Sermon on John 14:23-31
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
May 19, 2013 (Day of Pentecost)
Right before Jesus spoke the words in our Gospel lesson for this morning, one of His disciples had asked Him a question. And it’s an important question for understanding what this particular day in the Church Year is all about. Judas (we usually call him and the letter he wrote “Jude” to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot) had asked Jesus, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” It’s a good question, especially for those of us who are confronted daily with the unbelief of the world around us. It would be so much easier if God could give us some physical, observable sign that He is with us, protecting and watching over us, forgiving our sins and giving us life and salvation. It would be so much less stressful to be a Christian if the existence of God and His lordship over the world and over the Church were something that were easily observable to all men rather than being something that is an article of faith. Now, to be sure, the existence of the world itself is powerful evidence for the existence of some sort of intelligent Designer, and one must perform some pretty amazing leaps of logic and philosophy to believe that it came about by any sort of random process. But believing in the existence of some sort of an intelligent designer is a far cry from believing in the Triune God who not only made us but sustains and upholds us, even to the point of sending His own Son to die on the cross and rise again so that we can be saved and live forever with Him. You can’t get the specifics of the Christian faith as we Lutherans confess it from natural observation. And so Jude’s question, about Christ revealing Himself only to believers and not to everybody, is very pertinent.
Jesus’ response is that only those who love Him are ready to receive Him. We can see this, of course, from what happened to Jesus during His earthly life, and especially what would happen only a few hours after the conversation recorded here took place, as Jesus was arrested, falsely tried, and executed for claiming to be what He really was, the Son of God. It is only by the Holy Spirit’s power that sinful, self-centered hearts, which is what all of us are by nature, are transformed into those who love God and their neighbor. The natural man rejects the things of God even when God makes it perfectly plain and obvious what the real situation is. And so there’s no point for Him to make it blatant and obvious to the world. Even if the world is forced to admit that, yes, God exists, and, yes, He made everything, and, yes, He has the authority to set up certain laws for His creatures for their own good, the natural heart of man will still not accept the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the source of our salvation and the center of our relationship with Him. Only the Holy Spirit can bring that into a person’s heart. The natural man will constantly look to his own works to find some sort of evidence that God is pleased with him.
Now, of course it’s true that in various times and places God has done things that make it perfectly plain and obvious that there’s something unusual going on. The events which took place on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 are a primary example of this. But notice that it was not the sound of the mighty wind or the tongues of flame, or even the fact that the disciples spoke in various languages they had not previously learned, that caused those who witnessed these events to become Christians. It was the Word of God, of Law and Gospel, both spoken and in watery form through Holy Baptism, which caused 3,000 people to become Christians that day. That’s the Holy Spirit’s true activity. Preaching the Word of God, both in spoken form, and in the forms in which it is attached to the visible elements of Baptism and Holy Communion. Jesus Himself says it. “The Helper will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” The Holy Spirit is to be found in the Word. That is how Christ will be revealed to believers but not to unbelievers. He is present, by the Holy Spirit’s power, in the Word of God, and so He comes to those who receive it in faith.
But that still puts us in what seems like it should be a rather uncomfortable position. After all, we preach as being absolutely true a message for which we have no visible, physical evidence other than the a series of events that happened almost 2,000 years ago, and the interpretation of those events given by the apostles in their writings. A message which tells us that all men are, not just prone to mistakes, but sinful, self-centered and corrupt from their very conception, and in need of salvation solely by a gift of God: that message is offensive to human pride. A message which tells us that our salvation does come solely by a free gift of God and not from anything that we can do for Him: that message is even more offensive to human pride. The message that we hear from the Word, the message we are to confess to our friends and neighbors, is offensive to those around us. Worse, it is offensive to our own hearts according to the old sinful nature. That we are to preach and confess this message without any visible or tangible evidence of its truthfulness seems like an intolerable burden. It’s no wonder that the disciples were upset that Jesus would no longer be with them visibly as He was before. The task they were being given was simply too great for them.
That’s the other side of today’s message about the Holy Spirit. He works through His Word and Sacraments, even though we cannot see or feel evidence of His work. He converts us, and those who hear us, despite the fact that we cannot do it on our own. And so we don’t need to worry about it. God’s Word will not return to Him void. It will accomplish the purpose for which He sends it. Certainly we do need to be intentional about confessing our faith to our friends and neighbors; we are, after all, in the midst of a war against the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, all of which would rather we just kept our mouths firmly shut about this message of salvation and eternal life. And we do need to be intentional about making sure that the Word is preached accurately, because the Holy Spirit doesn’t work through messages that are corruptions or falsifications of God’s Word. It’s the devil himself that pretends to be the Holy Spirit when the message strays from Christ-centered, cross-focused preaching. But the point is, we aren’t the ones who are doing the real work when we confess our faith to our friends and neighbors. God the Holy Spirit is. And so we need not worry about the seemingly insurmountable obstacles which face us. To God those obstacles in our hearts, and the hearts of those around us, are as nothing. He made us. He can remake us. And He has done so in water, absolution, preaching, and in His Son’s own body and blood. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s how Christ reveals Himself to us and not to the world. He does reveal Himself to the world, but he does so one at a time, by making them part of us through the Spirit’s activity in His Word. The world does not know Him, but those whom the Spirit comes through the Word to are no longer of the world. We love Him, and so He will take us to be with Him forever. Not as the world gives does Christ give peace to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Sunday after Ascension, Series C
Sermon on John 17:20-26
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
May 12, 2013 (Sunday after Ascension)
While I was at the Seminary, one of my classmates told me that when he was in grade school he used to hate Ascension Day. He used to hate the idea that after everything that Jesus and His disciples had been through together, including His whole ministry, His death, and His return from the dead, after all that, Jesus would leave them alone. Why would He do that? It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right. The disciples deserved to have Him around to guide and encourage them as they set about the task of building the new Christian Church which Christ wanted them to build. But instead He leaves and ascends into heaven. As this friend of mine grew up, and as he learned more about the Christian faith, he of course realized that Jesus didn’t leave on Ascension Day. He was no longer visible to them with their human eyes, but He was still there. After all, He was seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and that means that He filled the whole creation. He was with the disciples, and with us, in a way that is even more wonderful than His physical, visible presence on earth. He, who is both God and Man, is glorified in heaven and with us on earth at the same time. We who have been baptized into Him have Him dwelling within us constantly as we live out our lives in immersed in our baptismal grace; and that baptismal life is nourished as we hear Him speak to us in the proclamation of the Word, and we receive Him into ourselves through the Sacrament of the Altar. He who is raised to God’s right hand is our brother, our fellow human being, and at the same time He is with us. That means that where He is, we are there as well.
Christ describes this glorious reality in our text for today. This text, by the way, is part of the great “high priestly prayer” which Christ prays on Maundy Thursday, on the way out to Gethsemane. Before He suffered in our behalf, He prayed for us. None of us, of course, were alive during Jesus’ earthly life. We are those who, in His words to Thomas, have not seen and yet have believed. We are the ones Jesus prays for in this section of the prayer, who believe through the word proclaimed by the apostles. He prays that we may be one with each other and with Him, even as He is one with the Father. He prays that we might be with Him where He is, and that we might behold His glory. He prays that the love with which the Father loves the Son may extend to us as well. He prays, in other words, that we might join Christ in His heavenly existence, that we might partake of the life of the Godhead Himself.
When Christ ascended into heaven, He showed to His apostles, and through their Word to us as well, that these things He prayed for have come true for us. You see, where He is there we are as well, because He is part of us, and we are part of Him. He is part of us, because He took upon Himself a human nature when He was born of the Virgin Mary. We are part of Him because we were baptized into Him and have received His Word and His body and blood, and we have been nourished by Him as branches are nourished by the vine. Where He is, there we are as well. He is united with the Father, and we are united with Him, and through Him, with the Father. He is glorified, and we are also glorified with Him. He is loved by the Father, and we are loved with Him. Of course, Christ was at the Father’s right hand all along; He was ruling the world all along; He was glorified all along; He was in the Father’s love all along, even while He was walking around here on earth. But what happens in the ascension is Christ shows us that these things are true of Him also according to His human nature, and that because these things are true of Him as man, mankind shares in them. We share in them. In the words of our hymn of the day, “He has raised our human nature On the clouds to God’s right hand; There we sit in heavenly places, There with Him in glory stand. Jesus reigns, adored by angels; Man with God is on the throne. By our mighty Lord’s ascension We by faith behold our own.”
But as we think about that, as we think about the fact that we are with Christ where He is at the Father’s right hand, that we share in the love of the Father and behold Christ’s glory, this raises a question. Do we show forth to the world around us that this glorious reality is true of us? Does the world know through us that the Father sent Christ and that Christ has sent us? That’s one of the things Christ prays for in this text. Does the world know that we are perfectly united as one in Him? Or does the world see the Church as just another human organization, full of silly fights and arguments and petty grudges and pride? Putting it more personally, has your selfishness, your sinfulness, and your pride contributed to the negative view the world around us has of the Church here in this place?
If we examine ourselves with this question in mind, we will see that, yes, it has. I think we can all identify incidents in our life when our behavior has contributed to the poor view the world has of the Church. Fortunately the unity which Christ brings to us, the love of the Father which He shares with us, and the knowledge of God which Christ declares to us, these things are stronger than our petty little sins. The Church is one. We confess this in the Creed: “I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church.” Wherever Christ is, there His people are. Even though because of false teachers we cannot always recognize the Church in some places, Christ knows where His sheep are, and He is present with them, just as He is present with us, and through Him we are all one. This unity may be hidden from the world sometimes, but it is there.
By the way, some people have used this Gospel lesson to argue that all the different churches that are around, the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholics, the Methodists, the Orthodox, the Lutherans, and so on, ought to ignore their doctrinal differences and become one big denomination. This isn’t what Jesus is saying. All that would happen then would be that we would all be arguing with each other about doctrine inside one church structure, rather than between different church structures. But we would all still be as divided as we ever were. As far as I’m concerned, if we are going to be divided about doctrine, we might as well be honest about it and keep our churches separate as well. Of course, on the other hand, we as a Synod ought always to be talking with the denominations around us to see if perhaps we can resolve some of the doctrinal differences that keep us apart from others. Where divisions within congregations and even within and between denominations have been caused by the sins of pride and self-serving ambition, rather than by the reaction of Godly people against false teachers, there our text does convict the sinner and bring him to repentance. But unity at the price of truth is no unity at all. Instead of a false, superficial, external unity between religious denominations, this text talks about the true unity that is granted by Christ Himself through His forgiving and renewing presence by the power of the Holy spirit.
