Waiting for the Spirit - Sermon for the 7th Sunday of Easter, Exaudi

Seventh Sunday of Easter – Exaudi
May 12^th, A+D 2024
Waiting for the Spirit
Our Redeemer and Our Savior's 
Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD

Audio of the sermon available HERE.

   What must the waiting have been like, those ten days between the Ascension of Jesus
and the coming of the Holy Spirit?  Jesus’ final instructions to the Eleven Disciples before He was received into the cloud were to wait, to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from on high, the coming of the Comforter, the Encourager, the Holy Spirit.  Even though Jesus had now declared the Eleven to be Apostles, sent ones, charged to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, their first task is not to go, but to wait.  How long?  Jesus doesn’t say.  Not many days from now, He promised, but what does “not many” mean?  I can imagine it was excruciating, the waiting.  Will it be today?  Tomorrow?  And what will our Baptism by the Holy Spirit be like, exactly? 

   The 7^th Sunday of Easter, between the Ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, is a bit of a lost Sunday.  Very often, since the Ascension falls on Thursday, churches choose to celebrate it today.  And even if we use the appointed readings, as we have, the focus is not on today, but on next Sunday, Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit.  I imagine the earliest Christians may have felt the same way.  Waiting…

   Waiting.  What are you waiting for?  Looking around the congregation, I know some of you are waiting for medical test results, or medical procedures, even surgeries.  Many young people can’t wait to grow up and be independent of your parents.  Maybe you’re waiting for your financial situation to improve, so you can finally make that big change.  Or maybe you’re waiting for someone, something, to turn around the direction of things in our beloved country.  Waiting for things over which we have no control is the worst.  Will my child get over whatever has upset them, and come back to the family?  Back to the church?  Will my loved one come back from their depression, or their anger, or whatever gets between us now? 

   Time is a gift from God, given us to receive His other gifts and use them to His glory, for the benefit of others, and for ourselves.  In theory, with all the technical marvels, material bounty and ease of living we enjoy, we should have more time than ever to read or listen to God’s Word, to pray, and to gather together for teaching, worship, fellowship and the mutual consolation of the brethren.  But most of us struggle to find time for more than the minimum.   

   We should be very relaxed about the time we have and the tasks we need to complete.  But I think we all know this isn’t true for most of us.  Most of us struggle with time.  If you have reached the zone of not feeling rushed and overscheduled, and yet you also you find lots of rewarding, valuable things with which to fill your time, well, give thanks, for you are especially blessed by God.  This isn’t normal for the rest of us.  Most of us all too often jam our schedules beyond full, rush from event to event, frazzled and irritable. 

   Childhood in America today mostly lacks the unplanned hours that used to provide kids with salutary boredom and the chance for adventure, real and imagined.    

   Electricity means we don’t have to go to bed when the sun goes down, and the TV and internet can easily distract us for hours.  So, sleep deprivation is commonplace, and we struggle to use the time we have, because we can barely stay awake.  All of which is to say that life today in America is often too busy, for most of us. 

   Until suddenly it isn’t.  Until suddenly the loss of a spouse or a degradation of health rob us of the reason or capacity to be busy.  Suddenly all we have is time, time that we don’t know how to fill.  Deadened, lonely time, for which we lack the energy to enjoy or use productively.   

   “Come, Lord Jesus!”   Many problems, including our struggle with time, rightly prompt Christians to cry out for the Lord’s return.  There is certainly a 7^th Sunday of Easter quality to all of Christian living.  For we all, like the Apostles before Pentecost, are waiting, waiting for the promised final appearing in glory of our Lord Jesus.  To react to the stresses of our days with a prayer for Jesus to “Come, now!” is good. 

   But the Biblical prayer starts with Amen.  “Amen, come Lord Jesus.”  (Revelation 22:20)  That is, we are taught to cry out “Amen, I believe, and so I ask you to come now, Jesus.”  Believing in the Amen, trusting that the final change to come is Good News, this can be hard.  Trusting that everything will work out is difficult, especially when we are tossed to and fro by the tumult of daily life.  We may even fear the End, even as we pray for it.  Which is a miserable way to wait.         

