 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:How did Jesus’s words strike you this morning? “Blessed are you who are poor, because yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, because you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh. Blessed are you whenever people hate you because of the Son of Man.” Then, on the other hand: “Woe to you who are rich, because you are receiving your comfort now. Woe to you who are well fed now, because you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, because you will be mourning and weeping. Woe to you when all people speak well of you.” How did these words strike you? Unfortunately, they probably didn’t strike you very hard. We are lazy. These words are hard. Jesus is saying something that sounds like the very opposite of how we naturally think. And so, like a math problem you don’t know how to solve, you might look at it for a few seconds, and then push it aside. We can’t understand it. And it’s not our fault. According to our customs, if something is said, but not understood, then it is always the speaker’s fault. The hearers are never held responsible for their lack of effort. If the speaker wanted to be understood he should have said it better. So it’s Jesus’s fault. However, we won’t even let our thinking get that far. That conclusion might come around to bite us. We might be held responsible for coming to the conclusion that Jesus just isn’t a very good teacher. So we just mentally push it aside without further ado. This is a simple, common way to make Jesus’s words have no effect. There is another, more sophisticated way to deal with Jesus’s words. If you can’t figure it out and you stare at it like a math puzzle, who is there better to turn to than an expert? Call a theologian. They can turn Jesus’s extremely plain words into something a little less definite. They can give us some wiggle room. A couple very handy tools that the theologians have in their tool bag are principles and distinctions. By applying principles and distinctions he can probably shape and mold Jesus’s words into whatever you might want to have those words say. So, with the text at hand, a theologian might immediately point out that here we are dealing with something that is quite unworkable. It doesn’t fit in with what we already know. Jesus’s words can be taken to mean that being poor, hungry, sad, and not well liked is the way that a person can earn his or her way into heaven. On the other hand, no one is allowed to have nice things, nice food, good times, or lots of friends. Hell is the reward for these things. This, of course, is not what Jesus actually says, but, close enough right? We know that it is not necessarily a sin to be rich or well-fed or well-liked. We especially know that the opposite of these things doesn’t get us any closer to heaven. The price that is needed to get into heaven is much costlier than that—the very blood of God is what is necessary. And so Jesus’s plain words get pitted against other truths in such a way where what Jesus says is emptied of its meaning. The lawyer-like handling of his stark words make them say hardly anything at all. Or, if the theologian is really good, he might even manage to make them sound something like the very opposite. Instead of “Blessed are the poor,” for example, you might get “Blessed are the rich,” “so long as they give their fair share in the offering plate.” But I’m not against doing a lot of learning when it comes to God’s Word. How could I be? I’ve spent many years and many thousands of dollars to learn principles and distinctions. Even with the words that we are considering today, it’s helpful to have someone lead you into understanding them. The assumed meaning can be too hard so that we push them aside in the hopes that we won’t be responsible for having heard them. That won’t do if we wish to be Jesus’s disciples. Note the way Jesus begins this talk. Luke says, “Jesus lifted his eyes to his disciples and said, ‘Blessed are the poor,’” and so on. These words aren’t meant for all people everywhere. They would never accept them. These words are meant for those who want to be his disciples, that they might learn from them. So my goal is not to undo Jesus’s words, nor can I really persuade you of them. Most people won’t be persuaded. But I hope to help you understand them so that you can embrace them as something good, which they truly are. Toward that end, I think there is one huge factor that prevents us from hearing the good in Jesus’s words. That factor is fear. Fear is a big problem for us. It made its entrance into this world when Adam and Eve rebelled against God. Before that they were not afraid. They could always turn to God. After that fear would never completely leave them so long as they lived in this flesh. They and we shouldn’t fear. If God is for you, who or what can be against you? But that requires faith that God is actually for us. “Who knows?” we think. “Maybe he will let us down.” Do you know what won’t ever let us down? Money. You can’t ever have too much money. Money is the most useful and versatile little devil you ever did meet. It is for good reason that Luther says in his Large Catechism that Mammon is the commonest idol on earth. Jesus blasts a broadside against this idol when he says, “Blessed are you who are poor, because yours is the kingdom of heaven.” Then, on the other hand, “Woe to you who are rich, because you are receiving your comfort now.” That’s bad enough, but, I’m sorry, it gets even worse: “Blessed are you who hunger now, because you will be satisfied,” and, “Woe to you who are well-fed now, because you will be hungry.” How often have any of us have been hungry involuntarily? How often have we been hungry because we couldn’t afford to buy it? We maybe even haven’t imagined such a desperate situation for ourselves. I can imagine, though, that if this were to come to pass we might long and plead for money with our whole heart: “Pretty, pretty please! Just a little more money!” But it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. We mourn when we can’t afford this or that. If only we had just a little more money we could get a car that doesn’t break down. We could take a trip to somewhere fun. I’m bored to tears, and I’m sick to death of this scraping by. I want some good times. Jesus says, “Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh.” And, on the other hand, “Woe to you who laugh now, because you will be mourning and weeping.” The overall message that we tell ourselves is that we can never have enough money. It ticks all the boxes. It solves all kinds of problems. We tell ourselves that of all the gods that we could choose from so as to worship it, there’s nothing like money. Jesus disagrees. He flatly, plainly says that this god is going to let you down. You might think that  you have it pretty good now, but you won’t later. On the other hand, if you leave money behind as a god, if you trust in the Lord your God, then there will not be anything that you have given up for Jesus’s sake that will not be restored to you 100fold. But it is hard, you might say impossible, for us to believe that because we are afraid. The reason why we are afraid is because that’s what happens when the gods, that is to say, the things that we have trusted in are brought to nothing. Whatever we take to be stable and reliable, when that is taken away, we become very afraid. The thought, for example, of the end of the world is very frightening. If the sun didn’t come up this morning—the moon, the stars, the tides, everything that we have taken to be reliable and predictable were no longer reliable and predictable—we might faint in fear. But what does Jesus say that we should do when we see these things beginning to take place? He says we should lift up our heads, shoulders back, and start looking. Jesus is coming. Our redemption is coming; our complete and final deliverance from evil is coming. Those who are looking for this—looking for Jesus—will laugh and go out leaping like calves from the stall. Those who have believed in other gods will be horrified at the utter failure of the gods that they had believed in. They won’t take too good of a shine to the one true God either. They might wonder, “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you warn us?” And, of course, you know the answer. How could Jesus be any plainer in the words of his sermon? If there is a failure here, it isn’t on the part of the speaker. Jesus is plain as plain can be. The failure is on the part of the listener. They didn’t listen because they didn’t want to listen. They wanted to keep all their stuff. None of us can say that we really want to listen because we are so predisposed to idolatry. We think our idolatry is going to work like a charm. Trusting in God, on the other hand, who knows? So we need some encouragement if we are to embrace Jesus’s words as our own. We need some encouragement with emphasis on the middle part of the word “encouragement,” which is, “courage.” We have to fight against our fear. Our fear makes us run for cover. We can find our comfort any number of various gods—the bottle, the fridge, our wealth, the progress of civilization, what have you. The one we should run to for comfort, however, is our God. Psalm 130 says, “Out of the depths have I cried to you O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.” Our anchor that is to hold in the veil is Christ, the solid rock on which we stand. All other ground is sinking sand. Our Lord Jesus has died for us and been raised for us. As you trust in him do not be afraid of the size of the wave that is coming towards you. That is to say, do not let the circumstances of life turn you away from God, away from his will and his commandments, to run after other sources of meaning and comfort. Instead, trust his promises. You have money today. That’s all well and good. Thank God for it, because that’s who it comes from. Tomorrow you might need to give it away. Today you laugh. Praise God! That’s such a precious gift from him. Tomorrow you might be mourning. With all the changes of life Christ, the rock, does not change. There is no wave so high that might come towards you which you cannot survive. Even that wave that comes crashing down on you so as to snuff out your very life and breath—it’s no matter for the one who trusts in Jesus. I’m going to conclude by reading Jesus’s words one more time. Jesus’s words are good words. They are for you, his disciples. As you listen, keep in mind the way that Jesus overcomes everything for us—even those things that we are afraid of. Jesus lifted up his eyes to his disciples and said: Blessed are you who are poor, because yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, because you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh. Blessed are you whenever people hate you, and whenever they exclude and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy because of this: Your reward is great in heaven! The fact is, their fathers constantly did the same things to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, because you are receiving your comfort now. Woe to you who are well fed now, because you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, because you will be mourning and weeping. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, because that is how their fathers constantly treated the false prophets.     

Rev. Michael Holmen's Sermons

220213 Sermon on Luke 6:17-26 (Epiphany 6C) February 13, 2022

Audio recording Sermon manuscript:Everyone has something that he or she wants. Everybody’s calling has its own challenges and disappointments. We take it as a given that not everything is going to go right all the time. It would be quite a surprise if all of a sudden all those things that we want were suddenly to fall into our lap. This is what happened to Peter. He was a fisherman together with at least three of the other apostles—his brother Andrew, and James and John. Being a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee was probably not the most lucrative of jobs. The Sea of Galilee is a fairly small body of water. There aren’t a lot of opportunities for expansion. So it might have been a kind of hand to mouth sort of existence. On the night before Jesus asked to come into his boat in order to preach to the people who were on the shore Peter had been out trying to catch fish. He had had little success. So they had called it a day and were washing up their nets. He wasn’t overly excited about going fishing again with Jesus. But, who knows? Might as well give it a shot. Peter, like all people, would have had some mental picture of success. There was some number of fish that he knew would pay the expenses. He knew what would turn a profit. If he got a whole bunch there would have been things that he would like to buy. That picture was completely exceeded, however, by what Jesus brought into his nets and into his boat. The nets were straining under the load. His boat, as well has his partners’ boat, were so weighed down that they started to sink. Peter could have responded to all of this by saying something like, “Gee whiz, mister, thanks a lot! I’ll put you on my speed-dial.” Then he could take his haul, sort it, count it, and laugh all the way to the bank. Flush with cash he could buy those things that he had been wanting to buy for so long. Jesus gave him exactly what he had been hoping for. But, as you know, this is not what Peter did. The only way his actions can be explained is that he was lifted out of the normal course that he otherwise would have taken by none other than the Holy Spirit. We often think that unbelievers are nasty, dark individuals. I suppose they can be, but those are the outliers. Most unbelievers are trying to make a living for themselves, raise their kids, and make memories. Being an unbeliever is what is normal. Being a believer is what is unusual. Peter’s actions are unusual. He loses interest in the fish and suddenly becomes very interested in Jesus. Behind his humble words of “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord,” is a heart that is hoping for the opposite. He doesn’t feel worthy to be with Jesus, but there is nothing he would like more than to be with Jesus. And Jesus does not disappoint him. He tells him, “Do not be afraid.” Then he adds, “From now on you will be catching people.” Peter used to catch fish. Now he will be catching people. Finally Luke says that when they reached the shore with their boats, Peter and those who were with him left everything and followed Jesus. This means that they left behind all that wealth that they had had in their mind’s eye as the very picture of success. It’s as though Peter could have been singing one of our hymns: “What is the world to me With all its vaunted pleasures? When You and You alone, Lord Jesus are my treasure? You only dearest Lord, my soul’s delight shall be. You are my peace, my rest. What is the world to me?” Although Peter’s actions are unusual, in one sense, at least, his actions, worked by the Holy Spirit, are eminently practical and reasonable. What is the world with all its vaunted pleasures? What would it benefit a man to gain the whole world, but to lose his soul? We are so attracted and crave the things that have been created. But behind all that is the Creator. If the creature or the created thing is good, doesn’t the Creator have to be that much better? And, of course, he is. Let us not forget what God is like. Those instances in the Bible when God partially reveals his glory should be of the highest interest to us. Things will not always be as they are now, as Jesus lives and reigns quietly through his Word and Sacraments from the right hand of God the Father. One day Jesus will come in power and great glory to judge the living and the dead. Then we won’t have the created things. We won’t even have our clothes. All the created things that have given us comfort will be no more. Only the One who created all those comfortable things will be there in his full splendor. How vitally important it will be at that time to have been given faith in our Lord Jesus Christ who has reconciled us to God. At that time him being our friend and our brother will be more important than a kettle of fish. So it’s not like Peter’s desire to be right with God is unreasonable or impractical. But we are pretty clever with our reason, especially when it comes to turning things to our own advantage, so we might come up with a third option. It would be foolhardy to just say, “Thanks for the fish Jesus,” and go shopping. On the other hand it seems a little extreme to just leave all that money sitting in the boat and following after Jesus. How about a third option where we could have both? Maybe we can cash that big fat check and, in some sense, also follow Jesus. I plan to show you how, according to God’s Word, this option that appears to be ever so reasonable won’t work out as we hope it would. Before I do that, I have to admit that there is something to it that is true. We have been made by God to be creatures who require food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, wife and children, and so on. To leave absolutely every created thing behind in our pursuit of the Creator would not be pleasing to God. That would be putting God to the test. We need money and goods. To do otherwise would be like throwing yourself off from the pinnacle of the Temple, relying on the angels to save you, when there’s a perfectly good set of stairs that you can walk down. Again, if God wanted to feed us by flying a roasted chicken into our mouths, he could surely do that, but the ordinary way he works is that we do this is by working, buying, cooking, and so on. But there’s a big difference between surviving and thriving. We should see to our needs in order to survive while having our sights set on the Creator. The problem is that we don’t just want to survive, with our Lord Jesus being our treasure. We want to thrive. We want an abundance of created things. We are no different than the Israelites in the wilderness. They soon grew tired of manna and water. They remembered the cucumbers, melons, and garlic that they used to enjoy in Egypt. While they were eating their bread from heaven and drinking their water from the Rock the Israelites were the supreme people on earth. They were blessed beyond measure, far above every other nation on earth, because they were a nation of priests. They were a people who lived in God’s presence and thrived on the holiness that he communicated to them. They were surviving with the Lord as their God. But what did they want to do? Over and over and over and over again they want to kill Moses and head back to their old lord Pharaoh. In Egypt, at least, they had something decent to eat. I’m sure that if you took a poll among those Israelites they all would have agreed that God was God. They were all for acknowledging him and keeping him on speed-dial even if they had gone back to Egypt. But where was their heart? It’s obvious to see the truth of Jesus’s saying: “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Even though Jesus clearly says that no one can serve both God and mammon, that’s never stopped us from trying. So it was, also, when the Israelites came to settle in the promised land. In the histories recorded in the Bible, and in the prophets’ preaching, you hear about their idolatry. Folks often assume that they turn completely to Baal or to Ashtoreth. That is absolutely not the case! The Israelites never saw themselves as rejecting the Lord their God. In fact they even named their kids these extremely pious names like “Jonathan,” which means, “The Lord gives,” or “Joshua,” which means, “The Lord saves,” and so on. The very names of their children proclaimed the praises of the Lord. But they also wanted to thrive. Thriving meant that they had to be practical. The way to get ahead in life is not by putting all your eggs in one basket. Do don’t drop your membership in the Lord’s church, but riches can be had by following the practices of Baal, Ashteroth, or Molech. Plus the entertainment that is offered at these places of worship ain’t half bad either, if you know what I mean. So don’t be stupid. Don’t drop your membership or you might go to hell. But there’s no harm in making sure you don’t miss out on the good things of life. This dual allegiance to both God and idols is what God complains about so bitterly. The Lord our God is a jealous God. Among us, also, we are in very bad shape. God, for most people, is just an insurance policy that is supposed to bail you out from going to hell. But even in the church conditions are not much better. What people really want for their kids is for them to thrive. They want them to be prosperous and successful. To have a kid not get a good education, not get a good job, this is horrible! Tragedy of tragedies! Catechesis, growth in faith, practicing prayer, living as Christians regardless of the consequences—these are side dishes. They’re good side dishes. I don’t know of any parents who don’t want their kids to be actively participating in church, but they’re side dishes just the same. What is really important is that they are good citizens with good jobs and that they make many happy memories. So if we had to vote between a couple boatloads of money on the one hand or catching men alive for the kingdom of God on the other, unfortunately I know which would win. What good will catching men do anyone? The salvation of the fellow sinners is pretty low on the priority list. “Have the pastor do it. That’s what we pay him for. Meanwhile, let’s get busy thriving!” Who’s the god here though? What do people believe in for their happiness? What are their greatest ambitions? It isn’t the one and only true God. God is hardly more than an assumption. Nobody is getting ready to meet the one whom Isaiah saw in the temple, high and lifted up. The voice of the created seraphim made the foundations of the threshold shake. What could that Creator do? We must not be short-sighted with our lives. We only live 70 years, or, by reason of strength, 80. Whatever we might cling to in this life inevitably rots and decays. Folks could shovel your casket full of stuff. It will do you no good. These fake gods stink. Jesus has come to redeem you from them, so that you may know the true God. You are not in too terribly different of a situation than Peter. God has not called you nor even me to be an apostle. But he has indeed called you to have a higher conception of life than earthly riches, power, or glory. He calls you to know him, for Jesus to be your treasure, and for you to catch other people alive, just as you yourself have been caught.

