The Unexpected God

Festival of the Holy Trinity                                                June 3^rd, A. + D. 2012

St. John and Trinity Lutheran Churches                           Fairview and Sidney, Montana

John 3:1-17

This morning, as we celebrate the Festival of the Holy Trinity, I’d like to conduct a little thought experiment.  I think it’s a pretty safe bet that pretty much all of you here today assume that God is real.  Assuming then, that there is a God, how do you expect God to be?  When you think about God, about the character and essence of God, what God is like and what God does, what comes to your mind? 

Given that most of you are members of this Lutheran Christian congregation, I expect, and I certainly pray, that your thoughts about God would be fairly well in keeping with the way God has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures, the Bible.  For with Luther we confess to be bound and held captive by the Word of God.  But being familiar with the Word of God recorded in the Bible does not guarantee that you will have a correct understanding or concept of God.  We poor miserable sinners are more than capable of hearing God speak, but ignoring Him, of hearing the truth about who and how God is, but not letting it sink in, preferring to think our own thoughts, no matter what the Bible says.  Even being a Biblical scholar is no guarantee; consider Nicodemus.

Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, a student of the Holy Scriptures.  And Nicodemus acknowledges God, for he says he knows Jesus must be from God, because of the signs, the miraculous things, he has seen Jesus do.  But what does Nicodemus think about God? 

Right away in their conversation, Jesus challenges Nicodemus’s concept of God, by declaring that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  And right away our come by night Pharisee replies that this can’t possibly be right. After all, a man can’t crawl back into the womb and be born again.  Nicodemus acknowledges God, and has studied the Holy Scriptures diligently, and so he should know about how God created Adam and Eve, He should know about the miracles in the desert, the burning but not burned bush, the Red Sea parting, the manna, Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones coming to life.  However, when confronted with the way that God will bring sinners into His kingdom, Nicodemus, thinking in materialistic, human terms, balks, protesting it can’t be, because it doesn’t fit with his narrow, material, human-experience based understanding.  Despite his training in the Scripture, Nicodemus expects God to fit into the understanding of his limited human mind. 

It’s interesting, in a depressing sort of way.  Nicodemus acknowledges that Jesus must be from God because He has done signs, miraculous things, that break the rules of everyday living.  So you would think that Nicodemus would be ready to hear that salvation, deliverance from this dying world into God’s kingdom of eternal life, is also a miraculous work of God.  But no.  Jesus can turn water into wine, fine, but Nicodemus cannot accept salvation in the description Jesus gives of Baptism, the new birth of water and the Spirit, this means of grace He would soon give to His Church as the way for sinners to enter the kingdom.  That God would forgive sins, create faith, and give new life to sinners through the new birth of Baptism, no, this can’t be, not for Nicodemus. 

We humans haven’t changed much.  Many people today are well-versed in Holy Scripture, and not just in the Old Testament that Nicodemus knew, but also in the New Testament, where Baptism is discussed all over the place.  And yet, many people today, well versed in Scripture, are unable or unwilling to simply accept what God has declared: Baptism now saves you.  God washes sinners clean through Baptism.  The new birth of the Christian comes humbly, invisibly, through God’s washing of water and word.  And yet we protest, that can’t be, something so easy, yet powerful, something invisible to our eyes.  It doesn’t make sense to us, so there must be another explanation.  God can’t work like that, can He? 

Well, I ask you, does this way of thinking about God make sense?  If we acknowledge God, that is, if we acknowledge a Being who is the Creator and Sustainer of each one of us, and of all that we see, a Being who is greater than all, and before all, and who possesses all power and knowledge, shouldn’t we expect that this God Being would act in ways that we creatures, who are made by God, less than God, dependent on God, might not fully understand?  Of course we should expect God to be unexpected in character and beyond our understanding.  I mean, if we can stand outside of God and say, “Oh no, God can’t act in this way,” or “God can’t do that,” aren’t we making ourselves His judge?  Aren’t we saying that we are above and independent from God?  Wouldn’t that really mean that we are God, and not Him? 

This is, unhappily, a real problem for many people, for all of us, really.  We are all tempted to put God in a box, and demand that He play by our rules, and fit our understanding.  The plain and clear words God has given us about the Creation, and our re-Creation in Baptism, and about our sinfulness, and about the power of His Word and the truth of His Supper, these we do not happily allow to rule over us and our reason.  Rather, we want to rule over them.  We acknowledge Jesus, we acknowledge God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of course, sort of, but on our terms, fit within our own limited understanding. 

