Exude - The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter 7)

(Audio)

John 15:26 – 16:4; 1 Peter 4:7-14; Ezekiel 36:22-28

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

“The end of all things is at hand.” So warned the Apostle Peter just shy of two thousand years ago. And, with the Roman occupation and persecution of Christians by both Jews and pagan Gentiles alike, it must certainly have seemed as though the end of all things was very near.

But how are we to understand Peter’s warning today? The Russian invasion of Ukraine has threatened to realign world powers. The United States, China, and India all seem to be watching and waiting to see what will happen, creating uncertainty and unease. As tensions rise and the words “nuclear weapons” roll too easily from the lips of those in power, the specter of World War III seems far less the boogeyman of the previous century. And then there are the seemingly continual and increasingly horrific, incomprehensible mass shootings in which innocent victims, even children, are cruelly and mercilessly murdered while simply doing the ordinary, supposedly safe, things we all do every day, like going to the grocery store, work, church, and school. Add to that economic distress, hyperinflation, a pandemic, monkey pox, supply-chain failures, record-low unemployment while businesses are closing for lack of workers who will even show up for their shifts. And that’s not to mention the social, cultural, and political rancor that has torn apart our nation, our communities, our families, and our congregations. Does it not seem as though the end of all things is very near. What can we do? What should we do?

“The end of all things is at hand,” warns the Apostle, “therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” Is this an exhortation to not panic? Yes, but it is more than that. This is an exhortation to fearless, selfless, sacrificial love and service; this is an exhortation to die to your self and to live to God. That is to say, keep on doing what you’ve been doing, what Christians always do, and, as the end of all things draws near, do it all the more in sobriety and in self-control. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies – in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Are you surprised that Peter’s instruction for what you should be doing as the end of the world draws near is essentially “Keep on doing what you’re doing”? You shouldn’t be, for this is why you are here in the first place. This is why the Church is here at all. This is why the end has not yet come. There’s still work to do: selfless, sacrificial, loving work for the good of others to the glory of God in Jesus Christ. And, when the world is running down, do we just make the best of what’s still around?  No, on the contrary, the people of God work, they serve, they sacrifice, and they continue loving all the more in everything, that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

That is why Peter instructs you “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly.” The most important thing that you are to do at the end of all things is to keep on loving one another. And Peter adds to his exhortation that “love covers a multitude of sins.” Does that sound surprising? It shouldn’t. Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Love always gives and forgives. Love lays down His life for friends and enemies alike. Jesus Christ is the love of God for you, poured out in sacrificial love on the cross, resurrected, and ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven. God has so loved you in His Son that He now sends you to love others with His love that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Loving one another isn’t always easy; sometimes it’s difficult even to like one another. Imagine what it must be like for our holy and righteous God to love us hate-filled, rebellious sinners, who too often put their fear, love, and trust in created things and not in the Creator of all things, and to love us so much as to sacrifice His only-begotten Son for us. If God has loved us in this way, how can we not love one another? People sometimes say that to love someone doesn’t mean that you have to like them. That may be true to a point – Peter exhorts you to love one another, not to like one another. However, I suspect our understanding of like is a human contrivance to pare down or to simplify God’s universal command to love. It’s like the lawyer who sought to justify himself by asking Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” It’s like tween-age girls asking each other “Do you like him, or do you like-like him?” We like to think that we can love our neighbor without liking them – do you hear how childish that sounds? What Peter is saying to you is that you must first love a person, and, if you truly love them with God’s love in Jesus Christ, then liking them simply isn’t an issue.

It is your enemy, Satan, who tempts you to make petty distinctions between love and like, and he afflicts our nation, our communities, our families, and even the Church of Christ severely. Satan tempts us to be petty and territorial, to view others as being critical, judgmental, and agenda-driven. Satan would destroy your love and replace it with bitterness, resentment, conflict, and strife. But Peter exhorts you that you are to use your gifts to serve one another, in love, as good stewards, good managers, of God’s grace.

Again, this is why you are here. This is why the Church is here at the end of all things, to keep on loving earnestly and using the gifts that God has given to you, gifts of time, gifts of talents and skills, gifts of financial treasure, as good stewards and managers, in service to one another in love, that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ is a beacon light shining in this world of darkness, sin, and death, guiding those lost in the darkness to Jesus, the Light of the world. The Church of Jesus Christ is a city on a hill that is visible to all the world as a sanctuary of rest from labors and a hospital for souls sick unto death. The Church of Jesus Christ is the loving heart of Jesus displayed in humble, selfless and sacrificial service to the world. The Church of Jesus Christ is the spiritual womb that gives birth to children of God in Holy Baptism by the life-creating power of God’s Word. And the Church of Jesus Christ is the sheepfold in which the Good Shepherd gives unto you His sheep living water that refreshes and enlivens parched souls unto eternal life and feeds His sheep on the best of meats and the finest of wines, laying down His own life, in sacrificial and selfless love, for you.