220206 Sermon on Luke 5:1-11 (Epiphany 5C) February 6, 2022

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:I’d like to begin today by talking about lovelessness. There is a kind of lovelessness that is irrational and there is a kind that is rational. Irrational lovelenssness just doesn’t make sense. Rational lovelessness makes sense. Irrational lovelessness is when people do things that are mean for no good reason. Rational lovelessness is when people do things that will make them get ahead of others. Both kinds of lovelessness are real problems for us human beings. I think we’d like to believe that, by and large, we’re alright. If there is any lovelessness, then it’s of the rational kind. We’re mean in order to get ourselves or our team ahead. But that’s not true. It’s not hard to find meanness just for meanness’s sake. If you could be a fly on the wall of an elementary, middle, or high school classroom, you wouldn’t have to wait too long to observe meanness. There’s no good reason for this meanness. It seems to be done just for the pleasure of it. Meanness can also be found in a lot of families’ homes. Fathers and mothers can be mean to their children. Perhaps they themselves were treated meanly by their parents and so they hardly know anything different. Sometimes children can be mean to their parents. They just want to hurt them. Siblings can be mean. Husbands can be mean to wives. Wives can be mean to husbands. If we were required to give an answer for ourselves for why we are so mean we might say that we were somehow hurt by them at some point in the past. This is a condition that always exists, by the way, if two or more people live together long enough. So with the justification of having been hurt at some point in the past, whenever the opportunity arises to get back at them we make sure we don’t let that opportunity pass. This is an evil spirit. Whether it is literally and explicitly demonic, I wouldn’t want to say, but it certainly fits the pattern of the devil and the demons. They are mean. They hurt for no good reason. One of the things that Jesus did as he moved about was he cast out evil spirits. We should not assume that we are somehow immune from having an evil spirit. A lot of folks figure that since we live in modern times there’s no such thing as evil spirits. Now we call these phenomena psychopathy and sociopathy, so no evil spirits around here! But the older way of speaking has something to it. It does a better job of explaining, for example, how it is that the victims of abuse can very easily end up being abusers themselves. The unclean spirit got passed on. Jesus is the one who can truly get rid of evil spirits. The demons are subject to him because he is God. There’s nothing more fundamental to Jesus’s work than bringing about a change from lovelessness to love. As John says, “God is love.”  Lovelessness, meanness, is the opposite of God. God could have just destroyed us, which is what the demon of the man in the synagogue was afraid of, but instead of destroying us God redeems us and sets us free. There is something old that used to be said at a Christian baptism, which very nearly made it into our hymnal (but some thought it to be too medieval). It was an exorcism said just before the baptism. It said: “Depart, O unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” Thankfully the hymnal committee wasn’t too modern to get rid of the renunciation of the devil. At baptism we renounce the devil. We renounce all his works. We renounce all his ways. We renounce our old Lord and believe in our new Lord—the Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Our Lord Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, which certainly includes irrational lovelessness—this meanness whose existence is hard to explain. A more rational lovelessness can be much harder for people be ashamed of. Meanness is straight forward. When sin grows up it puts away these childish ways. Lovelessness learns logic and wraps itself up in fine sounding words. Instead of a loveless action being a loveless action it becomes a shrewd way to do business. Or it’s done to teach them a lesson. Through lying to one’s self disobeying the authorities is not disobeying the authorities. Adultery is not adultery. Stealing is not stealing. Gossiping is not gossiping. Coveting is not coveting. All these sins, you see, are not actually sins. They might be manifestations of great wisdom, or even, (God forbid!), the manifestation of deep piety. I’ve already mentioned that sheer meanness is devilish. You know what else is devilish? Lying. It’s hard to know which of the two kinds of lovelessness is worse. We tend to think that random acts of meanness are worse, perhaps because we don’t understand them, but does having a rationale make the evil any less evil? Adam was led astray not just by the meanness of disobeying God, but also by the rationale that was supposed to make it acceptable. People kind of pride themselves on not being psychopaths or sociopaths, like the ones on 48 hours or Dateline, who do evil things without hardly any reasons at all. Respectable people aren’t like that. But this is foolish. What credit is it to anyone to break God’s commandments with impunity because they can dream up some reason for doing it. Psychopaths, sociopaths, as well as the more sophisticated sinners all need to get thrown into the same pot. We are all sinners, the Bible says. We are all liars, the Bible says. If we are not set free from our bondage to evil spirits, then we will never be free. We will never love. Love is a word that gets used so much that we all think that we know what it means. How could anybody not know what the word means? But if you think of how loveless we are by nature, then you will see how this assumption is mistaken. How can creatures who are loveless know what love is? To know what love is, we have to be taught by God. God is love. The apostle Paul has been inspired by God. He teaches about love in our epistle reading today. I’d like to go through what he teaches so that we may be benefited by it. I want to give you a word of advice before we get into it. When you hear what Paul says you must be careful that you only judge yourself. If you don’t want to judge yourself, then you might as well leave, because it won’t do you a scrap of good to be thinking of other people’s lovelessness while ignoring your own. We each will be judged by God for our own actions. Nobody is excused because somebody else is worse. You are responsible for your own actions, so don’t waste your time puffing yourself up in comparison to somebody else. Paul says, “Love is patient.” This word means that we should not be easily provoked. It is a sin to be angry. Anger is the sinful root of the fifth commandment. “Love is kind.” This word means that a person is mild rather than harsh. There is an affection behind their actions rather than judgment and a disregard.  “Love does not envy.” Literally this says, “Love is not zealous.” Zeal is not always a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it is done for one’s own personal advancement and hates it when anybody else is better than one’s self. “Love does not brag.” Bragging is a way to get ahead in life. If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else is going to do it for you. Everybody else is too busy tooting for themselves already. But someone who believes in God knows that God sees, judges, rewards, and punishes. We do not need to make our own case by bragging. “Love is not arrogant.” The old King James says, “Love is not puffed up.” That’s an exact translation. Puffing one’s self up, thinking you are really something, is not love—except, of course, love for one’s self, which comes perfectly naturally to us sinners. “Love does not behave indecently.” Literally this says, “Love does not reject the scheme of things.” The way things are set up is a scheme. Love does not require everything to revolve around one’s self and one’s own thoughts and desires. Love joins with the others so as not to bring about discord. “Love does not seek one’s own.” Here, again, seeking one’s own can seem like the only way to get ahead in life. Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it. But Paul means what he says, even if people think he is stupid. Love isn’t zealous for one’s self, but for others. “Love is not irritable.” The word here means “to sharpen, to make sharp,” as you would with a sword. So this is saying that love doesn’t have those little needling words and actions that are purposely done to annoy somebody else. They irritate. But they do not go so far or are so blatant that you can be charged with any serious crime. Another way you could put this is that love does not push the other’s buttons. “Love does not keep a record of wrongs.” How prone we are to do this, and how poisonous this record of wrongs is for any and every relationship! Why does any relationship get destroyed? Isn’t it precisely because we tally up a good long list of why they are such bad people that not only is it allowable to write them off, it is positively the right thing to do? These damned records of wrongs are the documentation for every unhappy marriage, every divorce, every ended friendship. Whenever you start making a mental list of how much other people stink, realize that this does not come from the Holy Spirit, but from an evil spirit. “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” This shows that love is not merely utilitarian. There is a kind of love that is extremely pragmatic. There is a kind of love that is nice, non-judgmental, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. But the goal is only to look good in the eyes of our fellow human beings. It is a shallow love that won’t risk hurting someone in order to help them. “Love bears all things.” This means that love will take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. “Love believes all things.” This means that love is gullible. It’s willing to be hurt. “Love hopes all things.” This means that love is not cynical. It doesn’t say, “They will never change,” so not only is it allowable to write them off, but it is positively the right thing to do. “Love endures all things.” This means that love doesn’t quit. In fact, “Love never comes to an end.” Love can’t come to an end. How could it? God is love. At this point in the reading Paul goes on to speak about heaven. Heaven is where we will no longer know in part, but will be fully known. Heaven is when we will no longer have to puzzle things out as in a mirror, but will see God, who is love, face to face. Heaven is where love will be all in all. Love never ends. Since love never ends, I hope you can begin to see through those lies that we tell ourselves in order to justify our lovelessness. We make all those excuses for why we can’t possibly keep God’s commandments because, you see, otherwise we will be left behind. We can’t be naïve, or gullible, or a so-called doormat. That would be a waste. Not so. The opposite is in fact the case. What good will it do you to have a charmed life for 70 years, or, by reason of strength, 80—always seeing to your own happiness first, and only willing to suffer for others if it is beneficial for one’s self? What are 70 or 80 years compared to eternity? Love never ends. God is love. Paul says that when he was a child he spoke like a child, he thought like a child, he reasoned like a child, when he became a man he gave up childish ways. So also we have been born loveless. We are selfish. Nobody had to teach us how to lie or manipulate. This is how we were as a child. A lot of people think that growing up means you just get shrewder and shrewder, meaner and meaner, richer and richer, better and better. I suppose you can do that if you are training yourself for going to hell. There you will be taught by the true master how to get ahead in life. As Christians we should put away these childish, selfish ways. Maturity is not cynicism and becoming worldly wise. Maturity is becoming like a child. Jesus points to the child as the one who is great in the kingdom of heaven. “Unless we turn and become like little children,” Jesus says, “we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Why? Because otherwise we don’t belong in heaven. With lovelessness, and tireless training in lovelessness, the sinner will go to hell, which is where he belongs. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to set us free from evil spirits. He came to open us up so that we can love. This is the work that God has begun in you with your baptism. Remain in Jesus’s word. Then you will be his disciple instead of the devil’s disciple. Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Being set free allows us to love others and not just ourselves.

220130 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 (Epiphany 4C) January 30, 2022

