Who is Your King?

[Below you'll find video of today's worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, as well as the text of the message shared. Happy new year!]

Matthew 2:13-23

The moral law of God is, you know, summarized in the Ten Commandments. In the first commandment, God tells us, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” The Small Catechism’s explanation of the commandment tells us, “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” Clarifying things more, The Large Catechism says, “…to have a god is nothing other than trusting and believing Him with the heart…whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god.” 

We have a lot of gods in our world, don't we? That's because we tend to set our hearts on things other than God.

As we begin a new year, we need to ask ourselves: Who is our God? Or, who is our King? This is important because the thing we want most in life is to be our own gods.

I bring all of this up for two reasons. First, because whenever we violate any of God’s commandments–and we inevitably do violate His commandments, whether by thought, word, or deed all the time, we also violate the first commandment. When we lie or steal, covet, murder, gossip, take God’s name in vain, or dishonor our parents, we violate the first commandment. That’s true because with every sin, we either worship the sin itself, or worship ourselves by holding our judgments about right and wrong to be superior to God’s judgments, or we do both.

The second reason I bring it up is that the question of who your god is, who is the ultimate authority over your life, is the central question of today’s gospel lesson.

You know the story well. About two years after Jesus’ birth, Magi from the East visit Him. After they leave the house where the infant Jesus is living with Joseph and Mary, Joseph is warned in a dream to take Jesus to Egypt until God says otherwise. King Herod wants to kill Jesus. Herod is so intent on being god and king of Judea--being the boss of everyone--that, unlike the Magi, he not only refuses to worship the newborn King, he wants Him dead.

Herod deserves to be compared to other murderous despots in history, like Adolf Hitler or Vladimir Putin. But let’s not sidestep the truth. We’re in no more of a hurry to worship God than Herod was. We are sinners and we would prefer to reign over our own lives or give our worship to the gifts of God–things like health, wealth, authority, sex, luxury–rather than worshiping God. We are born that way. But being born with an orientation to sin doesn’t make our sinning right. As Paul says in Romans, the human race falls prey to worshiping the creatures rather than the Creator.

We had a video call the other night with our son and our nearly two-year-old granddaughter. She is, in my unbiased view, completely sweet and adorable. But our son tells us that she has a new favorite word: No. We all want to be our own bosses, our own ultimate authorities. So, one thing we all have in common with Herod is that we are sinners bent on self-worship.

Because Herod has learned of the location where prophecy said the Messiah was to be born but didn’t know the child’s identity, he orders that every male child under the age of two be murdered. This is a disturbing tale. Years ago, after reading a sermon I had preached on these verses from Matthew and posted on my blog, a man in Northumberland in England wrote to me angrily, “The Christmas story tells us that if your son is threatened, then you save him and let the others take their chances.”

The man’s anger was maybe understandable but, I think, misdirected for two reasons. First, He seemed to think that God had willed the deaths of these babies. If there’s anything I’m sure of about our God, it’s that He Who formed us and loves us, never would will the murder of any other parents’ children. This is the God Who told Isaac and the people of Israel not to sacrifice their children. 

Even our lesson for today shows that God didn't will the murder of the innocents. There are three places in the lesson that note the fulfillment of prophecy. Two of them indicated by the prepositions used in the original Greek that the fulfillment of prophecies cited was what God desired. But in verse 17, where we're told of Herod's murderous act, the citation says that the weeping of Rachel for her children would happen because of the sinfulness of human beings, not because God desires it to happen.

But second and more importantly, that angry man forgot that God used Joseph to save Jesus from Herod’s armed troops so that Jesus, God the Son, could later go to the cross. There, Jesus bore the sins of us all, setting us free from the damnation and eternal separation from God we all deserve. Jesus wasn’t spared execution when Joseph whisked Him off to Egypt, any more than you and I are spared the horrors of a universe drowning in sin and death. Instead, Jesus was the last of the Bethlehem innocents to die.

Jesus would also be executed by a human race, Jew and Gentile, bent on having and being its own gods and kings. The difference between His death and the deaths of the other babies in Bethlehem and the deaths of us all is that His life and His life alone offered on a cross paid the eternal debt we all owe God for our sin. 

