Let God Come to You

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

Isaiah 9:1-7
More than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God had a quarrel with His chosen people, Israel.

Israel, of course was called to be a light to all the nations of the world regarding God’s goodness, love, and power. But often, the people of Israel forgot who they were. That was the cause of God’s quarrel with them.

But really, when you think about it, the people of Israel were no different from you and me.

When things are going well, we get so full of ourselves that we leave no place for God. When that happens, trouble starts.

A woman Ann and I knew came to faith in Christ as an adult. She got a good start on her Christian life. But then, we saw her less and less at church. Then her husband stopped coming to church. Finally, one night, the husband called me with sad news. The wife, who had gradually left no place for God in her life and had made it uncomfortable for the husband to any longer be in worship, had taken up with another man. “Why?” the husband asked her. “I got tired of being perfect,” she explained. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you never were perfect.”

When things are going well in our lives, we can fool ourselves into thinking that it all has to do with our goodness (our perfection), rather than with God’s goodness (and God's perfection). We can lose touch with God. And when you lose touch with God, without even knowing it, you can begin to lose your integrity, your morals, your relationships, and the life that only God can give.

Ancient Israel fell out of touch with God. The eight chapters of Isaiah that precede our lesson present God’s indictment of a people so full of themselves that they had no place for God anymore. Through Isaiah, God said that the people of Israel were rife with wrong:

• Bribery was an everyday part of their life.
• They were indifferent to the plight of widows who, in those days had no property rights.
• They didn’t take care of orphans, of whom there were many in those days of short life expectancies and of childbirths often ending in the deaths of mothers.
• They had become like Gomorrah in their sexual lives, taking an “anything goes” approach.
• Instead of worshiping God alone, they took a breezy attitude that all gods and all religions were really the same.
• They relied on other things to help them to make decisions, rather than relying on God alone. 

In Isaiah, chapter 8, God warns that for living like this--choosing the world's darkness over God's light, His people would be enslaved by foreign conquerors. Israel would see, God said, “only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish…[and] be thrust into deep darkness.”

That’s where our first lesson, Isaiah 9:1-7, begins. Would you pull out the special insert?

Notice that verse 1 actually begins with the word, “But.” God is saying, “Nevertheless…In spite of…Even though. Even though you’ve brought this darkness onto yourself, I’m nevertheless going to make something new and good happen. You don’t deserve it, but I’m going to send it because I love you.”

Read verse 1 aloud with me, please:

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Zebulun and Naphtali, named for two of the sons of Jacob from Genesis, were regions of ancient Israel. They were well north of Jerusalem and bordered the region of Galilee where, seven hundred-plus years after Isaiah, Jesus would be raised. At the time Isaiah wrote, the people of Israel were in the clutches of foreign conquerors who stole the produce of their land and sent some of their best and brightest people back to Assyria to serve as slaves. Because of their geographic positions, Zebulun, Naphtali, and even Galilee often bore the brunt of foreign intrusions.

In this verse, God is revealing that He not only will free Israel from the Assyrians, but will also one day shine the full light of His glory and love in Zebulun and Naphtali. God will enter these places of slavery, God reveals through Isaiah, and offer freedom to the whole human race. From Galilee, a place where not only Jews, but also many Gentiles, lived, God’s light would be revealed. Gloom would be banished!

Read on, aloud please, verse 2:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. 

When I was in junior and senior high school, the light in my folks’ bathroom was a regular 100-watt incandescent lightbulb. Morning and night before the mirror that hung below that bulb, I’d slather on the Noxzema, scrub myself clean, and pop my zits. In that mirror, by that light, I looked OK. But I’ll never forget my first day of classes at Ohio State, Summer Quarter, 1971. I had a class on West Campus and needed to go to the restroom. There were fluorescent lights there and I caught sight of myself in the mirror. That was the first time I realized I had a major acne problem. Later, when a girl I was dating—Ann—told me about a dermatologist, my time in that light made me open to her suggestion.

Light can show us our flaws. Get close to Jesus, read about God’s will for our lives in the Bible, or ask God in prayer to show us how our lives can better reflect His love for us, and we see things about ourselves we wouldn’t otherwise know or acknowledge. When you’re in the darkness of your own sin, you need the light of God to show you your flaws. That’s the first step into relationship with God.

And it's an essential continuing step for the maintenance of our relationship with God. Psalm 139: 23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”


This is why, if we will pay heed to them, even God's commandments are gifts of grace. Obedience to them cannot save us. But attention given to them will show us the places we need to grow in our lives, the sins of which we need to repent, the temptations we need to look out for. God's commands are a mirror that show us who we are and send us to God to help us be the people He has called us to be.*

But light does more than show us our flaws, the sins for which we need to repent. Light can also show us the way. God wants to light your way through the dark passages life sometimes brings. A woman came to me with a problem. “Have you prayed about it?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said, “but God hasn’t shown me how it will all turn out.” “God never will show you how it will all turn out,” I told her. “He’ll just give you enough light to take the next step.”

That’s not entirely true: God has shown us how things will ultimately turn out. If we follow Jesus, we’ll end up with Jesus for eternity. But, along the way, we just keep following His light.

Verses 3-5, show us that one day, beyond what you and I can see right now, God is going to bring an end to this age of violence in which we live.

• One day, murders with assault rifles will end. 
• So will wars. 
• So will selfishness and insensitivity to the needs of the poor and the hungry. 
• So will child abuse and spousal abuse. 
• So will unkindness. 
• So will abortion as a form of birth control. 

All the ways in which we kill others, in fact, will come to an end.

Jesus, Who has died and risen to bring life, will ensure that all who repent and believe in Him, will be freed from the violence of this world forever.

In Matthew 5, in a portion of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek; for they will inherit the earth." Eternity, He tells us, will belong to those bold enough to surrender their lives and wills to Christ alone, through faith alone, and God's Word alone. We can’t see the day foretold in the words God gave to Isaiah or those of Jesus yet, but that day will come when Jesus returns and makes His whole creation—including you and me—forever new.

Now, please read verse 6 with me:

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Seven hundred-plus hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God revealed that a particular child would be born and that, among other things, this human child would also be Mighty God.

Some are troubled that Jesus’ given name isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament prophecies about Him. I’m not troubled by that at all. If the prophecies had said, “Watch for Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, Whose mother is named Mary and Whose father will appear to be Joseph,” where would faith come in?

God wants us to have a relationship of love with Him, a relationship in which we choose to love Him for Who He is. And so the prophets, while never identifying Jesus by name, do identify Him by Who He would be.

That’s why people like Anna and Simeon, two people who knew God through His Word, could look at the baby Jesus when He was just eight days old and know He was the Savior, while doctors of theology, who loved earthly power and prestige, didn’t see Who Jesus was and passed a death sentence on Him.

Yesterday, in Catechism class, we watched the film, The Nativity Story, a deeply moving telling of the story of Jesus’ birth.

In one of the early scenes, the young Mary is shown with a woman in Nazareth who told the local children a part of the story of the prophet Elijah, as recounted in 1 Kings, chapter 19.

During the reign of King Ahab, an unprincipled compromiser who allowed his wife, Jezebel, to bring the worship of a foreign god called Baal into Israel, Elijah was used by God to defeat the prophets of Baal at a place called Mount Carmel. Elijah’s faith in God was vindicated.

But when Jezebel heard about what happened, she vowed to kill Elijah and, terrified, Elijah ran. He was certain that he was alone and that nothing could help him. In a panic, he desperately looked for God. After hiding in a cave, Elijah sensed God directing him to go to a mountain and look.

Then we’re told:

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:1-12, New King James Version)

Are you looking for God?

Be still.

Stop striving.

Quit trying so hard.

Let Him come to you, not only in prayerful silence as He did with Elijah, but most emphatically, in Jesus, the child and mighty God foretold by Isaiah seven centuries before Jesus’ birth.

Let Jesus come to you in His Word and in studying it with others as well as on your own (I wish that every adult here were in Sunday School class each week), in prayer you offer in Jesus' Name, in the fellowship of imperfect believers that is the Church, and in the Sacraments of Christ’s Church, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

You are not alone.