This is why you are here. This is why the Church is here at the end of all things. And this is why, above all else, you must love one another. “Show hospitality (graciousness and kindness) to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards (good managers) of God’s varied (and multitudinous) grace […] in order that in everything (you do or say or think) God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

On this day in which we celebrate our high school and college graduates, the 50^th anniversary of the ordination of one of God’s faithful shepherds, and the men and women who sacrificed their lives to defend our freedoms, not least of all the freedom to gather here today to receive God’s gifts and to return to Him praise and thanksgiving, we remember God’s faithfulness to all the generations before us and to ourselves up to this very day, and we remember His promise to deliver us from our enemies, even through suffering and inevitable death, into life with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that can never die. That is what love looks like: It is patient and kind. It doesn’t envy or boast. It isn’t arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing, but it rejoices with the truth. Such love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Such love never fails. That is the love God has for us. That is the love He has endowed, infused, and empowered us to share with all today and as the end of all things draws near. To Him belong glory and Dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Why do we pray?

Now is the time for mocking "thoughts and prayers," so it seems. "We need action, not prayers," they say, "Something has to change." They misunderstand why we pray. We do not pray to change God's mind, but we pray to change ourselves. There is a moral rot in our society and culture, and it begins with the moral rot inside each and every one of us. We do not pray to change God's mind, but we pray to change ourselves. That is where the evil resides. That is where the change is needed.

When we pray we confess that we are not God. That's a good beginning. If we are not God then we have no objective place to stand from which we can condemn others; we are all creatures of the same God and we all share the same moral rot. And we have not been destroyed. We are still here. God has shown us mercy, forgiveness, even love. Only God's mercy, forgiveness, and love can overcome the moral rot inside us. It's a beginning, and it won't be complete for some time, but what a gift a new beginning is.

Love does no harm. Murder is all harm and no love, the very opposite of love. If we do not love God we cannot love others. That is why we pray. We do not pray to change God's mind, but we pray to change ourselves. We need to stop blaming others. The blame lies within each of us. The action we need is actually the answer to our prayers: "I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." We pray to change ourselves. We pray that God will change us and remove the hatred and the murder from our hearts.

We pray to God that he would change us, that he would make us human once again. Why do we murder? Because we have become inhuman, and so we do not recognize others as human. We murder children in the womb because we do not recognize them as human. We murder people of other races because we do not recognize them as human. We murder the elderly, the sick, and the dying and feign to call it mercy because we deem their "quality of life" to be something less than human. We pray to God that he would change us, that he would make us human once again. Only then can we recognize, respect, and love the humanity in others.

The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord (observed)

(Audio)

Mark 16:14-20; Acts 1:1-11; 2 Kings 2:5-15

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

It is a most unfortunate fact that The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord has become neglected and all but forgotten among most Christians today. Undoubtedly, that the Feast never falls on a Sunday, but always on a Thursday in the middle of the week, is a significant contributing factor to its neglect. And yet, The Ascension of Our Lord is one of the three most important Feasts and celebrations in the Church’s Year of Grace, just as important as are Christmas and Easter. Indeed, our Lord’s Ascension is the ultimate goal of His Incarnation, which the Church celebrates at Christmas, and is the completion of our Lord’s work begun in His Incarnation. Likewise, the Ascension is Jesus’ coronation as King over heaven and earth, which the events of Holy Week and Easter prepared the way for. When Christ ascended in glory to the right hand of God the Father in heaven, He began His reign over heaven and earth, and now He fills all things, thus fulfilling His Great Commission promise, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

If Jesus had not ascended, then the fruit of His death and resurrection would not be fully realized for us. For, not only was Jesus raised up from death in His true, fully human, flesh and blood body, but He ascended back to His Father in heaven in that very same true, fully human, flesh and blood body. This is as significant as it is astounding, for, up until Jesus’ Ascension, no man could see God and live. Sinful man could not stand in the fullness of God’s glorious presence, but he would be destroyed in God’s holiness and righteousness. Indeed, that is why Isaiah despaired of his life when he beheld the glorious vision of God on His throne in heaven saying, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” That is why every man or woman who had an encounter with one of God’s holy angels was stricken in fear and had to be reassured by the angelic messenger, “Do not be afraid! You have found favor with God.” Truly, as the preacher to the Hebrews confesses, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” However, now, in Jesus, a true, fully human, flesh and blood man stands in the fullness of the glorious presence of God and is not destroyed, but shares in God’s glory, holiness, and righteousness. And, you and I, the Church of Jesus Christ, His body and Bride, also stand in God’s glorious presence in and through Jesus. Because of Jesus’ Incarnation, His flesh is our flesh, His life and death are our life and death, His Resurrection is our resurrection, and His Ascension into the glorious presence of God the Father is our ascension into the glorious presence of God our Father. As Jesus is God’s Son, so in Jesus are we God’s adopted sons and daughters. Jesus is there, with God the Father in heaven, now, and we, not yet, but when He returns in His Parousia on the Last Day, where He is now, there we shall also be: Where the head is, there the body must also be.

Too many Christians think of Jesus’ Ascension only in terms that He has gone away from us physically and is now with us spiritually through Word and Sacrament. While that is most certainly true, that is not even the half of what is true concerning our ascended Lord. In truth, Jesus is closer to us now than He was with His disciples in the flesh. That is why Jesus repeatedly taught them that it was to their benefit that He go away, for if He did not go, He could not send to them the Holy Spirit, but if He went away, He would send His Spirit to guide them into the Truth. Jesus did not leave us physically in His Ascension, but He ascended that He might fill all things and truly fulfill His promise to be with us always – spiritually, and physically, fully divine and fully human in one person. Thus, once again, the Ascension of our Lord is the fulfillment and the ultimate goal of His Incarnation, that He may truly be with us always.