Christ didn’t leave His apostles alone when He ascended into heaven. Instead He showed them that because He is always with us, and we are always with Him, that we too now partake of the Father’s love, the Son’s glory, and the unity which we have by the power of the Holy Spirit. What He prayed for on Maundy Thursday before going out to Gethsemane was shown to be true on Ascension Day. And now Christ comes to us. As we daily drown our old Adam in the water of our Baptism so that a new man daily comes forth and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity forever, as we hear the proclamation of the Word of God and study and meditate upon that Word, and especially as we receive into our bodies the body and blood of Christ Himself, we are continuously united with Christ and the Father, and through them with all other Christians, not only those who are living, but also those who have passed on before us. The God-Man who gave up His life for us now unites us with Himself and with one another through His own body and blood. This is why the Sacrament of the Altar is called “Holy Communion,” because not only is it a communion, a fellowship, between the bread and the body, and between the wine and the blood, but also it is a fellowship between Christ and us, and through that Christ creates and sustains our fellowship with one another. As you receive Christ’s body and blood today, you will be showing to the world that you are one with Christ and that we are one with each other through Him, and that we recognize that unity in our common confession of the true doctrine. We eat and drink of Christ and so be joined to the love and the fellowship of the Holy Trinity. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
May 12, 2013 (Sunday after Ascension)
While I was at the Seminary, one of my classmates told me that when he was in grade school he used to hate Ascension Day. He used to hate the idea that after everything that Jesus and His disciples had been through together, including His whole ministry, His death, and His return from the dead, after all that, Jesus would leave them alone. Why would He do that? It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right. The disciples deserved to have Him around to guide and encourage them as they set about the task of building the new Christian Church which Christ wanted them to build. But instead He leaves and ascends into heaven. As this friend of mine grew up, and as he learned more about the Christian faith, he of course realized that Jesus didn’t leave on Ascension Day. He was no longer visible to them with their human eyes, but He was still there. After all, He was seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and that means that He filled the whole creation. He was with the disciples, and with us, in a way that is even more wonderful than His physical, visible presence on earth. He, who is both God and Man, is glorified in heaven and with us on earth at the same time. We who have been baptized into Him have Him dwelling within us constantly as we live out our lives in immersed in our baptismal grace; and that baptismal life is nourished as we hear Him speak to us in the proclamation of the Word, and we receive Him into ourselves through the Sacrament of the Altar. He who is raised to God’s right hand is our brother, our fellow human being, and at the same time He is with us. That means that where He is, we are there as well.
Christ describes this glorious reality in our text for today. This text, by the way, is part of the great “high priestly prayer” which Christ prays on Maundy Thursday, on the way out to Gethsemane. Before He suffered in our behalf, He prayed for us. None of us, of course, were alive during Jesus’ earthly life. We are those who, in His words to Thomas, have not seen and yet have believed. We are the ones Jesus prays for in this section of the prayer, who believe through the word proclaimed by the apostles. He prays that we may be one with each other and with Him, even as He is one with the Father. He prays that we might be with Him where He is, and that we might behold His glory. He prays that the love with which the Father loves the Son may extend to us as well. He prays, in other words, that we might join Christ in His heavenly existence, that we might partake of the life of the Godhead Himself.
When Christ ascended into heaven, He showed to His apostles, and through their Word to us as well, that these things He prayed for have come true for us. You see, where He is there we are as well, because He is part of us, and we are part of Him. He is part of us, because He took upon Himself a human nature when He was born of the Virgin Mary. We are part of Him because we were baptized into Him and have received His Word and His body and blood, and we have been nourished by Him as branches are nourished by the vine. Where He is, there we are as well. He is united with the Father, and we are united with Him, and through Him, with the Father. He is glorified, and we are also glorified with Him. He is loved by the Father, and we are loved with Him. Of course, Christ was at the Father’s right hand all along; He was ruling the world all along; He was glorified all along; He was in the Father’s love all along, even while He was walking around here on earth. But what happens in the ascension is Christ shows us that these things are true of Him also according to His human nature, and that because these things are true of Him as man, mankind shares in them. We share in them. In the words of our hymn of the day, “He has raised our human nature On the clouds to God’s right hand; There we sit in heavenly places, There with Him in glory stand. Jesus reigns, adored by angels; Man with God is on the throne. By our mighty Lord’s ascension We by faith behold our own.”
But as we think about that, as we think about the fact that we are with Christ where He is at the Father’s right hand, that we share in the love of the Father and behold Christ’s glory, this raises a question. Do we show forth to the world around us that this glorious reality is true of us? Does the world know through us that the Father sent Christ and that Christ has sent us? That’s one of the things Christ prays for in this text. Does the world know that we are perfectly united as one in Him? Or does the world see the Church as just another human organization, full of silly fights and arguments and petty grudges and pride? Putting it more personally, has your selfishness, your sinfulness, and your pride contributed to the negative view the world around us has of the Church here in this place?
If we examine ourselves with this question in mind, we will see that, yes, it has. I think we can all identify incidents in our life when our behavior has contributed to the poor view the world has of the Church. Fortunately the unity which Christ brings to us, the love of the Father which He shares with us, and the knowledge of God which Christ declares to us, these things are stronger than our petty little sins. The Church is one. We confess this in the Creed: “I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church.” Wherever Christ is, there His people are. Even though because of false teachers we cannot always recognize the Church in some places, Christ knows where His sheep are, and He is present with them, just as He is present with us, and through Him we are all one. This unity may be hidden from the world sometimes, but it is there.
By the way, some people have used this Gospel lesson to argue that all the different churches that are around, the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholics, the Methodists, the Orthodox, the Lutherans, and so on, ought to ignore their doctrinal differences and become one big denomination. This isn’t what Jesus is saying. All that would happen then would be that we would all be arguing with each other about doctrine inside one church structure, rather than between different church structures. But we would all still be as divided as we ever were. As far as I’m concerned, if we are going to be divided about doctrine, we might as well be honest about it and keep our churches separate as well. Of course, on the other hand, we as a Synod ought always to be talking with the denominations around us to see if perhaps we can resolve some of the doctrinal differences that keep us apart from others. Where divisions within congregations and even within and between denominations have been caused by the sins of pride and self-serving ambition, rather than by the reaction of Godly people against false teachers, there our text does convict the sinner and bring him to repentance. But unity at the price of truth is no unity at all. Instead of a false, superficial, external unity between religious denominations, this text talks about the true unity that is granted by Christ Himself through His forgiving and renewing presence by the power of the Holy spirit.
Christ didn’t leave His apostles alone when He ascended into heaven. Instead He showed them that because He is always with us, and we are always with Him, that we too now partake of the Father’s love, the Son’s glory, and the unity which we have by the power of the Holy Spirit. What He prayed for on Maundy Thursday before going out to Gethsemane was shown to be true on Ascension Day. And now Christ comes to us. As we daily drown our old Adam in the water of our Baptism so that a new man daily comes forth and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity forever, as we hear the proclamation of the Word of God and study and meditate upon that Word, and especially as we receive into our bodies the body and blood of Christ Himself, we are continuously united with Christ and the Father, and through them with all other Christians, not only those who are living, but also those who have passed on before us. The God-Man who gave up His life for us now unites us with Himself and with one another through His own body and blood. This is why the Sacrament of the Altar is called “Holy Communion,” because not only is it a communion, a fellowship, between the bread and the body, and between the wine and the blood, but also it is a fellowship between Christ and us, and through that Christ creates and sustains our fellowship with one another. As you receive Christ’s body and blood today, you will be showing to the world that you are one with Christ and that we are one with each other through Him, and that we recognize that unity in our common confession of the true doctrine. We eat and drink of Christ and so be joined to the love and the fellowship of the Holy Trinity. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Easter 6, Series C
Sermon on John 16:23-33
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
May 5, 2013 (Sixth Sunday of Easter)
Prayer is something that I suspect we as Christians all too often forget about. When we experience troubles in life, do we always take time to pray about them? Or do we spend that time worrying and fretting and hoping that maybe we ourselves will be able to figure out a way out of our problem. When things aren’t going well for us or our friends and neighbors, it sometimes can seem like a waste of time to pray to God concerning the problem, time which can be better spent trying to help out or find a way to fix things.
But on the other hand, I suspect that we are still more likely to pray when things are going badly for us than when things are going well. Many people will eventually start at least trying to talk to God when things get bad enough. But even the most upright Christian often forgets to talk to God if things are going well for him. He forgets to thank God for the blessings he has received from Him, and only remembers to talk to Him if things are going badly.
But praying to God is something that He commands us to do. The Second Commandment tells us not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. Luther explains this commandment this way: “We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.” Note that we are commanded to call upon God’s name in trouble, to pray, to praise, and to give thanks. If we don’t call on God’s name in prayer, both for help in trouble and in thanksgiving for our blessings, we are committing a serious sin. We are committing a sin against the same commandment, believe it or not, as when people misuse God’s name by swearing or cursing or by using it in certain pagan rituals. God has given us a great blessing by allowing us to come to Him in prayer. Not to make use of that blessing is to reject it and thus to reject God. To pray frequently is not just good advice. It is simply God’s will for us that we do this.
But like all of the other provisions in God’s Law, there are other and better reasons to do it than simply the ominous threat that God’s gonna get us if we don’t. That threat is really only supposed to be used on the most hard-hearted and stubborn unrepentant individuals, though it can also be useful to us too during those times when our old sinful natures are tempting us to be downright lazy. For a Christian, prayer, like worship, like reading God’s Word, like taking Holy Communion, is something we do frequently because we get to, not because we have to; because we regard it as a great privilege, not because we’ll get into trouble if we don’t; because we really can talk directly to the creator of everything, not because He’ll punish us if we don’t. This great privilege is what Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel.
Now, this is a privilege that we would not have if Jesus had stayed with His disciples and not gone on through the cross and resurrection to the ascension. If Christ had not died and rose again for our justification, we would have no access to God. We would still be dead in trespasses and sins, and anything we might say to God would be just as offensive to Him as our old, corrupt, hostile-to-God sinful selves were before we were converted. It is only because of Christ’s perfect sacrifice on our behalf, His covering us with the white robe of His righteousness, and His pleading with the Father on our behalf that we are able to pray to God. If it weren’t for these things our prayers simply wouldn’t be heard. If it weren’t for Christ’s blood which cleanses us from all sin, the only response we would get for our prayers would be His wrath. But fortunately Christ did die for us and rise again and ascend into heaven to plead for us at the Father’s right hand. And so we can pray to Him in our trials, our fears, and our needs. We can appreciate and thank Him for the many blessings we receive, both the blessings of this life and, more importantly, the blessings of this next life which we receive even now in His Word and His body and blood. The fact that Jesus promises that His Father will hear our prayer is another piece of comfort that shows us the love He has for us that caused Him to give up His Son, and His Son to give up His life, for our salvation.
And God does hear our prayers. That’s another thing to keep in mind here. Jesus promises that what we ask in His name, the Father will give to us. This doesn’t mean that anything we ask for we will automatically get. It means that the Father will provide what is best for us and, just as a parent likes to have his children ask for the things that he is going to give them anyway, so also the Father wants us to bring to Him what is on our hearts and minds. Doing so is a confession of faith that He is the one who can and does give us every blessing of body and soul. When we pray in Jesus’ name we aren’t praying based on our own thoughts about what is best for us. We are praying based on God’s promises. That’s why when we pray for things that God hasn’t specifically promised, we usually say, “But Thy will be done.” When we pray for things that He has not promised to us, no matter how good and necessary those things seem to us at the time, we need to realize that He knows what’s best for us. And if we are basing our faith on whether or not God does what we want Him to do, we have a false faith, because it means we are in charge. In other words, to pray in Jesus’ name means that what we pray for is conformed to God’s will and not the other way around. That’s why Jesus can promise that whatever we ask in His name, the Father will give to us. As we continue to grow up in the faith and be nourished by God’s Word, our prayers will indeed be more and more reflections of God’s promises rather than our own ideas about what’s good and right. They will become more and more confessions of God’s Word and less expressions of our own personal notions and ideas.
