IT ONLY TAKES ONE…

1. One sacrifice of Jesus to do away with sin
2. One appearance of Jesus to deliver us salvation

Text: Hebrews 9:24-28

Introduction

My father-in-law has a saying about home improvement projects: “Every home improvement project requires at least three trips to Home Depot.”  If you’ve ever tackled one of those projects around your home, you know what I mean.  About a year or so ago, one of the church council members installed a new closet in one of the parsonage bedrooms, and I’m pretty sure we made three trips to Home Depot to get that project done!  Rare is the major household improvement project that only requires one trip to the home improvement store!

The Second Lesson for today’s service talks about a “repair project” that makes any of our own personal household projects seem insignificant and unimportant.  Our reading from the New Testament book of Hebrews describes the project Jesus undertook to permanently repair the damage that sin brought into our world and into our lives.  With an eternally important divine project like that—rescuing the world from its own sin!—you would think that this would be a project that would span centuries.  But if we assume that, we would be wrong.  In just one visit to our sinful world, Jesus undid the eternal consequences of sin.  And in one return visit in the future, Jesus will bring us to the eternal blessings of heaven.  That’s what our reading from Hebrews teaches us today.  It only takes one!  It only takes one sacrifice of Jesus to do away with sin.  It only takes one appearance of Jesus to deliver us salvation.

I.

Hebrews can be a hard book for modern Christians to understand.  The biggest reason for the difficulty is because Hebrews was written to first-century Jewish Christians who were well acquainted with Old Testament Jewish customs.  The writer of this book regularly points back to Old Testament customs his readers would have known, and then shows how these customs were previews of the saving work that Jesus Christ would accomplish.  And that’s exactly what the writer is doing in today’s reading.  Listen to the first several verses again.  “For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.  Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.  Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world.  But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” 

WHAT MAKES A SAINT A SAINT?

Text: Revelation 7:9-10,13-14

I.

Three years ago, I was enrolled in a liturgy class at Santa Clara University that required me to visit a “festival occasion” service at another church and then write a report about the service.  I decided to check out a local Catholic Mass on All Saints’ Day evening, since All Saints’ Day is supposed to be as big of a deal for Catholic churches as Reformation services are in Lutheran churches.  But what struck me most about that experience was not the service, but the sermon.  The sermon was what I would call “old school” Roman Catholic theology.  The priest’s sermon was basically a checklist of things that the worshippers should do in order to become saints.  He told the congregation that saints were just ordinary people who came to Mass, but they let the Mass move them deeply.  They came with sorrow over their sin, they came to hear the Word of God, they came to receive “graces” in the sacraments, and they took the power God gave them in the sacraments and developed a “heroic virtue” that balanced out their sins.  That was the formula the worshippers were given to become saints.  And that’s what I would call old school Roman Catholic theology.

Christian church calendars have designated today, November 1, as “All Saints’ Day” since 835 A.D.  Today is a day that the church remembers the example of faith set by those fellow believers who have gone before us into heaven.  The reading from Revelation that you heard a few moments ago gives us a picture of those saints who have gone before us into heaven.  That’s certainly a group we want to be a part of!  Given the state of affairs on this side of heaven, with swine flu scares, rising unemployment, and global instability, I sure like the idea of escaping this world and being in that group of heaven-bound saints!  But that begs the question: How do I get in that group?  What will get me that title, “saint”?  What makes a saint a saint?

You might suspect that the answer will probably not be found in the formula to sainthood that I heard a few years ago in the homily I described.  No, the proper definition of a saint is one that we should draw from God’s Word.  So let’s look carefully at our Revelation reading to determine what makes a saint a saint.

II.

Revelation is a book filled with symbolic communication, and the symbolic communication in our first verse reveals certain characteristics about the saints in heaven.  “I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”  In ancient literature, palm branches were a symbol of victory.  These saints in heaven enjoy their God-given victory over death and the grave.  And the clothing they wear also tells you something about them.  “They were wearing white robes.”  Even if you’re not a Bible scholar, you can probably figure out that white is a symbol of purity and holiness.  And in heaven, that’s exactly what the saints enjoy—a pure, perfect, and holy existence basking in the victory over death that Christ’s death has given them.

