Pro Bono Ecclesiae

The Spirit-Led Life - John 16:5-15

2010-05-02T12:01:00.001-04:00

Cantate – John 16:5-15 (Isaiah 12:1-6; James 1:16-21) The Spirit-Led Life
02 May 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He is risen.

I. Now What?

By now you are very familiar with the theme of these Sunday morning sermons. You know that in Gesimatide we prepared to go on a journey toward the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. Throughout Lent we followed the pilgrim’s path toward the font of Holy Baptism. Then at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus and reaffirmed our life in Christ.

The question before us this Easter season is, “Now what?” Our new Moses has led us through the Red Sea and out of Egypt. Our new Joshua has led us through the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. Our new King David rules over us like a loving shepherd. We have come out from the valley of the shadow of death and into green pastures. We are Christians. The question is, “Now what?”

Now that we are Christians, what should we do? How should we act? What’s different about us? What is life in the Promised Land like? What does it mean that Jesus is risen, and that He lives in each one of us? What is the Christian life?

II. The Sprit-Led Life

In the Gospel for today, Jesus promises His disciples that after he goes away, that is after His death, resurrection, and ascension, He will send them a Helper. Jesus calls this Helper, the Spirit of truth. We know this Helper as the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says that the mission of the Helper, the job of the Holy Spirit, is to lead His disciples into all truth. So, we could say that the Christian life is the Spirit-led life.

The sin of Adam is that he didn’t follow the leading of God’s Spirit. He knew that God didn’t want him eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But he ate from that tree anyway. He disobeyed God. He refused to follow the Spirit’s leading.

All of us have followed suit. As sons of Adam, we have refused to follow the Spirit’s leading. We have each disobeyed God in countless ways. We have ignored the truth that sin leads only to death and hell, and we have tried to make our own fun in our own kind of way. By nature, we do not live the Spirit-led life.

But as baptized children of God, we have been given a new Spirit. We have been given the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. As Christians, we do follow the leading of the Spirit. We live the Spirit-led life.

III. The Location of the Spirit

But how can we be sure that we’re following the Spirit of truth and not some other spirit? How can we know that we’re following the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of this world or just your own spiritual intuition?

Jesus says that the Holy Spirit does not speak on His own. He speaks only what He hears; and what He hears is Jesus…the same Jesus who lived, died, and rose again. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit doesn’t declare just any thing. He declares the things that He has taken from Jesus during His earthly ministry. The Holy Spirit doesn’t teach anything new. He takes what already belongs to Jesus, and He declares it to the world. The Holy Spirit is intimately connected with Jesus. He is the Spirit of Jesus.

The Spirit of Jesus is also the Spirit of the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Jesus revealed the Father to the world and released the Holy Spirit in what He said and did for our salvation. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus and the Father to the world by repeating to us what Jesus said and did for our salvation, and then by applying that salvation to us.

That means that you can find the Holy Spirit speaking in the pages of the New Testament. The words of the Scriptures are the vehicle of the Spirit because they are the words of Jesus. They were recorded by those who were with Him during His earthly ministry that He personally authorized. The words that the apostles left behind are the words of Jesus. And because they are the words of Jesus, they are the words of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads us through the Scriptures.

And because that is true, we can also see the Spirit leading us in Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. Jesus promised in His word that Baptism would be the place where He would apply His death and resurrection to you so that you would die to sin and rise to live a new life in Him. He promised that in the word of forgiveness the Church would proclaim you would find freedom from the pain and consequence of guilt. And He swore on oath that He would sustain the Church with a meal of bread and wine that is His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

We know where the Holy Spirit is found. He is found where we can find Jesus. We can be sure that we’re following the leading of the Holy Spirit when we’re following the word that Jesus has given us through His apostles.

IV. The Leading of the Spirit

And this is how the Spirit leads us. According to Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

First, the Spirit convicts us concerning sin. Jesus says that the sin He has in mind is the failure of the world to believe in Him. The job of the Holy Spirit is to testify about the person and work of Jesus. He tells us that Jesus came into this world from God the Father to sacrifice Himself for the forgiveness of our sins; and that God raised Jesus from the dead confirming that this mission has been accomplished. The Spirit of God tells us that those who reject Jesus also reject the forgiveness that He has won; they are still in their sins.

Second, the Spirit convicts us concerning righteousness. Jesus says that this righteousness has something to do with His going to the Father, and the fact that the disciples won’t see Him anymore. Throughout the Old Testament period, the saints of God called on Him to reveal His righteousness, that is, to put the world to rights, to act in fulfillment of His promise to redeem Israel and to save the world from sin, death, and hell. God had promised to rescue His fallen creation, to put the world to rights. So, when He finally acted to fulfill this promise, He would reveal His own righteousness; He would show Himself to be “in the right.” In what Jesus did, God finally did fulfill His promises; He finally did rescue the world from all of the pain and suffering it brought on itself because of sin. In Jesus, God put the world to rights and in doing so, He revealed His own righteousness, His faithfulness to His promise to “make right” what had gone wrong in the world. The Spirit’s job is to tell us that Jesus is the righteousness of God, and that this remains true even though we can’t see Him at the present time. None of us should think that God hasn’t decisively rescued the world just because we can’t see Jesus or the full results of His rescue. Jesus is risen, and that settles things whether we can see Him right now or not: God has decisively revealed His righteousness. He has put the world to rights in the person and work of His Son.

Third, the Spirit convicts us concerning judgment. Jesus says that this has everything to do with the fact that the ruler of this world is judged. If God has put the world to rights, then that means that the one who set the world off on the wrong course has been judged. When the devil tempted Adam to sin, and maybe even before that, he openly rebelled against God, and he disrupted the order in the universe. He asserted himself as king, and he tried to reshape man in his own image instead of God’s. Frankly, he was pretty successful. But then Jesus came, fully God, but also fully man. And He lived a life fully reflecting God’s image every step of the way. In Christ, the sons of Adam are remade in the image of God. Everyone else faces judgment. That means that the devil has not gotten his way. He and his way have been judged and they have been found wanting. The devil stands condemned.

V. Summary Conclusion

As Christians, we believe that God has put right what has gone wrong in the world through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, our sins are forgiven and the devil has been judged. The only reason people perish eternally is because they have not believed in Jesus Christ.

We believe these things because we see them in the scriptures. We follow the scriptures because we know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to us there; He is leading us there. And that is what the Christian life is: It is the Spirit-led life, in Jesus’ name.

The Joyful Life - John 16:16-22

2010-04-25T12:01:00.002-04:00

Jubilate – John 16:16-22 (Isaiah 40:25-31; 1 Peter 2:11-20) The Joyful Life
25 April 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He is risen. He is risen indeed.

I. Now What?

During Gesimatide we prepared to go on a journey to the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. Throughout Lent we traveled toward our goal. Then at the Easter Vigil we reaffirmed our baptism, and on Easter Sunday we celebrated our Lord’s resurrection. We’ve walked the pilgrim path. We’ve traveled the desert. We’ve arrived in the Promised Land. We are Christians, united with Jesus. The question is, “Now what?”

Now that we are Christians, what do we do? What does the Christian life look like? What is the Christian life all about? We’ve celebrated Easter and the resurrection. But what does it mean that Jesus is risen? What does the resurrection mean in our lives?

II. The Joyful Life

Well, according to Jesus in the Gospel for today, His resurrection means that the Christian life is a life of unsurpassed, unending joy. The Christian life is the joyful life. Jesus tells His disciples that the world rejoices at His suffering and death, while they are filled with sorrow at His departure. They won’t see Him for “a little while.” But when He is raised from the dead, they will see Him again. Their sorrow will turn to joy, and no one will be able to take their joy from them.

The Christian life is the joyful life; it’s the joy-filled life. Jesus is risen. That is cause for rejoicing and celebration.

The resurrection of Jesus makes everything different. The resurrection shows us that Jesus is who He said He is, and that His death of the cross accomplished what he said it would accomplish. The resurrection means that God of Israel exists and that He loves us. It means that our sins have been paid for. We are forgiven. And the forgiveness of sins means that God has taken care of suffering and death, too. The resurrection of Jesus means that the new age after the Fall of Adam promised in the Old Testament has begun. Now we live in a world in which sin, and suffering, and death are a thing of the past.

That ought to cheer us up. That’s something worth rejoicing over. The Christian life should be the joyful life. Jesus is risen.

III. The Disappointment after Jesus’ Resurrection

And yet, we find that we are not always living that joyful life. We aren’t particularly happy. And sometimes, we’re downright cranky.

I think that our experience finds a parallel in the experience of the earliest disciples, and for much the same reason. Try, for a moment, to put yourself in their shoes.

You see, before His crucifixion, the disciples had believed that Jesus was the Messiah. He was the one who would defeat the pagans who ruled over Israel, purify or even rebuild the Temple, reclaim David’s throne, and usher in the kingdom of God. Then, at some point after that, God would raise from the dead all of those faithful Israelites who had longed to see the kingdom but who had died before it came so that they could share in that kingdom in a renewed heaven and earth where sin, and suffering, and death were no more.

The crucifixion brought all the disciples’ hopes that Jesus could be the Messiah crashing down. Jesus didn’t defeat the pagans. He didn’t rebuild the Temple. He didn’t claim David’s throne. Instead, the leadership of Israel rejected Him and handed Him over to Rome. And when Rome crucified Him, well, that was the end of the disciples’ messianic hopes for Jesus. A dead Messiah was no Messiah at all, and a crucified messiah was a contradiction in terms. Frankly, Jesus was shown to be under the curse of God. Clearly, He hadn’t brought about the kingdom of God.

But then something completely unexpected happened. On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. Wow! What a turn around. This is what Jesus was talking about when told His disciples, “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” He would be crucified, and they wouldn’t see Him. They would be sorrowful and sad. But then, He God would raise Him from the dead. They would see Him again, and they would be filled with joy; they would be filled with the kind of joy that no one could take away from them.

That’s why what I’m about to say might sound counter-intuitive at first; but I want you really to think about it, and try to see where I’m coming from. Here goes: I want you to think for a moment about just how disappointing Jesus’ resurrection might have been to the disciples. I know it sounds strange, but I really think that there’s biblical warrant for talking like this. Take for example the end of Matthew’s Gospel. The risen Jesus appears to His disciples in Galilee on a mountain. Some worship Him; but Matthew also tells us that “some doubted.” This verse is difficult to interpret, but let me offer one possible explanation. I think that in some ways, the disciples were probably disappointed after Jesus’ resurrection.

Think about it: The resurrection was supposed to happen after the pagans were defeated, the Temple was rebuilt, and God was king. It was supposed to happen after the new heavens and the new earth had swallowed up sin, suffering, death, and the entire old fallen world completely. And the resurrection was supposed to happen to all of the righteous dead at the end of age.

But that is not what happened. The resurrection didn’t happen to everybody. It happened only to Jesus. And even though God raised Jesus from the dead, the Saduccees still controlled the Sanhedrin, the house of Herod still ruled much of the Promised Land under Rome, and Caesar still reigned supreme. The Temple wasn’t rebuilt; in fact, it wasn’t long after Jesus’ resurrection that Rome destroyed the Temple once and for all. In almost every way, the world still looked like it had before God raised Jesus from the dead. People kept on sinning. People kept on suffering. People kept on dying. It didn’t look like God was king at all.

That’s what I’m talking about when I say that the some of Jesus’ disciples were probably disappointed even after His resurrection. They believed in Him. Something truly spectacular had happened. They even worshiped Him. But some doubted. “Is this really it? Is this as good as it gets?” God raised Jesus from the dead. The disciples were supposed to be filled with joy. And yet, some doubted. Some of them were not always all that joyful.

IV. The Disappointment of Life in a Fallen World

That’s why I say that our experience is much like theirs. We’re Christians now, but things go on the same way they always have.

The same guy’s still President of the United States. The same party controls congress. The same bills pass and fail to pass at the same alarming rate. Our troops are still in the same countries fighting the same wars. The economy’s still in a tailspin.

Earthquakes still hit Haiti, China, and Mexico. Floods still hit Kazakhstan, Serbia, and Russia. We still have forest-fires and landslides, tornadoes and hurricanes and all the rest right here in our own country.

Then there’s the interpersonal problems we deal with. People are still mean to each other. They lie, cheat, swear, steal, sleep around, start fights, and even commit murder.

What about the health problems we deal with? We still catch colds, and flues. And we still die from heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and a whole host of other ailments.

When we look at the world around us, and even the world within us, we will discover that there are disappointments aplenty in this life, and not much joy.

V. The Joyful Life in Christ

And there is the problem and the solution. The problem that so many Christians don’t have the joy that Jesus’ resurrection has brought into the world is that we are still looking at ourselves and at the world. The solution is to keep your eyes on Jesus instead.

I’m not talking about ignoring the pain and suffering in the world. I’m not talking about pretending that it doesn’t exist. But what I am saying is look at those things in Christ, and you will find that you can have joy even in the worst of circumstances.

The fact is that in Christ, God has done something about the evil that so disappoints us in this world. God has come into this world in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, and He has taken all of the natural, political, moral, and personal evil onto His own shoulders. He has taken all of the disappointment and evil in the world to the cross, and He has left there in death. Then in Jesus’ resurrection, God has ushered in a new creation where disappointment and evil are a thing of the past. In Christ, there is no disappointment. In Christ, evil has been done away with.

We still struggle in a world that is waiting for its new birth. But make no mistake; in Christ, that new world has been conceived and is steadily growing in the womb. It’s just a matter of time until the woman in labor gives birth. As Christians, you have the inside track. You have inside knowledge. You know that the new creation is already here in Christ. In fact, you are a part of that new creation. And one day, that new creation will swallow up the old one completely.

So, in the meantime, you can look at all the things that disappoint you in a new light. The politicians won’t have the last word. Natural disasters don’t rule the day. The sicknesses and diseases that affect us won’t win the war. Death itself can take our loved ones, and it can even claim our lives; but it can’t hold on to them forever because Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus lives. He is risen. And in Him, the resurrection is ours, too. And that is cause for rejoicing, in Jesus’ name.

The Sacrificial Life - John 10:11-16

2010-04-18T12:01:00.000-04:00

Misericordias Domini – John 10:11-16 (Ezekiel 34:11-16; 1 Peter 2:21-25) The Sacrificial Life
18 April 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He is risen. He is risen indeed.

I. Now What?

Our theme throughout lent was “a journey.” It was a journey toward the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. We were reaffirming our desire to live the baptismal life, the Easter life, the Christian life. We spent three weeks in Gesimatide preparing for the journey, and we spent six weeks in Lent actively traveling toward the renewal of our baptism and our celebration of Easter.

Now that we’ve had our Easter celebration, and we find ourselves in the middle of the Easter season, the question is, “Now what?” Now that we’ve studied the catechism, learned our Bible stories, and familiarized ourselves with the Church services, the question is, “Now what?” Now that we’ve confessed our sins and been forgiven, now that we’ve been baptized and shared in the Lord’s Supper, the question is, “Now what?” Now that we are Christians, the question is, “Now what?”

What is the baptismal life all about? What does the Easter life look like? What is this Christian life? How do I live as a baptized person? What does it mean to live like Easter people? What does a Christian life look like?

And that is our theme for the Easter season. Throughout Lent we journeyed toward the Christian life. Now, this Easter season, we’re going to talk about what that Christian life is all about, what it means to be Easter people.

II. Imbalance

There’s a bit of an imbalance in the way that we observe the Church year. Three weeks of pre-Lent. Then six weeks of Lent itself. All of it leading up to Easter; but then, Easter only lasts one day. Nine weeks of talking about the moral law, sin, and repentance, and then only one day of talking about the new life. Nine weeks on Adam, and only one day on Christ. That doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem Biblical. And in fact, it isn’t in keeping with Church year either.

Even on our Church calendars Easter isn’t just one single day. Easter is an entire season. Whereas Lent last for forty days, Easter is a season that lasts for fifty days. Easter is longer than Lent. Easter is greater than Lent. In fact, Easter is the holiday that we celebrate all year round, Sunday after Sunday. The reason our regular day of worship is Sunday is because that is the day of our Lord’s resurrection. Every time we gather here on a Sunday morning, we’re gathering because of Easter and we’re celebrating Easter. Every Sunday is Easter. Easter dominates the Church calendar.

Easter dominates the Bible. Genesis says that God created all things good. Things went wrong when mankind fell into sin. But the entire story of the Bible is about God putting right what went wrong. In other words, the entire Bible is about Easter, the resurrection of creation to new life in which all of creation is good again.

Since Easter dominates the Bible, it also ought to dominate the church’s preaching and the church’s living. In the Lutheran church, we place a premium on “Law and Gospel” preaching, and “Law and Gospel” living. Our problem is that we’ve distorted our preaching and therefore also our living by truncating the Gospel, but cutting it short.

Your standard Lutheran sermon goes something like this: 1.) You should be “x” kind of people. 2.) You are not “x” kind of people. Therefore, you deserve death and hell. 3.) But don’t worry. Jesus died for your failure to be “x” kind of people. So, you won’t have to die and go to hell.

But there’s an imbalance in that sermon. It’s all Lent and very little Easter. It’s almost all Adam and very little Christ. It does have tremendously good news for you. You won’t have to die and go to hell because of what Jesus did. But that isn’t the whole good news. And, in fact, if you leave it at that, then people can very quickly get a wrong idea about just what the good news really is.

I’ll try to explain what I mean. Take a look at what a constant dose of this kind of preaching does to our Christian living. If Jesus died so that I don’t have to worry about my failure to be “x” kind of person, then perhaps I don’t have to be “x” kind of person after all. Maybe I could just go on sinning. Maybe I should just go on sinning. After all, it’s God’s glory to forgive. Why should I deprive God of His glory? My sin causes God’s grace to abound!

That kind of preaching and that kind of living is dominated by the law, Adam, and ultimately death. But our preaching and our living should be dominated by the Gospel, Christ, and the resurrection life.

A better and more truly “Lutheran” form of “Law and Gospel” preaching goes something like this: 1.) You should be “x” kind of people. 2.) In Adam, you are not “x” kind of people. Therefore, you deserve death and hell. 3.) In Christ, you are “x” kind of people. So, you won’t have to die and go to hell.

Do you see the difference that makes? The Gospel is not simply that your sins are forgiven. That’s true, and it’s utterly amazing and invaluable. But it’s not the end of the story. If it were, well then you just might sin again and keep on sinning, and be no different from how you were before. The Gospel isn’t a band-aid. It’s a radical reformation. The Gospel is that you are a new creation. Yes, you are forgiven. Yes you are forgiven by grace alone. But, you are also made entirely new by grace alone, too. Not only are you forgiven, but you have been given a new life where sin is a thing of the past, and a life lived in holiness before God is not only possible, but actual. In Christ, you actually are “x” kind of people, and that means that you will live “x” kind of life…the Christian life.

III. The Sacrificial Life of Christ

Throughout this Easter, I’m going to be explaining this again and again by preaching this way on the Gospel for the given Sunday. I’ll start by walking you through today’s Gospel that way in the little bit of time that we have left.

Jesus says that He is the good shepherd. In the Old Testament, Israel pictured her ideal king as a shepherd. This was based in large part on the fact that her greatest king, David, was a shepherd as a boy. So, to call Jesus the good shepherd is to say that He is the long awaited shepherd-king, the anointed messiah.

There is another strand in the Old Testament that talks about the Lord God Himself becoming a shepherd to His people. He Himself will be their shepherd-king. As the truly “good” shepherd, Jesus is making a divine claim about Himself. He is the human face of the divine shepherd, Israel’s God in the flesh.

Now, here is the interesting turn. Whereas the kings of this world use their position and power for their own benefit, the king of Israel is a self-sacrificial leader who uses his position and power for the benefit of God’s people. This is because God Himself, the King who stands behind the king, is a self-sacrificial leader who uses His position and power for the benefit of His people. The Great Good Shepherd searches and seeks out His sheep when they go astray. He gathers His rebellious people in from the lands where they have been exiled because of their sin, and He leads them into their own land again, the Promised Land. He leads Adam back to the Garden of Eden. He feeds His sheep with bread and wine. He binds up their injuries. He fends off the enemies that threaten them.

Jesus says that one of the ways His people will know that He is indeed the good shepherd is that they will recognize His voice. They will recognize His self-sacrificial character. They will see that He truly loves them and gives Himself up for them.

Jesus draws a sharp contrast between Himself and a “hired hand.” A hired hand doesn’t really care for the sheep. He doesn’t really love them. Maybe Jesus was referring to the house of Herod, or to the Sadducees, or even to Caesar. His point is that these rulers are out for themselves. They don’t really love the sheep. They are mere “hired hands.” When the hired hand sees the wolf coming, he flees. But not Israel’s true king. The good shepherd cares for His sheep, and He puts them first. When they are in danger, He is there to save them. When He sees the wolf, He steps in and defends His sheep, even if it means that He loses His life to do it.

That is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus saw that the devil was out to ruin your life with sin and death. And He stepped in to defend you from that wolf. He took on your sin, and he went into death on your behalf. He paid the penalty for your sin on the cross. Jesus laid down His life for the sheep; He laid down His life for you. And on the third day, He rose from the dead to give you a new life, free from sin and the fear of death.

IV. The Sacrificial Life of the Christian

This new life is what the epistle for today talks about. This is the life to which you have been called as a Christian. Apart from Christ, we are generally selfish and self-centered. We look out for number one. But in Christ, we are new and different people. Christ suffered for you. He sacrificed Himself for you, and through His sacrifice, He’s made you into a new person. So, now, you are the kind of person who follows in His steps. Instead of living a selfish life, you live a sacrificial life.

To give just one example of what that life looks like: It means suffering injustice and forgiving others as God has forgiven you. The epistle says that Jesus was reviled, but he did not revile in return. He suffered, but He did not threaten. Instead, He entrusted Himself to the one who judges justly. That is the kind of life that Jesus has given you to live. Instead of holding grudges and plotting revenge, forgiveness is the order of the day. God in Christ has sacrificed to forgive you. You, in turn, now sacrifice in order to forgive others.

And forgiveness is indeed a sacrifice. It’s hard to forgive. You need to give up your pride, give up your thoughts of revenge, give up a piece of yourself in order to forgive.

But Christ bore your sins in His body on the tree. He did that so that you would die to sin, and instead live to righteousness. By His sacrificial wounds, your selfishness has been healed. That means, for one, that you forgive others when they sin against you. And it means a whole lot of other things besides. There are countless ways that we can live sacrificially.

What I want you to remember for today is this: Jesus Christ our good shepherd lived a self-sacrificial life for us. Now, in Him, as Christians, we live a sacrificial life for the good of others. That is what it means to live as Easter people. The Christian life is the sacrificial life, in Jesus’ name.

The Forgiven Life - John 20:19-31

2010-04-11T12:01:00.003-04:00

Quasimodo Geniti – John 20:19-31 (Ezekiel 37:1-14; 1 John 5:4-10) The Forgiven Life
11 April 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Post-Easter Let-Down

During the three weeks of Gesimatide, we prepared to go on a journey. It was to be a journey toward the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. It was a journey toward the baptismal font where we would be united with Jesus, where our lives would be transformed and we would begin to life a new life, the Easter life, the Christian life. Then, in Lent, we set out on that journey, and it has been a long one” Six Sunday services. Six Wednesday night services. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and finally the Easter Vigil culminating in our Easter Sunday celebration. After all of that, even some of the pastors in the area left town and went on vacation.

Every year, it seems like there’s a post-Easter let-down. We’ve spent such a long time looking forward to Easter Sunday, planning, preparing, going to church, going to a lot of church…the big day arrives, we sing, we eat, and after that, the air goes out of the balloon, and we fizzle out. Churches full a week ago have quite a few empty pews this Sunday. Some of that you can account for with out of town guests having headed back home. But the fact is, regular members and even pastors often feel like the Sunday after Easter is a good day to take off.

That’s not necessarily wrong or bad. It’s only natural for there to be a let-down after a big event. You can’t always be on the mountain top, after all.

II. The (New-)Christian Let-Down

But I think that this post-Easter let-down does illustrate a question that many people close to the Church have, whether they’re prospective members, new members, or even longstanding Christians. That question goes something like this: “OK. I’ve been through the catechism. I’ve learned some Bible stories. I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I’ve been baptized. I’ve had my first communion. I’m a Christian. So, now what?”

Now, in a way, that’s really silly, and kind of sad. Picture it in terms of sports. The football team runs their laps and sprints. They lift weights in the gym, and eat good food in the cafeteria. They go over film with the coach. They study their plays and practice them on the training field. Then Sunday comes, game-day. Do you think any of them look at each other and say, “Now what?” Of course not. They go out and play the game. This is what they’ve been training for. This is what they’ve been waiting for. The game is the point of it all. Playing the game is the fun part. Playing the game is what all of the preparation has been leading up to.

To return the analogy to the Church, Many people, many Christians, have very little idea just what the Christian life is all about. They don’t know what it is, or how it’s all that different from the life they lived before…and it often shows. After their conversion, they live how they’ve always lived. If they’ve been long-time Christians, there’s no perceptible difference between them and non-Christians except that they go to Church.

I call this “the new-Christian…” or simply the “Christian Let-Down.” Let me give you another picture. There you are in the cool of the grave, stone cold dead. Then the voice of God rings from heaven, “Come out, and live.” Your eyes open. You look around. You’re alive! But instead of getting up, you just sit there in the tomb, twiddling your thumbs, muttering to yourself, “Now what?” That’s the “Christian Let-Down.”

We’ve got a lot of Christians still sitting in their tombs. We’ve got a lot of Christians who don’t realize that they’re alive again. So, they stay in the ground. They stay in the grave, and they ask, “Now what?”

III. The Forgiven Life

One of the things that keeps people in the grave is the weight of their sin. Have you ever done something so awful that you didn’t even want to look at yourself in the mirror? Maybe you stole something from a candy store when you were nine. Maybe you cheated on your wife when you were thirty nine. Maybe it was something you said or did in anger. Maybe it’s that problem you have with alcohol, or food, or pornography. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s more than one thing. And the list could be a mile long. What I’m asking is, “Do you have any regrets?” Have you ever done something that when it was done, it set your conscience off, and tore you up inside?

Sometimes it’s like you can actually feel the weight of those mistakes. Your face gets flushed. Your chest feels tight. You can’t think clearly. The guilt consumes you. Like Marley’s ghost in Dickens’ Christmas Carol, you’re weighed down with chains.

If you’ve ever felt like that, you know something of what it’s like to be dead. It’s a paralyzing feeling. The weight of sin saps your strength and your energy. It takes the joy out of life. It takes the life out of life.

This brings us to the first answer to the “now what?” of Christianity. “Now what?” Well, the Gospel for today says that Jesus came to give you your life back by removing the weight of your sin. On the evening of the first day of the week, Jesus came and stood among His disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.” These are the same disciples who forsook Him and fled on the night He was delivered over into death. Jesus came to them, not with vengeance or anger, but with words of forgiveness: “Peace be with you.” Jesus speaks those words to you here today. They’re all over the place. Listen for them. “The peace of the Lord be with you always.”

This is what Jesus’ sacrifice was all about. In Christ, the eternal God took the weight of your sin, off of your shoulders. He has become your scapegoat. He has pardoned your offenses. You are forgiven. You are free.

“Now what?” Now you live the forgiven life. Your chains have been cut. The weight’s off. God forgives you. The King of the universe doesn’t hold your sins against you. He doesn’t take them lightly. I don’t want you to get that idea. He paid the debt of your sin on the cross. So, you can see that God takes your sins seriously. But He has forgiven them. You are free to live without fear of punishment, and without the weight of guilt.

That, is a significantly new kind of life. For starters, it means that if you’ve sinned against someone, you’re going to go to them, if it’s at all possible to do so without making matters worse, and you’re going to ask them to forgive you, too. If you’ve done someone wrong, you’re going to admit it, and you’re going to ask them what you can do to begin to make it right. Sometimes they’ll forgive you. Sometimes they won’t. But, you for your part will do the right thing. You have been forgiven by God almighty. The judge of the universe has let you off the hook. You have nothing to fear from any man. If they forgive you, good. You can start a new relationship. If they don’t, then at least they’ll know that you’re sorry, and that there’s something different about you. Who knows, maybe they’ll come to you down the road.

The forgiven life also means that when others sin against you, you forgive them. This doesn’t mean that you keep sticking your neck out again and again when it would be utterly foolish to do so. It doesn’t mean that you can’t protect yourself from continual hurt. But it does mean that you don’t hold a grudge. It means that you “let it go.” It means that you seek to be reconciled. Again, the judge of the universe has let you off the hook. So, you do the same for others.

By nature, the guilt of sin keeps you weighted down, like a dead man in a tomb. You don’t care to ask for forgiveness, and you don’t bother to forgive others. But as a Christian, you have a new nature. By baptism, you share in Christ’s nature. He has sacrificed His body and shed His blood for the forgiveness of your sins. He has lifted the weight of your sin, and He speaks the words of forgiveness to you now, “Peace be with you.” “Now what?” Get up off of your butt, step out of your tomb, and get living. You are forgiven all of your sins. Now forgive those who sin against you, too, in Jesus’ name.

And the Third Day He Rose Again

2010-04-05T08:00:00.002-04:00

Ask any child what the Creed means when it says, “And the third day he rose again,” and they will tell you that it means that although Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried, he was seen alive again by his disciples. If you ask who is buried in Jesus’ tomb, they will tell you, “No one. Jesus is risen from the dead, and lives and reigns to all eternity.”

Ask certain scholars what the Creed means when it says, “And the third day he rose again,” and you are likely to get any number of different answers. Consider the words of Marcus Borg, Professor of Religion at Oregon State University, and a widely known scholar of religion (Christianity in particular): “‘God raised Jesus from the dead’ is the foundational affirmation of the New Testament…[T]he best explanation for the rise of Christianity—indeed, the only adequate explanation—is the resurrection of Jesus.”[1] So far, so good. Borg’s words could have easily been proclaimed from LCMS pulpits at any number of Easters past. However, similarity of vocabulary should not be equated with similarity of confession. Just because Borg can “say the creed without misgivings,”[2] does not mean that we should have no misgivings about his “saying” of the creed. Can one who admittedly “[does] not see [the creed] as a set of literally true doctrinal statements to which [he is] supposed to give [his] intellectual assent,”[3] really be confessing the same thing as those of us who see the creed in precisely this way? To ask the question is to answer it. In case additional evidence is required, Borg supplies it: “For me, it is irrelevant whether or not the tomb was empty. Whether Easter involved something remarkable happening to the physical body of Jesus is irrelevant….The truth of Easter, as I see it, is not at stake in this issue.”[4]

Friends, the truth of Easter is exactly what is at stake in this issue. The whole truth, meaning, and relevance of Christianity is at stake in this issue. As St. Paul puts it,

[I]f Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.... If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men" (1 Cor. 15:14,17-19).

Borg may be “very comfortable not knowing whether or not the tomb was empty.”[5] I, for one, am not. According to the New Testament documents, no one should be.

The canonical accounts of the birth, life, and death of Jesus are presented as matters-of-fact. Accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are no different. The major facts of Jesus’ life, including the fact of the empty tomb, are presented by the Gospel writers as historical realities. Interestingly, the physical vacancy of Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning is conceded even by those with the most to lose by such a concession, the chief priests of the Jews (see Matthew 28:11-15).

The empty tomb was of considerable importance to the earliest disciples. Each of the four Gospels records the fact of the empty tomb. Paul argues in his Epistles (particularly 1 Corinthians) that the physical resurrection of Jesus is the basis of the physical resurrection of all believers. If Christ has not been raised, then neither will we be raised at the last day. Whether the Gospels or the Epistles are consulted, the empty tomb is manifestly the linchpin of the New Testament faith.

Borg has “no difficulty saying and affirming the Nicene Creed,”[6] yet, “the discovery of Jesus’ skeletal remains would not be a problem” for him.[7] Creeds and confessions are intended to clarify one’s position. Borg, and those of his persuasion use time honored statements of faith, instead, to confuse issues, mouthing their words, but denying their substance. Such distortion of language is becoming more and more common.

The issue at hand is the phrase, “And the third day he rose again.” Ask a child what these words mean, and you will get a very straightforward answer. As a child, Borg himself “took it for granted that Easter meant that Jesus literally rose from the tomb.”[8] But it wasn’t long until he saw Easter very differently, and became convinced that what happened to the body of Jesus was “irrelevant.” Nevertheless, he continues to confess the words, “and the third day he rose again.”

Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing. “And the third day he rose again” can mean only one thing: The tomb is indeed empty because Jesus rose from the dead, and bodily so. I submit the words of St. Paul for your consideration.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time…Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also… (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

The resurrection of Jesus is a matter of critical importance. It is the ratification of his sacrifice for our sins, and the first fruits of our own resurrection. If the resurrection of Jesus is merely a pious metaphor, then the Christian’s resurrection is nothing more than a pious metaphor too. Death is a real, not a metaphorical, enemy. It requires a real, not a metaphorical, conqueror. This fact was not lost on the apostles, who, in fact, faced a very real death in confessing the very real resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We continue to confess this same faith with these words, “And the third day he rose again.”

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[1] Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1999), 130.
[2] Ibid., 155.
[3] Ibid., 155.
[4] Ibid., 131.
[5] Ibid., 131.
[6] Ibid., 153.
[7] Ibid., 131.
[8] Borg and Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, 131.

The Strange Resurrection Life - John 20:1-18

2010-04-04T12:01:00.001-04:00

Easter Sunday – John 20:1-18 (Isaiah 25:6-9; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11) The Strange Resurrection Life
04 April 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

I. Arrival at the Destination

At the beginning of Lent, we set out on a journey. It was a journey to the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. And finally, we have arrived.

On Thursday, the cross reached out from the past, and invaded our present in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. On Friday afternoon, we contemplated the reality and the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion as we heard the story of how Jesus went to the cross to offer His body and blood to God in a perfect sacrifice. On Friday evening, we journeyed through the darkness of sin and death into the heart of God revealed on the cross, and we discovered the greatest love that the world has ever known. Then last night, we began to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection by reaffirming our baptism. We renounced the devil and his works and his ways, and we said, “Yes,” to God and to His works and to His ways. Today, we continue our celebration.

For the past forty days, we have been on a journey. We’ve been anticipating Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and, of course, Easter Sunday. But you know that our journey has been about far more than observing a few holy days. It hasn’t just been about meeting up here at church. Our goal has been to meet Jesus. We haven’t just wanted to commemorate Easter. Our goal has been to experience Easter. We want to experience Easter for ourselves. We want the resurrection life. We want to be raised from the dead. We want to start really living, right now. We want to be baptized. We want to be Christians.

But, what does that mean? And how do we get on with it? I think that’s a question that a lot of Christians ask. “Well, I’m a Christian now. I’ve come to believe that Jesus died and rose again to forgive my sins. I know that God’s promised me heaven when I die and the resurrection some time after that. And all that’s good. But, now what? What do I do now?”

II. New Life Grounded in the Gospel

The answer to that question lies in the gospel. The gospel, the good news, is that Jesus, the Son of God, and God in the flesh, came into this world as a human being to be our representative head, and open the way for us to be everything that God made us to be.

The first order of business was to do away with sin and its effects. Jesus took all of the sins, all of the faults, all of the failures, all of the mistakes, all of the disease, all of the sickness, all of the aches and pains, all of the suffering and sorrow of all the world onto His own shoulders, and He made it all His own. Then He took all of that bile and filth and nastiness with Him to the cross and into death. He carried all of that trash to the cosmic landfill of the grave, and He buried it there. Jesus cleaned mankind’s slate. He did away with sin and all of its effects.

The next order of business then, was to complete the job. If sin and its effects have truly been removed, then death itself must be defeated. And that’s what Jesus did. On the third day, he rose from the dead, leaving all of the garbage of sin and suffering behind. Jesus emerged from the tomb as a new man, completely unencumbered by sin and death and every awful thing in between. He rose from the dead, and now He lives the resurrection life in which sin and death are a thing of the past.

