Jesus Is Always on the Way

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Cyril of Alexandria, Pastor and Confessor
June 27, 2010
Luke 9:51-62

Jesus never looks back. He’s always looking forward. He’s always on the way. God doesn’t sit around and wait for things to happen, He makes things happen. He’s not counting on us to get it together, He’s bringing about what needs to happen to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

What is that? Salvation. Restoration. He doesn’t want us to just to make it through life, He wants us to experience abundant life. He pours out all the wealth of His eternal blessings upon us and we too often miss them because we’re setting our eyes only on what is in front of us instead of what lies ahead.

I think too often we think of God as “up there.” As “out there.” He’s above everything and removed from everything but we’re down here in the trenches, in the thick of problems, sins, temptations, suffering, confusion. Does He understand what we’re going through? Does He care? Will He help us in our difficulties? Will He clear up our confusion?

Our problem is that we’re stuck. We’re stuck on ourselves. Instead of seeing an opportunity to help someone who’s in need we see someone who is disturbing us and is a burden on our time. While we could see others as people who are loved by God so much that Christ paid for all their sins, we too often are annoyed with them when they waste our time or don’t do things the way we’d like them to. Instead of realizing that God blessed us with many blessings in this life we wish for those things we don’t have but would like to have. We aren’t going forward into abundant life because we’re stuck on ourselves.

Jesus says in our Gospel reading: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” We are not fit for the Kingdom of God. We look back. Like Lot’s wife, we long for what we left behind when we thought we could live without God. We don’t want to go forward. We want to stay right where we’re at. Yeah, we’ll serve God, but we want to do it on our own terms. That’s why we look back. That’s why we long for the fulfilling of our own desires rather than the things God gives us in our lives as opportunities to serve others.

We should understand Jesus’ statement—“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God”—this way: everyone who puts his hand to the plow looks back and therefore is not fit for the Kingdom of God. None of us serves God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. We all look back. We all wonder what it would be like to be free of the constraints of God. We are not fit for the Kingdom of God.

There is one who is though. Jesus alone has put His hand to the plow and has not looked back. He alone is fit for the Kingdom of God. It’s because He’s God, of course. But it’s also because He is always on the way. Particularly, He is on the way of the cross. He is always moving forward, not looking back. In the Gospel reading He sets His face to go to Jerusalem. It is there He will go to the cross, and He knows it. But that is the specific reason He sets His face toward it. He is moving toward it because it is there He will pay for the sins of the world. It is there He will accomplish the task of being the servant of the world. He is always on the way toward this.

When there are some who would deter Him from that destination He will have none of it. He will continue to go forward. It is the same today. We preach Christ crucified. There is no other name under heaven by which people will be saved. So we continue to preach Him and Him alone. We continue to preach the cross, the one crucified for the sins of the world. When there are some who would deter us from that we continue to move forward, not looking back to a message that is kinder and gentler. A message that doesn’t tell people of their sins and that they are under the eternal wrath of God. A message that substitutes the cross for possibility thinking or simply all the ways you are good in and of yourself. Jesus saves people through this one thing, the Gospel. Not through anything they do or appeal to. The cross is where Jesus was headed and it is the cross we still preach today, no matter how many people reject it.

And when there are some who are on the way with Jesus who would rain down fire from heaven upon those wretched people who would have nothing of the Gospel, Jesus is just as insistent that they are seeking to prevent Him from being on His way as those wretched people were. James and John were the ones Luke tells us who were rebuked by Jesus. Interestingly, he says nothing about those Samaritans being rebuked.

One of the things the kids love the most about VBS is the skits. They’re simple and they’re silly, but they’re also meant to drive home a point. The point, as you probably guessed, is the Gospel. But the more we learn of the Gospel the more we learn that it’s not just Jesus died for you so you can rest assured that you’ll be in heaven. It is so much fuller and greater than that! One particular line and response that really struck me in the skits this past week was when the Queen Bee asked the hive manager why Christians don’t just stay safely in the Church where there is peace and security. The bees would be much more comfortable in the safety of the hive. The response given to the Queen was that there are a lot of people in the world who do not know of the peace and security of being in the Church so we who do know of it go out and tell them the Good News. We are not free to blast people out of the water. If they seek to deter the Church from the proclamation of the Gospel we don’t call down curses upon them but more ardently make known to them the Gospel. Anything less and we will be the ones who are rebuked by Jesus.

This is how we follow Jesus, by being on the way with Him. He is always on the way, because He is constantly bringing us out of being stuck in our own sinful prison. We want to follow Him but we don’t want to leave the hive. One person said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” It’s scandalous to think of God as not having a place of His own but Jesus willingly lays aside His own comfort and security, having no place to lay His head, so that we may rest in the eternal mansions He prepares for us. On the cross Jesus was out in the cold. No one there to help Him or bring Him out of His misery. No one to placate the wrath of God upon Him. He alone took the path to the cross and received the full brunt of eternal damnation so that we will not be left out on the Last Day.

To one person Jesus said, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” We are so ready to serve and follow our Lord. We don’t say no to Him. We say yes. But how pathetic are we that we can’t just simply leave it at that. Yes, Lord, I will follow You. I will go on the way with You. I will walk the way of the cross as You did. Instead it’s, Yes, I’ll follow You Lord …right after I take care of some important things. And note that these are truly important things. There aren’t many more important things in the eyes of God than being able to have a proper burial for your father. But we are so wrapped up in ourselves that even these godly things come before God Himself rather than the other way around. Following Jesus means going the way of the cross, not taking care of what we need to take care of and then getting around to following Him.

We want to look back. We want to follow Him on our own terms, not simply as He has called us to. Jesus simply says, Follow Me. Walk the way of the cross. He is always on the way. He’s never going back. He wasn’t deterred then and He won’t be now. You might wonder how it is that He still walks this way of the cross when He has already done it and it is the one time sacrifice for all time. He is never to suffer and die again. How is He still always on the way when the way He is always on is the way of the cross?

It is because it is always about the cross. We preach Christ crucified. We don’t preach Christ who tells us how we should live. We don’t preach Christ who tells us that He loves us because we sure are trying hard, and at any rate we’re not nearly as bad as some. We don’t preach Christ who is one of many ways of thinking about God who is not bound up in only one religion. The cross is what we preach.

Christ continues to be on the way because whereas from the moment He was born He was on the way to suffer on the cross, from the moment He rose from the grave He has been on the way to delivering Himself to you. He is not interested in the spectacular, the emotional, the convincing. He is interested in simply bringing to you Himself. That’s why He’s always on the way. Always coming to you in the proclamation of the Gospel. Always united with you as you have been Baptized into a death like His and a resurrection like His. Always bringing into your mouth Himself, His Body and His Blood for the forgiveness of your sins.

Just as He set His face toward Jerusalem back then He sets His face toward you today. He was on the way to Jerusalem back then, walking the path to the cross. He is on the way today, working through His Gospel and His Sacraments to forgive you, delivering to you in them what He accomplished on the cross and by rising from the grave. He needs no place to lay His head, He’s God. But He’s not interested in rest anyway, just the rest He gives to you in your Baptism and in His Holy Supper. He never looks back, He’s always looking out for you, sustaining you in His grace, lavishing His mercy upon you.

After all, wasn’t it on the cross, the place where He set His face, where He said, “It is finished”? What was accomplished there is for all time and eternity. In the proclamation of the Gospel, in your Baptism, as you partake of His Body and Blood in His Holy Meal, eternity is brought to you at a moment in time for all of time. It’s because He never tires of loving you, forgiving you, saving you. He’s always on the way, He being the very way, truth, and life. Amen.

SDG

Does Doctrine REALLY Matter?

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
June 20, 2010
Luke 8:26-39

What goes through your mind when you hear the word ‘doctrine’? Rigid? Outdated? Not relevant?

We Lutherans are big on doctrine, aren’t we? We will talk with other Christians and they’ll explain to us that we believe what we do because we have our doctrine. They’ll exhort us to be open to the Spirit’s leading. We can’t be bound by certain teachings, God is perfectly capable of working beyond rigid boundaries. There’s much more to the Christian life than doctrine.

When you hear this you may find yourself agreeing. God is powerful. He isn’t bound by doctrine. We shouldn’t impose doctrine on the words of the Bible. Even if they’re our precious Lutheran doctrines.

Isn’t it the Law that binds us and the Gospel that frees us? But we want to be free on our terms. That is what binds us. We cannot break those chains. The man in the Gospel reading was strong enough to break the chains that bound him, but it was an other-worldly strength. It came from demons. We don’t have strength on our own to do this. But the other-worldly strength enabled him by the demons was strength that could break only chains. It could not break down the walls that separated this man from God. Even though he was possessed by demons, in distinction to you and me, he was bound in the same way you and I are in our sin.

The man was bound even as he was able to break the chains that bound him. He was not truly free. He was isolated from the community. He was tormented not only by demons but by a life in which his sin burdened his heart and mind. The man was not in control, the demons had control over him.

What breaks the bonds of his prison is the presence and word of Jesus. What the Bible is teaching us here is that Jesus has power over what controls us. Demons, sin, whatever. The word that Jesus has is the word of authority. Jesus is God and God speaks with authority. It begins and ends with Him. If you break the law and the judge hands down a sentence you may not like it. You may disagree with it. You may think it’s unfair. You may try to think of ways you can get out of the sentence. But you are bound by it. You are under the authority of the word spoken by the judge. He has no more standing under the law than you do, but when he speaks as a judge he speaks with authority that binds you. This is the way it is with God. When He speaks we are bound by what He says. Whether we agree, disagree, like, or dislike.

If you’d just as soon not go according to the word of God as He has set it forth in the Bible, you are still bound by it. But you are also now bound to a different doctrine. It is the doctrine of man. It is the doctrine that wants control.

The account of the man who was demon-possessed in our Gospel reading may seem irrelevant for us in our day. At least in our culture. I haven’t yet run across someone who is demon possessed, at least not that I was aware of. I don’t know if you have, but even if you have, I think we’d all agree here that it’s not a common thing here in the U.S.

