The King We Need

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

John 12:12-19

In many churches, in recognition of the fact that many Christians don’t attend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, this day is designated not as Palm Sunday but as The Sunday of the Passion, a Sunday that remembers Christ’s suffering and death for us. I prefer to give Palm Sunday its due as a separate day with its own significance. 

Besides, if you’re interested in remembering Christ’s passion--His suffering and death--there is a whiff of His crucifixion and death amid the celebrations of Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday isn’t all sweetness and light. Don't let the crowds who shouted in adulation fool you about that!

To set the stage for what happens in today’s gospel lesson, which gives us John’s take on the first Palm Sunday, it’s important to remember what comes just before this event. In John 11, Jesus raises His friend Lazarus from the dead, the seventh and final sign John records Jesus performing.

This should have alerted people to who Jesus is. But even miracles from God can be doubted or arouse controversy. In John 11:45, we’re told that some who had witnessed Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life ran off to tell the Pharisees what had happened. The Pharisees aren’t happy, but alarmed. John 11:46 says that, along with the chief priests, they called a meeting of Judea’s religious leadership. They’re all more fearful of their Roman overlords than they are of the God Who is meeting them in Jesus. “If we let [Jesus] go on like this,” they tell each other, “everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” (They gave little evident thought to the fact that a Messiah Who can bring people back from the dead might be able to provide them with ultimate protection from an enemy who, at best, could only kill them once.)

In John 11:49-50, Caiaphas, the high priest for the year, upbraids the rest of the leaders for worrying. The solution, he says, is simple: a way must be found to kill Jesus. “You know nothing at all!" he tells the others. "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” In the next verse, John tells us that Caiaphas was the one who didn’t know anything: “He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them [Jews and Gentiles] together and make them one.”

So, as Jesus prepares to enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, there’s a plot to kill Him. The plotters, Judea’s religious cream of the crop, are clueless about the the fact that, Jesus, “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world,” is going to the holy city with the intention, according to God’s plan, of sacrificing Himself on the cross in order to save the world from more than death in this world. He’s going to die and rise to save all who entrust themselves to Him from sin and from the more lasting and horrible death of eternal separation from God. Jesus could well have said to these leaders what He later told the Roman governor, Pilate, in John 19:11: “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” 

Ultimately, it would be neither Jewish leaders nor crowds nor the Romans who would take Jesus’ life. In Luke 23:46, we’re told “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” Jesus died at precisely the moment when God had decided He would die. The leaders didn’t know it, but they were doing the will of God against their wills.

In our lives, we often think that we’re in control. But, whether we perceive it or not, God is still in charge. We may endure tragedies and heartbreaks, as the folks down South whose lives were upended by tornadoes yesterday, but God is bound to ultimately bring His good out of bad. God will use Good Fridays to bring Easters for those who place their hope in Him alone! In fact, in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther shows us that Good Fridays and Easters are the prevailing pattern of the disciple's life. The life of daily repentance and renewal it commends is nothing other than the daily crucifixion of self so that Christ can give us the forgiveness that brings new life in Him.

Good Friday and Easter loom in the background as Jesus and His disciples enter Jerusalem at the beginning of our gospel lesson. Please go to it, John 12:12-19.

Verses 12-13: “The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival [the festival is Passover] heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna!’ [meaning Save or rescue us, Savior] ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Blessed is the king of Israel!’”

The words and the palm branches used to welcome Jesus help us to understand that while the people see Jesus as a king, they want Him to be an earthly king who uses military might to save them from the oppression of the Romans. Among God's people, palm branches were associated with the welcome given to military conquerors. 

Jesus is the King--the Messiah, Lord of heaven and earth. But He doesn’t conquer by force of arms, by mob rule, or by using a democratic vote. Jesus’ authority isn’t derived “from the consent of the governed.” As Jesus told the Roman governor Pilate after He was arrested: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Instead He conquers by a servant love that dies for us. And the enemies He conquers are the common enemies that live in every human soul: sin, death, darkness.

Jesus won’t be our king on our terms. We can’t come to Jesus and say, as some people do, “Jesus, I’ll follow You if You do so and so.” Jesus becomes our Lord only when we entrust ourselves to Him, allowing Him to crucify our sinful selves so that our new selves, remade in Christ’s image, can rise.