And the ultimate prayer is of course that we can be with God and He with us. This is the most basic desire of every human being. That’s why even the mass of humanity that is in rebellion against the true God needs to find some sort of a god to worship, some sort of a false religion to follow. But this most basic prayer, that God would be with us and be merciful and gracious towards us, He has fulfilled in sending His Son. He fulfilled it by sending His Son to die on the cross. He fulfilled it in raising Him from the grave, and by sending His Holy Spirit through the Word and His body and blood to sustain and guide us. Our prayers that God would be with us are fulfilled in the most real and concrete way when we receive His Son’s body and blood in our physical mouths in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. God is fulfilling our prayers here today. Let us thank and praise Him, for He is gracious to us. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
May 5, 2013 (Sixth Sunday of Easter)
Prayer is something that I suspect we as Christians all too often forget about. When we experience troubles in life, do we always take time to pray about them? Or do we spend that time worrying and fretting and hoping that maybe we ourselves will be able to figure out a way out of our problem. When things aren’t going well for us or our friends and neighbors, it sometimes can seem like a waste of time to pray to God concerning the problem, time which can be better spent trying to help out or find a way to fix things.
But on the other hand, I suspect that we are still more likely to pray when things are going badly for us than when things are going well. Many people will eventually start at least trying to talk to God when things get bad enough. But even the most upright Christian often forgets to talk to God if things are going well for him. He forgets to thank God for the blessings he has received from Him, and only remembers to talk to Him if things are going badly.
But praying to God is something that He commands us to do. The Second Commandment tells us not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. Luther explains this commandment this way: “We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.” Note that we are commanded to call upon God’s name in trouble, to pray, to praise, and to give thanks. If we don’t call on God’s name in prayer, both for help in trouble and in thanksgiving for our blessings, we are committing a serious sin. We are committing a sin against the same commandment, believe it or not, as when people misuse God’s name by swearing or cursing or by using it in certain pagan rituals. God has given us a great blessing by allowing us to come to Him in prayer. Not to make use of that blessing is to reject it and thus to reject God. To pray frequently is not just good advice. It is simply God’s will for us that we do this.
But like all of the other provisions in God’s Law, there are other and better reasons to do it than simply the ominous threat that God’s gonna get us if we don’t. That threat is really only supposed to be used on the most hard-hearted and stubborn unrepentant individuals, though it can also be useful to us too during those times when our old sinful natures are tempting us to be downright lazy. For a Christian, prayer, like worship, like reading God’s Word, like taking Holy Communion, is something we do frequently because we get to, not because we have to; because we regard it as a great privilege, not because we’ll get into trouble if we don’t; because we really can talk directly to the creator of everything, not because He’ll punish us if we don’t. This great privilege is what Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel.
Now, this is a privilege that we would not have if Jesus had stayed with His disciples and not gone on through the cross and resurrection to the ascension. If Christ had not died and rose again for our justification, we would have no access to God. We would still be dead in trespasses and sins, and anything we might say to God would be just as offensive to Him as our old, corrupt, hostile-to-God sinful selves were before we were converted. It is only because of Christ’s perfect sacrifice on our behalf, His covering us with the white robe of His righteousness, and His pleading with the Father on our behalf that we are able to pray to God. If it weren’t for these things our prayers simply wouldn’t be heard. If it weren’t for Christ’s blood which cleanses us from all sin, the only response we would get for our prayers would be His wrath. But fortunately Christ did die for us and rise again and ascend into heaven to plead for us at the Father’s right hand. And so we can pray to Him in our trials, our fears, and our needs. We can appreciate and thank Him for the many blessings we receive, both the blessings of this life and, more importantly, the blessings of this next life which we receive even now in His Word and His body and blood. The fact that Jesus promises that His Father will hear our prayer is another piece of comfort that shows us the love He has for us that caused Him to give up His Son, and His Son to give up His life, for our salvation.
And God does hear our prayers. That’s another thing to keep in mind here. Jesus promises that what we ask in His name, the Father will give to us. This doesn’t mean that anything we ask for we will automatically get. It means that the Father will provide what is best for us and, just as a parent likes to have his children ask for the things that he is going to give them anyway, so also the Father wants us to bring to Him what is on our hearts and minds. Doing so is a confession of faith that He is the one who can and does give us every blessing of body and soul. When we pray in Jesus’ name we aren’t praying based on our own thoughts about what is best for us. We are praying based on God’s promises. That’s why when we pray for things that God hasn’t specifically promised, we usually say, “But Thy will be done.” When we pray for things that He has not promised to us, no matter how good and necessary those things seem to us at the time, we need to realize that He knows what’s best for us. And if we are basing our faith on whether or not God does what we want Him to do, we have a false faith, because it means we are in charge. In other words, to pray in Jesus’ name means that what we pray for is conformed to God’s will and not the other way around. That’s why Jesus can promise that whatever we ask in His name, the Father will give to us. As we continue to grow up in the faith and be nourished by God’s Word, our prayers will indeed be more and more reflections of God’s promises rather than our own ideas about what’s good and right. They will become more and more confessions of God’s Word and less expressions of our own personal notions and ideas.
And the ultimate prayer is of course that we can be with God and He with us. This is the most basic desire of every human being. That’s why even the mass of humanity that is in rebellion against the true God needs to find some sort of a god to worship, some sort of a false religion to follow. But this most basic prayer, that God would be with us and be merciful and gracious towards us, He has fulfilled in sending His Son. He fulfilled it by sending His Son to die on the cross. He fulfilled it in raising Him from the grave, and by sending His Holy Spirit through the Word and His body and blood to sustain and guide us. Our prayers that God would be with us are fulfilled in the most real and concrete way when we receive His Son’s body and blood in our physical mouths in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. God is fulfilling our prayers here today. Let us thank and praise Him, for He is gracious to us. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Easter 5, Series C
Sermon on John 16:12-22
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 28, 2013 (Fifth Sunday of Easter)
We human beings are funny creatures. Our emotions tend to dominate us moment by moment. When we feel sorrowful or downcast or depressed, it seems as if we have always felt this way, and as if we are always going to feel this way. But when we feel happy or joyful or cheerful, we can’t even hardly imagine what it feels like to be depressed or saddened. We definitely can’t imagine that our emotions could possibly shift to something other than what they are in that moment. We have all heard it said that when someone is in love with another person he or she says that they can’t even remember what it was like before they met that other person. Well, that is true of all our emotions. What Jesus says about the woman giving birth is to some extent true of all of us in all sorts of emotional states. What we feel like right now in this particular moment has a tendency to color our view of our past and our future. When we’re depressed, all of the worst parts of the past pop out at us and we imagine that we have led a life of nothing but misery. When we’re cheerful, all the good times pop out at us and we feel like our entire lives have been good and happy and pleasant. It’s the same way as we imagine what the future will be like. When we’re depressed we feel hopeless about the future, as if we will always feel this way. When we’re cheerful we feel hopeful about the future, and the future looks bright and cheery to us.
This is why Jesus had to warn the disciples about what was going to happen. The events later that evening and on Good Friday were going to be so traumatic that the disciples would be tempted to give in to despair and fall into the devil’s trap. And to some extent they did, especially two of them, Peter and Judas. Peter repented of his despair and his denial of Christ, while Judas gave into his despair over his sins and took his own life. I would imagine that if it had not been for the words that Jesus spoke on Maundy Thursday which John records at length in his Gospel, that more of the disciples would have followed Judas in his suicide.
And so Jesus tells them in advance what is going to happen. He also warns them about their own emotions. He warns them that their emotions will try to trick them into despair because of the sorrow and the hurt and even the guilt that they will experience during and after His crucifixion. He warns them that it will seem as if their whole world had ended and that there is no possible way the future could hold anything for them. But He tells them to be patient, because their sorrow will only last for a “little while.” It would only be until Sunday morning, when their sorrow would be turned into joy and their hopelessness replaced by hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We have celebrated this joy for these past few weeks of the Easter season.
But why is this text part of the Easter season? Why should a warning not to despair be sounded now, during that blessed season of the Church Year when we celebrate the resurrection and the new life that is ours in Christ Jesus? Why should we hear that we will mourn and weep now, in the midst of our rejoicing? The answer is that already we are starting to look forward to the Ascension. Now, the Ascension of our Lord is not really supposed to be a sorrowful event. It is in fact a wonderful event because it means that Jesus Christ our human brother is sitting at God’s right hand in glory and where He is there we shall be. However, it does mean that we can not see the resurrected Christ with out own eyes, but must instead rely on the eyes of faith to see Him. It means that we, and the many generations before us who have been born since that time, have had to rely on the preaching of the Word of God and on the Sacrament of the Altar in order to have Christ present among us, and we have not been able to see Him with our human eyes. It means that there is yet another “little while” before we receive the fulfilment of what is promised to us in His resurrection and ascension.
During this little while, we will have sorrow in this world. This is because sin remains in this world, and because of that things in this world simply don’t work the way they should. The relationship between the crown of creation and the creator is broken, and so all sorts of other things in creation end up breaking as well. The relations between people, including husbands and wives, parents and children, bosses and workers, and other people in general, become strained, full of anger and even hatred. What happens on a personal scale also happens on a national scale, as wars and rumors of wars are always present. Our own bodies fail to heal diseases and injuries as well as they should, and our health breaks down, the parts of our bodies seeming to work against each other, rather than in harmony as they should. Our relationship with creation itself is broken. We fail to exercise good stewardship of the resources God has placed in our care. And ever since Noah’s flood the weather and even the earth itself have been unstable, as earthquakes, fires, floods, famine, tornadoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters seem a daily occurrence in one part of the world or another. This world which we live in is not without suffering. Sometimes it may seem that suffering and sorrow is all there is to our existence, and we may be tempted to give in to despair.
But Christ reminds us that in God’s timetable, in God’s scheme of things, all of this sorrow is only going to last “for a little while.” It will not become more than we can bear, provided we rely on His means of grace, His Word and Sacrament, for the strength to get through it. But more importantly, once this “little while” is over, once Christ comes again and heaven and earth are restored to their original created perfection, we will not even be able to imagine or believe that we had any sorrow at all, because the joy of our new birth in Christ will overwhelm our sorrow and drown it in the joy of eternal life with Christ Jesus. Nobody will be able to take our joy away from us then, because we will be eternally with Christ.
