Know His Love - Sermon for Palm and Passion Sunday, March 28th, A+D 2021

 Palm and Passion Sunday, March 28, Year of Our + Lord 2021
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches, Custer and Hill City, SD
Know His Love 

(This sermon references Samuel Crossman's hymn "My Song is Love Unknown, " especially stanza 6.  You can read the text of the hymn here:  https://hymnary.org/hymn/LSB2006/430) 

   What may I say?  Heaven was His home, but mine the tomb wherein He lay. 
 
   My tomb.  He didn’t deserve to die, but I do.  As we head into Holy Week, and truly every day, we need to hear and confess this truth.  Jesus died and was placed in a tomb because I am a sinner. 
 
   Hear and confess your sinfulness, and your sins.  Repent.  And then hear again.  Mine was the tomb wherein He lay.  The Holy One of God lay in the tomb for me.  And for you.  By His sinless presence in another man’s grave, Jesus made the graves of all believers holy ground.  He sanctified what had always been a cavern of death and decay.  Now you do not need to fear death.  Now, by faith in Jesus, your grave is but a temporary resting place for your body, until the Last Day when all the dead in Christ will be raised to join the glorious body and soul reunion of all the saints, gathered forever around the throne of the Lamb.
 
   This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Samuel Crossman, our hymnwriter, called this “Love Unknown.”  It’s a beautiful hymn, and outside of Jesus Christ, it is true that such love is not known.  But my prayer for you, and for all people, is that you know the love that has been proclaimed to you this morning. 
 
   When you feel like nobody really loves you, remember that God has loved you perfectly in Jesus. 
 
   When you are in conflict with those you love, know that in Jesus forgiveness and reconciliation are possible. 
 
   When Satan points to your sins, and whispers that you are unlovable, tell that liar to shut his mouth, for God declares His love, His forgiving love, for you, in His Son, your Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.     

The Way of the New Covenant - Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

 Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 21^st, A+D 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, S.D.

The Way of the New Covenant     Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Mark 10:35-45

    Are you tired of all the politics?  Hard to imagine that you aren’t, unless you are blessed to be able to ignore it.  At Our Redeemer Men’s Breakfast on Wednesdays, talking politics is prohibido, verboten, not allowed.  But it tries to sneak its way into the conversation, because politics these days are so maddening.  If you pay attention, or just pay taxes, you may feel like pulling your hair out.  Polarization dominates.  Both sides seem to take their positions farther and farther to the extreme.  Every day one can observe a shocking lack of integrity, blatant dishonesty, and the constant mischaracterization of opponents.  Attacks on institutions and values that we have long held dear are now routine.  Civil discourse is unknown.  Perhaps you fear for our prosperity.  Or for public safety.    

    If you are tired of all the politics, I have good news for you today:  In the Church of Christ, there are no politics.  That’s what Jesus says: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.”

   What we rightly hate about politics is the naked struggle for power, the
perversion of truth for the pursuit of prestige and wealth.  Leaders promoting themselves, instead of serving others, and the good of the whole.  But when petty political rivalry breaks out among the Twelve, Jesus declares it will not be so amongst His Apostles.  By extension, it will not so in His Church, which the Apostles would build.  So, Good News, there are no politics in the Church!  

    Some of you are looking at me funny...  Perhaps this has not been your experience?  Whether you have dabbled in church affairs at a high level, or only within your local congregation, perhaps you remember times when brothers or sisters or pastors in Christ seemed to be pursuing their own glory, to the detriment of others, seeking power, and to be served, rather than seeking to be the servant of all.  Maybe you’ve seen examples of behavior similar to that of James and John in our Gospel reading today.  Certainly the sons of Zebedee seem to be playing politics.  Instead of seeking the good their brothers and of God’s people, they are only interested in their own personal glory.  It’s true, they were trying to play politics with Christ’s Church.  But Jesus shuts them down, because in the true Church of Jesus Christ, there are no politics.  That isn’t what it’s all about.

    Politics belong to the Way of the Law.  Or at least playing dirty politics is the way we respond to the Way of the Law.  The Old Covenant, proposed by God through Moses at Mt. Sinai, and enthusiastically accepted by the people of Israel, was a straightforward two-way covenant of the Law, a system of rules voluntarily and mutually established between God and Israel.  God said:  Israel, you do these things, and then in return I, the Lord God Almighty, will do this and this and this.  And Israel responded:  Yes, we promise to live by this Law.  Now, in theory this arrangement didn’t need to descend into dirty politics, full of lies and hypocrisy, full of rivalry and dishonesty and self-promotion.  But nasty politics always arise when we commit to a law based system, because we can’t make the law work.  Certainly not to the letter.  Not even to our own satisfaction. 

    The deal the LORD struck with Israel after rescuing them from slavery in Egypt was more than reasonable.  I’ll be your God, you be my people.  Honor your parents.  Do not murder, do not steal, keep sex between you and your spouse, no sleeping around.  Watch your tongue, don’t be a gossip.  And set aside a day each week to rest, to hear my word, share in my gifts, and give thanks.  Not unreasonable. 

   But Israel, God’s chosen people, couldn’t keep their end of the deal.  Not even for a few days.  Moses went back up on the mountain to get some more details about the Covenant, and in no time, the Israelites abandoned God’s instructions and forgot their promises, demanding that Aaron build for them a Golden Calf to worship, instead of the LORD.  The Law of God always reveals the evil that lurks in the heart of every man, woman and child.  God was more than patient, and gave Israel another chance, again, and again, and again.  But Israel always resisted God’s way, and tried to invent their own plan to make it through life.  They pretended to obey the Covenant, but were really reducing it to politics. 

