Good Shepherding and Good Sheeping -- A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday

Third Sunday of Easter, April 14^th, Year of Our + Lord 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Good Shepherding and Good Sheeping: John 10:1-18

Sermon Audio available HERE. 

Christ is Risen!

   Who is your shepherd? Are you a wise sheep? Are you shepherding anyone?  Are you shepherding anything? 

   On this Good Shepherd Sunday, my first question seems excessively obvious.  Jesus, who laid down
His life, and has taken it up again, He is our Good Shepherd.  Christ is Risen, and He is our Shepherd.  Case closed.  No question.   

    But is He?  Are you following Jesus as a sheep follows a shepherd? Jesus focuses on hearing and following His voice.  The disciples struggled to understand what Jesus meant by declaring “I AM the door of the sheepfold.”  That is pretty hard to wrap your mind around.  So Jesus laid aside the mysterious “I AM the door” metaphor, and switched to a relationship they could better understand.  Sheep and Shepherd.  God had long talked about Israel as His flock, and He as their Shepherd.  Ancient Israel depended on shepherds and sheep for clothing, milk, and meat, not to mention writing material.  They get sheep and shepherds.  They can grasp that God’s people is the flock, and Jesus is the Shepherd.  

    And, when the Lord says His sheep listen for and hear His voice, it doesn’t take a Master of Divinity degree to understand that our Savior is pointing us to His Word.  Followers of Christ live in this world for as long as the Shepherd wills, and necessarily we interact with the culture and the economy; we hear many voices, many strange voices.  But the Word of Christ, recorded and preserved for us in Holy Scripture, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, is our authoritative voice, our primary and final tool for interpreting the world and our lives.  The Bible is to guide our choices and interaction with the broader world. 

    Can we say this is true for us?  Are we mostly guided by Christ and His Word in our day to day lives?  Or is the Word of God more like a weekly reminder, that is quickly drowned out by the cacophony of voices and kaleidoscope of images that bombard our senses, from early morn till late at night?  Are we truly hearing the voice of our Shepherd and following Him? 

    It doesn’t help that today following any shepherd is distinctly out of fashion.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is out of fashion to admit that we are following someone.  “Chart your own path, be your own person, make your own way in the world.  Just do it, they say.”  But amen, amen I say to you, the truth is we are all following someone or something.  The world suggests we can and should all be self-directed, autonomous, free agents.  But this is silly.  This mantra is a really play for control, by manipulative people and powers who want you to follow them.  And we will follow someone, consciously or not, because we are creatures made to follow our Creator. 

    The declaration of independence from God that was our fall into sin means that we do not naturally follow God’s good shepherding.  But if you imagine you aren’t following something or someone, be careful.  Because this is not how we human beings are made to be.  We will follow the Lord, or we will follow someone else.  It may be a philosopher, or a social trend, or a popular leader.  But we all follow something or someone.  The key question is: Are we following a good shepherd, or are we following foolishly after folly?

    Bad shepherds abound, a dime a dozen.  Jesus says a good shepherd knows his sheep and cares for them.  He defends them from wolves, and is even willing to lay down his life for his sheep, regardless of how foolish they may be.  Bad shepherds fleece their flock, using and even devouring them, all the while making a great show of how much they care for the sheep.  But bad shepherds don’t love their sheep.  They abandon their followers, when danger draws near, or when they cease to be useful.  I’ll let you fill in the blank with the shepherd who has disappointed and perhaps deeply injured you.  Maybe a politician?  A boss?  A relative?  A pastor?   

    Shepherding isn’t just about Sunday morning.  All of life is a gift from God, however we may use or misuse it.  So, any bad shepherding or any foolish sheepishness has a relation to God and true religion, because God cares about His whole creation.  Good shepherds help us know God, and walk in His path.  Bad shepherds pervert all that God wants for His creatures. 

