Retirement Gathering Thank You, February 10, 2024

[I shared this thank you during a gathering held yesterday at Living Water Lutheran Church. It was originally scheduled for January 6, but I contracted COVID right before it was scheduled and it was postponed until yesterday. The gathering happened yesterday.]

Hebrews 1:3 says this of Jesus (I’m reading from the Good News Translation): “He reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word. After achieving forgiveness for the sins of all human beings, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power.”

Today, I thank God that in Jesus Christ, all my sins and all your sins are totally, completely forgiven.

Jesus, God the Son, achieved the forgiveness of our sins by dying on the cross.

God the Father confirmed this victory by raising Jesus from the dead.

Today, Jesus sits at the right side–the power side–of God the Father, the Conqueror of sin, death, and the devil, all for our sake, all to give us life with God that is ours today and will be forever.

Our call is to daily turn from sin and death–to repent–and to follow Jesus, trusting that–as you’ve heard me say before–when Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it.

He has done everything needed for your salvation, everything needed for you to be reconciled to God, everything needed to set you free to love God and love your neighbor.

Today, I also thank the people who have helped me to partake of the freedom of Christ and who have supported, encouraged, and nudged me not only as a child of God, but in my calling as pastor.

I thank Ann for being my wife for more than forty-nine years, for nagging me into going to Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus, where I, a rebellious sinner, an atheist, heard the Word of God that convicted me of my sin and then set me free with the Gospel about Jesus.

I thank Ann that she was supportive to me when I threw her the most unexpected curveball of her life. “Ann,” I said, “I think God is calling me to be a pastor.”

I thank our kids for enduring the lives of “pastor’s kids.” Both planned on being here when this gathering was originally scheduled. But after COVID scrubbed that and our son had to eat the cost of his airfare, we told both kids they didn’t need to be here.

Thank you to Living Water for going to the trouble of putting this gathering together. I feel a bit guilty about it when I consider all of the people who come to the end of their working lives without so much as a pat on the back. But thank you anyway…and thank you for the past ten years!

Thank you to my internship congregations and my internship supervisor and his wife, Pastor Jim and Jan. They gave me opportunities most pastoral interns don’t get: to preach and lead worship every single week.

Thank you too to the other congregations I’ve been privileged to serve as pastor–Bethlehem at Okolona, Ohio; Friendship of Amelia; and Saint Matthew in Logan.

Thank you too, to those from those congregations who are here today–and those who showed up a few weeks ago to find that the event had been indefinitely postponed. It has been an honor to serve as a Minister of Word and Sacrament and to have acquired lifelong friendships in each of these churches and communities.

Thank you to all of our friends–those we’ve known since elementary school, high school, college, seminary, early married life, and through all the subsequent years. We have laughed with you, cried with you, worshiped and prayed with you, in some instances traveled with you…and lived to tell about it. Each of you have been important in helping us to know God’s grace and in keeping our sanity, what’s left of it.

Thank you to all of you!

In retirement, I pray that God will help this saint and sinner to proclaim in whatever ways I can that, because in Jesus Christ, God the Son, all our sins ARE forgiven, we can trust in Him.

“For,” as Saint Paul tells us, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Thank you.

Surprising People with Grace

Each week, members of Living Water Lutheran Church do Kindness Outreaches. Through them, the love of Christ is shared in practical ways with our neighbors.  

We give quarters for carts to shoppers at Aldi...

Hot chocolate to people picking out their Christmas trees...

Doggie treats to people out walking their dogs...

Cold water and other cold drinks to families at parks for soccer games.

When asked why we do this, we tell people things like, "God loves you, no strings attached."

Or, "We're sharing God's love in a practical way."

Today, on a chilly Autumn morning, we gave away hot chocolate.

It's clear we're beginning to get a reputation in the community.

"Are you the Lutherans?" one man asked. When we said, "Yes," another said, "You gave me a cold Coke a few weeks ago. I love the Lutherans!"

