Saturday, June 13, 2020
Friday, June 12, 2020
1 x 1 x1=1!
Here's last Sunday's online worship service from Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio. The text of my message for the day is below. God bless you!
Matthew 28:16-20
You’ve seen it dozens of times in your life. A person is brought to a font and, while being doused with three splashes of water, is baptized “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Why, exactly, do we do that? Why do we invoke the three names of the three persons Who, Scripture teaches, make up the one true God?
The easy answer, of course, is that Jesus commands us to do it. In words we find in today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 28:16-20. He says, “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” Of course, when we baptize people, our commission of making disciples hasn’t been completed; Jesus also tells us to teach them to observe everything that He has commanded. Still, we may wonder what the big deal is about baptizing people or teaching them to observe Jesus’ commandments in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. What’s so important about that?
I think we need to go back to two places in the Old Testament to help us understand. First, we go to about two-thousand years before the birth of Jesus, some four-thousand years ago from where we sit now, to a couple named Abram and Sarai, whose names God would later change to Abraham and Sarah. Under oak trees in a place called Mamre, these nomads were visited by three mysterious strangers. When these three men spoke, they did so with a single voice. Abram knew that He was in the presence of God, Whose fullness apparently cannot be contained in one Person. “If I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord,” Abraham said, “do not pass your servant by.” (Genesis 18:3) And the Lord--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--did not pass Abram and Sarai by, but blessed them to be blessings to the world.
Some five-hundred years later, God tells Moses to instruct his brother Aaron and the other priests of God to bless Abraham’s and Sarah’s descendants with a benediction. You know it. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) This Aaronic Benediction, as we call it, bestows blessings from each of the three Persons of the Trinity. You see, this benediction has three parts, each part corresponding to the three Person of the one God. It’s God the Father Who blesses and keeps us. The Father created us and all that exists and provides all that we need to live from day to day. Our call from Him is to take care of this creation and to share our blessings with others. It’s God the Son, Jesus the Christ, Who shines the loving, forgiving face of God on a fallen and mortal human race. He brings us undeserved grace, including forgiveness for our sins and new and everlasting life, for all who repent and believe in Him. It’s God the Holy Spirit, Who turns His face toward us through the Word of God. And through this Word, He empowers us to believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, filling us with God’s peace, now and forever!
Not all, probably not most of, God’s ancient people, the Israelites, understood God’s three-in-one nature. Truth is, we find it hard to understand too. But the mystery of the Holy Trinity is central to God’s identity. The New Testament letter of First John says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). On this side of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we can confidently agree. In Christ, God has done His love for us, offering Himself up as the perfect sacrifice for our sins before we even know we need saving. But when he says that “God is love,” I think that John means something deeper than that. He’s saying that it is the very nature of God, always has been, always will be, to love. Love is something that God has been doing within the mystery of the Trinity in eternity before there was time, space, or matter. His very decision to give life to a creation beyond Himself sprang from a love so vast, so total, so overwhelming, so tested and true, that He made a whole universe to which He could give it a way, most especially, to a human race made in His image! People object to the whole idea of the Trinity by appealing to math. “One plus one plus one always equals three,” they say. But in the Trinity, we see a higher form of math: “One times one times one equals one,” a God superabundant in life and in love.
When God the Son, Jesus, came into our world, He did so as a human being. In effect, God cupped His hand over the glory of His deity, although Jesus was always both truly God and truly human. But God came to us as a humble slave because He wanted to woo the human race into receiving His love. He didn’t want to intimidate us, wow us, or bludgeon us with His power and perfection so that we would simply cave into Him. God chose to become our servant, dying on a cross for us, and relying on God the Father, to raise Him from the dead just as God will now do for all who turn in repentance from the ways of this world and turn instead in faith to Jesus. Jesus renounced His power so that He could woo us into the Kingdom of God by His love.
After Jesus rose, the cupped hand of God was removed. And there, on that mountain in Galilee, some of the eleven apostles worshiped Jesus, seeing in Him the very God revealed to Abram, Sarai, Moses, and Aaron long before. Jesus tells them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18) Jesus reclaimed the full authority of His deity, authority over heaven and earth, over Jews and Gentiles, whites and blacks, men and women, even over the demons of hell. Jesus, you’ll remember, had refused the devil’s offer of dominion over the puny earthly kingdoms of this world. (Matthew 4:8-9) Jesus had no interest in replacing people like Xi Jinping in China, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-un in North Korea, or Donald Trump in the United States. Their days, along with all the other power, money, influence, and ease a dying world craves, will pass away. Jesus persevered through cross and tomb to resurrection for one purpose only: that through faith in Him, people otherwise dying in their sin, might experience the fullness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, here and now through a glass dimly as we await our own deaths and resurrections, and in eternity when at last, we will look on the Trinity in all His fullness, power, and love.
