The Promise of the Holy Spirit

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Pentecost

May 19, 2024

Focus:  God sends His Spirit to convict the world.

Function:  That the hearers be convicted by the truth to repent and trust in Christ alone.

Structure:  .

The Promise of the Spirit

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Last week on Thursday, we celebrated together the coronation festival of our King, Jesus.  That’s what Ascension Day is, as Jesus, risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father on high, and the Father gave Him dominion over all things, all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him.  We celebrate the ascension because it’s the everlasting reign of Jesus Christ as the true and good King over all of this.

            Today, we look to celebrate Pentecost, one of the three pilgrimage festivals of God’s Old Testament people.  It was originally known as the Feast of Weeks, celebrated 50 days after the first harvest celebration of the year.  Over time, it took on the name Pentecost, as that’s the Greek word for the number fifty.

            But we’re not celebrating a harvest feast today.  At least, not a harvest of barley.  Pentecost has taken on a completely new meaning for the Christian Church because of the events of that day, fifty days after Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead.  Pentecost is the day that the Lord poured out His Holy Spirit on His Church.  Pentecost is the day when the apostles spoke the gospel of Jesus in the miracle of a universal tongue to men from every nation under heaven who had made the pilgrimage for the old festival.  Pentecost is the day that the New Testament Church was born, because there was a harvest celebration that day, a harvest of faith, with angels rejoicing, as the response to the preaching of Peter and the apostles was the baptism of three thousand souls.

            There is no text in Scripture that I have preached on more often than Peter’s Pentecost sermon.  So today, I want to take a different approach, I want to take you backwards, roughly fifty-three days backwards, to the day Jesus prophesied and promised the events of this day.  We look to John’s gospel account, where he shares with us the dinner conversations of Jesus and His disciples as they ate the Last Supper in the upper room on Maundy Thursday.

            Jesus told His disciples that He was going to ascend.  He doesn’t use that word, nor do we really know how the disciples received it.  But Jesus made them sorrowful by telling them that He must leave them and return to the Father who sent Him.  As a reminder, they thought Jesus was like the judges of the Old Testament, that God had raised up for them a man who would be a military hero, a conquering king who would overthrow their oppressors and bring a time of peace.  So when Jesus says He is going away from them, they grieve. 

            But He encourages them by promising a gift.  A gift that doesn’t come unless He goes away.  If He stays, they don’t receive it.  What gift could be that good?  What gift could possibly make it good that their champion was going to leave them?  “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.  But if I go, I will send Him to you.”  Jesus promised the gift of the Helper, the Comforter, The Advocate, the Intercessor, the Paraclete.  Jesus promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit.

            This text, by the way, is the one you want if you’re talking to a Greek Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, brother or sister in Christ.  Many of them believe that the Spirit proceeds only from the Father, not from the Father and the Son.  It’s one of the two issues that initially fractured the Church, as the East broke off from the West, the Greek Orthodox from the Roman Catholics.  But Jesus here clearly does say that He will send the Spirit, Christ will do it.

            And Pentecost then is the day where Jesus keeps His promise.  The day when He pours out His Holy Spirit upon the Church.  Our brother Luke the evangelist and doctor wrote two books in our New Testament.  He wrote The Gospel according to Luke and The Acts of the Apostles.  In a way, the gospel account is Luke’s record about the life and ministry of Jesus, His saving work, and Acts is about the work of the Holy Spirit in forming the Church and spreading it across continents, even to the ends of the earth.

            As we look to John today, what promises does Jesus make about the Holy Spirit?  What does He teach us the works of the Spirit are?  “When He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”  But, prominently, those convictions are all done by the latter thing, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.”

            It’s fair to say that the primary work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus points us to is teaching.  The Spirit’s job is to teach us, and the whole world, what is true.  And so He will convict, bring to light, expose, set forth, reprove, correct, discipline, all possible translations there, He will convict the world of three things: sin, righteousness, and judgment.  He will expose them.  He will bring them to light.  He will correct the wayward.  He will discipline the faithful.

            “Concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”  This one is arguably the primary work of the Holy Spirit you’ll hear discussed.  This is how we normally talk about Him, that it’s the Spirit’s job to create faith in us and then to bring us to repentance.  It’s the Spirit’s work to show the world what sin is.  The Spirit uses the Law of God to convict, to show us our sins and our need for a Savior.  The Spirit works in us to bring about repentance.  When you feel guilt because you lied.  When you feel sorrow because you were disobedient.  When you feel shame because of your prideful attitude.  All of these are the work of the Spirit.  He is at work in you to turn you, to cause you to repent.  The Spirit also uses the Law to bring to light how evil sin is and the destruction that it brings.  The Spirit helps people realize that walking in evil ways only destroys, it can’t build up.  And so even an unbelieving neighbor can look at our culture and begin to recognize that what they thought was good and would bring pleasure failed them and is bringing misery all around them.  That acknowledgment is the Spirit at work, seeking to turn a self-hardened sinner to repentance.

            “Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father.”  The world thinks itself righteous.  Good, right, just.  Look around, social justice is all the rage.  The rightest person seems to be the one who can shout the loudest.  The sinner is constantly seeking to justify himself, us included.  We don’t like hearing that we fall short.  We don’t like being told that we’re wrong, or that we’ve done something wrong.  When it happens, we’re quick to defend ourselves, quick to make up an excuse for why what we did was the right thing in that moment. 

            And then the words of Paul in Romans 3:10 smack us in the head, “None is righteous, no not one.”  Try as we might, we fall short.  We can’t do it.  We are broken.  We aren’t just.  True righteousness is found only in God.  Jesus is the Righteous One.  He is the only One to walk this earth without sin.  He kept the Father’s commands perfectly.  He loved His Father perfectly.  He loved His neighbors perfectly.  Without fail.  Without evil thought.  So if Jesus leaves, how will we know what righteousness looks like?  How can Paul conclude his letter to the church in Philippi saying (4:8),

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Jesus is all of these things.  And the Spirit teaches us about Him.  The Spirit brings us to think of Christ, to praise Christ, to pray to Christ throughout the day, throughout our days.    The Spirit does this by the works of the Law, again, showing us our need for a Savior.  He does this by His inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, which are written for our learning, which point us to Christ from cover to cover.  We see His righteousness, we learn from His righteousness.  And we get to taste and see that the Lord is good, as the Spirit brings us to receive His gifts of forgiveness and life again and again in Word and Sacrament.

“Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”  Satan was in charge.  Ever since Adam and Eve plunged this creation into darkness by their rebellion against God, the devil has had control.  His lies, his temptations as he continued to lead people away from their Creator.  But not anymore!  Satan is undone!  The ruler of this world has been overthrown by Christ’s death and His resurrection.  So what now?  If the old judge is gone, if the one who was teaching us good and evil, remember his words as he tempted Eve, if he is no longer in authority to teach us good and evil, who will?  The Spirit.  The Spirit will teach us the judgments of God again, not a broken and twisted judgment, put a perfect judgment.  The Spirit will lead us to know and to understand what is good and right.  And He does so with the aim that we will not be judged as the devil is.  Afterall, Jesus says that the lake of fire was not prepared for man, but for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, God wants to deliver us from evil.  He wants to save us.

When Jesus was with His disciples, they didn’t need to know everything.  As long as Christ was with them, leading them, they were good to go.  Think of a family, of a father with his children.  My daughters don’t yet need to know everything about this world.  As long as Dad is leading them, as my heavenly Father leads me, there are so many evils they don’t have to think about, and I seek to lead them simply and regularly to what is good, right, and salutary, even if they can’t yet fully understand why. 

Jesus had so much more He wanted to teach His disciples, but they could not yet bear it.  They couldn’t even wrap their mind around Christ’s passion predictions, that He would die and rise again.  Their idea of the Messiah was so warped, their ears so clogged, that they weren’t ready to hear everything Jesus had to teach them.  It would take the rattling of the earth on Good Friday as Jesus died, it would take the awe-some (“worthy of fear”) appearance of the risen Christ, it would take His shocking ascension to jar the disciples loose of clinging to their own ideas, and to instead be free to hear the words of Christ.  And the Spirit would be here, the Spirit would be with them to tell them.  To tell us.  To point us to Christ again and again.

In the years to come, many of these same apostles took iron pen to parchment, and inspired by the Holy Spirit gave us the gift of God’s Word, which teaches us daily about who Christ is and what He has done for us.  The Spirit continues to work through the Law and the gospel, to convict and to forgive.  To bring us to repent, and to rejoice in Christ. 

The Spirit takes all that belongs to Jesus, and He declares it to us.  The Spirit creates faith in us in the waters of baptism and through the proclamation of the Word of God so that we may be called children of God, a part of the Father’s kingdom.  The Spirit teaches us to rightly discern between good and evil.  The Spirit convicts us of our sins and points us to the love and forgiveness of Christ for us.

And on the Last Day, the Spirit will take all that belongs to Jesus, and He will share it with us.  Christ lives forever, and so will we.  Christ reigns as King, and as His Bride we will reign with Him.  Christ is preparing a new heaven and a new earth, and we will get to live there forevermore, in His Paradise, caring together for all that is His in the age that is to come.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

The Coronation of Our King

Ephesians 1:15-23

Ascension

May 9, 2024

Focus:  God raised up His Son Jesus Christ and seated Him at His right hand as King of all.

Function:  That the hearers rejoice in the coronation of their King.

Structure:  .

The Coronation of Our King

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Ascension may just be the most underrated day on the Church calendar.  When we think about our holy days, Christmas is obvious.  Jesus, God in the flesh, born of the Virgin Mary to redeem us fallen sinners.  The other obvious one is Easter.  Death couldn’t hold Him.  He defeated death and the grave.  He rose from the dead.  Because He lives, we live.  These are wonderful celebrations for the Church.  I’d make a case for the Incarnation, but we basically celebrate it annually on Christmas already anyway. 

            But hear the apostle Paul’s argument for why Jesus’ ascension matters for us:

¹⁵ For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, ¹⁶ I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, ¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might ²⁰ that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 

            That was all one sentence!  One, 164-word sentence.  Where do we even begin to unpack that masterpiece of literature?  Paul began it with the idea that he was giving thanks to God for the Christians he was writing to, our brothers and sisters in Christ who once lived there in the city of Ephesus, in Asia Minor.

            And then he rattles off a list of gifts that we receive from God Himself, but they’re all rooted in a pair of events.  Because at the end of the list, Paul says that all of these gifts are ours “according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”

            We’ll come around to look at the gifts in just a minute.  But first, the gifts depend on this: Jesus rose from the dead, which we celebrate at Easter, and truly every day, and that Jesus ascended into heaven.  Paul says that these gifts flow from Christ’s resurrection and His ascension.  The two events are on par with each other.

            So, what are these gifts?  It begins with the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus told us this Himself, as He talked to His disciples in John 16 (select verses),

“Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.  Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.  But if I go, I will send Him to you…When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.”

            Jesus promised that when He had ascended on high, He would pour out His Holy Spirit for us, on us.  It’s the Spirit who creates faith.  It’s the Spirit who brings sinners to repentance.  It’s the Spirit who teaches us about Jesus and guides us to know Him.  If Christ hadn’t ascended, He wouldn’t have sent the Spirit.