This will simply not do, because everything God does through Jesus Christ flies in the face of what we expect and think.  Our natural concept of God includes the notion that we must make some contribution to this project of bringing us into His Kingdom.  God surely has a right to demand we contribute.  So surely our efforts, at least our very best efforts, must be part of the equation, part of the answer.  But no, says God, none of our works measure up. 

Well, at least we must decide for God, right, make up our minds that we are going to commit to Him?  It must be so, we think, because otherwise God would be just so different from all that we know, different, and frightening.  And, we would be so much less important than surely we must be.  But Jesus says the work of God is to believe in the one whom He has sent, and even this faith must be a gift from Him. 

Well, after we are saved, surely then we must maintain our status as the elect, chosen of God, by doing good works?  But no, says God, your good works He prepared in advance, and yes,  you should walk in them, for your neighbor’s sake.  But the work of keeping you within the Church, within the Father’s hand, well, this too must be done by God. 

We think all kinds of limited, human ideas about God and how He is and how He must work, but this is not what Jesus teaches.  Certainly Jesus did not act according to such expectations.  The work Jesus did for the salvation of the world is completely contrary to our natural thoughts and ideas about God and salvation, and this is proved already here, in the rest of John chapter 3.  Nicodemus does not understand the promised New Birth by water and the Spirit, and so we probably expect Jesus should slow down, and back up a bit, and help Nicodemus get a grasp on what has been taught so far.  Jesus should clear up this Baptism problem for Nicodemus, before moving on to even more difficult things, shouldn’t He? 

But Jesus does the opposite.  You don’t understand Baptism Nicodemus?  Well what will you understand?  What if I tell you heavenly things, secret things of the Father, like the plan for the Son of man to be lifted up?  Yes, like Moses with his snake on the pole, built at God’s command when venomous serpents were throughout the camp, destroying the sinners of Israel.  As the Israelites died, God had Moses build a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and then all that it took for the dying Israelites was to look to the snake, and they were saved!  So also, says Jesus, all it takes for us sinners, bitten and enslaved by the Great Serpent, Satan, all it takes is for us is to look, with eyes of faith, to Jesus lifted up, Jesus crucified for us, and by this faith, God says: we are saved! 

How contradictory is that to all that we expect?  That Jesus, the eternal Son of God, would come down out from His glorious throne in the heavens, to join us in our predicament.  That God became flesh, in order to die.  And not some peaceful, noble, Platonic death, showing a way of escape from worldly suffering.  No, Jesus came to suffer, and die on a Cross, the worst of executions reserved for the lowest, most vile criminals.   How can these things be?

These things must be.  There is no other way that sinful men and women can be qualified for the Kingdom of God, except that God take all our sin and punishment upon Himself.  Our problem is that bad, despite all we like to tell ourselves about human potential and capacity.  This is how it is, Nicodemus.  This is how it is, sinner.  There’s no other way, whether we like it or not.    

Nicodemus, and we, like to ask:  how can these things be?  Don’t ask “how can this be?”  God is God, not some watered down humanly imagined God, but fully God, fully in control, all powerful, without equal, the source of everything.  So, God does things the way He does things, period.  We ought not ask how, but rather, we should ask, “Why?”  Why would God choose to do these things?  Why has God loved the world in this way? 

And the answer?  Because God is love.  That is, because God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who love each other perfectly.  God, the eternal divine being, is, within the oneness of the only true God, also three.  One God, in three persons, eternally loving one another, perfectly, and completely.  The Father loves the Son and gives Him all things.  The Son loves the Father and does all for Him, perfectly fulfilling the Father’s will.  And the Spirit flows from and between both, not glorifying Himself, but giving glory to the Father and Son, by declaring who they are and what they have done.  In this way, God is love, and has loved, forever. 

As God is within Himself, so also He is toward us, His nature does not change.  God created and loves humanity, because He is love.  Likewise, by His nature God loves His whole creation, and wills to rescue mankind from our sinful foolishness.  The Why of the Cross, the Why of salvation by grace through faith, a free gift completely separate from our works, the why of Baptism and the Supper, the why of God working through His Word, the Why of all God does for our salvation, all these Whys are eternally wrapped up in the very Good News that God is love, and so He does these things, for you, His beloved.    