We baptize and teach in the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, because this is Who God has revealed Himself to be. But we do so also because when God’s Word is spoken--when, as Jesus commands us, the names of the Three Persons of the One God, meet water at the font--a new birth happens. The old self dies and the new self rises. The baptismal water becomes a kind of amniotic fluid and we are born again as the full power, majesty, glory, grace, and love of God claim us from the devil, the world, and our own sinful selves to make us children of God. From that point on, in every trial or temptation or test, in every joy and blessing, in every challenge and triumph, any one of which could cause us to forget God, we have the fullness of God living within us and, in the fellowship of the Church, the Word of God comes to call us to repentance and renewal in order to lead us through each day and to take us, with faith in Jesus, to our ultimate destination, into the loving arms of God. While we walk on this earth, there will remain mystery about God’s trinitarian nature. I’m not even sure we’ll fully understand it in eternity. But in the end, all we need to know is that this vast, eternal, infinite triune God of all creation loves us three times over: one times one times one. Amen
Matthew 28:16-20
You’ve seen it dozens of times in your life. A person is brought to a font and, while being doused with three splashes of water, is baptized “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Why, exactly, do we do that? Why do we invoke the three names of the three persons Who, Scripture teaches, make up the one true God?
The easy answer, of course, is that Jesus commands us to do it. In words we find in today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 28:16-20. He says, “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” Of course, when we baptize people, our commission of making disciples hasn’t been completed; Jesus also tells us to teach them to observe everything that He has commanded. Still, we may wonder what the big deal is about baptizing people or teaching them to observe Jesus’ commandments in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. What’s so important about that?
I think we need to go back to two places in the Old Testament to help us understand. First, we go to about two-thousand years before the birth of Jesus, some four-thousand years ago from where we sit now, to a couple named Abram and Sarai, whose names God would later change to Abraham and Sarah. Under oak trees in a place called Mamre, these nomads were visited by three mysterious strangers. When these three men spoke, they did so with a single voice. Abram knew that He was in the presence of God, Whose fullness apparently cannot be contained in one Person. “If I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord,” Abraham said, “do not pass your servant by.” (Genesis 18:3) And the Lord--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--did not pass Abram and Sarai by, but blessed them to be blessings to the world.
Some five-hundred years later, God tells Moses to instruct his brother Aaron and the other priests of God to bless Abraham’s and Sarah’s descendants with a benediction. You know it. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) This Aaronic Benediction, as we call it, bestows blessings from each of the three Persons of the Trinity. You see, this benediction has three parts, each part corresponding to the three Person of the one God. It’s God the Father Who blesses and keeps us. The Father created us and all that exists and provides all that we need to live from day to day. Our call from Him is to take care of this creation and to share our blessings with others. It’s God the Son, Jesus the Christ, Who shines the loving, forgiving face of God on a fallen and mortal human race. He brings us undeserved grace, including forgiveness for our sins and new and everlasting life, for all who repent and believe in Him. It’s God the Holy Spirit, Who turns His face toward us through the Word of God. And through this Word, He empowers us to believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, filling us with God’s peace, now and forever!
Not all, probably not most of, God’s ancient people, the Israelites, understood God’s three-in-one nature. Truth is, we find it hard to understand too. But the mystery of the Holy Trinity is central to God’s identity. The New Testament letter of First John says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). On this side of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we can confidently agree. In Christ, God has done His love for us, offering Himself up as the perfect sacrifice for our sins before we even know we need saving. But when he says that “God is love,” I think that John means something deeper than that. He’s saying that it is the very nature of God, always has been, always will be, to love. Love is something that God has been doing within the mystery of the Trinity in eternity before there was time, space, or matter. His very decision to give life to a creation beyond Himself sprang from a love so vast, so total, so overwhelming, so tested and true, that He made a whole universe to which He could give it a way, most especially, to a human race made in His image! People object to the whole idea of the Trinity by appealing to math. “One plus one plus one always equals three,” they say. But in the Trinity, we see a higher form of math: “One times one times one equals one,” a God superabundant in life and in love.