But remember our original questions.  How do you and I get in this group?  What will get us the title, “saints”?  What makes a saint a saint?  John tells us that holiness is their distinguishing characteristic.  It doesn’t take long to figure out that you and I don’t fit into that group.  Yes, there are the signs of a sin-stained and problem-filled world around us.  But you don’t need to point to breaking bridges and bickering bureaucrats to find the signs of sin.  You only need to look at the person who stares back at you in the mirror.  You only need to look at the broken promises of the past, the loveless bickering in the home, along with any and every other sinful symptom of our inherited sin to realize that you and I do not belong in a group filled with holy and righteous saints.  But that reality does not exclude us from some sort of sanctified country club!  That reality ought to exclude us from heaven!  That reality ought to condemn us eternally!  That reality puts a permanent barrier between us and God that we can’t even dream of knocking down on our best day.

During last week’s WELS Arizona-California District pastors’ conference, our district president, Pastor Jon Buchholz (Tempe, AZ), began his report with some thoughts about the Lutheran Reformation and its theology.  On this Reformation Day, I thought I’d share with you what he shared with us in his report:

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water” (Revelation 14:6, 7).

This season of the year carries us into the End Times, when we remember that Christ our triumphant King will return to judge the living and the dead and to take his people home. God wins!

It’s also the season when we celebrate our gospel heritage as heirs of the Lutheran Reformation. Through the frail human instrument of Dr. Martin Luther, God restored the clear preaching of the gospel to his church. The Lord opened Luther’s eyes to see that “in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Romans 1:17). This “righteousness from God” is the active obedience of Jesus Christ, our vicarious substitute and our Savior, whose death atoned for our sins, and whose perfect life is imputed to us as die Gerechtigkeit, die vor Gott gilt.

On Tuesday, October 20, 2009, I presented an essay to the WELS Arizona-California District Pastors’ Conference at St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA.  The essay was titled, “Neither Papistic nor Karlstadtian: Luther’s Principles of Adiaphora Applied to the Liturgical Life of the Church.”  The essay was originally written for the final class I was enrolled in at Santa Clara University, where I recently completed a master’s program in liturgy and liturgical music.

Our recent WELS Arizona-California District pastors’ conference was devoted entirely to the subject of adiaphora — a Greek term that means “indifferent (things)” and that refers to matters God has not forbidden or commanded.  Public worship forms obviously fall into that category: God has not prescribed specific forms of worship for the New Testament Church.  Unfortunately, the discussion often ends there; we don’t always go on to consider whether or not a particular form of worship is also wise and beneficial.  This paper, based on Luther’s comments regarding the intersection of worship and adiaphora, offers a pastoral perspective on the forms we use for worship.

I reworked the original paper to speak to the current state of worship issues within the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.  For that reason, you might not always be able to apply my comments directly to another situation or denomination, but hopefully the thoughts here will still be useful.  You can read the essay by clicking the first link below.

• Essay:  Neither Papistic nor Karlstadtian: Luther’s Principles of Adiaphora Applied to the Liturgical Life of the Church
• Related Post:  Luther, Liturgy, and Christian Freedom (posted 9/18/2008)

Here are some excerpts from the essay:

Perhaps there is no area of church life where these two extremes are seen more frequently today than the church’s liturgical life.  Noted Lutheran music scholar Carl Schalk has coined the terms “rigid repristinators” and “terminally hip” to describe these two camps.  Rigid repristinators are those who would suggest that historic Lutheran worship, duplicated as close to sixteenth century forms whenever possible, is the highest form of worship that the church can offer.  Innovation and creativity have little place in this philosophy.  In stark contrast, the terminally hip camp jumps on the latest fads and bandwagons until the next new movement comes along.  This movement tends to be more style-driven than content-driven.  Perhaps these statements are oversimplified, but there is no question that both movements exist in the church today.  One is legalism; the other is libertinism.  Both are threats to the gospel. (p. 2)

In this writer’s opinion, the greater threat within our circles is libertinism, not legalism.  One brother pastor observed to me that the problem with legalism in the WELS is not that we have abundant instances of it, but that we don’t always accurately identify what legalism is—especially in the realm of worship.  We do know that the mention of the term is enough to win an argument!  Throw out the charge of legalism (or pietism, for that matter) and you will generally win the debate—so it seems.  But the charge of legalism does not necessarily mean that legalism exists.