   In order to gain and keep power, Israel’s appointed leaders again and again twisted God’s good covenant, ignoring some parts, adding their own new requirements, setting up a system to favor and glorify themselves.  And the people mostly went along, because God’s true way seemed too hard.  The Old Covenant became so distorted that almost everyone became desperate to play politics, in order to survive.  And of course to get ahead of other people, to appear to be holier than others.  Worst of all, many if not most Israelites came to believe that the perverted covenant they were living under was actually the will of God.  The faith of most Jews was reduced to believing that God’s favor must be earned, by us doing good works.  Good works which were always being redefined and adjusted by the powerful, to maintain control.  If you read the Old Testament with a focus on the behavior of God’s people and their leaders, it reads like the saddest tragedy ever. 

   But God wants no politics in His Church.  So He declared through His prophet Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, ... when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”  A New Covenant, established and fulfilled entirely by God.  A covenant not based on the performance of God’s people, but rather based on the Lord’s forgiveness.  This was God’s ultimate plan, all along.   The Old Covenant was a necessary step in the process of getting to the New Covenant.  But God was always working towards the New. 

   And so when James and John pull Jesus aside privately and try to play politics, when they try to strike a deal with Him to assure their own glory, Jesus rejects their political ambition.  But in a big, New Covenant surprise, Jesus doesn’t rebuke them for their selfishness.  Instead, while gently explaining that their request is not possible, surprisingly, Jesus still promises them great blessings.  Yes, you will drink my Cup and share in my Baptism.

   The New Covenant is like that.  Our selfishness and fear reveal our attitude, our false faith, that we believe we must bargain with God and win His favor.  But Jesus doesn’t respond with anger and punishment, but rather with His Baptism and His Cup.  Now, let’s be clear, at first they were only for one Man.  At first, His Baptism and Cup were only for Jesus.  James and John promise they could handle them, but they are ignorant fools.  

Jesus’ Baptism and Jesus’ Cup, in their original form, fulfill all the Old Covenant requirements of sacrifice and payment for sin.  Jesus was speaking of His Baptism by fire on the Cross, where all the flames of Hell were extinguished in His own flesh.  Jesus’ Cup was the cup of God’s wrath, the Lord’s entirely justified anger against our sin.  Neither James nor John, nor any of us, could endure them.  Only Jesus.  Which He did, in humble service to the whole world.  Giving His life as a ransom for many, for all sinners, this is how Jesus our Suffering Servant instituted the New Covenant, the Way of Forgiveness. 

   Now, James and John and all of us can receive Jesus’ Baptism and Cup, because He has transformed them, from wrath and anger and suffering, to forgiveness and blessing and new life.  Praise the Lord, what Good News!  Good News which also teaches us something about life in the Church.     

   There is no need to play politics in the Church, because none of us have anything to earn.  We have already been given all the riches of God’s eternal kingdom.  We don’t need to fight to get ahead, because each of us has been lavishly favored in the same way.  We are all undeserving recipients of God’s remarkable grace and love.   There is more depth to the Gospel than we can fully comprehend.  But it’s also simple.  If you know your sin, and yet you know and trust that Jesus on His Cross has taken it all away, in order to forgive you and share His glory with you, then you know what is essentially important.  Then you know the Lord.  And you also know that serving others is the highest honor you could possibly receive, because it is the heart and soul of who Jesus is and what He has done. 

   There ought not be any politics in Christ’s Church.  But there will be problems to overcome, because Christians are still sinners, and we are always seeking to invite more sinners to come and join us in the way of the New Covenant.  Old, inborn habits die hard.  Like James and John, we will slide back into playing politics.  But the New Covenant Truth, to which the Holy Spirit is always calling us, is the Good News that we have been perfectly served, by God’s only begotten Son.  His forgiveness is our treasure.  We have been adopted by God the Father, through the Water with the Word.  We don’t need to “win,” because we are already more than victors, in Christ who loved us.   

   The Truth matters, most especially the Truth of the New Covenant.  So, sometimes we will need to struggle and even fight to reject lies and maintain the Truth.  But even when we must fight, we can still be kind and loving, even toward our enemies.  Because winning the argument and coming out ahead isn’t our goal.  We maintain the Truth in service to ourselves and others, that all may be saved.  But we don’t have to fear losing, because we have already won.  Our place at God’s heavenly banquet is secure.  So even when we encounter conflict, we can approach it in the Way of the New Covenant, the Way of Grace.  Upholding the truth, rejecting errors, but not trying to defeat anyone, certainly not defending our personal prestige.  Because Christ has won the victory for all, and He is our honor and glory.  So, even in conflict, I can seek to serve.  I can seek the good of my neighbor, even my enemy, like Jesus did for me. 

   Sounds like a fantasy.  But living in the Way of the New Covenant, the way of grace and love, is truly possible, because the New Covenant of Jesus’ blood bought forgiveness is your truth, your reality.  Glory has already been delivered to you in your Baptism.  You drink the finest wine possible, the Cup of the New Covenant established by Jesus, that washes you clean of all your sins.  So you have no need to get ahead; God has already seated you on high, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.   

Chrisitanity 101 - But God, ... Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 14^th, Year of Our + Lord 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, South Dakota

Christianity 101 - But God, ...  (Numbers 21, Ephesians 2 and John 3)

    Did you get all that?  Our readings today are amazing, and fundamentally important to the Christian faith.  They are also hard to understand, especially at first glance, after just hearing them one time.  With the help of Rev. Deacon and Pastor Emeritus Bob Bohlmann, I have dared to adjust the epistle reading from Ephesians 2, shortening up the sentences of the ESV translation, trying to make it easier to follow.  And yet we still have to wrestle with phrases like “sons of disobedience,” “the prince of the power of the air,” and “by nature children of wrath.” Unpleasant words, and confusing.  And of course, we have these two sentences: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  There is not a more beautiful and important passage in the Bible, but it’s a mouthful. 