   The very earliest Christians might have something to teach us about waiting.  They too, had witnessed tremendous changes.  They had endured great suffering, intense trauma.  The disciples of Jesus did not experience the kind of technological, cultural and political changes that have made us dizzy.  No, life under the Roman Empire and the Jewish Sanhedrin hadn’t really changed much between A.D. 29 and A.D. 33.  However, without changing many things visible, Jesus had changed everything, turned everything upside down and inside out. 

   By the first century, the faith handed down by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been warped by the same fallen human presuppositions about religion that are always threatening.  Jesus’ teaching was radical not because it was new, but rather because it shattered the lies that had infected the faith.  Lies that had become the accepted opinion of most. 

   Then as now, chief among these lies is that God is in His heaven, far away, inaccessible, and it is our job to achieve the necessary holiness in order to make our way to Him.  To reveal and reject this lie, God showed up in flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.  God came as a baby, grew up, and declared “No, God is not far away.  I AM the Lord, come to seek and save the lost.  I AM God, present for My people, as I always promised, only now more so.” 

   Another lie was that salvation was just for the Jews, just for the circumcised, law following, kosher eating descendants of Abraham.  But Jesus came to remove divisions, and to be the Savior of the Nations.    

   The Pharisees were masters at detailing the many good works sinners had to do to make their way to God, step by step, work by work.  Jesus said no, I AM the Way, no one comes to the Father, except through Me.  “To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…  ⁷ “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; ⁸ blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”  (Romans 4:5-8)

    Jesus came as the Son of David who would reign on the throne of Israel forever, but then He went and got Himself crucified.  Indeed, the Nazarene taught that to save your life, you have to lose it.  Life comes from death, the death of God’s Holy Son. 

   Jesus’ radical teachings were hard to believe.  When He breathed His last on Golgotha, it appeared to all that He was a failure, a sham, not the Savior Messiah He had claimed to be.

   But Jesus didn’t stay dead.  And that changed everything.  Suddenly, all the upside down claims of Jesus made sense, suddenly the turbulence of life was calmed by the peace that passes all understanding, the peace of knowing that Jesus died, and then rose again, never to die again.  Everything is different, because Jesus lives to share His new life with all who hear and believe. 

   Because of these changes, Jesus’ disciples began to live differently.  Peter and company hadn’t always seem to be the best students.  But now they knew the Risen and Ascended one.  And so, despite Jesus’ making them wait, for some undetermined amount of time, the Eleven acquitted themselves pretty well.  As we read in Acts chapter 1, they did three things, which could help us today. 

   1. They stuck together.  2. They prayed constantly.   3. They prepared for their future ministry by filling the roster spot Judas Iscariot abandoned. 

   How could they do all this?  They believed the promises of Jesus.  They knew the Christ had died and risen and ascended on high.  They knew their sins were forgiven, and their eternity was assured.  And so however long the wait, they were resting in Christ. 

   What can we learn from them for our lives today? 

   We should stick together.  You, and I, all of us should prioritize life in our congregation.  It’s good for you and good for your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Don’t give up gathering together.  And once you’re here, ask how you can help to make things go smoother, better.  Build up your fellow Christians, never tear them down.  Invite someone to dinner or a coffee.  Get to know a member you see at church but have never really talked to.  Stick together, for Christ is in our midst, and together with Him is where you need to be, where you want to be.

   Pray constantly.  Pray each day, for yourself, for each other, for our congregation, and sister congregations.  Pray for the Church in the whole world.  Pray for the conversion of everyone.  Pray big, and trust that the Lord will answer perfectly, even though we may not see the results right now. 

   Prepare for the future ministry of our Church.  What might this mean?  Well, certainly you could support a seminarian.  Even more, young and not so young men should consider whether they might be called to serve as pastors or other church workers.  Women too, young and not so young, should consider being a deaconess or a missionary, or somehow serving Christ’s church full time.  And each of us should work to deepen our knowledge and faith, to know Christ better, and so be better able to tell others why we rejoice to trust in Him.  For the Holy Spirit works through all His members, all the lives of every child of God.    

   Your ability to do any of this depends on your trust in the promises of Jesus.  Christ has died, and risen, and ascended on high to rule over all things.  Your sins are forgiven, and your eternity is assured, in Jesus.  However long we must wait, to our last day on earth, or until the Last Day when Jesus will return, riding the clouds, we rest in Christ. 