            Paul emphasizes the sending of the Spirit as the gift of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of Him.  Wisdom goes beyond mere knowledge.  If I had to define wisdom in just one word, I would use “discernment.”  Wisdom is the ability to see a thing and to know if it’s good or evil.  Wisdom is the ability to take your knowledge and apply it to the good of your neighbor.  The Spirit gives us wisdom!

            And as Jesus said Himself, the Spirit would reveal Christ to us.  We celebrate this each year at Epiphany, the Greek word for “revealed, made known, lighted upon.”  The truth of Jesus Christ, Savior of the world has been made known to you and to me.  Thanks be to God!  The Spirit teaches us the ways of Jesus, His commands for us, to love one another, as well as the forgiveness of Jesus, His love for us, and His plans to save us.

            The next gift on Paul’s list is that the eyes of our hearts are enlightened.  Don’t think of that as the European Enlightenment, which is just more darkness and death.  Consider instead these verses from Scripture: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil…Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked,” (Genesis 3:5, 7).  And, “The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23).  That’s not how we use the word “eye” anymore.  But those Scriptures connect the dots here.  Sin darkened our eyes.  The things coming out of our hearts were only darkness.  But not any longer!  In Christ, our hearts have been washed clean.  In Christ, our eyes, the lamp of our bodies, are enlightened.  Good pours forth from them.  God’s Word, God’s glory comes from us and to one another.

            And your eyes have been enlightened for a purpose, so that you can know the hope that He has called you to.  It’s another deep phrase, isn’t it?  Talking about eyes, we’d expect to talk about seeing this hope, but it’s not, it’s knowledge again.  In this valley of the shadow of death, we can’t see the hope that we have.  But we can know it.  This is what we talk about here in God’s house week after week.  God is faithful.  God always keeps His promises.  And in Jesus, He has promised you forgiveness, life, and salvation.  You have hope in Him!  There is a resurrection coming.  There is a new heaven and a new earth that He is preparing for us.  There is a Paradise that knows no end.

            And God has called you to all of this.  You’re called.  And in the Greek, that is indeed His calling.  It comes from Him to you.  In the waters of Holy Baptism, He has called you by name, called you His son, called you His daughter.  He knows you and loves you and welcomes you into the family just as the father welcomed home the prodigal son with open arms.  We have hope because He invited us to the table, to the feast, to His Paradise.  We have hope because the One who calls and invites is faithful.

There are still two more gifts on this list.  The next is that we would know the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.  The world can understand this concept.  The common view the world has of rich people today is that they didn’t work for it, but that they inherited it.  Someone died and left the estate to them.  It’s not our purpose tonight to unpack the falsehoods of that, but to see the dream, because for some, that is the dream: they long for an inheritance that will make them rich and make their life easy and enjoyable.

And this is actually true of our faith!  We will be rich in Paradise; not by our works, but by His; not because we’ve earned it, but because He gives it.  We are heirs.  We inherit what belongs to our Father.  And what belongs to Him?  Everything!  He is the Author of life, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.  And as John writes of Jesus (John 1:3), “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.”  So, in Paradise, it’s all ours.  Just as God divided the Promised Land among His people Israel, so He will divide a new Promised Land, a Paradise, among us.  Paradise is so hard to imagine, that when Scripture describes it, it usually does so by telling us what won’t be there, no more sin, death, sickness, tears, or pain.  No more sea, sun, or night.  But we do a get a few glimpses here and there.  Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah (55:1), “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”  We’re invited to a feast that knows no end.  A feast we don’t even have to pay for, because it’s a gift!

            And the last gift on Paul’s list here is that we would know the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe.  Power.  Power is the ability to do something.  And God’s power, His ability to do things, is not only great, but it’s immeasurably great!  We call Him “omnipotent,” all-powerful.  This is the God who created the universe just by speaking.  This is the God who slayed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in a single night.  This is the God who parted the Red Sea so His people could pass through on dry ground and then closed it again to wipe out the Egyptian army.  This is the God who raises up nations and tears down nations.  This is the God who kills and the God who makes alive.  And He is for you!  He is yours.  He has crushed the serpent’s head.  He has put death in its grave.  And He is able, He is powerful to raise you from yours.  When the disciples asked Jesus how any of them could possibly be saved, Jesus answered (Matthew 19:26), “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

            What a tremendous list of gifts!  And Paul says they’re all bound up in the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord.  The resurrection we understand, and we talk about it often.  Paul even clearly lays out the argument for it in 1 Corinthians 15, that if Christ has not been raised, we make God to be a liar, and our faith is futile and we are still stuck in our sins.  If Christ has not been raised, neither will we raised.  But, in fact, Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

            And He’s risen again.  He’s risen from the face of the earth to His glorious throne in heaven.  Let us return to Paul’s words in Ephesians 1 that speak of why these gifts are bound up in Christ’s ascension:

²⁰ that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. ²² And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, ²³ which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

            When Jesus ascended into heaven, on the fortieth day of the Easter season, Paul rambles off another list.  God has placed Jesus as ruler above all rulers.  Authority above all authority.  As Jesus told His disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me, go therefore…” (Matthew 28:19).  Jesus’ name is above all names, and therefore the apostle Peter preached “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved,” (Acts 4:12).  And Jesus’ reign isn’t just now, in this present moment, this present age, but also the age to come, the age that never ends.  Even the great Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, acknowledged this, calling God’s dominion “an everlasting dominion” (Daniel 4:3 and 4:34).

            And God the Father has placed all things under His feet: Jesus is King.  Jesus is Lord of all.  That’s what we celebrate with Ascension Day.  It’s the coronation of our King.  That Jesus, God in the flesh, who was mocked by the soldiers who taunted Him and played dress up with Him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews” as they forced a crown of thorns down over His head.  In His ascension to the right hand of His Father, a crown has been placed upon His head forevermore.  Tonight, that’s what we remember.  That’s what we celebrate.  Christ our King!

            And He is a good king.  The job of a king is to care for the people under his dominion.  And Christ cares for us richly.  Remember Paul’s list of gifts that are bound up in our King, that come from Him to us.  His Spirit of wisdom, revelation, and knowledge.  The enlightenment of our eyes that we can know the hope to which He has called us.  The riches of His glorious inheritance given to us.  The immeasurable greatness of His power to those who believe. 

            Christ our King, shares with us all that He has.  Because He calls us, He calls His people, His Church, He calls us His Bride.  He takes us to Himself.  Now, and forevermore.  We get to share in the inheritance, the reign, the dominion.  We get to share in the Paradise.  Because He is ours, and we are His.  He is our King, and we are His beloved.

• 2 Timothy 4:8 – “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
• James 1:12 – “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.”
• 1 Peter 5:4 – “And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
• Revelation 2:10 – “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.  Forever and ever, amen.”

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

The Gospel Goes Forth

Acts 8:26-40

Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 7, 2017 (first preached to the saints at St. John, Stewartville, MN)

Fifth Sunday of Easter

April 28, 2024 (edited and preached for the saints at St. Matthew, Lees Summit, MO)

Focus:  God proclaims the risen Savior unto the world.

Function:  That the hearers proclaim Christ to others.

Structure:  .

The Gospel Goes Forth

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

You know the abuse of technology has gotten so bad that younger generations have turned it into a game.  Some groups of friends, when they go out to eat together, take their phones out and place them on top of each other in the middle of the table. Take out my phone and place it on the pulpit. It’s called the “phone stacking game.” 

            The basic idea of the game is that we’re out together and we ought to be focusing on one another and not whatever is on our screens.  But what makes it a game is this: no matter what, you don’t touch your phone until you leave.  It doesn’t matter if it rings, or vibrates, or buzzes, or beeps, or gets up and dances, or whatever else phones do these days to tell you they want your affection, I mean, your attention.  You don’t touch it.

            You don’t pick it up to take a snapshot of your food and then share it on Instagram.  You don’t pick it up to shoot a text message to your friend sitting right next to you.  You simply don’t touch it. 

            The first person who touches their phone buys everyone’s dinner.  That’s the game.  Dinner’s on you if you can’t control the urge.  It’s funny, but if we stop and think about it, how many times would we be stuck with the bill?

            Imagine another scenario, as you are out for a walk in your neighborhood.  There’s a person walking down the sidewalk and they’re at odds with themselves.  They’re anxious, confused, saddened.  It may be that they’re wrestling with some notion of their own failure.  It could be the recent or impending loss of a dear friend.  And here the Lord has placed them in your path, and called on you to proclaim to them the good news of Jesus Christ.

Pick up phone, stare at it, and “walk by the person”

            And you missed it!  Just like that, an opportunity to love our neighbor lost, because of my fixation on this dumb device.  We can’t even take our eyes off of it long enough to drive somewhere.  It’s in our bedrooms, at our dinner tables, the addicting screens are everywhere.  That dinner out example from before is one you’ve probably seen, right?  You go out to eat and look at the table next to you and everyone’s glued to their phone, even the baby.  You may not even have to leave your own home to see it.

            But it’s not just our technology.  It’s also our fast-paced, over-burdened, over-worked, crazily busy lives.  On the off chance we do notice the person passing us by, how likely is it that we “have the time” to stop and strike up a conversation?  I know I’m guilty of this one.

            We have to get to work, or we have to get home to get dinner ready, or we have to get to practice, or go this tournament, or we have to do this, or we must do that, and who suffers?  Well, actually everyone.  Our community is devastated by busyness.  Gadgets and calendars are partners in crime on this one.  We let them distract us from loving our neighbor.  Actually, we invite them to distract us from loving our neighbor.  How many have people have I ignored?

            In our Acts reading today, the Lord specifically sends Philip on a mission.  He sends him to the road connecting Jerusalem to Gaza.  And it’s on this road that Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch.  We don’t know much of anything about this man.  We don’t know even know his name.  But we know his title, and we know where he was and where he’s going.

            This eunuch served as a court official to the Ethiopian queen.  He was in charge of her treasury.  That’s likely part of the reason why he was in Jerusalem in the first place.  Scrolls were rare and valuable, and so perhaps the queen is purchasing another piece for her collection.

            But as he’s riding home, the eunuch opens the scroll and begins reading it aloud to himself.  And God directs Philip right to him.  As the eunuch reads aloud from the prophet Isaiah, Philip is able to make a conversation of it.  “Do you understand what you are reading?”  Easy enough question.  And the eunuch engages, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

            That’s a profound statement of faith.  The Apostle Paul in his writings to the Church in Rome (10:17), says “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  He was reading the Word of God, but couldn’t understand it.  And so God literally placed Philip in his midst to unpack the Word, to reveal to him how the entirety of Scripture points to Jesus Christ.

            And beyond that, the entirety of Scripture proclaims Christ.  The Word reveals the Son of Man, the Son of God taking on flesh, becoming One among us, in order that He might fulfill all things and take our place.  Removing our sins, drowning our sinful nature, taking on death for us.

            The good news is not simply about Jesus.  The good news is Jesus.  Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection from the tomb put an end to sin, death, and the devil.  This is a glorious promise, a promise that must be heard to be believed.