And in Jesus Christ, you are assured of an eternity with God.

Let Jesus guide your steps, one step at a time and you will see Him, know Him, and love Him because you know He first loved you. Amen

*In his introduction to a book of lectures from last year's conference, Seeking New Directions for Lutheranism, Lutheran theologian Carl Bratten writes:

The gospel does not nullify the law [God's commands]. After all, [Martin] Luther devoted a part of his Catechisms to teaching and explaining the Ten Commandments. It would come as a huge disappointment to him that Lutherans today are crediting him for replacing the law with the gospel...

In a lecture included in the book, Braaten speaks of "the gospel" and notes, "I do not mean the "gospel" in the narrow sense as opposed to the law, but in the wider sense that comprehends the whole counsel of God, the twofold Word of God, both law and promise." One reason that my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has fallen into error is that it dares to denigrate God's inviolable commands, subordinating them to a culturally acceptable "gospel" that doubts or denies the need for repentance, faith in Christ alone, or an understanding of the Bible that stands under the Bible as the authoritative source or norm of our life, faith, and practice. I pray to God that this will change.

How Can We Bring an End to This Slaughter of the Innocents?

Recently, New York City clergy gathered to address 90,000 deaths that happen there each year, deaths that go unnoticed. That's the number of pregnancies ended by abortion in New York each year, a figure that represents 40% of all pregnancies in the city annually!

The figure in the United States is about half that, but still haunting at 22%!

Increasingly, ours is a violent society that believes it can simply kill off its problems. Abortion is one element of our violent culture.

So too are our popular video games, music, and films which glorify bloodshed, nihilism, and misogyny.

So too are our indifference to the hurts of others and to the agony of gun violence.

 So too, are the violence of a crass culture that urges us to depersonalize those with whom we disagree and that lionizes reality show figures whose only virtues appear to be narcissism and a willingness to mistreat anyone inconvenient to their personal aims.

In the Old Testament, God gave an inviolable and permanent commandment for human beings, literally, "You shall not murder," the Fifth Commandment. The New Testament records that when God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, He cited that commandment, then explained its inner meaning and purpose:

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire." (Matthew 5:21-22)

The Bible understands that there may be times when killing is a necessary and horrible option in human interaction, as when defending one's self or loved ones. But murder, the willful ending of another person's life simply because that person's continued existence doesn't suit us, is indefensible. Jesus says that we murder others when we insult or hurt them, objectifying them, robbing them of their humanity.

God takes our humanity very seriously. It's time we did too!

I'm not addressing abortion or our culture of violence as political issues. Although I think that the ruling in Roe v. Wade was unconscionable and ought to be overturned, for example, overturning it won't change a culture that finds the disposal of unborn fetuses acceptable.

The American culture of violence presents us with profound moral and spiritual issues. We resort to violence to impose our own wills on others, to be in control, to be gods.

But there is only one God, revealed as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and He calls us (commands us) to repent for our sins and to trust in Him alone, to love God completely, and to love others as we love ourselves.

Surrendering to Christ as our God will bring the power of God into our lives so that we can think and act more creatively than we do when we resort to violence to solve our problems.

How can this slaughter of the innocents end?

It will not happen with new laws, constitutional amendments, or court rulings, laudable and appropriate as any of those may be.

The end of the slaughter of the innocents will only begin when we hit our knees, repenting of our sins and asking Jesus Christ to make us new from the inside out. It will only begin when we surrender all to the One who formed as in our mothers' wombs and aims to have us live in a fellowship of love with God and others for all eternity.

In Christ, we can be forgiven of our sins and we can be made new. Turn to Him and live. Then, share this new life with others. Please.

Maybe the most important thing you'll read today...

...is here.

Geezer Ball? Hopefully, Some Day I'll Play Shirts and Skins Again

The men featured in this article from the Columbus Dispatch, play pick-up games during lunch hours at both the Columbus Athletic Club and the downtown YMCA. Most inspiring is a 76-year old who plays in spite of previous bypass and heart valve surgeries!

I'm 57 and, as some who read this blog know, I suffered from a heart attack that damaged 40% of my heart last summer. I subsequently received a stent inserted into a heart artery that had been 100% blocked.

My heart function is improving, no doubt because of four major factors: medication that is strengthening the heart and reducing cholesterol (although my HDL, the "bad cholesterol," was never that high); cardiac rehabilitation, which, after I "graduated," has been followed by continued regular exercise; being a stickler for a heart healthy diet; and becoming more regular about daily Bible reading and prayer. God helps me to be both more calm and more deeply certain of His presence, will, and love for me through this latter discipline, incorporating time spent in His Word and in reverent conversation with God.

(A high school classmate of Ann and mine reminded me today that among the most important things in dealing with a heart attack's aftermath is learning "not sweat the mall stuff, and in the end, it's all small stuff." Spending time in God's Word and in humble adoration, confession, supplication, and praise of the God made known to the world in Christ is the best way I know to heed that good advice!)

Earlier today, I enjoyed the routine which the cardiac rehab techs taught me to use at home on those days I don't go to the gym: stretching, life weight-lifting, and a 45-minute walk.

This is all helping me to get stronger.

So, dare I hope that one day, I might be able to regularly enjoy playing pick-up basketball games like the guys in the Dispatch story? I would love that!

And maybe, if I suddenly fall heir to an incredible amount of wackily-disposable income, I could do what a good friend of mine did last year about this time: Play with ex-Big Leaguers at the Cincinnati Reds Fantasy Camp in Arizona. Now, that would be über-cool!

Here's a slide show from The Dispatch of the "geezer" pick-up games: index

If We Won't Speak God's Truth, the Very Stones Will Cry Out

From Chosen: The Story of God and His People, which we use for Catechism class at Saint Matthew, on why God sent some prophets to ancient Israel with gloomy messages of condemnation if God's people refused to turn from sin and return to faith in Him:

As strange as it may sound, God sent prophets of doom to his people because he loved them. He cares enough to say a harsh word to us because it is for our own good. It is not easy to say hard words to someone you love. Nor is it easy to be critical when you want to say nice things. But it is important to speak the truth. You cannot pretend everything is fine when it isn't. If friends are going to hurt themselves or someone else because of the way they live, then we should speak out. God did this through his prophets.

The apostle Paul spoke about the importance of "speaking the truth in love." Some people erroneously think that pointing out sins that threaten themselves, their relationships with others, or their eternal destinies is the same thing as judging, something Jesus warned us not to do. Not true!

The condemning judgments we express toward others are often done behind the backs of those we condemn. And when we judgeothers, if we do confront them, there is no desire to help them, only to prove them wrong (and by extension, ourselves superior). Love, the desire for what is best for another, even when the other makes us furious or when we find ourselves incapable of being around the other, is absent.

By contrast, when we speak the truth in love, we do so with the other person and with a desire to help them. We do so, Jesus says in His mandate for conflict resolution with fellow believers, even with a willingness to come away from those confrontations proven wrong.

Jesus has entrusted the role of both confronting congregants and the world for sin and for offering the grace of forgiveness and new starts available through Jesus Christ. We must not mince words on either God's Law or God's Good News, the Gospel. Love compels the Church to speak both messages, whether the world likes it or not.

In this era when the denomination of which I am a part speaks with a garbled voice about things like the deity of Jesus, the truth of His virgin birth and resurrection, Christ's claims to be the exclusive means by which humanity enters into a relationship with God, the authority of Scripture over our lives, and the teaching of the Bible that sexual intimacy was created by God as a source of pleasure, bonding, and procreation for a man and a woman in a lifetime marital covenant, we must devote ourselves to speaking the Word of God clearly.

The world may like a garbled message. It enables us to dodge God's truth, to replace our individual desires for God's will. But God refuses to be marginalized. God refuses to allow us to go to hell without a fight.

If we won't speak God's truth in love, God will raise up other messengers who will. The very stones will cry out His truth!

Some may be shy about speaking God's truth, however lovingly, because of an awareness of their own sins. But if you read the testimonies by and about the Old Testament prophets, you discover that they shared this very trait with you.