What happens in this account is what happens today. What Jesus did then He does today. The names and details may have changed, but what’s going on is what we deal with today. A movie might portray the frightening nature of demon-possession but you still go away from it not getting a full sense of it because you don’t deal with it. You don’t know what it’s like, I don’t know what it’s like. That man did. The people back then did. They lived in a world where it was dangerous. A man could be roaming the streets and there was no telling what he might do. If you tried to prevent him from harming someone or causing havoc by binding him in chains and he snapped them off like toy handcuffs you could only hope and pray he would do as he did and remain outside the city limits, isolated from civilized society.

We wouldn’t want to walk out our front door and wonder if we’ll face a crazed man due to demon possession. But have we lulled ourselves into a false sense of security because we know something like that probably won’t happen? The world we live in may very well be more dangerous than it was back then. But I’m not talking about predators on the loose, which does happen every so often today. I’m talking about what Jesus is combating in today’s Gospel reading. He’s not trying to disarm a crazy man. He’s coming to engage in battle with Satan. A man may break into your house and hold you at gunpoint, but he can’t take your soul. Satan can. Continuing in unrepentant sin can. Fleeing the gifts of Christ can.

We live in a world today where false doctrine is rampant. I know, it sounds silly. But if it sounds scary to live in a world where people who are demon possessed can roam freely through the streets and there’s no telling what they might do, reset your thinking. False doctrine reigning free in the world, having a hold in your life, is the greater terror we face.

There are things you see and things you don’t. What you see tends to seem more relevant than what you don’t. If you see a crazy man on the loose you should be rightfully scared. If you’re not aware that the man is demon possessed you won’t be aware of the true nature of the severity of the situation. What demons can do to a person is much worse than what a person can do to harm you physically. Since you can’t see false doctrine it doesn’t appear all that harmful. But it’s deadly. It destroys the soul.

This doesn’t mean that if you’re talking with someone and they speak something that doesn’t jive with the Bible that they’re going to hell. Believing that itself is false doctrine. But false doctrine is insidious. It takes a hold of you and binds you in spiritual chains.

What do we want? We want a life as a Christian that has immediate results when the going gets tough. We want God’s power to break through in the midst of trial and temptation. We want to see the demons driven away just as they were two thousand years ago—very apparent, very real, very visible. Very relevant.

But it’s not so, is it? We know God does not operate this way today. Talk to the person who drives to the hospital every day to visit his six year old daughter who is struggling mightily against her cancer but whose body will eventually succumb to it. Talk to the man who was active and lived a fulfilled life in which he did so much good to help others but who is now depressed and feeling all alone in this world because he has lost his sight due to a wrong diagnosis. Talk to someone who has just become a Christian and the newfound joy in her life only to find that her husband is now leaving her. Talk to the woman who has been raped and is struggling with a God who tells us He is loving but is having a very hard time reconciling what a man did to her and a God who reveals Himself to us as a ‘He’. Talk to the person who has worked hard his whole life to get where he’s at in his career only to find that he’s now out of a job because the economy can’t sustain his position. Talk to the man who knows God loves him but is battling depression, not because he’s moody but because he’s suffering from a chemical imbalance. Talk to the mother who cannot seem to balance everything going on in her life with all the demands placed upon her, all the frustrations she has to deal with, and a schedule that never seems to let up. Talk to the father who desperately wants to live in a God-pleasing way but encounters every day temptations that seek to pull him away from God and he’s getting weaker and weaker, praying to God for strength that seems to be fading and fading.

Look in the mirror. Face the demons in your own life. What plagues you? How are you bound? When you look at God, who do you see? Do you see a personal God who sweeps into your life just when you need it to deliver you or do you see a divine being who is far off; powerful but irrelevant?

You and I are bound just as that demon-possessed man was. Is what we struggle with really easier than what that man lived with? We are in the world just as he was. This is the domain of Satan. We are living in a dangerous place, where the devil’s main weapon is false doctrine.

The doctrine of the world, of our own hearts, of Satan himself, says that when you have to struggle as all the people I described then you don’t have much of a god. That’s deadly. That will land you in hell without repentance. The doctrine we hold to says that we’re just not trying hard enough, we’re not trusting in God enough, we must do a better job of being faithful to Him, so that we can then be blessed by Him. This doctrine ultimately leaves you in despair. You will truly be on your own, you will have separated yourself from God. False doctrine binds you in your sin and your separation from God as surely as the demons bound that man.

The Bible counters this false doctrin with true doctrine. It tells us exactly what’s what. We are bound. We are unable to free ourselves. From our sin. From our corrupted hearts. From our ineffective efforts to free ourselves from our bondage. From the walls that separate us from God. And true doctrine tells us what’s what with God. He frees us. He drives away the demons that plague us. The demons that continue to say that we can do it on our own. If we just try harder. If we’re just more faithful. If we just trust God more. If only we will do what God wants then we can be freed from our plight.

God in His Word tells us that He alone does that. He alone drives away the demons; He frees us from our bondage. He comes into your life and Baptizes you. Doesn’t sound all that spectacular? Not all that relevant? Just think about this, when Jesus did do a spectacular thing, driving demons out of a man, restoring the man to where he was no longer a plague on society, the people were scared. They wanted Jesus gone.

That’s what true doctrine tells us. When Jesus acts—in the way He does it—people retreat. They want Him to leave because they want things done their way. Baptism? Great, but what does it do for me today when I’m struggling with sin? How does it help me when I’m at odds with my neighbor? The Lord’s Supper? Wonderful, but how does His body and blood give me the help I need when I just got notice that I’m losing my job?

When Jesus walked the earth He gave direct healing to people. He immediately delivered them from demons. He even brought people forth from the grave. He’s not walking around today doing those things as He did back then. Often we pray for healing and our loved ones get worse, sometimes even dying. There are miraculous recoveries from illness at times, but much of the time we don’t have anything like what happened when Jesus was around to physically touch a person, to speak in their hearing and provide immediate relief from whatever ailed the person.

But He does provide. Think about it, Jesus did those miraculous things two thousand years ago, but He didn’t do it for very long. It was actually for only three years, most of the other thirty years of His life spent either going to school or carrying out the trade of carpenter. And not only did He spend only about three years in His ministry in which He accomplished many miraculous healings, but He also spent those three years in a very small area in this great wide world. For all the people He healed, there were thousands, even millions, who received no such deliverance. A lot like today. False doctrine would say, What kind of a god is that? True doctrine says, God doing it this way is the best way. Not for Him, for us.

Doctrine is what you hold to. It is what you believe. You either hold to your own or you let the Bible have its say. You let it determine what is true and what you believe. It brings to the forefront the most miraculous thing of all. The thing that matters most. The one who with a word drove demons from a man is the very one who is Himself the Word made flesh. The one who suffered in intensity beyond what the demon-possessed man could have ever imagined. The one who carried all the demons in your life to His grave. The one who bore all your sins and guilt upon Himself. This is the truth that drives out false doctrine. It matters because false doctrine is our default position and separates us from God. His default position is mercy toward us. True doctrine carries us through when we are at a loss in how we’re going to get through.

You can hold on to the truth that you are Baptized. You are in God’s eternal care because He has said it. He has made it so. He has saved you in Baptism and sustains you in the Holy Supper of our Lord. These are the things that you can count on each day and forever. Amen.

SDG

Do You Know Who You Are?

Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 13, 2010
Luke 7:36—8:3

The Pharisee knows himself. He is worthy. He is a good man and rests assured in his worthiness and therefore is confident of his salvation. But he also knows who this woman is, or at least what kind of woman she is. She was obviously not a person of moral character.

So he assumes that Jesus obviously does not know what kind of woman she is. So He obviously cannot be a prophet. And here Simon the Pharisee was so willing to give Jesus a chance, inviting Him to his home and everything!

The woman also knows who she is, and she knows as well who the Pharisee is. He’s, well, a Pharisee. It took a lot of guts to come into the situation, knowing that the upstanding Pharisee, a spiritual leader of her people, would disapprove of her kind of people. But he allowed this charade to go on so that everyone could see what kind of man Jesus really was. That He obviously was putting on a charade, giving props to this sinner and disrespecting him, Simon, a Pharisee and leader of the people of God.

Jesus, as well, knows who He is and He knows who the Pharisee is and who the woman is.

We are able to see that the Pharisee didn’t know who he was after all. He didn’t know who the woman was. He saw himself only as he wanted to see himself. He judged the woman to be unworthy rather than realizing that he stood under his own condemnation of her. Consequently, he didn’t know who Jesus was.

The woman knew exactly who she was. She was a sinner. She was unworthy. She didn’t deserve favor from Jesus but He gave it to her anyway. That’s why she loved Him. She was grateful. She knew she stood under His condemnation but He gave her instead forgiveness. Her response was worship and gratitude.

Jesus’ favor and forgiveness is never like, It’s okay, don’t worry about your sins. We’re sinners, how can we ever be sure we don’t have to worry about our sins when we keep doing them? He says of the woman that her sins are many. In other words, Simon, you’re right, she’s a sinner, and quite a sinner at that. But where there is much sin there is much forgiveness. In fact, where there is sin, there is forgiveness. Jesus forgives sinners, great sinners or small. The little story he tells shows that both men who had a debt, one huge, the other not as much, both debts were cancelled.

The Pharisee was a sinner, just as the woman was. And yet, in his own eyes, he was right with God. After all, he was a morally upright person, unlike the woman. The woman was a sinner, just as the Pharisee was. She very well could have condemned him as a hypocrite. Did he live a more morally outward life than she did? Yeah, probably. But was he without sin? No way. So he was a hypocrite. But the woman doesn’t get caught up in that. She is caught up in her own sinfulness. Her own unworthiness is what she needs to deal with.

Do you know who you are? Are you like the Pharisee? Are you like the woman? If you will see it, you are like the Pharisee. And you are like the woman. If you will hear it from Jesus, you are just like them, because you, too, are a sinner. His hope for you is that you will see yourself through His eyes. You are a sinner. It is only then that you can see that what He does is forgive you. He cancels your debt.