    And then of course, from the Old Testament, Numbers 21, we heard the episode of the
fiery serpents, a terrible judgment on God’s people that was resolved by, wait for it, another fiery serpent, made of bronze, and mounted on a pole for all to see.  To which Jesus makes reference in John 3, just before He utters that most well-known verse, the Gospel in a Nutshell, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  We are very familiar with this verse, and that’s great.  But how well do we understand it? 

    Well, we have a few minutes this morning, so let’s try to make some progress.  Because I want to fully understand these texts, and I want you to understand them as well.  Reaching the end of this Biblical walk may take us a lifetime; but with the Holy Spirit’s help, we’ll make it a ways down the road today.

    Let’s start in the middle, with Paul’s famous passage from Ephesians 2.  The first thing we must learn about is death, the true meaning of death.  Paul smacks us in the face with death, right at the start.  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins  in which you once walked, following the course of this world.  You and I, like everyone else, used to be the walking dead.  Yes, kind of like zombies, only backwards, and worse.  T.V and movie zombies start out good people, who get infected by a zombie bite, to become one of those horrible, braindead cannibals that we call zombies. 

    That’s entertainment.  Being what Paul describes, a dead man walking, or a dead woman or dead child walking, that is much worse.  The death we first think of when we hear the word, that tragic moment when the bodily functions shut down, we stop breathing and our heart stops beating, that death is bad, an enemy to be sure. And physical death is related to real death; it is an inevitable side effect and warning about real death.  Paul is talking about this worse death, spiritual death, which threatens us both before and after our physical death. 

    The first key to understanding Paul today is to know that the end of this earthly life, while bad, is not the worst thing.  Far worse is the spiritual death caused by our sin, because sin separates us from God, both during this earthly life, and after.  Forever and ever after.  Sons of disobedience, children of wrath, these are what we are naturally, since our conception, because we are trapped under the cruel rule of the prince of the power of the air, that is to say, Satan, the Devil.  The Devil enslaved us all, through our first parents, putting up a wall of separation between us and God, a wall that is our sin.  Our natural path travels in and through death.  What’s worse, Satan is so cunning, and we are so blind to reality, that we can even be convinced that the deadly path of disobedience is the good life.  “If it feels good, do it.”  That’s the slogan of this age.  And if what feels good in the moment turns out badly, as it so often does, well, let’s just seek out another passion of the flesh.  Satan offers us another distraction, one after the other, fleeting pleasures which end up hurting us and the people around us.  Satan distracts us to keep us from realizing how bad off we really are, the walking dead. 

    You see, the bad news is terrible, much worse than we could have imagined.  We naturally walk the path towards misery and eternal death, like zombies.  Without some hero to come and rescue us, our future is utterly dark. 

    But.  But God.  After such a bleak beginning, some of the starkest law in all of the Bible, Paul needed a big old Gospel “but.”   We need a radical change of direction, a new way forward.  But God.  But God, who is rich in mercy, loved us with a great love,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, our sin, even when we were happily walking the path of death, God loved us.  Because that’s how He is.       

    In love, God made us alive together with Christ.  As strange and horrible as our natural condition is, physically alive but spiritually dead, walking toward an eternity of death and sorrow,

yet even more mysterious and wonderful is our rescue, our salvation.

    The same Lord God who got down into the dirt to form our first father, breathing life into Adam, and who did the first surgery to take Adam’s rib and then used it to create Adam’s one-flesh wife, Eve, this same Lord God involved Himself even more intimately in our rescue, the re-creation of humanity.  What the Lord did with His hands and breath in the beginning, He now has done within Himself, in the person of Christ Jesus.  God made us alive together with Christ.  His new life is our new life.  In Christ we are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.     

    God made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.  This means we neither deserved, nor earned, nor contributed in any positive way to the miraculous rescue that God has achieved for us.  Grace is the outpouring of God’s love, His favor revealed in His work of mercy, by which He snatched us off the pathway of death that we were walking, and placed us into the way of life that Christ Jesus has already walked for us.  Your rescue from Satan, and from yourself, is pure gift.  It had to be.  Because you were dead.  What do physically dead people do?  Nothing.  Dead bodies don’t do anything.  But God, in love, made you alive together with Christ, even when you were dead in your sins.  That’s what “by grace you have been saved” means.  You were made alive in Jesus, and even now, because your life is “in Him,” even now you are with Him, seated with Him in glory, in heaven.  Wow, what great news.   

    Satan is defeated, his plan is undone.  Now He can only try to keep this Good News from reaching the walking dead.  Oh, and he also is always trying to trip us up on our way, with a sneaky lie.  Even as the evil one distracts unbelievers with the pleasures and passions of the flesh, he also whispers to the Christian, “Oh yes, God is your Savior, but you still have to do your part.”  “A small part,” hisses the Evil One, “but important.”  “You must really believe, you must really commit, you must prove your faith and do many good works, in order to be sure you are saved.”  This is a lie.  But Satan knows this lie is appealing, because it seems logical to us.  We want salvation to fit our logic, and we want to feel like we’ve contributed.  I mean, who wants to be totally dependent on God, like a little child? 

 

   But God.  It should be enough that we understand we were walking dead in our trespasses and sins.  But we struggle to remember, and God wants to have you as His beloved child, totally dependent on Him.  So the Holy Spirit led Paul to break it down, even further.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

    Humility is the baseline characteristic of the Christian.  Boasting, thinking too highly of ourselves, is how we got into trouble in the first place.  In foolish pride, we imagined we could somehow live independently from the God who alone creates and sustains life.  We didn’t trust and believe that God’s way was the good way, and so we chose the way of death.  

