The Mysterious, Dreadful and Wonderful Break Up - Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

 1^st Sunday in Lent, February 21^st, A+D 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, S.D.

The Mysterious, Dreadful, and Wonderful Break Up         

Mark 1:9-15, Genesis 22:1-18

      Do you remember the 1960s pop hit, “Breaking up is hard to do”?  To be honest, Neil Sedaka’s cheery song makes a mockery of breaking up.  Breakups aren´t “hard to do.”  They’re horrible.  We hate break ups.  We hate divisions, separation.  We fear the intense negativity of the moment, when two parties, maybe a husband and wife, maybe friends or business partners, maybe two nations who had been allies, come to the point of declaring that the unity we had is no more, that we must go our separate ways, that the fellowship which we shared, and enjoyed, and depended upon, has ended.  Words are spoken and actions taken that break the bond, and we can’t undo them.  And we dread the aftermath, living with the brokenness. 

      Breakups are terrible in the Church too.  Of course, we have a special word.  We don’t typically say “break-up” for a split in the church, that would be too simple.  Rather we say “schism.”  The word itself sounds bad.  There was the Great Schism in the year 1054 between the Western Christian Church and the Eastern Christian Church, the mutual ex-communication between Rome and Constantinople.  We Lutherans tend to use the word “Reformation” to describe and celebrate the events of the 16^th century, put into motion by a German monk named Martin Luther.  But others consider it a schism; and certainly Luther’s efforts to reform the Roman Church led to  an uncountable series of divisions in Christendom: Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Charismatics, etc..., the list goes on.  Even amongst folks who call themselves Lutherans, we have an alphabet soup of separate groups:  LCMS, ELCA, WELS, ELS, NALC, AALC, LCMC, CLC, to name a few... and that’s just in the U.S.  Once not so long ago the vast majority of the congregations that belong to all those Lutheran church bodies I just listed enjoyed full communion amongst themselves, fellowship of pulpit and altar.  But no more.  Breaking up is terrible, especially when it means a schism in the Church of Jesus Christ.  But here we are, all of us children of a broken church family.  

     All of which makes St. Mark’s choice of verb in our Gospel today very strange.  As Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens were opened.  Matthew and Luke report the same event using a run of the mill Greek verb for opening.  And our translation of Mark waters down his verb in “the heavens were opened.”  What St. Mark actually wrote was that the heavens were schizo’d.  You thought you didn’t know any Greek, but you do.  You know the verb schizo, or schizomai.  The heaven’s were schizo’d, as in schism, as in schizophrenic.  We all know this Greek verb from the terrifying condition of schizophrenia, when one person’s personality is torn in two, or three or more. 

     According to St. Mark, the heavens didn’t just open at the Baptism of Jesus.  They were schizo’d, torn apart.  It’s a very strange choice of verb, because while we have established that breaking up, separating, being torn apart, is usually a very bad thing, here the heavens are torn apart for wonderful things, so that the Holy Spirit can descend on Jesus like a dove and the Father can declare:  "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."     Why use such a violent verb, schizomai, to tear apart, to describe such a pleasant event, the revelation of the Holy Trinity at the Baptism of Jesus?  What is St. Mark trying to say to us? 

      We hate break-ups, and rightly so.  But we aren’t very good at preventing them, are we?  We seek connection, partnership, fellowship, in every aspect of our lives.  The very best part of life is our connection to others, to family, friends, countrymen, fellow travelers.  The Covid-19 pandemic has driven this point home for literally the whole world.  It is not good for human beings to be alone.  We need connection, community, fellowship.   

     And yet, again and again in the midst of every relationship, marriages, families, friendships, business partnerships, political and social movements, and churches, problems come up.  Disagreements.  Offenses.  Sins, one against the other.  Once we’ve lived long enough to suffer a few break-ups, we learn to try hard to overcome our differences, in order to avoid breaking up.  Not well of course.  The way to overcome an offense, a sin, between friends, is to deal with it head on.  As St. James said, “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) 

     But do we confess our sins to one another?  Such honesty and vulnerability usually frighten us as much or more than a break up, so we try other ways.  We should with humility pursue honesty, confession, repentance, apology, forgiveness and reconciliation.  But when problems come up in our relationships we are more likely to try to just ignore them, and hope they’ll go away.  Or we try to explain them away, (she’s under a lot of stress, it’s o.k. that she’s treating me like garbage...  I know he shouts all the time, but that´s just his way of communicating...).  Sometimes we try to paper over them, stuffing them down inside our souls and hoping they stay there. 