In holy baptism, Jesus unites us to Himself so that what is true of Him is now true of us. In baptism, He is our representative head. We go down into death with Him, and He strips us of our sins, our failures, our sicknesses, and our suffering. We heap those things on to Him, and He in turn heaps them onto the garbage dump. And just as He is risen from the dead and lives His life completely for God, we too rise up in Him to live a new life of faith and complete dedication to God.

And that is the answer to the question, “Now what? What do I do now?” Now, you live a new kind of life. Now you live the Christian life, the resurrection life, the Easter life.

III. Strange New Life

Your natural life began in your mother’s womb. It was a life that was tainted with sin, sickness, and death. You did not fear, love, and trust in God. You did not love your neighbor as you love yourself.

In Christ, you have a new life. In holy baptism, God conceived you as a new creation. He washed away your sins, and made you holy. He did away with your mortal existence and gave you a new, eternal existence. In baptism, God united you with His Son, Jesus Christ, and gave you a new identity. Who you once were has been done away with. You are a new person now.

And that means that you live a new life now. Your sinful life has been left behind. Now you live the forgiven life, the baptismal life, the Easter life, the Christian life.

You used to live in slavery to sin, in the land of death, under the power of the devil. But now the Passover Lamb has been sacrificed, and God is leading a new Exodus. You aren’t a slave to sin anymore. You are free to live a life of good works. You no longer live in the land of death. In Christ, God has taken you out of that dark valley, and He has led you to green pastures.

Before you lived in rebellion against God and at enmity with your neighbors. But now, in Christ, you are restored to God’s family, and your neighbors are your brothers and sisters.

There is a strangeness to this new life. Common sense tells us that we can’t do it. We can’t live this way, completely trusting in God, and being kind and generous to everyone we meet…certainly not our enemies. And truth be told, it still does sometimes feel unnatural.

I think that some of the strangeness of this new life is reflected in the Gospel for this morning. There Mary Magdalene meets the risen Jesus just outside His tomb, but she doesn’t recognize Him. I think that one of the points the story is trying to make is that Jesus has risen to such a profoundly new kind of life that it’s difficult for us to imagine just how wonderful it is. In a way, you can say that we can’t fully recognize it. It’s just so far beyond our experience.

But when Jesus spoke her name, “Mary,” her eyes were opened. She believed, and from that instant, she began to be transformed and caught up into that resurrection life.
You may only be human, but that is actually a wonderful and glorious thing. God has created human beings in His own image and likeness. You bear the image of God. The fact that we’ve gotten used to sin and death just tells us how profound our fall from grace in the Garden of Eden really was. We were never meant to sin. We were never meant to die. God created us so that we would live in harmony with Him and reflect His loving rule out into the rest of the world. That is our vocation as human beings.

Now, in Christ, we can finally live that vocation out. In Him, we aren’t weighed down with sin and the awful anticipation of death any more. Our sins have been forgiven, and God has promised to raise us from the dead. The resurrection life that Jesus lives, and that we are promised, is available to us right now. In fact, being a Christian means that Jesus is living that resurrection life in us and through us.
Just like Jesus looked strange to Mary, we might look strange to the world. People might not always recognize us. “What is all this forgiveness business? What is this loving your enemies? What is this belief in resurrection? What is this going to Church stuff? What is this strange life of love?”

Our reply is, “Jesus is risen, and He lives in my heart.” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Journey to the Heart of God - John 18-19

2010-04-02T20:01:00.001-04:00

Good Friday Evening – John 18-19 Journey to the Heart of God
02 April 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

This Lent, we have been on a journey. It’s been a journey to the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. And finally, we have arrived.

Yesterday, the cross reached out from the past, and invaded our present in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Then, this afternoon, we heard the story of how Jesus went to the cross 2,000 years ago to offer His body and blood to God in a perfect sacrifice so that we could eat the meal we did the night before. Tonight, we sit by the tomb of Jesus, and we meditate on just where this Lenten journey has taken us.

Over the course of the next hour, you will hear the Passion according to St. John interspersed with Old Testament readings from Lamentations, the Psalms, Zechariah, Micah, and Isaiah. Many other Old Testament readings could have been included. For John, the things that happened to Jesus took place in fulfillment of the Scriptures. This isn’t a matter of Jesus fulfilling this or that ancient prediction. The point is that the crucifixion of Jesus is the climactic turning point of the entire Old Testament story. Jesus is crucified as the King of the Jews, the representative of Israel. Pilate presents Jesus to the chief priests with the words, “Behold, the man.” Jesus is, simply, the man. He is crucified as Adam, the representative head of the entire fallen human race. He takes the sins of mankind on His shoulders. He suffers the punishment that sinners deserve. Jesus drinks the sour wine, the cup of God’s wrath meant for those who have rejected God and participated in evil. Jesus is slaughtered as the Passover Lamb. He is sacrificed so that His people might go free. His pours out His blood to protect His people from the angel of death.

After these things, the world is different. There is no longer a division between Jew and Gentile. The sins of all are forgiven. Everyone is invited into the family of God. Sickness, suffering, and death are put out of business. The ground and the sea are forced to give up their dead. Eternal life in the resurrection is the inheritance of all those who are baptized into this crucified and risen Jesus.

Tonight, we stand in the shadow of the holy cross. As darkness falls outside, and as the candles are extinguished in this sanctuary, we remember that it was our sin that brought Jesus to the cross.

From an historical point of view, it was the peculiar politics of first-century Rome and Judea that conspired to crucify Jesus. In a way, we had nothing to do with it. Those were other people who did those things, Jews and Italians, priests and centurions.

Philosophically, we can say that what our brothers and sisters did to Jesus doesn’t reflect well on the human race. Since we are members of that race, we are tainted, too. But we can still say, “It wasn’t us. We’re better than that.”

But theologically, we have to admit that it was us. We ourselves were really the ones who did those horrible things to Jesus. We were the ones who scourged our Lord’s back; we were the ones who placed the crown of thorns on His head; we were the ones who hung Him on the tree. That is what our share in original sin means. That is what it means to say that we have sinned against God and our neighbor in thought, word, and deed. We have mistreated God. We have struck Jesus in the face. That is what it means to say that we are sinners.

And yet, the good news is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God saw us in our sin, and He reached out in love and forgiveness to save us. God Father sent His Son in the power of the Spirit to be a sacrifice for our sin. The Son willingly obeyed the Father and endured the cross to send the Spirit of God into our lives.

The cross is God’s, “No,” to sin, even while it is at the same time His, “Yes,” to you. God hates the sin, but He still loves the sinner. He’s not after punishment for punishment’s sake. He’s not simply a vengeful God after retribution or an eye for an eye. What God’s after is rehabilitation. You are of great worth to God. He values you. He loves you. But the sin has to go.

The crucifixion of Jesus shows that God takes sin seriously. This is no trifle. It’s nothing to joke about. The sin of mankind cost God the ultimate price. Sin is serious business.

But God was not willing to let the sinner die. He wants men everywhere to repent of their sin, and return to Him. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

Jesus Himself is the truth. He is the truth that came from God in order to tell the world the truth. The truth is, we are sinners. The truth is, we are facing death and hell. And the truth is, we deserve it. But it is also true that God has dealt with our sin; He has forgiven our sin; He has set us free from death and hell.

The truth is, God loves you. Jesus is the proof. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” Jesus laid down His life for you. You are His friends. You are His brothers. In Christ, you are sons and daughters of God, and God is your Father.

Throughout this Lent we have been on a journey to the cross and the empty tomb. And finally, we have arrived. We sit at the tomb of Jesus in the shadow of the cross. And as we contemplate what our Lord has done for us, we discover that our journey has taken us into the heart God. And there we find that He loves us with the deepest love that the world has ever known.

God loved the world this way: He gave His only begotten Son.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

At the Foot of the Cross: Reality and Meaning - John 18-19

2010-04-02T14:01:00.000-04:00

Good Friday Afternoon – John 18-19 (Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9) At the Foot of the Cross: Reality & Meaning
02 April 2010
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

This Lent, we have been on a journey. It has been a journey to the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. Last night, the cross reached out from the past, and invaded our present and our presence in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This afternoon, on the anniversary of our Lord’s death, during the same hours we believe He hung on the cross, we take a few moments to contemplate the reality and the meaning of the crucifixion once again.

I. The Reality of the Cross

“So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him…” The description is terse. The details are sparse. The account is matter of fact. There is no embellishment. St. John’s Gospel, perhaps the most theologically developed of the four Gospels, certainly the most poetic of the four, does not even attempt to paint a pretty picture of what happened on the first Good Friday. John, the great canonical dramatist, does not dramatize the most dramatic moment in our Lord’s pre-resurrection life. He reports the goings on in a way that simply says, “This is what happened.” John reports on the reality of the cross.

Throughout his Gospel, John gives the reader every reason to believe that he saw the crucifixion of Jesus as the moment that revealed the glory of God. John portrays Jesus as saying that going to the cross is the single most important reason that He came, and that this act of self-sacrifice will bring glory to the Father who sent Him. Jesus says that the moment that He is lifted up on the cross is the moment that He draws all people to Himself and to God; It is the moment of salvation and revelation. After Judas left the last supper, John records Jesus as saying, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” The suffering and death of the Son of Man, the crucifixion of the Christ, is, for John, the revelation of God’s glory.

And yet, when we turn to the passion chapters in John’s Gospel, there is no glory to see. No angels look on. No voice speaks from heaven. No signs appear in the sky. Everything is presented in a rather painfully ordinary way.

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe….[The chief priests] cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!”…So [Pilate] delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull….There they crucified him….When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit….One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear….[Joseph of Arimathea] took away his body [and laid it in his tomb.]

In many ways, John’s account of the crucifixion reads like an article in a news paper, or maybe the more cultured New Yorker magazine. The point is, John’s account reads like history. It reads like journalism. This really happened.

St. John does not, of course, write from a neutral point of view. No such point of view exists, except perhaps to God Himself. Every human being necessarily sees things from a particular vantage point. And everyone has a bias. Everyone has an opinion. CNN reports things from a certain point of view. FOX News reports things from a certain point of view. St. John reports things from a certain point of view.

It’s absurd, really, to think that he wouldn’t. Even if neutrality were possible, you wouldn’t expect it in a case like this. It wouldn’t be natural or desirable. Consider this question: Can you imagine someone reporting on the holocaust from a neutral point of view? “Hitler and Nazi Germany exterminate six million Jews. Yawn.” No. That’s not right. Neutrality in a report about something as important and meaningful as the holocaust is immoral and something less than human. Even sporting events evoke emotional responses. Things like murder, genocide, and war should do no less. John writes with emotion. What happened to Jesus mattered to him, and he argues that it should matter to the whole world. We can hardly fault him for doing so. That is exactly what we should expect if these things really happened.

John voices his opinion of the passion loud and clear. These events carry huge meaning. He records the events of the crucifixion in such a way as to point out that what happened to Jesus on the cross brought the Torah and the Prophets to their fulfillment. These things happened in fulfillment of the Scriptures.

For example, when the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his garments and cast lots to see who would get to take them home. John writes that this was done in fulfillment of the 22nd Psalm. Likewise, Jesus’ cry, “I thirst,” also comes from Psalm 22. To hasten their death, the soldiers break the legs of the brigands crucified with Jesus. But when the soldiers see that Jesus is already dead, they leave His legs untouched. Again, John sees this as a fulfillment of the Scriptures. This time, Psalm 34 comes to mind. When the soldiers pierce Jesus’ side, John quotes the 12th chapter of Zechariah.

You can find allusions to Old Testament passages throughout John’s Gospel, and that’s true of his record of the passion, as well. But the way that John writes leaves no doubt that he believed that these things really happened. This is no myth, no fairy tale. It’s not midrash or speculative exegesis. John isn’t using the theology of the Old Testament to construct a fictional history. He’s saying that the real historical events of Jesus suffering and death fulfill the theology of the Old Testament.

II. The Meaning of the Cross

John portrays Jesus as the ideal king of Israel, the good shepherd who willingly suffers and dies in order to protect His flock. Jesus gives up His life to save His disciples. He died to save you, too.

Jesus says that He must drink the cup that the Father has given Him. That cup is the cup of wrath that the Old Testament says evildoers have to drink. Jesus stands in the place of evildoers, and takes the punishment meant for them onto His own shoulders. He takes the place of the condemned, and suffers the fate of the wrongdoer. Jesus suffered the fate that sinners deserve. He suffered the fate that you deserve, so that you don’t have to.

The suffering and death of Jesus take place during the time of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened bread. Passover was that special time of remembrance where the Israelites commemorated the great exodus of their people out of slavery and death in Egypt, and the founding of their nation as an independent people, the people of God. God decreed that death would sweep through the land of Egypt. But He also told the Israelite families to mark their homes with the blood of a sacrificial lamb which they would then eat along with unleavened bread. The angel of death would see the blood of the lamb and pass over their homes. John presents Jesus as the sacrificial Passover lamb. His blood marks our homes and hearts, and the angel of death passes over us. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, God takes us by the hand, and leads us out of the slavery of sin and death, and He constitutes us as His people, the Church, the body of Christ, the people of God.

John presents the death of Jesus as a real, historical event that took place as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Jesus was crucified as the king who dies to protect His flock. He suffered the punishment that sinners deserve in order to drink the cup of wrath in their place. Jesus was crucified in order that we might be set free from our slavery to sin and death.

Today, we take comfort in the fact that Jesus is our protector king. We praise Him for suffering in our place. And we celebrate our own Passover from death to life because of the ultimate sacrifice that He made. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Supper: The Arrival of the Cross - John 13:1-15, 34-35

2010-04-01T20:01:00.000-04:00

Maundy Thursday – John 13:1-15, 34-35 (Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32) The Supper: The Arrival of the Cross
01 April 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Supper Takes Place on the Same Day as the Cross

This Lent, I have told you that we are on a journey. It is a journey toward the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter. Tonight, we arrive at the foot of the cross. Or, perhaps to put it more accurately: Tonight, the cross arrives in our midst to meet us.

Maybe you’re wondering what I mean. After all, tonight is Maundy Thursday, the night we commemorate the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Good Friday is the day we remember the cross, and that’s tomorrow.

Well, the Jews reckoned time a bit differently than we do. For us, the new day begins in the middle of the night at midnight. We won’t say it’s Friday until midnight tonight. But for the Jews, the new day began at sundown. When the sun went down on Thursday, Friday had begun. So, when Jesus met with His disciples to eat His last supper, they thought of that day as Friday. So did St. Paul and the authors of the four Gospels.

The events that took place in the upper room and the events that took place in the courts of the authorities and on Calvary took place on the same day. Jesus washed the feet of Judas, the very day he was betrayed by him. Jesus gave His command to love on the same day that He laid down His life in love. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples on the same day He offered His body to the guards who hung His body on a tree. Jesus took the cup after supper and offered to His disciples on the same day that He poured out His blood in sacrifice for those twelve men and for all the people of the world.

II. The Supper Defines the Meaning of the Cross

For the evangelists, the events that took place in the upper room and the events that took place in the courts of the authorities and on Calvary are inseparably joined. They not only take place on the same day, but they are mutually dependent on each other.

In His last supper, Jesus pointed to His death and made the meaning of the cross explicit. He took that Passover meal and transformed it to explain to His disciples what the cross would mean. The Lord’s Supper points to Jesus’ death, and makes the meaning of the cross explicit. The Lord’s Supper tells us what is happening on the cross.

By building this meal on the Passover, Jesus was telling His disciples that the cross would be the Passover and Exodus that Israel and the world were all waiting for. His death and resurrection would be God’s great act of deliverance. Only this time God wouldn’t simply bring Israel out of slavery in Egypt under the rule of Pharaoh. He would bring all of mankind out of the bondage of sin in the land of death under the rule of the devil.

In giving bread to His disciples and calling it His body, Jesus showed that He intended to give His body as bread for the life of the world. In giving wine to His disciples and calling it His blood, Jesus showed that He intended to pour out His blood as the sacrificial act ratifying the covenant of love and forgiveness that God was establishing with all who would believe in His Son.

The Lord’s Supper is a sermon that Jesus preached to explain what the cross would mean. Jesus first preached that sermon to His disciples in the upper room before He went and lived that sermon out on Calvary.

III. The Supper Presents the Fruit of the Cross

But Jesus still preaches that sermon. He preaches it every time His Church celebrates the supper He instituted on the night He was betrayed. The Lord’s Supper is the preaching of the risen Jesus on the topic of the cross right here for you.

The crucifixion happened nearly 2,000 years ago. But in the meal on this altar, Jesus brings the effects of the crucifixion into the present. Jesus offers you the fruit of His suffering in this meal of bread and wine. In this supper, Jesus Himself is present to say, “This is the body I gave up on Calvary for you. This is the blood I shed on the cross for you. Eat and drink it for the forgiveness of your sins.”

While you were still sinners, Jesus loved you and died for you. He sacrificed His body into death in order to fulfill the demands of justice and to pay the penalty for your sins. While you were helpless, He helped you. When you were lost, He found you. When you were estranged from God, He reconciled you. When you were slaves to sin, He redeemed you. He did all of this by His death on the cross.

This supper presents the fruits of the cross for your consumption, transformation, and edification. Eat up the food that Jesus gives, and find yourselves renewed in the image of God. Stay close to Jesus. Share in the food on His table, and find yourselves strengthened and preserved in the true faith and in a good and healthy relationship to God.

IV. The Supper Is the Proclamation of the Church

This supper is a sermon that the risen Jesus preaches in the Church again and again. As members of the Church, members of the body of Christ, you are privileged to preach this sermon, too. Jesus preaches this sermon through you each time you come to the table He has set for you. “As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” When you come to the table of the Lord, you preach His death and resurrection for your salvation and for the salvation of the world.

First you are beneficiaries of our Lord’s preaching; then you, in turn, preach His words to others. First you are the beneficiaries of our Lord’s love; then you, in turn, show others that same love. First you receive the forgiveness of your sins and the promise of the resurrection of your bodies. Then you, in turn, tell others the good news of the forgiveness of their sins and the resurrection of their bodies. Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you experience the Gospel of God’s love for yourselves, and you proclaim that Gospel of God’s love to others. You continue to proclaim that Gospel every day as you live that sermon of love out in your daily lives.

Throughout this Lent we have been on a journey to the cross and the empty tomb. Tonight, we have arrived at the foot of the cross. Or, more accurately, we might say that the cross has arrived in our midst. Here it is in a meal of bread and wine that Jesus calls His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Take, eat, and drink. Receive the gift that the Lord gives in this sermon. Proclaim that sermon to one another. Then go, and live that sermon on love out in your lives, in Jesus’ name.

A Journey Toward the Kingdom of God - Matthew 21:1-9 ch. 26-27

2010-03-28T12:01:00.001-04:00

Palm / Passion Sunday – Matthew 21:1-9; ch. 26—27 A Journey to the Kingdom of God
28 March 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
I. Introduction

This Lent, we are on a journey. Over the last few weeks, I’ve said that the destination of our journey is the Easter life. You could call it the baptismal life. But I think it’s best known simply as the Christian life.

Lent has traditionally been a time devoted specifically to training in Christian doctrine and Christian living. Prospective members of the Church learn the essential truths of the faith as they prepare for the initiatory rite of baptism and their first reception of the Lord’s Supper. Current members use this time to rehearse what they already know with an aim toward deepening their experience of God’s saving presence and reflecting that presence out into the world.

Whether first time catechumens anticipating baptism, or long-time catechumens remembering their baptism, we all want the same thing. We want to be Christians. We all want to die to sin with Jesus, and rise to a new life of righteousness in His resurrection. This Lent, we are all on a journey toward the Christian life.

II. The Kingdom of Heaven / The Kingdom of God

Another way to say that is that we are on a journey to the kingdom of God. St. Matthew tells us that when Jesus first began to preach, His message could be summed up in these words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The parallel verse in St. Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus preached, “[T]he kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” When Jesus told people to repent and believe in the Gospel, He was inviting them to be a part of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God.

I think it will be helpful if we clear up a little confusion about the difference in terminology right up front. Pious Jews of Jesus’ day would often substitute the word, “heaven,” for the word, “God,” out of reverence for the divine name. So, when we hear the scriptures talk about the kingdom of heaven in this place, and the kingdom of God in another place, they aren’t talking about two different things. Saying, “the kingdom of heaven,” is just another way of saying, “the kingdom of God.” You say, “Toe-may-toe,” I say, “Toe-mah-toe.”

Another important thing to understand is that when Jesus spoke about the kingdom of heaven, He wasn’t referring to a geographical location. He wasn’t talking about a place called heaven. He was talking about heaven’s rule. The kingdom of heaven was about heaven’s rule or, you might say, heaven’s reign. When Jesus preached about the kingdom of heaven, He was talking about heaven’s God finally becoming king, and ruling in the hearts of men. So, the coming of the kingdom of heaven is about the reality of God’s reign, God’s kingship, on earth.

Jesus preached that in His ministry, the kingdom of heaven, that is, God’s kingdom, was finally breaking out into the world. Heaven was asserting itself and taking charge. God was at last becoming king. So, repent, change your ways, be different people, and believe the Gospel, the good news that God is King.

III. The Apparent Absence of God’s Kingdom

In Jesus’ day, the greatest obstacle to believing that God was King was, of course, because it didn’t really seem like He was King. God, the King of the universe, created mankind in His own image, and He set up His throne in the hearts of men in order to rule over creation in us and through us. Mankind Himself was supposed to be the kingdom of God. God made mankind to be the sphere of His rule, and the instrument of extending His rule out over the whole earth.

But mankind rebelled against His King. Adam rejected God’s rule in favor of the rule of the devil, and so Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden. The rest of mankind has followed suit. Human beings have turned their backs on God’s Kingship, embraced the rule of the devil, and so have forfeited God’s country. We are fallen, and we live in a fallen world.

But God was and is still King. And long ago, He promised to restore His kingdom, and renew the world. He promised that He would dethrone the devil, and rule in the hearts of mankind once again. He would recreate the Garden of Eden.

To that end, God called Abraham to be the father of a new nation, Israel, who would submit to God’s rule and reflect that rule out into the world. Through His servant Moses, God gave this people the divine Law or Torah, the holy written covenant that established and defined the relationship between God and His people. He also settled His people in a new land, and gave them a human King, David, through whom He would establish His own rule.

The problem is that Israel and her human kings failed time and time again to live like God was King. Israel rejected God’s kingship and embraced the rule of the devil in the same way Adam had done. And so, like Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden, Israel was cast out of the Promised Land. Israel’s kings were deposed, and she was carried away into exile in Babylon.

At the time of Jesus, the children of Israel were once again living in the so-called “Promised Land,” but no son of David sat on the throne, and they were ruled over by a foreign, pagan power, namely, Rome. Something was clearly amiss. Israel was still in her sins. God was not King.

Looking at the world today, we could say much the same thing. What evidence is there that God is King? There isn’t much. War, genocide, economic recessions and depressions. Greed, malice, strife, and envy. Robbery, adultery, and murder. Selfish sinfulness? Is this what the world would look like if God were King? I don’t think so.

In Jesus’ day, the greatest obstacle to believing that God was King was that it didn’t really seem like He was. That obstacle is still in front of us today.

IV. Jesus: The Presence of God’s Kingdom

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the day we now call the first Palm Sunday, He was presenting Himself as the King of Israel. By deliberately evoking themes from what we call the Old Testament, Jesus was saying to everyone in the crowd that day, “God’s kingdom is here, because I am the King that you’ve been waiting for.” Jesus presented Himself as the man in whom God’s rule had finally come to fruition. In effect, Jesus was claiming to be the kingdom of God, the location of God’s rule, the man in whom God was King.

And when you look at Jesus’ life, you can see that Jesus believed it and lived it. He was no thief, or adulterer, or murderer. He was not filled with greed, malice, strife, or envy. In fact, Jesus lived up to every moral prescription in the entire Torah. He lived like God was King in His life.

When you look at the events of what we call Holy Week, you can see that none of the horrors He faced changed His outlook. Jesus was so committed to His belief that God was becoming King in His own person that He willingly, patiently, and lovingly suffered and died for that belief. He didn’t recant when He was arrested. He didn’t recant when He was tried by the Sanhedrin. He didn’t recant when He was beaten. He didn’t’ recant when Peter denied Him. He didn’t recant when Pilate condemned Him. He didn’t recant even as He hung on the cross dying. Jesus trusted that God was becoming King in His person and work, and He trusted God to prove that out. Jesus trusted in God even to the point of death.

And that is precisely the point. Where Adam, Israel, and all of mankind turned their backs on God’s rule, Jesus kept the faith. The first man opted to reject God and go his own way. Israel did the same. All of mankind did the same. But this man, Jesus, didn’t. He stayed true to God; He maintained His faith; and He reflected God’s love out into the world in spite of the world’s shameful and brutal treatment of Him. Jesus stayed true to God and remained a perfect reflection of God’s love through rejection, torture, and death.

On the third day, God vindicated Jesus’ claims by raising Him from the dead. When God raised Jesus from the dead, He said, “This is indeed the man in whom I have become King.”

In the resurrection, we discover that Jesus is the kingdom of God. Jesus is the perfect instance of God’s rule in the life of a human being. In fact, since Jesus is both King and Kingdom, the Church has confessed that He simply must be God Himself in human form. There is simply no other way to make sense of it all.

V. A Journey to the Kingdom of God

Now, our King and our God, Jesus, invites us to learn His teaching, experience repentance, and enter into His kingdom. In Holy Baptism, we are crucified with Jesus, and our old sinful life of rebellion against our King is done away with. In baptism, we are forgiven of our sins, united to Jesus, and raised into a new life in which God reigns. Connected to Jesus, we actually become the kingdom of God. We become the people in whom God’s image and rule shine out into the world. As members of Jesus’ body, we are the location of God’s kingdom.

We are on a journey this Lent. It is a journey toward the baptismal font and to the Christian life. Another way of saying that is that we are on a journey toward the kingdom of God. Jesus is the King, and He Himself is the Kingdom. Today’s Gospel is that as Christians you, too, are the Kingdom of God, in Jesus’ name.

The Journey Has Been Vindicated - John 8:42-59

2010-03-21T12:01:00.002-04:00

Judica – John 8:42-59 (Genesis 22:1-14; Hebrews 9:11-15) The Journey Has Been Vindicated
21 March 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Why Be a Christian?

We are on a journey this Lent. It is a journey toward the cross and the empty tomb. Our goal is the Easter life, the baptismal life, the Christian life.

But why? What’s the point? Why bother going to Church? Why bother listening to the Bible and preaching? Why get baptized? Why go to Holy Communion? Why read the Bible? Why donate to the Church? Why get involved with the Church at all?

I wonder if Jesus’ first disciples ever asked themselves those types of questions. “Why did we leave everything to follow this guy? Why did we leave our fishing businesses? Why did I give up collecting taxes? Why open ourselves up to ridicule? A lot of people think that this Jesus is nuts. Our own Sanhedrin thinks he’s dangerous. The Pharisees we respect clearly hate Him. And truth be told, He’s said and done a lot of strange things.”

II. Jesus’ Claims About Himself

Jesus said, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here.” Think about it. He’s making Himself the revelation of God. It’s like, we can’t love God at all unless we accept this Jesus and His ministry.

Jesus said, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” Talk about inflammatory. He’s saying that the only reason people don’t listen to Him is because they’re children of the devil. Can you think of anything more religiously insulting?

“[The devil] was a murderer from the beginning; and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.” I mean, this guy’s saying that His opponents aren’t just misinformed or puzzled. He’s saying that they’re liars and murderers in league with the devil.

Jesus said, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” Again, He claims to speak for God. He makes Himself out to be a prophet, and anyone who doesn’t accept His prophetic status is an enemy.

Is it any wonder that His enemies responded in kind? “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” If Jesus is wrong about what He’s saying, then He’s either the most wicked liar imaginable, or He’s quite simply a mad man.

Jesus said, “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” But on the surface of things, that sounds absurd. What about all the prophets who went before Him. They all died? Is Jesus saying that they weren’t true prophets? What about our father Abraham? He’s the one God used to found our nation, to found this people of God. Abraham died. Is this Jesus saying that something was wrong with Abraham? Is He saying that He’s greater than our father Abraham?

Jesus said, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.” We can all agree to that. Tooting our own horn isn’t really tasteful.

But He also said, “It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’” Now He’s really getting direct here. He claims that God Himself will prove out what He’s saying. God will glorify Him. Yeah, the same God that you claim to be following, He’ll show this Jesus to be exactly who He says He is. But what would that mean? Well, listen on.

Jesus said, “You have not known [God]….I know him and I keep his word.” Amazing. This Jesus is saying that the very leadership of our nation doesn’t even know who the true God is. They don’t know Him or keep His word. But Jesus claims to know God, and He claims to keep His word. In a way, He claims to be the only one to know God and keep His word.

This guy says such strange and offensive things. Think of this one, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” OK. Now Jesus is saying that God’s entire plan, from the very beginning with Abraham himself, was all about what’s happening right now in His ministry. It’s exciting to be a part of this…if it’s true.

Of course, some people challenged Him on that. “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Come on, Jesus. You can’t be serious.

But then Jesus said something so profound that it must either be the depth of wickedness, or absolutely true. There isn’t any middle ground. “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” If that doesn’t make your jaw drop, nothing will. Can you get any more bold? Right there, in the middle of all those people, Jesus took the divine name, and claimed it as His own. When Moses asked God His name in the burning bush, God said, “I am who I am.” Now, this Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He’s calling Himself the great, “I am.”

Is it any wonder that they picked up stones to throw at Him? What would it take to convince you that the preacher standing in your midst was and is God? How kindly would you take to a preacher who made such claims?

III. Be a Christian If Jesus’ Claims Are True

I began today’s sermon with a series of questions. I said, we’re on a journey toward the Christian life, but why should we bother with that journey at all? Why bother going to Church, being baptized, reading the Bible, taking communion, donating money, getting involved, or being a Christian at all? I also wondered out loud whether or not Jesus’ earliest disciples ever asked similar questions. Did they ever have second thoughts about following Jesus? Did they wonder about His orthodoxy or even His sanity? I think that we can show from the Bible that they did wonder about those things. The bottom line question for them and for us is really the same: “Why be a Christian?”

I’d like to suggest that there is really only one answer. You should be a Christian if, and only if Jesus’ claims about Himself are true.

Let’s review those claims from today’s Gospel one more time. Jesus claimed to come from God as the final and greatest revelation of God. He claimed that everyone who rejects His ministry is in league with the devil. Jesus claimed that everything in the Bible pointed to Him and what He was doing. He claimed to be greater than the prophets, and grater that Abraham. In fact, Jesus claimed to be the embodiment of God Himself.

You should be a Christian, if, and only if these claims are true. If Jesus was wrong, then He was horribly wrong. At best He was delusional. At worst, He was a liar and a deceiver.

But if He was telling the truth, if He was right, then how could we be anything but Christians? If Jesus is who He said He was, then how could we not make it a point to go to Church, to get baptized, to read our Bibles, to take communion, to donate our money, to get involved, to be Christians?

IV. The Greatest Argument Against Jesus

But is Jesus who He said He was? Anybody can claim to be a prophet. Anybody can claim to be the way to God. Anybody can claim to be God Himself.

You know what puts and end to those claims? Death does. The greatest argument against Jesus and all of His claims is His crucifixion and death. If He was God, how were His enemies able to triumph over Him? If Jesus was God, then what are we to make of His body still in the ground?

Think about how Jesus’ death must have crushed His disciples. They believed that He was the Messiah, the one who would deliver Israel. They had some sense that He was making divine claims about Himself. But then, “Wham!” He’s captured, tried, and crucified. They put Him in a tomb and sealed it shut. End of movement. End of claims. If Jesus was God, then God is dead.

And really, that’s the way we should think about it too. If Jesus died and stayed dead, then there really isn’t any reason for us to be here, for us to care so much about baptism and communion, for us to read our bibles and listen to preaching. If Jesus died and stayed dead, then there really isn’t any reason for us to be Christians at all.

V. The Vindication of Jesus and Christians

But on the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. That is a statement that claims to be a statement of fact. God raised Jesus from the dead. On the third day, the tomb was empty. Shortly thereafter, Jesus was seen alive again. Jesus stepped out of His tomb, alive, and He showed Himself to be alive.

What conclusion should we draw? The man overcame death. He was dead. Truly dead. Now he’s alive again. This man has the power of life in Himself.

If the greatest argument against Jesus and His claims is His crucifixion and death, then His resurrection is God’s rebuttal. The world said, “No, Jesus, we don’t think you are who you say you are.” And they put Him to death. God responded, “Yes, this Jesus is who He says He is,” and He raised Jesus from the dead.

That’s how the earliest Christians understood things. When they found the tomb empty and saw their master alive again, the first disciples concluded, “Jesus is our Lord and God, after all.” And they spent the rest of their lives preaching that truth to the world.

Friends, our journey toward the cross and empty tomb matter. Living the Easter life, the baptismal life matters. We go to Church because Jesus is who He said He was. We listen to the Bible, because Jesus’ words are the words of God, and they are words of life. We get baptized and take communion because we want Jesus to live in us and through us with His resurrection life. We are Christians because Jesus rose from the dead.

We are on a journey this Lent. It is a journey toward the Christian life. Today’s Gospel reminds us that God has vindicated this journey by raising Jesus from the dead. Being a Christian makes sense. In fact, being a Christian is the only thing that makes sense because Jesus is risen!

A Journey to the Table - John 6:1-15

2010-03-14T12:01:00.001-04:00

Laetare – John 6:1-15 (Exodus 16:2-21; Galatians 4:21-31) A Journey to the Table
14 March 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. New Identity / New Reality

On Ash Wednesday, we set out on a journey with Jesus toward the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter. We go to meet Jesus at the baptismal font where He gives us a new identity and welcomes us into a new reality.

At the font, we are no longer who we once were. The sinner in us is drowned, and in its place, a new man rises up. We are transformed into new people. We are united with Jesus. He takes our identity as sinner, and He gives us His identity as innocent. He changes our name, and gives us a new name. He does not call us enemy or stranger. He calls us disciple, friend, and brother. We no longer belong simply to the families, clans, tribes, nations, and races of this world. In Christ, we belong to the family of God. Because Jesus is our brother, God has become our Father. We go from being sons of Adam to sons of God.

And that means that everything is different for us. We live in a new reality. We no longer stand under the condemnation of God. We are forgiven. We stand acquitted. We have been judged innocent.

This is not of our selves. On our own, we are as guilty as guilty can be.
But Jesus has taken on the punishment that we rightly deserve. He has gone to the cross on our behalf. He faced the torments of hell and the wrath of God in our place. He went into death as our representative. And God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. The judge of the living and the dead has declared His Christ, “Innocent. Not Guilty.”

Now, united to Christ, we receive that same verdict. We receive His verdict. Can you hear it?

- “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
- “In peace, let us pray to the Lord.”
- “The Lord be with you.”
- “Take, eat and drink; This is my body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of all your sins.”
- “The peace of the Lord be with you always.”
- “Depart in peace.”

The liturgy is one announcement of acquittal after another. “You are forgiven. You are washed. You are clean. God is with you. Be at peace.” Is it any wonder that the Psalmist says, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD!’” ?

II. Hungry for a New Identity and a New Reality

Is that how we look at going to church? “Wow! I get to go to the house of the Lord! I get to enter into the court of the king!” Do you realize how special it is that you can come into the presence of the holy God without fear? Do you know what a gift it is that the holy and righteous cosmic judge has given you a free plenary pardon? Or, to put it in the terms of the Gospel for today: Are you still hungry for the LORD? Do you still hunger and thirst after righteousness? Are you still hungry for the new identity and the new reality that our Lord gives?