Now, all of what I have said is wonderful. But what about right now? Right now we are still experiencing the sorrows of this world. Right now we still have the guilt of our sins and the suffering caused by the sin of others, and the temptations and struggles of this world. And right now it may seem like things are never going to be better for us. Even a short amount of time can seem very long if it involves suffering and sorrow. This is why Christ comes to us right now with His Word and His body and blood to bring us a small taste of His heavenly wedding feast. In a little while, in just a few moments, right here in this room, you will see Jesus and even taste Him, not with your physical eyes or your physical taste buds, but with the eyes and the taste buds of your faith, which have been created and sustained through hearing His Word. He already now gives you to drink of the wine of gladness, His own blood, which was shed on the cross so that your sins need trouble you no more. He already now gives you to eat of the bread which sustains and nourishes you so that you can have joy even in the midst of the sorrows of this world. Christ says that He will see us again. He comes to us now to give us His eternal joy in His Holy Supper. And this joy no one will ever be able to take from us. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 28, 2013 (Fifth Sunday of Easter)
We human beings are funny creatures. Our emotions tend to dominate us moment by moment. When we feel sorrowful or downcast or depressed, it seems as if we have always felt this way, and as if we are always going to feel this way. But when we feel happy or joyful or cheerful, we can’t even hardly imagine what it feels like to be depressed or saddened. We definitely can’t imagine that our emotions could possibly shift to something other than what they are in that moment. We have all heard it said that when someone is in love with another person he or she says that they can’t even remember what it was like before they met that other person. Well, that is true of all our emotions. What Jesus says about the woman giving birth is to some extent true of all of us in all sorts of emotional states. What we feel like right now in this particular moment has a tendency to color our view of our past and our future. When we’re depressed, all of the worst parts of the past pop out at us and we imagine that we have led a life of nothing but misery. When we’re cheerful, all the good times pop out at us and we feel like our entire lives have been good and happy and pleasant. It’s the same way as we imagine what the future will be like. When we’re depressed we feel hopeless about the future, as if we will always feel this way. When we’re cheerful we feel hopeful about the future, and the future looks bright and cheery to us.
This is why Jesus had to warn the disciples about what was going to happen. The events later that evening and on Good Friday were going to be so traumatic that the disciples would be tempted to give in to despair and fall into the devil’s trap. And to some extent they did, especially two of them, Peter and Judas. Peter repented of his despair and his denial of Christ, while Judas gave into his despair over his sins and took his own life. I would imagine that if it had not been for the words that Jesus spoke on Maundy Thursday which John records at length in his Gospel, that more of the disciples would have followed Judas in his suicide.
And so Jesus tells them in advance what is going to happen. He also warns them about their own emotions. He warns them that their emotions will try to trick them into despair because of the sorrow and the hurt and even the guilt that they will experience during and after His crucifixion. He warns them that it will seem as if their whole world had ended and that there is no possible way the future could hold anything for them. But He tells them to be patient, because their sorrow will only last for a “little while.” It would only be until Sunday morning, when their sorrow would be turned into joy and their hopelessness replaced by hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We have celebrated this joy for these past few weeks of the Easter season.
But why is this text part of the Easter season? Why should a warning not to despair be sounded now, during that blessed season of the Church Year when we celebrate the resurrection and the new life that is ours in Christ Jesus? Why should we hear that we will mourn and weep now, in the midst of our rejoicing? The answer is that already we are starting to look forward to the Ascension. Now, the Ascension of our Lord is not really supposed to be a sorrowful event. It is in fact a wonderful event because it means that Jesus Christ our human brother is sitting at God’s right hand in glory and where He is there we shall be. However, it does mean that we can not see the resurrected Christ with out own eyes, but must instead rely on the eyes of faith to see Him. It means that we, and the many generations before us who have been born since that time, have had to rely on the preaching of the Word of God and on the Sacrament of the Altar in order to have Christ present among us, and we have not been able to see Him with our human eyes. It means that there is yet another “little while” before we receive the fulfilment of what is promised to us in His resurrection and ascension.
During this little while, we will have sorrow in this world. This is because sin remains in this world, and because of that things in this world simply don’t work the way they should. The relationship between the crown of creation and the creator is broken, and so all sorts of other things in creation end up breaking as well. The relations between people, including husbands and wives, parents and children, bosses and workers, and other people in general, become strained, full of anger and even hatred. What happens on a personal scale also happens on a national scale, as wars and rumors of wars are always present. Our own bodies fail to heal diseases and injuries as well as they should, and our health breaks down, the parts of our bodies seeming to work against each other, rather than in harmony as they should. Our relationship with creation itself is broken. We fail to exercise good stewardship of the resources God has placed in our care. And ever since Noah’s flood the weather and even the earth itself have been unstable, as earthquakes, fires, floods, famine, tornadoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters seem a daily occurrence in one part of the world or another. This world which we live in is not without suffering. Sometimes it may seem that suffering and sorrow is all there is to our existence, and we may be tempted to give in to despair.
But Christ reminds us that in God’s timetable, in God’s scheme of things, all of this sorrow is only going to last “for a little while.” It will not become more than we can bear, provided we rely on His means of grace, His Word and Sacrament, for the strength to get through it. But more importantly, once this “little while” is over, once Christ comes again and heaven and earth are restored to their original created perfection, we will not even be able to imagine or believe that we had any sorrow at all, because the joy of our new birth in Christ will overwhelm our sorrow and drown it in the joy of eternal life with Christ Jesus. Nobody will be able to take our joy away from us then, because we will be eternally with Christ.
Now, all of what I have said is wonderful. But what about right now? Right now we are still experiencing the sorrows of this world. Right now we still have the guilt of our sins and the suffering caused by the sin of others, and the temptations and struggles of this world. And right now it may seem like things are never going to be better for us. Even a short amount of time can seem very long if it involves suffering and sorrow. This is why Christ comes to us right now with His Word and His body and blood to bring us a small taste of His heavenly wedding feast. In a little while, in just a few moments, right here in this room, you will see Jesus and even taste Him, not with your physical eyes or your physical taste buds, but with the eyes and the taste buds of your faith, which have been created and sustained through hearing His Word. He already now gives you to drink of the wine of gladness, His own blood, which was shed on the cross so that your sins need trouble you no more. He already now gives you to eat of the bread which sustains and nourishes you so that you can have joy even in the midst of the sorrows of this world. Christ says that He will see us again. He comes to us now to give us His eternal joy in His Holy Supper. And this joy no one will ever be able to take from us. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Easter 4, Series C
Sermon on John 10:22-30
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 21, 2013 (Fourth Sunday of Easter)
In a crowded department store a child has gotten lost. His mother had been holding his hand, but she had to let go for just a moment to pick up and look at a blouse she was thinking about buying. The child saw something that looked interesting a few display racks down, and went to investigate. Now the mother, realizing the child is gone, starts to look for him, but where she begins looking is in the opposite direction from where he is, putting them further apart. There are people talking all over the store; it’s a relatively busy day. The mother is getting more and more frantic and worried that something has happened to her son. She starts to call out his name. The child realizes that his mother isn’t near him anymore, and begins to cry. But out of the crowd the child hears the voice of his mother calling his name, and the mother hears the voice of her child crying and they follow each other’s voice until they are together again.
People have the capacity to separate one voice that is important or meaningful to them out of a chaotic mess of other voices and sounds and follow that one voice. Parents and children can sometimes find each other by this means. And it’s not even unique to human beings. Penguins can separate their own chick from a crowd of thousands of them simply by voice. Our own Tweety often will answer to her mom, Daffy, despite the noise our other birds are making. And, more appropriate sheep are able to tell the voice of their shepherd apart from the voices of all other human beings. Jesus uses the example of sheep with a shepherd to illustrate the relationship that believers have to Himself in today’s Gospel lesson. A believer is one who, like sheep with their shepherd, is able to distinguish the voice of his Lord and Savior from the other religious and philosophical messages that come to him from the world, and to follow that voice of the Good Shepherd. To a nonbeliever the voice of the Good Shepherd doesn’t sound any different than any other religious message. We can see this in the case of the Jews Jesus meets here by the fact that they aren’t able to tell that Jesus’ preaching and His miracles are the Word and the works of the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are confused about Jesus because they don’t recognize His Word as the voice of the one they claim is their God. They don’t recognize His Word because they don’t believe.
What about you? Do you recognize His Word as the voice of your Good Shepherd, your God? Or do you doubt and wonder and question when that Word is proclaimed to you? We see many in our society today who do not recognize God’s law as the warning given by their creator to protect them from getting themselves hurt. Whether it be stealing, murder, disobedience to parents and others in authority, or whether it be sexual sins, or what is even worse than any of these, outright hatred and blasphemy against the true God and His Son Jesus Christ, we see and know examples all around us of those who do not hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. But again I ask, what about you? Do you believe what Christ says about Himself and about you in His Word? Do you believe that you are a sinner who is saved only by the grace of God in Christ Jesus? Or do you think of yourself as a pretty good person who goes to Church because that’s what good people do? Are you a sheep who would be lost without his Good Shepherd, or are you a goat who is independent and self-righteous, who comes here to show everyone else how good you are?
The Jews who talked to Jesus here were in the latter category. They set themselves up as judges of who they would and wouldn’t believe, and they had to be convinced logically of who Jesus is before they would follow Him. This is not the attitude of trusting sheep toward their Good Shepherd. It is the attitude of people who don’t want to be sheep, people who want to be their own masters and who will only have a god if that god obeys their own terms for the relationship. Of course, a god who obeys us rather than the other way around is no god at all. Such a so-called “god” is really a figment of our imagination, something that we construct out of thin air to replace the true God because we don’t like the fact that He calls us to account for our sinfulness. The sad thing about that is, that not only do people not recognize God’s Law as His design for their life, but they especially do not recognize His Gospel as the voice of their Shepherd calling them to green pastures and quiet waters, and they refuse the blessings of eternal life and salvation because they don’t like the idea that they are sinners in need of a Savior. The Jews in our text were in this category, and according to the sinful nature in which we were born and which still clings to us, we’re all in that category too.
But Christ has given you a new birth through water and the Spirit. You have been given a new life even as He Himself now lives anew, having died to your sins. You now are among those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow Him. You are able to distinguish His voice from a crowd, which is why He allows you to live in the world and lead perfectly ordinary lives in service to your neighbor rather than being separated from family and friends like cult leaders often try to do to their followers. You are given eternal life. You shall never perish; no one shall snatch you out of His hand. In fact, you have been given to the Good Shepherd by His Father, and no one shall be able to snatch you out of the hand of the Father, since He and the Father are one. These things that Jesus says about His sheep in today’s Gospel lesson are said about you. You who were among the lost and wandering sheep who did not have a shepherd have become part of the flock of the Good Shepherd, whose spiritual needs are cared for here in His sheepfold. St. David, Jesus’ ancestor, King of Israel and Psalm-writer, elaborates on this in Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Our Good Shepherd guides and guards us throughout our lives, gives us all we need to sustain us through this life and especially everything we need to give us the eternal life He has earned for us. We are His sheep. We hear His voice and follow Him. Through the green pastures and quiet waters of His Word and Sacrament He protects us from those who want to harm us and to lead us to eternal damnation. You have heard the voice of your Good Shepherd, and now He has prepared a table before you. Your cup runs over. Come and let us join in the feast of the Good Shepherd’s victory. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 21, 2013 (Fourth Sunday of Easter)
In a crowded department store a child has gotten lost. His mother had been holding his hand, but she had to let go for just a moment to pick up and look at a blouse she was thinking about buying. The child saw something that looked interesting a few display racks down, and went to investigate. Now the mother, realizing the child is gone, starts to look for him, but where she begins looking is in the opposite direction from where he is, putting them further apart. There are people talking all over the store; it’s a relatively busy day. The mother is getting more and more frantic and worried that something has happened to her son. She starts to call out his name. The child realizes that his mother isn’t near him anymore, and begins to cry. But out of the crowd the child hears the voice of his mother calling his name, and the mother hears the voice of her child crying and they follow each other’s voice until they are together again.
