsake us. 

And God’s definition of helper is someone who does for us what would be impossible on our own, or more accurately impossible for us at all. When God is our helper in the primary sense, he’s not helping us lift the couch; he’s moving the couch all on his own for us. He is primarily our helper in dealing with the problem of sin. That was not something we did or even could lend a hand with. Solving sin and hell had to be God’s work alone. 

And so it was. Jesus came as that helper we needed. He took our place in all things, both living a flawless life and dying an innocent death. So, by God’s work in our place and completely without our assistance, he rescued us from sin, death, and hell. We are free from the eternal ramifications for our sin because Jesus undid them and suffered them in our place. There is no doubt or worry or concern that something might be left undone. There is no slack to pick up or contributions we have to make. We will be in heaven for eternity because our sins are gone. Thanks be to God!

So what does God being our helper then mean for us in the here and now? It means that we are freed, encouraged, even emboldened to be helpers to those around us. And the writer to the Hebrews lists off many different ways that God’s work for us will reflect in our lives. At the start of our lesson he rattles off a rapid-fire list: Continue to show brotherly love. Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it. Remember those in prison, as if you were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were also suffering bodily. 

All of these can probably fall under the umbrella of thinking of others as more important than yourself. The author is encouraging us to take a Christ-like view of our fellow people, no matter what your relationship to them is. Perfect stranger? How can you help them? Someone in prison? What might they need? Someone struggling with circumstances that restrict them? What would you want someone to do for you if you were in that exact same boat? 

And these don’t need to be heroic things, and sometimes maybe it seems to be more in the realm of just common sense or common decency. Not being short with that person at the grocery store. A kind word to someone you’re walking past on the sidewalk. Offering to help someone carry something. There are a million different ways that the opportunity to be a helper presents itself in our lives, even if they seem small to us. But nothing is truly small; Jesus even commended people who gave his believers a cup of cool water.

The writer to the Hebrews goes on: Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. This ties in well with what we considered last week. Marriage is a special bond and God is protecting it and the family. And it’s interesting that this is not just aimed at married people, that they should guard what they have, nor is it just aimed at single people, that they should respect other people’s relationships. No, marriage is to be held in honor by all.  Husbands and wives can and should be helpers for each other. Those who are no married should not only not look to undermine those that are married but also live their lives in a way that respects how God has designed this, especially in terms of the “marriage bed,” that sexual relations of any kind are reserved for only within the committed environment of marriage. 

But then the writer to the Hebrews gets at what Jesus is focused on in our Gospel for this morning: Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. Loving money has no place in a Christian’s life. Materialism, worshiping at the altar of “stuff” is not part of a Christian’s life. Because our hope, our confidence, our helper is not found in bank or investment account balance nor in having the latest and greatest clothing, shoes, car, phone, game, whatever. Our confidence doesn’t rest on this earthly stuff. Money is not our helper; God is our helper. Money and things are tools we use to support our families and other people; they are not ends in themselves. 

So that really is our question: what do we trust to truly help? Our help should come from God, and perhaps it’s God working through others. Our confidence is in him who has done everything we need and we trust in him to provide for our needs, especially our eternal need of forgiveness and rescue from hell. Likewise, we take that trust and confidence and in joy and gratitude be helpers to others, supporting them in their needs, being a blessing to their families, and recognizing the appropriate place of material things in our lives. 

It all comes down to God, who has helped us, enabling us to help others. God, open our eyes to see the myriad of ways that you have helped us, especially by rescuing us from sin and hell through no work on our part. Open our eyes to see the opportunities you place before us to help and love others as you have helped and loved us! Amen.

"Praise God for Suffering...?" (Sermon on 1 Peter 4:12-19) | September 26, 2021

Text: 1 Peter 4:12-19
Date: September 26, 2021
Event: The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

1 Peter 4:12-19 (EHV)

Dear friends, do not be surprised by the fiery trial that is happening among you to test you, as if something strange were happening to you. 13Instead rejoice whenever you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 

14If you are insulted in connection with the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or as a meddler. 16But if you suffer for being a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God in connection with this name. 17For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. Now if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who disobey the gospel of God? 18And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, where will the ungodly sinner end up? 19So let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to their faithful Creator while doing what is good.

Praise God for Suffering…?

We are conditioned to want things to get better, and even expect things to get better. Make progress, fix bugs, proofread a document, rewrite that rough draft, collaborate to share ideas. In fact, most of human history is based on the idea that we’re doing things better than the people who came before us. 

This can produce a sort of bias that we, right now, are smarter and overall better than those who lived a generation or centuries before us. It’s a form of generationalism (although that can also be the reverse that we think we are better than anyone younger than us as well). Are we smarter than the ancient Egyptians or Greeks? Do we have a better grasp of reality than the people of the middle ages? In some ways, probably, but we could probably identify places where those who came before us had better ideas, habits, and mindsets than we generally do today.

The idea that things are progressing and getting better as time goes on is appealing, but we can recognize that it’s highly subjective. Is a modern, clean city with safe travel and many good, productive jobs better than the forrest it replaced? You could probably get a lot of strong opinions on both sides of that issue. But the idea or hope that things are getting better is not exactly borne out by the world around us. 

Take a book outside, set it on the grass, and leave it there. Is it a better book in 2 hours? 2 days? 2 months? 2 years? Unless it’s well protected somehow, that book is going to start to rot. It will eventually get to the point where it is unusable and any information that it held is lost. Or take a broken plate. Let it sit for 2000 years. What will it be after those 2 millennia? Still a broken plate, but perhaps more fragile than it was when it started.

We know the reason for this general downward trend, right? It’s sin. The world was not created with death and decay as part of its blueprint, but when our first parents sinned, it fundamentally changed everything. All of creation now suffers under this burden of wasting away, each moment taking a step farther away from God’s original design. We can take some steps to mitigate this. We can be careful stewards of the world around us, use but not abuse the places we live. But still, things are going to go from bad to worse. Fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, disease, and all sorts of other disastrous things infect our world.

But all of that is outside of us. When we direct our thoughts inward to our own lives, we want to see things getting better. Sure, we recognize the negative changes that getting older might bring with our health or mobility or responsibilities. But generally, we think that things are going to get better next week than they were this week. We work hard at it, to improve our situations as much as is in our control, work hard for our families who depend on us, and just generally try strengthen weak places in our lives. But we might also think that things are going to be better because of some of the promises God has made. For instance, the classic promise that our Catechism students memorize each year from Psalm 50, “Call on me in the day of distress. I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (v. 15). God is going to take the distress in our life and make it good, right? 

Well, that’s a nice thought but I don’t think that’s exactly what God has in mind with that promise. As we consider our Second Lesson this morning and its relationship to Jesus’ words in our Gospel, we begin to get a picture that God doesn’t promise us (and perhaps, doesn’t even want us to have) a life without difficulty. Consider what Peter wrote to his readers in his first letter in the New Testament, “Dear friends, do not be surprised by the fiery trial that is happening among you to test you, as if something strange were happening to you.” Not just trouble, but fiery trial, was besieging the life of these Christians. And Peter said this should not be surprising; this was not strange.

We know some of what that fiery trial was. Peter was living in the time of severe persecution from the Roman Empire. Christianity was illegal and as a result Christians were suffering and dying for their faith. It was horrible, but again, Peter is clear that they should not be surprised. Biblical Christianity is always counter-cultural, no matter what time or place it exists in. 

It may be easy for us to get a martyr complex, though. We do well to recognize that as Christians in our nation, we do not suffer in the same way that Peter and his fellow Christians did at the latter part of the apostolic era. We do not suffer in the same way that many, many Christians today suffer for their faith, even to death. We do well to realize that our physical and emotional discomforts we face for being a Christian are hardly worth comparing to the suffering that many across the world and certainly in history have suffered for Christ.

But, that doesn’t mean we don’t bear crosses. That doesn’t mean that we don’t suffer for our faith. That doesn’t mean suffering, hardship, and heartache for reasons beside our faith are absent. In fact, we do bear crosses, we do have suffering in our life. Jesus promised as much. Peter pointed out the obvious to his readers. But what do we do with that suffering? How do we think of it? How do we endure it? 

When it comes to suffering for being a Christian, if we are insulted “in connection with the name of Christ,” Peter says, “You are blessed.” But why? What good does suffering hold? Why am I blessed if I suffer for Jesus’ name? That seems so contradictory! Peter goes on: because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Suffering because of Jesus means that you are clearly wearing his family name in your life. If people insult you or hate you because you believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose to save you from your sins, that is to your credit. It means you are living as counter-cultural. It means that your life lived in thanksgiving to God is evident to all and for some, it is not what they want to see or hear.

But Peter goes on to say that not all suffering is sanctified. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or as a meddler. If I suffer because of my own sin, that is not to anyone’s glory or blessing, not mine and certainly not God’s. We should be clear that it’s not suffering if people outside of the church refuse to live like you think they should live. They do not have the gospel, they do not know Jesus, therefore at that moment it is impossible for them to live lives of thanksgiving to God for what he’s done. If people are upset with me because I’ve been obnoxious to them about how they live or don’t live, that’s not really suffering for Jesus; that’s suffering because I’ve been a fool.

But if I have made every effort to live at peace with others around me and through no fault of my own, people are adversarial against me, then what? Well, it’s not exactly inspiring to hear, but there’s not much to be done about it. Rather than trying to avoid such suffering or assuming that God has somehow made a mistake when it comes to your life because suffering has attached itself to your life like some sort of parasite, take Peter’s advice: So let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to their faithful Creator while doing what is good. What does it mean for us to “entrust [our] souls to [our] faithful Creator while doing what is good”?

First of all it means not sinning to try to end the problem. That means not sinning in compromise to do and say what God clearly says is wrong. It also means not sinning to end the problem by seeking vengeance. If we entrust this suffering to our Creator, we know that he is able to do what is right. If what is right is some sort of chastisement or retribution for the person causing us to suffer, that for God to determine, not us. Leave it in his hands. He will do what is right with any given situation or person. And because he always has people’s eternal well-being in mind, it is likely that his desire is polar opposite to our gut reaction. While we may want to lash out to try to end the suffering, his goal may be for us to have patient endurance in that suffering, which may become part of the story of that person coming to faith in Jesus as their Savior later in life.

But there’s another way and reason that we entrust our souls to our Creator. In the midst of suffering, things seem dark. It may feel like there’s no solution to our problems, no relief from what is ailing us. It may be true that we can do nothing to end the suffering, end the bad things that happen to us. But we are not, in those moments, without hope. Because no matter how brutal our trials and sufferings are here and now, we know that our eternal life, our souls, are safe with our Creator and Savior. Even when we are suffering because of our own sinful attitudes and actions, there is forgiveness for those in Jesus’ life and death for us. No matter how bad things look or feel here, eternity is secure because Jesus has made it secure, and his work for us is perfect.

Peter wrote to these Christians in part because he did not want them giving up on their faith to seek out temporal, earthly calm. He didn’t want them exchanging eternal security for temporary peace. The same concerns are alive for us. We do not want to give up our faith to escape some momentary suffering. 

What does that suffering in your life not mean? It does not mean that God has forgotten about you. It does not mean that God is unfaithful to his promises. It does not mean that you are outside of God’s family.

What does that suffering in your life mean? It means that Jesus was telling the truth when he said that believing in him would mean taking up your cross and following him. It means that we are part of God’s family, as we are in many ways sharing in the sufferings of Christ that he endured when he paid for our sins. It means that this suffering, while difficult, is also temporary. Even if it’s something we’ll have to endure for the whole of our natural lives, at the end of our lives it will be gone. At that time, because of Jesus’ perfect life and his innocent death on the cross for us that paid for all of our sins, we will be with our God in heaven in perfection forever, just as he originally designed things to be at the beginning. 

Things will continue to get worse in this life, not better. We will endure suffering and hardship and difficulty as we and the world around us ages. But there will be a reversal to all of that at the Last Day. God will call us from this world of sin and bring us to be safe with him for eternity. Suffering in this life reminds us of these facts and points us to the far greater blessings that are coming. Should we really praise God for suffering? Yes. And God give us the strength to praise you for this. Amen.

"God's Mercy Forgives Our Selfish Ambition" (Sermon on Numbers 12:1-15) | September 19, 2021

Text: Numbers 12:1-15
Date: September 19, 2021
Event: The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Numbers 12:1-15 (EHV)

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman). 2They said, “Has the Lord really spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” The Lord heard this. 

3(Now the man Moses was very humble, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) 

4Right then the Lord spoke suddenly to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three come out to the Tent of Meeting!” 

The three of them came out. 5The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance to the tent. He called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. 6He said, “Now listen to my words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known to him in a vision. In a dream I will speak with him. 7Not so, however, with my servant Moses. He is faithful in my whole household. 8With him I speak face to face, clearly, and not in riddles. He sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?” 9The Lord’s anger burned against them, and he left. 

10The cloud went up from above the tent, and immediately Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. Aaron turned to Miriam and saw that she was leprous. 

11Aaron said to Moses, “My lord, please do not hold this sin against us. We have acted foolishly. We have sinned. 12Please do not let her be like a stillborn infant that comes out of its mother’s womb with its flesh half-eaten away.” 

13Moses cried out to the Lord, “God, please heal her, please!” 

14The Lord said to Moses, “If her father had merely spit in her face, would she not be disgraced for seven days? Have her confined outside of the camp for seven days, and after that she can be brought back in.” 

15Miriam was confined outside of the camp for seven days, and the people did not set out until Miriam was brought back in. 

God’s Mercy Forgives Our Selfish Ambition

About a week and a half ago I received a phone call as I was driving to go pick up the kids from school. I didn’t recognize the number, but decided to take it. The voice informed me that the company calling was Visa/Mastercard (it’s always a great sign when someone claims to work for a company that is actually two separate and competing companies). Anyway, the computer eventually transferred me to a real person. They supposedly wanted to offer me some sort of COVID-related debt relief. So the person on the phone said, “And what accounts do you have?” That seemed like an odd question. They supposedly worked for the credit card; wouldn’t they already know what accounts I had?

We went back and forth a little bit on whose responsibility it was to confirm who had what, and finally I asked, “Ok, tell me what information you need.” He responded, “Your credit card number.” I laughed right out loud. Not the last 4 digits, not a billing zip code something. The whole number. I asked, “How often does this work? How often do you get people falling for this scam?” To which he responded with some rather unkind words until I eventually hung up.

But this served as an interesting thought experiment. Why would someone do this? Well, they want to steal or at least manipulate people into giving them money. And, in this case, they were targeting people who were hurting, who were in dire financial straights, to take advantage of them.

Selfishness is a core tenant of the sinful nature. Even if we don’t appear, publicly, to be very selfish, there’s a part of each of us that wants to serve ourselves more than anyone else. Our joy, peace, and desires are often more important to us than anyone else’s, including God’s. Sin is really just an expression of that selfishness. God says don’t do something, but I want to do it, and I value what I want more than what God wants, so I do that thing.

In our First Lesson this morning, we see an example of this selfishness in Miriam and Aaron. They weren’t exactly scamming anyone, but they were not content with the arrangement God had setup to lead the people of Israel. Miriam and Aaron were Moses’ siblings, but Moses was the one that God called at the burning bush. While at times God would address the people through Aaron, the first high priest, he did the vast majority of his communication with the people through Moses. 

But jealousy and selfish ambition got the better of his siblings. After a bit of a racist tantrum thrown because of Moses’ wife, they come to the conclusion, “Has the Lord really spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” In other words, “We deserve what Moses has because we’re just as important. And we didn’t even marry a foreigner! We should be exalted, not him!” And while they might have been having a gripe session among the two of them and not blasting Moses publicly before the people, we’re told in striking brevity that someone else was party to their conversation. The Lord heard this.

God’s address to Miriam and Aaron is very similar to Jesus’ rebuke to his disciples arguing about who of them was the greatest in our Gospel this morning. “If anyone wants to be first, he will be the last of all and the servant of all.” Miriam and Aaron’s selfish ambition was based on jealousy. It's not fair that Moses gets to have that position. We want it! Or we at least want equal billing!” But that was not what God had done.

How often and subtly does jealously and selfishness creep into our lives? How often do we look at someone else’s life and say, “I wish that were mine,” or perhaps more to the point, “That should be mine”? Maybe it’s smaller things, like the person who has a new car or a commute with less traffic or easier time with that one troublesome subject in school. Maybe it’s the bigger things, wishing you had an entire life-swap with the other person. Either way, it’s malcontent with what God has given and coveting what others have. It might even lead us to do something sinful to try to get what we haven’t been given, like the scammer on the phone.

But it is also important to realize what we do and don’t mean here. God is not saying that it is wrong to want to better yourself. God is not saying that it’s wrong to want to improve your skills, your job, your knowledge base, to otherwise better your life. That wasn’t Miriam and Aaron’s problem. Their problem was that they cut down Moses, seeking to build themselves up. Their problem was that they spoke against what God had done and made crystal-clear that he had done it. 

God has given you abilities and vocations (like parent, child, spouse, single person, friend, employee, neighbor, citizen, etc.). Maybe those abilities and vocations don’t match exactly what you want. Maybe you’re seeking out better ways to use those abilities or new ways to reflect God’s love in your vocations. That is good. But grumbling against God or letting jealousy consume you is not the way to do it.