Someone else asked, "Can I give you a donation?" "No," answered one of our Living Water disciples, "we're just sharing God's love." When pressed about doing something in response to the gift, our member said, "Just pray for us." "I can do that!" the person said.

The Bible tells us that while you and I were still dead in our sin, Jesus Christ died for us, giving His innocent life to take the death sentence for sin that you and I deserve, then rising from the dead to give eternity to sinners like me and you. 

The Bible tells us: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 

And Jesus Himself says: "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die." (John 11:25-26)

Life with God is a gift He freely gives through Jesus Christ. There's nothing you need to do or possibly could do to earn it or merit it. It's a gift He gives that calls us to repent--that is, turn from sin and death--and trust in what He has already done for us through His death and resurrection.

It's a privilege to share God and His grace with others, alongside the people of Living Water Lutheran Church.

A Prayer

I shared this prayer request with the prayer team of our congregation, Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, a short while ago. Would you join us in praying?

Please offer up prayers of thanks for all doctors, nurses, hospital personal assistants, physicians’ assistants, lab workers, scientists, medical researchers, public health officials, and first responders and all that they are doing to mitigate and conquer the Coronavirus.  

Pray in Jesus' name that all those seeking to speed up the production and distribution of tests, respirators, and a vaccine will be successful.  

Pray that God will give wisdom to leaders of governments and that God will open their hearts, minds, and wills to that wisdom so that they will act on it.  

Pray that the Church, in this time of necessary social distancing, will exploit other means--such as email, phone calls, cards, letters, and social media--to be about the mission that Christ has given to us: to be and to make disciples.  

Pray that God will open up the way for our congregation's small groups to continue meeting using online technology. 

Pray that the Lord of the Church will guide the bishop of The North American Lutheran Church, Dan Selbo, and our entire denomination in lifting Christ up to the world.  

Pray that the Holy Spirit will guide each of us into behaviors that display good stewardship of the lives God has given to us and a love for neighbor that keeps us mindful that even if we ourselves aren't ill, we can be carriers of a virus that is especially hard on the old, those with medical conditions, and the very young. 

Pray that God will keep the members of our congregation healthy and above all, focused on Jesus Christ. We know that there is one virus that afflicts the entire human race, the virus of sin. It will have its way with each of us. But all who put their trust in Jesus Christ as their only hope for life with God now and in eternity have a Great Physician Who has conquered sin, death, and the grave.  

Pray that in all times and circumstances, we will share Christ and His Gospel of new and everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Christ, faithfully, persistently, reverently, considerately, lovingly.  

Pray that God will use our online worship to bring new believers to faith in Christ and to strengthen the faith of our members and of other Christians. 

For Christ's Church, this is a moment of opportunity as well as of danger. May Christ find us faithful. Thank you for praying.

AUDIO: The Powerful Word of God!

This is the message from Sunday's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water.]

Serious About Sharing Jesus

During today's worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, our amazing worship coordinator, Mark Brennan, presented the message. It's the second installment in our series based on the New Testament book of Acts, Church Lessons.

The message can be found HERE!

It looks brand new!

Today, the one-time call committee--Lutheran churches elect call committees to interview and recommend candidates for pastorates when they have openings--at Living Water Lutheran Church surprised me.

Shocked me, is more like it.

The group, which now calls itself the "Blame Us Committee" got my car, cleaned it, and detailed it as a birthday gift.

It looks brand new!

Thanks so much to all of this group...I really appreciate it.

Please Pray for Cepres Church in Haiti

Earlier today, I shared this on the Living Water Lutheran Church (Dayton, OH) Facebook page.

Could you please pray for Cepres Church in Haiti?

Living Water has a team who goes every year to work with Cepres, a school, an orphanage, and a community in Haiti. The team and the congregation also have an ongoing relationship with these ministries in Haiti, through an organization called SMI Haiti.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, the twentieth poorest in the world. (By way of comparison, according to the World Bank, Kenya is the 30th. poorest nation; Bangladesh is 34th.; Laos is 48th.; Vietnam is 53rd; India is 55th.; and Iraq is 81st.

