“Truly I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” 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 Maundy Thursday comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Mark. Dear friends in Christ, tonight we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Christians have known this sacrament by many names- Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread, the Sacrament of the Altar- and each of these names teaches us something about this gift that Christ has given. When we call it the Lord’s Supper, we are confessing something about the very identity of this meal. It is the Lord’s Supper, not ours. It doesn’t belong to us, we aren’t in control of it, we didn’t invent it; it belongs to Jesus, who instituted it.
Nothing that happens to Jesus, especially in His final hours, is out of His control. He carefully watches over every detail, and He goes willingly to His destiny, freely giving Himself up into death. It begins even with the choice of the upper room where He celebrates the Lord’s Supper. He commands two of His disciples: “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The teacher says, “Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” Then He will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.’” Jesus calls it ‘my guest room;’ He takes ownership of the place, it is His, for He has chosen it for His own purposes. It may belong to the master of that house, but Christ has made it His own, as the location where He will give His gifts. This church building belongs to you in the eyes of the world; you helped pay for it, you still pay to maintain it, and some of you even helped to construct it. But this place is owned by Christ; Jesus has chosen it for His own purposes, as the place where He will give His people every good thing. It is the Lord’s house, not yours.
In the same way, those two disciples are the ones who prepare the meal; they purchase the lamb, they have it sacrificed, they cook it and prepare the other dishes, so that everything is ready when Jesus and the other ten arrive. But it is Jesus who is in control. He has chosen the place and He will soon give the meal. Those who prepared the feast, who distribute it, have a great privilege and honor, but they don’t make the meal what it is. That task belongs to Jesus alone. It is the Lord’s Supper, not ours.
He is in control; He knows those who come to His table, He even knows their hearts. “And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, ‘Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.’” No one can deceive the Lord. You can mislead your pastor and your fellow Christians, but you cannot deceive the Lord. Jesus knows the hearts of those who come to receive His gifts. He knows those who come to His altar as broken, repentant sinners, desperate for the forgiveness that He gives. And He knows those who come to His altar as defiant, unrepentant sinners, those who live in open sin or who have a different confession of faith than what is professed at this altar. He even knows those who, like Judas, hear the warning for unbelief and betrayal, and yet fail to heed: “For the Son of Man goes as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
He knows the hearts of men; He knows your heart. There is no sense in trying to hide from Him. No one can deceive the Lord. This knowledge is terrifying when we think of God’s holy Law and how we have transgressed it. But this knowledge of what is in the hearts of men- of what is in your heart- doesn’t move Jesus to wrath; it moves Him to compassion. As He said to the disciples, “The Son of man goes as it is written of Him.” It was written of Jesus that He would suffer and die for the sin that dwells in the hearts of man, and so that is where He goes. Jesus is in control; no one takes His life from Him, but He gives it up freely, on His own accord.
He goes to the cross to pay for your sin, the sin that dwells in your heart that no one else knows about, and the sin that is committed out in the open, for all to see. Tomorrow night we will watch as He drinks that cup, the cup full to the brim of God’s wrath, down to the dregs in bitterness and agony. We will hear Him cry, “It is finished!” declaring that our salvation has been accomplished, for the price has been paid. At the cross death is defeated and Satan destroyed. At the cross your forgiveness is won, for His blood has been poured out for your sin, He has been sacrificed in your place. But Jesus doesn’t send you to the cross to find that forgiveness. You could travel to Israel, but the cross isn’t there anymore. You could time-travel two thousand years into the past to stand there amongst the soldiers and the women, but even those soldiers and those women didn’t receive forgiveness simply from being at the cross. You could meditate on the cross in your mind and heart, and while this is certainly a wonderful practice, it will not bring you forgiveness, because that is not how Jesus wants to give it. He is in charge, and while He certainly won salvation on Calvary’s hill, He doesn’t give it to you there.
To give you the forgiveness He won, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. “And as they were eating, He took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take, this is my Body.’ And He took a cup, and when he had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’” Jesus does things His own way; He is in control, He decides how to give His gifts. He doesn’t send you to the cross, physically or in your mind, but to that place where He gives the very gifts He won on the cross.
He sends you to the Lord’s Supper, His Supper, the place where He actually bestows forgiveness, life, and salvation. He is in control; He is the same God who delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt, and so He replaces the Passover with a new meal of salvation. But the Lord’s Supper isn’t simply a new Passover. The Passover commemorated and celebrated salvation; the Lord’s Supper actually gives salvation. This is no memorial meal, no mere remembrance of God’s great acts; this is Christ’s own Body and Blood, the price for our redemption, given to us to eat and to drink. This is the medicine of immortality; those fed by this food will live even though they die. This is the Christian’s steady diet, food for the journey, rations for the soldier. Our journey is long, and our warfare intense, but through this gift, Christ sustains us, He feeds us with salvation.
Martin Luther once declared that the only way the Church survived during the centuries of error and the suppression of the Gospel was the regular administration of the Lord’s Supper. It is the beating heart of the Church. Any attempt to revitalize or reinvigorate the Church apart from the Lord’s Supper is hamstrung; it is like trying to rebuild and drive a car without putting gas in the tank. Nothing else can truly sustain us, nothing else can preserve the Church through the trials that face her in this world. Christ is in control, and He has established this Sacrament as His means to preserve and strengthen His Church and His people.
It is the Lord’s Supper, not yours, but He gives it to you. It is His gift to broken sinners; it is His gift to you this very night. Jesus said, “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Tonight the kingdom of God comes to you, and Jesus dines with you in the feast of salvation. He has set the table, He is both host and meal, and He invites you to come forward and partake of salvation. This is His Supper, the Lord’s Supper: His very Body and His true Blood, given and shed for you on Calvary’s cross, given and distributed to you here in the Supper. This is His grace given to eat and to drink by those who hunger and thirst for His righteousness. Come, taste and see that the Lord is good! In the Name of the host who is also the meal, our Passover Lamb who was sacrificed, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Palm Sunday (John 12:12-19)
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” 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 Palm Sunday is the Gospel lesson read at the beginning of the service from the twelfth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. Dear friends in Christ: palm branches. That is what you have in your hands; that is what you carried into church this morning, singing that magnificent hymn. Palm branches. St. John is the only one to tell us that the crowds waved palm branches that day. Matthew and Mark mention branches, but they don’t tell us what kind of tree. Luke doesn’t even bring up branches at all. Just think, without John this day would probably be called ‘donkey Sunday’ or ‘coats on the ground Sunday’ or something else ridiculous like that. Instead, thanks to John’s attention to detail, we have Palm Sunday, and you are sitting here a week from Easter with palm branches in your hands. Have you ever stopped to wonder why? I mean, it does look a little ridiculous to the cars passing by for all those Lutherans to be standing around carrying palm branches. I guess the easy answer is that we have palm branches because the people who met Jesus that day had palm branches. But that doesn’t really answer the question. Why did the people of Jerusalem think it was a good idea to cut down palm branches and meet Jesus?