    We need to realize shepherding is a really broad term.  Shepherd and pastor are the same word.  But shepherding is not just a religious concern.  King David was a shepherd, charged with leading and caring for the nation of Israel, with slingshot and lyre, sword and Psalm.  Moses was certainly called by God, and served a priestly function.  He was also a shepherd, literally tending the flocks of his father-in-law.  And, Moses was a political leader, both before and after he stepped up to serve as the redeemer of Israel. 

    We used to commonly use ‘shepherding’ as a leadership verb, and in a positive way.  As in “this community leader will shepherd this worthy project to its completion, for the good of all.”   But today formal authorities are automatically suspect, and nobody is supposed to want to be a follower.  We are all supposed to be self-actualizing, in charge of our own lives, not following anyone or anything but our heart.   

    But, can we even claim to be shepherding our own lives?  For the Christian, the first thing to consider when asked this question concerns, as we said before, God’s Word.  Does His Truth occupy the center of our lives?  Do the principles of loving God and neighbor guide us, however imperfectly we fulfill them?  Do we take responsibility for the redeemed life God has given us?  Do we get out of bed with a Godly purpose in mind for our day?  Or do wake up thinking only of our goals?  Or perhaps we awake with a vacant stare, waiting to be told what’s important, waiting to be fed through a screen, waiting to be told what direction our thoughts and actions will have today. 

    Our Good Shepherd comes to us today to re-establish good shepherding, and good ‘sheeping,’ according to His definition.  At the heart of good shepherding and ‘sheeping’ is the Cross and Empty Tomb.  And we’ll come back to that. 

    But before we do, let focus a bit more on this:  the principles of shepherding that Jesus declares today are for more than eternal salvation; they are for all of life.  Now, don’t hear me wrong.  The Good Shepherd is most importantly and ultimately concerned with your eternal salvation, with greeting you in heaven.  God’s most important goal, and the most important priority, for yourself and your loved ones, is to arrive at that blessed moment, when your Good Shepherd will embrace you in His arms and wipe away all your tears, adding you to the forever joyful congregation of all the faithful departed.  Keep your eyes on that prize, by deepening and feeding your faith, daily. 

    And, at the same time, never forget that your eternal life began the day you were baptized.  Which should make some difference in how you live, now, today.  Even as we look forward to the joy of heaven, we are called to be wise sheep, and also to good shepherding, right now. 

    The same principles we can draw from our Good Shepherd going to the Cross and bursting from the Tomb should govern and guide every facet of our lives as Christians.  For the dynamics of God’s saving work for mankind also reveal who God is, within Himself.  That reality, preached by Jesus today, is God’s desired foundation, the principle of life, that He would have define every area of our lives.  To be known by Jesus and to know Him is to be drawn into the mystery of Godly shepherding, and Godly ‘sheeping.’  And here is where true security and love and joy are found. 

    The Way that Jesus saves us is not unique to His relationship to us.  It is also essential to the reality of who God is and how the Father and the Son relate to each other.  Think for a minute about how Jesus compares His relationship to us with His relationship to His Father.  ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 

    We might expect Jesus to say something like, “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and we rejoice in our shared glory forever and ever.”  But that’s not what Jesus says.  He connects the mutual self-knowledge He shares with the Father with laying down His life, for us.  Right in the middle of Jesus’ mutual knowledge shared with His sheep, and also in the middle of Jesus’ eternal shared knowledge of His Father, is His self-sacrifice.  The Cross is essential not only to the relationship between Jesus and us, it is also essential to the relationship between God the Father and His only begotten Son.  The priority of rescuing the sheep and the willingness to endure the pain of the Cross, pain for both the Son and the Father, this terrible and wonderful act of justice and love, defines who God is.

    In case we miss the point, Jesus doubles down on this mystery, a few sentences later.  ¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.  Did you catch that?  Jesus says the reason the Father loves Him is because of His self-sacrifice.  Does this mean that the Father wouldn’t love the Son if He hadn’t gone to the Cross?  No.  The love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is eternal, unchanging, it has always and will always be the same. 