Jesus fulfilled the prophecy given to Isaiah: “...he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) 

Despite what my angry commentator said, God didn’t spare Jesus on that horrible day in Bethlehem and let everyone else “take their chances.” Jesus was born so that He could die for us. Jesus knew this. Referring to His death on the cross as His baptism, Jesus once said: “I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” (Luke 12:50)

The death of the sinless Christmas Child on the cross at Calvary was the perfect act of obedience to God that you nor I neither desire nor are able to perform. It was for His submission to death on the cross that, “God [the Father] exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name…” (Philippians 2:9)

Jesus was sent to Egypt not to be spared the hardships, adversities, and death of this world, but so He enter into those hardships, adversities, and death and redeem them by winning an eternity of peace, rest, and salvation for all who believe in Him. 

Herod was a king who wanted power for himself. Jesus is the King Who surrendered the advantages of His deity in order to make it possible for each of us to be justified by God’s grace through faith in Him alone. 

Jesus freely gives blessings none of us deserve: forgiveness, God’s presence with us through the joys and sorrows of this life, and life with God that never ends. 

Because Jesus went to the cross, we can say with the apostle Paul: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)  

Jesus is no haughty, distant despot. Although our sin put Him on His cross, He makes us His friends. 

Paul also writes elsewhere in the Bible: “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10) 

This King wants to give us everlasting life with God, a life that begins now as, by the power of His Word and the Sacraments, we can say, “Jesus is my God and my King!”

Friends, Jesus is our only hope and sure foundation today, in this new year, and always. He’s now accomplished all that He came to do for us, which is why the last of the Bethlehem innocents would declare with His dying breath on the cross, “It is finished!” This year, you can trust in Jesus and what He has done for you. You can claim Him as your gracious, loving King! Amen

Our Whole Lives

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

Mark 12:38-44

“All she had to live on.”

That’s what Jesus told His disciples that the poor widow put into the temple offering a few days before Jesus was crucified. 

And, this is no exaggeration on Jesus’ part. When you read the Greek in which Mark originally quotes Jesus, Jesus says of the woman’s offering: “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς,” literally she placed all her life or her whole life in that offering box.

Now, let’s be clear. In the Old Testament God only called His people to give a tithe, the first ten percent of their income, to the temple. Sometimes, additional tithes were called for in God's Law. But that same Old Testament law would have exempted a poor widow from giving anything. 

Yet here is this woman giving God everything she has to live on. Was she crazy? Was she imprudent? Was she trying to make deals with God?

Jesus doesn’t seem to think that there's anything wrong with her.  In fact, He commends the woman as an example of faithfulness for His disciples, for you and me. 

But let me be clear: Our Gospel lesson for this morning is about a lot more than money. It’s about our whole lives and how we spend them.

Our lesson, Mark 12:38-44, takes place in the temple during Holy Week. Just before where our lesson picks up, Jesus has had another confrontation with the scribes, the experts in Biblical and Jewish law. They’ve said, as Old Testament prophecy says, that the Messiah Whose coming they anticipated would be a “son of (or a descendant of”) David," Israel’s greatest king, who lived about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus. Their claim is true, but they seem to think that the Messiah will be inferior to David.

Jesus teaches them differently though. He quotes Psalm 110, written by David, where it says: “‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’” Here, Jesus is saying that the great King David called the Messiah--Jesus Himself--Lord. Jesus is no inferior to David. Jesus is superior to every king, prophet, priest, and preacher who preceded Him and of any and all born in subsequent centuries. Hebrews 1:1-2 echoes Jesus' teaching: "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe."

As our lesson picks up Mark’s gospel narrative from there, Jesus talks about the scribes to His disciples: “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Jesus is warning us against people and warning us against being people who like to appear like believers, but are really, like the rest of the world, looking out for themselves. Today, such people are the ones who crave titles, to have people bow and scrape to them and honor them. They’re hung up on status and hierarchy and having places of honor.

Some of you may know that years ago, Ann and I were invited--along with about 500 people, so don’t be impressed--to a dinner with a prominent man. It was Billy Graham. Just before dinner started, a local pastor was invited to offer the prayer. It went on forever, certainly what Jesus would call a “long prayer.” And, I hope I wasn't judging unfairly, but it certainly seemed that the man was praying less to God than to Billy Graham. Jesus warns against long public prayers meant to wow people with the praying person’s faith.

