God's Peace

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost                                              
September 19, A + D 2021
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches, Hill City and Custer, SD
Jeremiah 11:18-20,  James 3:13- 4:10, Mark 9:30-37
God’s Peace

   The Peace of the Lord be with you.  That is our goal, to reach God’s eternal peace.  Peace is our goal, and God intends to give peace to His people.  But getting there is anything but peaceful.  God’s plan of salvation is a drama, a violent struggle, full of treachery and scheming.  We prefer life to be calm, predictable, pleasant.  We want to live in a world where we can make our way, maybe even improve our position.  Perhaps today we just want to get to Sunday Dinner, and maybe there’s something we’d like to watch this afternoon.  And that’s fine.  But first things first.  This morning, before we enjoy the many gifts God will give us in the rest of this day, the Lord would have us first consider the struggle of salvation.

   Throughout the course of God’s plan of salvation there has been conflict, opposition, struggle, dishonesty and scheming.  The prophet Jeremiah knows all too well, from his life’s experience and from the Lord’s own mouth, the depth of the scheming evil deeds of those opposed to God’s salvation.  And yet, in a preview of Jesus’ own reaction to those who schemed against Him, Jeremiah is like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.  His enemies want to cut him off from the land of the living, but Jeremiah does not strike back.  He doesn’t even defend himself.  Instead Jeremiah trusts in the Lord.  He relies on God to defend him; he looks to the Lord’s vengeance. 

   And in case we were to think this drama is just an Old Testament feature, today Jesus reveals the scheming plans of His enemies in full.  [Jesus] was teaching his disciples, [telling] them [in the plainest possible language], "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise." But the disciples did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. 

   The Twelve Disciples want nothing to do with the drama of salvation.  They do not understand what Jesus is teaching them, yet they ask no questions.  They are afraid to explore the drama.  They ask Jesus’ nothing about His death, but later, while walking on the road to Capernaum, they devote their energies to arguing about status, about which of them was the greatest.  Ecclesiastical trash talk.  Jesus is teaching them about the climactic battle of the ancient struggle between good and evil, between God and Satan, the final solution to sin and death.  But the disciples prefer to argue about earthly prestige.  Their prestige, in the prestigious Church over which they imagine they will be lords.   

   They are a lot like us.  Not that we are deluded into thinking that way out here in South Dakota we could ever really reach the heights of Church prestige.  But my Church can be better than their Church.  And my contributions at our Church can be more important than your contributions.  We are more than happy to avoid really grappling with the gritty details of salvation: the whip and the nails, the scorn and derision, the bloody sweat, the innocent suffering.  Studying the cross can be so difficult.  We prefer instead to spend our time debating our relative importance.  We’re pretty sly about it, always careful to speak in humble, pious tones.  But we do it.  Then, as James notes in our Epistle this morning, fights and quarrels break out, among the people of God.  And Church fights are the worst. 

   How do you think God responds to our self-centered egotism?  What should He do?  When we re-make Christianity to please ourselves, when we set aside God’s story about the cross to insert our story about our goodness, we make ourselves enemies of God.  The vengeance against the wicked that David prayed for, the justice of God which will destroy the enemies of Jeremiah, the wrath of God against evil, these divine punishments rightfully should fall on us.  Friendship with the world is enmity with God.  We can’t have it both ways.  The self-glorifying disciples deserve to be cast out, and replaced.  Unfaithful self-centered Christians don’t deserve to enter the Peace of God. 

   But God gives more grace.  The disciples deserve Christ’s anger, but instead He gives more grace.  Patiently, quietly, without any sign of righteous anger, Jesus corrects the disciples.  “Hey guys,” He asks. “What were you talking about as we were walking on our way here to Capernaum?”  The guilty silence of the disciples was deafening.  “Come here,” calls Jesus, “and listen up.  “Greatness in my kingdom comes from service.  You want to be first?  Make yourself last.  Do you understand?  Mmm, I doubt it.  Here, let me show you greatness.” 

