“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. Dear friends in Christ: the third commandment is God’s gift to His people. Listen again to the words of our Old Testament lesson: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God blessed the Sabbath day and gave it as a gift to His creation. Man was given the gift of rest, but not simply rest for the sake of rest. The Sabbath rest is the gift of worship. We are privileged to interact with our God, the One who created us and acted to redeem us. God bends over backward to give us His gifts. He condescends to come to us today in humble words, water, bread and wine. For God’s Old Testament people, He established an elaborate system of sacrifices, all designed to convey His grace to His people. He dwelt among them in the tabernacle, and later in the temple; He came to His people so that they could receive His great gifts and respond in prayer and praise. The Sabbath is truly a gift; the gift of a compassionate God to His beloved creation.
But humanity rejected this gift; we rebelled against the loving compassion of our Creator and Redeemer. In our text for today, Jesus goes to the temple, the place where God promised to meet with His people in mercy, the place that the Father had so graciously provided for His people to worship Him. On that day the Scripture is fulfilled, the word spoken by the prophet Malachi: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple.” God in the flesh suddenly came into His temple, and He expected to find His people reveling in the gift of the Sabbath, receiving His great gifts and giving Him thanks and praise. Instead, He found quite the opposite. “In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, with the money-changers sitting there.” The temple was supposed to be a place of prayer, a place of sacrifice, the place where God had promised to come to His people, but now it was a shopping mall. The religious leadership would rather reap the profits of turning the temple mount into a marketplace than encourage true piety and respect for the worship of God. The Sabbath was being desecrated in the courtyards that surrounded God’s most Holy Place; that is what the Lord found when He suddenly came into the temple.
What would Jesus find if He walked into our sanctuaries? What would He find if He walked into our lives? Would He find that we too have despised the Sabbath like His people of old? Martin Luther gives us the Christian application of the Sabbath command in his Small Catechism: “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” The Sabbath isn’t about a specific day, it isn’t even about not doing work; it’s about the proper worship of God. This worship has two parts: we receive God’s gifts, and then we give Him thanks and praise. Do we hold God’s Word sacred, and gladly hear and learn it, or do we despise preaching and His Word by placing other things above it? Do we hear God’s Word and receive His great gifts with thanksgiving, or grudgingly, looking for an excuse to avoid them? What takes priority in your life over prayer, devotion, and worship of God? Is it work, school, sports, recreation, your social life? So many other activities are encroaching on the time set aside for worship, and Christians have often allowed the sports tournaments and social gatherings to replace weekly worship. But I’m not just talking about Sunday mornings. The Sabbath is not restricted to one day of the week. Luther calls on us to “gladly hear and learn” the Word throughout our lives. Do we spend time in prayer, studying and meditating on God’s Word during the week? Do we take advantage of opportunities to receive God’s Word in bible class or special services? Do our Lord’s gifts receive priority, or does everything else crowd them out?
Jesus responds to violations of the Third Commandment in a way that we wouldn’t have expected. “Making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’” The only thing to do when the things of this world encroach on the Sabbath is to drive them away. In holy anger, Jesus cast the merchants out, He drove away their animals, overturned their tables. They felt the bite of his whip, they cowered before the righteous wrath of almighty God. When the Sabbath is desecrated, it must be made clean again. This isn’t easy, it isn’t without pain; it is the work of God’s holy Law. Sin must be driven out. Our sins don’t want to leave, the Old Adam’s hold on us is tight; Satan knows that if He can keep us away from God’s gifts, we are well on our way to joining Him forever. The whip is necessary, no matter how painful it is. You and I must feel the bite of the Law, we need to have our sins attacked and driven away; the Old Adam must be put to death. This is the task of the Law: to expose sin and drive it away in repentance.
The disciples watched Jesus’s whip cleanse the temple, they observed the operation of the Law upon sin, and they remembered a phrase from Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus had zeal for His Father’s house that day; He wouldn’t let it be desecrated before His very eyes. His zeal, His passion led Him to use the whip of the Law to drive out sin, to declare God’s just judgment upon it. But if that was all that Jesus had come to do, we would still be lost. The Law exposes sin, it cannot destroy it or deliver you from its penalty. Jesus came to bring sin to light and destroy it. His zeal led to the proclamation of the Law, but more importantly, it led to the accomplishment of the Gospel. His zeal for His Father’s house would lead Him into conflict with the religious leaders, conflict that would begin here at the start of His ministry. This zeal would literally consume Him, it would lead to His death. He suffers because He loves His Father; He dies as a criminal because He is passionate for the holiness of the temple. “Zeal for your house will consume me.” His crime? Love for God and His house. Jesus has zeal for the things of His Father. That is why He suffers, that is why He dies.
But while Jesus suffers innocently, He doesn’t suffer unwillingly. His zeal for His Father’s will consumes Him. The Father wills that Jesus offer up His life as the sacrifice for your sin, in answer to the Law’s sting. Jesus has zeal for the things of His Father, and so He goes boldly to the cross. His Father’s will is His desire, and that desire, that passion, that zeal, will consume Him. He will be devoured upon that cross, consumed by the righteous wrath of God over our sin. He will feel the bite of the whip, the Law’s just judgment. Jesus endures that suffering and humiliation not only because of His zeal for His Father’s house and His Father’s will; He endures the cross because of His zeal for you. His zeal for your salvation will consume Him. He will not let you die in your sin, He will not see you dwell in hell forever, and so He gave up His life in your place. His love for you was so strong that He was willing to endure hell itself for you.
This zeal leads Jesus to challenge His opponents in the temple that day. “So the Jews said to Him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” He commands His enemies to put Him to death, with the promise that He will rise again on the third day. They are tearing down the temple, the location of God’s gracious presence, by turning it into a marketplace; now Jesus dares them to tear down the true temple, the new location of God’s gracious presence: His very own body. He will show His authority as the Son of God and His identity as the new temple by raising up His body on the third day, never to be torn down again. For Jesus has come to fulfill the temple and all of its sacrifices with His own death and resurrection. In our text, He drives out all the animals for sacrifice, and the temple courtyard is left empty- except for Jesus Himself, Jesus only. Jesus alone is the sacrifice for our sin, the answer to the Law’s bite. That building He so vehemently defended will become obsolete on Good Friday with His own sacrifice. The dwelling place of God with men is now Jesus Himself, the sacrifice for our sin.