It wasn’t because they are pretty, or because palm trees just happened to be growing along the road Jesus traveled on. No, the crowd was quite deliberate in choosing palm branches to greet Jesus, because palm branches are an Old Testament symbol of victory, used to celebrate triumphant or popular rulers. When the people cut the palm trees and welcomed Jesus, they are demonstrating with their actions that this Jesus of Nazareth is their coming king. They cried: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!” Jesus is the coming one, the one long promised, the Messiah, the king. He has come to His people in their time of need; He has come to the Holy City to save it. This is all happening just as the prophet Zechariah had promised: “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.” With palm branches in hand, Israel welcomes her king into her city in victory.
And what a victory this is! The crowd has heard of the miracles of Jesus, many have even seen His great signs; they know that this man has great power, such as no one has ever seen. John tells us that it was the most recent miracle of Jesus that had the people worked up into a frenzy. “The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised Him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they heard that He had done this sign.” This man even raises the dead! Who else could He be than Israel’s promised Messiah, her king? The prophecies of the Old Testament seemed to be unfolding right before their eyes, and so they shout in the words of Psalm 118: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!” ‘Hosanna’ is the word that comes to their lips in this moment of triumph. Hosanna. We speak this ancient Hebrew word during the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, but do we know what it means? ‘Save us, please!’ The crowd knew that Jesus had raised up Lazarus, they knew that He was their coming king, the one promised of old, and so they shouted, ‘Save us, please!’
But they had no idea what they were saying. They call for salvation, but they didn’t know what they needed saving from. For them, the raising of Lazarus was simply a demonstration that Jesus was their king, and their cry of ‘Save us, please- Hosanna!’ was a plea for deliverance from political oppression. They wanted their nation freed from the shackles of Roman oppression; that is what they celebrated that day. Today, you and I celebrate Jesus as well; we acclaim Him as our coming king. Like the people of Jerusalem, we even wave palm branches as a sign of victory. But what do we want Jesus to do for us? What use is He to us? Is Jesus only a friend, someone to get you through the week? Is He simply a status symbol, someone you hold to because that’s what others expect? Is He only a coach, who motivates you to get things done yourself? As this most holy of weeks begins, examine yourself. Find out exactly what you need Jesus for. It isn’t bad luck, corrupt government, nosy neighbors, family conflicts, or even disease. These are all just symptoms. Your problem is much deeper, and it is much worse: you need salvation from sin and death. Your problem is that you are sinful, and your problem is that this sin leads to death. You don’t need a counselor, a coach, a buddy, or even simply a king; you need a Savior. You and the crowds need victory over sin and death.
But if the crowd misunderstood what Jesus had come to save them from, they had no clue how this victory would be won. They expected Jesus to bring political freedom, but they failed to notice that He wasn’t riding a great war-horse; instead, He sat on a humble beast of burden. “Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!’” The donkey is a sign of humility; Jesus rejects the signs of power that the people would expect. He is the coming one, and He comes in humility. The donkey is also a sign of peace; those who seek peace in the Old Testament often are riding on the back of a humble donkey. Jesus is a king, all right, but not the kind of king that anyone expected. No one that day understood the kind of king Jesus was, nor the nature of the victory He would win; not the cheering crowds, not the religious leadership, not even Jesus’ closest companions.
John tells us that Palm Sunday only became clear to the disciples when they looked back: “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him.” The crowds celebrated victory on Sunday, but the victory would be won on Friday in a way they never would’ve expected. They didn’t know what they needed salvation from, and so they had no idea what the cost would be. But Jesus did. He left the humble donkey behind, walking the rest of His triumphal march with the instrument of victory upon His back. Lining His path was no longer the cheering throng bearing palm branches, but a violent, bloodthirsty mob shaking their fists. He had come to win the victory, to answer the cries of the people, ‘Save us, please! Hosanna!’ and this victory, this salvation, would only come through His death.
The greatest need of the people who met Him on Palm Sunday in rejoicing and victory was not political freedom, it was freedom from sin and death. The greatest need of you and me, who entered this sanctuary in rejoicing and victory, with palm branches in hand, is not a better life now or tips for the week, it is salvation from sin and death. That is why Jesus went to the cross, to deliver you from sin itself and the penalty for that sin. His victory was to be won over sin and death, and that victory could only be won through His own death on our behalf, His own death in our place. As we watch Jesus walk up to Golgotha’s bloody hill, we cry out, ‘Save us, please!’ “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
On the first Palm Sunday, the crowd ran out to meet Jesus because a man who was dead was now alive. Lazarus had been called forth from his grave by the mighty voice of Jesus; what better reason is there to cut down palm branches and celebrate the coming victory of their king? And the crowd was right. There is a connection between the raising of Lazarus and the victory of Jesus, though not in the way they thought. The raising of Lazarus isn’t simply a demonstration of the power of this coming king, it is a preview of His victory. This last and greatest sign of Jesus, celebrated on Palm Sunday, points to what will happen a week later, when the one who died bearing our sin rose again in victory. The tomb couldn’t hold Lazarus; it won’t hold Jesus. He was called forth from His grave, having accomplished salvation, having won the victory, having borne your sin to the cross and having destroyed it there. That was the victory that the crowds celebrated on Palm Sunday, whether they realized it or not; victory that was won on the cross and sealed with the empty tomb. Today, we too celebrate this victory; the palm branches are for celebrating the defeat of sin and death.
The tomb couldn’t hold Lazarus; the mighty voice of Jesus broke its hold on His friend. The tomb couldn’t hold Jesus; God accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and proved it by raising Him from the dead. The tomb won’t hold you; because Jesus won the victory for you through the cross and empty tomb, your grave will be opened on the Last Day; the mighty voice of your Savior will call on you to come out. You will rise as Lazarus did, but with one difference. Lazarus would die again; but as Christ was raised never to enter the grave again, so you will be raised never to taste death forever. That is the victory that we celebrate with our palm branches this day, and we will celebrate that victory with our palm branches forever. John saw this in his vision, recorded in Revelation chapter seven: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” We wave our palm branches today and forever in victory, the victory that Christ won through the cross and empty tomb, the victory that means our resurrection and an eternity spent with our King, our Savior. In His holy and precious name, Amen.