But God, ... 

    But God loved us and saved us, by grace, and He delivers this new life to each sinner through faith.  That is, all that God has done in Christ, His new life, our salvation, all this is received when we stop believing the lies of Satan, and instead believe the truth, that the Father has re-created us, given us new life, in Christ Jesus.  And even this faith, this childlike trust of the heart, is a gift, created in us by the Holy Spirit, who uses the telling of this Good News to create faith in us.  The preaching of the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. 

    Satan’s lie that you can and must contribute something to be saved is just that, a lie.  It’s a lie whether it comes from the mouth of a famous and impressive preacher, or whether it rises up from your own confused heart.  When you hear someone or something that makes you feel like you must do something to earn your salvation or make it secure, you should shout out, “Get behind me Satan,” and then turn and run to the Gospel.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

   Now, you do have things to do, a new path to walk.  Good works are an important part of Christianity, but each part needs to be in its proper place.  So Paul closes this passage by teaching us where good works fit in.  For we are God´s workmanship, God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  Adam and Eve were given good work to do in the Garden, before they rebelled, and so also, re-created in Christ Jesus, we have good works to do, to walk in, in the pathway of true life.  We were walking in the way of sin, like zombies, but now in Christ we walk in the living way of good works.  These are not good works to gain or guarantee our salvation.  That can’t be, because your salvation, your rescue, is 100% complete, finished once and for all in Christ Jesus.  But God has prepared a path of good works for you to walk in, ways for you to serve your neighbors and bring glory to God, by being who you are in Christ Jesus, an obedient and beloved child of God, who finds joy in doing what the Father has given you to do. 

   Did you get all that?  Some days, it’s almost perfectly clear for me.  And then other days, not so much.  This Law and Gospel is truly hard to keep straight, and also truly and eternally important.  So what say we keep reviewing it, as we walk together, in the months and years to come? 

   Maybe there’s still something confusing you.  How was this achieved?  Our Ephesians 2 passage lays out a systematic and detailed explanation of our natural state, our natural way of walking as sons of disobedience, and then reveals God’s new way of life that He gives us freely, received through faith, when we trust His promises.  Through faith we are washed clean and born again to the new way of life as sons and daughters of God, walking in His grace and love.  But there’s a lot of sin and death and disobedience in the world, and in me.  Did God just let that go, like it didn’t matter?  Did God just forget and ignore all the sins we’ve done, and how utterly sinful we are? 

   No, He didn’t.  God didn’t overlook and let our sin go, as if it didn’t matter.  Our Old Testament and Gospel readings fill in the blank between the way of death and God’s new way of life.  The “But God” that Paul used to make the radical change of direction from death to life contains a lot.  Within that “But God” is the lifting up of the Son of Man, like the bronze serpent Moses lifted up on a pole to save Israel from the fiery serpents of death that were biting them in their disobedience.  The phrase “God made us alive together with Christ” contains the whole story of the life, suffering, death and resurrection of God’s Son become man, Jesus Christ.  The serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness was a foreshadowing of God’s gracious act of salvation.  But instead of an inanimate bronze sculpture, Jesus was lifted up in His own body, to take responsibility for all the evil and sin that the ancient serpent Satan unleashed in the world.  By looking to the bronze snake on a pole, God protected the Israelites from the physical death the fiery serpents inflicted.  By causing us to look in faith to the Son of Man, lifted up on a pole with a crossbar, dying for the sins of the whole world, God rescues all people from the death that never ends, eternal separation from the Lord of life.   

   For by grace you have been saved through faith, not by your works, but by believing in Son of God, given to be lifted up on the Cross, given by His Father to this great work of self-sacrifice, a work done freely, for you.  This is how God has loved you.  And the whole world.  This is Christianity 101, a class that we all must return to, again and again, the Gospel which sets you free from the fear of death, free to walk in good works, and free to rejoice.   Because you have been and you are loved, in Christ Jesus your Savior, Amen. 

 

The Whip of God – In Christ Alone, Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

 Third Sunday in Lent, March 7^th, Year of Our + Lord 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, South Dakota

The Whip of God – In Christ Alone  

Exodus 20:1-17, 1^st Corinthians 1:18-31, St. John 2:13-22

    Christus solus, in Christ alone.  Of the Five Solas, the Five “Alones” of the Lutheran Reformation, the truth that our salvation is in Christ alone is the key, the most central point of all.  By Grace alone, through Faith alone, according the teaching of Scripture alone, these three wonderful Solas all flow from, and carry us to, Jesus Christ.  And we discover that only through Christ can we rightly give glory to God alone. 

     The Word of God before us today drives home the uniqueness, the aloneness, of the Man from Nazareth, in many and various ways. 

     Jesus alone thought it was a good plan to make a whip from cords in order to drive out those selling animals and exchanging money in the Temple courtyard.  To everyone else, it seemed foolish.  Jesus was only one man, just an itinerant preacher from the sticks, with only a rabble of uneducated disciples to back Him up, a bunch of fishermen, misfits, and women.  On the other hand, the merchants and money changers in the Temple courts were connected to the most powerful people in Jerusalem.  They made a good living by providing a needed service to Jewish pilgrims coming to celebrate the Passover.  You see, the festivals of YHWH required various sacrificial animals, which would have been very difficult for pilgrims coming from far away to bring with them.  Much better to sell them to the pilgrims on site.  And of course we’ll need money changers to deal with foreign currency.  And, oh by the way, a nice profit can be had while we are at it. 