We are on a journey. But like I said before, the destination of our journey isn’t the end. It’s really just the beginning. Our destination is the baptismal life, the Easter life, the Christian life. The Christian life isn’t something we achieve, and then move on. The Christian life is the reality in which we live day by day. The Christian life is something that we live in and grow in more and more. You might say that as Christians, we still want to be Christians. Once we live that way, we go on wanting to live that way. Or to put that in the language of today’s Gospel: Tasting the bread of life makes us hungry for more.

If you aren’t still hungry for the meal Jesus serves here, just take another look at your rap sheet. Compare your life to the Ten Commandments. See how well you’ve lived up. Murder and adultery? Maybe not in a gross, outward way. But how about hate and lust? How about impatience and impurity? Stealing and perjury? Maybe not. Maybe you’ve never directly taken something that wasn’t yours. Maybe you’ve never lied on the stand in a court of law. But have you ever slacked off at your job and taken the full paycheck anyway? Have you ever told a lie?

The things that we call little mistakes, God calls sins. We are liable for those sins.

The District Attorney really has a slam dunk case on his hands. Our accuser doesn’t even need to work at this one. We are guilty as charged.

But, thanks be to God, we have an advocate who speaks in our defense. We’ve got a defense attorney who’s better than Bob Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, and Johnnie Cochran combined. We’ve got Jesus. And He has an undefeated record. He’s never lost a case. He’ll win your case. He’s already won it.

When Jesus gave His life on the cross, He obeyed God even in the face of the most inhumane and unjust death imaginable. He faced the worst temptations the devil could throw at Him, and He didn’t buckle or crack. He simply trusted in His Father to deliver Him. This man kept the faith. As a man, Jesus lived an innocent life, and so He proved man’s innocence.

Now, here, at this place, Jesus tells you to find your identity in Him. He says, “You are not the man you once were. You are a new man. In me, you are God’s man, because that’s who I am. I am innocent, and in me, so are you.”

As Christians, we have a new identity and so we live in a new reality. That is vey good news. The problem is that our old identity keeps popping up and trying to suck us back into our old reality. As Christians, we don’t live the way we once did; that’s for sure. We don’t live under the power of the devil as slaves of sin. We live in the power of the Holy Spirit as sons of righteousness. But the devil isn’t content to let us go. He keeps trying to get us. He keeps trying to fool us into thinking that we’re no different than we once were. We are new people, but the old sinner we once were dies hard. He keeps trying to reassert himself, and drag us into that old reality.

What we call normal human weakness, God calls inborn rebellion against Him. We’re responsible for that rebellion.

So, even right now, we still need forgiveness. We still need washed. We still need fed with the bread of life.

III. The Bread Hungry for a New Identity and a New Reality

The Gospel is that Jesus continues to feed you. Jesus takes the loaves. He gives thanks, and He gives them to you to eat. Of course, He does this in the preaching of the forgiveness of your sins, the renewal of your life right here and now, and the resurrection of your bodies in the life to come. His word of life is a bread that satisfies our hunger.

But, it’s impossible to hear today’s Gospel and fail to see that Jesus is also inviting you to eat the sacramental bread that He gives. Jesus gives you bread that is his body, for the forgiveness of your sins, so that you might be and stay part of His body. He even teaches you to pray for our daily bread. Jesus does not preach only in words. He preaches in tangible, even taste-able realities. He preaches in the bread that sits on this altar, and He has promised to be present with us in this bread in a very special way.

In his larger Catechism, Luther says that if for some reason you don’t find yourself hungry for the sacrament of the altar, you should press your hand to your chest to see if you are made of flesh and blood. Then you should consider what the Scriptures say about your life in this current body. It says that you are a poor, miserable sinner, that the world is constantly tempting you, and that the devil is always trying to drag you down to hell. In other words, “Open your eyes. Don’t you see that you need the bread that Christ gives?”

The Christian life is difficult because our old life keeps trying to drag us back down into death. But God has given us an antidote against this weakness. He’s given us medicine to fight this sickness. He has given us the bread of life, and He invites us to eat it for our forgiveness, for our protection, and for our ongoing spiritual health as a Christian.

We are on a journey this Lent. It is a journey toward the baptismal font and to the Christian life. Today’s Gospel reminds us that it is also a journey toward a table; the table of the Lord where Jesus Himself feeds us with the bread of life.

Journey to a New Life: A New Identity and a New Reality

2010-03-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

Oculi – Luke 11:14-28 (Exodus 8:16-24; Ephesians 5:1-9) Journey to a New Life: A New Identity and a New Reality
07 March 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The New Life is Our Destination

On Ash Wednesday, we set out on a journey toward Easter. Everyone’s looking forward to the solemn observances of Holy Week, and the celebration of Easter beginning with the Vigil at Immanuel on Holy Saturday at 7pm. If you’re not planning on being there, I have to ask you, “Why not?”

In the Church, this is the greatest time of the year. There are special services, observances, and celebrations at this time of year that you won’t find at any other. These are the weeks and days that the Church recounts the central events of the faith, and commemorates those events with special rites and ceremonies. On Palm Sunday, we’ll hear the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as we wave our own palm branches in the air. On Maundy Thursday, we’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the very anniversary of its institution. On Good Friday, we’ll listen to the Passion according to St. John. As we hear the evangelist recount the suffering of Jesus for our sins, the lights will dim and the candles will be extinguished until at Jesus’ death and burial we are left in total darkness. No one who’s been to the solemn service of darkness on Good Friday soon forgets it. And the same thing is true about the candle light service of the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. We left in darkness, but when we return the light of Christ is shining bright. And His light brings light to everyone one of us, as we light candles in the hands of every member from the new, Christ candle. The Easter Vigil begins a season of celebration that lasts 50 days. For the Church, this is, no doubt, the greatest time of the year.

But our journey isn’t just about the services and celebrations, as important as those are. We’re after something more than just rites and ceremonies, as important as those are. We look forward to Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, but we’re not just interested in special holidays and commemorations for their own sake.

During Gesimatide, Lent, and the Easter season, we look back on the historical events that stand at the center of our faith. We listen again to the stories of Jesus’ triumphal entry, the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the betrayal in the garden, the trials before Caiaphas and Pilate, the scourging, the crucifixion itself, and, of course, the story of the empty tomb, and the appearances of Jesus to the women and to His disciples.

But our journey is about even more than that. Yes, we’re going to observe special liturgies. Yes, we’re going to really celebrate at the Easter Vigil and throughout the whole Easter season. Yes, we believe that the stories we hear are true stories. They really happened. They are historical realities. But those are just stops along the way. That isn’t where our journey is taking us.

Our journey is to meet Jesus at the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb. Our goal isn’t just “to remember” what happened so long ago. Our destination isn’t just about saying, “This is true. That really happened.” The destination is a place where the past, historical event of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus meets us here in the present. It’s a place where Jesus gives us a new life, and that new life changes our identity, and transforms our reality.

II. The New Life is an Identity Change

The place where all of that happens is at the font of holy baptism. Baptism is the place where Jesus’ past becomes our present, and His life makes its way into our life.

Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried, some two thousand years ago. Those are facts of history. But on the third day, He rose from the dead. That’s a fact of history, too.

But if the resurrection is a fact, then, He is risen! Because He is risen, He is alive. Jesus isn’t just a figure of the past. He’s a person of the present. He is as alive today as He was on the day He rose from the dead.

And this Jesus is present with us. He is with us, here, today. Really. That is what He’s promised. This is more than a metaphor, more than a figure of speech because the resurrection is more than a metaphor and a figure of speech. Jesus stepped out of the tomb. He literally rose from the dead, never to die again. That means He lives. He promised to be with us in His word, in holy baptism, and in holy communion. Those things are here. So, Jesus is here.

In baptism, Jesus changes our identity. In and of ourselves, we are sinners, destined to death and hell. But in baptism, Jesus joins us to Himself in His death and resurrection so that we experience a repentance from sin to righteousness, and from death to life. He crucifies who we once were. He drowns the dead and dying sinner out. And in its place, Jesus gives us His own new, resurrection life. Our encounter with Jesus in baptism is the Good Friday/Easter event taking place in our own lives. In baptism, Jesus changes our identity. His life becomes our life.

III. The New Life is a Reality Change

But in changing our identity, Jesus changes our whole reality. There’s several ways that we can look at that. Today, I’ll offer just two.

One way of looking at that is to say that you are forgiven. That is a new reality. Whatever mistakes you have made, whatever wrongs you have done, whatever sins you have committed, are all wiped clean. You are forgiven. It’s not that your sins don’t matter. They matter a great deal. The punishment they rightly deserve is temporal and eternal death. But in Jesus, God has taken on that punishment in your place. He has absorbed the evil of your sin. He has paid your debt. He has set you free. You are forgiven.

Another way of looking at all that is to say that you are alive to God and good works again. That is a radically new reality. You were once dead in your trespasses and sins. You were completely unable to keep God’s moral law. You might have been a decent enough person, but you never could trust in God with your whole heart, and you never loved your neighbor as you love yourself. But, now, in Christ, you do love God with your whole heart, and you do love your neighbor as you love yourself. The life of Jesus is yours now. In Him, you are fully alive to God and to good works.

IV. New Identity, New Reality, New Life
We are on a journey this Lent, and the destination of that journey is the new life that God freely gives in Christ out of His great love for us. That is the Easter life, the Christian life, the baptismal life. In baptism, God gives us the new life in His Son, and that changes our identity and our reality. Jesus does away with the old life of sin, and, selfishness, and shame, and he replaces it with a life of grace, good works, and glory.

The epistle for today sums up the destination of our journey quite well. As Christians, we are imitators of God. That’s what Easter in our lives looks like. Like children imitate their fathers, we imitate our heavenly father. That’s what being a Christian looks like. United to the Son of God, we walk in the same love that Christ showed by giving Himself up for us on the cross as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. That is the baptismal life.

St. Paul goes into some specifics. These aren’t the only things that he or we could talk about. But since he mentioned them, I’m going to mention them here. Christians living from their new identity in their new reality have done away with sexual immorality, and impurity, and covetousness. We simply don’t engage in these things. Not only do we not do those things, we live in such a way that if anyone were to accuse us of doing those things, they’d be laughed out of court.

Now, some of us used to live that way when we were under the stranglehold of the devil. Some of us were sexually immoral and impure. Some of us didn’t struggle with that so much as we did with other things. But we were all covetous, that is, we were all idolaters. We could each give a list of our vices and sins if we had to. Those lists might be different, but they all point out the same problem. We didn’t fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and we didn’t love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We had a different identity, and so we lived a different reality. We lived as slaves of sin under the reign of the devil.

But Jesus is in the exorcism business. He casts the devils out. He has given us a new identity, and so opens up a whole new reality to us. We are no longer slaves of sin, so we don’t live under the reign of the devil anymore. We live as brothers of Christ under the reign of God. We live as children of the Father under the kingdom of God.

The devil simply can’t reign in the life of a Christian. “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.” That’s just as true for the kingdom of God as it is for the kingdom of the devil. We can’t keep one foot in the kingdom of the devil and one foot in the kingdom of God. St. Paul put it this way, “You may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous…has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” He even warns us, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

Don’t ever be content with sin in your life. Don’t ever think to yourself, “Oh well. It doesn’t matter. God will forgive me.” You’re fooling yourself.
It’s not that God won’t forgive your sins. It’s that by holding on to your sin, you are actually preventing God from forgiving you. It’s like saying, “God clean me up while I roll around in this mud.” God would be happy to clean you up. But He can’t do that while you roll in mud at the same time.

The Bible never teaches that we Christians will be perfect on this side of glory. But it does teach that if we give up and let sin reign in our life that we aren’t really Christians. There’s a difference between fighting against sin and wallowing in sin. A Christian still sins, but he doesn’t wallow in sin. A Christian fights against sin.

If you find yourself slipping back into the old, sinful ways, remember the truth. You are a new person. Jesus has given you a new identity, and that changes your reality. You are in Christ. You are forgiven. So, go and sin no more. You are alive to God and to good works. So, change your ways and walk as children of the light. Walk as children of God, because that is the new life that you have been given, in Jesus’ name.

A Case for Christianity: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Genre) - Luke 1:1-4; John 20:30-31; 21:24-25

2010-03-04T10:32:00.004-05:00

13th Day of Lent – Luke 1:1-4; John 20:30-31; 21:24-25 A Case For Christianity: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Genre of the Gospels)
03 March 2010
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Introduction

The topic of tonight’s sermon is the historical reliability of the four Gospels. I’m going to be addressing the question: Do the four Gospels generally present historically reliable information about the life of Jesus?

Answering this question is actually the second step in a much larger argument that I’m calling: A Case for Christianity. In this case, I’m beginning by assuming that the four Gospels are no different from any other pieces of ancient literature. But I hope to wind up showing that those same Gospels are the inspired an inerrant word of God. It’s an argument that I’m making in five steps.

But before we really get cooking tonight, I want to do three things. First, I want to reiterate what I said last week about the differences you might notice in these Wednesday night sermons. Second, I think it’s important to remind you of the three things I said at the outset that I’m not going to be doing in making this case for Christianity. Then third, I want to trace the outline of the case I’m making so that you can see where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how tonight’s sermon fits into the larger picture of the overall argument. After that, we’ll jump into the meat of tonight’s topic.

II. These Sermons Are Different

So, to begin, there are two things about these Lenten sermons that I think make them a bit different from the sermons I normally preach, and because of those differences, I’m making two recommendations I wouldn’t normally make.

First, the differences: Number one, these Wednesday night sermons are quite a bit longer than my typical Sunday morning sermons. Not everything can be covered in a ten to fifteen minute sermon. These Wednesday night services provide an opportunity to spend a little bit more time on a given topic, and I intend on taking that time. I assume that if you’ve made it out here on a Wednesday night then you understand that, and you want that.

Number two, I’m taking a bit of a different approach in these Wednesday night sermons than I typically do in my Sunday morning sermons. Last week, I compared it to the difference between cooking and eating. On Sundays we eat; I preach the Gospel. These Wednesdays are more like cooking; I’m going to be preaching about the Gospel. Instead of telling you the truths of Christianity, I’m going to be telling you why you should believe that Christianity is true.

Because of these differences, I’d like to make two recommendations that I wouldn’t normally make. First, I’d like to invite you to follow along with the bulletin insert that I’ve given you. Normally, I wouldn’t want you to bury your face in the bulletin while I’m preaching, but in this case, I think that the insert will help you to stay on the same track I’m on.

Second, I’d like to invite you to take notes on what I’m saying. I’ve intentionally left some blanks in the handout I’ve given you. Normally, I think it’s sufficient to listen to the sermon. But given the length and style of these sermons, I think that going on this “Easter egg hung” of sorts will help to sustain your attention, and give you a better shot at remembering what you hear tonight. You can get those inserts out in just a moment.

II. A Case for Christianity?

I’ve advertised these Wednesday night services as “A Case for Christianity.” I think that it’s important to remind you of three things I said at the outset that I’m not doing in this case.

First, I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m making the case for Christianity. I don’t think that there is only one case that can be made. I think that you can argue for the truthfulness of Christianity in a variety of ways. What I’m doing is making a case for Christianity.

Second, I don’t want you to think that I’m making a complete case for Christianity. There are a lot of things I’m leaving out. For example, I’m not arguing for the existence of God or for the possibility of identifying miracles. I’m taking both for granted, and those are big assumptions. I think that the case I’m presenting is strong, but given more time, it could be stronger still. I hope that encourages you to do some thinking about these topics on your own. See what you can do to round out this case I’m making, to fill in the blanks and make it even more complete.

Third, I want to be clear that I’m not making a case for a specific Christianity. I’m a Lutheran, and I think that Lutheranism is the purest form of Christianity. I’ve made that case at other times and places, and I will continue to do so. I just won’t be doing that this Lent.

III. An Overview of This Case for Christianity

What I am doing this Lent, is making a case for the truthfulness of the faith presented in the Gospels. The Case that I’m presenting begins by assuming that the four Gospels are no different from any other literary works of antiquity, and it ends up showing that those same Gospels are the inspired and inerrant word of God. It’s an argument in five steps.

Last week, I took the first step when I discussed the preservation of the Gospels. I showed you that with the help of textual criticism, we can be reasonably certain that we have today what the evangelists wrote so many centuries ago. The overwhelming number of manuscripts that we have, coupled with their very early dating makes it possible for us to state that we have 100% of the New Testament and we can be sure of the wording of over 99% of it. Nothing has been lost, and no question mark remaining about the text affects any central element of the Christian faith. There is no reason to doubt that we have the true text of the Gospels in front of us.

Tonight, I’m taking a second step in the argument. As I said, I’m going to be discussing the historical reliability of the Gospels. Now that we know we have what the evangelists wrote, we need to determine if what they say is factually accurate. Our primary question will be, “Do the Gospels record reliable historical information about Jesus or not?”

In the third move in this argument, I’ll discuss some evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Once we know that the Gospels are generally historically reliable, we’ll take that evidence and build a case for saying that Jesus truly rose from the dead.

In the fourth step, I’ll discuss the identity of Jesus. Once we’ve established that Jesus rose from the dead, then it’s pretty clear that we need to take His claims to be Israel’s Messiah, Savior, and God seriously.

Finally, I’ll discuss the nature of the Gospels. If Jesus is in fact God, then we have to conclude that His word is God’s word. That means that the message of Jesus that has come down to us in a very human way through His apostles is actually the word of God. Our Gospels are not only the human books they appear to be. They are that. They are human books. But they are also the inspired and inerrant word of God. That’s the goal of the case I’m making.

So, enough admonitions, qualifications, and introductions for tonight. Let’s talk about the historicity of the Gospels.

IV. The Importance of the Historicity of the Gospels

Let’s face it: If we can’t be reasonably certain that what the Gospels record actually happened, then there doesn’t seem to be much to commend Christianity to us. That’s because, at its heart, Christianity isn’t just a religion or a philosophy of life. Christianity is about a person. Christianity is about Jesus, and about our relationship with Jesus. We believe that through the real person of Jesus, we come into contact with the creator of heaven and earth, the God of the universe. And in the historical words and actions of Jesus, we learn who God is, how He feels about us, and what He’s done for us. When we encounter Jesus, we encounter God, and when we enter into a relationship with Jesus, we enter into a relationship with God.

But if the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels is substantially inaccurate, then the Jesus of the Gospels doesn’t really exist. We don’t really know what the historical words and actions of Jesus were. The Jesus of the Gospels is nothing more than a literary creation, a fairy tale character on the level of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

But think of what that would mean. The Gospels say that Jesus’ words and actions reveal who God is, how He feels about us, and what He’s done for us. But if Jesus didn’t really say and do the things that the Gospels say He said and did, then we can’t really know anything about the God that He supposedly reveals. That God’s reality is based on the reality of Jesus. If the Jesus of the Gospels wasn’t real, then the God that He revealed isn’t real. If the Jesus of the Gospels doesn’t exist, then the God of the Gospels doesn’t exist.

All of this would make Christianity just another religious story with no greater claim on our lives than any other religious story. The story of Jesus wouldn’t commend itself to us with any greater force than Aesop’s fables or Stephen Spielberg’s story of E.T., the extra-terrestrial. You might still find many things about Christianity beautiful, and choose to base your life on the story of Jesus anyway. But if you’re a Christian, and the Jesus of the Gospels doesn’t exist, then: You’re worshiping a God who hasn’t done anything for you. You’re praying to a God who can’t hear you. You’re counting on a God who can’t help you. And ultimately, you’re putting your faith in a God who isn’t really there.

So, I think you can see that the question, “Do the four Gospels generally present reliable historical information about the life of Jesus?” is a very important one. It seems to me that it is utterly irrational to put your faith in a God who doesn’t exist based on the words and actions of a man who also never existed. You can do that if you’d like, but you can leave me out. And, in fact, I think that the Gospel writers and the other authors of the New Testament would say the same thing.

V. An Apologetics / History Lesson

For many years, the question of the Gospel’s historical reliability, specifically about the resurrection of Jesus, was focused on showing that the Gospels were written either by the apostles or by close associates of the apostles. It was thought that given the fact of apostolic authorship, the Gospels were either simply true or simply false. If the apostles weren’t telling the historical truth, then they were either lying or they were misinformed; they were either deceivers or they themselves were deceived. The apologetic continued by showing how neither of these theories could be sustained.

For example, one theory said that the apostles stole the body of Jesus, and then proclaimed His resurrection. In other words, the apostles were liars. The older apologists developed several arguments against that notion. I’ll quickly list four of the strongest ones. 1.) The apostles demonstrated their sincerity by being willing to suffer and die for their cause. 2.) The good character of the apostles precludes their being liars. 3.) The notion of conspiracy is ridiculous. Even if a few of the apostles decided to lie, how would they have convinced the others? Someone would have talked. And finally, 4.) It would have been impossible for the disciples to steal the body from the tomb given the guard placed there by Pontius Pilate. It is simply implausible to believe that the disciples were liars or deceivers.

Other skeptics argued that the disciples weren’t lying about the resurrection; they were simply misinformed or duped. They weren’t deceivers; they themselves were deceived. For example, some suggested that someone besides the disciples stole the body of Jesus. Others said, maybe the women went to the wrong tomb. Others suggested that the disciples hallucinated. Some even said that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross, but merely passed out, and then revived in the tomb. Each one of these theories is fraught with holes. In order, some of them are: 1.) The missing body would not have been enough to convince the apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead. They might have suspected grave robbers, too. 2.) If the women went to the wrong tomb, that would have gotten straightened out eventually. Someone would have said, “Did you look over here?” 3.) Hallucinations aren’t easily shared, and besides, someone would have said, “Hey, the body’s still in the tomb.” 4.) There’s no way Jesus didn’t die on the cross. The Romans knew how to kill, and they certainly kept on killing Jesus until he was all the way killed. Apologists need to take each theory as it comes, but I think that this survey shows that it is generally implausible to believe that the apostles were misinformed or deceived.

So, neither negative hypothesis could be sustained. The disciples don’t appear to have been deceivers, and they don’t appear to have been deceived. Thus, only one alternative remained. They were telling the literal, historical truth.

Sometimes this apologetic is presented as a trilemma: Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord Those of you familiar with the Christian apologist Josh McDowell have heard this before. Each of these categories for Jesus reflects what is believed about the apostles who wrote about Him. Either the Gospels are historically true, or they are simply false. If they are true, then Jesus is the Lord. But if the apostles weren’t telling the truth, then they were either deceivers or they were themselves deceived. If the disciples were deceivers, then their Jesus is a deception, or, if you will, a liar. If the disciples were deceived, then their Jesus is a delusion, or, if you will, a lunatic.

This Liar, Lunatic, or Lord trilemma was and is a very powerful apologetic. It presents a strong defense of Christianity and the resurrection of Jesus in particular. It has shown that the disciples weren’t deceivers. In the language of McDowell, Jesus wasn’t a liar. And it has shown that the apostles weren’t deceived either. Jesus wasn’t a lunatic. So, he must be the Lord! Right?

Well, not exactly. What if there were a fourth alternative? Well, over the last two hundred years or so, critical New Testament scholarship has proposed exactly that.

It’s always difficult to say that such and such a trend began at exactly this point with exactly this person. You understand that history is much more complicated than that. But for the sake of brevity, that’s how I’m going to present things.

We begin with Herrmann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768). Reimarus, was a German philosopher who once taught at the University of Wittenberg, the same place where Martin Luther had been a professor. In 1777, his most significant work was published posthumously. In this work, he said that Jesus had only claimed to be an earthly Messiah. He was executed, and therefore failed in His mission. His disciples, wanting to maintain their easy lifestyle as preachers, stole His body and invented the story of the resurrection. Much of Reimarus’ work was focused on refuting the historicity of the resurrection.

We move now to the work of Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791). Semler was a German Lutheran church historian and bible commentator. In 1779, he wrote a book in response to Reimarus. In this book, instead of arguing for the historicity of the resurrection, he suggested that this was beside the point. Christianity consists of the spiritual teaching of Christ. One could be a Christian without believing in the resurrection of Jesus. The ground for belief in the resurrection isn’t so-called historical facts, but rather the truthfulness of Christ’s teachings. You can see in his work the beginnings of a rift between theological truth and historical truth.

This brings us to David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874). Strauss was born into a Lutheran family, and became a Lutheran vicar in 1830. In 1835, Strauss published a book called [The] Life of Jesus which marked a huge turning point in Christian history. What Strauss saw quite clearly was that the apostles were neither deceivers or deceived, but this doesn’t mean that they were recording historical fact. He saw another explanation. Strauss argued that the Gospels were myths. They weren’t false. They were just historically untrue. They conveyed spiritual truth in the form of historical looking stories.

Gone forever was the liar, lunatic, or Lord trilemma. Strauss introduced another alternative. Maybe the Jesus of the Gospels is a legend.

This is the question Christian apologetics finds itself facing today. Very few scholars are willing to argue that the disciples were deceivers or were themselves deceived. What you do find are scholars arguing that the Gospels are essentially unhistorical myths.

VI. Why this Apologetics/History Lesson?

Maybe you’re asking yourself, “What does any of this have to do with me? I’ve never been very interested in what the scholars have to say anyway.” Well, I’ve given you this apologetics and history lesson for three reasons.

First of all, if what we believe is true, then we really don’t have anything to worry about from scholarly quarters. If our faith can’t stand up to scholarly scrutiny, then we would be better off giving up the faith than to go on believing half-truths and outright falsehoods. We believe in a God of truth, and in so far as scholarship is after the truth, and presents the truth to us, we should embrace it.

Second, whether or not you embrace scholarship, scholarship is always finding a way to embrace you. Think about it: The scholars train the pastors, and the pastors train the people. It may take a number of years or even a generation or two, but eventually the work of the scholars gets to the people, for better or worse. You may not be very interested in the work of the scholars. But their work is finding its way to you right now.

And third, the work I’m talking about has broken out of scholarly circles in the last 25 years or so, and has hit mainstream bookstores and television. In 1993, a group calling themselves “The Jesus Seminar” published a book called The Five Gospels in they declared that they were taking the scholarly findings of the last two hundred years out of the windowless studies and into the public eye. They have been hugely successful. Members of the Jesus Seminar have had their books widely published in ordinary bookstores, and they have appeared on numerous television programs. I will guarantee that you have seen some of their books and you have seen some of their faces. I am confident that we could walk into any major bookstore in Mentor tonight, and find books by John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, or John Shelby Spong, all members of the Jesus Seminar. I’m even more sure that we could find dozens of copies of Dan Brown’s The Davinci Code, which weaves the scholarship coming out of places like the Jesus Seminar into the form of a novel. I’d be willing to bet that you have seen some or even all of these men on television. This stuff is out there, folks.

You may have never heard of the Jesus Seminar or Crossan, or Borg, or Spong. But a lot of people have. Regular people. People who occasionally pop into Borders or Barnes and Noble bookstores. People who occasionally watch television. Know anyone like that?

VII. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Two Approaches

We should be talking about these things in our church services and Sunday schools. Enough with the Purpose Driven Life and Your Best Life Now. That stuff is so much fluff. We need to tackle the real issues. If we in the church aren’t able to offer answers to the work of Semler, Strauss, The Jesus Seminar, and others like them, who’s going to do it?

If we’re going to answer the major criticism to have hit Christianity in the last two hundred years (that the Gospels are just myths), then we need to show that the Gospels are in fact historically reliable. There are two lines of argument that conservative scholars and Christian apologists have used to do this.

The first is to demonstrate the general historical reliability of the Gospels and then to argue from that to the reliability of specific words and deeds of Jesus. This is a top-->down approach. If the Gospels are generally historical reliable, then we have good reason to assume that they are historically reliable in the specifics that they record.

The second approach is to argue for the historical reliability of certain specific words and deeds of Jesus, and build a case from that for the general historical reliability of the Gospels as a whole. This is a bottom-->up approach. If the Gospels present many historically reliable words and deeds of Jesus, then their overall reliability becomes stronger and stronger.

Both of these approaches are valid, and together, they present a strong case for the historical reliability of the Gospels. We will look at each of them tonight.

VIII. The General Historical Reliability of the Gospels

First, we’ll look at the top-->down approach. A case can be made that the Gospels are generally historically reliable on the whole. I’ll support this contention with five lines of evidence.

Number one: The Gospel writers were in a good position to write history. I think that there at least two reasons why we can say this.

First, the Gospels were written down very early, and circulated in the land where Jesus had lived. No one disputes that the Gospels originate in and around Jerusalem. And even those who play fast and loose with the evidence concede that the Gospels were all written before the end of the first century. I think that a strong case can be made that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all written in the 60’s of the first century. That’s roughly thirty years from the time of the events that they record. That’s barely more than the blink of an eye.

Second, the Gospels were written down in an oral culture that highly prized memorization. Before the Gospels were written down in their final forms, the stories were preserved by entire communities who told and retold the stories of Jesus. If the particular person telling the story got it wrong, or distorted it somehow, then the congregation acted as a check and a balance. So, we have excellent reasons to trust the oral history that stands behind the written Gospels.

The evangelists wee in a good position to write history. The Gospels were written very early and in the right place; and they were written in an oral/memorization culture.

Number two: I think the Gospels are generally historically reliable on the whole because the Gospel writers intended to write history. I think that there at least three reasons why we can say this.

The first reason is what I call the “common sense” reason. Just look at what they wrote. When you read the Gospels, I would bet that the impression most readers first get is that the are narrating real events that took place in a real place at a real time. I would suggest that is because that is what they were actually doing.

The second reason I believe the Gospel writers intended to write history is because they wrote in the Jewish milieu. Unlike other religions, the Jews did not simply espouse a philosophy or a way of life. They believe that God had revealed Himself by acting in history. He called Abraham to make them a people. He led them out of Egypt to make them free. He settled them in Canaan to live in relationship with Him. The Jewish religion was an “historical religion.” The Gospel writers lived and breathed this “historical religion” mentality.

The third reason I believe the Gospel writers intended to write history is because that is their stated intent. They actually tell us that they’re writing history.

The Gospel of John says that the signs he recorded were done “in the presence of the disciples.” Whoever wrote the last chapter of John’s Gospel says that he considers the primary author to be a “witness” of these things that he records, and he states that “his testimony is true.”

Luke’s intent is even clearer still. In his first chapter, he writes these words:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, [2] just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, [3] it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,

Clearly, Luke is at pains to stress that his Gospel is a carefully investigated work of history. When you consider the strong interrelationship Luke has with both Matthew and Mark, a strong case can be made Matthew and Mark intended to write history just as much as Luke did.

The evangelists intended to write history. Common sense tells us so; the fact that they wrote in the Jewish milieu tells us so; and their stated intent tells us so.

Number three: I think the Gospels are generally historically reliable on the whole because the Gospel writers were able to keep their biases in check. I think that there are three reasons why we can say that this is true.

First, the Gospel writers had excellent motivation to keep their biases in check. Jewish historians writing about the terrible days their people endured under Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany had every motivation to get their story straight so that such a thing, accurately reported in all its horror, would never happen again. The Gospel writers believed that what Jesus said and did was literally for the salvation of the world. They were biased, to be sure. But I’d suggest that they were passionately concerned to get things right.

Second, the Gospels contain some embarrassing details. Jesus’ telling His disciples that they had to “hate” their fathers and mothers in comparison with their love for Him, comes to mind. Saying that all the disciples forsook Jesus and fled when He was facing crucifixion is another. It’s hard to imagine the Gospel writers recording things like these if they didn’t really happen.

Third, the Gospels do not contain some material that would have been very convenient. For example, a huge debate in the church before the Gospels were written was whether or not to circumcise Gentiles who became Christians. It would have been very convenient for the evangelists to have been able to settle the controversy by pointing to a word from Jesus. Apparently they couldn’t find such a word, and they evidently didn’t feel free to make something up and place it in Jesus’ mouth.

The evangelists were able to keep their biases in check. They had excellent motivation to do so. And the results bear out that they were able to do so. The Gospels contain some embarrassing details and they don’t contain some details that would have been very convenient.

Number four: I think the Gospels are generally historically reliable because archeological evidence supports that conclusion. We can look at this from two angles.

First, no archeological find has ever disproved any detail of the Gospels. For example, no one has ever found the bones of Jesus. This is an argument from silence. But it is powerful nonetheless.

Second, archeological finds have supported numerous details of the Gospels. We have discovered the cities of Bethany, Bethlehem, Cesarea, Cana, Capernaum, Emmaus, Jericho, Jerusalem, Nain, and Nazareth, just to name a few. We have found Jacob’s well, the pool of Bethseda, and the pool of Siloam. Archeological finds have also confirmed numerous NT customs and traditions.

Archeological evidence supports the general historical reliability of the Gospels. No archeological discovery has ever disproved any detail of the Gospels, and archeological finds have confirmed numerous details of the Gospels.

Number five: I think the Gospels are generally historically reliable because information from non-biblical supports that conclusion. Like with archeology, we can look at this from two angles.

First, no non-biblical source has ever disproved the broad historical outline of the Gospels. Again, this is an argument from silence. But it is still very powerful.

Second, non-biblical sources have supported numerous details of the Gospels. Edwin Yamauchi, professor of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, sums up what we can know about Jesus from non-biblical, non-Christian sources alone:

(1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher; (2) many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms; (3) he was rejected by the Jewish leaders; (4) he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius; (5) despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64; (6) all kinds of people from the cities and countryside—men and women, slave and free—worshiped him as God by the beginning of the second century.

Non-biblical evidence supports the general historical reliability of the Gospels. No non-biblical source has ever disproved the broad historical outline of the Gospels. And non-biblical sources have supported numerous details of the Gospels, including the basic outline of the life of Jesus.

The case for the general historical reliability of the Gospels is a strong one supported by five lines of evidence. (1) The Gospel writers were in a good position to write history. 2.) The Gospels writers intended to write history. 3.) The Gospel writers were able to keep their biases in check. 4.) Archeological evidence supports the conclusion. And 5.) Non-biblical sources support the conclusion, too. The top-->down approach shows us that we have every reason to trust the general historical reliability of the Gospels.

IX. The Historical Reliability of Specific Words and Deeds in the Gospels

The second approach to establishing the historical reliability of the Gospels is the bottom-->up approach. This form of argumentation seeks to show that certain specific words and deeds in the Gospels are historically reliable. The more discrete units we can show are authentic, the stronger the case for the overall reliability of the Gospel becomes. In the time that we have left, I want to lay out five of the basic criteria that critical scholars use to support or deny the authenticity of a specific saying or action of Jesus in the Gospels.

Number one is the criterion of multiple attestation. This criterion states that if a saying or action of Jesus can be found in more than one of the sources that stand behind our written Gospels, then it is more likely to be authentic. Testimony established by two or more independent witnesses is stronger than testimony established by only one witness.

Number two is the criterion of embarrassment. This criterion states that if a saying or action of Jesus is particularly embarrassing to the early church, then it is unlikely that it was invented by the church. If including something goes against the witness’ better interests, it is unlikely to have been made up.

Number three is the criterion of double similarity and double dissimilarity. This criterion states that if a saying or action of Jesus is dissimilar to anything that we can find in the Judaism of Jesus’ day or the early Christian church, but similar enough to be at home in one or both of them, then it is more likely to be authentic.

Number four is the criterion of Palestinian environment or Semetic language. The New Testament was written in Greek. But Jesus probably spoke Aramaic. This criterion says that if a passage reflects the Aramaic language and/or a specific Palestinian context, then it is more likely to be authentic.

Number five is the criterion of overall coherence. This criterion says that once we’ve established a body of evidence based on the other criteria, we can use that portrait to measure other words and deeds of Jesus from the Gospels.

Now, we’ve been able to blow through these criteria pretty quickly. But that’s because we haven’t used them to build our case for the Gospels tonight. We’ve spent most of our time on an assessment of the general historical reliability of the Gospels, or the top-->down approach.