In His Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the eternally begotten Son of God assumed a true and full human nature, “perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh,” as the Church confesses in The Athanasian Creed. The two natures of Christ, His divine and human natures, are so personally united, yet distinct and not confused, that He is truly and fully one person from the moment of His Incarnation, through His life, suffering, and death, and in His Resurrection, Ascension, and coming again in glory on the Last Day. Jesus Christ, our Lord, is God and Man in one person, perfectly, permanently, and forever united as one person. Thus, when Jesus ascended to His Father, our human nature ascended also, and a real and true human man now reigns and rules over heaven and earth in the glory of God the Father and fills all things, at all times, and in all places. For us, Christ’s Church, right now, and until He comes again, this is the greatest source of hope and comfort and peace, for Jesus, who fills all things as both God and Man, surely fills His Church through His Word and His Blessed Sacraments: Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, Holy Word, and Holy Supper. Thus, both Calvin and Zwingli were wrong when they reasoned that Jesus could not be bodily present in the Supper because He is bodily present at the right hand of His Father in heaven, and that even if He could be bodily present in multiple locations at the same time, the finite elements of bread and wine and water and word cannot possibly contain He who is infinite. Here we must not cast aside our reason, but we must utilize it and submit it to the Word of the LORD who blessed us with the wonderful and precious gift of reason and believe and trust the Word of our LORD God who gave and preserves in us this First Article gift. For, ultimately, the Incarnation, Ascension, Resurrection, and Parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ are great and glorious mysteries and sacraments. What reason cannot, alone, comprehend, faith and trust apprehend and count as knowledge, certainty, and truth.

However, there is another reason why The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord is neglected and forgotten in our day, and it is nothing other than the handiwork of the devil: Popular Christianity follows in the footsteps of the Pharisees of Jesus’ time in turning the Law of God into moralism and the Gospel of Jesus Christ into law. For many Christians, the import of Scripture ends with the death of Jesus on the cross. After all, there He said,  “It is finished,” and that must have been His final word, right? No, wrong! If Jesus’ death were the end of His Word and Promise to us then we Christians, as St. Paul has concluded, are the most to be pitied of all men, for we are still in our sins and are bound to fulfill God’s Law with no hope of justification. As a result, too many Christians view the Scriptures as a rulebook on how to please God and merit His favor. That is certainly the way the Pharisees understood it, believing that they were righteous by their works according to the Law. They did not trust in God’s mercy and grace, nor in Jesus the Messiah, but they trusted in their own works, prayers, rituals, and piety. Satan encourages such thinking today as then, and he delights in distracting your minds and hearts away from Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension and, consequently, from the full meaning of His Incarnation.

In His parting words to His disciples, Jesus reassured them saying, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” In ten more days we will celebrate Jesus’ promised sending of His Holy Spirit upon His Church. The Holy Spirit has sealed us in Christ through our Holy Baptisms and has created and daily sustains our faith and trust in Him and His Word and Commands. On the Day of Jesus’ Ascension, His disciples stood gazing up into the heavens, their hearts aching that Jesus had left them alone, but on the Day of Pentecost, their fear was cast away and they were empowered to proclaim the Good News of Jesus before kings and emperors and all the world without fear, even unto persecution, suffering, and death. They had the promised Comforter and Guide, and they had Jesus with them always, and especially and particularly when they gathered together in His Name to receive His Word, His Baptism, His Absolution, and His Supper. In Christ’s Church, through these means, the signs of Jesus’ real and true presence are as active and vital today as they were two thousand years ago: Demons are cast out in the Name of Jesus in Holy Baptism and Holy Absolution; the Gospel is proclaimed in all the world in all the tongues of men; the attacks and blasphemies of the Satanic serpent cannot harm us; and those afflicted by the poisonous venom of the devil and sin are healed in Holy Absolution and the laying on of holy hands in Jesus’ stead and by His command.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our King Jesus has ascended back to His Father in heaven. He has not left us as orphans, but He has raised us with Him, not only in victory over sin, death, and hell, but to Sonship and Kingship with Him in His kingdom. He has not left us alone, therefore do not stand idle gazing up into the heavens, or gazing downward into yourselves, but outward towards His kingdom in which we reign and rule with Him. Go and tell all who inhabit His kingdom the Good News and bring them to their King by bringing His kingdom to them – making disciples by baptizing and teaching them all He has commanded. Therefore, how you live and act, what you say and do, matters, for when they hear you, they must hear Him. Do not live as though you are alone, left to your own devices, but live as people who have been set free in Christ, for that is what you are. And, gather here in His sanctuary with all the members of His body, the Church, where He is present, filling the font and the pulpit, your ears and your mouths with His forgiveness, life, and salvation. For, in Him dwells all the fullness of God bodily, and He dwells bodily with you for the life of the world to the glory of His Father and in His most Holy Spirit.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Christian Funeral for Richard Edward Spier

(Audio)