You know you are a sinner. That’s what Jesus says, anyway. What does it mean that you are a sinner? King David was the king. He could do whatever he wanted. That’s who he was in his own mind, anyway. Much like the Pharisee, casting judgment on others—those sinners!—while merrily going on his own pristine way that actually carried with it the stench of death. Nathan called him on it. You are the one you have accused. You are the sinner. You are the one who deserves the very punishment you have declared on the one who has sinned.

And like the woman who came to Jesus David repented. He confessed his sin. He threw himself at the mercy of the court. No, he threw himself at the mercy of God. If David could fall into grievous sin you and I can. And we do and we will. King David and the woman who was the dregs of society were leveled, at the same plane. They were both sinners in need of grace.

What does it mean that you are a sinner, right along with them? It means that if you approach your life and your standing before God as the Pharisee then you stand condemned, even as you may convince yourself that your sin really can’t hurt you that much. After all, you’re the only one who is aware of the thoughts you have toward others: lust, envy, judging others in your heart. You hold on to your grudges and it doesn’t seem to cause you any harm. God still loves you, right?

Paul had successfully convinced himself he was a good man, even believing he was serving God by trying to wipe out the Christians who were popping up all over the place. He soon found out he stood on level ground right along with those Christians. He was no more righteous than they were, even as they were no less sinners than he was. And so he knew a thing or two about how the Law of God affects a person who thinks he is just fine continuing in his present course of ignoring God and what He expects of us. He knew that those who are under the Law are under a curse. The Law of God catches you in your sin. You cannot escape the reaches of God. You can attempt to go into the inner recesses of your mind and your desires and seek safe haven in your sins but God’s Law comes crashing down on you like a crumbling wall. You are under a curse. You are sinful to your core and if you convince yourself otherwise your words will be your condemnation.

Look to Christ. He is pure. He alone is without sin. But He is also something else that He wants you to see. He too is under the Law. Not because He is within its reach, because He submits to it. He not only comes under the Law, He is under its curse. He has become the sinner. He sat before Simon the Pharisee calling him to repentance so that Simon could see that Jesus, the one who sat before him, the one who was without sin, took upon Himself his own, Simon’s, sin. Simon couldn’t see that, he was too caught up in himself.

If only we could take our eyes off ourselves. If we could wake up each morning and say, today I will not seek what I want but who Christ is and what He has accomplished for the world. That as He has come to deliver the world from sin, He has delivered me from sin so that I may serve Him. So that I may see that being a servant of others is more fulfilling than relying on the fleeting nature of my desires, my wants, my sins that I hold on to.

This is who you are. Jesus knows who you are. He has Baptized you. He knows who you are, He forgives you your sin and gives you His Body and Blood in His Holy Supper. A Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him. The man only wanted to confirm himself in his own fantasy world of being able to live and be saved according to his own law. Jesus invites you to dine with Him, where there is no Law, no hidden agenda, no strings attached, no holding your sin over your head. Only grace. Only pure mercy and forgiveness. His favor upon you not for who you are or what you have accomplished, but because He was cursed in your place, His body delivered over, His blood shed for you.

The Pharisee woke up that day not knowing that in justifying himself by inviting Jesus to his home he would actually be condemning himself. The woman who was an outcast and a scourge on decent society woke up that morning not knowing that she would have an opportunity to give thanks to the one who had released her from the burden of living a life that was all about herself. David never saw it coming that when he abused his office as king of God’s people that he would be held accountable to the King of Kings, the Lord Himself, and would be declared guilty of his sin against a man and his wife.

Do you know what will happen to you tomorrow? You’ll wake up and your thoughts may immediately gravitate toward yourself. You may give no thought to how you can help someone who is struggling and could use some comfort. You may, in fact, not wake up at all. Today may be your last day. No matter who you are, it could happen to any of us. You may be thinking about all the things you want and need and wish for and never see any of it because you won’t be breathing anymore. Now is the time for you to hear what you need to hear. And if you do wake up tomorrow that will be the time to hear it as well. Each day we live out the life God has given to us we need what God gives to us, not what we so often consider is of importance, and certainly not of our selfish and sinful desires.

Each day we have the opportunity to look not to ourselves but to Christ, to others whom we can serve. Where’s the compassion when the Pharisee looked on that woman? He had only disdain for her. He looked only to himself, not to helping her. Where is our compassion when we do not seek out others to help them, when we judge them in our hearts rather than seeking to share the love of Christ with them? May we see ourselves as the woman saw herself. A sinner in need of mercy. A sinner who gives thanks to their Lord for His unfailing mercy. God gives us the opportunity to look outside of ourselves and to others who are in need of mercy.

Know who you are. You are one who is known by God. You worship Him because He has given His Son as the Sinner in your place, His righteousness for your sin. You may go in peace. Amen.

SDG

How Jesus Deals with Death

Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 6, 2010
Luke 7:11-17

What if you had never heard of Jesus? What if you had never known Him, who He is, what He has done?

There are some who don’t. Some who never have. Some who are dead in their sins and go to their grave dead in their sins.

There are some who live but do not know life. They have never been raised to life that knows no death.

What if you had never known that you are dead, only to be without life forever, and death that knows nothing but torment?

There are many who do not know. Many who hope in many things but the one thing they need.

There are many who simply don’t know the one thing. Many who do not know Jesus. Once you die, that’s it. There is no more knowing, no more hope, no more opportunity.

But while you’re alive, the only requirement placed upon you is that you be dead. When you are dead even while you live you are ready for Christ to come to where you are and raise you from death.

We readily see the remarkable thing Jesus did in the Gospel reading: He raised a man from death. What is also remarkable is that He went to a town called Nain. Had you ever heard of it? Would we have ever known of the place except that Jesus decided to go there one day? And there He came across a man who could no more achieve eternal life than his pallbearers could or his grieving mother could. He was dead and he could only be carried away.

He then spoke to one of the people in the funeral. The mother of the dead man. A woman who was more like her son than she realized. She too was dead. She had no life within her that could ward off ultimate death. But that’s why He spoke to her. He comes to people who are bound in death to give them life.

He’s not bound by death. It can’t rub off on Him. That’s why He touches the coffin. He then speaks to the one person who can’t hear Him. He says to the dead man, “I say to you, arise.”

What happens then is what we need to see that happens to all who are dead in trespasses and sins and hear the Word of the Lord. The man hears. He is raised to life. He speaks. He has new life. We are just like him, we were dead and now we have new life. We are raised, we speak, we live.

As a congregation we do many things. They are offered because they’re for who we are as Christians. There are certain things we need to be encouraged to be a part of. If there’s no encouragement then we may miss the importance of being a part of it. One particular thing our congregation is doing is the Evangelism Workshop we’re having this Saturday. It’s not just for some people. It’s not only for those who are interested in Evangelism. It’s certainly not for those who have nothing else going on this Saturday. It’s for Christians. It’s for you and me. It’s for those of us who know who Jesus is and what He has done for the world.

If we had never known, we’d have no use for an Evangelism Workshop. But we have heard. We know. There are many out there who do not know and we’re the ones to tell them. If you’re like me you don’t always know what to say. If you’ve found yourself in the situation where a person takes the conversation in a different direction and you find you don’t know how to get it back to sharing the Gospel with the person, it’s for you. If you know people who don’t know who Jesus is, who don’t believe He is their Savior, it’s for you. Basically, if you’re a Christian.

You can’t go up to a dead man and tell him to get up. You can, but he won’t. But you can bring Christ to a person. What Jesus did to the man in the Gospel reading is what He does when you share the Gospel with another person. For Jesus, it’s the easiest thing in the world. He just goes up to a person and speaks life into that person. You and I aren’t quite there yet in our evangelistic abilities.

But we do have Christ. We do have His Word. We do have what He has given us. That is what we offer others. We let Jesus do the work.

Jesus was able to handle every situation that came His way. No matter what people said to Him, whatever turn the conversation went, Jesus always handled it in perfect divine wisdom. We do not have that luxury. But then again, it is never up to us to save others. We are simply called to make known to the world the Jesus who died for the world.

Maybe evangelism seems overwhelming to you. Perhaps living out the life God has called you to, where you are serving Him in everything you do, working toward giving more of your money as offerings to God, thinking that there’s not enough time for Bible Study, maybe it all seems like it’s too much. How can you handle it all? The world population keeps growing. Millions upon millions of people do not know Christ as their Savior. How can you as one Christian make an impact? How can our little congregation in Allied Gardens reach the world for Christ?

Let’s be brutally honest. It is overwhelming. It is more than we can handle. It is too much for us to accomplish. But we don’t need to give in. We need to repent. God hasn’t called you to bring the Gospel to every person on the planet. But He has given you a neighbor. He gives you a co-worker who is struggling in his life. God sent His Son into the world and on one particular occasion he came to one man. A man who was dead. A mother who needed comfort. On one particular occasion Jesus gave life to this one individual and we can see the opportunity God gives us to bring life to one person. How we do that is going to be different for each of us. It’s going to be challenging for many of us. But that’s why we offer help and guidance. Our Evangelism Workshop is exactly what we need so that we may bring to people the life they may not know.

You may think there’s not much you can do. But unless you’re a hermit, you come into contact with people in your life. When you talk with them you are not just yourself. You are Christ to them. You are a new creation, you have new life, because Jesus spoke it into you in your Baptism. When you interact with others they are interacting with Christ. You might wonder, how does that happen? That’s what the Evangelism Workshop is for. For some Christians this comes naturally. For most of us, it’s something we’d like to avoid as much as possible.

That’s because we ourselves are still daily struggling with our sinful flesh. We are dead. We daily need new life. If there’s anything we’re taught from that dead man at the funeral it’s that Jesus has a way of dealing with death. He gives new life to those who are dead in their sins. He speaks to us in our death and we rise to new life and begin speaking to others. Jesus deals with death by delivering us from it. He speaks life into us in our very state of being dead in trespasses and sins. Being dead is the only requirement for being alive in Christ. Because when you’re dead in sins there’s only one who can deliver you and bring you new life. He is Christ and He comes to do just that.

As He came to that man who was dead He has come to you in your Baptism. As He spoke comfort to the man’s mother He speaks comfort to you with His words: Take and eat, this is My body; take and drink, this is My blood. He comes into your life of being dead in sin and gives you His body and blood, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of your sins. He gives you life and sustains you in the new life as you now live and speak and serve, even as you live forever with Him. Amen.