When God the Son, Jesus, came into our world, He did so as a human being. In effect, God cupped His hand over the glory of His deity, although Jesus was always both truly God and truly human. But God came to us as a humble slave because He wanted to woo the human race into receiving His love. He didn’t want to intimidate us, wow us, or bludgeon us with His power and perfection so that we would simply cave into Him. God chose to become our servant, dying on a cross for us, and relying on God the Father, to raise Him from the dead just as God will now do for all who turn in repentance from the ways of this world and turn instead in faith to Jesus. Jesus renounced His power so that He could woo us into the Kingdom of God by His love.
After Jesus rose, the cupped hand of God was removed. And there, on that mountain in Galilee, some of the eleven apostles worshiped Jesus, seeing in Him the very God revealed to Abram, Sarai, Moses, and Aaron long before. Jesus tells them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18) Jesus reclaimed the full authority of His deity, authority over heaven and earth, over Jews and Gentiles, whites and blacks, men and women, even over the demons of hell. Jesus, you’ll remember, had refused the devil’s offer of dominion over the puny earthly kingdoms of this world. (Matthew 4:8-9) Jesus had no interest in replacing people like Xi Jinping in China, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-un in North Korea, or Donald Trump in the United States. Their days, along with all the other power, money, influence, and ease a dying world craves, will pass away. Jesus persevered through cross and tomb to resurrection for one purpose only: that through faith in Him, people otherwise dying in their sin, might experience the fullness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, here and now through a glass dimly as we await our own deaths and resurrections, and in eternity when at last, we will look on the Trinity in all His fullness, power, and love.
We baptize and teach in the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, because this is Who God has revealed Himself to be. But we do so also because when God’s Word is spoken--when, as Jesus commands us, the names of the Three Persons of the One God, meet water at the font--a new birth happens. The old self dies and the new self rises. The baptismal water becomes a kind of amniotic fluid and we are born again as the full power, majesty, glory, grace, and love of God claim us from the devil, the world, and our own sinful selves to make us children of God. From that point on, in every trial or temptation or test, in every joy and blessing, in every challenge and triumph, any one of which could cause us to forget God, we have the fullness of God living within us and, in the fellowship of the Church, the Word of God comes to call us to repentance and renewal in order to lead us through each day and to take us, with faith in Jesus, to our ultimate destination, into the loving arms of God. While we walk on this earth, there will remain mystery about God’s trinitarian nature. I’m not even sure we’ll fully understand it in eternity. But in the end, all we need to know is that this vast, eternal, infinite triune God of all creation loves us three times over: one times one times one. Amen
Humble Submission, the Way to Life
"Because Rehoboam humbled himself, the Lord’s anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah." (2 Chronicles 12:12)
This verse struck me during my quiet time with God this morning.
The background: The nation of God's ancient people, the Israelites, split in two after the death of King Solomon. Rehoboam, like Solomon, an heir of King David, took over as king. But the tribes in the north formed a separate country known as Israel (and later as Samaria), while Rehoboam reigned in Judah.
But instead of gratitude to God for His faithfulness to His promises to David and to God's people, we're told, "After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the Lord." (2 Chronicles 12:1)
It's baked into our human sinful nature to seek God and His help when things are going poorly, then to forget Him when they're going well.
But when his kingdom was assaulted and nearly all was lost, Rehoboam realized his need of God. He humbled himself before God and the wrath to which Rehoboam was subjecting his nation and himself diminished. God recognized that in Judah, which had fallen into idolatry and the sin which always goes with idolatry, injustice, there still were those who recognized the fundamental fact of life: God is God and we're not.
Arrogant leaders, who rely on the world's idols--money, brute force, crafty schemes, the applause of the crowd, the myth of personal, national, or racial superiority--incur God's wrath, whether they're the leaders of churches, corporations, universities, or nations. They and those they lead are eventually adversely affected by the evil of self-reverence. Because God loves the human race, He won't long allow the empires we build, even those built by individuals to keep themselves and their families comfortable with no thought of their neighbors, to stand for long. They will topple, break, and die.
When these things happen, what good are our privileges or power? The answer: Nothing!
Our call is to humble ourselves before the God revealed to all people in Jesus Christ, to acknowledge Him as our only Lord, God, and source of hope or peace and grace.
Our call is also to share this God we meet in Jesus with others so that they too can have a share in God's kingdom, the eternal reign of God that cannot be entered by those who live by force, arrogance, good works, indifference to others, or acquiescence to injustice.
It comes to us only by faith in Jesus.
And because of our impulse to self-worship, idol worship, arrogance, and injustice, we need to daily turn to Jesus, admitting our deficiencies and our desperate need of Him to turn us away from the paths that incur wrath and turn us to Jesus, "the way, and the truth, and the life."