Instead, rejoice in what God has given. For places where you’re struggling or dissatisfied, pray for guidance. Talk with someone to help find a path that serves God rather than fighting against him. 

But perhaps this has triggered feelings of guilt in our hearts for recent or long-past actions or thoughts. And that’s likely because I doubt that anyone here has never coveted anything. I doubt that anyone here has never let selfishness take hold, at least for a little while. And that can lead us into a downward spiral. That’s not how we’re supposed to live and yet we did it or are doing it anyway. Now what? 

Look at how God deals with Miriam. It’s not clear why she suffers the skin condition and Aaron didn’t, but regardless, she is sent outside the camp. But she is not banished from the community. She is not shunned. She is not sent wandering into the wilderness by herself. No, she was outside the camp for seven days and then and after that she [could] be brought back in. There is chastisement for the selfish ambition, but God does not throw her or Aaron away. He does not forget about them. He specifically sets a time when she could be reinstated. 

We should pay attention to the last verse of our reading, too. The people did not set out until Miriam was brought back in. Now at first glance this perhaps sounds like a community rallying around their sister and making sure she was ok. That is until we realize that it wasn’t the people who made the call when they were to break camp; it was God. He decided when they moved. And he made sure that the whole community stayed put until after Miriam was brought back in.  

Is God going to treat you or me any differently? He does not seek to destroy us for bouts of selfishness; he offered himself to pay for them. Those selfish actions are gone because Jesus selflessly died on the cross to pay for them. Jesus’ self-sacrificing work for you frees you from your selfishness and the sin that comes from it. Jesus frees you from the punishment of hell that would have otherwise found you! The community doesn't move on; you and I are brought back into the fold. That was God’s mercy for Miriam, and it’s God’s mercy for us. We do not face the full punishment for our sins. That was God’s mercy for Aaron, and it’s God’s mercy for us. God’s mercy forgives our selfish ambition and all of our sins. Thanks be to God for that continual mercy! Amen.

"Jesus' Work Is Personal" (Sermon on Mark 7:31-37) | September 12, 2021

Text: Mark 7:31-37
Date: September 12, 2021
Event: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Mark 7:31–37 (EHV)

31Jesus left the region of Tyre again and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of the Decapolis. 

32They brought a man to him who was deaf and had a speech impediment. They pleaded with Jesus to place his hand on him. 33Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34After he looked up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”) 35Immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was set free, and he began to speak plainly. 36Jesus gave the people strict orders to tell no one, but the more he did so, the more they kept proclaiming it. 37They were amazed beyond measure and said, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!” 

Jesus’ Work Is Personal

The musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Miserables, follows the story of Jean Valjean, a man who was jailed for stealing bread to feed his starving sister and her son. As he looks back on his going to jail, Valjean observes, “If there's another way to go / I missed it twenty long years ago / My life was a war that could never be won / They gave me a number and murdered Valjean / When they chained me and left me for dead / Just for stealing a mouthful of bread.”

That notion of giving him a number and thus killing him follows throughout the story. Whenever the police inspector, Javert, interacts with Valjean, he rarely refers to Valjean by name. Instead, Javert prefers to use Valjean’s prison number, “24601.” It was purposefully dehumanizing. Valjean was not a person in Javert’s mind; he’s a criminal. He treats him like someone might treat a beast of burden or some kind of commodity. 

Does it ever feel like that’s your relationship with God? Does he seem so distant, so far away that you feel like you are, at best, a mere number to him rather than a person? In our Gospel for this morning, we see Jesus operate in a slow, deliberate, and personal way that he didn’t have to. He took time with the deaf and mostly-mute man to interact with him, show his love for him, and heal him. Jesus’ work is always personal. He cares for you and me in the same way that he met this man’s needs, with work custom-tailored to who we are and what we need.

Our Gospel takes place after our run of Gospel readings from John chapter 6 where, after the feeding of the 5,000, many of the crowds stopped following Jesus because he wouldn’t do what they wanted him to do. He wouldn’t be their bread king to provide for any and every earthly need they had because he wanted to provide something greater and more important. He wanted to provide eternal life.

So Jesus journeyed around the greater area, still teaching and preaching, but probably to much less fanfare than he had done. He is traveling through the region of the Decapolis, the ten cities. This area was primarily populated with Gentiles, not Jewish people, as they were outside of Galilee proper. But that didn’t stop Jesus from caring about and loving these people so he proclaimed the good news he had to share there as well.

At a certain place, Jesus met a group of people who brought a man suffering from deafness and speech problems. They clearly cared very much for this man and wanted him to find relief from these ailments. If there was any difficulty for the man to reach Jesus or even know about his presence in the area, we can assume these friends took care of everything for him. We might think of the friends who lowered the paralytic man through a hole they made in the roof of the house where Jesus was earlier in his ministry.

From the summary of the conversation that Mark provides and Jesus’ actions, we can assume that while these people were bringing the man to Jesus to do something to help him, they’re weren’t only interested in this physical healing. They trusted Jesus to be able to provide for his physical well-being, yes, but also much more. Note the personal way they deal with Jesus on behalf of the man. They pleaded with Jesus. This was no half-hearted request. Their faith in Jesus and their love for this man combined to seek out this healing for him.

And how does Jesus treat him? How did he need to treat him? He could have dismissed them because he had other things to do. He could’ve just healed the man without a word, or with a word, or with a hand placed on him (as they asked for). We’ve seen Jesus do healing in all of those ways before. But Jesus here does something different, something unique: Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. After he looked up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”).

Why does Jesus do this? Why the show? Or actually better, why the lack of a show? Why depart from the crowds and do this healing just he and the man? Why do more than place his hands on him? Because Jesus wanted this healing, this miracle, this moment to be intensely personal. Think of the man’s difficulties. He couldn’t hear, so Jesus engages his other senses to focus the man on him. Jesus pulls him aside so that his vision is focused on Jesus and not distracted by the commotion of the crowd. He places his fingers in his ears, the part that wasn’t working, but certainly still had feeling. He made it clear to the man what he was doing even if the man couldn’t hear what he was saying. And then by spitting he visually get his own mouth in this healing work and by touching the man’s impeded tongue, set it free.

Jesus had a lot he wanted to do for this man and did in the best possible way to intimately communicate with him that Jesus, like the man’s friends, loved him. And look at the result of this healing! We’ve seen Jesus heal people who were paralyzed who left the healing not just barely able to shuffle along but actually run and jump moments after Jesus’ work. In a similar way, a man who was deaf (perhaps from birth) and who had great difficulty speaking (perhaps related to his deafness, which also might have been a life-long hardship) is left being able “to speak plainly.” Jesus took him not just to the point of an infant with newly-working ears and tongue where he would have to learn how to speak and receive audio input. No, he leaves Jesus’ healing as if there was never anything wrong. This is a complete healing that entirely undid the problem. And those around are left stunned: “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”

Maybe you have some problems in your life that you wish Jesus would work this kind of miracle to solve. Jesus certainly didn’t heal every single person with an ailment during his earthly ministry, but he had reasons for that at times. God hasn’t promised to banish every bad thing from your life, but he has promised to work everything out for your eternal good.

But, Jesus’ greater good that he wants for us looms large here. Jesus doesn’t treat us like this man in every problem, but he does treat us like this man in our most dire problem. Think of what he did. First of all, for anything to happen for this deaf man, Jesus had to care about him, have compassion for him. While it’s not called out specifically in this text, we know that this is always true for Jesus’ attitude.

Jesus also looked with compassion on you in your need of sin. You and I were doomed to hell for our rebellion against God, and Jesus loved us enough to take on our human nature and live and die in our place. His compassion spurred him on to do what needed to be done.

Jesus also gives you and me the personal attention that he gave this man. Perhaps not in the exactly same way (who of us wouldn’t love to have even five minutes alone to speak with Jesus?!), but you can be assured that you, as an individual, was on his mind and heart as he journeyed to the cross and suffered and died. Because while, yes, Jesus paid for the sins of the whole world, that means that he paid for your sins and my sins. We were there with him. And even now, while he doesn’t stick his fingers in our ears and touch our tongue, he still gives himself to us in a very personal, intimate way. We will hear in just a few minutes, “Take and eat, this is my body… Take and drink, this is my blood…” In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus is essentially doing for you what he did for that man. Your need for forgiveness is personally and intimately given to you by Jesus, for there in his body and blood with the bread and wine you receive the forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life.

But Jesus here, too, is going above and beyond. He doesn’t leave us just a blank slate. He doesn’t leave us like a grown man having to learn how to speak. He doesn’t leave us devoid of sin but then at neutral. Jesus not only removes our sin but actually credits his perfect life to us. When God looks at you and he looks at me, all he sees is Jesus’ perfection. Our life of rebellion was taken a way and a life of perfect obedience was given in its place. There’s nothing left for us to do or create. Jesus has done it all for us!

My sisters and brothers, go from this place today in joy knowing that you have a very personal God. He doesn’t treat us like an object or a number. He meets us individually, and treats our individual needs with his mercy and grace. Your God loves you—the singular you. He loves you as an individual, as a unique person. He created you, he redeemed you, and he is overjoyed to call you his child. Rest easy in Jesus’ personal work done for you! Amen.

"Jesus Is Difficult" (Sermon on John 6:60-69) | August 29, 2021

Text: John 6:60-69
Date: August 29, 2021
Event: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

John 6:60–69 (EHV)

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 Is Difficult

Is the easy path or the difficult better? That’s really impossible to make a blanket statement on, right? Those of you who know me well might know that one the past times I enjoy is video games. There’s a continual conversation around video games about whether you should be playing them on an “easy” mode or a “very difficult” mode. Easy sometimes is dismissed as avoiding a challenge, while people that use an easy mode want to relax with a game not be frustrated by it. It really depends on who you are and what you’re looking for from that past time—a challenge or a diversion.

Sometimes the difficult way for anything in life seems foolish outside of maybe seeking out a sense of accomplishment. Why walk to visit someone in Reno, NV when you could drive or take other transportation? Why make your own paper out of the dead tree in your yard when you could buy a pack at the store? Something being difficult doesn’t necessarily make it the better or wiser choice.

But sometimes, it is. Sometimes taking the easy road is just avoiding the difficult necessities. If you’ve ever devolved a conversation into small talk when you really needed to discuss something difficult with someone else, you’ve felt this. If you’ve known you needed to go to the doctor to get something checked out and you’ve avoided it because you didn’t want to know the truth of what was going on, you’ve felt this. If you’ve tried to lose weight or just clean up your diet, but the chips or the fast food were just right there, you’ve felt this.

We talked last week about how Jesus is necessary for us. We cannot remove our sin. We cannot set things right with God. We need Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to accomplish and prove that our sins are forgiven. He has to be the one to fix the mess of our sin and solve the problem of hell. Jesus made it clear to the people that they needed him. They needed the spiritual blessings he alone provides. Jesus had said in our Gospel last week, a few verses before this week’s Gospel: “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…. 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.” (John 6:51, 53).

Jesus wasn’t couching this in easy to understand terms, but he was making the people face a difficult problem. They wanted Jesus to be an easy Savior, one who would save them from hunger, a bread king who would keep them full and satisfied in this life. But that was not why Jesus came. He came to do something more, to do something far better. He came to give eternal life. He came to give his life for the sins of the world. He came to rescue all people from hell. 

But that’s difficult to hear, right? It’s difficult for a couple of reasons. First of all, it means that Jesus isn’t as concerned about our immediate-term desires as our eternal-term needs. And for us who so often have blinders on and can only think about the here-and-now, that is not what we want. It would be easier if Jesus was just making every bad thing in our life good, changing every trouble into joy, and making it so we didn’t have a care in the world. But that’s not what Jesus promises, is it? He promises to work good from bad, but he doesn’t promise an absence of bad. In fact, he promises just the opposite. He says life in this sinful world is going to be difficult. But, while we struggle here, we should pick up those difficulties, those crosses, and follow him.

Jesus’ insistence on something bigger and greater than tending to earthly needs is difficult for another reason: it forces us to acknowledge things about ourselves that we don’t want to acknowledge. None of us likes to admit that we have spiritual needs. I don’t want to think about the fact that I’ve sinned against God. I don’t want to think about the fact that the wrong things I’ve done and the good things I’ve left undone have earned me hell for eternity. But the necessity of Jesus’ work for me doesn’t let me avoid that. Following Jesus means facing head-on that I’ve ruined everything with my sin and am hopeless and powerless on my own. 

So, Jesus is difficult. Being around him and associated with him means this is not the easy path. So how do we treat that difficulty then? Are we avoiding it or embracing it? 

In our Gospel this morning, we have two different approaches to this difficulty. When they heard it, many of his disciples [that is, those following Jesus but not part of the twelve] said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?” … After this, many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore. That’s one approach, right? We just leave Jesus behind and say, “I’m taking the easy road. This isn’t worth the trouble.” We can abandon Jesus altogether or leave him at the periphery of our lives without taking him seriously. We can become Christians in name only, in a family or social sense. Or, we could stop pretending and just abandon the Christian faith altogether. Either way, it probably makes things easier now, right? If we don’t have to think about sin and hell, if we don’t have to come to grips with our own failures to live up to God’s standards, if we can just focus on what we want to do and when and how we want to do it, that makes things easier, at least in the short term.

But what does it do for the long-term, the eternal-term? If we just abandon Jesus wholesale or don’t really care what he says about sin, death, and hell and our spiritual needs, we find ourselves trading eternal security for temporary ease, and that’s not a good trade at all. Jesus said clearly to those mulling over deserting him, “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.” In other words, “You might not like it, but you need what I am giving you. It may not be easy, but it’s absolutely necessary for your eternal security. The things of this life pass away and end up being meaningless. What I do for you and give to you lasts forever.” 

So the crowd’s reaction en masse was not really commendable. What’s the other option? We see it in Peter, being a spokesman for the twelve. When Jesus asked them, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Peter’s response is clear and to the point, “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.”

Peter and the rest of that core of disciples had made the choice to go with the more difficult path, to stick with Jesus no matter what the crowds were doing. Now, we know they were not perfect. As John makes clear in our reading here, among the twelve was Judas who would betray Jesus. We know Peter himself failed spectacularly in a time of trial and difficulty when he denied even knowing Jesus while Jesus was on trial before the Jewish leaders.

What does that tell us? Following Jesus is difficult. It’s a struggle. You and I? We will fail to do it at times. But that failure doesn’t mean it’s not worth it nor that we’ve ruined anything. Because Jesus solves even that failure in what he provides. When we’ve been tempted to and have followed and easier path rather than following Jesus, Jesus forgives that. When we’ve stumbled in our dedication to Jesus and not lived our lives the way that we should to thank him for what he’s done for us, Jesus forgives that. When we’ve let sin or anything else become more important to us than what God does for us in Jesus’ life and death in our place, Jesus forgives that. Difficult as it is to follow Jesus, his forgiveness restores us at every single misstep and failure. Following Jesus is difficult, but it is not something we do alone.

So, my brothers and sisters, knowing how difficult it is to walk this path, be rocks and encouragements for each other. Is there a church member you’ve not seen since the pandemic started either because they have stayed away or you have? Call them! Email them! Be a support to them because you know how difficult this path is and how easy it is to give up on it in the best of times. And our current circumstance perhaps make it even more likely that we will move on from Jesus and seek out something different and easier.

Continue to encourage one another as we walk this path together, because there really is no where else for us to go. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. May those words that speak of his work in our place be our prime focus and delight now and forever. Amen.

"Jesus Is Necessary" (Sermon on John 5:51-58) | August 22, 2021

Text: John 6:51-58
Date: August 22, 2021
Event: The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

John 6:51-58 (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.”

Jesus Is Necessary

Do you know a person who just doesn’t seem to abide by recommended car maintenance? Maybe they run tires until they’re bald or they rarely if ever change their oil. Or maybe they neglect some personal hygiene that is very noticeable. Or they avoid eating some category of food that we would consider necessary for a healthy life. In a lot of cases, not doing these necessary things is probably not done willfully but ignorantly. “Oh, I didn’t know…” “Oh, no one ever told me…” “Oh, we never did it that way growing up…” 

Sometimes we need help learning and knowing what is necessary. Maybe you take someone under your wing to help them with car maintenance or to clean up their diet; maybe someone has done the same for you. But we all at times need to be told what is important, what is necessary.

And that is what Jesus is doing in our Gospel for this morning. We’ve had a long run of readings from John chapter 6. It began with the feeding of the 5,000. Despite weariness on the part of Jesus and the disciples, Jesus took the time to minister to the needs of this large crowd, teaching them the important things of God’s kingdom. He focused them on the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. 

Then Jesus and his disciples left and went to find quiet elsewhere. But still the crowds followed. And so Jesus began to teach them again. But this time, as we’ve heard, he had a bit of an edge to his teaching. He had rebuked the people in our previous lessons that they weren’t seeking him out for the right reasons. They weren’t coming to him because of his teaching, or even because the miracles he did pointed to his authority as God. No, they were coming to him just to have their tummies filled with the free miracle bread that he provided. 

