To Believe in Something

The Holy Trinity

First Sunday after Pentecost

June 3, 2012

John 3:1–17

Some may scoff at the notion, but people need to believe in something. We need to have hope in something. People search in many ways for something to believe in, for something to give them hope. They turn to religion, of course. They may turn to some new spiritual philosophy or ideology. Some people turn to things they can do, they learn a new hobby or join with a group of people who are passionate about something. Some people may turn their attention to exercise and making themselves feel better. Even atheists will tell you that their insistence that God does not exist gives them hope.

Whether atheists, or those who are devoutly religious, those passionate about something they can devote themselves to, or people in desperate straits, everyone longs for something to believe in. We all want hope, something that can get us beyond our circumstances.

Many people may think the Bible is outdated and not relevant but it’s stunning to see how relevant it is to our day and what people face today. If one is so caught up in the present that he thinks what is in the past has no bearing on his life then he will miss what God has to say to him. Nicodemus was a person like you and me. He needed something to believe in. He needed hope. The Gospel reading today gives us something to believe in as Nicodemus came to Jesus needing hope and receiving it from Jesus.

So many people are confused about believing in something. They want to understand. They want to know for certain that what they believe in is true. What they mean by knowing for certain is that they want it proven. If it can’t be proven then they won’t believe it. This was Nicodemus’ problem. He didn’t understand. He didn’t take Jesus at His word because Jesus was speaking of things that aren’t proven to us but rather given to us simply to believe. Nicodemus wasn’t believing. He was pressing Jesus to explain.

What it all comes down to, Jesus was imploring him to believe, is that God is not some idea, or even religion. God is a being. He is a being who doesn’t reveal Himself in terms we can understand but rather in a way in which we can have a relationship with Him.

That brings us to what today is, Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is one of those days in the Church Year that’s very tempting to use for what Lutherans love to do and that is expound on doctrine. But we are going to resist that temptation because Trinity Sunday isn’t about doctrine. That is because God isn’t about doctrine. He’s about loving us, the people He created. It’s true that the doctrine of the Trinity is doctrine. It has to be. God can’t reveal Himself in a way in which there’s nothing to grab hold of. When He shows us who He is there is something there that can be rationally understood in terms of talking about it. For example, if you don’t know what a bridge is and I tell you you have to cross the bridge to get over to Coronado then I need to explain what a bridge is and then you will understand how you get over to Coronado. That’s how it is with doctrine, teaching of what the Bible gives us to believe.

But where this analogy ends is that you don’t believe in the bridge in order to cross it. With God, you may understand the concept of the Trinity, but you don’t believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. You believe in God Himself. That He has revealed Himself as Triune isn’t so that we can expound on doctrine. The Athanasian Creed we confessed moments ago is admittedly tough to understand. But at the heart of this Confession of faith is what is at the heart of the Apostles and Nicene Creed as well: who God is and what He has done. We don’t confess our faith in God we because we understand it or even who He is as the Holy Trinity. We confess it because we believe it. Specifically, we believe in Him.

That’s what we need. We need to believe in something. We need hope. That’s why the Christian Church confesses the Creed, whether it’s the Apostles, Nicene, or Athanasian. Christianity isn’t just motivation. We don’t believe in Christianity, an idea, or a philosophy. We believe in God. On this day we marvel at the mystery of God as Triune. But we don’t believe in a doctrine. We believe in God. The greatest mystery of all is not how God is one God and yet revealed in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; even as there are not three Gods or three parts to the one God. The greatest mystery of all—something we will never comprehend—is His love for us. That’s what we believe in.

Imagine if it took your parents to prove to you their love for you. Imagine if it were a condition that you have a rational understanding of their love for you in order for you to know that they love you. That would pretty much reduce their relationship with you to some sort of scientific method type of affiliation. How awesome is it to simply know that they love you. What an amazing blessing it is to know that when they say they love you, when they show you that they love you, when they simply love you, that you simply know.

This is why Jesus didn’t go into some philosophical or even theological discourse on who God is. He simply told Nicodemus who God is. What He has done for him. He simply showed him that God is the one who loves Nicodemus with all His heart. And to make that abundantly clear, God did the one thing that goes beyond all rational thought and proof and comprehension: He sent His only Son to die for Nicodemus, for you, for me, for every single person. Jesus didn’t go on to say, “Do you understand this?” It’s simply belief. Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

We need something to believe in but we don’t just believe in something. We believe in God. The God who gave His Son. The God who sent His Son to die for all of our sins. The God who gives His Son to us in bread and wine so that we may believe, so that we may know, that He gives Himself to us. To forgive us, to strengthen us, to give us eternal life, and sustain us in that life. That’s something to believe in. Amen.

SDG

The Other Lord’s Prayer

Seventh Sunday of Easter

May 20, 2012

John 17:11–19

We’re familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We pray it often as our Lord has given it to us to pray. There is no greater prayer. There is no prayer that encompasses the way it does everything we need and everything we ought to pray for. In a sense, this prayer we have in today’s Gospel reading is more accurately the Lord’s Prayer as it is the prayer our Lord prayed to His Father as He was about to embark on that path to the cross. The Lord’s Prayer we pray often, this prayer we not only do not pray, we often do not even look at it. In the Lord’s Prayer we are given what to pray, in the prayer our Lord prays in John 17 we are given what our Lord prayed for us.

What is it that He prayed for us? Even though the Gospel reading begins in the middle of His prayer, we’ll start where the Gospel reading starts and we see Jesus talking about how He is no longer in the world. It’s obvious that Jesus was still in the world as He was praying these words. Jesus speaks as one who does not speak as we do. He speaks as God. We speak as people who are created by God. Jesus speaks with knowledge we do not know. So often our prayers are about things we don’t know. Things that are coming up and we need guidance or help. We’re asking God for a certain outcome. Whether it’s surgery or a change in occupation or a difficult decision we’re facing. There is so much we don’t know so we pray to the one who knows. We pray to our Heavenly Father who knows all things.

Jesus here is praying to His Heavenly Father. Yet, Jesus is God even as the Father is. Jesus prays knowing He is about to go to the cross. Jesus knows that even after being in the tomb three days He will be unbound. He will once again walk around as He is now, and yet He will not be limited by things like walls. He knows that soon He will ascend into heaven. He will no longer be in the world.

For Jesus this is all reality, even now as He is praying to His Heavenly Father. And so His prayer is prayed as one who is no longer in the world. His prayer at this point in the prayer that our Gospel reading shows us is for His disciples, the men He will call to be apostles. They are in the world. They will stay in the world. He will be going to the cross. He will be rising from the grave. He will be ascending into heaven. They’ll stay around. Thus, Jesus is praying for them. He knows, they’re not fully aware of what’s going on. So Jesus prays for them.

