In Christ, You ARE Salt and Light

[This message was shared yesterday during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 5:13-20

The God we know in Jesus Christ speaks a powerful Word. 

When God spoke over ancient chaos, saying things like, “Let there be light,” “Let the land produce vegetation” and “living creatures” on land and in the sea, He brought all the physical worlds we have ever seen or will ever see into being. 

When God speaks over the waters of Holy Baptism in the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He declares us part of His new creation, His children. 

At Jesus’ transfiguration, the Father said to Peter, James, and John--and us--”This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5) 

The Father says this because His Word has power and when we listen to it, it transforms us. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." (Romans 10:17)

That’s why God tells us in Isaiah: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

In Matthew 5:13-16, the first four verses of today’s gospel lesson, Jesus, the Word of God, God the Son, makes two powerful declarative statements. He tells us, “You are salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.” 

In making these declarations, Jesus is not saying that we should be salt and light, or we have to be salt and light, or we need to become salt and light. 

If, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit-powered Word given to us in the Scriptures and in Baptism and Communion, we can say, “We believe in God the Father...We believe in God the Son...We believe in God the Holy Spirit,” we are salt and light. 

Even on those days when our faith seems weak. 

Even on those days when we wonder where God is and whether He cares. 

Even on those days when we're not "feeling it."

God’s Word always accomplishes what God desires, always achieves the purpose for which He sends it. And His Word says that disciples are salt and light.

But what does it mean to be salt and light?

Take a look at verse 13. Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

From ancient times, the Jewish rabbis have associated salt with wisdom. True wisdom, you know, always comes from God (Proverbs 2:6). And, Paul says that even the foolishness of God (if God could be foolish) is wiser than the smart-alecky cynicism that passes for wisdom in our world (1 Corinthians 1:25). The ultimate wisdom that God reveals to a human race bent on “being like God” sounds foolish--insane--to the world. This wisdom says that life, everlasting life, as we are meant to live it begins with a cross and only culminates in a resurrection of those who have trusted in Jesus. 

As Paul puts it elsewhere: “...the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) 

Jesus says that you and I--He uses the plural form of you, roughly equivalent to "y'all," meaning all baptized believers--are the wisdom of God for a world gone foolish, born foolish, from sin and death. 

We are the salt of the earth, God’s ultimate wisdom staring the world in the face. Jesus has spoken His saving Word to us. His Holy Spirit has empowered us to believe the good news of new life for all who repent and believe in Him. We are the salt of the earth.

But what if salt loses its saltiness? We know that sodium chloride can’t lose its salty quality. Salt only loses its salty influence if it becomes diluted. 

Our saltiness as disciples is diminished when we allow it to be diluted in us. 

When Christians say things like, “The Bible is good, but I don’t think God knew as much back then as we do now,” they’re trading in God’s wisdom for human wisdom, trading in Jesus for the world. 

When we hear Christians utter blasphemies like, “I think Jesus is a Republican” or “I think Jesus is a Democrat,” their saltiness is diluted and they’re at risk, as Jesus says, “no longer [being] good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Whenever we try to add our finite, imperfect, short-sighted “wisdom” (some people call it common sense), for God’s wisdom, we lose our saltiness. 

We become faithless. 

We dilute the power of God’s wisdom over our lives and the power of our witness for Jesus to others in our world. 

In fact, where Jesus says in our translation, “loses it saltiness,” the word it translates in the Greek in which Matthew wrote--μωρανθῇ, from which we get the word moron--literally means become foolish. 

We lose our saltiness when we foolishly dilute the truth of the Gospel and of the Word of the Bible. 

We avoid becoming foolish by remaining in close daily contact with the God Who has brought us to faith in Jesus and has declared us His own. 

But listen: Jesus makes us salt of the earth so that we have life with God that never ends through faith in Jesus, for sure. But He also makes us salt of the earth so that we can season the whole world with the truth of the Gospel, the ultimate wisdom of God.

Jesus carries this theme on in His next declarative Word for believers. Verse 14: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Wait a minute, we might think, isn’t Jesus supposed to be the “light of the world”? Yes, Jesus is “the true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). 