Jesus also warns us against people and warning us against being people who crave money and the status it can confer on us. He said that the scribes found ways to look pious while extorting money from widows because of their love of position.

They’re like pastors and church people who focus on the performance of liturgy with elaborate exactness but don't believe that Jesus was God. Or that He was born of a virgin. Or that He rose from the dead. Or that He was (and is) “the way and the truth and the life,” the only Lord by Whom we can be saved from sin and death. Or that the Bible is the Word of God. 

Like the scribes’ friends, the Pharisees, who Jesus once described as “whitewashed tombs,” the scribes were spiritually empty suits. Jesus is telling us that in the halls of heaven where God hears prayers offered in Jesus’ name, people like the scribes remain unheard by the Almighty, their long public prayers no more than noise!  

Then, we’re told this, starting in verse 41: “[Jesus]  sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’”

The widow wasn’t trying to be seen by anyone. She didn’t make a show of her appearance at the temple. She simply gave everything she had. She believed that the God Who gave her life would sustain her in this life and give her new life beyond the grave. She didn’t worry about sacrificing herself in this way because she knew that the God Who gives life has plenty more to give away. Jesus says that this gift of her whole-self exceeded the value of all the fat offerings made by the “look at me” crowd.

It’s instructive to consider when this incident took place: Just a few days later, Jesus Himself would give His whole life on the cross. Repeatedly, Satan and the world tried to tempt Jesus away from the cross, to divert Him from His mission of dying as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who believe in Him can live with God and share in His resurrection life. But Jesus was intent on giving His whole life to God for us so that He could give new life to us. Luke tells us that "Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem (Luke 9:51)," and referring to His suffering and death as His baptism, Jesus said, "I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed (Luke 12:50)."

The only way you and I can share in the life that God gives exclusively through Jesus Christ is to for us to yield our lives to Jesus and His saving grace. That’s what it means to believe in Jesus: To trust Him with our whole lives. And, although it’s been four decades since I came to faith in Christ, I realize that I am only now beginning to understand that truth, to understand how complete God's grace in Christ is, how serious my sin is, and how I can do nothing toward my own salvation but give up on being God. 

I repent daily for my sinful desire to hold back parts of my life from Jesus’ lordship and each day, the grace of God given in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, works to keep making me over in Jesus’ image.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:25: “...whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 

This isn’t legalism, folks. God doesn’t require our lives in a legal transaction to claim the salvation He gives in Jesus. Rather, it’s a simple fact that only as we daily empty ourselves of being the lords of our own lives, are we free to take Christ’s outstretched hand of forgiveness, life, and love. 

All the scribes, obsessed with earthly comfort and status, were slaves to this world, weighed down with concerns over what people thought of them, how others saw them, whether they were happy. (They sound like thoroughly modern people, don't they?)

The widow cared only about what God thought of her. And she already knew that God cared very deeply for all people, even poor, powerless widows. That’s why her offering was so valuable: It came from an authentically surrendered believer putting her surrender into practice.

In Germany a few days ago, at the behest of Ann who knew that it wasn't far away, our tour guide took us on a side trip to Ettal Abbey in the German Alps. It’s here that Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in increments of several months at a time, spent a total of several years in prayer and study and also wrote a portion of his book on being the Church, Life Together. (I recommend it.) As we stood by a plaque remembering Bonhoeffer, I thought of how, though he had traveled to and taught in America and Britain and been offered cushy assignments on theological faculties, decided to return to Germany after the racist nationalist movement of Adolf Hitler had taken hold. Bonhoeffer felt he had to be in Germany to continue to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the face of Hitler’s evils. Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazi government in the waning days of the war. As he went to the gallows, he said, “This is the end–for me, the beginning of life.”  

What are we willing to yield to the Lord? 

What shall we, as individuals, give in response to a grace that has done and is doing everything for me? 

Of course, every Christian will see it as an appropriate expression of our faith to worship regularly, to give to the mission of the Church, take up a ministry, pray in Jesus' name. But even more than your money or your works, God wants you. 