People have the capacity to separate one voice that is important or meaningful to them out of a chaotic mess of other voices and sounds and follow that one voice. Parents and children can sometimes find each other by this means. And it’s not even unique to human beings. Penguins can separate their own chick from a crowd of thousands of them simply by voice. Our own Tweety often will answer to her mom, Daffy, despite the noise our other birds are making. And, more appropriate sheep are able to tell the voice of their shepherd apart from the voices of all other human beings. Jesus uses the example of sheep with a shepherd to illustrate the relationship that believers have to Himself in today’s Gospel lesson. A believer is one who, like sheep with their shepherd, is able to distinguish the voice of his Lord and Savior from the other religious and philosophical messages that come to him from the world, and to follow that voice of the Good Shepherd. To a nonbeliever the voice of the Good Shepherd doesn’t sound any different than any other religious message. We can see this in the case of the Jews Jesus meets here by the fact that they aren’t able to tell that Jesus’ preaching and His miracles are the Word and the works of the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are confused about Jesus because they don’t recognize His Word as the voice of the one they claim is their God. They don’t recognize His Word because they don’t believe.
What about you? Do you recognize His Word as the voice of your Good Shepherd, your God? Or do you doubt and wonder and question when that Word is proclaimed to you? We see many in our society today who do not recognize God’s law as the warning given by their creator to protect them from getting themselves hurt. Whether it be stealing, murder, disobedience to parents and others in authority, or whether it be sexual sins, or what is even worse than any of these, outright hatred and blasphemy against the true God and His Son Jesus Christ, we see and know examples all around us of those who do not hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. But again I ask, what about you? Do you believe what Christ says about Himself and about you in His Word? Do you believe that you are a sinner who is saved only by the grace of God in Christ Jesus? Or do you think of yourself as a pretty good person who goes to Church because that’s what good people do? Are you a sheep who would be lost without his Good Shepherd, or are you a goat who is independent and self-righteous, who comes here to show everyone else how good you are?
The Jews who talked to Jesus here were in the latter category. They set themselves up as judges of who they would and wouldn’t believe, and they had to be convinced logically of who Jesus is before they would follow Him. This is not the attitude of trusting sheep toward their Good Shepherd. It is the attitude of people who don’t want to be sheep, people who want to be their own masters and who will only have a god if that god obeys their own terms for the relationship. Of course, a god who obeys us rather than the other way around is no god at all. Such a so-called “god” is really a figment of our imagination, something that we construct out of thin air to replace the true God because we don’t like the fact that He calls us to account for our sinfulness. The sad thing about that is, that not only do people not recognize God’s Law as His design for their life, but they especially do not recognize His Gospel as the voice of their Shepherd calling them to green pastures and quiet waters, and they refuse the blessings of eternal life and salvation because they don’t like the idea that they are sinners in need of a Savior. The Jews in our text were in this category, and according to the sinful nature in which we were born and which still clings to us, we’re all in that category too.
But Christ has given you a new birth through water and the Spirit. You have been given a new life even as He Himself now lives anew, having died to your sins. You now are among those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow Him. You are able to distinguish His voice from a crowd, which is why He allows you to live in the world and lead perfectly ordinary lives in service to your neighbor rather than being separated from family and friends like cult leaders often try to do to their followers. You are given eternal life. You shall never perish; no one shall snatch you out of His hand. In fact, you have been given to the Good Shepherd by His Father, and no one shall be able to snatch you out of the hand of the Father, since He and the Father are one. These things that Jesus says about His sheep in today’s Gospel lesson are said about you. You who were among the lost and wandering sheep who did not have a shepherd have become part of the flock of the Good Shepherd, whose spiritual needs are cared for here in His sheepfold. St. David, Jesus’ ancestor, King of Israel and Psalm-writer, elaborates on this in Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Our Good Shepherd guides and guards us throughout our lives, gives us all we need to sustain us through this life and especially everything we need to give us the eternal life He has earned for us. We are His sheep. We hear His voice and follow Him. Through the green pastures and quiet waters of His Word and Sacrament He protects us from those who want to harm us and to lead us to eternal damnation. You have heard the voice of your Good Shepherd, and now He has prepared a table before you. Your cup runs over. Come and let us join in the feast of the Good Shepherd’s victory. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Easter 3, Series C
Sermon on John 21:1-19
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 14, 2013 (Second Sunday of Easter)
The events of this chapter probably evoked a sense of deja vu in the disciples’ minds, as many of the things that happened here seem almost intended to remind these men of other things that had happened during Jesus’ earthly ministry. The disciples went fishing because they were hungry, and their previous careers had been as commercial fishermen. The closest source of food was the very lake where they had spent many years catching fish as their main source of income. Fishing wasn’t just a hobby to these men, a pleasant pastime they engaged in to relax whether or not they caught any fish; it was what they knew how to do, and also, therefore, the most likely source of food at this point, while they waited for Jesus to meet them here in Galilee as He had promised to do.
But they caught nothing, until Jesus tells them to let down their nets on the right side of the boat. And it was when they did that, and they began to catch an extraordinary number of fish, that they recognized it was Jesus. It had been, after all, three years ago on the shores of this same lake where He had given them another command that didn’t make much sense to them as fishermen, and then told them that they would in the future be catching men. Last Sunday we heard about one stage in the fulfillment of that promise to make them fishers of men, as He gave them the Office of the Keys, the authority to bind and loose sins, which is the main tool that Churches and their pastors have in catching men for the kingdom of God, namely proclaiming the forgiveness of sins and therefore also life and salvation to those who know that their sins have made them helpless before God’s wrath. Here He graphically illustrates what He had been talking about, as once again the great catch of fish is only available when He is the one guiding their work.
And its not a coincidence that this is when they recognize Him, either. It was after the first miraculous catch of fish that they first recognized whom they were dealing with as well, with Peter asking Jesus to depart from him because he’s a sinner. Of course, Jesus didn’t apply the binding key to Peter despite what Peter said to Him, because as a repentant sinner the binding key wasn’t what Peter needs. The forgiveness of sins and restoration to the fellowship of the Church is what the Church is first and foremost to be about. I suspect that Jesus was also hinting at this as well when He told the disciples to put the nets out on the right side of the boat, as it is the right-handed key, the right hand of fellowship, the forgiveness rather than the retention of sins, that is how sinners are turned into saints in God’s kingdom. In fact, later in today’s Gospel Jesus personally applies this to Peter, as Peter’s sinfulness had showed itself in a major way during Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin.
And so it’s Peter who jumps into the sea as soon as he recognizes the Lord, just as it was Peter who impetuously asked Jesus if he could try his hand at the whole walking-on-water thing on that same lake during Jesus’ ministry. Despite how that first experience with jumping out of the boat turned out, it is nevertheless through water that those who will now be caught by the disciples come to Jesus. It is through the washing of repentance and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which we call Holy Baptism, that those who are caught are brought to Him.
And it is over a meal of bread and fish, not so different from the one that was miraculously multiplied to feed five thousand men plus their women and children, near the shore of this same lake, that Jesus partakes of earthly food with His disciples. After the first meal of bread and fish, Jesus used it as an opportunity to teach about the greater meal of His body and blood which would become the eternal food of those who are caught. The fish are caught and brought, through water, to a meal of fish. Those who are incorporated into His body by being baptized into His death and resurrection, are brought to a meal in which they, the body of Christ, eat the body of Christ.
As I said, this whole sequence of events was designed to remind the apostles of what He had taught them over the course of His ministry. Even though He is now raised from the dead and his body has become the first-fruits of the new creation, the new heavens and new earth, He is not a different Jesus. He is not a different person. He still is the one who directs and works through His Church to forgive sins and bring people into His eternal kingdom. He is still the one who is the true Lord of the Church. He is still the one who grants grace and every blessing to His fishers of men, without whom they can do nothing. He will still be the one preaching, baptizing, and feeding His Church. He is still the one who has caught you and me, and who has brought us into the ship of His Church, who still feeds us and works through us as the Church continues to catch men and bring them to the safe haven of eternal life. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 14, 2013 (Second Sunday of Easter)
The events of this chapter probably evoked a sense of deja vu in the disciples’ minds, as many of the things that happened here seem almost intended to remind these men of other things that had happened during Jesus’ earthly ministry. The disciples went fishing because they were hungry, and their previous careers had been as commercial fishermen. The closest source of food was the very lake where they had spent many years catching fish as their main source of income. Fishing wasn’t just a hobby to these men, a pleasant pastime they engaged in to relax whether or not they caught any fish; it was what they knew how to do, and also, therefore, the most likely source of food at this point, while they waited for Jesus to meet them here in Galilee as He had promised to do.
But they caught nothing, until Jesus tells them to let down their nets on the right side of the boat. And it was when they did that, and they began to catch an extraordinary number of fish, that they recognized it was Jesus. It had been, after all, three years ago on the shores of this same lake where He had given them another command that didn’t make much sense to them as fishermen, and then told them that they would in the future be catching men. Last Sunday we heard about one stage in the fulfillment of that promise to make them fishers of men, as He gave them the Office of the Keys, the authority to bind and loose sins, which is the main tool that Churches and their pastors have in catching men for the kingdom of God, namely proclaiming the forgiveness of sins and therefore also life and salvation to those who know that their sins have made them helpless before God’s wrath. Here He graphically illustrates what He had been talking about, as once again the great catch of fish is only available when He is the one guiding their work.
And its not a coincidence that this is when they recognize Him, either. It was after the first miraculous catch of fish that they first recognized whom they were dealing with as well, with Peter asking Jesus to depart from him because he’s a sinner. Of course, Jesus didn’t apply the binding key to Peter despite what Peter said to Him, because as a repentant sinner the binding key wasn’t what Peter needs. The forgiveness of sins and restoration to the fellowship of the Church is what the Church is first and foremost to be about. I suspect that Jesus was also hinting at this as well when He told the disciples to put the nets out on the right side of the boat, as it is the right-handed key, the right hand of fellowship, the forgiveness rather than the retention of sins, that is how sinners are turned into saints in God’s kingdom. In fact, later in today’s Gospel Jesus personally applies this to Peter, as Peter’s sinfulness had showed itself in a major way during Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin.
And so it’s Peter who jumps into the sea as soon as he recognizes the Lord, just as it was Peter who impetuously asked Jesus if he could try his hand at the whole walking-on-water thing on that same lake during Jesus’ ministry. Despite how that first experience with jumping out of the boat turned out, it is nevertheless through water that those who will now be caught by the disciples come to Jesus. It is through the washing of repentance and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which we call Holy Baptism, that those who are caught are brought to Him.
And it is over a meal of bread and fish, not so different from the one that was miraculously multiplied to feed five thousand men plus their women and children, near the shore of this same lake, that Jesus partakes of earthly food with His disciples. After the first meal of bread and fish, Jesus used it as an opportunity to teach about the greater meal of His body and blood which would become the eternal food of those who are caught. The fish are caught and brought, through water, to a meal of fish. Those who are incorporated into His body by being baptized into His death and resurrection, are brought to a meal in which they, the body of Christ, eat the body of Christ.