Verses 14 to 16: “Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: ‘Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.’ At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.”

Jesus isn’t shy about claiming His kingship. He says in John 10:30, "I and the Father are one." And just as foretold in the messianic prophecy in Zechariah 9:9, Jesus rides into Jerusalem to claim His kingdom on a donkey. God's people generally didn't like horses. Horses were the engines that moved the chariots used by armies that had threatened and conquered them for generations. By contrast, donkeys were seen as noble mounts worthy for a king.

Despite the prophecy and the symbolism though, not even Jesus’ closest followers understood Jesus at this moment. 

We shouldn't be too hard on them. Even today, I find Jesus' ways and will difficult to understand. There have been times in my years of following Jesus when it has seemed to me that Jesus has blocked from my life the very things that I thought would bring me happiness. Only in heaven will we more fully understand Jesus and His mysterious ways. 

But anyone, Christian or not, who tries to understand Jesus apart from His death and resurrection or apart from His call to follow Him because He is the way to life with God, they are missing the point. 

On the first Palm Sunday, some may have understood, though most didn’t, that in meeting Jesus, they were facing God in the flesh. Ignorant or not, they all disregarded His signs and the substance of His teaching, refusing Jesus’ call to follow Him through death to eternal life.

Verses 17-18: “Now the crowd that was with [Jesus] when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him.”

Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead was seen as an interesting use of power. The crowds hailed Jesus as king because of a sign, not because of what the sign pointed to.Jesus had power; now the people hoped to draft Jesus as king to do their bidding. 

But within days, another Jerusalem crowd would demand Jesus’ execution. 

People can turn on God when they don’t like the way He does His job as Lord of the universe. A woman I knew years ago became bitter with God because, her mother, in her late eighties, died after long years of illness. “I’m mad at God for taking my mom from me,” she said. I wanted to ask the woman if she would like it if her mother, a believer now free from suffering and in the presence of God, would be brought back to this earthly life by God just to make her happy. I bit my tongue. But it’s questions like these we need to ask ourselves when God disappoints us.

In the midst of the Palm Sunday joys and celebrations, our gospel lesson ends on an ominous note: “So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!’”

Jesus is seen as a threat by the Pharisees. And, in truth, Jesus is a threat to us whenever the things valued by this world--security, wealth, health, family--become more important to us than welcoming Jesus to rule over our lives. Only Jesus and not the world can bring us peace with God, the presence of God with us through all the times of this life, and life with God now and in eternity. The call of Palm Sunday is to trust in Jesus, letting Him forgive us our sins, letting Him guard us from separation from God, and letting Him give us everlasting life with God.

I look forward to being with you on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, so that, once again, we can celebrate Jesus not as the king we want when sin has its way with us, but as the King we need when we let Him reign over us. 

As we immerse ourselves deeply into the story of Christ's death and resurrection this Holy Week and remember how Christ did all of this for sinful human beings like you and me, God can incite us to sing the old Lenten hymn with a deeper sense of awe and gratitude and faith: "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble." Amen

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

Transfiguration: Glory Through the Cross (AUDIO)

Here.

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

Transfiguration: Glory Through the Cross

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

Luke 9:28-36
There’s an old Paul Simon song called Learn How to Fall. The bridge contains these lyrics: 

Oh, and it's the same old storyEver since the world beganEverybody's got the runs for gloryNobody stop to scrutinize the planNobody stop to scrutinize the plan

Artists, I believe, receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit even when they don’t know it. And I believe that in these words and in the entire song from which they come, Paul Simon, who isn’t a Christian, is saying more than even he realizes.

The truth to which Simon points is this: All we human beings who, though made in God’s image, have inherited the condition of sin from our ancient grandparents, Adam and Eve, want “glory.” We want, in our sinful hearts, “to be like God” (Genesis 3:5). (This is a distortion of the true glory God has in mind for us as the only ones God created in His image [Genesis 1:26].)

But, again like Adam and Eve who grabbed hold of the fruit that God told them would bring them death, things like glory or transformation or righteousness or joy or life or any truly good thing cannot be grasped by human effort. All of these things--glory, transformation, righteousness, joy, life, or any “good and perfect gift”--come to us as gifts from God. They are to be received, not achieved. 

