1. The gospel that first called you to faith
2. The gospel that calls you to stand firm in faith

Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-15

 Sermon Video (sermon starts at 25:30)

 Introduction

A little perspective can change us from people filled with complaints to people filled with thanks.  On Monday we had our monthly study meeting with the other WELS pastors in our region.  One of them asked me how I was doing, and I responded with complaints about the illness that has bothered me since the first week of the New Year.  Later in the meeting, one of the pastors talked about some of the difficult personal crosses that his family has had to bear.  Hearing his story, I thought to myself, “What right do I have to complain about being sick?  This man’s difficulties far surpass a cough and cold!”  A little perspective can be helpful, can’t it?

The section of God’s Word that we are going to look at today is one of those “perspective-changers.”  Today we will study the opening verses of the Second Lesson from 2 Thessalonians.  This excerpt immediately follows a section where the apostle Paul warned his readers about “the man of lawlessness,” who is called the “Antichrist” elsewhere in the Bible.  Talking about a terrible force within the church that would try to take the place of Christ and draw people away from Christ was a frightening thought.  But it was also a perspective-changer.  It certainly made the questions and problems that this ancient congregation dealt with pale by comparison.  It certainly made Paul thankful for the believers in Christ who belonged to the Christian congregation in ancient Thessalonica.  In the section of 2 Thessalonians that we will look at today, Paul gives thanks to God for these believers.  But in reality, he’s giving thanks to God for the gospel that had made them believers.  That’s the same thought we want to take home today.  Give thanks to God for the gospel!  Give thanks to God for the gospel that first called you to faith.  Give thanks to God for the gospel that calls you to stand firm in faith.

I.

Paul begins our section with a fresh perspective of thanks for his readers.  He wrote, “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”  Obviously Paul is thankful for the people he is writing to, but he’s especially thankful to God for the way the gospel had worked in their hearts.  He calls them “brothers loved by the Lord.”  The way Paul wrote that phrase indicated that God had shown them his love in a concrete way in the past, and God’s past actions of love had ongoing significance in the future.  In the past, even before time began, God had chosen these Thessalonian Christians (and all believers) to be saved from sin and to become members of his family.  God made sure they received these blessings “through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”  When the good news about Jesus Christ was proclaimed to them, the Holy Spirit gave them faith in the gospel facts of Jesus’ life so that they stood before God holy and righteous.

Paul was very thankful for their faith!  He had been privileged to play a role in their coming to faith.  He said, “[God] called you to this through our gospel.”  When Paul said, “our gospel,” he didn’t mean that the gospel was a message that he and his missionary coworkers made up; he meant that the gospel was a message that they had the opportunity and privilege to proclaim.  As a result of that message and that proclamation, Paul’s readers “might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  A way we could picture that thought is through the ceremony we include during a baptism.  Whenever we have a baptism in our service, the paschal candle is lit.  That large candle is a symbol of the risen Jesus.  Light is a symbol for life, and so we light the candle during Easter to remember how the risen, living Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection.  The Bible also tells us that when we are baptized, we are connected to Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We become sharers of the glory that Jesus’ resurrection brings.  And so we light a baptism candle from the large paschal candle and give it to the baptized person or their family to symbolize that the newly baptized believer now shares in Jesus’ glory and life.  That is a visual way to depict what Paul says here: “He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

How thankful are you for this gospel message that first called you to faith?  How thankful for you when you hear that Jesus Christ came to earth, did battle with sin, and overcame death to win your forgiveness and your freedom from hell?  Truth be told, there are many times when our response to that message is anything but thanks.  Especially if we have been Christians all or most of our lives, we can get tired of hearing that same old seemingly tired message.  Yes, all these things happened in the past, but they have little significance for us today—so it seems.

Perhaps the best way for us to renew our appreciation for the gospel is for us to realize where we would be without the gospel!  What would happen if we rewrote the first two verses of our reading?  What would they say if Jesus Christ had not come to earth to be your Savior?  Paul would have wrote: “We have no reason to thank God for you sinners, condemned by the Lord, because from your conception you were sinful in God’s eyes and disobedient to his laws.  God’s law condemns you, and you will suffer eternally, separated from all his glory and goodness.”

Sound ridiculous?  Actually, that would be reality apart from faith in Jesus Christ!  And that is all the more reason to give thanks for the gospel which first called you to faith.  How amazing to think that God chose you to be his own before time began!  How incredible that God used the gospel message of Jesus Christ to bring you to faith in his Son who has rescued us from hell itself!  How astounding that God erased the shame of your sin through Jesus’ shed blood and placed heavenly glory in your future through Jesus’ resurrection victory!

II.

There are some things in life that we stand by in good times and bad.  We stand by our family members and support them when one of them has to go through a difficult personal challenge.  We stand by our biblical values and morals when they are under attack by the culture around us.  We even stand by our sports teams—like our own St. Mark’s Lions during yesterday’s basketball tournament.

In our reading for today, Paul encouraged his readers to stand by the gospel—that is, to stand firm in their faith in the gospel.  He wrote, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”  Paul told his readers to continually do two things.  One was to “stand firm”—to remain firm in their faith and not move from the gospel message about Jesus that they had come to believe.  The other was to “hold to the teachings we passed on to you.”  That’s another way of saying, “Stand firm.”  The word translated “hold to” has the picture of clinging very tightly to something because it is so important and precious.

Parents often pass things down to their children.  Those “things” could be family heirlooms.  Those “things” could be family photos.  Those “things” could be stories from the family’s history.  In our reading, Paul says that he and the other missionaries who founded this congregation had passed something else on to them.  He urged them to “hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”  The word for “teachings” here is sometimes translated “tradition.”  The idea behind the original Greek term for tradition is something that is handed down from one person to another.  We usually don’t think of Christian teaching as a tradition.  We usually use the word “tradition” to refer to our human customs.  But Paul described Scriptural teaching as a tradition, something that needed to be handed down from one person to another.  That description does not at all undo the truth that Scripture is also the perfect and inspired Word of God.  Paul’s words simply remind his readers that he did not keep this message to himself, but he handed it down and passed it on to them.  Paul had done that in two ways: by his previous letter to them (1 Thessalonians), and by his preaching and teaching in person when he first founded this congregation on his second missionary journey.

If you want to get good at a sport, you have to practice.  If you want to get good at playing piano or organ so that we can add you to the roster of fine church musicians here at St. Mark’s, you have to practice.  If you want to do well on the next test that’s coming up in class, you have to study faithfully.  All of that goes without saying.  And so does this: If you want to stand firm in your Christian faith, you have to immerse yourself in the Word of God.

The amazing truth about God’s Word is that it accomplishes in you what it calls on you to do!  I cannot believe in Jesus on my own, but God’s Word has made that happen.  You cannot grow stronger in faith by yourself, but God’s Word makes that happen.  We cannot find strength to live a godly life inside our own hearts, but God’s Word enables us to live honorably for the One who lived and died and lives again for us.

When you have gone through one of those valleys in life—difficult and trying circumstances—you know how much you appreciate the family and friends who stand by your side through it all.  And when you have family members or friends you stand by your side in the tough times, you naturally want to stand by their side, too.  Friends, you have a good and gracious God who has stood by your side and done more for you than anyone else could ever dream of!  He sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, into this world for you.  He sent Jesus to the cross to pay the penalty of your sin.  He raised Jesus from the dead to declare your divine acquittal from sin and guilt.  Can anyone else love you like this?  Can anything else inspire you to dig into the Word regularly and to live in a way that honors God daily?  There can be no greater reason to give thanks for the gospel, because that wonderful gospel message of forgiveness enables you to stand firm in your Christian faith.

Conclusion

We have a bedtime prayer routine with our children.  The final prayers of our routine are prayers that they make up; ideally, each family member asks God for one thing and then thanks God for one particular blessing.  Sometimes it is hard for kids to come up with an item to thank God for.  Of course, it’s not just kids who have that problem.  Adults can easily think of all sorts of things to ask from God, but struggle to come up with reasons to thank him, even though we really have no shortage of reasons for thanksgiving.

Paul’s words in our Second Lesson show us that we have about 200 reasons in this building to thank God.  Every believing soul here represents someone in whom the gospel has done its work.  And that’s also a reason to thank God for the gospel itself.  The good news of Jesus’ death that paid for our sin and his resurrection that opened heaven is not some stale, old message for yesterday; it’s the very reason to give thanks to God today, tomorrow, and every day.  Friends, don’t ever take the gospel for granted.  Give thanks for the gospel!  Amen.

Text: John 1:1-5,10-14

Service Video (sermon starts at 29:20)

Note: This sermon form, sometimes called a “story sermon,” uses a running illustration to inductively introduce the points of the text to the listeners.  The running illustration in this sermon comes from a Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post article from 2007 titled “Pearls Before Breakfast.”  The article describes a cultural experiment set up by the Washington Post with internationally acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell, who performed as a street musician in a Washington D.C. train station during the morning rush hour on Friday, January 12, 2007.  The idea for this came from another sermon preached by Jonathan Schroeder, who serves Faith Lutheran Church in Sharpsburg Georgia.  Pastor Schroeder used this concept for a sermon preached at a recent School of Worship Enrichment where both he and I were serving as consultants.  Pastor Schroeder’s sermon used the Washington Post article to parallel some of the thoughts at the end of John 6, his sermon text that day.  After I heard the sermon, knowing that I was going to be preaching on John 1:1-14 on Christmas morning a little more than two months later, I thought that this same article would nicely parallel the thoughts in the Christmas Day Gospel.  That is the “origin” of this sermon.  Even though its form is somewhat unique, I hope that it will help to shed new light and appreciation for the message that the Holy Spirit has revealed to us in the prologue of John’s Gospel.

-Pastor Strey

I.

On Friday morning, January 12, 2007, a young man carrying a violin case entered into one of the Metro train stations in Washington, D.C.  A white man in his 30’s, he donned a Washington Nationals baseball cap, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and jeans.  He found a spot for himself and his violin near the top of the station’s escalators, where his “neighbors” were a trash can, a newsstand, a machine selling lottery tickets, and a shoe shine station.  He opened his small violin case and took out his fiddle, threw in a couple of dollars and some change in his case as seed money, and for the next 43 minutes began to play as 1,070 commuters passed by.

But this was no ordinary street musician, and this was no ordinary performance.  This performance was really an experiment set up by the Washington Post.  The musician was internationally acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell.  Three days before this little experiment, Bell had played at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where the “pretty good” seats sell for $100 each.  Bell has played before royalty—literally.  For a typical performance, his pay averages about $1,000 a minute.  And the violin he carried with him?  It was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari toward the end of his career, when Stradivari had essentially perfected his craftsmanship.  The price tag on Bell’s three-century old violin is reported to be a mere $3.5 million.