John 10:11-16; 1 John 3:1-2; Isaiah 43:1-3a, 25

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” I suggest to you that Richard believed those words and lived his life in accordance with those words. And that is precisely why we are here today – to remember, to celebrate, and to give thanks and praise to God for Richard’s faith and life. What do I mean? Well, it is clear that Emil and Louisa Marie, Richard’s parents, believed and lived those words as well, for they saw to it that Richard was baptized, instructed in the faith, and that he was confirmed in the faith so many years ago. And because of this loving work of his faithful parents, who did what Christian parents are called to do, Richard became the Christian man, husband, and father that he was, and he and Darla fulfilled their Christian vocations as parents and saw to it that their children, Lori, Darci, and Traci were also baptized, instructed in the faith, and were confirmed in the faith. And you, in turn, have your own children and even grandchildren. And so it is that we have three, four, even five generations of Christians, each training up their children in the way they should go, with the hope that they will not depart from it, as Christians are all called to do.

The LORD called Richard by name in Holy Baptism. The LORD shepherded His dear sheep Richard throughout his life here in the valley of the shadow of death. And now the LORD has called his faithful sheep Richard home where His sheep may safely graze. Truly, Richard’s life was bookended by the grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness of the LORD, and Richard’s life was sustained and continues even now through the same. In his life, Richard was already God’s child through holy baptism and faith, and what he will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when Jesus appears in glory on the Last Day, we will see Him, and all who have gone before us in the faith, face to face. Therefore, we do not grieve as others do, asthose who have no hope, but we grieve in the hope of the resurrection on the Last Day when we will see our Lord and those we love with our own eyes, hear them with our own ears, and hug them with our own arms once again. And our Lord Jesus promises, no one will take our joy from us ever again.

Richard was a bit of a homebody. He loved the outdoors – hunting, fishing, gardening – but he liked to do this with his family, his daughters, and not so much with a large group of people. He was a family man, and with his family, in their family home, doing family things, that’s where he loved to be. That is where and how he showed his love, the love of Christ in him: Taking care of sister Carol while their parents worked on the farm. Taking his daughters fishing. Twiddling Darla’s ear each morning. In these quiet, simple, unassuming ways Richard showed his love. Sister Carol loved her brother and depended upon him so much that, when Richard and Darla got married, she was afraid she was going to lose her brother forever. She didn’t lose her brother, of course, but rather she gained a sister. A story that would always get a laugh out of Richard was remembering Nate’s baptism. The pastor had explained about the water and what would happen when he was baptized and Nate asked the pastor, “Do I need to put my swim trunks on?” Home. Family. Faith. Love. That is what Richard loved most.

“We are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” No Nate, you don’t need your swim trunks in order to be baptized, but baptism and faith are what make us children of God. We are baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection. That means that Jesus’ death is our death, it counts for us, and Jesus’ resurrection is our resurrection, it counts for us also. And because Jesus is raised from the dead we believe that we too will be raised. Even so we have already been raised in spirit to that new life that will never die. That is why St. John says that we are God’s children now. In this life, lived here in this valley of the shadow of death, we are already God’s children. And when we pass out of this valley, as Richard has done, we know that we will be with Jesus, just as He promised that repentant man who was crucified with Him, “This day you will be with me in paradise.” All of the qualities and gifts of Richard that you remember, only a few of which we have actually mentioned this day, are fruits of that new life he lived in Jesus as God’s own child through baptism and faith.

Our Good Shepherd Jesus knows His sheep. He knows each one by name and He calls them and they follow Him. Our Good Shepherd Jesus called Richard, and Richard followed Him. And through Richard, Jesus has called you too, so there will be one flock, one shepherd. Jesus is our Good Shepherd because He laid down His life for His sheep. He did not flee when the wolf threatened, but He threw Himself into the wolf’s jaws and broke the beast’s teeth so that he can harm us no longer. Jesus had authority to lay down His life, and Jesus had authority to take it up again. Death is defeated. Jesus lives. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Rogate - The Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter 6)

(Audio)

John 16:23-33; James 1:22-27; Numbers 21:49

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is making an important distinction in our Gospel reading today. For, there is a big difference between asking of Jesus and asking in His Name. But just what is Jesus talking about? In the former situation, Jesus serves as an intermediary; you ask Jesus for something you want and He, in return, makes your request known to the Father. And that’s pretty good, to be sure! However, in the latter situation, you get to ask the Father directly in Jesus’ Name. To ask the Father in Jesus’ Name is not merely to tack the words “In Jesus’ Name” on to the end of your prayers, though it is certainly that, but, to ask in Jesus’ Name means to ask in faith in Jesus and the Father, and, not merely as an object, mind you, but incorporated into Jesus, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, as His Bride, His Brother, and co-heir with Him of His Father’s kingdom.

Thus, both your prayer and your Father’s answer to your prayer are rooted in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. When the Word of God became flesh and made His dwelling amongst us, it wasn’t only that He became a man, but He also assumed all humanity into Himself. Jesus didn’t become a man, He became the Man, He became Adam as Adam was meant to be and more! As in Adam we have all been one, one huge rebellious man, so in Jesus are all men made to be righteous.