The crowd had tried to bait him, comparing Jesus to Moses and pointing to the fact that under Moses’ leadership centuries before the Israelites had eaten the miracle bread, manna, from heaven. Jesus pointed out that the manna hadn’t come from Moses; it came from God. God had provided for their ancestors, giving them what they needed to survive. But manna in the belly was only a minor need compared to the real need they all had. God had sent Jesus to provide for that real need, the need of a Savior.

And this is Jesus’ point. He wants to lift the crowd’s eyes from the mundane to the eternal. “Why are you worrying about what will perish?” Jesus is asking. “Be focused on what endures. 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.”

Before we dig into what Jesus says here more deeply, let’s take just a moment to clarify one thing. In the Lord’s Supper we truly receive Jesus’ body and blood along with the bread and wine. Jesus was clear and direct when he gave that to his disciples the night before he was crucified. However, when Jesus speaks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood here, he is not talking about the Lord’s Supper. At the time Jesus spoke these words, we’re still about a year away from Jesus’ death. Jesus gave that supper to his disciples who trusted him; he did not give it to the largely misguided crowds. So while you and I may think of the blessings God gives through the Lord’s Supper in what Jesus says here, that is not directly what Jesus is speaking about, despite the similarity in language between what Jesus says to the crowd here and the sacrament. 

So, Jesus has declared himself the bread of life. He said he would give his flesh for the life of the world. But the crowds are not getting that Jesus isn’t talking about a meal they could have right then and there and never be hungry again. The parable, as it often did, went right over their heads because they weren’t thinking spiritual, eternal thoughts. They could only focus on the temporal, physical things. Thus their question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They are talking past each other, or Jesus is not really doing what they want so the crowds are getting a little irritated and obstinate. 

So Jesus gives it one last go. “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.” See, the crowd has a problem. Their problem was not just an ignorance of or obstinance to what Jesus is talking about. The main problem they had was sin. Sin robbed them of life with God. Sin meant eternal death in hell. Without a solution, without the solution, they did not have life inside of them. 

Jesus is trying to use their earthly focus to explain their spiritual needs. Why do you eat food at all? For the most basic reasons, you eat so that you don’t die, right? Eating food solves the problem of hunger that eventually leads to death. Jesus applies that paradigm to himself. Why should you eat the Bread of Life? Because eating this food solves the problem of sin that eventually leads to eternal death. 

When Jesus speaks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, it’s a dramatic way to talk about believing in him, trusting in him as the solution to sin and the certainty of eternal life. The crowd was chasing after another free lunch. Jesus’ response is something along the lines of, “You are chasing after things that do not last. Do you want to eat and drink something that actually matters? Eat and drink me. You need me and what I will do for you spiritually, not just the miracle food I can distribute on the hillside. Prioritize me to take away your sin rather than bread that can temporarily stave off hunger.” 

The eating parable here shows how involved Jesus should be in our lives. He is something to be loved and cherished, something made an integral part of us. Jesus is to be that favorite meal that we cannot wait to eat, cannot wait to make a part of our lives, not that one speciality spice we bought for that one recipe that we didn’t really like and will just sit in the cabinet unused. 

But, the more we think about it, the more we can see ourselves in the crowd’s treatment of Jesus, can’t we? Maybe we’re in church regularly. Maybe our devotional life seems healthy and our prayer life even more so. But then, what happens when there’s a little bit of friction? When we have troubles is our first thought, “God will work this for good. He will do what is right”? Or is it stress, anxiety, worry, hopelessness, almost totally forgetting that God exists at all let alone is by our side in hardship and heartache? And when things get busy and frantic in our lives, is our previously healthy life in God’s Word cut short or does it even go missing altogether? 

How many people throughout history have gotten busy or worried with earthly matters and because of that just punted their eternal security? How many people have given up the Bread of Life for temporal bread that in the moment seemed really important but turned out to be nothing? Jesus brings the crowd back to the manna in the wilderness. That miracle food, amazing as it was and important as it was to sustain the Israelites, did not last forever. “[I am] the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died.” Likewise, the lunch that Jesus provided the day before had long since run its course. But Jesus is offering something different, something better, something that lasts, something that is enterally necessary.

The result of worry and stress and misguided focus in this life is the same as anything else: physical death. We can’t change that. It won’t be any different unless Jesus returns before we die. But, what happens after death can be changed, but not by us. We need Jesus. Jesus is necessary. For our forgiveness and eternal life, it was necessary for the Father to send his Son, Jesus. For our forgiveness and eternal life, it was necessary that Jesus live the perfect life we could never live in our place, and then apply his perfect life to us so that we are seen as having done all the good things that Jesus did. For our forgiveness and eternal life, it was necessary that someone pay the debt of hell we owed in our sin, and that someone was Jesus when he died on the cross. For us to live eternally, Jesus is necessary. His work for us is our connection to the living Father. His work in our place is our certainty of eternal life. 

So we have our priorities, right? We need to be focused on Jesus to the point that he is our food and drink, even the air we breathe. In the end, nothing else matters in the same way because nothing else will solve our sin and give us a perfect life forever. But Jesus does and has. So keep your focus on him, his work, his Word, his promises, because in him you have the solution to every eternal problem. In him you have the forgiveness from every sin and rescue from hell. In him, you have the Bread of Life. In him you have what is necessary for now and for eternity. The one who eats this bread will live forever. Amen.

"Enjoy the Full Meal!" (Sermon on Hebrews 5:11-6:3) | August 15, 2021

Text: Hebrews 5:11-6:3
Date: August 15, 2021
Event: The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Hebrews 5:11–6:3 (EHV)

11We have much to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, because you have become too lazy to listen. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the beginning principles of God’s word all over again. You have become people who need milk, not solid food. 13For everyone who lives on milk is not acquainted with the word of righteousness, because he is still an infant. 14But solid food is for mature people, who have their senses trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil. 

6:1Therefore, leaving the beginning discussion of Christ, let us press on toward matters that require greater maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith in God, 2of the teaching about baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3And we will do this, if God permits. 

Enjoy the Full Meal!

Remember when buffets were a thing? Maybe they will be again sometime soon, but I’m assuming not much at the moment during COVID. But, what’s the advantage of a buffet? You can get what you want and you don’t have to take anything else. And that’s great for families where the kids only want chicken fingers and the adults are avoiding certain foods for health reasons. A buffet might make it easier to pick and choose the desired or necessary foods than trying to work with the staff on tweaking a meal already laid out on a menu.

But, you have to be careful at a buffet, right? Maybe the Mac and cheese at a certain place is really tasty, but if you only ate Mac and cheese (especially depending on the quantity), you might not be feeling great after the fact. Even if things are not our favorites, we recognize that we need a variety of foods to keep us going and to keep us healthy. Mac and cheese does not carry the same nutritional value as broccoli.

This morning, the writer to the Hebrews encourages us to see God’s Word as a feast laid out before us. But he wants us to see it less like a buffet and more like a carefully planned meal where we do well to enjoy the full meal, to continue to grow in what God has said and done, even if there are difficult things or items that are distasteful to our palettes in that meal.

We don’t know exactly who wrote the letter to the Hebrews. The author never puts his name anywhere in the letter. There are a lot of theories. We can say probably not the apostle Paul. Luther thought it might be Apollos, a very learned man who came to know Jesus in the book of Acts, and that’s a very real possibility. What we know about the author is that he was someone very educated (as he writes in a very high style) and someone very, very familiar with Jewish worship practices.

We can say with more confidence to whom the letter is written. It was written primarily to Jewish Christians, those who had grown up in the Jewish faith and had been brought to see that everything promised in Judaism is fulfilled in Jesus. But things were suddenly difficult. This letter was written around the same time at Peter’s letters that we’re studying in Sunday morning Bible class. At this time, Nero is emperor in Rome and a tremendous persecution of Christians has broken out across the Roman Empire. People are losing their lives because they are Christians. Christianity is an illegal religion across the empire.

So, for these formally Jewish believers, what would be the easy (and some might say obvious) way out of this trouble? Revert back to the Judaism! It’s certainly not problem- or hardship-free, but at least it would be a legal religion and would be avoid the harshest of these problems. But it would be giving up the eternal to make the temporary more pleasant. 

And so the majority of this letter is the writer proving to his readers the superiority of Jesus to anything they could revert back to. No temporary peace was worth giving up eternity for because nothing else would ever provide the full and free forgiveness that God promised other than Jesus. 

So, in our snippet from Hebrews we’re looking at this morning, he’s urging the people on toward maturity in the faith. Don’t abandon it; go the other way! Embrace it all the more. But it wasn’t just fear or worry that turned the people away from growth. It was laziness. It was apathy. It was not being able to see the importance of anything beyond the basement-basics of the Christian faith. We have much to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, because you have become too lazy to listen. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the beginning principles of God’s word all over again. You have become people who need milk, not solid food.  

This really describes the crowd’s reaction to Jesus in our recent readings from John chapter 6, doesn’t it? They had gotten their free miracle food and they wanted more. They didn’t really care all that much that Jesus could give them miracle food because he was God. They didn’t care too much that he was God because he came for a purpose. They didn’t seem too concerned with Jesus being the promised Messiah. They were infants in the faith if they were believers at all; they could only focus on what Jesus could give them in the here and now and cared little for Jesus’ true purpose. 

Is it possible that the writer to the Hebrews is writing to us as well? Are we chasing after every opportunity to grow in our faith? Or are we content to let things stagnate? Do we avoid the difficult sections of Scripture and just try to stick to the easy and the familiar? Are we sticking to the milk of God’s Word and thus being infants in the faith, or are we seeking after growth and maturation? 

I think in different ways and for different reasons, many of us shy away from real maturation in the Christian faith. But does it matter? Why chase after maturity? Look again at the “basic” teachings that the writer lists: repentance from dead works, of faith in God, of the teaching about baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. Isn’t that list sufficient for salvation? Doesn’t that list of teachings underscore that Jesus is the solution to sins, the source of resurrection, and certainty in eternal judgment. Isn’t that enough? 

Certainly. We know that what is necessary for salvation is faith in Jesus as Savior. But do we want to leave it at that? If you’re learning to swim for survival, are you satisfied with being able to hold your breath under water for 10 seconds, or do you strive for more? If you’re lifting weights to get stronger, do you stop when you can lift the bare minimum or do you go for more? When you’re learning to cook in a healthier way, do you stop at one recipe learned or do you strive for more? 

There are so many cases where we see value in more than the bare minimum. And this takes us back to our sermon from last week. We said our life is one of continual battle and struggle, between the sinful nature which hates God and loves sin and the new self which hates sin and loves God. We want that new self, that faith, to be stronger so that it can better fight that sinful nature. While it will never be perfect on this side of eternity, the goal is to let the new self win more battles over the sinful nature as we seek to live our lives—our best lives—to thank God for his forgiveness and the free gift of eternal life.

And how do we strengthen that faith? We put ourselves in the position for God to strengthen it for us, for the Holy Spirit to work on our hearts. The Holy Spirit uses God’s Word and the sacraments to create and strengthen faith. So if we want to grow toward maturity, we need to be in the Word!

And that means the whole Word, even the tough stuff. Because, again, the Word is not a buffet for us to pick and choose. It is a meal of solid and balanced food (along with that basic milk) that when used together, makes us stronger. Don’t shy away from it, but embrace it as of temporal and especially eternal importance!

We’re going to have opportunities for us and for our families to grow in the faith in the coming weeks. As get into fall, new Bible Classes and Bible study opportunities will come up. Like Sunday School for the children and Bible Class for the older members, or like Catechism for our kids or Catechism as a review for the adults, or like midweek Bible classes where we gather together online or in-person to study and dig and grow.

I want to put a challenge out to all of you here: try to add one thing to your spiritual growth in the coming weeks. Maybe it’ll be picking up a book related to the Christian faith and reading through it. Maybe it’ll be finally making use of those Meditations booklets that are always in your mailbox each quarter. Maybe it’ll be getting to a Bible class that you don’t normally attend. Maybe it’ll simply be asking a Christian friend or your pastor that one nagging question that’s been weighing on you for a long time that you’ve never been able to get a satisfactory, biblical answer for.

Whatever the avenue you take is, let’s make this time between now and the end of this year focused on growth in the Word, growth in faith, and to enjoy the living that God produces by it. God has given us a tremendous meal in his Word that endures to eternity. Let’s enjoy the whole thing, together! Amen.

"Live Your Best Life" (Sermon on Ephesians 4:17-24) | August 8, 2021

Text: Ephesians 4:17–24
Date: August 8, 2021
Event: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Ephesians 4:17–24 (EHV)

So I tell you this and testify to it in the Lord: Do not walk any longer as the Gentiles walk, in their futile way of thinking. 18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of their hearts. 19Because they have no sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality, with an ever-increasing desire to practice every kind of impurity. 

20But you did not learn Christ in that way, 21if indeed you have heard of him and were taught in him (since the truth is in Jesus). 22As far as your former way of life is concerned, you were taught to take off the old self, which is corrupted by its deceitful desires, 23and to be renewed continually in the spirit of your mind, 24and to put on the new self, which has been created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. 

Live Your Best Life

What does your best life look like? That’s going to be wildly different for every person. For some, it’s going to be relaxing on a beach with a cold drink and good book. For some it’s enjoying time with family and friends. For some it’s being in the midst of a fast-paced work environment where you’re constantly challenged. For others it’s sitting down for that movie marathon or a new, anticipated video game. Whether we find our most energy from being alone or together, from our work or family or hobbies, we all have ideal activities that we’d do regularly if possible.

That’s from our perspective. Does your best life look different from God’s perspective? Maybe not entirely. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the things we just listed. It’s not like it’s a sin to relax on a beach or to dig into work. But in our lesson today from Ephesians, God gives us a little bit of guidance. Our best life is a life lived to his glory, motivated by the love he has shown to us in Jesus.

Earlier in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul had encouraged his readers to embrace their differences and work together in the unity that the Holy Spirit provides. He reminded us in our Second Lesson last week that Jesus is the one who gave us his called workers to teach and encourage us in the Word. And Paul says that Jesus does this “for the purpose of training the saints for the work of serving, in order to build up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). 

But what exactly does that look like? Paul goes on in our lesson to describe this life lived as members of the body of Christ. But to do so he has to start with some history that would be painful for the Ephesians and that might be painful for us well as what he says is as true today as it was in Paul’s day. He says, “Do not walk any longer as the Gentiles walk, in their futile way of thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of their hearts. Because they have no sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality, with an ever-increasing desire to practice every kind of impurity.” 

The term “Gentile” refers to anyone who is not Jewish. People who were Gentiles in Paul’s day likely did not grow up knowing God’s inspired Word or his clearly stated moral law. As such, life among the Gentiles was usually embracing some kind of sin, especially indulging the hedonistic or pleasure-centered sins. If it felt good and made you happy, go ahead and do it. This was not universally true of all Gentiles, but was very common in the Greek and Roman world. And this was likely the way that many of Paul’s readers would have lived prior to being brought to faith in Jesus.

Does that sound familiar? Doesn’t that sound like the world we live in? In our day, we might substitute the word “unbeliever” for the word “Gentile.” How many unbelievers do you know who chase after whatever brings pleasure (or at least promises to bring pleasure), with little regard for the side effects or the negative impact it has on those around them? How often do you see unbelievers have no shame in their sin but rejoice in it, boast about it, and even center their life around it?

It’s not uncommon to know this. This is reality for any Christian living in this world surrounded by those who do not know their Savior. Perhaps the area of the country we live in might make some of this especially easily to see as sin around us is often public and unashamed. But we would be lying if we let this just be an unbeliever thing and not an us thing, right? We are not immune from this way of thinking or this way of life. This morning, let’s focus less on them and more on us, because Paul is talking not to the unbelieving world but to Christians. 

Maybe it’s not an overtly public thing, but sin has more influence on us than we’d like to admit. How often do we let the little Pharisee in our hearts belittle others and raise ourselves up along the way? How often does your sinful anger take hold and you lose your cool with a family member or coworker? How often do we let stress and pressure control how we speak to or around other people? How often do you just stop being mindful of sin and just let it be part of your day-to-day life? 

It doesn’t take a whole lot of soul searching to know that Paul really has us in the crosshairs, right? Certainty his words apply to plenty of other people, but remember that Paul is not talking to other people, he’s talking to Christians. He’s talking to you and to me. Should we embrace sin like someone who doesn’t know the gospel? Should we live our lives as indistinguishable from the people in the world around us who have no connection to Christ? Absolutely not! 

And that’s Paul’s point: But you did not learn Christ in that way, if indeed you have heard of him and were taught in him (since the truth is in Jesus). You do not know Jesus as one who endorses or allows sin, because he doesn’t. You know the truth. You know that God hates sin and punishes it in hell. Sin is never a “pet,” it’s never cute or harmless. Sin is always dangerous because sin always negatively affects your relationship with God. Sin is always an attack on your Creator.

But you have learned about Christ. You know what Jesus did and why he did it. He came to this world because we were those who embraced sin without shame, because we were people who would proudly march straight into hell because we wanted to do what we wanted to do. And Jesus could not have us endure that punishment that we had brought on ourselves. So Jesus intervened and took the judgement our sins deserved on himself. He rescued us from our sins because he loved us and because that’s what he promised to do.