Bell was the child prodigy musician whose parents, both psychologists, started him on lessons at age four.  When composer John Corigliano won an Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score for the 1998 movie, “The Red Violin,” he credited Joshua Bell, the violinist in the recording, and said that Bell “plays like a god.”  The musician in that D.C. Metro station had limitless credentials, the instrument he played was worth seven figures, and he played some of the finest literature written for violin. 

Bell entered the Metro station at 7:51 a.m. that Friday winter morning.  And then he began to play.  So what would happen?  The Washington Post set up this experiment to see if great artistry could be identified and appreciated in an everyday context.  He played for 43 minutes, and the Washington Post video cameras recorded 1,070 passers-by during that time.  So, what would happen?  Would people recognize greatness when it was found among the common?

Isn’t that the question that lies at the heart of the matter this Christmas Day?  Do people recognize the greatness that has come among the common?  I will come back to the Joshua Bell story later, but now I’m not talking about Joshua Bell.  Now I’m talking about the Gospel for Christmas Day from John chapter one—a chapter that describes how the Son of God came among the human race by the miracle of his conception and birth.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.”  Here is the reality of Christmas in simple but profound words.  John calls Jesus, “the Word.”  Jesus—the One that all of God’s Word points us to, the One who is equal to God the Father, the One who has existed as God before he created time, the One who is God himself—made a unique appearance into this world at Christmas.  That unique appearance is described in the final verse of the Christmas Day Gospel: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  God not only came among us; he actually became one of us.  God became one of us and lived among us in the person of Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago.  Greatness came among the common.  So, what would happen?  Would people recognize greatness—would people recognize God—when he lived among the common?

II.

So what happened?  Over the course of 43 minutes, 1,070 people passed by.  The Washington Post staff was concerned that a massive crowd might gather.  Someone might recognize Joshua Bell, the word gets around, people text their friends, and 15 minutes later you have mass chaos at a Metro station during rush hour.  Surely that was a distinct possibility!  And the literature that Bell played during his public incognito concert was certainly worth noting.  He began with “Chaconne” from J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor.  Even if that means nothing to you, you know it is something special when Bell himself called it “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history.”  The nineteenth century composer Johannes Brahms said, “If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”  And that is how Bell began his public performance on that D.C. winter morning.

So what happened?  The short answer is: almost nothing.  Hidden cameras recorded the entire incident.  Three minutes passed before anything happened.  After 63 people passed by, the sixty-fourth person turned his head for a split second to notice Bell’s performance; he kept walking, but it was the first of any sort of acknowledgement.  A half-minute later Bell got his first donation—someone tossed in a dollar as she walked past.  It was a full six minutes into this experiment before someone actually stopped and listened to this great musician.  Forty-three minutes, 1,070 people, but only seven stopped what they were doing at that moment to take in the music for at least one minute.  Slightly more—twenty seven people—tossed some money into Bell’s violin case, totaling a whopping $32.17 for a man who normally makes $1,000 a minute.  Not once did anything even resembling a crowd come together.  Artistic greatness was taking place among the common, but it was met with the cultural equivalent of a yawn.

So what happened?  Bell may have brought some of the finest music ever composed to a Metro station, but in the Christmas Gospel we learn that Jesus Christ brought so much more into this world at his birth.  John says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”  To a world lost in the mundane mire of sin and death, Jesus brought spiritual life.  To people blinded by the darkness of sin’s power, Jesus offers spiritual light.  Who would turn down such blessings?  Who would reject this greatness—especially when this greatness was not for show, but for our salvation?

So what happened?  “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”  Divine greatness came into this world, but did anyone notice?  Early in his ministry, Jesus preached in his hometown, only to be rejected by the same people who knew him since he was a little boy.  A few chapters later in John’s Gospel, shortly after Jesus fed the 5,000, he explained to them that they must spiritually consume him in order to have spiritual life in them, but his claims were met by skepticism and rejection.  The religious leaders of Jesus’ day recognized that Jesus claimed to be God, but then responded with charges of blasphemy, not with hearts of faith.

There were people who said that they cried when they read the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post article about the Joshua Bell experiment.  They were saddened by the thought that the American culture has gotten to the point that artistic greatness plays second fiddle—pardon the pun—to pragmatism.  How sad that greatness was rejected that morning.  But how tragic that the greatness in the manger, the divine greatness wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ, was dismissed and rejected.  The Son of God came to live and dwell among us, and yet he is still written off as a mere rabbi, another noteworthy figure in a long line of religious gurus, a good teacher and an inspiring leader—but the Son of God?  The Savior and Redeemer of the world?  The one and only solution for sin and guilt?  The one and only way to fellowship with God and eternal life? These are claims that the world cannot tolerate.

But the failure to understand Jesus is not limited to the world “out there.”  For we too can easily pass by the miracle in the manger as if it was a mundane incident.  We also fail to see—or, perhaps, fail to remember—the greatness that came among the common.  For how do we respond to the miracle of the birth of God’s Son in our daily life?  We toss our pocket change into his offering plate-shaped violin case.  Maybe we give him a little time here and there—perhaps an hour or two once a week, or once a month, or once a year.  We hardly stop to pause and wonder and marvel at the gift that God the Father has sent among us.  Oh, perhaps we give a passing glance, but our lives are so busy and our schedules so booked that we have little time left over to take in the beautiful gift of God’s grace that he has placed before us in Bethlehem’s manger and Calvary’s cross and Easter’s empty tomb.

III.

Joshua Bell isn’t used to rejection.  He admits that at a performance, he gets annoyed if someone coughs or if someone’s cell phone rings.  But his expectations dropped rapidly during his rush hour commute performance.  He said, “I started to appreciate any acknowledgement, even a slight glance up.  I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change.”

What if Joshua Bell decided to have a “prima donna moment”?  What if, in the midst of all this rejection, he pulled the curtain on the stunt and told people who he really was?  “Um, excuse me.  I’m Joshua Bell.  I’ve played before kings and queens.  I’m in town to play at the Library of Congress.  I make $1,000 a minute.  That quarter you just threw in the case—yeah, that isn’t going to cut it, pal!”  I dare say that if Bell had actually had a prima donna moment in his Metro station performance, his performance would have been cut short by angry commuters!

Jesus never had a “prima donna” moment, but he made no bones about the fact that he was the Son of God.  Neither does John in our Christmas Day Gospel.  “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”  It was bad enough that Jesus was not recognized by so many in the world that he created.  But in many cases he was not merely unrecognized, but outright rejected.  His own family thought he was out of his mind.  The religious leaders of his day dismissed him as a demon-possessed man despite the tremendous miracles that they knew had taken place at his word.  It was those same religious leaders who condemned him and convinced the Roman governor that the death penalty was the only right recourse for the Son of God in human flesh.

But what a deadly rejection!  For this is not a rejection that has to do with personal preferences or religious tendencies.  This is rejection of the very One who gives life, the One who entered into this world to be our Savior from sin and Substitute under God’s holy law, the One whose innocent life was given into death on the cross to pay for the world’s sin.  Reject Joshua Bell’s performance and all you have missed is a free public concert.  But reject the Son of God whose birth we celebrate this day, dismiss him as if he is no big deal, and you will miss heaven itself and spend the rest of eternity in hell!

IV.

1,070 passed through the Metro station during Bell’s 43 minute performance.  Seven stopped for more than a minute.  One person—equivalent to less than one-tenth of one percent of the total passers-by—recognized Joshua Bell.  One woman recognized him because she had attended his concert at the Library of Congress three weeks earlier.  If you track this story down online you can watch a video where Stacy Furukawa plants herself a mere ten feet in front of Mr. Bell.  The rush hour commuters keep on passing by, oblivious to what it taking place.  But Stacy Furukawa stood there with a smile from ear to ear and soaked up the whole experience.  She had no idea why the world’s greatest violinist was begging for money in a D.C. Metro station, but she was not about to miss the performance that was taking place that morning.  When Bell finished playing, she introduced herself, thanked him, and humbly tossed a $20 bill in his violin case.  The Washington Post didn’t count that donation in the final tally of $32.17—after all, it was “tainted” by recognition.  It was a rare bright spot in an otherwise disappointing but revealing experiment.  But at least someone recognized greatness among the common.

Crowds did not gather at Bethlehem’s manger.  News about Jesus’ birth did not go viral in 4 B.C., the year many scholars believe that Jesus was born.  But there were some who came to believe in him.  There were some who knew that Jesus was not just the leader of the latest cultural-religious fad.  John tells us, “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”  Many passed by uninterested, but John tells us that some recognized the greatness that came to earth in God’s plan and timing.  Some came to believe that the baby in Bethlehem’s manger was also God in human flesh.  And through that faith, those people became children of God—children not by some natural human process, but by a supernatural divine miracle.

Dear Christian friend, on this Christmas Day, remember that you are among those who have received faith in the Christ child.  You are among those who recognize the greatness in the manger.  That greatness is the “Word [who] became flesh.”  That greatness is the Son of God embodied in human flesh.  That greatness may be hidden by the lowliness of the manger, and it would be hidden even more by the lowliness of the cross.  But that lowliness and humility was necessary if Jesus was going to perform the great mission that he had come to accomplish.  For Jesus came to this world to accomplish your forgiveness, your salvation from sin, your release from hell’s punishment, and your redemption from Satan’s grasp.

You would never guess that the God who fills heaven and earth would be confined to a manger bed.  Were it not for the Holy Spirit’s work in your heart, you would never be able to identify the greatness that is found lying in the manger.  But on this Christmas Day, you know that greatness came among the common.  The crowds may walk past without even a passing glance, the crowds might put in a token penny or quarter in the form of kind words or Christmas rituals, but the Holy Spirit has led you to realize that something greater than great happened on this day.  God became one of us so that by his redeeming work we would be made at one again with God.  “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  Don’t just pass by that truth.  Savor it.  Relish it.  Live in it—on Christmas Day, every day, and forever.  Amen.

1. in the work he came to do for you
2. in the gifts he came to give to you

Text: Isaiah 61:1-3a

Service Video (Sermon starts at 22:55)

Introduction

Life is hectic this time of year.  That’s an understatement!  You have two weeks to get your Christmas shopping done.  Deadlines are looming at work, demanding your attention and taking up extra hours of your time.  The kids need to be carted around everywhere for all of the practices and plays and performances that seem to book the calendar in the last month of the year.  You might be looking forward to a vacation after Christmas, but anyone with an ounce of life experience knows that getting ready for a vacation is no picnic.  Throw in some winter colds, longer than usual rush hour traffic jams, and a few of life’s usual but unexpected setbacks, and it can be a little tricky to keep your chin up and a smile on your face this time of year.