According to the CIA:

[Haiti is] the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty, the earthquake further inflicted $7.8 billion in damage and caused the country's GDP to contract. In 2011, the Haitian economy began recovering from the earthquake. However, two hurricanes adversely affected agricultural output and the low public capital spending slowed the recovery in 2012. Two-fifths of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country's widespread deforestation.

Government-to-government aid is often susceptible to Haitian government corruption.

But when church groups like Living Water and parachurch groups like SMI Haiti are able to take money and volunteers directly to places in the country, real progress is made, spiritually, economically, in education, and in food for kids who are fortunate to get one meal a day.

Of course, the real key to long-term change in Haiti is on the spiritual front. The country is afflicted and often held back by voodoo. When Christ comes to people, assuring them of their eternal value--God made them and has made a way for reconciliation and new life with Him through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, people gain the power for living.

Cepres Church has gained a strong foothold in Haiti. Its pastor is a convert from voodooism. After being given up for dead by voodoo priests, members of a church helped him and prayed for him. By the power of God in Christ, he survived and came to surrender to Christ as God and Lord.

He has been a leading hand in the establishment of an orphanage and a school and providing relief to the people of the area. Brought to life by Jesus Christ, Pastor Jean-Marie and his congregation, are bringing life to others. Please pray for Cepres Church and for Pastor Jean-Marie and his family. And if you feel moved to help the church with a place to worship and meet, check out the embedded post below.

Please share this post on your Facebook, Twitter, Google-Plus, Pinterest, and other accounts. Share the link in emails, if you feel so moved.

Some may read this and think: But it's just one church and one spot in Haiti.

True. But it is one spot.

And by your prayers, your sharing of the link to this post, and by the financial gifts of those so disposed, God can and will make a difference in that one spot. (He already is making a difference in that one spot.)

When God came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ, He didn't refuse to heal or help one person because His humanity prevented Him from being in the presence of everyone in the world needing help. He helped those before Him.

In this post, I'm putting Cepres Church and the people of Haiti who live in its community before you. You can be the hands and feet of Jesus for these people who stand before you now (Matthew 25:31-46).

Thank you.

Below are pictures that show a bit of the life of Cepres Church in Haiti. It's the congregation with which our church's...
Posted by Living Water Lutheran Church (Dayton, OH) on Friday, June 19, 2015

Why Did God Order People Destroyed in Old Testament Times?

Any time Christians start to delve into the Old Testament, the questions are bound to come up:

• Why does God call for the extermination of the disobedient of His people?
• Why does God command the extermination of other peoples?
• Is this the same God we meet in Jesus and the New Testament? (A corollary to which might be, "How is the God of the Old Testament different from the deity claimed by terrorists who associate themselves with Islam?")

Good questions.

They came up again today during the noon Journey Through the Bible discussion of Deuteronomy, chapters 1 to 21, at Living Water Lutheran Church.

What I can offer is not so much answers as approximations, guesses of a believer and a student of Scripture.

The first thing to be said is that the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament, revealed in Jesus Christ. "I and the Father are one," Jesus says in John 10:30. 

Jesus never once repudiated any action of God in the Old Testament. In fact, He upheld them and all of God's commands, even those we deem problematic. 

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets..." Jesus says in Matthew 5:17. 

So, if there are things about God in the Old Testament that don't seem to comport with our picture of what God should be like, clearly we need to be willing to have our picture amended or expanded.

This wouldn't be a first, of course, for believers. In last Sunday's Gospel lesson, Mark 8:27-38, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, God's anointed redeemer king. But when Jesus explains that in His role as Messiah (or Christ), He would have to be rejected, suffer, and die, Peter flinched. He rebuked Jesus for misunderstanding what it meant to be Messiah. Jesus forcefully disabused Peter of his point of view. As Messiah and God-in-the-flesh, He told Peter that He would have to change His definition of Christ's role. We must do the same when we encounter Biblical portrayals of God that jar our preconceived notions of what God should be like.