However, you must be in Him. That is to say, you must have faith, not merely in Him, as an object apprehended by reason, but you must have the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit in you. For, faith in Christ is not merely intellectual assent, but it is communion in and with Him. Faith comes from hearing. That is, faith comes from outside of you, it is external to you, received through your ears, your eyes, and whatever other senses you have or require. But, when you hear, your whole body and person is affected. Likewise, Jesus taught, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” Therefore, faith in Christ Jesus changes you, and for the better. If Christ is in you, then you are a new creation, the old has passed away.

This is why Jesus says to you, “In that day you will ask nothing of Me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My Name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My Name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” To ask in Jesus’ Name is to ask, not merely for His sake or because of His intercession, but to ask as God’s own dear Son would ask His Father knowing that He will be heard and received and His request granted. Do you see the difference? Because of the incarnation; because the Word of God, His Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, assumed the form of a man, He has taken you into Himself so that all that belongs to Him is granted to you: Sonship with the Father, holiness and righteousness, eternal life. Faith is what makes these things yours, which incorporates you into Christ, but faith is itself a gift of God’s Holy Spirit through the vehicle of His Word. Where the Word of God is received and not rejected, the Father will love him, and the Holy Trinity will come to him and make His home with him.

Jesus shared these words and made this important distinction to prepare His disciples for His going away. He said to them, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Jesus knew, Jesus promised that His followers would suffer because of Him, therefore, He told them beforehand that, when tribulation came, they would remember His words and be strengthened in their faith to persevere through suffering. In a typological way, today’s reading from the Old Testament describes the same situation.

In the Old Testament reading, the people of Israel became impatient in their journey. They began to doubt whether the LORD was with them and they feared the Edomites, seeking to journey around their land so as to avoid conflict with them. Further, they came to loathe the sustaining food that the LORD had provided for them and they began to grumble against God and against Moses. Therefore, the LORD sent fiery serpents to bite the people and many of them died. Now, chances are likely that, had they passed through the land of the Edomites, there would have been some sort of conflict. God never promised that there wouldn’t be. Further, He is fully able to bring good out of such conflict, even out of evil (remember the Ninevites). Moreover, as they were journeying through an arid wilderness, the likelihood of being bitten by a poisonous snake was relatively high. Nevertheless, the LORD did increase the people’s affliction in order to turn them in repentance that they might pray to Him and call upon Him once again as LORD and God. For, the truth was that, just as danger and evil was amongst them all the time, all the more was the LORD in the midst of them all the time.

Therefore, the LORD commanded Moses to make a fiery serpent and to set it on a pole, so that, anyone who was bitten, when he gazed upon the fiery serpent raised up on the pole, would not die, but live. To the bronze serpent, the LORD, who was always present with His people, attached His Word of promise. Though it was, in their eyes, a horrible image, the very symbol of their pain and suffering and death, nevertheless, God made it to be the means of healing and life. Yet, the bronze serpent was but a shadow and a type of the horrible image God would raise up on the cross – His Son, Jesus Christ. He would not be an image of bronze fashioned by human hands, but He would be the very Son and Word of God Himself, conceived by the Holy Spirit of a virgin woman, so that He is True Man and True God. All who hear His Word and keep it, all whose eyes are filled with His Light, all who are baptized into His death and resurrection and believe Him will live, even though they die, and those who live and believe in Him will never die. While merely gazing upon the bronze serpent was sufficient to cure those bitten by the deadly poisonous serpents, how much more does faith and communion with Christ who shares your flesh and blood as your Bridegroom, Brother, and Co-heir of His Father, cure you of the deadly poison of sin and death you have suffered from Satan’s deadly bite?

You don’t need to ask Jesus for what you need, for now you can ask the Father in Jesus’ Name. That is, you can ask the Father with faith in Jesus; you can ask the Father in communion with Jesus; and, you can ask the Father as Jesus asks His heavenly Father and is heard because He is loved by the Father and you are loved by the Father in Him. Thus, asking in Jesus’ Name is literally asking in Jesus, as Jesus’ Bride, Brother, body and blood. Asking in Jesus’ Name is asking for those things that Jesus would ask for, those things that are completely in willing accord with the Father’s will, Word, and wisdom. No, the Father will not give you everything that you ask for, but He will give you whatever you ask in Jesus’ Name.

To help you to understand what it means to be in Jesus and to ask the Father in Jesus’ Name, you have the words of St. James in today’s Epistle Reading, “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James would have you understand that you have been changed by faith in Christ, that you are no longer who you were, but that you are a new creation, born again by water and the Holy Spirit. Thus, you are no longer one who merely hears God’s Word, but you are one whom God’s Word has penetrated and raised from death to life in Christ. You are not merely a hearer, but you are a doer of His Word – you are a little Christ. You will ask in Jesus’ Name, and you will do as Jesus did. James exhorts you saying, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” For, in Christ, you have looked into the perfect law, the law of liberty, therefore you may pray with boldness and confidence as dear children of God.

