The Clash of Kingdoms

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

Matthew 2:1-12
Our gospel lesson for this Sunday of the Epiphany presents us with a clash of kingdoms.

At one level, the clash is between the baby Jesus and Herod the Great.

But, more accurately it’s a battle--the battle--between God, on the one hand, and all the demonic kingdoms of darkness, sin, and death of this world.

Jesus, King of the Jews, came into the world to die and rise for a human race in need of saving, then to share His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. From the moment of Jesus’ birth, the mission of the kingdoms of this world was to prevent Jesus from successfully completing His mission.

The clash of kingdoms began on the first Epiphany.

Matthew tells us about it in today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 2:1-12. Take a look at the first verse, please: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”

When Jesus was born, most of His Judean homeland had no idea.

Think of that! The Messiah promised by God hundreds of years before showed up and the only ones to notice were a few shepherds and two old people in the temple--Simeon and Anna--eight days after Jesus’ birth.

Everyone else was oblivious.

But the Magi, these foreigners from the East, who held a superstitious belief in the power of stars had, back in their homeland, noted a strange astronomical phenomenon and, believing that such things indicated some important event on earth, then apparently rummaged through other people’s cultures and books to determine that this star was announcing the birth of the King of the Jews.

And then, they followed the star.

The Magi had more faith in the God first revealed to Israel than the people living in the holy land at that time!

They show us that just because you’re a member of the religious club--just because you’re a genetic descendant of Abraham or you take up a place on the membership rolls of a church--doesn’t mean you follow God or that you belong to God.

The key issue always is whether we trust God first revealed to Israel, now known definitively in Jesus. At some level, the Magi trusted in God.

And they cared about the birth of the King of the Jews because some of the prophecies of the King found in the Old Testament said that this Messiah would be more than a King to the Jewish people. He would bring God’s reign to the whole world. He would make God’s salvation available to all people.

For example, Isaiah 11, written about eight centuries before Jesus’ birth, says of this King: “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” (verses 4-5) And through Him, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (verse 9)

Back to our gospel lesson, verse 3: “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.”

Herod wasn’t a Judean. He was an Edomite, a thug appointed to be king by the murderous Roman Empire. He was a puppet.

The Romans helped Herod spread the fake news that he was a descendant of King David.

In exchange, Herod was submissive to the Romans.

And the Empire didn’t care when Herod murdered people he feared would overthrow or undermine him. It's why Herod would later murder the baby boys in Bethlehem. It's why he murdered his own sons. It's why he arrested John the Baptist.

The Magi may have been “wise men.” But they were naive about Herod and the Judea into which Jesus was born.

The Magi thought that, as the king of Judea, Herod would already know about the birth of Jesus.

They thought too, that Herod would be as excited as they were about Jesus.

But Herod was disturbed, though he evidently hid it behind a poker face. Verse 4: “When [Herod] had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.”

A Jewish king would have known the answer to that question. Herod has to be told.

Verse 5: “‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” The priests and teachers were quoting Micah 5.

Matthew already told us that both Herod and Jerusalem’s elite were “disturbed” at the thought that the King of the Jews had been born. They had built comfortable lives in the kingdom of darkness. So had many people who depended on Herod’s puppet regime and the Roman government--merchants, farmers, craftsmen--for their wealth.

And, of course, the lion’s share of the Judeans would have found Jesus disturbing too, having no interest in the Kingdom Jesus came to bring, a kingdom that doesn’t promise wealth or ease, but forgiveness of sin--even for the sins we don’t want to give up.

Three decades after the events in today’s lesson, the Judean crowds, disappointed that Jesus wasn’t going to throw out the Romans and give them the goods and privileges of this world that they wanted, turned on Him. Herod then was just the first of many to be disturbed by Jesus.

Truth be told, Jesus can disturb us.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness.

We don’t like to think that our being all-around wonderful people isn’t what makes us fit for God’s kingdom.