That’s when it’s useful to have a reality check from God.  No one will deny that life this time of year can be hectic.  But let’s consider for a moment the situation that God’s Old Testament people found themselves in in today’s First Lesson.  Our reading comes from Isaiah, one of the most significant books in the Old Testament.  From chapter 40 to the end, Isaiah wrote for a generation of people that had not been born yet, but a generation of people who would find themselves exiled into a foreign land for several decades.  I think we’ll take a traffic jam over a national exile!  What’s worse, this exile was God’s punishment for their sinful waywardness—a punishment God allowed to take place after repeatedly warning them to repent and turn away from their sin.

In that situation, God used Isaiah to bring his Old Testament people some good news that would put joy in their hearts.  Isaiah’s book contained promises of deliverance from their national enemies.  But Isaiah also used the message of their future political deliverance to segue into the more important message about their future spiritual deliverance.  Their greatest joy was not to be found in good news about future political freedom, but in the greater good news that Jesus would accomplish.  And that’s the same good news we need to hear on this Third Sunday in Advent.  Our greatest joy is not in the presents we will exchange in two weeks, or the vacation that will follow the hectic holidays.  Our greatest joy is in Jesus, the Savior who came and is coming again.  Find your Advent joy in Jesus—that’s what Isaiah wants you to hear this morning.  Find your Advent joy in the work that Jesus came to do for you, and in the gifts that Jesus came to bring to you.

I.

Isaiah has sometimes been called the “Fifth Evangelist.”  The title, Evangelist, usually refers to the writers of the first four books of the New Testament, who all wrote about the life and work of Jesus.  When Christians call Isaiah the “Fifth Evangelist,” they are suggesting that Isaiah talks about Jesus nearly as much as the four Bible books that actually recorded Jesus’ life.

The section we are looking at this morning is one of many sections that earned Isaiah the nickname, “The Fifth Evangelist.”  Isaiah may be writing, but Jesus is the One doing the speaking: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”  This opening statement describes the Spirit of God coming down on the Speaker because God anointed and appointed the Speaker to preach the gospel.  This statement was fulfilled at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus’ ministry began with his baptism; at that event God sent the Holy Spirit in a visible way on Jesus to anoint him—that is, to publicly appoint him to his special task of preaching the good news that he was the Savior.  Not long after Jesus’ baptism, he served as the guest preacher in his hometown’s synagogue one Sabbath Day.  When it came time for the sermon, he quoted this very section from Isaiah and said that Isaiah’s statement was fulfilled through his preaching.  

As the reading goes on, Isaiah continues to write as if Jesus is speaking.  He describes the work that Jesus was sent to do, and the way this work was described would have resonated with the exiled Jews who were reading Isaiah’s words.  “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.”

There are four main phrases in the verse and a half I just read.  Let’s quickly look at each one.  “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.”  If you break a bone in your arm, the doctor might put your arm in a cast so that the broken bone stays together and heals properly.  Jesus’ entrance into this world would not fix bones broken by an accident, but hearts broken by the heavy weight of their own sin.  Isaiah’s next phrase is that Jesus would come “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”  The Jews who read this knew what it was like to be taken captive, and they longed for freedom from captivity.  Jesus’ entrance into this world would free people from a greater captivity—the captivity to sin.  Isaiah’s third phrase tells us that Jesus would come “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.”  Isaiah uses language here that refers to the Old Testament “Year of Jubilee,” a day when debts were cancelled and property that had been sold was returned to its original owner.  The Old Testament Year of Jubilee was yet another picture to describe Jesus’ work, which would cancel the debt of sin that human beings owe to God.  Finally, Isaiah tells us that the Savior would come “to comfort all who mourn.”  If you comfort someone who mourns the death of a believing loved one, you can’t undo the death that occurred, but you can point them to the resurrection from the dead that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees.  Jesus’ work not only defeated sin, but it gives us comfort knowing that he has also conquered death and opened heaven to all believers.

When I was in high school, I was involved in a couple of musicals.  I remember the teacher who was the director for those musicals explaining to us what happens psychologically when someone attends a play or a movie.  He called it “suspension of reality.”  A public performance—whether it’s a play or a movie or a concert or even a sporting event—has a way of psychologically removing us and giving us a mental break from our current situation in life.

A public performance might be able to give you a mental break from your current situation, but it can’t change your current situation.  If you have a cold, watching a television show might distract you somewhat from your illness, but it doesn’t take your cold away!  You and I are sick—not with a cold, but with a spiritual disease called sin.  All the busyness of the holidays might distract us from our spiritual disease, but it can never take that disease away.  In fact, sometimes our sinful nature likes the distractions of this season, because it detracts from the real reason for Christ’s Advent into this world.  Sin is not solved by a psychological distraction, a Christmas party, or a favorite Christmas special on television.  Sin can only be solved by a Savior.

If you want to see guilt and fear and sin removed, then find your Advent joy in the work that Jesus came to do.  Marvel that the God who made heaven and earth became a part of this world at his humble birth.  Wonder at the mystery that the One who fills heaven and earth by his very existence filled the tiny space of a simple manger on the night of his birth.  Remember the work that Jesus came to do for you, work that started at the manger but kept him moving forward to the cross where God’s justice was satisfied and your freedom from sin’s guilt was won.  Rejoice in the victory that Jesus’ resurrection gives you, for faith in his resurrection sets you free from sin’s debt and death’s grasp, and gives you a comfort that overcomes even the grave!

II.

When we lived in the Bay Area, my wife worked for the local franchise of a national music business that offered developmental music classes for little children.  My wife’s boss, herself a music teacher, had a saying: “Repetition is good.  Repetition is good.  Repetition is good.”  Isaiah would have agreed with that premise.  In the two verses we’ve considered so far, he has essentially said the same thing several times: He explained the work that Jesus came to do for us.  Now we’re going to add another half-verse to our discussion.  In the first half of verse three from our reading, Isaiah talks about the gifts that Jesus came to bring his people.  Jesus was sent to “provide for those who grieve Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”

Isaiah describes three gift exchanges that Jesus would bring about.  Ashes were an ancient (and even modern) sign of sorrow, but Jesus’ Advent would take away our sorrowful ashes and replace them with a beautiful crown.  Oil would sometimes be poured over a person in ancient cultures as a sign of joy, and Jesus’ Advent would take away their mourning over sin and guilt and replace it with oil, a symbol of joy.  We know how clothing can be a symbol of either joy or sorrow.  People dress differently for a wedding than for a funeral!  Jesus’ Advent would replace the despairing spirit of sorrowful souls with clothes that reflect joy and praise flowing from hearts of faith.

There are times in life when we don’t feel all that joyful.  Sometimes that comes from the things I mentioned in the sermon introduction—stress at work, busy schedules this time of year, along with a few unexpected setbacks to our plans.  But there are often more serious and sobering reasons why we don’t feel a lot of joy.  Health takes a turn for the worse and our mortality comes to mind.  Guilt nags at us and our conscience secretly accuses us and the weight of our sinful nature’s baggage weighs us down.

At times like that, we need to hear about the gift exchange that Jesus’ Advent brings.  Find your Advent joy in the gifts that Jesus came to bring to you.  He didn’t show up 2,000 years ago and leave nothing behind for you!  No, he left you the greatest gifts imaginable!  He left you with a guilt-free status before God, a status that you enjoy because of your trust in him, a status that is yours as a believer even if your conscience tries to tell you otherwise.  Jesus left you with a true joy that comes from the knowledge that he has already defeated your sin and your grave, and so nothing can take away the saving gifts that Jesus brought you.  He has left with you with constant and continual reassurance of his love every time his forgiveness is pronounced, his Supper is celebrated, and his name is confessed.  So find your joy in these gifts, for these are the treasures that Jesus came to bring you by his Advent.

Conclusion

A number of you commented about how much you have enjoyed our Wednesday evening Advent services the last couple of weeks.  When you think about the rushing, the busyness, the constant-on-the-go culture all around us, a quiet and meditative service like the ones we have had offers a badly needed spiritual refuge from the world around us.

Maybe that’s a good way to understand Isaiah’s point in this reading.  The world around us would have us find our joy in so many other things that take up our time this time of year—and in all honesty, many of those activities are perfectly fine and wholesome in and of themselves.  But amid everything else that clamors for your attention, remember where you will find your true joy this time of year.  Brothers and sisters, find your Advent joy in Jesus.  Amen.

]]> http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/sermon-on-isaiah-61/feed/ 0 pastorstrey http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/sermon-on-matthew-1/ http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/sermon-on-matthew-1/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:46:16 +0000 Johnold Strey http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/?p=3828 ]]> AN ANGELIC ADVENT ANNOUNCEMENT–TO JOSEPH

1. Foretelling a miracle child
2. Revealing a miracle faith

Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Note: This sermon is part of an Advent sermon series at St. Mark’s titled, “Angelic Advent Announcements.”  The other sermons in this series include the angels’ announcements to Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25) and Mary (Luke 1:26-38).  The series will conclude with the Christmas Eve sermon based on the angel’s Christmas announcement to the shepherds (Luke 2:8-14).

Introduction

Chad and Lori weren’t quite sure how they were going to get through another Christmas.  Lori was a stay-at-home mother of four.  Her husband Chad held down a well-paying factory job until a month and a half before Christmas.  That’s when company cutbacks terminated his position.  He was a hard worker with good mechanical skills, but for the last four weeks he hadn’t had any luck finding a new job with decent benefits and a good salary.  Suddenly the bills started coming in the mail.  It was a cold winter that year, and the gas bill reflected just how expensive it was to heat their house in December.  The credit card bills had all the charges for the kids’ Christmas presents on them.  And of course, at the worst of all possible times, the family car broke down and needed some pricey repairs.  They sat at the kitchen table one night, worried that everything they had worked so hard for was slipping away before their very eyes.

The next morning, everything changed.  Chad’s great uncle, a successful businessman in his day, passed away at the ripe old age of 96.  Chad hadn’t seen him in a while, but apparently his great uncle hadn’t forgotten about him.  You see, Chad’s name was in his great uncle’s will, and Chad and Lori were about to inherit a small portion of a rather large estate.  The money they received was enough to pay off all those threatening bills and treat the family to a Christmas they would have never imagined.  My, how one little unexpected announcement, via a telephone call, changed their mood and their life!