• God chastised Elijah for that prophet's self-righteous notion that only he was faithful among God's people. 
• Jonah hated the foreigners God had called him to preach to and was ultimately forced to fulfill his call after God had him swallowed up by a great fish. 
• Hosea wasn't keen on marrying a prostitute who he was sure would be unfaithful to him. 
• The New Testament prophet John the Baptist, the one who whooped in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Jesus' pregnant mother Mary, doubted Jesus as the Messiah when he languished in Herod's prison before he was beheaded.

The everyday prophets Christians are called to be aren't perfect either. They're willing to be proven wrong. But they are unwilling to see their friends, family members, or society turn away from God and the life that only God offers without telling them the truth about God's condemnation of sin and about God's gift of new and everlasting life for all who repudiate their sin and surrender their lives and wills to Jesus Christ.

It's OK to Ask God Tough Questions

From Chosen: The Story of God and His People:

There is no question so out of line that you should not ask it. The people who wrote the Bible asked God some hard questions. They did not hold back out of fear that questions showed lack of faith or respect. They knew God wanted them to be honest with him and with themselves. There is no way you can grow in understanding or faith if you do not ask the questions that need asking.

At the time of the exile in the Old Testament or the time of the crucifixion [of Jesus] in the New Testament, it was hard to see God at work in the world. There are similar times in our own lives. But the Bible tells us he is present, working with us, even in those difficult times when it is hardest to believe this.

"So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall."

Those words from 1 Corinthians are part of what inspired today's installment of Our Daily Bread.

Both the Scripture passages on which it's based and the piece by David C. McCasland are worth reading, pondering, and praying about.

One of the primary temptations the devil, the world, and our sinful selves hold out to us is this notion that whatever goodness we may thing we possess is intrinsic to our own natures and personalities. But my observation is that the moment we think we're righteous, we're in deep trouble. No one is more prone to undertaking a whole passel of rotten thoughts and entertaining more poisonous thoughts than those who think themselves constitutionally incapable of wrongdoing.

Hitler never second-guessed himself. Saint Paul did.

Jesus had some interesting things to say along these lines:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ²For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye." (Matthew 7:1-5)

Do those words make you feel a bit uncomfortable? Me too. Especially when I consider the enormous logs of sin I've often gathered in my own eyes, even in the three-decades-plus that I've tried to follow Jesus. "So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall."

"At the end of every day, starting when he was in high school, he would ask himself, in effect, What have I done to improve the lot of humanity?"

"The root of Shriver's self-conception was as a lay Catholic who always tried to model his life after the ethics of Jesus as expressed in the Gospels. This has not been a passive pursuit. Always he was asking himself, Am I living my life as Christ would want me to?

"What he derived from his faith was less the solace of Lord's presence, or the promise of transcendence in the hereafter (though he did derive both of those qualities from his faith) than a kind of mobilizing vision for action here on earth..."

Those are the words of Scott Stossel, biographer of R. Sargent Shriver, in a touching tribute to the one-time Peace Corps and War on Poverty chief who died on Tuesday.

Shriver was one of my favorite political figures of the last part of the twentieth century, maybe because he was so not-political. He seemed never to calculate how to advance his own personal political ambitions. And, in truth, he didn't really have to do so. His brother-in-law, with Shriver's help, was president and after John F. Kennedy's assassination, he seemed to be the one Kennedy family member Lyndon Johnson actually liked.

But, in many ways, both during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations and afterward, Shriver behaved in ways I suppose most of us would have wanted to behave had we been given similar opportunities.

In 1972, George McGovern chose Shriver to be his second vice presidential running mate after the first one, Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton, was disqualified for having earlier undergone shock treatments for depression. McGovern, just days before asking Eagleton to leave the ticket, had famously remarked that he was behind the Missouri senator, "1000%." Backpedaling so public and abrupt probably eliminated whatever minute chance McGovern might have had in a year when, no matter what Americans' misgivings about the Vietnam War, a "peace candidate" had no chance of becoming president.

For McGovern, Shriver was a consolation prize. He had really wanted Ted Kennedy for his running mate. But Kennedy, just three years after Chappaquiddick, demurred. McGovern seemed to figure if he couldn't have a Kennedy on his ticket, the next best thing would be a Kennedy brother-in-law.

During the fall campaign, Shriver came to the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, where I was a sophomore. Speaking on the west grounds of the old Student Union, Shriver proved to be an enthusiastic and joyous candidate, even though this was his first run for a major office. I stuck my hand through a throng of people to try to shake his. Without being able to actually see him, I'll never know, but I think he did briefly clasp my hand the way candidates do when moving quickly through a thrall of people.

In the end, not even Shriver, with his compelling can-do attitude, could prevent the defeat, one of the worst in presidential history, suffered by the Democrats that year.

Shriver made a brief bid for the presidency himself in the next cycle, but his candidacy never got much traction. A Shriver campaign button is among my modest collection of political memorabilia.

No one knows what a Shriver presidency would have been like, of course. Except for this: He would have met the challenges with optimism and with that sense of joyous responsibility to others that were his trademarks.

Making Sense of the World

Ambrosiaster, the designation given by Erasmus to an unidentified Church Father active sometime between 366 and 384AD, is considered by many to be the most insightful, accurate commentator on Paul's writings in the New Testament before the commentaries of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and other sixteenth-century reforming Biblical scholars came along.

Ambrosiaster is cited in an entry for this coming Sunday's second Bible lesson, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, in Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings, Lectionary Cycle A.

I wish that contemporary Christians would all read these words, an encouragement to those who adhere to a reverential view of the Bible and a correction to those who regard the central teachings of Scripture (and the confessions of the Church) as optional.

Ambrosiaster also affirms the power of the Biblical witness without additions or subtractions on the parts of those trying to make the Gospel more palatable to unbelieving or skeptical people.

This is Ambrosiaster's take on why Jesus called fishers to preach His Word:

It was because Christian preaching does not need elaborate refinement of verbal expression that fishers, who were uneducated, were chosen to preach the gospel. In that way the truth of the message would be its own recommendation, and it would not depend on the cleverness or ingenuity of human wisdom. The false apostles were doing just that, and moreover they were omitting the things which the world does not believe, like the virgin birth of Christ and his resurrection from the dead.

Our call as Christians is, on the one hand, to lower those cultural barriers that might prevent others from knowing and following Jesus Christ. That's why the use of contemporary music and language in worship are good things. Doing so makes Christ accessible to those who don't know Him. (And that, for we Lutheran Christians, is a central component of the ongoing Reformation project begun by Luther.)

On the other hand, we have no authority from Christ to change the content of the Bible's teaching. As Rick Warren has memorably said of the Church's relation to the Biblical message it's called to proclaim: "The package must always change. The content of the package must never change."*

Recently, my wife Ann was asked by a friend about what is going on in Haiti, where our son, along with his girlfriend and others from the congregation of which they're a part, plan to go to work with children at a vacation Bible school this coming summer. "Why do you suppose that country can't get things together in spite of all the help they're getting?" Ann was asked. Massive poverty, massive destruction after last year's earthquake, and a long history of political corruption and despotism were all reasons Ann cited. And, she added, that one can't discount one legacy of Voodooism in the country's troubles: demon possession.

"You don't believe that?" the other person asked Ann. "Of course I do," she said.

The fact that the Bible teaches about the existence of demon-possession and that Christ, Who cast out demons, believed in this phenomenon, should be enough to convince any Christian that demons do wreak havoc in our world.

But so should experience. As a young pastor, I participated in a weekly study with a group of pastors that included Mennonites and Lutherans. One Lutheran clergy about a decade older than me said that he had never believed in angels or especially, in their fallen counterparts, demons. An older Lutheran colleague, who was far from being a Biblical fundamentalist, shocked the first pastor by saying, "If you don't believe that there are demons, you either haven't been paying attention or you're naive."

Ambrosiaster's comments indicate that the teachings of the Bible have always aroused skepticism. There's nothing new or sophisticated about the doubts we may have when the Bible speaks of angels, demons, the virgin birth of Jesus, Jesus' resurrection, and other teachings. Faith doesn't come naturally to us. It's a supernatural phenomenon created by God in believers. (That's why believers can never see themselves as being superior to unbelievers in any way.)