To speak of Jesus as the light of the world is to speak of the God of  blazing perfection, Who gives illumination and direction to those who follow Him, Who burns away the sin and impurities that can mar our relationships with God and others. 

This Light, Jesus, is living in us, guiding us, making us new, warming us in the glow of God’s tender love for us. 

In the Light of Jesus, His Word, whether we consider it together as we are now or in our own daily quiet times we God, “we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 

Jesus tells us today that we need to keep the fires of His light stoked within us by remaining connected to Him and His Church.

At the end of today’s gospel lesson, Jesus says something that would be disturbing if He hadn’t already declared us to be His salt and light. 

“For I tell you,” He says, “that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  

As Christ's Word enables you to believe in Him, your righteousness does exceed that of the Pharisees and all the other fussy, self-righteous, chest-thumping, judgmental, holier than thou religionists you can name. 

Why? 

Because Jesus has declared you to be His salt of the earth and His light in the world. 

And because, in daily repentance and renewal, in regular worship with God’s people, and regular attention to His Word, You turn again and again back to the One true God we know in Jesus Christ lives in you. 

The tastelessness of sin and death are gone. 

So are their darkness or their ability to make us be afraid or to worry. 

You can say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

That’s what it means to be salt of the earth and the light of the world. 

This is the powerful Word Jesus speaks to you today  and you can believe it. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Smelling Good to God

From a recent quiet time. I explain quiet time here.

Look: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16a)

The passage from which these words are taken is shot through with both humility and confidence, each born of faith in God.

Paul has just said in vv. 12-13, that while God had opened the door for he and his team to do ministry in Troas, he’d felt uneasy while there owing to his inability to find Titus. This dovetails with what he talked about in 1 Corinthians 16:9: Even when God opens doors for us to follow Him, there can also be troubles when we walk through them. We can be in “triumphal procession” with God and still encounter troubles, whether sadness, opposition, or difficulties of other kinds.

I believe that Paul truly took to heart what Jesus says: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). I can be following the path laid out for me by God in Christ and still be subjected to sorrow and death. In fact, if I follow Jesus, nothing is more likely; after all, this is precisely the path Jesus took. There is no Easter without Good Friday.

Our procession is triumphal, whatever comes our ways, because it follows Christ, not because we’re all that.

And for reasons known truly only to God (though we may speculate), it’s through believers in Jesus that God spreads the fragrance of “the knowledge of Him everywhere.” Then Paul says: “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing…”

“Aroma to God” reminds me of the incense offered to God in the ancient temple in Jerusalem. Incense was meant to carry people’s prayers, sacrifices, worship, and commitment to faith offered to God. Paul says that believers in Christ are like incense lifting praises, prayers, and surrender to God through their lives.

When we read about such offerings being made, we might think of the people of God gathered for worship, times together with the Church when we confess sin and receive God’s forgiveness, sing God’s praises, hear God’s Word, and receive the gift of life in the Sacraments. And, according to Paul, worship with God’s people is one place in which we are to be “the aroma of Christ” to God. We’re to be this when we are “among those who are being saved.”

But we are also to be the aroma of Christ after we’ve left Christian worship “among those who are perishing,” among those who don’t know or refuse to receive Christ and His gracious offer of new, everlasting life with God. In other words, we’re to keep offering ourselves to the purposes of God, the glory of God, and the sharing of Christ, in our everyday lives with everyone.

Paul doesn’t sugarcoat things either. People will perceive the Christ we share with our lives, actions, and words differently. Some will perceive the “aroma of Christ” as “a fragrance from death to death” and others as “a fragrance from life to life.” Or, as these words are rendered in The Message translation/paraphrase: “Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.”

In other words, the good news of new life through the crucified and risen Jesus, will seem like death to some people. And they’re right in that it is a death to the dead life of sin into which we’re born and which spells an instant death sentence for every human being absent the gracious intervention of Jesus.

But to those open to the Holy Spirit’s proclamation of this message through us, this good news, this gospel (this aroma of Christ), even as it spells the death of this old dead life, it will be perceived that life with Christ moves us from life with God here and now to life with God in full perfection in eternity. From life to life.

Paul writes elsewhere: “...the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

And Jesus says to Martha, grieving for her brother, Lazarus: ““I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Listen: Intentionality about being the “aroma of Christ” is important, of course. Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). I need to take that as His will for my life as a disciple, wherever I may be.