            And so it was that Philip shared this good news of Jesus Christ with the Ethiopian.  It wasn’t Pentecost.  He’s not preaching and teaching before several thousand.  It’s one-on-one.  He’s engaging one man and his questions.  He’s hearing the concerns of one man, and pointing him to his Savior.

            Sharing Christ with others can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. The opportunities are provided for you.  They’re all around you.  In fact, the opportunities are so abundant, you could do nothing else but share the gospel 24/7 and you’d still have opportunities missed!  That’s part of living in a sinfull world that needs Christ.  There is no shortage of broken sinners, ourselves included.

            Take the opportunity by being there.  Be present, wherever you are, and whoever you’re with.  Could be a good friend, could be a stranger in need.  Engage in a conversation.  Learn how to ask good questions.  For example, instead of asking, “Did you eat dinner?” ask “What was the best part of your meal tonight?”  If you’re talking to someone like me, and you give me a chance to give a one word answer, you’ll get a one word response.  That goes for a lot of us men.  Instead of asking, “How was your day?” ask “What happened in your day today?” or “What’s on your mind right now?” And, if they give an answer, hear it.  Listen, engage in a real conversation. 

            When we ask someone how they’re doing, and they respond with anything other than “good,” the moment turns awkward.  But it doesn’t have to.  Empathize. Ask what’s wrong.  Keep the conversation going.  And, as the conversation unfolds, you’ll begin to notice their hopes and dreams, and their fears and worries.  Those moments give us the opportunity to share the hope that we have in Christ.

            Another part of sharing Christ with others is knowing how to divide and distinguish between law and gospel.  Where is your neighbor at right now?  If they’re prideful and boasting of their sin, you don’t give them the gospel.  That will only make them feel encouraged to sin deeper.  They need to hear God’s law.  And conversely, if your neighbor is wallowing in despair over their sins, you don’t hit them with the law, which would only further crush them into dust, but you speak to them the sweet, comforting words of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how He forgives their sins.

            If you want to learn how to distinguish law and gospel better, read the Word.  Hear it proclaimed in the Lord’s Church.  Come to Bible class.  Dig deep and ask questions.

            But it’s important to know that when we’re attempting to point another person to Christ, we will likely be rejected.  Be prepared for it at any point along the way.  They could reject the conversation.  They could get angry when you try to speak into their specific situation.  But also remember, ultimately, it’s not you they’re rejecting, but Christ. 

            Philip delivered the message, personally, one-on-one to the Ethiopian eunuch.  And he then, to the best of our knowledge, returned to Ethiopia, and delightedly told his queen what he’d learned.  Church tradition holds that the evangelist Mark worked with the Christian Church that sprang up in Ethiopia, but it certainly appears that the Word of God got there before he did.

            This is God’s kingdom and His work.  We simply rejoice that we’re part of it.  I was once naïve enough to think that the goal of every Christian ought to be to Christianize the world.  That’s not going to happen.  And even if it were, it wouldn’t be my work, but the Lord’s. 

The goal of every Christian then is this: to faithfully proclaim Christ to your neighbor, and to rejoice in the forgiveness of your sins whether you succeed or fail.  Because we do fail, whether it’s by neglecting to even try, or if it’s by messing up in how we approach them.  But we are forgiven even of these things!  Christ’s death on the cross covers all of our sins.  All of them.  He removes them from us by taking them on Himself and taking them to the cross.

So we rejoice, we rejoice in sins forgiven.  We rejoice in the waters of baptism through which God declared us to be His children just as He did with the Ethiopian eunuch.  We rejoice that we have heard the Word of God proclaimed unto us.  We rejoice that God even chooses to work through us that others may hear of His name and what He has done for us all.  We rejoice, for Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

Stewards of the Gospel

Acts 4:32-35

Second Sunday of Easter

April 7, 2024

Focus:  God’s grace is upon us all.

Function:  That the hearers steward all of God’s gifts in love of God and neighbor.

Structure:  .

Stewards of the Gospel

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            If you’re like me, you may often wonder about what the early Church looked like, how they lived, how they served, what traditions and customs they had, both in day-to-day life as well as in times of great persecution.  Our first reading today, from Luke’s second book, The Acts of the Apostles, gives us a little insight into their daily lives.

            But it’s a text that has also caused a lot of Christians to be concerned and to ask if the early Church was either socialist or communist.  The texts describe them having all things in common.  That’s one of the basic tenets of these more recent worldly economic and political ideas.  So, as is always a good thing, let’s read the text.  And I’m going to not only reread Acts 4:32-35, but also Acts 2:42-47.

⁴² And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³ And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ⁴⁴ And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ⁴⁵ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

³² Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. ³³ And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold ³⁵ and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

            Notice in those texts that there is no coercion.  There’s no mandate that the apostles are laying down demanding the Church has to live this way.  That’s a major contrast to these current day ideas, where private property is eliminated, and the state forces all things to be held equally, supposedly.

            While some of the leading thinkers behind socialism and communism may have pointed to the early Christians in Acts and even to various groups within the Church up through the Middle Ages, ultimately, these men had no love for Christianity.  Karl Marx called religion the “opium of the masses.”  Vladimir Lenin said “there is nothing more abominable than religion.”  Nikolai Bukharin said that “Religion and communism are incompatible, both theoretically and practically…a fight to death must be declared upon religion, take on religion at the tip of the bayonet.”  And the writings of the Communist Manifesto sought not only to abolish private property, but family, religion, morality, and eternal truth,” (all quotes from Paul Kengor’s article “The Book of Acts Does Not Support Communism, https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-book-of-acts-does-not-support-communism).

            But a closer examination of these Biblical texts reveals a very different idea, with a very different root.  There are a lot of wonderful things in these passages that we could explore together.  Especially the topics in Acts 2.  But we’ll leave those for another day. 

            We actually need to keep reading in Acts 4 in order to see how they lived out this pattern.  Because we get examples, one good, one bad, of what this looked like.  So, as we’re told that they would sell what they owned and give it to the apostles to distribute to the poor, we first get a positive example.  Here’s the next two verses, the end of the chapter:

³⁶ Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, ³⁷ sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

            Joseph, also known as Barnabas.  While I would guess that those two verses are largely unfamiliar to the Church today, that name isn’t.  Barnabas.  He’s a prominent man in the Book of Acts.  And Luke tells us here that his name means “son of encouragement.”  And he was an encourager, no doubt!  When the apostle Paul, three years after converting to Christianity, came to Jerusalem seeking to meet the apostles, the apostles refused and hid, fearing instead his reputation from three years before as a persecutor of the Church.  But Barnabas, Barnabas rejected that idea.  He spoke to Paul, and he led him to the apostles and introduced him to them and told them the story of Paul’s conversion.  He contended for him.

            And as Barnabas and Paul set out on that first missionary journey together in 46 or 47 AD, up into Asia Minor, they were abandoned by their partner John Mark.  He started the trip with them, but he couldn’t see it through.  So when Paul was preparing to go out again for his second missionary journey in 51 AD, he and Barnabas ended up having a falling out over John Mark.  Barnabas wanted to bring him along again, but Paul refused.  And they split ways, with Paul taking Silas with him, and Barnabas taking John Mark off to Cyprus. 

            Just who is this John Mark?  He’s the one who later in his life would write the Gospel according to Mark.  He would be imprisoned with Paul in Rome.  As Paul neared the end of his earthly life, writing to Timothy, he asks that Mark be sent to him.  When Paul travels on his fourth missionary journey towards Spain, Mark could then be found working together with Peter and encouraging the saints in Rome.  The Lord worked through Barnabas to encourage Mark and to help strengthen his faith.  And now we all know Mark as a faithful servant of the Lord.

            We get the positive example of Barnabas the encourager, taking a field that belonged to him and selling it, bringing the money to the apostles to help those in need.

            While these positive example verses may not be well known, the negative example that follows is more widely known among Christians.  Acts 5, an unfortunate chapter break, begins with this second example, of a husband and a wife, Ananias and Sapphira, who sell a piece of land and then brought a part of the sale’s proceeds to Peter, but lied saying they brought the whole amount.  They were lying not just to Peter, but to God.  And the Lord struck them down that very day.  They died, and the men of the Church buried them there.  But in that, Peter said to them,

“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?  While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?  And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?  Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?  You have not lied to man but to God.”

            The issue wasn’t the sale.  The issue wasn’t the ownership.  Ananias sought to have his cake and eat it, too.  He sought to sell the land and have everyone think how generous he was, to be lifted up and glorified in the Church, and at the same time actually keep the money so that he was financially well off, too.  His heart was filled with evil, with hopes of earthly gains.

            What motivates the early Church to have all things in common is love, love for God and love for their neighbor.  In both accounts, they do own things.  Peter even tells Ananias that it was his land to do with as he pleased.  There’s not a confiscated, stolen, joint property going on.  Rather, what we see is what we call stewardship. 

            My kids catch me in this one often.  When Hannah and I talk about the house, if I call it “my house,” one of the kids is quick to remind me that the house actually belongs to God.  And I thank God for that, that humbling, that blow to my ego.  It’s a reminder that I’m not here for me.  I’m not here to compile the largest pile of stuff that I can for myself.  I’m here, according to Genesis 1-2, to care for the earth.  I’m here, according to Luke 16(:9-11), to use this unrighteous stuff to love my neighbor and share Christ with them, that they too may see the love of Christ and believe.

            This helps us understand how our culture’s love of debt is actually a dangerous idol.  If we’re in debt, we’re tempted to focus on using everything we have to care for ourselves, or our families.  We’re tempted not to be generous, but to horde what little we do have.  We’re tempted not to use our time to serve others, but to sacrifice our time for more stuff to get out of the hole.  Debt doesn’t condemn us, but it is a trap that we need to recognize.  We need to see how our enemy, the devil, is using it as his tool to hinder the work of God’s kingdom.

            God owns all things.  This world is His.  The people on it are His.  He created us, He loves us, He redeems us.  Our homes are gifts from God to protect us.  And He calls us to open our homes to be hospitable to others.  Our families, including this family of the Church, are gifts from God to give us a place of belonging and companionship.  And He calls us to encourage one another and to bear one another’s burdens.  Our jobs are gifts from God to help us love and serve the community around us.  And He calls us to take that money that we earn and use for the good of others. 

Nothing actually belongs to us.  We’re stewards, managers.  It’s His and He entrusts these things to us that we would care for them, and that we would use them to share Christ together.  My favorite Biblical reminder of all of this is Psalm 50, verses 10 and 12, “For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills…If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are Mine.”  If He were hungry, He could just reach down, grab a cow, and have a snack.  It’s all His.

            But this stewardship isn’t limited just to stuff.  Notice how deeply integrated faith is in each of these Acts 2 and 4 accounts.  In our text today, Luke wrote, ”with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”

            The greatest stewardship we have is the gospel.  We are Christ’s witnesses to proclaim His death and His resurrection to everyone we know.  Yes, you’re called to sell from your possessions and bless the people around you with mercy and generosity.  But if that’s all we did, our stewardship would be incomplete, it would be missing the most vital piece.  If I love my neighbor all day, every day, serving them, but they never hear about Jesus, I’ve only loved them into Hell.  I’ve not really loved them at all.