    But they don’t.  With small issues, minor offenses, we may be wise enough and strong enough to paper over them and let them go.  But with real sins, serious offenses, while we might stuff them down in our gut and move on, they won’t stay down.  Real problems, serious injuries, or even a long series of minor ones, can fester and infect our whole being, eventually working their way back to the surface.  And the harder we try to keep them down, the more likely they are likely to erupt in a full blown schism, a tearing apart, a nasty break up.  

     Which brings us back to our Gospel reading.  Jesus is starting His ministry, His ministry of reconciliation, of healing schisms, of reuniting those broken apart.  Which perhaps is why Mark chose such a violent verb to describe the heavens opening at our Lord’s Baptism.  And then, immediately after, Jesus is driven into the desert to be tempted by Satan.  Mark doesn’t give us much detail, but we know from Matthew and Luke that Satan used all his trickery to try to drive a wedge between Jesus and His Father.  Satan is the arch-separator, the schism master, tearing asunder what God had put together:  mankind from God, husband from wife, brother from brother.  But Jesus easily turns back Satan’s feeble attempts to drive a wedge between the Father and Son.  Our Lord’s work of reconciliation had begun in earnest.  Jesus would go on to heal broken bodies, and reunite families separated by demon possession and even death.  Christ Jesus, the schism healer. 

      All the way to the end.  The Son of God did not take on human flesh to do things halfway.  From before the foundation of the world He was committed to healing all our divisions, all our schisms.  So committed was the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to healing the schism that our sin created between us and Him, that God even undertook the unthinkable. 

      The violent separation that the Lord instructed Abraham to do in our Old Testament reading, the sacrifice of his only son, his beloved child Isaac, was thankfully only a test.  God never intended that Isaac should be killed by his father.  That would’ve been horrible, and useless, a waste.  Sacrificing Isaac wouldn’t have helped anybody.  In this test, Abraham demonstrated his faithfulness, and his belief that the Lord would still fulfill His promises about Isaac, even if he was sacrificed.  Thank God it never happened.  But it did serve as a sign, a foreshadowing, of an even more terrible, and yet wonderful schism to come.   For the almost sacrifice of Isaac points forward to the dreadful mystery of the Gospel, that God, in order to save sinners like me and you, took all our schisms into Himself, in order to heal them, once for all.  The Lord would indeed provide a Lamb. 

      The love and unity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is eternal, it is divinely powerful.  It is indestructible.  And yet the Lord had mercy on us, the crown of His good creation, now fallen into sin and guilt and division.  God in His grace determined to undergo, for just a brief and yet eternal moment, the separation of the Son from the Father and the Spirit. 

      In order to free us from the offenses and sins that separate us from each other and from God, the Father turned away from the Son, and the Son gave up His Spirit, suffering in a single moment all the divine punishment that our schisms and sins deserve.  God the Father gave up His most precious and beloved Son, for just a moment, in order that in Christ Jesus, we might be returned to God. 

      This is why there is now no condemnation for all those who are in Christ Jesus, that is to say, the baptized believers who by faith are connected to the resurrected Son of God.  For them, ... for us, ... for you, there is now no condemnation, no fear of separation, no shame of schism.  Because Jesus Christ, the Beloved Son of the Father, has swallowed up all our offenses, all our sins, all our failures.  The proof is in His Resurrection, His glorious reunification with His Father and the Spirit, His great and eternal victory, capped off with His triumphant ascension into heaven, to reign at God´s right hand.  

      The wall of separation that had kept us apart from God is now torn down.  St. Mark drives home this point when he tells us what happened at the moment that Jesus died on the Cross: the curtain in the Temple of Jerusalem, put up by God’s command to separate the most holy dwelling place of God from the people, was torn apart, schizomai’d, from top to bottom.  Which is just right, because in Jesus Christ crucified, all the sin and error and malice that had separated us from God, and from one another, is now washed away.  Unity with God is possible for us sinners, through the body and blood of Jesus, by which we have been reconciled to God. 

      Christian life is still filled with threats of break up.  We have all suffered them, and sometimes in life, as sad as it is, breaking up is unavoidable.  But our status as children of God doesn’t depend on us overcoming every possible break up.  Rather, we are right with God because Jesus has healed our break up with God.  Our failures to hold every relationship together is also forgiven by God.