But I also know how little good my good intentions do when push comes to shove. That’s especially true when it comes to doing the things God wants me to do. Like Paul, I confess that the force of sin that lives in me scores easy victories over my good intentions and sincere resolutions: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19).

If I’m going to make good on being the “aroma of Christ” to God among all sorts of people, my good intentions and heartfelts resolutions will do no good. I need to take to heart Jesus’ words: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Being the aroma of Christ in the world will seem compelling to some and repulsive to others. If I focus solely on people’s reactions to me following Christ, I’ll lose the aroma of Christ. I’ll be like Peter, full of faith when he asked Jesus to call him to walk on the stormy water with him, but full of fear when I lose my focus on Christ and look, instead, to my circumstances.

If I don’t take a shower every day, I won’t have a very compelling scent any longer. And if I don’t spend time with Christ every day, I’ll lose the scent of Christ and His sacrificial offering for me in my life.

I need to keep bathing in Christ. I need to spend time with Him. I need to worship with the Church, read His Word, receive the Sacraments, and spend alone time--quiet time--with the God revealed in Christ.

As we abide or remain connected to Christ, it won’t be us but Christ that people “smell” in us.

And if some don’t like the scent, they may let us know. But we won’t be shaken because we know through our constant fellowship with God revealed in Christ to Whom we belong. The only one to Whom we need to smell good is God...and all who turn from sin and trust in Christ and His righteousness rather than their own, smell very good to God, covered in the sweet aroma of Christ.

Respond: I need to remember all of this because I have a tendency to be a people-pleaser. My antennae are particularly attuned to others’ reactions to me. Lord, free me from the worries to which this can give rise. Free me from the temptation to compromise your truth and to blend in with my surroundings that this creates in me. Help me to stay grounded in You so that today, my life will be an offering to You no matter who I may meet. In Jesus’ name.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Who Sees the King?

[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today. As I explained this morning, this is an only slightly reworked version of a sermon I preached at Saint Matthew three years ago. Since I don't think it's possible to plagiarize one's own sermon, I guess that's OK.]

Luke 23:33-43
A family was moving to a new town. As they approached the outskirts of the place, they decided to stop at a local filling station and ask the attendant there what the town was like. “Well,” he said, “what was the last place you lived in like?” The family said, “It was awful. Neighbors were unfriendly. Delivery and repair people never showed up on time. Dogs barked at all hours. Our bosses were scrooges and the kids never once had a good teacher.” The attendant considered their answer for a while and said, “This place is pretty much like that. You’d be better off moving on.”

Later that day, the same scenario unfolded. Another family showed up at the filling station and wanted to know what this new town was like. “What was your old town like?” the attendant asked. “It was great,” the family said. “Everyone was friendly. The businesspeople did their best to get things done on time and always went above the call of duty. We had great bosses and the kids’ teachers were fantastic! Even the dogs were quiet.” The attendant considered their answer and said, “This place is pretty much like that. You’re going to love it here!”

Sometimes what we see is the thing we’re looking for. We see it because we’re open to seeing it.

On this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, our Gospel lesson seems, at first, to be out of place. After all, we’re about to celebrate Thanksgiving and are looking ahead to Christmas. But the Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, an account of the first Good Friday.

But the lesson seems out of place in another way: Nobody seems less like a king than a man executed on a cross. Not many will look at the crucified Jesus and see a king, let alone the King of kings.

True story: A young woman rediscovered her faith in Jesus while she was a teenager. She bought a simple cross necklace. One morning, her father spotted her wearing the necklace and asked what was going on. She explained that she wanted to be able to see the cross in the mirror every time she washed her hands or combed her hair. It would remind her of Christ.

Her father was repulsed. “Do you have any idea what happened on the cross?” he asked her. He went on to explain in detail what a humiliating and life-crushing experience crucifixion was. To that man, Jesus’ death on a cross was proof that Jesus was no king, just another pathetic victim of the world. To him, the story of Jesus on the cross ended not in the Savior paying the price for our sins nor in His resurrection from the dead so that all who repudiate their sin and believe in Jesus will live with God forever. To him, Jesus’ story ended in death for Jesus and for us all. Intent on making his own way in the world, what that man wanted to see when he thought of Jesus on the cross was exactly what he saw.