SDG

Who Do You Make Yourself Out to Be?

The Holy Trinity
First Sunday after Pentecost
May 30, 2010
John 8:48-59

The Jews in today’s Gospel reading ask this question of Jesus: Who do you make Yourself out to be? His answer is that He makes Himself out to be God.

Jesus was a man. He was a person who walked and talked and had a job. He interacted with people, He laughed, He cried, He loved, He got angry. He was one person among a world full of men and women.

And yet, He made Himself out to be God. He lived fully as a man just we are fully men and women. But His beginning wasn’t in the womb of Mary. Before Abraham was, He said, I am. He is, He was, and He always will be. He’s God.

If a particular person made himself out to be God, we might think he had a demon. It just doesn’t fit into our understanding of reality that one man among them all would be a man like every other one but also God. Anyone who makes himself out to be God has serious issues.

But this is precisely why this is such a serious issue. Why, if you’re going to deal with God, you have to deal with the person of Jesus Christ. That long creed we just got through confessing, the Athanasian Creed, goes into painstaking detail to confess the true God as the Triune God, the one in three and three-in-one. And yet, it is as if the Creed can’t wait to get to the heart of the matter, which is that the true God became incarnate. The one true God became flesh and dwelt among us. The details of the incarnation are given in all their glory as well, the reason God became flesh: to suffer, die, and rise.

It is because of who we have made ourselves out to be. We have made ourselves out to be God. No, we don’t go around telling others that’s who we are, we don’t seek for others to give us all honor and glory. But we live as if we ourselves are our own God. This is why God became a man. God, who created men, became a man in order to save man. God the Creator, became part of the creation in order to redeem creation. We, who make ourselves to be like God, who would like to be our own God, are eternally separated from God because of our sinful aversion to submitting to the one true God. The people in today’s Gospel reading were doing the very same thing the people in the Old Testament reading we heard last Sunday were doing in attempting to build a tower to the heavens.

We do the same thing in our lives as we don’t submit to God’s authority and will in every aspect of our lives. We covet things that belong to other people as if those things should belong to us. And the thoughts of our hearts betray us as we even design ways we might get those things, already breaking the commandment against stealing in our hearts. We put ways to gain more money ahead of ways to serve others in simple ways in our lives, or fear what will happen if there ends up not being enough. God is a nice religious thought but not a real and practical help in those times where things aren’t coming together in our lives. We make ourselves out to God.

In our country tomorrow we commemorate those who gave their lives in service to our country. This is a great gift of God. It is His design of having leaders who serve to protect our welfare. This includes those who serve to protect our welfare by serving in the military, their service often abroad. And sadly, their service at times includes giving their very lives. Now if God loves the people He created so much to give them gifts like leaders and people to serve in the Armed Forces, how much more does He love us in giving us His very own Son to give His life on the cross for the sin of the world?

The Triune God is the very essence of selfless love and giving. Those of us who haven’t served in the Armed Forces marvel at the cohesiveness of the fighting unit in which those who serve fight. Without that cohesiveness there would be no real service to country. It would be every man for himself. It wouldn’t be selfless serving but serving oneself.

Now with God you have a fascinating thing because God is not a created being. He is the Creator. He is God. He is one and yet has revealed Himself in three Persons. The three Persons of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are not separate but are distinct. And to the point of who God is, the Person of the Trinity are not “every man for himself”, but selfless in their service to their creation—you and me and the whole world. We are the recipients of the selfless love of the Triune God, the love that brought Jesus to the cross.

Jesus does not balk at the prospect of being the one to become a man. Of being the one to suffer and die. The Holy Spirit does not have sour grapes that He is the one who is sent as merely a helper. The Father Himself does not shy away from the agony of giving over His only-begotten Son to suffer and die on the cross. The Triune God is the true God, the all-powerful God, the one to whom belongs all glory, and yet is the one who is humble and merciful. He is merciful towards us, we who would make ourselves out to be God.

Daily you will fall into this sin. But your merciful God has given you a gift. Instead of asking yourself, Who do I make myself out to be?, ask yourself who God has made you out to be.

You were Baptized into the name of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You are of the devil except that God has saved you from that eternal corruption, making you His own child in Baptism. You were dead in trespasses and sins but have been joined in Baptism to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, united with Him.

You are renewed by your merciful God often in the Holy Supper of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He gives you His body and blood, the Holy Spirit delivers to you forgiveness and strengthens your faith. It pleased your Heavenly Father to offer His Son as the sacrifice for all of your sins on the cross, even as it pleases Him to offer Him to you in Holy Communion.

God and the fact that He is Triune is not a doctrine to be understood or debated. God is God. He is the only God and He is at His essence merciful. God is the eternal being who wants to be in relationship with you. That’s why He restores your relationship with Himself through becoming flesh and dying for the sins of the world.

When in your daily life you often seek to make yourself out to be God, you can pause and give thanks that God, who is forever the Lord of all, made Himself out to be a man. To live under the Law and abide by it in perfect harmony with God’s will and to suffer in the place of sinful humanity so that we might share a place at the heavenly Banquet of God. He is infinite and all-glorious and yet desires nothing more than to come to us right where we’re at so that we may be with Him forever. We may rejoice that He makes us out to be worthy of His eternal love and mercy. Amen.

SDG

Going from Here

The Day of Pentecost
Confirmation Day
May 23, 2010
John 14:23-31

There are four people in this whole place who are sitting up here in front. That would seem to indicate that today is all about you. Since you, Allison, Savannah, Jeffrey, and Ryan, are getting confirmed today, that we’re here to celebrate you.

And that wouldn’t be wrong. Today is about you. We are here today to celebrate your being confirmed in the faith. We rejoice that today will be the first day that you will receive the Lord’s Supper for the rest of your life.

But you will walk away from here today when it’s over and drive home. Will you want to go away thinking that today is about you? During this week will you want your excitement to be about Prince of Peace having had a day where you were in the spotlight?

Or, will you go away from here knowing what you have learned for two years in Confirmation Class that it’s always and only about Jesus? What I would like to do today is encourage you to take your cue from Him. Jesus says in the Gospel reading today: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” You know this, that you love Jesus and abide in His Word.

But what I really want you to see is how Jesus takes this. He doesn’t say to His disciples, and to you: It’s all about ME. I’m Jesus, do what I tell you.

What He does is the opposite. He doesn’t sit in the place of honor, He goes to the back. He doesn’t say, I’m God, you must do what I tell you. In exhorting us to love Him and abide in His Word, He says: “the Word that you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” He submits to His Heavenly Father. For Him, everything is not about Him. It’s true that He doesn’t need anyone, or anything. He does have it all.

But God doesn’t act that way. He doesn’t go around making sure everyone knows that because He is God that it’s all about Him. Jesus instead defers to His Heavenly Father. That’s what I want you to know for today. That’s what I want you to remember the rest of your life. Jesus came, not for Himself, but for you. That’s why you’re here today. It actually is about you. In Jesus’ eyes, it’s all about you. Not Him.

God sees Himself differently than we would imagine ourselves to be if we were God. In two years of Confirmation Class you learned all about God. He’s almighty, He knows everything, He’s present everywhere. But that’s not what you really needed to learn about Him. You needed to know who He is. He can do anything—but He’s not wrapped up in Himself. What you learned about God is that He is humble. He stoops down to you and me, right where we’re at. Jesus defers to His Heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit, who is God, is also very happy to be called by Jesus the Helper, as Jesus says in the Gospel reading: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

The Holy Spirit doesn’t have issues that He is being sent as a helper. He is willing and ready to get out and help us. He rejoices in bringing forgiveness, life, and salvation to us in our Baptism and at this altar when we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. He will always work on your behalf to bring you renewal, to strengthen you, to bring to your mind those things you have been taught in Confirmation Class, and as you continue to grow in His Word.

There will be times where there’s a lot going on in your life. Times where you may be frazzled. You may not be able to concentrate on God and His Word. You’ll have a lot on your mind. In those times and at all times remember that to Jesus it’s not about Him but about you, which is why He gives you His peace. Peace not as the world gives. He says in the Gospel reading: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” In the world you can have peace of mind. You can relax, put your feet up, and get a little relief now and then from the pressures of life. But you cannot have true peace, not eternal peace. When you face death you cannot have certainty that you have measured up to God’s perfect will. You cannot look into your heart and find there comfort that doesn’t end.

Only Christ Himself can give you that. And only He does. For Him, it’s not about Him, but about you. He came not to be served but to serve. He came not to reap the rewards of His brilliant creation but to give His life as a ransom for the world. He came not to live it up but to offer up His life for the sins of the world. He offers Himself to you today also. He gives His very Body that was delivered on the cross, for you to eat and receive. He gives His very Blood that was poured out on Calvary for you to drink and receive. He died once for all, He gives His body and blood to you often. Receive it often. You’re going to need it, because for Him, it’s all about you and what you need.

You will go from here and forget that at times. You will wonder about it at times. You might have doubts about it at times. People will ask you why you believe “all that stuff in the Bible” and you’ll find yourself wondering if you learned anything worthwhile in two years of Confirmation Class because it all has suddenly seemed to be wiped clear from your mind. Some of your teachers in school will offer up compelling evidence of why the account of Creation in the book of Genesis is just a story, a myth for people who don’t think for themselves and don’t rely on the hard evidence of science. In those times you might find yourself wondering if the Bible really is true. You might wonder if God really is who He says He is and if everything you learned in Confirmation Class is the truth.

What I want you to remember today and when you hear those things is that you have learned from Christ Himself. It is His Word which in His eyes is never about Himself but about you. Many people are trying to just get through each day with all their struggles and pressures and problems. But going from here you will know and have one thing that the world cannot offer you: Christ Himself. You will go from here having received Him into your very mouth and heart in His Holy Supper.