And when we hear Jesus say things like, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24), we look for ways to hold back some parts of our lives for ourselves.

We’re still born wanting to “be like God.”

We want to be our own kings.

And so, Jesus is disturbing even to us.

But it’s only in giving up on the little kingdoms each of us try to build that we can take the free gift of new and everlasting life with God that Jesus offers. It was an offer in which Herod had no interest. Are we interested?

Verse 7: “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.’”

Consider how evil Herod is. With murder in his heart, he claims he wants to worship Jesus. Lying comes naturally to people mired in the kingdoms of this world.

When life is all about yourself, anything you can do to promote the self, preserve the self, boost the self is fair game.

But Jesus tells us: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25).

Are we willing to lose our lives, including the dying comforts of this world, in order to gain life with God that never ends?

What are we willing to let go of in order to take hold of Jesus?

Verse 9: “After [the wise men] had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.”

They were ecstatic! They were in the presence of the King of the Jews, the object of their search, the hope of generations, the fulfillment of God’s great promise of grace!

When I considered these words this past week, I couldn't help recalling the words of the old spiritual: "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble." That's how the Magi must have felt on seeing Jesus!

And so what did they do? Verse 11: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

Jerusalem didn’t worship the King of the Jews and on a Friday we now call Good, Jerusalem would, on behalf of the whole sinful human race, kill Jesus.

But these foreigners welcomed and worshiped Jesus!

Listen: God cares about you. But He doesn’t care who you are. 

He doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. 

He doesn’t care what your parents did, good or bad. 

He doesn’t care where you’re from. 

If you will welcome Jesus and His reign over your life, if you will submissively trust in Him, you will be part of His eternal kingdom. 

Even Gentiles. 

Even Americans. 

Even Lutherans!

Verse 12: “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”

One of the biggest takeaways from the first Epiphany for me is this: God will guide those who listen for His voice. (Even the naive!) 

The Magi heard God’s call in a far-off land. They heard Him now as He pierced their naivete, allowing them to be instruments for protecting the Child and in protecting the Child, ensuring that Jesus would fulfill His mission of dying and rising.

Just as He did with the Magi, God gives each of us a part in Jesus’ mission in the world.

We are to be and to make disciples.

And He both calls and empowers each of us to do our part.

Our mission is best filled not with flashy programs or glitzy concerts or multimedia presentations, but as we allow ourselves to be the humbled and humble instruments of God’s grace, letting people encounter Jesus in the simplicity and authenticity of our faith in Him.

The most vivid and influential witnesses for Christ in my life haven’t been preachers, but laypeople who followed Jesus:

• the house-painter who told me how good Jesus had been to him even as he grieved the wife he adored on the day we buried her; 
• the nurse who took my face in her hands after my first sermon and said, “Mark, honey, I see the Holy Spirit in you. Don't ever lose Him!”;
• the mentor in the faith who put up with my immaturity because she saw in me someone Jesus had died for. 

God usually builds faith within us in little moments of interpersonal encounter.

When you think about it, it was, ultimately, a simple personal encounter with the baby Jesus that caused the Magi to know that the needed to bow down and worship Him.

And because Jesus promises to be with us always (Matthew 28:20), He can also be present in our humble encounters with Him when we worship, pray, study His Word, and receive the Sacrament and in our humble encounters with others as we tell them, “We’ve met the King. He’s changed and is changing me forever. Come and see” (John 1:46).

Jesus is the winner in the clash of kingdoms. 

Let the whole world know! Amen

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

Never Forget the One Who Never Forgets You!

John 14:1-14
Has this ever happened to you?

You go to the grocery store with a list of eight items in your mind. You’re confident that you’ll remember every item because you rehearsed the list over and over again earlier in the day. You get a cart and start to pick up the items. Bananas; check. Lettuce; check. Asparagus; check. Gluten free bread; check. Lunchmeat and cheese; check. Orange juice; check. You look at your cart: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 items.