In our lesson today, the jealous religious leaders who sought Jesus’ death, the cynical soldiers who gambled for His clothes, and one of the criminals crucified with Him all saw Jesus as they wanted to see Him. Each in their way, taunted Jesus, seeing Him as a loser headed for utter humilation and defeat.

“He saved others,” the religious leaders say. “If He is the son of God, let Him save Himself.”

“If you really are the king,” the soldiers taunt, “save Yourself.”

“Aren’t You the Messiah?” one of the criminals asks, “Then get us off the hook and save yourself too.”

Whether the leaders, the soldiers, or the first criminal harbored notions that Jesus really was the Messiah, God’s anointed King, may not be important. It's clear though, that the religious leaders knew that Jesus was the King, but wanted to get rid of anyone who might threaten their status. The others who taunted Jesus that day were probably just garden-variety cynics who believed, like the father of that young woman, that life must end at the grave.

Even the crowds who gazed on these events in silence appear to see only hopelessness in Jesus’ crucifixion. I suppose most people who take the time to consider Jesus on the cross see hopelessness. They can’t see how Jesus’ crucifixion proves that He is the King of kings.

But we who follow Christ have been helped to see things differently. Paul writes about these two different ways of seeing Jesus on the cross in First Corinthians in the New Testament. If you would, please turn to page 657 in the pew Bibles. Look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 18. Read along with me silently. Paul says: “…the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Only one person in today’s Gospel lesson was foolish enough to see the power of God in Christ’s crucifixion. He was one of the criminals. He looked at the suffering Jesus on the cross and saw not a defeated man, but the King of kings. He was so certain of Jesus being the King that he turned to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus promised, not because the criminal deserved it, but because he both confessed his sins and professed his faith in Jesus, that he would on that very day be with Him in paradise.

Why did that one man see Jesus as the King of kings that Good Friday?

As good Lutherans who read our Bibles, we all know that it wasn’t because he was smarter than the others, or that he was a better person, or that he had done more good things. None of these things create faith or give us our places in Christ’s kingdom. Faith that saves us from sin and death is a gift from God. In another place in the New Testament, Paul says, “No one can confess ‘Jesus is Lord,’ unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3, TEV). God creates and sustains faith in those who are open to seeing Jesus as their Savior and their King. Today’s Gospel lesson shows us that only one kind of person is open to seeing Christ as King. Only one kind of person will pay attention when God’s Spirit prompts them to confess their sins or follow Jesus Christ.

Michelle Akers was the first American woman to play professional soccer in Europe. After scoring ten goals in five games in the first-ever Women’s Cup in 1991, she signed an endorsement deal that brought her fame and money. She got a tryout to be a place kicker with the Dallas Cowboys, her longest attempt going 52-yards.

But in 1993, she was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. “When it was really bad,” Akers says, “I couldn’t sit up in a chair. The racking migraines stranded me at home, unable even to get up to brush my teeth or eat.” Five minute walks required two days on the couch to recover.

Strength and hard work, the two kings on whom Akers had relied her entire life, could no longer be called on to help her. She says that it was unbearable to not be the “best in the world” or the person who could always bounce back from any injury. “I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking about who I was. I didn’t like what I saw,” she says. Then, her husband left her.

It was then that Akers was invited by her strength coach to worship with him. She didn’t know why exactly, but Akers accepted the invitation. It was the beginning of a new life with Christ as her king. Looking back, Akers says, she thinks that for years God had been calling her to follow. But, certain that she knew what she was doing, sure that she could make her own decisions, convinced even that she didn’t need forgiveness or help with living her life, she ignored God and the Church. Akers says “It took total devastation before I could [surrender] and say, ‘Okay, God. You can have my life. Please help me.”

Who sees Jesus Christ as King? People who see that their lives are broken without Him.

They see Jesus as King first of all, because they see themselves as they are: as sinners in need of forgiveness, as ordinary human beings who cannot make it without the eternal God.

They're also people who see that at the end of our power to cope or hope is a King Who fills His people with love and gives them the capacity to face any cross in the certainty that they belong to God forever!