   We wait to celebrate Pentecost next Sunday.  But you already have the Holy Spirit.  He was gifted to you in your Baptism.  You hear Him in the voice of Scripture.  He gives you faith to trust and so rightly receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, given and shed on the Cross for the forgiveness of all your sins, given to you here at this altar.   

   Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the paraclete, that is the Helper.  Your advocate, your defender.  Also your encourager.  The one who exhorts you to grow and serve.  Whatever Word we need, the Holy Spirit is with us, speaking His powerful Word, sustaining us and moving us in the Way Jesus desires.  And so we wait with confidence, knowing that God is on our side, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, today, and forever and ever, Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salutary Abiding - Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, (Free Texts)

Sixth Sunday of Easter, (Free Texts)
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Salutary Abiding – Jeremiah 2:21-22, 1^st John 2:1-11, John 15:1-17
May 5^th, Year of Our + Lord 2024

 Audio of the sermon available HERE.

It is salutary to abide in the True Vine.

   A dear friend of mine does not like that we use the word ‘salutary’ in the liturgy, as in, “It is good, right and salutary that at all times and in all places, we give thanks to you, O Lord…”  His concern is that today nobody knows what ‘salutary’ means, and so using it in our worship tempts us to check out and not consider the meaning and significance of what God is doing in our midst, and what we are saying in response.  Which makes it all the more a miracle of the Holy Spirit that this man is such a good friend to me.  Because I like ‘salutary’ and I always use it.  And yet my friend certainly has a point: Scripture teaches us to know and understand the words God has given us, to strive to speak in a way that allows young and old to receive God’s Law and Gospel, through the use of language they can understand.  We will see this principle on display in two weeks, on Pentecost Sunday, when we will rehearse the miracle of languages that God gave, so that the people in the crowd on that Pentecost Day could each understand the Gospel in the language of their upbringing, of their heart. 

   Language is always changing, evolving through usage, as each generation tweaks meaning and pronunciation, and substitutes one word for another, leaving some words on the ash heap of archaic expression.  We know that the Church will make adjustments to her language, some small, some large.  Otherwise, we would be worshiping in German, or maybe Norwegian.  The question is, how fast do we change our language?  And will we change thoughtfully, with an ear for the linkage old words make to the generations that have come before? Jesus is, after all, the same, yesterday, today and forever, (Hebrews 13:8).  Indeed, sometimes word connections take us all the way back to the sound and significance of words that our Lord Jesus Himself uttered.  Amen, Amen, I tell you the truth, choosing how best to adjust our language is an ongoing challenge for the Bride of Christ, that is, for the Church, for us.  Whether to keep or discard ‘salutary’ is a good case in point.  Shall we switch it out for a better-known synonym, or shall we teach ‘salutary’ and use it, so that we can treasure it?     

   I like ‘salutary.’  Now, part of this has nothing to do with God’s Word, but rather with “Charlotte’s Web.”  ‘Salutary’ reminds me of the hello of a certain spider created by E.B. White:  “Greetings and Salutations,” said Charlotte to Wilbur, who, I hope you know, was “SOME PIG.”  But, there’s more to my fondness for ‘salutary’ than a favorite childhood novel. 

   ‘Salutary’ means healthful, or beneficial, something good for your well-being.  ‘Salutations’ as a greeting really means “Health to you!”  It is a blessing.  It is a prayer for health for the person you are greeting.  When we Americans clink our drink glasses at the start of a special meal, we tend to say “cheers,” whatever that means.  But the French, Spanish and Italians all say their version of ‘salutations,’ ‘Salut, Salud and Salute,’ to be precise.  “Good Health to you.’  That’s a nice toast.  Speaking of another special meal, we declare in the Preface of the Lord’s Supper liturgy that it is salutary, that is, healthful or beneficial, to give thanks to God in every time and place.  How salutary it would be if we all gave more thanks to God in our day-to-day life. 

   The Latin and Greek roots of salutary take us even deeper.  Looking back, we learn that wholeness, being complete, unbroken, these ideas are also in play in the word salutary.  Wholeness.  Restoration.  These is what we broken sinners need.  Salutary carries us in the direction of ‘shalom,’ that Hebrew word that Jesus is always blessing people with.  “Shalom to you,” says Jesus, “My shalom I give to you.” (John 14:27) ‘Peace’ is how we normally translate shalom, and that’s pretty good, as long as we remember the peace Jesus offers is much more than simply the absence of war, much more than some uncertain pause in the fighting.   Rather, Jesus gives us His divine peace, His eternal peace, His heavenly shalom, which includes wholeness, integrity, a broken vessel all put back together and restored, perfectly salutary, in the end. 