So you are free from sin! You are free from the power of the devil! You are free from eternal death in hell! Your freedom is not some ideological concept but reality given to you by Jesus’ life and death and then proven by his resurrection. There is nothing left to pay or do; heaven is yours!

However, until God brings us to that heavenly home, we have a battle we face every moment of every day. We were born with sinful natures that we inherited from our parents. The sinful nature is the part of us that hates God and loves sin, embracing it without shame. But when God brought us to faith in Jesus, when we learned about the truth of Jesus’ work for us, God gave us something new. We have a new man or new self inside of us now, our faith which expresses itself in gratitude to God. We were created in God’s image in the beginning but lost that image of God, that harmony with God, in our sin. But the new self is the beginning of the restoration of that image of God within us. The new self directly combats the sinful nature. While the sinful nature only wants to sin, the new self only wants to do what is right to thank God for what he’s done for us.

Oh how we long to let the new self reign supreme and to have the sinful nature done away with forever! We long for that because we know that living as the new self wants to live—thanking God with a life filled with good works—is truly living our best life! But living that best life will always be a struggle until God brings us to himself. That’s why Paul gives the encouragement that we continue to strip off the sinful nature and give reign to the new self: As far as your former way of life is concerned, you were taught to take off the old self, which is corrupted by its deceitful desires, and to be renewed continually in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new self, which has been created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. The new self is strengthened by contact with God’s Word and the sacraments. In our battle over sin in our lives, there is no better weapon, no better source of strength, than God’s inspired promises and fulfillments.

But this also gives us insight into the people around us. We said earlier that we want to focus on us and not on them, but how do Paul’s reminders help us as we navigate in this corrupted world and share Jesus with those around us? What should we expect of our unbelieving neighbors, friends, family, coworkers, even strangers around us? Should we expect that they live lives that look like what God expects? Hardly! Their ignorance over who God is and what he’s done means that they have little to no motivation to live “good” lives. Now, often those who do not believe will try their best, they will attempt to be good citizens and neighbors, but if they do not believe the truth of God’s rescue in Jesus, that outward “goodness” is only surface-level.

But our goal is not that people just do the right thing; our goal is that people know their Savior. We want people to trust that their sins are forgiven in Jesus, not just that their life look like they believe that. The change we are wanting to effect in the world is not so shallow as to only want to change externals; we want the heart to change. So we understand when people don’t behave like they should, and we are not satisfied if people are simply doing the “right things” for the wrong reasons. They, too, need to “learn Christ… the truth… in Jesus.” Learning of Jesus naturally produces the best life, a life of good works to thank God.

So we live our lives as God’s ambassadors, putting on that new self in thankful joy to God at all times, but especially when we are surrounded by those who do not believe in their Savior. Putting on the new self is not only about our gratitude to God, it’s about sharing the good news of salvation with the world. And so you, my brothers and sisters, strive for all empathy, all patience, all gentleness, all encouragement, as you seek to build up your fellow believers who join you in this difficult journey through this life. But all of that empathy, patience, gentleness, and encouragement should also be at the forefront of your dealing with those who do not yet know their Savior. You have the message they need, the gift provided to them free of all charge without any strings by their heavenly Father. Pursue the ways you might point to him and share him by your words, actions, and attitudes.

In the end, do not give your sinful nature run of your life. Do not let it control you. You do not belong to sin; you belong to your Savior who bought you with his own blood. Rejoice at that! Embrace that! Live your best life now because you know the infinitely better life is coming! Amen.

"Your Needs Are Jesus' Priority" (Sermon on John 6:1-15) | August 1, 2021

Text: John 6:1-15
Date: August 1, 2021
Event: The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

John 6:1–15 (EHV)

After this, Jesus crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias). 2A large crowd followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he was performing on those who were sick. 3Jesus went up on the hillside and sat down there with his disciples. 4The Jewish Passover Festival was near. 

5When Jesus looked up and saw a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, “Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6But Jesus was saying this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 

7Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to have just a little.” 

8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9“There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what is that for so many people?” 

10Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, so they sat down. There were about five thousand men. 

11Then Jesus took the loaves and, after giving thanks, he distributed pieces to those who were seated. He also did the same with the fish—as much as they wanted. 

12When the people were full, he told his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over so that nothing is wasted.” 13So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with pieces from the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 

14When the people saw the miraculous sign Jesus did, they said, “This really is the Prophet who is coming into the world.” 

15When Jesus realized that they intended to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. 

Your Needs Are Jesus’ Priority

How are you doing keeping up on different priorities in life? That is a balancing act that is difficult to do in the best of times, let alone the upheaval that many of families are currently facing. Right now family concerns take center stage, then work, then extended family, then church, then neighbors, then a minute to relax, except no because something else popped up. It’s exhausting and it can feel like we’re barely keeping things together, especially when there are many problems that don’t seem to have actual solutions.

This is why we’re here for each other, though, right? As brothers and sisters in Christ, we can help each other shoulder burdens, we can help meet immediate or long term needs, and we can bring the needs of others to God’s throne in prayer.

And we know what our priorities should be, right? We have a lot of day-to-day things to tend to, but we know (and have heard from this pulpit repeatedly) that Jesus should be our priority, that his Word should be our focus, and we should be continually looking ahead to eternal life. That’s where our priorities should be. 

But what about God? Where are his priorities? What is he focused on? What does he care about? What concerns him? This morning in our Gospel from John chapter 6, we get a bit of a window into God’s priorities. As Jesus works with the crowd we’ll see that, broadly speaking, our needs are Jesus’ priority. 

This familiar account of the feeding of the 5,000 takes place just after our Gospel for last week. Though we’ve jumped from Mark’s Gospel to John’s, the timeline lines up. Jesus had sent his disciples out two-by-two to preach and heal in the surrounding towns and villages. After they were done, they returned with great joy to report to Jesus everything that had happened while they were working. 

But even as they were trying to organize their thoughts and process what had happened, the needs and demands of the crowd were great. So, last week we saw Jesus pull the disciples away from the crowds for some needed time to refocus and recalibrate; they needed time away from work for themselves. So they did that. But, when they got to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the crowds were waiting for them. We heard in Mark’s gospel last week that Jesus’ heart went out to the crowd because they were directionless and full of needs, like sheep without a shepherd. 

And so that’s where our account in John’s Gospel picks up. In their temporary vacation from work, the work came to them. A large crowd followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he was performing on those who were sick. They came to find Jesus’ healing miracles for the sick and the crippled; Jesus was going to take the opportunity to give them what they really needed though as he would spend most of the day teaching them God’s truths, likely especially focused on repentance and forgiveness that he alone could provide. 

So here is one of Jesus’ priorities, his highest priority: our eternal well-being. Jesus came to accomplish our soul’s salvation, to live and die for us that we would have the forgiveness of sins. He came that people might know the fulfillment of all God had promised in him. He came to save them from their sins; he came to solve their eternal problem. This is greatest need the people have, so Jesus, weary as he was, taught this crowd. He showed them their needs and their solution in him. It was the same message that the disciples had just been out sharing. 

This eternal need is Jesus’ focus for us today, as well. No matter what happens to us in this life, it’s not worth comparing to eternity. Problems here are temporary; perfection in heaven is forever. So Jesus’ priority is our eternal need, our spiritual need. He meets that needs in his life, death, and resurrection. Our sins are gone because of his work for us so we have nothing to fear.

However, Jesus is not exclusively concerned with our spiritual and eternal needs. In our Gospel Jesus identifies a problem or need that would require addressing even before the crowd fully gathers: When Jesus looked up and saw a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, “Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip’s reaction is pretty exasperated, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to have just a little.” A denarius would have been about a day’s wage. So by Philip’s estimation 200 days’ wages doesn’t even begin to touch the need here to adequately feed this large crowd of people.

John’s narrative skips over what seems to be the bulk of the day of Jesus teaching the crowd. It seems like Jesus had this brief conversation with Philip and likely some of the other disciples nearby at the start of the day so that as they worked with the crowd, the question of, “How are we going to feed these people?” would have been circulating in their minds as they worked. John mentions that Jesus asked this question to test them, knowing full well what he was going to do. But, would the disciples see the need to depend on him? 

How often do we find ourselves in a situation similar to the disciples or even the crowd? Not to be faced with the impossible task of feeding thousands without any resources, but beating our head against a problem while not seeking out God’s help for the solution. How often do we take matters into our own hands, assume that by the strength of our mind or will or arms we have to produce the solution, and don’t give a second thought to Jesus’ direction to depend on him, to call on him in time of trouble? 

Does Jesus care about your needs? Absolutely. Not only does he care, but bringing about a positive result from them is his priority. Does Jesus care about your family member struggling with illness and disease? Yes. Does Jesus care about your concerns about keeping your job or finding something to better fit your situation? Without a doubt. Does Jesus make our physical well-being one of his priorities? Absolutely. 

If we look at the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, we see a clear priority to these matters in that prayer, “Give us today our daily bread.” Right there as part of an overall brief prayer, he tells us to bring the requests for the immediate and the physical. Jesus worked the miracle to provide this meal for the thousands of people on the hillside that late afternoon. He cares about you, too, soul and body.

But let’s not then drive in the other ditch and forget that Jesus knows that spiritual is more important than the physical. The crowd that day wanted to make Jesus king—and not in an eternal, heavenly, forgiveness king sort of way, but in a “this guy should be installed to always heal our diseases and give us free food” sort of way. But that’s not why he came. He cared about their physical needs, yes, but he came for a higher purpose that being a bread-king would not allow to bring to fruition. He came to give his life for the sins of the world, not to be the source of free food for this temporal life. In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to go through John chapter 6 and see this divide come to a head between Jesus and the crowds, and even allow the twelve to arrange their priorities to be in line with Jesus’ priorities. 

But for now let us content ourselves with this: the one who died to pay for your sins, the one who gave his perfect obedience to you as a robe of righteousness, he is the one who cares about the complete you. Every need, every worry, every concern that you have, be it concerning short term things or long term things, physical things or spiritual things, all of these are on his mind and his heart. Come to him in prayer; unload your concerns and needs for yourself and for others on him; be strengthened by his promises that he hears and will answer for the eternal good of all.

And look for the opportunities that God places in your life to be that blessing to others. Surely the disciples wrestling with how to feed the crowds, distributing he miracle food, and gathering leftovers was all service to their fellow people that day. Whether it’s some time to sit and listen to someone who needs a shoulder to cry on, being able to provide food or other necessities for someone who is in financial or emotional need, doing something dramatic to help someone in great peril, or doing something as simple as wearing a mask in a pandemic to help keep others safe, we often are the ones that God uses to provide. He cares about our needs and often uses others around us to meet those needs. Embrace those opportunities to clearly be Jesus’ disciples. It is no clearer to the world that you belong to Jesus then when you are working to help provide and care for others. 

No matter what struggles you face right now, for yourself or a loved one, physical, spiritual, or emotional, know that your God is not far from you, your Savior loves you and is concerned for you. The one who defeated sin, death, and hell itself for you will not abandon you in these smaller issues. The one who could feed thousands with a small lunch is able to do whatever you need him to do to work eternal blessing from any challenge you currently face. Your needs are Jesus’ priority. Trust in him, rest in him, and rejoice in him forever. Amen.

"Turn Trust into Telling" (Sermon on Mark 6:7-13) | July 18, 2021

Text: Mark 6:7-13
Date: July 18, 2021
Event: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Mark 6:7-13 (EHV)

Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He instructed them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their money belts. 9They were to put on sandals but not to wear two coats. 10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area. 11Any place that will not receive you or listen to you, as you leave there, shake off the dust that is under your feet as a testimony against them.” 

12They went out and preached that people should repent. 13They also drove out many demons. They anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. 

Turn Trust into Telling

How much you trust something is going to dictate your actions, right? Earlier this week, Karen noticed that one of the kitchen table chairs was loose and needed to be tightened. As I sat down to write the sermon about 36 hours later and started thinking through this very introduction, it dawned on me that I hadn’t done anything about that. So, I went and fixed it. But before I did, if you knew that chair had a wobbly leg, how would you treat it? You probably wouldn’t just throw yourself down on it like a rag doll. You almost certainly wouldn’t have used it to boost yourself to hang a picture high on the wall. You’d use if very cautiously, if you would use it at all. Why? Because it wasn’t trustworthy. It was partially broken and needed repair or maintenance. Until that happened, it was likely that it would fail and you, to one degree or another, would get hurt. 

The same is true for people, right? If you’ve been burned by someone’s irresponsibility, or selfishness, or lies, you might have a lot of trouble depending on that person. And it really doesn’t matter how many words they use to defend themselves or assure things are different, right? If in your heart you’re thinking this person can’t be trusted, that will affect your actions and interactions with them. 

So, your trust in something or someone will change your behavior. Maybe you’ll put your wellbeing squarely on that person or thing, or you’ll avoid them completely, or likely somewhere in the middle. 

So, what about Jesus? How does your trust in him look? And how does that trust direct your actions around and concerning him? Let’s look at Jesus’ narrowly-focused mission for his disciples during his ministry and compare it to our lives this morning.

Our Gospel for this morning comes hot on the heels of Jesus’ frustrating time in Nazareth that we looked at last week. Mark’s Gospel is very brief; he doesn’t use a lot ink to indicate transitions in his account, so it’s not super clear how long after the event in Nazareth our Gospel took place, but it seems likely it was not a very long time. 

The time has come for the disciples to take a test drive in what their roles would be after Jesus’ ascension. Jesus is sending them out two-by-two to preach the gospel in the towns and villages around them. After all, six teams could cover more ground than one man. Jesus even gives them the ability to work signs and wonders that will underscore the validity of the message they are sharing: He gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

But this trip isn’t about relishing divinely-gifted power over the forces of the spiritual realm. For the disciples, this is going to be a training exercise. Jesus is calling on them to demonstrate an immense amount of trust in a couple of very notable ways. 

First, they are to express their trust in physical terms. He instructed them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their money belts. They were to put on sandals but not to wear two coats. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.” Why does Jesus give them this instruction? They were not going to be providing for themselves. They are learning and exercising trust in God to provide. And how is God going to provide for the people he has called to share the good news? “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.” God will provide through the generosity and hospitality of his people, which is really no different than it is today when God’s people take care of their called workers, or when our needs are tended to by family, Christian friends, or even people we’ve never met. God often meets our needs through the hands of other people.

But there’s another place Jesus is calling them to trust him, and that’s in the realm of the message they are going to proclaim. This message would not be well received by everyone. They would meet opposition. They would find it necessary to shake off the dirt of a town as a testimony against them and their rejection of the message. Matthew provides more detail of Jesus’ commissioning directions in his Gospel: “Be on guard against people. They will hand you over to councils, and they will whip you in their synagogues. You will be brought into the presence of governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles” (Matthew 10:17-18). This proclamation of the gospel is not always going to go well and at times it will cause clear problems in the lives of those sharing it. Not everyone will believe, and some will even react very aggressively against it.

And we saw an example of that with Jesus himself last week, right? When he preached in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, he shared tremendous good news with them and was met with unbelief that amazed even Jesus! If Jesus did not have a perfect track record in sharing God’s truths, should the disciples expect that they would?

But still there is a promise to trust! Matthew’s Gospel continues to provide extra detail: Whenever they hand you over, do not be worried about how you will respond or what you will say, because what you say will be given to you in that hour. In fact you will not be the ones speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking through you (Matthew 10:19-20).

The message of God’s Word will be met with rejection, apathy, and animosity. People won’t want to hear or think about sin, death, and hell. They won’t want to hear that there’s nothing they can do to save themselves. And, perhaps counterintuitively, they won’t want to hear that Jesus provides full forgiveness freely, without any work on their part. But the message is not shared because everyone wants to hear it; the message is shared because everyone needs to hear it. And God will make sure it goes out. He promised to give the disciples the words to speak even in the most extreme circumstances. And that promise remains for you and me.

Do you trust these promises? Do you trust that Jesus lived and died to set you free from sin? Does that affect your actions? I think the honest answer to these questions is often, “Yes, but…” Of course, Jesus is my Savior! I know he rescued me from sin, death, and hell! But do I always live confidently in those truths? Does my life always show unwavering trust and focus on the promises and eternal blessings from God? For me I can assure you that, no, it certainly does not. And if I had to guess, I would say your life does not always trust and display that trust either. 

Sin causes all sorts of problems. It doubts what God has said he’ll do. It rearranges priorities to make what I want more important than what others need and what God expects of me. It’s like if I were one of the disciples, I would have responded to Jesus call by saying “Yeah, um, I’m going to bring a pretty big suitcase full of supplies and things I like because I don’t trust you to provide. Oh, and I’m going to be spending a lot of time doing what I want to do rather than what you’ve called me to do.”

God forgive us for this lack of trust! And he does. That’s what Jesus came to solve, after all. But still, the Christian life can feel frustratingly cyclical, can’t it? Sin to guilt to repentance to forgiveness and then before we know it sin is back again and the cycle starts anew. But a cycle doesn’t change God nor does it change his promises. Despite our faithlessness, God’s promises are still true. The promise that Jesus has set us free from sin is still true. The promise that we have eternal life waiting for us is still true. The promise that our Savior loves us is still true!