Years ago, at a national gathering of Lutheran youth in San Antonio, I met a nurse who worked in a nursing home. She told about caring for a retired pastor who was dying and had, for some time, been in a coma. She knew his favorite song and so, standing by his bed one day, sang it to him: “Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.” At that the pastor lifted himself from the bed as far as his weak arms would allow and looked the nurse straight in the eye to tell her, “Don’t you ever forget it!” Then, he fell back on his pillow and died.

In Jesus, the One Who, from His cross, forgave those who killed Him, we see the King...

• Who stands by us no matter what...
• Who heals our deepest hurts…
• Who forgives our sins…
• Who always loves us…
• and Who gives all who turn from sin and follow Him paradise.

Today, Christ our King tells us to consider all these things and then gives us a simple message: Don’t you ever forget any of that! Amen

Understanding Revelation, Part 4 (Revelation 21:1-6)

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church earlier today.]

Revelation 21:1-6
Have you ever noticed how much we like new things? We buy a car and for the first few weeks after we drive it off the lot, we savor that “new car smell.” We pick the first strawberries of the season and can’t wait to clean them, layer on the sugar, and put them on top of freshly-baked shortcake. And when friends share our enthusiasms, we might invite them to drop by to see our new flat screen TV, our new computer, our new game system. 

Advertisers know all about our love for new things. TV commercials are often filled with phrases like, “new and improved.” They know that will get our attention. And politicians know how much we love new things, too: Woodrow Wilson campaigned to bring what he called the New Freedom; Franklin Roosevelt had the New Deal; John Kennedy had the New Frontier; Richard Nixon touted the New Federalism; and Bill Clinton talked about the New Covenant.

I think that one of the reasons we so love new things is that, after a time, we become aware of the flaws of the old things. New things grow old. Fuel pumps and transmissions go out on the new car or it gets dinged on the grocery store parking lot and the car isn’t new anymore. We pick the last strawberries of the season, forget all about them, and they go bad before we even think about eating them; we’ve grown tired of them. Presidents’ new programs go well until they run into things like Congress, interest groups, unforeseen circumstances, and sometimes, their own faults.

The result is that after awhile, as much as we want things to be new, we grow skeptical, even cynical about claims that anything can truly be new or improved. That’s why the Who sang, “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” It’s why Paul Simon sang, “Everything put together, sooner or later, falls apart.”

Maybe the biggest reason we like new things so much is that, deep in our hearts, we know that this world is not as it was meant to be. We know that we ourselves don’t live as we were meant to live. When we’re honest, I think, we even grow frustrated with ourselves, we tire of our old resentments, our old unfairness to others, our old failure to love—maybe even to love God--as we want to. We want to be “new and improved” people.

That yearning on our part is understandable. We were made in the image of God. Death, decay, our sin, growing old: None of these things were part of God’s original plan for you and me. God made us for an everlasting fellowship with Him. God made us to stand upright in His presence, with no need to hide from God, as the first human beings tried to do, after they had disobeyed God the first time. God made us to walk in what the Bible calls “newness of life.” The Bible says that God “has put eternity in [our] hearts.” But, you and I are born into a world alienated from God, all of us born with a predisposition to go our own ways, to sin. It’s our inheritance and we start spending that inheritance the moment we’re born; no one is more self-centered than a baby and if their parents don’t “hop to” at the first cry, a lot more crying is apt to follow! Even newborns need to be made new.

As our lives go on, we become more and more aware of our desire for what the Bible calls “a new thing.” But because we, as we grow older, are as self-driven as babies—though maybe a little more polite about it—we go "lookin’ for love [newness, life, hope, a sense of wholeness, happiness] in all the wrong places.”

Marriages hit snags and instead of recommitting themselves to doing the hard work of loving one another till death parts them, husbands and wives give up or take up with someone else or a string of someone elses.

People become frustrated with their lives or become bored by lives that seem to offer them little opportunity and, anxious for something new, dive deeply into things like alcohol, food, personal pleasure, money heroin, or oxycontin.

Preachers aren’t immune from looking for newness and eternity in bogus places, either. I once heard about a respected older pastor who told a bunch of younger ones who were wrestling with discouragement, “There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be made right with a new suit and a new book.” I like books, but there’s only one book that can make us new!