   It is salutary to abide in the True Vine, because of the blessings that come to the soul which is joined to and remains in Jesus.  Branches, He calls us, living in Him and bearing good fruit.  Alive and full of the sap of God’s love, we rejoice to give thanks to the Lord at all times and in all places.  A salutary, healthy heart is created and sustained when we are planted and abiding in the Vine.  The Vine and Branches is one of Jesus’ very best metaphors for the Gospel and Christian living.  It is salutary, good for you, body and soul, to abide, to remain planted, in Jesus. 

   This is not just physical health, nor just mental, nor just emotional.  It is salutary in all these areas to abide in Jesus, and more.  For abiding in Jesus, being connected to Him, is a spiritual work, done by God’s eternally saving word, the Word of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit, which in turn produces good fruit in your life.    

   It is salutary to remain in the True Vine.  Apart from Jesus, separated from Him, we wither and die.  Dead branches in the end are gathered up and thrown into the fire.  Abiding in Jesus is salutary; being separated from Jesus is unsalutary, unhealthy, harmful, even noxious.   We all know this, in small ways and in dramatic ways.  To deny who we have been made to be in Christ by falling into sin is painful. 

   Oh, maybe the sin seems satisfying in the moment.  The angry, hurtful outburst against someone who has hurt or annoyed us feels like justice, but it will eat you up inside, eventually.  That sexual dalliance, whether in thought or in images or in the flesh, may thrill at first, but not for long.  If I seek escape from the pressures, pain or monotony of my life in a bottle, if I lie and manipulate others for my benefit, or just for fun, if I cheat on my taxes or shoplift at Krull’s, all of these sins may have some attraction.  But fear and guilt and bad consequences will follow, sooner or later. 

   Guilt and remorse come quickly, if we are still blessed with faith, however weak.  Guilt for my sin is good, if it drives me to turn from my sins, confess them to God and my injured neighbor, and seek forgiveness.  If the Spirit works repentance and delivers forgiveness to me, then such failures and sins, which injure my connection to Jesus, do not have to separate me from Him completely. 

   If this changes however, suddenly, or slowly, if the sins you or I struggle to avoid stop creating guilt in us, if we aren’t stabbed in our consciences and turned back to Christ, well then our faith is dwindling to nothing, and salvation is in peril.  It is painful to hear God’s convicting Word when we have fallen into sin, and so we may avoid it.  But our Vinedresser Father grafts us into Christ and prunes us clean by His Word.  Avoiding the pain of God’s accusing Word is unsalutary.  It is eternally dangerous, actually.  For without the clean pruning of God, we will be separated from the Vine.  

   It is unsalutary to be separated from the Vine, because life comes from God and we can do no good thing apart from Him.  And in truth, the situation is even more dire than Jesus details.  The prophet Jeremiah helps us understand more fully the dangers of being separated from Christ. 

   The darker complication is that when we leave the True Vine, we don’t remain rootless.  No, we plant ourselves into another vine, a false source of life, a false religion, an idol.  Jeremiah in our short Old Testament reading asks why Israel, the choice vine planted by the LORD, became a wild vine.  By which he means, why did Israel go chasing after the false gods of her neighbors?  Why did she exchange being planted in the LORD for being planted in an idol?  We cannot separate ourselves from the true God, but then be unplanted, unconnected.  We are believing and trusting creatures, by our nature.  We will trust and worship and follow the true LORD God, or we will trust and worship an idol. 

   Our Old Testament reading is so short because to give more context would have brought in some very graphic language that Jeremiah was inspired to use to describe Israel’s unfaithfulness.  You can check it out for yourself in Jeremiah, chapter 2.  Adultery and prostitution are how God describes His chosen people separating themselves from Him to go after other gods.  For the LORD had made Israel His Bride.  Unfaithfulness to God by His people is equated with unfaithfulness of a wife to her husband.  Most Israelites, male and female, were guilty. 