   Jesus takes a child.  He’s not very politically correct.  Did He ask the mother for permission?  Did the child want to be grabbed?  We don’t know.  In the grand scheme of God working out our salvation, it doesn’t matter.  Jesus takes the child and puts him in the middle of the twelve disciples.  “Receive the child,” says Jesus, “receive the child in my name.”  “This is what being the greatest looks like.  Receiving a child in my name is to receive me.  And if you receive me, you receive my Father, the One who sent me.  Your greatness is not of this world.  Greatness is certainly not found in the things you do, you sinners.  Pay attention, your greatness is found in my Father.  Today you have Him by receiving me, and you have me when you receive little children.” 

   I doubt that at the time the disciples understood this any better than they did Jesus’ explanation of His impending Cross.  So be it.  Jesus is working for a new future.  He will do what it takes to give us a new, higher understanding.  Jesus is working for the future that will be the Church founded in His Resurrection.  So Jesus teaches about the prestige of receiving little children, and He continues on His way.  The disciples deserve His patient service as little as we do, but no matter.  Jesus is going to complete His plan, the plan He was given by His Father.  So He goes to Jerusalem, and He submits to the schemers. The same evil that made his countrymen hate Jeremiah, the sin in our hearts that leads us to build ourselves up and put others down, all the evil of all time conspires to put Jesus on the Cross.  He dies, once for all, even for those who kill Him.  And then He rises.  The battle is complete, the evil schemes are drowned in His Blood, and the peace of God is given in His resurrected Body. 

   Today we live in the final act of the drama.  And Jesus is still giving amazing blessings.  We still want to avoid the harsh details of Jesus and His struggle.  But we don’t have to be afraid of the Cross, for it is all finished.  Now, like He told His disciples, all Jesus asks us to do is to receive little children, in His Name.  Little children of all ages, children of God for whom Jesus has done it all.  This is our blessing; this is the greatness of the Church: simply to receive sinners in Jesus Name, and to forgive them.  To wash away sins at the font by the power of God’s Word; to bring sinners to His altar; to receive forgiveness and life in the Body and Blood of Jesus. 

   This is what God has done and is doing for you.  That’s what God would do through all His congregations on this earth, for everyone who needs His forgiveness.  And everyone needs God’s forgiveness.  This is the task Jesus calls us to, and we’d be fools to think it will always be easy.  For salvation is always a struggle.  But Jesus has each one of us, all His Baptized people, safely wrapped in His arms.  And so we are safe.  And so God continues to work out His plan for giving sinners peace, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.  

Certainty: Sermon for the Rite of Christian Burial of Robert James McLaughlin

Funeral Sermon for Robert James McLaughlin
September 17, Year of Our + Lord 2021

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Custer, South Dakota

Certainty               
Job 19:23-27, 1^st Corinthians 15:1-26, John 11:17-27

    To Debra, and all the family, to Linda and Denny and all the friends of Robert McLaughlin, to all those gathered here this morning to mourn, to remember and to celebrate the gifts of God received in and through the life of Bob:

 Grace, mercy and Peace to you, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. 

    Robert James McLaughlin was born into this world on March 21^st, Year of Our + Lord 1928, in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  He was baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, thereby clothed by the grace of God in the righteous robes of Christ Jesus, baptismal robes which covered Bob his entire life.  Bob was called to the vocations of husband to Patricia, father to Deborah, grandfather, uncle, and friend to many.  As a truckdriver and a flatbed specialist to boot, he brought good things to people, people who may never have imagined the hard work required for them to get their stuff.  Over the course of 93 years the Lord worked through Bob to bless many, and we rejoice to celebrate today the good work that God has completed in Bob, welcoming him into the sleep of the blessed death of all believers.  Bob rests in peace with Jesus, awaiting the final trumpet and the resurrection of all flesh, the revelation of the new heavens and the new earth, the sure hope of glory. 

   We who are left behind in this troubled world have many needs and desires today.  Our love and friendship with Bob make us mourn.  We want to remember, to celebrate, to speak of Bob.  Most of all the death of a loved one creates in us a great need for certainty.  Certainty that we know the truth about life, and death, and just what is our final significance.  Who are we, and do we matter?  All of us, some gradually, others suddenly, but all of us will face the fact that life, even when it endures 93 years, is still all too short.  So we want and need certainty about all those things I said in my opening paragraph, about Bob and life and death and God and eternity. 

   Certainty can seem hard to achieve.  Ever since March of 2020, there has been a worldwide shortage of certainty.  Governments, scientists, medical professionals and literally billions of people have tried but failed to gain certainty concerning what exactly is the truth about this new plague.  What is true, and what is false and unreliable?  This certainty problem has been more obvious lately.  But certainty is always hard to come by. 