My, how one not-so-little, very unexpected announcement from God, via his angle, changed Joseph’s mood and his life!   Tonight we turn our attention to another angelic Advent announcement.  Tonight we consider the miraculous Advent announcement to Joseph recorded in Matthew chapter one.  There are two reasons why this announcement was so miraculous.  The angelic Advent announcement to Joseph foretold a miracle child, and it revealed a miracle faith.

I.

In our midweek Advent sermon series, we are considering the angelic Advent announcements that God gave to Zechariah, to Mary, and Joseph.  Among these three, if there was any one who needed to hear his angelic advent announcement right away, it was Joseph.  Zechariah heard a message from the angel that pertained to his future.  So did Mary.  But Joseph badly needed this announcement right at the time when he got it.  Joseph learned that Mary was pregnant, and he knew that the baby wasn’t his.  The only logical conclusion was that Mary had been unfaithful to him.  Operating under this assumption, Joseph planned an action that was actually very noble.  As quietly as possible, he planned to break off his marriage with Mary, without trying to publicly take her to task for what it appeared that she had done. 

Joseph must have been devastated.  From everything scripture tells us, he was an honorable and humble man.  His heart must have been torn at the thought that Mary had been unfaithful to him.  So to ease Joseph’s burdened soul, and more so to reveal God’s special plan, the Lord sent an angel to make a special announcement to the future stepfather of the Son of God.  In a heavenly dream that God directed, the angel assured Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  While Joseph’s sad burden must have been lifted from his heart, he must have been absolutely floored at this announcement.  His wife was going to give birth to God!  Joseph wasn’t going to be some passive observer in this process.  The angel told him that after Mary gave birth to a son, he, Joseph, would name the child.  Joseph was going to name God!  Matthew immediately adds that all of this – from the miracle birth to the naming of the baby Jesus – all of this was part of God’s eternal plan, a plan God had revealed through the prophet Isaiah and through many other prophets of old as well.

Have these Advent days been a 100-percent, completely joy filled time of year for you?  Have all your Christmases, past and present, been nothing but pure delight and pleasure?  Probably not.  Very few people are so blessed as to have a perfectly wonderful Christmas season.  Perhaps you feel like Chad and Lori, the imaginary couple I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, as they struggled to make end’s meat – except that you’re not on the receiving end of some gift or inheritance that will bail you out of your fiscal dilemma.  Perhaps family troubles have dampened December joy in your household, as husband and wife or parent and child never seem to listen to what the other says or take into consideration the other’s needs.  Maybe it’s your first Christmas alone, or maybe you’ve spent way too many Christmases alone already.

There can be all sorts of things that take Christmastime joy away from us, but all of these things are only symptoms of a greater problem.  When you boil it down to the heart of the matter, the reason that there is sadness, sickness, trouble and turmoil in our lives is because of the presence of sin in this world.  That is not to suggest that whenever something sad or bad happens to us, God must be punishing for something we’ve done.  But the fact that not all our Christmases are merry and bright does remind us that we are experiencing the due results of sin in our lives – both the sin we inherited from our parents, and the sins we commit every time we fail to follow God’s will.  When you boil it down to the heart of the matter, our own shameful, sinful lives do not simply put us into difficult situations now; they put us into an eternal predicament that we could never solve on our own: the predicament of falling into the hands of a just God who punishes sin.

And so the angelic Advent announcement that reaches our ears also touches our hearts.  Joseph’s angelic Advent announcement foretold a miracle child then, and that same announcement points us back to that same miracle child.  We need the message of the coming Savior’s birth as much as Joseph needed to hear it.  This Advent announcement gives us a joy that surpasses all sadness, and a secure faith that trumps all doubts and despairs.  No matter what life throws at you, the announcement of the coming Savior points you to everything you and your faith needs this season.  What more joyous news could you and I hear than that the little, innocent baby Jesus would grow up to become the innocent Lamb of God who took away our sins?  What more joyous news could you and I hear than that the seemingly helpless infant child would one day be conqueror over sin and death and hell?  We need this angelic Advent announcement just as much as Joseph did, because it points us to our hope, our salvation, and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

II.

The angel’s message to Joseph certainly had a profound effect.  That message not only allowed Joseph to understand the miracle child that was about to be born of Mary, but the angel’s announcement also revealed a miracle faith in Joseph.  Notice Joseph’s simple, quiet response to the angel’s message.  “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him.”  The angel said it; Joseph did it.  It was that simple.  The angel’s gospel message produced a miracle faith in Joseph: a faith that led him to trust God’s message and then follow God’s will down to the last detail, by naming the baby boy Jesus, the name the angel had given him.

The angel’s message also revealed a miracle faith in Joseph by what he did not do.  St. Matthew says, “[Joseph] had no union with her until she gave birth to a son.”  More often than not, we simply gloss over that statement.  But think about the tremendous service that Joseph did for the entire Christian Church of all places and times by this simple action.  In an age when even some Lutherans deny the miracle of the virgin birth, Joseph’s actions make it clear for us today that Mary’s child was not just an ordinary human being.  Mary’s child was a miracle child: he was and still is 100 percent fully God and 100 percent fully man, all in one person.

Joseph strikes me as a very simple, humble man.  The Bible never even records a word he spoke.  Joseph may not have spoken many words, but his faith spoke volumes.  His faith reveals a simple, quiet trust in the Lord’s words and promises.  This angelic Advent announcement revealed a miracle faith in Joseph, and to this day the message of the gospel continues to produces miracle faith in the hearts of those who hear it.

What would possess a Christian to watch a stewardship presentation and then consider how he can assist the church’s work by planning generous offerings for the coming year?  What would possess a member of this church to take a Saturday morning during the busiest shopping season of the year to help spread the Word about our upcoming Christmas services that will spread the Word about Jesus?  What would possess you to double your church attendance during the pre-Christmas hustle and bustle?  What possesses Christians to do things like these?  The Holy Spirit possesses them!  The Holy Spirit works through the message of the gospel and creates a miracle faith.  This faith is a miracle not only because of the godly actions it produces, but this faith is a miracle in itself.  God takes us, people who are his worst enemies by nature, and through the message of the coming Savior’s gospel he miraculously turns us into his dearest friends.  He turns the unwilling into the willing.  He turns former partners of Satan into sharers of eternal blessings that Jesus’ death and resurrection have secured for us.  The message of the angels – really, the message about Jesus – creates a miracle faith that produces miraculous results.

Conclusion

The chances of any of us receiving a miraculous message from an angel are next to zilch, but announcement that Joseph received over 2000 years ago still brings about miracles today.  The message of Jesus, the miracle child, continues to produce a miracle faith in all who trust in his love and forgiveness.  May the message of the miracle child continue to bring you true peace and joy, and may it continue to reveal a miracle faith that shines brightly to the rest of the world and points them to Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.  Amen.

1. Thanks in all circumstances
2. Gratitude for all gifts

Text: Philippians 4:10-20

Introduction

Finish this sentence: “It wouldn’t be a ‘real’ Thanksgiving without ___.”  For the first 25 years of my life, I would have said, “It wouldn’t be a ‘real’ Thanksgiving without going over to Aunt Jane’s house for dinner and then playing Royal Rummy with my mom’s side of the family.”  How about you?  “It wouldn’t be a ‘real’ Thanksgiving without ___.”  Dinner at Grandma’s house…turkey with all the fixings…that special side dish that mom makes every year for Thanksgiving…playing card games with the cousins after the meal…or something else?  Many of us have family traditions attached to our personal Thanksgiving celebrations, things we assumed will take place when we gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.  The holidays just wouldn’t feel the same without those cherished traditions we have become accustomed to.

A liturgically-leaning Lutheran liturgist is the last person who is going to tell you to ditch your Thanksgiving family traditions.  Traditions and rituals are ways that we express significance and value when words seem insufficient to make that statement.  But what would happen if your Thanksgiving celebration took place without the usual hoopla?  No traditions, no turkey and trimmings, no tummies filled with delicious delicacies and desserts.  Could you still have a real thanksgiving celebration?  Our gut reaction might be to say, “No,” but our faith assures us that the answer is otherwise.  In fact, you could be standing in the unemployment line, not knowing where the next paycheck is coming from, and consuming nothing more than tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for Thanksgiving dinner, and yet you could still have a more joyous Thanksgiving celebration than the family next door who has more food than they know what to do with.

In this Thanksgiving sermon, we’re going to focus on the words St. Paul recorded in the First Scripture selection read earlier in the service.  Paul’s words will teach us that real thanksgiving is not attached to a meal or a family gathering.  Paul teaches us that real thanksgiving involves thanks in all circumstances, and giving with all gratitude. 

I.

As joyful a day as Thanksgiving is meant to be, reality often gets in the way of that joy.  The economy is lousy and mom or dad are unemployed.  Health takes a turn for the worse and adds a burden to every day, and Thanksgiving is no exception.  Reality sometimes dampens joy.

The apostle Paul was in a similar situation.  His circumstances were pretty lousy.  He wrote this letter while under house arrest in Rome.  This world-traveling missionary was kept from preaching the gospel because he got in trouble for preaching the gospel.  He did have some degree of freedom; he was not in solitary confinement, people could visit him, and his eventual release seemed reasonably likely.  But this was hardly the situation that would fill a person with joy and gratitude.  And this was hardly the situation where you would expect someone to write these words: “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

Saint Paul’s brief autobiography tells us that he lived through all kinds of circumstances.  He knew how poverty and persecution could humble him, and he knew what it was like to have more food on the table than he knew what to do with.  That experience taught him a secret.  “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.”  The word “secret” that he used here was sometimes used as a technical term to describe people who had been gone through the initiation rites of a pagan religion.  After that experience, they supposedly learned special insider knowledge that was available only to people in that cult.  Paul used that word, “secret,” and put a Christian meaning on it.  No other religion and no other philosophy could teach anyone the “secret” of being content no matter what the circumstances.  But Christianity could teach that secret.  Paul had gained that special, Christian “insider knowledge” because, as he said, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

We need to be careful that we understand what Paul actually meant with that statement.  He didn’t mean that he could literally do anything and everything he wanted—otherwise he wouldn’t have been under arrest.  We can capture his intended meaning a little more clearly this way: “I can endure everything through him who gives me strength.”  Paul had come to know and believe and proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ came to save helpless, hell-bound sinners like him.  Paul knew how the message of grace and forgiveness through faith in Jesus filled his heart with spiritual strength and confidence that you can’t find anywhere else.  He knew that in Jesus he stood right with God and ready for eternity.  And that reality—a reality that only belongs to those who trust in Jesus as their Savior from sin—enabled Paul to be thankful in all circumstances.