Where these criteria are going to come in handy is next week. That’s when I hope to use what we’ve learned tonight to build a case for the historical reliability of the resurrection of Jesus. I hope to see you there, in Jesus’ name.

Lost on the Journey? Look Up

2010-02-28T12:01:00.001-05:00

Reminiscere – Matthew 15:21-28 (Genesis 32:22-32; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7) Lost on the Journey? Look Up
28 February 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Limited Visibility

On Ash Wednesday, we set out on a journey with Jesus toward Easter. This journey isn’t just a walk down memory lane where we spend a few hours just remembering what someone did a long time ago. This is a journey toward holy baptism where we will experience Easter for ourselves in the form of forgiveness and a new birth. It’s a journey toward the Christian life where because Jesus lives and lives inside of us, we will live like little Christ’s in this world. That’s what we call ourselves, after all. Little Christ’s or Christians. We are followers of Christ. He first walked the road for us. Now we walk the road with Him because He walks it in us.

Easter, resurrection, baptism, new life; that’s our goal. And we can see that goal. It’s like a lighthouse in a harbor, a beacon for traveling ships. Jesus was crucified for our sins, and He was raised from the dead for our justification. The victory over sin, death, and the devil has already been won, and God gives that victory to us by grace, through faith, in spite of our sins, and apart from any good works that we do. God has promised us forgiveness, new life, resurrection, and eternity in His presence. He has confirmed His promises by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. And He makes His promises known to us in the words of Scripture, in the water of Baptism, and in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. We can see our goal. It’s like a shining city on a hill, high and lifted up, visible for miles around.

But we’re down in the valley. Sometimes, we can see the city, way off over there, up on the hill. But we’re down in the woods of the valley. Between us and the city, there’s a long, thick and twisted jungle. We can’t always see what’s around the next bend. We don’t always know which way to go. Sometimes we can see pretty far down the path, and other times we have trouble seeing where to place our next step.

On our journey with Jesus, we sometimes suffer from limited visibility. Have you ever felt like God wasn’t listening to you?; like He was hard of hearing? Have you ever felt like God didn’t care about you? ; like He had better things to do with His time? Have you ever felt like God had in for you? ; like He thought of you as an enemy? Sometimes, we can’t see our goal anymore. We can’t see the city on the hill. We can’t see God’s love, or His concern for us. We can’t make out His forgiveness, and lose sight of the resurrection. We suffer from limited visibility.

When a Canaanite woman came to Jesus, she cried out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But Jesus didn’t respond. He doesn’t seem to have even acknowledged her. Matthew says, “He did not answer her a word.”

II. The Story of the Canaanite Woman

The Bible doesn’t tell us what the Canaanite woman felt in that moment. But you can imagine it just like me. How do you feel when you pray and pray, and God doesn’t seem to be giving you any answers? What goes through your head and your heart when you pour yourself out to God, but he doesn’t answer you a word?

Maybe you wonder if He can hear you. Maybe you wonder if He’s listening at all.

In the story of the Canaanite woman, the disciples went to Jesus and begged Him, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” They didn’t want to deal with her, and if Jesus wasn’t going to do something for her, then the least He could do is get rid of her.

So, apparently at the prompting of His disciples, Jesus finally says something to her. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Translation: I wasn’t sent to your kind.

What would you think if you heard that? “He doesn’t care about me. He’s not concerned about me. He’s got more important things to attend to than to listen to me and my problems.”

The remarkable thing is that the Canaanite woman doesn’t give up. She asks Jesus again, “Lord, help me.” She’s clearly heard about Jesus before; that’s why she’s come to Him. And based on what she’s heard, she can’t believe that He doesn’t care about her, that He won’t help her.

But look at the way Jesus answers her. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Put yourself in that Canaanite woman’s place. How would you have felt? “Are you saying that I’m not worth your time? I’m not worth the effort?”

Amazingly, the Canaanite woman simply acknowledges the fact. “Yes, Lord. You are right. I am a dog, and I am asking for the children’s bread.”

But she doesn’t stop there, because she’s heard about Jesus before. She knows that He’s called Himself “the bread of life.” She knows that He’s said that His flesh is the bread that He’s going to give “for the life of the world.”

So, she asks Him a third time, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” “I know that you have more than enough bread. And I know that you will give this bread for the life of the world. It’s for everyone. You said so yourself. I may be a dog. But you love dogs. You’ve come to save us dogs. I know you’ll give me the bread I need.”

And finally Jesus answers her. “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

III. Look Up

The Canaanite woman was walking in the valley. She was lost among the trees. Her daughter was oppressed by a demon. And when she cried out to Jesus to help, she was met with nothing but stony silence.

But she never lost sight of her goal. She knew what she had heard about Jesus. That was her city on the hill, and she never took her eyes off of it. She knew the promises that Jesus had made, and no matter what she faced, she wasn’t giving up on those promises.

When airline pilots are flying through thick clouds, they can’t see which way to go by looking out the window. But a good pilot has been taught to trust his instruments. He looks to the gauges, dials, and readouts on his dashboard.

Jesus is your guide throughout this Lenten journey and the life you live as a Christian. Jesus is your guide, not your circumstances, not the things that are happening in your life, not your thoughts, not your feelings, not even your perception that heaven might be closed for business. Forget those things. That’s just the fog of the clouds. You’ll never get to where you’re going by looking out the window. When you’re suffering from limited visibility, trust your instruments. Trust Jesus.

When you’re lost in the woods, the tendency is to look down. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you have to look down to find the next step. But if you’re lost in the woods, and you want to be sure that you’re on the path, or if you need to find the path in the first place, hikers will tell you that you should look up. Look up for the break in the trees, where you can see the sky, and then you’ll find the path.

When we’re going through the trials and temptations of life, we sometimes loose track of our goal. We get to concentrating on our problems. Then we forget that there’s a God who hears us, who cares about us, who loves us. It can seem like God isn’t listening to our prayers, like He doesn’t care about us, or even like He’s out to get us. We find that all we’re doing is looking at the trees.

The Gospel tells you, “Look up.” No matter what the circumstances of your life, you can know that God does hear you, that He does care about you, that He does love you. You can know that by looking up at Jesus. He is the city on the hill. He is our goal. And there is nowhere He is not visible.

It is a fact that Jesus was crucified for you. It is a fact that Jesus was raised from the dead for you. He has promised to forgive you of your sins, to give you a new life here and now, and to raise you from the dead to live with Him for all of eternity. These are facts.

When life’s got you looking down, look up to Jesus, look up to the cross and to the empty tomb. Remember the facts. Look up to Holy Scripture where God promises to love you and forgive you. Look to Holy Baptism where God places His promises on you. Look to Holy Communion where God places His promises in you.

It’s easy to get lost on our journey. It’s easy to get lost as a Christian. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things will happen to you.

You’ll ask God to change your circumstances. But sometimes He won’t do it.
That doesn’t mean that God isn’t listening. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you. God has shown His love for you in this: While you were sinners, Christ died for you. Now Jesus lives, and He has promised to forgive you, to give you a new life, and to raise you from the dead.

When you’re lost on the journey, when you find that your visibility is limited because you’re just looking at the trees, remember to look up, in Jesus’ name.

A Case for Christianity: The Preservation of the Gospels (Textual Criticism) - Matthew 10:40-42; 28:16-20

2010-02-24T20:01:00.004-05:00

7th Day of Lent – Matthew 10:40-42; 28:16-20 A Case for Christianity: The Preservation of the Gospels (Textual Criticism)
24 February 2010
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Introduction

The topic of tonight’s sermon is the preservation of the four Gospels. I’m going to be answering the question: Do we really have today the words that the evangelists wrote so many centuries ago? Let’s face it: If we can’t be reasonably certain that we have what the evangelists wrote, then there isn’t much point in basing our lives on their words. In that case, we wouldn’t actually have their words. So, “Do we really have today the words that the evangelists wrote so many centuries ago?” is a very important question.

Answering this question is the first step in a larger argument that I’m calling: A Case for Christianity. Over the next several weeks, we’ll be discussing some of the central issues in determining whether or not Christianity is true. In the end, I hope to make a compelling case 1.). that we do have the true text of the Gospels in front of us, 2.) that those same Gospels present historically reliable information about Jesus, 3.) that Jesus rose from the dead as a matter of historical fact, 4.) that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead confirms His radical claims to divinity; and 5.) that if Jesus is in fact God in the flesh, then we ought to regard the Gospels, which record His words and deeds, as the very words of God Himself.

But before we jump into the meat of tonight’s sermon, I want to do three things. First, I want to make two general points about this year’s midweek Lenten sermons. Second, I want to make three points about the specific argument for Christianity that I’ll be making in these sermons. Third, I want to present a general outline of the overall case I’ll be making, giving you a bird’s eye view of the argument as a whole. After that, we’ll take a look at tonight’s topic.

II. These Sermons Are Different

So, to begin, there are two things about these Lenten sermons that I want you to be prepared for. There are two reasons that I believe that they are a bit different than the sermons I normally preach.

First of all, these Wednesday night sermons are going to be quite a bit longer than my typical Sunday morning sermons. The liturgy is shorter on Wednesdays, almost threadbare really, and we don’t have communion. So, even if we keep the service to just over an hour, like we do on Sundays, there’s still more time for preaching. I also think that anyone who’s made it out here on a Wednesday night is looking for something that goes a little more in depth than what you get on Sundays. And considering that you requested me to forego the round robin preaching schedule with the other circuit churches this year so that I could spend the whole Lenten season with you, really, you’re asking for it. So, in all seriousness, prepare yourselves to engage with bit of a longer sermon than you’re used to. I hope you’ll find that it’s worth the effort and the time.

Second of all, I’m going to take a different approach in these Wednesday night sermons than I typically do in my Sunday morning sermons. By analogy it’s going to be a lot like the difference between cooking and eating. On Sunday’s we eat; I preach the Gospel. These Wednesdays are going to be more about the cooking; I’m going to be primarily preaching about the Gospel. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on these Wednesdays preaching salvation and the forgiveness of sins like I do on Sundays. Instead, I’m going to spend most of the time giving you reasons why you should even begin to believe that salvation and the forgiveness of sins are true in the first place. For that reason, some people might not even consider these sermons to be real “sermons.” They might see them as “lectures” or “talks” about Christianity. For those who see a huge distinction between preaching and teaching, these Wednesday sermons fall more into the teaching category. That’s fine. I won’t quibble with the point.

Now, because these sermons are so different, I’m going to make two recommendations that I wouldn’t normally make. Ordinarily, I think that when the scriptures are being read in church, the congregation should be listening and not reading along. There’s a difference between the act of reading and the act of listening. If you think of how often you listen to the Bible compared with how often you read the Bible, I think you’ll agree that reading is what you normally do. So, I think it’s better if you take the chance you get on Sundays to really listen to the readings instead of reading them. Take the bulletin home and re-read it there if you like. But take advantage of the opportunity you have here to listen.

Of course, I want you to listen to what I have to say tonight. But I’m also going to invite you to follow along with the bulletin insert that I’ve given you. Normally, I wouldn’t want you to bury your face in the bulletin when I’m reading the Bible to you or preaching. But tonight, I’m actually going to recommend that you spend some time looking over the material I’ve given you even as I go through it.

In the same way that I think you should normally listen to the Bible in church rather than read it, I think it’s better for you to listen to a sermon rather than to study it. A sermon isn’t a mere intellectual lecture, laid out in bullet points. Often times it’s an emotional appeal laid out like a story. I think it’s harder for an emotionally charged story to have its full impact if you’re busy jotting down notes as if it were a college lecture. You wouldn’t take a notebook into a movie theater. I make my sermons available online at proBonoEcclesiae.blogspot.com. Re-read the sermons there and take notes on them then if you like. But I think it’s better if most often you take advantage of the opportunity you have here to listen and to be impacted by the emotion and style of the sermon as well as its intellectual content.

Again, I want you to listen to what I have to say tonight. But I’m also going to invite you to take notes on what I’m saying. Normally, I think it’s sufficient to listen to the sermon. But tonight, I’m actually going to recommend that you jot a few facts and figures down. I’ve intentionally left some blanks in the handout I’ve given you. I think that this will help in at least two ways. For one thing, I think that this “Easter egg hunt” of sorts will help to sustain your attention over the course of a longer sermon, as you wait for me to give you the information to write down. You’ll be actively engaged. And secondly, I think you’ll be more likely to remember what you learn tonight because you’ll have a written record of what was said that you will have helped to create. So, you can get out your inserts and start right now.

III. A Case for Christianity?

In advertising the Wednesday night services in Lent for this year, I’ve said that I’ll be presenting a case for the truthfulness of Christianity. I want to say three things about the case I’ll be making before I begin.

First of all, I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m making the case for Christianity. For one thing, I don’t think that there is only one single case for Christianity. I think that we can argue for the validity of the Christian faith in a number of different ways. I’m merely presenting one way of making the case.

Secondly, I don’t pretend to be making a complete case for Christianity. There are gaps in the argument that I’m presenting. I just do not have the time in a format like this to make as full a case as I would like. For example, I’m not making any direct arguments for the existence of God. I’m just assuming that God exists, which is a pretty big assumption. I’m also not making an argument for the possibility of miracles. I’m just assuming that they are possible, which, again, is a pretty big assumption. I don’t think that the case I’m making is weak. It’s just incomplete. I’d like to be able to round it out more. And I’d also like to respond to some questions and objections that you or others might bring up. But, for what it does cover, I think the argument I’ll be presenting over the next few weeks is a valuable one, even if it isn’t an absolutely complete one.

And finally, third, I’m not making a case for a specific Christianity. Because of my background, presuppositions, and assumptions, I will be making a case for Christianity as a Lutheran Christian. But I don’t think that the conclusions I offer demand that you be a Lutheran, too. I think that what we will end up with is what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity.” I don’t think that anyone should stop at “mere Christianity,” and I do think that Lutheranism is the purest form of Christianity. I just won’t be making that case this Lent.

IV. An Overview of This Case for Christianity

The case for Christianity that I’m making begins by assuming that the four Gospels are no different from other ancient pieces of literature, and ends up viewing those same Gospels as the inspired and inerrant word of God. It’s an argument in five basic steps.

First I’ll discuss the preservation of the Gospels, or what scholars call textual criticism. We want to be sure that the text of the Gospels that we have in front of us today is substantially the text that their authors originally wrote.

Second, I’ll discuss the historical reliability of the Gospels. Once we know that we have what the evangelists really wrote, we have to determine the genre of the Gospels. We need to answer whether they intended the story they recorded to be understood as myth or as history.

Third, I’ll discuss some evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Once we’ve determined that the evangelists intended to record history, we need to ask if we can trust that they got things right when they said Jesus rose from the dead. We’ll look at five historical facts that go a long way toward supporting the Gospel’s contention that Jesus rose from the dead.

Fourth, I’ll discuss the identity of Jesus. Once we’ve established that really Jesus rose from the dead, it’s obvious that we have to take His claims to be Israel’s Messiah, Savior, and God seriously.

Finally, I’ll discuss the nature of the Gospels. Once we’ve determined that Jesus is in fact God, we’ll have to wrestle with the fact that the words and deeds of His that have come down to us in an apparently very human way through His apostles are actually the inspired and inerrant word of God.

So, enough admonitions, qualifications, and introductions for tonight. Let’s talk about the preservation of the Gospels.

V. The Story of Bart Ehrman

In the last chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus tells His eleven remaining disciples that they are to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them, and teaching them to observe everything that He has said and done during His ministry among them. The words that Jesus spoke in the tenth chapter of the same book must have been ringing in their ears: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.”

Jesus believed that all authority in heaven and on earth was His. Another way of putting that is to say that Jesus believed that He stood in the place of God, even that He was God. Jesus commanded His disciples to spread the story of what He had said and done while He was with them in His visible-bodily form. And he promised that wherever they told that story, He Himself would be present in their words. The words that they would eventually write down would be His words, God’s words, and He, God, would be present in those divinely inspired words. Whoever received those inspired words, would be receiving Jesus; he would be receiving God Himself.

In 2005, a world class Biblical scholar by the name of Bart Ehrman published a book titled, Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed the Bible and Why. In this book, he posed the following important dilemma for Christians. I quote:

It is one thing to say that the originals were inspired, but the reality is that we don’t have the originals…How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don’t have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes—sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e. the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.

Dr. Ehrman was raised in a churchgoing, although not particularly religious home. When he was a sophomore in high school, he had what he described as a “born-again” experience. He began attending meetings of a Campus Life Youth for Christ club where he was encouraged to go to a Christian college.

Throughout the early years of his academic career, Ehrman would study the Bible at three notable colleges and universities. First, he applied to Moody Bible Institute, and graduated with a three year degree in Bible and Theology.

While he was at Moody, he began to struggle with serious questions about the text of the New Testament and what this meant for its inspiration. I quote again:

There was an obvious problem, however, with the claim that the Bible was verbally inspired—down to its very words. As we learned at moody in one of the first courses in the curriculum, we don’t actually have the original writings of the New Testament. What we have are copies of these writings, made years later—in most cases, may years later. Moreover, none of these copies is completely accurate, since the scribes who produced them inadvertently and/or intentionally changed them in places. All scribes did this. So rather than actually having the inspired words of the autographs (i.e., the originals) of the Bible, what we have are the error-ridden copies of the autographs.

This was a problem that Ehrman, to his credit, couldn’t just let slide. He had to answer it if his faith was going to stand. I would suggest that we need to answer this problem if our faith is going to stand, too.

After graduating from Moody Ehrman went to Wheaton College, the alma matter of Billy Graham, to complete his Bachelor’s degree. But he was convinced that it was his calling in life to become a Christian scholar who could be an “evangelical ‘voice’ in secular circles.” His plan was to earn degrees that would allow him to “teach in secular settings while retaining [his] evangelical commitments.” So he went on to Princeton Theological Seminary. It was while he was there studying for his Master of Divinity degree that he came to the following realization, and I quote:

In some places…we simply cannot be sure that we have reconstructed the original text [of the New Testament] accurately. It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are?
This became a problem for my view of inspiration, for I came to realize that it would have been no more difficult for God to preserve the words of scripture than it would have been for him to inspire them in the first place. If he wanted his people to have his words, surely he would have given them to them (and possibly even given them the words in a language they could understand, rather than Greek and Hebrew). The fact that we don’t have the words surely must show, I reasoned, that he did not preserve them for us. And if he didn’t perform that miracle, there seemed to be no reason to think that he performed the earlier miracle of inspiring those words….
My faith had been based completely on a certain view of the Bible as the fully inspired, inerrant word of God. Now I no longer saw the Bible that way. The Bible began to appear to me as a very human book…with very human points of view, many of which differ from one another and none of which provides the inerrant guide to how we should live.

You can see that Ehrman’s theology and goals in life changed quite a bit over the years. He still went on to become a true scholar of the Bible, studying textual criticism of the New Testament with the leading expert in the world, Bruce Metzger, earning his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1985. But he’s hardly remained a Christian.
The essence of Ehrman’s argument against the inspiration and inerrancy of the New Testament goes like this: 1.) The originals might have been inspired and inerrant. 2.) We don’t have the originals, but only error ridden copies. 3.) Therefore, the New Testament we do have can’t be inspired and inerrant.

VI. Why Ehrman?

Some of you may be wondering why I’ve spent so much time talking about this particular scholar and his views tonight. I’ve told you the story of Bart Ehrman for three reasons.

First, I think that the questions he poses about the preservation and inspiration of the New Testament are important. These are matters that should concern each and every Christian because Ehrman is right in a lot of what he says. His first two premises are sound. We don’t have the original manuscripts of the New Testament documents, and there are an enormous amount of errors, or variants, in the copies that we do possess. To put things in perspective, consider that

The Greek New Testament, as we know it today, has approximately one hundred thirty-eight thousand words….The best estimate is that there are between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand textual variants among the manuscripts.

As Ehrman himself has put it: “[T]here are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”

That, my friends, is a fact. We can’t hide from it. Nor should we hide from it. What we should do is deal with it. And unless we can offer another premise to Ehrman’s equation, then his conclusion inevitably follows: The New Testament we have can’t be inspired and inerrant. I’d say that’s a pretty important problem for the truthfulness of Christianity as we currently understand it.

Second, I’ve told you the story of Bart Ehrman because he was once a conservative and evangelical Christian. I’m not citing the argument of a dyed in the wool liberal who never gave the Bible any consideration in the first place. We’re talking about a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College, the home of Billy Graham. Today, if what he has written and said in public is to be believed, Ehrman is no longer a Christian in any traditional sense of the term.

In a similar way to how we give great weight to St. Paul’s testimony of the risen Jesus because he was an enemy of Christianity before his conversion, we have to give great weight to Ehrman’s testimony because he was a staunch, Bible-believing Christian before he decided that the Bible was nothing more than a “human book.”

And finally, third, I’ve told you Ehrman’s story because his books are bestsellers sold in bookstores across the country. I’m confident that we could walk into any major bookstore in mentor tonight, and find two or three of Ehrman’s books on the shelves. Now that you know his name, I think you’ll begin to notice that he’s made appearances on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, A&E, and CNN, among other places.

The truth is, Ehrman doesn’t really say anything profoundly new. Christian scholars have known for centuries that we don’t have the original manuscripts of the New Testament, and that the manuscripts that we do have are full of variants. And skeptics have suggested that we don’t really have God’s word for these reasons before.

What is new is that Ehrman has simplified a huge amount of scholarly material and packaged these skeptical conclusions for mass consumption. And consume the masses have: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, published in 2006, New York Times Bestseller List; God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer, published in 2008, New York Times Bestseller List; Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible, published in 2009, New York Times Bestseller List.

You may have never heard of Bart Ehrman before. But a lot of people have. Regular people. People who occasionally pop into Borders or Barnes and Noble bookstores. People who occasionally watch television. Know any one like that?

VII. Textual Criticism

We should be talking about these things in our church services and Sunday schools. These are important issues with important implications. If we in the church aren’t able to offer answers to people like Bart Ehrman, or the people who have read his books, then who’s going to do it?

If we’re going to answer Ehrman’s concerns about the text of the New Testament, we’ll have to make use of the art and science of “textual criticism.” Ironically, this is Ehrman’s specialty.

Textual criticism in general is the study of the copies of any written document whose original is unknown or nonexistent in order to determine the exact wording of the original.

We concede that we don’t have the original documents of the New Testament. And we further concede that what we do have are error ridden copies. But Ehrman suggests that this means that we can’t ever get at what the writers of the New Testament actually wrote. Therefore, the New Testament we have just can’t be inspired and inerrant.

Well, does that conclusion follow? It follows only if the premise is true. If we can’t reconstruct what the original New Testament said from the manuscripts that we have, then we would have to concede that the New Testament we do have just can’t be inspired and inerrant.

Textual critics work with manuscript copies in order to reconstruct what the originals most likely said. Generally speaking, two major considerations determine how accurate these reconstructions are. They are, 1.) the dating of the manuscripts; and, 2.) the number of manuscripts. There are, of course, other considerations. We’re only scratching the surface here. But, generally speaking, the earlier and more numerous the manuscripts we posses, the more confident we can be in saying that we can accurately reconstruct what the original said.

VIII. The Age of the Extant New Testament Manuscripts

So, how does the New Testament stand up? Let’s start with the dating of the New Testament manuscripts we have in comparison with other works of antiquity.

Take, for example, Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Though he wrote somewhere between 58 and 50 B.C., the oldest manuscript copy we possess comes down to us some 900 years after the events. The well known Christian apologist, Josh McDowell, and his son Sean, noted the following in a book they published just last year (2009):

Regarding the date between original composition and existing copies, most ancient works have a gap of more than 700 years, with some works, such as Plato and Aristotle, being twice that.

Next to the New Testament, Homer’s Iliad has the shortest gap between its original composition and the manuscripts we possess. That gap is an astonishing 500 years.

When we turn to the New Testament, written in the middle toward the end of the first century A.D., we discover that “there are at least forty-eight Greek New Testament manuscripts that predate the fourth century.” “More than thirty papyri date from the late second through early third centuries.” “We have between ten and fifteen manuscripts within one hundred years of the completion of the New Testament…” “The earliest undisputed fragment is the John Rylands fragment dated at AD 117-138….So the time gap between the original and [the] first surviving copy is [only] twenty-five years.” Remember what I said just a moment ago. Homer’s Iliad has the next shortest gap at five hundred years.

Seventy years ago, biblical and classical scholar Frederic Kenyon had this to say regarding the dating of existing New Testament manuscripts:

The interval, then, between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.

That is a bit of a bold conclusion. But it’s a conclusion that’s based on the evidence, and it’s done nothing but get stronger with time.

IX. The Number of Extant New Testament Manuscripts

When we turn to the number of existing New Testament manuscripts, that conclusion gets stronger still. Let’s compare the number of existing New Testament manuscripts with some other examples from antiquity.

The writings of the Roman historian Tacitus exist today in only one manuscript. The poems of the Roman playwright Catullus, who wrote somewhere between 84-85 B.C., are known to us from just three manuscripts. The History of Herodotus, a Greek historian writing in the fifth century B.C. exists in just eight manuscripts. Again, I mention Caesar’s Gallic Wars from the first century B.C. They survive today on the basis of just ten manuscripts. “[T]he average classical author’s writings are found in about twenty manuscripts.” Once again, next to the New Testament, Homer’s Iliad is the best attested work from the ancient world with 650 manuscripts.

When we turn to the New Testament, we discover that, in the words of some scholars, “New Testament textual critics suffer from an embarrassment of riches when their discipline is compared with other Greek and Latin literature.” There are approximately 5,700 manuscripts or manuscript fragments of the New Testament in its original Greek. When you consider copies of the New Testament translated into other languages, the number of existing manuscripts swells to at least 20,000.

Regarding the number of existing New Testament manuscripts, New Testament Professor Neil Lightfoot had this to say:

[M]any of the great classical writings are transmitted to the present day by no more than a handful of manuscripts. This being true, and since no one really questions the textual foundations of the classics, why should a mist of doubt prevail over the bible text? If any book from ancient times has descended to us without substantial loss or alteration, it is the Bible.

Again, the conclusion is bold. But then again, so is the evidence.

X. The Results of New Testament Textual Criticism

Much, much more could be said about the textual criticism of the New Testament. But given what I’ve already established, I think I’m safe in summing up my case. F. F. Bruce, a conservative Christian scholar has this to say:

The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.

New Testament scholar, John Robinson, by no means a conservative, concurs, writing:

The wealth of manuscripts, and above all the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest extant copies, make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.

The fact that we possess so very early manuscripts of the New Testament, and so very many of them, virtually ensures that we can determine what the originals actually said. “Ninety-nine percent of all textual problems are easily resolved by comparing the external and internal evidence.” New Testament scholar, Craig Bloomberg has this to say:

[T]he consensus among textual critics is that in the modern critical editions of the Greek New Testament we have, either in the text itself or in the footnotes upwards of 97% of what the original authors wrote reconstructed beyond any reasonable doubt…

Scholars Darrel Bock and Daniel Wallace add this: “We have 100 percent of the New Testament and we are sure about 99.5 percent of it.”

In conclusion, Bart Ehrman, and others, have suggested that since we don’t have the original manuscripts of the New Testament, but only error ridden copies, then we can’t claim that the New Testament we have today is inspired and inerrant. The hidden premise in their argument is that we can’t accurately reconstruct what the New Testament said for the manuscripts that we have. But with the help of textual criticism, that is exactly what we are able to do. Given the very early and very numerous manuscripts we possess, we can reconstruct what the original New Testament documents, including the four Gospels, actually said extremely accurately. And in the very few places where we have any doubt at all, we discover that “[N]o textual variant affects any central element of the Christian faith.”

We can be sure that the New Testament, including the four Gospels, that we have in front of us are what the evangelists and apostles actually wrote. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re inspired and inerrant. But it does mean that we can move on to the next step in are argument: Are the Gospels historically reliable? But that’s for next week. I hope to see you then. In Jesus’ name.

Tempted to Stray from the Journey's Path - Matthew 4:1-11

2010-02-21T12:01:00.002-05:00

Invocabit – Matthew 4:1-11 (Genesis 3:1-21; 2 Corinthians 6:1-10) Tempted to Stray from the Journey’s Path
21 February 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Will We Stray From the Journey’s Path?

On Ash Wednesday, we set out on a journey with Jesus. It is a journey toward Easter, toward baptism, toward the Christian life.

The Christian life is a matter of absolute trust in God. First of all, that means giving up our confidence in ourselves. We acknowledge that we are by nature sinful and unclean and that we deserve nothing but death and hell. But second of all, trusting in God means relying on Him to forgive our sins and to give us a new life for Jesus’ sake.

That new life is a life that reflects the image of God. It’s a life lived in harmony with the divine will. It means following the ten commandments and loving our neighbor as we love our self. In more concrete terms, it means living how Jesus lived.

In a fallen world, living how Jesus lived is very hard. The Gospel for today reminds us that the life of a Christian is filled with temptations to stray from the journey’s path. In this life, we will face many difficulties and troubles.

Consider the life of a Christian as St. Paul describes it in the epistle for today: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, dishonor, slander, punishment, sorrows, and poverty. Although he was recounting events from his own life, Paul could have been talking about Jesus. In a way, he was.

The Christian’s life comes from Jesus, and Jesus lives in the Christian. Jesus was afflicted with dishonor, false imprisonment, beatings, and the punishment of crucifixion. As Christians, we will face similar things.

Living for others can be very difficult when they are indifferent and even hostile toward you. Throw in the hostility of nature, and things become even more difficult. When your body breaks down and fails on you, things are the most difficult of all.

In the middle of all this, will you give up faith in God and look to make bread for yourself Will you turn your back on God’s word and make a play for the forbidden fruit? Will you put God to the test and demand that he miraculously intervene or else you’re leaving Him behind? Will you rob Him of your allegiance and turn it over to another? Will you reject God and make yourself king in His place? Will you give up the faith? Will you stray from the journey’s path?

II. Adam Strayed From the Path

Left to our own resources, the answer is, “Yes, we will stray.” Consider the story of Adam in the Garden of Eden.

God created Adam in His own image and likeness, and set him as His own vice regent over all the earth. Adam’s job was to rule the earth as God’s representative. In a very real sense, Adam was the son of God. St. Luke says as much in his genealogy of Jesus. Adam lived in perfect harmony with God and trusted in Him like a son trusts in his father.

Only one thing was off limits to Adam in the garden: The fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This doesn’t mean that Adam didn’t know what good and evil were, and that God wanted to keep Adam in ignorance. It means that if Adam rejected God’s word in favor or his own version of good and evil, he would quickly discover that with that choice he was rejecting life itself in favor of death, the greatest evil. “[O]f the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Adam’s life was supposed to be a journey with God where he would bask in the goodness of God and carry that goodness out into the world. Adam had the path laid out ahead of him.

But then the serpent showed up. The devil made his sinister appearance, and he tempted Adam to doubt God’s word. He made his approach through Adam’s wife, Eve, asking her, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” The devil misquotes God and paints Him as a greedy miser who withholds good things from His children. “If you want to have anything good, you have to grab it for yourself.”

Then the devil denies what God said outright. “You will not surely die.” And he makes mankind an offer. “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.” It’s as though the devil said, “Come now, jump off of this tall building. You won’t die.”

You know the rest of the story. Eve “saw that the tree was good for good, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise[. So] she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” In that moment, Adam gave up trust in God, and bowed down to an idol. Mankind stopped reflecting God’s rule in the world, and began to reflect the devil’s rule instead. Adam strayed from his journey’s path.

III. Israel Strayed from the Path

But God was not about to let the devil have the last word. He would set mankind on the path once more. “The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise you head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

The word, “offspring,” is actually a little ambiguous. It could refer to one individual or to an entire family. In the first place, it refers to the nation of Israel.

God’s plan was to defeat the devil by calling forth a people who would truly trust in Him and reflect His just and loving rule out into the world. Israel would stand in for Adam, and right what had gone wrong. Israel would stay on the path.

But no sooner did the descendants of Abraham cross through the Red Sea with Moses, than the temptations of the devil began to take hold. “You have no food out here. Did God bring you out into the desert to die?” So, the people grumbled against Moses and against God. Time and again, they tested God. And finally, they turned their back on God entirely, and took up the worship of an idol, the golden calf.
Israel failed in her mission. Just like Adam, she strayed from the path.

IV. Jesus Did Not Stray from the Path

But just when it looked like all hope would be lost, there came an Israelite named Jesus. He claimed to be Israel’s messiah, Israel’s king and representative. He would take up Israel’s mission, and bring it to completion.

In the Gospel for today, we see Jesus go out into the desert right after His baptism, right after His commissioning by God to do for Israel and for Adam what they could not do for themselves. And right away, He is confronted with the devil. Jesus has just been anointed with the task of renewing God’s image in man and restoring the kingdom of God, and the devil intends to make Him stray from that path.

So, he says to Jesus, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat any bread.’” But Jesus doesn’t take the bait. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” This is the answer that Israel should have given when they were hungry in the desert. It is the answer that Adam should have given when the devil offered him the forbidden fruit.

The devil tries again. “Come on, jump down off of this high building. If you really are God’s Son, you won’t die.” But Jesus doesn’t take the bait. “It is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” This is the answer that Israel should have given when they were frustrated in the desert. It’s the answer that Adam should have given when the devil said, “You will not surely die.”

So, the devil tries one last time. “All the world will be yours, if you will fall down and worship me.” But Jesus replies, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” This is the answer that Israel should have given at the foot of Mt. Sinai. It’s the answer that Adam should have given when the devil tempted Him to stray.

Adam strayed from the path, and Israel strayed, too. But Jesus didn’t stray from the path. He didn’t stray from the path His whole life through. The victory that He first won in the desert, He won again and again throughout His whole life. And He won the final battle when even as the Romans were nailing Him to the cross, He refused to give up His faith in God to save Him.

And save Him God did. On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead.

V. You Will Not Stray from the Path

In holy baptism, who you are in Adam is drowned. You are crucified with Jesus. And you are raised with Jesus to a new life. The life you now live as a Christian is the life that Jesus lives in you and through you. You become part of Him, part of God’s family, part of God’s offspring.

The life that Jesus lives is a life that reflects the image of God. It’s a life lived in harmony with the divine will.

You will face many difficulties and troubles in this life. You will be tempted to stray from the path of this Easter journey.

But when you are tempted, remember that your life is not your own. You are part of the offspring of God. And God’s promise stands. The offspring of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.

Let me put that another way. By your baptism, your life belongs to Jesus. He has done away with your old life in Adam, and He has given you a new life. He lives inside of you. Your life is the life of Jesus. The fact of the Gospel is this: Jesus does not stray from the path that God has set out before Him…and neither will you, in Jesus’ name.

The Journey Begins; Heading Out in the Right Direction - Matthew 6:1-6, 16-20

2010-02-17T20:01:00.003-05:00

Ash Wednesday – Matthew 6:1-6, 16-20 (Joel 2:12-10; 2 Peter 1:2-11) The Journey Begins; Heading Out in the Right Direction
17 February 2010
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Going the Wrong Way

For three weeks now, we have been preparing to go on a journey with Jesus to the cross of Calvary and to the empty tomb of Easter. Our Lord has issued His invitation, He’s told us how to pack, and He’s pointed out our destination. We are headed to Jerusalem; we will participate with Jesus in His death and resurrection by way of holy Baptism; we will live the Christian life; we will live the Easter life.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and it continues by putting one foot in front of the other again and again until you reach your destination. Of course, if you head out in the wrong direction, you will never get to where you’re supposed to go, no matter how many steps you take. In the unlucky event that you set out in the exact opposite direction you’re supposed to go, every step you take, including the very first one, will move you farther from your goal instead of nearer.

It’s become rather fashionable, even in Christian circles, to think of mankind as morally neutral, or even as basically good. Consider the starting point and subsequent direction of these two journeys.