As you find yourself refreshed and renewed in your trust of those truths here this morning, find yourself in the disciples’ shoes as well. Jesus has called you to tell what you trust. You might not have the power over evil spirits, but you should expect the same care, the same providence, and the same reception that the disciples and even Jesus himself received. Some will listen and rejoice with you; some will reject and even cause problems for you. But in the end, your trust is anchored to the God who does not change and who rules all things for the good of his people, the good of his church. 

So, turn your trust into telling. And where you sense your trust faltering, seek God’s power in the Word and sacraments, where he bolsters and strengthens that trust. Rejoice in the work God has given you to do, even if it’s not always exciting or outwardly successful. God’s kingdom comes through our sharing of this message as individuals and as a congregation. May God continue to bless that work to the glory of his name! Amen.

"Are We Dismissive of Jesus?" (Sermon on Mark 6:1-6) | July 11, 2021

Text: Mark 6:1-6
Date: July 11, 2021
Event: The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Mark 6:1-6 (EHV)

Jesus left there and went to his hometown. His disciples followed him. 2When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did this man learn these things? What is this wisdom that has been given to this man? How is it that miracles such as these are performed by his hands? 3Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 

4Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own house.” 5He could not do any miracles there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6He was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went around the villages teaching. 

Are We Dismissive of Jesus?

“Familiarity breeds contempt.” Have you heard that phrase before? Have you felt that? Maybe you really felt it during the more intense periods of lockdown throughout the pandemic that perhaps left you very frustrated with the people or the inanimate objects in your immediate surroundings. Did the four walls of the house seem to be closing in? Did the habits of the members of your household start to grate on your nerves to a degree that they really hadn’t before? 

The more familiar we are with someone or something, the more the chances arise that we get irrationally frustrated with it or them. Think how, generally, your patience for your family might be shorter and abrupter than your patience for coworkers, or members at church, or even total strangers. That seems really backwards, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be more patient and loving toward the people to whom we are so tightly connected? But, the sinful nature will take something good and warp it into something negative. 

It seems like that’s maybe what’s happening in our Gospel. Jesus has been doing preaching and teaching around Galilee, but has perhaps been conspicuously absent from the town where he grew up, Nazareth. But at this time, he goes “home” and is there during the Sabbath. It would have been common for any adult male in the congregation gathered in a synagogue to stand up and read. If we are to assume that this account and what is recorded in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 4:14ff) are the same event, Jesus stood up and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He read a section speaking about the coming Messiah, and claimed that at that moment what God promised through Isaiah was fulfilled in him. 

This, combined with everything that they had heard about him performing miracles, led to astonishment at what Jesus was saying and doing. Many who heard him were amazed. (Keep in mind that they were amazed, as that will factor in later.) But it wasn’t just amazement. They were asking some probing questions, “Where did this man learn these things? What is this wisdom that has been given to this man? How is it that miracles such as these are performed by his hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” Not terrible questions at first blush, right? They had seen this Jesus grow up among them. They knew him to be Mary and Joseph’s firstborn son. Jesus might have stood out as an exceptionally well-behaved child, but that was likely the extent of it. 

But with his wisdom and authority in these matters, our translation says, “they took offense at him.” I think it’s even a bit stronger than that. Literally, it means they “they were caused to sin by him.” So this is a little bit more than amazement and wonder at their hometown boy. We might sum up their questions with something a bit more negative-sounding with negative implications and overtones. When they thought about Jesus they were thinking something along the lines of, “Who does this guy think he is?” The knew him too well to respect him as the Messiah, or even as a prophet sent by God. Their familiarity with him bred contempt.

And Jesus points that out. “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own house.” Jesus was prevented from doing much of anything, miracle wise, because of their lack of faith. The miracles always served the purpose of pointing to the validity of the things that he was teaching. When they had flat-out rejected his teaching, there was no reason to do any miracles except in a few isolated situations. And while they were amazed at what he said, Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.

Good thing that’s not what Jesus says or thinks about us, right? Or, are we getting a little bit hasty assuming he doesn’t?

Are we dismissive of Jesus like the people of Nazareth? Has our own familiarity with Jesus bred contempt for him, his will, and his Word in our lives? Is Jesus amazed at our unbelief? How we can know? How can we measure that faith? 

Faith, of course, is not a tangible thing. Faith is the trust in Jesus as Savior that God gives and strengthens through his Word and the sacraments. But in his letter, James (likely the same James listed in our Gospel as one of Jesus’ brothers) gives us a metric to follow. There he writes: Be people who do what the word says, not people who only hear it. Such people are deceiving themselves (James 1:22).

So, we can’t see faith, but we can see how it’s working and thriving. Just like we can’t see someone’s body temperature, but a thermometer can give us that reading. So, how often do we come to church or connect in online, hear what God says, and then let it go no farther. How often do we let Jesus’ teaching have no effect on us or assume that he doesn’t really care what we do or don’t do? Has our familiarity with Jesus’ patience caused us to be dismissive of his will and warnings? 

How often have we left this place and then been harsh with our spouse or children? How often have we left this place and been completely apathetic to the needs of other people when they interfere with our desires and goals? How often have we left here feeling like we’ve put in our “hour for God,” and then proceeded to live the other 167 hours of the week according to the whims and desires of our heart that is so often led astray by selfish sin? 

More often than we’d like to admit, right? We sometimes like the idea of being a Christian, but not the implications that it brings. Implications of needing to put others first, implications of needing to correct our sinful tendencies (even those things that our sinful natures have deceived us into thinking are “fun” or “wholesome”). We’ve become so familiar with law and gospel that we hardly hear God speak anymore, and we get irritated when he would have the audacity to correct us, as if we didn’t know it all already.

But, that’s what Paul said in our Second Lesson, didn’t he? What is the purpose of the God-breathed, perfect, inspired Scripture? It is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, well equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). If the Word is not rebuking us, if it is not correcting us, if we’re not letting it apply itself in our lives we’re treating our Savior with the same disdain and disgust that the people of Nazareth did. Who does this Jesus guy think he is?

Well, who do we know he is? He is our God who took on flesh in a way so unassuming that the people around him didn’t recognize him as something different. And he didn’t do it just to teach a new morality or to give an example to follow. He did it specifically because there were people in his world and in our world so dismissive of him that it was leading to hell. He came to offer his life as a sacrifice to pay for our dismissiveness and horrendously upset priorities. He died to set us free. He has given us a new life, a life we live not to feed our desires but to serve him in thankfulness.

So, my brothers and sisters, let this good news encourage you and let it be fresh in your mind and heart.  Your sins are forgiven! You have eternal life! As a result, don’t let your heart be a place where the Prophet, your Savior Jesus, is without honor. Instead, hear the Word! Apply the Word! Make your heart an environment where the Word makes lasting changes. Find joy in being corrected, trained, even rebuked by Jesus because his is the way that leads to eternal life. Sin, left unchecked in our lives, will lead to unbelief and hell, but by God’s grace our lives are lived in thankful service to our God. They are lives that continue to prioritize his will above our own and seek change where we have erred, whether it be a new problem this week or something that has haunted us for decades. This life draws its strength from the gift of God in Jesus, which has completely forgiven our sins without any action on our part.

Are we dismissive of Jesus? At times, yes. But by God’s grace and Jesus’ forgiveness, we are washed clean of that dismissiveness and contempt for God and every other sin as well. Instead, we rejoice to have him speak to us, both words of comfort and words of correction. Lord Jesus, mold me into the person you want me to be so that I may thank you for your free forgiveness with my whole life! Amen.

"The Gospel Is Worth Risking It All!" (Sermon on 2 Timothy 1:8-14) | July 4, 2021

Text: 2 Timothy 1:8–14
Date: July 4, 2021
Event: The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

2 Timothy 1:8–14  (EHV)

8So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Instead, join with me in suffering for the gospel while relying on the power of God. 9He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, 10and it has now been revealed through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11For this gospel I was appointed a herald, apostle, and teacher of the Gentiles, 12and that is why I am suffering these things. But I am not ashamed, because I know the one in whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. 

13Hold fast to the pattern of sound words that you heard from me, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14Through the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you.

The Gospel Is Worth Risking It All!

I’m not much of a gambler. The couple of times I’ve been to Las Vegas combined, I’ve put probably a grand total of $10 in slot machines and (surprise, surprise) lost it all. I walked away from those experiences thinking, “Well, that was dumb.” But it feels the same with other types of gambling like poker or sports betting or whatever else someone might put a lot of money on. Never mind the greed aspect of it all, in the end, I’m somewhat risk-averse. Risking a large amount of money on the performance of things outside of my control has never made sense or seemed worth it. 

And that same feeling can even weigh in on things like determining where and how to invest for retirement. I usually look for stability over the possibility of huge gains. I don’t want to risk it all. So we try not to put all of our eggs in one basket. Diversify! That might mean missing out on positive things if the markets go well, but it also means you’re a bit sheltered if things go belly-up.

But the apostle Paul in our Second Lesson for this morning is giving us some different advice. Not in how to behave in a casino or how to invest your money. He says there is one thing worth risking it all for, worth potentially losing it all—even our own lives! And that is the gospel message. It is so valuable, so worthwhile, that we do well to bet everything we have, earthly speaking, for the blessings God brings through that message. So this morning, let’s look at how we can avoid hedging our bets and instead go all-in on the promises God has made!

Paul’s second letter to Timothy is likely the last letter Paul wrote that is recorded in the Bible before he died. He’s not under house arrest; he’s in prison. He’s not going to go on any missionary journeys anymore; he’s likely going to lose his life in the coming weeks or months. And he knows it. And he knows why it’s happening. During the reign of Roman emperor Nero, the emperor started persecuting Christians throughout the empire. Many Christians were put to death for their faith. Tradition has it that both Peter and Paul met their ends during this persecution because they were messengers of the gospel.

But notice how you don’t hear any regret in Paul’s words here. And if you read through all of 2 Timothy (which you should this afternoon—it’ll take like 15 minutes even if you’re a slow reader like I am), you won’t find any regret in any of his words in that whole letter. Some sadness that he can’t spread the gospel like he wants to? Sure. A bit of trepidation as to what exactly lies ahead? Absolutely. But regret? Not even a hint of it.

But why? This is not Paul coming down with an unavoidable disease or an accident that took his life. Paul knows the exact reason he’s going to die: the gospel message about Jesus. If he had just not done that work or maybe been a bit more discrete about it, he might have preserved his life. Surely when his untimely death is coming for a reason that was in his control, there would be some sadness over having it go this way.

And yet, that’s not what we hear from Paul. In fact, just the opposite. His purpose in writing to young Pastor Timothy is, in part, to encourage Timothy not to give up the work that he’s doing. Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Instead, join with me in suffering for the gospel while relying on the power of God. That’s not exactly a pep-talk, is it? There’s no mention of “everything’s going to be fine” or “God will take care of you and protect you.” No, “join with me in suffering.” That doesn’t sound great. That sounds downright bad and unpleasant. 

Why would Paul say such a thing? Because the gospel is worth risking it all. Consider his brief and beautiful summary of that message: He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, and it has now been revealed through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 

What a beautiful picture! God called us from what we were by nature—sinners devoted to rebelling against him—and brought us to a new life, a life that serves him. This was not done “because of our works” but “because of his purpose and grace.” Grace is that love of God that he gives us even though we don’t deserve it, love that even gives us the opposite of what we deserve.

And this message of a new calling of forgiveness in Jesus? Paul says that he’s suffering because he was a messenger of this good news. But I am not ashamed, because I know the one in whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. The gospel is worth risking it all because the gospel ensures that we are not risking it all. If we suffer for Jesus, so what? We have Jesus. Even if we die for Jesus, so what? We have Jesus. Faith in Jesus as Savior produces what seems like an irrational response to death. Faith in Jesus as Savior clings to the one who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 

Paul has no regret because he’s looking well beyond the threats and power of the emperor; he’s looking to the promises and power of God. He said that God can guard what Paul entrusted to him. What did Paul entrust? His very life. Not limited to this temporal, physical life, but his eternal life. God can and will keep that safe because that is his grace, which is what the gospel is all about. Jesus dies to pay for sin; thus, we are safe with God forever. 

Paul’s encouragement to Timothy is the same as the encouragement he would have for you and me. Hold fast to the pattern of sound words that you heard from me, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Through the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. These two thoughts are very connected. The deposit that we have entrusted to God is our life, even our eternal life. What is the deposit he gave to us? The faith to trust Jesus as Savior. We are to guard that, take care of that because our very eternal lives depend on it. And how do we do that? Hold fast to the pattern of sound words that you heard from me, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Stay connected to the Scriptures, to the teaching that God inspired. Guard that good deposit by surrounding yourself with the gospel message and the whole of God’s Word, by which the Holy Spirit creates and strengthens faith. 

So what does this mean for us? Partially, it means changing what we might naturally think about death. Death is not indicative of God’s abandonment. That’s what the disciples in our Gospel thought last week, right? “Don’t you care that we are about to drown?” (Mark 4:34) they accusingly asked Jesus as the storm raged on the Sea of Galilee. It would be easy to think that God had turned his back on Paul, and that’s why he was going to die, but that could not be farther from the truth! 

When a loved one faces death, when we face death, it is not that God has left us. It is that he is calling us to our eternal reward. The Christian faith changes our response to death because it fundamentally changes what death is all about. It is no longer the beginning of punishment for our sins in hell; it is the full realization of all that God has done for us in Jesus, the end of sin, and the beginning of our true, eternal life with God! Immortality with Jesus, won by Jesus!

So Jesus undoes the scariness of death and replaces it with life and comfort. Jesus was not lying when he called death just a sleep for those in Jairus’ house. Likewise, Paul faced death without fear because he knew that he was safe with Christ. He also knew that he was facing death because he brought that message of comfort and confidence to others—and for that, there can be no shame or regret! 

Jesus undoes death’s fear for us as well. As a result, we can face our own deaths or the deaths of a loved one in the Lord with confidence, knowing that nothing is left to chance. God’s promises mean that death is but the entry into eternal life. Or, as Jesus said, pointing ahead to his own resurrection from the dead, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:18).

So do not shrink from death out of fear. Do not be ashamed of the gospel you cling to or the Savior who gave it. This message of eternal life in Jesus’ death and resurrection is worth risking it all, even our very lives, because eternity for us and for those around us depends on that gospel message. Like Paul, may we too be heralds of this good news: Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again! Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Do You Still Lack Faith?" (Sermon on Mark 4:35-41) | June 27, 2021

Text: Mark 4:35-41
Date: June 27, 2021
Event: The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Mark 4:35–41 (EHV)

35On that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.” 36After leaving the crowd behind, the disciples took him along in the boat, just as he was. Other small boats also followed him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves were splashing into the boat, so that the boat was quickly filling up. 38Jesus himself was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. They woke him and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to drown?” 

39Then he got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still lack faith?” 

41They were filled with awe and said to one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!” 

Do You Still Lack Faith?

“Do you trust me?” Aladdin asked that to Princess Jasmine at least twice in the animated Disney movie I grew up with. Notably, he asked her this just before she climbed onto the impossible flying carpet. Of course, at that time, he was deceiving her and pretending to be something that he wasn’t, so as the audience perhaps, we’re saying, “You shouldn’t!” But she did, and off they went to see a whole new world, set to a catchy musical number.

We face all sorts of difficulties in this life that God has promised to take care of us through and even work good from. Yet, how often do we face those troubles doubting God’s ability or willingness to help and solve them and do what he said he would do? Probably more often than we like to think. But still, at the beginning of troubles, God reaches his hand to us and asks, “Do you trust me?” Or, to take us more into our lesson, at the end of trouble when we doubted and fretted and worried, he speaks as he spoke to his disciples, “Do you still lack faith?” By God’s grace, we will leave here today more trusting of God’s promises and abilities to help and protect us than we were when we arrived.

Our Gospel takes place just after our Gospel for last week. Jesus had been teaching the crowds with parables like the hidden growing seed and the tiny mustard seed. There were so many people gathered that Jesus had to get onto a boat and push off from shore to be heard better. We have just a sliver of his teaching recorded for us in the Gospels. I know what I feel like some Sundays when Bible Class leads into Worship and leads into Catechism or a meeting. But that’s nothing compared to what Jesus had done that day; to say that Jesus would have been exhausted is an understatement.

So, after he was done teaching, Jesus suggests that they all take some time to recharge. Jesus said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.” And so they all got into the boat and left. They took Jesus into the boat “just as he was,” which probably means beat and exhausted, and went out across the Sea of Galilee.

You know what it’s like to be so tired you can’t see straight, and when you finally, mercifully, get to lay down, you’re just out. Well, that’s Jesus here. He finds a quiet place in the stern of the boat and is just out, a good reminder that our Savior while being true God, is also a true human being. 

The seasoned fishermen are doing the sailing, and Jesus is resting. Until that is, his sleep is broken by terrified faces and shouts crying out to him. The wind is howling, water is actually filling the boat. It would have been wildly disorienting to wake up to that scene. A storm had arisen while Jesus slept. It was a storm so great that these men who spent most of their professional lives on this body of water feared they might die. Their panicked question to Jesus is half-accusing and half-asking, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to drown?”

Jesus gets up and, bafflingly, speaks to the wind and the water. He rebukes them for being so stormy and scary. And what is the result of Jesus’ stern talking to these forces of nature? “The wind stopped, and there was a great calm.” I love that phrase, “a great calm,” the polar opposite of what Mark wrote two verses before, “a great windstorm.” The storm had been so large that the calm in its wake seems almost heavy as well. Jesus had totally undone what had caused the fear in the disciples’ hearts.