     We will also still struggle with break ups in the Church.  This is because, even as holy children of God by faith in Jesus, we are still also sinners, with ears all too ready to listen to Satan´s temptations to division.  And also in the Church, sometimes it is right to break up, to suffer schism, when a brother or sister in the Church, or sometimes a whole sister church body, insists on maintaining a teaching that contradicts the gracious Gospel of Jesus.  We should never do it hastily.  But there will be cases when, in faithfulness to the Word of Christ, for the good of our brothers and sisters in the Church, and also in hopes of turning back those in error from their mistaken path, the Church must suspend visible fellowship for a while, in the fervent hope that this radical act will be used by God to bring the erring back to the truth. 

      And this desire for reconciliation is not just some pie in the sky hope; rather it is the plan and purpose of God for His people, the Church.  We are called to faithfully proclaim the schism of the Cross that heals the wounds of all sinners, in order that in the power of the Resurrection the Holy Spirit may heal and reconcile and draw many more into His eternal congregation, where we will enjoy perfect unity and joyful fellowship, with God and all His angels and saints, forever and ever, Amen.   

 

A Glimpse of Glory - Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord

 The Transfiguration of Our Lord

February 14, Year of Our + Lord 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, S.D. 

A Glimpse of Glory

    And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

      Jesus took Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain, in order to complete His Epiphany, His revelation of Himself.  He has shown Himself to be a Miracle worker.  An authoritative Preacher.  The Messiah,  the long promised Savior of Israel.  And now, on the mountain, Jesus reveals that He is God in the flesh, the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, that deepest of all mysteries, that the One True God is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

    After the mountain, after the Transfiguration, Jesus would begin in earnest His long walk to the Cross.  There He would reveal how He would save, what exactly He had come into our world and taken on our flesh in order to do.  He came to save mankind from our sin by taking the punishment we deserve onto Himself.  By dying, by being crucified as the worst of criminals, disgraced and rejected by His own people, Jesus revealed the horror and depth of sin, our sin.  But even more importantly, he died to make it right.  The wages of sin is death, and so Jesus pays for all sin with His death.  He sacrifices His life, the life of the Son of God, which is of infinite value.  This sacrifice opens the way to heaven for us, through His Body and Blood.

      At the Transfiguration, before He plunged into the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus gave Peter and James and John a glimpse of the glory to come.  Jesus showed them the glory of Heaven, in His own transfigured body, before He led them to Calvary, in that same body.  There they would see Hell unleashed on that body which so recently shone with the light of heaven.  Before the long Lenten Path, which is lined with sorrow, and filled with the bitter recognition of our guilt and sin, we too, need to see the glory that is, and is to come, in Jesus Christ.  We need to see Jesus, with his clothes radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 

      We need to see the radiant clothes of Jesus, because our own garments are soiled.       

     When you get a new white shirt, it is a fine thing.  Not a spot on it, perfectly white.  But of course, it doesn’t last.  We sweat, we work, we eat, we live, and no matter how hard we might try to keep them clean, our new white clothes get dirty.  So we wash and bleach and scrub, and they look pretty good.  But not the same.  Never quite the same white as brand new white.  Even just washing a new shirt dulls the shiny bright white-ness.  And of course, sometimes we stain our clothes, with grease, or blood, or grass, and these stains never quite come out.  Now, you may be careful when you work and eat, and you may manage to avoid big, gross stains.  But there is no one that keeps the shiny white of perfect spotlessness. 

     Not in your laundry, and not in your life.  Jesus loved His Father with all His heart, soul, and mind.  He gladly lived His life in perfect accord with the Father’s will.  As a good Son, He submitted willingly to His Father in all things.  His life was spotless.  But yours isn’t.  You turn away, rejecting the Father, when His commandments don’t meet your desires.  He says: “Do not covet;” you say:  “I want it, I must have it, it’s my right.”  He says “Wait, receive your reward in heaven;” you say “I want glory now.”  God says “My Way;” you say, “I’ll make my own way.”   

     Jesus loved His neighbor as himself.  He worked through long days and nights healing and teaching and casting out demons.  And then Jesus died in order that you might live.   You, on the other hand, are willing to get along with your neighbor, even help him out a little, as long as he plays by your rules, and doesn’t ask too much of you, or disappoint you, or make you uncomfortable.  But if your neighbor becomes an imposition, if his needs must be met from your resources, what then?  Do you say “everyone for himself.”  “I made my way, you make yours?”   Or maybe you say “He’s really just lazy.  I’d only be encouraging his laziness if I helped him out.” We all have our own ways for justifying our lack of love, toward God, and our neighbor. 