As I said, this whole sequence of events was designed to remind the apostles of what He had taught them over the course of His ministry. Even though He is now raised from the dead and his body has become the first-fruits of the new creation, the new heavens and new earth, He is not a different Jesus. He is not a different person. He still is the one who directs and works through His Church to forgive sins and bring people into His eternal kingdom. He is still the one who is the true Lord of the Church. He is still the one who grants grace and every blessing to His fishers of men, without whom they can do nothing. He will still be the one preaching, baptizing, and feeding His Church. He is still the one who has caught you and me, and who has brought us into the ship of His Church, who still feeds us and works through us as the Church continues to catch men and bring them to the safe haven of eternal life. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Easter 2, Series C
Sermon on John 20:19-31
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 7, 2013 (Second Sunday of Easter)
Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. At first glance, this last line from Thomas’ conversation with Jesus sounds merely like some sort of final “zinger” Jesus tosses into Thomas’ path at the end of the conversation. If Jesus weren’t the perfect Second Person of the Holy Trinity, without sin and without petty selfish motivations, that’s all a statement like this probably would be. But what Jesus is saying is not a “zinger” directed at Thomas, it’s a statement of fact. Because what Jesus had instituted a week ago, which now also included Thomas, was the mechanism by which thousands would believe without having seen.
You see, what Jesus instituted on that first evening after His Resurrection was the Office of the Holy Ministry. He had ordained the ten who were there into the office of forgiving and, when necessary, retaining sins. He had breathed the Holy Spirit into them and told them that whosoever sins they forgave were forgiven, and whosoever sins they retained, were retained. Now, at first glance that sort of an arrangement sounds like it’s ripe to being abused. And, in fact the history of the Christian Church includes many instances of so-called pastors trying to use the Office of the Keys for purposes other than the reason it was instituted. The Roman Papacy is one extremely notable example of this, but many others have tried to exercise a rule over their followers that is other than what our Lord gave the apostles here. The thing of it is, what Jesus says is only true if the men in the Office of the Ministry really are acting within their office, and that is, forgiving the sins of those who are repentant, and retaining the sins of those who do not repent. Those who do something else aren’t really acting within Jesus’ institution of the Office, and so what Jesus says here, namely that the sins forgiven and retained really are forgiven and retained in heaven itself, isn’t true of what men may do when they step outside the Office. A false pastor may retain sins that aren’t really sins, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, and he may forgive things that should not be forgiven, using the Gospel as an excuse to condone sin rather than a message of forgiveness and restoration for those who really do know the horror of their own sinfulness. False pastors like this do not truly forgive and retain sins, and so that’s why what Jesus says here isn’t a recipe for spiritual tyranny, despite what many have tried to do. That’s also why Christians have the right and duty to hold their pastors accountable to the Word of God. Just because the sins forgiven and retained rightly really are forgiven or retained in heaven, doesn’t mean pastors aren’t human and can’t make mistakes.
But what all of this does mean is that Jesus is giving His Church a gift. He will continue to speak the Word of forgiveness to His Christians, and they will still be able to hear His words, spoken in the grammatical first person to the grammatical second person, as in “I forgive you.” He is giving His church representatives, ambassadors if you will, whose words really are a declaration of what He is really doing for His people. Down through the centuries God’s people have heard that their own sins, their own failures to even begin to live up to what God originally created them to be and to do, have been forgiven and that their imperfection is swallowed up in perfection. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. That’s most Christians down through the centuries. That’s also you. Blessed are you.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
April 7, 2013 (Second Sunday of Easter)
Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. At first glance, this last line from Thomas’ conversation with Jesus sounds merely like some sort of final “zinger” Jesus tosses into Thomas’ path at the end of the conversation. If Jesus weren’t the perfect Second Person of the Holy Trinity, without sin and without petty selfish motivations, that’s all a statement like this probably would be. But what Jesus is saying is not a “zinger” directed at Thomas, it’s a statement of fact. Because what Jesus had instituted a week ago, which now also included Thomas, was the mechanism by which thousands would believe without having seen.
You see, what Jesus instituted on that first evening after His Resurrection was the Office of the Holy Ministry. He had ordained the ten who were there into the office of forgiving and, when necessary, retaining sins. He had breathed the Holy Spirit into them and told them that whosoever sins they forgave were forgiven, and whosoever sins they retained, were retained. Now, at first glance that sort of an arrangement sounds like it’s ripe to being abused. And, in fact the history of the Christian Church includes many instances of so-called pastors trying to use the Office of the Keys for purposes other than the reason it was instituted. The Roman Papacy is one extremely notable example of this, but many others have tried to exercise a rule over their followers that is other than what our Lord gave the apostles here. The thing of it is, what Jesus says is only true if the men in the Office of the Ministry really are acting within their office, and that is, forgiving the sins of those who are repentant, and retaining the sins of those who do not repent. Those who do something else aren’t really acting within Jesus’ institution of the Office, and so what Jesus says here, namely that the sins forgiven and retained really are forgiven and retained in heaven itself, isn’t true of what men may do when they step outside the Office. A false pastor may retain sins that aren’t really sins, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, and he may forgive things that should not be forgiven, using the Gospel as an excuse to condone sin rather than a message of forgiveness and restoration for those who really do know the horror of their own sinfulness. False pastors like this do not truly forgive and retain sins, and so that’s why what Jesus says here isn’t a recipe for spiritual tyranny, despite what many have tried to do. That’s also why Christians have the right and duty to hold their pastors accountable to the Word of God. Just because the sins forgiven and retained rightly really are forgiven or retained in heaven, doesn’t mean pastors aren’t human and can’t make mistakes.
But what all of this does mean is that Jesus is giving His Church a gift. He will continue to speak the Word of forgiveness to His Christians, and they will still be able to hear His words, spoken in the grammatical first person to the grammatical second person, as in “I forgive you.” He is giving His church representatives, ambassadors if you will, whose words really are a declaration of what He is really doing for His people. Down through the centuries God’s people have heard that their own sins, their own failures to even begin to live up to what God originally created them to be and to do, have been forgiven and that their imperfection is swallowed up in perfection. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. That’s most Christians down through the centuries. That’s also you. Blessed are you.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Easter, Series C
Sermon on Luke 24:1-12
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
March 31, 2013 (Resurrection of our Lord)
Why do you seek the living among the dead? It sounds like kind of an unfair question, at first glance. Jesus was, after all, dead. He didn’t just swoon or pass out, the sword pierced his pericardium and his heart muscles, causing blood and water to flow from His side. Even if He hadn’t been dead already at the point when the soldier stabbed Him, a sword piercing one’s heart is not a survivable wound. He was dead. And so for the angel to ask that question seems to be a bit unfair to the women. They had no way of knowing that Jesus’ condition was anything other than what it had been on Friday when they watched Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus put Him in the tomb. They were only being reasonable to assume that their sad duty of completing the half-done job (due to the Sabbath) of properly preparing His body still lay before them.
But on another level, it’s a very logical question to ask. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” You see, the angel wasn’t merely referring to the fact that Jesus was now alive. Jesus wasn’t like Lazarus. Lazarus had died and been raised to life again, it’s true. But Lazarus’ death was natural, and his resurrection was not by his own power. Lazarus didn’t raise himself from the dead, someone else came and raised him. And that someone else was no ordinary man. He was true man, yes, but not any ordinary man. As He Himself said to Lazarus’ sister, Martha, just before Lazarus was raised, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” He’s not just somebody who happens to have the ability to raise dead people. He is the Author of life itself, the one who created all living things, who fashioned the first man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life, who fashioned the first woman from the first man’s side. He is Life itself.
And so, let’s look at that question the angel asks the women who came to the tomb again. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Because of how the Greek language works, oftentimes adjectives can stand by themselves as nouns, instead of needing a noun nearby for the adjective to lean on. Therefore, we might translate the angel’s question, “Why do you seek the Living One [capital L, capital O] among the dead?” The angel isn’t just mentioning the fact that the man who had been buried there happens to have been raised to life again, as wonderful and miraculous as that is. The angel is asking the women why they would look for the One who is the Resurrection and the Life Himself in a grave, a place of death. He was asking them why on earth they would think that the Word by whom we all were made would be anything other than living and active, sharper and more vibrant than any two edged sword.
You can’t kill the creator of life itself without destroying death. You can’t make God into a sinner and pay him the wages of sin, without sin itself being undone. You can’t bruise the heel of the promised Seed of the Woman, without crushing the head of the serpent who deceived her. This is who He is. Resurrection from the dead is not merely something that happened to Jesus. Resurrection from the dead is who He is. Good Friday happened precisely because it would lead to Easter. They may look like opposites, but they are really the same event from God’s perspective. The old corruption of this world, all the disasters and disorders and diseases that flow from Adam’s sin and lead to death for all his descendants, are themselves destroyed and done away with. The new, perfect creation itself, in which death no longer exists, comes into existence in the body that was crucified but which could not stay dead.
How often do we forget that? How often do we look at our problems, whatever they may be, as if they are something that God can’t deal with? How often do we see the difficulties of living in a world messed up by our own and others’ sin as something God might not have an answer for? The problems we face in this old world are serious, yes. One could even say they are grave. But grave problems, including the gravest problem of all, namely the grave itself, are no match for Him who is the author of life. What is the worst that anyone or anything in this old world could do to us? Kill us. But so what? Why do you look for the living among the dead? Why do you act as if the Author of life has not already overcome the grave?
After all, you died with Him. You were nailed to that cross, back in 33 AD. You were put to death with Him that first Good Friday. You were buried with Him through baptism into death. And so, just as He is risen from the dead, so are you. Baptism transcends time itself, to connect your eventual death, and your resurrection on the last day, with Jesus’ death and resurrection almost 2,000 years ago. You belong to the new creation now, even though you still live in the midst of this old one. And your body has touched and tasted and taken into itself that which is part of the new creation. Jesus’ body and blood are of the new creation, not this old one, and so your body, which has taken and eaten and drunk His resurrected body, is now to be transformed into that which cannot die. Why do you look for the living among the dead? You are now those who are the living, because you belong to the new creation. You do not belong to this creation any more, and therefore it can’t touch you. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, and you are His body. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
March 31, 2013 (Resurrection of our Lord)
Why do you seek the living among the dead? It sounds like kind of an unfair question, at first glance. Jesus was, after all, dead. He didn’t just swoon or pass out, the sword pierced his pericardium and his heart muscles, causing blood and water to flow from His side. Even if He hadn’t been dead already at the point when the soldier stabbed Him, a sword piercing one’s heart is not a survivable wound. He was dead. And so for the angel to ask that question seems to be a bit unfair to the women. They had no way of knowing that Jesus’ condition was anything other than what it had been on Friday when they watched Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus put Him in the tomb. They were only being reasonable to assume that their sad duty of completing the half-done job (due to the Sabbath) of properly preparing His body still lay before them.
But on another level, it’s a very logical question to ask. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” You see, the angel wasn’t merely referring to the fact that Jesus was now alive. Jesus wasn’t like Lazarus. Lazarus had died and been raised to life again, it’s true. But Lazarus’ death was natural, and his resurrection was not by his own power. Lazarus didn’t raise himself from the dead, someone else came and raised him. And that someone else was no ordinary man. He was true man, yes, but not any ordinary man. As He Himself said to Lazarus’ sister, Martha, just before Lazarus was raised, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” He’s not just somebody who happens to have the ability to raise dead people. He is the Author of life itself, the one who created all living things, who fashioned the first man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life, who fashioned the first woman from the first man’s side. He is Life itself.