Having accomplished salvation, Christ’s zeal is turned toward distributing the fruits of salvation. His passion and desire is to bring forgiveness to you and to me. Yes, we need to feel the bite of the whip, the sting of the Law. Our sin needs to be attacked and driven away, but then we need the healing balm of the Gospel. The Third Commandment now describes the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. The Sabbath is now the opportunity to receive Christ Himself as He comes to us in Word, water, Body and Blood. We take time out of our lives and gather in this place because here Christ fulfills our greatest needs, the only needs that truly matter for eternity. Here Jesus gives us rest, not just the opportunity to take a break from this world, but eternal rest. Through the shed blood of Christ, we have eternal rest, the Sabbath rest of heaven. There all the distractions and other priorities will be no more; there will simply be Christ, the temple, the location of God’s presence with His people forever. We read in Revelation chapter twenty-one, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” In the Name of the new temple, the one whose zeal for His Father and for us led Him to the cross, Amen.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Star Wars and the simul
It is easy to identify good and evil in Star Wars: A New Hope. On one side is the good guys: the idealistic farm boy Luke Skywalker, the beautiful princess Leia. They are appropriately dressed in white, providing a sharp contrast with their antagonist Darth Vader. He is clad in black, more machine than man, in the words of Ben Kanobi, “twisted and evil.” But at the end, Luke triumphs, Vader is defeated, and Leia is there in beautiful white to hand out the medals. It’s easy to see the contrast between good and evil as the Star Wars saga begins.
But the picture quickly becomes complicated. Good doesn’t triumph in The Empire Strikes Back. It is battered and bloodied. Against the white background of Hoth, Vader smashes the Rebellion’s hidden base; he relentlessly pursues our heroes to the Cloud City. C-3PO is blown to pieces, Han is frozen in carbonite and handed over to the bounty hunter, Luke is drawn into a trap. There good and evil square off—and evil wins. Luke loses his hand in the stuggle; good is vanquished.
Luke loses more than his hand; he loses the illusion that he is somehow disconnected from evil. Vader is his father, and so like Frodo Baggins carrying the ring, or Harry Potter’s link to Voldemort, Luke has an intimate connection with evil. Good and evil was once black and white; simple and easy. But now good and evil both co-exist within him. Luke looks at himself differently, especially when he is fitted with a mechanical hand to match his father. He cannot imagine that he is clean and pure; the white garments he once wore were an illusion, now, in The Return of the Jedi, he is dressed in black. Even Leia is tainted; she too is a child of Vader. But this knowledge causes him to see his father differently, too. Luke claims that there is good left in Vader, that there is a conflict within him. He knows this because he has the same conflict within himself.
Saint Paul knew all about this conflict. He wrote in chapter seven of Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:15-23)
Theologians call this the simul justus et pecattor: we are simultaneously saint and sinner. Good and evil dwell within all of us, and they wage against each other. We have been made holy, saints through the working of God in Holy Baptism, but yet, we can’t escape our sin, we still have the conflict within. How can I be a Christian and still sin? How can I continue to struggle against temptation when I go to church every Sunday? Am I still one of God’s redeemed children? Saint Paul was at the point of despair, despair that every Christian since has felt. Sin is warring against me. “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” You and I are like St. Paul, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or even Darth Vader: divided between saint and sinner. What hope is there for us?
What saved both Vader and Luke was the love of a son for his father. That love led Vader to cast the Emperor, the source of evil, down into the pit. What saves us is the love of a Son for His Father. St. Paul writes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus loved His Father and obeyed His good and gracious will, which demanded that He go to the cross and die for your sin. That is the only deliverance that we have from the tragic reality of the simul; when we fall into sin, we have forgiveness through His shed blood.
Paul concluded: “So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25) Martin Luther put it this way in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] indicates that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die along with all sin and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and holiness forever.” The old Adam is cast into the pit each and every day by returning to the font, by clinging to Christ’s redemption, and there the new man arises, which will stand before God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. There the conflict will cease, there we will be at peace.
But the picture quickly becomes complicated. Good doesn’t triumph in The Empire Strikes Back. It is battered and bloodied. Against the white background of Hoth, Vader smashes the Rebellion’s hidden base; he relentlessly pursues our heroes to the Cloud City. C-3PO is blown to pieces, Han is frozen in carbonite and handed over to the bounty hunter, Luke is drawn into a trap. There good and evil square off—and evil wins. Luke loses his hand in the stuggle; good is vanquished.
Luke loses more than his hand; he loses the illusion that he is somehow disconnected from evil. Vader is his father, and so like Frodo Baggins carrying the ring, or Harry Potter’s link to Voldemort, Luke has an intimate connection with evil. Good and evil was once black and white; simple and easy. But now good and evil both co-exist within him. Luke looks at himself differently, especially when he is fitted with a mechanical hand to match his father. He cannot imagine that he is clean and pure; the white garments he once wore were an illusion, now, in The Return of the Jedi, he is dressed in black. Even Leia is tainted; she too is a child of Vader. But this knowledge causes him to see his father differently, too. Luke claims that there is good left in Vader, that there is a conflict within him. He knows this because he has the same conflict within himself.
Saint Paul knew all about this conflict. He wrote in chapter seven of Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:15-23)
Theologians call this the simul justus et pecattor: we are simultaneously saint and sinner. Good and evil dwell within all of us, and they wage against each other. We have been made holy, saints through the working of God in Holy Baptism, but yet, we can’t escape our sin, we still have the conflict within. How can I be a Christian and still sin? How can I continue to struggle against temptation when I go to church every Sunday? Am I still one of God’s redeemed children? Saint Paul was at the point of despair, despair that every Christian since has felt. Sin is warring against me. “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” You and I are like St. Paul, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or even Darth Vader: divided between saint and sinner. What hope is there for us?
What saved both Vader and Luke was the love of a son for his father. That love led Vader to cast the Emperor, the source of evil, down into the pit. What saves us is the love of a Son for His Father. St. Paul writes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus loved His Father and obeyed His good and gracious will, which demanded that He go to the cross and die for your sin. That is the only deliverance that we have from the tragic reality of the simul; when we fall into sin, we have forgiveness through His shed blood.
Paul concluded: “So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25) Martin Luther put it this way in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] indicates that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die along with all sin and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and holiness forever.” The old Adam is cast into the pit each and every day by returning to the font, by clinging to Christ’s redemption, and there the new man arises, which will stand before God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. There the conflict will cease, there we will be at peace.