     But our excuses don’t change reality.  You don’t measure up to what God expects.  Neither do I.  You can’t.  I can’t.  Our garments, even our best, righteous deeds, seen in heavenly light, are filthy rags.  You can scrub them, bleach them, try with all your might.  But they still fall short of God’s glory.  They still fall short of the perfection which being in the presence of God demands.  Your deeds cannot stand in the light of heaven. 

     Jesus knew this, and for this reason He led Peter and James and John up onto a high mountain.  He bore them up really, because they couldn't go on their own.  Jesus bore them up into heaven, to show them, and you, His glory.  To show them a Man whose garments shone with perfect righteousness, the righteousness of God: radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 

     Peter and James and John were scared out of their wits, and rightly so, for they too wore filthy rags.  They had no right to be there.  If they had any question about this, there were Moses and Elijah, Lawgiver and Prophet, to remind them of the Law which they hadn’t obeyed, and the Way of God which they hadn’t followed.  Peter and James and John, like us, had no business being there, dressed in their filthy rags of unrighteousness.   

     And yet, Jesus brought them up on the mountain.  To show them what was ahead.  To let them see that men would stand in the flesh before the glory of God.  Not on their own merits.  Not based on the whiteness of their own garments.  No, men and women will stand in the flesh before the glory of God because the Man, the perfect Man, the Man who is also God, Jesus Christ, He would go first.  He was worthy to enter heaven in the flesh, because He was righteous in all things, perfectly pure and white in all His garments, the perfect, righteous, sinless Son of God. 

     But Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, did not come just to prove His own glory.  His glory has never been in doubt.  No, He came and worked, and preached, and suffered, and died, and rose, in order to forgive, in order to save, in order to share His glory with sinners, like you and me.  So He would not stay on the mountain, radiant in His glory.  No, as good as it was to be there, Jesus knew that Peter and James and John, like you and me, could not stay there, on account of our filthy rags.  So Jesus came down from the mountain, to wash away your sin in His own blood, to take away your filthy garments and give you His garment, His perfect righteousness.  Now, by Christ’s righteousness, Peter and James and John, and you, can now stand in glory.   

     Before the plunge into the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus showed Peter, James and John His glory.  They were given this vision of glory to sustain them as they walked with Jesus on the road to Calvary, and also to teach them what it all meant.  That Jesus came down from glory, and went to the cross, in order that His Righteousness could be credited to us.  In order that His glory could be our promise. 

     Next Wednesday we enter Lent, and retrace the long road to Calvary.  As we go, our own dirty garments, our own sin, must be brought into the light, in order that we may be cleansed, forgiven and raised to new life in the Easter miracle.  The road can be hard.  But we too may look back, and forward, to the Transfiguration, to those radiant garments, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.  They are the perfect, sinless garments of Jesus Christ.  He died and rose to give them to you.  In Christ, you are forgiven, and have the sure promise of seeing the glory that today we see by faith. 

      May this hope of heavenly glory, won for you by Christ Jesus, be your true joy when life goes well, your light when the way forward is dark, and your focus and confidence in every circumstance, forever and ever, Amen.

The Only Valuable Player - Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 7, A+D 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches, Custer and Hill City, SD

The Only Valuable Player

    Do your job.  Today’s readings speak much about how Christians are to live, the life of good works.  And, on this Super Bowl Sunday, a famous aphorism of a widely hated but exceptionally successful football coach offers us a useful starting point to consider the life of good works we are all called to live.  I am speaking of Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots.  Coach Belichick has for decades shown an amazing knack for getting great results out of players who don’t necessarily seem to be elite.  Central to this success is Belichick’s mantra:  “Everybody do your job.”  That is, don’t try to do somebody else’s job, just do your own.  If everyone on the team does his own job, then collectively we’ll do pretty well.  

   I don’t know if Bill Belichick has studied much Christian theology, but regardless, he is doing a fair job of talking about Christian vocation, or calling.  Vocation refers to the fact that God calls each member of His Church to different roles, tasks and relationships, within which we serve our neighbors, and thereby God serves us all, through the efforts of all the others.  

    We are all called to be Christians, to gather regularly to hear the Word and receive the gifts of Christ.  Doing church requires some work.  Some are called to be pastors and teachers, others musicians, others to take care of the facility, or care for the sick and elderly.  We don´t need the pastor to fix the boiler, or the trustees to play the organ.  Our life together goes better when each of us does his or her own job, fulfills his or her own calling. 

    Beyond the congregation, in our daily lives, we have many other callings, or vocations.  We all received the calling to be the child of our parents, many of us to be siblings, and some eventually husbands or wives, and parents.  Likewise, you may be called to serve others as a soldier, or a painter, a farmer or a builder.  In all of these and a thousand more honest occupations, the Christian serves his or her neighbors, thereby walking in the good works which God prepared for us beforehand. 