            We’re coming off of Holy Week.  We’ve just celebrated all of this together.  We’ve read our way through the account of Mark 15, through the account of Christ’s sufferings.  We’ve studied our way through the fourth Servant Song of Isaiah, reflecting week after week in Lent on the wounds of Christ that heal us, on how He was crushed for our transgressions.  By His cross, by His death, by His blood shed for you you have forgiveness!  It’s yours!  We’re also called to steward that gift, sharing Christ’s forgiveness with one another.

            And then we gathered a week ago together to celebrate this good news: Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed, alleluia!  What better news could we receive?  Death has been defeated.  Death, the thing that almost every pagan fears, death is snuffed out.  Jesus puts death to death.  That message of hope is echoed among us every day, every week.  It’s how Paul can say that we do not grieve as those who have no hope.  It’s how we all make it through the deaths of those we love.  Because we know death isn’t the end.  We know death hasn’t won.  We know Christ has.  Christ is Victor.  And His victory is our victory.  We have a hope that the world doesn’t have.  And, you guessed it, we’re called to steward that hope. 

            The old stewardship campaigns spoke of being stewards of the three T’s: time, talent, and treasure.  And it’s true, God calls us to manage these things.  We steward them out of love for God, for they are His and it is His trust to us.  And He wants us to steward them in love for our neighbor, not to horde good things for ourselves, but to generously and sacrificially love the people around us.  And even though it isn’t on the list of the three T’s, the greatest treasure that we steward is the good news of Jesus Christ, who generously and sacrificially loved us, dying to forgive our sins and rising again to give us new life.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

He Has Risen; He is Not Here

Mark 16:1-8

Easter

April 5, 2015 – first preached for the people of God in Stewartville, MN

Easter

March 31, 2024 – edited to preach for the people of God in Lee’s Summit, MO

Focus:  God did as He said…He is Risen.

Function:  That the hearers share the good news…He is Risen indeed, alleluia!

Structure:  This is the historical situation in the text…these are the meanings for us now.

He Has Risen; He is Not Here

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!  How do you know that?  Were you there that morning?  Did you get to see the risen Lord?  Did you get to speak with Him, or touch the marks in His hands and His feet?  Were you there to witness the tomb burst open and the crucified Christ raised from the dead?  How can we say with any certainty that it happened at all?

            In a sense, that’s precisely how Mark decided to end his gospel.  Right where our gospel reading stops.  No resurrection appearance, no visions of the risen Lord, no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus at all.  If you look in most English Bibles, including your pew Bible, after verse 8, there is a note about how the earliest manuscripts didn’t include verses 9-20, the rest of the book.  And then there’s a footnote down below a paragraph long about some of the various endings found to Mark’s book over the many copies that we have.  If that troubles you, please talk to me.  I love this subject, and I believe we can trust God’s Word with absolute certainty.

            So, if Mark indeed ended with this short ending, think of it as a style, a technique.  Think about it.  You’re streaming your favorite show.  It’s the season finale.  You like the show and you want more. 

And as the last episode begins, the plot twists and turns.  The guy you thought was the good guy, suddenly reveals that he’s been evil the whole time.  And then, right before the credits roll, the evil guy puts your favorite character’s life in jeopardy.  Cue the credits.

You’re hooked, you’re interested, and by dangling the life of your favorite part of the show from a string, the producers have you ready for the next season of the show.  You have to know what happens!  It’s the cliffhanger ending and it’s been around for a long time.

As Mark was writing his gospel, his audience wasn’t the same as the other three gospel writers.  He’s writing to the Roman population.  He’s creating an action-packed account of Jesus’ ministry in Roman territory.  He sets it up with the preaching, the teaching, the authority, the miracles Christ did in His life.

It’s also the shortest of the gospel accounts, because Mark knows that his hearers aren’t giving him the benefit of the doubt.  This isn’t the fourth Lord of the Rings movie where you’re simply going to watch it because of how you really liked the first three.  The Spirit is working through Mark to share the gospel, to work faith in the hearts of the Roman people, but it has to be powerful and concise.

The end of the gospel is coming up.  Christ has been crucified.  And it’s no coincidence the importance placed on the centurion at the foot of the cross.  Who gets to call Jesus the Son of God?  A Roman.  Not the disciples, not one of the many different Mary’s, but one of the Roman soldiers who crucified Him.

And then we get the account of Jesus’ burial.  And then we’re told about one last event.  On the morning after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go out to the tomb.  They went with spices in hand, thinking they could put them on Jesus to help mask the smell of decay so He could be given a proper burial.

As they walked along the road, they remembered just how large the stone was that sealed the entrance to His tomb.  And they started to discuss together how they could possibly move it, or who might be able to move it for them.

And then they arrive and the stone’s already out of the way.  And instead of finding Jesus inside the tomb, they find a young man, dressed in white, and they were alarmed.  Now if you’ve been following along, or know more about the Scriptures, you’ll know this isn’t a man at all.  Because who appears to men, dressed in white, and always has to start by saying something along the lines of “Do not be afraid?” 

So this angel, whom they’ve never met, speaks to them and says, “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen; He is not here.  See the place where they laid Him.  But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee.  There you will see Him, just as He told you.”

Unlike today, non-Christian writings of that day don’t try to deny the empty tomb.  They admit it happened, they have no problem saying that Jesus’ body really was gone.  It was a fact.  So instead, if you were to read the writings of Jews or Greeks in that time, you’d find them going out of their way to come up with other ways it could have happened.  His disciples stole His body and it just ended up buried somewhere else.  It was a political move trying to scare the leaders of the day.  Or even some that said it was a work of sorcery.

But the tomb is empty, and the three women don’t know what to do.  And so trembling from fear of what this could possibly mean, but also astonished because someone just told them that Jesus is alive, they left.  Cue the credits.

That’s how Mark ends his gospel.  No resurrection appearances, no denial of conspiracy theories, it just ends.  Knowing that God always has a plan, and that He works through His people, this was an intentional cliffhanger.  Some Romans were hooked.  They were interested, they wanted to know more.  And so they’re going to find out.  They’re going to go to the empty tomb.  They’re going to speak to the soldiers.  They’re going to seek out Christ’s disciples.  They’re going to ask questions, they’re going to hear testimony.  They’re going to be witnessed to about the resurrected Lord.

In many ways, Mark’s gospel ends the same way we live our lives.  We haven’t seen the resurrected Christ.  We’re in the same boat as the three women, with the testimony of one man or angel.  And then we’re told to go and share this good news with the world.  Go and tell.

And we often find ourselves fearing as well.  Fearing how people will respond to us if we try to say that Jesus is Lord of all the earth.  Fearing what our friends and family might think of us if we live the life we’ve been called to, loving our neighbors and sacrificing, giving of ourselves for them.

And we sometimes tremble, worrying about the future.  Wondering deep down if our faith is really true.  Do we believe in the true God, or is this just another story?  We’re uncertain about what the future holds, about heaven, hell, and a new earth.  What will life be like?  And we wonder if we’ll see our loved ones again, or if there even is anything after this life.

This is where I think we benefit from Mark’s gospel and his cliffhanger ending.  You see, there’s so much more here.  Throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus was telling His disciples what would happen.  He told them where they’d find a donkey, and how they’d be asked what they were doing when they were untying it.  He told them, that when they entered the city, they would be greeted by a man with a watering jar.  He told them that that man would already have a room prepared for the Passover.  He told them one of the twelve would betray Him.  He told them He’d be arrested, and ultimately killed.  And with all of these things, Mark says it was “just as He told you.” 

And that’s the power of what the angel says to the women at the tomb.  This isn’t my testimony, Jesus Himself told you that on the third day, He would rise again.  And He has, just as said He would.  Go, find Him.

And then we know from the other accounts of Scripture, we know from Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts that many of Jesus’ disciples had the honor of seeing the resurrected Lord.  Paul even tells us in 1 Corinthians that “He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive” (1 Cor. 15:6).  That matters, for the Romans, and for us.  They could ask, they could hear, they could see the witness of many.

And it has only grown with time.  We shouldn’t discount the great men and women of the faith these past two thousand years.  Men like Paul, Timothy, and John.  Women like Priscilla, Lydia, and Candice.  Early church fathers like Augustine, Origen, and Tertullian.  Others like Martin Luther, Philip Melanchton, and C.F.W Walther.  Even many of the Popes.

We truly have a wealth of witnesses.  Your parents, and their parents, and their parents before them.  Billions of men and women over two millennia who have witnessed and testified to a living Christ.

But it’s more than people, it’s more than the Church, it’s the gospels and the Scriptures themselves.  We have the Word, and that alone would be enough.  And that’s why Mark’s gospel ended with a witness simply saying, “He has risen…just as He told you.”

That’s why we don’t need to fear, because the Lord’s Word is certain.  That’s why we don’t need to worry about the future, because He has told us.  Just because Mark used a common technique, this isn’t entertainment.  This isn’t just some story.  This is life.

That one statement, “He has risen,” is filled with so much beauty and certainty.  In those three little words, we receive the hope of salvation, that God would intervene and rescue us from the powers of sin, death, and the devil.  In those three little words, we receive victory over our sins, Christ has forgiven us.  In those three little words, we don’t have to wait for the last day, because we already have these gifts.  This hope of salvation isn’t some far off future thing.  It’s already happened.  It’s already now.  Forgiveness, salvation, and life are ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Christ is risen!  He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

A Savior who Triumphs Over Sin, Death, and the Devil

Isaiah 53:12

Good Friday

March 29, 2024

Focus:  God rescues us from sin, death, and the devil.

Function:  That the hearers see their victorious King and Savior.

Structure:  Lenten sermon series, “The Suffering Savior” based on Isaiah’s 4^th Servant Song.

A Savior who Triumphs Over Sin, Death, and the Devil

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            All Lent long, we’ve been unpacking the fourth Servant Song of Isaiah one verse at a time.  Let me read the whole song to you now (Isaiah 52:13-53:12):

¹³ Behold, My Servant shall act wisely;
    He shall be high and lifted up,
    and shall be exalted.
¹⁴ As many were astonished at you—
    His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
    and His form beyond that of the children of mankind—
¹⁵ so shall He sprinkle many nations.
    Kings shall shut their mouths because of Him,
for that which has not been told them they see,
    and that which they have not heard they understand.
53^:1 Who has believed what He has heard from us?
    And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?
² For He grew up before Him like a young plant,
    and like a root out of dry ground;
He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him,
    and no beauty that we should desire Him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

⁴ Surely He has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed Him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But He was pierced for our transgressions;
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with His wounds we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to His own way;
and Yahweh has laid on Him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed, and He was afflicted,
    yet He opened not His mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so He opened not His mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
    and as for His generation, who considered
that He was cut off out of the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of My people?
⁹ And they made His grave with the wicked
    and with a rich man in His death,
although He had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in His mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the will of Yahweh to crush Him;
    He has put Him to grief;
when His soul makes an offering for guilt,
    He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days;
the will of Yahweh shall prosper in His hand.
¹¹ Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied;
by His knowledge shall the righteous One, My Servant,
    make many to be accounted righteous,
    and He shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many,
    and He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because He poured out His soul to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet He bore the sin of many,
    and makes intercession for the transgressors.