But if we approach the Bible and Christian faith with a willingness to believe, a willingness to trust in God and in God's Word, we might find God not only constructing faith in our lives. We might well conclude that faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the only thing that allows us to make sense of our world or ourselves.

All that and heaven too. What a deal!

*My paraphrase from memory.

Getting It Straight

Here.

What Gave the Life of Martin Luther King Jr. So Much Power?

This was his power source:

MLKJr.'s Bible

"¹²Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

New Hampshire Legislators Can Now Pack Heat

On the House floor. What do you think of that?

While Other States Lower Taxes or Consider Doing So

Illinois has raised its income taxes. Is the State Legislature crazy or are they onto something? The jury's out, but read the whole thing and render your judgment in the comments section, if you wish.

A Nice Story About Love

Second times around when the first rounds were long and wonderful.

"Why Lutherans Can't Evangelize"

And why there's hope for the future.

Share the Light!

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

Isaiah 49:1-7
John 1:29-42
One of the problems people living in 2011 have when we read the Old Testament book of Isaiah is something the literary critics call its richness. Unlike most of the things we read each day, in any given passage of Isaiah, there may be words about more than just one thing. Sometimes, a passage may be about three things at once. It confuses us. Let me explain.

Last Sunday, I mentioned that tucked among the promises Isaiah received from God about ancient Israel’s impending release from slavery to the Babylonian Empire, were promises about the Servant Who would be sent by God to free more than just Israel from humanity’s greatest enemies: sin, death, and futility. The Servant would come to set things right for all who would welcome His rule over their lives, including you and me.

There are four "Servant Songs" in Isaiah. Today’s first lesson is one of them. As we consider this passage, along with our Gospel lesson for today, I want you to keep the image of an hourglass in your mind. It may help us to understand some of that confusing richness we encounter in Isaiah this morning.

When you stand an hourglass on end, it’s wide at the top, tapers to a narrow shape in the middle, then widens out again at the bottom. If we mapped God’s mission to bring humanity new life, from say, the moment He delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt about 1000 years before Isaiah, followed it through Jesus some 600 years after Isaiah, and then to the Church today, our map would look like an hourglass. The top of the hourglass would be the descendants of Abraham, more numerous than the stars in the heavens, before the coming of the Servant. The bottom of the hourglass would be chock-full of those who are spiritual descendants of Abraham through their faith in the Servant foretold by Isaiah.

Both ancient Israel and the Church of Jesus Christ were called to be God’s “light to the nations.” But, in a phrase used by Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten, “the flaming center” of history, the One Whose life is the light of the world, the narrow center of the hourglass, is Jesus Christ.

All the voices that spoke for God before Christ was born pointed ultimately to Him as our only hope for forgiveness and life, the Messiah who would come into our world to set the lives of all who believe in Him aright.

“Long ago,” the preacher in Hebrews said to his fellow Jewish Christians sometime before 70AD, “God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son…”

Jesus, the Servant Messiah, Who suffered and died to erase sin and death as powers over our lives and rose again to rend eternity open for all who believe in Him, is God’s ultimate self-expression, His Word of love and power and restoration for fallen people and our fallen universe.

The Church is commissioned to share Christ’s light, to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and to do so by being completely focused on Jesus, the Servant King. The Celebrate introduction to our lesson from Isaiah that Ann read a few moments ago is right as far as it goes. It identifies the Servant as Israel, saying that in the lesson “the Servant Israel speaks for herself.” But that’s only part of the story.

One of my favorite seminary professors, Tryg Skarsten, once recalled looking out onto a harbor at night. A large light, visible for miles, stood high over the harbor to guide ships coming in. Strung out into the harbor for thousands of yards were smaller lights. Each of them, Tryg said, were connected to the larger light from which they derived their power. Ancient Israel was God’s servant, of course, and it was a light to the nations. But it derived its capacity to be God’s servant and its power to be God’s light for the world from the true flaming center of life, “the Light of the world,” Jesus, to Whose coming Isaiah and other prophets pointed.

That’s why contemporary New Testament scholar Christine Roy Yoder writes that Christian readers cannot read our first lesson without seeing Jesus. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts. Read along with me silently:

Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. 

Jesus, as the Gospel of John tells us, is “the Word of God.” He is God’s Word to you and me. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus tell us that every one of our lives is of infinite value to God. God so loved you—you personally and individually—that He sent Jesus to take your punishment for sin so that all who turn from sin and take Him as the Lord and ruler over their lives, trusting their lives to Him, will have life forever with God.

If you’re anything like me, you don’t mind the message of the salvation Jesus brings, but you may not be so hot to make Him the ruler over your life. Jesus as Lord will sometimes tell us to do things we don't want to do. He'll sometimes tell us not to do things that we want to do. Let’s face it: Jesus can cramp our styles. When Jesus was eight days old, a man named Simeon spotted Him in the temple in Jerusalem, where Joseph and Mary had taken the baby to be presented to God. Simeon declared that Jesus was exactly Who Israel (and he himself) had been waiting for at the top of the hourglass. Simeon quoted verse 6 of our lesson from Isaiah, calling Jesus “a light” for the nations. But then, Simeon told Mary, Jesus’ mother, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed…”

Will we take Jesus as our King as well as our Savior or will we oppose Him?

Will we trust or selectively ignore the Word of God in the Bible and the Word of God enfleshed in Jesus?

Those aren’t abstract philosophical questions, but urgent ones on which our eternal destinies hang.

True story: Santosh was a blacksmith in India. He was part of the Dalit, the untouchables, the permanent underclass who are denied access to food, housing, clothing, education, or health care. Along with most of his people, Santosh worshiped his Biskarma (the tools he used in his work), thinking that it was them that gave him life. And Santosh led a miserable life, wasting what little money he had on getting drunk. When he came home, he beat his wife and children, who dreaded his very presence in their home.

One day, two missionaries who saw how troubled he was, invited Santosh to church. Surprisingly, the next Sunday, he took a place in the back of the sanctuary. The music was in his language and in a style he liked. Santosh kept coming back, intrigued by the word about Jesus sandwiched between this music he enjoyed.

Eventually, he gave his life to Christ and wanted to share the Good News about Him with his fellow untouchables. With the missionaries’ help, he got a scholarship to study at a Bible college. The day before he was to leave for college, a large group of villagers confronted Santosh. They threatened to beat him if he didn’t return to the worship of Biskarma and renounced his faith in Christ. Santosh didn't back down, knowing that Jesus had saved him not only from sin and death, but from the meaningless life that had driven him to drink.

After Santosh went to Bible college, the villagers threatened Santosh’s family and they eventually had to be moved to safety with him. Today, Santosh is the pastor of a thriving congregation that bravely (and joyfully) invites other untouchables to come and see and follow Jesus.

In the world and even in the Church, Jesus and His Word are signs that are spoken against. That’s no surprise. That’s because, as Hebrews 4:12, says, “…the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the One to Whom we must render an account.”

Jesus is the Lord Who said that while we are saved by grace, He had not removed a single one of the Ten Commandments. If we show contempt for the commands in God’s Word, we also show contempt for Him Who is God’s Word. We cannot take Jesus as Savior if we don’t also take Him as Lord. We cannot be free of what enslaves us until we surrender to Christ the way Santosh did. 

Now, look at Isaiah 49:6 on the Celebrate insert. These are words from God the Father:

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Israel was not the incubator for the Servant Jesus just for itself. Through Jesus Christ, the truth of God’s love for all humanity and His offer of eternal reconciliation with God, would go global. And that’s where you and I come in.

In our Gospel lesson today, when two disciples of John the Baptist, one of them Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, wanted to learn more about Jesus, Jesus issued a simple invitation, “Come and see.”

Later, a man named Philip told someone named Nathanael that he had found the long-awaited Servant-King. Nathanael was skeptical. Philip didn’t argue. He just said, “Come and see.”

Simon, Philip, you, and I are all at the bottom of the hourglass of God's salvation history. We are the small lights ignited by the cross and empty tomb of Jesus and by the Holy Spirit with whom baptized Christians are filled. Our power for living comes from Jesus. Jesus tells us to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven,” words we use in our Baptismal service.