The problem of the morally neutral man is basically ignorance. When he fails to do the right thing, it’s because he hasn’t been properly taught. If he knew better, he’d do better. On the surface, this view finds support in the words of Jesus from the cross: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The answer, then, is a course in Christian ethics, buttressed by the Ten Commandments and other Biblical principles for living. Teach a man the right way to go, and he’ll get there.

The problem of the basically good man is essentially one of motivation. When he fails to do the right thing, it’s because he’s gotten lazy, or bored, or depressed. If he felt better, he’d do better. Again, this view finds apparent support in the Bible, too, specifically St. Paul’s injunction in Ephesians: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Then there are his words in Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” The prescription seems to be, “Avoid distasteful subjects, and concentrate on the positive.” It’s hard to be down if you’re constantly partying and rejoicing.

Of course, the devil can quote scripture, too. Next Sunday’s Gospel, the temptation of Jesus, should suffice to support the point.

Although a case can be made from the Bible that mankind is morally neutral, it is a rather weak case that makes highly selective use of the evidence, to say the least. It’s even more difficult still to make the case that the Bible presents mankind as basically good. Ambiguous statements can be made to support shaky conclusions, and quotations ripped from their context can be made to say almost anything.

If there truly are a handful of passages from Scripture that, on the surface, seem to support the view that men are either morally neutral or even basically good, there are an overwhelming number of crystal clear passages that can only mean that mankind is sinful and unclean from his very conception and birth.

The confession of King David in Psalm 51 comes to mind. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” We are sinful from the time of our conception. We are born sinners. Then there are St. Paul’s words in Romans. “[By Adam’s] disobedience, the many were made sinners,” and, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” None of us is exempt. As sons of Adam, we have inherited a sinful nature. And Jesus says in the third chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, “That which is born of [sinful] flesh is [sinful] flesh.” Flesh is that which is at enmity with God, and outside of His kingdom/reign. We were born from flesh and so we are flesh.

Tonight, we are embarking on a journey. It is a journey with Jesus toward Easter and the baptismal font where we will experience Easter for ourselves. But if we start out in the wrong direction, we will never reach our destination.

If we are God’s creatures, then we owe our allegiance to God, and we are duty bound to follow the good, right, and true, every moment of every day right from the start. And, further, it’s impossible to stand somehow between good and evil on some kind of supposed neutral moral ground. There is no such place. Good and evil exhaust the moral categories. We’re talking about attribute data. On or off. Yes or no. Good or evil. There is nothing in between. The middle is excluded.

If we begin by assuming that mankind is basically a morally neutral creature, who stands between good and evil and can decide for himself which way to go, then we make ourselves gods, and we break the first commandment, not to mention the laws of logic, right from the start. Beginning with supposed moral neutrality, we would be heading out in the wrong direction. No matter how many steps we take, we’ll never get to Easter going that way.

If we start by claiming that mankind is basically good, an almost angelic being who only occasionally stumbles along the moral way, then we reveal ourselves to be devils who call evil good, and good evil. Consider that it is always far easier, and therefore more “natural,” to do the wrong thing than to do the right thing. Although we chafe when someone actually says it out loud, it seems rather obvious from observation alone that mankind is not basically good. If we say that we are, then we will not only be heading out wrong, we will be starting off in the exact opposite direction that we wish to go. Every step we take will move us farther from Easter.

Tonight, we begin our journey by listening to the truth, and by acknowledging that it is the truth. We were brought forth in iniquity, and conceived in sin. Adam’s disobedience is our own. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory God. We are flesh from the flesh of Adam. And this is God’s verdict. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The curse on Adam is a curse on us.

So, we confess to God, “You are justified in your words, and blameless in your judgment.” We are “poor, miserable sinner[s]” who come from the dust and will return to it soon. We know our transgressions, and our sins are ever before us. By nature, we don’t walk with the Lord. Without the Lord, we would wander around in aimless rebellion all our lives. Left to ourselves, we always go the wrong way.

II. Return to the Lord

But strangely enough, bringing us to the place where we admit that we have a problem is actually God’s first step in correcting our problem. “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” The journey of Lent begins with the message of Ash Wednesday, and that message is, Repent!; confess your sins, and return to the Lord your God because he is a forgiving God.

Ordinarily, confessing guilt would be a horrible idea. Admitting that you’ve done the crime only makes it easier for the court to sentence you to hard time.
But our God is far from ordinary. Our God is gracious and merciful. He is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Our God relents over disaster. He simply does not deal with us according to our sins. He does not repay us according to our iniquities.

God has sent us not punishment, but oil, grain, and wine. He has anointed Jesus to be our Messiah, our savior and, representative. Jesus has sacrificed His body and His blood on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, and He has risen from the dead for our justification. Jesus went into death ahead of us, on our behalf. He bore the punishment that was rightly ours. And He has come out the other side unscathed. He rose from the dead, justified in God’s site because He was without sin.

Now, Jesus anoints us with the oil of the Holy Spirit at our baptism. He unites us to Himself in His death and resurrection, and He gives us the fruit of His saving work. He feeds us with bread and wine that are His body and blood given and shed for us. He absorbs our sins, He forgives them, and He does away with them. He carries us through death’s dark valley to the sunshine of the Promised Land where He gives us the resurrection life of Easter.

III. Return to Easter

Jesus gives us the Easter life in our baptism. He makes us partakers of the divine nature. And this divine, Easter life isn’t just a promise for the future. The Easter life is ours here and now because we have already escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. God has given us “all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”

That is why, as Christians, as the baptized, as “Easter people,” we make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, our virtue with knowledge, our knowledge with self-control, our self-control with steadfastness, our steadfastness with godliness, our godliness with brotherly affection, and our brotherly affection with love. These qualities are ours in Christ, and they are ever increasing in us as Christians.

If they aren’t, then it is because we are nearsighted and blind. It is because we have forgotten that we have been cleansed from our former sins. When we do that, we become ineffective and unfruitful.

The Easter life is a gift from God. We cannot earn it or deserve it.

But God is in the process of changing our wills so that we will what He wills. As long as we are in this life, the sinful will of Adam competes with the will of God in us. That is why we have to discipline our wills. If we were morally neutral, or basically good, there would be hardly any problem at all. But we are not morally neutral or basically good. And as long as we are saddled with a competing sin nature, living the Easter life will be a struggle. We are not saved by our works, but being a Christian is indeed hard work. It requires determination, dedication, and discipline.

As Christians, we consciously devote ourselves to good works, to giving to the poor, to helping the needy, to forgiving the undeserving. We do what Jesus did, and it is a struggle. But we go on giving to others because Jesus first gave to us, and He continues to give to others through us.

As Christians, we consciously devote ourselves to prayer. We stay in constant prayer because we know that we can’t live the Easter life on our own. Apart from God’s grace, we would wither and die. By praying, we acknowledge that God is in charge, and that He is our strength. In prayer, we thank Him for the Easter life that He’s given us, and we ask Him to increase that life in us more and more.

And finally for tonight, as Christians, we consciously devote ourselves to fasting. From time to time, we deliberately abstain from this or that thing that we might otherwise enjoy in order to devote ourselves to the things of God. We do this every Sunday morning when we go to church. There are plenty of other good things that we might do at that time. But we abstain from them in order to go to church to hear God’s word and to pray. This isn’t about choosing our own crosses, and it certainly isn’t about earning our own salvation. We fast to remind ourselves that every good thing comes from God, and that God Himself really is the greatest good of all.

When we do these things, when we give to the needy, when we pray, and when we fast, we don’t do it to impress other people or to earn a good standing with God. We do it to help other people and because we already have a good standing with God because of what He has done for us in Jesus.

Lent is a journey to Jerusalem, to the cross, and to Easter with Jesus. The Easter life of faith and good works is our destination. Let’s be sure that, tonight, we head out in the right direction. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you are by nature basically good or even morally neutral. Admit your guilt, your original sin, and your daily faults. And above all, take refuge in God who looks past the sins of men that they may repent. He will not remember your former iniquities. He will send His compassion speedily to meet you, in Jesus’ name.

The Destination of the Journey - Luke 18:31-43

2010-02-14T12:01:00.002-05:00

Quinquagesima – Luke 18:31-43 (1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13) The Destination of the Journey
14 February 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Counting Down to the Destination

Last Sunday was Sexagesima Sunday, and I said that there were about 60 days until Easter. The Sunday before that was Septuagesima Sunday and I said that there were about 70 days until Easter. By now you know that these are round figures. They’re approximations.

But today is different. Today is Quinquagesima Sunday. “Quinquagesima” comes from the Latin word for 50. And if you include today, there are exactly 50 days from now until Easter.

There are 50 days to go until we arrive at our Easter destination. By the way that we reckon time, there are actually only 49 days to go. For us, Easter Sunday begins on Saturday night at the Easter Vigil. It’s coming up fast.

In fact, time’s accelerating. We say that Lent is 40 days long. Well, in three days, it will be Ash Wednesday, and Lent will begin. So that means that today there are 50 days until Easter, but three days from now that number will be cut to 40. For those of you wondering how we get away with that: the Sundays don’t count.

The Church never has been able to count very well. We talk about the twelve tribes of Israel, but in reality, there were thirteen. The tribe of Joseph was divided into Manasseh and Ephraim. Even after the suicide of Judas, the Gospel of John still refers to “the Twelve” apostles. It’s not until the book of Acts that Luke tells us how God chose Matthias by lot to bring the number back to an actual twelve. The Church can’t count.

But you can count on the Church to bring you to Easter. We’re headed in the right direction, and we’re closer to Easter than when we first began.

And you can count on Jesus to make Easter a reality in your life. You can count on Jesus to baptize you, to forgive you of your sins, to release you from the power of death, and to give you a new life where sin and death are a thing of the past.

II. The Destination is Not an End but a Beginning

Two weeks ago, I told you that Jesus is inviting you on a journey. It’s a journey toward Easter. But this journey isn’t some kind of nostalgic trip into the past where you simply remember what Jesus did a long time ago.

The journey toward Easter is a journey with Jesus who brings His past into your present in order that you might have a future with Him. The journey toward Easter is a journey to the baptismal font where you experience Easter for yourself. Your sinful self is drowned, your sins are washed away, and you are united to Jesus in a new, resurrection life.

For those who have never been baptized, your journey toward Easter is a trek toward your baptism at the Easter Vigil. For those who have been baptized, your journey toward Easter is a trek toward the Easter Vigil where you will retrace your steps and remember your baptism.

Like remembering Easter, remembering your baptism isn’t just a walk down memory lane. Remembering your baptism is a lot like remembering that you’re married. It’s not just that you were married. It’s that you are married. You were married on such and such a date. But that event changed your identity. Now you are married, and you live the married life.

Baptism isn’t just a past event, because Easter isn’t just a past event. Easter is an ongoing reality. Easter isn’t just the story that Jesus was raised. Easter is the proclamation that He is risen! Baptism is the rising of the risen Jesus in your hearts and in your lives. Like marriage, baptism is present reality. It’s not just that you were baptized. It’s that you are baptized, and now you live the baptismal life. Remembering your baptism means learning to live in and from your baptism more and more.

Baptism is God bringing the Easter event into your life. It’s the place where you are crucified with Jesus on the cross, and where you are raised with Jesus from the dead. Baptism is the great change from death to life, the turning point from self to God, the repentance from sin to good works. Baptism is the place where God forgives you of your faults and failures, and calls you into a new life of righteousness and purity.

Two weeks ago, I told you that Jesus is inviting you on a journey toward Easter. I hope that like the blind man sitting and begging on the roadside outside of Jericho, your eyes are opened. I hope you can see now that our Easter destination isn’t an end but only a beginning.

A long time ago, the LORD said to a man named Abram, later Abraham, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to teh land that I will show you." The Promised Land was the place where God would make Abraham into a great nation, and Abraham would bring a blessing to the rest of the nations of the earth and glory to God. The Promised Land was Abraham's destination. but it wasn't the end. It was the place of a new beginning.

A mother-to-be travels for nine months toward the delivery day. That day isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. A new life has begun. A student travels for years toward graduation day. That day isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. Now he can put that training to use and finally get to work.

Celebrating Easter is remembering your baptism. Remembering your baptism is living the Christian life. The Christian life is the baptismal life. Your destination is Easter. Your Easter is your baptism. Your baptism is your life in Christ; it’s the Easter life.

III. The Easter Life

The Epistle for today summarizes the Easter life in one word: Love. The message of Easter is the great love of God for mankind in Christ. God loved the world this way: He gave His only begotten Son into death so that whoever believes in Him will not die but have eternal life. The reality of your baptism is that out of His great love for you, God has given you a new birth into the eternal life of Easter. Living the Easter life means that just as God has loved you, you now live a life of love for others.

[4] Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant [5] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [6] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

IV. The Easter Life in a Fallen World

Jesus lived a life of love for you. But it wasn’t easy. Living a life of love in this fallen world never is.

Jesus had to contend with sin, and rebellion, and rejection. He gave Himself, but many were ungrateful. He extended Himself, but many rejected His advances. He offered Himself, but many took advantage of Him. He loved all men, but many did not love Him back, and that is painful.

He was delivered by His own people to the Gentiles, but still, He remained patient. He was mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon, but still he remained kind. He was flogged and killed, but still He endured all these things for the sake of love.

On the third day, He rose from the dead, and He is still not irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but He does forgive it. He is not arrogant or rude to us, but instead He gently draws us to repentance promising to change us into new, loving Easter-people like He is.

Two weeks ago, Jesus invited you on a journey. “Come, work in my vineyard.” Last week, He told you how to pack. “Hold on to the Word of God.” Today, He’s telling you where you’re going. “See, we are going up to Jerusalem.”

Jesus went up to Jerusalem on a mission of mercy and love. Because of the sin in this world, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.” Living a life of love in this unloving world is painful. It entails suffering.

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem.” Jesus suffered there. You will suffer there, too. Loving in an unloving world is hard. You will give, and many times you will not be repaid. You will say and do kind things only to receive indifference and even abuse in return. You will be patient, and that patience will be tested.

Our destination is the Easter life. But living the Easter life in this sinful, fallen world isn’t easy. Frankly, it is often excruciating. That is to say, it’s like being crucified.

But take heart. Jesus was crucified. But on the third day He rose again from the dead. One day this world will be changed. There will be no more sin and rebellion, no more suffering and pain. Then you will rise from the dead to continue the Easter life that God has already begun in you here and now, in Jesus’ name.

Provisions for the Journey - Luke 8:4-15

2010-02-07T12:01:00.002-05:00

Sexagesima – Luke 8:4-15 (Isaiah 55:10-13; 1 Corinthians 11:19—12:9) Provisions for the Journey
07 February 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Gesimatide: Preparation for the Journey

There are roughly 60 days from now until Easter. That’s why we call today, Sexagesima Sunday. “Sexagesima” comes from the Latin word for 60.

Last week was Septuagesima Sunday, from the Latin word for 70. At that time, we said that there were roughly 70 days until Easter.

Seven days have passed, but we’ve counted ten. You can tell that these are round numbers. They are approximations. Think of a time when distances used to be measured by landmarks. “To get to the house, you’ll pass the old oak tree first. Then about half way, you’ll have to cross the creek. Just before you get there, the land gets real swampy. If you find yourself in the woods, you’ve gone too far.” That’s what these Sundays are for us. They’re landmarks along the way.

Last week, Jesus invited you on a journey. He invited you to come out of the exile of sin and death into the Promised Land of forgiveness and new life. He called you back to the Garden of Eden, back to work in His vineyard. Jesus invited you to set out on a journey with Him toward the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb of Easter. Last Sunday, Jesus invited you to be baptized, and to live the Christian life, to live the Easter life. That’s what these 70 days are all about. They’re about a journey to Easter and to the new life of the saints of God.

These 70 days are divided into two major parts. First comes Gesimatide or pre-Lent and then comes Lent itself.

In Lent, we set out on the journey. We travel with Jesus, and learn to walk like He walked. We listen to Jesus, and learn to speak like He spoke. We watch Jesus give to the poor, we watch Him fast, and pray, and we learn to do the same. Above all, we hear how Jesus died for our sins and rose for our justification. In our baptism, we learn that. united to Jesus, God forgives us our faults and that He will raise us from the dead, too. So, we forgive others just like God forgives us, and we begin to live the new life that God has given us even while we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. That is what Easter is all about. We’ll talk a whole lot more about that when we get there. What’s important to remember for now is that Lent is a journey toward the Easter resurrection and our own personal Easter in holy baptism.

But before we set out on that journey, we have to make preparations. And that’s what Gesimatide or pre-Lent is for. If Lent prepares us for Easter, then the three Gesima-Sundays prepare us for Lent. If Lent is about getting ready for Easter, then pre-Lent is about, as my dad would say, getting ready to get ready. If Lent is a journey to the cross and resurrection, a journey toward baptism, toward the Christian life, then pre-Lent is about making preparations for that journey.

Last week you were invited on a journey. That’s the first step.

II. Sexagesima: Provisions for the Journey

This week, Jesus is telling you how to pack for the journey. If you’re going to Alaska in the dead of winter, you’ll pack differently than if you’re going to Miami in the heat of summer. Whether you pack water skis or snow skis depends on whether you’re going to Los Angeles in July or Aspen in February. It’s bad planning to take a knife to a gun fight. You don’t want to show up at a black tie affair in jeans and a t-shirt. If you’re going to cross the desert you’ll need to take plenty of water. If the trip’s going to be a long one, you’ll need to take food, too. This week, Jesus is telling you how to pack for the journey to baptism and the Christian life.

A long time ago, God told a man named Noah to pack his bags for a boat trip. God called Noah to go on a special journey. God invited Noah out of the flood waters of death into a new life on a new earth. Noah’s mission was to begin again what God had started with Adam in the Garden of Eden. In the meantime, he would have to pass through 40 days and 40 nights of rain that would flood out the sinful world.

The nature of the journey and the destination itself dictated that Noah would need to pack certain things. For example, he would need a boat, a big boat. He would need to gather animals and food to feed them. And he would have to assemble his family and bring them, too.

III. Provisions for the “Prosperity” Journey

There are a lot of opinions on just what the journey to the cross and tomb and the Christian itself life are like. Some preachers tell us that the human problem is basically low self-esteem, depression, and a lack of fulfillment or self-actualization. Our problem is that we haven’t really tapped into our true potential, and we don’t even know how. We’re down on our luck, we’re not living up to our privilege, and we’re unhappy about it. But God is there to change all that. He’s there to make you a healthier, happier you. Jesus is the life coach who can show you the way to prosperity. The Gospel is that you can attain the glory that God has promised you after a life of suffering, right here and now. If you follow the divine rules or principles for living, if you say the right prayers, if you believe in God and believe in yourself, you can have what you want, you can have your best life now. Living in Easter means being happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. You can do it. You really can.

Now, if that’s the way the journey to baptism and the Christian life itself really are, then there are certain things that you’re going to need along the way. You’re going to need sermons that center around dispensing advice and instruction. You’re going to need pastors who are coaches, cheerleaders, and charismatic speakers. You’re going to need to hear strong, successful Christians testify to how much a personal relationship with Jesus has improved their lives. You’re going to need entertaining and electrifying church services that provide an emotional uplift and entice people to give Jesus a try.

IV. Provisions for the Baptismal Journey

The Bible paints a different picture of what the journey to the cross and tomb and the Christian life itself are like. The Bible tells us that human problem is that we have offended a holy God with our sin, and that we face temporal and eternal death as a result. But God is there to change all that. In the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, He has taken the sin of mankind. Jesus has gone into death and paid the penalty that our sins deserve. But He has also risen from the dead into a whole new life free from sin and death. This new life, free from sin and rebellion, is God’s gift to the world. But as long as we are in this world, this new life will be hard, because the devil is our enemy and the old Adam dies hard.

Now, if that’s the way the journey to baptism and the Christian life itself really are, then there is really only one thing needful, and that is the word of God in all its truth and purity. First, you’re going to need to hear the commandments of God, and come to understand that you’ve broken them, and deserve nothing but death and hell. They you’re going to need to hear that Jesus has died in your place to forgive you of your sins and give you a new life. Finally, you’re going to need to hear that in the midst of the suffering and trials of this life, and in the face of the devil’s temptations, the world’s persecutions, and your own sins, God still loves you, forgives you, and sustains you. You will hear all of that in God’s word and nowhere else.

The word of God is the seed that God sows to create and sustain Christians. “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed…some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” Baptism is the word that God uses to drown the sinner in us and unite us to Jesus in a new life. Absolution is the word that God uses to extend baptism into our whole life, covering the many sins we commit out of weakness on a daily basis. Holy Communion is the word that God uses to build our strength in a world that would see us crushed and destroyed.

Some treat the word of God very casually. “Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.” Others like the word of God very much at first. But when they find that life is still full of difficulty and testing, they let go of it and fall away. Still others hear the word but they’re more concerned with the riches and pleasures of life. So they never mature and bear fruit. But there are those who hear the word and hold it fast in an honest and good heart.

The Christian life is a hard one. Anyone who tells you differently is not telling you the truth. The devil will be your enemy. The world will not be your friend. You will have to contend with sin in countless ways. Just consider the example of St. Paul: Hard labor, time in prison, countless beatings, often near death. Above all, consider the life of Jesus Himself: “He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.” Without the word of God, the word of forgiveness and the promise of the resurrection, you won’t have the strength to make it to the Promised Land, to your Easter.

Jesus has invited you on a journey to baptism and the Christian life. Today He’s telling you how to pack for that journey. There is only one thing that you need. That thing is the word of God in all of its truth and purity, in all of its forms. The word of God is rain from heaven watering the earth. The word of God is seed from the sower creating plants that are good for food. The word of God will sustain you on your journey and throughout your life as a Christian. Nothing else is needed. Nothing less will do.

So, pack your bags with provisions for the journey. Immerse yourself in God’s word. Show up to church. Listen to the absolution, the readings, and the preaching. Come to the table of the Lord. Feast on the word made flesh, baked into bread and fermented into wine. Prepare for Lent. Prepare for Easter. Prepare for life as a Christian. Pack your bags with provisions for the journey. Pack your bags with the word of God, in Jesus’ name.

Invitation to a Journey - Matthew 20:1-16

2010-01-31T12:01:00.002-05:00

Septuagesima – Matthew 20:1-16 (Exodus 17:1-7; 1 Corinthians 9:24—10:5) Invitation to a Journey
31 January 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Path to Easter

There are roughly 70 days from now until Easter. That’s why we call today, Septuagesima Sunday. “Septuagesima” comes from the Latin word for 70.

The number 70 is significant in the Bible because that’s the number of years that Judah spent in captivity in Babylon. At the end of 70 years, Judah returned to the Promised Land. In a way, it was the end of their exile.

As Christians, we believe that the true Babylonian captivity of mankind is our exile in the land of sin and death. When Jesus rose from the grave on the first Easter Sunday, He defeated sin and death on behalf of all mankind. The end of our exile is the date of our baptism, when we are united with Jesus in His death and resurrection, and share in His victory over sin and death. In Baptism, we go to the cross with Jesus, we lie in the tomb with Him, and we are raised to new life with Him. Baptism is our Easter, and the end of our exile.

By the Jewish way of reckoning time, before the advent of clocks that could keep of track of time at night, the new day began at sundown, and not at midnight like it does for us. So, for example, sundown on Saturday was actually the beginning of Sunday.

In many places, for many years, the Church made it a point to baptize infants and adult converts to the Christian faith after sundown on Holy Saturday at the Easter Vigil. In other words, the Church baptized her children at the earliest possible moment after the 70 days, at the earliest possible moment on Easter Sunday.

In our dual parish, we celebrate the Easter Vigil at Immanuel at 7 pm on Holy Saturday, right around the time the sun is setting. In that service, the congregation is invited to remember their baptism by renouncing the devil, reciting the Creed, and praying the Lord’s Prayer, just like we do in the rite of baptism. If there are any candidates for baptism, they are baptized at that time. If there are any candidates for membership, they are welcomed at that time. If there are any candidates for confirmation, they are confirmed at that time. Our young people at Holy Cross should start thinking about this for next year.

So, here we stand, roughly 70 days out from Easter, 70 days out from our celebration of Jesus’ victory over sin and death, 70 days out from the formal remembrance and renewal of our baptism, 70 days out from the end of our exile. The path is laid out ahead of us. It is the path that Jesus Himself walked: His Temptation, His acts of mercy, His battle with the forces of evil, His feeding of the masses, His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, His holy communion with the disciples, His betrayal in the garden, His trial before the Sanhedrin, His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, His burial in the tomb, and His resurrection from the grave.

II. Invitation to a Journey

Today, Jesus is inviting you on a journey. He is inviting you to walk with Him on the path that He walked. He is inviting you out into the wilderness to do battle with the devil. He is inviting you to believe in His mercy, and trust in Him to defeat the forces of evil on your behalf. Today He says, “Come with me to Jerusalem. Come with me to the upper room. Eat the bread that I give for the life of the world. Drink the cup of the new covenant in my blood, shed for the forgiveness of all your sins.” Jesus is inviting you to come with Him to Calvary, to pick up your own cross and follow Him to the place where He hung on a cross for you. He beckons you to lie in the tomb with Him, trusting in God to deliver you. And, by grace, and by grace alone, Jesus invites you to step out of that tomb with Him into a new life forever free from sin and death.

Jesus is inviting you to be baptized, and if you have already been baptized, then He’s encouraging and empowering you to live in your baptism. He wants you to see that united to Him, you have the strength to say, “No,” to the devil’s temptations, and, “Yes,” to God’s word. As the baptized, you are no longer Gentile outsiders, begging for scraps from the table. You are part of the Israel of God, part of His people, part of His family, invited to eat at the table itself. The devil hates you, but Jesus has cast the demons of this world out. The world may hate you, but take heart, because Jesus has overcome the world. He will not leave you as orphans. He will come to you. His Spirit will come to you. He will feed you with bread from heaven in the house of His Father, because, in Him, God is your Father, too. When the children of the devil persecute you, count yourself blessed, for so they treated the prophets and Jesus Himself. Follow the path. Walk with Jesus. He won’t let you down. Die to yourself, and live to God.

The Church invites you to make the season of Lent your pilgrimage.

On February 17th, Ash Wednesday, follow Jesus in giving alms, praying, and fasting. Deny yourself, and live for Him.

On February 21st, Invocabit Sunday, follow Jesus through the wilderness temptations of the devil. Hear of His victory, and learn of your own.

On February 28th, Reminiscere Sunday, follow Jesus with the Canaanite woman. Learn to pray as she prayed, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David.”

On March 7th, Oculi Sunday, follow Jesus in His battle with Beelzebul, the devil. Witness the coming of the kingdom of God.

On March 14th, Laetare Sunday, follow Jesus to a mountain by the Sea of Galilee. Sit down in the green grass, and eat the bread that He gives, even His own body.

On March 21st, Judica Sunday, follow Jesus in His confrontation with the children of the devil. Discover that you are the children of God.

On March 28th, Palm Sunday, follow Jesus as He rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Prepare for the coming of the Son of Man.

On April 1st, Maundy Thursday, follow Jesus to the upper room. Eat the Lord’s Supper as one of His disciples.

On April 2nd, Good Friday, follow Jesus to a hill called Calvary. See Him die on the cross for you, then pick up your cross, too.

And finally, on April 3rd, at 7pm, follow Jesus as He rises from the dead. Hear the report of the young men in white, sitting in the empty tomb, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

Don’t miss a step on the path. Be there each day, each hour. Be there for every single service. Be there for Holy Week. Be there for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. And be there for the Easter Vigil at Immanuel on Saturday, April 3rd, at 7pm. Be there for the Easter Vigil.

Not showing up to the Easter Vigil is like watching the NFL pre-season, regular season, and playoffs, and then skipping the Super Bowl. Even people who don’t like football at all watch the Super Bowl. Go to the Vigil. It’s better than the Super Bowl. It’s the Resurrection of Jesus. It’s the point of it all. It’s the rose garden at the end of the path. Or, as Matthew might put it, it’s the Vineyard. “The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.”

III. The Vineyard

The vineyard is our destination. It’s our original home.

Adam was created to work in the Garden Eden, to work in the vineyard. When Adam sinned, he lost his job, and he was thrown out of the garden; he was thrown out of the vineyard.

God gave Israel the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. He gave Israel the vineyard. In a way, Israel was the vineyard. Her job was to be a light to the nations. But when Israel failed at this job and sinned, she was exiled into Babylon, and lost her job. She was cast out of the Promised Land, bounced from the Garden of Eden, she was thrown out of the vineyard.

Now, the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out at all hours of the day to hire laborers for his vineyard. God is inviting you back into the vineyard. He is calling you out of exile back into the Promised Land. He wants to transport you from the land of sin and death back into the Garden of Eden. He wants to give you the job he gave Adam and Israel. He wants you to be a light to the nations.

Jesus is inviting you on a journey. He is inviting you to walk with Him and to work with Him. He wants to baptize you, to bring you to the Promised Land, to give you the life of Easter so that you can live that life here and now. We’ll talk more about that along the way, and a whole lot more when we actually get there.

For now, make a commitment to walk with Jesus this Lent. Travel with Him on the way back to the vineyard. Make a move out of exile toward the Promised Land where you will be baptized into a new life. Make the life and work of Easter your goal, in Jesus’ name.

Shining Like the Son - Matthew 17:1-9

2010-01-24T12:01:00.002-05:00

The Transfiguration of our Lord – Matthew 17:1-9 (Exodus 24:29-35; 2 Peter 1:16-21) Shining Like the Son
24 January 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Light Has Gone Out

Jewish myth from sources outside of the Bible tell us that “Adam possessed a body of light, which shone from one end of the world to the other.” It was said that even the heel of his foot was brighter than the sun, and the brightness of his face was beyond measure. Some of the angels actually mistook him for God himself.

I don’t know if that myth is literally true. But I do believe that Adam shone like the son in the Garden of Eden. Created in the image of God, Adam shone like a son of God. Like Moses in later times, “the LORD used to speak to [Adam] face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” And like Moses, the skin of [Adam’s] face shone because he talked with God.

Adam shone like God because he lived in the presence of God, and he lived like God. Although there was room for growth, there was no wrinkle, or spot, or blemish of sin. Adam may not have been perfect, but he was perfectly sinless. Adam lived his life in perfect communion with the Son in the will of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was the light of the world, reflecting the one who had created the light, and who was the light, out into the world.

The Jewish myths tell us that “one of the consequences of Adam’s sin was that the light of Adam’s body was diminished….[And w]hen this brightness vanished, he appeared naked.” We don’t “follow cleverly devised myths,” but St. Paul says much the same thing when he tells us in Romans that mankind has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Adam was originally clothed in the radiance of God. But when he fell, the lights went out, and Adam realized he had no clothes. He broke his communion with the Son. He ignored the will of the Father. He rejected the power of the Spirit. He no longer reflected the light of heaven. And the bright cloud that overshadowed him was gone. He was truly naked.

Light faded into darkness. Life faded into death. Without the Holy Spirit, without the breath of the living God, Adam had no breath of his own; he had no life of his own. Outside of the will of the Father, Adam’s plans were destined for destruction. Severed from the Son, cut off from the vine, Adam would wither and die. He was fit only to be thrown into the fire. From the dust he was taken and to the dust he would return.

Adam lost his luster and perished, and the rest of mankind followed suit. The people of this world walk in darkness, following their own selfish desires. We dwell in a land of deep darkness, in a world that hates the light of God because its deeds are wicked. “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness.” People hide in the shadows because they don’t want to be caught (“Don’t tell them what I’ve done.”); we don’t want anyone to know (That is the real reason that people don’t want to go to confession anymore); we don’t want to be found out.

But we are a foolish people, without understanding. We have eyes, but we don’t see. We have already been found out. Heaven knows who we are and what we’ve done. And heaven has fled from us. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The dark, chaotic waters of the flood, of the primeval darkness, cover the face of the earth. The Spirit has returned to God who sent it because He found no dry land. The glory of God has departed the Temple that was mankind. The light has gone out.

II. The Light Shines in the Darkness

But then, on the banks of the Jordan River, there arose a man like God. In the middle of the time of this world’s trouble, Michael, the great prince who has charge of the people of God stepped out of the dark, chaotic waters onto dry ground.

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; [17] and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

And while Jesus was standing on the high ground, on the top of the mountain, on the top of the new Ararat, he was transfigured in the presence of his closest disciples. “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” The radiance of God clothed Him, and He reflected the glory of heaven. “A bright cloud overshadowed [Him], and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’” “He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the Majestic Glory.”

“And behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” When the disciples heard the voice, “they fell on their faces and were terrified.” “Listen to him,” the voice said. But they remembered what He told them.

I must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes. I will be killed. But on the third day, I will be raised. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

No wonder the disciples were terrified. The glory of Jesus was manifested in accepting a baptism meant for sinners. His appearance was transfigured on account of His obedience to the Father, and that obedience would mean His death on a cross where He would give His life in sacrifice for sinners. Jesus’ message to His disciples was a straightforward one: “If you would shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father, you must take up your cross, too.”

III. Shining Like the Son

Seen from the point of view of His humanity, Jesus’ obedience to the Father, His obedience unto death, is what demonstrates Him to be everything that Adam was supposed to be, but turned out not to be. In Jesus there was no wrinkle, or spot, or blemish of sin. Jesus lived as the Son of God in the will of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was and is “a lamp shining in a dark place,” the light of the world, shining the radiance of God out into the world through His obedient human flesh. The transfiguration is God’s stamp of approval on Jesus, the man: Behold, the man, my Adam, my Son. His vindication is His resurrection from the dead.

In Holy Baptism, we are united with Jesus Christ and we share in the benefits of His life, death, and resurrection. There has been and there will always be only one payment for sin: The obedient life and death of Jesus. Jesus took the failure and rebellion of mankind on Himself, by Himself. His death is the sole means of our forgiveness and atonement with God. We are forgiven of our sins, and granted a new life in which sin is a thing of the past. We live in perfect communion with the Son in the will of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. By God’s grace, in Christ, we are the light of the world, reflecting the one who created that light out into the world. We “are being transformed into the same image [as our Lord Jesus Christ] from one degree of glory to another.”

When the Spirit of God again fills our lungs, and the glory of God dwells in us like a Temple, we are conformed to the image of Christ Himself. But the image of Jesus is the image of the one who was crucified and raised, and the glory of God is the cross of His Son Jesus Christ. So, as forgiven Christians, in possession of heaven and the expectation of the resurrection, all by grace and by grace alone, we can expect to see the pattern of Jesus’ own death and resurrection replayed and reenacted in our own lives. We will take up our own crosses and follow the one who was crucified for us.

Because this world lives in darkness, it will seek to snuff out the light of God’s glory. We will be persecuted. We will face trials and difficulties, sicknesses and diseases. We will suffer. But we do not suffer as sinners, paying the penalty for our sin. Because we are united with Christ, we suffer like He suffered. We suffer like sons in obedience to our Father.

[20] [But if] when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is gracious thing in the sight of God. [21] For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. [22] He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. [23] When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. [24] He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Like Jesus we are afflicted in every way, but by God’s grace we are not utterly crushed. We may be perplexed but we are not driven to absolute despair. We may be persecuted by men, but God will never forsake us. We may be struck down in death, but we will not be destroyed because God will raise us from the dead and we will shine like the brightness of the sky above, and like the stars forever and ever. We carry the death of Jesus in our bodies so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. We accept the violence of the world, and do not fight back with violence because we know that our Father has everything in hand. We keep the faith, praying for deliverance to come from God. And in doing so, we are transformed into the image of Jesus, the one who was crucified and raised. We reflect the glory of God out into the world. For those who have eyes to see, we ourselves are transfigured, shining like the Son, in Jesus’ name.