   On a less dramatic but still important topic, a number of factors left my opening obituary short on certain details.  I am a relatively new pastor here, and while Our Redeemer Lutheran Church was in between pastors, COVID19 made doing the normal things of church life particularly difficult.  We aren’t all the way out of those dark pandemic woods yet.  So, while I have no doubt that Bob was baptized into Christ, I didn’t find a record of the date.  I don’t know, but the Lord knows.  There are many things about Bob’s walk with Christ that I do not know.  But God knows them all. 

   However, I do know this detail.  Two months before his 90^th birthday, on January 21^st, 2018, Bob was led by the Holy Spirit to stand before this altar and publicly profess the Christian faith, as he became a communicant member of this congregation, Our Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church, of Custer, South Dakota.

   And so we rejoice today, even amidst the sadness and tears and whatever other emotions rise within us.  We rejoice, not that it is a particularly amazing thing that Bob professed his faith and joined Our Redeemer congregation.  Rather, we rejoice because Bob was connected by faith to Jesus, that he found certainty in the words of Job.  Bob knew that his Redeemer lives, and that one day Bob, along with Job, would see Him with his own eyes. 

   Death makes mortal men and women doubt and fear, and rightly so.  The world can talk all it wants about the circle of life, or that death is natural, that it’s o.k.  But when death takes one whom you love, or when death draws near to you, there is no romanticizing it.  Even when death is in some ways a relief, as the end of suffering, it is still a shallow helper.  Death is wrong.   It is a sign that something is terribly wrong.  Death is our enemy.  But we are powerless to defeat death.  That is a cruel certainty of life in this world that seems inescapable. 

   But Job, even in the midst of terrible suffering, was certain that his Redeemer lived.  So was Bob.  I’m not suggesting that Job or Bob never had doubts.  But along with their doubts, the Holy Spirit gave them faith, faith in the promises of God, faith that gave them certainty, in the midst of doubts. 

   And so also you should be certain.  For our Redeemer Jesus Christ is the answer to death.  His self-sacrificing death, the death of God’s Son made man, is our certainty, along with His indestructible new life, so clearly explained by St. Paul in our reading from 1^st Corinthians,.  Jesus is the victor over death.  And not just over death. 

   Death was not part of God’s original plan, but human rebellion and selfishness introduced a new factor into human existence.  The power of death is sin, doing wrong, rejecting God’s way, hurting people, most often hurting people you love, who turn around and hurt us.  We can try to pretend sin isn’t real, but death makes that very difficult.  For death comes to us because of sin.  

   So, to give you certainty, your Redeemer Jesus not only faced your death; He also faced your sin. And my sin.  All the sin of everybody.  Sin and death are both defeated, by Christ crucified and resurrected.  Of this you can be certain.  This is the beating heart of the Christian faith.  And it is a faith.  We walk by faith, not by sight, believing the promises God has given us in Christ, even though we can’t see them.  God in His wisdom does not give us certainty by providing visual or physical evidence that we could measure in a lab like a virus or an antibody, demonstrating with empirical certainty that faith in Jesus Christ overcomes death.  God does not give us empirical certainty about His plan for our salvation.  He gives us something better. 

   We need something better, because all the certainties of this world fail in the face of death.  The pain that Martha in our Gospel reading felt at the death of her brother Lazarus was not merely a passing, material anguish. Martha was grieved in her soul; the wrongness of her brother’s death plagued her spirit.  And it is to this moment that Jesus comes to give certainty, by giving Himself.  Jesus gave Himself to win the certainty of forgiveness, which is poured out in baptismal waters, the certainty of love, revealed in cruciform suffering, the certainty of His indestructible life, delivered to Martha, to Job, to St. Paul, to Robert McLaughlin, and to you.

   You should certainly mourn Bob’s passing, even as you remember and celebrate his life.  But don’t just celebrate his 93 years, with all their ups and downs.  Celebrate the life of Bob that goes on, forever, in Jesus Christ, Bob’s Savior, and yours.  Celebrate Bob’s victory, in Christ Jesus, and seek that same certainty for yourself and the loved ones still with you.  Profess the faith which the Church of Christ proclaims.  Gather to receive the gifts the Lord has for you in Word and Sacrament.  Seek the Lord while He may be found, and rest in the peace which passes all understanding, and which keeps your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting, Amen. 