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Our epistle reading today picks up where our epistle reading from last week left off. Last week, if you remember, Paul was talking about spiritual gifts. One and the same Spirit gives different gifts to Christians. Among the gifts that he mentioned were the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. Faith is given by the same Spirit. Then he talked about gifts that were more common at apostolic times like miracles, prophesy, and speaking in tongues. In my sermon last week I mainly spoke about how we should understand these unusual gifts and not be led to false conclusions about them.  If you missed that sermon, you can look it up at the website listed in the bulletin. The reading today picks up where we left off last week. The final verse in last week’s reading was that the Holy Spirit distributes spiritual gifts to each and every Christian, howsoever the Holy Spirit might wish. One Christian is given certain gifts that are not given to another. The gifts that are given to another may not be given to one’s self. This is like the different parts of our body. The eye is a part of the body that has been equipped to do certain things that a hand cannot do. Likewise there are things that the hand is able to do that the eye could never do. With this discussion of how the different members of the body of Christ are necessarily different from one another, and yet members of one body, Paul is addressing a problem in the Corinthian congregation. The church at Corinth was very vibrant and energetic. God gave them many gifts. They were excited to use the gifts that God gave them. But it also appears that they were seeking after glory for themselves with the gifts that had been given to them. Thus they were especially coveting the flashy, unusual gifts that would bring them glory. With Paul’s discussion of how the members of the body are necessarily different from one another, and yet members of one and the same body, he would have the Corinthians understand that Christians are not meant to be in competition with one another. A body works together. A body cannot be made up of members that are all the same, otherwise that is not going to be much of a body at all. As Paul says, “If we were all an ear, where would our sense of smelling be?” Ears should not wish to be noses; noses should not wish to be eyes. The different members of the body are essential for the body to function because of the different abilities that are given to each member. Whether a member of the body is an ear or an eye is something that God determines. Paul says, “God has arranged the members in the body, each and every one of them, as he desired.” No matter how much an ear might wish to be an eye, there’s nothing that an ear can do to make itself into an eye. In a sense, this is what the Corinthians were trying to do. The ones who had not been given the gifts that had been given to others really wished that they had those gifts. They wanted the glory that would come along with that. But whatever gifts there might be, if they are genuine, are from God. His intention is that the gifts should be beneficial to the body of Christ, to the fellow members of the body. There are also parts of the body that God has put together that are thought to be weaker. Paul doesn’t specifically say which members of the body he is talking about, but he does contrast these so-called weaker members with the eye, the ear, and the nose. They eye, the ear, and the nose are sensitive members. They are very special. The eye, especially, is not only very useful, but it is also very beautiful to look at. What is some other slab of flesh compared to the eye? “But,” Paul says, “the members that are thought to be weaker are necessary.” Why? Because God made it so. He is the one who has put the body together the way he wants. Here I’d like to pause in my explanation of Paul’s words to point out something that I think is important. Paul is speaking here in a way that is very different from what comes naturally to our sinful nature. We are not naturally content with the lot that God gives us in life. Sometimes, in fact, our teachers explicitly teach us to be discontent with who and what we are. The rationale behind that is if we are discontent with who and what we are, then we will want to become something better. For example, our kids are generally taught that it is better to be a leader than a follower. They are taught that it is better to be good at sports than not good at sports. They are taught that everybody is supposed to have super high test scores. Everyone is supposed to be the best, and the only way to be the best is to be discontent with the way that one happens to be. The result of all this is self-loathing on the one hand wherever we supposedly do not measure up, and a drunken euphoria over achievements on the other. This is such a standard way of thinking about life, that we all assume that this is just the way that it is supposed to be. We are all taught these slogans, and they appear to us to be true, and even pious: “Be the best that you can be.” “Shoot for the stars.” “Never give up.” “Nothing is impossible,” and so on. But you will not find any of this taught by the Bible. It’s true, there are a few passages that get torn out of their context and get put onto plaques and paintings for wall art. If you actually look up what is being talked about in those passages, you will find that they never, ever are talking about digging deep within one’s self in order to get up to the next and higher plane of existence. What the Bible does say is that this striving after personal glory can hardly be done without sin. Just think of the very first sin. Adam and Eve became convinced that the way that God had made them was not quite good enough. They were truly, exceedingly wise in their own way, but certainly not wise in the cynical, scoffing ways of the devil. They believed that they could become better by setting God, God’s designs, and God’s law aside. They would reach out and take for themselves what would bring them glory and happiness. When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they did become more knowledgeable in a way. They learned first-hand the horror of evil, the terror of alienation from God, and the sadness of self-loathing. But they did not become wiser. They become much stupider—particularly in understanding the meaning of their lives as God’s creatures. This stupidity has been passed down to us through original sin. So what is the alternative to this way of living that we are all so accustomed to? It is being content with God being our creator and we being God’s creature. We are finite. Not all gifts have been given to any one of us. We should not covet what has not been given to us. We should be thankful for what God has given to us. We should seek to fill our lives with thanksgiving to our Creator—hymns of praises. Nowhere in the Bible do you ever find God commanding us to hate ourselves. It is not God pleasing to hate ourselves. It is not God pleasing to hate our bodies. How common it is for people to hate their bodies because they do not look a certain way! Sometimes people can whip up such a hatred for their bodies and for themselves that they will be propelled to harsh action to change it. But where does the Bible ever say anything about doing this? If anything the Bible warns against strange measures being taken with food. Instead of hating our bodies, we should give thanks to our Creator for our bodies. Who cares if you don’t look like a model? God’s gift to you of your body is something to thank and praise God for, even if it is thought to be way down there on somebody’s scale of what a body is supposed to be like. It is not God pleasing to hate our minds. Some people have been given a gift for cleverness or complex reasoning. Maybe you have not been given such gifts in as much abundance as has been given to others. So what? You don’t become any cleverer by hating the good gift that God has given to you. Instead of coveting what has been given to others, be thankful to your Creator for giving you what you have. Perhaps we could sum up the difference between the way that our teachers have taught us to live to the way that the Bible teaches us to live by where our focus lies. The way that we have been taught to live is that we should be obsessed with ourselves. We should scrutinize and evaluate, hate our short-comings with a white-hot hatred, and love ourselves to death for whatever is supposedly good about ourselves. There’s another way to live, but very few people ever even try it—that our focus should be on the Creator who gives us gift after gift instead of upon ourselves. We should thank and praise him for filling our lives with good things. Instead of hating what he has chosen to give us, we should thank him for it, because it surely is not as bad as our evil spirits and the evil advertisements make it out to be. When God blesses us with glory or success, we should thank and praise him all the more, because it certainly came from him. Earlier in this letter Paul asks the Corinthians: “What do you have that was not given to you?” That’s the truth. Whatever we have or don’t have is according to God’s choosing, blessed be he! What unnecessary torture we put ourselves through with our incessant coveting! Turn your eyes away from yourselves and from other people and look up to your Father who is in heaven. We’ve taken a good long pause here to consider how things are among us, but this hasn’t been entirely beside the point. The Corinthians were cut from the same cloth that we have been. They had the same desires and foolishness that we suffer from, even if it might not have been so extreme and overwhelming among them as it is among us. They, too, thought that they could transform themselves into being an eye, when they were in fact—let’s say—a hand, and coveting only brought with it sadness and backbiting as a result. The truth for them is the same as the truth for us. God has made us members of Christ’s body. He has apportioned to each what is proper and good. Those members that are thought to be weaker are, in fact, necessary and good. God is deserving of thanks and praise also for those members who do not have what is thought to be the shine and shimmer of others. Let’s sum up: Just as God has joined together the members of our own body, so he has joined together the members of Christ’s body. To each and every member of the body of Christ God has given different spiritual gifts. None of us are sufficient on our own, just as an eyeball lying on the ground is no longer beautiful, but completely repulsive. It is repulsive, destructive, and divisive to brag one’s self up and to look at others and wonder, “What’s wrong with them? Why aren’t they like me?” The way that we all are has been brought about by God. He is the one who has shaped and formed us, incorporated us into the body of Christ, and thereby given us life. We have not become members of the body of Christ by virtue of our own striving or accomplishments. It is something that God has given to us. Thus we should thank God for putting us into the body of Christ and thereby giving us eternal life. He has also given us whatever gifts we might have. There is no gift that we have that did not come from him. And as far as how we should look at the follow members of the body of Christ: We should love them, which we will hear about next week, with the continuation of our reading from this week.

220123 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (Epiphany 3) January 23, 2022

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:It is not uncommon for people to think that if the Bible is true, then there should be lots of miracles. The Bible records many unusual signs and wonders that God has performed. The way the thinking goes is that if the Bible is true concerning these things, then these miracles need to keep happening. It is understandable how a person could arrive at such an opinion, but it is not right. The Bible does, indeed, record unusual things that God did. But God does not just work through unusual means. In fact, he only rarely uses unusual means. All the other times he works through ordinary means. Ordinary means would be those ways that do not appear unusual. Adam and Eve, for example, simply told their children what God had revealed to them. Abraham told Isaac about the covenant that God had made with him. We tend to think that speaking is not a big deal. We do it all the time. It can seem as though God’s not involved in it at all, because he does not come with thunder and lightning and smoke like he did at Mt. Sinai. To illustrate God’s ordinary means we should say something about how God works in the Old Testament after the time of Moses. God gave the Israelites the tabernacle / temple. He proscribed priests and sacrifices for them. This was the way that God’s holiness was communicated to them. So it is also with the New Testament. Jesus instituted and commanded baptism as a new birth in the Holy Spirit. Jesus instituted and commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper. He says that the Lord’s Supper is the New Testament in his blood for the forgiveness of sins. These, together with preaching, are the ordinary means for Christians to receive God’s grace and holiness. But, as the saying goes: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” These ordinary means that God uses to communicate his will towards us, his grace and favor towards us—they become boring. Our reason starts to think that they must not be that valuable because only rare things are valuable. The Word and the Sacraments are given out quite liberally and no bills get sent out for services rendered. And so Christians might go hankering after something a little more exotic, a little more uncommon. So when we read a portion of the New Testament like our reading today from 1 Corinthinans 12, we might think, “This should do the trick!” Paul speaks of “spiritual gifts.” Among these gifts are messages of wisdom, knowledge, and faith. He also speaks of some spicier gifts. He says, “And to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts. Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues.” As you well know, these gifts have not been given to me or to any of the other members of this congregation. I’m not aware of anyone who can heal. I don’t know of anyone who has performed miracles. None of us have been able to know the future. When we think we do know the future, we are often wildly wrong. No one has spoken in tongues. Since no one has spoken in tongues, there is also no need to have tongues interpreted. These were gifts that God gave to the apostolic Christian church. We hear of them not only here, but also in the book of Acts. God performed unusual signs through these earliest Christians, perhaps to confirm the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus. Since these signs were present among the Christians of the apostolic church, many people get deceived into thinking that there must be something deficient about the Christian church of today. We do not have these signs or we do not have them in like measure. This is a very dangerous and destructive deception. Although it has the appearance of being biblical, it definitely is not. There is a big difference between miracles happening and miracles being required. God is free to do miracles. The Bible tells us about them. Nowhere in the Bible do you ever hear him requiring his people to perform miracles. There is no expectation that God’s people should perform miracles that are recognized as being miracles as by outsiders. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, miracles are not that terribly common in the history of God’s people. Since the Bible records those times in the history of God’s people where God did things that were unusual, folks get the idea that miracles were happening all the time. That is not true. The Bible is not an exhaustive, minute-by-minute, or even year-by-year account of each generation of God’s people. There are many gaps of hundreds of years where the Bible doesn’t say anything about what was going on with God’s people. During those times the people continued on with the ordinary means whereby God dealt with his people. They preached the Gospel. They went to the tabernacle / temple. They observed the festivals. The people during these times were not deficient or inferior to the people of God who were living during those times when God did more unusual things. Whether God did unusual things or not does not indicate that God was more pleased or less pleased with the people living at time that he did them. Take, for example, the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. I don’t think there has ever been a generation of people who saw more of God’s signs and wonders than this generation. They saw the plagues God inflicted upon Egypt. They crossed through the Red Sea on dry ground. God rained down bread from heaven. He made water come out of a rock. They saw God’s glory in the cloud and at Mt. Sinai, and many more. These people had miracles coming out of their ears. And yet, what does God say of them? He says that they are a stiff-necked people. He becomes so angry at them that he several times tells Moses that he is going to wipe them all out and make a nation of Moses and his descendants instead. But Moses interceded for his fellow Israelites, and God did not carry through with his threats. So we should not think that the more impressive the signs, the happier God must be with us. The more unusual the signs, the more spiritual power a group of people must have. The primary thing about being the people of God is not having spiritual power. The primary thing is to know the will of God towards us by his Word and promises. This is the way it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for as long as this present age lasts. What God’s people have had in common from the time of Adam and Eve is God’s promise of mercy and salvation in Jesus. This word from God to us does not need signs and wonders to make it true, effective, or believable. In fact, Jesus complains about the Jews at his time who were always wanting him to perform more and more miracles. He tells them that they are an evil and adulterous generation as they are hankering after miracles. He tells them that the only sign they are going to get is the sign of Jonah. Jonah spent three days in the belly of the fish. The Son of God would spend three days in the belly of the earth, dead, in a tomb. How’s that for a sign? Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is a miracle that doesn’t suit people’s fancy to this very day. Those Jews who were wanting him to do miracles certainly would not have been impressed with him being crucified and buried. If anything they would have taken his crucifixion as a sure-proof sign that Jesus was an imposter and an evil-doer. He was getting his come-uppance for what they took to be blasphemy. The signs that they were keeping an eye out for were signs that appeared powerful and impressive, and so they rejected the Son of God. So we must not judge God and find his ways unsatisfactory because they don’t match up with what we think would be powerful and effective. Folks want flashy signs. Barring that, they tend to think that spiritual gifts do not exist at all. This is another error that we must be on guard against. Some people know that the crazy things that are touted among the Pentecostals are not right, but then they fall off the horse on the other side. They don’t think that God is involved in the lives of his people at all. Paul begins our reading today by saying, “I do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning spiritual gifts.” Spiritual gifts exist. Some of the spiritual gifts that he goes on to mention were special to that particular time in the history of God’s people. We see this kind of thing elsewhere in the history of God’s people. It’s like the way that God manifested himself to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai as I mentioned. He did tremendous and unusual things before them. It wasn’t always that way, however. Later in the history of God’s people there weren’t these unusual things. So it is also with the time of the apostles. At their time there were unusual signs. We should not expect, and we certainly shouldn’t require, that such signs should be done among God’s people today. On the other hand, there are spiritual gifts that are always present among God’s people. Paul says that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Here we do not have a flashy sign. Saying that Jesus Christ is Lord will hardly impress anyone, but it can only be said by the Holy Spirit. Paul also speaks about wisdom, about knowledge, about faith. These come from the same Holy Spirit. These, also, can be easily despised. It is very common for people to think that it is no big deal to believe that Jesus is Lord. Knowing Scripture is not highly regarded as a life skill. Having God’s wisdom often looks terribly impractical according to the way that the world thinks. Regardless of what our reason thinks of these gifts, they are gifts from the Holy Spirit nevertheless. They are present among God’s people. Paul also speaks about spiritual gifts in his epistle to the Christians in Galatia. He says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” These gifts, which are given to those who believe in Christ, are priceless. They renew our sin-sick hearts. They bring about miracles of self-less love and sacrifice. But they are not terribly flashy. If you compare these fruits of the Spirit to lightning coming out of your fingertips, you know that the world is going to be more impressed with the lightning. But the world is stupid. It doesn’t know what is truly good. The Corinthians, to whom Paul is writing in our Epistle reading, have the same flesh and blood as anybody else, and so it seems that Paul is gently teaching them not to overestimate flashy gifts and to crave those gifts that are beneficial for others rather than those gifts that are more likely to puff up the one to whom the gifts have been given. Our reading today is from chapter 12. In the very next chapter, chapter 13, Paul says that the spiritual gift that they should prize above all others is love. 1 Cor. 13 is the so-called “love chapter,” which is fairly well known. This is where he says things like, “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not puffed up. It does not seek after its own. Love never ends.” The Corinthians were looking for those gifts that would make them appear great in the eyes of their fellows, but that is not right. Jesus says, “Whoever would be greatest must become as the least. Whoever wishes to be first must become a slave. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.” So we must be on guard against two things that our flesh more easily believes rather than the truth. Our flesh thinks that either Christians should be doing miracles every day of the week and twice on Sundays in order to be genuine and believable. That’s the one extreme that we are prone towards. The other extreme is that God doesn’t work at all. It is thought that there are no spiritual gifts. The spiritual gifts that are always present among God’s people are not recognized as miracle. Spiritual gifts must only be flashy and unusual ones like dreams, speaking in tongues, or miracles of healing. But the truth is that spiritual gifts do exist. God gives them to those whom he has chosen for salvation. But they are not readily apparent to outsiders. They might not even be apparent to ourselves as we battle against the flesh, the world, and the devil. But the Holy Spirit is quietly at work in the people of God. He is healing them from their unbelief and sin-sickness. It’s like when a seed is sown in the earth. First it sprouts, then come the leaves, then comes the ear. So also the Holy Spirit works through his Word and Sacrament. Quietly and unassumingly the Holy Spirit increases our faith towards God and our fervent love towards one another. So we must not be led astray on this important topic that so easily becomes obscured in our day due to Pentecostals on the one hand, and rank unbelievers on the other. God reveals his will towards us with his Word and Sacraments. That’s the way he’s always done it. This is his usual means of dealing with his people. He can also deal with us in unusual ways, but we shouldn’t expect that, and we certainly should not require it. He gives his Christians those spiritual gifts that Paul talks about, but sometimes we have a hard time seeing them clearly, and unbelievers hardly ever recognize them. But those common gifts that cause us to be believing towards him and loving towards our neighbor are the best gifts God gives.