    Paul in our Epistle today talks a lot about his particular calling to preach the Gospel, and we get a glimpse of the power of that Gospel to transform lives and motivate sinners to good works.  Paul, formerly called Saul, was, if you remember, a persecutor of the earliest Christians.  He oversaw the execution by stoning of St. Stephen, and Saul even traveled around, seeking out believers in Jesus and throwing them into jail. 

   But the ascended Christ confronted and converted Saul, and called him to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, to the nations.  Paul became the greatest missionary of the Church.  So deep and transformative was the change worked in Paul that for joy he poured himself into his ministry like no one else.  Paul taught very clearly that ministers of the Gospel can and should be supported in their ministry by their hearers; but Paul chose never to take a salary.  Instead, Paul worked in his secular calling as a tentmaker to support himself, in a free act of gratitude for the free and amazing salvation he had received.  Paul knew he was the chief of sinners, but even more, he knew he was forgiven in Christ.  Through this faith the Holy Spirit used him mightily, not only in ministry, but also to show us what freely done good works look like. 

   Paul also reveals his laser-like focus on doing his job, adapting his ways and manner to best enable him to reach whatever audience the Lord brought before him:  I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.  To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.  Paul knew what his job was, and he focused all his energy on doing it. 

   We also see folks doing their jobs in our Gospel this morning.  The disciples, which means followers and learners, follow Jesus around, trying to understand Him and learn from Him.  Peter´s mother-in-law is sick with a fever, and so Jesus heals her, in order that she could fulfill her special calling that day, to serve as hostess to the Son of God.  And Christ is busy doing the things He has been sent to do by His Father: teach, cast out demons, heal the sick.  St. Mark also shares this crucial detail, which we need to keep in mind: in between all His serving, Jesus made time to slip away and pray, to commune with His Father, to be strengthened in His humanity, in order to go on serving. 

   By this, the Holy Spirit teaches us that vocation and good works follow faith and communion with God.  Much more than Jesus, we weak sinners who have been brought to faith need to regularly return to the Source, to be renewed in our faith, before we can be sent forth to serve again. Without this refueling, which God does through His Word and Sacrament, we will not be able to do anything.

   Isaiah also teaches us about Christian living, proclaiming the mystery of God´s plan for His people:  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

     He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.  Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

   Did you catch that?  If you want to run the race well, to mount up on wings like an eagle, you must first be faint, you must have no might, no strength of your own.  You must wait for the Lord, because all true power comes from God.  To “do your job” as a Christian, the first thing necessary each day is for you to confess that you have no strength to live as a Christian.  This is called living in daily repentance.  

   Paul says the same thing when he exhorts us to run in such a way as to obtain the prize.  The imperishable wreath of the winners of Christianity is eternal life.  Which is found only in Christ Jesus.  So to run a disciplined race is to stay connected to the One who has already finished the race perfectly, for us, Christ Jesus our Lord.  There is no other way. Separated from Christ, we are losers, powerless, doomed.  But joined to Jesus by faith, when we are trusting in Christ alone, His victory is our victory.   

   Apart from the Lord we have no strength, which also means that the good works of the Christian are always the result of the Holy Spirit moving and working in and through us.  Of our own strength and character, we cannot do good works, for sin infects all we do.  We are useless to God, unless the righteousness of Christ first cleanses us, and prepares us to be a holy instrument for the Lord.  We are not saved by our good works, but rather only by faith in the promise of forgiveness.  But then, by our union with Christ by faith, we do begin to walk in good works, by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

   Which brings us to Tom Brady, another football legend.  Also widely hated, quarterback Tom Brady played under Coach Belichick for 20 years, and won six Super Bowls.  But the great coach and great quarterback parted ways last year.  And you know what happened?  Belichick and the Patriots missed the playoffs, but Tom Brady and his new team are back in the Super Bowl this evening.  So football fans are wondering, how much credit for the Patriot´s success should go to Belichick´s skill and his “do your job” mantra,  and how much should go to having the greatest quarterback of all-time leading your team? 

    I don´t know, and I don´t really care.  But Tom Brady´s exceptional contribution gives us one more point of comparison with Christ and His Church.  However much credit Tom Brady should get, he doesn´t get it all. Without his teammates, he couldn´t begin to compete.  But on Team Christianity, all of the credit does go to the quarterback, our leader, Jesus Christ. 