 

 

Holy Cross Day - A sermon for the Black Hills Winkel

 Holy Cross Day, September 14^th, Year of Our + Lord 2021

   We have a glory problem. 

   O.k., I suppose I should only speak for myself.  I have a glory problem.  But I think they’re pretty common. 

   The first time I lived in Spain, back in the 90s, at the request of the Marine Corps, I may have spent a lot of time visiting churches.  Shelee will attest that I could not get enough of seeing those marvelous structures, often built in tiny villages.  Hundreds, maybe thousands of little pueblos in Spain boast tall church buildings that we simply couldn’t build today, imposing stone sanctuaries built four or five or more centuries ago, by a slightly above subsistence society, working with crude tools and block and tackle.  It was, well, glorious to see and contemplate.    

   My mother came and visited us in Spain, and I enthusiastically dragged her to see any number of Spanish churches, including the Cathedral in Sevilla.  Spanish tourist information should always be double checked, but Wikipedia agrees, the Seville Cathedral is the largest Gothic style cathedral in the world.  It is immense.  And full of gold and silver, mostly from Peru.  It is a phenomenal space, with flying buttresses, and stone pillars as thick as California Redwoods, which soar into vaulted arches.  There is jewel encrusted artwork in every corner.  I eagerly showed Mom around, pointing out the architecture, the gigantic rose windows, the statuary, quite a place.  My southern-Minnesota German Lutheran mother, with uncharacteristic quiet, patiently took in my tour.  At the end she stopped me for a moment and asked: “But don’t you think that it’s a bit much?” 

   Agnes of course, was right. It is a bit much.  I am definitely not against beautiful church buildings or the people of God investing money, even significant sums, into beautiful things to adorn the worship of Christ.  But, the Cathedral in Sevilla belongs to Mary, and only secondarily to her Son.  And the Gospel in Spain, the land of the Counter Reformation, has long been and continues to be buried under layers of works righteousness and mystic superstition.  The Seville cathedral is filled with fantastically valuable processional crosses.  But it’s hard to argue that it truly glorified the Holy Cross of Jesus to pour the vast sums of wealth that were spent into building the Sevilla Cathedral.   Because the true Gospel is only rarely proclaimed there, if ever.  If we aren’t proclaiming the truth of the Holy Cross, then nothing else we do has any real value.    

   We of course don’t need to worry about the temptation of too much gold and silver coming our way, leading us to glorify ourselves and remove the true Holy Cross of Jesus from the center of our proclamation.  But we are more than capable of seeking glory in any number of less economically valuable things.  Like, “Will the pastors of my new circuit be impressed with me?  With the liturgy I lead, or the sermon I preach?”  Or, “Will the members of my church like me if I really preach God’s Law?”  Or, “If we truly strive to proclaim the radical Gospel of Jesus, and maintain the historic practices of His Church, won’t we end up offending other Christians in our community, who might be interested in our church?”  The fear of failure and rejection and the lust for glory are the opposite sides of the same coin. 

   It is completely and typically human to seek to please people, and to get puffed up when things go better than usual.  It is all too normal to begin to despise the daily bread our Lord rains down upon us.  And it is normal to avoid conflict, to go along to get along.  But the Lord doesn’t care.  Who else would declare a sculpture of a bronze snake on a pole to be the salvation of rebellious sinners, who have themselves been bitten by fiery serpents for their sins?  Who else would disregard, no, intentionally offend the piety and the intelligence of the elite of society, in a foolish attempt to save them with a scandalous story?  Who would declare God’s glory to be found in a horrible, shameful death, naked body nailed to a Roman cross? 

   Your Savior would.  And He has.  Because this is what it takes to truly love you, to love you to death, and to new life.  God does want to give you glory, true glory, so that your sins be washed away, and your eternal death sentence be vacated, once and for all.  It stings to have impressive people scorn you, and we will struggle to the end of this earthly life with the natural desire to be considered great and impressive now.   But keep your eyes on the Cross of Jesus.  The light and momentary afflictions we are called to face today do not compare with the joy of having a ringside seat as the Holy Spirit recreates a sinner, with the most unlikely story, the story of God bringing glory out of shame and life out of death.  And what can the world do to you?  Nothing, because you know that what the Lord continues to do for unbelievers, drawing them unto Jesus, He also continues to do for you, day by repentant day, bringing to completion the good work He has begun in you. 