The second thing to be said is that God doesn't desire the destruction of any human being. In Ezekiel 18:23, God says: "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" 

And in the New Testament, the apostle Peter writes: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9).

God wants all people to turn from sin (for more on the two ways in which the Bible uses the term sin, see here) and trust in Him so that have life with Him. But God doesn't force repentance on people. 

The third thing is that the peoples outside of Israel whom God ordered destroyed had lived in open and long-term rebellion to God and utterly refused to repent. In Old Testament times, when people refused to repent, it led to disastrous consequences. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Once God had called His people, Israel, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, into being, they were often used as instruments of His justice against unrepentant peoples.

Throughout the first 21 chapters of Deuteronomy, for example, God sends His people with orders to utterly destroy nations who engaged in idolatry--worshiping things other than God as God--and, as a result, engaged in injustice. Failure to worship God as God always results in injustices. When God is supplanted as God in people's minds, they feel they have license to play god with anyone they wish.

On the other hand, cities and kingdoms that repented in Old Testament times were spared, their cultures revived. Think of Nineveh after hearing the reluctant Jonah preach.

The Old Testament pattern is that God allowed peoples to engage in rebellion for long stretches, often sending emissaries to them to call for repentance, desiring that they turn to Him and live. But there would come a point of no return, when the rebellion, idolatry, injustice, barbarism, and hedonism reached such a point that God would stand for no more. Then the orders for destruction would come. (I believe that this still happens today.)

God would also order Israel to engage in the annihilation of others peoples lest, on conquering a land, His people adopt the idolatries of the conquered peoples. 

The fourth thing to mention has to do with why God called for the deaths of people within Israel for their rebellion. Israel was called together by God to be holy, a people set apart by Him not because of their inherent virtue or intrinsic strength. In fact, God's people are nothing without God making something of them. But God called Israel into existence in order to be "a light to the nations." 

Israel thus had an important role to play in the salvation of the world. It was to Israel that God revealed that God cares about relationships--our relationship with Him, our relationship with each other. 

To Israel, God revealed the nature of sin and that salvation comes not through works, but by faith in the God Who cares about us despite our unworthiness (check out Deuteronomy 19:1-12 and Ephesians 2:8-10, for example). 

And God set aside Israel to be the people that would become the nursery and the home of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, Whose death and resurrection would make it possible for all people--Jews and Gentiles--to repent and believe in Him and live eternally with God. 

In a sense, the life of ancient Israel was like Lent on the modern Christian calendar. God formed and disciplined a people of His own making so that some--the early Christians, all of whom were from God's people Israel--would be ready to receive redemption. 

In Old Testament times, God purged His people of idolatry and sin and the resultant injustice so that at least some who paid heed to Him would know the Savior when He arrived in our world. 

God refused to risk having His truth utterly adulterated by countenancing false faith among His chosen people. This was the historic burden of God's people. 

Tevye, the lead character of Fiddler on the Roof, might well have spoken for God's Old Testament people when he said to God: "I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?"

There are several things that distinguish all of this from the justifications of contemporary terrorist groups for their activities. The most important reason though is that in Jesus Christ, God has taken all the destruction for sin, idolatry, and injustice upon Himself. He stands in our place on the cross so that, when He rises all who surrender to Him may rise with Him.

Christ then, has ushered in a new covenant. the fulfillment of the old covenant initiated with the likes of Abraham and Moses.

In Christ, God has destroyed the power of sin and death and their earthly manifestations (like injustice) over the lives of those who repent and believe in God revealed in Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

The call of God's people today, the Church, is to proclaim and live the good news of new life through faith in Jesus Christ. This is how God conquers today. This is how God displaces evil. 

But all that God ordained in Old Testament times was a necessary prerequisite for the coming of Jesus and for the Church's proclamation about Him. May we be faithful in our call to proclaim Jesusl! 

Why Were Old Testament Priests Required to Be Perfect Physical Specimens?