And so, let’s look at that question the angel asks the women who came to the tomb again. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Because of how the Greek language works, oftentimes adjectives can stand by themselves as nouns, instead of needing a noun nearby for the adjective to lean on. Therefore, we might translate the angel’s question, “Why do you seek the Living One [capital L, capital O] among the dead?” The angel isn’t just mentioning the fact that the man who had been buried there happens to have been raised to life again, as wonderful and miraculous as that is. The angel is asking the women why they would look for the One who is the Resurrection and the Life Himself in a grave, a place of death. He was asking them why on earth they would think that the Word by whom we all were made would be anything other than living and active, sharper and more vibrant than any two edged sword.
You can’t kill the creator of life itself without destroying death. You can’t make God into a sinner and pay him the wages of sin, without sin itself being undone. You can’t bruise the heel of the promised Seed of the Woman, without crushing the head of the serpent who deceived her. This is who He is. Resurrection from the dead is not merely something that happened to Jesus. Resurrection from the dead is who He is. Good Friday happened precisely because it would lead to Easter. They may look like opposites, but they are really the same event from God’s perspective. The old corruption of this world, all the disasters and disorders and diseases that flow from Adam’s sin and lead to death for all his descendants, are themselves destroyed and done away with. The new, perfect creation itself, in which death no longer exists, comes into existence in the body that was crucified but which could not stay dead.
How often do we forget that? How often do we look at our problems, whatever they may be, as if they are something that God can’t deal with? How often do we see the difficulties of living in a world messed up by our own and others’ sin as something God might not have an answer for? The problems we face in this old world are serious, yes. One could even say they are grave. But grave problems, including the gravest problem of all, namely the grave itself, are no match for Him who is the author of life. What is the worst that anyone or anything in this old world could do to us? Kill us. But so what? Why do you look for the living among the dead? Why do you act as if the Author of life has not already overcome the grave?
After all, you died with Him. You were nailed to that cross, back in 33 AD. You were put to death with Him that first Good Friday. You were buried with Him through baptism into death. And so, just as He is risen from the dead, so are you. Baptism transcends time itself, to connect your eventual death, and your resurrection on the last day, with Jesus’ death and resurrection almost 2,000 years ago. You belong to the new creation now, even though you still live in the midst of this old one. And your body has touched and tasted and taken into itself that which is part of the new creation. Jesus’ body and blood are of the new creation, not this old one, and so your body, which has taken and eaten and drunk His resurrected body, is now to be transformed into that which cannot die. Why do you look for the living among the dead? You are now those who are the living, because you belong to the new creation. You do not belong to this creation any more, and therefore it can’t touch you. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, and you are His body. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Friday, March 29, 2013
Good Friday
Sermon on John 18 – 19
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
March 29, 2013 (Good Friday)
The world would rather avoid Good Friday. When you look around at the way the world celebrates Easter, you don’t see anything about Good Friday. Of course, you don’t see very much of what Easter is really about either, namely the Resurrection of our Lord, and that’s because in order to have a Resurrection somebody has to die, and as I said, the world doesn’t like Good Friday. The world celebrates Easter as sort of a general springtime festival, a celebration of the yearly cycle when the trees and the flowers come to life again. And of course the way that the whole world seems to come to life again in the spring does provide us with an illustration of what happened on that first Easter morning. But the problem is, the annual cycle of seasons, where plants go dormant for part of the year and everything seems dead, is natural. Nature is supposed to look dead during the winter and come to life again during the spring. It’s the way God made the plants so that they could deal with the extreme temperatures of the winter season and still be able to put forth leaves and flowers and seeds when the warmer season comes again. But Good Friday and Easter Sunday are something else entirely. The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ were a one time event. And Good Friday especially is an uncomfortable holiday to observe.
It’s bad enough that Good Friday is about a Man dying. It’s even worse that the Man in question was executed by the government for trumped up, false charges. These aspects of Good Friday are already depressing. But what the world really wants to avoid when it skips right over Good Friday to its paganized form of Easter, is the fact that it was our sinfulness that caused this Man to be killed. We by nature don’t want to face our own sinfulness. We would rather pretend that sin didn’t exist. And even though we know deep down that we have done things wrong, we like to pretend that it’s not that bad. Everybody does it. Everyone’s a sinner. And God will forgive me anyway, so why should I stop doing what I’m doing? Even those of us who because of our upbringing know clearly from the Ten Commandments the difference between right and wrong tend to view sin far too casually. We take God’s forgiveness for granted. We view forgiveness of sins as a formality we have to go through in order to “get off the hook” for whatever it is we have done, and since God forgives us every time we might as well keep doing whatever it is we are doing.
But Good Friday cuts to the heart of all of that kind of self-deception and shows us how serious our sin really is. We were the ones who put our Lord Jesus Christ on that cross. It was our sins He came to suffer and die to release us from, and it was our sins that caused His terrible pain and anguish. When we read the passion history together last Sunday, I assigned the part of the various crowds in that story to the congregation. Someone mentioned to me during the Bible class how hard it was to say the part where the crowd was shouting, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” It is hard to do that because we don’t like to admit that it was our sin that put Him there, that it was what we did, and what we still do every day, that caused our Lord and our Savior this much very real pain and suffering. It was hard to do that because it means that every time we disregard God’s Law and do what He forbids, it is as if we really are shouting, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
The world would rather avoid Good Friday, because worldly people would rather avoid talking about their own sin. But we are not of the world. We who have been crushed by the Law into repentant sorrow, we to whom the declaration of forgiveness has been proclaimed, have a new perspective on Good Friday. We view Christ on the cross not with the thief who mocked and ridiculed Him, but with the thief who repented and pleaded with Christ to have mercy on him. To us, Christ on the cross is not an image we flee away from and try to hide, it is an image we cherish and treasure, because it is from the cross that Christ says to us, “Your sins are forgiven,” which is what He says to the repentant thief when He said, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”
The image of Jesus dying on the cross, whether it is a statue or a painting or a stained-glass window, is an image that the Church has cherished for many, many centuries. Even when Jesus isn’t hanging on the cross, the symbol is still the same. It is a symbol of Jesus’ death. (By the way, some people have said that an empty cross doesn’t symbolize Jesus’ death, but rather Jesus’ resurrection. That’s not really true, because if you think about it all that an empty cross means is that they took Him down and buried Him.) But the Church has adopted the cross as its most prominent symbol, putting it at the top of every steeple, and in the front of every church building, either on the altar or on the wall, or both. Using a cross as the symbol of the church would not seem to be very good public relations, since, as we mentioned earlier, Good Friday makes worldly people, as well as repentant Christians, very uncomfortable. But the Church has Jesus’ death as its symbol because this is where the center of our faith is.
Everything we teach at this Church has its center in this event. Salvation, eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, the new life of good works, etc., all of these depend upon Christ’s death. We would not be saved, except that He paid the price we deserved for our sins. We now live because He died in our place. We will live eternally with Him because we died with Him through Holy Baptism, when we ourselves were marked with the cross, marked as ones redeemed by Christ the Crucified. When we eat His body and drink His blood in Holy Communion, we are eating the body that was given into death for us and the blood that was shed on the cross for us. That’s how Jesus Himself describes it in the Words of Institution. And of course those words themselves were given the previous night, when Jesus knew He was about to die. It’s no wonder that the Church has chosen this seemingly depressing picture as its most important symbol. Such a symbol might be seen foolishness or even sickly morbid by the world. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is in Christ’s crucifixion that we find our salvation. This tree of death is now for us the tree of life. And the fruit of that tree is now our food, His body and blood, of which we eat and live forever. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
March 29, 2013 (Good Friday)
The world would rather avoid Good Friday. When you look around at the way the world celebrates Easter, you don’t see anything about Good Friday. Of course, you don’t see very much of what Easter is really about either, namely the Resurrection of our Lord, and that’s because in order to have a Resurrection somebody has to die, and as I said, the world doesn’t like Good Friday. The world celebrates Easter as sort of a general springtime festival, a celebration of the yearly cycle when the trees and the flowers come to life again. And of course the way that the whole world seems to come to life again in the spring does provide us with an illustration of what happened on that first Easter morning. But the problem is, the annual cycle of seasons, where plants go dormant for part of the year and everything seems dead, is natural. Nature is supposed to look dead during the winter and come to life again during the spring. It’s the way God made the plants so that they could deal with the extreme temperatures of the winter season and still be able to put forth leaves and flowers and seeds when the warmer season comes again. But Good Friday and Easter Sunday are something else entirely. The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ were a one time event. And Good Friday especially is an uncomfortable holiday to observe.
It’s bad enough that Good Friday is about a Man dying. It’s even worse that the Man in question was executed by the government for trumped up, false charges. These aspects of Good Friday are already depressing. But what the world really wants to avoid when it skips right over Good Friday to its paganized form of Easter, is the fact that it was our sinfulness that caused this Man to be killed. We by nature don’t want to face our own sinfulness. We would rather pretend that sin didn’t exist. And even though we know deep down that we have done things wrong, we like to pretend that it’s not that bad. Everybody does it. Everyone’s a sinner. And God will forgive me anyway, so why should I stop doing what I’m doing? Even those of us who because of our upbringing know clearly from the Ten Commandments the difference between right and wrong tend to view sin far too casually. We take God’s forgiveness for granted. We view forgiveness of sins as a formality we have to go through in order to “get off the hook” for whatever it is we have done, and since God forgives us every time we might as well keep doing whatever it is we are doing.
But Good Friday cuts to the heart of all of that kind of self-deception and shows us how serious our sin really is. We were the ones who put our Lord Jesus Christ on that cross. It was our sins He came to suffer and die to release us from, and it was our sins that caused His terrible pain and anguish. When we read the passion history together last Sunday, I assigned the part of the various crowds in that story to the congregation. Someone mentioned to me during the Bible class how hard it was to say the part where the crowd was shouting, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” It is hard to do that because we don’t like to admit that it was our sin that put Him there, that it was what we did, and what we still do every day, that caused our Lord and our Savior this much very real pain and suffering. It was hard to do that because it means that every time we disregard God’s Law and do what He forbids, it is as if we really are shouting, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
The world would rather avoid Good Friday, because worldly people would rather avoid talking about their own sin. But we are not of the world. We who have been crushed by the Law into repentant sorrow, we to whom the declaration of forgiveness has been proclaimed, have a new perspective on Good Friday. We view Christ on the cross not with the thief who mocked and ridiculed Him, but with the thief who repented and pleaded with Christ to have mercy on him. To us, Christ on the cross is not an image we flee away from and try to hide, it is an image we cherish and treasure, because it is from the cross that Christ says to us, “Your sins are forgiven,” which is what He says to the repentant thief when He said, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”
The image of Jesus dying on the cross, whether it is a statue or a painting or a stained-glass window, is an image that the Church has cherished for many, many centuries. Even when Jesus isn’t hanging on the cross, the symbol is still the same. It is a symbol of Jesus’ death. (By the way, some people have said that an empty cross doesn’t symbolize Jesus’ death, but rather Jesus’ resurrection. That’s not really true, because if you think about it all that an empty cross means is that they took Him down and buried Him.) But the Church has adopted the cross as its most prominent symbol, putting it at the top of every steeple, and in the front of every church building, either on the altar or on the wall, or both. Using a cross as the symbol of the church would not seem to be very good public relations, since, as we mentioned earlier, Good Friday makes worldly people, as well as repentant Christians, very uncomfortable. But the Church has Jesus’ death as its symbol because this is where the center of our faith is.