But Jesus, perhaps still groggy or exhausted, with sleep in his eyes, speaks to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still lack faith?” That feels kind of harsh at first blush, doesn’t it? “Jesus, these men just feared for their lives! Is now the time the criticize them?” Well, yes, actually, to make the long-lasting point Jesus is trying to make.

Let’s unpack what happened here. While Jesus was asleep, this storm arose. The disciples probably figured they could handle it; they had likely been in hundreds of storms before. But then it got worse and worse; the situation got more and more dire. They found that everything they tried failed. They had no solutions, no ability to do much of anything. The problem proved greater than they had first anticipated. And so, perhaps because they were out of other options, they come to Jesus, “Don’t you care that we are about to drown?”

Before we really harp on the disciples too much, let’s commend them for just a moment. Because they did show some faith here, didn’t they? Jesus was not an experienced sailor. They were not looking to him to show them how to handle a boat in the storm. They looked for his help to save them from the storm (although it doesn’t seem like yelling at the wind was what they were expecting). So, they needed help, and they knew Jesus could help, so they come to him. That is commendable. 

What is not commendable, and what seems to be the lack of faith that Jesus is addressing, is that they didn’t trust that Jesus would do anything or didn’t trust that he actually cared about their problem. It's right there in the question they asked, right? Did Jesus care? Of course he did! As their friend and teacher, Jesus cherished them. As their Creator and Savior, he loved them beyond any human love.

Likewise, as we mentioned, they seem to come to Jesus as a last resort. I guess we don’t know how long the storm was raging before someone went to wake up Jesus, but the Holy Spirit doesn’t go out of his way to make clear that waking Jesus was their first reaction. Now, surely when the storm first arose, and they thought they could probably handle it, they wanted Jesus to rest the best he could and didn't want to disturb him. But when it was clear that this was going from bad to worse, why did they not come to Jesus first?

The more we’re circling the disciples’ motives and actions, the more uncomfortable this gets, right? If we walk away from today’s lesson thinking, “Oh, those disciples. So silly and forgetful!” we have missed the point entirely.

We are the disciples, aren’t we? We face troubles in life—storms of the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—and what do we do? We grit our teeth and try to bravely solve it ourselves, without even giving a thought to God’s promises and power. Then, when things get out of control, and we realize we can’t solve this problem on our own, we almost turn on God, right? “God! Don’t you care that this thing is happening? Will you fix it? Can you fix it?”

Oh, and there it is. How often do we doubt that God can do anything about our problems? How often do we doubt that the all-powerful Creator of the universe can do something to help us? Or maybe it’s not really doubt about ability—we know that he is omnipotent after all—perhaps it’s more about desire or willingness to help. Sure, God could help; he can do anything. But will God do anything at all about the current problem? That’s when doubt sets in. And that’s when Jesus asks, “Do you still lack faith?”

Can I tattle on myself for a moment by way of an example? Last week, one of our members wisely suggested that we have a prayer for rain in worship, which we did. And yet, as we had that prayer, do you know what subtle thoughts flashed through my head? I knew what the weather had been. I knew the calendar, where we are in the seasons. And I knew what the weather forecast was for the coming week. I didn’t quite think these thoughts exactly, but I came close to thinking, “Why are we praying for this? It’s not going to happen.”

“My dear under-shepherd,” the Good Shepherd says to me, “do you still lack faith?” I guess so. As if the all-powerful Creator of the universe couldn’t overcome a traditional rainy-season / dry-season timing. As if he who produced supernatural droughts and ended them in spectacular blessing throughout the history of his Word couldn’t here, in our day, bring rain in our need. As if this one issue, for some reason, was outside of his capabilities or willingness to do something, even to do something surprising.

Now, did it rain this past week? No. But that doesn’t mean that God is unable or unwilling to help. It’s simply that he knows better than what we do what is best for right now. He knows what he’s doing and will provide what we need when we need it. He tells us to pray in the day or months of trouble. So, we see a need for rain, and we pray for rain. Sometimes his response to those prayers make sense to us; other times, they are entirely bewildering. 

I don’t share this because I want you to think your pastor is a spiritual buffoon. I share this because I think it’s a microcosm of all of our lived experiences. We’re in continual storms, and we doubt God’s willingness to help. How many times have we faced a problem that we just never prayed about it? Or prayed about it once and then never returned to our Savior again? Do we still lack faith? Yes. God asks, “Do you trust me?” and often our answer is, “Well, kind of, but not really…”

My brothers and sisters, look at what our God has done for you. In your sin, you were truly hopeless, in a storm you would never weather. You would die in that sin-storm, and that death would be eternal in hell. Jesus roused himself, obeying his Father’s will, to come and be our Substitute and our Savior. By his life, death, and resurrection, he rebuked sin, told death to stop, and silenced Satan. We are freed from our sin because Jesus calmed that eternal storm.

So, if he was willing and able to do that, what do you think about those other problems that are not small but undoubtedly smaller by comparison? Does Jesus care about you? Of course he does! Will he do what you want him to do? Maybe. Will he do what you need him to do? Absolutely. 

So don’t come to your Savior as your last resort; make him the first line of defense when the wind starts howling and the water starts splashing. Don’t come wondering if he cares or if he can do anything. Come in the certain confidence that no matter what the problem or how deep the hurt, your Savior can and will bring calm to that storm and work good from it. It may take a long time to understand that good, but that is what he promised, and that is what he will do.

Lord Jesus, we do so often lack faith. Send your Spirit to calm our troubled hearts and keep us ever focused on you as our Savior and Storm-calmer. Be with us in good times and in difficult times to comfort, heal, and encourage. Help us to be your hands and mouths to bring your comfort to those around us. Amen.

"Is Our God Small?" (Sermon on Mark 4:26-34) | June 20, 2021

Text: Mark 4:26-34
Date: June 20, 2021
Event: The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 

Mark 4:26–34 (EHV)

26He said, “The kingdom of God is like this: A man scatters seed on the ground, 27and while he sleeps and rises, night and day the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28The ground produces fruit on its own: first the blade, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29When the crop is ready, he swings the sickle without delay, because the harvest has come.” 

30Then he said, “To what should we compare the kingdom of God? Or with what parable may we picture it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is one of the smallest of all the seeds planted in the ground. 32Yet when it is planted, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the sky can nest under its shade.” 

33With many similar parables he continued to speak the word to them, as much as they were able to hear. 34He did not speak to them without a parable. But when he was alone with his disciples, he explained everything to them. 

Is Our God Small?

This week I saw a brief video clip of a person whose job it was to work with cheetahs. Cheetahs are often pretty skittish animals, despite their size and speed. (You might look up pictures or videos of cheetahs being assigned a companion dog to help them in their nervousness if you want to be overloaded with some cute images.) But the person in the video I saw was staying with a group of two or three cheetahs and comforting them when they got scared during the night. It showed someone in a sleeping bag, encouraging these big cats to come and snuggle with him when they appeared anxious. The person ends up with a pile of cheetahs right beside him, huddled in close.

A part of me found this adorable, but another part of me was really concerned about this. What happened if the cheetahs got too scared or got agitated? Could they kill a person? I know the person could not outrun these big cats and I assume if something clicked and they decided their comforter was actually their enemy, it seems very possible that that would be his end. But then I got to thinking: our two cats at home will snuggle with us on the couch or plop themselves on our laps and sometimes even pile up at the end of a bed. Why was I not really alarmed about that, but was alarmed about the cheetahs?

It probably comes down to size, right? Our cats, despite being big guys, are still just house cats. But these cheetahs were wild animals that can weigh upwards of 150lbs. Our cats are fast when they’re not being lazy, but they’re not cheetah fast. The apparent size and strength of something probably heavily influence what we think about its power to hurt or help.

But sometimes, our assumptions about power based on size are very, very wrong. We’ve seen how a microscopic virus can turn the world upside down. At Christmas, a birthday, or a graduation, a simple card may have a more life-changing gift tucked inside than a giant box with shiny wrapping paper. Smallness should not be equated with insignificance. 

Which brings us to Jesus’ parables in our Gospel for this morning. Jesus is teaching a crowd so large he had to get into a boat and push off a bit from the shore to talk to them. This is not an intimate gathering of his disciples. This is a crowd being taught en masse in the early days of Jesus’ earthly ministry. As such, Jesus uses parables to try to ground the spiritual things he’s teaching in terminology and experiences that would have been familiar to the large audience before him.

The two parables we have before us are both related to agriculture, as many of Jesus’ parables were. He’s using these parables to explain the “kingdom of God.” We should note that when Jesus talks about “kingdom of God,” he’s often not speaking about eternal life. Jesus is not talking about heaven. He’s talking about God’s rule of grace in our hearts. When you hear the “kingdom of God” either in parables like these or the Lord’s Prayer, you should think primarily of the faith that God gives.

So Jesus is talking about the faith by which he rules in the hearts of his people. How does he describe that faith? “A man scatters seed on the ground, and while he sleeps and rises, night and day the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. The ground produces fruit on its own: first the blade, then the head, then the full grain in the head. When the crop is ready, he swings the sickle without delay, because the harvest has come.” What is Jesus’ point? The seed of faith is planted; we have little idea of how it grows, but it does grow, producing a harvest.

A seed planted in the ground seems kind of ridiculous, right? If you didn’t know anything about plants and you saw someone planting seeds, you might be tempted to ask, “You’re going to put that tiny thing in the dirt, and somehow, after some time, it’s going to produce food to sustain you?” A seed is insignificant. It looks small and powerless. And that’s Jesus’ focus in the second parable: “It is like a mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is one of the smallest of all the seeds planted in the ground. Yet when it is planted, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the sky can nest under its shade.” The mustard seed is this tiny, tiny speck of a seed. And yet, the plant that comes from it can dwarf most garden plants. Birds can nest in and around it. This minuscule dot produces a powerful blessing for many.

We can be tempted to think our God is small. He doesn’t show himself in clearly visible and powerful ways. He doesn’t make his providence known with splashy demonstrations of might. Instead, he works in ways that seem weak and dull. Saving people through the spoken or written Word? Strengthening faith through a bit of bread and a sip of wine? Really? This is the omnipotent Creator of the universe? This is the one we are to trust with our eternal well-being?

And perhaps this leads to some of the shame we mentioned last week. Perhaps we are ashamed of our God. Maybe we are tempted not to share what we believe because it seems so… unbelievable? Powerless? Small?

Is our God small because he uses small-looking means? Hardly! If we return to Christmas for just a bit, Jesus in the manger, this whole scene looks small and insignificant. But when you know what is going on at the manger, your mind is blown. Because this is the incarnation of God, this is the eternal God taking his place in time and flesh to rescue his creatures from their sin! What seemed small, what looked insignificant, is not at all. These appearances are deceiving. 

Truly, we don’t fully understand how faith grows, like the farmer or gardener planting a seed may not fully understand why the seed grows. And that’s because faith is not a rational, explainable thing; faith is a supernatural thing. We don’t turn a crank to make our faith grow. We don’t work out our “faith muscles” to make our faith stronger. The Holy Spirit uses the means of grace—his Word and the sacraments—to create and strengthen faith in a way that we can feel but not fully understand. I sense that my faith is stronger after having contact with God’s Word, but I can’t draw a diagram of how that worked.

Likewise, faith seems like nothing, no matter how strong it is, no matter how much it has grown. Faith doesn’t leave me with something concrete to hold on to. It doesn’t materialize itself as a weapon or shield or anything else I can lay my hands on. It’s esoteric. It is simply trusting God that what he’s said he has done and will do is actually true. And it’s not something that I can produce in my heart; it is something that God places there, cultivates there, and makes it flourish. 

But is that God or is that faith actually small and insignificant? No! Think of what God does with that planted seed. The seed of faith, planted and grown, leads someone to cling to their Savior. This tiny, insignificant-looking thing is what God uses to rescue us from our sins and, at our death, bring us to eternal life. That faith he gives grips to Jesus’ cross tightly, depending on his life and death as the certainty of our forgiveness. It leads from death to life. It leads from hell to heaven. This tiny little thing produces something that has massive, eternal ramifications for us. But not only for us.

As God makes that seed of faith grow, it shows itself in your life. The way you serve others, the way you treat other people reflects that faith in your heart. It may bring comfort to someone in need or peace to someone in distress. The branches of your faith may provide peaceful shade to those around you. If that person is a fellow Christian, that leads to mutual encouragement. If that person is not a Christian, it may lead to the opportunity to share this insignificant-looking but eternally-indispensable seed of faith with them.

Don’t let appearances deceive you. Is your faith powerless? No! Is your God small? Absolutely not! Your Savior has defeated all of your eternal enemies and has given you this faith—his very rule in your heart—to trust him. That faith, given by God, will be used to bring you to eternal life. Your God is your eternal Champion. He provides what we need, always, even if it doesn’t always look spectacular with our human eyes and reason. Praise be to God for that seed of faith that he causes to grow, leading up to eternal life! Amen.

"Jesus Is Not Ashamed of Us!" (Sermon on Hebrews 2:9-11) | June 13, 2021

Text: Hebrews 2:9-11
Date: June 13, 2021
Event: The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Non-Lectionary)

Hebrews 2:9–11 (EHV)

But we look to Jesus (the one who was made lower than the angels for a little while, so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone), now crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death. 

Certainly it was fitting for God (the one for whom and through whom everything exists), in leading many sons to glory, to bring the author of their salvation to his goal through sufferings. For he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified all have one Father. For that reason, he is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Jesus Is Not Ashamed of Us!

Shame can be a powerful force. Wanting to avoid shame can lead us to be cowardly or curb our impulses to be better in line with socially acceptable behavior. Maybe the thought of feeling shame over answering a question wrong in class leads you to not even raise your hand. Perhaps the idea of feeling shame over disgraceful words or actions leads you to avoid drinking too much alcohol. On a more lighthearted side, perhaps children are worried that Mom or Dad might say something embarrassing in public or with their friends, or parents might be concerned about shame resulting from a young child who just speaks his or her mind—or repeats what they’ve heard at home.

We don’t want people to be ashamed of us. We want people to think well of us. And that’s pretty universal, whether we consider our family, our fellow members at church, our coworkers, or even perfect strangers. We don’t want anyone to be ashamed to be near us or be associated with us. And perhaps much of our outward behavior is driven to trying to avoid letting this happening.

But what about God? Do we think about what God thinks of us? Do we think about him being ashamed of us or proud of us? Surely, if we’re concerned about what the stranger at the restaurant might think about us if we slip and fall on a patch of wet tile, then we should care what the Almighty thinks about us, right? 

Except we don’t want to think about that. Because we know what God thinks. And shame doesn’t even begin to describe it. He’s so massively disappointed, frustrated, and angry with us. But why? Because he had expectations and goals for us. And we’ve missed all of them, completely. Never has a parent been disappointed by their children nor a child disappointed by their parents in the same way that we have let down God.

He created us to be perfect, to have this flawless harmony with him. Our sin destroyed that. Instead of being united with God, we are separated from him. Instead of having harmony with God, we’re fighting against him. As we think of God’s feelings toward us, it’s pretty hard to feel that he has anything but what he felt just before the flood where Moses records, “The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with sorrow” (Genesis 6:6). Regret, sorrow, and we might rightly assume shame at having any connection to us. This is not the kind of relationship we wanted with God.

Of course, it’s not the relationship that he wanted with us, either. But to change it was going to be difficult; it was going to be costly. But God also did not shy away from that effort and cost. Because while his shame, disappointment, and anger over sin were all real, so was his love for you. The shame he felt over us  because of our sins did not mean total abandonment. It meant he was that much more invested in changing our sinful status. 

The writer to the Hebrews is writing to Christians in crisis. His original audience was Jewish converts to Christianity. He’s writing amid a great persecution that has broken out against Christians around the Roman Empire. In some places, it meant death. In other places, it meant challenging times in life and commerce. The author’s audience was tempted to turn away from their Christian faith and return to their former life in Judaism. There would be no persecution there; Judaism wasn’t an illegal religion in the empire, so it would have been really appealing.

But to do so would mean abandoning Jesus and everything that he had done for them. The author lays out a detailed reminder of who this Jesus is. In Chapter 1, before our lesson, he spends a great deal of time reminding his readers of Jesus’ divinity, that he is God, higher than all things, greater than anything that has been made—even the angels!

But what did this great Son of God do with that power? Come to destroy the insolent sinners? Terrify them with his wrath? No. We look to Jesus (the one who was made lower than the angels for a little while, so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone), now crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death. The Creator became a lowly part of his creation. Jesus humbled himself to take on our human nature and live as one of us. God inserted himself in time and in flesh to save us, becoming a bit lower than even the angels.

Any of our catechism students or recent confirmands can tell you that our Savior had to be God to keep God’s law perfectly in our place. But God is enteral; he cannot die. So he had to be a man to be able to die because that death was necessary to pay for sins. Every animal sacrifice offered on Israel’s altar pointed ahead to that one great sacrifice that was coming and has in fact come as the writer to the Hebrews reminds all of us!