Though Christ has ascended, you are not alone, but He is with you, and you are with Him in intimate communion through baptism and faith, body and blood. You are not an orphan, but you have Jesus, your brother, God, your Father, and the Church as your Mother. You are not a widow, but you have a Husband and Bridegroom, Jesus, who has laid down His life to purchase you and redeem you, to make you holy, pure, clean, and righteous. He will never leave you or forsake you. Though He is at the right hand of His Father in heaven, you are His body, and, where your Head is, there His body shall surely be. Even now He is present to commune with you, His Bride, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone to strengthen you and restore you in faith and holiness. Soon He will come to take you to be with Him in His kingdom forevermore. The Spirit and the Church cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come, quickly, come.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Cantate - The Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter 5)

(Audio)

John 16:5-15; James 1:16-21; Isaiah 12:1-6

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

In one of the Gospel accounts a young man addressed Jesus as “Good teacher” desiring to ask Him a question. Jesus answered the young man, however, by asking him a question, “Why do you call me good?” It’s a good question if you stop and think about it. Obviously, the young man had some reason for believing that Jesus was good, but what was it? Was Jesus good because He met the young man’s expectations of a good teacher? Or was Jesus good because of some other standard or metric? Let us not forget that there were many others, men of authority and good reputation, who did not believe that Jesus was good, but rather that he was a liar and had a demon.

What sorts of things, ideas, and people are good? How do you know? You have an opinion, and you know very well that everyone else has an opinion too. It wasn’t all that long ago that most people believed that good and evil really exist and that there really are good and evil things, ideas, and people. However, that kind of thinking began to fall out of fashion in the 1960s and it has evolved and progressed such that today there are few people who believe in objective truth at all.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked. What standard or metric are you using to evaluate my goodness? James has an answer for us in his epistle: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” If the thing, idea, or person comes from God, then you know it is good. If not, well, then who’s to say?

We work and save for and spend and buy lots of things we believe to be good: Food, clothing, a house, a car, an education, a vacation, an 85” TV, mobile phone plans, streaming subscriptions, and more. What is our standard or metric for considering these things good? Are they good because WE think them to be good, or do they come from God and thus are good? Let’s be honest, we often get it wrong. Satan convinced our First Parents to believe that something God had forbidden and that would kill them was “good for food,” “a delight to the eyes,” and “to be desired to make one wise.” None of Jesus’ family, friends, or disciples believed His death on the cross to be good, and still we struggle with the thought and image, and yet it was God’s will, and it won the salvation of us all. Truly there are many things that men consider good that are evil, and there are many things that men consider evil that are good.

Is abortion good or evil? Look, don’t get upset, I do not intend to be political. How do you think God would answer that question? Is divorce good? Is homosexuality good? Is lying good? You get the idea. There are plenty of people who will call those things good without hesitation. But being in a heterosexual marriage, having children, going to church, and raising your children to trust God and His Word are considered by many of the same to be not good, but to be bad, or even evil. And what are you attracted to as good? Are those things good because you think them to be good, or are they good because they are from God? Are sports, camping, yardwork, or just sleeping in on Sunday morning good?

Well, we hoped to “pack the church” today. Did we do it? I suppose that’s a matter of opinion as well. What is the sign of a good and healthy congregation anyway? Is it numbers and attendance? Well, that’s definitely a standard and metric that men often use to evaluate what is good. But is that what God considers good? Does not God consider faithfulness more important than numbers? Does Jesus not teach that His people, His Church will suffer in this world and will be mocked and ridiculed by those think His Word to be foolishness and His followers to be fools? Do you see what I’m getting at? If we judge the goodness and success of the Gospel and Christ’s Church by popular human standards and metrics, then the Church looks like a failure, even bad or evil. Of course, by the same popular human standards and metrics Jesus Himself looks like a failure, even bad or evil. The problem isn’t the Gospel or the Church, and it certainly isn’t Jesus Her Lord and Savior; the problem is sinful, fallen, humankind and our sinful, fallen, perverse and backward ideas of what is good. Let us repent and “return to the LORD our God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and He relents over disaster.”

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” I hope that is why you are here today. And I hope that you will come back to receive ongoing and continual good things from God in the weeks, months, and years to come. This church is but one of thousands across this nation, and of hundreds of thousands across the globe, where God serves you with His good and perfect gifts through Word and Sacrament – gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus Christ. St. John Lutheran Church a particular place where a particular people gather at a particular time where God provides you the truly good things that come from above that will sustain you in your lives here in this world until He returns.

The pandemic that has afflicted us the past two years was uniquely challenging in numerous ways. Most uniquely was that it prohibited us from gathering here to receive God’s good gifts for a time. We were blessed in that our doors were only closed for about eight weeks and that throughout that time we were able to utilize video technology and still provide Word and Sacrament to individuals and families in small group settings. Still, the pandemic caused members to stay away out of concern for health and safety. As we began to realize what the “new normal” might look like, more and more began returning to church, but then we seemed to reach a plateau reflecting a forty percent drop from pre-pandemic attendance. Many of those that did not return were families with young children. And, members having other health concerns and some of our most vulnerable seniors. We began to reach out to many who had not returned and among the many reasons we encountered, one reason in particular was named repeatedly: “We just fell out of the habit.”