At Living Water Lutheran Church, we're reading the Bible together over the course of 2015 and holding weekly gatherings to discuss the twenty-one chapters we've read that week.

At last night's discussion, a really good question was posed: Why were the priests who offered the sacrifices made daily first in a tent in the wilderness and later at the temple in Jerusalem, required to be unmarred by physical defect?

Levticus 21:17-23 contains this uncomfortable set of qualifications from God:

For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.

One of the points that the editors of The Lutheran Study Bible make about these verses is that why "physical blemishes disqualified a priest from entering God's sanctuary or holy places...[the] disabled or misshapen were not regarded as profane, for the Lord allowed them to perform other tasks and eat holy food."

Still, these qualifications, which come in a list of otherwise defensible ones dealing with things like sin and integrity, are jarring. It seems inconsistent with what we know about how God, as evidenced repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments, loves all people.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament does provide some explanation for these requirements, though they do little to eliminate our concerns:

Just as animals with physical defects or blemishes [could] not be offered for sacrifice (22:19-22), priests who [had] a physical defect [could] not serve before the altar. Ritual purity [was] required for the sacred precincts of the altar, the sacrifice and the religious practitioner officiating at the altar in every religion in the ancient Near East. Priests [had to be] in perfect health and in full command of their bodies and senses.

So, the concern behind the requirements in Leviticus seem to have been not so much with creating a kind of super race of perfect physical specimens to serve as priests, but to ensure ritual purity in every way surrounding the sacrificial system.

Still this explanation is a guess at best and not very satisfying at that.

On further reflection, I feel that a few other things need to be considered before we leave this question so uncomfortably behind.

The first thing to remember is that some rules in Leviticus no longer apply. We've discussed this a number of times on this blog and in classes. In a nutshell, there are three kinds of Old Testament laws: (1) ritual/sacrificial law; (2) civil law; (3) moral law. 

The first two types have been rendered instructive but irrelevant for us today. 

The sacrificial system, along with priestly sacrifices, came to an end with Jesus' voluntary self-sacrifice on the cross. No further sacrifices are needed; we are saved by God's grace through faith in Christ alone.

The Old Testament priesthood ended at the moment Jesus Christ died on the cross. The New Testament book of Hebrews describes Jesus as our "great high priest." Unlike the Old Testament priests, Jesus is both sacrifice and the One offering up the sacrifice, Himself.

He is a high priest who understands our imperfections and, despite His sinlessness, allowed Himself to bear the burden of our imperfections and sinfulness on the cross. Hebrews 4:15 says of Jesus:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin.

More than that, this is a great high priest who shared in the physical limitations, injuries, and defects to which every human being is subject. You get the idea from reading the Old and New Testaments that Jesus was not an imposing physical specimen. Hundreds of years before His birth, the prophet Isaiah said of Jesus:

He grew up before [God] like a tender shoot,    and like a root out of dry ground.He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind,    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.Like one from whom people hide their faces    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:2-3)

So, if the Old Testament Levitical priests were physical specimens, the great high priest Jesus, God in human flesh, was not.

And maybe this gives us clues for the reason behind God instituting the physical qualifications for the priesthood we read about in Leviticus 21. Maybe ancient Israel, in the infancy of its historic mission to be God's "light to the nations" when these qualifications were given to His people in the wilderness, wasn't ready for priests who shared their weaknesses. 

Maybe only God Himself possessed the requisite empathy and compassion to be such a high priest. 

And maybe it was only after God Himself died at the hand of human weakness (and sin), then rose from the dead, that He was able to create a whole people--His Church--to share their weakness and God's strength with the world, and to confess their own weakness to God and be strengthened by His strong grace.

Lots of maybes. But, it's clear that no matter how troubling Leviticus 21 may be for us, it's not the final chapter in God's plan for the human race.

Getting Ready for a New Day

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

Mark 1:1-8

Truth is a rare commodity, it seems... 