It wasn’t because they are pretty, or because palm trees just happened to be growing along the road Jesus traveled on. No, the crowd was quite deliberate in choosing palm branches to greet Jesus, because palm branches are an Old Testament symbol of victory, used to celebrate triumphant or popular rulers. When the people cut the palm trees and welcomed Jesus, they are demonstrating with their actions that this Jesus of Nazareth is their coming king. They cried: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!” Jesus is the coming one, the one long promised, the Messiah, the king. He has come to His people in their time of need; He has come to the Holy City to save it. This is all happening just as the prophet Zechariah had promised: “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.” With palm branches in hand, Israel welcomes her king into her city in victory.
And what a victory this is! The crowd has heard of the miracles of Jesus, many have even seen His great signs; they know that this man has great power, such as no one has ever seen. John tells us that it was the most recent miracle of Jesus that had the people worked up into a frenzy. “The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised Him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they heard that He had done this sign.” This man even raises the dead! Who else could He be than Israel’s promised Messiah, her king? The prophecies of the Old Testament seemed to be unfolding right before their eyes, and so they shout in the words of Psalm 118: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!” ‘Hosanna’ is the word that comes to their lips in this moment of triumph. Hosanna. We speak this ancient Hebrew word during the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, but do we know what it means? ‘Save us, please!’ The crowd knew that Jesus had raised up Lazarus, they knew that He was their coming king, the one promised of old, and so they shouted, ‘Save us, please!’
But they had no idea what they were saying. They call for salvation, but they didn’t know what they needed saving from. For them, the raising of Lazarus was simply a demonstration that Jesus was their king, and their cry of ‘Save us, please- Hosanna!’ was a plea for deliverance from political oppression. They wanted their nation freed from the shackles of Roman oppression; that is what they celebrated that day. Today, you and I celebrate Jesus as well; we acclaim Him as our coming king. Like the people of Jerusalem, we even wave palm branches as a sign of victory. But what do we want Jesus to do for us? What use is He to us? Is Jesus only a friend, someone to get you through the week? Is He simply a status symbol, someone you hold to because that’s what others expect? Is He only a coach, who motivates you to get things done yourself? As this most holy of weeks begins, examine yourself. Find out exactly what you need Jesus for. It isn’t bad luck, corrupt government, nosy neighbors, family conflicts, or even disease. These are all just symptoms. Your problem is much deeper, and it is much worse: you need salvation from sin and death. Your problem is that you are sinful, and your problem is that this sin leads to death. You don’t need a counselor, a coach, a buddy, or even simply a king; you need a Savior. You and the crowds need victory over sin and death.
But if the crowd misunderstood what Jesus had come to save them from, they had no clue how this victory would be won. They expected Jesus to bring political freedom, but they failed to notice that He wasn’t riding a great war-horse; instead, He sat on a humble beast of burden. “Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!’” The donkey is a sign of humility; Jesus rejects the signs of power that the people would expect. He is the coming one, and He comes in humility. The donkey is also a sign of peace; those who seek peace in the Old Testament often are riding on the back of a humble donkey. Jesus is a king, all right, but not the kind of king that anyone expected. No one that day understood the kind of king Jesus was, nor the nature of the victory He would win; not the cheering crowds, not the religious leadership, not even Jesus’ closest companions.
John tells us that Palm Sunday only became clear to the disciples when they looked back: “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him.” The crowds celebrated victory on Sunday, but the victory would be won on Friday in a way they never would’ve expected. They didn’t know what they needed salvation from, and so they had no idea what the cost would be. But Jesus did. He left the humble donkey behind, walking the rest of His triumphal march with the instrument of victory upon His back. Lining His path was no longer the cheering throng bearing palm branches, but a violent, bloodthirsty mob shaking their fists. He had come to win the victory, to answer the cries of the people, ‘Save us, please! Hosanna!’ and this victory, this salvation, would only come through His death.
The greatest need of the people who met Him on Palm Sunday in rejoicing and victory was not political freedom, it was freedom from sin and death. The greatest need of you and me, who entered this sanctuary in rejoicing and victory, with palm branches in hand, is not a better life now or tips for the week, it is salvation from sin and death. That is why Jesus went to the cross, to deliver you from sin itself and the penalty for that sin. His victory was to be won over sin and death, and that victory could only be won through His own death on our behalf, His own death in our place. As we watch Jesus walk up to Golgotha’s bloody hill, we cry out, ‘Save us, please!’ “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
On the first Palm Sunday, the crowd ran out to meet Jesus because a man who was dead was now alive. Lazarus had been called forth from his grave by the mighty voice of Jesus; what better reason is there to cut down palm branches and celebrate the coming victory of their king? And the crowd was right. There is a connection between the raising of Lazarus and the victory of Jesus, though not in the way they thought. The raising of Lazarus isn’t simply a demonstration of the power of this coming king, it is a preview of His victory. This last and greatest sign of Jesus, celebrated on Palm Sunday, points to what will happen a week later, when the one who died bearing our sin rose again in victory. The tomb couldn’t hold Lazarus; it won’t hold Jesus. He was called forth from His grave, having accomplished salvation, having won the victory, having borne your sin to the cross and having destroyed it there. That was the victory that the crowds celebrated on Palm Sunday, whether they realized it or not; victory that was won on the cross and sealed with the empty tomb. Today, we too celebrate this victory; the palm branches are for celebrating the defeat of sin and death.
The tomb couldn’t hold Lazarus; the mighty voice of Jesus broke its hold on His friend. The tomb couldn’t hold Jesus; God accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and proved it by raising Him from the dead. The tomb won’t hold you; because Jesus won the victory for you through the cross and empty tomb, your grave will be opened on the Last Day; the mighty voice of your Savior will call on you to come out. You will rise as Lazarus did, but with one difference. Lazarus would die again; but as Christ was raised never to enter the grave again, so you will be raised never to taste death forever. That is the victory that we celebrate with our palm branches this day, and we will celebrate that victory with our palm branches forever. John saw this in his vision, recorded in Revelation chapter seven: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” We wave our palm branches today and forever in victory, the victory that Christ won through the cross and empty tomb, the victory that means our resurrection and an eternity spent with our King, our Savior. In His holy and precious name, Amen.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Lent 5 of Series B (Mark 10:32-45)
“Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” 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 tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Mark. Dear friends in Christ, Jesus had a way of shocking people. He shocked people with His miracles, the great shows of power that demonstrated His authority over disease and demons, the wind and the waves. He shocked people with His teachings, for He taught ‘as one who had authority,’ not as they were used to hearing from the scribes and rabbis. He shocked people with His actions, turning over tables, writing in the dirt, and eating with sinners. In fact, the very appearance and demeanor of Jesus was shocking. Mark tells us, “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.” There was something about Jesus that made that crowd around Him uneasy. His emotions were at a boiling point; there was an intensity radiating from Jesus that made people nervous. He had a determination, an inner resolve that seemed dead-set to travel to Jerusalem.