   True joy and peace are found in this strange plan of the Lord, who took the most despicable executioner’s tool and turned it into the Holy Cross, the sign of forgiveness, life and salvation, delivered to you, by the blood of Jesus.   Rest in His glorious peace, so that you may also proclaim it others.

In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Another Desperate Story

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost                                              
September 12, A+D 2021
Our Redeemer and 
Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD

    Another desperate story.  Today from Mark chapter 9 we hear of a desperate and so also determined father, seeking deliverance for his son, who is tormented by a demon. 

    Is it too much?  Too many Sundays in a row with intense themes, life and death, anguish and fear?  To be honest, today’s preacher wouldn’t mind some lighter fare, a less intense subject.  How about you, the hearers? 

    Most of us certainly prefer our days to be less stressful, less full of drama. Many of you have told me that you stayed here, have returned here, or have just moved here, to find some peace and quiet.  To escape the craziness that seems to be taking over the rest of our country.  Shelee and I are also glad to be living in rural western America, once again.  But we all know that stress and trouble will find us. 

    The committee of theologians who put together our lectionary, our system of assigned Sunday readings, was a group of frail human beings, just like us.  I imagine they too sometimes felt overwhelmed by the intensity of the Biblical narratives.  But thanks be to God, they were guided by a faithfulness to Scripture, by a commitment to reflect as well as possible the overall thrust of the Biblical story.  We could cherry pick some gentler, happier Bible passages, and only use those for our Sunday texts.  But that wouldn’t be faithful. 

    Read through the whole Bible and you will find that the intensity which sometimes makes us uncomfortable is consistent throughout, from Genesis 3 to Revelation.  In fact, there are plenty of stories we rarely talk about, and never use in Sunday School, because they are simply too much.  The Bible is a story of life and death, of danger and rescue, of human sin and folly, and God’s response.  I think our lectionary faithfully presents the whole counsel of God to us; that is to say it faithfully reflects what the Holy Spirit caused to be written down.  And while the Holy Spirit knows what we prefer to hear, His Bible is full of what He knows we need to hear. 

    And it’s not just the Sunday Bible readings that can seem too stressful.  Too often, the events of our Monday through Saturday pile on, and so we are triggered by the readings we hear in Church, because they cut too close to what we struggled with last week.  We really do prefer peaceful, happy days.  But we also know that even the best of moments can turn difficult in the blink of an eye. 

    I’m reminded of a young father I knew, who was enjoying a morning out with his two children.  The parking lot of a church was kitty corner to the edge of their back yard, and so on a crisp fall afternoon the young dad, carrying his year-old daughter, helped his four-year-old son drag his training wheel bike out to the lot, to practice riding a bit.  It could have been a Norman Rockwell painting, a lovely outing, right up to the point that a pebble turned the front wheel of the bike, and the novice four-year-old rider overcorrected, and ended up flying over the handlebars, breaking his fall with his face. 

   From idyllic to panic in an instant.  Blood flowed frightfully, like it does from the face and mouth of a little child.  Little sister started wailing at the sight and sound of her beloved brother, bleeding and crying.  And poor dad.  He was a stout fellow in most situations, except when it came to seeing his kids get hurt.  Choking back panic, (how bad is it for a four-year-old to lose his front baby teeth?), trying his best to calm his daughter and his son, he couldn’t even think clearly enough to just leave the bike.  No, he shuffled along, trying to juggle two kids and a bike as he hurried back toward the house, desperate to find his wife, and share the crisis.       

   That young dad’s biking incident doesn’t begin to compare to the distress of the father and son in our Gospel reading today.  But it flows from the same place.  I encourage every married couple who are able to have kids.  Children are very near to the top of the list of gifts from God.  Parenting is among the first and highest of earthly callings.  To have children is to cooperate with the Lord in the creation of new people.  It is filled with wonder and love.  Nothing beats parenthood. 

   But, being a parent isn’t all rainbows and sunshine.  The profound love that mothers and fathers naturally feel for the children God gives them also sets up those same parents for great pain.  It is worth it.  But it isn’t easy. 