The other morning I stopped by one of the local Starbucks and happened to catch an article about the “Occupy Wall Street” protests that are happening around the country.  We can rightly disagree about political philosophies, and the church has no business trading the gospel message in for a political message.  But I couldn’t help reading about these protests and thinking to myself, “How can any American complain about the wealthy when the average American is wealthy by the standards of this world?  How can any of us complain when we have so much?—maybe not as much as the guy down the street, but certainly much when compared to everyone who occupies this world.

Then again, is it just political protesters who need an attitude adjustment?  Is there a soul among us here who doesn’t gripe and moan and whine and complain about something?  We gripe about the SMUD bill when we should be glad for heat and electricity.  We gripe about unexpected car repairs when we could be grateful that there are two vehicles sitting in our driveway.  We gripe about unreasonable people in our homes and offices when our own attitudes may be a good part of the reason why they seem so unreasonable around us.  We gripe that we don’t have what we want, when his Word tells us, “[God] … did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

With all our sinful lack of thankfulness, where will we find the secret that leads to thanks in all circumstances?  Remember what Paul said in our reading: “I can do (or endure) everything through him who gives me strength.”  We find continual spiritual strength through the same person who continued to strengthen Paul throughout his life—the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ self-sacrificing work to rescue us from the hellish consequences of our sinful ingratitude is more than enough to fill our hearts with real thanksgiving!  For Jesus never griped about his God-given mission, but he went forward resolutely to the cross where he paid for every last one of our sins and failures, even our sins of selfish ingratitude and ungratefulness.  And Jesus continually strengthens your soul as he fills you up, not with a Thanksgiving feast, but with his generous grace, his forgiveness that knows no limits or bounds.  If you want a real Thanksgiving celebration, if you desire to be thankful in all circumstances, then fill your heart with the rich soul-food Jesus gives you in his Word and Sacraments, and feast on his never-ending grace!

II.

Saint Paul was certainly grateful to God for the blessings of salvation that he had through faith in Jesus.  But our reading also contains a statement of Paul’s gratitude for blessings that he had received from his readers, the Christians in the ancient city of Philippi who received this letter.  Listen as Paul describes their gift to him, and his gratitude for their gift.  “It was good of you to share in my troubles.  Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need.”

Paul’s readers had a fine track record of supporting his ministry.  The Philippians sent Paul support twice in the past when he was carrying out mission work in the city of Thessalonica.  Now they had just sent him another gift while he was under house arrest—and they probably would have sent him something earlier had circumstances not prevented them from sending support sooner.

This discussion about special gifts might leave someone with the impression that Paul was just fishing for more from his readers.  So Paul clears up any potential confusion at the end of our reading.  He says, “Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account.  I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.  They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.” 

The reason Paul talked about their gifts to him was not to get more from them, but to give proper recognition to them.  Paul was grateful for the gifts they sent through their messenger, Epaphroditus, and Paul wanted them to receive proper recognition as a way to express his gratitude.  But he was also grateful because these gifts came from hearts of faith, and that made their gifts pleasing to God.

When you read through a New Testament book written by Saint Paul, you can’t help but notice that he takes everything back to Jesus.  It seems that he can’t go more than a few verses without taking matters back to Christ.  And that’s what he does here to express his thanks to the Philippians for their gift.  He takes matters back to the greatest gift that they had in Jesus.  “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.  To our God and Father be glory forever and ever.  Amen.”  The Philippians’ gifts to Paul were generous and wonderful, but no earthly gift can match the generous spiritual riches that belong to those who trust in Jesus Christ.  The real reason Paul could praise God and thank his readers was because he had been richly blessed to be a believer in Jesus and a child of God the Father.

Are your mealtime prayers on Thanksgiving Day a little awkward?  It seems like our standard table prayers should be set aside on a day like Thanksgiving.  Everyone defers to dad to lead the prayer; after all, he’s the head of the household, so he has to do it.  And suddenly dad’s mind goes blank.  “Okay everyone, let’s fold our hands and pray.  Ahh, dear Lord, we, um, we thank you for the food you’ve given us for this meal.  We thank you, um, for our family whose all gathered here.  And, um, we thank you for the food, and – oh! – also for our friends who have come to be with us today, and we thank you for the food and for everything else.  Amen.”  Sometimes it seems like all we can muster up thanks for starts with the letter “F” – food, family, friends…and maybe football.

Are those the only gifts we have to be grateful for?  Perhaps we need to be encouraged to think like the apostle Paul, who knew that real thanksgiving was only possible because of the spiritual gifts God had given him—gifts that God has also given you!  We have so many more gifts for which to be grateful—not just food, family, and friends.  And, ironically, these gifts also start with the letter “F.” For you have the God-given faith that Jesus Christ came into this world to live the perfect life in your place that now counts as your perfection before God the Father.  That faith in Jesus gives you the forgiveness of your sins which he secured by shedding his blood for you on the cross.  And that faith also assures you of your heavenly future made possible when Jesus defeated your grave by his resurrection.  And all of these truths assure you that you have freedom from fear in this life or in the life to come, for God has made you his own in baptism and keeps you his own through his Word and nourishes you through his Supper.

Conclusion

As the choir practiced its anthem (“Sing to the Lord of Harvest”) during last week’s rehearsal, it struck me how the last stanza brought all our thanksgiving back to Jesus.  After two stanzas that talked about our earthly blessings, the song concluded, “And with your lives adore him, who gave his life for all.”  Without even citing the name Jesus, the song’s ending took us back to Jesus.  If you want to have a real thanksgiving celebration tomorrow/today, remember to let all of your thanksgiving take you back to Jesus.  Whether your Thanksgiving meal is a full-fledged feast or a turkey sandwich, you have every reason for real thanksgiving when your faith is focused on the One who gave his life for all and for you.  With that knowledge in your heart, may you have a real, happy, and blessed Thanksgiving!  Amen.

The Liturgy is important because it has repetition. It has been said that the Liturgy is boring. It is like water flowing over a waterfall and boring into a rock. Eventually the water has its way with the seemingly impenetrable rock. Repetition ingrains the Word of God deep into our minds and hearts. Thus, the Word of God is there in times of crisis, persecution, sudden tragedy, and old age to comfort us with what is familiar and sure. Times of tragedy and trial do not require novelty. Reciting the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds in the Liturgy sometimes seems tiresome. Yet when the pastor gathers with the troubled, sick, and dying, their confident recitation of liturgical prayers brings comfort and often tears. Estranged spouses pray together, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” A dying Christian whose body is ravaged with cancer receives the Lord’s Supper and confesses with his pastor and family, “I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” 

The historic Liturgy has both repetition and variation. Within the unchanging structure there is plenty of room for a variety of hymns, Introits, Psalms, Graduals, prayers, sermons, and other components. As in all areas of human life, creativity needs boundaries. Routine in life frees the creative process of the mind. Most people require the discipline of a morning routine. Getting dressed, showering, and shaving in the morning are best done with routine, which allows one to wake up and to prepare creatively for the coming day. You do not have to think about what comes next, where to find your toothbrush, or where to get a cup of coffee. The morning repetition and routine free the entire family for creative thought and conversation regarding the day’s activities.

Painters are confined by the borders of the canvas. One cannot paint very well if one is plopping paint all over the room. One need not look very far to find examples of incredible creativity expressed within the framework of traditional liturgical worship. Sergei Rachmaninov’s Opus 31 setting for the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and J. S. Bach’s cantatas in Leipzig demonstrate the wide latitude available for creativity within the bounds of liturgical forms. There is great room for freedom in musical, ritual, and ceremonial expression within the confines of the classic liturgical structure. The same Liturgy is used in both a small country church and grand cathedral. The same Liturgy is used during solemn penitential seasons and joyous festivals. By its very nature, the traditional Liturgy possesses a character that is very flexible and adaptable to different places and seasons of the church year.

-Duncan, J. Ligon, Dan Kimball, Michael Lawrence et al. Perspectives on Christian Worship: 5 Views: Ligon Duncan, Dan Kimball, Michael Lawrence & Mark Dever, Timothy Quill, Dan Wilt. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2009, pp 37-38.

1. Words that relieve a lifetime of guilt
2. Words that reflect the love of God

 Text: Genesis 50:15-21

 Introduction*

The topic would be perfect for Jerry Springer: “Siblings Who Sell Each Other into Slavery.”  Picture Joseph’s brothers on stage, a line up of coarse and questionable characters who openly admit to selling him as a slave.  And they’d have good reasons!  “We hated him because dad loved him best.”  “That fancy robe drove us crazy.”  “We had to stop him from getting carried away with those dreams.”  And then they’d explain how they pulled it off.  “We thought about killing him, but Reuben said no.”  “Stripped his robe right off, tossed him in a pit, and then these Ishmaelites came along.”  “Yeah – so we sold him for 20 shekels.”

Finally, Jerry brings out the surprise guest – Zaphenath-Paneah, the prime minister of world powerhouse Egypt—otherwise known as their long-lost brother, Joseph.  Jerry provokes the brothers a little bit, “Well, guys, what do you have to say to your brother now, or should I say, to the ruler of Egypt?” as Joseph strides in wearing gold jewelry, royal make-up, and flanked by hulking body guards.  Gasp!  The audience oooohs.  Once the brothers recover from shock, the dread sinks their hearts and hangs their heads.  A member of the audience hollers, “Revenge!”  Jerry sees a brawl coming.  The brothers drop to the ground in desperation and bow just like the sheaves of grain in young Joseph’s dream.  Joseph stands over them, and with a tear in his eye lifts up each one with an embrace and says, “Brothers, don’t be scared.  It’s okay.  I forgive you.  God has taken care of everything and brought us together again.”

That’s not the turn of events you’d expect on the Jerry Springer show, but that is the turn of events that took place in today’s First Lesson.  But…really?  Joseph says, “I forgive you,” and that’s it?  What about the miserable life they caused him to have for so many years?  What about the terrible things they had done to him?  Wasn’t it time for revenge?  Jerry Springer’s audience would say “Yes,” but Joseph said, “No.”  Joseph said, “I forgive you.”  And this morning we are going to see why those words of unconditional forgiveness are so remarkable, so miraculous, so amazing, so powerful.  “I forgive you.”  Those are words that can relieve a lifetime of guilt, and they are words that can also reflect the love of God. 

I.

Let’s set the context: let’s review what Joseph’s brothers had done to him in the past and what happened to Joseph as a result of their actions.  Joseph came from a family of twelve sons, born to Jacob, the grandson of Abraham who was the father of the nation of Israel.  Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son; his brothers knew it—and they hated him for it.  Jacob had even given Joseph a special coat of many colors that revealed his love for his favorite son.  As if that wasn’t enough for Joseph’s brothers to be upset with him, Joseph also had some unusual dreams about his future, dreams that said that one day all his brothers would bow down to him.