He went to that holy city completely aware of what He would encounter there: “See, we are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise.” Mark doesn’t tell us how Jesus spoke these words; we don’t know what tone of voice He used, or what emotions accompanied this statement. But I picture Jesus saying these words defiantly, with strong emotion, matter-of-factly declaring what will happen to Him. ‘I will be condemned. I will be humiliated. I will be mocked and spit upon. I will be flogged and killed.’ That is His destination, His destiny, His goal. He knows that Jerusalem holds only suffering, but yet He doesn’t turn aside from His path. Instead He marches on, for this Jesus is confident in His Father’s love, He is confident that He will be vindicated. This graphic prediction of suffering and death ends with the statement, “after three days He will rise.”
Jesus knows that He is the suffering servant described by Isaiah hundreds of years earlier, the servant who declared: “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near.” Jesus knows that He will be vindicated, because His suffering and His death is for you and for me. His suffering and His death is God’s plan for your salvation. His suffering and His death is necessary to reconcile man to God. Jesus comes as a servant, the suffering servant, who bears the iniquity of man. Perhaps this is what shocks His followers the most: the great Jesus, worker of miracles, stiller of storms, teacher of God’s Word, is a servant, a suffering servant.
If they hadn’t understood this before, the followers of Jesus should’ve realized at this moment that any visions of glory were far-fetched. No matter how shocking it was to them, the truth was that Jesus had come to serve, to suffer and die. But humans don’t speak the language of service; we speak the language of power. And so James and John chose this very moment as the opportunity to ask Jesus a question: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Sure, James and John know about the cross, they’ve heard about service, but it doesn’t really effect how they treat their fellow Christians in the Church. They want to exercise power over others, they want to get their way above all else, on everything from the budget to the color of the paint on the walls. Maybe James and John are used to exercising power at home or in their business, and they take that attitude with them into the Church. Or maybe James and John are used to being trampled on in the world, and the Church is the one place where they can flex their muscles and order someone else around. Either way, for them the Church is no different from the world; here the language of power speaks, and they selfishly seek to impose their own will.
But the rest of the group is no better. “When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.” The only reason everyone else is upset is because James and John had the boldness to do what they wanted to do. They are indignant because they don’t want anyone placed in authority over them. The ten disciples want the same power that James and John grabbed for. Their perfect vision of the Church is a place where there are plenty of bosses to go around, but few if any workers. And so, they will seek any opportunity to exercise power, to subvert and go behind those placed in authority, whether a board, a committee, an officer, or their pastor. Once again, it comes down to selfishness. The ten want to have their own way, they want to exercise their own power, and so they refuse to be placed under the authority of others, especially James and John.
Into this mess of power grabs and selfishness, Jesus speaks the language of service. “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” That is the way of the world, the way of power, of domination, of tyranny. The world teaches you to seek power and to hold onto that power with all your might, exercising it only for your own benefit. Jesus shows His followers a more excellent way. “But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” The way of the Church is not power but service. The way of the Church is placing your desires behind the needs of others. Those who are placed into authority are not there to exercise power, to get their own way or to satisfy themselves. They are to exercise authority in service. This means subverting your own needs to the needs of others, becoming servants and slaves to those around you. The one with the greatest authority should seek to be the lowest servant. The language of the Church is service, not power.
This isn’t a language that the Old Adam or the world around us understands. His words come as a shock; Jesus isn’t operating the way we would think. Servants and slaves are treated as doormats in a world that knows only power. Suffering is the result of selfless service: suffering from your sinful nature, which doesn’t want to have its desires for power to be crushed; suffering from your fellow Christians, who bring the language of power into the Church; and suffering from this world, which is always looking for an opportunity to crush the weak. Jesus promised us that this would happen, that we would follow His pattern: “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Jesus has been called upon to drink the cup; the cup of suffering. Jesus has been called upon to be baptized; the bloody baptism of fire on the cross. Those who live their life in service, placing the needs of others ahead of their own, will suffer in the same way.
Jesus sets the pattern; He is a servant of all, as we are called upon to be, and He will suffer for it, as we are promised. But His suffering as a servant was far more than merely an example for us to follow. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” His service, His suffering is in your place; His service, His suffering is for your salvation. Jesus drinks the cup of suffering for you, as your servant. He drinks what you deserved for your sins, and He drains it down to the dregs on the cross, swallowing the poisonous mixture in bitterness and agony. In the same way, Jesus’ bloody baptism is in your place. At the Jordan, He was baptized in the place of sinners, He was declared the sin-bearer. That baptism was brought to its completion with His bloody baptism on Calvary’s cross. There He died in the place of sinners, He died as the sin-bearer, He died for you. He died as your ransom, the required payment for your sin. He placed your need for salvation ahead of Himself, and the One through whom the earth was created became the lowliest servant, obedient even to death.
As a servant, as a slave, He was condemned with the condemnation you deserved; He was condemned in your place. He was condemned to remove your condemnation, the condemnation of eternal death. He shows us the greatest example of service, and through that act of service He brings us forgiveness for when we fail to follow that example. He gave up all claims to power to forgive those who seek after power; He was selfless to forgive the selfish. He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many, as a ransom for you.