    Jesus won our salvation all by Himself, without any positive contribution from us.  He is not simply our most valuable player, He is the Only Valuable Player.  He is the One who has done all our works for us, and He has paid for all our mistakes.  His perfect life of service and love is credited to all who believe in Him.  And His shed blood covers all sins, because it is the blood of God, of infinite power and worth.  Jesus paid not only for the sins of Christians, for yours and for mine, but He also paid for the sins of all His enemies.  And, as He did with Paul, Christ Jesus is trying to get all of them on His team, by reaching out to them, even through the likes of you and me.    

    You want to lead a Christian life, full of good works?  Good. Then dig more deeply into the Good News.  Like a disciple, grow in your understanding of what Jesus did for you.  God will determine how exactly He will use each one of us, but the transformation that Paul received is just as true for you and me:  He who knew no sin, the Holy and eternal Son of God, became sin, for us weak and miserable sinners, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.  This is what we are, this is what you are, by faith in Jesus.  Revel and rejoice in this most precious gift, and then live freely in your vocations, your callings.  The Lord will take care of the rest, according to His perfect plan.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto life everlasting, Amen.  

Am I Really Forgiven? 4th Sunday after Epiphany

 

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

January 31^st, Year of Our + Lord  2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, SD

 Am I really forgiven?

    Oh, to share King David’s confidence in the Lord´s forgiveness.  As we heard in our Introit:  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)

    Do you share David´s confidence?  He’s so matter of fact about it:  I confess my sin, God forgives me.  Period.  But, King David doesn’t know me ... I really sin.  Can it be so simple?  It’s hard to believe, ¿no? 

    Faith is hard, which has been clear, ever since the Garden.  God said “For your own good, don´t do just this one thing.”  Satan suggested that the Lord was holding out on us, and the fruit was lovely, and appeared good to eat.  And that´s the thing: Faith is confidence in things unseen, but we prefer to see. 

    For example, we’d love to see the Lord Jesus cast out a demon. Wouldn´t that be great?  Not so long ago, believing in the existence of demons may have been a struggle for us, living in our advanced scientific age.  But times they are a changing.  For all the material blessings we have, our society is fraying at the edges, and passions are loose in the world that frighten us.  From every extreme and sometimes from the middle of our body politic, we constantly see anger and violence and destruction on our screens.  Patently loony ideas about how we should organize our society are going mainstream, and formerly calm, happy and well balanced folks are now stressed and angry.  Everything feels unpredictable.  We are not crazy to wonder what spirits have taken over.  

    So, yes, we would love to see a demon cast out, to see a tortured person, or perhaps our entire country suddenly set free from whatever it is that torments us.  However, throughout salvation history, exorcisms, visible demon expulsions, are rare.  The Lord can choose to do it, but we are not called to wait for such extraordinary events.  Rather we are to listen and believe.  We’re supposed to believe the Lord´s promises simply from the text, from the Biblical witness.  Most of us will not witness a visible miracle.  Which is the way God intends. 

    Faith, saving faith, comes from hearing the Word of Christ.  And so prophets preach, for the sake of faith.  The miracles are an occasional add on, not the main thing.  Think about it.  Almost all of the miracles in the Bible are about this world´s problems, which can be bad, to be sure.  But they are temporary problems, about health, hunger, physical death.  All very important.  But not the main thing.  Not the eternal decider.  We will only be saved by faith.  Still, we would like to see, and then believe. 

    Bringing you to saving faith is not the function of God’s miracles, whether those worked by one His prophets between Moses and Jesus, or the miracles of Jesus and His Apostles.  What’s more, the blessings of earthly miracles are short lived.   The cured will get sick again.  That restored sight will eventually begin to cloud.  Demons still threaten those who have been recently freed, and physical death came again to Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus.  As amazing as they are, the primary purpose of these miracles was, and is, to teach, and attract attention, and point.  So that in the end, we might hear and believe the message. 

    These earthly miracles, demon expulsions, healings, miraculous feedings, resurrections, all teach us about and point us to the ultimate and greatest miracle, which doesn´t even look like a miracle.  The greatest miracle looks a lot like a crushing defeat.  It is of course the miracle of love, the unimaginable mystery that God’s Son, Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, submitted to suffering and gave up His life, in our place. 