A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

Text: Mark 10:2-9

This month, Kelly Hildebrandt is getting married to Kelly Hildebrandt.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  No, it’s not some narcissistic joke; she’s not marrying herself.  Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt, age 20, will be getting married to Kelly Carl Hildebrandt, age 24.  Kelly, a young woman from Florida, was bored one night, decided to go online, and searched on Facebook to see if there was anyone else who had her same name.  Lo and behold, she found Kelly, a young man from Texas who was the sole identical name that popped up.  She sent him a one-sentence message on Facebook.  He replied.  They exchanged emails.  Emails turned to phone calls, then Kelly the man traveled to Florida to meet Kelly the woman, they hit it off, he arranged to transfer his job and move to Florida, and now they’re getting married.  And no, after checking their family histories, they are not related.  Kelly the woman said that the whole scenario was God’s timing.  News reports have called them a match made in heaven.

Kelly Hildebrandt and Kelly Hildebrandt sound like a storybook romance.  Their story sounds like the scenario that people would describe as a match made in heaven.  But the Gospel for today tells us that there are far more marriages that were made in heaven.  In fact, the Gospel for today tells us that every marriage is a match made in heaven, because God, the author of marriage, is also the one who brings marriages together.

The discussion about marriage in today’s Gospel starts out in a strange way.  Some Pharisees asked Jesus a question about divorce.  Like other questions the Pharisees asked him, this one was intended to trap Jesus.  They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  The Pharisees didn’t agree among themselves as to the correct answer.  Some thought that moral indecency was the only grounds for divorce; others thought that any way a wife displeased her husband was grounds for divorce.  Either way Jesus answered the question, someone would have reason to criticize him, and that’s all the Pharisees really wanted.

While Jesus’ answer must have taken the Pharisees by surprise, I’m sure you will not be surprised to hear how Jesus navigated through their deception.  “What did Moses command you?” he asks them.  And their answer was accurate when they said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”  What they failed to understand is that permission to do something was not divine approval to do something.  Because marriages and families are such key building blocks in society, Israel had civil laws that regulated marriage, including the unfortunate break-up of marriages.  But laws regulating an activity are not statements approving an activity—and that was the first major point Jesus needed to express.  “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law.”

Then Jesus turns their question upside down.  They came with a question about divorce, and he gave them a lesson about marriage.  The main point of this lesson is that every marriage is a match made in heaven.  “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’  So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

THE WORD DOES ITS WORK!

1. In spite of difficult circumstances
2. In spite of selfish motives

Text: Philippians 1:12-18

Introduction

In the October edition of Forward in Christ magazine, you will find an article about the Lutheran Reformation by Daniel Deutschlander.  Professor Deutschlander was one of my college professors, and he is author of the book, The Theology of the Cross, which you have seen advertised in the bulletin for several weeks.  Lutherans typically celebrate October as the month of the Lutheran Reformation; the last day of October 1517 was the day Luther posted his “Ninety-Five Theses” and set the Reformation into motion.  Prof. Deutschlander’s article in Forward in Christ is designed to highlight the Reformation anniversary.

When you read through that article in the days ahead, you will read Prof. Deutschlander’s claim that Luther was one of few people in his day who actually took God seriously.  Maybe that sounds like an overstatement, but I believe that thought is right on the money.  The papacy certainly didn’t take the Word of God seriously.  How can you read Scripture’s clear statements that our salvation and forgiveness is totally a matter of faith in Jesus Christ, but then suggest that performing good works and purchasing church-produced pieces of paper called indulgences is a way to get right with God?  Many other Protestant reformers didn’t take the Word of God seriously, either.  How can you claim to treat Scripture as the authoritative Word of God, but then allow your reason to get in the way of clear statements like, “This is my body” and “This is my blood”?  Luther took God seriously, and that meant he took the Word of God seriously.

The Second Lesson for today’s service encourages us to take the Word of God seriously.  But the encouragement in that reading comes from a slightly different angle.  The encouragement in Philippians chapter one is not about taking the content of the Word of God seriously – though that is certainly something we ought to do!  The encouragement in Philippians chapter one is about taking the power of the Word of God seriously!  The Bible is God’s Word, after all – and if it is his Word, then it is powerful!  It has the power to do exactly what it claims to do.  When the Word is put to work, it will get its work done!  That’s what the apostle Paul teaches us in today’s Second Lesson: The Word does its work!  The Word of God does its work in spite of difficult circumstances.  The Word of God does its work in spite of selfish motives.

I traveled to Wisconsin this weekend (October 3-4, 2009) to preach for the fortieth anniversary service of my home congregation, Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.  Pictures from Redeemer’s anniversary celebration are included throughout this post.

Redeemer's current pastor and my classmate, Mark Rohrback, and me

REDEEMER CHURCH, KEEP BUILDING!