In a few moments you will come to the altar for the first time to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. As you come up to the altar you will walk right by the Baptismal font. As you come forward God will know who you are. That’s because He made you His at the Baptismal font. Remember who you are. You are Baptized. Know that you come forward as a child of God. You don’t approach God’s altar with your mental list of how well you obey your parents and what a good student you are in school. Jesus isn’t going to give you His body and blood because you have done really well over the last two years in Confirmation Class. You come forward simply as a sinner. But a sinner who has been Baptized.

You may not remember it anymore, but two years ago I told you and your parents that Confirmation is not the end but the beginning. You are embarking on a lifelong walk with Christ. The Gospel reading today is all about going, being on the way. Jesus says: “You heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” We know exactly where He went, He went to the cross. He suffered so that we may not suffer eternally. He walked the path to the cross so that we may walk with Him in our lives as we bear our crosses and are strengthened by Him through them.

He says: “And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.” You know what took place at Calvary, and if you know that, you can also know what took place at the font when you were Baptized: you were united with Christ in His death and resurrection and were given new and eternal life. Since you know that Christ suffered and died and rose and ascended into heaven, and that He sent His Helper, the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, you know what happens here at the altar: you receive the very Body and Blood of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

But you will go from here. You’ll go home today. You’ll be back in school this week. Someday you may move away, going to college or getting a job somewhere. You may not always be here. But you’ll always be in the Holy Christian Church. You’ll always be part of the Body of Christ. Jesus finishes speaking to His disciples by saying “Rise, let us go from here.” In a little while, you will rise and go from there to this altar to receive Christ’s Body and Blood and be strengthened in your faith.

After having received it, you will go from there back out into the world. You will be tempted, you will falter, you will fail, you will sin, you will struggle. Jesus warns that “the ruler of this world is coming.” But Jesus also says that he, that is, Satan, has no claim on Him, that is, Jesus. Jesus reminds us that He does as the Father has commanded Him. He is always God but always humble. Always reaching out to us, serving us. That’s why you will go from here having been strengthened. You will go from here having been given Christ Himself, for you, for your forgiveness, for your life. You will live in Him. You will live out the life He has called you to live, obeying your parents, being the best student in school you can be, coming faithfully to the House of God for worship and Bible Study. Someday you may have children of your own and you will raise them in a Christian home. You will realize what a blessing it is to serve God by serving others in whatever job you end up doing. You are hearing all this ahead of time so that you may know that this is not what you will accomplish, but what your Lord has called you to. So that you may know that as you go from here you go with the blessing of the Lord upon you. You go as a Baptized child of God, one who is strengthened often in His Holy Supper. One who is sustained by God Himself who always looks at you and believes in His heart of hearts that it’s always about you, which is why He has prepared a place for you in heaven forever. Go in this knowledge, hope, comfort, and grace. Amen.

SDG

All Theology Is Plagiarism—Part 3: All Theology Is Basic

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 16, 2010
John 17:20-26

Most people upon hearing an in-depth scholarly presentation of an esoteric theological doctrine would cause their eyes to glaze over. They would wonder what it has to do with anything. It’s true that most people don’t need to hear or understand theology in such a detailed way. In fact, those who do might need to be reminded that all theology is basic. Coaches often need to remind their athletes that no matter how good they are and how far they’ve come, they always need to go back to the basics. The fundamentals can never be ignored or taken for granted because there’s always someone who will work harder at mastering the basics in order to achieve the highest level of accomplishment.

We have seen how all theology is repetition. You can never hear enough the Gospel, especially since your sinful flesh constantly wants to revert back to its own notions. We have seen how all theology is communication. Thank God He has made known to us the Gospel and that we may respond to Him in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.

We must also know and remember that all theology is basic. It all comes down either to me or God. Your theology is going to come from yourself for from God. This is theology at its most basic and its most important. If you don’t get this right then you’re not going to get the rest of it right. If you don’t realize this fact then your theology is going to come from yourself.

When it comes to theology the way God does it, there’s no better place to begin than where it begins for us personally—at Baptism. This morning Whitley is the recipient of theology the way God does it. He brought her into His everlasting Kingdom through water and His Word. Water is the basic necessity for life. It is through this simple thing that God does His most basic work: He forgives our sins. Where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation.

Whitley is a cute little baby. But she’s going to grow up like we all do. She will go through the challenges of life the way we all do. Things will seem very complicated at times. Theology won’t seem so basic when she’s faced with temptations and challenges to the Christian faith and hardships. But it’s in those times that she can take comfort in stealing from the pages of God’s Word. The Word that tells her she is a Baptized child of God. The Word that tells her that at the most basic level God loves her and has forgiven her of all of her sins. That’s why she can continue to go back again and again to the Word of God and take what He says and make it her own.

But if we’re having trouble with this notion of plagiarizing from God, and it’s only natural, because our sinful nature has big issues with taking its cue from God, then let’s take a look at how God Himself handles this situation.

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus did a very simple thing: He prayed. It was the hour He would be delivered over. It was already the time He began suffering on hour behalf, His soul sorrowful even unto death. His agony manifesting itself with drops of blood flowing from His brow. His weakness already apparent in needing angels to come minister to Him, just as at His temptation in the desert three years earlier at the outset of His Ministry.

He prayed there in that Garden. In the hour before being delivered over, hours before He would be hanging on a cross, He prayed. Did He know the words to pray? Yes, the petition He lifted up was that His Heavenly Father’s will would be done. Jesus was not concerned about His own will, which was sorrowful, weak. If there was any other way. But if that way were to go against the way—the will—of His Heavenly Father, then He wouldn’t want it. His will was His Heavenly Father’s will. It is this same petition He has given us to pray in His Holy Prayer, but not only in that Third Petition but in the entire Lord’s Prayer. We know what God’s will is for us because He has given us the things to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer and His entire written Word. We know what His will is because Jesus prayed that it be done in the Garden of Gethsemane and He landed on the mount of Calvary.

Jesus prayed there, too—on the cross. Among other things He said as He hung on the cross, He quoted Scripture. He plagiarized Himself, Him being God and the author of those very Scriptures He inspired. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? That is straight out of Psalm 22. It was the cry of being the recipient of the wrath of the holy God. But it was also a prayer. Speaking the Scripture. Being in line with the perfect holy will of God. Even the merciful will of God, as in this very act of forsaking His Son, God the Father was reconciling the world to Himself. This is why Jesus prayed as He did, plagiarizing the Scriptures—it pleased Him to endure the cross, scorning its shame.

What about His temptation in the wilderness? Couldn’t He have come up with some impressive rejoinders to counter Satan? But no, He was content with simply quoting the Scriptures. In each instance Satan tried to seduce Him, Jesus did not concern Himself with speaking something original, He simply quoted what had already been written down in the Bible. (Of course, it was original with Him as He is God.)

We’ll notice that the devil caught on to this trick and began quoting the Scriptures himself. The problem of course is that he was plagiarizing not God but himself because he was twisting the Scriptures. All our prayers, as well as beliefs, that originate with ourselves end up being this, a twisting of the Word of God. We too often use the Scriptures in order to conform them to what we want rather than bending our will to them. But Jesus’ use of the Scriptures was perfect. He was quoting them because that’s all He needed. Man does not live by bread alone, but by the very Word of God. Keep that in mind the next time you’re struggling in your prayer life. Man prays not by the things he needs but by the very Word of God.

And what about Paul? What did he have to offer the Christians he was called to serve? Well, he had a lot going for him. He was very well-educated and talented. But in terms of being an apostle, in terms of proclaiming the Gospel—he had nothing of himself to offer. He had nothing except for what he himself received from the Lord is what he said to the Corinthian Christians. What I received is what I delivered to you. What do we have to offer God? Nothing. Nothing but what He has given us. Nothing but what we have received from Him. This is why our prayers must consist of what we have already received from Him, and we simply offer up to Him what He has already delivered to us.

All of this with Jesus and Paul is plagiarism of what God had His people do in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 “…And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” [ESV]

They weren’t to teach their children what they dreamed up but what God had given them to say. How much more so with their prayers? How do you think they learned how to pray?

The Word of God teaches us that it plagiarizes itself. God submits Himself to His own Word and therefore we can be in no better position than to do the same. Our prayers are a natural outgrowth of that. Our beliefs, what we say to others, they also grow out of God’s Word.

This is an enormous consolation when you can’t think of what to say. Go to the Word of God. Be drawn in to what He has to say to you. Don’t worry about having to come up with spontaneous prayers or speaking from the heart. Let God’s Word take you through what is on your heart and mind, as you have a new heart and mind in Christ given you in your Baptism. Using the liturgy as a guide for prayer, using a prayer book of time-tested prayers that are formed by the Word of God, learning the Catechism, meditating on the Word of God, this is the pattern set forth by Christ Himself. Jesus took times out in His Ministry to pray to His Heavenly Father. His prayer that not His will be done but His Heavenly Father’s was the basis and substance of His prayers. Being in the Word of God, having a rich prayer life that flows from the Word of God, will then be the basis for what you say to others in their struggles. It will be the very basis for what you believe and take comfort in.

When Jesus hung on the cross He prayed, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Isn’t that so true? We don’t even know how to pray as we ought! Paul says so much in Romans 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” [ESV] So if the Spirit is interceding for us we may as well just go all the way and plagiarize every last iota of God’s will. He forgives us and forms in us a new will, one that seeks His and one that prays according to it.

WWJD is something you still hear now and then—What Would Jesus Do? In our circles we spend a lot of time pointing out how WWJD is not exactly where Jesus was going when He said, Follow Me. That He Himself did what we could not do and we don’t gain salvation by trying to do what Jesus would do. Nevertheless, when it comes to prayer it would be helpful to ask: What would Jesus do? Well, He would pray. That’s what He did. And if He did, we certainly need to. And not only that, but He would pray what His Heavenly Father would give Him to pray.

So, What Would Jesus Pray? The Lord’s Prayer. That’s what He would pray. What did He say? “When you pray, say OUR Father.” And before you want to catch me in the trap that He would never pray “forgive us our trespasses,” because He had no sins of which to confess—yes, it’s true, He didn’t. He is sinless and remained sinless in His walk on the earth and is forever the spotless Lamb of God. But He also took our place, remember? He hung on the cross as the Sinner in our place. He was stricken for our iniquities. He never sinned but He stood in our place as the Sinner who was condemned. He didn’t need to be baptized, and yet, He did need to in order to fulfill all righteousness. That would be His righteousness credited to us. It’s an amazing thing that Jesus submitted Himself to be humble. To be beholden to the will of the Heavenly Father. In Baptism our Lord gives us His righteousness. He gives us a new will. A will that desires to submit to the will of our Heavenly Father.