This is an invaluable thing Jesus is doing for us. It may seem the logical thing to do to transfer what He is praying for them to us and certainly it all applies to us. But before we do that think about what Jesus is actually doing. He is praying for them. He wasn’t spending time in some ivory tower speech, He was praying for those His Father gave Him; those who were close to Him; those He cared deeply for. Even if nothing of what He prayed for them applied to us, what He is doing is a loving act on His part which applies to us. We know elsewhere in Scripture that Jesus prays for us, one place being at the end of this prayer. The words He prays here for His eleven disciples is a beautiful picture of what He does for us. We’re in the world, are we not? We need help. We need Jesus praying for us. And we can be assured He does.

Knowing this, we can look to the words Jesus uses to pray for His beloved disciples. His prayer is that they may be one, even as He and His Heavenly Father are one. So how do you be one with others? It’s plain to see that as Christians we don’t always get along with one another. Does that mean we’re not one? The disciples themselves didn’t always get along. Jesus’ prayer for oneness isn’t, “Father, let them get their act straight so that they can get along.” He prays that His Father would keep them in His name. What has our Lord taught us to pray? “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” In there, in His name, is found our oneness. It’s not in getting along, although that’s really nice, isn’t it?

God the Father is holy and we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that we may keep His name holy. As we are taught in the Catechism, how we do that is “when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!”

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus doesn’t ignore difficult things we face. He addresses them head on, such as temptation and evil. The petitions “lead us not into temptation” and “deliver us from evil” show us that this life is not always easy. In His prayer He prays in our Gospel reading He tackles those same matters. These are sad words: “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” He also prays: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” We can’t think about Judas Iscariot without being saddened. We can well imagine how heavy of a heart Jesus had when He prayed these words about Judas. We can imagine how conflicted He was when He prayed that His beloved disciples would remain in the world even as they would be assaulted by the evil one.

When we consider our Lord’s prayer here in the Gospel reading and the prayer He taught us to pray we are brought to greater understanding of keeping God’s name holy; namely, “when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it… But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us...” Judas had been the recipient of the very same Word of God the others had. Even two thousand years later we are the recipients of that very same Word. What will we do with it? Will we reject it as Judas did, and thereby be doomed to destruction? Will we succumb to the temptations of the devil as Judas did and thereby not live holy lives according to God’s holy name?

Sitting here it’s easy enough to say, “No. I’ll be faithful, unlike Judas. I believe, unlike him.” Yet, in the time of temptation we are often weak. We do sin even as Judas did. But this is where it’s all the more important that we go back to these words of our Lord; His words of prayer for His beloved disciples. His promise that He prays for us in the same way. Even as He prayed for Judas. You are never too far gone for Him to stop praying for you.

When Jesus was praying this prayer for His disciples they weren’t aware of what would happen to Him, that He would suffer, die, and rise. They also didn’t know that He would soon after that ascend into heaven, leaving them on their own; as He says in His prayer: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” They assuredly wondered what that was all about, leaving them. But it didn’t take long for them to see that He really didn’t leave them on their own. He continued to intercede for them. He delivered to them the Holy Spirit. He continued to come to them through the Gospel and His Sacraments He had instituted.

This should sound familiar, as He does exactly the same for us today. He ascended into heaven coming on two thousand years. But He is very present. He still intercedes as He did for His disciples. He continues to come to us when the Gospel is proclaimed and the Absolution is pronounced. He brings us into His life through Baptism and sustains us in that life through His Holy Supper. As we are also sent into the world by Him, what more could we want or need than having partaken of the very Body and Blood of our Lord? When Jesus prays to His Heavenly Father that His beloved disciples are sanctified in the truth and that the Father’s Word is truth, well, it’s no stretch that He does exactly that for us.

We go out into the world. We who are holy, sanctified, make known this very Word to others as well. His prayer for His disciples was fervent. His continual intercession and coming to us in His Sacraments is equally fervent. It really is a natural extension that this fervent love from Him to us goes to others. We extend that very love of Christ to others, sharing with them the love of God in which Jesus loves them and forgives them and died for their sins.

In the Lord’s Prayer our Lord teaches us to pray. So here with this ‘other’ Lord’s Prayer. In praying to His Heavenly Father our Lord is teaching us to pray. This is really our Lord teaching us what Paul says when he says we are to pray constantly. Our lives are lives of prayer. This doesn’t mean folded hands and bowed heads 24/7. At the very least we need to sleep. But we also have many other duties and callings, don’t we? We live and serve others and carry out the tasks our Lord has called us to. This is the life of prayer. We could take off from what we heard from John not so long ago, we love because He first loved us. In the same way we pray because He first prayed for us. We live because He first lived for us. Amen.

SDG

God’s Commandments Are Loving

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 13, 2012

John 15:9–17

What did we pray for this morning in the Collect of the Day? “That we may think those things that are right and by Your merciful guiding accomplish them.” We prayed to God, addressing Him this way: “O God, the giver of all that is good.” This is who our God is. He is God, and He is a God who gives, and He is the one who when He gives He gives what is good. If you learn this and take it to heart you will understand much of what you have in your life: what your life is and what you have been given. You will see that there is so much good. You will see more and more that when God gives it is what is good.

On Mother’s Day many mothers wonder where all this affection and thanks and gifts are the other 364 days of the year. It’s sad that so many of us don’t readily and joyfully thank our mothers, that we don’t give them the affection they deserve, that we don’t give to them in return for all their love and affection. If there’s any good in this perhaps it’s that our mothers don’t love us and care for us in order to receive thanks and affection.

That’s really what love is, isn’t it? Can you imagine if moms loved their children for love in return? There might not be much love they would give to their children. When moms love their children it’s much more that they just naturally love their children. That’s what love is. They want to love them and care for them and do what is best for them.

This leads to another thing we learn from our moms: that what they give us isn’t always what we want or what is pleasant. But it’s certainly love. And it’s definitely what is best for us. Love often means giving us things that our sinful nature recoils against. But that is exactly what we need. We need someone to love us in a way which won’t ignore our sinful ways.

In the Gospel reading today Jesus talks about His relationship with us. He talks about the relationship His Heavenly Father has with Him. In our moms we get a wonderful picture of the kind of love Jesus is talking about with us and that His Heavenly Father has for Him. It’s love that gives what is good, even if it’s painful.

So when Jesus is saying that as the Father loves Him so He loves us and then He starts talking about commandments and how we are to keep His commandments, well, we get a little squirmy. What do commandments have to do with love? How is it when God gives us commandments that that is good and that in this way He is loving us? He says: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” When we write our Mothers Day cards we probably aren’t saying things like, “Mom, thanks for telling me to clean my room and eat my vegetables.” We say things like, “Thanks for loving me and taking care of me.” As we grow older we see more and more that all those commands are part of that love, part of taking care of us. This is the way it is with God. He gives us His commands because He loves us and takes care of us.