    And to differing degrees of intensity, this is true for every good human relationship.  To be a member of a family, to be a friend, to join a team and give your all to a cause, to fall in love, even to simply seek to be a good citizen and neighbor, or a faithful member of a Christian congregation, all of these noble and worthwhile vocations are good gifts from God, and well worth the effort they require. 

   But these good gifts, these callings from God, also set you up for pain and loss.  Because as much as we would like life to be peaceful and easy, it isn’t. Because we sinners are involved, and the broken world in which we live is the context in which we must try to love and be loved.  Satan confronts us with the sad reality that we hurt the people we love, and they hurt us.  And that really hurts.  So the evil one tempts us to withdraw, to cut off relationships, to not do the hard work of reconciliation.   

   God knows what we are dealing with.  In His perfect wisdom, our heavenly Father understands the struggle we face.  But God didn’t stop at simply understanding.  Truly, Jesus Christ, God’s Son, knows better than we do how hard it is to be in relationships and care for people in this world, because He came into our world to join us in our struggle.  A four-year-old’s bike crash is not much compared to your son being possessed and tormented by a demon for years.  But demon possession is nothing compared to accepting and suffering under the eternal wrath of God.  Which Jesus did.  For a good reason: to reconcile us to His Father. 

   The young father with the bleeding four-year-old was driven by blood and tears to do what it took to get his kids back to the house, in order to be cared for.  The father of the demon possessed boy was driven to seek help from Jesus.  And God the Father was driven by His love for you to send Jesus to Calvary to face your hell.  Jesus came down from heaven and bore your sins because He loves His Father, and He also loves you.  For the joy set before Him, the joy of having you for His very own, Jesus set His face like flint and walked the loneliest road., all the way to the Cross, despising the shame.  And then, rising from the dead, the eternal victor, Jesus sat down at the right hand of God.  By this he has guaranteed your place in God’s eternal kingdom. 

   Your place in God’s glory, your place in heaven, is sure, in Jesus.  And, despite the world’s constant denial of God’s Word that assaults your ears every day, despite the doubts that still rise in your own heart, you by God’s grace are still joined to Jesus.  Despite your doubts, it appears to me that you still believe, your faith is alive.  Oh yes, I know, your faith often seems feeble.  You doubt so often.  So do I.  We all do. We should not, because God has never lied to us.  But we do doubt.  So we cry out with the father of the demon possessed boy:  Lord I believe!  Help my unbelief.  And He does.  The strength of our faith is not our faith, but rather the strength of our faith is the One in whom we believe, Jesus Christ, God’s Son.  He has faith to do all things, and He does all it takes to save us.    

   Lord I believe!  Help thou my unbelief!  This is the daily reality of Christian living on this side of glory.  We doubt.  Life throws struggles our way.  We doubt some more.  We sin.  Satan tells us God could never love a sinner like you.  Like me.  But, at the same time, by Baptismal faith we are covered in the pure white righteousness of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit, whom Christ gave us through the Water and the Word, keeps our faith alive.  And so the Father sees that we are joined to and covered by Jesus.  So in His eyes we are perfectly holy and righteous, His beloved saints.  You are forgiven, and loved by God, for Jesus’ sake.    

   Like the father of the demon possessed boy, we should pray.  We should cry out to the Father for every need, in the Spirit, through Jesus Christ.  We should cry out and pray in every circumstance, happy or frightful.  And we should pray with confidence.  Because we do not pray alone.  The Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.  Jesus, crucified, resurrected and ascended to glory, constantly intercedes for us before His Father, showing the forgiving scars in His glorified body as proof that we have been declared not guilty, in Christ. 

   Always remember this: when you pray in the face of struggles, Jesus is praying along with you.  And the prayer of a righteous man is powerful to accomplish much.  Even your salvation.  For Jesus is your righteous man, your victorious Savior, your future, and your present joy.  

Rest in Jesus, Amen.  

God Is Breaking In, To Save!

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 5^th, Anno Domini 2021
Our Savior´s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
God Is Breaking In To Save 
Isaiah 35:1-10, James 2:1-18, Mark 7:31-37

    God is breaking in to save. 

“Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.  He will come,... and save you.  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”

    Jesus has recently come from verbal combat with the Pharisees, the holy men of the Jewish people, Jesus’ people.  He tried to break through their stony hearts and show them that their endless keeping of rules is a failure, that their religion of works cannot save.  Then Jesus leaves them and heads off to the boondocks, to the northern regions of Palestine, where Jew and Gentile live intermixed.  Where the purity of the people and their religion is low, but the hunger for God's salvation is strong.

    Here, out in the sticks, among the scruffy people, maybe to our surprise, God breaks in to save.  As Isaiah prophesied four centuries before, miraculous reversals for the poor and downtrodden are popping up like flowers after a spring rain.  Pure, living water is flowing all over the desert.

    What Isaiah prophesied, Jesus reveals: The Day has come.  Jesus brings sight to the blind, speech and hearing to the mute and deaf, He lifts up the fallen.  Jesus spits and touches, water from God, healing by the very hand of God.  Jesus is unconcerned with our sensibilities; He heals with divine spit.  If we saw it happen, we might call it gross.  But Jesus doesn’t care what people think.  Spitting and touching, our Lord gently makes whole what was broken.  "Ephphatha," be opened.  For everyone who finds living life to the world’s expectations simply too hard, Jesus’ disregard for human rules is wonderful.  For everyone who is struggling to just get by, right now, this Jesus, with spit on His finger and power in His voice, this Jesus gives hope, hope for reversal, hope for rescue.  God is breaking in to save.

    God is breaking in to save.  But He orders them not to tell anyone.  Why?  Why, when after so many centuries of suffering, when salvation unto us has come, why does the Savior of the world tell those who see His miracles, "Sshhh, don't tell anyone."  Why not shout it from the rooftops?  The blind see!  The lame walk!  The deaf and dumb receive hearing and speech!  Why does Jesus tell them to keep it quiet?             

    God is breaking in to save.  The signs are plain to see, like water bubbling up in the desert, like the praise and thanksgiving of a tongue long silent.  God is breaking in to save, but God’s salvation is not complete in the physical healing of the deaf and mute and blind.  As comforting and marvelous as these reversals are, they are not the whole story of salvation, not even the most important part. 

    So Jesus tells them to keep quiet.  He knows all too well, even this story can be twisted.  For all the pure thankfulness and joy that Jesus' miracles created in the hearts of people, still their remains the potential in us to twist the Gospel, the satanic tendency to make it something it is not.  We all have some pharisee in us.  We all want to twist God’s radical plan of salvation.  We especially want to smooth the sharp edges and water down the truth about our sinfulness.  We all want to hold on to the idea that we are part of the solution, and believe that God loves us because we are good people. 

    But whatever outward show of holiness and goodness that we put on is just that, a show.  We can only cover up and try to hide from others the sad truth about you and me.  We are sinners, and we can’t stop sinning.  We are not good.  Only God is good.  But, amazing grace, the good God still wants us.  So, in His goodness, our Heavenly Father has loved the world, including you and me, by breaking in to save.  By sending His Son to become sin for us, dying on a Roman cross, to take away the sins of the world, all of the sins of all people.  The Gospel is empty without the Cross.      

    If we only tell part of the story, we change the Gospel.  If we leave out the suffering through which Jesus saves us, we empty the Gospel of its power.  We must not skip over sin.   We must also avoid painting a false picture of the Christian life.  We must take care not to preach a false “prosperity now gospel”, that Jesus is here to take away all your pain, right now.  We know this is not true.  We know from the Bible, history and our own lives that Christians still face pain.  Suffering often seems the Christian's constant companion.  Even during the time that Jesus walked visibly on this earth, He did not heal every sick person.  He did not strengthen the legs of every cripple. 

    But He did suffer on the Cross, once for all.  If I were to preach that Jesus will take away all your physical problems today, that Jesus will soothe all your emotional pain, that Jesus will make your life rosy every day, right now, well, then I would be lying about our Lord, and setting you up for a fall.  For Jesus will not remove every problem in this life.  The souls we would gather with such preaching would end up getting hurt.  Such a twisted, false gospel could turn people away from Jesus altogether, running the risk of making them too deaf to ever again hear the real Gospel, the real Good News. 