The Large Catechism says that “nothing is so necessary as to call upon God incessantly and drum into his ears our prayer that he may give, preserve, and increase in us faith and obedience.” [Tappert, T. G. (2000, ©1959). The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (420). Philadelphia: Fortress Press] What better thing to drum into His ears than His own words?

You can’t outgrow the Word of God. You can’t come to the point where you have mastered it or where it is merely a simple thing to be understood. It is basic, and yet encompasses all of theology. Even if it were just a simple thing, there would be nothing greater in praying to God than saying to Him what He has given us in His Holy Word.

When you pray, take a bold approach. Hold God to His Word. Tell Him what He said. He loves to hear it. Be in His Word. Tell others what God Himself will give you to say. Pray what He Himself gives you to pray. If you wonder whether God answers your prayers, wonder no more. Praying to Him what He has given you to pray you are assured He not only hears but answers your prayers according to His good and gracious will.

If we look at this objectively, or maybe we should say, from God’s perspective, we will see that all theology is plagiarism. What you believe and the things you pray for are either going to be plagiarized from the sinful nature or from God. Jesus’ prayer in today’s Gospel reading is that all would hear the Gospel through the bold proclamation of it through the Christian Church. He died for everyone, He wants everyone to be saved, He provides for the Gospel to be made known to the ends of the earth, to all nations. There is nothing more basic than that. That’s why He wants us to fill our prayers, our thoughts, and the things we share with others with what He has given us in His Word. For what He will give us is eternity in heaven with Him. Amen.

SDG

All Theology Is Plagiarism—Part 2: All Theology Is Communication

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Job
May 9, 2010
John 16:23-33

Perhaps because it’s so much an ordinary part of our daily lives we don’t realize how important communication is. But if you do doubt it just don’t call your mom today or give her a card. You’d really find out how important communication is if you went the whole day today without talking with her on Mother’s Day.

Of course talking with your mom, telling her you love her, giving her a card, maybe some flowers, doing something nice for her, all this isn’t communication for communication’s sake. Communication is the vehicle used to actually love your mom, to show her you appreciate her and all she does for you.

What happens between us and God? We communicate. He gives us His Word. We pray to Him. We use words to offer our petitions to Him even as He uses words to express His love toward us. And how do we share the Gospel with others? We communicate it. We tell others. We express God’s love toward them by putting into action His love toward them. We help them and are kind to them.

At the backbone of all this communication is the Word of God. Whether it’s our prayers, or what we say to others in evangelism, our communication with God and with others about Him must rest in the Word of God. Last Sunday I kind of slighted the notion that the book of Psalms is the Prayer Book of the Bible, emphasizing that the entire Bible is fundamental to our prayer life. But it really is genius what God did in giving us the psalms. The Psalms are the Word of God. The Psalms are also prayers. Here we have the Word of God, what God has given to us. And here we have the words of human beings, the prayers God’s people lift up to Him. The Psalms are prayers even as they are the Word of God. They are the Word of God even as they are the words Christians lift up as prayers. God communicates this to us in this form. When we struggle with what to pray for, God gives us what we need to be praying in His Psalms.

Are you having trouble praying? Spend some time in the Psalms. You will find them inspiring, challenging, even troublesome at times. But you will find there the Word of God even as you will find the words to pray, because they are right there before your eyes, right there in your mind and heart as you pray them, right there on your lips as you speak them. Reading the Psalms, praying the Psalms, will lead you into a deeper understanding and praying of the Lord’s Prayer. Our Lord’s Holy Prayer doesn’t stand on its own. It is not given or prayed in a vacuum. It flows out of and is at the heart of the Psalms. We could also say that the Psalms flow out of and are at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer. That’s why He’s given us His Holy Prayer to pray. That’s how our Lord works, He’s happy to plagiarize. Especially Himself.

You might have heard the saying that as you pray so you believe. I’ve always thought that it makes more sense that as we believe so we will pray. That, if you believe a certain thing, it will inform the way you pray. That’s true. But it’s also true that the way you pray informs the way you believe. If you keep praying a certain way you will end up believing according to what you’re praying. The way you pray will actually form the way you believe.

This really helps us out when it comes to what we should pray, how we should pray, what words we use, and where we come up with the words. It informs also what we say to others when we are sharing the Gospel with them.

When Christians gather for worship how that worship is done impacts what they believe. If you worship in such a way where the focus is primarily on yourself, guess what, your beliefs will primarily focus on yourself. Your prayers, also, will primarily focus on yourself. Even what you say when you evangelize to others will focus on yourself. If you worship in such a way where the focus is primarily on God, then your beliefs will focus on Him. In the same way, your prayers will also.

This brings us back to plagiarism. If we pray what God has given us to pray, then we will be praying in line with His will. We will be speaking the Gospel to others as He has given it rather than simply what we feel. The reason the Church down through the ages has drawn from the Word of God in the forming of the liturgy is because if a bunch of theologians or church councils got together and tried to be creative who knows what they would have come up with?

Actually, we do know. They would have come up with something that focuses on man. Something that appeals to our sinful nature. Something that is all about me and what I want and what I need and what things I’d like God to do for me. That’s the way our prayers naturally are, that’s the way our worship naturally is.

In the liturgy we have the Word of God. The liturgy is formed by the Word of God. Our prayers should be too. As we gather for worship, the liturgy forms our prayer life, focusing on God, receiving what He has to give us, and responding to Him in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving by saying back to Him what He has said to us. That’s why God has given us His Word, the Bible; it’s why He’s given us His Word, His Son. The liturgy forms our prayers and we learn to pray according to God’s will because in the liturgy God is blessing us with His gifts, the opposite of our trying to offer anything to Him of value.

We can never exhaust the Word of God. Our Lord teaches us to pray throughout our lives. Each day God builds us up with the words to share with others. When it comes to the Word of God plagiarism is a good thing. When we are in the Word of God and we pray we are praying according to His good and gracious will. Praying according to what He says, not what we think. What He desires, not what we want. What He has come up with, not what we dream up. What He has creatively brought about, not what we tiredly revert back to in our sinful flesh.

For example, in the Bible our Lord gave us the Lord’s Prayer. His prayer is meant to be plagiarized. He didn’t say, Hey, here’s some good ideas for you to base your prayers on. He said, This is how you pray. You take what I have said and you say it. And you don’t just say it, you pray it. You believe it. You take it to heart. You meditate upon it and take refuge in it. Because it’s not what you can’t know for sure to be of value or the right thing to say. It’s what you do know to be what He Himself wants for you. You can see this in each petition of the Lord’s Prayer:

You know the Father’s name is holy and that it is holy among you because of Christ and His Cross. And so you pray it.

You know His Kingdom comes and that it has come to you in the incarnate Son of God who has joined Himself to you in your Baptism. And so you pray it.

You know that God’s will is perfect and holy and that it is done among you because of His mercy in His Son Jesus Christ who lived and suffered for you on Calvary. And so you pray it.

You know that God gives you your daily bread and that He gives it to you because He has given you all things in giving you His Son to suffer all, even death on a cross, and conquer the grave in His resurrection. And so you pray it.

You know He forgives you of your sins and helps you forgive others theirs and that He forgives you because He has separated you from your sins as far as the east is from the west in forsaking His only-begotten Son. And so you pray it.

You know God does not lead you into temptation and that He guards you in the time of temptation because your Lord Himself has endured temptation beyond what you have experienced and has overcome temptation in the Holy Word of God and in suffering for our sin of falling into temptation. And so you pray it.

You know that God delivers you from evil and that it is so because He delivered you from the punishment you deserve, delivering His own Son over to the punishment in your place. And so you pray it.

You know that His is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever and that it is so because Jesus rose from the grave, ascended into heaven, and reigns on high forever, coming to you in His Word and Sacraments to forgive you and sustain you in faith. And so you pray it.

You know it’s all true and so you say “Amen.”

There’s no shame in this kind of plagiarism. There is only the glorious prayers of the saints of God lifted up to the eternal and merciful God who has given His saints the freedom to go against their stifling and short-sighted sinful nature. Freedom from our harmful desires and wants. Freedom to plagiarize straight out of the God’s own Word.

In the Gospel reading today Jesus is talking about prayer. It doesn’t seem like it because He is talking to His disciples and He is standing right in front of them. But isn’t that what prayer is? Talking with God? Communicating with Him? He communicates with us and we respond, communicating with Him. And to make matters even more interesting Jesus talks about things that only people interested in language and words and communication theory would be interested in: figures of speech. It’s true that many people have no interest in this. But it’s also common that everyone uses them. Most people are also aware that things can be very confusing if figures of speech are being used and the person who is hearing or reading them doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what is being communicated.

He says there will come a time when He is no longer with them. A time when He will no longer use figures of speech, where He will speak plainly. In His Holy Word He not only comes to us but communicates with us. Likewise in Baptism and His Holy Supper.

What we must always remember when it comes to communication in our relationship with God is that He hasn’t simply given us His Word, the Bible, He has given us the Word made flesh, His only-begotten Son. What we must always remember when it come to communication in our response to Him is that there is nothing better that we can do then plagiarize Him, say back to Him what He has said to us. For example, on this day, and really every day, as Christians, we don’t just thank God for our mom, we are grateful to Him for mothers who are godly, who raise their children in a Christian home. We don’t just love our mothers, we pray for them. We don’t just tell them we love them, we communicate to them God’s love for them by how we treat them.

Theology is nothing without communication. Communication is a natural part of life, even as it is in God’s relationship with us. How has God loved the world? He gave His Son. How has He forgiven us of our sins? Jesus suffered in our place. How has He guaranteed a mansion for us in heaven? He raised His Son from the grave on the third day. This is what God has given us, communicating it to us in His very Son, both in His life, suffering, death, and resurrection and in His Word and Sacraments. It is the vehicle as well as the subject of our communication now and always. Amen.