Because we are creatures, fallible, sinful, forgetful, we will continue to struggle with our concept of God.  There are very good and difficult questions about God and His salvation for which we do not get full answers in this life.  But remember this: God is love, and God has poured out His love for you through the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross.  Remember that God chooses to deliver the forgiveness Jesus won through humble means like words and water and wheat and wine.  Remember that God loves you through these things, and rest in that love, for the love of God will carry you into His kingdom,

in the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

The Holy Spirit

The Day of Pentecost, May 27^th, Anno + Domini 2012                                         

Trinity and St. John Lutheran Churches, Sidney and Fairview, Montana

Acts 2

Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the day our Lord sent the Holy Spirit to indwell and empower the Church.  On Pentecost, God the Holy Spirit came and dwelled in a new way with the infant Christian Church, enabling and jumpstarting God’s Mission of proclaiming Christ to all nations.  Miraculous signs, powerful preaching, 3,000 Baptisms, all these occurred on Pentecost, all works of the Holy Spirit.  There is no Christian Church apart from the Holy Spirit, and so today we rejoice in Him. 

But who is the Holy Spirit?  And what does He do?  How do we know if we have the Holy Spirit?  Do you have the Spirit? 

Look at you squirm.  Lutherans often do not know how to answer such questions.  Ask us who is God, and we rightly respond the one true God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Ask us about the Father or the Son, and we have lots to say, from Creation to the Old Testament prophecies of Christ Jesus, to the Father’s sending of His only-begotten Son, to be born, to live, to serve, to teach, to suffer, to die, and to rise, all for our salvation.  And we know that the Holy Spirit is involved in these things, hovering over the face of the waters at the Creation, causing the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary, descending in the form of a dove at Jesus’ baptism, being given over by Jesus at His death on the Cross, and breathed on out the disciples in the Upper Room, the night after the Resurrection. 

But ask us a question specifically about the Holy Spirit, or especially about the Spirit dwelling in us, and we tend to stumble and mutter a bit.  Why do we do this?  Well, in part, we hesitate to join in the conversation about the Holy Spirit because so much of what we hear from other churches seems crazy, things like rolling in the aisles, babbling unintelligibly, people crowing to the rafters about a feeling in their heart which they say proves the Spirit is in them.  Miracles claimed, healings and spectacular signs reported, all attributed to the Holy Spirit.  We don’t get it, but they seem so sure, and we don’t want to offend, or look bad, so we say nothing. 

This isn’t right.  There is no good reason that we shouldn’t be teaching the world clearly and confidently about the person and work of the Holy Spirit.  So today, we’ll use this peppy little mariachi tune, hymn 502, as our guide to understanding and rejoicing in the Spirit, as He has revealed Himself to be. 

Hymn 502, verse 1. 

The Holy Spirit came as a dove.  Stephen Starke, an LCMS pastor in Bay City, Michigan, wrote the English words to this originally Spanish hymn, starting us off by referring to the Holy Spirit as the dove sent from heaven, which goes well with our Pentecost Paraments and our bulletin cover, which feature a descending dove.  And this is a helpful connection for understanding the Holy Spirit, because the one event where the Holy Spirit is described appearing in the form of a dove is not Pentecost, but rather the baptism of Jesus.  However, at Pentecost, 3,000 people were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ.  So the Spirit as dove is a good place to start our consideration, because it connects the Spirit, and us, to Jesus. 

A dove first takes center stage in salvation history way back in Genesis, again in a watery setting, as the Flood receded and Noah released a dove to see if it was safe outside the ark.  The first time, she returned to Noah, because there was no place to land.  Seven days later Noah sent her out again, and again she returned, this time with an olive branch in her beak, showing that things were growing, life was returning to the earth.  Seven days later she did not return at all, telling Noah that it was safe to leave the ark.  The flood had receded, mankind could return in peace to the earth.  The devastation of the flood had ended, and a universal symbol of peace was created.  Good news. 