Issues etc. blog of the week
Thank you to Issues Etc. for the honor of selecting this blog as one of their 'blogs of the week.' I am a daily listener to the program, and I consider it part of my 'continuing education' here in the parish. Todd, Jeff, and Craig do great work putting on a top-notch program, and I encourage everyone to listen. You will be challenged, informed, and strengthened by this solid, confessionally Lutheran radio program. Thank you to Issues Etc. for all that you do to proclaim the Gospel in the wilderness of American Christianity!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Lent 2 of Series B (Mark 8:27-38)
“Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Mark. Dear friends in Christ, our Lord took His disciples up to Caesarea Philippi, the farthest away from Jerusalem that they would ever be during His ministry. There, at the foot of Mount Hermon, He had a question for them: “Who do people say that I am?” Far from the crowds of Galilee or His dangerous opponents in Jerusalem, Jesus wanted an impartial evaluation of what people thought of Him. They answered, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” But Jesus wasn’t really all that interested in what other people had to say about Him. He wanted to know about what His closest companions, His friends, His disciples thought of Him. “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers boldly on behalf of them all: “You are the Christ.” Their great teacher is much more than a mere man: He is the Messiah, the anointed One! The disciples, especially Peter, were excited, they were enthusiastic, they had visions of glory running through their heads. This was Israel’s triumphant Savior, come to establish God’s kingdom on earth!
But then Jesus tells them what it means that He is the Christ. “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, but the Christ will not receive glory before suffering. He is the suffering Messiah, who will give up His life into the hands of the religious leaders, the enemies of the Gospel. His destiny is rejection and death. And the disciples can’t believe it. “Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.” Peter may be bolder than the other eleven disciples, he may speak his mind more freely than you or I, but he is simply saying what we are all thinking: Jesus is a suffering Messiah? We are often ashamed of the sufferings of Jesus. We are embarrassed by a God who acts in weakness. Sure, we love the baby Jesus, the great teacher Jesus, even the exalted Jesus, but we turn quickly away from the suffering Jesus. That is why so many churches have empty crosses, or no crosses at all. That is why you find it so difficult to speak about Jesus to your friends and family. That is why Lent is such a difficult time of the year. Why? Why are we ashamed of Christ’s sufferings? First of all, our world hates weakness. The weak get crushed and despised, not admired and worshiped. But the attitude of our world is only part of the answer. Deep down, we are ashamed of Christ’s sufferings because we know that His sufferings will lead to our own.
We hear the words of Jesus in our text for today, and we know that He is calling on us to follow Him on the path of sacrifice, humiliation, and suffering. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” There are only two paths: the way of the world and the way of Christ. The way of Christ is a way of self-denial. Jesus calls on us to cease our self-promotion and pride and instead deny ourselves. We are to refuse to acknowledge ourselves; we are to place all people, especially Christ Himself, above us. When we do this, we will face ridicule, we will be trampled upon. We will suffer as Christ did. We will truly sacrifice, we will give up our own lives for others and for Christ. Our lives will be completely focused on following Christ, in everything we say and do, from Sunday morning in church to the rest of the week in our vocations at work and at home. It goes without saying that we don’t do this; we follow the way of this world. We don’t deny ourselves; we worship ourselves. We seek our own interests above all else. We desire the good life this world offers, the material things that will make us feel better and make our lives more convenient. We seek the approval of the world, and the world approves those who help themselves, those who keep their religion private. We are ashamed of the suffering and sacrifice that Jesus calls for, and so while we live for Christ on Sunday, the rest of the week we live for ourselves.
Jesus has stern words for us this morning: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” There are only two paths: By following Christ, you may give up all earthly possessions, you will be ridiculed and persecuted, and may even give up your life, but you will receive eternal life. On the other hand, by following the world, you will keep all your possessions, you will praised by others and preserve your life, but you will receive eternal death. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Nothing in this life can pay the ransom for your soul. All the wealth, all the popularity in the world counts for nothing in eternity. You cannot exchange the things of this world for the eternal salvation of your soul.
Only one price could be exchanged for your soul: the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. St. Paul writes in our Epistle lesson, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The world has deceived you; nothing it offers can defeat death. All of its praise and wealth cannot travel with you beyond the grave. Suffering is the only path that brings salvation, the only way to eternal life. Jesus gave Himself in exchange for your soul, He walked the path of suffering, the path that Peter didn’t want Him to walk, for you and for me. We have a suffering Savior because that was the only way that He could deliver you and me from death. Mark tells us: “He began to teach them that the son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” This is the divine ‘must,’ the ‘must’ of salvation. Jesus must go to the cross because it was the only way to save you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. No other way would suffice, no other path would lead to salvation, all that the world claimed to offer was a lie. The world offered salvation, but Jesus knew that the path of the world lead only to death. “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Every rich person dies, every poor person dies. Every Christian dies, and every non-Christian dies. Jesus went to the cross so that those who believed in Him, no matter how much they had to suffer and sacrifice in this life, would not die eternally, but instead receive eternal life.
Jesus wasn’t ashamed of His suffering; He walked willingly, boldly to Jerusalem, where He knew that humiliation and death awaited Him. Mark tells us in our text that Jesus spoke the prediction of His suffering and death “plainly.” The Greek word Mark uses is even stronger; Jesus spoke ‘boldly.’ Jesus boldly declared His suffering, humiliation, and death. He boldly proclaimed His cross, because He knew that this was the only path to deliver you from sin and death. He wasn’t ashamed of the cross, but He boldly proclaimed it and He boldly walked that path for you. The Gradual for Lent calls on us to look to Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus despised the shame of the cross, enduring it for you and for your salvation. His love for you would not let Him avoid paying the price for your redemption; He knew the cost, but He boldly declared that He would pay it, saying in John’s Gospel, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.”
He was not ashamed of you; He was not ashamed to bear your sin. The author to the Hebrews writes: “For He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Jesus was not ashamed to take flesh and become your brother; He was not ashamed of your sin, and so He bore it to the cross. He was not ashamed of the cost of your salvation, and so He paid it. You and I are covered with sin; we fall into pride and fail to deny ourselves, in our sin we are even ashamed of His humiliation. There is plenty for Jesus to be ashamed of. But He doesn’t reject us; He calls us to repentance, and then in love, mercy, and compassion He forgives our sins, cleansing and purifying us to live before Him forever. To follow Christ, we will face the loss of status in the eyes of others, ridicule, and persecution. We may perhaps be called upon to give up our possessions or even our lives for the sake of Christ. But this text gives us the assurance that despite all that we lose in this life for the sake of Christ, our Lord has a heavenly inheritance for us, won by His shed blood. Even though we die, yet through Christ, we will live. As we sang last week in the hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God, “And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.”