    So, that the Father loves the Son because of His self-sacrifice means that the Son was always laying down His life, for us, and for His Father.  From eternity, the Cross was always in view.  Selfless sacrifice for the good of others, doing whatever it takes in order to have a beautiful flock of believers to bless forever in heaven, this has always defined who the Son is.  It is almost as if He is the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world.  (Revelation 13:8) Which He is. 

    How sure is God’s love for you?  How much does God want to have you and the rest of His flock with Him forever and ever?  So sure and so much that, even though God knew exactly how things would turn out, how we would wander, how earthly shepherds would time and again abuse others, how painful it would be to win us back from Satan, even though the Father, Son and Holy Spirit knew all this, before time began, they created us anyway.  God freely and lovingly chose to create us, for the joy of having us for His very own, even though this meant the Cross was always in view.        

    Sacrificial love is at the heart of God.  Within the Godhead, this sacrificial love is both freely given and entirely deserved, entirely earned.  Loving freely and also serving perfectly are both natural to who God is. 

    For us, whose sins required Jesus to lay down His life for us, God’s sacrificial love is undeserved.  And yet, God has freely loved us in precisely this way.  So also, as children of God, as sheep of His sheepfold, sacrificial love and the forgiveness it delivers should be at the heart of everything in our lives. 

    Each of us are given roles where we are followers, sheep to someone else’s shepherding.  As sheep to imperfect earthly shepherds, we know this will be a bumpy ride.  So, we are called to wise cross-bearing, always trusting that our eternal deliverance is already assured, by the Cross Jesus bore for us.  God grant us the wisdom to stay close to our true Good Shepherd, through His Word, through His feeding, so that we can both rightly discern good and bad earthly shepherding, and know best how to follow, or choose not to follow.   

    Each of us has also been given roles where we are to shepherd someone or something.  We are all given faith, and the charge to follow Jesus.  And we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God is at work in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)  Christian living is holy and awesome, because the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD is with and at work in every believer. 

    God grant us wisdom to truly follow Jesus in the path He has set before us, to follow by hearing Him, and gathering to the places He has promised to be serve us.  To prioritize hanging out in His good pasture, that we may know Him and the power of His resurrection. 

    We all have many other roles, callings, as fathers and mothers, as children, brothers and sisters, as citizens, and as Christian friends and neighbors, to fellow Christians and to unbelievers.  In these relationships, we are given moments to follow, and moments, even whole lifetimes, to lead, to shepherd others.  God grant us wisdom to remember how Jesus shepherds us:  not with threats or force, not with anger, but with self-sacrifice and wisdom.  Our sacrifices for others do not save us, but we can sacrifice for others because we have been saved, by the self-sacrifice of Jesus.  And our Good Shepherd will be in the midst of all of it.  Indeed, this is the height of living, the most human we can be, when we give ourselves for others.    

 Christ is Risen! 

    The great Shepherd of the Flock of God has laid down His life, and taken it up again, for you!  Rejoice in His victory, which is your victory.  Marvel at His love.  Receive it every day, and so be filled to overflowing, made ready to share that love with others.  And the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds with Christ Jesus our Lord, unto life everlasting.  Amen.      

Behold the Man - Sermon for Good Friday, based on John 19:1-42.

Behold the Man                                                       
Good Friday 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior's 
Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
John 19:1-42

Sermon Audio available here:  

   Behold the Man.  This is what it's come down to: Pilate, the Roman governor, is trying to avoid a riot.  He's afraid to commit the injustice of executing Jesus, because of the crowds of Palm Sunday, the followers and friends of Jesus.  They might rebel if He executes Jesus.  Because they know, like Pilate, that Jesus is innocent.  At the same time Pilate fears angering the Jewish leaders, for he knows they could stage a riot just as well.  So, trying to walk the line between justice and appeasing Jesus' enemies, Pilate has Jesus scourged, that is whipped, and mocked, dressed in royal purple and crowned with thorns.  Hoping he had done enough, Pilate brings Jesus out for display:  Behold the Man.  Look at what I've done to Him, isn't this enough? 