Well, that was it.  His brothers couldn’t take it anymore.  They staged his death and sold him as a slave to some foreigners traveling through their homeland.  Joseph ended up working for Potiphar, a government official in Egypt.  Things started to look up.  He gained his boss’s trust, and soon Potiphar had Joseph running most of the details of his household.  But then things took an even worse turn than before.  Potiphar’s wife noticed what a good looking man Joseph was and tried to have an affair with him.  Joseph did the right thing; he wouldn’t give in to her.  But since she didn’t get her way, she made up a story that Joseph came on to her, told her husband, and he threw Joseph into prison.  While he was in prison, God gave him the ability to interpret the dreams of some of the others who were in prison with him.  One of these men happened to be one of Pharaoh’s officials.  That official was later released from prison and returned to work for Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt.  When Pharaoh had his own strange dreams, that official told him about Joseph, the young Hebrew man he had met in prison.  That’s when Joseph first met the ruler of Egypt.  Joseph told Pharaoh that he could interpret his dream, only because God had given him the ability.  And then he proceeded to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams, dreams that forecast seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.  Pharaoh was duly impressed, and soon Joseph went from Hebrew prisoner to Prime Minister of Egypt.

Then those years of famine came.  Joseph’s family came to Egypt looking for food because that’s the only country that was prepared for a seven-year drought.  And that’s when Joseph’s brothers discovered that the annoying little brother they sold off into slavery was now second-in-command of the world’s most powerful nation, Egypt.  Not only does this sound like the perfect topic for the Jerry Springer show, but it also sounds like the perfect scenario for one of those old Southwest Airlines “Wanna get away?” commercials.  Joseph was in the perfect position to seek revenge—but Joseph wasn’t even remotely interested in revenge.  Instead of revenge, he arranged to have all of their families move to Egypt so that they could survive during the famine.

Now we get to today’s First Lesson.  Jacob, the father of the family, had died.  And the first thing Joseph’s brothers thought was, “Uh-oh.”  As long as their father was still alive, it seemed to them like the surveillance cameras were on Joseph.  It wasn’t likely that he would retaliate against his brothers if his father would learn about it.  But now that their father had died, the brothers were worried sick that Joseph was finally going to give them a long-overdue taste of their own medicine.  “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?”  So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph:  I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’  Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.”

We don’t know if their father actually spoke these words, or if the brothers made up this quotation so that Joseph would go easy on them.  Regardless, it seems obvious that they were expecting a full-blown retaliation now that dad wasn’t around anymore.  Even after they sent this plea to Joseph, they showed up at his place and begged for mercy.  “His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him.  ‘We are your slaves,’ they said.”  Decades earlier they had sold him off into slavery, and now they were ready to taste their own medicine, if only Joseph would be kind enough to spare their lives.

How long had they felt like this?  How long had they carried this guilt?  Decades?  Most of their life?!?  They were dealing with a lifetime of guilt!  And now, at the death of their father, this lifetime of guilt all comes out.  A veteran pastor I know once talked about the way he ministered to people on their deathbed.  All he did was ask, “Are you ready to see Jesus?” and it was like a damn opened up.  So much guilt, so many fears, held in or buried or hidden for years and decades came bursting out nearly every time he asked that question.

Maybe you’re not in a place in life where past guilt haunts you, but it’s bound to happen at some point.  Let’s face it.  There’s not a single person here who would want his or her life’s complete biography read for all to hear, because that biography would reveal plenty of sin and shame and shortcomings.  And quite honestly, most things that people would try to tell you won’t make you feel much better.  “Oh, everyone makes mistakes.”  “Ah, it’s alright.  There are far worse people in this world than you.”  But there is only one sentence that can really address that guilt and those fears, and that sentence is simply this: “I forgive you.”

God has already declared those three little words to you: “I forgive you.”  Jesus Christ made those words possible nearly two thousand years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem.  The perfect Son of God, who did not need forgiveness for himself, went to the cross to win your forgiveness, to endure the punishment your sins deserved, and obtain forgiveness every last sin from your record.  When the Holy Spirit brought you to faith in Jesus, he emptied your heart of sin’s guilt through Jesus’ death, and he emptied your grave of its power through Jesus’ resurrection.  And now, through God’ Word, through Holy Baptism, through absolution, and through Holy Communion, God says to you, “I forgive you!”  What beautiful words!  What precious words that relieve a lifetime of guilt!  When your conscience is burdened with thoughts about the shameful ways from your past, then listen to God as he forgives you in his Word and Supper, and see how he relieves your soul from a lifetime of guilt in an instant.

II.

Joseph’s brothers had been walking around with a lifetime of guilt, and that guilt clouded them from seeing God’s hand in this unique situation.  But Joseph understood that God had been in control of the situation even when it seemed like it was out of control.  “Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?  You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.  So then, don’t be afraid.  I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.”

In today’s Gospel, we heard Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant.  We heard about someone who refused to forgive his neighbor even though he himself had just been forgiven.  In this reading, we see Joseph take the exact opposite role.  We see Joseph reflect God’s love by forgiving his brothers.  And Joseph’s words were not empty words.  He didn’t sit there on his throne with his feet on his footstool, wave his hand and say, “Hey, guys, don’t sweat it.”  No, with tears, with the deepest sincerity, picking his brothers off the floor after they threw themselves at his feet, he stood with them, looked them in the eye and said, “I forgive you.  It’s erased.  It’s gone.  I don’t hold it against you.  Don’t be afraid.”

“I forgive you.”  Years had gone by, but Joseph’s brothers weren’t sure if that was true or not.  But what an opportunity for Joseph!  What an opportunity to be the reflection of God’s love for hurting souls.  And what an opportunity you and I have to reflect God’s love toward the hurting souls in our lives.

What do you think of when you hear the word “confession”?  A small, dark, creepy closed room where someone admits their sins to a priest who is unseen on the other side of a screen?  Would it surprise you if I said confession is a Lutheran practice?  The front of our hymnal has short rite for confession that a pastor might use in a counseling situation.  The formal practice of private confession can be a useful thing, but it shouldn’t stop there.  It shouldn’t stop with a formal rite and a set schedule or a pastor’s office and a counseling appointment.  Confessing our sins and announcing God’s forgiveness should permeate our existence.  It should be a part of our everyday life!  When Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses, he said in the very first statement, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

We sin every day, and we are also sinned against every day.  When someone who has wronged us asks for our forgiveness, you and I have the unique privilege to reflect the love of God into their hearts and minds.  When the pastor stands before you each week at the start of the service, or when you come for pastoral counseling, and you hear the words, “I forgive you your sins,” it is as if the pastor is taking a mirror and reflecting the light and warmth of God’s forgiveness into your soul.  When husbands and wives, parents and children say, “I forgive you” in your homes, you are speaking words that reflect the love of God; it is as if Christ himself were standing there and announcing forgiveness to the sinner.  This is not some sort of command from God we need to fulfill.  This is a precious privilege we have to reflect the forgiveness Christ won at the cross to those who long to hear it applied to them.

Conclusion

“I forgive you.”  Sometimes I think that phrase is even harder to say than, “I’m sorry.”  But that little phrase is packed with Christian power.  It’s packed with the power of Jesus’ blood that washes away a lifetime of guilt.  It’s packed with the power of God’s Word that makes it as valid as if God himself announced his forgiveness with a thundering voice from heaven.  You know how much those words mean to you.  Let’s share those words with the people in our lives who need to learn how much it means for them!  Amen.

*The illustration in the introduction of this sermon was taken from a sermon originally preached by Pastor Daron Lindemann of Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1999.

1. For the ministers God calls to confront sin
2. For the sinners God calls to repent of sin

Text: Ezekiel 33:7-11

I.

You wake up one morning and your back is killing you.  It seems like it takes nothing short of a miracle to get out of bed and stand upright, except that you’re not quite up right.  The day goes on, but you don’t feel any better.  You’ve dealt with back pain before, but nothing quite like this.  So you decide that it’s time for a visit to the chiropractor.  Since you’re a St. Mark’s member, you call up Dr. LeMay.  He takes some x-rays, runs you through some tests, and asks some questions.  He’ll be able to help you, but he also has some advice.  If you want to avoid any reoccurrences of this problem, you should really take up some specific exercises that will keep your spine where it’s supposed to be, and you should think about improving your posture which might have had something to do with your sudden pain.

You’re eating lunch and all of a sudden you have pain in one of your teeth like you’ve never had before.  It seems like any time there’s pressure on that spot, the pain comes back.  You can’t eat or drink without pain, and after a day or two it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  So you decide it’s time for a visit to the dentist.  Since you’re a St. Mark’s member, you call up Dr. Peterson.  You fill out a questioner, his assistants take some x-rays, and you have an examination.  The news isn’t pretty.  You’ve got a mouth full of cavities.  He’ll be able to help you, but he also has some advice.  If you want to avoid revisiting this situation, you’ll need to brush more carefully, floss daily, and stay on top of your dental health more faithfully.

Question: When our imaginary St. Mark’s member took these imaginary visits to Drs. LeMay and Peterson, do you think the doctors’ advice came from a general desire to boss their patients around and to make them feel miserable for not being in tip-top health?  Or maybe, just maybe, were the doctors interested in helping you avoid major problems in the future?  Of course!  In fact, if doctors are not honest with their patients—even if their honest news is not what the patient wants to hear—they put make themselves liable to a lawsuit.  We want our doctors—any doctor—to tell us what we need to hear, which is not always what we want to hear.

The point of these illustrations is not to give free advertising to medical practitioners who belong to St. Mark’s.  The point of these illustrations is to provide a modern parallel to the illustration that leads up to today’s First Lesson.  The First Lesson from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel is the basis for today’s sermon.  The excerpt you heard begins partway into a chapter.  The opening verses of the chapter, which you didn’t hear, contain an illustration that related to life in the ancient world.  Ezekiel talks about a watchman who sees an enemy coming to attack, and yet the watchman does nothing to warn the people of the city about the impending attack.  Speaking for God, Ezekiel said, “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.”  We are far removed from the time and culture in which a watchman guarded a city.  Citrus Heights is not surrounded by a wall and there is no watchman to alert us if the army of Fair Oaks or Roseville decided to attack.  But the point should still be obvious.  An ancient watchman who didn’t issue a warning wasn’t doing his job.  Even if his news isn’t what the city wanted to hear, he needed to report that an enemy was about to attack.  That may not be what the citizens of that city wanted to hear, but it is what they needed to hear.