SDG

All Theology Is Plagiarism—Part 1: All Theology Is Repetition

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Athanasius of Alexandria, Pastor and Confessor
May 2, 2010
John 16:12-22

Some of you have heard this in a slightly different form. But that’s okay, because repetition can be a very good thing. It can also be bad, if we’re repeating things that are not good. When we begin to learn that all theology is repetition we will begin to see that too often those things we want to hear are the things that aren’t good for us and the things we’d rather not hear consistently are those very things we need to hear.

Do you ever feel like you don’t know the words to use when you pray? Do you sometimes think that you’re not praying the ‘right’ way? Do you struggle with the words to say to someone who is hurting? Do you find yourself tongue-tied when you are sharing the Gospel with others? All our prayers, all our words, all our beliefs come from somewhere. The question is, where? When we learn that all theology is plagiarism we begin to see prayer and what we say to others in a whole new way.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is preparing His disciples for His suffering and death. We know what comes after that, His resurrection and ascension. He says to them: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.”

If you hear this in passing you miss what an astounding statement this is Jesus makes about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, as is Jesus and the Heavenly Father, is God. And yet, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak. Now, if this is true of God, how much more should it be of us. The disciples are to repeat what they receive from the Holy Spirit. And guess what? The Holy Spirit simply repeats what He Himself receives from the Heavenly Father.

Repetition is a good thing when we are saying, praying, believing what God has given us. In those times we don’t know what to say, how to pray, or we’re not sure what we believe, our Lord gives us an opportunity to plagiarize Him.

It’s tough to be a Christian. We’re supposed to have all the answers. We’re the ones with the strong faith. We’re the ones who know that God is in control and is working everything out for good. Some people genuinely turn to us for answers, but we are caught like deer in the headlights. Some will scoffingly ask us what good God is making out of the bad situation they’re in and, deep inside, we’re wondering the same thing.

Some of us marvel at those who are creative, how they are able to think up things that no one has before. How are they able to create a work of art, when all we can do is stare at a blank slate and see the blank slate? If only we could be creative. If only we could come up with something no one has before. But we just go through life saying and doing normal things. We pay to see others do the creative and artistic things.

We also have an awareness that that is their own creation. It is their possession. If someone writes a book they should get the money for it. If someone makes a movie they should get paid for it. If someone comes along and says, Look at my book I’ve written, and later on it’s found that he stole the idea or the words from someone else, then he’s in trouble. God even has a commandment against that: You shall not steal. If someone else wrote the book, it’s their book. You passing it off as your own is called plagiarism.

Here is the definition of plagiarism: 1. the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. 2. something used and represented in this manner. [Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.]

When it comes to prayer, what you say to others in their troubles, when you evangelize, what you believe, I want to encourage you to plagiarize. What I’m not going to do is try to convince you that, generally speaking, it’s okay to plagiarize—to just go ahead and steal away! After all, the Bible itself said that there’s nothing new under the sun.

We need to think about prayer, and sharing the Gospel, and what we believe in an entirely different way from the way that we usually think about them. When it comes to these things, originality is not where you want to go. The creative realm is best left to the movies and to books and the arts. With prayer, evangelizing, and what we believe there’s nothing wrong with not knowing what to say. In fact, it’s a good thing. After all, what you come up with yourself can only be against God’s will since your sinful flesh is concerned only with itself, not God. In prayer, in speaking to others in their difficulties, in our beliefs, it is entirely a matter of plagiarism. You might even say that it’s a God-blessed license to steal.

You could read books on prayer. You could talk to others who naturally gravitate toward those who evangelize. You could seek the wisdom of the many religions of the world. But what we believe, how we pray, what we tell others, all boils down to one source: our sinful nature.

There is another source. The source is God. More specifically, it’s God as revealed in the Bible. We could even get more specific, in that it’s God revealed in His Son. When we say that God is the source for our prayers, what we say, we need to understand that our prayers need to be plagiarized prayers, our words to others, plagiarized words. We can’t just get ideas from God on some things we should pray for. We need to be praying what God wants us to pray for. That means stealing from God. Jesus had this very thing in mind when He gave His people His Holy Prayer to pray. 

Jesus has actually given us the words to pray. He said, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” He wants us to plagiarize His stuff! When the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He gave them the words to say. He’s not impressed with hearing something new. God desires to hear what He’s already given us in His Word. In His Son.

Books on prayer keep coming out. Shelves at Christian bookstores are lined with “how-to’s” on Evangelism. But really, how many pages can it take to say one simple thing: if you want to learn how to pray, get into the Word of God. If you want to prepare yourself for sharing the Gospel with others, spend time in God’s Word. Read it. Dig into it. Study it. Hear it proclaimed. God will give you the words to say. He already has given you the words, they’re in His Holy Word, the Bible. Not that it’s not good to read books on prayer or evangelism. But being formed by the Word of God is how you will learn to pray and what to say to others.

Let’s take prayer as a specific example. No doubt you’ve heard that the Psalms are the Prayer Book of the Bible. And that’s certainly true. But isn’t the entire Bible the prayer book of the Christian? No, it’s not comprised of a bunch of prayers. But it’s a book which teaches us to pray. It forms our prayers. It’s a plagiarism factory waiting to explode.

I’m not saying that the more you’re into the Word of God that you’ll suddenly be a master pray-er. That you’ll be able to fashion beautiful and well-sounding prayers. That people will marvel at your eloquence in lifting prayers on high.

But you will be able to pray in a godly fashion. You will be able to pray according to God’s will. You will be praying what God desires to hear from you. Because you will be growing in the Word of God. You will be saying back to Him what He has already said to you. You will be praying God-pleasing prayers, prayers according to His will.

Think about it. Why did Jesus, in the Prayer He gave us to pray, give us the petitions He did? Why did He have us pray, for example, “Hallowed be Thy name”? Don’t we already know that His name is holy? And even if we didn’t have the Catechism to remind us, wouldn’t we already know that we pray this petition that it may be kept holy among us also? Yes, we do, and yes, we would. But Jesus has given us this petition because we need to say it. We need to say it because we need to say to Him what He has said to us. If we didn’t, what would we say?

Well, I don’t know about you, but my prayers often go a lot like this: Dear God, I would like this, and this, and that, and these other things. There’s the things I want, the things I need, the things I don’t like that, God, You should really take care of, the things I like but don’t have enough of, and there’s these other things on my mind, and… well, you get the idea.

My prayers are all about ME. They’re about what I want because that’s what my sinful flesh excels at. It doesn’t need to plagiarize anybody or anything because it’s already consumed with itself.

But that’s where God comes in and says, Hey, why don’t you stop trying to think about what you should be praying for and just plagiarize. Listen to Me. Hear what I have to say. Concern yourself with My Words, My will. Say back to Me what I have already said to you.

And you know the great thing about this? It’s because He knows what we truly need. So when He shows us what to pray for, we see that it is actually really about us after all. When we think we’re praying for what’s best for ourselves, we’re really praying for what’s NOT best for ourselves. But when we take God’s words and make them our own, we actually ARE praying for what’s best for ourselves.

If Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to bring to us what we will say, then we can be confident in knowing that He will guide us in our prayers, go with us as we give comfort to those who are hurting, bless us as we share the Gospel with those who are without a Savior.

And if we are still struggling then we can know that it is not just words that He has given us but the Word made flesh. His very own Son is who we have by virtue of our Baptism. He is who we have when we feel we are on our own without an idea of what to say to God in our prayers. He is the one who offered up the perfect Word to His Heavenly Father—Himself, the Word in the Flesh. Our Heavenly Father hears us through Him. His prayers on the cross were perfect prayers, offered in our place, offered for us. He Himself was offered for us and there is nothing better that we can hear of or continue to make known. Amen.

SDG

Your Shepherd, the Lamb

Fourth Sunday of Easter
Mark, Evangelist
April 25, 2010
John 10:22-30

So they wanted to know who Jesus was. If You’re the Messiah, just tell us. Don’t beat around the bush. Well, He had tried that and it didn’t work. They didn’t believe Him.

So He’ll try another approach. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the Shepherd of the sheep, and, oh, by the way, you’re not part of My flock. Sheep know the voice of their shepherd and you’re not listening to Me. You don’t believe that I’m the Christ and you don’t believe that I’m the Good Shepherd. My sheep have eternal life.

And if that’s not enough He goes all the way and says He’s God: I and the Father are one. Now this is really the last straw, as all four Gospel writers tell us that the Jewish religious leaders couldn’t tolerate this kind of blasphemy. They sought to kill Him. And as we know they were ultimately successful.

We, of course, know and believe that Jesus is God. We rejoice and give thanks that He is the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior of the world. He is the Good Shepherd. He is our Shepherd.

But if we step back and see Him as He presents Himself to us we must ask if we really know Him. Do we know Him as well as we ought to? Jesus is all of those things, things we have no problem with, but He is also something else. He is something that doesn’t quite register with us.

Because, well, He’s God. He’s the Savior. He’s the Good Shepherd. He’s the powerful one. The one who can do anything. The one who’s going to get us through the valley of the shadow of death. The one who will prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies and feed us His Heavenly Feast.

He can’t be the other thing He says He is. Maybe He was. But now? No, now He’s the Almighty God and Lord. He’s our Good Shepherd who leads us beside still waters and protects us.

So what is it that He is that we might have so much trouble with? He’s the Lamb. The Shepherd of the sheep is also the Lamb for the sheep. Our Good Shepherd is the Lamb. But not just a lamb. The Lamb. The Lamb who was slain.

He doesn’t say it here in the Gospel reading. He says that He is the Christ, He is the Shepherd, and He is God. He doesn’t say He is the Lamb, and furthermore the Lamb who was slain. But here’s what He does say: “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” My Father, who has given to Me My sheep, I being their Shepherd, is greater than all, I having humbled Myself as a man to suffer and die, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. Why are the sheep of the Good Shepherd Jesus safe and secure in the Father’s hand? Because of Christ humbling Himself to His Heavenly Father. Christ the Good Shepherd not only sacrifices Himself by laying down His life for His sheep, He is the sacrifice necessary. He is the Lamb who was slain.