Whatever this world has to offer will die. Whatever God has to offer is eternal. 

God operates by a different plan from the ones offered by the world, the devil or our sinful selves. Today’s gospel lesson, Luke 9:28-36, containing Luke’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration, will allow us, again in Simon’s phrasing, to “stop and scrutinize the plan,” God’s plan.

Shortly before the incident recounted in the lesson, the apostle Peter confessed his faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, God’s anointed King, the One come to make the fallen world right. Peter said that Jesus was, “The Christ of God” (Luke 9:20). 

This was the right answer, but Jesus might have had good reason to doubt whether Peter understood exactly what that meant. 

The Old Testament repeatedly promised the Christ. But popular culture in first-century Judea envisioned the Christ as a triumphant warrior king who would enter Jerusalem, throw out the Romans, the latest in a long string of foreign overlords to have conquered God’s people, and let the Jews conquer and be prosperous and comfortable. This popular version of the Christ bears little resemblance to the real one prophesied in the Old Testament by the prophet Isaiah.

This version of the Christ or Messiah would demand no transformation, no surrender, and no faith of His followers. They could be just as selfish and heedless of the Word and the will of God as they’d always been. All that mattered was that their names were on the church membership rolls of First Church of Self-Righteousness and Entitlement.

All of this may be why Jesus said what He said after Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Luke 9:22) And then: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) 

Life with God in His eternal kingdom is a free gift to all who repent and trust in Christ. But if we are to receive the gift God wants to give to us, we must stop grasping for the prizes offered by this dying world.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus shows us the path to glory that we all seek, even if that’s not the word we might use for it. So, please take a look at our lesson, starting at verse 28: “About eight days after Jesus said this [that is, eight days after the words of Jesus we just talked about], he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”

This is a remarkable moment. On top of a mountain, the kind of place where God had once interacted with Old Testament figures like Moses, the bringer of God’s law, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet, Jesus prays. 

When Moses encountered God on a mountaintop, you’ll recall, his face reflected the glory of God into whose presence he had come. 

But it’s different for Jesus here. Jesus once said of Himself: “I am the light of the world.Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).” 

You see, on the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus isn’t reflecting the glory of God. Jesus also tells us, “The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me” (John 12:45) and “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). 

Jesus Himself is the source of the light. 

He glows in the radiance of Who He is: God the Son. 

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory,” the preacher in Hebrews says, “and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word... (John 1:3).” 

This is what Jesus wanted His three closest and most intimate disciples to understand, that though the way to His kingdom went through a cross, through the surrender of self and the crucifixion of our old sinful natures, as God, the Author of life, Jesus could offer new and everlasting life to those who would faithfully follow Him no matter what. 

When we’re going through tough stuff in our lives, this can be our comfort and hope. Christ is God and He is the One Who can lead us to life beyond the pain and challenge and death.

Verse 30: “Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.” 

Neither Moses nor Elijah had walked on the earth for centuries. But here they are, in Jesus’ reflected glory, talking with Jesus about his departure. 

In the Greek in which Luke wrote about this incident, the word translated as departure is exodos, exodus. The Exodus is the event in Old Testament history in which God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, took them through the wilderness, and into the promised land. 

Jesus was about to accomplish a new exodus, this one not just for the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, but for all who trusted, believed (and believe now) in Him. Jesus was going to endure the wilderness of suffering and death, then rise from the dead, so that He could meet us in our wildernesses and lead us into the presence of God, today in this imperfect wilderness and beyond the gates of death in the eternal promised land.

Verse 32: “Peter and his companions were very sleepy [just like they would later be in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of Jesus' betrayal and arrest], but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ (He did not know what he was saying.)”

Peter makes at least two mistakes here. 

First, despite the evidence before him--Jesus allowing the three disciples to see Him in the full glory of His deity, Peter equates Moses and Elijah with Jesus. He wants to erect three shelters or tabernacles to honor Jesus and the two Old Testament figures, as though each were on equal footing. 