Arrogance doesn't work. Humble submission to Jesus does.
Father, this day once again, humble into following Jesus alone. Amen
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
The Right Time To Do The Right Thing
"Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap."
This bit of wisdom from Ecclesiastes 11:4 spoke to me during my quiet time with God this morning.
If we always delay doing the right things until "the right times," those right things never get done.
Some tasks require preparation. Bounding into new enterprises, relationships, jobs, or purchases without prayer, seeking wisdom, and consideration makes little sense.
But the fear of failure also doesn't make sense. If, as a disciple of Jesus, I truly believe that He is with me always, I know that failure isn't the end of the story for me. Failure should hold no fear for me.
The fact is, if I try to do the right things, I WILL fail sometimes. Maybe most of the time. But I'll still be--eternally--in the hands of the Savior Who has made me His own.
It's always the right time to do the will of God: to know God better through His Word, the Sacraments, the fellowship of the Church, and the daily repentance and renewal Christ affords us as we fellowship with Him; to love God and love neighbor; to make disciples.
Putting off following Christ, which is God's will for all of us, according to John 6:29, for a better time, is like putting off breathing until it's convenient.
And what about those things you think God may be calling you to do, the things that employ the gifts, the passions, and the work God has given to you to do?
These words from Ecclesiastes tell us no more waiting for the right times.
God is calling you to speak out against injustice? Speak.
God wants you to write? Start writing.
God wants you to check up on an elderly person, help raise your grandchildren, serve on a committee for the betterment of your community? Go for it.
And, if you're a Christian and you've been putting off sharing the good news of new and everlasting life with God through faith in Jesus, it's time to ignore the wind or the clouds.
People need to know how desperately and passionately God loves them, so much so that God the Son came into the world and immersed Himself into our darkness and the chaos of human sin and death in order to retrieve life, peace, forgiveness, and an eternity of hope for those who trust in the Son, Jesus.
You don't want to put off looking for ways to share the best news anyone could ever receive! This is a good time to share this good news message (the gospel) with love and abandon: "I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Lord God, fill me with faith in Christ, and with it, both the assurance that I am forgiven my sins and You are with me always. When it's time for me to plant, don't let me be thwarted by noticing the wind. When it's time to reap, don't let me be stopped by clouds portending rain. Help me to be faithful to You right now, today. In Jesus' name. Amen
This bit of wisdom from Ecclesiastes 11:4 spoke to me during my quiet time with God this morning.
If we always delay doing the right things until "the right times," those right things never get done.
Some tasks require preparation. Bounding into new enterprises, relationships, jobs, or purchases without prayer, seeking wisdom, and consideration makes little sense.
But the fear of failure also doesn't make sense. If, as a disciple of Jesus, I truly believe that He is with me always, I know that failure isn't the end of the story for me. Failure should hold no fear for me.
The fact is, if I try to do the right things, I WILL fail sometimes. Maybe most of the time. But I'll still be--eternally--in the hands of the Savior Who has made me His own.
It's always the right time to do the will of God: to know God better through His Word, the Sacraments, the fellowship of the Church, and the daily repentance and renewal Christ affords us as we fellowship with Him; to love God and love neighbor; to make disciples.
Putting off following Christ, which is God's will for all of us, according to John 6:29, for a better time, is like putting off breathing until it's convenient.
And what about those things you think God may be calling you to do, the things that employ the gifts, the passions, and the work God has given to you to do?
These words from Ecclesiastes tell us no more waiting for the right times.
God is calling you to speak out against injustice? Speak.
God wants you to write? Start writing.
God wants you to check up on an elderly person, help raise your grandchildren, serve on a committee for the betterment of your community? Go for it.
And, if you're a Christian and you've been putting off sharing the good news of new and everlasting life with God through faith in Jesus, it's time to ignore the wind or the clouds.
People need to know how desperately and passionately God loves them, so much so that God the Son came into the world and immersed Himself into our darkness and the chaos of human sin and death in order to retrieve life, peace, forgiveness, and an eternity of hope for those who trust in the Son, Jesus.
You don't want to put off looking for ways to share the best news anyone could ever receive! This is a good time to share this good news message (the gospel) with love and abandon: "I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Lord God, fill me with faith in Christ, and with it, both the assurance that I am forgiven my sins and You are with me always. When it's time for me to plant, don't let me be thwarted by noticing the wind. When it's time to reap, don't let me be stopped by clouds portending rain. Help me to be faithful to You right now, today. In Jesus' name. Amen
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
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