With those ancient and modern illustrations in mind, listen to what God told Ezekiel in today’s First Lesson.  “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.  But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.” 

Ezekiel was not a doctor of chiropractic or dentistry.  He was a doctor of souls.  He was not a watchman for a city.  He was a watchman for the Church.  And the task that God gives him in our reading is to confront the wicked and the sinner.  No doctor wants to deal with a malpractice lawsuit, but if Ezekiel doesn’t do his job, a lawsuit would be welcome consequence compared to what God says.  “[If] you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.”  In no uncertain terms, God says that sin is deadly serious, serious enough to put someone to death in this life and the life to come.  And since God appointed Ezekiel to confront the sinfulness of ancient Judah, he needed to confront sin.  He would be held responsible if the wayward Israelites were not addressed.  If he warned the wayward Israelites and his warning was ignored, he could know that he was faithful to his task even if his message fell on deaf ears.  Sin is serious business for the ministers God calls to confront sin!

I don’t know a single pastor who thinks that church discipline is the most exciting part of his ministry.  I’ve never met a church elder who jumps at the chance to confront inactive members who have strayed away from the Word and Sacraments.  Contrary to the old stereotypes, faithful ministers in God’s Church are not out to control people’s lives, or to flex their egos, or to impose their agendas.  Pastors confront sin because God has called them to confront sin.  Christians confront sin because in the Gospel for today Jesus called us to confront sin, and he even mapped out a specific approach to follow when someone shows no repentance.

Biting tongues that divide families or cause rifts in churches need to be addressed.  Apathetic hearts that see no need for the Word of God need to be confronted.  The personal pet sins that we think we have an excuse for need to be dealt with.  In familiar words that echo our First Lesson, Saint Paul said, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).  Sin needs to be dealt with because it is not merely something that hurts someone else, but because it puts us on the path to death.  That’s why sin is serious business for the ministers God calls to confront sin.

II.

Do you like to follow politics?  I try to keep up with national politics, but it doesn’t take long to get annoyed with politicians.  One of the things that gets annoying—and it happens on both sides of the aisle—is the blame game.  Have you ever heard a politician who took full and complete responsibility for a problem?  “Yes, I admit that my platform and policies led to our current crisis?”  The day that a politician actually says that will be a cold day in Hades!

Of course, politicians don’t have a monopoly on that kind of thinking.  Isn’t it easy to blame your course words or your self-centered actions on someone else?  Dysfunctional homes, difficult spouses, or downright unreasonable bosses are entirely responsible for all of our problems—so we think.  And while we cannot deny the disastrous effects that one person can bring to others, we also ought not to pretend that other people are responsible for the dysfunction and difficultness and downright unreasonableness that we can be just as guilty of.

What I have just described was the situation in ancient Judah, the little two-tribe remainder of what used to be the great nation of Israel.  Ezekiel had been warning the people of Judah that if they continued to wander away from God, God was going to let the nation of Babylon take them captive.  When Ezekiel began his work, Babylon had already come through once and hauled off people into captivity—including Ezekiel.  When Ezekiel wrote this section of his book, Babylon had come through again, destroying Jerusalem and its temple and hauling even more Jews off into captivity.  Before this unfortunate attack, the people of Judah had just passed the buck.  They blamed their forefathers for their problems.  They even blamed God for their problems!  They blamed everyone but themselves—until now.

Finally, they admit the problem.  Ezekiel sums it up: “This is what you are saying: ‘Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them.  How then can we live?’”  Finally, they realize that sin is serious for themselves, the sinners God called to repentance.  Their sin, their guilt, their constant rejection of God’s Word and wandering from his ways caused their souls to rot away.  What could be more helpless than something that cannot even stop itself from rotting?  They knew that they ought to be on the wrong side of God’s judgment.  They knew they were dying—but they wanted to live!

So what does God tell them?  They knew how long and far they’ve wandered from God.  They knew that death should be around the corner.  So did God.  So what did God tell them?  “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.  Turn!  Turn from your evil ways!  Why will you die, O house of Israel?”  To these down-and-out exiles who have wandered from the Lord about as far as they could have, God says, “Turn away from your sin and return to me in faith.”  We know the same truth from words that St. Paul wrote: “God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4).  Can’t you just hear the anguished invitation?  “I want to forgive!  I want to reconcile you to myself!  Why do you want to rot away in your sin?  Why do you want to die?”

What about those times when you realize that you can no longer hide, excuse, or explain away your guilt?  What about those times when you feel like you have no business approaching a holy God who only lets holy people into his holy presence?  At that moment, when you expect to come face-to-face with an angry judge who is ready to toss you into death’s prison and throw away the key, God says: “Why do you want to die?  Look to my Son’s death on the cross that has already paid for your sins.  Look at his empty tomb and the forgiveness and life that you will find inside it.  Turn to me and live!”

Maybe you think that it can’t be that easy.  “Firmly in these words believe, Jesus sinners does receive” sounds great in a hymn, but it just can’t be that simple.  Why would confessing my sin bring me peace instead of punishment?  If you aren’t so sure that confessing your sin to God is the answer to your guilt, then ask yourself this.  Why would a holy God send his sinless Son into a sinful world that has rejected him six ways to Sunday?  Why would the Son of God actually endure—and defeat—the very same temptations you and I experience, and why would he never flaunt his perfect record in our faces?  Why would the Son of God endure the eternal agony for your sins and my sins on the cross?  Why would God the Father raise his Son from the dead and declare that event to be proof positive that your forgiveness has been won and your death has been defeated?  Why would God direct his ministers and all Christians to confront sin and then to proclaim grace and forgiveness to the repentant sinner?  Why would God give us a gift like Holy Communion, feeding your souls with the very body and blood of your Savior that won your forgiveness in the first place?  Why would Christ do all this for you and why would God proclaim this good news to you?  Because “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”

There is no doubt that sin is serious.  Sin separates us from God and from each other.  Sin is serious for the sinner God calls to repentance.  But God is serious about sin so that he may be serious with his grace!  God addresses sin with this single goal in mind: to call you back to himself and to keep you in his grace.

Conclusion

Did you notice anything unusual about the musical arrangement of Psalm 51 that we sang this morning?  The ending didn’t feel like an ending, did it?  As we sang the final refrain with the choir, we were left with a sense that there was more to come.  It didn’t sound like the typical way to end a piece of music.

I have no idea if the composer of that Psalm setting had this point in mind, but I think that was the perfect ending to that psalm.  Psalm 51 contains King David’s confession of sin after he committed adultery with Bathsheba.  We sang a psalm of confession, but confession is never the final word.  A Christian’s confession is always followed by absolution—a statement from the Christian friend or pastor we confide in that the blood of Jesus has wiped away our sin.

Sin is serious, but so is God’s grace.  Sin is serious, but confessing our sin is never the end of the story.  Confession leads to absolution.  Admission of sin leads to forgiveness of sin.  Law leads to gospel.  No wonder God invites us to come clean with our sin so he can declare us clean in the blood of Jesus.  So “Come, O sinners, one and all; come accept his invitation.  Come, obey his gracious call.  Come and take his free salvation.  Firmly in these words believe: Jesus sinners does receive.”  Amen.

1. Tragedies are not necessarily God’s punishment for specific sins,
2. But tragedies always call us to repentance for our sin.

 Text: Luke 13:1-5

Introduction

“Where were you when [blank] happened?”  Every generation seems to experience one of those life-changing, world-changing events—events that you’ll never forget, and that you’ll always remember where you were and what you were doing when you found out about it.  The octogenarians here probably remember where you were on December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United States was drawn into World War II.  More of you are able to remember where you were on November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated.  I was in my fifth grade classroom at Calvary Lutheran School in Thiensville, Wisconsin, when the principal interrupted our class to tell us that the Challenger space shuttle had exploded on January 28, 1986.  And now to that list, we have added the terrorist attacks on our nation on that fateful Tuesday morning ten years ago.  “Where were you when 9/11 happened?”  If you are at least voting age, you can probably answer that question with a fairly vivid recollection of what happened that morning and what you were doing when the news struck our nation.

A decade has passed since the terrorist attacks shook our nation, but the aftershocks have not gone away.  The American economy has never been the same.  Passing through security in an airport is not as simple as it was before 9/11.  And then there are the many, many families for whom this day is especially bitter, because the attacks on our nation also brought the death of a loved one.  A decade may have passed, but you can still feel the aftershocks, the wounds still hurt, and the questions still remain.  Why would God allow something like this to happen?  Is this some sort of divine judgment on our nation?  What possible good could God bring out of something so evil?

I remember those kinds of questions being asked ten years ago.  I remember that the answers given throughout the American religious community weren’t always in line with God’s Word.  Those questions are still being asked, and less-than-biblical answers are still being offered as conventional spiritual wisdom.

Maybe it’s time for the conventional wisdom to stop.  Maybe it’s time for us to close our lips and open our Bibles and see if the Holy Spirit has given us concrete answers to these kinds of questions in the Word of God.  I suspect that you will not be surprised when I say that there are real answers to those real questions found in Scripture.  In fact, I can think of no more appropriate section of the Bible to turn to on this national day of remembrance than the Gospel that was specifically chosen for this service of remembrance.  So let’s turn our attention to the tough lessons for tragic times that Jesus offers us in today’s Gospel from the first several verses of Luke 13.  That’s where Jesus will teach us that tragedies are not necessarily God’s punishment for specific sins, but that tragedies always call us to repentance for our sin. 

I.

In the chapter before our reading, Jesus spoke frankly about signs of the End Times and preparation for his return.  Perhaps it was his discussion about signs of the End Times that led some in his audience to ask about a recent and rather gruesome event.  “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.”  We don’t have any references in secular sources to verify exactly what this incident was all about.  But we do have a number of references in secular sources to verify that Pontius Pilate, the ruthless Roman ruler in Judea, operated in this kind of violent manner on many other occasions.  Let’s face it: This is the guy who would hand over Jesus for crucifixion to placate his constituents and to save his backside from getting in trouble with Rome.  It’s no surprise to read that Pilate mowed down a group of worshippers offering their sacrifices.

So Jesus’ listeners throw this issue at him.  And Jesus poses a question that some of them had to have wondered about.  “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no!”  Jesus says rather emphatically that this tragedy, brought about by Pontius Pilate’s ruthlessness, was not God’s punishment for some specific sin that these victims had committed.  And then Jesus takes it a step further.  He moves the discussion from the tragic results of evil actions to the tragic results of complete accidents—the kinds of things that we might call “acts of God.”  “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no!”  Jesus couldn’t make the point any clearer.  Tragedies are not necessarily God’s punishment for some specific sin.