   The unfathomable miracle is that God the Father poured out his just anger against our sin, not on us, but on His Beloved, in order that we be forgiven.  For a brief cosmic moment, Jesus gave up His eternal connection to the Holy Spirit, and was separated from His Father, in order to bear the eternal suffering of us all.  This is the miracle that all the prophets and apostles preached.  This was the sole purpose of Jesus’ ministry, to arrive at the end of all sin, in His own crucified flesh.  And thus, on the third day when the victorious Christ rose from the dead, all the promises of God were fulfilled.  This is the source of David’s confidence:  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)

    Christians acknowledge their sins, and their sinfulness, to Almighty God.  And God, for the sake of the miracle of the Cross and Resurrection, forgives them.  Period.  This has been true since that dark day when the first man and woman ate what had been forbidden. God sought them out, as they pitifully tried to hide in the Garden.  The Lord sought them, not to destroy them, but to forgive them.  And to make the promise to Satan that his deception and destruction of humanity would not stand, that the Seed of the woman would come and crush him. 

    It was always hard for God´s people to believe.  The Promise only came into focus slowly through the centuries.  But continually, the Lord has come to His people, confronting our sin to move us to confession, for the sake of free and full forgiveness, each and every time.    

    It is the same today.  Everything in the Church of Christ is ordered so as to deliver God´s forgiveness to repentant sinners.  We still struggle to believe, and so, to help us, the Lord has appointed means, earthly elements combined with God´s Word to do the truly miraculous, create and sustain faith in our hearts, faith that trusts in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting. 

    God has His means, and He has His ambassadors: a whole series of prophets from Moses to Jesus.  Thirteen Apostles to speak with authority on His behalf.  And their ministry goes on.  God has called me here today, to publicly proclaim and deliver again all the promises of Jesus.  And you, this afternoon and tomorrow, and throughout the week, are also called, to live from the forgiveness of sins, in your daily vocations, in those roles and responsibilities and relationships that God has given uniquely to you, so that you might also share and even speak of the Love that is Christ crucified, for the forgiveness of sins. 

    Regardless of where the Holy Spirit is at work, in a tall cathedral, or over a cup of coffee, on a Zoom call, or at bedtime prayers with your children or grandchildren, wherever the Good News of free forgiveness is spoken into this dark and desperate world, the reality, the power, the miraculous promise which empowers that Word is and always will be the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. 

    So yes, you can be sure, your sins are forgiven.  God has done it, and He is faithful.  He will not go back on His promise.  The steadfast love of the Lord surrounds you, inviting you to trust, to rest, to take and eat, take and drink, and to live free from fear.  For you are forgiven and restored, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.   

 

 

God's Fishing Expedition - Sanctity of Human Life Sunday - 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany – Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

Our Redeemer and Our Savior Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, SD

January 24, Year of Our + Lord 2021

      Are you a fisherman, or woman?  Do you fish?  I don’t.  Even though I have lived half my life on the banks of the Yellowstone River, I can't say that I'm a fisherman.  I like to eat fish.  I'm not opposed to fishing.  I can cast and reel in the line.  But I don't really know much about fishing: it would be an insult to all the fishermen and fish out there if today I was to claim to be a fisherman.    

      God is a fisherman.  Remember how Jesus helped out Peter and James and John in their fishing efforts?  "Cast your nets on the other side of the boat, I'm sure you'll catch some there."   Wouldn't you love to have Jesus as your fishfinder?  One of the last things Jesus did before He ascended into heaven to reign at the Father's right hand was to help the Apostles with their fishing, one last time.  Jesus not only pointed them to another miraculous catch of fish; when they got to shore, Jesus already had fish on the fire. 

      Jesus is a fisherman, and Jesus uses fishing metaphors when he talks about other things.  Like salvation.  Jesus has been baptized by John, He is ready to begin his work, his ministry.  Jesus began preaching the Gospel, the Good News: "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"   And from the very beginning Jesus chooses men to be with Him, men to believe in Him, and then to be used by Him as His special servants, His Apostles, the men upon whom and through whom Jesus would build His Church.  Listen again:

         As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."  At once they left their nets and followed him. 

      Jesus is fishing for souls, seeking to draw men and women out of the sea of death into the New Life that He offers in His Church.  And to do this Jesus chooses these men:  Andrew, Peter, James and John, a bunch of smelly fishermen.  Uneducated, blue collar guys. Fishing, not religion, was their life. It's seems like an odd choice. 

      But then God's methods of fishing for souls always seem strange to us.  Consider Jonah, sent far away to preach to Nineveh.  When the Church today considers a new mission effort, we try and determine a target audience that we think is likely to be open to the Gospel.  We look for someplace where we have some connection or ability to establish relationships.  And when we choose missionaries to send, we always look for men and women with hearts for the lost, servants who are eager to reach out in love to those who don't yet know Christ. 