The Servant Jesus came to save a dying world from itself, to save us from ourselves. He invites all to follow Him, be reconciled to God, and live eternally.

This week, this month, this year, be a light that helps others to come and see Jesus. God wants to fill eternity with people who have turned from sin and death and turned to Jesus for life and eternity. You are the lights God wants to use to guide others to the true Light of the nations, Jesus Christ. Jesus wants to fill His kingdom with those who have come and seen and believed in Him.

So, this is my simple plea to you this morning:

• Share Jesus. 
• Share Jesus with words and actions. 
• Share Jesus with honesty, not as self-righteous egotists, but as forgiven sinners grateful for the grace of God. 
• Share Jesus so that all the world will come and see what a wonderful God we have! 
• Share Jesus so that all the world will have peace with God and with themselves today and in eternity.

Amen!

Seeing Jesus at Panera

On Thursday night, my wife Ann and I ate at Panera in Lancaster. Through their rewards program, we'd accumulated enough credits to order a free drink. Ann only wanted a water and told me to pick something out. I was in the mood for a smoothie and ordered one flavor, only to change my mind about the flavor a nanosecond or two later. We payed for our order and took a table.

Not long after, the manager came to us with two smoothies. "I heard you order the one smoothie and had already started making it when you changed your mind. You can have the second one on us!"

Now think about that. The first one was free and the second one was on the restaurant. How often does a deal like that come along?

I was sliding one of the smoothies across the table to Ann when she pointed to the most adorable little girl, sitting with her parents at a table nearby, and said, "You could give it to her."

Ann had overheard the little girl's mom say that she was going back up to the cashier to order a smoothie for her daughter as a dessert. I offered my free gift to them and then, for the next fifteen minutes or so, enjoyed watching this twenty-one-month old sip and pour and thoroughly enjoy her smoothie, freezer headaches and all.

If Ann hadn't noticed this family sitting not more than five feet away, we wouldn't have experienced any of that joy or the brief discussion we had with this young couple.

How much joy do we miss out on in life because we're so wrapped up in our little cocoons of routine and selfishness that we don't see others? Speaking for myself, it happens a lot.

Yet, I believe that we are blessed to be blessings. The love of God in us grows the more we attend to others and give away His love.

That was underscored for me when the dad told us, "That was such a blessing to us. Thanks." When he said that, I thanked God for arranging this little rendezvous and for inspiring Ann to keep her antenna attuned to others even when I'm blind to those around me.

There's a praise song we've sung both at my former parish, Friendship in the Cincinnati area and here at Saint Matthew in Logan. It goes like this:

Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus
To reach out and touch Him
And say that we love Him
Open our ears, Lord
And help us to listen
Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus

Jesus says that we see Him in those around us, in those we serve. Maybe one reason I don't see Jesus as often as I could is that I don't serve others as often as I should. 

I'm thankful that Ann opened my eyes on Thursday night. I got to see Jesus again in a Panera! How cool is that?

Remember

[This was shared during the funeral for Dorothy, a lifelong member of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, earlier today.]

Romans 8:31-39
Psalm 23
Luke 12:22-31
There are really only two legacies any of us ever leave behind, only two things we can give others that last.

One is love. The love that Dorothy bestowed on and shared with her family and friends didn’t end on Tuesday. The urgent desire of her family to be with her even in her final hours as she slept and occasionally fluttered her eyes is testimony to the love that was her gift to you, a gift you still possess and always will.

The only other enduring legacy we can bestow on others is our personal testimony about the truth of Jesus Christ. It’s a testimony we can give every day of our lives in words and actions.

The most powerful testimonies don’t usually come from people called to climb into pulpits and proclaim God’s Word. They more often come from people we see regularly, people who live their faith in the everyday places of life.

These testimonies can even come from grandmas who tell their grandchildren as they face new challenges and temptations in life, “Don’t forget who you are.” That, I’m told is something Dorothy sometimes told you, Ben and Sarah.

It seems to me that there are several ways you could have heard that simple admonition.

First, you could have heard it as a reminder of who you are in the eyes of God. Like your grandmother before you, you were baptized at the Saint Matthew Lutheran Church baptismal font. Water was poured over your head in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God was invoked, and, without any qualifications or merit on your parts, God claimed you as His own.

The title “child of God” is a privilege that, again, like your grandmother before you, you claimed as your own when you affirmed your baptismal covenant at the time of your confirmation. First John 3:1 says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Today, I invite you to remember, Ben and Sarah, and all who mourn Dorothy’s passing, that being a child of God is a tremendous privilege. When we children of God grieve, the God Who conquered death (and sin and futility in our lives) through the death and resurrection of Jesus, can be beside us. When we wander from God’s will, as we are all prone to do, God is ready and willing to welcome us into His embrace. When we rejoice, God rejoices with us. Remember who you are.

Of course, there’s another side of that admonition. It was no doubt what Dorothy immediately had in mind when she said it to her grandchildren. Remember that you were raised in a Christian home. Remember God’s commandments. Remember the love and respect you are expected to bear toward not just family members and people you like, but toward those you dislike or those who dislike you, toward strangers. Remember God’s grace and that it is, as we sang a few moments ago, amazing.

But remember too that God’s grace isn’t cheap. To give you His presence today and His promise of tomorrow cost Jesus Christ His life on the cross and that came after He underwent intense agony and the abandonment of His friends.

The very least we owe God in response to this free gift of everlasting life for all who believe in Christ are lives of obedience and love and daily repentance, lives in which we seek, however imperfectly, to tell God thank You and to display His presence in our lives.

Remember who you are.  Dorothy has left you with powerful legacies: love, the great way of living, and the good news of new life through Jesus Christ.

But today, I want to add something to Dorothy’s admonition. Remember who you are, to be sure. But also, remember who she was. Some of who she was comes through in two of the Bible passages we’ve read today, passages I’m told were among her favorites.

One is Psalm 23. In it, the psalmist, speaking as a child of God, proclaims confidently, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for His Name’s sake.”

Because of the heart God has revealed He has for us through Jesus Christ, we can cling to these confident words. As children of God, we can trust, as our lesson from Romans reminds us, that nothing…nothing…in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Another of Dorothy’s favorite passages is found in Luke 12, where Jesus said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” And then Jesus says, “If God so clothes the grass of the field…alive today and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more will He clothe you—you of little faith.”

Martin Luther, the great reformer of the sixteenth century, used to talk about what it will be like when we all come into the presence of God for judgment. Considering all the passages of Scripture that speak of judgment, Luther says that God will look upon two groups of sinners, the whole human race in one of these two groups.

When God looks on one group, they’ll stand naked in their sins, living in the separation from God and self-will they chose while living here on earth.

But when God looks on the other group, He won’t see their sins—though they will be just as numerous and horrible as those committed by those in the first group.

Instead, in this latter group, God will see people clothed in Jesus, people who, in this life, claimed their baptismal heritage and trusted in Jesus for life and hope and peace even in life’s dark valleys.

When Dorothy came into the immediate presence of God on Tuesday morning, she was clothed as she had always been in the righteousness of Jesus. We do a lot of unnecessary toiling and spinning in life. But all we need is Jesus Christ!. Dorothy knew that. She was a child of God. That’s who she was. And that’s why I’m confident that when God met her at 6:30AM on Tuesday morning, the Lord said to her, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Father.”

I didn’t get to know Dorothy the way I would have had I arrived at Saint Matthew years before. But despite dementia, something of her essential self came through in our monthly visits. And much of who she was can be seen in the rich legacies of love and faith she bestowed on her family. That’s why today I know that Dorothy wants all those who are here this morning to one day hear those same words—“Well done, good and faithful servant!”—from God.

And we can hear them, joining her and all the saints in eternity, if we will simply remember who we are as children of God, saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus and our faith in Him.

And whenever you need inspiration, remember who Dorothy was.

If you can commit yourself to remember these two things in all the days that lie ahead in your lives, no matter what, your joy will be full and you will never go wrong. Amen

Mother Teresa

...right again.

"Jesus wants your heart."

Here.

"Show-off" Christianity...