He wants to give you the new life on which Bonhoeffer staked his life as he went to be executed. 

God wants you because He loves you. 

God wants you so that He can redeem and make new every part of your life: your mind and emotions, your work, your friendships, and your marriage, your present and your eternity. 

God wants you because He’s given His all--even the Son’s life sacrificed on a cross--to make you His own. 

And He wants you for all eternity.

May we, like the widow, learn what it means to give our whole selves to the God Who has given us all in Jesus. Amen

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

Noah, the Flood, Christ, and Baptism

This is from my quiet time journal. Quiet time is a period I try to spend with God about five days a week. To see how I approach it, read here.

If you haven't yet been baptized and would like for Christ to claim you in this way, I urge you to contact a local congregation close to you to set up a time to talk about the meaning of baptism and what faith in Jesus is all about. Here is a list of congregations in the denomination of which I'm a part; one may be close to me. (In sharing this list, I'm not insinuating that Lutherans are the only Christians around. It's just offered as a handy list for your convenience.)

Look: “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’” (Genesis 8:21-22) 

After the world-destroying flood, Noah and his family worshiped God. They offered a sacrifice which we can infer was no pro-forma performance, but an act of true worship and gratitude to God for His grace. 

In the Old Testament we see that God has no regard for “going through the motions” worship. 

For example, God says through the prophet in Amos 5:21-24: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” 

And in his great prayer of repentance, King David notes: “...you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17) 

In the New Testament, John recounts Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman by a well near the village of Sychar. Perceiving that Jesus is a prophet, the woman tells Jesus that His people (the Jews) saw Jerusalem as the proper place to offer worship to God, whereas her people thought it was properly offered in Samaria. But Jesus told her: “...the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him…” (John 4:23) 

What God wants when we worship Him, pray to Him, and interact with Him is authenticity: authentic repentance, authentic praise and honor. No going-through-the-motions. No trying to find the right feelings or the right words or the perfect gestures. No desire to get what we “need” (read, want) out of it, whether it’s goosebumps or material well-being. 

Noah’s worship pleased God. And it wasn’t because Noah was perfect or “religious,” whatever that means. Nothing had changed about Noah or Noah’s family or the human race of which they were a part. 

Before the flood began, Genesis 6: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) It was human evil that caused God to regret making human beings and to cause the flood (Genesis 6:6). After the flood, Genesis says, “... the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 6:21). Nothing had changed about the human race. 

But God hadn’t changed either. I see from the verses that so struck me today how much God loves us, in spite of our evil. He doesn’t want to see us destroyed. He loves us and wants to spare us the consequences of our sinfulness (“the wages of sin is death”: Romans 6:23). God wants to extend His grace to us. When we meet His grace with our trusting faith, as Noah and his family did, God saves. God acts on our behalf. 

Listen: God entered our world in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1-2, 14; Colossians 1:15-20) in order to immerse His sinless life fully in the chaos of our sin and death and, after dying, rising in order to open up the only pathway to a resurrected life with God.
Jesus referred to His submersion into death and His rising to life as His baptism: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50) 

And it is through baptism into Christ, the baptism of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19) that we are today spared the consequences of sin and death. The old self dies and the new self, the Christ self, rises. 

First Peter talks about how Jesus’ accomplishment is sacramentally imparted to us. Recalling Jesus’ death and resurrection, Peter writes: 

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because] they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” (1 Peter 3:18-22) 

After this amazing action of God, giving us a share in Christ’s victory over sin and death through our Baptism, our call is just this: to trust, to believe, just as Noah and his family did. 

 

As the apostles told their jailer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." (Acts 16:31) 

Authentic faith in God as revealed to all the world in Jesus. 

Authentic repentance in Jesus’ name. 

This is what God asks of us whose hearts and minds are still soaked in evil. His promise of new life with Him will hold, overcoming our sin and death; our part is to trust in Him and His promises. 

Respond: Today, Lord, help me to trust in You and not lean on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6).

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

Staying Focused

[Most days, I try to spend quiet time with God. Below is my journal entry for this morning. I hope that you find it helpful. To see how I approach my quiet time with God, see here. It's all about seeking to listen to what God is telling us through His Word as we meet Him each day.]