   Behold the Man.  Like Balaam's donkey, (Numbers 22) and Caiaphas the high priest, (John 11:49-52), Pontius Pilate is an unlikely candidate to speak God’s Word, an unlikely prophet.  The governor’s proclamation is not just a few random words, filling in a blank in the story.  Nor are these false words, inserted in the Biblical text, only to be refuted.  No, these words of Pilate are profound.   They are true words. 

Behold the Man. 

   Jesus is the Man. He is the Archetype, the finest and best man, in every respect: in His miraculous birth, His sinless life, His humble service.  In His authoritative teaching, and perfect loyalty to God, in His faith and practice, Jesus is the Man.  And now He is the Man in suffering.  Loving His own to the very end, Jesus does more than simply wash their feet.  He begins to pour out His cleansing blood. 

   Jesus is the Man whom God accepts, the Man who fulfills all righteousness, who does the will of the Father, and keeps the Law.  He is the Beloved Son. 

   He is also the Man who suffers.  He stands in for all the rest of mankind, beaten, mocked, crowned in thorns, royal purple covering His blood-red body.   

   That this Jesus is the Man says something very bad about us.  About mankind.  This must be the Man because all the rest of us, men, women and children, do not live well.  We are not the finest and best.  Jesus stands there because of us, because we do not fulfill any righteousness, let alone all of it.  We do not do the will of the Father.  We do not keep the Law. 

   Many reject the Man Jesus precisely because of what His suffering says about us.  Who wants to be called a poor, miserable sinner?  We may protest: I’m a good person, aren’t I? 

   Well, we may be fine citizens, maybe even the best of people in the eyes of our neighbors.  But before God, whose standard is perfection, perfect holiness, inside and out, before God, we are lost in sin, and cannot free ourselves.  Whether personal righteousness has never really been our priority, or we have done our utmost to walk the walk, either way, none of us is the perfect man, or perfect woman.  Despite all our efforts at greatness and goodness, Jesus' suffering reveals that we are not worthy.  For if there were any other way to save us, God would have chosen it.  But there is no other way.  Jesus must suffer, for who we are. 

   This is a very difficult, a very harsh message.  And so, many reject it.  Some turn completely against Jesus, joining in the cries of the crowd to crucify Him, albeit in modern day language.  Listen to the poets and great minds of our age, who tell us to leave the superstitions of religion behind and embrace the brotherhood of man.  Jewish priests of the first century and modern intellectuals of the 21^st are joined in their desire to leave Jesus on the ash-heap of history.   

   Others try to keep Jesus, but only if they can change Him.  They focus on His teaching and healing and service to the poor, and ignore or downplay the suffering and cross, because of what His suffering and cross say about them.  About us.  Often we only want a Jesus who builds our self-esteem, and tells us how to live a little bit  better.  Not one who points out our inescapable sinfulness.   

   You and I could choose to reject the Man, standing beside Pilate, shamed and suffering.  But our choices do not change reality.  And the reality is this:  Jesus is the Man.  Jesus is the only Man who could reveal the depth of God's displeasure with our sin, and the only Man who could accept God's full punishment.  Every injustice you've ever suffered, and every injustice you've ever inflicted, multiplied by the billions of sinners who have gone before you, all of these sins have been answered for, paid for, suffered for, by the Man Jesus.  For He submitted not just to Pontius Pilate, but also to His own Father's righteous anger.

   And most amazingly, He did this willingly, for the joy set before Him.  For the promise of a heavenly congregation of redeemed sinners, Jesus is the Man.  In order to deliver to His Father a people, holy and righteous in His sight, Jesus meekly stands as the Man beside Pilate.  In order to prove the love and mercy of God, Jesus wears the purple robe.  In order to have you for His very own, Jesus accepts the crown of thorns. 

   It is only the great reversal of the Resurrection that makes it even possible for us to consider the utter darkness of Good Friday.  We live in hope because we know Jesus rose from the dead, showing us that His suffering was not for nothing.  Not at all.  In the light of the Resurrection we learn that His suffering was for everything, for the forgiveness of all sins, for the life of the world, and for the glory of His Father. 