     Nothing necessarily wrong with any of that, really, except the where.  The only for sure problem was the place they chose to do it: inside the Temple grounds, that holy space set aside by God, where He promised to be present to bless His people and receive their offerings, prayers and thanksgiving.  Most likely, this animal market was set up in the Court of the Gentiles, that outermost part of the Temple grounds, set aside for foreign believers in YHWH.  But is it really so important that all the nations, all those pesky foreigners who come and crowd our home town during tourist season, do they really need to have a place to pray in our Temple?  Besides, it’s so convenient to set up the market here, we’re really helping everyone.  Everybody agrees. 

   Everybody, except One.  Only Jesus burned with zeal for His Father’s House, a righteous indignation that what God had given for holiness had been profaned, made dirty, and stolen from the gentile believers.  

    Only Jesus thought it was a good plan.  One can imagine the looks on the faces of His disciples, as their Master sat in a corner of the Temple, weaving His whip of cords.  What is He up to now?  Our Lord cleansing the Temple seems foolish to us, ultimately ineffective, a powerless gesture, and oh by the way, not very nice.  Is this really the image that God wants to portray?  Wouldn’t it be wiser and more effective to be reasonable, to work within the system to make improvements?  Won’t Jesus, fighting all by himself be overpowered by the Jewish authorities, in the end? 

    We always want to make such modifications to God’s plan, whenever we find that His way bumps up against the way of the world, and makes us uncomfortable.  The Lord says “You shall have no other gods.”  But some of our neighbors are offended by such exclusive claims.  If God is love, we reason, shouldn’t we be tolerant and respectful of all religions?  Can’t we find some good in them also?  Don’t all roads lead to the same God?  Christ alone has the nerve to say, “No, I am the only true Way to the Father.” 

    The Lord says, “Set aside a day each week to rest, and hear my Word, and receive my blessings!”  But our bank accounts tell us that giving up 1/7 of our potential earning power could really cut into our retirement savings, and that seems unwise, no?  Christ alone says, “Earthly wealth is fleeting, but you, you store up your treasure in heaven.” 

    The Lord gives us His Holy Name to call upon in prayer, praise and thanksgiving.  But we don’t want to stand out like some religious nut, talking about God in public as if we actually believe in Him.  Not when the whole world peppers their speech with meaningless babble that sullies the Name of God:  Oh my God.  Jesus.  Christ.  Oh Good Lord.  These and many more exclamations can be spoken in a holy, Christian way, or in a vulgar, thoughtless way.  Which do we choose?         

    We could go on through the other seven commandments, and maybe we should.  But we already know that we fail to keep all of them, as we are commanded and have promised to do.  In fact, only One person, Jesus alone, among all the people of all time and place, only Jesus has kept the Ten Commandments perfectly, without blemish.  We all fall short.   

     Which is no excuse.  Take no comfort from being just like everyone else.  Instead, we should marvel at the active righteousness of Jesus alone.  Repent.  Turn from your sin and look to Jesus.  See that even His anger, even His indignation at the selfish pride of mankind, was righteous and sinless.  His violence against the merchants and money changers in the Temple was entirely justified, because the Holiness of the Father’s house demanded the unleashed zeal of the Son.

    The Son of God came into this world in order to cleanse the Temple.  That’s the sum and total of His plan.  Not only to drive out the merchants and money changers who were defiling the Court of the Gentiles that day in Jerusalem, but even more to cleanse and purify the sinful flesh of humanity, so that your body could be made a Temple of the Holy Spirit.  The whole mystery of His suffering, death and resurrection is foreshadowed in His foolish outburst, when He made a whip, and used it to drive out the buyers and sellers contaminating the Lord’s House in Jerusalem. 

    Think about that whip.  Imagine, if you will, the unique quality of the whip made by God’s Son.  I could imagine a Roman soldier picking up that piece of divine craftsmanship the next day, when it had been thrown out by the merchants, as they reorganized their market.  Such a good whip, unique, perfect for a Roman executioner to add some nails on the ends of the cords, all the better to torture some poor fool sentenced to suffer the wrath of the governor, Pontius Pilate. 

    This would fit with God’s foolish plan to sanctify fallen humanity by tearing down the Temple that was the human body of the Christ.  Through the weakness of Jesus’ foolish challenge to the Jewish authorities, through the absurdity of His boast that He would rebuild this torn down Temple in three days, through His bitter suffering and death at the hands of both the Jews and the Romans, who ruled over the Greek speaking world, through this foolish plan, Christ alone would make holy again the flesh of fallen humanity.  For this he took up our flesh into His divinity, in His Incarnation, when He became a man, the Son of Mary, in order to be the Savior of all people.   

    Only Christ, and Christ alone, could and would use violence to bring peace, suffering to deliver joy, and weakness to reveal the power of God unto Salvation.  Jesus, who gave the Law to Moses, and who alone kept that Law perfectly, went alone to the Cross, tortured by His enemies, deserted by His friends, finally enduring the utter solitude of that eternal moment of abandonment, when He alone accepted the wrath of God against all our sin. 

    The blessed exchange is complete, the time for violence is past.  It is finished.  In Christ alone there is peace between God and humanity, peace which we are uniquely empowered to share with the world. 

    And so, you are set free to love, because you have been loved perfectly by the One True God. 

    You are emboldened to call on God’s Name in every circumstance, to honor the Lord’s Name by praying, praising and giving thanks, even in public.  Because you have been given life in that Holy Name. 

    You can endure the misguided scorn and even the persecution of the world, because you have been eternally honored and granted a place in glory, by Christ alone.  And through the foolish lives of His faithful people, God will draw more sinners to Christ alone, for their salvation, and His glory. 