From the advertisers who tell us that their products will make us happy, healthy, or sexy to the friend who soothingly says that that article of clothing doesn’t make us look fat... 

From the bigot who claims, “I’m not prejudiced” to the politician who insists that the other guy is a crook...

Truth is often is short supply.

One reason for this is that truth isn't always the socially acceptable option. 

During Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign for president, a reporter visited his mother Miss Lillian in Plains, Georgia. “Miss Lillian,” he said, “your son says that he will never lie to the American people. Has he ever lied?” Miss Lillian replied, “Oh, I suppose he might have sometimes told a little white lie.” When asked what might constitute 'a little white lie,' she responded, “You remember when you came in here and I told you that I was glad to see you?” 

Miss Lillian told her little white lie because sometimes, maybe more often than we like to admit, we would rather be lied to than to be told the truth. The truth can hurt. 

Especially when it tells us things about ourselves, our characters, our actions, or our lives that are less than moral or healthy or wise or Godly.

Today’s Gospel lesson, Mark 1:1-8, brings us face to face with John the Baptist. Even though John lived in New Testament times, he was, in a way, the last of the Old Testament prophets. 

You see, the chief characteristic of a prophet wasn’t that they foretold the future, although their messages often contained such “prophecies.” The main thing a prophet did was tell the truth. Prophets told and sometimes acted out truth that God had revealed to them. 

They shared God’s truth whether people wanted to hear it or not. 

Many of the prophets over the centuries, for example, told Israel that it needed to turn back to God at the very moments when Israel was dividing its loyalties between God and various idols. (Just to cover all the bases.) This message of return to God was the last thing Israel wanted to hear when everything in their lives seemed to be working so well, when the GDP was high, when there was full employment, when their military seemed invincible. 

They believed that their worldly success indicated that God was for them and that the prophets were wrong. 

They couldn’t believe that a loving God would mind it if they mixed in a little self-reliance in with His calls for utter reliance on Him alone. 

They couldn't imagine God being offended when they lied and cut corners to get ahead of those they saw as the undeserving people of their society or those from other countries, religions, and races that they encountered. 

And they certainly would not have liked it when one of the prophets spoke God’s truth to their selfishness, idolatry, materialism, and injustice. Micah wrote: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” [Micah 6:8, ESV]

But there were other times when the truth of the prophets came like healing salve to wounded skin or like living water for thirsting souls. 

For example, in the first two verses of today’s Old Testament lesson, the prophet Isaiah speaks to an Israel that had been conquered, seen its livelihood destroyed, witnessed its best and brightest sent into exile, all because it had arrogantly walked away from God. 

Now, what was left of Israel had humbly turned back to God and through the prophet God said, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” [Isaiah 40:1-2]

Prophets always told God’s truth. 

Prophets called people mired in sin and arrogance to repent, to repudiate their sin and turn back to God. 

Prophets also called people who did repent to trust in God’s forgiveness and grace.

This is exactly the message of John the Baptist. Take a look at today’s Gospel lesson on page 699 of the sanctuary Bibles. Verse 1: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” This is the title that Mark gives the gospel.

I believe that Mark meant this sentence fragment to be the title of his book about Jesus. The story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are only the beginning of the Gospel, the good news, about Jesus. It's only when people come to faith in Christ and only after Jesus has returned to judge the living and the dead and to usher in the new creation, that the Gospel will be completed.

Verse 2: “...as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”--’a voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’” 

Because Isaiah was considered the more important of the Old Testament prophets, Mark only mentions Isaiah here. But part of what Mark quotes is also from Malachi. No matter, the point is that these Old Testament prophecies said that God was going to send a prophet to get things ready for the arrival of the Savior of the world. 

That prophet--that messenger--they’re talking about would “prepare the way” for the Messiah. 

Malachi said that this messenger would “make straight paths.” That’s road construction language. John appeared in the wilderness to be a bulldozer! 

He came to build a freeway to give the world access to the Savior. 