220116 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 (Epiphany 2) January 16, 2022

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:We entered the season of Epiphany with the festival of Epiphany this past Thursday. The word “epiphany” means, “to be revealed.” So Epiphany and the season of Epiphany has as one of its main emphases the way that this person named Jesus was revealed to be something more than an ordinary person. The Epiphany festival itself is about the way that wise men came from the east. They gave gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus. What is of greatest significance is that they bowed down and worshipped Jesus. That is something that should never be done with anyone or anything that is not God, so by this activity the wise men are confessing their faith that Jesus is God. The festival that we are considering today, the Baptism of our Lord, is on the first Sunday after Epiphany. It is an appropriate thing to consider to kick off the season of Epiphany since this baptism is very revealing. Two very important things can be seen at Jesus’s baptism—the Holy Trinity and Jesus as the Christ. There are hardly any more important things that we could possibly know since the Holy Trinity describes God and Christ is our Lord and Savior. Let’s begin with the Trinity. Let me remind you about the simple reason why we speak of the Trinity. The word, “Trinity,” is a made up word. You won’t find it in the Bible. It is the combination of two numbers—three, tri-, as in triangle or tricycle; and one, uno, unity. So the word Trinity means “three-one-ness.” While the word, “Trinity,” is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures, the thing that the word is describing is very easily found in the Scriptures. The Bible says two things very emphatically. The Bible says that there is only one God. Deuteronomy says, “The Lord your God is one.” That’s the one thing the Bible says about God. The other thing that the Bible says about God is that he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We call these the three persons. So we speak of the Trinity or the Triune God because the Bible very emphatically and clearly speaks of God as one. The Bible also very emphatically and clearly speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The goal is speak of God as the Bible speaks of him. The goal is not to make this idea plausible or acceptable to our reason, otherwise we may very well decide to revise what the Bible says so that we can better understand it or convince others to believe it. The Baptism of our Lord is one of the many places where we hear of the three persons of the one God. The Son, Jesus Christ, is in the Jordan River with John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit took on the bodily form of a dove and descended upon him. The Father spoke from heaven. He said that this man Jesus is his beloved Son. He is well pleased with him. Here we see how all three persons of the Trinity are involved and approving of the ministry, life, death, and resurrection of the Christ. Some Christians, who already aren’t too big fans of the Trinity, will try to make better sense of what the Bible speaks about by talking about “dispensations.” By the word “dispensation” they mean a time of special prominence and importance. So they say that the Old Testament was the dispensation of the Father. Supposedly the Old Testament is full of wrath and violence, and it is imagined that this is the special area and expertise of God the Father. The New Testament times are the dispensation of the Son. Here, supposedly, we see a kinder and gentler side of God. Finally, supposedly, we are now, in our times, in the dispensation of the Spirit. So during our times we are supposed to be on the lookout for special and unusual miracles that are supposed to come from the Holy Spirit, but I suspect come from evil and deceiving spirits. This is a very dangerous false teaching. It strikes right at the root of the Christian faith. Our faith is in nothing else whatsoever except our God. This teaching goes about revising who our God is. To my mind there is almost the fabrication of a whole new god, masquerading under the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are not special dispensations that are particular to each of the persons of the Trinity. We say this quite often in our worship services, and it is true: as far as our God is concerned “as he was in the beginning, he is now, and will be forever.” The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the one true God is eternal. God has no beginning and no end. All three persons of the Trinity were present at creation. God the Father created. He did this through the Word, the Son, as John’s Gospel teaches in his first chapter. And the Holy Spirit was there, hovering over the face of the waters. Here at the Baptism of our Lord the Holy Trinity manifests himself again. God the Father is not some supposedly mean, bad god as the dispensationalists claim. As Jesus embarks upon his great ministry that will culminate in the atonement and salvation of all mankind, the Father says, “This is my Son whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” There is no division or antagonism between the persons of the Trinity. What is pleasing to the Father is pleasing to the Son is pleasing to the Holy Spirit. What is pleasing to God is the wonderful life and work of this man Jesus, who is Christ and God. This brings us to the second very important thing to be seen at the Baptism of our Lord—how Jesus is the Christ. We are so accustomed to hearing “Jesus Christ” that it can almost seem as though Jesus is his first name and Christ is his last name. But the word “Christ” has much more significance than just being a name. The word “Christ” means “anointed one.” Anointing is the pouring of something on someone, usually on one’s head. We don’t do that much anointing in our times. Baptism, actually, is about the only anointing that we do. In baptism we anoint people’s heads with water. In the Bible anointing was more common and laden with significance. It was the way, for example, that priests and kings were put into office in the Old Testament. Instead of kings being crowned in the Old Testament, they were anointed with oil. The Old Testament kings were christs, in a sense, in the sense that they were anointed ones, but of course we rightly reserve the term “Christ” for Jesus as the king who was promised to come and save his people. The promise of the coming Christ, or King, is the scarlet thread that runs through all of Scripture. Already at the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden God promised to send a Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. Later God promised that a descendent of David would sit on his throne forever and ever. This promised King is Jesus, and at his baptism we see how he is anointed. First of all, he is baptized, that is to say, anointed, with water by John the Baptist. Furthermore, it is of the highest significance that he is not anointed just with oil, like the Old Testament kings before him, but the Holy Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit descends in the bodily form of a dove and alights above Jesus’s head. This is Jesus the Christ, Jesus the anointed one, Jesus the King. From this point onward Jesus is going to accomplish the great purposes for which the Father has sent him. This is going to culminate in yet another anointing and the greatest manifestation of him as the King. Do you remember what Pilate had written on Jesus’s cross as the great charge against him? He had them write: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” There Jesus was anointed with his own blood, a crown of thorns upon his head. Pilate was being ironic when he had that written. What Pilate meant to say was that this is what happens to those who claim to be king. His intent was that people should laugh at the disjunction between the grand title of king on the one hand, and this miserable worm of a man who writhed upon the cross on the other. But this was of God. That title speaks the truth. Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. He is the Christ particularly when he was suffering on the cross as punishment for the sins that we have committed. He is accomplishing God’s purpose of bringing about atonement. God’s just wrath is being poured out upon him instead of upon us. When that Father says at Jesus’s baptism, “This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased,” this means that he was pleased with all of Jesus’s life. Surely this also includes the great culmination of Jesus doing the work of being the Christ—when he was crucified. Contrary to the dispensationalists, the Father does not hate human beings, but rather loves them. The way that he loved the world was by sending his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son in the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. This salvation is the work of the Christ and of the triune God. The Baptism of our Lord is an epiphany. It is truly revealing. It reveals the Trinity. It reveals the Christ. All things in heaven and on earth are being brought together in this man Jesus, standing in the Jordan River. Finally, we should also mention the great importance of our own baptism as well. It is easy to despise baptism. It’s just an anointing of water. Many Christians don’t remember being baptized because they were baptized as babies. But Christ commanded that we should be baptized. By that baptism we are united with Christ. We are united to the Triune God.  Baptism connects us with Jesus and God. It is the full bestowal of all that Jesus the Christ accomplished for us by his holy life, atoning death, and his glorious resurrection and ascension. In the words of our Small Catechism: “It works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this as the words and promises of God declare.” Thus our baptism is an epiphany as well. When we were baptized God revealed himself to us so that we may believe in him and be taken up into his saving will.

220109 Sermon on Luke 3:15-22 (Baptism of our Lord) January 9, 2022

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Let me begin with a story that some of you will get and some of you will not get. A person went to a mechanic one day because their car wasn’t working right. They went into the waiting room while the mechanic looked over their car, high and low, left and right. The mechanic walked into the waiting room, wiping his hands on a rag, and said, “It’s the muffler belt. It’s shot. You need a new muffler belt.” Some of you are going to understand that this is a joke. Others won’t quite get it. Whether you get it or not has to do with how well you understand how cars work. You’ve probably heard of cars having mufflers. You’ve probably heard of them having belts. But if you know how mufflers work and how belts work, then you will know that there can’t be any such thing as a muffler belt. Mufflers are the pipes that carry the exhaust from the engine to the back of the car. Besides carrying the gasses, they also muffle the sound of the engine that would otherwise be much louder. That is why they are called mufflers. But basically a muffler is a fancy pipe. Belts run on pulleys or wheels. They transfer energy from one part of the machine to another part of the machine. Belts do tend to break or need to be replaced, so a mechanic telling you that you need a new belt isn’t that surprising. But there’s no way that there could be any belts on a muffler. That’s like saying you could get into your car and drive across the ocean. It’s not going to happen. It can’t happen. But you can’t know that without already having a good bit of knowledge going into it. Jokes are a pretty sophisticated way of talking. If you don’t know what is being talked about, then you probably won’t get the joke. Praising, giving praise, is another sophisticated way of talking. Let’s say that someone starts singing the praises of the Ford 5.0 liter engine. They start listing off thinks like torque and horsepower. Some of you are going to get that praise. A lot of us, including myself, might start to get a little glassy eyed. The praise is meaningful to some. To others is just a bunch of blah, blah, blah. You might need to learn some stuff in order to understand why someone might be excited. Our epistle reading this morning is a hymn of praise. That makes it one of these higher levels of talking. If you don’t know what Paul is referring to, then it is going to sound like a bunch of blah, blah, blah. Just as a car enthusiast won’t take the time to explain horsepower or torque while he is singing his praises, so also Paul is not explaining the different things that he is referring to in this hymn to God the Father, about his Son Jesus Christ. So we will have to do some work before we can begin to understand what Paul is saying. Even then, I think you should take this bulletin home and carefully read through it again later today. Let’s begin by talking about the main theme of Paul’s hymn before getting into the details. The main theme is that Paul is praising God the Father. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Three times in these verses he refers to God’s glory. God’s glory is to be praised. Praise and glory go together. It is the glories of the 5.0 liter engine that lead some to sing its praises. God’s glory provokes praise. Let me give you a couple examples of God’s glory, before going into the glories of God are specifically talked about in this hymn. God’s creation itself is an example of God’s glory. All the things that God has made—its strength, its beauty, the joy it gives us—these are God’s accomplishments that provoke praise. Another example of God’s glory is the way that God liberated Israel who was enslaved under Pharaoh. God twisted Pharaoh’s arm to let them go. Then he destroyed Pharaoh and his chariots, throwing them into the sea. This was God’s accomplishment that calls forth praise. So it is with all of God’s accomplishments in the Old Testament. Paul, however, is focused on one multifaceted thing: our Lord Jesus Christ. In these twelve verses Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” at least eleven times. When you read through it again, pay attention to how often he says either “in Christ,” or “in him.” When it says, “in him,” it is referring to Christ. So, overall, Paul says, “In Christ,” God accomplished this. And “in Christ,” God accomplished that. These accomplishments are God’s glory that call for our praise. But here we run into another difficulty when it comes to our praise. God’s accomplishments in Christ are of a far higher order than earthly things. We can somewhat understand the glory of God by looking at his creation. We can somewhat understand the glory of God in him defeating the Egyptians. It is harder for us to see how the redemption of his blood forgives our sins or makes us blameless before God. It is harder for us to see how we are adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. One part of this problem is that we haven’t yet experienced even the tenth part of what God accomplished for us in Christ. This is kind of like talking about torque or horsepower to someone who isn’t a car person. There’s probably no better way to understand torque than to experience the feeling of being pushed back in your seat when the gas pedal is punched to the floor. There’s probably no better way to learn what horsepower is than to see a truck pull something really heavy. But, as Paul says in our reading, we, for whom God has done all these thing in Christ, haven’t gotten our inheritance yet. We have the Holy Spirit, sure, but we have not yet had our bodies finally redeemed from death and decay. How can we know what it is like to rise from the dead when we haven’t yet experienced it? So this is one part of the problem: we haven’t experienced anything that is even similar to the accomplishments of God that Paul is praising him for. The other problem is much more serious. It is our active hostility towards heavenly things, and our insatiable craving for earthly things. Characteristic of this mentality is how we get carried along by the spirit of this age. We get deceived into thinking that reality is only the things that are seen. We think that what is permanent and important are the nuts and bolts of this world.  We over-estimate the importance of things that we see and can buy and can consume. When it comes to a person’s relationship with God, on the other hand, this is taken as something very light and unimportant. Either people take it for granted—something that no one needs to worry about, or God is seen as premodern and mythological—again, something that no one needs to worry about. What do we need to worry about? Getting ahead in life. And so we have a very hard time appreciating the things that Paul is talking about because our flesh is hostile to such thoughts. In fact, just after where our reading ends, Paul has what seems like a strange prayer. He prays that God would bless the Christians in Ephesus with the Holy Spirit so that they may know Jesus. They are already Christians, and yet Paul prays that God would intervene so that they may know Jesus. This shows us that knowledge of Jesus is different than gaining a knowledge of torque or horsepower. There is a deadness and a hostility that needs to be overcome. Understanding the difficulty of knowing Jesus, and asking God to give us his Holy Spirit, let’s return  to the main theme again. Paul is praising God the Father for his glory. The glory that is being praised is “in Christ” this, and “in Christ” that. Let’s briefly go through the accomplishments that God has worked in Christ: He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He has chosen us before God created the world. He makes us holy and blameless. He chose us to be adopted as God’s children by being united with Christ. Paul speaks about the way that we have come to be saved. We have not been saved by the use of Ten Plagues or by the opening up of the Red Sea, like it was with the Israelites. Instead we have been saved by a sacrifice that Jesus has done. In Christ is redemption, the forgiveness of sins, through his blood. He gives us wisdom and insight, not of earthly things, but of heavenly things. Christ came in the fullness of time, as the heart of God’s will toward us. At the end of time all things are going to be brought together in Christ—things in heaven and things on earth. Here, again, we see how mistaken our thoughts about reality can be. Right now it seems of little consequence if a person believes in Christ or not. It can seem much more important how much money, prestige, or fun a person might have. But all things are going to be brought together in Christ. He will be the only thing that matters. Paul says in another place that all things will be put under Jesus’s feet, then he will hand everything over to God the Father, so that God will be all in all. But let’s finish what Paul says in our reading about the things that God accomplishes in Christ. In Christ we have an inheritance. Abraham’s descendants inherited the land of Canaan. We have a greater inheritance in heaven. Finally, in Christ we heard the word of truth, which is the good news of our salvation. And in Christ, when you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is the down payment of the inheritance, the redemption of our bodies. With all of the things that we have talked about God accomplishing in Christ, perhaps you have understood certain things more and other things less. Maybe some of the things sound like torque or horsepower. It is important that we are not satisfied with Paul’s hymn of praise sounding like a bunch of blah, blah, blah. There is literally nothing more important that Paul could possibly be talking about. All things are going to come together in Christ. Plus he is not talking about something that is unrelated to you and to your future. The things that he is talking about are going to affect you directly and personally. This is not a hobby. This is God and you. It is God’s relationship with you. And what are the terms of that relationship? It is the thing that Paul keeps saying over and over in this hymn. The terms of this relationship is: “In Christ, in Christ, in Christ.” So do well to take in hand that strange prayer that Paul has for the Ephesians—that God would give us the Holy Spirit so that we may know Christ. When was the last time that you prayed for God to give you a knowledge of Jesus? Just as a lack of knowledge of the 5.0 liter engine might prevent us from singing its praises, so also it is our lack of knowledge of Jesus that prevents us from joining in with Paul in praising the glory of God in Christ. It is because we do not understand the greatness of what has happened in Christ, that our praise falters. Instead our thoughts and our subsequent praises may well be directed towards other things—ourselves, or our family, or something else of ours, for example. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, you probably have to do a little work to understand the glories of God that Paul is praising him for in our reading. Read through this reading again, later today. Join in with Paul, praising God for the glories he has accomplished in Christ. Those glories of God have been done for you out of love for you.