But what was the eighth again? You think and think, but can’t remember.

You’re still not worried, though. You’ll just saunter up and down the aisles, hoping that you’ll spy the eighth item on your mental list.

The saunter strategy only makes things worse because, as you see things on sale or items you think you might need, you load up your cart with them. It only buries the forgotten item into the deeper recesses of your brain. You keep on forgetting until, just as your garage door goes up, you remember that you needed to pick up the main course for the night, chicken!

Our memories can be faulty. Unless we take the proper precautions, we are all at risk of forgetting the most important things in life. If we’re not careful, we can forget the important things that we know.

This is even true of our relationship with the God revealed to all of us in Jesus. In the rush of daily living, we can forget Jesus.

I’m not talking about forgetting the facts surrounding Jesus. Nobody who knows the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed is apt to forget that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, was true God and true man, died for our sin, and rose to give life to all who believe in Him.

But, though all of these statements describe life-giving truths about Jesus, knowing them and even memorizing them without knowing Jesus won’t bring us life with God. Only Jesus does that. And only those who maintain a relationship with Jesus, daily turning from sin, daily following Him and trusting in Him, have life with God.

Christian faith isn’t a set of religious propositions. Christian faith is a relationship with God enfleshed, Jesus Christ.

And you know what? Relationships have to be nurtured.

A woman was married to a man who loved her. But he was boring, not flashy, predictable. She had an affair with a man who was none of those things. But after the excitement wore off, she realized that this man didn’t love her the way her husband did. So she committed herself to reconstructing her relationship with her husband. Later, she told a friend, “I took my husband for granted. I’d forgotten who he was and what he did with me and for me. I nearly lost him.”

As our gospel lesson for today begins, the disciples are in danger of losing their relationship with Jesus. Jesus, heading for His crucifixion, speaks to them in what we call His “farewell discourse.” He tells them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

The disciples should have known exactly what Jesus was talking about when He claimed to be one with God. They had heard Him say: “Before Abraham was born, I am,” using strange grammar to claim for Himself the same name God revealed to be His to Moses back at the burning bush, Yahweh, I Am (John 8:58). The disciples had heard Jesus say, “I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). They had watched Jesus raise His friend Lazarus from the dead (as well as countless other signs).

They also should have known where Jesus was going. They’d heard Jesus tell Lazarus’ sister, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). They had heard Jesus tell Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

But now, in the rush of their daily lives, looking down the barrelhead of opposition and death in Jerusalem, they seem to have forgotten everything. They had gotten so accustomed to live with “the Word [made] flesh,” that they forgot that this flesh and blood rabbi they followed was (and is) also God. (John 1:14)

Verse 5: “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’”

Dr. Jim Nestingen says that Thomas was looking for a roadmap. We don’t need a roadmap. If we know Jesus and follow Him, we know the Way and that’s enough.

Jesus is the way because He’s the foundational truth on which the new creation is built. Any life not built on Jesus is a lie. Other ways promise life, but only Jesus can deliver. Jesus told Pilate: “Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me” (John 18:37).

Jesus is the way because when He ushers us into intimacy with the Father, we are connected to the only One Who can make life or make life new. Thomas should have known all of this already; but he forgot. We too can forget. We too need to be regularly reminded or risk forgetting the Way.

Verse 8: “Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.’”

Philip, one of Jesus’ first followers, the disciple who told his friend Nathanael, “Come and see” (John 1:46), had evidently forgotten the things he had seen and heard: the miracles, the teaching, the changed lives. He demands that Jesus show them the Father. Jesus reminds Philip that Philip had already seen the Father in Jesus. And, Jesus pleads, “If you don’t believe what you’ve seen in Me, then believe in what you’ve seen Me do.”

I sometimes forget Who Jesus is and what He has accomplished for you at the cross and from His empty tomb.

I forget His promises, promises for which His death and resurrection are the downpayment and the guarantee.