For us as well as Jesus, suffering comes before glory. Good Friday comes before Easter, and for us, a life in a world opposed to Christ comes before an eternity spent with Him. We travel with Jesus to the cross this Lenten season, for there the price has been paid, there the gates of heaven have been opened wide to us. Through His sacrifice on Good Friday, all the glory that belongs to Jesus is given to us. Like Jesus, we travel the road of the cross, we walk through suffering and sorrow, all the while knowing that our Easter is coming. For the God who vindicated Jesus by raising Him from the dead will surely raise those who belong to Jesus on the Last Day, bringing you to the glories of heaven, where we will no longer suffer, but instead will praise the Lamb who suffered for us. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
But then Jesus tells them what it means that He is the Christ. “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, but the Christ will not receive glory before suffering. He is the suffering Messiah, who will give up His life into the hands of the religious leaders, the enemies of the Gospel. His destiny is rejection and death. And the disciples can’t believe it. “Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.” Peter may be bolder than the other eleven disciples, he may speak his mind more freely than you or I, but he is simply saying what we are all thinking: Jesus is a suffering Messiah? We are often ashamed of the sufferings of Jesus. We are embarrassed by a God who acts in weakness. Sure, we love the baby Jesus, the great teacher Jesus, even the exalted Jesus, but we turn quickly away from the suffering Jesus. That is why so many churches have empty crosses, or no crosses at all. That is why you find it so difficult to speak about Jesus to your friends and family. That is why Lent is such a difficult time of the year. Why? Why are we ashamed of Christ’s sufferings? First of all, our world hates weakness. The weak get crushed and despised, not admired and worshiped. But the attitude of our world is only part of the answer. Deep down, we are ashamed of Christ’s sufferings because we know that His sufferings will lead to our own.
We hear the words of Jesus in our text for today, and we know that He is calling on us to follow Him on the path of sacrifice, humiliation, and suffering. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” There are only two paths: the way of the world and the way of Christ. The way of Christ is a way of self-denial. Jesus calls on us to cease our self-promotion and pride and instead deny ourselves. We are to refuse to acknowledge ourselves; we are to place all people, especially Christ Himself, above us. When we do this, we will face ridicule, we will be trampled upon. We will suffer as Christ did. We will truly sacrifice, we will give up our own lives for others and for Christ. Our lives will be completely focused on following Christ, in everything we say and do, from Sunday morning in church to the rest of the week in our vocations at work and at home. It goes without saying that we don’t do this; we follow the way of this world. We don’t deny ourselves; we worship ourselves. We seek our own interests above all else. We desire the good life this world offers, the material things that will make us feel better and make our lives more convenient. We seek the approval of the world, and the world approves those who help themselves, those who keep their religion private. We are ashamed of the suffering and sacrifice that Jesus calls for, and so while we live for Christ on Sunday, the rest of the week we live for ourselves.
Jesus has stern words for us this morning: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” There are only two paths: By following Christ, you may give up all earthly possessions, you will be ridiculed and persecuted, and may even give up your life, but you will receive eternal life. On the other hand, by following the world, you will keep all your possessions, you will praised by others and preserve your life, but you will receive eternal death. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Nothing in this life can pay the ransom for your soul. All the wealth, all the popularity in the world counts for nothing in eternity. You cannot exchange the things of this world for the eternal salvation of your soul.
Only one price could be exchanged for your soul: the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. St. Paul writes in our Epistle lesson, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The world has deceived you; nothing it offers can defeat death. All of its praise and wealth cannot travel with you beyond the grave. Suffering is the only path that brings salvation, the only way to eternal life. Jesus gave Himself in exchange for your soul, He walked the path of suffering, the path that Peter didn’t want Him to walk, for you and for me. We have a suffering Savior because that was the only way that He could deliver you and me from death. Mark tells us: “He began to teach them that the son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” This is the divine ‘must,’ the ‘must’ of salvation. Jesus must go to the cross because it was the only way to save you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. No other way would suffice, no other path would lead to salvation, all that the world claimed to offer was a lie. The world offered salvation, but Jesus knew that the path of the world lead only to death. “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Every rich person dies, every poor person dies. Every Christian dies, and every non-Christian dies. Jesus went to the cross so that those who believed in Him, no matter how much they had to suffer and sacrifice in this life, would not die eternally, but instead receive eternal life.
Jesus wasn’t ashamed of His suffering; He walked willingly, boldly to Jerusalem, where He knew that humiliation and death awaited Him. Mark tells us in our text that Jesus spoke the prediction of His suffering and death “plainly.” The Greek word Mark uses is even stronger; Jesus spoke ‘boldly.’ Jesus boldly declared His suffering, humiliation, and death. He boldly proclaimed His cross, because He knew that this was the only path to deliver you from sin and death. He wasn’t ashamed of the cross, but He boldly proclaimed it and He boldly walked that path for you. The Gradual for Lent calls on us to look to Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus despised the shame of the cross, enduring it for you and for your salvation. His love for you would not let Him avoid paying the price for your redemption; He knew the cost, but He boldly declared that He would pay it, saying in John’s Gospel, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.”
He was not ashamed of you; He was not ashamed to bear your sin. The author to the Hebrews writes: “For He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Jesus was not ashamed to take flesh and become your brother; He was not ashamed of your sin, and so He bore it to the cross. He was not ashamed of the cost of your salvation, and so He paid it. You and I are covered with sin; we fall into pride and fail to deny ourselves, in our sin we are even ashamed of His humiliation. There is plenty for Jesus to be ashamed of. But He doesn’t reject us; He calls us to repentance, and then in love, mercy, and compassion He forgives our sins, cleansing and purifying us to live before Him forever. To follow Christ, we will face the loss of status in the eyes of others, ridicule, and persecution. We may perhaps be called upon to give up our possessions or even our lives for the sake of Christ. But this text gives us the assurance that despite all that we lose in this life for the sake of Christ, our Lord has a heavenly inheritance for us, won by His shed blood. Even though we die, yet through Christ, we will live. As we sang last week in the hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God, “And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.”