But our Savior also had to be God for the reason the writer makes explicit here: the one who was made lower than the angels for a little while, so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone. Jesus had to be God for the universal application of his death. It was once for all. No more sacrifices are necessary. Jesus, true God and true man, finished the work. It is over and done. Our sins are forgiven.

The writer continues: Certainly it was fitting for God (the one for whom and through whom everything exists), in leading many sons to glory, to bring the author of their salvation to his goal through sufferings. Jesus is indeed the author of our salvation. He is the one where our salvation finds its beginning and its completion. And what is the result of that? We are led to glory. We are sanctified, made holy, set apart for the special calling as God’s children. And that glory that we are led to is the same glory with which Jesus has been crowned. 

We have this beautiful unity with our conquering Savior! The writer to the Hebrews says, “For he who sanctifies (that is, Jesus) and those who are being sanctified (that is, you and me) all have one Father. For that reason, he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” We are connected to our Savior; we are members of the same family. This is what Jesus said in our gospel: “He looked at those who sat around him in a circle and he said, ‘Look, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mark 3:34-35). What is the will of God? To believe in the Savior he sent and to live our lives in thankful gratitude to him. 

Jesus’ work means that our sins are gone. That means all the reasons we had for shame before God or for God to be ashamed of us are also gone. Jesus doesn’t begrudgingly call us his siblings; he boasts in it! He rejoices in it! This was the whole reason he came, to conquer sin, Satan, and death and to bring us to be with him, to bring us where we belong. 

It is easy for this to become same-old, same-old for us. We’ve heard this message how many times in our lives? Hundreds? Thousands? But don’t let it become dull and blasé. Let these truths, solidified by your baptism, be of prime importance and the reason for your rejoicing. Let your actions, your words, even the tone of your words be motivated by your membership in God’s household, your siblinghood with Jesus. Let us not be ashamed of our Savior, who is not ashamed of us. Let us live our lives as beacons of his light in this dark world, drawing all people to the love God has shown in our Savior.

Jesus’ forgiveness leads us to glory in his house forever. He is not ashamed of us! Rejoice in that truth today and always! Amen.

"Peace Comes from God Alone" (Sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14) | May 23, 2021

Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Date: May 23, 2021
Event: The Day of Pentecost, Year B

Ezekiel 37:1-14 (EHV)

The hand of the Lord was upon me. He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley, which was full of bones. 2He had me pass through them and go all over among them. There were very many on the valley floor, and they were very dry.

3He said to me, “Son of man, can these dry bones live?” I answered, “Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’”

5This is what the Lord God says to these bones.

I am about to make breath enter you so that you will live. 6I will attach tendons to you. I will put flesh back on you. I will cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you will live. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

7So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I was prophesying there was a noise, a rattling, as the bones came together, one bone connecting to another. 8As I watched, tendons were attached to them, then flesh grew over them, and skin covered them. But there was no breath in them.

9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind that this is what the Lord God says. From the four winds, come, O wind, and breathe into these slain so that they may live.”

10So I prophesied as he commanded me. Breath entered them, and they came back to life. They stood on their feet, a very, very large army.

11Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up. Our hope is lost. We have been completely cut off.’ 12Therefore, prophesy and say to them that this is what the Lord God says. My people, I am going to open your graves and raise you up from your graves and bring you back to the soil of Israel. 13Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live. I will settle you on your own land, and you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.”

Peace Comes from God Alone

Have you noticed an uptick in anxiousness in yourself and other people lately? In the last year and a half we’ve had to transition from ignorance to knowledge about a pandemic, which produced anxiousness in wondering what we didn’t know about this disease and its short-term and long-term effects. We also then didn’t clearly understand the harm those who would deny what we did know would cause. There was anxiousness about the best way to protect others and to protect yourself. And now, we seem to be entering a period of anxiousness surrounding how to properly, safely, and responsibly transition in the tail end of the pandemic. Perhaps you’re anxious to see no more masks around you; perhaps the sight of someone without a mask makes you anxious.

Being anxious means you’re on edge, you feel like you could snap at a moment’s notice, that peace and calm are generally not in your heart. It’s not a good feeling. It’s almost like you drank too much coffee—but it doesn’t go away. And for you, it might not be the pandemic that does it to you. Maybe it’s state, national, or global politics and conflict. Maybe it’s concern about the overall health, well-being, and futures of the members of your family. Maybe it’s your own decisions and plans about what’s ahead, challenges both known and unknown. Very likely, there’s some special personal cocktail of bits of all of these things that swirl around in your heart.

No matter what causes anxiousness in your heart, I think there’s probably the universal desire that it just go away. This is not a feeling we cherish or enjoy. It’s not something that we want to keep around. It’s not useful. We want to replace anxiety with peace. This morning, as we celebrate the fact that Jesus kept his promise to send the Holy Spirit to his people and send them on an evangelism effort that continues to this day, we are reminded that real, lasting, even eternal peace comes from God alone.

Our First Lesson this morning takes us to the time that the southern kingdom of Judah is in exile in Babylon, in the 500s BC. They were regularly unfaithful to God. They ignored his commands; they worshiped other gods. God called to them, warned them over and over and over again. But his people did not listen. They continued to do what they wanted rather than what God wanted. This people didn’t even change course when their brothers in the northern kingdom of Israel were exiled by Assyria for the same reason a couple hundred years before this. Judah had a few bright spots but generally continued down the path of unfaithfulness. 

So now, as Ezekiel lives and works, the nation of Judah is in exile in Babylon. Think they were feeling anxious? Separated from their homes, knowing they were undergoing this trouble because of their action and inaction, it might have felt hopeless. And really, on their own, it was hopeless. They couldn’t topple the Babylonian empire; they couldn’t get themselves home. 

But God had promised through the prophet Jeremiah, even before they were carried off into captivity, that this would be temporary. It would last around 70 years, then God would bring them back. But in the middle of that time, those promises would’ve been hard to see, hard to remember, hard to trust. So God, in his mercy, sent reinforcements to those promises through Ezekiel and other messengers. God had promised them peace from their exile and he was going to follow through.

The valley of the dry bones is a vivid depiction of God keeping that promise. The nation was dead, dry, dusty—powerless. But what does God do? He, through the proclamation of the prophet, brings life to these bones that were beyond hope. Tendons, flesh, skin, breath—they all return. But God is clear how this all happened: I am about to make breath enter you so that you will live. I will attach tendons to you. I will put flesh back on you. I will cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you will live. Then you will know that I am the Lord…. My people, I am going to open your graves and raise you up from your graves and bring you back to the soil of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live. I will settle you on your own land, and you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.”

I, I, I, I, I. God leaves no room for doubt or misapplied credit. This would not be Ezekiel’s doing, or any secular leader’s accomplishment. Everything that was going to happen to bring them out of exile and return them to their homes was going to be God’s work for them, not their work for themselves. He was going to keep those promises. He was going to bring them peace and rest from the upheaval of exile.

But why? Why is God promising these things? After all, these people had made clear how little they respected or loved him. They were in exile because they had largely chosen to ignore God. Why does he even waste his time, his breath, the work of his prophet on these miserable, fickle people? Couldn’t there possibly be other people who would be more faithful, more deserving of God’s time and attention? 

God continues on because he loves them, despite their hard hearts. God continues on because he is faithful, despite their faithlessness. But more to the point, God continues on because he has other, greater promises to fulfill. He has other, greater peace to bring. The reason the Israelites were God’s chosen people, the reason God initially plucked Abraham out of the mass of the world’s population and made him his special family, was because he had a global promise to fulfill. From the fall into sin, God promised a Savior for all people. The purpose of God’s special relationship, the singular reason he promised to bring them back from exile and put them back in their land, was so that he could keep these other promises. The reason Judah would be rescued from their exile and return to their homes was so that through them God could bring forth the Champion, the Messiah, the Savior so long-promised.

Because, really, sin is the chief of all anxieties, right? We have done things and said things and thought things that fly in the face of God’s requirements of perfection. We’ve sinned this week. We’ve sinned this morning. We’ve probably in some way sinned since our worship service started. We are far more similar to faithless and flounder Judah than we would ever like to admit. And our sin leaves us anxiety-stricken and hopeless. We know that hell is the only destination for one with even a single sin hanging on them, and you and I can do nothing to change that. We are, spiritually, very similar to that pile of dry bones in the desert. 

But what is God’s promise? “I’ll do it. I’ll fix it. I’ll make this right. You can’t, but I can and will.” And so Jesus took our place under the law’s condemnation. God brings us peace through the perfect life and the innocent death of our Savior Jesus. Jesus’ resurrection solidifies that he has done away with sin and eternal death in hell. We need not be anxious about anything for eternity because God has done it all for us. He keeps his promise. He, alone, brings peace to us.

And God’s faithfulness to these promises just continues to be clear as we move past Jesus’ ascension to the first Christian Pentecost day. Jesus had promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to his disciples in special measure to help them be his messengers. In the sound of a violent wind and tongues of fire, in special gifts like the ability to speak in languages they had not studied and in a Spirit-given boldness especially seen in Peter’s preaching, we see God being faithful to that promise. Jesus did send the Holy Spirit. He is with his people like he promised. And the good news of sins forgiven in Jesus, the results of all of God’s patience and hope-providing for the children of Abraham, continues to be a blessing even to this day. 

We are celebrating a birthday of sorts today: the beginning of the Christian church. But it’s not just the founding of an organization. It’s the beginning of God bringing peace to the whole world through the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s a message of events that the Israelites looked forward to, even in exile. It’s a message of reality that Peter and the others of his day lived through and were privileged to share. It’s a message of results that continues to be for you and me. The anxiousness brought by our guilt is gone because our sin is gone. Jesus gives us eternal peace, peace only God could provide. 

May the comfort that Jesus promised and gave to his disciples be yours forever: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Amen.

"Remain in God's Love" (Sermon on John 15:9-17) } May 9, 2021

Text: John 15:9-17
Date: May 9, 2021
Event: The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

John 15:9–17 (EHV)

9“As the Father has loved me, so also I have loved you. Remain in my love. 10If you hold on to my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have held on to my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you these things so that my joy would continue to be in you and that your joy would be complete. 

12“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you continue to do the things I instruct you. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will endure, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17These things I am instructing you, so that you love one another.”

Remain in God’s Love!

If you get separated from a group in a crowd of people, do you know what the best thing to do is? Nothing. The best thing to do is stay right where you are and let others come find you. If you start moving around you’re more likely to just miss people looking for you than you are to find someone you’re looking for. In that situation, the best thing to do is to stay put and remain where you are, despite many impulses urging you to move out and look elsewhere for help.

The same can be said of our spiritual life. There is a constant pull inside of us to seek out safety by doing good things to make up for bad things or by trying to find something more certain, better, or more innovative to move our spiritual life forward. But Jesus’ direction to his disciples and you and me is that you are safe where you are. Stay put. Remain in God’s love.

This section of Jesus’ words on Maundy Thursday evening immediately follows our Gospel from last weekend, where we heard Jesus describe himself as the Vine and that we are his branches. We heard him encourage us, “The one who remains in me and I in him is the one who bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this: that you continue to bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples” (John 15:5-8). As Jesus continues with this discourse, he stays on that theme of remaining, staying put. You are where you need to be, because here you are safe. 

As the Father has loved me, so also I have loved you. Remain in my love. God has loved you with the same love that the Father loves the Son. It’s a complete, total, uncompromising love that sacrifices all things to bring you back to himself. Because that’s what our sin did to us. It separated us from God. It divided us from him. We could not pray to him, we could not reach out to him, we could not benefit from him spiritually or eternally. We were lost, hopeless, spiritually dead and destined for eternal death in hell.

But then God gave to us the greatest expression of love that one can have: No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends. This is exactly what Jesus did. As we heard two weeks ago when Jesus described his work as the Good Shepherd, we hear again that Jesus’ chief loving work was to lay down his life for his friends—he calls us his friends!—to save them. Normally if someone lays down their life to save someone else, it’s a limited and temporary thing. Someone jumps in front of a bullet and saves the life of one person; someone dives on top of a grenade and perhaps saves multiple lives. But the people saved, be it one or several, will eventually die. Laying down our life for others is always limited, simply delaying the inevitable.

But not for Jesus. When he laid down his life for us, his friends, it had eternal ramifications. Jesus wasn’t simply saving us from a premature physical death; he was rescuing us from eternal death in hell. Laying down his life paid for our sin. There are no limits to Jesus’ love; there is nothing temporary in the blessings that God gives through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Which is why Jesus is so adamant, “Remain in my love!” Because to do otherwise would be to jettison all the blessings that God has given. If I let Jesus take a backseat in my life and heart to entertainment, work, family, friends, anything, I jeopardize my remaining in his love. Any time I feel guilt over my sins and try to do something good to make up for them, to earn forgiveness, to work off my debt, I’m running head-long outside of the protective bubble of Jesus’ love and thus facing my sin on my own. Anything that makes it so you or I do not remain in Jesus’ love means that we will face hell as our eternal destination. 

So, how does one remain in Jesus’ love? Before we can understand that, it’s important to remember how we got into the sphere of Jesus’ love in the first place. Jesus is very clear that this has nothing to do with you and it has nothing to do with me; it has everything to do with him. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” He decided to save us. He died for us. He sent the Holy Spirit through his Word to create faith in our hearts, which brought us from the death of unbelief to a new life lived for him. Everything that we are or have through Jesus is because of Jesus, not us. We did not choose any of this; he chose us and made it happen.

We know the spiritual results of Jesus’ work and choosing us. But what are the external results? What is the evidence that Jesus has done all of this for us? You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will endure. We are branches connected to the vine. Branches that are healthy, that draw their nourishment from the trunk of the vine bear abundant fruit. Good works are the evidence of our God-given faith. Good works do not cause Jesus’ love but they are an outward expression that we are staying put in Jesus’ love. Being in Jesus’ love causes his love to express itself in our thoughts, words, and actions. 

Jesus says that the best way to express that love, to express our thanks to him in our life, is by serving each other. In fact, showing love to others is the completion of the love Jesus has given to us. I have told you these things so that my joy would continue to be in you and that your joy would be complete. This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.

We know that we can’t love in exactly the way Jesus loved, right? Nothing we do or sacrifice for someone else is going to get rid of someone’s sins. Nothing we do or sacrifice is going to rescue someone from hell. But that’s not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is not saying to love like he did so that it brings about the same result. That’s not only impossible but completely unnecessary—he did it all! 

No, when he says that we should love like he does he’s speaking about the spirit of that love, the motivation of that love. We do not show love to someone to get something in return. We show love to someone just to love them, to sacrifice for them. Laying down our life may not, and in fact most often will not be the dramatic, over the top, saving of someone’s life by sacrificing your own. We’re not likely going to have that opportunity to dive in front of a bullet or on top of a grenade to save someone’s life. Laying down your life may mean sacrificing the time that you had set aside for something really fun that you were looking forward to to help someone in their time of need. It may mean delaying something you had planned to talk with someone going through a difficult time. It means using your time, money, energy, whatever, to help someone who has a need. By this you show your connection to your Savior. In this you show that you remain in Jesus’ love. 

You can also love each other by doing the opposite. Help your brothers and sisters by telling them how they can love you! Do you need help? Ask for that help! Is there something someone is doing that is causing you physical problems or emotional distress? Let them know so that they can modify their behavior. Having these conversations is not selfish; it’s loving. Do not assume that someone is doing or not doing something to be unkind, but talk with them. In doing this, you are loving them because in doing this you are making a need known and enabling them to love you better. Counter-intuitive as it might feel, in this, too, you show your connection to your Savior. In this you show that you remain in Jesus’ love. 

And this goes beyond your family, beyond your friends, beyond your sisters and brothers in faith. This love, this self-sacrificing love can and should be shown to others. The stranger, the neighbor you don’t get along with, the person who seems to hate you with no reason. Your response? Love. Self-sacrificing love. As Jesus had said earlier on that Maundy Thursday evening continues to apply for us today, “Just as I have loved you, so also you are to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

Remain in God’s love that was freely given to you. Remain in God’s love by loving like he loves. Remain in God’s love because by that love you will be with him forever. Amen.

"God Meets Us Where We Are" (Sermon on Acts 8:26-40) | May 2, 2021

Text: Acts 8:26-40
Date: May 2, 2021
Event: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B (Confirmation)

Acts 8:26–40 (EHV)

26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is an isolated area.) 27So he got up and went. And there was a man, an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship. 28He was on his way home, sitting in his chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah. 

29The Spirit told Philip, “Go over there and stay close to that chariot.” 30Philip ran up to it and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. 

Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 

31The man replied, “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 

32Now the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading was this: 

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth. 33In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who will talk about his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. 

34The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet talking about—himself or someone else?” 35Then Philip began to speak. Starting with that very passage of Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. 36As they were traveling along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What is there to prevent me from being baptized?” 

38He ordered the chariot to stop. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39When they stepped up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. The eunuch did not see him anymore, but went on his way rejoicing. 

40Philip, however, found himself at Azotus. And as he went from place to place, he preached the gospel in all the towns until he came to Caesarea. 

God Meets Us Where We Are

The Internet can be an amazing tool for learning. Should you want to learn a skill or take up a new hobby or figure out how to solve a problem in your home, very often there’s a written tutorial or a YouTube video that will show you how to do what you need to do.