I get so caught up in all my doing, that I forget that the God we know in Jesus Christ is the One in Whom “‘we live and move and have our being.' “ (Acts 17:28)

Jesus’ death and resurrection prove that He can deliver on His promises to us, promises like forgiven sin, new life, the presence of God with us along this life’s way. 

And promises like the ones He makes at the ends of our lesson today: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” 

Jesus promises that the people who remain connected to Him, His Church, will do even greater things than He did during His three decades on earth.

He promises too, that whatever things we ask in His name--in other words, whatever things we ask of God that conform to Jesus' will, that draw others to life through Christ, that reflect His character of love and goodness, Jesus will see that they happen.

Some of you know the amazing thing that happened when my mother was dying a few weeks ago.

At the hospital, my niece contacted a friend of hers who also is a friend of my brother’s and asked her to tell my brother what was going on.

We hadn’t seen my brother in six and a half years. But we had prayed that before either of our parents left this life, there would be a reconciliation. We didn’t want our brother to live with any unnecessary guilt. I dreaded the thought of that.

My brother came to the hospital. We didn’t know that he had only moved back to the Columbus area two weeks earlier! (The God we know in Jesus is the master orchestrator of events!) There was a wonderful reconciliation.

What if we had given up on praying for reconciliation?

What if my niece had given up on trying to reach out for my brother?

What if my brother had turned a deaf ear to the Savior in Whom he believes?

When we remain connected to Jesus, trusting in Him, not everything in this world goes as we want. (After all, this isn't heaven!) But Jesus gives us the strength to endure when all seems hopeless. And He enters the places and the lives into which we invite Him to transform hurt to healing, despair to hope, life to death. In fact, He specializes in doing just those kinds of things.

I have no magic formula on how you can remain connected and intimate with the Savior, Who by His grace, saves all who trust in Him. This is a relationship that requires time, commitment, and work, not as the prices we pay for salvation, but as the sacrifices we willingly to make to remain intimate and alive with the Lord Who sacrificed all for us.

Do you want to always remember Jesus and stay connected to Him? Here’s how:

• Be in corporate worship every week you can. We are strengthened by God's Word and God's Truth as we gather in Christ's name.
• Receive Christ’s body and blood, which brings you His life and forgiveness, every time they’re offered. Someone once asked my mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, how often people should receive Holy Communion. His answer: "Every time you can!" In this supper, Christ comes to us, giving us His very life and imparting His forgiveness to us. Holy Communion is God's Word incarnated. It's a treasure not to be passed by or forgotten!
• Join hands with your Christian family for prayer, study, mutual encouragement and accountability, and service in Jesus’ name. 
• And spend time each day personally in God’s Word, asking the Lord what He wants to tell you and how He wants to lead you that day. 

Then, fortified by God’s Word and His presence in your life, go do those works of love and gracious power Jesus promised that each of us who bear His name would do. In these ways, you won’t forget Jesus and He will empower you as His disciple.

Jesus never forgets you; please, never forget Jesus.

Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message for worship on Sunday, May 14, 2017.]

Everyone's Invited!

In a parable He once told, Jesus said that when we have parties, don't invite the folks you know best or the rich neighbors. They'll all feel obligated to return your favor. Instead, Jesus said, "Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind..." (Luke 14:12-14).

In Jesus' time, "the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind" were often excluded from worshiping God because they were considered impure. There are people today's society may consider too impure to associate with or too impure to be objects of God's blessing and love.

But God wants to include all people in His kingdom, His eternal party, in which the return of His rebel people to fellowship with Him is celebrated forever.
 
And what God wants should be the desire of every Christian who, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, has already become part of God's kingdom.

The Bible teaches that the only ones to be "excluded" from God's kingdom are those who have decided to exclude themselves.

They do this by rejecting Jesus and the Gospel (the Good News) about Him and God's revealed will for the human race.