No wonder the people following Christ had amazement and fear; what Jesus calls for is drastically different than the way the world operates. But He walks that path Himself, not seeking after power but making Himself the servant of all. Even today He serves you with His Gospel, the free grace and the forgiveness of sins won because He willingly drank the cup, He willingly submitted to the baptism of the cross. Jesus doesn’t act the way that we would expect; He acts in self-giving love, love that pours out upon you through the forgiveness of sins. This is shocking, but this is who Jesus is, and this is what He has come to do. The God of the universe came to serve you, to give His life as your ransom, because of His great love for you. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
He went to that holy city completely aware of what He would encounter there: “See, we are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise.” Mark doesn’t tell us how Jesus spoke these words; we don’t know what tone of voice He used, or what emotions accompanied this statement. But I picture Jesus saying these words defiantly, with strong emotion, matter-of-factly declaring what will happen to Him. ‘I will be condemned. I will be humiliated. I will be mocked and spit upon. I will be flogged and killed.’ That is His destination, His destiny, His goal. He knows that Jerusalem holds only suffering, but yet He doesn’t turn aside from His path. Instead He marches on, for this Jesus is confident in His Father’s love, He is confident that He will be vindicated. This graphic prediction of suffering and death ends with the statement, “after three days He will rise.”
Jesus knows that He is the suffering servant described by Isaiah hundreds of years earlier, the servant who declared: “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near.” Jesus knows that He will be vindicated, because His suffering and His death is for you and for me. His suffering and His death is God’s plan for your salvation. His suffering and His death is necessary to reconcile man to God. Jesus comes as a servant, the suffering servant, who bears the iniquity of man. Perhaps this is what shocks His followers the most: the great Jesus, worker of miracles, stiller of storms, teacher of God’s Word, is a servant, a suffering servant.
If they hadn’t understood this before, the followers of Jesus should’ve realized at this moment that any visions of glory were far-fetched. No matter how shocking it was to them, the truth was that Jesus had come to serve, to suffer and die. But humans don’t speak the language of service; we speak the language of power. And so James and John chose this very moment as the opportunity to ask Jesus a question: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Sure, James and John know about the cross, they’ve heard about service, but it doesn’t really effect how they treat their fellow Christians in the Church. They want to exercise power over others, they want to get their way above all else, on everything from the budget to the color of the paint on the walls. Maybe James and John are used to exercising power at home or in their business, and they take that attitude with them into the Church. Or maybe James and John are used to being trampled on in the world, and the Church is the one place where they can flex their muscles and order someone else around. Either way, for them the Church is no different from the world; here the language of power speaks, and they selfishly seek to impose their own will.
But the rest of the group is no better. “When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.” The only reason everyone else is upset is because James and John had the boldness to do what they wanted to do. They are indignant because they don’t want anyone placed in authority over them. The ten disciples want the same power that James and John grabbed for. Their perfect vision of the Church is a place where there are plenty of bosses to go around, but few if any workers. And so, they will seek any opportunity to exercise power, to subvert and go behind those placed in authority, whether a board, a committee, an officer, or their pastor. Once again, it comes down to selfishness. The ten want to have their own way, they want to exercise their own power, and so they refuse to be placed under the authority of others, especially James and John.
Into this mess of power grabs and selfishness, Jesus speaks the language of service. “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” That is the way of the world, the way of power, of domination, of tyranny. The world teaches you to seek power and to hold onto that power with all your might, exercising it only for your own benefit. Jesus shows His followers a more excellent way. “But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” The way of the Church is not power but service. The way of the Church is placing your desires behind the needs of others. Those who are placed into authority are not there to exercise power, to get their own way or to satisfy themselves. They are to exercise authority in service. This means subverting your own needs to the needs of others, becoming servants and slaves to those around you. The one with the greatest authority should seek to be the lowest servant. The language of the Church is service, not power.
This isn’t a language that the Old Adam or the world around us understands. His words come as a shock; Jesus isn’t operating the way we would think. Servants and slaves are treated as doormats in a world that knows only power. Suffering is the result of selfless service: suffering from your sinful nature, which doesn’t want to have its desires for power to be crushed; suffering from your fellow Christians, who bring the language of power into the Church; and suffering from this world, which is always looking for an opportunity to crush the weak. Jesus promised us that this would happen, that we would follow His pattern: “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Jesus has been called upon to drink the cup; the cup of suffering. Jesus has been called upon to be baptized; the bloody baptism of fire on the cross. Those who live their life in service, placing the needs of others ahead of their own, will suffer in the same way.
Jesus sets the pattern; He is a servant of all, as we are called upon to be, and He will suffer for it, as we are promised. But His suffering as a servant was far more than merely an example for us to follow. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” His service, His suffering is in your place; His service, His suffering is for your salvation. Jesus drinks the cup of suffering for you, as your servant. He drinks what you deserved for your sins, and He drains it down to the dregs on the cross, swallowing the poisonous mixture in bitterness and agony. In the same way, Jesus’ bloody baptism is in your place. At the Jordan, He was baptized in the place of sinners, He was declared the sin-bearer. That baptism was brought to its completion with His bloody baptism on Calvary’s cross. There He died in the place of sinners, He died as the sin-bearer, He died for you. He died as your ransom, the required payment for your sin. He placed your need for salvation ahead of Himself, and the One through whom the earth was created became the lowliest servant, obedient even to death.
As a servant, as a slave, He was condemned with the condemnation you deserved; He was condemned in your place. He was condemned to remove your condemnation, the condemnation of eternal death. He shows us the greatest example of service, and through that act of service He brings us forgiveness for when we fail to follow that example. He gave up all claims to power to forgive those who seek after power; He was selfless to forgive the selfish. He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many, as a ransom for you.
No wonder the people following Christ had amazement and fear; what Jesus calls for is drastically different than the way the world operates. But He walks that path Himself, not seeking after power but making Himself the servant of all. Even today He serves you with His Gospel, the free grace and the forgiveness of sins won because He willingly drank the cup, He willingly submitted to the baptism of the cross. Jesus doesn’t act the way that we would expect; He acts in self-giving love, love that pours out upon you through the forgiveness of sins. This is shocking, but this is who Jesus is, and this is what He has come to do. The God of the universe came to serve you, to give His life as your ransom, because of His great love for you. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Lent 4 of Series B (Numbers 21:4-9)
In the beginning, God created you. He formed you in the womb of your mother, He knit you together in secret, then brought you forth into this world that He had created for you. He gave you everything you needed: food, water, and shelter. Even the air you breathe is a gift from Him. He is the one who provided your family to bear you, to raise you and care for you; whether they realized it or not, they were His instruments of provision. Every good gift comes from God, but what God wants to give you isn’t enough. You want more, you want something different. You are impatient with His provision, because it doesn’t come the way you want it, and so you grumble and complain. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food, and no water, and we loathe this worthless food!” God has given you every good gift, and yet you say, “we loathe this worthless food!” You want what is not yours; you aren’t satisfied with what God has given to you, and so you desire what others have. Your focus is on the stuff of this world- food, clothing, cars, houses, money, status in the eyes of others- rather than on the God who gives all of these things as He sees fit. Psalm 78 declares, “They tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God spread a table in the wilderness?’”