Look! There is something is wrong in our lives, something that evidences itself in the lives of every one of us. We long for the newness of life that can only come from the perfect, sinless creator of the world, from God. The holes in our souls can only be filled by God, not by the junk with which we try to fill them. We can only be made new by God!

That’s why the words in our lesson from Revelation for this morning are worth our attention. Listen to them again:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."

The lesson presents a vision revealed to a man called John the Evangelist, literally, John the Sharer of Good News. John, at this point, some time between 81 and 96AD, was living in an exile imposed on him by the Roman Empire. John had gotten into trouble because of his beliefs.

• He believed that God had come to the earth and that His Name was Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth.
• John believed that because of God’s desire to give us new lives, Jesus died on a cross, willingly taking the punishment for sin that we deserve, a perfect sacrifice made for all of us. 
• John also believed Jesus, not the Roman emperor of his day, was the ultimate authority and Lord of the world. 
• John believed that all who turn away from their sin and entrust their whole lives to Jesus Christ have eternal newness of life. 
• And John believed that Jesus rose from the dead as a sign that His promises to those who believe in Him are on solid ground. 

In those days, John's beliefs were seen as unpatriotic, threatening, and seditious.

Today, I suppose, most people would see such beliefs as unexceptional. Or silly. Or meaningless. Or, because he insisted as Jesus taught, that Jesus is the only way to God, even bigoted. But for those of us who agree with all that John believed and have experienced the living love and power of Jesus Christ, the beliefs John confessed are the most important truths that any of us can ever know. God offers us, as a free gift, the newness of life for which we all yearn. But God doesn’t force it on us. God respects our capacity to say no to Him. Yet with every fiber of God’s infinite being, God wants us to say yes to Jesus, yes to newness of life.

The vision that the risen Jesus gave to John was of a new heaven and a new earth, a place inhabited for all eternity by believers in Jesus, drawn from all the peoples of the old earth.

But God even gives tastes of the newness that comes to those who turn from sin and believe in Him in this world. He comes and frees us from our sins so that we can experience newness of life here and now.

Pastor Jim Cymbala tells the true story of a couple who came up to him after worship at his New York City church. They were moved by worship and asked him to bless their relationship. Before he did that, he said, he wanted to know a bit more about them. They explained that they had been seeing each other for two years. Cymbala asked, “Are you living together?” The woman blinked hard and the man stepped back. “Yes,” she said. “You’re putting me in a bind,” Cymbala explained to them. “You’re asking me to bless what God has expressed a strong opinion about.”

Sexual intimacy, God says, is for marriage alone. Those who have sexual relations outside of marriage are stealing a gift that God intended as a sign and seal of love between husbands and wives who have committed themselves, before God and the world, to one another.

Cymbala suggested that the man move to another place in order to avoid temptation. The couple reluctantly agreed. Over the period of the next several months, they received counseling. They learned more about God and God’s will for their lives. They wanted their relationship to be blessed by God. They repented for their sins and committed themselves to living in the newness of life that comes from Jesus.

Several months later, at the end of a midweek worship, Cymbala told the large congregation that something special was coming. The organist began the opening notes of the wedding march and this couple, committed now to coming to Jesus in total submission to Him, confident that he gives new hope and fresh starts to those who seek to do things God’s way, was married. Cymbala says that their occasional sobs of joy could be heard by all in that cavernous sanctuary.

The only bumper sticker I think that I would ever put on my car says simply, “Christians aren’t perfect; just forgiven.” And as long as we live amid the old heaven and the old earth, we’ll need to come to God in the Name of Jesus to seek forgiveness. I do it every day, many times a day. I call my frequent prayers of confession, “midcourse corrections.” And I need them because the old sinful Mark is still around causing trouble, prone to throwing me off course all the time!

But, no matter how many times we fall, God is willing to pick us up again. In Jesus Christ, we are made new, forever new, forever with God, forever living more of the life for which God made us.

If that’s a gift you want, it’s a very simple thing to claim. Tell God that you want to turn from all the false trails to newness, that you want to repudiate all your sins, that you want to be made truly new, and then let the outreached arms of Jesus save you to live a better life today and a life with God for eternity.