He Revealed His Glory - John 2:1-11

2010-01-17T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Second Sunday After the Epiphany – John 2:1-11 (Exodus 33:12-23; Ephesians 5:22-33) He Revealed His Glory
17 January 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Moses’ Request

“Show me your glory.” Moses made that request to God one day at a place he called “the tent of meeting,” just outside of the camp of Israel at Mt. Sinai.
“I’ve done what you’ve asked, God. I’ve brought these people out of Egypt, here, to your holy mountain. But they’ve sinned against you. They’ve perverted their worship and gone after other gods.

“Now you’re threatening to leave us all alone. You tell us, ‘Go ahead, take the Promised Land, but I won’t be going with you.’ You have been with us the whole time in a cloud by day and fire by night. Are you going to abandon us now? How are we supposed to make it on our own?

“God, I didn’t even want this job. I told you, I can’t speak straight. I get my mix all talked up. But you told me, ‘Quit your belly-aching. Your brother Aaron can make some of the longer speeches, but bottom line is, I’m the one doing the talking, and I’ve chosen you to be my mouthpiece.’ Well, are going to quit talking now? Are you going to quite telling me what to say?

“You told me, ‘I know you by name, and you have found favor in my sight.’ Well, if that’s true, then give me a sign that you’re still with me. Let me know that you’re still here. I can’t lead these people without you.

“I can’t lead your people without you. They are your people, aren’t they? That’s what you said. That’s why you brought them up out of Egypt. You said you’d be their God and they’d be your people.

“I know they haven’t really treated you like their God, but does that mean you’re going to break your promise? Surely you knew what they were like. You had to have known that they were a ‘stiff-necked people’ before you chose them. Their sinfulness can’t possibly be a surprise to you.

“Who among all of the sons of Adam is sinless? No one. The same is true for the sons of Abraham. Who can stand before you and claim to be pure? I know that you’ve given your people Israel your word on this mountain, your Law, your Torah; and it’s beautiful: A people dedicated to you, to your word, and to your worship. A people who respect the authorities, who don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t covet. If only everyone lived that way. It would be heaven on earth. But if this Law is like a ladder that we have to climb in order to get to you, then we’re never going to make it. I thought this word was a promise. I thought you were going to make us like this, that you were going to make us your people.

“Lord, make good on your promise. Show your people your mercy. Show your people your grace. Don’t judge them according to your wrath. Remember the covenant that you made with Abraham. Judge us according to your righteous promise.

“If I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Reveal yourself to me in compassion. Let me see your goodness. I want to know that you will go with me, that you will shelter your people, that you will be our God. Show me your glory.”

II. Our Request

I think that most people make the same request of God. Our request is just like Moses’. We want to see God’s glory. We want to see what makes Him great. We want God to show Himself to us.

The human condition is a lonely one. It’s easy to feel like God is far away from us, like He doesn’t care about us, or that He doesn’t even know we exist. Sometimes we might get to thinking that He doesn’t exist. Recent publications by prominent atheists have been selling very well at the book stores.

We want God to give us some kind of sign of His presence. We want to know that He’s real, that He exists, that He’s out there.

But more than that, we want to know that He cares about us. We want to know that He’s concerned about us, that He’s looking out for us, that He loves us.

It’s possible to be fairly certain that God exists just by looking around. Everything must have come from somewhere. From the nature of what is, we know that that somewhere must be a someone, and that someone is what we call, “god.” Although atheists try to deny god’s existence, it’s actually pretty hard to do so. Without god, there isn’t any good explanation for existence itself. Why is there something rather than nothing? The only good answer seems to be, “god.”

But knowing that there is a god, and knowing who that god is, are two different things. We want both. We want to know that god is, and we want to know that god.
What’s more, knowing who god is, and being known by that god, are two different things. Again, we want both. We want to know who god is, and we want god to know who we are, too.

But even further than that, being known by god, and being loved by god, are two different things. And there, we really want both. We want god to know us, sure, but we want god to know us in love. We don’t want god’s indifference, much less His vengeance. We want god’s love.

III. Request(s) Fulfilled

The opening verses of John’s Gospel tell us that the eternal Word, the Word who was with God from the beginning, and the Word who was God from the beginning, was made flesh and dwelt among us. The God of the universe became a human being. His name is Jesus. God did better than just give us a sign of His presence. He made Himself one of us, and came to live with us.

God does exist, and He has come to us in love. He’s done more than that. In Jesus, God has “married” the human race. God and man form a holy union in the person of Jesus. He is both God and man, united in one body.

The Gospel for today is set at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Although Jesus wasn’t the one getting married that day, in a way, He is truly the groom. In the next chapter, John the Baptist calls Jesus, “the bridegroom.” Jesus is like a groom, come for His bride. The good news is that His bride is the Church.

Jesus loves the Church as His own body. He came to give Himself in sacrifice for her sins, to wash her clean by the water and the word of Holy Baptism. In Baptism, Jesus unites us to Himself so that we are truly bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh.
Jesus came to make us His people and to give us new hearts that truly follow the Ten Commandments. His intention is to present us to Himself “without spot or wrinkle,” “holy and without blemish.” United to Him, all of this has come true for us.

God loves us. In Jesus, God treats us like He treats His own body. “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” That’s how Jesus treats the Church. We are members of His body, and He loves us as He loves Himself.

In Jesus, we know that God is, and we know who God is. We also know that God knows us, and more than that, that God loves us. We know that God is gracious, merciful, and compassionate to us. In Jesus, God is forever present with us in love. The glory of God, the thing that makes Him great is that He has become a husband to the human race, uniting us to Himself in a marriage of true love.

IV. Fulfillment Extended

The married relationship is the closest relationship two people can have in this life. Forsaking all others, the husband leaves His family and cleaves to His wife, and the wife does the same for her husband. The two become “one flesh.”

Because of this great closeness, there is also the greatest potential for strife and problems. Fallen people don’t do relationships well. Getting along isn’t our strong suit. The first great sin after the Fall was murder. Cain killed his brother Able. Sometimes wives want to kill their husbands, and sometimes husbands just wish they would go ahead and do it.

But united to Christ, we are new people, with new hearts. Christian marriage is a picture of the eternal marriage between God and man in Jesus. So, the marriage of a Christian is a testing and a training ground for our new heart. Marriage is one of the places where God teaches us to be like He is. That’s why some Christian traditions consider marriage to be a sacrament.

St. Paul tells us that wives are to submit to their husbands in the way that the Church submits to Christ. Husbands, for their part, are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Husbands are to love their wives, unconditionally, just like Christ loved the Church. And wives are to respect their husbands, unconditionally, just like the Church respects Christ unconditionally.

In a way, love and respect are the same thing, talked about from two different angles. When a husband is respected by his wife, He receives that as love. When a wife is loved by her husband, she feels respected and cherished.

A husband who has given up on loving his wife has forfeited the name “Christian.” A wife who has given up on respecting her husband has done the same. The challenge of loving and respecting our spouses isn’t one that we Christians can just set aside as too difficult for us.

In Jesus, God has fulfilled our request to know Him and His love for us. That same love of Christ compels us to be selfless, respectful, and loving in kind. His Spirit living within us empowers us to live and to love in the way that He lives and loves.
For those who are unmarried, as St. Paul himself seems to have been, your life is lived in love with the members of your local congregation. For married people, your life is lived in love with your spouse.

Mankind’s request to God is, “Show me your glory.” God has shown us His glory in Jesus, becoming a husband to the human race, uniting Himself to us in a marriage of true love. When our relationships and especially our marriages are lived in mutual love and respect, then we reflect God’s glory out into the rest of the world. We ourselves become a sign manifesting the glory of God, in Jesus’ name.

The Event(s) of Baptism (The Baptism of Olivia Rose Skillman) - Matthew 3:13-17

2010-01-10T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Baptism of Our Lord / The Baptism of Olivia Rose Skillman –
Matthew 3:13-17 (Joshua 3:1-3, 7-8, 13-17; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31)
The Event(s) of Baptism
10 January 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Non-Event Event of Baptism

The baptism of an infant in a Christian church isn’t much to see. The pastor reads a few words, and pours a little water on the baby’s head. Some churches liven things up a bit, dunking the baby completely under the water, and giving the poor thing its first swimming lesson in the deep end of the pool. After the lifeguard administers CPR, and the congregation waits through a few minutes of insufferable crying, the service continues. Pretty soon, the whole thing is over and forgotten, like a mediocre episode of Baywatch. How many of you remember the baptism date of your God-children or even your children? How many of you remember your own baptism date?

For most people, a baptism is a non-event event. The new baby’s being baptized, so everybody’s gotta dress up and go to the church. But nobody knows why. By now, the baby’s already had a few baths at home, and all of them were more exciting than this.

Like circumcision, baptism is a formal rite of passage. Only, baby girls get to participate, too, and, of course, it hurts less. But ask your average uncle or even God-parent what’s really going on, and you’re likely to get a blank stare or some vague and mumbled reference to Christening.

II. The Event of Jesus’ Baptism

Truth be told, St. John the Baptist was confused at the baptism of Jesus; and he was the pastor that day. John’s problem wasn’t that he didn’t know what baptism was about. It was that he did. His message had been, “Repent, [change your ways,] for the kingdom of heaven[, the reign of God,] is at hand.” What exactly did Jesus need to change about His life? Where did He need to repent? Why did He come to be baptized? “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ ”

Of all the events recorded in the Gospels, even the most critical scholarship acknowledges that John’s baptism of Jesus really happened. It was a real event. If it wasn’t, the Gospel writers would have never made it up because, frankly, it’s a bit of an embarrassment. Jesus should be baptizing John, and not the other way around. But there the words stand in Matthew’s Gospel: “Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.”

III. The Event of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection

If Jesus’ baptism is confusing and embarrassing, then His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is utterly humiliating. The leadership of His own nation, God’s chosen people, handed Jesus over to the pagans to be crucified. The Bible that Jesus grew up with said that only sinners died, and that anyone hung on a tree was cursed by God.

Jesus’ baptism foreshadowed His death. In the Jordan River, Jesus took on the role of a sinner, even though He wasn’t one. Going under the water, Jesus accepted the death that sinners deserve, even though He didn’t deserve it at all. In His baptism, Jesus took our place under the curse of God.

But Jesus’ baptism had another side. He came up out of the water, the Spirit of God rested on Him, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” God rendered His verdict: Jesus is not guilty. The execution could not be stayed, but it would be overturned. Jesus would rise from the dead. He would come up out of the water.

IV. The Event of Creation

For many in ancient Israel, the waters of the seas represented the untamable forces of evil and death. With our technology, the seas don’t hold the same kind of foreboding that they once did to the Jews. We have huge air craft carriers, oil tankers, and even Carnival Cruise lines. They had small fishing boats powered by sails and oars. But think about Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, or the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and you get the idea.

The account of creation in Genesis says that God’s first creation was a huge, formless mass of chaotic material that the Bible describes simply as, “the waters.” God goes on to bring order out of the chaos by the blowing of His Spirit like a wind over the waters.

When God ordered the chaos and shaped creation out of the waters, He asserted the primacy of existence over non-existence, of life over death, of good over evil. He separated the land from the waters and gave the land to man. He placed Adam in the Garden of Eden.

The great tragedy of Genesis and of the whole Bible is the Fall of mankind into sin, mankind’s rebellion against God. Adam was expelled from the Garden. He was exiled from the land. You might remember the story of Noah and the ark, Noah and his big boat. The result of the Fall was a great flood that covered all the land and drowned the whole world. Man turned His back on the good, creative power of life, and the waters of chaos and death came crashing in.

Jesus’ baptism and His subsequent crucifixion and resurrection re-tell that story, but with a new ending. Jesus goes into the waters of chaos and death. He takes the place of sinful Adam and everyone lost in the flood. But He emerges alive again. He is the triumph of life over death and good over evil. He is the beginning of a new creation.

V. The Event of the Exodus

You all know the story of the Exodus, if not from the Bible, then from the movie, The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. The descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews, lived for generations in the land of Egypt as second class citizens, and even as slaves. It was a living death.

But then, Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt through the parted waters of the Red Sea. After that, under the leadership of Joshua, Israel crossed over the Jordan River into the Promised Land—the story we heard in the Old Testament reading earlier today. God brought the people of Israel through the chaotic waters of non-existence and death in Egypt into a new land to establish them as His people. The Exodus was God’s way of bringing Adam back to the Garden, back to the land.

The great tragedy of the story of Israel is that she was just as sinful and fallen as the rest of mankind. Where Adam fell in the Garden, Israel fell at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Right after the crossing of the Red Sea, while God was giving the heart of the Torah to Moses on the top of the mountain, Israel was busy committing idolatry at the foot of the mountain. Even after the crossing of the Jordan River, Israel rebelled against God again and again.

Jesus’ baptism and His subsequent crucifixion and resurrection re-tell that story, but it’s better every step of the way. After His baptism, Jesus overcomes the temptations of the devil. He goes to the cross, He enters the Jordan, and He takes the Promised Land forever in His resurrection.

IV. The Event of Baptism

The baptism of a convert in a Christian church isn’t much to see. But it is an event. The convert is united with Jesus so that what is true of Him is true of them. Jesus takes the sinner’s place, and gives the sinner His place. God applies all of the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the Christian.

Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. But on the third day, He rose again. God counts the baptized as having been crucified with Jesus, and because He is risen from the dead, they will rise, too. The sin of Adam has been forgiven. The sin of Israel has been forgotten. The waters of chaos, sin, and death have been overcome. The convert is a new creation. The land of Egypt, the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan have been left behind. The Promised Land awaits, in Jesus’ name.

In Christ, We Are All God's Family - Matthew 2:1-12

2010-01-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Epiphany of Our Lord (transferred) – Matthew 2:1-12 (Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12) In Christ, We All Are God’s Family
03 January 2010
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. One God, One Family of God

There is only one God. There’s nobody else like Him. There is only one almighty. There is nobody beside Him. There is only one ultimate creator of the universe. There is nobody who has done what He has done. There is only one King of kings. There is nobody greater than Him. There is only one God.

There is only one God, and there is only one people of God. Our God is not a polygamist. Our God doesn’t have one wife here, and another wife there. Our God isn’t a player. Our God is a one woman kind of God. He’s a faithful God. He’s a devoted God. Our God is a one family kind of God, and all of God’s children live under one roof. God doesn’t have one family of white people over here, and another family of black people over there. God doesn’t have one family living in Madison, and then another completely different family living in Fairport Harbor. We’re all part of the same family. We were all born in the same water. We were all born to the same Father. We were all born alongside the same brother, Jesus. We all listen to the same word. We all eat the same bread. We all drink the same cup. We are one family, one people of God.

II. Once, We Were No Family

But once, we were no people at all. God was not our Father. We were orphans. We were illegitimate children. We were children of the flesh, children of the world, children of the devil.

We were rebels and runaways. In the Garden of Eden, we ate the forbidden fruit, and rejected our King. We rejected our Father, and gave up our place in the family. We demanded our inheritance, and left the house in search of a “good time” and the pleasures of this life.

Only, what we found outside of the vineyard wasn’t a good time at all. We didn’t find pleasure. All we found was pain. To use a metaphor, the ground used to be soft with rich soil. The trees used to bear us fruit. But that was in our Father’s garden. Now, on the outside, the ground is hard and rocky. We can grow plants for food, but it takes a lot more effort now, and most of what we get is weeds and thorns. No more grapes. No more wine. It’s a metaphor, but ask any farmer and they’ll tell you, it’s more than a metaphor. The point of the metaphor is that life is hard; harder than it was; harder than it was meant to be.

Part of our pain is that we remember some of what things were like before. We all have a sense of the way things “ought” to be. We all know that the human race should be one big, happy family. But we can all see that we’re pretty far from that. One nation takes up arms against another nation, and the two go to war. The whites don’t like the blacks, and so they make them sit at the back of the bus, or drink out of different water fountains, or they make them slaves. The blacks don’t like the whites. The yellows don’t like the browns. The browns don’t like the reds. And somebody doesn’t like me because I said, “White, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Red.”

We aren’t a united people. We aren’t a single family. We’re divided along the fault lines of race, gender, nationality, culture, language, class, education, and economics. We’ve forgotten that we’re all brothers and sisters. And, we’ve forgotten that because we’ve forgotten that God is the Father of us all. That’s the world we live in. That’s the world we’ve made.

III. God Established His Family in Jesus

Long ago, God set out to make a new world. He called Abraham in order to make him like a bright and shining light, calling everyone back to the source of all light, God Himself. He called him to be the father of the world wide family of God, in which people from all nations would be reunited under the just and loving rule of their creator, God, and King. God wanted mankind to come back to the Garden. He wanted all of us to be part of His family, to be brothers and sisters, to call Him, “Father.”

But when Abraham’s family grew into a nation, Israel, they did what every nation since the Fall into sin has done. They prided themselves on their race, their culture, their heritage, their uniqueness, their separateness. They set themselves over and above the other nations of the world. Far from welcoming the rest of the world into the family of God, Israel shunned the other people of the world, calling them “Gentiles,” and leaving them out in the cold, outside of the family of God.

When Jesus came, what He did was He claimed to be the Christ, the King of Israel. The point of being the King is that you are the head and the representative of the entire nation. All of the people could go one way, but if the king went the other way, then the nation went that way. Jesus came claiming to be Israel’s King, Israel’s representative, Israel in the flesh. He even called twelve disciples to emphasize the point. Jacob had twelve sons, the twelve patriarchs of Israel. Well, Jesus made Himself out to be a new Jacob, and His twelve disciples were His children, the new and true patriarchs of Israel, the beginnings of a renewed family of God.

Time and time again, Jesus came to loggerheads with the leadership of Israel over their failure to be the light to the nations that they were supposed to be. He warned them that their attempt to establish themselves as the family and kingdom of God by strength, and power, and violence against their enemies was just proving that they weren’t God’s family and kingdom. Their mission was to love their enemies, and to invite them into God’s family, not to trample them down and destroy them. They couldn’t win going that way. They couldn’t win by definition, and they couldn’t win on the actual field of battle. No one went up against the Gentile superpower, Rome, and won, in those days.

What Jesus did, was take Israel’s place. He took on her sin—which really was the sin of the whole world (rebellion against God the Father, and strife between brothers and sisters)—He took on her sin as if it was His own, and He suffered the penalty for that sin. He suffered the fate that Judea would suffer if they took on Rome. He was crucified. He faced the only end that separation from God and violence against one another ever really bring. He faced death.

But on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead as the Christ, the representative of Israel, the fountainhead of the renewed family of God. When Jesus stepped out of His tomb, the entire family of God stepped out with Him.
And this is what the risen Jesus told His apostles:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

In other words, “I told you that I was the King. Now, I’ve shown you that I am the King. Now go and bring everybody into my kingdom. Bring everyone into the family of God, regardless of their race, gender, nationality, culture, language, class, education, bank account, or even moral background. Even ‘the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise.’ Everyone is invited to be transformed by what I have done and what I have said, and I myself will be with them to effect that transformation.”

IV. Now, We All Are His Family

The good news, the Gospel, is that in Jesus, God has remade the world. He’s put an end to the curse. He’s conquered sickness and death. He’s brought mankind back into the Garden, into the vineyard. In Jesus, God has established His kingdom. He’s rebuilt His family.

In Holy Baptism, you were incorporated into Jesus. You were made one with the eternal Son of God, and so God now counts you—you who were once were no people, no family—God now counts even you Gentiles as part of His family.

Even as an infant, Jesus drew men from distant nations to Himself.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem….And they fell down and worshiped him.

Everyone likes some part of the sermon to be practical. Everyone likes something to “take home with them.” Well, here it is. You may still be a woman or a man of a certain race, and you may still come from a certain nation with a certain culture and language. You may be rich or poor or somewhere in between. But what defines you is that you are now part of the family of God. You are all brothers and sisters, because in Jesus, God is your Father.

Now, part of what falling to your knees and worshiping Jesus means is that you recognize that God is not only your Father, but He is also your neighbor’s Father. And that means that the black man who just moved into your neighborhood, the foreigner who lives down the street, the rich man who lives uptown, and the poor man who lives downtown are all your brothers and sisters. If they are in the Church, they are your family. And if they aren’t in the Church, it’s your job to invite them to be part of it. They are all your brothers and sisters because God is your Father, in Jesus’ name.

The Authorship of the Four Gospels - John 21:20-25

2009-12-27T12:01:00.001-05:00

St. John, Apostle & Evangelist – John 21:20-25 (Revelation 1:1-7; 1 John 1—2:2) The Authorship of the Four Gospels
27 December 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Anonymous Gospels?

We don’t know for sure who wrote the book we call the Gospel according to St. John. The truth is, we don’t know for sure who wrote any of the four Gospels. Read through them again. You’ll see that none of them bear the name of their author. Read one of St. Paul’s letters, and you’ll see that he signs his name right up front. “Greetings from Paul to the church in such and such.” But look at the Gospels, and you’ll see that none of the authors sign their names. Our four Gospels are officially anonymous documents.

The authorship of the Gospels has never been an article of faith. The Church has never required that we believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were actually the authors of these four all-important books. You won’t be counted as a heretic if you don’t believe that these four men actually wrote the Gospels attributed to them.

We believe that the word of the Lord has come down to us through Scripture alone; sola scriptura, Scripture alone: That’s one of the chief battle cries of the Reformation. The Bible alone can establish the articles of our faith.

Well, the Bible doesn’t tell us who wrote the four Gospels. So, we can’t make the authorship of the four Gospels an article of faith. When it comes to answering the question of who wrote the Gospels, we have to say, “We just can’t be one hundred percent sure.”

Yet, we still say that the first Gospel was written by Matthew; and the second was penned by Mark; and Luke wrote the third; and John gave us the fourth and last. The question is, why do we say that?

Well, when we say that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we’re not making an absolute statement of faith. What we’re doing is making an historical judgment. Using the best evidence available to us, and the best methods we have for assessing that evidence, we’re making an educated guess. And in fact, we’ve been able to come to pretty firm and reasonable conclusions about who the authors of the Gospels were. We’ll take a look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke first, and then we’ll take a look at John.

II. The Authorship of the Synoptic Gospels

One of the foremost scholars on the question of the historical reliability of the Gospels, Craig Blomberg, has this to say about the first three of them:

The uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the New Testament; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul’s “beloved physician,” wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles….There are no known competitors for these three gospels.

In other words, all of the evidence we have from the earliest days of the Church says that the first three Gospels were attributed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and there isn’t any evidence to the contrary. That is, no one ever said, “Hey, wait a minute. Matthew didn’t write the first Gospel. It was really Harry.” No. In the evidence that we have, whenever someone said the first Gospel was written by so and so, that so and so was always Matthew; and whenever someone said the second Gospel was written by so and so, that so and so was always Mark; and the same thing is true for Luke and his Gospel, too.

The oldest and best testimony we have for the authorship of the first three Gospels comes to us from Papias, the bishop of Heriapolis in Phrygia. The Church historian Eusebius tells us that in the early part of the second century, perhaps as early as A.D. 125, Papias wrote the following:

Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he remembered….[And] Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language.

A little later in the second century, we have the testimony of Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in Gaul. In about A.D. 180, he wrote this:

Matthew…issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.

So, the oldest and best evidence we have is that the first three Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And what’s more, we know that Matthew was a disciple of Jesus, and that he wrote while Peter and Paul were around. Mark, although he wasn’t one of the Twelve, was closely associated with Peter, and Luke was a traveling partner of Paul.

And to top it off, if you were going to make up authors for the Gospels, why would you choose Matthew, Mark, and Luke? No offense, but only Matthew was a disciple of Jesus, and even he doesn’t seem to play that big of a role in things. If you were a pastor in the early second century, and you didn’t know who had written the Gospels, and you wanted to make a case that these writings really were accurate reports, it seems to me that you would have chosen disciples like Peter himself, or maybe James or his brother John. You surely wouldn’t have chosen Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But there we have it. Those are the names that have come down to us.

The evidence we have for the authorship of the first three Gospels is early, and it is strong. The fact is, there just isn’t any reason not to think that the first three Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

III. The Authorship of the Gospel According to St. John

But what about John’s Gospel? If you were a second century pastor, and you had an anonymous Gospel that you really wanted to “sell,” you might just claim that it had been written by John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,”; you might just claim that, even if it hadn’t actually been written by him.

But what’s interesting about that is that we’re not exactly sure who “the disciple whom Jesus loved” was. We don’t know his name. Read the Gospel of John again. You won’t ever see him named. We know he was one of the Twelve. But we don’t know which one of the twelve. We only call “the beloved disciple” John because we know that he wrote the fourth Gospel, and we’ve always suspected that John wrote the fourth Gospel. But the truth is, we don’t know who “the beloved disciple” was.

I think that there’s a few reasons for that. First, there’s a certain amount of modesty on the author’s part. He doesn’t want to brag. “Hey, I’m John, the one Jesus loved…the most!” And second, I think that the author really wants each of us to consider ourselves “the one whom Jesus loves.” He leaves the sketch of his own character incomplete so that, in a way, we can step into his shoes, and imagine ourselves in his place, walking with Jesus, sitting and eating with Him.

What’s really interesting, from an historical point of view, is that Papias, one of the bishops I mentioned before, seems to write about at least two different Johns; one, the disciple of Jesus, and the other, known as John “the presbyter.” We’re really not sure if he’s talking about two different people, or the same person from two different points of view.

Irenaeus, whom I also mentioned a little while ago, is a little more clear and direct. According to him, the author of the fourth Gospel is clearly the apostle John. He writes,

John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

Craig Blomberg, the scholar I mentioned before, tells us that with the possible exception of Papias, “the rest of the early testimony is unanimous that it was John the apostle—the son of Zebedee—who wrote the [fourth] gospel.” He concedes that a later writer might have added the finishing verses, and maybe even edited the Gospel into its final form. But “the substantial majority of the material goes back to [John] the apostle.”

IV. Conclusion

We don’t know for sure who wrote the four Gospels. But we have every reason to believe that they were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In the case of the Gospels according to Matthew and John, we have the record of direct eyewitness testimony. We have the words of those who were with Jesus from the beginning; who saw what He did with their own eyes; who shook hands with Him, who hugged Him, and who were hugged by Him. In the case of John’s Gospel, we might just have the words of Jesus’ own earthly “best friend.” The good news for you is that John, the apostle and evangelist, wants you to think of yourself as Jesus’ “best friend,” and “the disciple whom Jesus loves.” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

She Knows Fully - John 3:1-16; 1 Corinthians 13

2009-12-26T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Burial of Aileen Miriam (Mackey) Maki – John 3:1-16; 1 Corinthians 13 She Knows Fully
26 December 2009
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Death Doesn’t Take a Holiday

The devil is cruel. He prowls about like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

This world is harsh and unfeeling. Creation is under a curse. Nothing works like it should.

Our own flesh is treacherous and disloyal. We are fallen, sinful, disease ridden, and destined for death.

The world celebrates Christmas, but death doesn’t take a holiday. No, death works nights and weekends and holidays, too.

Four days before Christmas, death was on duty at Tripoint medical center. Death took our sister Aileen.

II. She Knew Only in Part

Truth be told, Aileen had been slipping away from us for some time. Six years or so ago she showed the first signs of dementia. By the time I met her about three years ago, she was already mostly gone. Her mind just wasn’t working anymore. She didn’t recognize people. She couldn’t really have a conversation. In recent months, she couldn’t even put sentences together.

At times like these, the only thing we can turn to is the love of God in Christ. The baby born on Christmas for us men and for our salvation reminds us that God is not arrogant or far off. He is a God who comes near. He is our Immanuel, God with us.

He isn’t angry at us, or resentful. He doesn’t approve of our wrongdoing, but He has done something about it. He has come full of grace and truth to bear our sin, sickness, and disease. He endured the pain of the cross so that those who believe in Him might have the hope of forgiveness and resurrection.

St. Paul says, “Now I know in part.” Those words are true for all of us. We don’t know all of the mysteries of the universe. Even faithful Christians who go to church every Sunday and read their Bible every day, don’t know God or His word the way that they want to. There’s always a yearning for more. We want to know God better, to know His love better, to experience His presence, to live in the joy that he gives. We know in part, but we want to know fully.

Aileen, perhaps more than most, knew the frustration of knowing only in part. As she grew older, even what she knew was taken from her. In the end, death had its way.

III. The Holiday Takes Death

But this is not the end. The holiday we celebrated yesterday tells us that there is something more. God did not come into this world to let things stay as they are. He descended from heaven to bring us a new life, a new birth. He came to put and end to the reign of death, and to usher in the kingdom of God and the age of eternal life. Death doesn’t take a holiday. But, because of God’s great love for us, the holiday we call Christmas does take death out of the picture.

The message of Christmas and the entire Bible is that God loves us, and He has loved us in very real and concrete terms. When He saw us in distress, He loved us by becoming one of us and standing by our side. When He saw us frail and weak, beset by the traps and temptations of the devil, He loved us by taking on our frailties as His own, and doing battle with the devil on our behalf. When He saw us suffering and dying, He loved us by taking up His cross and suffering and dying in our place for our salvation.

Now, the Son of Man has been lifted up, with arms wide open, drawing all people to Himself, saying, “This is how much I love you.” “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “Come to the waters, and be born again.”

IV. She Knows Fully Even as She Is Fully Known

When Aileen was conceived and born the first time, born in the flesh, born to her parents, she had no idea what was happening to her. She didn’t ask to be conceived. She didn’t decide to be born. But there she was, a brand new baby girl. And she spent the rest of her life trying to figure out what life was all about.

When Aileen was baptized as an infant, she had no idea what was happening to her. She didn’t ask to be taken to the Church. She didn’t decide to follow Jesus. But the promise of our Lord is that she was born again that day. She was born from above. “[B]orn, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but [born] of God.”

As a baby, Aileen didn’t have a clue what was happening, but she was loved by her heavenly Father, nonetheless. The same way her earthly parents cleaned her and fed her, her heavenly Father washed her clean in baptism and fed her with His word, and later, with the body and blood of His Son. And as she grew, Aileen began to know. She began to know who God was and how much He loved her. And the faith and hope that were born in baptism gained more and more knowledge of God’s love.

But even when she was fully grown, Aileen knew only in part. And as her memories faded and her mind was taken from her, she became something like she was when she was a child.

But Jesus says, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Our salvation is not a matter of how much we know. It is a matter of being known by God.

God knew Aileen, and He called her to Himself. He placed His hands on her. He placed His Spirit in her. He gave her a new name, “Christian.” He made her part of His family. He gave her a new birth, in spite of how much or how little she knew. And she spent the rest of her life wanting to know God’s love more and more.

And now, the miracle is that Aileen does know, even as she has been fully known. Her mind is clear, her eyes are opened, and she knows God in the closest way possible. She is hidden with Him in heaven, awaiting the resurrection of the dead. She is experiencing the nearer presence of God in which there is no more doubt or uncertainty or unknowing. Her knowledge is no longer a matter of prophecy or prediction or promise. Her knowledge is one of direct experience. Faith has passed away. She doesn’t need it anymore. She has the thing she believed in. Hope has passed away. She doesn’t need it anymore. Who hopes for the thing one already has? The only thing that Aileen knows now is the perfect love of God in Christ. And that is all she ever wanted to know anyway, in Jesus’ name.

Jesus is God / God is Jesus - John 1:1-18

2009-12-25T23:01:00.002-05:00

Christmas Day – John 1:1-18 (Exodus 40:17-21, 34-38; Titus 3:4-7) Jesus is God / God is Jesus
25 December 2009
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Jesus is God

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus was and is God. So say the Scriptures. So says St. John.

The eternal God has entered into time. The one who spoke the universe into existence has taken on flesh, and made His dwelling with us. The life of the world has been made manifest in the life of one of our own brothers. God has become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He is closer to us than a husband is to His wife. He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The light that lights up the world now shines through a human being. God has come near. He has become our Immanuel, God with us.

This man, Jesus of Nazareth, is God. He walks on water. He calms the storms. He casts out demons. He heals the sick. He raises the dead. Who has the power to do this, except God Himself?

He speaks like Moses. He speaks for God. But the prophets said, “Thus saith the Lord.” This man says, “Truly, truly, I say to you.” He speaks in God’s place. No. He speaks as though He Himself were God.

He calls Himself the King of Israel and the Son of the Most High. He says He is greater than Solomon, and His father David. He claims the very throne of God for Himself. “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” If He is not the King of the universe, He is a delusional madman, a deceiver, or a deliberate blasphemer. Maybe all three.

He says that He is greater than the Temple. He says that He will tear the Temple down and rebuild it in three days. He claims to forgive sins on His own authority, apart from the Temple. He stopped our sacrifices in the Temple by disrupting the money changers. He promised that the Romans would come and set fire to our Temple. He says that He is the ransom that God gives for the people. He claims that His body and blood are the sacrifice that atones for sins.

On the third day after His death, this Jesus stepped out of His tomb alive again. He rose from the dead. He threw off the bonds of death, and stood up under His own power. He laid down His life only to take it up again. He says He is “the life.” He says He is “the resurrection.”

If Jesus is not God, then there is no God. No one could do the things that He did if God weren’t with Him. No one could do the things that He did if He weren’t God Himself. This Jesus is God. There is just no other way to see it.

II. God is Jesus

But there is another way to say it. Jesus is God. That is true. We can say it that way. We can come at it that way. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing false about that.

But if Jesus is God, then we must come to grips with the fact that God is Jesus. In a way, that’s saying almost the same thing. But there is a distinction. There is a difference.

When we say that Jesus is God, we’re starting with an idea of what God is like, and then saying, “This Jesus, He embodies that.” And that’s one way to look at things. That’s a reasonable way to approach the incarnation.

But when we say that God is Jesus, we’re confessing that, at least to begin with, we really don’t know that much about God at all. We might know that there is a God. We might know that He is almighty, all knowing, and present everywhere. But we don’t know who He really is, what He’s really like. We don’t know Him in a personal way. That is, we don’t know Him in a personal way until we see Jesus. And when we see Jesus, when we know who Jesus is, when we know Jesus’ character, when we know what Jesus thinks and thinks about us, then we finally know who God is. And so we say, if you want to know God, look at Jesus. God is Jesus.

When we look at Jesus, we don’t see a God who is arrogant and aloof. We see a God who comes near to us. We see Immanuel, God with us. We see a God who identifies with us, who has become one of us.

Jesus shows us a God who stands up for the fallen, the sick, the diseased, and they dying. He’s a God who wants to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength to the lame, and life to the dead.

When we look at Jesus, we don’t see a God who is angry with us or out to get us. We see a God who forgives us and seeks the best for us. We see a God who rejects our sin, but doesn’t reject us. We see a God who wants to renew us.

When Jesus hung on the cross, He showed us a God who went to every length to save us. He sacrificed His own life so that we could live. He made Himself poor so that we could become rich. He gave up all that He had so that we could be everything He always wanted us to be.

Jesus shows us a God of grace, mercy, and peace. He shows us a God of redemption, forgiveness, and restoration. Jesus reveals a God of love.

In Jesus, we learn that God is our Father, because God is both Father and Son in Himself. And now, through Baptism into Jesus, this God counts us as close to Himself as He counts His own eternal Son.

In Jesus, we discover that the Spirit of love that God gives to us is actually God Himself, one with the Father and the Son. The love that God shows us is not like the gifts that we give each other. It’s not like God took this or that thing and gave it to us. When God loves us, He gives us His very self.

In Jesus, we are given a window into the heart of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We see the God who has existed in a relationship of love from all eternity, and who now invites us to join in that fellowship.

This Christmas, we remind ourselves again that Jesus is God. He is the eternal Word made flesh. But we also remember that God is Jesus. Outside of Jesus, there is no God. But in Jesus, we see God for who He really is: The one who loves us, and gave Himself up for us, in Jesus’ name. Merry Christmas.

A Tale of Two Kings and Two Kingdoms - Luke 2:1-20

2009-12-24T20:31:00.002-05:00

Christmas Eve – Luke 2:1-20 (Isaiah 9:2-7) A Tale of Two Kings and Two Kingdoms
24 December 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. A Tale of Two Kings and Two Kingdoms

The story of Christmas is the story of two very different kings and two very different kingdoms. On the one hand there are the kings and kingdoms of this world. On the other hand there is Jesus and the kingdom of God.