Jesus makes the point clearly, but I don’t think that truth is always so clear in our minds.  Voices all around us try to convince us otherwise.  Some voices in the religious community suggested that the 9/11 attacks were God’s judgment on the moral decline of America.  The television preacher says that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.  Several years ago, I discovered that one of my seventh grade Catechism students thought that every bad thing that happened to him was God’s punishment for something he had done; it took our study of the Lord’s Prayer and the petition, “Deliver us from evil,” to rid him of that thinking.  And truth be told, I know that my conscience nags me with similar doubts when things are going poorly, even though in my head I know that Jesus teaches the very opposite of what my faulty conscience tells me.

Why is it so easy to think that way?  I’ll venture a guess.  I think it is the default way that our old sinful flesh operates.  Sunday after Sunday, sermon after sermon, you and I hear that Christ died on the cross to endure the punishment for the sins of the world.  But our old sinful flesh is never converted!  Our sinful nature is content to presume that God will punish us with some type of quid pro quo system.  Never mind that Christ proclaimed “It is finished!” from the cross.  Never mind that Scripture teaches that the punishment for your sins has been paid in full by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  Never mind that it is the height of arrogance to think that there is something you and I can do to placate the C.E.O. of the universe!

Our Christian nature knows that tragedies are not God’s punishment for specific sins.  We know that—until tragedy strikes, and then we are prone to forget the clear statements of God in his Word.  And then Satan has an opportunity to get his foot in the door and lead us to despair.  “Why me?  What did I do?”  And we turn into spiritual mystics who wonder what it was that we did to attract bad karma.  To be sure, there are times when sinful actions result in negative consequences—like the drunk driver who is hurt in an accident that was his own fault.  But there are also times when the general presence of sin in this world takes a hit on us—like the person in the other car who was hit by the drunk driver, or the victims of 9/11 and their families, or people around the world who suffer the after effects of tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis.  That is the painful reality of life in a world that has suffered the effects of sin ever since our first parents exchanged the perfect blessings of God for a fruit salad.  That’s a tough lesson to remember in tragic times.  But it is an important lesson for us to learn, lest we take anything away from Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice on the cross and presume that God has more punishment to dole out on us that will finally get us right with him.

II.

Tragedy strikes.  What do you say?  A close friend loses her husband to cancer.  Your neighbor’s wife is killed in a freak car accident and now he’s a single dad on his own.  Someone you know lost a loved one ten years ago on 9/11.  What do you say?

For just a moment, imagine that you are Jesus, and these are the kinds of questions the crowd asks you.  What do you say?  “Don’t worry, because we know that God the Father will work something good to come out of these tragedies.”  That, of course, is true—but that’s not what Jesus said.  Maybe Jesus should say, “I will not forsake you.  I will be with you always to the end of time even through the darkest valleys of life.”  That also is true—but it’s also not what Jesus said.  “Do not fear, for my Father in heaven will not give you more than you can bear.”  Maybe we’d say that, but that’s not what Jesus said.  “Yes, you feel an earthly loss, but your believing loved one is with me now in the mansions of heaven.”  Even though it is true, that, too, is not what Jesus says.

Jesus is confronted with questions about tragedies, and he turns those questions into a call for repentance.  “Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’”

Did anything strike you as odd in the Prayer of the Day this morning (page five in the service booklet)?  We prayed, “Lord God, accept our humble confession of the wrongs we have done, the injustice to which we have been party, and the countless denials of your mercy we have expressed.”  Wait a second!  Didn’t Jesus just make a big point that tragedies aren’t necessarily God’s punishment for specific sins?  So why is our Prayer of the Day on 9/11 a prayer of repentance?  The answer is found in Jesus’ words.  Jesus had emphasized that tragedies are not God’s punishment for specific sins, but then he adds, “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Specific tragedies may not be God’s punishment for specific sins, but all tragedies are reminders of sin’s presence in this world and sin’s presence in our hearts.  Sin is all around us, and even as believers, sin is still constantly within us, fighting against our faith.  Terror and tragedy and turmoil put that reality before us, and that reality is a constant remember for us to listen to Christ’s urgent call to repentance.

September 11 is no exception.  It is good for us to observe Patriot Day as a nation and to encourage respect for our nation in light of an event like the first 9/11.  That’s a good lesson for us to take home as citizens, but Jesus is not out to teach us a civics lesson this morning.  He’s out to teach us a spiritual lesson for our souls.  No matter what the tragedy—whether public or private, whether the first century Tower in Siloam or the twenty-first century Twin Towers in New York City—Jesus message is simple and stark: Repent!

As awful as it was for someone to be caught in one of the burning twin towers as it collapsed to the ground, it is a thousand times more horrific to wake up in the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell!  And so Jesus calls us to repent so that we do not perish.  It is tragic for someone to lose their physical life in this world, but it is all the more tragic to lose eternal life in heaven.  Jesus calls us to repent so that whenever we are finally taken from this life we will be found with hearts of repentant faith that are ready to receive the fullness of eternal life with our Lord.

“Repent!”  It seems like an odd thing for Jesus to say in the wake of tragedy—any tragedy.  But Jesus calls us to repent because he wants to pour out the riches of his grace on us.  He wants to take the sacrifice he made for you on the cross and the resurrection he accomplished for you on Easter morning and apply it to your heart.  And Jesus has already showered his grace on you in the sin-forgiving, soul-cleansing waters of baptism.  He has spoken his grace and forgiveness to you in the pages of his Word and through the preaching of his called servants.  He has fed your faith with his gracious body and blood that enter your lips and comfort your soul.

When Jesus says “Repent,” this is his goal: to turn you back to him now so that you may be with him forever in paradise.  When Jesus says “Repent,” this is his goal: to snatch you from the satanic murderer of souls and to bring you by faith into his kingdom of life and salvation.  And if Jesus gets us to hear his call to repent through trouble and turmoil and tragedy – even through something as life-changing as the 9/11 attacks – then praise God!  Praise God that he loves you so much that he would go to such lengths to wake you from spiritual apathy, to bring you to faith in his Son, and to place you into his kingdom of grace.

Conclusion

Jesus’ tough lesson for tragic times in Luke 13 might not be what you expected to hear during this 9/11 anniversary service, but it is exactly what we need to hear from him.  Don’t miss our Lord’s lesson on this day of remembrance.  Let’s not presume to read God’s mind or assume things that he has not revealed in his Word.  Instead, as we see the effects of sin in this world, let us plead for his mercy for our own sin, and then pray with confidence that he would one day deliver us from sin and all its effects once and forever.  O Lord, hear our prayer, and deliver us from evil.  Amen.

When people request of us to bless them in front of the church or in the church, to pray over them, or even to marry them, we are obligated to do this. Therefore I wanted to offer these words of advice and this order for those who do not know anything better, in case they are inclined to use this common order with us. Others, who can do better (that is, who can do nothing at all and who nevertheless think they know it all), do not need this service of mine, unless they might greatly improve on it and masterfully correct it. They certainly ought to take great care not to follow the same practice as others. A person might think that they had learned something from someone else! Wouldn’t that be a shame?

Luther’s sarcastic humor says essentially the same thing — with a little more “edge” — that he says in a pastoral manner in the introduction to his “German Mass” and in a short letter he wrote called ”A Christian Exhortation to the Livonians” (both are found in Luther’s Works, volume 53).  Luther’s point in those writings is that there is great wisdom when congregations come to a general consensus about worship practices in a brotherly manner.  The tendency for every man (or church) to do his own thing is technically permissible but pastorally unwise, especially when we consider the confusion it causes among the laity and the tension it causes among pastors within the same fellowship.

(If you’d like to read the “Christian Exhortation,” it is an appendix included with this essay). 

Up to now people have made such a big display at the consecrations of monks and nuns (even though their estate and existence is an ungodly, human invention without any basis in the Bible), how much more should we honor this godly estate of marriage and bless it, pray for it, and adorn it in an even more glorious manner. For, although it is a worldly estate, nevertheless it has God’s Word on its side and is not a human invention or institution, like the estate of monks and nuns. Therefore it should easily be reckoned a hundred times more spiritual than the monastic estate, which certainly ought to be considered the most worldly and fleshly of all, because it was invented and instituted by flesh and blood and completely out of worldly understanding and reason.

A number of years ago, the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary‘s fall symposium was on the subject of vocation.  One of the essayists said that, after justification by faith alone, the subject Luther wrote about most was vocation.  I had never thought about that before, but the more I read Luther, the more I come across comments on vocation like the comments above.

The monastic life was not instituted by God, but marriage is.  That makes marriage a far more dignified vocation in God’s eyes, despite the outward appearance that the monastic movement had in Luther’s day.

Luther’s thoughts on vocation may lead us to ask some honest questions of congregational life today.  Do our church schedules fill up people’s time so much that family can be neglected?  While not neglecting the necessary and important tasks that our church councils and committees do, would we be wise to encourage our people to spend more time carrying out their God-given vocations of parent, child, employee/employer, citizen, etc.?  How would our churches’ evangelism efforts be enhanced if we helped people to understand that their various vocations are an excellent avenue for confessing their faith to others?  These are questions that every congregation will need to ask for itself, but the doctrine of vocation encourages us to ask those questions.

We must also do this in order that the young people may learn to take this estate seriously, to hold it in high esteem as a divine work and command, and not to ridicule it in such outrageous ways with laughing, jeering, and similar levity. This has been common until now, as if it were a joke or child’s play to get married or to have a wedding. Those who first instituted the custom of bringing a bride and bridegroom to church surely did not view it as a joke but as a very serious matter. For there is no doubt that they wanted to receive God’s blessing and the community’s prayers and not to put on a comedy or a pagan farce.

There is nothing new under the sun, is there?

The ceremony itself makes this clear. For all who desire prayer and blessing from the pastor or bishop indicate thereby—whether or not they say so expressly—to what danger and need they are exposing themselves and how much they need God’s blessing and the community’s prayers for the estate into which they are entering.

I constantly promote the idea that ceremony is all around us, and that ceremony is a much more valuable teaching tool that we realize.  Luther catches that thought with his opening sentence in this quote.  The marriage ceremony he designed was not only intended to make the marriage official, but it was intended to teach all who observe it — not just the bride and groom.  The bride and groom make their verbal promises to each other; the exchange of rings symbolize the promises they make to remain faithful to each other throughout their lives.  The verbal vows communicate cognitively, and the visual ceremony communicates the same message affectively.  Not only is it helpful when people understand how ceremony communicates, but it may also lead couples and churches to discard empty, showy ceremonies that aren’t meant to communicate anything in favor of ceremony that makes a statement about the value of marriage and its divine institution.