For us as well as Jesus, suffering comes before glory. Good Friday comes before Easter, and for us, a life in a world opposed to Christ comes before an eternity spent with Him. We travel with Jesus to the cross this Lenten season, for there the price has been paid, there the gates of heaven have been opened wide to us. Through His sacrifice on Good Friday, all the glory that belongs to Jesus is given to us. Like Jesus, we travel the road of the cross, we walk through suffering and sorrow, all the while knowing that our Easter is coming. For the God who vindicated Jesus by raising Him from the dead will surely raise those who belong to Jesus on the Last Day, bringing you to the glories of heaven, where we will no longer suffer, but instead will praise the Lamb who suffered for us. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Servants of a present Christ, not vicars of an absent Christ
I was reading Luther's 1520 treatise The Freedom of a Christian for bible class yesterday, and this passage from his dedication to Pope Leo X struck me.
"Believe none who exalt you, believe those who humble you. This is the judgment of God, that '...He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree.' [Luke 1:52] See how different Christ is from His successors, although they all would wish to be His vicars. I fear that most of them have been to literally His vicars. A man is a vicar only when his superior is absent. If the pope rules, while Christ is absent...what else is he but a vicar of Christ? what is the church indeed under such a vicar but a mass of people without Christ? Indeed, what is such a vicar but an antichrist and an idol? How much more properly did the apostles call themselves servants of the present Christ and not vicars of an absent Christ."
This statement, though directed at the pope, has application to all who serve in the Office of the Holy Ministry. Pride is always lurking, seeking to consume pastors, and many can unfortunately recount the devestating effects when it takes hold. Luther insists that when we wallow in our pride and status, we end up pointing only to ourselves. This can happen to the country pastor the same as the TV evangelist; in short, all pastors are suceptible to making their Office all about themselves rather than about Christ.
"Believe none who exalt you, believe those who humble you. This is the judgment of God, that '...He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree.' [Luke 1:52] See how different Christ is from His successors, although they all would wish to be His vicars. I fear that most of them have been to literally His vicars. A man is a vicar only when his superior is absent. If the pope rules, while Christ is absent...what else is he but a vicar of Christ? what is the church indeed under such a vicar but a mass of people without Christ? Indeed, what is such a vicar but an antichrist and an idol? How much more properly did the apostles call themselves servants of the present Christ and not vicars of an absent Christ."
This statement, though directed at the pope, has application to all who serve in the Office of the Holy Ministry. Pride is always lurking, seeking to consume pastors, and many can unfortunately recount the devestating effects when it takes hold. Luther insists that when we wallow in our pride and status, we end up pointing only to ourselves. This can happen to the country pastor the same as the TV evangelist; in short, all pastors are suceptible to making their Office all about themselves rather than about Christ.
Lent 1 of Series B (Mark 1:9-15)
“And He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And He was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to Him.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this first Sunday in Lent comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the first chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Mark. Dear friends in Christ, when you hear the word ‘wilderness,’ what picture comes into your mind? The first thing we may think of is the desert. The wilderness sounds like a place where the sun is beating down on you, where food and water are scarce. And that is probably the kind of wilderness that Jesus encountered in our text. But the word “wilderness” in the Bible doesn’t necessarily refer to a place, instead it indicates a situation. The wilderness is characterized by isolation, desolation, emptiness.
The wilderness is a place where you are alone. Therefore, the wilderness can be the driest desert or the lushest rainforest. If you are isolated and alone, you are in the wilderness. Satan uses this isolation to make the wilderness a place of temptation. Eve was in the wilderness when Satan led her into sin. Even though Adam was right next to her, he refused to speak, and so she was alone. The children of Israel found the wilderness a place of temptation; even though they traveled as a nation led by God, they thought that they were alone, and they rebelled against the God who delivered them from bondage. Satan is at his best when he tempts us one at a time. His mission is to divide and conquer. He wants to bring us into the wilderness, to isolate us from others, and then lead us into sin.
He launches that assault on you and me each and every day. This world is the wilderness, the wilderness of temptation and sin. Satan is always working to keep it that way, to divide and isolate. He wants to separate us from our friends, our family, our congregation, but especially from our God. He does his most diligent and successful work in severing relationships. He wants us to think that we are alone, that we have to face this world by ourselves. And then, when we are isolated in any way, He moves in with temptation.
Temptation. That’s Satan’s specialty, and it is something that sharply distinguishes him from God. St. James teaches us: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.” God tests, Satan tempts. We saw that in our Old Testament lesson, where God tested Abraham’s faith by having him sacrifice Isaac. God tests, and always for our good. What Satan does is quite different; he tempts, he draws us into sin. He plays on our desires, our emotions, our feelings. All sin starts in the heart, with desire, with coveting, and then it is downhill from there. Once again, James teaches us all about it: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” Satan works on our most basic emotions, the desires we have for that which is not ours, for that which is not pleasing to God or in accordance with His holy Law. He knows the power that our emotions hold over us, and he is an expert at using that power against us, especially when we are isolated, when we are walking in the wilderness. Those desires lead to thoughts, words, and actions, those desires lead to sin. And sin has only one consequence, as Scripture clearly teaches: “The wages of sin is death.”
This approach has worked for every human since Eve took the apple from the tree; Satan has had thousands of years to perfect his tactics, and he has managed to lead every person who has ever walked this earth into sin. But then Jesus came. He showed up in Satan’s backyard, the wilderness of this sinful, corrupted world. “The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness.” He was baptized, but that doesn’t stop Satan’s attacks, it intensifies them. He doesn’t worry too much about the un-baptized, just as long as he can keep them from font. The ones he’s concerned about are those who have heard the words of the Father: “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.” Like Jesus, all Christians, including you and me, are cast out from the font into the wilderness of temptation. But Jesus goes even a step further; He goes into a literal wilderness, the wilderness of Judea, a region inhabited only by the wild beasts, a place where there is no food, and water is scarce. Satan had to be licking his chops. Jesus was already isolated physically, now He must be isolated spiritually and then enticed into sin. One mistake, one sin, and the game was up. Jesus would be ruined and man would still be in Satan’s grasp. And so the devil quickly launched his attacks. Mark tells us that Jesus was “in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.” Matthew and Luke give us three specific temptations by Satan, but Mark shows us that Jesus constantly faced the relentless assaults of the tempter.