Every one of us here belongs to one of these two kingdoms, and every one of us pays homage to one of these two kings. We are either true Christians, citizens of heaven, with God as our King. Or we are members of one or more of the kingdoms of the world, serving one or more earthly masters.

II. Caesar Augusts and The Roman Empire

In the days of Jesus, Rome was the kingdom that ruled the world. Rome was “the world.” She had the money, the jobs, the technology, and the infrastructure. All roads led to Rome, because Rome had built all the roads. Rome was the center of the universe.

Rome had the greatest form of government the world had ever seen: A democratic republic in which anyone could be elected to the highest office in the land.

Rome was synonymous with civilization. She was the great stabilizing force in the world. Of course, that was because she enforced her rule with the greatest military the world had ever seen.

When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the nation plunged into civil war, and the republic disintegrated into chaos. Everything was nearly lost.

But then, in stepped Octavian and his armies. In stepped Octavian who defeated every other claimant to Roman power and put an end to the civil war. In stepped Octavian who reunited Rome under his strong leadership and established an empire by his might. In stepped Octavian who put things back to rights, and rescued the world from darkness and chaos.

Nearly one hundred years of social unrest, two decades of civil war, and finally, thanks to Octavian, and his armies, peace, peace through victory. Peace from one end of the empire to the other, peace on land and sea. Octavian had brought peace on earth.

Of course, a lot of people had to die to make that peace. But really, what do you say about somebody who did all that; somebody who brought the world back from the edge of the precipice; somebody who saved civilization and made the world safe again? What do you say about him?

The Roman Senate had recognized Octavian’s deceased father, Julius, as one of the gods. So, Octavian was already a son of the gods. But wasn’t he more than that? Why wait for his death to give him the inevitable promotion?

So, in the year 27 B.C., the Roman Senate gave Octavian the title, “Augustus,” meaning “the illustrious one,” “the one who is to be worshiped,” “the one who is divine.” Henceforth Caesar Octavian would be known as Caesar Augustus, Caesar, the divine. Even in his lifetime, he was hailed as a god, as the poet Horace noted,

Upon you [Octavian]…while still living among us, we already bestow divine honors, set up altars to swear by in your name, and confess that nobody like you will arise hereafter or has ever arisen before now.

And why not? Caesar Augustus was the lord and savior of Rome. He was the lord and savior of the whole world. His birth and victorious military reign was the “good news” of peace on earth. So, heap up the titles: Redeemer, Liberator, Son of the gods, one of the gods.

III. King Jesus and the Kingdom of God

St. Luke tells us it came to pass in those days that a Jewish girl by the name of Mary went down to Bethlehem from Nazareth with her husband Joseph. While she was there, she gave birth to her firstborn son. Outside, there were shepherds keeping watch over their flocks in the fields. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and said, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is [your King and Lord].” And then all of a sudden, there was a whole host of angels, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.”

It doesn’t take a Roman intelligence officer to crack Luke’s code. He’s using the same language usually used to talk about Caesar and Rome, only he’s using it to talk about Jesus, the baby born in Bethlehem.

“Caesar claims to be the king and lord of this world. He isn’t. This baby, born in the birthplace of David is. He is the king of this world.

“Caesar claims to be a son of the gods, and even a god himself. He isn’t. There is only one true God: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this baby in the manger is the only divine Son of God there ever has been or ever will be. In fact, He is more than that. He is actually our God in the flesh. He is Jesus Augustus; Jesus, “the illustrious one,” “the one who is to be worshiped,” and, yes, even, “the one who is divine.”

“People herald the birth and reign of Caesar as the good news of peace on earth. They are wrong. Jesus is the one who came from heaven to bring peace on earth. It is His birth and His reign that are truly ‘good news’ for all people.”

IV. A Choice Between Two Kings

Caesar Augustus and the Roman Empire represent the kings and kingdoms of this world. Their way is to establish peace through victory, peace through strength, peace through power. Their way is to establish peace through violence, war, and bloodshed. The kings of this world build their kingdoms on the power of death. They make people submit because they have the power to kill those who don’t. For them, might makes right. If they have enough guns, then they can establish their will. And there is a certain peace in that. Until, of course, someone with more guns comes along. And then, “Bye bye peace.” You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Jesus and the kingdom of God are different. Jesus’ way is to establish peace through love, peace through justice, peace through patient kindness and teaching. His way was to do good to those who hated Him and to pray for those who persecuted Him. Jesus didn’t believe that “might makes right.” Just because you can do a thing, doesn’t mean that you should. What matters is that you do the right thing, the loving thing.

Jesus’ way got Him killed. His way went head to head with Caesar’s way, and we all know what happened there. Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried.

But on the third day, He rose from the dead and put an end to death. He stepped out of the tomb and declared that violence doesn’t have the last word. He appeared to His disciples and said, “Peace be with you.”

The resurrection of Jesus marks the end of violence and the defeat of death. If that doesn’t make for true and lasting peace, then I don’t know what possibly could.
“In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” The Caesars of this world still send out their decrees, and count their citizens. And all too many people all too willingly show up and say, “Yup. That’s the side I’m on.” And all too many people are content to live the way of “might makes right.”

But, on Christmas, a decree went out from King Jesus Augustus that all the world should be registered. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And there were many who did say to themselves, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened.” There were those wise men who came from a long way off to worship the newborn king. There were those fishermen who dropped their nets and left their boats to follow Jesus. Even today, there are those who pick up their own cross and say, “Might doesn’t make right,” because they trust in the Lord to set things right. There are those who live the way of love, and kindness, and forgiveness. They are the ones who drop on bended knee and declare with their mouths and their lives that Jesus is the Lord and Savior of the world, the Son of God, and God in the flesh. They are the Church, the Kingdom of God.

Which king do you belong to? Caesar or Jesus?

Prepare for the Coming of the King - John 1:19-28

2009-12-20T12:01:00.002-05:00

Rorate Coeli – John 1:19-28 (Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Philippians 4:4-7) Prepare For the Coming of the King
20 December 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Introduction

Our theme this Advent, and by now you know it well, is this: God is King and we are His kingdom. Every Sunday and Wednesday for the last month, we’ve looked at different aspects of this theme. It’s not like this sermon series has been a serial or a soap opera where you need to see the earlier episodes in order to understand the later ones. I think each sermon can stand on its own. But, the more times you’ve been here, and the more of these sermons you’ve been able to hear, the fuller picture you’re going to have of what it means for God to be King, and for us to be His kingdom.

But since I know that no everybody has been here for every Sunday and Wednesday, and since we’ve come now to the end of Advent, I’d like to summarize what I’ve told you so far. If you’ve been here for most of the services, much of this will be very familiar to you. I hope that the review helps cement these things in your hearts and minds. If you haven’t been here that much, then this will give you a chance to get back on track.

I.A. The King Has Come and We are His Kingdom

On the first Sunday in Advent, I began by noting that since God is the absolute creator of all things visible and invisible, everything owes its allegiance, its very existence, to God. In simple terms, that means that God is the King of the universe.

The privilege we have as human beings is that God has set up the throne of His kingdom in our hearts. His intention has always been not only to rule over us, but to rule the rest of the world through us. He made us in His own image and likeness, and we were originally blessed to reflect His wise, just, and loving rule out into the world as His special representatives, co-rulers, co-kings under the King of kings.

The great tragedy of the biblical story is that mankind has turned his back on God. As a race, we are in rebellion against our King. That fact is easy to see by just observing how we live. We don’t love God with our whole heart, and we don’t love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We have removed the sovereign from the throne of our hearts and we have accepted the rule of the devil instead.

But make no mistake. God never abdicated His throne. He made mankind to be His palace, and He never had any intention of changing the blueprints. Long ago, He promised that He would sit on the throne of man’s heart again.

He began to fulfill that promise by calling Abraham and establishing the nation of Israel. But He fulfilled that promise in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, the representative of Israel, the stand in for the whole human race. In Jesus, the kingdom of God has fully come. Jesus is the man in whom God has set up His throne.

As Christians, we believe that in Holy Baptism, in hearing the word about our rebellion and the promise of forgiveness, we have died to who we once were. The old self, the one in rebellion against God, has been crucified with Jesus, and a new man has been born. We are not our own. We identify ourselves with Jesus Himself. God identifies us with Jesus, and He counts us as perfect. We are the new people through whom God has finally become King.

I.B. King Jesus or King Caesar

On the first Wednesday in Advent, I warned you that there are other kings in this world, and they are constantly vying for our attention and our allegiance. The historical example I used was the house of Caesar and the Roman Empire. But you could just as easily substitute your favorite political party and the United States of America. In fact, you could substitute sports figures, actors, and singers. There are so many people and organizations that want us to put them first in our lives.

But if Jesus is King, if God is King, then He is the one to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance. And even though we might think of ourselves as citizens of the United States, descendants of a certain family line, members and fans of certain clubs, teams, the membership that matters most and always comes first is our membership in the Church, the kingdom of God.

I.C. Our King Has Been Vindicated

On the second Sunday in Advent, I said maybe one of the reasons that people don’t really think of Jesus as their King or take His kingdom seriously is that they don’t think He ever did anything to support His claims. It’s one thing to say you’re the King. It’s another thing to prove it.

But Jesus did prove it. He proved that He was and is the King of the whole world by conquering death itself, our greatest enemy, in His resurrection.

I.D. King Jesus or The King of the Jews?

Then, a week and a half ago, on Wednesday, we looked at the alternative to living under God and being part of His Kingdom. I used Israel as the chief example. Instead of living in love, peace, and forgiveness, Israel chose the way of the world, the way of the sword. Her choice to follow the way of violence instead of the way of Jesus and His kingdom is vividly dramatized in the choice of the crowds for Barabbas in the early morning of Good Friday.

As a result of her choice, Israel would face the ultimate ruin. Jesus warned her. He told her that if she chose to live by the sword she would die by the sword. And in A.D. 70, Israel did die by the sword, as the Romans sacked Jerusalem and smashed the Temple.

I.E. Jesus: The King of Salvation and Restoration

Last week, on Sunday, we took a look at the alternative that Jesus was offering. We took a look at what life in the kingdom of God is all about.

Too many people think that God is out to get them and to crush all of the evildoers in the world. But the truth is, God is out to save them, and to free them from the evil in the world. To live under God in His kingdom is to experience the restoration that Isaiah spoke about so long ago, and that Jesus said was happening in His own ministry. In the Kingdom of God, the blind are given their sight, the lame are raised from their beds, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf have their ears open, and the dead are raised. In God’s Kingdom, it is not the message of condemnation that predominates; it is the good news of the forgiveness of our sins and the resurrection of our bodies that God wants to drive home.

I.F. King Jesus Vs the Devil

Finally, on Wednesday, we noted that there is a war on in this world. There is a war raging between God and the devil over every man, woman, and child on this planet. The good news is that Jesus has decisively won the war. By His obedient life and death, Jesus refused to be part of the kingdom of the devil, and He submitted all of mankind to God.

When we are connected to Jesus, we share in His victory. By ourselves, we wither and die. By ourselves the devil will defeat us every time. But, in Christ, we are more than conquerors; we are truly the kingdom of God.

II. Prepare for the Coming King

Which brings us to today and the message of St. John the Baptist. In the Gospel for today, the priests and Levites and Pharisees want to know who John is.

“Who are you?” “I am not the Christ.”
“Who then? Are you Elijah?” “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?” “No.”
“Then, who are you?”

But John doesn’t really give them an answer. He only says, “It doesn’t really matter who I am. The one who matters is the one who’s coming after me. He is so much greater than I am that I’m not worthy even to be His slave. He is the one that matters. I am nothing. I am no one. He is everything.

“If you count me as anything at all, count me as a voice, calling out this message: Make straight the way of the Lord. Prepare for the coming King.”

That voice is calling out that message to you, too. “Make straight the way of the Lord.” So, the question for today is this: Are you prepared for the arrival of your God and King?

One day, very soon, the King of the universe will come, and those who are in His kingdom will reign with Him forever and ever. But those who have rejected His invitation, those who have spurned Him in life, those who have insisted on being their own kings, will be swept away.

The good news this Advent is that, in Jesus, the King of the world has already come, and He has come with healing and forgiveness as His gifts. Our King brings these gifts to His people here in the Church. He speaks words of comfort in His word. He washes us clean in the waters of Baptism. He covers our sin again and again in absolution. He feeds us with the bread of life in Holy Communion. He makes us into new people by the means of grace. This is the place and these are the ways that God makes us into His kingdom. This is where His kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.

Listen, if you want to be prepared for when the King comes in glory to judge the living and the dead, this, the Church, is the only place to be. A voice cries out in the wilderness, and it might be the last time you hear it, so listen well, “Make straight the way of the Lord. Prepare for the coming King.”

Jesus: The King of Salvation and Restoration - Matthew 11:2-11

2009-12-13T12:01:00.000-05:00

Gaudete – Matthew 11:2-11 (Isaiah 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5) Jesus: The King of Salvation and Restoration
13 December 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I.A. The King Has Come and We are His Kingdom

Our theme this Advent is the King Jesus and His kingdom. As I mentioned this last Wednesday night, you don’t need to hear every one of the sermons this Advent in order to understand the others. It’s not like they follow in an exact sequence. But I do hope that, put together, they’ll give you a better picture of the kingship of God in Christ, and the kingdom of which we are a part.

Because I know that not everybody has been here for every service, I’d like to take some time to review what I’ve talked about so far. For many of you, most of this will be things that you’ve already heard these last two weeks. But I hope that the review will help them to stick with you better. For the rest of you, you’ll get a chance to catch a little bit.

On the first Sunday in Advent, I told you that God is the absolute creator of all things visible and invisible, and, therefore, He is the one and only King of the universe. Everything comes from God, and, so, everything owes its allegiance to God.

The thing that makes human beings special is that God placed us at the center of His creation. The Copernican revolution might have shown that the earth orbits around the sun, but in Christian theology, the earth, and, more specifically, human beings are at the center of the universe.

God created us to be His special representatives, His co-rulers, His co-kings. He placed His throne in our hearts where he intended not only to rule over us, but to rule the rest of the world through us.

The great tragedy of this story is that mankind rebelled against God. We’ve staged a coup. We’ve rejected God and tried to create our own kingdoms.

But God never gave up His throne. He never truly stopped being in charge. And He promised that one day He would fully establish Himself as our King, in spite of our rebellion.

He laid the groundwork for His renewed kingdom by calling Abraham and the nation of Israel, and giving them His Law, His “kingdom constitution.” But He established His renewed kingdom in the person of Jesus Christ, the representative of Israel. Jesus is the man in whom God has fully become King.

And in a way, Jesus has become like a second Adam. As sons of Adam, we are rebels against our King. But those who have been born again by baptism through faith in Jesus are new people who aren’t in rebellion any longer. Our identity has been changed. We are no longer the people we once were. We are a new creation that truly reflects the kingship of God out into the world.

I.B. King Jesus or King Caesar

But on the first Wednesday in Advent, we talked about the fact that there are other kings in this world, and they want us to put them and their kingdoms first. The main example I used was the house of Caesar and the Roman Empire. The Caesar’s actually claimed to be gods. I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising. One of the most popular TV shows in our country is called American Idol.

If Jesus is the King, if God is the King, then He is the one to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance, bar none. And even though we might consider ourselves to be members of clubs and teams, citizens of a country, and descendents of a certain race and family line, the membership that matters most is our membership in the Church, the kingdom of God. For Christians, this comes first.

I.C. Our King Has Been Vindicated

Last Sunday, I suggested that one of the reasons people don’t take King Jesus or His kingdom as seriously as they should is because they don’t believe that He’s really King. It’s an easy thing to claim to be God and King; it’s another thing to prove it. So, people dismiss Jesus as King because He’s never done anything in this real world to prove His claims.

But that is actually wrong. Before He died, Jesus promised to give two conclusive proofs that He was who He said He was and that His kingdom-way was the right way to live.

First, He said that even though He would be put to death by the leadership of Israel and the Romans, He would defeat death by rising again on the third day. And that is exactly what He did. It is a fact of history that can be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt.

And second, Jesus said that because the leadership of Israel would choose the way of death by putting Him to death, Israel herself would fall. “Live by the sword; die by the sword.” And in A.D. 70, Jerusalem did fall to the Roman sword.
Jesus has shown Himself to be God and King, and He has shown His kingdom-way to be the only way to live by two very conclusive proofs.

I.D. King Jesus or The King of the Jews?

Then on Wednesday, we looked a little bit at the way Israel chose to live, the way that brought her to ruin. Israel was supposed to be God’s people, the ones through whom God would be King, the ones through whom God would rule. Well, after years of oppression by foreign kingdoms, an oppression brought on, the Bible tells us, by her own sin, Israel chose to throw off the pagan yoke by way of violence. She chose to trust in her own might to save her from the hand of her enemies, instead of the might of the Lord.

In the second century B.C., the Jews revolted against Syria under the leadership of the Maccabees. And they were successful to a point. So, in the days of Jesus, the victories of the Maccabee family, told and retold in the celebration of Hanukah, were the template for what the new king of the Jews would look when he came. He would be a warrior-king who would crush all of God’s enemies with the sword. And he would reign as “the king of the Jews.”

Israel chose the way of the world, the way of war, the way of violence. That choice is dramatized in the crowd’s choice of Barabbas over Jesus in the early morning of Good Friday. Israel wanted to usher in the kingdom of God by violence. And so, the kind of God that Israel reflected out into the world was a god of war and violence.

II. Jesus: The King of Salvation and Restoration

But our true God and King and His kingdom are different. In the Old Testament reading for today, we don’t hear of a god of war, and violence, and bloodshed. We hear of a God of comfort, and salvation, and restoration. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.”

The prophet Malachi said that an Elijah-like messenger would come and prepare the way of the Lord, the coming King. Then the day of the Lord would come, “burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers [would] be stubble.”

Jesus said that that Elijah-like figure was John the Baptist. But that would mean that Jesus was the Messiah, the King, the one who was supposed to come and set the evildoers on fire, and judge the wicked, and establish God’s kingdom by war and violence. But that wasn’t happening. Even John himself seems confused as he sends some of his own disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

The problem is a simple one. There are parts of the Old Testament that do, in fact, predict a terrible and violent end for all of the evil forces in the world. When you combine that with God’s promises to establish His kingdom through Israel, you can see why that nation thought of itself as the point of God’s sword. They began to see it as their mission to deal with evil. And so they attempted to deal with evil in the only way they knew how. Unfortunately, they way that they knew was itself evil. They didn’t seek to establish the unique kingdom of God. They just sought to establish themselves, like any of the world’s other kingdoms. They sought to fight evil with evil. They sought to fight fire with fire.

But you don’t fight fire with fire, do you? That just makes the fire worse. You fight fire with water.

And that’s what Jesus did. He poured the water of His own death and resurrection on the fires of evil. He let evil do its worst to Him. He stepped in and accepted the all of the punishment that sinners were due. Jesus absorbed the vengeance of God, and the evil in the world was judged and died a violent death in Him on the cross. But on the third day Jesus rose from the dead, and evil did not.

What did rise with Jesus in the resurrection is what Isaiah talked about in the Old Testament, and what Jesus said to John: “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk; lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

If Jesus had come to crush the evildoers, he would have had to crush every man, woman, and child in all of the world, Israel included. There would have been no one who could have withstood the day of his coming.

But Out King did not come to destroy us. He came to free us. He came to forgive us. Our King came to save us from the effects of sin, and to restore us to health. He would bear the effects of sin and the pain of death, and in exchange, we would be forgiven and live a new life. The blind would see. The deaf would hear. The mute would speak. The dead would be raised.

Our King has come, and He has brought healing with Him. The message for this third Sunday in Advent is that our God is not a god of violence and war. He is the King of salvation and restoration, in Jesus’ name.

King Jesus or "The King of the Jews?" - Matthew 27:15-23

2009-12-09T20:01:00.002-05:00

The Second Wednesday in Advent – Matthew 27:15-23 King Jesus or The King of the Jews?
09 December 2009
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I.A. The King Has Come, and We are His Kingdom

Our God is King, and we are His kingdom. That is our theme this Advent. Each time we’ve been together, I’ve addled a little more to that theme. It’s not as though you had to be here to hear every sermon to understand the next one. These sermons don’t necessarily build on each other in logical steps. They each take a look at God and His kingdom from a different angle. When we’re done, there’ll still be plenty of facets we didn’t explore. But, together, these sermons will give you a better picture of God and His kingdom than you had before, and I hope they’ll encourage you to explore the theme a bit more on your own. I think it will be helpful if I briefly take you through what we’ve talked about so far.

First, there is no King but God. He is the absolute creator of the universe. Everything comes from Him, and, so, everything owes allegiance to Him.

The amazing thing about human beings is that God created us to be like living palaces. If we were talking about this from another angle, I’d say that God created us to be like living Temples. God has set up shop inside of us. The King has placed His throne in our hearts. He intended to rule the world through us.

That means that we were created to reflect God’s wise, just, and loving rule out into creation. When we consider the moral law that seems to be written into our DNA, we get a sense of what our lives are supposed to look like. When we study the ten commandments, the picture comes into sharper focus. And when we look at the life of Jesus, we know what kind of people God always intended us to be.

Our problem is that we human beings don’t live like Jesus. We are fallen. We are sinful. We ignore the commands of Scripture, and we even ignore our conscience. The sadly peculiar thing about people is that we know what we ought to do, but we so often choose to do the wrong thing.

Another way of putting all that would be to say that we’ve removed God from the throne of our hearts, and we’ve turned the kingdom over to the devil. It doesn’t take a whole lot of investigation to see that this world is far from heaven, and the people in it are far from heavenly.

But God is still King. In spite of the rebellion of mankind, God is still the creator; He is still the soverigen; He is still the only true God. So, quite frankly, He can’t and won’t be knocked off His throne. He will still rule the hearts of mankind.

The question is, “How?” To that, God gave the answer, “Through Israel. These will be my people, and I will be their God. I will set up my throne in them.” God brought that promise to a fulfillment in Jesus, the true King and representative of Israel. Now, all those who are baptized into Jesus, are part of Him, that is, part of Israel. And as our representative, He presents us to God holy, and without sin by virtue of His sacrifice on the cross.

So, it turns out that, in Jesus, we aren’t in rebellion against God any longer. As baptized children of God, we are the holy Israel through which God intends to rule the world for its own good.

I.B. King Jesus or King Caesar

In the meantime, we live in a world where kings claim to be greater than our God, and the world’s kingdoms claim to be greater than God’s kingdom. Sometimes those claims are bold and directly blasphemous, like the claims of Rome and the house of Caesar. Sometimes those claims are a bit more indirect and harder to spot. Take for example, the kings who rule the wide, wide world of sports. Every Sunday we gather around the altar of the television set to pay them homage. Of course, this year, it’s pretty obvious that our kings have no clothes. So, the temptation to put them number one in our lives isn’t quite as great.

But the point I’m getting at is this: If our God is King, then He is the one to whom we owe our allegiance, and His kingdom is really the only one that matters. That means that God comes first in our lives. What He thinks matters most. What He wants for us is our main concern. And we learn those things here as members of His Church. Our membership here isn’t just one membership among many. It is our chief membership. It is our chief citizenship. God’s kingdom comes before any of the other kingdoms vying for our attention.

I.C. Our King Has Been Vindicated

This past Sunday, I noted that Jesus’ claims to be King are important, but they might just be false. When we look at the world as it stands today, it certainly doesn’t look like God is King or that His kingdom has come. God rules in the way of justice, peace, love, and forgiveness. But this world seems to be run by violence, oppression, suffering, and death. It’s one thing to claim to be God and King. It’s another thing to prove it.

But prove it He did. Before He died, Jesus promised that there would be two unmistakable signs that He was who He said he was, and that His kingdom way was the right way.

First, He said that He would defeat death by rising from the dead. And on Easter Sunday, He did just that. He rose from the dead proving that He is who He said He was.

Second, He predicted that because she had rejected His way, Jerusalem would fall. And, in A.D. 70, she did. Jerusalem fell because her way simply could not win the day.

Jesus has shown Himself truly to be our God and King. And He has shown us that His kingdom-way is the only way to live our lives.

II. King Jesus or The King of the Jews?

Tonight, I want to talk just a little bit about the difference between the kingdom-way, the way of Jesus, and the way of the world that Jerusalem chose. That, really, is what the reading tonight is all about. Let me put things into their historical context.

At the time of Jesus, the Jews had lived under one foreign power after another for centuries. And that just wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. They were God’s people. They were supposed to be the rulers of the earth, kings under the King of kings. They weren’t supposed to be the subjects of pagans.

In the second century B.C., the Jews lived under the thumb of Syria and her king, Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus made it his mission to stamp out the Jewish religion entirely. One of his worst offenses was setting up an altar to a pagan God in the Jerusalem Temple and sacrificing a pig on its altar.

In the year 168 B.C., an old Jewish priest by the name of Mattathias had had enough. So, he struck down one of the Syrian king’s messengers, and began a guerrilla war. Later, Mattathias’ son, Judas, led two successful military campaigns against the Syrians, earning him the nickname, “the Hammerer,” or Judas Maccabee.

In Jesus’ day, the victories of the Maccabee family were kept very much alive through the celebration of Hanukah. And this story, in many ways, set the template for what the messiah would look like when he came. He would be a warrior-king who would overthrow the powers that be, in this case, the Romans, and set up the kingdom of God.

The story of the Maccabees can be found in the first two books of the Apocrypha that bear their name. As Lutherans, we don’t spend a whole lot of time in the Apocrypha, but I do think that some of what we learn there is historical, and valuable for our study of Holy Scripture.

Take for example the reading for tonight. It’s a familiar one. But when we understand the background supplied in first and second Maccabees, I think that we can understand the reading from Matthew even better.

When I was a boy, I often wondered why the crowds would choose the petty thief and murderer, Barabbas, over the gentle, kind, and loving Jesus. But when I began to understand who Barabbas most likely really was, it started to make more sense to me.

Barabbas wasn’t simply a thief or a murderer. In all likelihood, he was a man very much like Mattathias or Judas Maccabee. He was probably a man very zealous for the Torah, who was anxious to throw off the yoke of the Romans and see the kingdom of God come. In a sense, whether he ever claimed to be or not, Barabbas was a messiah figure. He was a potential king of the Jews...but the Jews, only. So, the choice Pilate offered the crowd was a choice between the warrior-king and his way of being the messiah, and Jesus and His way of being the messiah.

Israel’s choice of Barabbas was a choice for the way of the world, the way of war, the way of violence. She wanted a king who would slaughter the other kings of the earth. She wanted a kingdom that would trample the other kingdoms of the earth under its feet. Israel wanted peace through victory and annihilation. In choosing Barabbas and the way of the world, Israel actually had to reject her rightful King, Jesus, and the kingdom of God.

III. King Jesus or The King of the Jews, Today

The way of the world is to push and shove, shout and scream, fight and kill until it gets its way. And that is successful to a point.

The trouble is, sooner or later, someone who is bigger, faster, and stronger will come along. The way of violence might win you a victory today. But it can’t make you victorious forever. The Maccabees defeated the Syrians, but their victory was only temporary. It wasn’t long until Syria regained control, and soon thereafter, the Romans moved in. When the Jews revolted against Rome, they were finally snuffed out forever. Eventually, the way of violence gets you killed. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

The way of Jesus was and is different. His mission was to establish peace through love and forgiveness. He wanted to convert the other kings of the earth. He wanted His kingdom to win over the other kingdoms of the world.

Of course, the way of love and forgiveness may get you killed. It got Jesus killed.

But the way of the world cannot and will not win the day. If the worst that the world can do to you is kill you, then the world has already lost because our King has overcome death, and he has promised to raise us from the dead, too.

The message for tonight is that even though way of the world might seem like the stronger choice, its victories are short-lived. The way of our King, Jesus, is the real way of lasting victory. The violent kingdoms of this world will crumble and fall. But love and forgiveness and the kingdom of God will endure forever. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Answer to Suffering and Death is Christmas - Luke 2:1-20

2009-12-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Burial of Elaine L. (Ryder) Bushnell – Luke 2:1-20; Job 3:25-26; 6:2-3a; 7:20-21; 23:2 The Answer to Suffering and Death is Christmas
07 December 2009
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Suffering of Job and Elaine

A very long time ago, there was a man who lived in a land called Uz by the name of Job. Job was a good, God-fearing man. He loved the Lord and he lived his life by God’s grace.

Job was also a very rich man. In those days, your riches could be measured, at least in part, by the size of your flocks and herds. Well, Job had 7,000 sheep, and 3,000 camels. He also had 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He was very wealthy. Job also had a wife and many sons and daughters. Everything was right with Job’s world. He had a very good life.

But then one day, everything that could go wrong, did. A messenger showed up and told Job how a tribe of bandits had stolen his oxen and donkeys, and killed his servants. Then another messenger came and told Job how lightning had struck where his sheep were grazing, and the fire killed both the sheep and the servants watching them. Then another messenger came and told Job that another tribe of bandits stole his camels and put more of his servants to death. Finally, another messenger came and delivered the worst news of all. “Your sons and daughters were enjoying dinner in your oldest son’s house. But a tornado touched down near them. It struck the house, and knocked it down. Job, all of your children are dead.” It wasn’t long after that that Job’s own health started to fail him.

The first reading for today is part of Job’s complaint and question to heaven. “Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?” Job never cursed God. He never gave up the faith. But he did want to know, “Why?” “Why am I suffering like this?”

Elaine asked me that question many times. “Why am I suffering like this?”

Elaine had more than her fair share of suffering. They say that there is nothing harder than the loss of a child. Elaine had to endure that horrible loss twice. And how many times in recent years did she sit at her husband’s bedside in the hospital and wonder if that would be the day that God called her Ernie home? All the while, her own health wasn’t that great. She had had surgery on her head; She couldn’t walk very well; And her heart was failing. This last year was the worst. Her daughter went into the hospital with serious problems. Ernie found himself knocking at death’s door again. And finally, she was brought into the hospital and nearly died on the spot.

Her question to me was the same question that Job asked. “Why? Why is all this happening? Why am I suffering like this?”

II. The Answer to Suffering is Christmas

The answer is that we are broken people living in a broken world. We are fallen, and the whole world is fallen as a result. Look around you. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. We are not the people that God created us to be. This is not the world we’re supposed to be living in. “Why is there so much suffering in the world?” We are sinners, and the wages of sin is death. The evidence is all around us, even inside of us.

But that is why Jesus came; and that takes us to the second reading for today.

A lot of people in this country celebrate Christmas. It’s a national holiday. Families decorate their homes with lights and set up Christmas trees in their living rooms. They shop for gifts, wrap them up, and exchange them on Christmas morning. Then everyone gathers around the kitchen table for Christmas dinner, and after that, it’s eggnog, cookies, and pies. It’s a nice day, with fun traditions. Everyone laughs and has a good time.

But as nice as the family gatherings are, as nice as the decorations and the gifts are, as nice as the dinners and the deserts are, they aren’t the real point of Christmas. The real point of Christmas is that God has entered into our world as a baby who grew into a man in order to forgive our sins, change our lives, heal our sicknesses, and put an end to death. The real point of Christmas is that because of the birth, and of course the death and the resurrection of Jesus, there is peace between God and men.

God knows that this world is sinful, sick, and dying. Christmas, and the rest of the New Testament, tells us that God has made atonement for our sins. Jesus’ death on the cross is the sacrifice that makes us right with God. We are forgiven. And where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and eternal salvation. The message of Christmas is that Jesus went ahead of us into death, dying Himself. But He also rose from the dead, therefore putting an end to death. He has defeated that horrible monster. Now, everyone who is joined to Jesus, by faith, in Holy Baptism, has already crossed over from death into life. Elaine believed in Jesus, and she was baptized into Jesus. She will rise again. It is just that simple. And I pray that it will be of great comfort to you all.

Some of you are probably thinking that Christmas has been ruined this year. Elaine is gone, and it just won’t be the same without her. You just won’t be able to celebrate Christmas at all.

Let me tell you, Christmas isn’t really about setting up trees, giving gifts, or having family dinners. Those things are nice. But they aren’t the real celebration of Christmas.

The real celebration of Christmas is faith in the victory of Jesus over suffering, death, and the grave. The real Christmas celebration is the Church gathered around the reading of Holy Scripture and the meal of bread and wine that Jesus called His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

In some Christian traditions, the Sunday service of Holy Communion is still called “the Mass.” Even though that’s not what we call it here at Immanuel, that is what it is: It is the Mass. What we celebrate here every Sunday is Christ’s Mass; It is a celebration of Christmas; It is the real celebration of Christmas. What goes on here every Sunday, that’s what December 25th is all about.

What you need right now, maybe more than ever, is to be here in this place to hear that God has seen Elaine’s death, and that He’s done something about it. He has seen your suffering, and your eventual death, and He’s done something about it. God the Father has sent His son, born of a virgin, wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, to be your savior from suffering and death. You need to hear that Christmas story. You need to receive the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and the resurrection of your bodies. What you need is the real celebration of Christmas. That is the answer to Elaine’s suffering, and to yours. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Our King Has Been Vindicated - Luke 21:25-36

2009-12-06T12:01:00.001-05:00

Populus Zion – Luke 21:25-36 (Malachi 4:1-6; Romans 15:4-13) Our King Has Been Vindicated
06 December 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Review

Our theme this Advent is the royalty of God in Christ, and the kingdom of God. In Jesus, God has reclaimed the throne that has always been rightfully His. It might help us if we take a look back on what we’ve heard our last two times together.

I.A. The King Has Come, and We Are His Kingdom

First, there is no King but God. He is the ultimate ruler in the universe. He is the creator, and the almighty God.

God, our King, made us in His image, to reflect His will, His goodness, His wise, just, and loving rule out into the world. God intended to rule the world through us, setting up His throne in our hearts. He created us to be His co-rulers, kings under the King of kings.

The problem is that mankind has gotten off track. We have rejected our King and our position as the crown of creation. We have kicked God off the throne of our hearts, and enthroned the devil instead. We no longer reflect the image of God. We no longer govern the world in accordance with His will.

God Himself has solved the problem. Long ago, He promised to re-establish His kingdom, and set His throne in the heart of mankind once again. He began to fulfill His promise in the calling of Abraham and the nation of Israel. He made good on His promise in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Jesus, the true Israelite, a true man, lived His life in complete submission to God. In Jesus, God has become King.

By Holy Baptism, we are united with Jesus. Our old rebellious self is drowned in the waters and crucified with Christ, and God brings forth a new man who lives in harmony with His will. In Jesus, we are forgiven and renewed. We aren’t in rebellion against our King any longer.

I.B. King Jesus or King Caesar

On Wednesday, we discussed the fact that the Kingship of Jesus is not only a “religious” message with meaning only for life after death; it’s a political message with meaning for us right here today.

First off, if Jesus is King, then His kingdom is the climactic kingdom of the world. It is the last kingdom, the greatest kingdom, and it will endure forever. We are citizens of the United States, we are members of political parties, different types of clubs, and service organizations, we born of a certain race, but we identify ourselves first and foremost as Christians, members of the Church, the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the only kingdom that matters.

And finally, if Jesus is King, then He is ultimately in charge. Although we have been given fathers and mothers in our families, in our government, and in the church, Jesus is the one to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance. Men may try to pressure us into following their will, as though they were kings and even gods. But we know better. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the true and only King, and He will be our King forever.

II. Our King Predicts Vindication

But there are still those who don’t believe that Jesus is King or that His Kingdom has come. Since His death, the world has gone on just the way it always has. The way of violence, oppression, suffering, and death is still the norm. The way of justice, peace, love, and forgiveness is still exceedingly rare. Maybe Jesus isn’t the King after all.