            Our focus today is on that last verse, the end of the song.  And truly apart from Christ, it would be ridiculous.  Without Christ, this prophecy makes no sense.

            Think of the words you just heard throughout: despised, smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed, oppressed, taken away, cut off, stricken.  They’re all past tense.  The Servant has suffered all of these things.  The Servant has been struck down.  How then can God say that He will divide for this Servant a portion with the many?  How can God divide the spoils of victory with His Servant, when His Servant is dead?

            We have come to Good Friday.  We’ve come to Golgotha, to Calvary, to the place of the skull.  We’ve come to the foot of the cross, to see our Savior suffer.  And we’ve heard Him cry out those words, “It is finished!”  And He breathed His last.  The Savior of the world, the One whom they had hoped would be the Messiah, was now dead.  His body lifeless, hanging from the tree.  Crucified, suffocated.

            Somewhere around Passover in the year 27, 28, or 29 AD, in that moment, it looked like Satan had won.  Three hours of total darkness stretched across this creation.  The earth quaked.  Creation grieved the death of its Creator.  God hung there, dead.

            So how can Isaiah say this?  How can a dead Man share in the spoils of the strong or receive a portion among the many?  In order for that to be true, there must be something next.

            Imagine the moment.  Imagine the darkness.  Imagine Christ’s body on the cross.  Imagine Satan’s twisted glee at seeing his Enemy limp.  Imagine the sorrow of the disciples, the women, Joseph, and Nicodemus.  Imagine their fear as they lay the lifeless Body in the tomb, as they hide away that night, and all of the next day for that matter.  Things looked dark.  Things looked hopeless.

            Until they didn’t!  And Satan would be the first to know this truth.  Even though we confess it together every time we speak the Apostles’ Creed, the Scriptures don’t bear much on Christ’s descent into hell.  We know very little.  In Ephesians 4:9-10, Paul says of Jesus, “⁹(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that He had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is the One who also ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)”  And Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:18-20a, “¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, ¹⁹ in which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, ²⁰ because they formerly did not obey.” 

Even those verses are pretty vague and leave a lot to be wondered about.  When did Jesus descend into Hell?  What did that look like?  How long was He there?  Why was He there?  And the only answer the Scripture gives is that He descended in order to proclaim.  To proclaim what?  To proclaim His victory.  Since we don’t know the details, I won’t invite you to imagine the scene.  Instead, just think of it this way: Jesus went to the devil and his followers and declared His victory.  Jesus walked into the devil’s territory and planted His flag. 

Satan was the first to learn the truth.  That what he had thought was his moment of great triumph, that he had succeeded in killing God, that that moment was actually a trap.  Just like the Pharisees and Sadducees who tried to trap Jesus in His teachings throughout Holy Week, only to be trapped by Him instead, so Satan fell into Jesus’ trap.  Because while he was busy loathing God and seeking to destroy Him, He didn’t realize the plan that God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had in the works. 

For this, you must know the devil’s power.  His power over you isn’t physical, or really even mental or emotional.  I’m not saying he’s not stronger in those ways.  And if he fought us and killed us, well, he can do that.  But for the Christian, that would only push us into Paradise, so that’s no concern of ours.  Instead, Satan’s power against us is judgment.  It’s to rightly accuse us before God the Father, before the heavenly throne.  That’s even what the name Satan means from Hebrew, “accuser.”  That’s his function.  He takes our sins and brings them before God.  He points out how evil we are, how we’ve rebelled against our King, how we’ve failed to live by His commands, how we’ve failed to love God and to love our neighbor.  And he’s absolutely correct each and every time he does it.  I cannot enter Paradise by my own merits.  My thoughts, words, and deeds have barred those gates shut to me. 

But what the devil missed that day in his lust for power, is that when he killed God, he undid his own power.  Because when he killed God, the blood of the perfect sacrifice that is Jesus Christ fell upon us.  By His wounds we are healed.  And now, on the Last Day, when the devil tries to accuse you before God’s holy throne, the accusation falls short.  Not because of you.  Not because you deserve it.  But because of Christ.  “He bore the sins of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”  Jesus hears the accusations Satan hurls against you, against me, and He claims them as His own.  He who was without sin, took the sins of the world upon Himself.  He intercedes for us; He doesn’t let the Father punish us for our sins as we deserve.  It’s just as God prophesied in Genesis 3, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”  The devil would strike the heel, that is, a wound that leads not to death.  But the Son of Man would crush the serpent’s head, destroying him.

            Jesus undid the devil’s plan, He overcame the devil’s power, by pouring out His blood.  By pouring out His soul even unto death.  And because of this, because of Christ’s faithfulness to His Father and to His Father’s will, God the Father didn’t abandon His Son to see corruption.  But He raised Him from the dead.  Isaiah’s prophecy can be only fulfilled by a resurrection.  God can divide the spoils with this Servant, because He lives.  God can give Him a portion among the many, because He lives. 

            The language of spoils is easy.  It’s the picture of war.  That to the victor, goes the spoils.  The winning army gets to take whatever prizes they’ve raided, pillaged, and captured, and they divide them amongst themselves.  Newfound riches!  And that’s the Servant.  He gets the spoils, together with the strong.  That might connect best to Paul’s reflections in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10,

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

            We’re the strong, because we have His strength.  Christ then divides the spoils of war with us.  His victory over Satan, He shares with us!  Sin defeated.  The devil undone.  We get to enjoy these spoils!

            And God then divides for Jesus, His Servant, a portion with the many.  That’s an Old Testament image, that when God gave His people Israel the Promised Land, He divided it up among them, first among the tribes, and then the families within the tribes.  The land was divided, and each house received its portion.  This is a picture of the Paradise God is preparing for us even now, that He is dividing the portions, and the good news for us is that we have a portion together with Jesus.  This is the same language you’re used to hearing me say again and again: you get to live with Christ in His Paradise forevermore. 

            Good Friday is a day of death, the day God died.  But death didn’t have the final say.  Not that day.  Not today.  Death will never have the final say.  There’s a resurrection coming!

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

A Savior who is Sinless

Isaiah 53:9

Lenten Midweek 6

March 20, 2024

Focus:  God became one of us, to save us.

Function:  That the hearers follow Christ and His way, rather than the world and its way.

Structure:  Lenten series “The Suffering Savior” based on the 4^th Servant Song of Isaiah.

A Savior who is Sinless

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            When the sermon text appointed for the day is just one verse, we get to dig a little deeper.  I want to show you the poetry of this verse, from its Hebrew structure.  It wasn’t printed in your bulletin this way, so if you’re following along there, divide each of those two lines in half, where the word “and” is roughly in the middle.

And they made His grave with the wicked
    and with a rich man in His death,
although He had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in His mouth.

            While we don’t see rhyming here, there is an intentional pairing of words.  This is an AB AB pattern.  The grave with the wicked pairs with having done no violence.  And the rich man pairs with deceit in the mouth.  So, if you’re in your bulletin, the first clause of each line goes together, and the second clause of each line goes together.

            Let me share with you the Hebrew words behind these things.  The word for “wicked” is “רָשָׁע,” and it can also be translated “guilty, in the wrong, transgressor, or impious.”  All very similar words.  Its pair, the word “violence” is “חָמָס,” which has more flexibility in definition, as it can mean “violence, wrong, violent witness, or false witness.”  These words are actually paired together in one of the laws God gives to His people Israel through Moses on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 23:1, where God says, “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man (rasha) to be a malicious (hamas) witness.”  There the word is both false and violent as the false witness seeks a violent death against his neighbor. 

            The word for “rich” is “עָשִׁיר.”  This is the least flexible word here as it simply means “rich.”  Its pair, though, “מִרְמָה,” can be translated, “fraud, deceit, false balances, false weights, betrayal, or disappointment.”  While this pair never again shares a verse in Scripture with each other, they are contextually together in Jeremiah 9, which we recently studied in Bible class together.  In Jeremiah 9:6, God rebukes Judah saying “Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit (mirmah), they refuse to know me, declares Yahweh.”  Again in 9:8, “Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully (mirmah); with his mouth each speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he plans an ambush for him.”  And later in the chapter in 9:23, “Thus says Yahweh: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man (ashir) boast in his riches,’” and He then goes on to tell us only to boast in Him, as Paul commonly says in his writings, too.

            In Micah 6:11-12, our minor prophet actually uses all four of these words together, “¹¹ Shall I acquit the man with wicked (rasha) scales and with a bag of deceitful (mirmah) weights? ¹² Your rich men (ashir) are full of violence (hamas); your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.”  Pause

            If we return to Genesis 1, God offers there a very high view of man.  At the end of the day on days one through five, God steps back, looks at all that He has made, and He declares it all “טוֹב,” “good.”  He even calls it that again on day six, part way through the day after He has made the land animals.  But, lastly, on day six, the Lord makes man.  Adam.  The name Adam even means “man.”  And after recognizing that it would not be good for man to be alone, God makes for Him a helper according to his opposite, a woman, for she came from him.  We do not do Adam justice by calling his bride Eve in English, for in doing so we miss the meaning he gave to her name, as he named her “living,” for she would become the mother of all the living.  Each and every living person on this planet today can be traced back to her.  Adam was most certainly correct.  So Adam took the Hebrew word for “living” and named her that.  If we were keeping his play on words, we might know her instead as something like “Liv,” or “Olivia.”  Anyway, at the end of the sixth day, God looks out over His creation that He has called good six times, and He now calls it “ ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד,” “very good.”  Creation was good without her caretakers, but once the caretakers were in place, it was all very good.  That’s us.  The “very.”  It’s why theologians sometimes call man the crowning jewel of God’s creation.

            But Scripture’s high opinion of man doesn’t last long.  The Fall into sin comes in Genesis 3.  And by Genesis 6, we hear the Lord declare, “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

            And so as we think of our words of the day, wicked and rich and violence and deceit, we recognize our world in all of these, our culture in all of these.  And while we don’t like to admit it, we can even recognize ourselves in all of these.

            “רָשָׁע” is a catchall word.  We can take any sin and lump it under this word.  Any sinner can be called wicked.  And the word impious means to not be pious, and pious means to have faith.  So the “rasha” is the one who lacks faith.  And apart from God all that we do is wicked, is sin.  We saw that in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in a sermon just a couple of weekends ago, that we were all dead in our trespasses walking in the ways of this evil world and its prince.

            Its pair, “חָמָס,” can also be pretty generic with the translation “wrong.”  Any time we have wronged our neighbor.  That’s every single day.  But it also shows itself with all of the violence that we see around us.  There’s death everywhere.  People living in fear everywhere.  Even down to the very simple notion that each of us locks our doors at night because we fear such violent men.  This is the 5^th Commandment, “you shall not murder.”  But we also know how Jesus teaches on that commandment, that even to insult our neighbor is to murder them in our hearts, or from John’s epistle, to hate them is to murder them in our hearts.  We have all had such wicked and violent thoughts.  And yet this word then can also refer to the false witness, the 8^th Commandment, as we lie and deceive and slander our neighbors. 