1. On the proper foundation
2. With the proper materials

Text: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 

“Every state by ’78!”  That was the motto of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s Board for Home Missions around the time when Redeemer Lutheran Church held its first church service on December 14, 1969.  Less than a decade had passed since the Wisconsin Synod severed its fellowship ties with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.  Gone were the days when our little church body could rely on her big sister to plant mission congregations around the country.  The sixties and seventies were key decades for the Wisconsin Synod.  We were spending major money and expending major manpower to plant WELS congregations in the vast majority of our nation that didn’t have WELS congregations.  The fact that, still today, about three quarters of WELS congregations can be found in three states – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota – should tell you something about the challenge that existed for our Synod in the years immediately after we made the necessary but painful split from the Missouri Synod.

Picture of Redeemer from Wauwatoa Road

If “Every state by ‘78” was the WELS Home Missions motto four decades ago, you might wonder how a WELS congregation in the middle of Ozaukee County would have gotten started in 1969.  Redeemer doesn’t fit the mold of other WELS churches founded at the same time.  Redeemer is located in the heart of the WELS, not the “mission districts” of the WELS.  And Redeemer was not started around a nucleus of WELS members, but by a nucleus of Lutherans fleeing another Lutheran Church that wasn’t so Lutheran anymore.  These people were determined to start a Confessional Lutheran congregation in this city.

I suppose we could fill this sermon with stories about the situation the founders were fleeing from, but our time in this sermon will be better spent considering not what Redeemer’s founders fled from, but what they fled to.  Today we thank God that his Holy Spirit gave Redeemer’s founders the desire to establish and build a church that was not interested in a social gospel but the saving gospel.  Today we thank God that he brought together 13 faithful men and women in this community who began the push for a church that was built on the Scriptures, the sacraments, and the message of salvation in Jesus Christ.  As we thank God for the blessings he has given to and through this congregation, we turn to several verses from the Second Lesson chosen for this anniversary service.  That reading comes from a letter written by the Apostle Paul, and the excerpt we will consider describes the spiritual foundation and building materials of Christ’s church and of any Christian congregation.  On this special occasion, Saint Paul encourages you, dear members of Redeemer Church: Keep building!  Keep building this congregation on the proper foundation.  Keep building this congregation with the proper materials.

Theories without evidence are merely speculation.  If a lawyer presents a theory that has no evidence to support it, chances are he will not convince the judge or the jury.  In the world of theology, however, a lack of evidence doesn’t seem to stop theories from perpetuating.

One of the most common theories proposed about the Scriptures is that they are a “cut and paste” job from preexisting documents.  This theory is applied especially to the first five books of the Old Testament, the Penteteuch, and to the first three books of the New Testament, the Synoptic Gospels.

A common theory about the Pentateuch is that it is a compilation of four sources.  These sources are labeled J, E, D, and P — hence, the “JEDP theory.”  The “J” source is assumed to be a writer who used the Hebrew word Yahweh (Jehovah) for God.  The “E” source is assumed to be a writer who used the Hebrew word Elohim for God.  The “D” (Deuteronomic) source is assumed to be a writer of legal materials (i.e. civil laws, moral laws, etc.).  The “P” (Priestly) source is assumed to be a writer of priestly materials (i.e. sacrifices, worship, etc.).  According to the theory, an editor brought these four sources together into the first five books of the Old Testament.

There’s just one problem.  It is a very popular theory among liberal religious scholars, but no evidence exists.

A similar theory exists for the Synoptic Gospels.  (Syn = together; optic= view.  The synoptic Gospels have a similar outline and arrangement of the ministry of Jesus).  There are four sources assumed, called Ur-Markus, Q, M, and L.  “Ur-Markus” is an assumed predecessor document of the Gospel of Mark.  “Q” (from the German Quelle, meaning “source”) is an assumed collection of sayings of Jesus that were brought into Matthew and Luke.  “M” is the material unique to Matthew’s Gospel, and “L” is the material unique to Luke’s Gospel.

You know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?  That’s right.  No evidence.

THE CROSS IS THE PERFECT SYMBOL

1. For Christ’s salvation
2. For our Christian lives

Text: Mark 8:31-35

This sermon deals with the Lutheran concept called the “theology of the cross.”  For further reading, please see Daniel Deutschlander’s book, The Theology of the Cross, available through Northwestern Publishing House.  You may also find the “Issues, Etc.” interview on June 23, 2009 with Prof. Deutschlander helpful and informative. 