Now, it might seem somehow crass to think of attending worship as a habit, but I encourage you to think a bit differently. Habits are good things. We are creatures of habit by nature. One might even count our tendency to habitual behavior amongst God’s First Article Gifts. Only think about all the good that habits provide for us: Our morning and evening routines. Our mealtimes and giving thanks to God for our blessings. Our habits concerning mundane things like doing the laundry and mowing the yard, taking out the trash, and going to school. One might think of habits like a safety net when chaos threatens our lives and security. Habits are like autopilot on a jet airplane; when the pilot collapses in a crisis of health, thanks be to God that there’s the autopilot to keep us in the air. Now, of course, we don’t want our worship life to be merely a habit, but we want it to be engaged and intentional, but we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the value of good habits.

Behavioral psychologist James Clear, author of the New York Times bestseller “Atomic Habits,” writes that it takes on average sixty-six days to form a new habit. Unfortunately, it takes considerably less time to fall out of a good habit. Forming a good habit can be hard work, and falling out of a good habit can be discouraging. Most of us have experienced this in the form of failed New Year’s resolutions. Here we can learn something from the Scriptures. We all know what that sin is disobeying God’s commandments. The Hebrew word for sin is actually a term used in archery meaning “to miss the mark.” The goal in archery is to hit a target. Before you can hit a target, however, you have to have a target; you have to have a mark. You have to aim at something in order to have a chance of hitting it. Forming new habits is like that. If you don’t set a target for yourself, then there is no possible way that you will hit it. Also, do not set the target too high or too far, but make the target reachable and attainable. When you aim and hit the target you will be encouraged, and you will be prepared to take aim at a higher and farther target and hit it next. If you have fallen out of the habit of coming to church, don’t beat yourself up over it. We’re glad that you are here today. You set a reasonable target and you hit it. Moreover, God loves you and forgives you and wants to shower you with His good gifts no matter what.

Next Thursday is the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus. Forty days after His resurrection on Easter Sunday, Jesus ascended in His resurrected and glorified flesh and blood body to the right hand of His Father so that He now fills all things. That is why and how Jesus is with you here in this particular place and time with His good and perfect gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Yes, Jesus is everywhere at all times – this is most certainly true – but He is only present with His gifts in those particular places He promises to be: Wherever two or three are gathered in His Name to receive His Word and Sacraments. That is precisely what the Apostles and disciples did following Pentecost. Acts 2:42 states that they met together in houses on Sunday for four specific things: The teaching of the Apostles (the Holy Scriptures), the fellowship of believers (the Church), the breaking of the bread (the Lord’s Supper), and the prayers (the Liturgy). Two thousand years later that is precisely what we continue to do right here at this particular place and time.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” The LORD wants to give you His gifts. You need His gifts. And we need each other even as we are gifts to each other. Let today be the beginning of a new good habit. Let God and His gifts in Jesus Christ be your goal and target, and the Holy Spirit will make your aim true.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Jubilate - The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Easter 4)

(Audio)

John 16:16-22; 1 Peter 2:11-20; Isaiah 40:25-31

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

“The waiting is the hardest part,” according to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and they’re right. Whether you’re waiting in fearful anxiety for the results of your biopsy to return, or you’re waiting in joyful anticipation for your son’s or daughter’s wedding day, the waiting is hard and fraught with impatience, anxiety, worry, fear, and worse.

Your enemy, Satan, knows this well, therefore he waits and he watches for the opportunity to take advantage of your conflicted state. Satan tempts you in your impatience to take matters into your own hands and to act rashly and foolishly and without faith, trusting in your reason, wisdom, and instincts above and before God. Then, if you are successful, he will pump you full of self-righteous pride, and if you fail, he will use that against you to bury you in guilt, despair, and hopelessness. Either way, he wins, for he has successfully taken your eyes, your faith, and your hope off of Jesus and has placed it upon something, anything else. Likewise, Satan lies to you and deceives you through your anxiety, worry, and fear so that you place your fear, your love, and your trust in other things and persons in place of God. Once again, he wins.

But, why is waiting so hard? As Jesus taught with wisdom and eloquence, you can’t add a single hour to your life by worrying. Has the Lord not promised you that He will return for you and that you will live with Him forever? Has the Lord not promised you that even now He is with you and will see you through all things, joys and pleasures, trials and tribulations, even death? Then, why do you worry? Why is the waiting so hard when you know that what you’re waiting for will come and that it will be ok in the end? Do you not trust in the Lord and His Word with all your heart, soul, and mind? Do you think that He has lied to you, deceived you, or didn’t really mean what He said? Do you not believe that He is risen from the dead just as He said?

“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will me.” Jesus spoke these words to His disciples before His Passion. In some respect, He was preparing them for His suffering, death, burial, and resurrection. When He was dead and buried, they would not see Him. But, in a little while, they would see Him again resurrected from the dead. But mostly, primarily, Jesus is looking beyond His death and resurrection to His Ascension and Parousia. This is to say, the “little while,” to which Jesus refers, in which His disciples will not see Him, is the time between His Ascension to the right hand of the Father in heaven and His Parousia, His coming again on the Last Day in power and great glory. Thus, that “little while” is right now.