Everything we teach at this Church has its center in this event. Salvation, eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, the new life of good works, etc., all of these depend upon Christ’s death. We would not be saved, except that He paid the price we deserved for our sins. We now live because He died in our place. We will live eternally with Him because we died with Him through Holy Baptism, when we ourselves were marked with the cross, marked as ones redeemed by Christ the Crucified. When we eat His body and drink His blood in Holy Communion, we are eating the body that was given into death for us and the blood that was shed on the cross for us. That’s how Jesus Himself describes it in the Words of Institution. And of course those words themselves were given the previous night, when Jesus knew He was about to die. It’s no wonder that the Church has chosen this seemingly depressing picture as its most important symbol. Such a symbol might be seen foolishness or even sickly morbid by the world. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is in Christ’s crucifixion that we find our salvation. This tree of death is now for us the tree of life. And the fruit of that tree is now our food, His body and blood, of which we eat and live forever. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Holy Thursday
Sermon on John 13:1-7, 31b-35
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
March 28, 2013 (Holy Thursday)
Most families have traditions as to how they celebrate certain holidays. The same things happen every year and give the holiday something of a timeless quality. The same foods are served, the same kinds of things are said, the house is decorated the same way every year. In my family we would get up early, to see if the Easter Bunny had brought us anything, and then get ready and go to Church. After Church several relatives who lived in Fort Wayne would come over for the big dinner. Churches also have specific traditions connected with holidays. There are evening services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, with the altar being stripped at the end of the Maundy Thursday service. There is a Tre-Ore service at Lutheran High every year. Even with a new pastor who may do some things a little differently, most things don’t change. The paraments go through the same cycle of colors, from Lenten purple to to nothing on Friday, to white with full decorations and Easter lilies on Sunday. We sing many of the same hymns, and hear the same story every year.
The Jewish Passover was like this for Jesus and His disciples. In fact, the traditions surrounding the Passover meal were quite a bit more rigid than our own Easter traditions. Certain things were said in a specific order, certain psalms were sung, and certain foods were eaten at specific times, with specific explanations given to remind the people of specific aspects of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. Everyone went through this ritual meal every year, and everyone probably knew it by heart; even if they couldn’t recite it from memory word for word they would know if anything was different. And so when Jesus diverged completely from the Passover ritual toward the end of the meal, it probably made a big impression on the disciples. Something new was happening. What Jesus was saying was different from what they expected to hear. They weren’t expecting Him to connect the meal they were eating with His body and His blood in this way. Instead of looking backward to the Passover when the Israelites escaped from Egypt, Jesus was looking forward to His own death. This particular Passover was different from all the others that had gone before, because the next day the Passover itself would be fulfilled when the Lamb of God Himself was sacrificed for the sins of the world. The people of God stood at the junction between the Old and the New Testaments, and Jesus changed the Passover ritual to reflect that fact.
The purpose of the Passover meal was, of course, to remember and to proclaim the events of Israel’s release from slavery in Egypt. Israel’s very identity as a nation came from that series of events. God sent Moses to Pharaoh to tell him to let the Israelites go. When Pharaoh refused, God sent the ten plagues to punish Egypt for keeping Israel captive. The last plague was that God killed the firstborn sons of every Egyptian family, and even the firstborn of all the cattle. The Israelites were to sacrifice a lamb without blemish, and to put some of its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, so that the destroying angel would not harm their own firstborn. They were to eat that lamb as their final meal that night, along with unleavened bread. Afterward, they were to eat a similar meal every year to remember the great victory which the Lord won for them that night and the next day over the Egyptians, and as part of the meal the head of the household was to preach to the whole household concerning these events.
The first Maundy Thursday was at the time of the Passover, when every household would gather to hear the story again and partake of the meal which the Israelites had eaten. If you read the Passover liturgies, you will see that the Israelites didn’t just think of the Passover as a historical reenactment. Even generations later, even after many centuries the people of Israel thought of themselves as the same people who had been led out of Egypt by the pillar of cloud and fire, who passed through the Red Sea on dry ground, and so on. It wasn’t just that God had freed their ancestors from bondage in Egypt, it was that God had freed them from bondage.
Of course, the Angel of the Lord, who was with Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, who guided and protected them, who spoke with Moses at the Tabernacle, and who provided the community with food and water, was none other than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, whom we know as the Son of God. This very same Person was the one who took upon our flesh and sacrificed Himself for our sakes. The man Jesus who presided over the Passover meal that first Maundy Thursday was in fact the same Person who had appeared to the Israelites in the cloud and fire and who had freed them from their bondage. He had every right to change the Passover ritual, because He was the One who had instituted it in the first place. The Angel of the Lord who led the people out of Israel was now changing the Passover ritual to reflect the new thing He was doing for His people.
In fact, when He first instituted it back in the Old Testament, the Seder meal was intended as a symbol of what He Himself would do for His people. He would become the true Lamb of God, whose blood protects His people from destruction. His death gives us life, not simply a temporary protection for the firstborn sons of our families, but permanent protection from eternal death and damnation. We have been delivered, not just from physical bondage to earthly rulers, but from spiritual bondage to sin, death, and the devil. The Passover sacrifice, as well as all the other sacrifices of the Israelite Temple, pointed forward to the sacrifice of the Son of God. Everything that happened to Israel during that first Passover in Egypt was a picture of the salvation God would accomplish for the whole world on Good Friday. Instead of killing our firstborn, God allowed His own firstborn Son to die, that we might have life.
An important part of the Passover was that the blood of the sacrificial lamb would be sprinkled on the door frames of the houses where God’s people lived, as a sign for the destroying angel to pass over that house. In this way the sacrificial lamb died that the people in the house might live. Christ, who died on the cross, gave Himself so that we might live. He has sprinkled us with His own blood, not on the outside, but on the inside, where it counts. He gives us to drink of His own blood, and thus He marks us repeatedly as His own. Since we have that mark, the destroyer passes over us and does not bring us down to eternal damnation. Instead we inherit the promised land of eternal life. Come and receive the blood of Christ which marks you as one who belongs to Him and who will inherit eternal life. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
For Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Elmwood Park, WI
March 28, 2013 (Holy Thursday)
Most families have traditions as to how they celebrate certain holidays. The same things happen every year and give the holiday something of a timeless quality. The same foods are served, the same kinds of things are said, the house is decorated the same way every year. In my family we would get up early, to see if the Easter Bunny had brought us anything, and then get ready and go to Church. After Church several relatives who lived in Fort Wayne would come over for the big dinner. Churches also have specific traditions connected with holidays. There are evening services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, with the altar being stripped at the end of the Maundy Thursday service. There is a Tre-Ore service at Lutheran High every year. Even with a new pastor who may do some things a little differently, most things don’t change. The paraments go through the same cycle of colors, from Lenten purple to to nothing on Friday, to white with full decorations and Easter lilies on Sunday. We sing many of the same hymns, and hear the same story every year.
The Jewish Passover was like this for Jesus and His disciples. In fact, the traditions surrounding the Passover meal were quite a bit more rigid than our own Easter traditions. Certain things were said in a specific order, certain psalms were sung, and certain foods were eaten at specific times, with specific explanations given to remind the people of specific aspects of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. Everyone went through this ritual meal every year, and everyone probably knew it by heart; even if they couldn’t recite it from memory word for word they would know if anything was different. And so when Jesus diverged completely from the Passover ritual toward the end of the meal, it probably made a big impression on the disciples. Something new was happening. What Jesus was saying was different from what they expected to hear. They weren’t expecting Him to connect the meal they were eating with His body and His blood in this way. Instead of looking backward to the Passover when the Israelites escaped from Egypt, Jesus was looking forward to His own death. This particular Passover was different from all the others that had gone before, because the next day the Passover itself would be fulfilled when the Lamb of God Himself was sacrificed for the sins of the world. The people of God stood at the junction between the Old and the New Testaments, and Jesus changed the Passover ritual to reflect that fact.
The purpose of the Passover meal was, of course, to remember and to proclaim the events of Israel’s release from slavery in Egypt. Israel’s very identity as a nation came from that series of events. God sent Moses to Pharaoh to tell him to let the Israelites go. When Pharaoh refused, God sent the ten plagues to punish Egypt for keeping Israel captive. The last plague was that God killed the firstborn sons of every Egyptian family, and even the firstborn of all the cattle. The Israelites were to sacrifice a lamb without blemish, and to put some of its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, so that the destroying angel would not harm their own firstborn. They were to eat that lamb as their final meal that night, along with unleavened bread. Afterward, they were to eat a similar meal every year to remember the great victory which the Lord won for them that night and the next day over the Egyptians, and as part of the meal the head of the household was to preach to the whole household concerning these events.
The first Maundy Thursday was at the time of the Passover, when every household would gather to hear the story again and partake of the meal which the Israelites had eaten. If you read the Passover liturgies, you will see that the Israelites didn’t just think of the Passover as a historical reenactment. Even generations later, even after many centuries the people of Israel thought of themselves as the same people who had been led out of Egypt by the pillar of cloud and fire, who passed through the Red Sea on dry ground, and so on. It wasn’t just that God had freed their ancestors from bondage in Egypt, it was that God had freed them from bondage.
Of course, the Angel of the Lord, who was with Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, who guided and protected them, who spoke with Moses at the Tabernacle, and who provided the community with food and water, was none other than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, whom we know as the Son of God. This very same Person was the one who took upon our flesh and sacrificed Himself for our sakes. The man Jesus who presided over the Passover meal that first Maundy Thursday was in fact the same Person who had appeared to the Israelites in the cloud and fire and who had freed them from their bondage. He had every right to change the Passover ritual, because He was the One who had instituted it in the first place. The Angel of the Lord who led the people out of Israel was now changing the Passover ritual to reflect the new thing He was doing for His people.
In fact, when He first instituted it back in the Old Testament, the Seder meal was intended as a symbol of what He Himself would do for His people. He would become the true Lamb of God, whose blood protects His people from destruction. His death gives us life, not simply a temporary protection for the firstborn sons of our families, but permanent protection from eternal death and damnation. We have been delivered, not just from physical bondage to earthly rulers, but from spiritual bondage to sin, death, and the devil. The Passover sacrifice, as well as all the other sacrifices of the Israelite Temple, pointed forward to the sacrifice of the Son of God. Everything that happened to Israel during that first Passover in Egypt was a picture of the salvation God would accomplish for the whole world on Good Friday. Instead of killing our firstborn, God allowed His own firstborn Son to die, that we might have life.
An important part of the Passover was that the blood of the sacrificial lamb would be sprinkled on the door frames of the houses where God’s people lived, as a sign for the destroying angel to pass over that house. In this way the sacrificial lamb died that the people in the house might live. Christ, who died on the cross, gave Himself so that we might live. He has sprinkled us with His own blood, not on the outside, but on the inside, where it counts. He gives us to drink of His own blood, and thus He marks us repeatedly as His own. Since we have that mark, the destroyer passes over us and does not bring us down to eternal damnation. Instead we inherit the promised land of eternal life. Come and receive the blood of Christ which marks you as one who belongs to Him and who will inherit eternal life. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +
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