    The foolishness of the preaching of the Cross gives you life, and joy, because in the Resurrection the weakness and folly of God are revealed to be stronger and wiser than anything we humans have to offer.  And, grace upon grace, in Christ alone we find that we poor sinners are now declared by the Father to be righteous, holy, redeemed and restored.  Our lowly bodies have been transformed, through the washing of Water and the Word, to now be temples of the Holy Spirit, the very dwelling place of God.  Forgiven and called beloved by the Father, we give glory to God alone by boasting in Christ alone, in whom we have life, true life, abundant life, today, and forever and ever, Amen.    

The Mysterious, Dreadful and Wonderful Break Up - Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

 1^st Sunday in Lent, February 21^st, A+D 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, S.D.

The Mysterious, Dreadful, and Wonderful Break Up         

Mark 1:9-15, Genesis 22:1-18

      Do you remember the 1960s pop hit, “Breaking up is hard to do”?  To be honest, Neil Sedaka’s cheery song makes a mockery of breaking up.  Breakups aren´t “hard to do.”  They’re horrible.  We hate break ups.  We hate divisions, separation.  We fear the intense negativity of the moment, when two parties, maybe a husband and wife, maybe friends or business partners, maybe two nations who had been allies, come to the point of declaring that the unity we had is no more, that we must go our separate ways, that the fellowship which we shared, and enjoyed, and depended upon, has ended.  Words are spoken and actions taken that break the bond, and we can’t undo them.  And we dread the aftermath, living with the brokenness. 

      Breakups are terrible in the Church too.  Of course, we have a special word.  We don’t typically say “break-up” for a split in the church, that would be too simple.  Rather we say “schism.”  The word itself sounds bad.  There was the Great Schism in the year 1054 between the Western Christian Church and the Eastern Christian Church, the mutual ex-communication between Rome and Constantinople.  We Lutherans tend to use the word “Reformation” to describe and celebrate the events of the 16^th century, put into motion by a German monk named Martin Luther.  But others consider it a schism; and certainly Luther’s efforts to reform the Roman Church led to  an uncountable series of divisions in Christendom: Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Charismatics, etc..., the list goes on.  Even amongst folks who call themselves Lutherans, we have an alphabet soup of separate groups:  LCMS, ELCA, WELS, ELS, NALC, AALC, LCMC, CLC, to name a few... and that’s just in the U.S.  Once not so long ago the vast majority of the congregations that belong to all those Lutheran church bodies I just listed enjoyed full communion amongst themselves, fellowship of pulpit and altar.  But no more.  Breaking up is terrible, especially when it means a schism in the Church of Jesus Christ.  But here we are, all of us children of a broken church family.  

     All of which makes St. Mark’s choice of verb in our Gospel today very strange.  As Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens were opened.  Matthew and Luke report the same event using a run of the mill Greek verb for opening.  And our translation of Mark waters down his verb in “the heavens were opened.”  What St. Mark actually wrote was that the heavens were schizo’d.  You thought you didn’t know any Greek, but you do.  You know the verb schizo, or schizomai.  The heaven’s were schizo’d, as in schism, as in schizophrenic.  We all know this Greek verb from the terrifying condition of schizophrenia, when one person’s personality is torn in two, or three or more. 

     According to St. Mark, the heavens didn’t just open at the Baptism of Jesus.  They were schizo’d, torn apart.  It’s a very strange choice of verb, because while we have established that breaking up, separating, being torn apart, is usually a very bad thing, here the heavens are torn apart for wonderful things, so that the Holy Spirit can descend on Jesus like a dove and the Father can declare:  "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."     Why use such a violent verb, schizomai, to tear apart, to describe such a pleasant event, the revelation of the Holy Trinity at the Baptism of Jesus?  What is St. Mark trying to say to us? 

      We hate break-ups, and rightly so.  But we aren’t very good at preventing them, are we?  We seek connection, partnership, fellowship, in every aspect of our lives.  The very best part of life is our connection to others, to family, friends, countrymen, fellow travelers.  The Covid-19 pandemic has driven this point home for literally the whole world.  It is not good for human beings to be alone.  We need connection, community, fellowship.   

     And yet, again and again in the midst of every relationship, marriages, families, friendships, business partnerships, political and social movements, and churches, problems come up.  Disagreements.  Offenses.  Sins, one against the other.  Once we’ve lived long enough to suffer a few break-ups, we learn to try hard to overcome our differences, in order to avoid breaking up.  Not well of course.  The way to overcome an offense, a sin, between friends, is to deal with it head on.  As St. James said, “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) 

     But do we confess our sins to one another?  Such honesty and vulnerability usually frighten us as much or more than a break up, so we try other ways.  We should with humility pursue honesty, confession, repentance, apology, forgiveness and reconciliation.  But when problems come up in our relationships we are more likely to try to just ignore them, and hope they’ll go away.  Or we try to explain them away, (she’s under a lot of stress, it’s o.k. that she’s treating me like garbage...  I know he shouts all the time, but that´s just his way of communicating...).  Sometimes we try to paper over them, stuffing them down inside our souls and hoping they stay there. 

    But they don’t.  With small issues, minor offenses, we may be wise enough and strong enough to paper over them and let them go.  But with real sins, serious offenses, while we might stuff them down in our gut and move on, they won’t stay down.  Real problems, serious injuries, or even a long series of minor ones, can fester and infect our whole being, eventually working their way back to the surface.  And the harder we try to keep them down, the more likely they are likely to erupt in a full blown schism, a tearing apart, a nasty break up.  