Of course, a relationship that consists of the one in authority handing down commands and the one under authority obediently keeping them wouldn’t be much of a loving relationship. Fortunately, that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. He is talking about a true loving relationship in which He loves us and we love Him in return. Again, we have an excellent example of this is in our relationship with our moms. What kind of relationship would it be if all she did was tell us what to do and we simply did it because we had to? That wouldn’t be much of one. But it’s not that way. She loves us unconditionally and we love her and trust her and give to her. That we also do what she tells us to do we, hopefully, see more and more that it is because she loves us and it is what is best for us.

With Jesus He knows all this. He’s God and He is love Himself. His relationship with His Father is pure love yet even so Jesus delights in keeping His Father’s commandments. Does it seem odd that He does so? Yes, it does. He certainly doesn’t need to, He’s God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have a perfect relationship without any commands needing to be kept. There is one reason Jesus keeps His Father’s commands and that is love. It’s love for His Father of course. But it’s really located in His love for us. Jesus keeps His Father’s commandments because of you and me. Because it’s what we need, because it’s what’s best for us.

So when Jesus talks about us keeping His commandments He’s not laying something down on us that zaps all the love out of our relationship with Him. He’s giving to us something that breathes love. If we’re honest, and hopefully we will be, we will see that we do not keep God’s commandments. We’re often like we are with Mom: “Do I have to?” We so often see God’s commandments as burdens. Kind of like the way we so often see the things Mom makes us do. But John in the Epistle reading says that “His commandments are not burdensome.” God does not gives us His commandments to burden us but to love us. That’s why we prayed in the Collect “that we may think those things that are right and by [His] merciful guiding accomplish them.” His commandments are loving.

That we sin and often recoil at God’s commandments shows that we often don’t think the things that are right, and we could also add good and beneficial. We need to keep in mind that when Mom tells us to do the things we ought to do these are first and foremost commands from God. Her authority is first and foremost God’s authority. By grace we will also see that her love for us also is first and foremost His love for us. He is loving us by giving us a mom to love and care for us.

So when Jesus says “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” He is not laying a burden on us. He is not telling us, “This is how you must obey Me, you must love one another.” He is giving to us. He is loving us by giving us a command which is not a burden but rather an act of love. We are to love others. Should we not? Should we not love others? Don’t we want to? Does a mother love her children because she has been commanded to by God? Doesn’t she rather do it because it is a  joy? Doesn’t she do it simply because she loves her children?

And so with us. We love others. If it seems a burden at times that’s because it’s hard work loving others. It’s hard when they’re not very loving back to us. It’s hard when it does seem to be a burden, when it takes a toll on our time or health or finances. But Jesus’ command is really an exhortation simply to love others in the way He has loved us. And how is that? He says that there is no greater love than someone laying down his life for his friends. This is love exemplified in Jesus. It’s His love for us, in which He loves us to an extent in which there is no greater extent. It’s not a love that has a limit or a love that can be exhausted or a love that places conditions on us. It’s a love in which He lays down His life for us.

When He laid down His life for us He didn’t just give His life, He took our place. He’s not just talking a physical act of salvation here. He’s talking about taking our place as we stand before God. He became as we are, a sinner. He became as one who deserves punishment for not keeping the commandments of God. He laid down His life so that when we die it doesn’t mean eternal death and condemnation.

The kind of love that draws Jesus to do this also draws Him to view us in a new way: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends.” Jesus is above all our Lord and Savior. He is also our friend. When you have close friends you know what a blessing they are. When you don’t you know that also because you know what you need. We need friends. Jesus calls us His friends. We know one friend we can always count on and His command to us is that we then love each other as fellow Christian friends. This command and this love is not burdensome. If it’s tough to love one another at times it’s because love is not an easy thing. It’s a conscious choice and effort. But the good news is that it’s love that flows out of the Father’s love for His Son and our Lord’s love for us in laying down His life for us, His friends.

We did not choose Him, He chose us. His love really comes down to that. He has loved us and continues to love us by giving us what we need to think those things that are right and by His merciful guiding accomplish them. Amen.

SDG

Does Jesus Command You or Give to You?

Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 6, 2012

John 15:1–8

Here is something you can know in all certainty: Jesus will never lay anything upon you that He has Himself not endured. When you are mistreated, when dark days are ahead of you, when you wonder if God is still with you, when you are tempted and you don’t think you can bear up under the enticement, you are enduring exactly what you need. It is through these things that you are made stronger and are truly blessed. Jesus Himself has endured all of these things. He didn’t enjoin upon you commandments you ought to fulfill so that God the Father may then love you and care for you. He doesn’t place suffering and trials in your life while He placidly stands by as an onlooker. He doesn’t allow you to be tempted as one who enjoys seeing others squirm in their struggle against enticement. He doesn’t stand look from afar while you endure trials even as He enjoys seeing you wonder if He’s gone and has left you for good.

Jesus Himself has submitted to the commandments of God. Jesus willingly endured suffering at the hands of others and at the hands of His Father. Jesus endured the abandonment of His own dear Father, being forsaken by Him.

The Bible in several places compares the Christian Church, the people of God, to a vine or a vineyard. Oftentimes God will lament that His vineyard, that He planted, was not bearing fruit. Even with all of His love and care for the vineyard, for His very own people, they would produce the opposite of good fruit, selfish and godless deeds.

Now Jesus makes a switch on us. He is the Vine. In a sense we are the vineyard of God but Jesus says that He is the true Vine. We are the branches. The same imagery still applies, being as Jesus says that whatever branches that do not bear fruit will be cut off. But notice that He isn’t a dispassionate observer. He isn’t sitting on the sidelines saying, Come on, bear fruit already. Get in gear.

He is the Vine. He doesn’t enjoin anything upon you He Himself does not endure. He is the Vine, His Father is the Vinedresser. The work that is done of the Vine by the Vinedresser is not done merely on the branches. It is done first and foremost on the Vine. What is done to you by your Heavenly Father has first and foremost been done by your Heavenly Father to His dear Son.

If a vine could think and understand what is going on around it it would think the vinedresser is causing it harm with all the digging around it he does and all the cutting of it. All this work of the vinedresser would not be experienced by the vine as a pleasant experience. It would be the opposite of a pleasant experience. And yet, the vine would emerge from all that work the vinedresser did healthier and producing more fruit. The vinedresser’s work is for the good of the vine.

It is the same way with the work of your Heavenly Father, who is the Vinedresser. He works away at His Vine and the branches. Since you are not just a plant you are very aware of the pain and the seeming harm all of His work does to you. It is in fact not a pleasant experience. You do in fact question Him and why He is doing so. When a vinedresser takes his shovel and hoe and clippers to the vine damage is being done in order to provide an environment in which the vine can grow and thrive. This is what happens when your Heavenly Father takes the shovel and clippers of trials and temptations and uses them to clear out those things which hinder your growth as a Christian. You can’t just water a vine you need to keep working at it and pruning it. God doesn’t just let you be, He keeps working at you with His work of pruning.