...is not Christianity.

"Hit me with your best shot"

That's the title of Pastor Jennifer Johnson's reflections on Isaiah 49:1-7. When do pastors risk being prophetic and when do we keep the arrows hidden away?

A Prayer from Saint Augustine

It's appropriate for this coming Sunday, the second one after Epiphany:

O God, the light of the hearts that see You, the life of the souls that love You, the strength of the minds that seek You; from Whom to turn is to fall, to Whom to turn is to rise and in Whom to abide is to stand fast forever: grant us Your blessing as we offer up our confessions and supplications, and though we are unworthy to approach You or to ask anything of You at all, hear and forgive us, for the sake of our great High Priest and only Mediator, Jesus Christ Your Son. Amen

Source: Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings, Lectionary Cycle A (General Editor: Thomas C. Oden; Edited by Cindy Crosby)

(Saint Augustine)

"Called from..."

Yesterday's installment from Our Daily Bread makes a great point: God not only calls us to things; God also calls us away from things.

And the things that God calls us away from can be far more frightening than the things that God calls us to. After all, rightly and wrongly, we may derive security and even fulfillment from the things God calls us to leave behind.

But God wants us to rely only on Him for security, fulfillment, and life, and to thereby learn from the Author of life what it means to truly live. That's a hard thing to learn, something I seem to need to be retaught all the time. But it's a good thing to learn.

The word of the day...

...is quondam. It means "erstwhile, former, once, onetime." I don't remember ever seeing the word until I ran across it in Ron Chernow's fantastic new biography of George Washington the other day.

He uses it in his discussion of a threat to Washington's first bid for re-election to the Colonial Era-Virginia House of Burgesses in 1761. That challenge came from a former fellow officer of Washington's from the French and Indian War, Adam Stephen. In the course of the campaign, Chernow writes:

Washington...castigated his quondam friend Stephen as "designing" and unprincipled.

Quondam is a curiosity. But I think that it's an unnecessary word. Why use quondam when former or once will do?

"I am a servant of the Lord. I am a servant of the Lord."

I have to confess that, while driving back to town after a nursing home visit today, I cringed as I heard newly-inaugurated Ohio governor John Kasich speak those words.

One reason for that is that, as a Christian, I've become wary of politicians who invoke the Name of God in their speeches. Their invocations often seem like bones thrown to their religious constituents, instead of genuine expressions of faith. And if they are "bones," then from a Biblical perspective, they violate the Second Commandment's prohibition against taking God's Name in vain. (Vain meaning for nothing.)

But I didn't click off the radio in disgust today. I kept listening to Kasich. What I heard next convinced me that he was sincere. Some may find what he said hokey or even offensive. But I found it encouraging and impressive.

I am a servant of the Lord. I am a servant of the Lord.

He has opened doors all of my life. The Lord has. He has pushed me over the mountain this time. I don't know why, but I have no doubt that he has. I've spent a large amount of my life trying to figure out how he works.

I got a message one day driving up—over by the Hoover Reservoir. It wasn't a telegram. It wasn't a phone call. It wasn't a voice. But it was clear. "Stop trying to figure it out, I'm not going to tell you."

But here's what I do know: He expects his servants to use their talents. He expects all of us, because all of us have been created with a special talent. The key to life is to use those talents, even when at times it seems daunting and it seems impossible. But boy, I'll tell you what, no pounding on the chest. No pointing in the sky. He wants us always to remember where these talents came from. He reminds us that no one person is superior to any other person because in his eyes, all are equal.

You know, sometimes I see the scrub lady, and I realize that in the next life, she's likely to have a bigger crown than I could ever dream of. Don't go past them quickly; you could be passing an angel. Quiet reflection is necessary every day so as not to get lost.

D. L. Moody wrote about a Civil War general who was facing a huge battle. He prayed for two hours. His subordinates said to him, "How could you spend two hours praying before this big battle?" He said, "How could I not." Prayer is necessary.

Truthfully, I've never been impressed with Kasich as a communicator. Part of that may be the way we all tend to underestimate our peers. I've never met Kasich, but we were on campus at Ohio State as undergraduates at the same time, both involved in student politics. He ran unsuccessfully for vice president of the Undergraduate Student Government on one slate when I, after a time as vice president of the Off Campus Students' Association, was on the ballot for student assembly, on a ticket led by Michael White. (White later became mayor of Cleveland. I wasn't elected to the assembly because I withdrew from the race just before the vote was taken; I had realized I needed to take on a new part-time job to generate the money I needed to pay my tuition. But, though it ended my time in student politics, that surrender to necessity turned out to be a very good thing for me because the job I took--on the loading dock of a department store--brought my wife-to-be, then working on the sales floor of that store, into my life!) Even after our college years, Kasich was never known for his rhetorical skills either as a state senator or as a nine-term member of Congress.

And I still don't think Kasich is a great orator. But today he seemed to speak from the heart and I liked what he said.

Of course, what we do speaks louder than what we say. And Kasich's professed faith will be sorely challenged as he prepares a new biennial budget in the face of a likely $8-billion state revenue shortfall. Everyone will be watching what he does.

Whether he means it or not, prayer will be the wisest way for him to suit up for all the tough actions he'll need to undertake in the next four years.

[You can find the whole text of Kasich's speech here.]

What disturbed you most in 2010?

I like this from today's edition of Pastor Glen VanderKloot's daily inspirations.

God Does Not Help Those Who Help Themselves

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

Isaiah 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

Today, if you remember nothing else from this sermon, I beg you to remember this: God does not help those who help themselves.

God does NOT help those who help themselves. That’s the message this morning. And while I’m going to delve into all of our Bible lessons for today, our theme verse for this morning could well be Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 5 to 7, which I hope you’ll read aloud with me now. You can find it on page 360 of the pew Bibles. Read aloud with me, please:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. 

God does not help those who help themselves.

Instead...

• God helps those who surrender to God. 
• God helps those who place their past sins, their present lives, and their future destinies in His hands. 
• God helps those who fear, respect, and honor God. 
• God helps those who strive through daily repentance and renewal to live according to God’s will. 
• God helps those who believe in Jesus Christ. 
• God helps those who trust in the Bible as God’s perfect word for us. 
• God helps those who acknowledge their helplessness and turn to God for help. 
• God helps those who see living as a sacred privilege and an undeserved pleasure, even when racked by pain or trouble, and so seek to live lives of tenacious effort and strenuous service. 
• God helps those who draw life, fulfillment, direction, and hope from Him alone.

God does not help those who help themselves. Ancient Israel should have known that. For four hundred thirty years God’s people were slaves in Egypt, generation upon generation under the master’s whip. Yet God heard the cries of His people and against all odds, God delivered them from Egypt and then, despite their constant faithlessness and whining during a forty-year journey that should have taken just eleven days, God gave them a promised land.*

God helped this people not because there was anything special about Abraham and his descendants. One of ancient Israel’s greatest leaders was Moses, who told the people in a sermon delivered shortly before God took them from the desert into that promised land:

It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery…[Deuteronomy 7:7-8]

God loved Israel, the Bible basically says, because God loved Israel. It doesn't make sense; but love doesn't have to make sense!

God chose Israel so that somewhere on Planet Earth, there would be a people who knew Him intimately and could be, in a phrase found in today’s first lesson, “a light to the nations” and, as attested in many places in the Old Testament, the incubator, the birthing room, of the Messiah, God's anointed King of kings. This Messiah would bring God’s kingdom to people around the world who will trust in Him. God delivered Israel because He had big plans for them. God delivered Israel because He had big plans for the world. God delivered Israel because He had big plans for you and me.

Now, when a people have been delivered by God, there are several ways they can react. As you know—and I don’t mean for this to be a hobby horse, after my heart attack last June, my cardiologist and nurses told me two things. One is that they couldn’t explain why I’d had a heart attack. The other is that couldn’t explain why I survived my heart attack. Forty percent of my heart had been damaged. Heart function was well below the danger level. Today, I can be faulted for being fanatical about my diet, daily exercise, and getting down time. But I honestly feel that God has delivered me and I want desperately to respond to that deliverance through a life of faithfulness, gratitude, witnessing, and prayer. There is nothing about me—an imperfect sinning human being—that deserves God’s help. And only time will tell if I will lean on God to sustain this grateful life style. But this is one way to respond to deliverance and grace.