      But not God.  Not always at least.  The Ninevites were the last people we'd expect to care about the God of Israel.  They were Israel's most bitter enemy.  Rich, powerful and pagan, that is, they worshiped any number of false gods.  Why should they care what the LORD's prophet had to say?  And Jonah?  Well, he hated the Ninevites, and tried with all his might to avoid going to preach to them, taking passage on a ship going the opposite direction.  But God, fishing by His own rules, determined to use Jonah to reach out to the Ninevites, bringing back this reluctant prophet in the belly of a great fish.  And God made it work.  Through His Word alone, spoken into the most unpromising circumstances, the LORD worked repentance in a whole city of pagans. 

      God's way of evangelizing doesn't always meet our expectations.  This is because God's way of salvation does not meet our expectations.  The Good News is... Jesus died.  Salvation from sin and hell is found in the suffering and punishment of the only man who never sinned.  New life only comes through death.  We by our nature can know nothing of such a salvation.  God must reveal it to us.  God must change our hearts and minds in order to make us believe and begin to understand that in the Cross, and only in the Cross, can we find a solution to the problems that plague us.  Solutions for the hurts that the world, and our own friends, neighbors and family inflict on us.  An answer for the pain we cause, for ourselves and others. 

      The event of salvation, Jesus' death and resurrection, is not something we would ever think up on our own.  So we should also expect that God's way of delivering salvation is not going to work the way that we'd assume. 

      So, Jonah, a reluctant prophet with no heart for the Ninevites, is used by God to work repentance in them.  And common fishermen are chosen by Jesus to be His Apostles, the foundation of His Church. 

      And so too, we, the Church today, find our most important avenues for preaching the Gospel in the most unlikely places.  Like in life issues. 

      Life issues.  That sounds nice.  Life is good, life comes from God.  But we know that in our world today, supporting life means saying some very unpopular things.  To support life, we have to speak out against abortion.  To support life, we have to point out that the problem with sex in our world today isn't the babies that are created.  It's the bad choices that so many people make, before and after the babies are conceived.  To support life, we have to support families as they pour their life into allowing their parents and grandparents to die in a Godly way.  To die in faith, neither fearing death, because of Christ, nor giving in to the temptation to hasten the end.  Because the end of life, just like the beginning, is God's to determine, not ours. 

      Such things are hard to say and do.  To speak forgiveness, first the Church must speak of sin.  And that's hard.  It's hard because the people we speak to don't want to hear it, and neither do we.   These days, if and when we dare to speak the Truth of God’s value for life, we may come in for abuse. 

      What’s worse, all of the problems with our culture's attitude toward life also infect us.  Abortion, sexual immorality, the twisting of sexuality and the family to serve humanity’s desire to be our Gods, the desire to hasten death in order to avoid discomfort, all of these sins are as real for us, inside the Church walls, as they are outside them.  You, and I, all of us, share some responsibility for neglecting life.  We too need to hear the message that Jesus spoke in Galilee: 

The kingdom of God is near, repent (that is, turn away from your sin), and believe the Good News, that the Cross of Jesus, His unlikely way of salvation, covers all sin.  His death gives new life, to all who believe.  Abortion, assisted suicide, sexual immorality, neglecting life, all these are sins, yes.  But they are sins that the blood of Jesus covers.  There is forgiveness, for you, in Christ, no matter what you've done, and also for your neighbors, no matter what they have done.  Repent, confess your sins and believe the Good News.   

     God has an odd way of fishing for souls.  His bait does not seem very attractive.  His message of grace and forgiveness is always proceeded by the truth about our sin.  His messengers are nothing but poor, miserable sinners.  But this is God's way.  Through this unpopular message, spoken into unpromising circumstances by forgiven sinners, God catches souls. 

      And what joy there is in the catching.  What a privilege to be present as God reels in another one.  Sometimes the fish fight wildly, using all their strength to avoid God, but God prevails.  And when the fish are finally in God's boat, when sinners realize that God forgives them and gives them New Life in Jesus, then there is great joy, in heaven and on earth.  Being part of God's Mission to the lost can be hard, even frightening.  But there is no greater privilege than to be a part of God's fishing expedition, to behold the joy of new believers, and to share in that joy, as God binds you ever more firmly into His net, and then even uses you in His Mission. 

      God by His Spirit daily and richly forgives you all your sins, for the sake of the Great Fisherman, Jesus Christ.  May He use you and His whole Church on earth as live bait, to draw yet more fish into His boat.  Amen.