Introduction

I count ten crosses in the front of church this morning.  If you take the cross within our stained glass window, the two crosses in the organ speaker frames, the processional cross, the cross on the lectern, the two crosses on my stole, my pectoral cross, the cross on one of the altar paraments and the cross on one of the banners, you’ll get ten.  Why, with all these crosses, you’d think that it must mean something important, right?

(An aside: During the preached sermon, a teenager in the congregation raised his hand and pointed out that I missed the crosses on the communionware on the altar.  That brought us up to 13.  After the service, I realized that there are four more crosses embroidered into the altar linen, as well as another four in the various clothes used with the communion vessels, and one on the “altar book” — really a fancy liturgical binder — all together bringing our grand total to 22!)

But not every church displays the cross so prominently.  Several years ago, the late Peter Jennings interviewed Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois.  During the interview, Jennings noted that Willow Creek didn’t have a single cross in its sanctuary.  Hybels responded that the lack of a cross was a deliberate choice; in his opinion, it would have been dangerous to embody Christianity in a single symbol like the cross.  Or if you were to travel to Houston and visit Lakewood Church, the largest megachurch in America, you won’t find a cross on the stage.  You’ll find a rotating globe behind Joel Osteen as he preaches.

Even though cross-less churches have become quite commonplace, the fact is that the cross-less Christianity peddled in so many circles is really an oxymoron.  The cross is without question the perfect and ideal symbol of the Christian faith.  Today’s Gospel shows us why that is true.  The cross reminds us what Jesus did to save us from our sins.  The cross is the perfect symbol of Christ’s work of salvation.  But today’s Gospel will also show us that the cross is a way to describe the harsh realities that Christians sometimes have to bear—and so the cross also is the perfect symbol of the Christian life.

I.

Today’s Gospel comes from the end of Mark chapter eight.  Jesus’ ministry had gone on about two and a half years prior to this point.  He had become a well-known figure during that time, but many people did not yet fully understand who Jesus was.  In the opening verses of today’s Gospel (Mark 8:27-30), Jesus asked his disciples who the crowds thought he was.  Peter’s accurate observation showed that there was quite a bit of confusion about Jesus.  But Peter also gave an accurate answer to that question.  “You are the Christ,” he said.  Peter and the other eleven disciples recognized that Jesus was God’s anointed, hand-picked Savior, set apart from eternity to be the one who would enter into time and be our Savior.  But what exactly did that mean? 

The previous sermon posted on this blog, based on selected verses from Mark 7, dealt in part with the matter of tradition in the church.  The current edition of the Worship the Lord newsletter, published by the Commission on Worship of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, also deals with the matter of tradition from a Lutheran and pastoral perspective.  As an expansion of the discussion of tradition that was first raised in the Mark 7 sermon, I’d like to share excerpts of the Worship the Lord article, written by James Tiefel, professor of worship and homiletics at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.  Click here to see the entire article.

When it comes to public worship, tradition carries some heavy baggage. Tradition is what the Jews embraced when they criticized and rejected Jesus. Tradition was partially the basis for the philosophy Paul identified as “hollow and deceptive” in his letter to the Colossians. Along with papal degrees, tradition is the source of Rome’s confusion over the free gospel. Tradition in congregations often inhibits necessary change and even spiritual growth. For some of us, the concept of tradition in worship leaves a bad taste on the tongue.

For others tradition in worship doesn’t have a bad reputation at all. In fact, traditional worship practices are exactly what some people are looking for these days – and I’m thinking of more than the traditional Lord’s Prayer. Some younger Christians and many new Christians seem comfortable with ancient practices a previous generation would not have tolerated. The sixteenth century worship customs of the Lutheran confessors are eliciting the kind of enthusiasm they didn’t enjoy a half century ago.

The Spirit’s most common references to tradition have more to do with traditionalism. Similar to ceremonialism or formalism, it’s going through the form of worship without a heart that trusts in worship’s focus. Seeing the same trait in God’s people that Isaiah saw, Jesus quoted the prophet: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8). Old and New Testament writers often criticized this tragic flaw in the people of Israel. It’s the fault that lay behind Jesus’ words about whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23).

The Spirit never inspired specific instructions about the value or use of traditional worship practices. But the people the Spirit called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified demonstrate an obvious interest in customs that edified their ancestors. The exiles in Babylon knew better than to re-establish the temple’s sacrificial rites in a foreign land, but they reviewed the temple rituals and remembered the promises they foreshadowed. They sang the psalms appointed for temple worship even after they returned to their homeland and gathered in their synagogues. They celebrated Passover in their homes.