220102 Sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14 (Christmas 2) January 2, 2022

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:It’s a little jarring, the day after Christmas, to celebrate the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Talking about a fiery man, who wouldn’t shut up, to the point where people pelted him with stones until he died—that stands in stark contrast with a certain view of the Christmas spirit. For many Christmas is a celebration of celebrating. Here we might ask, “What happened to the party?” Now we are talking about somebody who said such stark and stringent things that those who heard them screamed at the top of their lungs, dragging him outside of the city, bludgeoning him with rocks. Merry Christmas, right? But people’s popular conception of Christmas is quite lacking when it comes to the real content of Christmas. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is different than Santa Claus. Jesus is the king of righteousness. Santa Claus, contrary to what you have been told, doesn’t keep track of who is naughty and who is nice. What gets Stephen into trouble is not that he’s been telling everyone he comes across that they are all jolly good fellows. He’s told them that they’ve been naughty. This has ticked them off. They don’t repent. They get even. It is easy for us to forget how fundamental this kind of thing is to life. In our Gospel reading Jesus mentions the blood of righteous Abel. Abel was the second son of Adam and Eve. His older brother, Cain, killed him. Cain was the first human being conceived and born in the natural way. What is this first-born of the whole human race? He’s a murderer. Why does he murder? Because he is corrupt. He wants the good reputation of piety, but he’s not actually pious. God, who knows all things, knew this, and was not deceived by his sacrifice. God had regard for Abel and his honest sacrifice, but he did not have regard for Cain’s sacrifice. Abel was a living, breathing reminder of Cain’s inadequacy, corruption, unwillingness to do what is right. So Cain got rid of him. This kind of thing is archetypical for life on this sin-infested planet. It happens all over the place. There is shady practice after shady practice. We become conditioned to it so that we hardly notice it. If we do notice it and do something about it, we’ll pay dearly for it, so it’s in people’s best interest to ignore it. Let me try to explain the kind of thing I’m talking about. It’s a little hard to explain because it’s easy to think I’m just talking about one isolated thing here and another isolated thing there, when what I’m trying to get across to you is that this is thoroughly enmeshed into lives. But let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about. Let’s say there’s a business that bills by the hour. They start working for you a quarter to the hour until half past the hour. You get billed for two hours because time was spent during each of the hours of the day. Another example: You buy something at Kohls. You use it for what you need, careful not to damage it. Then you return it and get your money back. Another example: Mom or dad tell you to do something. You know what they mean, but you don’t do one iota more than what was literally said, because not each individual step was specifically laid out. Then you can plead innocence, “because you didn’t know.” Another example: Your friends say terrible things. Perhaps they say blasphemous things, but you keep your mouth shut because you don’t want to hurt the relationship. I could go on and on and on with these little things. I’ll spare you that, but let me point out one more thing: whatever your calling, your line of work might be, there is bound to be countless little tricks and lies and manipulations that happen day in and day out. Tiny dishonesties, even. They are assumed to be just the way that stuff gets done, so it probably doesn’t weigh heavily at all on anybody’s conscience. But it is crooked, corrupt, and when the light of truth shines upon it, people can see it unless they’ve become blind. Jesus says that we are to be salt and light in the world. We are to let our yes be yes and our no be no. We are not to try to manipulate anyone. Paul says that we should not be conformed or schematized to this age—to the way that things normally get done. Instead we are to be metamorphosized, transformed in our thinking, to know what the will of God is. We should learn what is good and pleasing to God. This requires active work on our part. What is natural is to always look out for yourself and not give a hoot what is good for others or pleasing to God. That is especially the case if the situation calls for us to be inconvenienced in order to do what is good and acceptable to God. And if we were called upon to suffer—like getting fired, or losing your social status, or being frowned—you can just forget it! It’s not going to happen. But this is precisely what we as God’s children have been called upon to do in this life. We are to be straight, true, forthright, honest in this world. Without a doubt we are surrounded by crookedness and corruption, meanness and envy on every side. But we are to live according to a different set of rules—God’s rules. And that means that we are going to clash with the world around us. We are going to have conflict in work and business. We are going to have conflict with friends and family. We are going to have conflict in a congregation. In all areas of life there is crookedness and corruption. But we are to be true, living sacrifices, commending ourselves to God who judges justly. This is what St. Stephen did. He plainly interpreted the Scriptures in the synagogue of Freedmen. That might have been his own synagogue as well as Saul’s synagogue, who later is known as the apostle Paul. When Stephen interprets the Scriptures as pointing to and culminating in Christ, his compatriots are confounded. God also did signs through Stephen, which God did more often in those apostolic days. Stephen was not making a name for himself. He was testifying to Jesus. He was magnifying Jesus. It is obvious that Stephen does not bear ill will against his fellow men, even though they hate him. You can tell that by his prayer that God would not hold their murdering of him against them. So Stephen suffered and died precisely because he was good. In this way he followed his master Jesus, who also was someone who was straight and true in the midst of a crooked generation who put him to death. Suffering for doing good is a high and holy thing. It is our highest calling as Christians. Stephen was the first Christian whom God chose to honor in such a way. Stephen’s life, testimony, and death are a precious gem. Plus it produced tremendous fruit in the man who would eventually become known as the apostle Paul. Towards the end of the reading, you heard how the men who stoned Stephen put their outer garments at Saul’s feet. (That’s the same man we know of as Paul.) Saul was a ferocious persecutor of Christians, zealous for Jewish orthodoxy, but eventually he was converted by none other than the Lord Jesus when he was on his way to arrest some Christians who were living in Damascus. But people are not usually converted in a single day. I can’t help but think that Paul remembered the testimony, the grace, the forgiveness, and the prayer that came from Stephen. There was no way for Stephen to know that one of those men for whom he prayed would become a great apostle. He certainly wasn’t engineering it in any way. It was natural fruit that grew from the cross that was laid upon him. His suffering for doing good, rather than for doing evil, had God’s own design behind it. But some people might object to calling Stephen good. We have to note this, because such thinking is very common in our day. Some people will say that Stephen wasn’t very good because of the way that he talked to his fellow Jews. He said, “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit!” There are many people who would throw a penalty flag here. He was roughing the hearer. He used unnecessary language. The words were too harsh. He could have said it in a nicer way. Stephen can end up being put on trial instead of the stiff-necked Jews who were resisting the Holy Spirit. Not only can Stephen (and others like him) be put on trial, he can also be found guilty in the court of public opinion. I guarantee you that there were some people there who thought that Stephen got what was coming to him. They were appalled at how he was insubordinate to all the religious leaders in the room. He was too cheeky and bold. He needed to have somebody cut him down to size. It is very important that you realize that when Christians suffer for doing what is good, they are usually painted as being bad by others. And that painting that is done by others can be and often is highly plausible. The apostles and Christians who were put to death were not put to death because they went around telling everyone they were such jolly good fellows. They stepped on a lot of toes, just like Jesus stepped on a lot of toes. Some of the people whose toes got stepped on repented. Others got even. But ultimately such revenge is no matter. As Christians we are free. If you fear God, then you will not fear men nearly as much as you otherwise would. This freedom is a wonderful thing to behold. Did you notice Stephen’s freedom? Perhaps the main reason why the crowd became so stark raving mad at him was precisely because of his freedom. He wasn’t scared of them. He testified to what he saw—Jesus at the right hand of God—even though he knew, and he knew that they knew, that this would absolutely enrage them. When they started to bludgeon him with stones he prayed for Jesus to receive his spirit. He was not thinking of trying to figure out a way to save his life. He was thinking of Jesus. If he were begging for his life, or calculating a way to save his own life, he never would pray a prayer like that. Such a prayer was offensive to the bullies who were going at him. It just added fuel to their fury. It is said of the devil that he is a very proud spirit. The one thing he can’t stand is being despised or neglected. He wants people to think that he is really something. People’s evil spirits are like that too. When they’ve decided that they don’t like a person, the one thing they can’t stand is for that person to be free and easy. They want that person afraid of what might happen to them. They want to control and dominate. However, a very common feature that is seen in a great many of the stories of the early Christian martyrs is that even though they were staring death right in the face, they were not afraid. They were free. But they were also gracious. They were not trying to upset people with their freedom. By the power of the Holy Spirit, they loved those who were hurting them. They prayed for those who persecuted them. Their lack of malice towards the ones who were hurting them is an important sign that makes Christian suffering different from the suffering of others. Now let’s talk about you. You are children of God. You are free. You are to stand up and fight for what is true and right. Then you are to not lose your courage when you get blowback from it. God knows what is going on. You aren’t alone. The people who look like they can do terrible things to you are no match for God. And it might be that God will produce tremendous fruit from the cross that he lays upon you. You can’t know that. But God already does. What’s important is that you understand what Peter says in his first epistle: You should not be ashamed of suffering for doing good. That is a blessed thing, a following after our master, Jesus.

211226 Sermon for St. Stephen, December 26, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:The message that the Bible gives us is that God dwells with his people. In our Old Testament reading today we heard about God entering the tent that God had instructed Moses to build. For about ten chapter of Exodus there are very specific and elaborate instructions that are recorded. The tent had three parts. There was a curtain placed around the whole perimeter, kind of like a wall. The tent itself was to be inside this courtyard. There were two chambers in the tent. The ark of the covenant was to be in the most holy place in the back. That was where God dwelt. In our reading, the glory of God that was manifest in the cloud came to rest in that tent so that Moses could not go into it. When the glory cloud would go up from the tent the people would pack their things. They would follow God wherever he led. When he came to rest, they would unpack their things, including the tabernacle that God had instructed them to build, and they would stay there until the cloud of his glory would go up again. This was a new epoch for God’s people. With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God did not stay with them in such a way. God would appear to the patriarchs from time to time and speak to them by the Angel of the Lord. When he appeared he would give them promises to encourage them. But he did not dwell with them the way that he dwelt with their descendants as he led them out of Egypt with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. After the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle was built, that was the way that God dwelt with his people. Among all the nations of the earth that existed, it was only among the descendants of Jacob that God dwelt. This made them a holy nation. They were blessed by being in God’s presence, whereas those who were not holy were repelled by God’s presence. That’s the way it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Those who have been prepared to be in God’s presence by being forgiven and sanctified find God’s presence to be healthy and life giving. Those who are unholy and sinful bear God’s holiness. The Old Testament, from Exodus onward, has this presence of God among his people at the heart of it. God is present with them first of all in the tabernacle, then later with King Solomon’s temple. Generation after generation God sanctified these people. They were blessed to know him and his Word in this life and were prepared to live with him in a yet more intimate and better way in the next. A new epoch for God’s people came with Jesus. The Apostle John speaks to this in the opening words of his Gospel that we heard this morning: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him everything was made, and without him not one thing was made that has been made… This Word that existed already at the beginning became flesh in the person who was named Jesus. God dwells among us in this Jesus. I mentioned last Sunday that there is nothing in the Old Testament that holds a candle to what the angel Gabriel said to Mary. The God of the Temple and the tabernacle, the God of Mt. Sinai, the God who created the world was going to take up residence in her womb. This is astounding almost to the point of being absurd. On the other hand, though, it is quite in keeping with the general way that God operates. When God chose a nation to be his own, he did not choose the most powerful or populous nation. He chose Abraham, and his wife, Sarah. He chose them when they were childless and already well advanced in years. They didn’t even have any offspring who could receive the inheritance that God was promising to them. With the new epoch of God’s grace that came through Moses, you see the same thing. This people hardly deserved to be called a nation. They were an enslaved people under the Egyptians. They didn’t have any autonomous government. They didn’t have a military. God fought for them and subdued the Egyptians with his mighty arm. They were a wandering band for forty years before they entered into their promised inheritance in Canaan. After that, through all the years when the Israelites lived in Canaan, they never developed into anything more than a regional power. They never became as great as the Egyptians before them or the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans after them. They were a small people with the great God in their midst. The birth of Jesus fits this pattern. At this time the Israelites were again a subjected people. The Romans ruled over them. The flesh and blood for the eternal Son of God was chosen to be from a virgin who didn’t even live in Jerusalem. She lived in Galilee, the hinterlands. It’s quite clear that Mary and Joseph did not have a lot of money. Otherwise they never would have found themselves in the straights that they were in at the time of Jesus’s birth. If they could have afforded it, they probably would have found some better accommodations than a manger for his bed. The sacrifice that they gave at the temple shortly after his birth was the cheaper option of two pigeons instead of the more expensive option of a lamb. Plus, what’s much more, who should believe Mary and Joseph? It’s one thing to be a nobody from nowhere without a penny to your name. It’s another thing to be disbelieved as a charlatan and a fool. To this day there are people who think that it is impossible that Jesus does not have an earthly father. They think that he was conceived by an earthly father out of wedlock. This is how it has always been, however. People who looked at Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would not have believed that God was in their midst. People who looked at the nation of Israel while they were enslaved, but also when they were at the height of their power, would not have thought that God was in their midst. This is especially the case with the virgin Mary. But to those who have believed, this is a wonderful thing in their eyes. God despises the proud, but gives grace to the humble. This general pattern of God’s grace being found among the poor and humble continues on to this day. God dwells in humble little churches that have to struggle to find a way to pay the bills. The big churches with the big endowments, the National Cathedral, or St. Paul’s in London, quite literally have unbelievers preaching unbelief to those who go to hear them. It was not the biggest, most beautiful building within which the Christ child was found. He is content to dwell in places where we wouldn’t even dream of giving birth to our babies. So you do well to not be put off by appearances. The way things look is one thing. What God promises is another. The truth is that God’s people have never looked very impressive. In fact, whenever they started to look impressive they tended to depart from their faithfulness. But God’s people have always been blessed with the most wonderful promises. The same is true for you as God’s people. Take, for example, what was said in our Gospel reading this morning. You, who have believed, have been given the power, the authority, the status of being a child of God. John says you have been born not of blood, or the desire of the flesh, or of the husband’s will. You have been born of God. I cannot conceive of a higher or better thing than that you should have Jesus as your brother and God as your Father. That is what John is saying. This is what God has done by uniting himself with us. The promise is high, almost to the point of absurdity, because the appearances do not match up with it. But the appearances will come eventually when the time is right. Right now we are God’s workmanship. He who has begun a good work in you is going to bring it to completion on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then you will behold the splendor of our God who now works among us in a humble and hidden way, preparing us for the holiness that is to come. That will be the final epoch of God’s grace when everything will be as it should be. 