   We also are always prone to such idolatry.  For Israel there were literal idols all around them: Baal, Ashtoreth, Moloch, images fashioned by human hands from wood, stone, and metal.  We too have false religions that call to us.  Still, I think most of our idols tend to be other material things, or ideas, or activities and not obviously false religions.  We tend to idolize material blessings and wealth.  Or some status, like popularity, or pride of self.  Or perhaps we idolize activities, like sex, or gaining power, or running other people down.  Whenever we separate from God, when we leave Jesus, we always replace Him with some unsalutary thing, even if we can’t identify exactly what that false vine is.  Whatever they may be, false vines cannot give real life. 

   It is salutary to be planted in the True Vine and abide in Him.  It is unsalutary, it is deathly, it is foolish and sinful to separate ourselves from Him.  And it is all joy to know that we did not choose Jesus, but rather He chose us. 

   God chose you, before you were born.  Before the foundation of the world, the Son of God was looking forward to having you, to joining you to Himself as a branch to a vine. 

So then, to fulfill His promise to save every soul He has chosen, Jesus became the True Vine.  Jesus became the choice vine that Israel should have been, that you and I should be, but are not.  Taking His humanity from Abraham, from David, from the Virgin Mary, Jesus united Himself in the flesh to His people, in order to redeem them, and the whole world.  As He lived the perfect life of love and service, and marched resolutely to the Cross of Calvary, Jesus of Nazareth was the One True Israelite, the One faithful Servant of God, the Choice Vine.  He became the faithful shoot from the stump of Jesse, who would restore and renew the precious vine He had planted.  Wrapped around a Roman cross like an ivy on a trellis, Jesus poured out His blood, to give us new life. 

   And now, Alleluia, Christ is risen!

   Christ is risen, never to die again, with forgiveness and life for all who are rooted in Him by faith.  How can you be sure that God chose you?  He baptized you.  With the washing of water and the Word, Jesus cleansed you, and planted you within Himself.  You are His precious branch.  He loves you.

   Still, because of the sin that clings so closely to us, Christian life can seem like a frightening roller coaster ride.  Again and again we sin, which is to hack at our connection to God with a machete.  We feel we must find a way to stop sinning and heal the wound we have created between us and the Vine. 

   But remember, you did not choose Jesus, He chose you, and He recovers you.  You do not re-choose Him after you fall into sin.  When we sin, we do not bring ourselves to repentance, we do not prick our own hearts and turn ourselves back to Christ.  God the Holy Spirit, through the Father’s pruning and cleansing Word, seeks you out, washes you clean through the forgiveness of sins, and binds you to Jesus, again.  Whatever idolatries are burdening your conscience right now, Jesus declares to you, “You are forgiven.”  You are His, and He is yours, like branch and vine.   

   United in Christ, your faith is salutary, and so you desire and truly seek to abide in His Commandments, and love your neighbors as He has loved you.  The more deeply the Gospel sap of Jesus flows through you, the more Word and Supper you take in, the stronger this new creation reality will be.  And, when we recognize truly Christian good works in ourselves and others, we tremble with awe, for we realize this is the working of the LORD, in and through us, (Philippians 2:12-13).       

   Why did you come here this morning?  Did you know it was good, and so eagerly made the choice to set aside other things and gather around Christ and His gifts?  If so, very salutary, very good.  And yet, if this is your reason, know and remember that this too is the work of God in you.  As the old hymn says: “I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew, He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.”  This good work, like every good work, is only possible because you abide in the True Vine. 

   Are you here because of a thoughtless habit?  Because somebody made you come?  Maybe even out of guilt?  These are not ideal motivations.  I know, because they are all too often my motivations.  But do not despair, God is at work in these motivations, too.  Jesus does not want to leave you in your imperfect reasons for gathering to hear Him, but He will use them.  He blesses churchly habits, even when done mindlessly.  He rejoices to gather the guilty, so He can give them a good, clean, salutary conscience.  He praises the parents and spouses and other family and friends who nudge their loved ones to come, even though they don’t feel like it.    

   So now that we are here, gathered together, from whatever set of motivations, the angels rejoice, and you can too.  For Jesus our Vine is present.  The Father has His pruning shears in hand.  The Spirit flows as the sap of God, making us alive in Christ.  And in a few minutes, as the branch receives nutrition from the vine, Christ will offer us the meal of immortality, the Supper of forgiveness, the communion with His true Body and Blood which also creates and maintains a loving communion between us.  It is truly good right and salutary to abide in Jesus, our True Vine, today, and forever and ever, Amen.