The deeper and eternal significance of the dove of peace is revealed as Jesus stands in the River Jordan, being baptized by John, declared to be the Son of God, coming to bring peace to the world.  The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, and from heaven the Father speaks: this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.  The Holy Spirit is given to the sinless One who was baptized for us sinners.   

So the Holy Spirit, the dove sent from heaven, brings a message of peace.  But peace from what?  Of what war does this dove signal the end?  In this we discover the special focus of the Holy Spirit’s ministry, for the dove came to declare the end of warfare between mankind and God, between a world of fallen sinners and the one Holy God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  God desired peace with sinners, despite our continual rebellion against Him.  God desired peace with sinners, and so the Son came and defeated sin in His own body, in His own death and resurrection, reconciling us to the Father.  God desires peace with sinners, so the Holy Spirit comes to declare and distribute the peace of God to all who hear and believe this remarkable good news. 

So now once again, the dwelling place of God can be with men.  No longer does the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD have to have a special temple, a dwelling place set off with walls and curtains, the Holy of Holies from which we sinners must be separated, for our own protection.  Now that Christ has reconciled the world to the Father, the Holy Spirit comes and makes baptized believers His temple, His dwelling place.  And where the Spirit is, there also is Christ and the Father. 

Hymn 502, verse 2: 

The Holy Spirit came in tongues of fire.  Are you ready to sit still as a tongue of fire descends on your head?  Is there anything more likely to make us flinch and duck than the thought of our hair being caught on fire?  Do not pass too quickly over this miracle of flames at Pentecost.  The fire of God is dangerous.  Like a visible manifestation of God’s Holy presence, God’s flames are not something we in our sinfulness can endure.  Without some intervention by God, we will be burned. 

What fireproofs sinners against being burned by the Holy Spirit’s flame?  Water of course.  Water, that is, which has been joined to the Word, the Word of Christ, who has endured His baptism by fire on the Cross, in order that all who are baptized and believe in His forgiveness can now safely receive the flames of the Spirit.  The miraculous flames at Pentecost were a unique, onetime occurrence, but the promise of forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit, both given to you in your Baptism, have the same God of Pentecost behind them.  You need not long for spectacular signs like tongues of fire or speaking in languages you never learned, for Paul tells us that miraculous signs will pass away, but the seal of the Spirit lasts forever.  Marvel and rejoice that the same Spirit who produced miracles on Pentecost has also sealed you in Baptismal waters, and  is still working, in you and all believers, keeping faith alive and producing good works. 

Hymn 502, verse 3: 

The Holy Spirit came to lead us in a new life.  But what about your walk?  Perhaps you have felt convicted by your Pentecostal friends, who seem to be very fired up for God, and who imply, or maybe say outright, that if you really have the Spirit it will be obvious in your life.  Now, if you are convicted because you know that there are good works God has put in front of you that you have refused to do, good.  If you are convicted because you know you have failed to good works and chosen instead sinful pastimes, thank God for your convicting Pentecostal friends.  If you are convicted because you are neglecting the Church into which the Spirit has called you, repent, and come to God the Father, led by the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, and He will pour out His unction of blessing again.  That is He will pour out forgiveness on you again, as He did at your Baptism, as He has done so many times since, by His Word and Sacrament. 

Take it seriously every time you are brought to repentance for a lack of fruit, a lack of good works in your life.  Take it seriously, but do not throw out God’s Word and God’s Way when you do.  We are to be concerned about good works; Jesus and all the Apostles certainly call us to such concern.  But so often when we focus on good works, we forget how God works.  Christians who get all fired up trying to do good works often forget who we are, where true good works come from, and what we need, most of all, every day. 

The temptation is great for us to forget that humility and dependence mark the way of the Baptized.  Yes, we need to be concerned for good works in our lives, but we must also remember that we are and will continue to be sinners, until the end of our earthly lives.  And, the solution for sin is not us trying harder, but rather the solution is always the forgiveness of Christ.  When you are convicted for failing to produce good works, do not rush off to try harder, but rather repent, and rush in to God, to be washed clean, so that He can once again do His work in you, which is the only way you will ever produce true good works.  It is quite humbling to acknowledge that our path to heaven is built on the daily forgiveness of sins, but remember the One who humbled Himself on the Cross to give this gift to you.  This is His Way, the way on which the Spirit leads us. 