211225 Sermon for Christmas Day, December 25, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:The prophet Isaiah speaks about the coming Christ hundreds of years before he was born. Isaiah says in our reading tonight: “People walking in darkness have seen a great light. For those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.” Walking in darkness is bewildering. You cannot see where you are going. You cannot anticipate problems or dangers. You might not get to where you are going because you don’t know the way. You might not even know where you are supposed to be going. This is a good description of us. What is life all about? You might get almost as many explanations for what life is all about as the number of people that you encounter. Everybody has different ideas of what happiness is. There are different goals for life. On good days people try their best to get to where they think they will be happy. On bad days people don’t even try. They make peace with the darkness, bide their time. Are they waiting for it all to be over? Since some people try more and other people try less, it might seem as though they should not be put into the same group. It might seem as though some people have their stuff together. They’re going someplace. But this is an illusion. We are all in the darkness. It’s like being in a cave where there is no light whatsoever. Whoever is in that place is in the darkness. It doesn’t matter if people are moving around a lot, or a little bit, or not at all. Perhaps it is nobler to be moving about. At least that’s trying. The thought is that if you keep trying, and you never give up, then maybe you will find the light. Maybe you will arrive at happiness. But this almost makes the situation worse. If everywhere you decide to go is necessarily going to be the wrong place to go, then you are always only busy getting to the wrong place. It’s like Sisyphus from Greek mythology. His punishment in Hades was that he had to roll an immense boulder to the top of the hill, only to have it roll back down to the bottom again where he’d have to start all over. Fighting against the darkness, looking for meaning and happiness, sounds like it’s the thing we should be doing. What good is it, though, if all the striving comes to nothing? In contrast to this dreary darkness, Isaiah’s claim, God’s claim, concerning the Christ, is just as stark and grand as it sounds. “People walking in darkness have seen a great light. For those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.” There is darkness and there is light. All live in the darkness no matter how relatively successful each might be. The light—that’s Jesus. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He is the light that no darkness can overcome. This sounds like it is automatically a good thing. Our problems are solved. In a place where everything is pitch black, to have the light suddenly appear, that’s marvelous. There’s no other way of getting out of the darkness than by this great light. This is true, but the light of Christ is not always welcome. Jesus says, “This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, but the people loved the darkness more than the light. They loved the darkness because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does worthless things hates the light, and does not come near the light, otherwise their works would be exposed.” This, at least, has to be said in defense of the darkness: Darkness seems to give us the freedom to pursue what we want. We do things in secret without really having to think about it, because nobody’s going to know. What isn’t known won’t hurt us. We learn this as little tikes. The darkness seems to give us the freedom to do what we want. So we should not think it is strange, that when this great light dawns upon us, that we can end up hating the light and loving the darkness. We don’t want to make a clean break with our life of doing what we want. There are things that we would like to continue to do in the darkness even after the light has come. It is not uncommon for Christians to want to bring a little piece of hell with them, some sin that has given them solace or satisfaction over the years. But that is not possible. The light obliterates the darkness. This can seem to be a great hardship, but really it isn’t. There is a great delusion with secrecy and darkness. The lie is that what we pursue in the darkness is good because we enjoy it. It’s the spice of life. It’s like an alcoholic thinking of his alcohol as his medicine. He can’t do without it. But the alcohol is not giving him life. It is dishing out death, one dose after another. So it is with all that gets pursued in the darkness. There is an implied promise that we will be blessed by pursuing such things. But all that gets accomplished is that we become more fearful of God and his judgement. The last thing we want is for the light to come and expose what we have been doing. A further delusion is that if we abandon those things that we love to do in the darkness, then life will be boring and lame. But God is not stingy with his blessings. God is well pleased with us creatures doing our creaturely things. He wants us to eat and drink and be merry. Intimate love is so well pleasing to him that he crowns it with the birth of children. A trick gets pulled on us when we think that pursuing illicit things in the darkness is the only way we are ever going to be truly happy. One old Christian thinker said that evil is not able to create anything. It only takes things that are good and twists them, perverts them, so that they become shameful. There might be a bit of truth lurking in the idea of taking something of hell with us into heaven. Whatever is truly good, whatever comes from the Creator, that gets twisted in the darkness, this goodness is stored up for us in heaven. It is the darkness that we have to leave behind, not the goodness. It is the lying that we have to leave behind, not the enjoyment. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus is good. Light is good. The light purifies and gives life. These things are true, no matter what anybody might say about them. Jesus has not come to take anything away from us except the darkness, the lies, and the sins. He does not take away. He gives. The first thing from which everything else must flow is the way that God accepts us and takes us in as his own. Isaiah says, “For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given.” This is speaking about Jesus. Jesus was born and given as God’s gift to us. As the Redeemer and Mediator he reconciles sinners with God. For the sake of Jesus, and his cleansing blood, we do not need to be afraid when God’s light exposes our lives. For the sake of Jesus we are well pleasing to God. Once we have understood that God accept us, saves us, justifies us in Jesus, we can begin to live a new life. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Taking up our cross and following Jesus, we learn from him what is good and what is evil. What is good is love. What is evil is a bad conscience before God, and a fearing of his light. Slinking about, fearing exposure, is not good. It never has been good. It never will be good. That’s because it is alienation from God from whom all good things come. Jesus’s redemption overcomes this alienation and reconciles us to God. Every single one of us has been redeemed by Jesus. Through him we can live in light. Then we are not living in dread, fearing exposure, but are looking forward to more light and more life from God. Apart from Christ there is only darkness. Nobody knows what he or she is doing as they search about for happiness. It inevitably ends with the futility of death, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. “But,” as Isaiah says, “To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given.” “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. For those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.” He does not come to take away anything from you except the lies and the sins that were never really good for you anyway. Trust in him. Follow him. Then you will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

211224 Sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 (Christmas Eve) December 24, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Let’s begin by setting the scene for our Gospel reading this morning. Earlier in this first chapter of Luke he speaks of the way that two baby boys were miraculously conceived. One of them was John the Baptist. The other was Jesus. John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was a priest. One day he had the honor of doing the priestly duties in the Temple when an angel of the Lord appeared to him. Zechariah was frightened, but the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid. Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son. You are to name him John.” This was astounding to Zechariah because he and his wife had been unable to have children. Now this angel was telling him that he would have a son when he and Elizabeth were old. Because he did not believe the angel, God made him mute. From that time until his son was born, and Zechariah wrote on a tablet that his name was to be John, he was not able to speak. When his ability to speak returned to him, he sang the song that we call the Benedictus. This is the song that we sometimes sing during the Matins service instead of the Te Deum. This baby, born to Zechariah and Elizabeth in their old age, was John the Baptist. His conception was miraculous because his parents were old and otherwise unable to have children. The other miraculous conception is what happened with Mary. Mary lived in Nazareth of Galilee. She was engaged to be married to Joseph. One day God sent the angel Gabriel to her. He said, “Hello, you who are highly favored by the Lord. The Lord is with you.” Mary was perplexed at his words, and tried to figure out what sort of greeting this was. The angel responded, “Do not be afraid. God is well pleased with you. You will conceive and bear a Son. The name you should give him is Jesus. He will be the Son of the Most High. God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” As you can imagine, Mary had a hard time understanding this. She asked how this would be, since she was a virgin.  Gabriel answered that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, the power of the Most High will overshadow her. That is why the child who is born of her will be holy. He will be the Son of God. Mary responded in a wonderful way. There has never been a higher Word that has been spoken to a human being. There is nothing in the Old Testament that even holds a candle to what the angel just said to Mary. She doesn’t ask for any signs or wonders to confirm the word. She simply responded, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your Word.” The Gospel reading that you heard this morning is what immediately follows after this. The angel had told Mary that her relative, Elizabeth, was also pregnant, sixth months along. Mary went to visit her. She went from Galilee in the north down to the south, south of Jerusalem, into the hill country. Zechariah and Elizabeth were living in a town somewhere in this region. You heard how several unusual things happened and were said when Mary arrived at their house. When Mary said hello, John the Baptist leaped and stirred about in the womb of his mother. Elizabeth then is filled with the Holy Spirit and confesses her faith. She believes in the baby whom Mary is carrying in her womb. That baby would only be called an embryo in our medical terms. Jesus was only weeks old at that point, a tiny human being. Elizabeth, like Mary, believes in the Word of the Lord. This child is God’s Son, miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth is wonderfully comforting and encouraging to Mary. If people at that time were anything like they are at our time, then Mary would not have been treated very respectfully by everyone she came across. The way Elizabeth treated Mary must have been a nice reprieve for her. You can perhaps picture an older woman comforting a younger woman who otherwise might be treated quite roughly and rudely by others. In her comforting, Elizabeth especially points to Mary’s faith. She tells Mary that it was very good that she had believed. The promises that God spoke to her are going to be fulfilled. Then Mary sings a song. You might also be familiar with this song. We call it the Magnificat. It is sung during Evening Prayer or Vespers. It is a great psalm, as great as any that you might find in the Bible. The opening theme pervades everything that Mary has to say: “My soul magnifies the Lord,” or “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” Her thoughts are taken up with the promises and power of God. This is remarkable when you consider what else is going on with her. She had left Nazareth and gone way down to the south. Luke doesn’t say why she did that, but it might be because she all of a sudden became pregnant. Not everybody is going to believe that that child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. She is very pious, but in the eyes of others, it appears that she is a sinner. She also must have been concerned about what her fiancé, Joseph, might think of her. The first thought that would come to anyone’s mind would be that she had been unfaithful. He knew it wasn’t his child, so whose was it? Joseph, for his part, also had a great faith. When he was told in a dream that the child the virgin Mary was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit he believed it. This was another miracle, a gift from God. Regardless, however, this must have weighed upon Mary’s mind. In general, Mary was not in a powerful and proud state as far as her circumstances were concerned. There would have been plenty for her to complain about and to feel sorry for herself about. There is not the slightest hint, however, of self-pity in her song. In fact, the song is a song of victory, like the great psalms in the Old Testament. Mary is joyously defiant of anyone who would be her enemy. This is not because she found some self-worth inside of herself or embraced her feminine power. It was because she believed in the Lord her God. Specifically she believed that God had not despised her for her humility (like human beings tend to do), but instead had chosen her. Since God had chosen her there was nothing that should hamper her joy even though there was plenty of fodder available for feeling blue if she had wanted to pursue such thoughts. Here we have a good lesson concerning faith. We should learn it well, so that our souls may magnify the Lord along with her. It is not enough to believe that God or Jesus exists. It is not enough to believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, died on Good Friday, and was resurrected on Easter. These are all facts that the demons are surer of than we ever will be. Faith is when you believe that the Lord your God is for you. He’s on your side. He has chosen you. He’s begun a good work in you. Having begun a good work in you, he will bring it to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. It can be hard to believe that the Lord God has chosen you. Just consider your humble estate. I see no royalty before me to day. Consider, more dreadfully, the bad things that you have done. You’ve broken all of God’s commandments. You haven’t been loveable. And yet you’ve been loved. God’s love for you has prompted him to see to all your needs of body and soul. There is no element of your life that has not been seen to by God. Redemption has been worked by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He did this sacrifice one time and it was for all people. It is the great sacrifice that makes all things clean. He has brought the word of his favor to you, just like he brought it to Zechariah or to Mary. One way or another God has said to you, “You are my highly favored one.” It probably wasn’t by an angel. It might have been when you were baptized. It might have been when you heard some preaching. It might have been when you were talking with a friend. Barring all those other ways, it is being spoken to you now. Whatever way that word has come to you, you should believe that God is for you. That he has chosen you for salvation. Your sins cannot stop God. He is more powerful than your sins. He is more powerful than anything. He is more powerful than death. He is more powerful than the United States of America. He brings down rulers from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. You can be joyous no matter what your circumstances might be when you realize that God is for you. He has chosen you. There is nothing that can stop your happiness because there is nothing that can stop God who is for you. “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” We talked about that last week. You can rejoice in the Lord in any and every circumstance. There is no exception whatsoever because God is more powerful than everything and anything. But remember what I said about that rejoicing. It doesn’t mean that you have to have a smile on your face or that you have to jump and skip around. Inwardly the Christian may be rejoicing while outwardly there are all kinds of bad things going on. But we have been set free from being slaves to our circumstances. We are not dependent upon good circumstances in order to have our joy in God. Mary had joy despite many things that would have been very discouraging. She rejoiced in God her Savior. She would continue to have joy in her Savior. When Jesus was just born, and when Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple, old Simeon made a prophesy concerning Jesus and concerning Mary. He told Mary that Jesus would cause the rise and fall of many in Israel. He would be a sign that was spoken against. And as for Mary, a sword would pass through her soul, he said. A sword would pierce Mary’s soul. Like any mother she loved her child. Furthermore, she believed the Word that was spoken to her about him. She believed that he was the Holy One of God. And yet Jesus was denounced as a heretic. He was said to be possessed. He was said to be an agent of Satan. He was mocked and crucified. Mary was at the cross with only a tiny handful of others who were courageous enough to show their love for him at his darkest hour. Don’t think that Mary had to have taken back her Magnificat when that sword was passing through her soul. Don’t think that Christian joy is dependent upon the circumstances that we are in. Those whom God loves he also chastises. The path by which we are led into eternal life is one that is specifically tailored for us. It has highs and lows. It is filled with unexpected twists and turns. It teaches us not to rely upon ourselves or upon the strength of our faith or upon any good works that we might do. God teaches us to rely upon him. Though the earth be moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of the seas, we will not fear. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. So you may sing the Magnificat, not just as Mary’s song, but as your song, regardless of your outward circumstances. Your outward circumstances, to be sure, are different than the outward circumstances that Mary found herself in when she sang this song. But what matters is that your inward circumstances are the very same as her inward circumstances. Why is Mary singing? It is because the Lord has done great things for her. He has chosen her. He is her Savior. Those very same things are also true for you. It does not matter who you are or what you have done in the past. Jesus died for you. You are highly favored by God. Believe this and it is yours.