The more common way for us all to react to God’s deliverance—and the one of which I have been guilty most of my life—is to take it and God for granted. Or to forget about it and move on as though God weren’t there.

Despite all of the incredible blessings God had showered on His undeserving people, this path—the path of self-will and self-reliance—was the one that Israel took.

It was the path against which the prophets were sent to warn God’s people. The prophets called them to repent of their reliance on wealth, power, alliances with foreign nations, and the worship of false gods and to instead turn again in utter dependence on God.

Jesus, God in the flesh, later gave the same message to all of us. He says that to gain life, we must enter the kingdom of God by the narrowest gates—by faith in Him alone—for “the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

With prosperity and power, God’s ancient people wandered from their focus on God. The prophets told them that to continue their wandering would lead to destruction. As we mentioned last week, it did. Repeatedly, Israel was conquered, enslaved, and exiled by foreign nations.

When we rely on anything or anyone but God, it means that the world can do its worst to us.

When we rely on God, even when the world still does its worst to us, we live in the constant confidence that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We know that through Jesus Christ, we belong to God forever!

Our first lesson for today comes from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Most scholars agree that the the section of Isaiah from which our lesson is drawn was not written by the original Isaiah. In ancient times, it was acceptable for a student or follower of a great teacher to write in that teacher’s name. It’s thought that the author of at least chapters 40 through 53 of this 66-chapter book were written by someone the scholars call Deutero- or Second-Isaiah. (You might think of him as Isaiah, Junior.)

Deutero-Isaiah began recording his prophecies not long before the fall of the Babylonian Empire on October 29, 539BC. Sometime before, God’s people had been conquered by Babylon. When Cyrus, the king of Persia, a nation located in what is today Iran, conquered Babylon, it spelled freedom for God’s people from their slavemasters. This is precisely what Deutero-Isaiah had earlier reported that God had revealed to him. He even went so far as to say that Cyrus, an aggressive warrior king whose life was totally contrary to the life of faith in God, had been anointed by God to set Israel free.

But mingled with Deutero-Isaiah’s prophecies about Israel’s immediate future are what modern scholars call the Servant Songs. There are four of them. A portion of one of them makes up our first lesson, Isaiah 42:1-9.

In the Servant Songs, Isaiah records what God had taught him about the Anointed One—Messiah in his language of Hebrew, Christos or Christ in the New Testament’s language of Greek.

Would you pull out the Celebrate insert and look at the lesson? This is what God told Isaiah to tell us about the Savior He would send to be the narrow way by which we all can be forgiven our sins, reconciled with God, and have new, eternal lives free of sin and death and futility. Read along with me silently, please:

• “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights..." [On this Sunday when we remember the baptism of our Lord, when a voice from heaven spoke words like these of Jesus, we should have no doubt of Who the promised servant was and is: God enfleshed, Jesus the Anointed One.];
• "I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations..." [He will free repentant sinners who believe in Him not only in Israel, but all over the world, including Logan, Ohio.].
• "He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street..." [Unlike warriors who bark as they conquer, Jesus will conquer through servanthood and love.]
• "a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench..." [One scholar has said that the reed and the burning wick represent those who may seem strong on the outside, but are weak on the inside. A reed may be standing, but a bruise may threaten its life. A wick may be burning, but nearly burned out. This past week, many of us have watched the story of Ted Williams, the homeless recovering addict with a golden voice, who flew to New York to be given a second chance in life. I hope that Williams, surely a reed bruised by his life and by his own actions, will have the strength to resist the temptations of fame and all that goes with it. He can have that strength if he turns to the Servant-Messiah. To all of we bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks, God promises that unlike warriors such as Cyrus or demanding bosses or an unforgiving world, the Servant Jesus will not come to destroy us, but to restore us. That’s a wonderful promise!] ;
• "...he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching." [Jesus, the Savior Who would set His face toward Jerusalem and His cross, Second Isaiah says, would not give up until He had gone to the cross and to His resurrection so that, as our lesson from Acts tells us, “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins [and with that God gives new life] through His Name.”]

Deutero-Isaiah, nearly six centuries before Jesus’ birth, pointed to a time when people weary with trying to face life by helping themselves would be helped, saved, delivered, and made new by God.

He doesn’t mention Jesus’ Name. As one contemporary scholar has said, the Servant’s Name isn’t given, but “his activity and character” are. And it’s more than just coincidence that the One Who came to be baptized by John the Baptist at the River Jordan, Who insisted despite His own sinlessness, on turning to the Father in the same way He one day would command that all we sinful people must in order to be saved, this Jesus, engaged in all the activities and exhibited all the character that our lesson from Isaiah associates with the Servant Messiah.

God doesn’t help those who help themselves. God helps those who take God’s help. And His help is named Jesus.

How many of you need God’s help this morning?

Trust only in Jesus and never lean on your own understanding. Fear him, trust in Him, depend on Him, and you will have all the help you’ll ever need for all eternity. Amen! 

*You can learn more about this by reading the Old Testament books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua.

How's Your Conscience?

Today's installment of Our Daily Bread prompted these thoughts.

If our consciences never bother us, it's a sign that we've wandered far from God. It means that forgetting God's design for human beings has become so habitual to us and we've grown so narcissistic that we no longer know or respond to the truth of God's revealed will.

If our consciences regularly bother us, chances are we have a good relationship with God and live in daily repentance and renewal. A conscience held captive to God's Word is like a spiritual GPS by which God turns us back to Him and to the life God gives to those surrendered to Jesus Christ.

If our consciences always bother us, in spite of confession in Jesus' Name, we're allowing the devil, the accuser, to speak louder to us than God's Word. God wants to forgive and be reconciled to us. God wants us to believe His Word when He forgives our sins.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

"God moved first. We didn't invent love, but we can pass it along."

See here.

"Welcome to the New Year!"

Here.

"May your year be blessed with a multitude of camels!"

Unique new year's greetings from Pastor Deb Grant.

Hijacked ELCA Wants to Play Hardball

If you missed this, you may be interested: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)  is starting to play hardball with congregations wanting to consider leaving the body and join other Lutheran groups.

To me, it's not a good sign when a church body considers resorting to coercive means (the law, as Scripture would call it), to force people to stay in relationship with it, in spite of people's qualms about the errors and heresies into which the body has fallen.

Many Lutherans believe that the only way for them to step back into Christ's Church--which exists anywhere the Gospel is rightly proclaimed and the sacraments are rightly administered, according to the Augsburg Confession, a basic statement of faith for Lutherans--is to leave the ELCA.

I want to reform the ELCA. And I pray for it and work for it. But, the signs increase daily that instead of repenting for its many departures from the historic Christian faith and the authority of God's Word, the Bible, that the leadership who have hijacked the body intend to pursue their agenda, moving the ELCA ever further away from the cornerstone Lutheran confessional principles, "Grace alone. Faith alone. Word alone."

They intend to dig in and force all who feel they can no longer be attached to a body that has fallen into grievous error, to stay. Why?

It's sad at so many levels.

UPDATE: Earlier today, my son Philip, shared this quote from one of the ancient church fathers, Athanasius, with me. It's utterly appropo:

"Vainly then do they run about with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the faith's sake; for divine Scripture is sufficient above all things; but if a Council be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the Fathers, for the Nicene Bishops did not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrine so exactly, that persons reading their words honestly, cannot but be reminded by them of the religion towards Christ, announced in divine Scripture" (Athanasius, de Synodis, Part 1, 6) 

Human Trafficking Awareness Day, January 12

There are more people being bought and sold as slaves today than at any time in human history. Often, minors are the victims of sex trafficking. This event in Columbus, co-sponsored by the Salvation Army, is designed to help inform people about the depths of this problem and what action steps can be taken. Presumably, it will also give people a lot to pray about!

Human trafficking must be stopped!

[Click on image to enlarge.]

"We were created to be in relationship with God..."