The leadership of Israel didn’t believe that Jesus was their long awaited King. The Pharisees didn’t think He was militant enough. The Sadducees were plenty comfortable without a messiah-king coming along and upsetting their applecart. Both of them wanted to go their own way, and not Jesus’ way. So, the two groups conspired together to hand Jesus over to the Romans and have Him put to death.

The power of the way of death is magnified by the fact that Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. Dead Kings aren’t worth very much. They aren’t worth anything at all. Jesus must have been mistaken. Maybe His way won’t win the day. Maybe He isn’t the King.

But before He died, Jesus declared that His way was right, and that He would indeed be vindicated as King. He promised that there would be two unmistakable signs that He was who He said He was and that His way, the way of peace and love, would win the day.

First of all, He said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Jesus knew that He was heading toward the cross. That was His mission. He would go into death, mankind’s greatest enemy, in order to do battle with it. And the sign that He was victorious is that on the third day, He would rise from the dead.

Second of all, if Jesus’ way was truly the way of life, then all other ways were bound to fail. Israel had rejected His way. “So,” Jesus said, “Israel will fail and fall. Because she is determined to follow the way of violence, the way of the world, instead of the way of peace that I am bringing, she will be destroyed, and it will happen in this generation. The Romans will come and overthrow the leadership of Israel. They will topple the Temple, and sack the city. Israel will be no more. She will be judged.” That’s what all the talk about signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, and the Son of Man coming in a cloud is all about. It’s picture language. It means that the powers in Israel (the sun, the moon, and the stars), the powers that rejected Jesus, would fall from their position. “The powers of the heavens will be shaken.” The whole nation would be upset like the roaring of the sea in a storm.

When Jesus said, “They will see the son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory,” He was referencing the seventh chapter of Daniel where the seer promises that eventually the beasts that rule this world and oppress God’s people would be defeated. And “one like a son of man,” that is God’s own people, will be given an everlasting kingdom. In Jesus’ mind, when Jerusalem fell to the Romans, it would mean that God was vindicating Him and His Kingdom.

III. Our King Has Been Vindicated

It is one thing to claim to be the King. It is another thing to prove those claims. It’s one thing to make a claim before the court. It’s another thing to be justified, to be vindicated.

On the first day of the week, the Sunday after the crucifixion, some of the women who had been followers of Jesus went to His tomb to give His body a proper burial with the requisite spices. But when they got there, they found the stone rolled away, and the body of Jesus missing. While they stood there, perplexed about the whole thing, two men with dazzling clothes came to them and asked, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? [Jesus] is not here. He has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” Over the next few days and weeks, Jesus appeared to many of His disciples alive again, confirming what the two men at the tomb had said. He had risen. God had vindicated Him.

In the year A.D. 66, the Jews revolted against Rome, in keeping with the violent path they chose when they handed Jesus over to be crucified. Four years later, in A.D. 70, the Temple was toppled and Jerusalem was smashed at the behest of Emperor Vespasian by the Roman general Titus. From that moment on, theocratic nation-state of Israel was no more. Her way had been judged. But the way of Jesus had been vindicated.

When Jesus rose from the dead, He proved that He had defeated death, and He showed Himself to be who He said He was: the King. When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the world received vivid proof that her way would not win the day.

The Gospel is that the way of violence, oppression, suffering, and death will not win the day. They won’t win, because they didn’t win. In Jesus, that way has already been defeated. He is risen. His enemies have fallen. Our King has come, and He has been victorious. The way of injustice, and pain, and death, has been judged. And it is only a matter of time until God shuts those enemies up in the prison once and for all.

So, even in the midst of this world of pain and death, you can be of good cheer. Straighten up and raise your heads. Your redemption is drawing near. Jesus said He was King. The message for this second Sunday in Advent is that by His resurrection and by the destruction of the way of death, our King has been vindicated. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

King Jesus or King Caesar - Luke 1:26-35; 3:21-38

2009-12-02T20:01:00.001-05:00

The First Wednesday in Advent – Luke 1:26-35; 3:21-38; (Psalm 96) King Jesus or King Caesar
02 December 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The King Has Come, and We Are His Kingdom

Our theme this Advent is the divine royalty of Jesus, and the kingdom of God. God is the King, and we are His kingdom. It will be helpful if we review what we’ve heard so far.

There is no King but God, the creator of heaven and earth. He is the all-knowing, all-present, almighty God. There is no God before Him, no God beside Him, and there will be no God after Him. Before He created, there was nothing. Without Him, nothing exists, and without Him nothing remains in existence.

God is the King, and He made us to be His co-rulers. God has always intended to rule the world in and through human beings. God set His throne in our hearts. He created us to be the reflection of His image, to rule the earth justly in accordance with divine wisdom.

But Adam, the first man and father of us all, turned his back on God. He ate the forbidden fruit. He evicted God from the throne of his heart. Ever since, mankind has been in rebellion against the King. We have rejected the wisdom that comes from above. We have become selfish and oppressive.

But God never stopped being King. And long ago, He promised to return to His throne, and reestablish His kingdom in the hearts of men. God began His mission of redemption with the call of Abraham and the establishment of the nation of Israel. He fulfilled His mission in birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, the son of God, the Savior of the world. Jesus is the man in whom God has fully and finally become King. In fact, Jesus, the man, is our God and King.

In Holy Baptism, we are united to our God and King. Our old, rebellious humanity is buried in the waters, crucified with Jesus; and out of the water, God raises us with Jesus as new men, redeemed, restored, renewed. In Jesus, we aren’t in rebellion against God any longer. We live according to the wisdom that comes from above, the word found in the Bible. God reigns in our hearts once more. He is our King, and we are His kingdom. And so we are the people who say, “The LORD [is king]!” The first message of Advent is that the King has come, and by grace, we are His kingdom once again.

II. King Jesus and Politics

I wonder if we realize what a subversive political message that is. It’s been said that polite people don’t discuss religion and politics. Tonight, I’m going to talk about both. And, by God’s grace, we’ll all stay polite.

Talking about politics in the Church is inescapable, really. The statement, “There is no King but God,” isn’t just a “religious” statement, as if religion was simply one part of our lives that has no effect on the rest of what we are and what we do. When we say, “There is no King but God,” we’re making a statement that should have an impact on every aspect of our lives. If God is King, that says something about the whole world; it says something about all of reality, and that includes politics, too. When we say that “Jesus is our King, the only true King,” we are surely making a political statement.

III. King Jesus and His Kingdom vs King Caesar and His Kingdom

To help you understand just how political the message “God is King” really is, I want to take you into Galilee, Samaria, Judea, and the wider Greco Roman world of the last century B.C. and the first century A.D. I want to talk about the imperial house of Caesar. And I want to contrast the Christian Gospel of the Kingdom of God against the backdrop of the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Caesar.

III.A. The Climactic Kingdom

In about the year 30 A.D., the legionary general and imperial administrator, Caius Velleius Paterculus, wrote his two volume Compendium of Roman History, the point of which was to show how the gods “exalted [the] great empire of Rome to the highest point yet reached on earth,” and made it “the empire of the world.” It was very popular in Rome to think of world history as involving five distinct ages or kingdoms. The first kingdom-age was that of Assyria. After them came the Medes and the Persians. Then came Alexander the Great and the Macedonians. But the fifth and final kingdom, the greatest and climactic world power was the republic, and later empire, of Rome. Rome was the pinnacle of human achievement and rule. This was the height of it all, the greatest nation the world would ever know.

Of course, you can see immediately how Christianity says something quite different. According to the book of Daniel, the history of the world could indeed be divided into five kingdom-ages. The first was Babylon, the second Medea, the third Persia, and the fourth was Macedonia. But the fifth was most definitely not Rome. The fifth was, of course, the kingdom of God. And according to the New Testament, this kingdom began with the coming of Jesus. This kingdom would be the climactic world power. This kingdom would be the height of it all, and would last forever and ever.

In our day, we tend to think of the United States of America as the climactic world power. Surely we are the summit of all mankind’s achievements. This is the “greatest nation” the world has ever known, and the greatest nation the world will ever know. No one can defeat us. We will endure forever.

The message that “God is King” and we in the Church are His kingdom, says something different. In many ways, Rome was a blessing to the earth. And so is the United States. But we should never confuse the kingdoms of men with the kingdom of God. We should never forget that the climax of human achievement took place in Jesus. And we should remember that it is God’s kingdom alone that endures forever.

III.B. The Divine King

Ah, but who is god?

In the year 42 B.C., the Roman Senate recognized Julius Caesar as one of the gods of the state. Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son, capitalized on this by emphasizing his position as the “son of god.” In the year 27 B.C., the Senate gave Octavian the title, Augustus, meaning, “the illustrious one,” or, “the one who is to be worshiped,” or even, “the one who is divine.” In the year 19 B.C., Octavian published the Aeneid, written by the poet Virgil, which created a fictional history claiming a 1,000 year old descent for him and his father from the goddess Venus, the daughter of the Roman god, Jupiter. Indeed, Caesar Augustus styled himself, “the son of god.”

And why not? Rome had not rested easy for a hundred years. And when Julius Caesar famously crossed the Rubicon, he plunged the republic into a civil war that threatened to undo the nation, and therefore, the whole world. For two decades, Rome found itself divided by war, committing, as it were, political suicide. But in stepped, Octavian. He defeated every claimant to Roman power, and took up sole rule of the nation after his victorious battle with Mark Antony at Actium in 31 B.C.. Caesar Octavian Augustus reunited the people of Rome under his leadership and established peace. He was the lord and savior of the Rome and, therefore, the lord and savior of the whole world. The fact that Caesar Augustus was emperor was the good news, the gospel of the time.

Tiberius Caesar, the Roman ruler during Jesus’ adult years, also made divine claims for himself. On his coins, he printed an inscription that read, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus…High Priest.”

Of course, you can see immediately how Christianity says something quite different. According to Luke, Jesus is the one with the ancient genealogy that links him not just to one of the gods, but to the Most High God, almighty. Jesus is the Son of God. And He is the one who came from heaven to bring peace on earth. He is the world’s true lord and savior. He is the only emperor, the only King. And it is this news that is truly “the good news,” the Gospel of God.

The President of the United States has often been called, “the leader of the free world.” And in many ways he is. Many of us treat presidential elections as if the fate of the world depended on just who we elect to office. If we elect the guy with the “D” next to his name, the world will be saved. If we elect the guy with the “R” next to his name, there will be peace on earth. Some have gone so far as to see our current president as a kind of messiah.

The message that “God is King” and we in the Church are His kingdom, says something different. If we play a part in electing our leaders, we should choose wisely, pick the best, for the best reasons. We are to be grateful for our leaders, and to pray for them. We are to submit to them, and obey them in the areas God has placed them over us, as long as they do not command us to sin. But we should never confuse our leaders, our presidents, our kings, with the true King of the world. We should never forget that Jesus is ultimately in charge. And we should remember that “the Lord God [has given] to [Jesus] the throne of this father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

IV. No King But God

To sum up, God is King, and we are His Kingdom. That is the Gospel. But when we say that, when we believe that, we should remember that we are making at least two very important political claims.

First, we are saying that whatever our nationality, our ultimate allegiance is to the Church, to the kingdom of God. We love our country. We serve our country. But our true citizenship is in Christendom.

And finally, when we say that God is King, we are also saying that Caesar is not. God is King and our President is not. God is King, and there is no one beside Him. Our ultimate loyalties lie with Him. If the kings of this world command us to sin, or if we have to sin in order to elect them or to follow them, remember, we are to obey God rather than men, in Jesus’ name.

The King Has Come and We Are His Kingdom - Matthew 21:1-9

2009-11-29T12:01:00.001-05:00

Ad Te Levavi – Matthew 21:1-9 (Jeremiah 23:5-8; Romans 13:8-14)

The King Has Come and We Are His Kingdom
29 November 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The King and His Fallen Kingdom

There is no King but God. He is the world’s only sovereign. He is the almighty God, the supreme ruler of heaven and earth. There is no one like Him; no one beside Him. He stands alone. There is no King but God.

And He created us to be His kingdom. Humanity is the sphere of God’s rule. God created us in His image, and set His throne in our hearts. God’s intention has always been to rule over creation in us, and through us. He made us to be His vice-regents and co-rulers. We are royalty, sons of God, kings under the King of kings.

But the sad fact is that this is a world in rebellion against its King. Adam rejected the wise rule of God, his King and creator. He ate the forbidden fruit. Mankind handed the reigns of his life over to Satan, and made the devil king instead of God. Humanity turned his back on God. He betrayed the true King. He forsook the kingdom.

You can see how dimly God shines through the face of men now. How our visage has dimmed. How far we have fallen short of the glory of God. What man rightly bears the name, Michael, “the one who is like God”? We lie, cheat, and steal. We are selfish to an extreme. We seek power and prestige only to further our own evil ends, when what we should be seeking is the wisdom of God to establish justice and peace. We oppress and exploit when we should be relieving the burdens of those in distress, and raising up those who have no hope.

II. The King’s Promise of a Renewed Kingdom

But there is still no King but God. Mankind may have rebelled, but God has always been, and will always be in charge. And long ago, He promised to return to His rightful throne and restore His kingdom.

To that end, God called a man named Abraham. He called Abraham and his sons, the nation of Israel, to reflect His glory once more. He gave them the Torah so that they would know His wisdom and live according to His rule. He would be their King, and they would be His people, a bright and shining beacon, the light of the world, drawing all nations back into the kingdom of God.

But Israel recapitulated the sin of Adam. Israel rejected God as King, too. When the nation was just a lose confederation of tribes, living under prophets and judges, the people clamored for a king like the Gentiles had. The problem wasn’t that they wanted a king. The problem is that they wanted a king like the nations of the world had. They rejected God as their King, and handed the reigns over to Satan.

The history of the Israelite monarchy is littered with wicked kings who did evil in the sight of the LORD, beginning with Saul. But God took this imperfect situation, this sinful situation, and He used it to point the people forward to the day when He would truly be the King of Israel and the King of the whole world. He chose the youngest son of Jesse, a shepherd boy by the name of David, to be king over Israel. And He promised that He would extend His rule through the house of David, come what may. The LORD would be King, and He would establish His rule through David’s house. A son of David would sit on the throne of Israel, and through him, God would truly be King.

The people of Israel waited for the day the LORD would fulfill His word. The longed for the day that the anointed king would come, and establish the final kingdom of God where sin would be done away with and all things would be restored.

III. The King Has Come

The Gospel for today tells us that the King has come. His name is Jesus. He came as the King of Israel. He came to establish the kingdom of God. He came to rid the world of sin and to rule men’s hearts.

But He didn’t come riding a warhorse or a chariot. He didn’t come like the kings of the nations come, with pomp and circumstance. He didn’t come asserting His own will. He came at the direction of His Father, in humility, mounted on a donkey.

The pilgrim throngs making their way to Jerusalem for the Passover festival waved their palm branches in the air and shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They did that every year. But this time, they had a focal point: Jesus. They took off their cloaks and spread them on the road in front of their King.

And the King rode into His city, all the way up to His holy hill. And there He took His crown and His throne. Only His crown was made of thorns, and His throne was a cross.

But that is how it had to go. That is exactly what we needed and what God demanded. Throughout His life, and supremely on the cross, Jesus did what Adam did not, what Israel did not: He submitted to the rule of His Father.

In Jesus, mankind is no longer in rebellion against its King. The Fall of Adam has been undone. Humanity is once again the sphere of God’s rule. Jesus, the man born of Mary, perfectly reflects the image of His Father. He lived according to the wisdom from above. On the cross, Jesus let God be King in Him and through Him.

Wearing the crown of thorns, Jesus issued God’s judgment for all who believe and are baptized: “Father forgiven them.” From the throne of the cross, Jesus made a solemn decree: “It is finished.” Men’s sins are atoned for. Death has been done away with. Jesus has dethroned the devil. His resurrection on the third day has confirmed it in the sight of all people. The King has come.

IV. We Are His Kingdom Once More

And by Holy Baptism, we are His kingdom. The Church is the sphere of His rule. We are the people born again in the image of God. He has set His throne in our hearts. We pray, “Make me to know your ways O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.” And God rules in us, and through us once more.

The King of the universe has called us out of darkness into the light of Jesus. We have confessed our sins. We have forsaken rebellious ways. We have been washed clean. We have been born again. We are a new creation. That is the Gospel. The first message of Advent is that the King has come, and by grace, we are His kingdom once again, in Jesus’ name.

Only One Said, "Thank You." - Luke 17:11-19

2009-11-25T20:00:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving (transferred) – Luke 17:11-19 (Deuteronomy 8:1-10; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26) Only One Said, “Thank You.”
25 November 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Church Attendance Percentages

Ten lepers were cleansed. Only one said, “Thank you,” to Jesus.

Six point seven billion people living in the world today. All of them forgiven. All of them made right with God because of Jesus’ unlimited atonement, His sacrifice on the cross. Only 33% even claim to be Christian. How many actually are Christian? The number is probably a lot lower.

In 2001, nearly 75% of people living in the United Kingdom identified themselves as Christian. As of 2007, that number had dropped to 53%. What’s even more alarming is that polls show that only one in ten people in the UK actually attends church every week. Ten lepers were cleansed. Only one said, “Thank you.”

According to the CIA, 76% of Americans identify themselves as Christians, three out of four. But pools regularly show that only about 40% of Americans say they attend some kind of religious service on a regular basis. And actual figures are much lower. It seems that only about 21% of us really go to church each week. Well, that isn’t quite right. Twenty one percent of us attend a religious service weekly. Those numbers include Jews, Muslims, and other religions, too. So how many actually attend a Christian church? And of those who go, how many are true believers? Ten lepers were cleansed. Only one said, “Thank you.”

How many people are on our rolls? How many people claim to be members of Holy Cross and Immanuel? How many people show up on any given Sunday? There are fifty two Sundays a year? How many times have you been here this last year? How many Sundays have you missed?

The Sunday service is about an hour and fifteen minutes long. That’s two hours shorter than a football game. No one pays attention the whole time in church. Some of us tune out the hymns, some of us shut down during the readings or the sermon. Our minds wander off to other things, like who’s playing football later that day. Ten lepers were cleansed. Only one said, “Thank you.”

II. The Samaritan’s Church Attendance

I wonder how long that Samaritan leper stayed thankful. How long did the joy stay in his heart? Did he become a Christian? Did he find a church and start attending? I wonder if he went every Sunday.

I think he might have. I think that Samaritan found a synagogue, and started going every week. I think he was so happy to be cleansed, so happy to be part of society again, so happy to be whole, healed, and truly alive again, that he made it a point to thank God every day of his life, and twice on the Sabbath.

And after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, later on when the synagogues wouldn’t tolerate “Christians” anymore, I think that Samaritan found an assembly that devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And I think that he gave thanks to God with them every Sunday, listening to the Scriptures, singing psalms and hymns, praying to God, and celebrating Holy Communion. I think he never missed a Sunday Eucharist.

III. Church Attendance is Thanksgiving

St. Paul tells us

that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, [24] and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." [25] In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." [26] For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Jesus gave thanks to His Father for everything that He had been given to accomplish His mission of salvation. Then He offered His disciples the sign and seal of that salvation by giving them His body to eat and His blood to drink. And He instructed them to give thanks for His death and proclaim it to each other and to the world with this meal until he would come again.

For centuries, the Church has called the Divine Service of Holy Communion, the Eucharist, which basically means “the thanksgiving.” When we gather to hear the word of the Lord, and to eat the meal that He gave us for the forgiveness of our sins, we are saying, “Thank you for everything that you have done.”

“Thank you,” is the response of faith. “Thank you,” is what a believing heart says. Attending Church, listening to the Gospel, singing the hymns, praying the prayers, celebrating Communion, is to be grateful and to receive the gifts of the Lord with thanksgiving.

IV. The Law and Church Attendance

The law tells us that we ought to be thankful to God, and that part of this means gathering together to hear His word, to pray, and to share in the Holy Communion.

The second commandment says, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.” This means that we should “call upon [God] in every trouble, pray, praise, and give [Him] thanks.” And the third commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” This means that we should “not despise preaching and [God’s] Word, but [should] hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” These are the commandments of Almighty God, and He “threatens to punish all [those] who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not do anything against them.”

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He told them, “Say, ‘Our Father,’” not “my Father.” He assumes that we will gather together. He does more than assume. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus commanded the Church to gather around His word, and celebrate Communion. He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The Church is the body of Christ. Jesus is present in His Word and in His sacrament. If we’re not part of the Church, we’re not part of Jesus. If we’re not here giving thanks, then we are not part of the kingdom of God.

V. The Gospel and Church Attendance

In the Gospel, ten lepers were cleansed. Only one said, “Thank you.” But did you notice that the Samaritan didn’t need to be told to say, “Thank you”? The one’s who needed to be told to say, “Thank you,” were the nine who went away. The Samaritan didn’t need to be told. He said, “Thank you,” simply because he recognized what a great gift he had been given. He couldn’t help but say, “Thank you.”

You have been given a very great gift. The Son of God has given you His body and blood to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of your sins. And where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. Jesus has promised to heal your diseases, wipe the tears from your eyes, and raise you from the dead to live with Him in paradise forever and ever.

As Christians, you don’t need to be told to say, “Thank you,” for this. You don’t need to be told to listen to God’s word, or to come to Holy Communion. Going to church, celebrating the Eucharist, saying, “Thank you,” is just what Christians do. And so it is that we gather here again tonight, to listen to God’s word, and to say, “Thank you,” in Jesus’ name.

Are You Ready to Meet Your Maker? - Matthew 25:1-13

2009-11-22T12:01:00.001-05:00

The Last Sunday of the Church Year – Matthew 25:1-13 (Isaiah 65:17-25; 1 Thess. 5:1-11) Are You Ready to Meet Your Maker?
22 November 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. Are Your Ready to Meet Your Maker?

Are you ready to meet your maker? Are you prepared to stand before the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? Are you ready for the books to be opened and for every thought, word, and deed of your life to be judged? Are you confident of the verdict? Are you confident of your sentence? Are you ready to meet your maker?

Or maybe you don’t think such a day will ever come. It was nearly 2,000 years ago that Jesus promised to return to judge the living and the dead. Two thousand years…and counting. Maybe He’s not coming. Maybe He’s forgotten about us. Maybe He’s fallen asleep.

Repent. God has not forgotten about us, although some of us might wish that He had. God remembers us very well. God remembers you. God remembers what you’ve done.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, it wasn’t Jesus who fell asleep. It was Peter, James, and John. It was the disciples who fell asleep, who failed to keep watch and to pray. God is not asleep. Maybe we are. How else can you explain the way so many so-called Christians live?

II. Wake Up!

We have “Christians” who never read their Bible, who don’t know who Abraham is, who don’t know who Moses is, who don’t know who David is. And yet they want to be called “members” of the church and to commune at the altar. We have “members” who don’t even attend services. And yet they want to be thought of as “Christians in good standing.”

Wake up! If the preachers in our pulpits were handing out $500 gift certificates to Wal-Mart on Sunday mornings, everybody would be here on time, the pews would be packed, and there’d be a line out the door. The Word of God is worth more than a $500 gift certificate to Wal-Mart. The message of the church, the message found in the Bible, is that God the Father has sent His Son, Jesus, to be a sacrifice for your sins and shortcomings. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, God forgives you all your sins. You do not need to be afraid of the judgment. When the books are opened, God will read your name, and under it He will read only the thoughts, words, and deeds of Jesus. He will read the four Gospels.

But how many people know that? How many people in our own pews know that? How many people give any attention to the Gospel found in the four Gospels of the Church?

Are you ready to meet your maker? We have “Christians” who couldn’t care less about what God’s word says. “Don’t bother me with words from a book. This is real life we’re talking about here. I’ve got real problems, and I need real answers. The Bible’s fine when everything’s going all right. But I’m in crisis here.”

Wake up! There’s no better place to turn in a crisis than to the Bible. The Bible doesn’t have the answer to every single problem that might come up. But it does have the only answer that ultimately matters. That answer is Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection from the dead.

Are you ready to meet your maker? We have “Christians” who turn their back on forgiveness and the new life every day. We have “good church goin’ folk” who carry grudges and hate in their heart, “Members in good standing” who can’t stand other members. Every Sunday they pray the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” never realizing that they are damning themselves with their own words.

Wake up! God has forgiven your sins and the sins of the whole world. How can you carry a grudge? How can you refuse to forgive? How can you keep bringing up someone’s past wrongs and failings? How can you demand your neighbor pay you back a debt of $100 when you’ve been forgiven a debt of one million dollars? God has freely forgiven your sins for Jesus’ sake. Forgive as you have been forgiven, or, mark these words, you will forfeit your own forgiveness.

Are you ready to meet your maker? We have “Christians” who think that forgiveness is the same thing as license. “What’s the difference, God forgives me anyway.” “It doesn’t matter if I sin just a little bit.” There are those “good church goers” who are nearly indistinguishable from those who never go to church.

Wake up! The flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. If the “Christian” is the same as the non-Christian, something is terribly wrong. Listen to the words of St. Paul from Galatians.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [21] envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And listen again to Paul’s word from 1 Corinthians.

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And some of you were like that. Some of you came to the Lord later in life, and you have a whole lot of sinful living in your past. Some of you have been Christians all your life, but you’ve gone through periods of wandering and drifting away.

III. Ready Living

But God has forgiven your sins and given you a new life by His Holy Spirit. And the fruit of the Spirit is obvious: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control.” Are you ready to meet your maker? Fruitful-living, Spirit-living, is ready living.

Wake up! Don’t be deceived. You can’t go on and on living like you’re outside of God’s kingdom, and expect to inherit His kingdom in the end. It just doesn’t work that way. God’s kingdom isn’t simply a place you get to go to when you die. It isn’t just a thing that you get to hold on to, like a winning lottery ticket.
God’s kingdom is God’s reign in your heart and in your life. You are part of God’s kingdom when God is truly king of your life. And when God is reigning in your heart, there are certain things that you will do, and there are certain things that you just won’t do.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. You will always need God’s forgiveness in this life. Even though you are a Christian, you will fall short of God’s standard daily, because the old Adam, the old sinner you once were, dies very hard. You will never be perfect in this life.

But if you are satisfied with where you are, if you think that you’ve “arrived,” if you think that there’s no more work to be done, if you think that your level of holiness is enough, then you will surely be lost.

Are you ready to meet your maker? In the Gospel for today, Jesus tells a parable about 10 young ladies waiting for the bridegroom to come. Five of them had oil for their lamps, and five of them didn’t. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, but when the herald announced that his arrival was eminent, the five girls who had no oil had to rush out to the dealers to buy some. But there wasn’t enough time. When they came back to the banquet hall, the doors were shut, and no one could let them in.

The herald stands here today and makes his announcement. The bridegroom is coming. Are you ready?

Repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. You are forgiven. Now, turn from your sins and live. God has given you His Holy Spirit. Live by that Spirit and bear fruit. Spirit-living is fruitful-living, and that is ready-living. Are you ready?

Think about that question today. Think about it long and hard, in Jesus’ name.

The Separation of Church and State - Matthew 22:15-22

2009-11-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

The 23rd Sunday After Trinity – Matthew 22:15-22 (Proverbs 8:11-22; Philippians 3:17-21) The Separation of Church and State
15 November 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fairport Harbor, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Separation of Church and State

The first amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America reads like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in answer to a letter they wrote to him in 1801 asking him questions about the grounds of religious freedom. In his letter, Jefferson wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

It may or may not surprise you to hear these words from Martin Luther:

The most important thing our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us in this Gospel lesson is the distinction between the two kingdoms, that is, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. We must carefully differentiate between the two, allowing each its own purpose and function, so that neither infringes upon the other, as happens regularly in the case of factious spirits….God has ordained and established them both, and has built a wall around them to protect them against all fanatics.

And listen to these words from the Augsburg Confession, one of our public statements of faith:

[The Gospel does not] offer new laws about the public state, but commands that we obey present laws, whether they have been framed by heathens or by others….For the Gospel does not destroy the state or the family, but rather approves them and asks us to obey them as a divine ordinance….The Gospel does not introduce laws about the public state, but is the forgiveness of sins and the beginning of a new life in the hearts of believers….Christ instills this often so that the apostles do not think they should seize the governments from those who held otherwise, just as the Jewish people dreamed about the kingdom of the Messiah. Christ did this so that the apostles might know they should teach that the spiritual kingdom does not change the public state.

And finally, hear the words of Jesus,

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, [21] nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold, the kingdom of God is [within you.]"

When He was on trial for His life, and Pilate asked Him if He was a king, Jesus answered:

My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.

And in today’s Gospel, the Pharisees and the Herodians, together, try to trap Jesus in His words by asking Him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” If He says that it isn’t, then the Herodians are there to put Him in prison, since they gained their power through Rome. If He says that it is, then the Pharisees are there to charge Him with blasphemy since the only king of Israel is God Himself, and never Caesar. But Jesus answers wisely, directing both the Pharisees and the Herodians to their duty to both Caesar and God.

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

Jesus pointed out our obligation both to Caesar and to God. The wall of separation between Church and State is not a radical atheist liberal’s political idea. God Himself has established the two kingdoms of Church and State.

II. The Role of the State

The role of the state is to preserve outward order and maintain civil peace. Without this government, there would be anarchy and chaos. The government is in place to protect our lives and our property and allow us to live our lives with some semblance of security and justice. Hear the word of the Lord from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. [2] Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. [3] For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, [4] for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. [5] Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. [6] For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. [7] Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

God works through the governments of this world, but in a hidden way. He works in government in a way very similar to how He works in causing the grass to grow and the sun to rise and set. He upholds all things by His mighty hand, and everything holds together only as He allows it. God is at work in the governments of this world. But only the Christian can see Him at work there, with the eyes of faith.

In the governments of the world, God rules with the sword. There are penalties for breaking the law. If you steal your neighbor’s stuff, you have to return it. You might even go to jail. If you murder your neighbor, you yourself might be put to death. In this “kingdom of the left hand,” God compels outward obedience. Those who refuse to obey might just find themselves compelled.

And in this way, God keeps general order among us. We are able to live in relative peace. It isn’t perfect. For that, another type of government is needed, a government that rules the heart. But that is the place of another kingdom: the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of grace.

But before we turn to that, it’s also important to say that God doesn’t claim any one particular government as His own. The United States doesn’t enjoy any special favors as God’s “chosen nation.” God rules through all of the governments of the world.

And in the same way, God does not claim any one particular type of government as His own. Democracy doesn’t enjoy any special status with God. God can rule through monarchy and dictatorships just as well as He can through masses of people who vote in free elections. God rules the nations of the world through all types of governments.

III. The Role of the Church

The role of the Church is very different from the role of the civil government. The Church exists in order to change people’s hearts and to make Christians. In this Christian Church, we hear about the forgiveness of our sins for Jesus’ sake. We learn about the resurrection of our bodies and the life everlasting.

In the Church, God works exclusively through the word and sacraments. That is to say, He works exclusively through His Son, Jesus Christ. He reveals His true nature to us in the Bible. He condemns our sins, but He also forgives those sins for Christ’s sake. He washes us clean in Holy Baptism, forgives us in Holy absolution, and feeds us in Holy Communion.

In the Church, God rules by His word, and only by His word. There is no use of the sword in the Church. You can’t force anyone to be a Christian. If a man won’t listen to the word of God, the Church is supposed to plead with him to do so. But if he will not, the last resort is excommunication. The Church never compels belief. The Church doesn’t burn anyone at the stake. The Church only pleads with the word of Christ.

It is this word, and this word alone that changes a man’s heart, and brings him over from death to life. This word belongs to the Church, and this word makes the Church, it preserves the Church, and it extends the Church.

IV. Confusion of Church and State

Every once in a while, someone will bemoan the fact that another public school has given up having the teachers lead their students in prayer. Or perhaps, a court has removed a monument of the ten commandments.

Friends, it is not the role of government to teach us religion. It isn’t the place of public school teachers to tell our children how to pray, or worse, to compel them to pray. Would you like it if the teacher were a Muslim? Would you like it if the Koran were enshrined in our government? Of course not.

The government has a sphere in which it operates. It has something to say about how we conduct our outward lives, especially as they impact our neighbor.
The government has specific tools that it uses as it does its job, namely, the sword. If you don’t follow the rules, you’ll be punished.

The Church is completely different. It operates on and in the heart. It changes us from the inside out.

And it rules only by the word of God. It never compels belief. It only invites and pleads us with to follow Jesus.

As much as it might sometimes seem like a good thing to have our government involved in religion, it is always a mistake. The state works by coercion. The Church and the Gospel work another way, namely, by faith, in Jesus’ name.

Whoever Comes to Me I Will Never Cast Out - John 6:37-40

2009-11-12T12:01:00.002-05:00

In Memoriam: Fred Martinchuk – John 6:37-40 Whoever Comes to Me I Will Never Cast Out
12 November 2009
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Madison, Ohio

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Death is, in every single case, the result of sin. Sometimes it’s easy to see a straight line between a particular sin and a particular death. Other times, that line is not so straight. But the Bible connects the dots for us: Every death is the outcome of sin.

The forgiveness of our sins is the only hope for the resurrection of our bodies. If God does not forgive us, then we will remain in our sins. If we remain in our sins, then we will die and remain in the ground for as long as the earth endures.

Jesus came into this world making a lot of claims about Himself. “I am the way,” He said. “I am the truth. I am life itself. I am God Himself, and I forgive you. I will raise you from the dead.”

Anyone can claim to have the answers. Anyone can claim to forgive sins. Anyone can claim to be God.

But death puts an end to such claims. What good is a dead God? What good is Jesus if He has not been raised from the dead? Just one more of life’s tragic figures. Saintly, yet deluded. Popular, but, in the end, mortal. He said so many beautiful things, but, really, they have turned out to be lies…if He is still dead.

If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, then we have no where to turn. We are still in our sins, and death will be our end. The grave is our lot. We are here today, gone tomorrow, never to return. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. No hope of a future. No hope for something more. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, then there is nothing more to say. He was crucified, died, and was buried. The end.

But that is not the end. Jesus has been raised from the dead. It is a fact of history as secure as anything in a college text book or the news paper that’s delivered to your doorstep. It’s more secure than that. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is more than sufficient to stand up in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt, and it has not been refuted in nearly 2,000 years. The evidence demands a verdict: He is risen.

If Jesus is risen, then He is who He said He was. He is the Son of God, the incarnation of God in the flesh. He is the hope of Israel, and the savior of the world. He is the way to our Father in heaven. He is the truth straight from the mouth of our creator. He is the light of the world who scatters the darkness of hate and violence. He is the bread of life who feeds us with His body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. He is the resurrection of all those who find their life in Him. He is the good shepherd who leads us to green pastures beside still waters.

If Jesus is who He said He was, then God is a God of grace, mercy, and peace. The crucifixion of Jesus shows us that God has given His all to claim us for Himself. God sacrifices Himself for our good. He steps into our shoes and suffers the torments that we deserve; He pays the penalty we deserve. He bears our diseases. He absorbs our failings, our insults, and our rebellion. He forgives our sins.

Jesus came from heaven to do the will of the one who sent Him. This is that will: That He should lose no one that the Father gave Him, but raise them up on the last day. Everyone who looks to Jesus and believes in the forgiveness He offers will have eternal life. Jesus will raise that person from the dead on the last day.

Sunday after Sunday, Fred would stand in front of this altar before the service, and look at this holy cross. He looked to Jesus, and by his own confession of faith, everyone knew that Fred believed in Jesus. “I believe in God the Father almighty…and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord.” “I believe in…the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting.” Fred said words like that every Sunday he was here. I have no reason to doubt him.

I have even less reason to doubt Jesus. “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” “I will raise him up on the last day.” Those words were for Fred. Fred was forgiven because Jesus forgave him. Fred will live because Jesus lives. Fred will rise from the dead because Jesus is risen from the dead.