     Which brings us back to our Gospel reading.  Jesus is starting His ministry, His ministry of reconciliation, of healing schisms, of reuniting those broken apart.  Which perhaps is why Mark chose such a violent verb to describe the heavens opening at our Lord’s Baptism.  And then, immediately after, Jesus is driven into the desert to be tempted by Satan.  Mark doesn’t give us much detail, but we know from Matthew and Luke that Satan used all his trickery to try to drive a wedge between Jesus and His Father.  Satan is the arch-separator, the schism master, tearing asunder what God had put together:  mankind from God, husband from wife, brother from brother.  But Jesus easily turns back Satan’s feeble attempts to drive a wedge between the Father and Son.  Our Lord’s work of reconciliation had begun in earnest.  Jesus would go on to heal broken bodies, and reunite families separated by demon possession and even death.  Christ Jesus, the schism healer. 

      All the way to the end.  The Son of God did not take on human flesh to do things halfway.  From before the foundation of the world He was committed to healing all our divisions, all our schisms.  So committed was the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to healing the schism that our sin created between us and Him, that God even undertook the unthinkable. 

      The violent separation that the Lord instructed Abraham to do in our Old Testament reading, the sacrifice of his only son, his beloved child Isaac, was thankfully only a test.  God never intended that Isaac should be killed by his father.  That would’ve been horrible, and useless, a waste.  Sacrificing Isaac wouldn’t have helped anybody.  In this test, Abraham demonstrated his faithfulness, and his belief that the Lord would still fulfill His promises about Isaac, even if he was sacrificed.  Thank God it never happened.  But it did serve as a sign, a foreshadowing, of an even more terrible, and yet wonderful schism to come.   For the almost sacrifice of Isaac points forward to the dreadful mystery of the Gospel, that God, in order to save sinners like me and you, took all our schisms into Himself, in order to heal them, once for all.  The Lord would indeed provide a Lamb. 

      The love and unity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is eternal, it is divinely powerful.  It is indestructible.  And yet the Lord had mercy on us, the crown of His good creation, now fallen into sin and guilt and division.  God in His grace determined to undergo, for just a brief and yet eternal moment, the separation of the Son from the Father and the Spirit. 

      In order to free us from the offenses and sins that separate us from each other and from God, the Father turned away from the Son, and the Son gave up His Spirit, suffering in a single moment all the divine punishment that our schisms and sins deserve.  God the Father gave up His most precious and beloved Son, for just a moment, in order that in Christ Jesus, we might be returned to God. 

      This is why there is now no condemnation for all those who are in Christ Jesus, that is to say, the baptized believers who by faith are connected to the resurrected Son of God.  For them, ... for us, ... for you, there is now no condemnation, no fear of separation, no shame of schism.  Because Jesus Christ, the Beloved Son of the Father, has swallowed up all our offenses, all our sins, all our failures.  The proof is in His Resurrection, His glorious reunification with His Father and the Spirit, His great and eternal victory, capped off with His triumphant ascension into heaven, to reign at God´s right hand.  

      The wall of separation that had kept us apart from God is now torn down.  St. Mark drives home this point when he tells us what happened at the moment that Jesus died on the Cross: the curtain in the Temple of Jerusalem, put up by God’s command to separate the most holy dwelling place of God from the people, was torn apart, schizomai’d, from top to bottom.  Which is just right, because in Jesus Christ crucified, all the sin and error and malice that had separated us from God, and from one another, is now washed away.  Unity with God is possible for us sinners, through the body and blood of Jesus, by which we have been reconciled to God. 

      Christian life is still filled with threats of break up.  We have all suffered them, and sometimes in life, as sad as it is, breaking up is unavoidable.  But our status as children of God doesn’t depend on us overcoming every possible break up.  Rather, we are right with God because Jesus has healed our break up with God.  Our failures to hold every relationship together is also forgiven by God.

     We will also still struggle with break ups in the Church.  This is because, even as holy children of God by faith in Jesus, we are still also sinners, with ears all too ready to listen to Satan´s temptations to division.  And also in the Church, sometimes it is right to break up, to suffer schism, when a brother or sister in the Church, or sometimes a whole sister church body, insists on maintaining a teaching that contradicts the gracious Gospel of Jesus.  We should never do it hastily.  But there will be cases when, in faithfulness to the Word of Christ, for the good of our brothers and sisters in the Church, and also in hopes of turning back those in error from their mistaken path, the Church must suspend visible fellowship for a while, in the fervent hope that this radical act will be used by God to bring the erring back to the truth. 

      And this desire for reconciliation is not just some pie in the sky hope; rather it is the plan and purpose of God for His people, the Church.  We are called to faithfully proclaim the schism of the Cross that heals the wounds of all sinners, in order that in the power of the Resurrection the Holy Spirit may heal and reconcile and draw many more into His eternal congregation, where we will enjoy perfect unity and joyful fellowship, with God and all His angels and saints, forever and ever, Amen.   

 

A Glimpse of Glory - Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord

 The Transfiguration of Our Lord

February 14, Year of Our + Lord 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches

Custer and Hill City, S.D. 

A Glimpse of Glory

    And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

      Jesus took Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain, in order to complete His Epiphany, His revelation of Himself.  He has shown Himself to be a Miracle worker.  An authoritative Preacher.  The Messiah,  the long promised Savior of Israel.  And now, on the mountain, Jesus reveals that He is God in the flesh, the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, that deepest of all mysteries, that the One True God is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

    After the mountain, after the Transfiguration, Jesus would begin in earnest His long walk to the Cross.  There He would reveal how He would save, what exactly He had come into our world and taken on our flesh in order to do.  He came to save mankind from our sin by taking the punishment we deserve onto Himself.  By dying, by being crucified as the worst of criminals, disgraced and rejected by His own people, Jesus revealed the horror and depth of sin, our sin.  But even more importantly, he died to make it right.  The wages of sin is death, and so Jesus pays for all sin with His death.  He sacrifices His life, the life of the Son of God, which is of infinite value.  This sacrifice opens the way to heaven for us, through His Body and Blood.