Surrender to Jesus and He will make you forever new! Amen!

[Thanks to Pastor Brian Stoffregen for suggesting this general approach to the text, to Pastor Heath Pukallus for his inspiring sermon, and to all those who prayed for me yesterday when I felt that my first go at the text this week was inadequate.]

The Wise Choice

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Proverbs 9:1-6
There's a story* about a man who had developed a test to compare how smart the children in his small town were. Each day he would offer different children a choice between a nickel and a dime. He thought that a "simple" child would take the nickel because a nickel is bigger than a dime. A wise child, he thought, would know that a dime is worth more.

When the man gave his test, every kid in town chose the dime, except one, a little boy. The man saw this child as foolish. So each day, whenever he saw that boy, he would offer him the same choice, and each day the boy chose the nickel. Soon, everyone in town was in on the joke and, knowing about the foolish little boy, they would offer him the same deal. And sure enough, the boy always chose the nickel.

One day the boy’s older cousin visited him from out of town. A man walked up to the two boys and offered them both a choice between a dime and a nickel. The cousin took a dime and the younger boy took a nickel. After the man had walked away, snickering, the cousin asked, “Don’t you know that a dime is worth more than a nickel?” The young boy looked at his older cousin and said, “Sure, I know that a dime is worth more than a nickel. But if I’d take the dime just once, people would stop offering me the choice. Most of the kids in town have gotten a dollar or two in dimes. I’ve made over $200 in nickels!”

There are two paths that we can take in this life—two paths, in fact, through eternity: the wise or the foolish.

Do we know the difference? Some people think they know. But the Bible says that we may not. “Sometimes,” Proverbs 16:25 says, “there is a way that seems to be right, but in the end it is the way to death.”

The choice between a wise life and a foolish one is no nickel and dime game. It’s a matter of life and death.

It’s too bad that our first lesson ends where it does. That’s because by reading just a few verses further on, we see that Proverbs 9, from which the lesson comes, presents us with these two alternative ways of life. And sandwiched in between Proverbs’ portraits of the two contrasting choices which you and I make every single day, is one verse that underscores which choice makes sense for us for today and all our tomorrows through eternity.

Just a little background: Proverbs is a book attributed to King Solomon, Israel’s third king. On becoming king, the Bible tells us elsewhere, Solomon asked God for the wisdom he needed to govern. It’s long been believed that the book of Proverbs, a book of practical wisdom, was written by Solomon near the beginning of his reign in 970 BC. The usual pattern of this book is to present one wisdom saying after another, each succeeding one having little or no reference to the one before it.

But our lesson, Proverbs 9:1-6, does something different. It presents a kind of story. As is often true in the Old Testament, Wisdom is personified, made into a character. Usually, I should point out, Wisdom--in fact, I know of no exceptions--is portrayed as a woman. (Men, this should give us pause the next time we feel the impulse to get into an argument with a wife, sister, girlfriend, or mom; we could be wrong!)

Be that as it may, here too, Wisdom is portrayed as a woman. And we’re told that she has built her house on seven pillars. This may be significant in several ways. One is that for God’s Old Testament people, seven was the number of completion or perfection. Secondly, in the everyday ancient world, archeology has shown us, the homes of the wealthiest and most careful people were constructed on foundations of seven pillars. Wisdom then, as portrayed in our lesson, is a careful builder.

Our lesson goes on to say that Wisdom has prepared meat and bread and wine, the meal of wealthy people in ancient times, and she has set her table. But she hasn’t set it for the rich, powerful, or influential. That’s clear from what happens next.

Wisdom perches herself on a high place where people can see and hear her so that everyone can get the invitation to her table. To make doubly sure that everyone knows, she sends out servant girls with the same invitation: “Come, those who are simple, eat of my table, and lay aside your immaturity. Let me feed you on wisdom so that you can grow up and have the insight you need to live life.”

Now, just a few verses beyond our lesson, in Proverbs 9:13-18, you can read about another woman, with another invitation. She’s foolish, ignorant. She offers water she claims to be sweet because it’s stolen and bread she says is pleasant because it’s shared in secret. The guests who go to her table don’t realize that death is there. She offers quick and easy pleasures that don't last.