Hymn 502, verse 4:

The Holy Spirit came in a rushing wind.  Wind, like water, and fire, can be a blessing or a curse, bringing joy, like a warm spring breeze, or death, like a tornado.  Like the holy presence of God, the Wind of God can be destructive or life giving.  How do we know which way God’s wind blows for us?  Where can we find out if the Wind of the Spirit will breathe new life in us, or suck away what little air we have? 

We learn of God’s wind from God’s Word, of course.  And the connection between the Spirit and the Word is the key point we should be ready to tell our friends and neighbors about.  At Pentecost, and on a few occasions in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit worked spectacular miracles through believers.  Certainly He can still work whatever spectacular miracles He wishes.  But we don’t need to wait for spectacular miracles, nor should we expect them.  We certainly should not try to somehow produce them as though our salvation depended on it.  Because we know where to go to find the Spirit.  We know where to go to hear the Spirit.  We know what His tool for working is.  He is the light that enlightens the Scripture, indeed He is the One who inspired the writers to record God’s eternal Word, and He is the One who works through the Word, preached, read, sung and prayed. 

Pastor Reinke in Williston has a great little call and response to help us remember that the place for Christians to find the Holy Spirit is in the Bible.  It goes like this:  I say Holy Spirit, you say Word of God.  I say Word of God, you say Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit, Word of God.  Word of God, Holy Spirit.  We will do a great service to our friends and neighbors, our families, and ourselves, if we can remember this connection, between the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.   

You have been given the Holy Spirit, in your Baptism.  You still have the Holy Spirit, because you believe.  Even though your faith may sometimes be weak, it is still a sign of the Spirit, because without the Holy Spirit, your faith dies.  So sit under God’s Word and listen to the Spirit; hear again and again His message.  The Spirit’s message is Christ for you.  The Spirit comes to proclaim Jesus Christ, crucified, resurrected and ascended on high, the One who takes away your sins, and makes your way into God’s eternal joy,

    in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

All Your Troubles Are Behind Him

The Ascension of Our Lord, (Observed),   May 20, Year of Our + Lord 2012

Trinity and St. John Lutheran Churches, Sidney and Fairview, Montana

"What man has all his troubles behind him?"     "A school bus driver."

Cute.  Not quite a side-splitter, but not a bad joke, all in all.  As the school year winds down, I’m sure there are some bus drivers looking forward to a few months break from the troubles behind them.              As we celebrate the Ascension today, I thought of another answer to this same question:  What man has all his troubles behind him?  The Ascended Lord Jesus Christ. 

Jesus knew troubles.  As Isaiah prophesied, as these prophecies were fulfilled on Calvary, Jesus was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; … like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised…  we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. .. He was pierced … crushed … oppressed … afflicted. 

God’s Son gave up the glories of heaven to be a servant, God becoming also a human being in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus then spent long days and nights teaching His oh so slow to learn disciples, and repelling the verbal attacks of the oh so full of themselves Pharisees.  He poured out his guts for the people, teaching, healing, consoling. 

And still he was despised.  Forsaken, abandoned by His friends, and persecuted by His enemies, arrested, falsely accused, unfairly convicted, tortured, crucified, dead and buried. 

But now, all Jesus' troubles are behind Him.  He has buried all His troubles, and risen victorious from the grave, the troubles of this world conquered, the struggle with sin and evil and death finished forever. 

His troubles behind Him, Luke tells us of Jesus' returning to celebrate His victory with His disciples, and to give them instructions for proclaiming His victory to all the world.  Then, after receiving their worship, He gives a blessing to the disciples, then returns to heaven, back to glory, back to His rightful home.  All His troubles are behind Him, forever.  Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, has been enthroned as ruler over all things, in heaven and on earth.  Victory. Vindication.  All His troubles are behind Him.  Jesus ascends into heaven, His disciples worship and praise God with great joy, all is good and right in the world.     

Are you comforted by this?  Or maybe troubled?  Jesus has left His troubles behind, but what about us?  What about our troubles?  Stricken, smitten, and afflicted may be too dramatic to describe them, but certainly, you still have struggles.  You pour out our guts trying to get by, trying to help your family and friends, trying to teach your children.  And what thanks do you get?  Good guys finish last, it seems.   Sometimes, the people we love the most make our lives the hardest.  In the end, what do we have to show for all our troubles? 