Look: [Jesus asked] “How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44)

Jesus is speaking to those scandalized by His Sabbath day restoration of the once-paralyzed limbs of a man unable to walk.

All of Jesus’ words in this chapter are interesting. But today, I’m especially taken with these in verse 44. A paraphrase might be: “Since being acceptable to the crowd is so important to you, how could you possibly care about the glorious acceptance that only the one true God can give to you through faith in Me?”

Jesus underscores His own indifference to the accolades (or glories) that human beings may give to Him in verse 41: “I do not accept glory from human beings...” By this, Jesus means that He refuses to allow the opinions of Him--good or bad--to turn His head. He will do what He must do and what He has been called to do, popular or not, easy or not. In Luke 12:50, referencing the suffering He will undergo, calling His crucifixion and death His “baptism,” Jesus says: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!”

In the wilderness, of course, Satan had tempted Jesus to grab for the glories offered Him by Satan and the world. Luke’s account of the wilderness temptations of Jesus says:

“The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.’” But Luke says that Jesus responded: “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” (Luke 4:5-8)

Listen: If I’m to walk with God, if I’m to have life with God through Jesus, I can’t worry about having the accolades of the crowd. Nor can I concern myself with what’s easy, safe, or comfortable. Nor can I worry about the possibility of being deemed “weird” or “different” from everybody else.*

Some people, of course, wear their “distinctiveness” as Christians like badges of honor and pride. This is not what Jesus is commending when He says that we should focus on being considered “glorious” by God instead of the crowd. There is no place for being puffed up for the person who genuinely seeks to follow Jesus. Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds Christians: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” And 1 Corinthians 13:4 says: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”

To be set apart or holy for God is to be so focused on following Jesus that I am willing to ignore what the crowd or what my own internal preference for comfort say I should do.

In this, Jesus isn’t just the One Who saves us for life set apart for God, He’s also, as we say in the liturgy, “a model of the godly life.” Luke 9:51, a turning point in Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, says: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

Jesus was so sold-out to glorifying God the Father that He “resolutely” went to Jerusalem, knowing what awaited Him there. He didn’t flinch.

He calls us to similar resolve. In Luke 14:27, Jesus says: “...whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus isn’t here saying that Christians should look for trouble.

And “their cross” here doesn’t refer to the troubles, adversity, and pain to which every human being is subject because we live in this fallen, imperfect world.

Taking up our crosses involves acknowledging the sin in us--both our sinful natures and the sins we commit because of those natures--and following Jesus as the only One Who can set us free from their power over us.

“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:56-57)

Those who follow Jesus daily submit to the crucifixion of our old sinful selves so that the new creation Jesus died and rose to make us become can rise.

We daily remember our baptisms as the time of our crucifixion and death so that can Christ can daily raise us up: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4).

The only way I can follow through on a life marked by humble acknowledgement of my need of Christ is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to forget about the affirmations offered by the crowds or the comforts offered by the world so that I can follow Jesus Christ alone.

This isn’t easy. I like to be liked. I don’t like disappointing or offending people. I want to fit in.

On top of that, I’d like to be comfortable.

But while some Christians may be comfortable, materially or socially, none of that is promised by Jesus.

He promises us eternal life. He promises His constant presence with us. But, as I often remind others, so I now remind myself, Jesus also promises: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

So often, the discouragement I feel over the lack of discernible “progress” in my spiritual life can be attributed to one simple thing: I’ve taken my eye off of Jesus.

Real spiritual progress comes, I suspect, when I’m not even conscious of questions about my “spiritual progress” and I set my face toward Jesus. As C.S. Lewis puts it: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”

Respond: Father, today, by the Holy Spirit’s power, free me of concerns about the estimation of others or the standards of this world or my own sin-warped personal standards. Grant that the only accolade I care about is Your Words at the Judgment, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Help me to focus on Jesus alone. May I revere Your name today. May Your kingdom come to me today. May Your will be done in my life today. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

*Weird or different are two words that could readily translate the Bible’s term, holy. The best translation is probably set apart for God.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. You're invited to be with the congregation for worship on Sundays, either at 8:45 or 11:00 AM.]