Wisdom is the way of following the God we know in Jesus Christ. Foolishness is following all those other voices that prompt us to look out for ourselves and get what we want when we can. There are lots of times when foolishness can seem like the wisest course.

The businessman who cuts corners, using inferior materials in order to make the lowest bid thinks he’s being wise.

The atheist who thinks that by denying the transformed lives seen in those who genuinely follow Jesus Christ, he’s asserting control over his own destiny and being wise.

The young person who ignores God’s will that sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage between a man and a woman thinks that he or she is beating the system and being wise.

The girl who copies from the test of the smart kid at the next desk thinks she’s being wise.

And it’s possible that many, even most, of the people who heed the invitation of foolishness instead of wisdom will get away with their choices. The businessman may become wealthy. The atheist may have a long life in which he achieves all his aspirations. The young person may avoid pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, or the obligations that go with bringing a child into the world. The girl who swipes the test answers may get her cheat-cheapened diploma.

But that doesn’t alter the fact that foolishness, for all its short-term gains, is the way of death. Foolishness pays no dividends beyond the grave.

The way of wisdom, of following Jesus Christ, isn’t easy. Let’s be clear about that. "When Christ calls a man," the martyred Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, "he bids him come and die." The world sees that as foolishness. In 1 Corinthians in the New Testament, the first-century preacher Paul writes, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” It’s hard to follow a Savior Who wants to crucify our old selves, with all their arrogance and self-service, so that our new selves can rise and live with God forever. Wisdom entails admitting our selfishness, admitting our need of a Savior, admitting our need of help.

But over the long haul, in a life of God-given peace and in life forever with God, wisdom has it all over foolishness. When we choose the wise path in life, the path of following Christ, we don’t have to have long memories. We don’t have to remember what lies we told to whom. We need to create no cover-ups for following the course of wisdom.

One great thing about the wisdom that comes from God is that we never get too old or hardened by sin to hear or heed it. I once met an elderly man who had done one rotten thing after another in his life. He had no use for God. Fortunately for him, he came into contact with a young man who was on fire for Jesus Christ. Little more than a year before that elderly man died, he made a public confession of his faith in a Lutheran congregation. He’d realized how foolish he had been. His life was changed forever.

Another great thing about God’s wisdom is that we’re never too young to need it or to benefit from it. A young man was brought to my former parish in Cincinnati by his wife. She thought it was time that they get with a church. He was a nice fellow, but he wasn’t that interested in Christ or the Church. But, as is often the case, something happened within the fellowship of the congregation. He became intrigued by Christ, interested in the ways in which he saw Christ affecting people’s lives. He got involved with a Bible study. He became a leader of the church. I was sad when I learned that he had gotten a job in another city. We both choked up the day he said goodbye. But today, that young man is both a successful businessperson and a deeply committed follower of Christ, involved with his new church. What if he had waited to get serious about Christ? He would have, at the least, gone through years without the wisdom, grace, and goodness of God guiding him and sustaining him through his life.

Remember earlier, when I said that in between the stories of Wisdom and Foolishness in Proverbs 9, there is a verse that underscores the wise choice for us to make for ourselves? It's Proverbs 9:10, which says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight."

Back when I was in seminary, an eighty-something year old man used to come and give guest lectures. He had been a professor of systematic theology and years before, while he served an interim pastorate in Springfield, Ohio, had baptized my father. T.A. Kantonen was an eminent theologian who, by the time I met him, had spent his life following Christ. But I was struck by how he often answered questions, "I think this is what God is teaching me..." "This is what I believe right now..." He realized that even for all his years, he was only beginning to understand God, only starting to be steeped in the wisdom of God. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom..."

And how about you and me? How can we begin to be steeped in the wise way of life God offers to us? There is only one way and that's to draw close to God in the flesh, Jesus Christ!

If we really want to live wisely, we need to draw close to Christ every day: through prayer, study of Scripture, fellowship with other believers, and service in Jesus' Name. We need to soak up God's Word and receive the body and blood of our Lord every time they're offered.

God has invited us to feast on His wisdom. Heed that call! Follow Christ today. Eat at His table and walk each day with Him.

That’s the wise choice for all eternity. Amen

*This story was told in a sermon by Pastor Leslie Judge of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.