But there is often a baseline level of knowledge you need. A tutorial for playing a difficult song on the guitar is probably not going to be of much use if you need to learn how to play basic chords. Complicated electrical work can’t be started until you know where the circuit breakers in your home are. The Internet is great, but often times it’s more useful to have someone in person meet us where we are to show us and teach us what we need to know. 

In our First Lesson for this morning, we’re taken to one of the early evangelism efforts that the Holy Spirit sent one of his people on. This event takes place not too long after Jesus had ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to his disciples on the first Christian Pentecost day. Philip was sent to meet with a man who was a high-ranking official in the Ethiopian government. He handled the finances for his queen. We don’t really know much about him other than these verses here, but we can make some assumptions.

First, it’s likely that he was what we might call an “Old Testament believer,” that is, someone who was looking forward to the coming of the Savior that had been promised but did not yet know that he had already come and completed his work. We know this because Luke tells us that he had come to Jerusalem to worship. But he didn’t have a clear idea of the promises or certainly the fulfillment of those promises. So, God send Philip to him. “Go over there and stay close to that chariot.”

The man from Ethiopia was reading from the prophet Isaiah, familiar verses for us from chapter 53, a prediction of the Messiah’s death on the cross. But the Ethiopian had questions. He didn’t know who these verses were about or to what events they were referring. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The man replied, “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” This man needed someone to meet him where he was. And that’s what Philip did. Starting with that very passage of Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.

And what good news he had to share! He was able to take that passage about a silent, passive Savior and point the man to his sins and need for God to rescue him. He was able to tell how Jesus perfectly filled that role for him, died and rose from the dead to conquer his sins and bring him to eternal life. That singular passage and question about it was the gateway for Philip to expand on everything that God had promised and done. Through Philip, God met this man where he was and brought him to where he needed to be.

God does the same for you and me, he meets us where we are. What was it that you needed to hear today? Is there sin in your life you’re just trying to convince yourself is not a big deal, not a problem? God’s law in his Word and our worship service doesn’t let it happen. God points to our sin and says, “This? This is damning. You’ll be in hell forever because of this.” What was it that you needed to hear today? Does guilt over your sin overwhelm you? Do you feel powerless, desperate, as if there was no solution to that sin? Well, God brings Jesus to the forefront for you. He shows you Jesus as the one who conquered your sins completely and forever. The cross and the empty tomb are your confidence that you will not be in hell for the wrong things you’ve done; God has forgiven you and will bring you to himself. 

The reality is we all probably needed to hear both of those things, likely as the Ethiopian needed as well. We need constant reminders of the seriousness of our sins and the solutions to those sins in Jesus’ perfect life lived in our place, his death that placed our punishment on him, and his glorious resurrection that assures us that because he lives we also will live.

But how many people are out there in our day like the Ethiopian who spoke with Philip? How many people need to have God’s work for them explained? How many people need God to meet them where they are and to explain these simple-yet-deep truths of God’s justice and his mercy? Here, too, God meets people where they are. 

God may not tell us to go hang out by a parked carriage and eavesdrop waiting for an opportunity to speak. But he sends people into our lives with spiritual needs that must be met. He sends people in our families, in our jobs, in our neighborhoods who need to have someone explain to them what God has done. He often meets people where they are through you and me. You get to share God’s truths with those around you. And in that way God brings to them the harsh reality of the law and the predominating good news of Jesus’ forgiveness. 

Do you feel wholly unqualified or unable to do that sharing work? In this God meets you where you are as well. Because you don’t need to get into long, detailed doctrinal discussions to do this work. You can share the basics of your faith in Jesus as your Savior. You can address their questions with a simple, “That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer. You should come with me to church—we can find some answers there.” Jesus’ promise to his disciples applies to you and me today as well. Jesus had said, “Do not be worried about how you will respond or what you will say, because what you say will be given to you in that hour. In fact you will not be the ones speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking through you” (Matthew 10:19-20). God will meet your needs with even the words to speak when the time comes.

We have a beautiful example of this in our service here this morning. We have our two confirmands from last spring here to confess what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown in their faith through their time of study in catechism classes. They will summarize and commit themselves to their faith in their Savior, which is our unified faith. They will show how God has met them where they were, brought them into a maturation process to be adult members of our congregation, and is setting them up to continue to meet them where they are as they continue to grow in their faith all the days of their life. God will always be with them to meet their needs as he will always be with all of us to meet our needs. The vine continues to meet the branches where they are.

So go from this place today encouraged. Not just because of the beautiful weather, the time with your brothers and sisters in the faith, and the opportunity to sing our praises to God. Go from this place today encouraged because here God met you where you are and will continue to do so. Here God encouraged and directed you to be his spokespeople and ambassadors to meet others where they are with his glorious truths. Go from this place today encouraged because, truly, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Jesus Is the Father's Love for Us" (Sermon on John 10:11-18) | April 25, 2021

Text: John 10:11–18
Date: April 25, 2021
Event: The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B

John 10:11–18 (EHV)

11“I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired man, who is not a shepherd, does not own the sheep. He sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. 13Because he works for money, he does not care about the sheep. 

14“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me 15(just as the Father knows me and I know the Father). And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I also have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd. 17This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This is the commission I received from my Father.” 

Jesus Is the Father’s Love for Us

“Love” is a word that is often used in various situation with differing levels of meaning. We may love our spouse, our children, or our parents. We might say that we love a band or a type of ice cream. We may say we love a person who infatuates us, or we may say we love someone with whom we don’t get along in a heavily sarcastic way. English-speaking human beings use “love” in a variety of ways.

But God really only uses love in one way when talking about himself. He loves with a true love, a love that is unconditional, a love that loves not because it is loved in return but a love that loves just because it loves. It sacrifices self for the betterment of others. God’s love is a pure love that goes beyond the way we love anyone or anything. 

Today is one of my favorite Sundays each year, Good Shepherd Sunday. Today we get to see God’s love in a special way, through the lens of helpless sheep being cared for by their self-sacrificing Shepherd. Today we see that Jesus is the Father’s love for us, and in fact Jesus’ love for us is a reason why the Father loves his Son so dearly. 

Sheep, as you may know, are not bright animals. They wander into trouble unaware. Recently I saw a quick video on the internet of a sheep who hadn’t been sheared in a long time and the wool had all but completely covered its eyes making it nearly blind. The sheep was sheared, the wool from its face cleared away, and you could almost see the relief in the animal’s eyes. Sheep almost seem to be specially designed to require the care of human beings—to lead them to water, to food, and even to groom them so that they are safe. 

Were I thrown into the middle of a flock of sheep and told to care for them, it would not go well. No matter how much I wanted to care for these animals, to help and provide for them, as I am right now I know next to nothing about what they need or how to provide for them. I may have the desire to help them, but I lack the ability to do so.

Does that describe your feelings when you think of certain human relationships that you have? Someone is going through a difficult time in their family life, but there’s nothing you can do to change that. Your heart aches and reaches out to the friend who is going through horrible medical trials but you are powerless to do anything concrete on your own to bring healing. It is a powerless feeling to be overwhelmed with empathy or sympathy but have no way to help the people directly suffering.

Jesus knew we were in a desperate, hopeless situation. Our sin meant hell for us for eternity. Nothing we could do could change that. Nothing anyone else could do could change that. Except for Jesus. “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired man, who is not a shepherd, does not own the sheep. He sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he works for money, he does not care about the sheep.” As God, Jesus was the one person who could change our hopeless situation. He was not the powerless, self-preserving hired hands with the flock. He is the Good Shepherd who can and would do everything needed to provide for the sheep’s needs and to protect them from anything that threatened them harm.

Jesus’ knowledge of you and your needs is intimate and personal—I know my sheep and my sheep know me (just as the Father knows me and I know the Father). And I lay down my life for the sheep. He knew that you and I needed what only his death would provide. And he didn’t seek self-preservation; he didn’t look after “number one;” he didn’t wish us well and leave us to our doom. No, he laid down his life for the sheep; he laid down his life for us.

Jesus saw our need and was uniquely qualified to solve our problems. This was the mission the Father sent him on. Jesus says that his Father loves him because of his saving-mission he embarked on: This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This is the commission I received from my Father. The Father loves Jesus because he died to save you and me from our sins. The Father loves Jesus because he was not defeated by death. The Father loves Jesus because he rose from the dead triumphantly, having secured our forgiveness and eternal life. That’s how much we mattered to the Father, that he would sacrifice his only-begotten Son to rescue us from hell. Is it even possible to wrap our minds around how much both the Father and Jesus love us? 

Jesus, as our Shepherd, is always in control of everything happening around his sheep and to his sheep, around us and to us. Never, not even at the cross, was the Shepherd ever overwhelmed by external factors. His life wasn’t taken from him; he gave it up. He wasn’t defeated; he offered himself as the sacrifice for our sins. Nothing was spinning out of control; everything went according to plan.

And what is the end result of all of this? We’ll sing those results at the end of the service. “I am Jesus’ little lamb. Ever glad at heart I am. For my Shepherd gently guides me, knows my needs and well-provides me, loves me every day the same. Even calls me by my name.”  The Shepherd died to make us his sheep. His work for us means that we are always under his loving, protecting, and guiding care. And just as nothing happened to him that he wasn’t in control of, nothing happens to his sheep—to you or me—that he is not allowing and working for our eternal good. The bad things and hardships, the heartaches and the miseries of this life—our Shepherd knows all of them. He uses them, shapes them to point us to eternal life that he has won for us. Everything works for our good because our Shepherd works them all for our good.

Think back to those situations we mentioned earlier, those places where you want to help someone but can’t do anything. Don’t neglect or think little of the most powerful tool you possess. You can commend them to the care of the Good Shepherd who can do anything. So while you may feel powerless in those situations, pray for them. Ask for God’s help, power, guidance, and direction. Ask him to help open your eyes to the more concrete ways you can help. And know that your loving Shepherd is faithful to his promises, and will work all of this trouble, hardship, and heartache for good.

Jesus was clear that this work was just not for his disciples or the people of Israel. This work was for all. I also have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd. You and I get to share the good news of the Good Shepherd with lost sheep that are wandering out there on their own. Their Shepherd loves them, laid down his life for them, took his life up again for them. They just need to know, need to be brought into this flock, need to be shown the love of their Savior-Shepherd, love that means forgiveness for every sin and the certainty of a perfect, eternal life with him forever. 

Jesus calls these sheep to himself, but most often he calls them through you and me. So your encouragement to a friend going through a difficult time; your willingness to share what you believe with that random person who asks; your simple invitation to a worship service, Bible class, or livestream to that person who didn’t know they’d be welcome may be the way the Good Shepherd beings that sheep into his singular, eternal flock. You may be, in part or in whole, the way God brings his love to those people for whom he died.

In good times and in troubling times, let the love of your God shown to you in your Good Shepherd’s life, death, and resurrection bring you comfort. Your Shepherd walks beside you each day and will be with you through eternity. Truly, he knows your needs and well-provides you. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

“Jesus’ Resurrection Brings True Healing” (Sermon on Acts 3:12-20) | April 11, 2021

Text: Acts 3:12-20
Date: April 11, 2021
Event: The Second Sunday of Easter, Year B

Acts 3:12–20 (EHV)

12When Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why are you staring at us, as if by our own power or godliness we have made this man walk? 13The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you. 15You killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus that has strengthened this man, whom you see and know. This faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. 

17“Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just like your leaders. 18But in this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through the mouth of all the prophets: that his Christ would suffer. 19Therefore repent and return to have your sins wiped out, 20so that refreshing times may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you.”

Jesus’ Resurrection Brings True Healing

At our council meeting on Thursday evening, we were talking about various campus improvement projects the Building Committee has been hashing through and even dreaming a little bit of what could be. But as we talked the subject of the sewer lines on campus came up (I know… a great subject to start a Sunday morning sermon with, but bear with me). We got to be reminded that yes, the church lines had been totally redone so that they’re no longer the broken clay pipe from long ago but pipe that will endure for a long time. 

But that brought to mind all the trouble we had had years ago, at times with almost weekly calls to the plumber to get us by until we could get things fixed the right way. And a wave of gratitude washed over me that we haven’t had to do that for years. But that wasn’t something I had thought about for a long time. Sometimes the results of blessings aren’t clear until you stop to think about them, and it’s good to be reminded of how God works especially in those things that we can sometimes take for granted.

Our First Lessons during the Easter season will largely be taken from the book of Acts, the history of the early Christian church. And our lesson for this morning takes us to one of the earliest accounts in that book, just after the first Christian Pentecost day. In this lesson, Peter clearly reminds about the work God has done for us and blessings he has given to us, things that perhaps are easy to take for granted even just days after our Easter celebrations. Because Jesus’ resurrection is not a one-time celebration. Jesus’ resurrection is an enduring, constant blessing, one that brings true, eternal healing and comfort.

Sometime after Pentecost, Peter and John were in the temple. A man who had been born lame, never able to walk, called to Peter and John and asked for money. Peter looked at him and said, “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). And as happened so often when Jesus addressed someone with a physical need during his ministry, Jesus empowered Peter to heal this man to not only hobble around, but even to jump while praising God!

The people at the temple knew this man and knew his condition. So to say they were shocked at this change of situation in his life would be an understatement. The people rushed to gather around the healed man, Peter, and John to try to find some answers. And the beginning of those answers that Peter gave is what serves as our sermon text for this morning.

From the very beginning, Peter deflects any praise or credit for this healing. “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why are you staring at us, as if by our own power or godliness we have made this man walk?” Peter knew he had nothing in this. It was not his pious life nor his strong faith that made this man able to walk. This was God’s work. But Peter makes a very important point for the Jewish believers there at the temple: “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus…” This is not a new God or a new religion. Everything that Peter is going to tell the crowd is going to be directly connected to the promises God had made for generations to and through the Israelites. 

In a similar theme to what he preached about not long prior to this on Pentecost, Peter fills in the details of what happened to this glorified Jesus, what perhaps some gathered there had participated in. “[God] glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you. You killed the Author of Life.” Peter is not trying to win many friends in this crowd, is he? He comes out swinging. “You condemned an innocent man and demanded the release of a murderer! You disowned the fulfillment of your entire faith and religion. You killed the Author of Life.” Oof…

But Peter has to start there. He not only has to address their sin, but he has to put forward Jesus’ death because everything—eternal life itself—hinges on that crucifixion. There’s law here—condemnation of their sin and rejection of Jesus—but it leads to gospel, right? Because how were those sins paid for? His crucifixion. 

And Peter doesn’t lose any time getting to that point: “You killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this. And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus that has strengthened this man, whom you see and know. This faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.” Jesus is the source of every spiritual blessing (and in this case, a physical blessing as well). 

But the resurrection is so key to Peter’s message that he has to proclaim it immediately! How important it was for the disciples to know the certain reality of Jesus’ physical resurrection from the dead! The whole gospel message hangs on this truth. It is the reason that we can have any confidence in God’s promises. It is the reason this man was healed. Is it any wonder that Jesus took the special time to meet Thomas’ confusion and doubts and address them head-on? Jesus being raised from the dead is key to everything.

The crowd gathered around, struck by the law, didn't need to apologize to Peter and John. They didn't need to make things right with the rest of the apostles. They needed to be concerned not with human relationships, but with their relationship with God. The resurrection is what makes a proper relationship with God possible. And Peter points the crowd to the resolution of everything bad: “Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just like your leaders. But in this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through the mouth of all the prophets: that his Christ would suffer. Therefore repent and return to have your sins wiped out, so that refreshing times may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you.” This was God’s plan all along. The Christ, the Messiah, would suffer and die so that sins would be wiped out, like an eraser on a chalk board. They need not wallow in guilt and hopelessness. This happened that they would be eternally refreshed and healed in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We saw all-too-clearly on Good Friday how it was really not the Jewish leaders, Pilate, or even the crowd of people Peter is addressing in our lesson who were responsible for Jesus’ death. It was your fault and mine. Our sins led him to the cross. He suffered in our place, suffered our punishment, endured our hell for our sins of ignorance and for sins of which we were well aware.

What does that mean? Well, as we said last Sunday on Easter, that gives us a life worth living. That means that our lives look and sound different. It means that sin should have no place of honor in our lives. We will never be rid of our sinful natures on this side of eternity and thus we will continue to fall into sin. Temptations will come from inside of us and outside of us, and we will fail. But because Jesus has wiped that sin away, we are not damned. Because Jesus wiped that sin away, we do not wallow in that sin or rejoice in that sin or seek out that sin. Instead, we come repent of that sin and, just like those listening to Peter in the temple that day, find that in Jesus’ death we have forgiveness, forgiveness that is proven by his resurrection from the dead.

For as remarkable as the lame man’s strong legs were, the miracle that God worked through Peter and John was just a foretaste, a glimpse, a sliver of the real healing that he wanted to provide and in fact has provided through Jesus’ resurrection. In him we are healed not from an inability to walk but from true spiritual death. We are rescued from sin and given a life of thanksgiving to lead here and an eternal life of perfection to look forward to in heaven. That is the healing that God provides. That is the healing that he’s given to you. That is our Easter joy which is for now and for eternity. Don’t take this for granted, but rejoice freshly in this Easter joy: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.