When you see a vine you know that there is a plant that has not created its life and does not sustain its growth. If left on its own it will wither and die. A vinedresser must plant it and then work at it and prune it. In the same way you have life because your Heavenly Father has given you life. In the same way you are sustained in this life because God works at you and prunes you and sustains you in life.

Jesus’ teaching of being the Vine and you the branches overflows with grace and the love of God and the power and work of God. First, that He would be the Vine and undergo the same trials that you go through. If Jesus were your mentor or leader or guide He could easily stand by and point the way for you. But He is your true Shepherd, your true Savior, He is the true Vine. He is the Shepherd who lays down His life for you. He is the Savior who actually saves you. He is the Vine that endures every bit of trials and suffering and temptation that you do.

What He says here in being the Vine and you the branches shows you His grace and love and His power and work also because He isn’t saying to you that you are the branches so you’d better get moving and bear fruit. Of course it’s true that you need to bear fruit. But if He were simply telling you that you must do good works, how would that be any different from any other religion or philosophy? It wouldn’t and you wouldn’t be left with much from Him. When He says He is Vine and you are the branches and His Father is the Vinedresser He is making you aware that you are the recipients of God’s gracious love and care. He loves you and gives you what you need. He does the work of sustaining you in growth.

If a vine could think and its branches were aware of what they were they could easily see themselves as the source of the fruit they bear. Branches could easily forget they are connected the vine and think that they are the ones making possible the luscious fruit they bear. This happens very easily with you as well. You look at yourself and all the good you do and forget that you are not the one who makes it possible to bear this fruit. You forget that you are connected the Vine that is Jesus Christ and that your Heavenly Father is the Vinedresser who is constantly at work in pruning you and sustaining your growth so that you may bear the fruit of good works.

The reason you don’t think of this as the amazing thing it is is because it is so simple. It rests entirely on God’s work, what He does for you in your life. But you pass that off because you want to go beyond the simple work of God of forgiving and saving you and get to what you think must be the real thing God wants you to do and that is do good works. You hear it all the time in Christian circles and churches. You need to live more like Christ, you need to do more good works, or in the words of our Gospel reading, you need to bear fruit. All of this is true, there’s no doubt. But if you fool yourself into thinking that if you just try harder, do more, focus on what you as branches need to do then you are doing more than fooling yourself. You are not producing fruit and you begin withering and will eventually be cut off from the Vine.

Jesus said, “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” His work in you and His Father’s work in you are never divorced from this work in you in which He cleanses you and forgives you. It really is that simple. His Word He speaks to you forgives you. You are clean. You are branches that have not somehow attached themselves to the Vine but have rather been given life by the Vine and are sustained in the life through Him. In this understanding Jesus counsels you, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” Branches do not produce fruit by trying. They produce fruit by abiding in the Vine.

Your sinful flesh is very powerful. It either latches on to that Law, which itself is powerful, which is insistent that you must do more, that you must try harder, that you must by your own power do good works, so that you either feel really good about yourself because you’re trying harder or you despair of yourself because you can’t seem to get better or aren’t sure if it’s enough for what God wants. The focus in either case is on yourself, not on Christ, the Vine, where it belongs. That’s why Jesus has you covered. He knows how you think. He knows you are prone look to yourself rather than to Him. So He expounds on His words of abiding in Him: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Do you believe that? If you do you will stop focusing on yourself and begin focusing on Christ. You will see your trials as what your Heavenly Father uses in your life to draw you to Christ rather than turn in on yourself in confusion or despair. You will see that Christ is far more powerful than anything you could think to do. This doesn’t mean, and Jesus isn’t saying, that you’re life will be a breeze. Yes, a branch on a vine just sits there. You are a living breathing disciple of Christ who lives each day doing many things and bearing fruit in many ways. That your life in Christ is difficult and challenging and filled with trials is borne out by how Jesus began, with you being pruned by God the Father.

This past week we were stunned in our community when Junior Seau’s life came to an end. It would have been a shock anyway, but the way it occurred makes it even more sad in his taking his own life. What we knew of him was a man who loved life, who excelled at what he did, and who gave so much to so many people. That he apparently was beset by demons within his own mind and spirit brings home the reality of the world we live in. Junior apparently thought there was no hope. What Jesus shows us in being the true Vine is that there is always hope. He is the Vine, you are the branches. Abide in Him. Know that even if you struggle or despair you abide in Him because He never lays anything upon you that He Himself does not give you. He knows everything you are going through, He Himself has experienced beyond what you could ever imagine.

Abide in Him, His Gospel, His grace, His mercy. Take and eat the body of Christ, for you; Himself whom He gives to you, for you. Take and drink the blood of Christ, for you; His blood poured out for you and given to you for your forgiveness. In and through this, but specifically, through Him, you then bear fruit. Apart from Him you can do nothing. As the Epistle reading today says, “We love because He first loved us.” Don’t spend your time trying to find ways to bear fruit. God gives you many opportunities in many ways. When someone impinges on your time that’s an opportunity to bear fruit. When you do simple things to serve and help others. These are not commands, they are opportunities Jesus gives you. He never commands or lays anything upon you He has not given you the ability to carry out. He is the Vine, who you are and what you have and what you do are all in Him. Amen.

SDG

The Laying Down His Life Shepherd

Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 29, 2012

John 10:11–18

It’s not just that Jesus is a shepherd. He is the Good Shepherd. It’s not just that He’s a good shepherd, He is good in that everything that is good and pure and perfect is found in Him as the epitome of it. Whether in political leaders or sports figures people look up to or favorite teachers or people who serve in vocations that help people you will end up finding some weakness, some sin, some way in which you find that they are not in fact good in the sense that all others are judged by the standard he or she embodies. That’s not to say we shouldn’t look up to those who are good, moral, decent people. We simply must recognize that they too are sinners as we are.

Not Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. But it’s not just that Jesus felt it necessary that we should know this. That wouldn’t be all that good, after all. By the way, I’m the Good Shepherd, just thought you should know. That smacks of arrogance. We don’t need that in our Lord. We need one who truly is good, who truly will do what it is that we need.

That’s why Jesus defines what it means that He is the Good Shepherd. The one who is pure and perfect and loving is the one who lays down His life for His sheep. We usually think of Jesus as our Good Shepherd in the description of the Twenty-third Psalm. And that’s not bad. If anything, it’s good. We know those phrases well, that He is with us, He guides us, He leads us, He protects us. Even in the valley of the shadow of death we will fear no evil. That’s all very beautiful but Jesus is the one who defines what all that means. He lays down His life for us. That’s how we have the life in which we are able to go forward and in which we know that His goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

He is the Good Shepherd, after all. Everything that is good and pure and perfect and loving is embodied in Him. And we see that in the singular act of Him laying down His life for us. That’s more of a blessing than we can imagine because there’s no one else who will do that. It’s not just that no one else would want to, there are some who in fact would. But the problem is that no one else can. Only the one who is pure and good and holy and perfect can. If you give your life to save someone else’s that’s a noble and loving act. But Jesus isn’t trying to deliver you from being hit by a truck or rescue you from cancer. As the Shepherd He’s not trying to pull a sheep out of being stuck in the fence when it can’t get itself free.