   And so tonight we confess again that our sin made Him stand there.  We confess that we could never pay even a fraction of our debt.  We confess that the Man Jesus is our God.  We confess that there was never love like this.  Jesus, our Suffering King.  Behold the Man.  Amen. 

  

Perfect Certainty, a sermon for Palm and Passion Sunday

Palm and Passion Sunday, March 24^th, A+D 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Perfect Certainty – Matthew chapters 26 – 27, Philippians 2

Audio of the sermon is available HERE.

      What is He doing?  What does Jesus intend to achieve with these controversial words and works?  Is He certain this thing is going to end the way He wants?

      All the people around Jesus are full of worry and doubt.  Jesus accepted the
anointing with highly valuable perfume by the woman in Bethany, a flagrant waste of money, or so it seemed.  He portrayed Himself as the Son of David, the coming Messiah King, by orchestrating the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday.  By this, Jesus enraged the Pharisees and Priests, and gave them concrete accusations with which to denounce Him to the Roman governor.  Already before Monday of this most fundamental week, Jesus had totally confounded human wisdom.  Is He sure all this is a good idea?

      During the week, it got worse: arguments in the Temple and verbal attacks against the leaders of the Jews, apocalyptic teaching, radical claims of coming destruction.  Finally, Jesus displays the certainty and confidence to redefine the Passover of the Jews.  He tranforms the perpetual institution of Moses, annuls the Law’s prohibition against drinking blood, and eternally remakes the Passover, with reference to His own death.  Are you sure, Jesus?   

      He rejects the fervent desire of many of His followers, the urge for Him to foment a rebellion against the Romans.  Instead, Jesus submits to the arrest, torture and humiliation of the Priests, and the Romans.  He calmly goes to Calvary, facing without hesitation the worst that human beings could do.  But the deepest stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that Justice gave, the justice of God, the wrath of His own beloved Father against human sin.  In the moment, it all seems like madness, a terrible waste.  Who can understand His goal, His plan?  Where does Jesus find His certainty?

      Four Palm and Passion Sundays ago, in April of 2020, the whole world suffered from an extreme lack of certainty.  In February “lockdown” had been a term used mostly to refer to confining inmates in their cells, to prevent a prison riot.  By April, lockdowns were for everybody. 

      In much of the world, freedom of movement was suddenly restricted.  Only “essential workers” moved about normally.  Loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes were on their own.  Schools and churches were shuttered.  We all need to submit; the science is certain, don’t you know?  When and how would we escape this health crisis?  What was the real danger of COVID19?  What measures protect me and my family?  Who knew, for sure?  No one.

    Isolated in our homes, interacting through screens, the same internet, which gave us some precious contact with friends and loved ones, also flooded us with conflicting information, fantastic stories, opposing theories.   Page after page fed our minds with doubt and fear.  Many of us became amateur public health researchers, seeking the truth, seeking certainty. But the deeper we dug, the more certainty escaped us.  Oh, how we wanted to know for sure!  But no. 

    But, that was four years ago.  Today, we are all relieved that life has completely returned to normal, that we again enjoy a high level of certainty in our lives.  No longer are the internet, the coffee shop, and our own minds roiled by constant doubts. 

     Oh, that such were the case!  We are no longer in a worldwide health crisis, unless you count Type 2 diabetes, loneliness, substance abuse, obesity, or widespread gender disphoria as crises.  In April 2020 we in the United States were locked into a presidential election with the combined age of the two major candidates setting a new record, raising doubts about their fitness for the office.  This year, the same two men shatter that record by 8 years.  AI generated images, video and text may eventually teach us the wisdom to doubt everything we see on our screens.  But at this moment, certainty, and the peace that we gain from a sense of certainty, are just as far away as ever.  Maybe farther.      