Jesus endured what God’s people have endured for thousands of years; He endured what you have endured for your entire life: continual, unrelenting attack by Satan. Those who have struggled with addiction in any form know exactly what Jesus faced in the wilderness. In the wilderness, God’s chosen people, those delivered by His mighty, outstretched hand, were continually assaulted by Satan’s temptations, and they fell, again and again. In the wilderness, you and I, God’s baptized people, those claimed as His own in those blessed waters, are continually assaulted by Satan’s temptations, and we fall, again and again. But Jesus Christ did not fall. He wasn’t enticed, He wasn’t deceived. Satan used every tactic he had learned in thousands of years of leading humans into sin, every temptation that had worked on millions of people before, but Jesus withstood them all. He remained without sin. He triumphed where God’s people failed, He triumphed where you fail. More than that, He triumphed for you, He triumphed in your place.
For the encounter in the wilderness was simply the first engagement in a war that would last for three years. Satan was defeated in the desert, but he didn’t quit. At every turn, demons rose up against Jesus; Satan even used Peter as a tool to turn Jesus away from the path of salvation. Finally, the journey ended where it began: in the wilderness, this time the wilderness of the cross. On Good Friday, Jesus truly was in the wilderness, He was completely isolated, abandoned by all of His disciples, rejected by the world, forsaken even by God Himself. He was more isolated that afternoon that during his forty days in the Judean wilderness. The only one there was Satan, mocking Him through the voice of the crowds, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross.” But Jesus Christ did not fall. He wasn’t enticed, He wasn’t deceived. Despite the temptations of Satan, He gave up His life on the tree, He shed His blood to destroy sin, death, and the power of the devil. He triumphed for you, He triumphed in your place. He triumphed on the cross for every time that you have fallen into Satan’s temptations, He triumphed on the cross so that Satan’s power over you would be broken forever. He triumphed on the cross so that you will never be alone, never isolated from God ever again. He triumphed so that the wilderness of temptation could become the new Eden of peace.
Sin isolates, it divides, it severs relationships. All of God’s creatures have been estranged from each other and from their Creator since Adam and Eve fell into sin. The wilderness is all about isolation. But Jesus came into the wilderness and transformed it. His blood brings forth a new reality: Eden restored, where all of creation lives in harmony with each other and with God. Jesus demonstrated this as He endured the temptations of Satan in the wilderness. Mark tells us, “He was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to Him.” Satan wanted Jesus to be isolated, but instead Jesus restored relationships even with the wild animals, the Creator was honored by His creatures. Isaiah predicted that this would be the work of the Messiah in chapter forty-three of his prophecy: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.” Peace in all the created order is the result of Christ’s work; the restoration of all relationships comes through His blood. What He began in the wilderness of Judea as He faced Satan’s temptations will be completed on the Last Day: the wilderness of temptation will be transformed into the Eden of peace.
Isaiah has more to say in another place about this new Eden, the new heavens and the new earth: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The new heavens and the new earth will be Eden restored, where the wilderness of isolation and division will be no more. Peace will characterize eternity; all relationships will be perfect and whole, especially your relationship with your God, healed by the shed blood of Christ. There the assaults of Satan will cease forever. He will no longer tempt, no longer accuse, for Christ defeated him for you; He did battle with your enemy and He triumphed, in the wilderness of Judea and in the wilderness of the cross. Until that Day, Satan remains your enemy, but he is a defeated enemy, triumphed over by the One who stood in your place and did not fall into temptation, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
The wilderness is a place where you are alone. Therefore, the wilderness can be the driest desert or the lushest rainforest. If you are isolated and alone, you are in the wilderness. Satan uses this isolation to make the wilderness a place of temptation. Eve was in the wilderness when Satan led her into sin. Even though Adam was right next to her, he refused to speak, and so she was alone. The children of Israel found the wilderness a place of temptation; even though they traveled as a nation led by God, they thought that they were alone, and they rebelled against the God who delivered them from bondage. Satan is at his best when he tempts us one at a time. His mission is to divide and conquer. He wants to bring us into the wilderness, to isolate us from others, and then lead us into sin.
He launches that assault on you and me each and every day. This world is the wilderness, the wilderness of temptation and sin. Satan is always working to keep it that way, to divide and isolate. He wants to separate us from our friends, our family, our congregation, but especially from our God. He does his most diligent and successful work in severing relationships. He wants us to think that we are alone, that we have to face this world by ourselves. And then, when we are isolated in any way, He moves in with temptation.
Temptation. That’s Satan’s specialty, and it is something that sharply distinguishes him from God. St. James teaches us: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.” God tests, Satan tempts. We saw that in our Old Testament lesson, where God tested Abraham’s faith by having him sacrifice Isaac. God tests, and always for our good. What Satan does is quite different; he tempts, he draws us into sin. He plays on our desires, our emotions, our feelings. All sin starts in the heart, with desire, with coveting, and then it is downhill from there. Once again, James teaches us all about it: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” Satan works on our most basic emotions, the desires we have for that which is not ours, for that which is not pleasing to God or in accordance with His holy Law. He knows the power that our emotions hold over us, and he is an expert at using that power against us, especially when we are isolated, when we are walking in the wilderness. Those desires lead to thoughts, words, and actions, those desires lead to sin. And sin has only one consequence, as Scripture clearly teaches: “The wages of sin is death.”
This approach has worked for every human since Eve took the apple from the tree; Satan has had thousands of years to perfect his tactics, and he has managed to lead every person who has ever walked this earth into sin. But then Jesus came. He showed up in Satan’s backyard, the wilderness of this sinful, corrupted world. “The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness.” He was baptized, but that doesn’t stop Satan’s attacks, it intensifies them. He doesn’t worry too much about the un-baptized, just as long as he can keep them from font. The ones he’s concerned about are those who have heard the words of the Father: “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.” Like Jesus, all Christians, including you and me, are cast out from the font into the wilderness of temptation. But Jesus goes even a step further; He goes into a literal wilderness, the wilderness of Judea, a region inhabited only by the wild beasts, a place where there is no food, and water is scarce. Satan had to be licking his chops. Jesus was already isolated physically, now He must be isolated spiritually and then enticed into sin. One mistake, one sin, and the game was up. Jesus would be ruined and man would still be in Satan’s grasp. And so the devil quickly launched his attacks. Mark tells us that Jesus was “in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.” Matthew and Luke give us three specific temptations by Satan, but Mark shows us that Jesus constantly faced the relentless assaults of the tempter.