            With the word “עָשִׁיר,” American Christianity regularly forgets the warning of Jesus, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  Instead, great swaths of American preachers tell you that if you just do what God tells you, if you’re just a good Christian, God will make you rich and wealthy.  The warning here is against trusting in ourselves; truly it’s a warning against pride.  The rich man thinks he can do it himself, provide for himself.  He stops looking to God for his salvation as he looks to the works of his own hands.

            One of the common critiques of our economic system, of capitalism, is that the rich man only gets there by stepping on other people along the way.  In order to prop himself up, he must push his neighbors down.  Such is “מִרְמָה,” the use of deceit, of false weights and balances.  Lying to get ahead.  Cheating to get ahead.  You can see the 7^th Commandment in this, “you shall not steal.”  It’s for good reason we call them “get rich schemes,” rather than good ideas.  Even the lottery is just government-sanctioned theft where the only one who consistently wins is the king, the casino running the show and charging the tax.  Capitalism also thrives on coveting.  It’s the danger that faces any advertiser.  If a company cannot make you want what they have, if they cannot make you discontent with where you are now, you won’t buy their product, and they won’t be able to stay in business.  And now we’re looking at the 9^th and 10^th Commandments.  I only pick on capitalism because it’s what we live in each day.  But show me any economic system in this world, and we can pick those apart too, because they’re all run by sinners.

            From Genesis 2:17, God’s warning that if Adam and Eve rejected Him and His Word they would die, up through Romans 5:12 which teaches us that all die because all sin, we know clearly from Scripture that death is the consequence of sin.  Had we not sinned, we would not die.  Adam and Eve would have lived forever.  And their children, too!

            And yet, today’s text tells us that the One who was without these things, the One who had no deceit, no violence, no false witness, that He would die.  That He would share the same end as us wicked men.

            It invites us to ask the question, why did He die?  If He had no sin, why did He die?  And the rest of this Servant Song answers that question profoundly.  That He died in our place.  That His wounds heal us.  Pastor Otto and I have been preaching those details all through Lent, and we’ll continue again next Thursday and Friday as we gather for Holy Week.  And truly, we preach Christ crucified every sermon.

            This singular verse, then, invites us today to ponder a different facet of it all.  To consider that Jesus, the perfect One, who was without sin, Jesus joined us.  Not only did He join us by taking on our flesh in His glorious Incarnation, the finite containing the infinite, but He also joins us in the consequence of our sin.  He comes alongside of us and dies with us.

            Jesus, who wasn’t wicked, who wasn’t a criminal, is given the most the excruciating and humiliating form of capital punishment that Rome had, as He’s crucified.  He’s hung nearly naked, on a cross made of wood, nailed, bloodied, and suffocating, for the world to see and mock.  And He’s not alone.  He’s hung there together with two thieves.  We’re never told their specific crimes, but whatever they did, Pilate decided to execute them for it.  And there He hangs, the Innocent among the wicked.

            And as He breathes His last, a wealthy man, Joseph of Arimathea goes before Pilate and petitions him to take the body down off of the cross before the Sabbath day begins.  And as the Sabbath would begin within hours of Jesus’ death, there wasn’t enough time for a traditional Jewish burial, so Joseph and Nicodemus collect His body, wrap it in a garment, and place Him in Joseph’s own newly hewn tomb, a cave carved into the rock.  And there He lie, the Innocent among the rich.

            Indeed, this verse highlights that Jesus joined Himself to us.  And yet, when He came, we treated Him as though He were worse than us, more wicked, more deceitful.  Because which of us wants to admit that we are the sinners of verse 9?  We are the rich.  We are the wicked.  We are the deceivers.  We are the false witnesses.  All those who stood around Jesus and mocked Him on the cross, none of them looked inward and thought, “I deserve to die on the cross.”  They all thought of themselves as better than Jesus. 

            The sinner in this life and in this world tries to get ahead by knocking his neighbor down.  By lying, deceiving, cheating, slandering.  Jesus Christ shows us another way, a faithful way.  Rather than knocking His enemies down, He willingly laid down His own life for them.  He was humble, He served, He was humiliated, He was rejected, He was made low, in order that they might be lifted up.  For by His death on the cross, by the death of the sinless One, the wicked and the rich and the false witness and the deceiver are all forgiven.  We are forgiven.  Our sins are taken away.  Jesus lowered Himself to then lift us up.  Jesus was lowered into a tomb in order that we might be lifted out of ours.  And so He invites us then to do the same for our neighbor, not knocking them down to get ahead, but lowering ourselves, even losing things in this life, in order to lift them up, in order to show them the One who died so that they can live.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

The Mystery of Melchizedek

Hebrews 5:1-10

Fifth Sunday in Lent

March 17, 2024

Focus:  God appointed Jesus to be our High Priest.

Function:  That the hearers bring their supplications to Jesus.

Structure:  .

The Mystery of Melchizedek

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            In today’s epistle reading we hear the name Melchizedek.  He is one of Scripture’s mysterious men, perhaps chief of them all.  If you come to worship on Christmas Eve, depending on the selected parts of the service, you may hear his name mentioned in the Psalm of the day.  If you come to worship on Ascension Day, you may just hear his name in the Introit as the service begins.  Otherwise, Melchizedek’s name doesn’t appear anywhere in our lectionary but right here, today.

            Melchizedek is first mentioned in Scripture in Genesis 14, somewhere in the 21^st century BC.  At that time, the Battle of the Vale of Siddim takes place.  The various small kingdoms and cities throughout the land around the Jordan River were subservient to King Chederlaomer of Elam, far to the east, just east of what we would come to call Babylon later in history.  After a dozen years of paying tribute to him, the local leaders decided to stop.  Chederlaomer allied himself with three other kings and they marched towards the Jordan.  As they marched, they made examples out of any people group they passed, crushing them.  They reached the Sea of Chinnereth, or the Sea of Galilee, and after striking down Ashteroth-Karnaim, they headed south, along the east side of the Jordan. 

            By the time this foreign alliance reached the northern edge of the Salt Sea, the Dead Sea, they were met for battle by an alliance of five of the rebel kings, including the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The battle didn’t go well for the rebels.  As they turned and fled, they fell into pits of bitumen, tar pits, and were easy prey for the pursuing attackers.

            Chederlaomer’s men then invaded their cities, plundered their goods, captured many of their people, and then proceeded to do the same on the west side of the Jordan River as they travelled north, beginning their trip home.  Among the captives was Lot, the nephew of Abram, Abraham.  And when he came to learn of Lot’s capture, Abram gathered his house, 318 fighting men, and they pursued Chederlaomer a good 60 miles until they caught up to them around what would later be known as the city of Dan, on the northern edge of the Promised Land.

            God would grant Abraham and his men victory against the alliance of kings.  Truly a gift of God, for a small force to defeat nations.  They were able to strike them down and chase them as far as Damascus.  They rescued the captives, including Lot, and returned home.  Abram is met roughly around where Jerusalem would be located, by the king of Sodom, but we’re going to skip over that interaction, and focus on the other man who meets Abraham there.

            Melchizedek, king of Salem, which could well be the predecessor to what would become the city of Jerusalem centuries later.  Melchizedek’s name means “king of righteousness.”  And the word Salem, or shalom, is the Hebrew word for “peace,” making him the “king of peace.” 

            Fascinatingly, Moses identifies Melchizedek as priest of God Most High.  What makes that interesting is that God had not yet established the priesthood.  We’re in the 21^st century BC.  It’s Abraham’s great-grandson Levi whose future descendants would be tabbed as the priestly tribe over six hundred years later, beginning on the day of the golden calf incident in the wilderness just east of Egypt.  Yet, somehow, Melchizedek is already priest of Yahweh.  He is the only one with that title in the whole book of Genesis, and the only one to bear such a title before Aaron, brother of Moses, is anointed high priest of Israel in Exodus 29.

            And as Melchizedek comes to greet Abraham, he brings out to him a meal of bread and wine, the very elements foreshadowing the great feast of the Lord’s Supper, and he speaks a blessing over Abraham.  And Abraham in response offers a tithe of the plunder to Melchizedek, and thus to the Lord.

            If I were tell you about a man called “king of righteousness,” “king of peace,” priest of Yahweh, who brings bread and wine to serve God’s people, and to whom the people give tithe, who would you think I’m talking about?  All of this has led to many Christians throughout history wondering if Melchizedek might be the pre-incarnate Christ.  Among other suggestions.

            And just as suddenly as he came, he’s gone.  Melchizedek disappears from the pages of holy writ until we come to Psalm 110:4, where the Psalmist, King David, over a thousand years later, sings, “Yahweh has sworn and will not change His mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”  Those words will be spoken to David’s Descendant, the One of promise, for this is the same Psalm Jesus famously quotes, where David said, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’”

            Again Melchizedek disappears.  But after just two mentions in all of the Old Testament, suddenly in Hebrews 5-7, his name appears eight times.  Great things are said of him, including this, “He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. ³ He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.”

            The author of Hebrews, as he preaches, uses Melchizedek in contrast to the regular priesthood of Israel.  From Aaron onward, the Jews had a high priest.  A man who interceded with God on their behalf.  A man, who like them, was a sinner.  He offered sacrifices for himself, for his own sins, and for the sins of the people.  As a broken sinner, he could relate with them.  He could know the weakness of his fellow Israelites.  And he could seek to bring them back when they wandered astray.  And this priesthood couldn’t be earned.  You couldn’t buy your way in.  You had to be appointed.  You had to be called.  And as it was, that happened through birth.  You were born into the priestly family, even into the high priestly family.

            One of the central themes of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus is the better everything.  One of these days, I should probably count how many times Jesus is labeled with comparatives and superlatives like better or greater in this letter.  But, if you read through the book, you’ll see it again and again. 

And in this case, Jesus is the better high priest.  He’s better than Aaron, better than Zadok, better than Annas or Caiaphas.  As He intercedes for us, as He takes our petitions and needs and prayers before His Father, He’s without sin.  He doesn’t need to first sacrifice for Himself.

And Jesus has been appointed to the role of our high priest.  But not to Aaron’s priesthood, a priesthood that has a definitive beginning and end.  A priesthood that began in the wilderness in 1446 BC and ended in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.  A priesthood that endured for fifteen hundred years, but has now been gone for even longer. 

No, God appointed Jesus to a priesthood that endures forever.  “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”  Mysterious as Melchizedek may be, this much is clear, he was God’s priest before there even was such a thing.  God called him not to the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, but outside of that, a priesthood not bound by time and place.  Israel’s high priest offered sacrifices daily at the temple in Jerusalem.  Today, in this age, the Jews still mourn the loss of their temple.  They can’t fully celebrate their holy days without it.  The high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement can’t enter into the Most Holy Place with sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, to sprinkle the blood before the throne of God, the ark.  They long for the temple to be rebuilt, and they’re still tracing the high priestly family tree so they can appoint a man into the office should that day ever come. 

But just as He is the better high priest, Christ’s sacrifice is also described in the letter as the better sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice.  Jesus doesn’t need to offer sacrifices for Himself, for He is without sin.  Jesus doesn’t need to offer sacrifices daily, as the priests did, for His sacrifice once and for all is good for everyone, every sinner, every sin. 