We are sheep who have gone astray. Every one of us has gone our own way. Our straying from the pasture of our Lord’s grace and care leads us into destruction. It’s hard for people to think about this because we’re so caught up in the here and now. We’re consumed with our daily problems and stresses. We’re concerned and worried about what’s coming down the road for us financially or health-wise or with our children or with our aging parents. We struggle with coming to terms with our trials but don’t often think about what our sin and straying from God brings about for us. Maybe it’s because we can’t comprehend what that will actually be like. We know hell in an intellectual way. We know it’s really bad. But it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that our straying from our Lord brings us to hell and that it’s separation from Him forever and torment forever.

Jesus the Good Shepherd does not lay down His life for us to help us out. He does it to save us. This isn’t sheep caught in the fence, this is us under the condemnation of eternal suffering in hell. Jesus is the only one who is pure and good and loving and able to rescue us from that condemnation. That’s why He’s telling us that He is the Good Shepherd. That He lays down His life for the sheep.

Our sinfulness and our living in the fallen world is to such an extent that there are many voices out there which claim love and goodness and help and salvation. You know you have convinced yourself that you’re not really that bad despite the mistakes and even the sins you have committed. After all, even your sins, are they so bad that you deserve to be eternally separated from God and condemned to eternal torment? That voice that comes from within your heart leads you astray. If you do by the grace of God hear His Word and repent of your sins there are voices that will ring out with the message of love and peace and comfort that you’re not really that bad. Don’t make yourself out to be such a bad person because God wouldn’t make bad people, would He? God is loving, so He really wouldn’t condemn people when they’re not horrible people, would He?

You hear these voices all the time. You’d expect them from those who don’t believe in the true God. Sadly, these voices ring out boldly and constantly within the Christian Church. Jesus calls these people hired hands. They don’t truly love the sheep. They love themselves. That’s not to say that they’re not nice people. It’s not even to say that they don’t do a lot of wonderful things to help people. But they are not the Shepherd and so don’t truly love the sheep. How do we know this? Jesus says they flee when the wolf comes.

What is Jesus teaching us here? That when you’re down and out and your pastor decides to watch the Charger game instead of being there for you that he’s nothing more than a hired hand? While that’s an unloving act and needs to be repented of what Jesus is showing us is that the hired hand doesn’t truly love the sheep. The hired hand flees, he doesn’t lay down his life for the sheep. Jesus does. He is the Good Shepherd. Since no one else can do this, however, as we are all sinners and cannot take away the sin of the world, let alone our own sins, how exactly do we find those servants God has called to take care of the Flock, that is, the Holy Christian Church, and avoid those who are hired hands?

The first reading today gives us a great picture of what the hired hands in the Church do. The religious leaders were actively working to prevent the apostles from proclaiming Jesus and His death and resurrection. Guess who the faithful shepherds God called were? They were the apostles, who if it meant their life suddenly changing by being thrown in prison or being tortured or coming to a crashing end by being martyred, they would not waver in confessing before others and proclaiming to others the Gospel, Jesus’ death and resurrection for the sin of the world. Guess who the hired hands were? The religious leaders. The religious leaders were cowards. They sought their own welfare instead of truly loving God’s people. They were not out to get the apostles because they had healed a man. They were attacking Christ and trying to put an end to the apostles’ work of proclaiming the Gospel. The religious leaders were undoubtedly kind and helpful people and leaders, but they led people astray by turning them away from Jesus Christ.

The way, as the apostle John says in the Epistle reading, we ought to lay down our lives for others is by loving them in Christ. Obviously, as he also says, we should help them in their physical and temporal needs. But apart from Christ and His love and forgiveness and salvation in His death and resurrection you have not truly loved them and helped them. This is what so many hired hands in the Christian Church fail to see. When people leave the Church because they don’t want to hear the message that they are sinful and are condemned to hell, so many pastors and religious leaders will soften the message and just tell people that their life is not all that God would have it be. These people are hired hands and do not truly love God’s people. You will hear a constant refrain of voices from without and within the Christian Church that we must help people in their needs—and that is true. But if the Church fails to give to people what they truly need, the Gospel, the proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of their sins, then we have done nothing more for them than what any group or organization can do, whether or not that group is Christian.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, not just a good shepherd. He lays down His life for us. He knows us. In a remarkable work, He gives to us a gift in which we also know Him. I know My own and My own know Me. It isn’t just that we know that He’s God and that He saved us. It’s that we are in a relationship with Him in which He loves us purely because of His love and grace for us. It’s that we love Him in return purely out of His grace and love for us in laying down His life for us. This is why Jesus’ knowing us is not just a thing in which He’s a really good shepherd and therefore knows all of His sheep really well; as a good coach would know each player and what makes each of them tick individually. It’s that He knows us in the way the Father knows Him and He knows the Father. God the Father loves His only-begotten Son with an eternal and perfect love. It’s wholly selfless and abounding. This is how Jesus knows us and loves us. It’s the kind of love that Jesus says moved His Father to send Him, Jesus, to lay down His life for the sheep.

It’s the kind of love that moves Him to do this not just for those who are His own but for everyone, as He says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” This is love that we simply cannot love with in our self-willed and sinful nature. Those not of this fold means those people who are out there in the world and don’t see things the way we do and do things that impinge on our comfort zone. That’s why Jesus doesn’t require us to love others in order to gain His favor and to be loved by Him. It’s all by grace. It’s all in His laying down His life for us that we are able to do so for others, whether our family members or our neighbors or our co-workers or any number of people we know in our lives. You may never be called upon by God to give up your physical life for someone else but daily you are given the opportunity by Him to put yourself in the background and love others as you have been loved by your Good Shepherd. Laying down your life for others is not easy, how could it be? But it is a joy that can never be comprehended or experienced apart from the Gospel, the love of God in sending His beloved Son Jesus to lay down His life for you.

The Good Shepherd is truly good. What you need is not to get your act together or figure out how you can straighten out other people’s lives. Certainly God gives you many gifts to use to help people in any number of ways. But what a blessing it is to know that when God uses you to help people, and even more, to truly love them, that it’s Him doing the work, Him loving them, Him giving you what you need to love them by reminding you that, as He said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”

Don’t rely on yourself. He’s the one who laid down His life of His own accord. He’s the one who had the authority to take it up again and rise from death. Having laid down His life for you and having risen from the grave you have new and eternal life, new and eternal opportunities to receive more and more His grace and love and to share grace and love others. Amen.