The apostle John wrote down these words of Jesus for us in the Gospel reading. He also wrote down His vision he saw in the book of Revelation. He says there, as we heard in our second reading, “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd.” He is the Shepherd and we are the sheep. But He is also the Lamb. The Lamb who was slain so that we may be guided to the safe harbor of eternal life.

We must never forget that the Jesus is the Lamb. He is the Lamb who was slain. In a world that holds up glory and pleasure as the ultimate goal, Jesus offers Himself to you, the Lamb who was slain. Many in the Church want to take the path of the Pharisees. Jesus, what have you done for me lately? Why do those who don’t believe in you gain the wealth and the power and the glory? Why do we, Your sheep, so often suffer and struggle through trials? Where too often in the Christian Church the pursuit of glory is taken right from the pages of the world at large Jesus humbly submits Himself to you for your salvation.

Your Shepherd is the Lamb. You are sheep of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb who was slain. So if you hear His voice hear what He says to you: He is the one who was offered up and offers Himself to you in His Word and Sacraments. It’s true that as God He can do anything. Of all that He can do, of all that He does, He continues to come to you as the Lamb. He comes to you lowly and humbly as He did at Bethlehem, as He did in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He did in His suffering and death on the cross.

He is indeed your Good Shepherd. He leads you. He guides you. He protects you. He is with you always. He is your Good Shepherd because He is the Lamb who was slain.

He is never too powerful or almighty to be the Lamb whose blood was shed for the sins of the world. You hear His voice because His words rang out on Calvary, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. On the cross He was the sacrifice. He was the go between. Interceding for us so that we may make it through the valley of the shadow of death. He remains forever the Lamb who was slain even as He guides us through the darkest valley.

There is something dynamic about Christ being the Lamb who was slain. He is the Good Shepherd, and there’s tremendous and eternal comfort in that. But never forget that He is the Lamb who was slain. When you’re in the darkest valley know that your God, your Shepherd, is the one who was slain. The one who was slaughtered so that you may make it through.

We need to know that He is God. He is all-powerful. He is the One. He is the Everything. But without the one thing, the Lamb who was slain, the Everything is nothing. He is nothing for you if He is not the Lamb who was slain. Your Shepherd is your dynamic living God because He is more than just the one who can do anything for you. He has done everything for you in His suffering and death. In being the Lamb, the one who was slain, all things are yours and you are led through this vale of tears to eternity without sorrow or fear or hurt or sin.

Don’t listen to the voices that offer you a God who is gives you glory. Listen to the ones that offer you a God who is humble and lowly. One who was slain. One who shepherds His sheep by laying down His life for them. By being the very sacrifice for all their sins. Your enemies are worse than you can ever know. He knows them. He died because you face them. He suffered because they have a hold on you. You walk through the valley of the shadow of death because too often you listen to the voices that promise glory and a Christian life free from trouble.

Your Good Shepherd calls you by name. He Baptizes you and makes you His own. The Lamb who was slain gives you, as He did at Calvary, His very Body and Blood for the forgiveness of all of your sins. Hear His voice. He prepares before you a table in the presence of your enemies. He calls to you in His Holy Supper: take and eat, take and drink, this is My body and blood for you. I am the Lamb who was slain. Forever in glory as the Lamb who was stricken and smitten for the sins of the world.

Why would you want a Shepherd who offers you glory when you have heard the voice of the one who offers you simply Himself? Your sinful flesh will latch on to the glory, but you are a new creation in Christ. What you need is forgiveness. What you need is new and eternal life. The glory will come. It will be far greater than whatever glory you seek in this life. Your attempts to avoid pain or suffering in this life will give way to a humble and joyful magnification in heaven of your Good Shepherd, the very Lamb who was slain. Amen.

SDG

When Jesus Shows Up, All Bets Are Off

Third Sunday of Easter
April 18, 2010
John 21:1-19

When Jesus shows up, all bets are off.

There’s really no way to get people to see this. They really have to see it for themselves. What gets in our way is that we want to approach Christ from our starting point and He comes in and everything changes. We go to the Scriptures and try to get them to make sense according to our framework but they come at us like a Mack truck and blow away our pre-conceived notions. We want to fit God and His goodness into our tidy understanding of what should be and how it should be, when God has no regard for what we think or want or wish. When Jesus shows up, all bets are off.

You may have come here today with a certain idea of what you expect to get out of this worship service or this sermon. You might walk away from here today feeling like your expectations were not met.

You should be praying and hoping that that is the case. Pray you are so blessed that none of your expectations were met, that you got nothing out of this worship that you were hoping for. All of it is tainted. All of it is as filthy rags. You have nothing you desire that is not ultimately turned in on yourself. You bring nothing to the table of worth to the Almighty God. Pray that what you get out of today is what God wants for you.

And that’s why Jesus shows up. All bets are off. When He comes on the scene He comes to bring about your destruction. This is what is exhibited in all three Scripture readings for today. Saul is very pleased with himself that he is following the will of God in terminating these heretic followers of this new Way, the followers of Jesus. He’s got everything figured out until he meets Jesus and he is brought to his knees. Those who stand before the scroll in John’s vision are unable to open the sacred book because none of them are worthy. Peter realizes who it is that brought about this miraculous catch of fish after he and his buddies have spent all night toiling out on the water and he can do nothing but take a plunge into that water.

It seems he’s just trying to get over to Jesus faster than the rest of the crew. But to John, the inspired author of this book of the Bible, Peter is being destroyed. He cannot face Jesus in his sinful state. He must first be destroyed. In the time and culture he lived in the sea was a place of destruction. It was the Great Unknown. Although we are rapidly discovering more and more of the universe, I suppose space is our Great Unknown in a way similar to how they perceived the sea. What was down there? All they knew was that if you ended up there then you ended in destruction. Remember Jonah? He knew the only way to end the storm was for the crew to throw him overboard. He knew he would be destroyed. The reason the crew didn’t want to do it? They knew it also and it scared them even as the storm did. So Peter wasn’t just getting to Jesus in the quickest way possible. He was getting to Him in the only way possible. By first being destroyed. Drowned to his sinful flesh.

When Jesus shows up, all bets are off. Jesus wasn’t there so that they could get their fish, after all. He was there to show them that they were nothing without Him. They were going fishing, but when He shows up, all bets are off. When He comes on the scene they realize that He alone can provide for them. He alone provides for their needs of body and soul. They’re fisherman, for crying out loud. They know fishing and if anyone can catch fish it’s them. But Jesus shows them that even the fish they catch are a gift from Him. Paul told the Corinthians that we preach Christ crucified. He said to them that when he was with them he determined to know nothing among them but Christ and Him crucified. That’s nothing. As in, nothing. Zip, zero, nada. Nothing means nothing. Not that and some other things in addition. Nothing. That’s because there is nothing we receive from God apart from Christ and Him crucified. All His blessings are because of Christ and Him crucified.

The Lamb that receives all honor and glory in the reading from the Book of Revelation is the Lamb who was slain. The Lamb who was slain is the one who comes to Saul on the road to Damascus. The Jesus who shows up on the beach after an unsuccessful night of fishing for Peter and Company is the one with nail marks in His hands and feet and a scar from a big gash in His side.

The one who was crucified and is now risen is the one who shows up. And all bets are off.

When He goes through that, there’s really nothing you can say. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing you can offer Him. There’s no plea bargain or settling out of court, or paying off the judge. There’s no hoping it will all work out or just sticking with what you think you would like it to be.

There’s only Christ standing before you. The one who was slain and now lives forever. With Him on the scene all bets are off. He is going to bring you to your knees so that He can raise you up. Put away any notions you have of what should be. Resist temptation. Stop dwelling on your wishes that you could be free of pain or trials or that giving into temptation isn’t that big of a deal because it doesn’t kill you or anything. Stop trying to convince God, or yourself for that matter, that you are faithful unto death.

All bets are off. You need to be destroyed. Daily. Daily drowned so that you may rise up to new life daily. Jesus’ vivid reminder of that to Peter is a lesson for us. It was around a charcoal fire in the courtyard of the high priest where Peter sat to see what would happen to his Lord. A charcoal fire to warm himself. But sitting at that fire something disastrous happened. He denied his Lord. He may have walked away from his livelihood when Jesus had called him, but he hadn’t given up everything. His life was too precious to himself. He held on to his fears and denied his Lord.

That’s why when Jesus showed up on that morning at the beach, all bets were off. Jesus sat down this time around a charcoal fire and invited Peter to join Him. Not to rub salt in his wounds but as a vivid way of showing that the one who was denied was the one who never gave up on Peter. He was now calling Peter again. Calling him anew. He needed to daily be destroyed and to daily rise. Plunging into the waters of Baptism will do that. Jesus shows up there, that’s why we can count on it. Jesus made sure that Peter knew that he was forgiven, calling him three times, just as he had denied Jesus three times. Giving Peter food that He Himself provided, not what Peter had brought out of the lake.

When Jesus shows up, all bets are off. He lays it all out on the table. It’s not about you. It’s about Him. It’s not what you bring to the table, it’s all in what He offers you at His Table. This is His Table [pointing to the altar]. What He brings to the Table is Himself. Sure, you come to His Table, but as He said, No one comes to the Father except the Son of Man draws Him. He lays a meal before you and in His Meal He offers you Himself. For you to eat and drink. For you to be forgiven. For you to be sustained. For you to receive what you truly need. You have been destroyed in Baptism. You may now rise up and partake of the eternal Meal of the Lamb who was slain. There is only what He offers you. As He was lifted up on the cross and stepped out of His tomb, He offers you the body given on the cross, the blood shed on the cross. The risen flesh and blood body that rose and came to the disciples on a cool morning on the beach, to a ravenous man out for blood on a road, to a lone apostle in a vision beyond what we can imagine in which he saw nothing but at which he could simply marvel. All bets are off.

Jesus shows up. Everything who He is, everything He offers, He lays before you at His Table. Rise up and partake, for you are feasting on eternity. Amen.

SDG