Jesus' Sign of Power

John 11:1-53
A dictionary defines the word, sign, as “an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else.” Signs never point to themselves, they always point us to something else.

The gospel of John is often called “The Book of Signs” because it’s built around seven signs performed by Jesus.* 

John tells us elsewhere in his gospel that “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.” But John chose to tell us about just these seven signs so that we could come to “believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31) (This includes the eighth and perfect sign: Jesus’ glorification, His death and resurrection.)

There are some Christians who claim that miracles should be happening every day of our lives. In one way, they’re right: Whenever a person comes to believe--trust in--Jesus, God grants them eternal life with Him. But if miracles happened every day, they wouldn’t be miracles at all, but, as one preacher says, “ordinaries.”

Jesus’ signs brought the miraculous in-breaking of God into this world, pinpricks of God’s light and sovereignty into our darkness, pointing to God, not themselves.

If people think that miracles--miracles like superabundant finances, never-failing health, conflict-free relationships, perfect fulfillment at work, being brought back from the dead--are the norms for Christian disciples, they misunderstand Jesus and His Gospel.

Today’s gospel lesson, John 11:1-53, recounts a spectacular sign performed by Jesus...the one which, according to John, solidified the intentions of the Jewish religious elite to see Jesus crucified by their Roman overlords.

As has been true over the past several weeks, John’s account of Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead, all that led up to it, and what resulted from it, is too long for us to examine verse-by-verse. We’ll go section by section.

In verses 1-16, we learn that Jesus’ friends, Martha and Mary, are facing a crisis. Their brother, Lazarus, is dying. Jesus knows this, but doesn’t tell the disciples.

Instead, Jesus waits for two days before saying or doing anything. Why? One Bible scholar suggests that Jesus felt the need to spend those two days in prayer, discerning what He should do.

I think there’s good reason to believe that’s true, as we’ll see later in the lesson. But just on first blush, there are several reasons why Jesus might have used these two days to pray.

First of all, Jesus loved His friend. But Jesus also never performed a miraculous sign for His own benefit. Jesus likely wanted to ensure that healing His friend was the Father’s will and not His own.

Another reason: Bethany was just two miles from Jerusalem. In just the previous chapter, we see that the last time He was in Jerusalem, there had been efforts to stone Him and to arrest Him. Of course, Jesus’ entire life was spent preparing for the time when He would go to Jerusalem to offer His life: ”the lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29) But Jesus would not go to Jerusalem until it was His time, the time appointed by God the Father. (John 7:30) Jesus had to make sure that the Father wanted Him to go to Jerusalem and His cross at this time.

When you and I confront decisions or try to discern whether what we want conforms to the will of God, we need to spend time waiting and praying. If a thing is right, God will give us peace, permission, and prompting. If it isn’t the right thing, we won’t sense God giving us His green light.

Eventually, Jesus and the disciples learn that Lazarus is dead. The disciples are the voice of common sense when Jesus tells them that they need to go to Judea, where Bethany is located. If Lazarus is dead, there’s nothing Jesus can do, they reason, and besides, Jesus would be walking into a death trap.

But Jesus won’t be dissuaded. Thomas, his voice dripping in sarcasm, becomes the first person in our lesson to say more than understands: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16)

What Thomas didn't realize is that when we throw in with Jesus, it means death to our old selves, the willing crucifixion of our sinful, selfish ways of living, so that Jesus can raise us to new life.

In verses 17 to 37, Jesus goes to Bethany, where He encounters Lazarus’ grieving sisters and their grieving neighbors. Each are disappointed in Jesus.

• “Lord,” Martha [says in verse 21], “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
• In verse 32, Mary says: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
• And later, the townspeople ask each other: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (John 11:37)

The mystification and even, maybe, anger felt by the people in Bethany who had believed in Jesus doesn’t mean that they’ve lost their faith in Him. We see this in an interchanged between Jesus and Martha. Jesus assures Martha: “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. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26) Martha responds with a confession of faith despite her grief and tears: ““Yes, Lord I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God,who is to come into the world.” (John 11:27)

You’ve heard me say it before: The only people who get mad at the God we know in Jesus are the ones who believe in Him; you don’t get mad at a God that you don’t believe is there. We may struggle in our faith, like Thomas, Martha, Mary, and the people of Bethany. But if we will wait and pray, God will give us peace and sustain us with the promise underwritten by Jesus’ death and resurrection: All who have the Son in their lives have life with God that cannot be taken from us.