I have no idea how many goats, rams, and bulls we would all be bringing to this altar at St. Matthew if we were still bound by the Old Testament sacrificial system.  Daily, morning and evening on behalf of the congregation.  Burnt offerings, sin offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, wave offerings, drink offerings.  Lifting the beast upon the stone top, slitting its throat, spilling the blood.  Throwing the blood on the people, and on the altar, pouring the rest out at the base.  I can guarantee you this robe wouldn’t be white anymore! 

But thanks be to God for the greater sacrifice of Jesus!  Whereas Melchizedek can be described only as a man shrouded with great mystery, that is not the case with Jesus.  Because Jesus has revealed Himself to us.  Jesus has made Himself known to us.  Jesus, the King of all creation, came down into His creation and took on our flesh and blood. 

“In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.”  During His earthly ministry, Jesus interceded for us.  He prayed for us.  He brought our needs and petitions before His Father.  Even though He was without sin, Hebrews 4 says,

¹⁴ Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus knows us.  Fully.  He knows our needs.  He knows our temptations.  And unlike the priests who would go to the temple with sacrifices day after day, Jesus offered the better sacrifice.  He took not the blood of goats or bulls before God, seeking a temporary and limited forgiveness.  The cross now hangs above the altar to remind us always that Christ’s sacrifice has done it all, once and for all, a better sacrifice.  For He took His own most precious blood, in which is His very life as Leviticus teaches us that the life of a thing is in its blood, Jesus takes His blood, a perfect sacrifice, and He enters the tabernacle not made with human hands, but the perfect tent, the heavenly tent, and He presents His sacrifice before the very throne of God Himself, in the Most Holy Place.  

            Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, was appointed by His Father to serve Him as High Priest forevermore.  Jesus Christ, your High Priest now is seated at the right hand of His Father.  There, today, even now, He intercedes on your behalf.  He brings your needs before the Father.  He asks for your forgiveness.  And as the perfect High Priest, without sin, His will is bound to the Father’s.  What He asks for, He receives.  What He receives, He gives to you.  Your sins are forgiven.  Thanks be to God that that isn’t a mystery to us!             

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

A Savior who Doesn’t Retaliate

Isaiah 53:7

Lenten Midweek 5

March 13, 2024

Focus:  God is meek.

Function:  That the hearers live in meekness.

Structure:  The Suffering Savior Lenten series, examining the 4^th Servant Song verse-by-verse.

A Savior who Doesn’t Retaliate

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Hear the Word of the Lord from Deuteronomy 32:39, “See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand.”  We see the power of God.  The power to create, to make life, as He did when He created this vast universe on the grand scale and also on the individual level as He uniquely and wonderfully made each of us.  But we also see His power to destroy.  Whether it’s God’s righteous judgment in the global flood in Noah’s day that wiped out potentially billions of people, or if it’s God’s righteous judgment that struck down Achan for his sin.  We saw that same power of God last weekend as we read about the plague of fiery serpents He sent upon Israel, a plague that killed many, and we see it again as God puts to death a man for picking up sticks on the Sabbath.

            Hear the Word of the Lord from Daniel 2:21, “He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.”  God has the power to raise up a nation, like He did for the Israelites as He rescued them from Egypt and gave them the Promised Land.  And God also has the power to tear down nations, as He once did to Assyria, and again to Babylon, and will one day do again to these United States.  He is the One who sets up kings, as He appointed Saul, and anointed David.  But He is also the One who removes kings, as He removed faithless Saul and as He toppled Belshazzar.

            Hear the Word of the Lord from Deuteronomy 32:35, “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”  The Apostle Paul cites that verse in Romans 12:19 as he teaches us to never take vengeance for ourselves, but to leave it to the Lord.  The unknown preacher to the Hebrews cites those same words in Hebrews 10:30 in connection with God’s judgment, and immediately follows it by saying, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God.”

            Tonight, and every night, we talk together about our King.  We speak of Jesus.  One of the names for Christ in the Old Testament is “the angel of Yahweh.”  Not that Jesus was an angel, a created being, but the Hebrew word can also be translated “Messenger,” and Jesus certainly delivers the Father’s messages.  This is the One whom the Father sent in 2 Samuel 24 after King David sinned against God by taking a census of his people, rather than simply trusting in the Lord to provide whatever he needed.  Jesus’ response was to strike down 70,000 Israelites as a consequence of David’s sin.  And this is He whom the Father sent in 2 Kings 19 when His own people were threatened, who came down in the middle of the night and struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers who were simply waiting for morning’s first light to attack.

            Is it really any wonder then why the disciples of Jesus, and the Jewish people at large, expected their Messiah to come as a military king, a conquering lord?  This is what they have seen God do.  There’s a reason C.S. Lewis can famously pen the line, “Course He isn’t safe.  But He’s good.  He’s the King I tell you.”

            Now that I have perhaps successfully chased pictures of a soft Jesus from your mind, let me rebuild.  Because despite all of this, and despite what the people expected, this prophecy of the Messiah that God would send reads drastically differently:

⁷ He was oppressed, and He was afflicted,
    yet He opened not His mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so He opened not His mouth.

            Even though we have a warrior King, a great God who kills and makes alive, He prophesied that salvation would come differently.  Meekly.  That His Servant would suffer, and would not retaliate.

            And so we recall what we have learned of Holy Week time and time again.  We read together today the account of His betrayal and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.  They came against Him with swords and clubs, weapons that could in a normal situation do great harm.  Tools to kill. 

And one of His disciples, Peter, unsheathed his sword and with a great swipe sliced off the ear of Malchus, servant of the high priest, Caiaphas.  You only hit an ear if you’re aiming for the head.  Peter’s killing stroke missed.  But the Lord Jesus doesn’t encourage him to keep fighting, to try again, but rebukes him yet again, saying, “Put your sword back into its place.  For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” 

A Roman legion was typically around 6,000 soldiers.  A dozen legions of angels would thus be 72,000 angels.  What man, what army of man could stand a chance?  But in truth, Jesus wouldn’t even need them, would He?  He is the author of all things, the One who kills and who makes alive.  With a single word from His lips, He could undo them all.  He wouldn’t need an assist.

As they dragged Him before the Sanhedrin for the secret trial, He offered up no defense for Himself, but remained largely silent.  Before Pilate, no defense, but more silence.  Before Herod, no defense, but complete silence.  Before the battalion, no defense, but more silence.  Before the mockers, no defense, but silence, until He breaks His silence with the prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” (Luke 23:34).

Why?  Why has the God who kills and makes alive suddenly fallen silent?  With a word He could’ve ended it all.  With a word He could’ve destroyed the temple guard.  With a word He could’ve put down the Sanhedrin forever.  With a word He could’ve unseated Pilate and Herod.  With a word He could’ve crushed that battalion.  With a word He could’ve struck down His mockers.  Why has He who has power to judge, the power to destroy, sheathed His sword? 

            Let me provide you two answers to that question.  In one sense, He sheathed His sword in meekness.  But in the other sense, He never sheathed the sword, but redirected it at an enemy most can only begin to imagine.

            In the prophecy of Isaiah, the lambs are led forth, and they trust their shepherd.  In both of the described cases, they act in ignorance.  They don’t know where they’re going.  If they are led to the sheerer, they remain silent as they go, but then comes relief as the winter’s coat of wool is removed before the heat of summer comes.  But if they are led to the slaughter, to be killed, they are silent on the way, nonetheless.  They simply don’t know.

            But the Suffering Servant suffers in silence not on account of ignorance, but on account of meekness.  The Servant was led into the wilderness, trusting the Spirit, as He’s tempted by the devil.  The Servant is led to the Garden, trusting the voice of His Father all along the way.  The Servant is led to the council, to the governor, to the king, and to the cross, trusting all the way.  Trusting that the sword was not the answer in that moment.  Trusting that His Father’s plan, His Father’s will, was better still.  Jesus knew.

            Meekness is not weakness.  To be weak is to be without power.  To be meek is to have power, but to know when not to wield it.  To be meek is to have a sword, but to choose to lay it down.  Jesus, the God who kills and makes alive, is far from weak.  But He is meek.  He chose to lay down His sword that day in the Garden, in Jerusalem, atop Golgotha.  He sheathed His sword, He chose not to kill, so that He could make alive. 

“He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed…It was the will of Yahweh to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring, He shall prolong His days; the will of Yahweh shall prosper in His hand.  Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the Righteous One, My Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.”

            Jesus was oppressed for us.  Jesus was afflicted for us.  And He opened not His mouth, He didn’t defend Himself, He didn’t speak a Word to smite His enemies, because it was the Father’s will to save sinners.  It was Jesus’ suffering in silence that brought us healing.  By His death on the cross, our sins are forgiven!  Just as He prayed even then, even in that moment, for the ones who crucified Him.  He prayed for them, for their forgiveness.  And on that day, on that hill, on that cross, He earned forgiveness for each of us.

            The other way to answer the question, though, of why He sheathed His sword is to look at it from a different angle and to admit that He didn’t sheath His sword at all.  He wielded it against a different enemy. 

            Wars have been fought for nearly as long as man has lived.  And for most of that history, kings would go out into battle with their men.  But to do so was to take a great risk.  If an army had a strong day on the battlefield, killing thousands, but the enemy king escaped their grasp, they didn’t have a full victory.  But if they killed just a few, and one of them happened to be the king, they had conquered their foe, destroyed his kingdom. 

As Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, then, He didn’t get caught up in the fray of the battle, in the minor skirmishes here and there.  As fancy a title as Caiaphas may have had, he’s just a soldier.  For as well adorned as Pilate and Herod were by Rome, they were just soldiers.  Even down to the peasant who could mock Jesus at the cross, just another soldier.  Jesus locked His eyes on the enemy king.  Satan, riding the dragon of death, wielding his sword of the accusations of sin.  Jesus didn’t sheath His sword.  Not at all.  He used His sword to shatter the devil’s weapon, to shatter the accusations of sin.  He used His sword to slay the dragon of death.  He used His sword to defeat Satan and place him in chains.  He felled the enemy king, the prince of the power of the air, the cosmic power over this present darkness.

Both of these answers are of tremendous encouragement to us.  Christ laid down His sword, that He would suffer and die so that we could have forgiveness.  Jesus picked up His sword to strike down our greatest enemy, so that we might have life in His kingdom forevermore. 

And as we now live in this battlefield each day, we, too, can learn from this as Peter did.  We’re not to get caught up in the skirmishes, the small side battles, but to keep our eyes fixed on the whole of the battlefield, and to go for the win.  That is, when our neighbor harms us, be it small and petty, or brutal and harsh, we look to our Shepherd to guide us.  We show meekness, as He did.  We lay down our sword.  We trust in the Lord, and in His will.  We take up instead Christ’s Word of forgiveness and we wield that on behalf of our neighbor.  For that is bigger picture.  Either they will hear that word and repent, swapping out their colors and joining the fight as a part of this new kingdom, or they will seek to sharpen their iron so they can strike us again.  In the first case, we have snatched from the fire, we’ve won a brother, and we’ll rejoice to see them in Paradise some day, just as Stephen, struck down in the face of Paul, would welcome Paul into Paradise rejoicing that they are brothers.  In the latter case, if our neighbor hardens his heart, on the Last Day, when the final trumpet blows, God’s vengeance will swiftly overwhelm him, and there is no greater punishment that could be had than that.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, learn from our Lord’s meekness.  Learn to turn aside from the quest for revenge.  Put that sword in its sheath.  God will handle those things.  And instead take up the sword that is His Word, and keep your eyes fixed on the bigger picture, that with this sword, with His Word of forgiveness and salvation, we can be a people who bring hope in this present darkness. 