Jesus endured what God’s people have endured for thousands of years; He endured what you have endured for your entire life: continual, unrelenting attack by Satan. Those who have struggled with addiction in any form know exactly what Jesus faced in the wilderness. In the wilderness, God’s chosen people, those delivered by His mighty, outstretched hand, were continually assaulted by Satan’s temptations, and they fell, again and again. In the wilderness, you and I, God’s baptized people, those claimed as His own in those blessed waters, are continually assaulted by Satan’s temptations, and we fall, again and again. But Jesus Christ did not fall. He wasn’t enticed, He wasn’t deceived. Satan used every tactic he had learned in thousands of years of leading humans into sin, every temptation that had worked on millions of people before, but Jesus withstood them all. He remained without sin. He triumphed where God’s people failed, He triumphed where you fail. More than that, He triumphed for you, He triumphed in your place.
For the encounter in the wilderness was simply the first engagement in a war that would last for three years. Satan was defeated in the desert, but he didn’t quit. At every turn, demons rose up against Jesus; Satan even used Peter as a tool to turn Jesus away from the path of salvation. Finally, the journey ended where it began: in the wilderness, this time the wilderness of the cross. On Good Friday, Jesus truly was in the wilderness, He was completely isolated, abandoned by all of His disciples, rejected by the world, forsaken even by God Himself. He was more isolated that afternoon that during his forty days in the Judean wilderness. The only one there was Satan, mocking Him through the voice of the crowds, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross.” But Jesus Christ did not fall. He wasn’t enticed, He wasn’t deceived. Despite the temptations of Satan, He gave up His life on the tree, He shed His blood to destroy sin, death, and the power of the devil. He triumphed for you, He triumphed in your place. He triumphed on the cross for every time that you have fallen into Satan’s temptations, He triumphed on the cross so that Satan’s power over you would be broken forever. He triumphed on the cross so that you will never be alone, never isolated from God ever again. He triumphed so that the wilderness of temptation could become the new Eden of peace.
Sin isolates, it divides, it severs relationships. All of God’s creatures have been estranged from each other and from their Creator since Adam and Eve fell into sin. The wilderness is all about isolation. But Jesus came into the wilderness and transformed it. His blood brings forth a new reality: Eden restored, where all of creation lives in harmony with each other and with God. Jesus demonstrated this as He endured the temptations of Satan in the wilderness. Mark tells us, “He was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to Him.” Satan wanted Jesus to be isolated, but instead Jesus restored relationships even with the wild animals, the Creator was honored by His creatures. Isaiah predicted that this would be the work of the Messiah in chapter forty-three of his prophecy: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.” Peace in all the created order is the result of Christ’s work; the restoration of all relationships comes through His blood. What He began in the wilderness of Judea as He faced Satan’s temptations will be completed on the Last Day: the wilderness of temptation will be transformed into the Eden of peace.
Isaiah has more to say in another place about this new Eden, the new heavens and the new earth: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The new heavens and the new earth will be Eden restored, where the wilderness of isolation and division will be no more. Peace will characterize eternity; all relationships will be perfect and whole, especially your relationship with your God, healed by the shed blood of Christ. There the assaults of Satan will cease forever. He will no longer tempt, no longer accuse, for Christ defeated him for you; He did battle with your enemy and He triumphed, in the wilderness of Judea and in the wilderness of the cross. Until that Day, Satan remains your enemy, but he is a defeated enemy, triumphed over by the One who stood in your place and did not fall into temptation, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ash Wednesday (Joel 2:12-19)
“‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this evening comes from the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the second chapter of the prophet Joel. Dear friends in Christ, it’s Ash Wednesday and I’m still not sure what I’m going to give up for Lent. I’ve thought about giving up watching sports, eating sweets, television, Facebook, or even the internet, but I haven’t been able to settle on any one thing. Surely, I have to give up something, right? It’s just what Christians do during Lent; giving up something has become a very popular way to commemorate this season, and so I have to deprive myself in some way. And it’s much better if I’m constantly reminding others about what I’m giving up and asking them what they’re doing, and so, what about you? Have you decided what you’re giving up for Lent?
Here’s an idea for you and for me: Give up sin for Lent! “‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” God tells us to quit messing around, to stop our pathetic show of outward piety. He doesn’t care if we quit eating chocolate for Lent, He cares about the condition of our heart. He is tired of His people pretending to be sorrowful over sin, He is disgusted with empty repentance. We can make a big show of repentance, we can even put ashes on our head, but He could care less how dirty our heads are tonight if we aren’t sorrowful over our sin. Jesus said in our Gospel lesson: “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.” Christ doesn’t care about the outward show; He looks to the heart. This is the same teaching we find in Joel: “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Give up your sin for Lent! Don’t waste your time abstaining from steak if you continue to live in unrepentant sin. Examine your life deeply this Lenten season, make that your discipline. Look into every nook and cranny of your life, and expose the sin that hides in secret. Use the mirror of God’s Holy Law to bring all of your sin to light, especially the sin that no one else knows about.
Then repent of it; turn away from that sin and toward God. “Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” Give up your sin for Lent! “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to your Creator, come back to Him in repentance, in sorrow and mourning over your great sin. Carry your secret sins to His altar and beg for forgiveness, confess them with the tears of repentance. Bring your sin into the light, confess them before God Himself and the servants God has given to you. Your pastor isn’t quite ready to institute the regular practice of private confession and absolution; he wants to teach a bible class first and write a few newsletters. Force his hand; demand that he hear your confession. Remind your pastor of his ordination vows, that he has been placed here by Jesus Christ Himself to hear your confession and intercede before God on your behalf. Make him do his job! Hold his feet to the fire, demand that he do what he has been called to do. Without private confession and absolution, you are being robbed of one of Christ’s greatest gifts; demand that your pastor provide it to you.
For he is commanded to do what the priests did in our text: “Between the vestibule and the altar let the priest, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, “Where is their God”?’” Your sins deserve death, each and every one of them, eternal death in hell; that is what God’s Law shows you when you examine yourself this Lenten season. God’s servants are charged to plead with Him to save you, to spare you from the punishment your sin has earned. Their task is to intercede on your behalf, they are to bring the petitions of those they serve before His throne of grace. They are to hear your confession, your secret sins and your public sins, and then plead to God for mercy, giving you assurance on the basis of His character. “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” Look to who your God is, take comfort there! “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?”