Have we been abandoned by Jesus?  There, I said it.  But you've thought it.  You aren’t perfect, by any means, but you have committed yourself to Christ and His Church, you’ve served, you’ve been faithful.  But still, despite your dedication to the Lord, you have struggles. 

When struggles come into the lives of the faithful, bitterness can result.  Where's the victory for me?  Where's the vindication of all my efforts?   

Such thoughts are natural to us.  Natural to our sinful nature, that is.  It's easy for us to become angry with God for leaving us and going into heaven when we face difficulties in our life.  In old imperial Russia, the people living out their brutal lives in the far reaches of Siberia used to say:  "God is in His heaven, and the Tsar is far away."  Sour grapes.  It is quite natural for sufferers to blame God for allowing their suffering, to think that they have no powerful friends looking out for them, anywhere. 

If and when we fall prey to accusing God of abandoning us, when we blame Him for our struggles, we show that our sinful selves have once again forgotten three things. 

First, while it is true that all of Jesus troubles are behind Him, we need to remember that His troubles were our troubles.  He had none of His own.  When I quoted from Isaiah about the suffering of Jesus earlier, I left out a few key parts of the reading.  Listen again, to the full reading: 

He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.  Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.  

The reason Jesus had troubles was that we would not and could not bear our own troubles.  All the anger and scorn and suffering and abandonment that Jesus bore rightfully should have fallen on us.  Our struggles may not all be tied directly to our own sins, but each of us has more than enough sin to deserve the wrath of God, not to mention the struggles of this life.  The very fact that the Son of God came to join us in our suffering is mercy beyond our imagination.  But there it is, in the text, Jesus made our struggles His struggles.  And the Spirit convinces us: it's true.   

Second, when we pity ourselves and think God has abandoned us, we forget that what Jesus suffered, He suffered on our behalf.  Isaiah continues: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.  Our suffering may seem pointless.  But Jesus' suffering had a purpose; it was for our good.  Jesus suffered so that we can look forward to a day when all suffering will be ended, when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. 

Third, when we think God has abandoned us in our suffering, we forget that Jesus has not left us.  Yes, He ascended into heaven, in order to prepare a place for you.  Sin infects every one of us, and stained with sin, we cannot be with God.  All of humanity faced the same fate, none of us could meet the standard required to enter into God's eternal glory.  But now one Man has.  One Man has earned admittance to heaven, the Man Jesus Christ, who is also God.  He has earned admittance to heaven, not just for Himself, but for all people.  His suffering atones for your sin, and my sin, and the sin of the whole world.  The only thing that keeps anyone out of heaven is failing to believe Jesus has put all our troubles behind Him. 

Jesus made a place in heaven for us by entering there in the flesh.  In a sense, He has left us, He is not longer visibly present.  But Jesus also promises: "Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)  And " "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." (Matthew 18:20)  Even though Jesus has ascended into heaven, He has not left us.  He has given us His Spirit, and He is with us as well, bound to us by His promises, present for us in His Word, feeding us at His table.  He is present for you in your troubles, to sustain you, protect you, most importantly to tell you again and again that no matter how big your troubles get, He has taken care of them. 

Jesus’ victory over all His troubles is your victory over all your troubles.  Hear again how Paul encourages the Ephesian Christians with the promises we have in our Ascended Lord.   

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Paul prays that the eyes of our hearts be opened, enlightened, made to see our hope.  We have the promise of our calling, our calling to faith in Christ, our calling to be children of God, both now and for eternity.  We have hope in the glory of our inheritance, the promise of eternal glory and joy with God, because of Jesus. 

This hope, continues Paul, is  in accordance with the working of the strength of (God's) might  which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And (God the Father)  put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Jesus has all your troubles behind Him.  He has endured all, conquered all, redeemed all, and now He reigns over all.  Yes, we still have troubles.  But Jesus is with us, especially in the midst of our troubles, because He has already made them His own.  The ruler of the Universe has joined Himself to you in your Baptism.  The One who overcame all troubles in His own Body, by shedding His own blood, now comes to feed your with His Body and Blood, forgiving you all your sins, and strengthening you for all your troubles.  You can face your troubles with confidence, because Jesus will face them with you.   

Praise be to Jesus, our Crucified, Resurrected and Ascended Lord and Savior, Amen.