Through John’s ministry, all that might keep people from seeing and trusting in the Messiah--all their sin, cynicism, despair, and arrogance--was to be cleared away. 

He would clearly speak the truth about what they needed to receive the Messiah’s favor--repentance and faith. 

People would either accept that truth or they wouldn’t. But no one, after hearing John. could honestly say they didn’t know how to prepare for the coming, the advent, of the Messiah. Neither can we.

Verse 4: “And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.” 

Mark is engaging in hyperbole here. He doesn’t mean that every house in Jerusalem and Judea was emptied. We know, for example, that the king who would eventually order John’s execution didn’t go out to hear John’s message. But he did hear about it. Which is what John got in trouble. Kings don’t always like to hear that they’re sinners in need of repentance and surrendering trust in God. Few people do. 

What was it, though, that, despite the distastefulness of his message, attracted the crowds to John? 

It wasn’t because of his dress or diet. Verse 6: “John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.” Both his clothes and his food would have been considered weird ven back in first century Judea. 

And it wasn’t because John thumped his chest and proclaimed how great he was. He didn’t promise that his message would make anybody wealthy or healthy or trouble free. Verse 7: “And this was his message: ‘After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.’” 

John was pointing to Jesus. 

At the very moment he did so, thousands of people were hanging on his every word. 

He was the center of attention. 

Some were even claiming that John himself was the Messiah. Heady stuff!

But John says, “I’m just a messenger. I'm an unworthy slave.” 

In those days, tying and untying the straps of a great man’s sandals was the job of the lowliest of servants. John says that he wouldn’t even be worthy of doing that for the Messiah about to appear. 

This is a truth about ourselves that we must all learn to accept. 

And it’s harder for us to accept than it should be. 

I know that it is for me. 

It’s the very truth that the human race has resisted and chafed under since Adam and Eve bit into the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

It’s this : God our creator is infinitely greater than we are and we must submit to His will, not the other way around. 

In the Advent and Christmas seasons, we remember again how great God truly is. 

But His greatness can't be measured by the means that this dying world uses.

Jesus' greatness is beyond worldly greatness. The Savior Who was so great that John couldn’t get a job as his slave, bore the full weight of our humanity, becoming a servant of the whole human race, washed the feet of His disciples, suffered the consequence of our sin by dying on a cross, then rose from the dead so that, despite our unworthiness, all who repent and entrust themselves to Him can live with God forever. It's a truth summarized in the Bible's most famous verse. 

We know it by heart. But I'm not sure how much we take it to heart. 

“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] 

This describes the great God worthy of our complete surrender!

Verse 8: [John said:] “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

John’s baptism was a symbolic washing that repentant people underwent to demonstrate to God that they turned from sin and were ready for the Messiah to come into the world. In it, the person who was baptized was the main actor. 

Later, Jesus instituted a completely different kind of Baptism. In Holy Baptism, God sends His Holy Spirit, the same Spirit Who moved over the waters in Genesis to bring the universe into being, and gives new life in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He does this to people who are utterly incapable of helping themselves or of making themselves right with God, whether they're brought to the baptismal waters as infants, teenagers, or adults. God is the main actor. We are the recipients of His gracious will to make us part of His new creation.

The Messiah, John the Baptist was saying, was coming to make people new, to make the whole creation new. 

In Advent, we remind ourselves that the Messiah is coming again. 

We need to be ready for that day. 

We prepare ourselves in the same way that John’s preaching commended: We willingly confess our sins, turn from them, and trust the God we know in Jesus Christ to make us new. 

Confessing sin means accepting hard truths about ourselves. We’re not always the good people we think we are or portray ourselves to be. 

Trusting in Jesus means shelving all pretense of self-sufficiency. That wounds our pride. 

But when, day by day, moment by moment, we repent and trust, we are ready to meet the Messiah, our God and King. 

And that’s the truth about God and about us that will stand for all eternity. Amen

[For a discussion of Holy Baptism, see here. For more on confessing sin, see here. And, to see a discussion of repentance, look here.]