SDG

Opening Your Mind to Understand the Scriptures

Third Sunday of Easter

April 2, 2012

Luke 24:36–49 

Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…

Wouldn’t that have been great to be there? To stand before Jesus as He opened your mind to understand the Scriptures? There are those times you’re in Bible Class and you’re really examining a passage in the Bible and it just doesn’t make sense. Or those times when you’re at home reading the Bible or spending time in devotions and a passage of the Bible says the opposite of what you would expect God to say in His Word. Or the times when someone challenges you on a particular passage in the Bible and you’re stumped, conceding to them that you really don’t understand what that passage means.

How great would it be to have Jesus right there with you opening up your mind to understand the Scriptures? If you could go back to certain times and places in history, which ones would you choose? This is one of those events in history I would want to have experienced. What must that have been like for Jesus to open their minds to now understand the Scriptures? Was this like a light-bulb moment, where now they understood it all perfectly? All their questions were answered instantaneously; all those things didn’t quite get before they now had a handle on; all those passages that had stumped them before they could now rattle off a coherent explanation of them.

This isn’t quite what happened on that day when Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. As much as we would love to have an immediate and perfect grasp of the Scriptures, on this side of heaven that’s just not going to happen. Certainly one of the things the apostles understood as they now had their minds opened by Christ to understand the Scriptures was that they still had a life-long learning and growing process in those very Scriptures.

So what does it mean that He opened their minds to understand them? He tells us in the next words He says: “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” This is an amazing statement by Jesus. He’s not just saying, “You guys now understand that the Old Testament prophesied that I would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” The Old Testament did indeed prophesy that, but Jesus had on other occasions said this very thing. Look at what He says now, He says that the Old Testament prophesied these things as well as this: “and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Start at Genesis 1:1 and read all the way through Malachi 4:6 and you won’t find those words in the Old Testament.

But if we back up for a moment, and those first two things Jesus mentioned, His suffering and resurrection, what are we to make of these things having been prophesied in the Old Testament? Does it specifically say, as Jesus says in our Gospel reading, it is written, that “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” If you look in the Old Testament will you find those words? Most Christians don’t feel at all uncomfortable in finding that those exact words are not found in the Old Testament. It is amazing enough at how the words of the Old Testament do prophesy Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. There are passages such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 that when you read them you can’t help but marvel at how words that were written centuries before Christ so accurately describe what Jesus went through.

So it’s pretty easy for us Christians to look at the Old Testament and see how they do indeed prophesy Jesus and His suffering, death, and resurrection. It’s easy enough for us to see in those and many other passages in the Old Testament prophecies that do not mention the name of Jesus a direct fulfillment in Jesus. When Jesus opened the apostles’ minds to understand the Scriptures, though, what do you think they made of Jesus’ next words, “and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem”? Now that they had this new-found understanding of the Scriptures directly from Jesus, were they able to open up directly to chapter and verse in the Old Testament and find where this thing Jesus was talking about was prophesied?

What in actuality was happening is what happens to you. Though you weren’t there on that day, what Jesus did for them on that day He does for you today. When Luke says that Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, he is showing us that what Jesus was doing was opening up the Scriptures for us as well. How this is is because he was showing that Jesus wasn’t just saying that there are particular passages in the Old Testament that prophesied Him and that He fulfilled. He was showing that the Old Testament serves this purpose: to bring Christ to us. The Old Testament is admittedly tough to understand in many ways. But it’s impossible to understand if you don’t see what Jesus is doing here, namely, showing us that He is the thing the Old Testament is delivering to us.

There is a religion that only holds to the Old Testament and not the New Testament. There are many religions that reject the New Testament even as they do the Old Testament. But Christians look at the Old Testament and also the New Testament and see the Word of God. The Old Testament shows us how God paved the way for salvation to come about through Christ. The New Testament shows us the fulfillment of that. The New Testament lies in the Old Testament concealed. The Old Testament lies in the New Testament revealed.

Another way of saying this is that apart from Christ the Old Testament is just another book. Christ is at the center and heart of the Old Testament, but in a concealed way, not as in the New Testament. Whereas, for example, the Old Testament will say that salvation will come through the Suffering Servant and that by His stripes we are healed, as in Isaiah 53, the New Testament states overtly that Jesus is the one who was our Servant, who suffered on the cross, and that it was in His suffering and death we are healed of the sickness of our sinfulness and are forgiven.

This is why it’s such an important statement when Jesus says that it is written “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” What Jesus is doing is not saying, “If you just turn to Isaiah chapter 30 you’ll find those exact words there.” What He is doing is showing us that He is the one who interprets the Bible. He is the one who shows us what the Old Testament is saying, teaching, and prophesying. And what that is is, well, it’s Him. He is the object of the message and the prophecies of the Old Testament. They point to Him. They show us Him. They deliver to us salvation that is completely in Him.

This is what He opened the disciples’ minds to understand. It is what He does for you in your life. When you read and study the Old Testament you aren’t just reading a bunch of historical stories and vague prophecies. You reading, and receiving, Christ who suffered, died, and rose for you. And you are being delivered to you something you might never have realized before: “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

You can see how Jesus’ having opened the disciples’ minds to understand the Scriptures bore out as Peter points to this reality in the First Reading: “what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” You can see how this bore out, as two thousand years later we are sitting here in San Diego, around the globe from where it started in Jerusalem and we are hearing this very same message, as Jesus said it was prophesied in the Old Testament, “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

You and I carry the very same message out in our lives, to the people we know and the people we meet, San Diego becoming our Jerusalem. You don’t need to wonder if you really understand the Scriptures. You don’t need to fear that you don’t know what to say. You know exactly what the Scriptures teach and what they give: Jesus, the one who suffered, died, and rose for the sins of the world and the repentance and forgiveness that comes about through Him. Amen.

SDG

What Do You Need and How Do You Get It?

Second Sunday of Easter

April 15, 2012

John 20:19–31

It really is this simple: what you need is Jesus, and how you get it is Jesus. But that doesn’t really do justice to what you need and how you get so it’s worthwhile to flesh it out. There are a lot of things you need. But cut through it all and there’s one thing you really need and that’s Jesus. The good thing is that when you get Jesus you get it all.

The first Christians as we see from our First Reading today from Acts realized this. Even those who were wealthy realized that as nice as it is to have all that wealth, when you have Jesus you have so much more. One of the things they had that perhaps we have lost was a conviction that Jesus was returning in glory imminently. If you believe that it puts all your wealth into a new perspective. As they say, you can’t take it with you. So if Jesus is coming again very soon why not do with your wealth what will benefit the most people?

That’s not to say that that passage of the Bible is telling us Christians today that if we have a lot of possessions that we must sell them and put them in the general pot for everyone to share. That might make things a little easier at Prince of Peace around budget time, but it would miss the point. As a description of how the first Christians saw their life together as a Christian community we have a stark contrast to our individualistic and wealthy culture we have in twenty-first century America. Obviously, that may not seem to be the case for many during these days where many people are taking a bit hit with the slide the economy has gone into. It remains, however, that compared to the culture the first Christians lived in 2000 years ago our standard of living is very different. We have many blessings as a society they simply did not have and if they were transported into our time they would marvel at our wealth.