Why do you speak against God? Because you are sinful. And this sin can have only one penalty. “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” Your grumbling and impatience has earned death. This is a reality that you cannot ignore, for you see it in your own body. Your very flesh is corrupted by sin; that is why you get sick, that is why your body wears out, that is why you die. Death is the result of sin; we die only because we are sinful. No person can escape the penalty of sin; whether you believe the Scriptures or not, the reality of corruption and death is apparent to all. You can’t explain away cancer or heart disease, much less death itself. Sin isn’t simply some spiritual affliction that only religious people have to deal with; it has very real physical consequences.
But yet, the physical consequences of sin only point to the deeper spiritual problem. St. Paul writes, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins 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- 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.” Your sin has made you a child of wrath; God’s wrath over your sin and rebellion. Your selfish desires for the things of this world over the God who gives them can only lead to separation from that God forever in eternal judgment, body and soul, in hell.
When you are faced with the stark reality of your sin and its penalty, you can do one of two things. First, you can try to ignore your sin and its penalty, pretending that you really don’t have sin and that hell doesn’t exist. But you can pretend that hell doesn’t exist all you want; the reality is, you can’t pretend that your body isn’t corrupt and broken, you can’t pretend that you won’t die. The path of denial is ultimately delusional and irrational, no matter how many of our world’s intellectuals and celebrities take it. No, the only real option is to cry out to the only one who can do something about it, the one who imposed the penalty, God Himself. “And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that He take away the serpents from us.’”
You come to God in humility, you come to God knowing that you have a problem that you cannot solve on your own; you come to God in sorrow over your rebellion and ingratitude for the gifts He has given to you. You come confessing your sin: “I have sinned, for I have spoken against the Lord.” God’s holy Law and the penalty that you can see in your very own body has exposed your sin, and so you bring it to Him. You come knowing that God doesn’t have to listen to you, that He doesn’t owe you anything, only wrath. But you come begging for His mercy. You call on the God who lovingly created you to save His creation; you call on the God who provided for all of your bodily needs to provide eternal deliverance. The penalty of your sin is too hard to bear; if it remains upon you, it will drag you down to eternal punishment. And so you pray, you confess, you plead- for deliverance, for forgiveness, for salvation.
Your plea doesn’t come to God’s holy throne alone, but instead you have an intercessor who is pleading for you before Him, begging Him to have mercy upon you. As Abraham stood between the wrath of God and his nephew Lot, as Moses stood between God’s punishment and the people of Israel, so the second person of the Trinity, the eternally begotten Son of God, intercedes for you before His Father. He pleads for your salvation, He pleads for mercy, for grace. He pleads for you, calling on God to remember His love for His Son and His love for you.
Your intercessor, the one who pleaded for your salvation, is called to the throne. “‘Go forth, my Son,’ the Father said, ‘And free my children from their dread of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by your passion they will share the fruit of your salvation.” God answers your cries, He provides deliverance in the person of His Son. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Our intercessor, our mediator, is called upon to bring salvation to us Himself, and He does this without hesitation. “Yes Father, yes, most willingly I’ll bear what you command me. My will conforms to your decree, I’ll do what you have asked me.” In love He stood before the Father’s throne for you; in love He will go forth to bring you the salvation He pleaded for.
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” Your sin is a sin of the body: the desire for the things of this world over the God who provides them. The penalty for your sin is a penalty of your body: the corruption that fills you, that leads to maladies, disease, and finally death. And so God makes His Son the image of your sin. He gives to Him your human flesh; the Son of God takes on a body and becomes man. He is the image and likeness of your sin. But more than that, He becomes sin itself, bearing your own sin in His flesh. He is sin incarnate, the very embodiment of sin, not because He has any sin of His own, but because He bears your sin.
The image of your sin is then placed high upon a pole, for all the world to see. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” The image of your sin is nailed to a cross, exalted in humiliation, exalted in suffering, exalted in order to die. When He is lifted up, He is exposed to ridicule, He is displayed as a condemned criminal, He is declared a traitor to Rome and His own people. But the image of your sin isn’t simply lifted up to receive ridicule from men; He is lifted up to pay the penalty for sin, He is lifted up to endure what you deserved, He is lifted up for your salvation. He is lifted up so that nothing stands between Him and God’s holy wrath, He is lifted up so that the full brunt of the penalty for your sin falls upon Him and not you. He is lifted up so that when you look to Him, you live.
“So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look to the bronze serpent and live.” You are sinful; you know it, for you have seen its penalty in the frailty of your body, in the death that stalks your steps. You have confessed your sin and then cried out to God for deliverance, for salvation, and His answer is His Son, made the image and embodiment of your sin, exalted high upon a pole. “O wondrous love, what have you done! The Father offers up His Son, desiring our salvation. O Love, how strong you are to save! You lay the one into the grave who built the earth’s foundation.” Your sin has been made man and put to death; its eternal penalty is removed. Look to Jesus, hanging high upon the tree, exalted upon the bloody throne of the cross, and you will live! You will live even though you die, for there sin’s power over you has been destroyed. Look to Jesus when you fall into grumbling and complaining against the good gifts of God, for only through His cross can you have forgiveness. Even now He stands before the Father’s throne, interceding for you, placing His cross between you and the penalty for your sin. He remains your mediator forever; look to His cross in repentance whenever you sin. Look to Jesus when your body falters and fails, for He will give you a new body in the new heavens and the new earth, one that will have none of the corruption that results from sin. Look to Jesus in the midst of this corrupted and dying world, for He is the only answer to sin and death. Look to Him this Lenten season, exalted high upon the pole for all the world to see.
The cross is your most sacred treasure, for there the image and embodiment of your sin was exalted for your salvation. St. Paul writes, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Jesus was exalted upon the cross so that He would be exalted to the right hand of the throne of God; Jesus was exalted upon the cross so that He would exalt you to the glories of heaven. There you will dwell forever, receiving every good gift from the God who created you and acted to redeem you. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
Why do you speak against God? Because you are sinful. And this sin can have only one penalty. “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” Your grumbling and impatience has earned death. This is a reality that you cannot ignore, for you see it in your own body. Your very flesh is corrupted by sin; that is why you get sick, that is why your body wears out, that is why you die. Death is the result of sin; we die only because we are sinful. No person can escape the penalty of sin; whether you believe the Scriptures or not, the reality of corruption and death is apparent to all. You can’t explain away cancer or heart disease, much less death itself. Sin isn’t simply some spiritual affliction that only religious people have to deal with; it has very real physical consequences.