"...and when we take that relationship to an intimate level, it bonds us not only to His presence but also to His strength." Read the whole thing.

Turn to God...and Live!

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

Jeremiah 31:7-14
Listen to this little scenario, taken from the main reading book our Catechism students are using right now:

Imagine that it is Christmas morning and you are in church. You’ve had a good Christmas Eve and received many presents. The church is beautifully decorated and everyone seems…happy…Suddenly, in the middle of the sermon, a stranger that you have never seen before gets up and starts yelling at the pastor. He runs down the center aisle to the front of the church… The stranger begins to preach. But it is not sweet talk about the baby Jesus. Rather, he points his finger and says we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for spending so much money on Christmas presents when there are people starving to death in our community. He says that God is angry with us because we are concerned only about ourselves. We are phonies and God will not listen to our prayers or songs until we take care of those who are lonely or poor or jobless. His message is, "Repent and return to God.”

This, folks, is what life with the prophets of Old Testament times was like for God’s people, the Jews!

By the time God sent the great prophets whose names give titles to some of the Bible’s most important books, God’s people had settled into life in the promised land. The mortgage was paid on the temple dedicated to worshiping and offering sacrifices to God and, for the most part, things were going well. God’s people were on cruise control.

But the prophets reminded them that even if they sang pretty songs and did everything exactly as the hymnbooks told them when they worshiped, yet still treated others unjustly, things were not going well.

If they celebrated religious holidays, but still ignored the revealed will of God for their relationships, their finances, their possessions, their business dealings, their bodies, or their sex lives, things were not going well.

In the original Hebrew in which most of the Old Testament is written, the root word for prophet means called (by God). Prophets were called by God to remind Israel of uncomfortable truths, truths that people on cruise control would rather not hear.

Most especially, they were to remind God’s people of a truth put well by a contemporary Christian composer, Randy Stonehill. He sings:

You'll be tempted, tried and tested
There'll be wars the devil wins
But God's love is not a license to lie there in your sins
He understands the human heart
His mercy is complete
But His grace was not intended
As a place to wipe your feet. 

To flout or ignore the will of God, as we are prone to do even in the contemporary Church, where we often treat God less as our Lord than as our buddy, is dangerous. We Christians, as Martin Luther reminds us in The Small Catechism, are to drown our sinful selves in daily repentance in Jesus’ Name.

When we fail to repent regularly, we give sin and the devil toeholds in our lives, we turn Christ into a doormat, and we risk spending eternity in hell.

Centuries after the Old Testament prophets preached and taught, after God had entered the world in the person of Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul would act on the prophetic impulse when he wrote,

Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit. (Galatians 6:7-9, The Message)

The ancient prophets were sent to present God's message to His people, “Don’t quit! Don’t quit turning to me for life. Don’t quit loving God and loving neighbor. Don’t quit living in the truth that only comes from Me.”

We North American Christians could spend some time in this new year paying special heed to the words of the prophets.

Like ancient Israel, we can be materialistic and selfish.

We too can think the world should revolve around us.

We too can take God for granted.

We too can look, act, and sound more like the world than like people of God.

We too, fall into error, justifying sexual behaviors God calls sin.

Maybe the most challenging of the Old Testament prophets was Jeremiah, the writer of our first lesson. Jeremiah lived about 600 years before the birth of Jesus and had a ministry that lasted some forty years. He told his countrymen that unless they repented, turning away from their injustices to others, their religious hypocrisy, and their unethical behavior, God would cause their Babylonian neighbors to the north to sweep down on them. Babylon would conquer them, destroy their armies and their temple, and turn the citizens into vassals.

God's people refused to heed Jeremiah’s warnings. When Babylon conquered Judah in 587BC, many of God's people were taken prisoner and sent back to Babylon as slaves. The eyes of the king were gouged out and he was sent in utter humiliation to Babylon. Through Babylon, God punished His people for their continued defiance of His will. In the years before these events unfolded, this was precisely what Jeremiah had warned would happen.

You can imagine how welcome Jeremiah’s sermons were! When you’re on cruise control, you don’t want God getting in the way.

But why would God let people who worshiped Him and claimed to be believers be subjected to slavery and exile?

The answer is simple: While you and I are interested in lives of comfort and ease; God is more interested in shaping our characters.

While we’re interested in getting advantages in this fleeting life, God is concerned with righting us for eternal life.

When the pursuit of happiness becomes believers’ primary end, our characters are destroyed and we slog comfortably toward hell, away from God.

But when our lives are turned God-ward, comfort, pleasure, and happiness, along with things like purpose, hope, self-discipline, and joy, are byproducts, even when life in this imperfect world is difficult, challenging, or even, tragic.

Psalm 111 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.” Would that you and I would build our lives on the wisdom of a fearful respect of God!

Yet in the midst of Jeremiah’s stern prophetic oracles, we find a section of his book called the book of consolation or book of comfort. Our first lesson is drawn from this section of Jeremiah. In it, God reminds His people of His ultimate purpose for them, the reason behind His chastening, behind His orchestration of their humiliation at the hands of the Babylonians. Punishment would not be the end of their story!

Pull out the Celebrate inserts, please, and look at our lesson, Jeremiah 31:7-14. Scholars tell us that the text can be divided into three sections:

• Verses 7-9 are addressed to the Israelites who have been scattered by their conquerors. God promises that He will bring them back to the promised land, including the blind, the lame, and pregnant women, those often overlooked by a hurried world. There is nowhere that God’s love, forgiveness, and help cannot reach us! Listen: When we place ourselves in the hands of God, no adversity is too great, no mountain is too steep. God’s love is bigger than anything you and I will confront in this life or the next! 
• Verses 10 to 12 are addressed to the nations of the world. The power of God’s Word stretches to the farthest reaches of the universe, from the Pakistani woman imprisoned for her faith in Christ to any member of this congregation confronting illness or uncertainty. God bears favor for those who trust in Him, wherever they may be!
• Verses 13 to 14 describe the rejoicing that will happen when God restores the fallen. For we Christians, it’s a preview of what heaven will be like, when all who have repented and believed in Christ, enduring in faith, as God welcomes us home!

God is intent on making things right with us, on helping us to be the joyous children of God we were made to be. I hope that you believe that this morning!

Let me assure you that you can believe in God’s good will for you today!

True story: Amalia was a woman who had been through hell and back, from growing up in a violent home in which her father molested her to drug addiction, from alcoholism and poverty to being a negligent parent herself.

Yet God found Amalia! She heard the good news of the Savior Jesus, Who died and rose to set sinners right with God. She repented for her sins and trusted in Christ for His forgiveness and, despite all the temptations and old habits that dogged her, got off to a great start on her Christian life. Then, one Sunday, Amalia didn’t show up for worship. Her pastor, Jim Cymbala, was concerned. He silently prayed, “O God, watch over Amalia.”

The next Sunday, Amalia was back in worship. After the service, Cymbala asked where she had been the previous week. She’d had something to take care of, she said. She had to go to the man who had set her life down its hellish path, her father.

She had found him living in upstate New York. What did she say to this man? Amalia explained that she forced her father to put down his beer and speak seriously with her. She said she’d been thinking about those years when he abused her. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he tried butting in. “That was a long time ago. We don’t need to talk about that now.” Amalia insisted that they did need to talk about it.

“It really hurt me," she told him, "and I wanted to kill you many times. But I came here this weekend to tell you that I’m a Christian now. I gave my heart to the Lord, and he changed my life…what you did was wrong. But I forgive you! God can change your life and forgive you, too…"

Amalia’s father squirmed in his chair and quickly changed the subject to superficial things. He didn’t want God to make him feel uncomfortable. But for Amalia, the weekend had been a triumph. She had let go of past hurts she didn’t earn or deserve and she was liberated to live!

God wants to liberate you to live, too!

Elsewhere in Jeremiah’s book, God says, “I know the plans I have for you..plans for your welfare and not your harm, to give you a future with hope.” In 2011, take God up on that promise for you!

Live each day in repentance and trust in Jesus Christ and watch how God turns your mourning into joy, your gladness into sorrow, and your doubts into unshakeable faith in the One Who died and rose to make you new and to give you an eternal future with God! Amen!