The sign Jesus performs next points to this reality. In John 11:38-44, Jesus goes to the tomb and orders the stone rolled away from its doorway. Martha protests. It’s been four days and the body will have begin to decompose and smell. But, remember that Jesus has already prayed about this. He deliberately waited until He was sure that Lazarus was dead so that Lazarus’ death, as He puts it, will happen “for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4) Jesus will perform a sign that will allow all present to “see the glory of God,” so that they can believe. (John 11:40)

Just before Jesus raises Lazarus, He prays again, a prayer of thanksgiving that God had guided Him during those two days of prayer: “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” (John 11:41-42) Jesus’ time of waiting and praying assured Him that He was doing His Father’s will.

Now consider: If Jesus, God the Son, God in the flesh, needed such an investment in waiting and praying before acting, how much more do we need to wait and pray each day?

After uttering this prayer, Jesus called Lazarus from the dead, out of the dark tomb into the light of day.



[A mostly accurate rendering of Jesus' raising of Lazarus from the dead as portrayed in Jesus of Nazareth. This film is my favorite portrayal of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. The words spoken by the John character here are based on Jonah 2:6.]

All who saw this sign were bound to talk about it...and they did! And anyone who heard about it would have been amazed.

But not everyone is happy with it. The unhappy ones, the Jewish religious elite in Jerusalem, see Jesus as a provocateur, sure to incite the Romans to assault their people. The religious leaders in Jerusalem say: “If we let [Jesus] go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” (John 11:48) (They say this even though the Romans had taken away their nation long years ago!)

Instead of trusting in Jesus, Whose signs gave glory to God and not Himself, the religious leaders put their trust in the power of Roman swords.

It’s always a mistake to put more stock in or be daunted by the power of earthly rulers than we do in God.

Long after the last ruler of this world has died, Jesus, the King of kings, crucified, risen, and ascended will hold the field alone!

Psalm 118:9 says: “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.”

Who do you put your trust in today, Jesus or earthly rulers? Jesus or the things of this world that will someday be reduced to ashes by the hand of God? Jesus and His grace or this world and your fears? This is a choice we must make each day.

As we come to the end of our lesson, Caiaphas, the high priest, becomes the second person in this incident to say more than he personally understands. He tells his fellow priests that instead of worrying about what impact Jesus might have on the Romans, they needed a simple solution. They should kill Jesus off, he said, and save the nation. “...it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:50)

Caiaphas thinks that if they get Jesus executed, that will be the end of things. The nation will be spared the Roman sword and life can go on as it had before this Disturber from Galilee arrived.

In plotting to send Jesus to a cross, Caiaphas is actually playing right into God’s plans.

Jesus came into the world to do exactly what Caiaphas proposes: to die on behalf of sinners so that they might not perish.

“I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” Jesus says in Luke 12:50.

Jesus had performed a seventh sign with the goal of showing His identity and, as a result of the world's rejection of Him that resulted, to go to the cross for you and me.

From a worldly perspective, Jesus’ fate is sealed when He raises Lazarus from the dead.

From the perspective of God, this sign is the final confirmation that the One Who performs it is “the Word made flesh,” the Messiah Who came to die and to rise and to give new life to all who trust in Him.

We human beings sometimes presume that we are and ought to be in control.

But the universe, life, death, and resurrection are in the hands of the God we meet in Jesus alone.

That’s important to remember because life in this world can sometimes go wrong. But if you follow Jesus, no matter what the sarcastic or the cynical or the powerful of the world may say, you will never be wrong.

Amen

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

*Seven Signs Performed by Jesus in John’s Gospel:
1. Changing water into wine (John 2:1-11)
2. Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum (John 4:46-54)
3. Healing the paralytic at Bethesda (John 5:1-15)
4. Feeding the 5000 (John 6:5-14)
5. Walking on the water (John 6:16-24)
6. Healing the man born blind (John 9:1-7)
7. Raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-45)