But yet, the physical consequences of sin only point to the deeper spiritual problem. St. Paul writes, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins 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- 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.” Your sin has made you a child of wrath; God’s wrath over your sin and rebellion. Your selfish desires for the things of this world over the God who gives them can only lead to separation from that God forever in eternal judgment, body and soul, in hell.
When you are faced with the stark reality of your sin and its penalty, you can do one of two things. First, you can try to ignore your sin and its penalty, pretending that you really don’t have sin and that hell doesn’t exist. But you can pretend that hell doesn’t exist all you want; the reality is, you can’t pretend that your body isn’t corrupt and broken, you can’t pretend that you won’t die. The path of denial is ultimately delusional and irrational, no matter how many of our world’s intellectuals and celebrities take it. No, the only real option is to cry out to the only one who can do something about it, the one who imposed the penalty, God Himself. “And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that He take away the serpents from us.’”
You come to God in humility, you come to God knowing that you have a problem that you cannot solve on your own; you come to God in sorrow over your rebellion and ingratitude for the gifts He has given to you. You come confessing your sin: “I have sinned, for I have spoken against the Lord.” God’s holy Law and the penalty that you can see in your very own body has exposed your sin, and so you bring it to Him. You come knowing that God doesn’t have to listen to you, that He doesn’t owe you anything, only wrath. But you come begging for His mercy. You call on the God who lovingly created you to save His creation; you call on the God who provided for all of your bodily needs to provide eternal deliverance. The penalty of your sin is too hard to bear; if it remains upon you, it will drag you down to eternal punishment. And so you pray, you confess, you plead- for deliverance, for forgiveness, for salvation.
Your plea doesn’t come to God’s holy throne alone, but instead you have an intercessor who is pleading for you before Him, begging Him to have mercy upon you. As Abraham stood between the wrath of God and his nephew Lot, as Moses stood between God’s punishment and the people of Israel, so the second person of the Trinity, the eternally begotten Son of God, intercedes for you before His Father. He pleads for your salvation, He pleads for mercy, for grace. He pleads for you, calling on God to remember His love for His Son and His love for you.
Your intercessor, the one who pleaded for your salvation, is called to the throne. “‘Go forth, my Son,’ the Father said, ‘And free my children from their dread of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by your passion they will share the fruit of your salvation.” God answers your cries, He provides deliverance in the person of His Son. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Our intercessor, our mediator, is called upon to bring salvation to us Himself, and He does this without hesitation. “Yes Father, yes, most willingly I’ll bear what you command me. My will conforms to your decree, I’ll do what you have asked me.” In love He stood before the Father’s throne for you; in love He will go forth to bring you the salvation He pleaded for.
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” Your sin is a sin of the body: the desire for the things of this world over the God who provides them. The penalty for your sin is a penalty of your body: the corruption that fills you, that leads to maladies, disease, and finally death. And so God makes His Son the image of your sin. He gives to Him your human flesh; the Son of God takes on a body and becomes man. He is the image and likeness of your sin. But more than that, He becomes sin itself, bearing your own sin in His flesh. He is sin incarnate, the very embodiment of sin, not because He has any sin of His own, but because He bears your sin.
The image of your sin is then placed high upon a pole, for all the world to see. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” The image of your sin is nailed to a cross, exalted in humiliation, exalted in suffering, exalted in order to die. When He is lifted up, He is exposed to ridicule, He is displayed as a condemned criminal, He is declared a traitor to Rome and His own people. But the image of your sin isn’t simply lifted up to receive ridicule from men; He is lifted up to pay the penalty for sin, He is lifted up to endure what you deserved, He is lifted up for your salvation. He is lifted up so that nothing stands between Him and God’s holy wrath, He is lifted up so that the full brunt of the penalty for your sin falls upon Him and not you. He is lifted up so that when you look to Him, you live.
“So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look to the bronze serpent and live.” You are sinful; you know it, for you have seen its penalty in the frailty of your body, in the death that stalks your steps. You have confessed your sin and then cried out to God for deliverance, for salvation, and His answer is His Son, made the image and embodiment of your sin, exalted high upon a pole. “O wondrous love, what have you done! The Father offers up His Son, desiring our salvation. O Love, how strong you are to save! You lay the one into the grave who built the earth’s foundation.” Your sin has been made man and put to death; its eternal penalty is removed. Look to Jesus, hanging high upon the tree, exalted upon the bloody throne of the cross, and you will live! You will live even though you die, for there sin’s power over you has been destroyed. Look to Jesus when you fall into grumbling and complaining against the good gifts of God, for only through His cross can you have forgiveness. Even now He stands before the Father’s throne, interceding for you, placing His cross between you and the penalty for your sin. He remains your mediator forever; look to His cross in repentance whenever you sin. Look to Jesus when your body falters and fails, for He will give you a new body in the new heavens and the new earth, one that will have none of the corruption that results from sin. Look to Jesus in the midst of this corrupted and dying world, for He is the only answer to sin and death. Look to Him this Lenten season, exalted high upon the pole for all the world to see.
The cross is your most sacred treasure, for there the image and embodiment of your sin was exalted for your salvation. St. Paul writes, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Jesus was exalted upon the cross so that He would be exalted to the right hand of the throne of God; Jesus was exalted upon the cross so that He would exalt you to the glories of heaven. There you will dwell forever, receiving every good gift from the God who created you and acted to redeem you. In His holy and precious Name, Amen.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Reflections on 'My Song is Love Unknown'- Stanza's 6 and 7
God is love. His love sent Jesus to this earth; His love sent Jesus to the cross. Jesus’ love for you and for His Father meant that He accepted this charge willingly, going forth to suffer and die for you and your salvation. Saint John understood this love, writing in his first letter: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” There is no greater example of love than Good Friday, as the last verse of our hymn declares, “Never was love, dear King, never was grief like Thine.” The grief of the cross means that you will live even though you die, the suffering and humiliation of the cross means that you will be delivered from suffering and exalted to heaven. Christ’s death means your life, Christ’s tomb means your resurrection.