As Jesus says in John 3:18, referring to Himself in the third persons, "Those who believe in Him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

We Christians are to invite others--no matter how different from or like us they may be--to know and follow Jesus because we remember that we too are sinners saved by God's charity (grace). As Jesus tells us, "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (Luke 14:11).

I hope that all of us who believe in Christ will exalt God by inviting others to "come and see" Jesus in our churches and in our lives (John 1:46) so that, they can turn from sin and trust in Jesus for life.

[Jesus said:] "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news" (Mark 1:15).

And here's the good news, according to Jesus, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).

Let's not give any of our friends, relatives, or others a reason to exclude themselves from God's kingdom.

Let's invite them to the "feast that has no end" so that they too can be part of the celebration that starts now and lasts for all eternity for those who believe in Jesus!

[Read here. It inspired this post.]

The Church: A Fellowship of Recovering Sinners

Church isn't a place for the perfect, but a fellowship for recovering sinners.

After I posted that on Facebook earlier today, a high school classmate wrote to ask, "Mark do we ever really 'recover' from sinfulness?"

If by "recover," it was meant to "get over," the answer is no. Just as with any addiction, we never fully get over the common human condition of sin this side of the grave. We depend on God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit to help us resist temptation and to enable us do better when we "fall off the... wagon" and any sin, from taking God's Name in vain to engaging in sexual intimacy outside of marriage, from gossip to thievery. 

Just as an alcoholic who has given up drink is still only a recovering alcoholic no matter how many years it's been since their last drink, Christians are nothing more than recovering sinners. 

But, thank God for the process of recovery--what the Biblical theology calls "sanctification"--that happens for all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

That's why Christians, mindful that we are sinners saved only by the grace of God given through Jesus Christ, should never look down their noses on unrepentant sinners. Instead, we should befriend them, tell them God's truth in love, pray for them, and ask them, one sinner to another, to "come and see" what it's like to be set free from sin's power, to live today as recovering sinners, and to look to an eternal future when we will live the sinless lives for which God first made us. 


The Church exists as the fellowship within which we hear God's Word and receive the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, confess our sins, receive forgiveness through Christ, and learn together to follow Jesus in our everyday lives. While Christians boldly confess, as Jesus Himself has taught, that Jesus is the only way to a relationship with God, arrogance is inconsistent with being a Christian. As Paul puts it in the New Testament: "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness...", that is, my complete dependence on Jesus Christ.


So, if you're looking for a church home, find one where neither pastor nor people think they're "all that," but who freely acknowledge their imperfections. It's in the fellowship of other "recovering sinners" that you can really experience what it is to be set free from the power of sin.

Church isn't a place for the perfect, but a fellowship for recovering sinners. Want to be a part of that?

[If you live in or near Logan or Hocking County, Ohio, you're invited to "come and see" how Jesus is living in our congregation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. Sunday School for all ages--and we have a great adult Sunday School class--meets at 9:15AM each Sunday. Worship happens at 10:15AM. If you currently have no church home, we would love to welcome you!]

Why 'fear of intimacy' as a reason people give for staying away from Church may say good things about the Church

It's a provocative argument advanced by John Schroeder in this blog post. But I think that his point is well-taken. Some people aren't ready for the kind of vulnerability to God and empathy for others that is central to church culture. They're not prepared for the intimacy with God and others that's a part of Christian life which Christians, when we're tuned into God, take for granted.

Of course, in the face of the fears of non-churchgoing friends, we Christians aren't, in Jesus' phrase, to keep our light under a bushel basket. A relationship with Jesus Christ is the very best thing that any human being can have. Things like love, compassion, and friendship will cause Christians to want to share that relationship with others, in spite of the prospect of rejection. Just because some people aren't ready yet for the kind of love that can be found in Christ's Church doesn't mean that we shouldn't love them enough to let them know that the welcome mat is always out for them.

Like Philip in the New Testament, who, when asked by his friend Nathanael if anything good could come from Nazareth, Jesus' hometown, we're called to tell our friends, "Come and see."