The point, though, is not how much we have or even how much we are struggling economically or otherwise. The point is that the Christians back then and we as Christians today have something in common and that is Christ. In our culture it’s easy for us to live out our Christian lives with a ‘Jesus and me’ attitude. How much more would others be blessed if we saw our possessions as not simply our own, and they are, but as blessings God has given us in order not only to enjoy the life God has given us but also to serve and help others? What we really need is Jesus. Any blessings such as possessions and money and even wealth are blessings above and beyond. If everything you owned were stripped away you would still have Jesus. And you would have everything.

This is so because with Jesus you have everything you need. You have peace that goes beyond all understanding. You have forgiveness of all of your sins. You have the promise from Christ Himself that you are blessed. You have everything you need, you just don’t realize it because you are so caught up in the things you think you can’t or don’t want to go without. You are blessed beyond what you can imagine, you just don’t fully embrace that because you worry about those things you don’t have that you think must have. You are eternally wealthy, wealthy beyond compare, you just don’t get all that excited about that because you are caught up in the things of the world, just as those who are not Christians.

The point here is not to say that it’s so bad that we live in the culture we do. We live in the culture we do, the Christians 200o years ago in Palestine lived in the culture they did. This is just the way it is. If you had grown up in a poor culture in Africa things would be very different for you. The point of this is not to compare, the point is to see how God has blessed you no matter who you are or in what society you live or where you grew up or where you live. Some people are blessed with a lot of wealth, some barely scrape by. What you need, just as with everyone, is forgiveness of your sin. You need new life. You need peace with God. You need hope in the midst of all of your fears and struggles and temptations, and yes, even your sins. What you need is Jesus. With Jesus you have it all whether you have a lot or a little, whether you live here or in Brazil, whether you are alive now or if you had lived 1300 years ago.

John makes this clear in the Epistle reading when he says that Jesus “is the propitiation [that is, the sacrifice] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” This is an important thing the Scriptures teach. What everyone needs is Jesus. That’s why Jesus made the payment for everyone’s sins. Many people don’t know this. They don’t know or don’t believe they need their sins paid for. As Christians we do know this. Since we do we should live like we know it. Above all people we should recognize daily that we need Jesus. We need forgiveness, we need the peace He gives, we need Him. John makes another statement, a sobering one: if we say we have not sinned, we make God out to be a liar. Think of it this way, why would Jesus have died on the cross for the sins of the world if payment for sins were not necessary? He did it because it’s necessary. We need Jesus.

Knowing what we need, how do we get it? How we get what we need, which is Jesus, is Jesus. Jesus gives us Himself. We can’t get what we need by anything we do. We need Jesus and so He gives to us what we need. He gives us Himself.

Jesus rose from the grave. John and Peter made their way to the tomb on the Sunday after the Friday Jesus died. They saw it was empty. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene saw Jesus Himself. She told those apostles. So what were they doing? Setting up a nice meal for when He would arrive? Talking about all that was in store for them now that they knew He was no longer dead and that He’d be able to continue to be with them as He had for three years?

Nope, they were cowering in fear. They were still not believing He was with them. They were doubting the sight they had seen that the tomb was empty. They were doubting the words of Mary Magdalene that she had seen Him. What was it that these men needed? To believe? To trust? To go back to all of those words Jesus had told them, that He would suffer, die, and rise? To listen to Mary and take her at her word? Yes, they definitely needed to do all those things.

But what did they really need? What was the one thing that could break through all of their fear and doubt and confusion? Jesus. What they really was needed Jesus. And Jesus they got. They didn’t go to Him in fervor or firm belief and trust, He came to them. He broke through more than the walls He miraculously passed through. He broke through their trusting in the things of this world; of what they thought they needed. He came right into the midst of them and was now before them.

Peace be with you. That’s what they needed. Jesus was before them and how they got what they needed was that Jesus came to them to give it to them. The peace He spoke to them was peace that was followed up with an object lesson of sorts. As our Gospel reading today says: “When [Jesus] had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” What they needed was Jesus. The one who had scars on His hands and in His side. The one who had suffered on the cross as the sacrifice for all of their sins and the sin of the whole world. What they needed was Jesus and Jesus was what they got because He delivered Himself to them.

The Gospel reading today does an amazing thing. It might appear that the amazing thing it does is tell us of an amazing event. While it is amazing that Jesus passed through walls, stood before them in flesh and blood, having risen from the dead, and was ever patient with Thomas in his doubts, the truly amazing thing it shows us is that when we get what we need, namely, Jesus, it is in a way that is more real than when the disciples got Jesus that day when He stood before them. How this is so is because while they certainly could touch Him and His scars in a way you and I can’t, He offered that to them for what, forty days? After that, I’m going away again guys. I’ll be ascending into heaven in forty days and you will no longer see Me as you do now. When you are afraid or have doubts or get caught up in the cares of the world or the struggles of your life, I won’t be passing through the walls of your living room to show up so that you can see that I really am your God and Savior.

They still would need Him though. We still do today. What Jesus did and what He still does today is come to us. You might say He passes through the walls of this sanctuary in order to be before us right here at this altar, in bread and wine. When you eat the bread and drink that wine you won’t be touching it in order to feel any scars. But you can be assured that the body in and with that bread is the body of Christ that bore the scars from nails piercing through His hands. You can know for certain that the blood in and with that wine is the blood that was poured out on the cross as the sacrifice for all of your sins, even as it was shed for the sins of the world.

In this way you know what you need and how you get it. Just as He came to the disciples that day He rose He comes to you today with what you need: Himself. And with Him you get it all. Amen.

SDG

Vacancy

When Joseph brought his pregnant wife to Bethlehem he tried his best to get her into a place where she could give birth in relative comfort. He kept running into ‘No Vacancy’ signs. He ended up in a cave.

Eventually the son that was born in that cave ended up hanging on a cross on a hill called ‘Skull Hill’. When His last breath left Him He ended up in another cave. His body lay there, never to breathe again.

The thing is, when the women went there on Sunday to give proper care to His lifeless body, there was an angel there with this message: “He is not here.”

Joseph of Arimathea would be able to use his own tomb, after all. It was now vacant. Empty.

Have you ever looked down in a grave before a casket was placed in it? Have you ever been in a mausoleum? Ever stepped into a cave that was hewn out to be a tomb?

Empty only describes part of the experience. It not only looks empty, it feels empty. There’s an eeriness to the surroundings, the air seems different, it’s unearthly quiet.

When the women showed up at Jesus’ tomb on Sunday they probably didn’t experience any of this because they were trying to figure out what had happened. All they had to do was listen to the angel. This tomb was now vacant.

Jesus was no longer there. He wasn’t there any longer because He was no longer dead. He had risen from the grave and thus left death behind along with its eeriness and emptiness.

The angel told them something else: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” The tomb was vacant, but that didn’t mean that Jesus was no longer around. The angel told the women where the apostles would see Him.