     And so, brothers and sisters in Christ, I thank the Lord that, in the midst of these uncertain times, we are celebrating Holy Week.  What a priceless blessing to gather together, in the flesh, to rehearse, and remember, and celebrate the most important week in all of human history.  There is no better Word, no better Way to help us regain Christian certainty, than by meditating once again on the holy work of Jesus Christ, His work of perfect certainty.

     Before the foundation of the world, the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knew, without a doubt, the date and the events of the first Holy Week.  God also knew all about today, our celebration of Holy Week in A+D 2024.  From before time began, the plan was set.  The Creator, the eternal God, in the person of the Son, was with perfect certainty going to unite with His creation, taking the essence of the guilty man into his spotless, perfect being.  Jesus became like us in every way, except without sin.  And for what?  Certainly He did not come down and enter into human history to lead us to a victory according to our expectations.  Jesus did not ride a donkey into Jerusalem to restore David's earthly kingdom, nor to make America great again, nor to achieve social justice.  

     Restoring the ancient splendor of Israel would not have helped anyone, because King David was the problem.  Israel’s greatest leader, and everyone else, every person except Jesus, including you and me, we were and are the problem that creates our uncertainty.  The only thing constant and sure about us is our frailty and fallenness. 

     Jesus had to reveal the weakness of everyone, even his own disciples and friends, because the truth about all the sons of Adam is that, as the Psalmist declares: “they have been corrupted, they have committed abominable acts; There is no one who does good… The Lord has looked down from heaven on the children of man to see if there is anyone who understands, who seeks after God. They have all turned aside, they have all been corrupted; there is no one who does good, there is not even one.” (Psalms 14 and 53: 1-3)  There was no real certainty, and so also no real hope among mankind, because all of us were corrupted.  All of us naturally deceive, and fall for deception.  We are all victims, and perpetrators, from our conception, from our very first breath.

    Nevertheless, Jesus was perfectly certain about His plan.  Not because it was easy or pleasant.  Rather, being God Himself, the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus knew the Truth that is greater than our sin and corruption.  Jesus knew the Truth that is even greater than the hatred and envy of satan: Jesus knew with perfect certainty that God is love.

      When we go through trials and tribulations, when we face uncertainty, suffering and evil, we want nothing more than to be with our loved ones, to experience the love we first received as babies.  We desperately want to receive and share love, like the unexpected love that flowed from us who became parents.  Not always, but often, by God’s grace, human parents and children still feel and give great love.  Even without knowing its Source, children and parents normally still share a profound love.  Our family love is not perfect, far from it.  But it is the best we have in this world.  We are all sinners, but God in his goodness has left this imperfect love in our lives, to give us an idea, a shadow of the love that exists between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the love God seeks to share with every soul.  

     The love of family is wonderful.  And yet, even if we could multiply a thousand times the intensity of the best love we have experienced with family and friends, God’s love is still greater.  God’s love, unattainable for us, is the source of the perfect certainty of Christ.  Jesus is sure of His plan, because He knows love, the love that is God.

    This is why Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, endured everything, suffered everything, calmly, and with hope.  He completed His aweful work with certainty, for the sake future joy.  For the joy of revealing to the world, of revealing to you that, although you deserve His rejection, God has loved you in this way: He sent his Only Begotten Son to take away all your weakness and doubt, all your sin, all your punishment and shame.  Jesus has destroyed them all in His own body, in His own suffering and death on the Cross.  Jesus did it all with the perfect certainty that, after three days, a new creation would be revealed, a new reality in which you can know the real love of God Himself.

     This was the certainty of Christ, which gave him the strength to do and endure everything that happended during Holy Week.  And Christ’s certainty is also your certainty.  This is God’s guarantee to you, signed, sealed and delivered at your Baptism.  There the God who is love, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, united you with the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, making you a member of the family of God, perfectly safe in His love.  This is the certainty which Christ feeds us, from His altar, His holy Body and Blood, the forgiveness of sins that Christians are invited to eat and to drink.  This is the certainty that the Spirit pours into your heart, through your ears, every time you silence the stream of the world’s doubt-filled noise, and listen once again to the voice of Truth, the voice of certainty.  This voice of God sometimes thunders, sometimes whispers, sometimes sings, and is always seeking to speak peace to you, in Jesus’ Name. 