Second, like the grasping world, Peter wants to capture God’s holiness, rather than be captured by it. Peter has yet to learn that human beings cannot be saved from sin and death by the things they do, or strive for, or control, but solely by surrendering faith in Jesus the Christ. 

Peter didn’t know what he was saying, but God still loved him and Jesus would not give up on him, just as God loves you and me and, as long as we have breath, Jesus will not give up on enveloping us and the rest of the human race in His kingdom of grace and love.

Verse 34: “While [Peter] was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.’”

This is the same voice, that of God the Father, that told Jesus at His baptism: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased (Luke 3:22.)” At that time, the Father spoke to reassure the Son as He began His ministry. Now, at the Transfiguration, the Father speaks to encourage these three key leaders of Christ’s Church in the bleak days between Jesus’ death and resurrection, and later, in the remaining days of their lives. Even though Jesus would die, they would know that He was and is the Christ, and that they hadn’t been mistaken in following Him. 

Today, in the midst of both happiness and setbacks, we can live in that assurance, infinitely strengthened by the fact that after Jesus had taken the way of the cross, He rose from the dead, and that “the one who believes in [Jesus] will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in [Jesus] will never die (John 11:25-26).”

Verse 36: “When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.” 

There was no Moses, no Elijah. Religion may be about building shelters--or tabernacles--to dead saints. But faith in Jesus is about following and listening to a living Savior, about turning from death and sin and self-will, turning instead to Christ, our King. 

That Paul Simon song I mentioned earlier also has these lines: 

You got to learn how to fall Before you learn to fly

We’re all anxious to fly, high above the death and anxiety, the sin and the striving of this world. We want the resurrected life, the life of victory. 

But before we can fly, we must fall. 

We must lay aside all our pretenses of a righteousness born of our own goodness and see Jesus for Who He is: the Savior Who alone, amid all the competing voices, is the One to Whom we need to listen. 

Not money or security. 

Not tradition or change for the sake of change. 

Not fashion or habit. 

Not Buddha or Allah. 

Not sex or drugs. (Or rock and roll.) 

But Jesus. 

Only Jesus. 

In another place, Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd and His followers His sheep, and then says, the good shepherd’s “sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger (John 10:4-5).” 

Amid the din of voices screaming at us on TV and radio and social media, commercials, and political ads, may we keep listening for Jesus, through the wilderness and the cross, to the promised land and God’s glorious kingdom. 

May we always return to the One Who loves us more than we can either ask or imagine. 

May we always listen to Jesus. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church.]

The Only Opinion That Matters

[This is the journal entry from my quiet time with God this morning.]

Look: “Even with these words, they [Paul and Barnabas] had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples.” (Acts 14:18-21a)

In Lystra, Paul and Barnabas, commissioned to carry the Gospel to Gentiles and Jews, are the instruments by which the risen, ascended Jesus heals a man lame from birth. The local crowd thinks that Paul and Barnabas are gods. They’re intent on offering sacrifices to the two. Even after Paul and Barnabas explain that they’re not gods and have come with good news of new life from the one true God revealed in Jesus, “they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.”

No sooner had the two explained this than some of their fellow Jews, opposed to the preaching of Christ and from Iconium, convinced the Lystra crowd that Paul and Barnabas should be stoned to death. Paul was so badly pummeled, apparently unconscious and immobile, that the crowd left the apostle for dead. But, after the Christians gathered around Paul, presumably praying, “he got up and went back into the city,” heading off to Derbe with Barnabas so that the two could continue their missionary work.

There are two obvious things about this incident, I think. First, there’s the fickleness of the crowd. Within the span of a short amount of time, they have two conflicting reactions to Paul and Barnabas, both of them wrong. First, they want to worship the two of them. Then, they set out to kill them.

That’s not unlike how we treat the latest celebrated people to enter our lives: At first, we hail them as some kinds of gods; then, disappointed that they’re only human, we tear them down. This cycle is depressingly familiar.

The second thing that strikes me in the passage from Acts is this: Paul and Barnabas are not swayed by the fickle crowd. They don’t play to the crowd. When the crowd wants to make them idols, they’re faithful to Christ. When the crowd wants to kill them, they’re faithful to Christ.

