3rd Sunday after Epiphany – Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
Our Redeemer and Our Savior Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
January 24, Year of Our + Lord 2021
Are you a fisherman, or woman? Do you fish?
I don’t. Even though I have lived
half my life on the banks of the Yellowstone River, I can't say that I'm a
fisherman. I like to eat fish. I'm not opposed to fishing. I can cast and reel in the line. But I don't really know much about fishing: it
would be an insult to all the fishermen and fish out there if today I was to
claim to be a fisherman.
God is
a fisherman. Remember how Jesus helped
out Peter and James and John in their fishing efforts? "Cast your nets on the other side of the
boat, I'm sure you'll catch some there."
Wouldn't you love to have Jesus as your fishfinder? One of the last things Jesus did before He
ascended into heaven to reign at the Father's right hand was to help the
Apostles with their fishing, one last time.
Jesus not only pointed them to another miraculous catch of fish; when
they got to shore, Jesus already had fish on the fire.
Jesus is a fisherman, and Jesus uses
fishing metaphors when he talks about other things. Like salvation. Jesus has been baptized by John, He is ready
to begin his work, his ministry. Jesus
began preaching the Gospel, the Good News: "The
time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and
believe the good news!" And
from the very beginning Jesus chooses men to be with Him, men to believe in
Him, and then to be used by Him as His special servants, His Apostles, the men
upon whom and through whom Jesus would build His Church. Listen again:
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee,
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were
fishermen. "Come, follow me,"
Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed
him.
Jesus is fishing for souls, seeking to
draw men and women out of the sea of death into the New Life that He offers in
His Church. And to do this Jesus chooses
these men: Andrew, Peter, James and
John, a bunch of smelly fishermen.
Uneducated, blue collar guys. Fishing, not religion, was their life.
It's seems like an odd choice.
But then God's methods of fishing for
souls always seem strange to us.
Consider Jonah, sent far away to preach to Nineveh. When the Church today considers a new mission
effort, we try and determine a target audience that we think is likely to be
open to the Gospel. We look for
someplace where we have some connection or ability to establish
relationships. And when we choose
missionaries to send, we always look for men and women with hearts for the
lost, servants who are eager to reach out in love to those who don't yet know
Christ.
But not God. Not always at least. The Ninevites were the last people we'd
expect to care about the God of Israel.
They were Israel's most bitter enemy.
Rich, powerful and pagan, that is, they worshiped any number of false
gods. Why should they care what the
LORD's prophet had to say? And
Jonah? Well, he hated the Ninevites, and
tried with all his might to avoid going to preach to them, taking passage on a
ship going the opposite direction. But
God, fishing by His own rules, determined to use Jonah to reach out to the
Ninevites, bringing back this reluctant prophet in the belly of a great fish. And God made it work. Through His Word alone, spoken into the most
unpromising circumstances, the LORD worked repentance in a whole city of
pagans.
God's way of evangelizing doesn't always
meet our expectations. This is because
God's way of salvation does not meet our expectations. The Good News is... Jesus died. Salvation from sin and hell is found in the
suffering and punishment of the only man who never sinned. New life only comes through death. We by our nature can know nothing of such a
salvation. God must reveal it to
us. God must change our hearts and minds
in order to make us believe and begin to understand that in the Cross, and only
in the Cross, can we find a solution to the problems that plague us. Solutions for the hurts that the world, and
our own friends, neighbors and family inflict on us. An answer for the pain we cause, for ourselves and others.
The event of salvation, Jesus' death and
resurrection, is not something we would ever think up on our own. So we should also expect that God's way of
delivering salvation is not going to work the way that we'd assume.
So, Jonah, a reluctant prophet with no
heart for the Ninevites, is used by God to work repentance in them. And common fishermen are chosen by Jesus to
be His Apostles, the foundation of His Church.
And
so too, we, the Church today, find our most important avenues for preaching the
Gospel in the most unlikely places. Like
in life issues.
Life issues. That sounds nice. Life is good, life comes from God. But we know that in our world today,
supporting life means saying some very unpopular things. To support life, we have to speak out against
abortion. To support life, we have to
point out that the problem with sex in our world today isn't the babies that
are created. It's the bad choices that
so many people make, before and after the babies are conceived. To support life, we have to support families
as they pour their life into allowing their parents and grandparents to die in
a Godly way. To die in faith, neither
fearing death, because of Christ, nor giving in to the temptation to hasten the
end. Because the end of life, just like
the beginning, is God's to determine, not ours.
Such things are hard to say and do. To speak forgiveness, first the Church must
speak of sin. And that's hard. It's hard because the people we speak to
don't want to hear it, and neither do we.
These days, if and when we dare to speak the Truth of God’s value for
life, we may come in for abuse.
What’s worse, all of the problems with our
culture's attitude toward life also infect us.
Abortion, sexual immorality, the twisting of sexuality and the family to
serve humanity’s desire to be our Gods, the desire to hasten death in order to
avoid discomfort, all of these sins are as real for us, inside the Church
walls, as they are outside them. You,
and I, all of us, share some responsibility for neglecting life. We too need to hear the message that Jesus
spoke in Galilee:
The kingdom of God is near, repent (that is, turn away from your sin), and believe the Good News, that
the Cross of Jesus, His unlikely way of salvation, covers all sin. His death gives new life, to all who believe. Abortion, assisted suicide, sexual
immorality, neglecting life, all these are sins, yes. But they are sins that the blood of Jesus
covers. There is forgiveness, for you,
in Christ, no matter what you've done, and also for your neighbors, no matter
what they have done. Repent, confess
your sins and believe the Good News.
God has an odd way of fishing for
souls. His bait does not seem very
attractive. His message of grace and
forgiveness is always proceeded by the truth about our sin. His messengers are nothing but poor,
miserable sinners. But this is God's
way. Through this unpopular message,
spoken into unpromising circumstances by forgiven sinners, God catches souls.
And what joy there is in the
catching. What a privilege to be present
as God reels in another one. Sometimes
the fish fight wildly, using all their strength to avoid God, but God
prevails. And when the fish are finally
in God's boat, when sinners realize that God forgives them and gives them New
Life in Jesus, then there is great joy, in heaven and on earth. Being part of God's Mission to the lost can
be hard, even frightening. But there is
no greater privilege than to be a part of God's fishing expedition, to behold
the joy of new believers, and to share in that joy, as God binds you ever more
firmly into His net, and then even uses you in His Mission.
God by His Spirit daily and richly
forgives you all your sins, for the sake of the Great Fisherman, Jesus
Christ. May He use you and His whole
Church on earth as live bait, to draw yet more fish into His boat. Amen.
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