     The certainty of Jesus is for you.  Uncertainty, confusion and doubt are the tools of satan.  They give the evil one great power over us, if we are not firmly resting in the surety that is Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen, for you.  When we fall into doubt about God’s love, we also lose our reason for fleeing and resisting the darker tools of evil.  The short term thrill of feeding my sinful appetites seems like a sure thing, in the moment.  If I am not sure that God is actually on my side, what does it matter if I give in to temptation?  Only knowing the love of Jesus can truly help you and me reject the temptations of the devil.   

     So, certainty about God’s love, poured out for us in Jesus, is critical for our lives, today.  And you and I being sure of God’s grace, mercy and power is also critical for our neighbors.  When I am tempted to doubt God’s love, your certainty makes you God’s preacher to bring me back to the Truth.  For precisely this reason St. Paul exhorts us to have the mind of Christ.  And what is good between Christians is also good for those of our neighbors who live without faith in Jesus.  The calm certainty of the Christian resting in the love of God is the greatest attraction the Church has for people lost in doubt. 

      And so, this Holy Week, we take time to hear and meditate upon the sure and certain work of Jesus.  And we pray to the Holy Spirit, that He help us live in this certainty, for ourselves, for each other, and for the life of the world, Amen.

  

The Truth Is - Sermon for Judica, the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Judica - Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 17th, A+D 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
The Truth Is 
Genesis 22:1-14, Hebrews 9:11-15, John 8:42-59

Audio of this sermon is available HERE.

   The Truth is, everything the Lord has ever said to us is true.  God cannot lie.  So, understanding and living within His Word should be easy.  We have the Word of God, we have ears to hear, eyes to read, and wills to follow the Truth.  But of course, it is not easy for us to discern, accept and live within the Truth of God.  This morning we will reflect a bit on understanding the mission of God from the perspective of knowing the Truth, the Truth of Christ, which is true for the Black Hills, and for Bangladesh, true for everyone, everywhere. 

   A bit before our reading, Jesus spoke these famous words to the Jews who had believed in Him.  “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  Through the centuries, many speakers have borrowed the end of our Lord’s saying, “The Truth shall set you free.”   Many have used it for their own unique purposes.  And this is understandable, since even in this broken world, truth is better than lies. 

   It is remarkable the varied range of voices who have appropriated this saying:  Antislavery crusaders and civil rights leaders from the 1830s through the 1960s used it to fight against slavery and racism.  Today’s Constitutional Conservatives use this saying as they seek to revive the principles of America’s founders.  It has been appropriated by boxers, and door to door salesmen, by communists, by anti-communist freedom fighters, and by Hollywood stars.  So many different voices have appropriated Jesus’ words; they cannot all be referring to the same truth. 

     We are Lutherans, excommunicated cousins of Roman Catholics.  We were thrown out because we did not accept the idea that the “truth” was whatever the Roman Pope declared.  Most people in most places have suffered under similar delusions, the idea that the Truth is determined by what some fallible human told you.  Maybe it was a King or Queen, maybe a high church official, a presidential candidate, or the U.N. Panel on Climate Change.   It doesn’t matter if you agree, or if the math adds up.  The truth is as they say, or else. 

     The demand by the powerful to be obeyed without question is a perennial problem.  But much worse for all of us has been the assault on Truth itself.  The very idea of Truth has fallen on hard times.  It is a widely accepted “right” that any person can demand to define the truth however they want.  If you dare to object, you risk being shouted down as a bigot, or worse.  Whatever you do, don’t point out contradictory facts.  And so, a boy is a boy, and a girl is a girl, unless they feel their truth is the opposite, or something in between.  The truth about God is whatever you want it to be, just so long as you don’t say your truth about God is more correct than anybody else’s version.  Take care if you dare to defend the Truth today, lest they pick up stones to throw at you.  