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

The Lutheran Verse

Ephesians 2:1-10

Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 10, 2024

Focus:  God raised us from death to life.

Function:  That the hearers do good works out of thanksgiving.

Structure:  .

The Lutheran Verse

            Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Many of you know this already, but I consider myself an Old Testament guy.  It pains me to see how much of the Church today, capital “C” Church, all of God’s people, either ignores the Old Testament or tries to throw it out altogether.  There’s a fear of the Old Testament, with its boring sections, gross sections, dark sections, confusing sections.  When we have the New Testament that points so clearly to Jesus why bother with the Old?  Because Jesus did.  Because it’s His Word.  And He preached one of the greatest sermons ever for two hours showing how the whole Old Testament points to Him, to Christ our Savior.  In my time of ministry, this is now my fourth time preaching this weekend of the church year, with the famous gospel text of John 3:16, and the great Lutheran verse in Ephesians 2, and every time in the past, I’ve preached from Numbers 21.  It’s a perfect foreshadowing of the crucifixion of Jesus.

            But today, today I’m going for the epistle.  So why begin talking about all of that other stuff?  It’s to put some context around what I’m about to say next.  I love the Old Testament.  But, if all we had was Ephesians 2, it would be enough.  Again, don’t get me wrong, we have 1188 other chapters in God’s Word, and we thank God for each and every one of them.  It’s His Word, His gift to us.  But, if this was all we had, this would be enough.  That’s a testament to just how beautiful this chapter of the Bible is.  Because how many other chapters could we say that about?  Maybe a couple, but not many.

            You were dead; the problem of sin.  God made you alive; the free gift of salvation in Christ Jesus.  You were created for good works; the answer to the questions of life about why we are here and what is our purpose.  You were brought near by the blood of Christ; the picture of salvation won for us by Christ’s death on the cross.  The dividing wall of hostility has been broken down by Jesus; all the walls, all the differences, all the ways we try to separate and distance ourselves from our neighbors, Christ has overcome all of them, there is no distinction when it comes to salvation in those He loves.  Both have access in one Spirit to the Father; Jews and Gentiles alike, all people can come before God the Father and live, He is ours!  You are no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens; every Christian, all who trust in Christ are members of His kingdom and His Paradise which knows no boundaries nor political divides.  Christ is the cornerstone; on Him the whole house is built, He is its foundation that holds the Church together.  And so we are a dwelling place for God; Christ lives in you, Christ lives in us, by grace, through faith, a wondrous gift, you are His holy temple.

            I not only invite each of you to read the entire chapter sometime today, and again later this week, but I would encourage you to memorize this chapter.  Put it here (point to mind), and put it here (point to heart).  I can’t tell you how many times this chapter comes up in conversation, as a helpful place in Scripture to point people for all sorts of things.  And while we don’t have the full chapter today, let’s take a look at what we do.

2^:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

            You “were dead” in your trespasses.  How often do we think about ourselves this way?  You were dead.  That’s past tense, not present, not future.  You aren’t dead now.  You aren’t going to die.  You were dead. 

That’s what God warned Adam and Eve in the Garden.  He said (Genesis 2:16b-17), “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

You know the devil’s trick.  Satan’s lie.  Lucifer’s treachery.  “Did God actually say? … You will not surely die.”  But then they ate, and they died.  We still fall for this lie.  We still believe the devil in these words over God.  Life in sin isn’t life at all.  To be a slave of sin is to be dead.  Even the resurrection gets described this way in Matthew 25, that on the Last Day God will raise all the dead, believers or not, but as they’re brought before His judgment throne, those who trust in Christ are raised to life, while those who reject Christ are raised to judgment.  Without Jesus, who says, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,” apart from Jesus there is no life.

So we were dead.  Some of us for weeks, or months, as I surely can’t prove what day each of us may have come to faith even inside the womb, but thanks be to God that some of us did, like John the Baptist before us, who leaped in his mother’s womb at the visitation of his Savior, the enwombed Jesus.  Others of us were dead for longer.  Dead for years.  Dead for decades.

Because it’s past tense, the duration doesn’t matter.  We were slaves, to the prince of the power of the air, we were chained to the devil and his lies.  Shackled to the lusts of our own hearts.  This is a good place to argue for baptism as early as possible.  Because which of us wants our child to walk in such darkness?  If baptism does what we believe it does, what good reason could there be to delay it? 

But again, this is all past tense for those of us in this broken world who are in Christ Jesus, so let’s read on.

⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 

What can dead men do to save themselves?  Can a dead man do anything?  The answer to those questions is obvious, and yet the Church today is all sorts of riddled over this mess.  “I have to accept Jesus into my heart.”  “I have to make a decision for Christ.”  “I have to do good works to be saved.”  The devil twists all kinds of variants of this one and the same deception.  But what can dead men do to save ourselves?  Nothing!

But what can God do?  Everything!  The disciples ask Jesus who can be saved, and He answers, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible,” (Matthew 19:26).  Read Ephesians again.  Notice the verbs.  God being rich in mercy.  God’s great love.  God loved us.  God made us alive together with Christ.  By grace you have been saved.  We were dead.  We couldn’t help ourselves.  Left on our own, we were hellbound.  But no longer!  Thanks be to God!  Just as He raised Christ from the dead, so He raises us.

And we normally use that language to talk about the resurrection that awaits us.  We long for the resurrection of all flesh, the day we get to meet our Savior face to face and enter into His glory.  But notice, just as “you were dead” is past tense, so is the phrase God “made us alive together with Christ.”  We were dead in sin.  But not any longer.  Now, in Christ, were made alive!  Again, God’s Word talks about life being had in Christ.  And because Christ is in you, as the chapter concludes, you have life.  You are alive.  You will live forevermore!

⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

Why not keep the crazy-sounding-past-tense-phrases rolling?!  You were raised up with Him.  He seated us with Him in the heavenly places.  Again, is this how we normally think about things?  Not only are you alive, rescued already from the death in which you once wallowed, but you are already lifted up.  You are already seated beside God in His everlasting kingdom. 

I know for a few of you this will really get your brain thinking and imagining.  Sometimes we talk about God as outside of time, not bound by it, because He created it.  There wasn’t evening and morning, new moon and year, until He declared them into existence.  So for some of you, it’s fun to think about how we can be here now, in the present, and also at the same time be with our Lord in the heavenly places. 

For others of us, that’s more than we want to chew on.  And that’s okay.  Just know that God declared it to be true.  And know that You are His.  Even now.  You are with Him.  He is with you.  And Jesus, our Lord, sits enthroned in heaven above, King over all of creation.  Because you are His, and He is yours, like marriage, all that is His belongs to you.  His kingdom is your kingdom.  You reign with Him.  Today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of forever.

And in those coming days, until time itself perishes and we no longer keep track of days and months and years, and then forevermore, God delights to show you His immeasurable riches that are found in Christ Jesus.  You know these!  The gift of forgiveness won for you on the cross by Christ the crucified and given to you again and again through Word and Sacrament.  The gift of life that has already been bestowed upon you in baptism and in the Word, but which will continue to be given to you daily forevermore.  The love, comfort, compassion, hope, salvation, promises, Paradise, the feast.  All of it is yours in Christ Jesus.  Overflowing.  Immeasurable.  Always abounding.

And now we finally come to the part that many of you already have memorized, that we know so well, the “Lutheran verse,”

 ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

            There are other parts of Scripture that attest to this.  That tell us how we are saved.  But I think it’s fair to say that nowhere is it articulated so clearly as this.  You are saved by grace.  Grace means gift.  God’s grace is God’s gifts to us and for us.  God gives them to us not because we’ve earned them, for then they would no longer be gifts.  I like to define grace as “receiving what we don’t deserve.”  Gift. 

            And that gift, that gift of salvation is given to you through faith.  Think of the person whose broken body refuses to eat.  The mouth, the throat, the esophagus no longer function the way they’re supposed to function.  How do they receive nourishment?  Through the feeding tube.  The nutrients their body needs to function, to carry on, are given to them, are placed into them through a tube.  Faith is that tube.  It’s not a work we do.  It’s how we receive.  God’s salvation is pumped into you through faith.  Faith receives.  Faith means trust.  We trust in God, we trust in His promises.  We don’t earn it.  We can’t do it.  We simply take Him at His Word.  He promised.  We believe.

            It’s not your own doing.  It is the gift of God.  It’s not a result of works.  Can Paul say it any more clearly?  You were dead.  Dead men can’t save themselves.  God has raised you from the dead.  God has restored you to life. 

            There’s risk to the opposite.  There’s risk to thinking we have to do something to save ourselves because that makes it our work.  We begin to boast of our own self, our own work, our own greatness.  But that’s pride, and it’s chief among the sins of man.  It wouldn’t be life, but further entrenching ourselves in death.

            We end with the verse that’s often left off when the Lutheran verse comes up:

¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

            God made you.  God made me.  God made each and every one of us.  And in the beginning, He tasked us with being the caretakers of His creation.  “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).  That’s our mandate.  We love God by caring for His creation.  Look around you.  These are the people God has made, the ones He calls you to care for.  And, as you go out, there are others.  People you get to love and serve who aren’t here. 

            This was the challenge our men’s group wrestled with last weekend as we took up the text in James 2 that had Luther early in his days calling James’s epistle an epistle of straw, fit to throw out or catch your horse’s manure.  “Faith without works is dead.”  Indeed it is.  It’s not that your works save you.  You’re saved by Jesus, it’s a free gift.  But, now that we’re in, we do good works.  God made us alive again, so He calls us to walk in the way of life, the way of Jesus, which is to love God and to love our neighbor.  You can’t earn salvation doing those things.  Because dead men can’t do stuff.  Dead men can’t love or serve their neighbors, or God. 

            God made good works beforehand, that we should walk in them.  And I’ve shared Pastor Weedon’s analogy with you before, but it’s the season for it, so I’ll share it again.  Think of the Easter egg hunt.  Imagine the children running around the yard looking for the shiny pastel-colored egg.  And when they find one, they don’t pick up the egg and celebrate and call it a day.  Job well done!  Before that egg even hits the bottom of their basket, their eyes are scanning the yard looking for the next.  This is how good works are in the life of the Christian.  We don’t do one good work and call it a day.  In Christ, we want to love our neighbor, and we seek out the opportunities to do so.

            We’ll catch the second half of the text during the season of Pentecost this summer, so tune in for that.  But in the meantime, read God’s Word and treasure the gift of faith that He has so freely and wondrously given to you and offers also to your neighbor.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!