211219 Sermon on Luke 1:39-56 (Advent 4) December 19, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Rejoicing is celebrating, being happy. We know how to rejoice. We rejoice when good things happen to us. We rejoice when we get some unexpected money, when we get a good deal, when it’s time to have fun with friends. Nobody has to tell us to rejoice. The circumstances prompt us to rejoice. We might not even be able to help it. There are two modifiers, though, to Paul’s command to rejoice. We are to rejoice in the Lord. That’s the one modifier. The other modifier is that we are to rejoice always. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? We know how to rejoice in good circumstances. How do we rejoice in the Lord? This can only be done through faith. There is no way for anyone to know the Lord God except if he reveals himself to them. Only those who believe in what he has revealed of himself can ever rejoice in him. What has God revealed about himself? He is your God. You are his people. In the whole Bible this is always what he has to say, no matter who he is dealing with, so long as they are his chosen ones. He says the same thing to all of them: I am your God. You are my people. Stay close to me. I am your rock and your castle. For you I strive and wrestle. I am yours and you are mine and where I am you may remain. The foe shall not divide us. Whereas the circumstances are what make us rejoice otherwise, what makes us rejoice in the Lord is what he has revealed of himself to us. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. His mercy endures forever. Just as you might rejoice that you can put some new-found money into your pocket, so you can rejoice that God is yours and you are God’s. This good relationship is something to rejoice about. The other modifier is that we should rejoice always in the Lord. Nobody’s in the habit of rejoicing always. Nobody celebrates always. The party has to come to an end sometime. The circumstances that cause us to rejoice either get taken for granted or go away. We do not rejoice always. And Paul is not calling upon us to rejoice always in the normal way we use that word. We are to rejoice always in the Lord. This means that our rejoicing is probably going to look a little different than the rejoicing and celebrating that we might see or experience with Christmas presents, for example. Sometimes people get the idea that the Christian life is supposed to be uninterrupted happiness, never-failing victory, a charmed life. This is not what we see, though, when we examine the people who have believed in God before us in the Bible. We do not see this even with Jesus. He did not always skip around with a smile on his face. He didn’t look this way when he was being whipped or crucified. When he was looking ahead to the suffering that was coming upon him, he prayed that the cup should pass from him. And yet, we must say that Jesus rejoiced in the Lord always. Rejoicing in the Lord does not have to match up with certain looks on one’s face or even certain feelings or emotions. Rejoicing in the Lord is inextricably tied up with faith in him. To believe in him is to trust in his salvation. No matter what might come our way, no matter which cross God might lay upon us, we can rejoice in our salvation. We can rejoice always, because salvation is his business and not ours. Since it is his business, and not ours, we can rest assured that it will never fail. Consider Paul who penned these words. Earlier in the letter he says that he is writing while he is shackled with chains. He is in prison for preaching the Gospel. He is on his way to Rome where he will be tried and falsely found guilty. Since he was a Roman citizen it is thought that he was executed by having his head chopped off instead of being crucified. Being crucified was considered to be too shameful of a punishment for Roman citizens. Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and non-citizens. In the midst of all of this perhaps Paul’s rejoicing may have occasionally faltered, for he was flesh and blood like any one of us. But in the main, there’s no reason to think otherwise than that he continued to rejoice in the Lord always. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he was grinning or skipping while he was being led to the executioner. People think rejoicing has to mean a certain look or a certain visible emotion. But that’s a rather superficial way of thinking. Paul believed in the Lord his God and rejoiced. Would he have rather had his head on a pillow rather than on the chopping block? Perhaps. But he took what the Lord gave him, trusting in his steadfast mercy. Apply this also to yourself. Unless Christ comes back first, one day you are going to be dying. The circumstances will probably be such where you definitely do not feel like rejoicing in the normal way that this word is used and understood. But you are not a slave to your circumstances, where the circumstances dictate everything that’s going on with you. You have a relationship with the Lord. It is my great wish for you that you are blessed to have someone with you at that time to help you die well. I hope that you have someone who knows God’s revelation of himself to us. Knowing that revelation, that person can tell you about the Lord God. Knowing God’s revelation, you can rejoice in the Lord while you are dying. There’s nothing magical that has to happen. There’s nothing that has to be charged with the right emotions, or perfectly persuasive. All that’s necessary is to hear what God says about himself and about you. What God has said is that he is yours, and you are his. You can stay with him. The foe can’t divide you. Just as God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision, so God has given us the sign of baptism. God says so often in the Old Testament that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the believing descendants of Israel always rejoiced to hear that. The Lord was their God. Their God was for them, no matter what circumstances they happened to be in. You are a Christian. You have been given the name of Christ. You are baptized into him. You have eaten his body and drank his blood. The Lord God has revealed himself to you thoroughly. What he reveals about himself is that he forgives you and graciously receives you. No matter what happens to you, you cannot be separated from this God, because he has joined himself to you. Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” He really means it. Rejoice in the Lord always. Death can be really hard. It can be really painful. But in the midst of this sorrow and sadness you can look to your God’s salvation of you like it’s a north star. It is a true guide. It will not lead you astray. It’s the only true guide. It’s not uncommon the hear people say that they hope that they die in their sleep or that they will die very suddenly. There’s nothing wrong, per se, about dying in your sleep or very suddenly, but I think it’s overrated. This kind of talk makes people hope for something that doesn’t happen all that often. Plus it makes people afraid to die in a slower way. That’s not good. We’re already screwed up enough as it is when it comes to our feeble attempts to cope with dying and death. We don’t need to have Christians fear it on top of all that. A good death is one where a person is given the opportunity to rejoice in the Lord by hearing his promises, even while their body is shutting down. A good death is one where the person who is dying is given the opportunity to believe in Jesus’s victory over death, even while they are experiencing the unpleasant side effects that go along with death. The person who dies with trust in Christ the crucified dies well, no matter what the circumstances of that death might be. Helping your friends and your loved ones to die well does not take a lot of smarts. You don’t have to be a gifted speaker. The main thing that it requires is courage. To help that courage along it is also very helpful to be well catechized, to know God’s revelation. If a person does not feel like they know who God is and what he has revealed, they probably won’t have the confidence to speak about him—especially in such a fraught and stressful situation. Regardless, the main thing that is needed is courage. I have become convinced that there are powers and principalities that shut us Christians down from talking to one another about God and what God has revealed. We are comfortable talking about the weather, about sports, about what-have-you, but if someone starts to talk about God we get very nervous. It’s as though this is something that is strictly set apart. Only the pastor can speak that way. This is false, false, false. By your baptism you have been given the keys to the kingdom of God. You have been given all that Christ has. There is nothing that a pastor has that you don’t already have by virtue of your baptism. The only difference is that God has given me the job of doing this full time. The Law or the Gospel that you might speak is no less effective or powerful than the Law or the Gospel that I might speak. The Sacrament that you might administer, an emergency baptism, for example, is no different from the Sacrament that I would administer. All of this is to say that you are fully equipped to tell your loved ones about the God who has revealed himself to us in Christ the crucified and risen. You may urge your loved ones to rejoice in the Lord always, just as I’ve urged you in this sermon. The message that makes all the difference is the one that says God has chosen you. This is what we are to believe in. I can authoritatively declare that God has chosen you because he has baptized you. You are hearing his word as it is being spoken right now. This Word of God says that he is yours and you are his. Where he is, you may remain. The foe shall not divide you. How can we not rejoice (even if it be quietly and inwardly) when we hear that we have such a great and powerful friend as God himself? If there were any circumstances over which we  could rejoice, it certainly has to be this. The mercy of God is beyond our comprehension. His power knows no bounds. He loves you and receives you, even though you are a sinner. There is peace between God and you because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

211212 Sermon on Philippians 4:4 (Advent 3) December 12, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Last week’s reading was the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes. Our reading tonight is chapters 5 and 6. Our reading next week will be the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. So our reading tonight is from the middle of the book. It is a continuation of the theme that was established right away at the beginning. We talked about this last week: All is vanity. All is vapor, totally vapor. It vanishes in the wind. Nothing lasts on this earth. Our reading tonight brought up several topics. I’d like to focus on just one of them: work. A common reaction that people have when they hear that all is vanity, whatever we might work for is not going to last, is that we might as well just give up. We might as well not get out of bed in the morning. We certainly shouldn’t work. We should just live for pleasure—doing whatever we think is going to be the most enjoyable. These are usually all kinds of leisurely activities that we otherwise do not normally pursue because we are busy doing our work. This, we suppose, would be a lot better if it is vain to build towers that reach to the heavens or try to make a name for ourselves by becoming great. But this desire to escape into pleasure is also vanity. Living this way does not provide the happiness that it is supposed to. Leisurely activities are great as a change of pace. Special food and drink is delicious when it is a treat. When these things become standard fare, we become bored and restless with these just like we do with anything else. There seems to be a general law in life that we build up a tolerance to stimulants in our using of them. Very often the idea of doing something is better than the actual doingof it. For example, I have known several different people who have gotten a house on a lake. Going to the lake is a lot of fun. Boating, fishing, waterskiing, and what have you all sound like lots of fun, and they are. The whole reason why a person might buy a house on a lake is because they’ve engaged in these activities and like them. They’d like to be able to pursue them more often and more easily. But in the cases that I know of, where a person buys a house on the lake, they eventually quit doing these activities. They are all fun for a while, but then they quit being as fun. Maybe these activities end up only being done when there’s company. The company enjoys it, because it’s different and fresh for them, but the people who live there could take it or leave it. So it seems as though people should be happier if they are not working and can devote themselves full time to their leisure activities, but that is not the case. Often respectable people will look down at those who don’t have jobs with the idea that they are undeserving of any pity. It is thought that those without jobs must be living it up, having a grand old time. Generally speaking, I do not think that this is the case. Life for these folks appears to be a seeking after one escape after another. They are looking to escape their boredom and misery but they cannot. All is vanity. This dream of letting yourself go, indulging in one treat after another, is supposed to make a person happy, but it does not. It is in this regard that I think Solomon’s words about work are instructive as an alternative to how we naturally think. He says, “The worker’s sleep is sweet, whether he eats little or eats much.” He also says, “It is beautiful to eat, to drink, and to look for good in all a person’s hard work which he has done under the sun.” Here we have some positive thoughts about work that come from a man whose general theme otherwise is that all is vanity. The fact is that we human beings were created to work. Even before the fall into sin God put Adam in the garden. He was to look after it and tend it. He was to exercise dominion over it and give names to all the animals. God did not set him upon a couch where he could be fed grapes and fanned and massaged. These things are good in their place, but the place for rest and relaxation is that those activities are not to be the main thing in life. If they are the main thing in life, then we won’t be truly happy. The main thing in life is that we should be active, that we should work. This is something good. I certainly hope that God has blessed you with the experience, at least at one time or another, where you have found work to be pleasant. On the other hand, I have no doubt whatsoever that you have all experienced work to be a burden. That’s very common. It is rarer (but not that rare) that we should also enjoy our work from time to time. Sometimes even when we are really huffing and puffing, slaving away, there may well be a part of us that rejoices. I also hope that you have been blessed by God with the experience of a worker’s sleep being sweet. Sleep after hard work is mighty refreshing. It’s similar to the way that hunger is the best spice. Ordinary food can taste mighty good to the one who is hungry. The joy in that sleeping and in that eating cannot be bought with any amount of money. It can only be known by the one who has experienced it. But it can only be experienced by the one who also has suffered somewhat. I’ve done some hard labor during my life. I’ve known the sweetness of sleep and the goodness of food and drink. But I also know how I’m happy to be done with the hard work that brings about these pleasures. I was glad when the summer was over and I could go back to school and not have to sweat it out in the heat. So something that the fall into sin seems to have done to us is that we have lost our enduring joy in work. Thank God we catch glimpses of it every now and then otherwise work would be more disagreeable than it already is, but for the most part our joy in our work is fleeting. Regardless, to me it seems helpful to point out that work is good for its own sake. Work is good if you are doing one thing or another thing. Work is good if you work indoors or outdoors. Work is good if you get paid a lot or if you get paid a little, or if you are only receiving room and board. What is good about work is that it is productive and helpful. But we are prone to grumble and complain, and thus make work a torture. Bitterness with our work makes the work all the harder. Instead of thinking about the work that we do, and doing the work well, we end up trying to escape it. We think about how our coworkers are no good, our tasks are no good, our pay is no good. We’d be a whole lot better off if we worked someplace else, with different tasks to do, with better pay. Sadness, laziness, despair, meanness, and a whole bunch of other evil spirits crowd out all joy. It is usually these unhappy people who look with the most envy and anger at those who do not work at all. They wish that they could do the same as them. But these are things that cannot be solved by changing outward circumstances. We are dealing with spiritual things here. A diseased spirit cannot be happy no matter what job that person might have. A diseased spirit cannot be happy whether the person works or not. On the other hand, a healthier spirit is going to find joy in work no matter what crosses are placed upon the person. A healthier spirit does not believe that coveting is the key to success. A healthier spirit does not believe that making monuments with money or accomplishments is the key to happiness. A healthier spirit is thankful to God rather than being engaged in never-ending negativity. Notice that I said “a healthier spirit” instead of simply saying “a healthy spirit.” On this earth there is no one who has arrived at perfect health after the fall into sin. The only exception to that is Jesus. There you see a healthy spirit, who rejoices in the will of the Father, no matter what the will of the Father might be. With us, and with our fallen flesh, we will not arrive at perfect health until we are purified in heaven. Then we will know what it was like for Adam to work before the fall into sin. But until then, even the best of us are going to be tried with times of grumbling and sadness. It is important, however, that we see these things for what they are. They are not good. I know that it is unbelievably common for us to grumble and complain with our work. It’s so common that nobody thinks twice about it being acceptable. But bitterness, boredom, sadness, envy, and other common afflictions with work do not come from good sources. They come from evil sources. There’s nothing the devil would like more than to strip us of all joy and thankfulness. He would have us be blind to anything that is good, and super-attentive to all that is bad. Our work—no matter what that work might be, whether we are paid for that work or not—is a very important part of our life. If this part of our life can be ruined by evil spirits, then what great sadness the devil can work upon the earth! Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Prayer is a good way to drive the evil spirits away. Thankfulness, also, that is, praising and giving thanks to God, is a powerful tonic for our sadness. With the way that Solomon says that all is vanity, a person might think that this would be true also about our work. But Solomon does not say that work is vanity. If you work for money and prestige and retirement, then, to be sure, that is vanity! But that is not why work is given to us. Work is the way that we can live happily and help other people. Work is an important part of our lives as God’s creatures. God drive away evil spirits from you and give you his Holy Spirit. May your hearts be filled with love and thankfulness.