“In life no house, no home my Lord on earth might have; in death no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave. What may I say? Heaven was His home but mine the tomb wherein He lay. Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine! Never was love, dear King, never was grief like Thine. This is my friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.” Christ died in your place, and He was buried in your place. Heaven is His home, the place where He belonged, but in death He lay in your tomb. He suffered all that you deserved: the wrath of God and the penalty of death, then He rested in the earth. He lay in the tomb for you, to sanctify your grave, for as the grave couldn’t hold Him, so it will not hold you. His tomb stands empty, broken, with all of its power destroyed, demonstrating that death itself has been crushed. He stayed in the tomb, but He didn’t remain there, and so your tomb is transformed from a place of defeat to a place of rest, where you will wait for the victory. For the trumpet will sound, and you will be raised, to be with your friend, your Savior, “in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.”
“In life no house, no home my Lord on earth might have; in death no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave. What may I say? Heaven was His home but mine the tomb wherein He lay. Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine! Never was love, dear King, never was grief like Thine. This is my friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.” Christ died in your place, and He was buried in your place. Heaven is His home, the place where He belonged, but in death He lay in your tomb. He suffered all that you deserved: the wrath of God and the penalty of death, then He rested in the earth. He lay in the tomb for you, to sanctify your grave, for as the grave couldn’t hold Him, so it will not hold you. His tomb stands empty, broken, with all of its power destroyed, demonstrating that death itself has been crushed. He stayed in the tomb, but He didn’t remain there, and so your tomb is transformed from a place of defeat to a place of rest, where you will wait for the victory. For the trumpet will sound, and you will be raised, to be with your friend, your Savior, “in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.”
Reflections on 'My Song is Love Unknown'- Stanza 5
Jesus loved Barabbas. He loved this murderer, this insurrectionist, this despicable man languishing in a Roman prison, given the sentence of death. He loved Barabbas to such an extent that He was willing to die for him. Barabbas was guilty, in fact as guilty as any man could be; Jesus was innocent, more holy and righteous than any person who had ever lived. But Jesus died and Barabbas lived. Jesus died in the place of Barabbas.
“They rise and needs will have my dear Lord made away; a murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay. Yet cheerful He to suffering goes that He His foes from thence might free.” Jesus loves you. He loves you, even though you are sinful, even though you are corrupted, even though you are under the sentence of death. He loves you to such an extent that He was willing to die for you. You are guilty, in fact as guilty as every human since Adam and Eve. Jesus is innocent, more holy and righteous than any person who had ever lived. But Jesus died, and you will live. Jesus died in your place. “Yet cheerful He to suffering goes that He His foes from thence might free.” He died in the place of His greatest enemies; He died in place of His friends. He died in place of the ones who nailed Him to the cross; He died for you and me. Martin Luther called this the ‘great exchange.’ Jesus takes all that is ours: our sin, our shame, and our guilt, and makes it His own. In return, He gives us all that is His: His righteousness, His holiness, and His standing before God. Through His death and resurrection, all that is Christ’s is now yours. The hymn tells, “Yet cheerful He to suffering goes.” Christ goes to the cross cheerfully because of His love for you and me. This is truly love unknown, love incomprehensible, love divine. God is love, and He demonstrates this most clearly on Good Friday, in the cross of Christ.
“They rise and needs will have my dear Lord made away; a murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay. Yet cheerful He to suffering goes that He His foes from thence might free.” Jesus loves you. He loves you, even though you are sinful, even though you are corrupted, even though you are under the sentence of death. He loves you to such an extent that He was willing to die for you. You are guilty, in fact as guilty as every human since Adam and Eve. Jesus is innocent, more holy and righteous than any person who had ever lived. But Jesus died, and you will live. Jesus died in your place. “Yet cheerful He to suffering goes that He His foes from thence might free.” He died in the place of His greatest enemies; He died in place of His friends. He died in place of the ones who nailed Him to the cross; He died for you and me. Martin Luther called this the ‘great exchange.’ Jesus takes all that is ours: our sin, our shame, and our guilt, and makes it His own. In return, He gives us all that is His: His righteousness, His holiness, and His standing before God. Through His death and resurrection, all that is Christ’s is now yours. The hymn tells, “Yet cheerful He to suffering goes.” Christ goes to the cross cheerfully because of His love for you and me. This is truly love unknown, love incomprehensible, love divine. God is love, and He demonstrates this most clearly on Good Friday, in the cross of Christ.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Reflections on 'My Song is Love Unknown'- Stanza 4
The love of Jesus didn’t begin at the cross; it defined His incarnation and life in this world. In love He drove out demons from the possessed, in love He healed disease, in love He raised the dead. When Jesus wept outside of the tomb of Lazarus, the gathered mourners exclaimed, “See how He loved him!” Jesus poured out His love on this sinful and corrupted creation, for that is what He came to do. The Creator was present in His creation to renew and restore it, to make right what had gone so terribly wrong. Jesus came to show love, and the creation responded with hate.
“Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite? He made the lame to run, he gave the blind their sight. Sweet injuries! Yet they at these, themselves displease and against Him rise.” In hatred this world raged against the God who is love. What has Jesus done? What makes this world scorn and abuse Him? He has done what Isaiah prophesied He would do: “The Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” He came in love to free this creation from its bondage to sin and death. Every disease healed, every demon driven away, every leper cleansed was an indication that Jesus had come to destroy sin’s effects forever. But this cleansing and restoration would only come through His rejection, His suffering, through the facing of the rage of this world. Why was He hated by men? So that He could save them, so that He could show them love. Only His death could destroy sin and all of its corruption. Our hymn exclaims, “Sweet injuries!” The injuries of Christ are sweet because through them the disease of sin and death is cast from us, as Isaiah wrote, “With His stripes we are healed.”
“Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite? He made the lame to run, he gave the blind their sight. Sweet injuries! Yet they at these, themselves displease and against Him rise.” In hatred this world raged against the God who is love. What has Jesus done? What makes this world scorn and abuse Him? He has done what Isaiah prophesied He would do: “The Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” He came in love to free this creation from its bondage to sin and death. Every disease healed, every demon driven away, every leper cleansed was an indication that Jesus had come to destroy sin’s effects forever. But this cleansing and restoration would only come through His rejection, His suffering, through the facing of the rage of this world. Why was He hated by men? So that He could save them, so that He could show them love. Only His death could destroy sin and all of its corruption. Our hymn exclaims, “Sweet injuries!” The injuries of Christ are sweet because through them the disease of sin and death is cast from us, as Isaiah wrote, “With His stripes we are healed.”
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