      Well, I have good news.  Bracing news, but good, in the end.  And my good news is that the Truth is.  Period.  Truth is real, and Truth is not malleable; it is not subject to our whims.  The Truth has unchanging content, and substance.  We poor miserable human beings can rail all we want about our truths, but the Truth is not going away.  Because the Truth is a Person, who meets us in the Liturgy, that is, in the assemblies of God’s people gathered around His Word, and His Font, and His Table.  This Person who is the Truth has revealed His Truth to us through His Holy Word, recorded for us in the Old and New Testaments. 

      Hence, we are not free to interpret that Truth however we would like, twisting God’s Word to suit our preferences or to deflect the criticisms of the world.  When we misuse and twist God’s Word, we do not really change the Truth, because the Truth is Almighty and Eternal.  If we reject the truth, all we are doing, sadly, is separating ourselves from Christ and His Life.  We need to accept Jesus at His Word, because at the heart of that Word is the Truth made flesh, Jesus Christ, come to save, lifted up for the Life of the World. 

      But oh, how we struggle to accept God’s Truth, because it is full of so many hard truths. 

      The Truth is, the Lord’s demand that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac was not unjust.  From the moment of our conception in sin we are naturally enemies of God, and each time we sin, we demonstrate our rebellion.  We deserve nothing but wrath and punishment.  Abraham and Isaac deserved nothing but wrath and punishment.  No one is just, no one is without sin, and the wages of sin is death.  This is the harshest of Truths, too hard to bear, except that God intercedes, providing a substitute sacrifice, for Isaac, and for you. 

      The truth is, God has no eternal use for our sacrifices for sin.  Isaac’s death would have served no purpose.  Neither the blood of Isaac, nor the blood of bulls and goats in the Tabernacle and Temple, nor your resolutions and efforts to amend your life, none of these can make up for your sins and your sinfulness.   The Truth is, justifying, that is, making you right with God, and also sanctifying, making you holy, both of these do require blood.  They do require death.  But a much better blood and death, a blood and a death of infinite holiness and power.   

      Abraham told Isaac the Lord would provide the sacrifice.  And He did.  The Truth is, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, has been provided.  He has made the necessary sacrifice, once and for all.  God was using that strange encounter we heard in our Old Testament reading to prove the power of the faith He had created in Abraham, and to provide a picture of His ultimate salvation plan, the plan to provide a better Sacrifice, the Lamb of God, similarly trapped in thorns.  Jesus was lifted up, for Abraham, and Isaac, and even for the men who drew His blood, nailing Him to a cross.  The Truth is Jesus was lifted up, for Custer and Hill City, for all the world, even for those who want to twist His Truth and declare a way of salvation that leads to nowhere.  This is especially Good News for us, that Jesus’ sacrifice is for all those who have sought to follow and declare a different truth.  Because all of us have, at one time or another, maybe just yesterday, all of us have twisted God’s Truth to suit our sinful desires. 

      And so, truly and humbly confess your errors, your sins, your falsehoods, your guilt.  Confess it all before the Truth of God, and the blood of Jesus will cleanse you from all sin.  This is not some mere conceptual cleansing, restricted to the realm of ideas.  The Truth will not set you free abstractly, somewhere, someday, but rather you are set free right here, right now. 

      The Truth is that blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin.  It enters your ears, regenerates your heart, and cleanses your soul with the Word of Forgiveness.  This gracious Word even enters into you in the Holy Supper, to give you strength for the road ahead.  

      This is the Mission of God, here in the Black Hills, and all around the world.  You and I by grace through faith are caught up in God’s Mission, as the Lord goes with us, and even in us.  Through our vocations, through the efforts of our congregations, and through your everyday life, God is at work, through His forgiven children.  This is the truly blessed life, that Christ goes with you, to speak His Truth to a world trapped in errors and lies. 

     God grant His Truth to sound forth, in South Dakota, across America, and around the world, for the salvation of many, in the Name of Jesus, Amen.