211208 Sermon on work (Advent 2 Midweek) December 8, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:We spend a lot of our lives getting prepared. Children get prepared to go to school. Those in school get prepared to go to college. Those in college prepare for getting a job. Those with a job prepare for getting a house. We get prepared for marrying a spouse. We get prepared for having a child. We get prepared for grandchildren. We get prepared for retirement. We get prepared by writing a will. We get prepared for having a funeral. We prepare for a lot of things. One of the things that we should be prepared for, but often don’t prepare for, is to meet Jesus. The necessity of preparing for other things is obvious. We know that we have to prepare, otherwise it isn’t going to happen. When it comes to meeting Jesus a common thought seems to be: “I’m already prepared." “I went to Vacation Bible School when I was a kid. I went to Sunday School.” But these are pretty shabby preparations. Even lackadaisically attending the divine service every week can be pretty shabby. We prepare much more thoroughly for all kinds of other endeavors in our life. What if kids studied God’s Word as hard as they study to get a good job? But that doesn’t happen. The reason is that we don’t care. We figure that we’re already prepared, so we can indulge in whatever we might want to indulge in as the main thing in our life. This is strange, if you think about it. How can anything be more important than meeting God? But we are not nearly so logical or wise as we like to believe. Unbelief is deeply seated in our flesh. We lack the ability to think seriously about our Maker. We follow every distraction that might come our way. It’s like we’re supposed to be on our journey to God, but every off-ramp that comes along we can’t help but take. The billboard says, “Pleasure here!” And off we go. “Honors and recognition here!” and we put on our blinker. We are ready and willing to prepare for absolutely anything that holds out promise for our happiness and blessing, so long as it is not the one thing needful. This is why it is necessary for God to send John the Baptists. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for the Lord. Like a good roadbuilder he shaves off the mountains and hills and fills in the valleys. He makes the crooked places straight. He makes the rough places smooth. Or, to continue on with the analogy that I’ve already started, the John the Baptists whom God sends put up roadblocks for the exits on the highway to our God. We need to prepare to meet the Christ. We’re never going to be prepared if we are always getting off the highway to pursue any and every other goal besides meeting our Maker. But the John the Baptists whom God sends do not have a very easy time doing this. With practically all the prophets whom God calls to be his messengers, they all answer pretty much the same way. They all say, “Not me. I don’t want to do this.” People are stubborn as mules. We want to do what we want to do. While we are doing what we want to do we want to be assured that what we are doing is fine. It is in the nature of roadblocks that they are essentially saying, “This isn’t fine. You aren’t fine if you do this.” People don’t like hearing this. This is what brought about John the Baptist’s death, as Luke mentions at the end of our reading. He told Herod and Herodias that it was wrong for them to divorce their spouses so that they could be together. They were committing adultery with each other. They, and especially Herodias, did not like this. When an opportunity arose to remove the head of John the Baptist from his shoulders and put it on a silver platter, she jumped at the chance. She didn’t repent. She got even. Or so she thought, anyway. She thought that she won in a contest between herself and John the Baptist, but John the Baptist was never playing her game. All true prophets and all genuine Christians do not say what they say because they want to dominate over other people. They do not put up roadblocks because they want to throw their weight around like a bad cop. They are following instructions that have been given to them by God. Herodias thought that she was in a contest with John the Baptist, but the fact of the matter is that her contest was with God. She proved her guilt by the way she treated the prophet whom God sent her. She thought she won, but she is going to lose. John the Baptist, for his part, lost nothing when he lost his head. He too was and is dealing with God. God doesn’t need glue to put his head back on. His ways of healing are much more marvelous than that. Doing the right thing, acting according to the Word of God regardless of the consequences, is powerfully comforting. John the Baptist could be satisfied that he had said and done what was right. Those who are warned, however, and plunge right on ahead, driving through the roadblock, their consciences testify against them. That’s the best case scenario. If they still have a conscience there’s a chance that they can still get back on the highway to God. If they become proud of their rebellion against God, then there’s less and less hope for them as time goes on. They confirm themselves and strengthen themselves in their errors. They are lost in the imaginations of their hearts. They don’t know the way to the highway. They cease to know what is really good and what is really evil. They don’t know which way to go. They end up going after the things that they think are good, which are actually worthless or evil. They don’t do what is good because it does not suit their fancies or advance their own ambitions. By all outward appearances they may appear perfectly fine or more than fine. They might still retain membership in the church. But God judges justly. Whether a rebuke, a warning, a roadblock was justified or not is something that God is going to decide. Whatever you might think about it won’t matter in the slightest. Christianity is a religion of repentance. It’s been a religion of repentance from the very beginning. Adam and Eve had to change directions. The whole Bible testifies to practically all the great ones needing to change direction. Repentance is painful. It always feels better to believe that we are just fine the way that we are. But the way we are is sinful and unclean. If we just continue according to our own inclinations, then it is inevitable that we will not be on the highway to our God. Since Christianity is a religion of repentance, it is extremely important that we be sensitive to the John the Baptists that God sends into our life for our own good. Some of these people who speak God’s truth to us might be called by God to preach in an official and public capacity—like me as a pastor. Others will not be officially called, but will speak God’s Word because they are Christians. Regardless of how God sends his Word to you, be careful that you do not despise it. It might seem that whatever gets said to you is not God’s Word. It is easy to think that whatever gets said is just a personal hang-up of the person (or the goody-two-shoes) who is talking. It is easy to resent being told what to do. It is easy to deflect the message that should bring about repentance into something else. A person, for example, could complain about John the Baptist’s appearance, or his diet, or his harsh words. But all these are besides the point. If you are confronted by a Word from God that gets your goat, here is some advice. Step back for a moment and think about what is going on. Ask yourself whether this person who is talking to you hates you. Do you think John the Baptist hated those who he talked to? Even though he could become very angry, it was not hatred that prompted him to speak. Even when he called the crowds who were coming to him a brood of vipers, it was so that they would wake up and repent. Perhaps the one who has spoken to you desires goodness and happiness for you. They can see that the way that you are going is definitely not going to turn out well. Even if God doesn’t take away your happiness in this life, you will be responsible for your rebellion against him in the next. On the other hand, it is possible that the one whom you are dealing with could be evil. It is certainly possible for people to abuse each other spiritually. It’s not like every rebuke and warning has to be automatically listened to. Sometimes the person whom you are dealing with hates you, and, for example, wants to dominate over you. Plus they do it in the Name of God. Shame on them! They will be severely judged for doing that, for there is hardly a worse sin a person could commit than to mislead and harm while claiming to speak for God. Jesus warns us against wolves wearing sheep’s clothing. It is important, therefore, that we do not simply accept whatever anybody and everybody might say. We’ve been given the Bible to know what is right and what is wrong. No human being, no matter how saintly or kindly that person might appear to be, has the right to contradict Scripture. So if someone speaks to you in such a way where he or she is claiming that it is what God says, then you do well to see that it is found in Scripture. In this endeavor, though, make sure that you don’t let the devil or your flesh trick you. The devil has been known to quote Scripture too. Sometimes people can be awfully clever, twisting the Scriptures towards their own purposes. There are big challenges in knowing whether something that has been said is true to God’s Word or not. Such is life. Don’t be a lazy fool, like so many, who say that they can’t be bothered to know whether something is true or not. They want to pass off this task to someone else so that they are no longer responsible. You should recognize this as a foolish thought if you only think about what is going on. It’s not like this is some isolated part of our existence that we can hire someone to do for us. This is talking about the main thing. There is the highway to our God with many exits. If we end up getting off the highway, and then complain about it being hard knowing where to go, there is no one who is going to suffer for that except one’s self. There is a divine story to all of our lives. God is dealing with each one of us. While we are in the midst of it, we usually don’t have the perspective where we can see the big picture. I’m old enough now to look back on my own life and see some critical moments where God sent a John the Baptist into my life. I must continue to be on the lookout for these gifts from God—gifts that are sometimes really painful. I will need these gifts until I’m safely laid into the grave if Christ doesn’t come first. Eventually everyone will be able to see those critical moments in their life where they were urged to repent. It is so important that we not be like Herod and Herodias. It is so important that we do not get mad at John the Baptist instead of listening to him. Otherwise the rebukes and warnings that get spoken to us might haunt us eternally. We might wish with every fiber of our being that we had heeded the warning instead of plunging headlong into whatever it was that we wanted to continue to do. This is not child’s play. It is not the case that what is important about your life is all the other stuff and church is just a hobby or a custom. The highway to our God is the main thing. See to it that you stay on the steep and narrow way.

211205 Sermon on Luke 3:1-20 (Advent 2) December 5, 2021

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:We tend to get comfortable with certain interpretations and understandings of our life where we figure we know what things are all about and we take that for granted. Who we are, and what we hope for, end up being pretty stable. We know who we are and we know what we would like to have happen. We might accumulate some wisdom for ourselves. We lay down some rules for ourselves, which we figure should help us get what we want. We are something of a work-in-progress. We make our way through the course of this life, trying to do the best for ourselves. The hope is that tomorrow will be better than today. Maybe, through wisdom and hard work, we can bring about a better tomorrow. These kinds of thoughts are what Solomon calls in this short book of Ecclesiastes “vapor,” or another way that this same word gets translated in older translations: “vanity.” This is a peculiar word. The only way that anybody is going to learn anything about what the word means is from the Bible. Outside of the Bible nobody ever speaks this way. “Vapor” or “breath” is a good literal translation, but there’s something more that needs to be understood about it. It is not just the mist or the puff of air. It’s really about the way that something so quickly goes away. Forgive me for my crudeness here, but it’s like someone passing gas in a 40 mile an hour wind. That fart isn’t going to stick around for long. It’s here one moment. Less than a moment later, it is gone forever. You can’t put it in a bottle and store it on the shelf, no matter how hard you try. Resistance is futile. “Futility” is another good word to use to help us understand what Solomon and the Bible mean by “vanity.” Instead of saying that everything is vapor, or everything is vanity, you could also say, “Everything is futile.” There’s no getting around it. There’s no working harder or smarter. The end has been predetermined, and there’s nothing that can change it. Of all the thoughts a person could possibly think, there is no thought that the world hates more than this one. Most people will not even allow themselves to go there. They don’t even think about it. It is strictly forbidden. Such thoughts are evil. Take, for example, a cancer diagnosis. Not all cancer diagnoses are the same. Some are quite curable. Others are terminal. Even with a terminal diagnosis of cancer, however, it is against the rules to say that resistance is futile. This is especially the case if a person is young and otherwise healthy. It is so unbelievably impolite, or even evil, to say that there’s nothing to be done. Instead what everyone is supposed to say is that there’s always hope. Who knows? Maybe there’s some experimental treatment. Maybe herbal medicine might help. Hope is dished out by everyone, including the doctors, until the bitter, bitter end. It’s not until the patient is on the morphine drip that the truth may be aired that curative efforts are futile. By then the patient might already be in a coma. Even at this point, however, we still don’t give up. Immediately the gears get changed. If we get stuck going one direction, then we’ll back up and go another. If one hope is dashed, then it’s time to move on to another. And so at the death bed the family might start to think and talk about the way that the one who is dying will be remembered. The hope for them to continue to live physically is futile, but surely the person can live on in the memories of the people who are left behind. Hope springs eternal. This too, unfortunately, is vanity. It’s not going to happen. The memories are going to die just like their bodies did. The next generation might hold on to some memories. But what about the generation after that? By the time the third or fourth generation rolls around the memories are completely and totally obliterated. You can know this just by consulting what you yourself know. Maybe you remember some of your great-grandparents. What kind of memories, though, do you have of those great-grandparents who died before you were born? That’s just three generations back. Four generations and the best you can hope for is that the name is remembered. Which of you can quickly and easily recall even the names of your 16 great-great grandparents? You probably have to consult some book that you have stuck in the closet. Each of those people, your blood relatives, lived just as full and rich of lives as you have lived. People at their funeral dinners may very well have said that they were quite the character and nobody will ever forget them. Now only their names are known and hardly anything more. Resistance is futile. This is a rude thought. Sentimentality vanishes like it’s caught in a 40 mile an hour wind. We’ve looked at but one example of the way that cherished hopes about our lives and our memories are dashed. Nothing is off limits, though, when it comes things that are vain. Solomon says, “Nothing but vapor, totally vapor. Everything is just vapor that vanishes.” He is not talking about just a little part of our lives. He’s not talking about being a couch potato, playing video games, or other things that people enjoy denouncing. He’s saying that about all aspects of our lives. Solomon was a great man. He was strong. He was wise. He was no slouch. He got busy. He says in our reading, “I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted every kind of fruit tree in them. I made reservoirs of water for myself to irrigate a forest of sprouting trees.” He had all kinds of employees. He had all kinds of assets. He even had all kinds of lovers.  No pleasure was withheld from him. He even had pleasure in how he worked hard. Now tell me: What else should he have done? How could he have lived a fuller and richer life? He was thoroughly engaged and had the resources to fulfill every aspect of his life on this earth. He challenged himself mentally—planning and executing projects. He exercised his will with hard work and a fit body. His emotional life was not neglected either. He was a person who had it all together. He was like those people you see who wear all the right clothes, go to the right gym, eat the right food, and have overachieving children. But what does he say about all this? He lists all his magnificent accomplishments, then he says, “I turned my attention to everything that my hands had done and to how hard I had worked for it. Note this: it was all vapor, all chasing the wind. There was no benefit under the sun.” This thought can only be learned from the Bible. It is absolutely hateful to the unbelieving world. People draw fatalistic conclusions from it. People think, “Well, if all these worthy endeavors are futile, then I might as well seek out the bottle and the porn shop. I might as well give myself over to debauchery.” But this is kind of like the way that we speak about the person who is dying or who has died. The noble, robust, physical life has ended. At least we can hold on to this ghostly kind of life with the memories. In like manner, when people hear that their noble efforts are futile, they think that they can at least live for the basest kinds of pleasure. But Solomon is quite clear about this. This also is vanity. Pleasure is futile too. When he says that all is vanity, he means all is vanity. The Bible means it. All is brought to nothing. All is destroyed. All the things that people trust in are going to be revealed for the impotent and worthless things that they really are. There is only one exception to the oppressive rule of vanity and futility that otherwise governs our existence. Paul says in Romans chapter 8: “Creation was made subject to futility, not by its own will, but by the will of the one [that is, God] who subjected it.” This shows us that the meaninglessness and futility of all man’s hopes and ambitions is not because of fate or chance. Futility is because of God. He subjects creation to futility against its will. But he does it for a purpose. Paul goes on: “Creation was subjected to futility in hope, that even creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption, in order to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Here we have another strange thought, so we’ll really need to pay attention here. We’ve already mentioned one strange thought that the world cannot stand—that all creation is subject to futility. Here we have another, that’s similar. The world will never believe it or like it. The thought is that we will be set free from our slavery to corruption. Other words for “corruption” are “rottenness,” “decay,” “decomposition.” We should be set free from our slavery to dying, to rotting. As it is, we are enslaved to getting old, breaking down, decomposing, even while we are yet living. Once we die our bodies are enslaved to all kinds of nasty processes. Formaldehyde or cremation is only able to mask it somewhat. There’s no staying alive once we have died. We are enslaved to corruption. There is only one way out of this, and that is Jesus who died and is risen. So according to Paul’s teaching in Romans 8 we have some very strong statements. First of all, God has subjected creation to futility. This has been the main thing that we’ve talked about tonight. All hopes and dreams, no matter how lovely or popular they might be, are nothing but vapor, totally vapor. Every hope for lasting happiness, for immortality, for leaving your mark on this world, is a hope that is dashed to the ground. And God is the one who does this. If nothing else, he will put this futility on display when he brings about the end of the world. This is the one strong statement. The other strong statement is that God does this in hope. The hope is that we should be set free from the slavery of death and decay that nobody can otherwise escape. The way that we are set free is through Jesus who died once and for all, but who now lives and will never die again. God has had pity on us poor creatures who have no hope otherwise. But through Christ alone we are set free from death and decay. Even more than that. Paul says that we “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” As it often happens, both of these thoughts are too much for the world. The futility that is spoken of is too deep and too horrible. The world wants to believe that death isn’t that bad. It’s not that big of a deal. We can still remember and celebrate, so on and so forth. To these commonly held dreams the Bible says no. Such thoughts are vain. On the other hand, the Bible says that we will be set free from death and decay. The stranglehold that death and decay has on this present world is going to be broken. We will even be God’s very own children, free and unencumbered. This is too high, too glorious for the world. The world knows nothing better and strives for nothing higher than having your name written in some dusty old history book that children are forced to read. Believing that we can become and, in fact, are God’s children through baptism is too strange, too unbelievable. This is why it is so important that you do not despise preaching and God’s Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. You aren’t going to find these truths told to you anywhere else. In fact, the opposite of these truths will be endlessly drummed into your ears from practically every possible source. You do well, though, to ignore these futile voices and believe that Jesus is the only decisive factor. Outside of him, everything is vanity. In him is more than we can possibly think or imagine.

211201 Sermon on Ecclesiastes 1-2 (Advent 1 Midweek) December 1, 2021

Sermons preached at Peace Lutheran Church, Oelwein, IA and Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Independence, IA. This is a dual parish of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. We use the one year, historic lectionary.

hubhopper

Rev. Michael Holmen's Sermons

hubhopper