    God is breaking in to save, forever.  Jesus orders those He heals not to tell others about their miracle because He wasn't finished.  We don't have the everlasting Gospel until we see the end.  For it is not the eternal Gospel until it is finished.

    God has finished His great break-in, salvation is complete.  The Good News of Jesus is eternal.  Now it’s time to shout it from the rooftops: Jesus the Savior has come.  Not just to make our todays better, but rather Jesus comes to make our forever perfect.  Not by curing every symptom of sin in this life, but rather by removing forever sin and the pain and death it brings.  The healing of the deaf-mute, the healing of the paralyzed, all the great reversals that Jesus did in His earthly ministry, these were most importantly a foretaste of heaven, a sign of the eternal promise that Jesus came to deliver. 

    The full Gospel changes everything.  Including you.  When the Holy Spirit sealed you in the faith, He changed you.  When He opened the eyes of your heart to see in Christ crucified the best news you’ve ever heard, God recreated you.  By giving you faith to believe that in the Cross you see His very purest and strongest love, the Lord took away your heart of stone, naturally fearful and selfish, and gave you a new heart of flesh that beats with the life of Christ.  You were spiritually poor and headed for eternal death, but God has now declared you the richest of all people, headed for eternal joy, by faith in Jesus.  Such true riches make you generous, because the One who gave you true riches is generous, and so you have nothing to lose. 

    This is why James in our Epistle reading reminds us that true faith always shines forth in good works, works of love for the brother or sister in need.  Good works flow naturally from the sinner who believes they have been forgiven and will live in glory forever, with God and all His angels and all His Holy believers, His saints.  Because God is love, we who have been united by faith in Christ’s forgiving love naturally forgive and love others. 

    When we fail to forgive and love one another, which to our shame we still do, it is fruit of the sinner that remains in us.  Lord help us!  The only solution is to run to Jesus, repenting and confessing your sins, and asking Him to forgive and restore you.  And He will.  Because He loves you.  And so He declares to you again and again the Gospel of His death on the Cross for all human sin.  Your Savior has reversed the effects of evil in His own body.  Having conquered our death by His death, Jesus then rose to new life, perfect, sinless, forever and ever life.  And because God is generous, this new life in Jesus is granted to all who believe in Him. 

    And we now have the privilege of telling this Good News.  We shout from the rooftops of the Great Break-In of God, by telling the story all the way through the Cross and Resurrection.  Because that was the ultimate break-in.   There Jesus robbed Satan of souls he thought he would be tormenting forever.  There God revealed the new life He has for all, poured out as living water to a parched and dying world.  There God broke in to save, once and for all.  The task of salvation is complete.   There is no more need of sacrifice for sin, no more debt to be paid.  Jesus has done it all.  All who trust in Jesus receive a share in His life, through the fruit of His sacrifice, that washes away all their sin. 

    But not all believe.  So many people, outside and inside the visible Christian Church, still believe that religion is fundamentally about living a good life, so that God will be pleased and accept us.  This is a terrible lie, because we can’t do it.  Good works flow from faith; salvation belongs to God alone.  Believing in salvation by human works, before or after conversion, is a lie that robs glory from the Savior, and steals away from the sinner the comfort of God’s forgiving love. 

    So God is still breaking in to save.  Jesus is still at work, delivering His salvation, one soul at a time, pouring living water into the desert of souls that is our world.  Jesus is doing it now, through His Word, now and every time that God's people gather around the Gospel.  The Father will do it again in a few minutes, feeding His faithful with the Bread of Life, the Body and Blood of Jesus, for the forgiveness of sins, and the strengthening of faith and love. 

    It would be cool to see a lame person receive strong legs in an instant, or a blind person regain their sight.  But don't miss the greater miracles that are happening.  Especially don’t miss the miracle of faith.  We live in a world that increasingly mocks Biblical faith.  The world trusts absolutely in the wisdom of mankind, and disregards the true wisdom found only in the Word of God.  And yet we see signs of faith, worked by the Holy Spirit.  We, whose ears were deaf to God's truth, now have heard and believed, and so we gather.  We, whose tongues were unable to sing the praise of Him we did not know, now have been given voice to sing of His great love.  And in yet another miracle, as we hear and speak, God works through us to save, using the words we say to open yet more ears and hearts to receive His forgiving love. 

 God is breaking in to save.  Come Lord Jesus, come.  Amen.