      At the Transfiguration, before He plunged into the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus gave Peter and James and John a glimpse of the glory to come.  Jesus showed them the glory of Heaven, in His own transfigured body, before He led them to Calvary, in that same body.  There they would see Hell unleashed on that body which so recently shone with the light of heaven.  Before the long Lenten Path, which is lined with sorrow, and filled with the bitter recognition of our guilt and sin, we too, need to see the glory that is, and is to come, in Jesus Christ.  We need to see Jesus, with his clothes radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 

      We need to see the radiant clothes of Jesus, because our own garments are soiled.       

     When you get a new white shirt, it is a fine thing.  Not a spot on it, perfectly white.  But of course, it doesn’t last.  We sweat, we work, we eat, we live, and no matter how hard we might try to keep them clean, our new white clothes get dirty.  So we wash and bleach and scrub, and they look pretty good.  But not the same.  Never quite the same white as brand new white.  Even just washing a new shirt dulls the shiny bright white-ness.  And of course, sometimes we stain our clothes, with grease, or blood, or grass, and these stains never quite come out.  Now, you may be careful when you work and eat, and you may manage to avoid big, gross stains.  But there is no one that keeps the shiny white of perfect spotlessness. 

     Not in your laundry, and not in your life.  Jesus loved His Father with all His heart, soul, and mind.  He gladly lived His life in perfect accord with the Father’s will.  As a good Son, He submitted willingly to His Father in all things.  His life was spotless.  But yours isn’t.  You turn away, rejecting the Father, when His commandments don’t meet your desires.  He says: “Do not covet;” you say:  “I want it, I must have it, it’s my right.”  He says “Wait, receive your reward in heaven;” you say “I want glory now.”  God says “My Way;” you say, “I’ll make my own way.”   

     Jesus loved His neighbor as himself.  He worked through long days and nights healing and teaching and casting out demons.  And then Jesus died in order that you might live.   You, on the other hand, are willing to get along with your neighbor, even help him out a little, as long as he plays by your rules, and doesn’t ask too much of you, or disappoint you, or make you uncomfortable.  But if your neighbor becomes an imposition, if his needs must be met from your resources, what then?  Do you say “everyone for himself.”  “I made my way, you make yours?”   Or maybe you say “He’s really just lazy.  I’d only be encouraging his laziness if I helped him out.” We all have our own ways for justifying our lack of love, toward God, and our neighbor. 

     But our excuses don’t change reality.  You don’t measure up to what God expects.  Neither do I.  You can’t.  I can’t.  Our garments, even our best, righteous deeds, seen in heavenly light, are filthy rags.  You can scrub them, bleach them, try with all your might.  But they still fall short of God’s glory.  They still fall short of the perfection which being in the presence of God demands.  Your deeds cannot stand in the light of heaven. 

     Jesus knew this, and for this reason He led Peter and James and John up onto a high mountain.  He bore them up really, because they couldn't go on their own.  Jesus bore them up into heaven, to show them, and you, His glory.  To show them a Man whose garments shone with perfect righteousness, the righteousness of God: radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 

     Peter and James and John were scared out of their wits, and rightly so, for they too wore filthy rags.  They had no right to be there.  If they had any question about this, there were Moses and Elijah, Lawgiver and Prophet, to remind them of the Law which they hadn’t obeyed, and the Way of God which they hadn’t followed.  Peter and James and John, like us, had no business being there, dressed in their filthy rags of unrighteousness.   

     And yet, Jesus brought them up on the mountain.  To show them what was ahead.  To let them see that men would stand in the flesh before the glory of God.  Not on their own merits.  Not based on the whiteness of their own garments.  No, men and women will stand in the flesh before the glory of God because the Man, the perfect Man, the Man who is also God, Jesus Christ, He would go first.  He was worthy to enter heaven in the flesh, because He was righteous in all things, perfectly pure and white in all His garments, the perfect, righteous, sinless Son of God. 

     But Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, did not come just to prove His own glory.  His glory has never been in doubt.  No, He came and worked, and preached, and suffered, and died, and rose, in order to forgive, in order to save, in order to share His glory with sinners, like you and me.  So He would not stay on the mountain, radiant in His glory.  No, as good as it was to be there, Jesus knew that Peter and James and John, like you and me, could not stay there, on account of our filthy rags.  So Jesus came down from the mountain, to wash away your sin in His own blood, to take away your filthy garments and give you His garment, His perfect righteousness.  Now, by Christ’s righteousness, Peter and James and John, and you, can now stand in glory.   

     Before the plunge into the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus showed Peter, James and John His glory.  They were given this vision of glory to sustain them as they walked with Jesus on the road to Calvary, and also to teach them what it all meant.  That Jesus came down from glory, and went to the cross, in order that His Righteousness could be credited to us.  In order that His glory could be our promise. 

     Next Wednesday we enter Lent, and retrace the long road to Calvary.  As we go, our own dirty garments, our own sin, must be brought into the light, in order that we may be cleansed, forgiven and raised to new life in the Easter miracle.  The road can be hard.  But we too may look back, and forward, to the Transfiguration, to those radiant garments, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.  They are the perfect, sinless garments of Jesus Christ.  He died and rose to give them to you.  In Christ, you are forgiven, and have the sure promise of seeing the glory that today we see by faith. 

      May this hope of heavenly glory, won for you by Christ Jesus, be your true joy when life goes well, your light when the way forward is dark, and your focus and confidence in every circumstance, forever and ever, Amen.