So, if the disciples, who were with Jesus, had some trouble understanding what Jesus meant by “a little while,” what does that mean for you who are living nearly two thousand years later and have never seen Jesus at all? It means that you should take to heart the words of your Lord to St. Thomas that you heard two weeks ago, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” And yet still, whether you see or not, it is ultimately faith which apprehends the “little while” before Jesus’ appearing. Thomas and the other disciples needed faith to believe as much as you do, even though they were much closer to Jesus physically, visibly, and aurally than you are. For, though they could see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and touch with their hands, none of it made any sense to their reason. Faith took over where their reason failed, thus their faith was not unreasonable, but it was most reasonable indeed. And, so it is with you. Though you do not see, hear, and touch the Lord in the same way as the disciples before you, you have their testimony and the testimony of countless others, and you have the Apostolic teaching handed down over generations of faithful disciples, and you have the Holy Spirit whom Jesus poured out upon His Church on Pentecost as a counselor and guide, creating and sustaining your faith and pointing you always, always to Jesus.

In one sense, the “little while” for Jesus’ disciples was only ten days, for that was the time between Jesus’ bodily Ascension and His promised sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. For, by His Holy Spirit, through His Word and Sacraments, Jesus would be with His Church always, just as He said. Indeed, through these same means He is with you now, and He will continue to be present until He comes again in flesh and blood, body and soul on the Last Day. However, in another sense, Jesus was referring specifically to the much longer and unknowable time between His Ascension and His Parousia, the time in which you now live and wait. It is in this regard that Jesus describes for His disciples what that time will be like using the analogy of a mother giving birth. An immensely timely and appropriate analogy, I might add, being that today is Mother’s Day.

Jesus used the analogy of a mother giving birth because such an event is fraught with joyful and expectant anticipation mixed, often, with anxiety and fear because labor is an arduous and painful experience in which the life and welfare of both mother and child are at some risk. Jesus teaches point blankly that you will experience sorrow in your life, you will weep and lament while the world rejoices in spite of, and often because of, your sorrow and suffering. But, He also teaches that your sorrow will turn into joy. In this regard, the “little while” in which you live before Christ’s return is like unto a mother giving birth. “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”

Now as both a pastor, and as a husband and father, I have had the experience of ministering to numerous mothers shortly before and after giving birth, and I can attest that Jesus does indeed speak the truth, with the possible exception of that “no longer remembering the anguish” part, at least shortly after giving birth. Truly, the mother who cries out “Never, never again!” during labor and delivery, soon thereafter smiles, laughs, and weeps with joy for the gift of life in a new son or daughter lying at her breast. Indeed, many will willingly and joyfully go through it all again without thought of the pain and sorrow of childbirth because of the joy of new life.

“So also,” Jesus teaches, “you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Your Lord is frank and honest with you; you will experience sorrow, pain, and suffering personally and in the lives of those you love. But, just as a mother giving birth experiences pain and sorrow, and then joy after the birth, so too is your pain, suffering, and sorrow for a “little while,” and you too will receive joy, joy that no one will ever take from you. Not only will you receive joy, however, but Jesus teaches that your sorrow will turn to joy. And, this is the heart of the Gospel this day, that the Lord Jesus is Lord of all. Jesus is the Lord of life and death and everything in between and thereafter. Whatever you suffer, you suffer because He permits you to suffer. Your suffering is not caused by Him, but He allows it to come upon you and He uses it for good in accordance with His holy divine love, will, and providence. Jesus gives you the very real analogy of the joy a mother experiences after giving birth, though while in the course of labor things might appear hopeless and endless, so that you might view the experiences of your life in a similar way. For, while the child that is born is born into a life intermixed with sorrow and joy, the life to come in Jesus’ kingdom is only joy.

This is a life lesson meant to change your perspective from a perspective limited to only what occurs between birth and death to an eternal perspective that is unlimited, looking far beyond physical death to the resurrection of the body and into all eternity. What is a moment of sorrow from the perspective of eternity? What is a fleeting pleasure from the perspective of endless joy, joy that no one can take from you? Such a perspective must surely have an impact on your day-to-day life. How can you not forgive one who has sinned against you, when all your sins have been forgiven and washed away? How can you not love your neighbor, even a stranger, when immeasurable, eternal love has been poured out upon you? How can you not freely give to one who has need, when all your needs of body and soul are provided you by your heavenly Father because He knows you need them and He loves you.

Perhaps here is another motherly analogy. For, does a mother not willingly sacrifice her own comfort, pleasure, welfare, body, and life for the child she carries within her? And then, after birth, does she not continue to sacrifice her own comfort, pleasure, welfare, body, and life for the new life the Lord has blessed her with? Each of you have been born of a mother for a purpose beyond that of self. You were blessed with birth and life to be a blessing to others. Your birth was the beginning of your life, but your death will not be the end. Therefore, in the words of St. Peter, “I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God.” Honor those in authority over you. “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.”

You are sojourners and exiles. This world in which you live is not your life. Yet still, you are given to live it mindful of God. Therefore, live your life without fear and anxiety over future or present sorrow, but for the joy laid up before you, just as Jesus, “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” And, to help you and aid you on your way that you may persevere, our Lord and Good Shepherd Jesus goes with you. He calls you and teaches you, feeds you and protects you through Word and Water, Body and Blood. As His disciple you take up your cross, the cross He has chosen for you, and you follow Him in the way He leads – the way through, not around, the valley of the shadow of death, and through death into life with Him and His Father and the Holy Spirit forevermore.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.