You cannot make God be merciful, but you can trust that He will be merciful, that He will spare, that He will relent, because that is who He is. Your God is love. “Then the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people.” God is jealous for you; He will give you up into Satan’s grasp, He will not let you die in your sin. He relents over the disaster that was prepared for you, because He has provided a substitute for you. St. Paul writes in our Epistle lesson, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” This sinless substitute is Jesus Christ; through His death and resurrection, God will show forth His character as the God of love. “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” Christ was made sin so that God could show grace and mercy to you. The Father’s anger was slow because He knew that one day He would offer up His Son. Even today His anger is slow; the return of Christ and the end of the world is delayed only for the sake of God’s beloved creation, that more people would be saved through the blood of Christ. The Lord relents over disaster because the disaster fell upon Christ. Jesus on the cross is the definitive display of God’s gracious character. Joel wrote, “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?” We know, because He sent us Jesus, to suffer, die, and rise again on our behalf.
We know because He has sent us His great gifts. “The Lord answered and said to His people, ‘Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.’” Christ has left behind Him the very gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Examine your life deeply this Lenten season, seeing your sin in light of God’s Law; then run in repentance to where Christ pours forth the forgiveness He won on the cross. Run to the font each and every day, washing yourself clean once again in repentance and faith, drowning the Old Adam and bringing forth the new man to live before God! Run to your pastor; hold him to his ordination vows, demand that he hear your confession and then hear the sweet words of the absolution forgive that sin. Bring your secret sins out into the light and confess them to a man who has been placed here by Christ to hear them and forgive them in His stead and by His command. Run tonight to this altar, where Christ gives Himself to you for the forgiveness of your sins. Here, in this place, on this very night, Christ declares to you, “Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.” Run to where Christ is present for you, for Jesus pours out His gifts in abundance upon His repentant people.
For the next five Wednesdays, we will run to God’s house to hear God’s Law and repent of our sin, then we will hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and receive His forgiveness. Joel calls on all people to hear of this salvation together. “Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.” Together we will hear of our sin; together we will hear of Christ’s death and resurrection as the answer to that sin. This Lenten season, we run together to the cross, where “the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people.” Amen.
Here’s an idea for you and for me: Give up sin for Lent! “‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” God tells us to quit messing around, to stop our pathetic show of outward piety. He doesn’t care if we quit eating chocolate for Lent, He cares about the condition of our heart. He is tired of His people pretending to be sorrowful over sin, He is disgusted with empty repentance. We can make a big show of repentance, we can even put ashes on our head, but He could care less how dirty our heads are tonight if we aren’t sorrowful over our sin. Jesus said in our Gospel lesson: “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.” Christ doesn’t care about the outward show; He looks to the heart. This is the same teaching we find in Joel: “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Give up your sin for Lent! Don’t waste your time abstaining from steak if you continue to live in unrepentant sin. Examine your life deeply this Lenten season, make that your discipline. Look into every nook and cranny of your life, and expose the sin that hides in secret. Use the mirror of God’s Holy Law to bring all of your sin to light, especially the sin that no one else knows about.
Then repent of it; turn away from that sin and toward God. “Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” Give up your sin for Lent! “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to your Creator, come back to Him in repentance, in sorrow and mourning over your great sin. Carry your secret sins to His altar and beg for forgiveness, confess them with the tears of repentance. Bring your sin into the light, confess them before God Himself and the servants God has given to you. Your pastor isn’t quite ready to institute the regular practice of private confession and absolution; he wants to teach a bible class first and write a few newsletters. Force his hand; demand that he hear your confession. Remind your pastor of his ordination vows, that he has been placed here by Jesus Christ Himself to hear your confession and intercede before God on your behalf. Make him do his job! Hold his feet to the fire, demand that he do what he has been called to do. Without private confession and absolution, you are being robbed of one of Christ’s greatest gifts; demand that your pastor provide it to you.
For he is commanded to do what the priests did in our text: “Between the vestibule and the altar let the priest, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, “Where is their God”?’” Your sins deserve death, each and every one of them, eternal death in hell; that is what God’s Law shows you when you examine yourself this Lenten season. God’s servants are charged to plead with Him to save you, to spare you from the punishment your sin has earned. Their task is to intercede on your behalf, they are to bring the petitions of those they serve before His throne of grace. They are to hear your confession, your secret sins and your public sins, and then plead to God for mercy, giving you assurance on the basis of His character. “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” Look to who your God is, take comfort there! “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?”
You cannot make God be merciful, but you can trust that He will be merciful, that He will spare, that He will relent, because that is who He is. Your God is love. “Then the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people.” God is jealous for you; He will give you up into Satan’s grasp, He will not let you die in your sin. He relents over the disaster that was prepared for you, because He has provided a substitute for you. St. Paul writes in our Epistle lesson, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” This sinless substitute is Jesus Christ; through His death and resurrection, God will show forth His character as the God of love. “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” Christ was made sin so that God could show grace and mercy to you. The Father’s anger was slow because He knew that one day He would offer up His Son. Even today His anger is slow; the return of Christ and the end of the world is delayed only for the sake of God’s beloved creation, that more people would be saved through the blood of Christ. The Lord relents over disaster because the disaster fell upon Christ. Jesus on the cross is the definitive display of God’s gracious character. Joel wrote, “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?” We know, because He sent us Jesus, to suffer, die, and rise again on our behalf.
We know because He has sent us His great gifts. “The Lord answered and said to His people, ‘Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.’” Christ has left behind Him the very gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Examine your life deeply this Lenten season, seeing your sin in light of God’s Law; then run in repentance to where Christ pours forth the forgiveness He won on the cross. Run to the font each and every day, washing yourself clean once again in repentance and faith, drowning the Old Adam and bringing forth the new man to live before God! Run to your pastor; hold him to his ordination vows, demand that he hear your confession and then hear the sweet words of the absolution forgive that sin. Bring your secret sins out into the light and confess them to a man who has been placed here by Christ to hear them and forgive them in His stead and by His command. Run tonight to this altar, where Christ gives Himself to you for the forgiveness of your sins. Here, in this place, on this very night, Christ declares to you, “Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.” Run to where Christ is present for you, for Jesus pours out His gifts in abundance upon His repentant people.
For the next five Wednesdays, we will run to God’s house to hear God’s Law and repent of our sin, then we will hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and receive His forgiveness. Joel calls on all people to hear of this salvation together. “Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.” Together we will hear of our sin; together we will hear of Christ’s death and resurrection as the answer to that sin. This Lenten season, we run together to the cross, where “the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people.” Amen.
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