The Scriptures tell us where we can see Him as well. The altar is empty except when bread and wine are on it. There you see Him. When you approach the Lord’s Table, keep in mind the words of the angel in reference to the tomb: He is not here. He is now here, at His Table, for you.

Jesus Rose. Why Is There Still Fear?

The Resurrection of Our Lord

Easter Day

April 8, 2012

Mark 16:1–8

Sorry to begin on such a down note. I know that today is supposed to be a day of rejoicing and excitement, and it is. But I can’t help but think about all the regrets. All the things I haven’t done that I should have done. I can’t get out of my mind all those things I’ve done that I shouldn’t have done. All the people I’ve hurt. All the things I’ve said that I can’t take back. All the times I should have spoken up but was too afraid. All the people I didn’t help because I was too busy thinking about myself. All the sin. All the guilt. I can’t do away with them. I can think about good things and I can rejoice in good things, but all those stains on my conscience hang around. They’re not going away.

Maybe you’ve come here today putting on a smiling face along with your Easter Sunday best clothes, but inside you’re sad or worried or afraid. Perhaps you’re wracked with guilt or you’re nursing a grudge or you’re being beaten down emotionally by a co-worker or your boss or a family member.

I wonder if these were the kinds of things that were going through the minds of the women on that day they went to the tomb. They were expecting Jesus to be laying there in the tomb, His lifeless body waiting for them to anoint it. But He wasn’t there. It’s not that someone had moved or stolen His body. He wasn’t there because He was no longer dead. He was alive and that was cause for joy and excitement. But instead, in one of the more remarkable passages in all of the Bible, Mark concludes his resurrection account of Jesus in this way: “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

It seems to make a lot more sense how Matthew handles the account of the resurrection, where he says: “So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” He at least gets the joy part in there. Even Luke is a little more helpful than Mark, in that even though he doesn’t say anything about joy, he doesn’t mention the fear either, just a simple “and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.”

When the women realized what happened, they were alarmed. We can definitely understand that. The angel even addressed their state of anxiety with his encouragement to not be alarmed. It was only afterward that they were afraid. We don’t hear any exhortation from the angel to not be afraid.

It finally dawned on me one day what it is that I think and feel. It is fear. I don’t mean all the time. And I don’t mean only fear, either. But I do realize that I’m afraid. I’m afraid when I look at what is in my heart. I’m afraid at the thoughts I have and the sins I’ve committed and the things I haven’t done that I ought to have done and the things I’ve done that I should not have. There’s guilt. There’s sadness. There are regrets. There are many other things. But there’s also fear.

How is that the case when Jesus rose from the dead? How was it that when the women went away from the empty tomb that they were afraid? We can see how they would have felt that way on Good Friday after He died. But Easter Sunday after He rose? Why did the Holy Spirit who inspired Mark to write this Gospel account of the resurrection of our Lord guide him to write that these women went away in fear? Couldn’t he have ended it on a much more joyous and positive note?

I would like to submit to you today that that is exactly what it is. Ending it in this way tells us exactly what we need to know. For one thing, it tells us that it’s okay to be afraid. At the least, it tells us that as human beings living in this life, we are at times afraid. God knows how weak we are, that even when we hear the best news we are often not fully embracing of it. Even though God loves us so much that He gave His Son to die for the sin of the world and that He rose from the grave conquering death, we face many things in our lives that remind us of our mortality and our sinfulness and our guilt. If this doesn’t cause fear in us we should take a step back and be aware that as we stand before God we are unworthy and utterly sinful. On Judgment Day we will understand fully what fear is if we stand before God in unrepentance.

But there is another thing we learn from this. We learn that the key in all of this is who Jesus is and what He has done. Whether you are afraid or not Jesus died on a cross for every sin you have ever committed. Whether or not you see clearly your guilt and your unworthiness the tomb where Jesus once lay is empty. He is not dead. He rose from His grave, He awoke from death. The Holy Spirit did not inspire the writers of the Bible to write the events in such a way as to give a glowing picture of how the resurrection of Christ immediately changed everyone and they now were no longer afraid and they all understood perfectly now and everything in their lives was now okay.

God the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the Bible to write things as they happened. Guess what, the people who lived back then were ordinary people like you and me. They were afraid, just like you and I may be at times when we know we should be feeling something else, such as joy or excitement. This means that who Jesus is and what He has done means exactly the same thing for you as it did for them. It means sins forgiven. It means death conquered. It means guilt washed away. It means eternal life. All of this is for you even though you still struggle, even though you are still wracked with guilt, even though you still wake up every day and find new ways to sin. It does not depend on you it depends on Jesus. That’s why He went to the cross. That’s why He rose from the tomb. You can’t pay for your sins, He did. You can’t bring yourself back to life, He did.

It would do no good to come here on Easter Sunday and act as if everything is okay, act is if you’re supposed to be joyful when you’re really not. What good would it do to ignore all those things you’re holding inside? It would do no good and the great thing about God is that He agrees with this. The great thing about the Bible is that it’s real. It doesn’t sugar coat things. You’re met with details like these, where when the event that shatters death once and for all the people who were there to witness it were afraid.

Frankly, I can identify a lot more with those women who went away from the empty tomb afraid than if they had gone away thinking, “Everything is now okay.” We know things aren’t just okay. We know that there’s a lot that is wrong. We know that much of what is wrong is deep in our hearts. We know that that guilt hangs around for a reason. It won’t go away on its own. With Jesus actually conquering the grave we know that He is in actuality who He says He is, that He is Lord. There is s a certain amount of fear in that.

But isn’t the Resurrection of Christ supposed to be a joyful event? Isn’t it supposed to put to rest our fears and our condemnation for our guilt? Yes, it is; and yes, it does all those things. But that’s the beauty of it. The Bible doesn’t tell us that this was just such a wonderful event, that everyone felt so happy and good after they found out Jesus was no longer dead. When it tells us that they were seized with trembling and astonishment and that they were afraid it is showing us what an amazing and wonderful blessing this is that the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to write these words rather than some sappy emotional account of how everything was now just fine and wonderful and they felt so good. What Christ has accomplished in His death and resurrection doesn’t depend on our feelings. It depends on Him and who He is and what He has done.

This is good news! You don’t have to rely on yourself. If you are wracked with guilt or holding a grudge or avoiding doing something you have a duty to do or are caught up in a sin you are having difficulty stopping, you can see in the account of the Resurrection good news. Not just in the fact that Jesus rose from the grave, but in the fact that those who were there were afraid. If it had been up to them, we would all be sunk. If salvation and hope relied on human beings there would be no salvation or hope. The fact that those women were afraid is not just a detail of the account of the Resurrection it’s a fact that gives us hope.

It shows us that the Resurrection is for you and me. It show us that it’s for people who really are struggling. It shows us that we can thank God that the conquering of death and guilt and sin relied solely on Christ and His power to come to life from the dead and not on us. Amen.

SDG