Listen: Years after the incident recounted in these verse, the apostle Paul wrote to a young pastor: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

Paul wasn’t asking Timothy to do what he himself wasn’t willing to do. (Or hadn’t done.) The seasons in which the gospel we Christians are called to believe and to share with others change. Sometimes the message of the gospel we carry will reach people and they become disciples of Jesus too. Other times, people will misunderstand the message or us and treat us like we’re “all that.” And at other times, our message and we ourselves will be treated with contempt, sometimes even be subject to persecution.

But neither the God we know in Jesus Christ nor His gospel or our need of Christ and His gospel ever change! “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).” Even as we reach out in love to the crowds who need Jesus Christ to be saved from sin and death, we can’t allow their reaction to change the only message that can save them. As the apostles Peter and John said of Jesus shortly after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension: “ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” (Here, they simply reflect what Jesus says: “ I and the Father are one” and “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”)

I like to have people accept me. I don’t like confronting those who are hostile. I don’t like offending people, even when the offense is the revealed Word and will of God. By the power of the Holy Spirit Who lives in believers, I need to be more like Paul and Barnabas, faithful to the God revealed in Jesus whether people’s high opinions or low opinions of me don’t match reality; faithful to Christ, whether people like it or not, whether they misunderstand it or not. It’s only this kind of faithfulness that authenticates the gospel, the good news of new life as a gift of grace from God through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Respond: Lord, help me to resist my desire to take my cues from the world. Open me today to the promptings of Your Holy Spirit seen in Your Word. Help me to remember that Yours is the only opinion that matters. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

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

When Amnesia Hits

[God moved me again this morning by His grace. This is what I journaled from my quiet time with God today.]

Look: “‘Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he was saying to them.” (Luke 2:49-50)

I’ve always been struck by this incident and these words from it. Today, God has shown me exactly why it so strikes me.

The incident happens at the end of a family trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem and back for a festival. Mary and Joseph “lose” Jesus and search for Him frantically back in Jerusalem for three days. In the gospel of Luke, whenever people go “seeking” or “searching” for things, it’s trouble, even if they’re seeking God. We can’t find God, according to Luke: God finds us. (Jesus’ parables in Luke 15 pound this point home.)

Mary and Joseph finally “find” Jesus, Who was never lost, in what was apparently the last place they would have expected to find Him, in His Father’s house. It was Mary and Joseph who were lost. Jesus was reliably where I can always be found, with the Father, which is part of the reason He teaches us to pray in His name: Where Jesus is, there is God the Father.

Listen: What’s striking about this incident to me is that Mary and Joseph know Who Jesus is, the Messiah. But in the twelve years since Jesus’ birth, they’ve developed a kind of amnesia. They love the boy. He’s part of the family. Because of the redundancy of daily routine, they’ve effectively pushed all the unpleasant stuff associated with Jesus being the Messiah out of their minds. (Simeon, when Jesus was eight days old, warned Mary that the Babe in her arms would be “a sign that will be spoken against...And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” [Luke 2:34-35])

I know that I too can suffer from spiritual amnesia. I forget all that God has done for me, that Christ died for me, that my sins were part of why He, though sinless, had to go to the cross.

I cheapen His grace, turning God’s favor to me into an obligation God has toward me, rather than the undeserved gift that it is.

I forget the call to take up my cross--to acknowledge my sins--and follow Him, not the thing that I think is a good idea.

I forget that Jesus is my Lord, not my Aladdin.

And sometimes I forget that in Christ, I am forgiven, made new, accepted by God. At a subconscious level then, I begin to think that it doesn’t matter what I do, that nothing that I do matters.

These are all symptoms of my spiritual amnesia.

Respond: God, thank You for once more today finding me, just as I am. Forgive the amnesia that leads me to frenzy: fearing I’ve lost You, fearing You’ve lost me, fearing that I’m too lost to be found, or trying to prove myself simply because I’ve clean forgotten You.

Because I am baptized, You are always with me.

In Your Word and in the sacraments, You are always with me.

As I claim my inheritance as Your child, as I pray in Jesus’ name, as I read Your Word, and as I fellowship with other believers this day, help me to remember Who my Savior is and rest easy in Him as I work, play, and live.

In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen

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