The most important question we will ever be asked to answer is one that Jesus asks in Matthew 16:15, "But who do you say that I am?"
For years, as an atheist, my answer to that question was that Jesus was a nice man. Yet when Jesus first asked it of His disciples, He spurned all answers but one. It came from a guy who often got things wrong, Simon Peter. He said: "You are the Messiah*, the Son of the living God."**
It's only when we trust that Jesus is Who He says He is--God in the flesh Who gives new, eternal life to all who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Him--that we see Jesus right and reap the benefits of His death and resurrection.
Jesus says that "flesh and blood"--things like reasoning or force or tradition or a goose bump-inducing experience--cannot lead us to a confession like that made by Peter. In the end, we're incapable, on our own, of believing the great news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus. We're incapable of confessing our faith in Jesus for Who He claimed to be: the Messiah, the Son of the living God. In a bad news world, it doesn't compute.
That's why in another part of the New Testament, we're told that, "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).
If you're open to believing, God can lead you to a confession like Simon Peter's...and to a new life with God that never ends.
If there's anything about Jesus you find attractive or compelling, then ask the God you're not ever certain there to help you to see Jesus as He demanded to be seen. It might change your life.
How do you answer the most important question you'll ever be asked?
*Messiah is the English transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning Anointed One. It's the term used by Jews who were expecting God to send a king to fully establish His kingdom and set the world right. The Greek translation of the world is Christos, which in English becomes Christ.
**In his language and culture, Peter's confession of Jesus as "the Son of the living God" did not mean that Jesus issued from God the Father in the way a human son issues from his mother and father. It means that Jesus is the very embodiment of God or, as the Nicene Creed puts it, "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God...not made."
Paul was getting at what it means to call Jesus the Son of God, when he wrote in the New Testament book of Colossians, "He is the image of the invisible God..." (Colossians 1:15).
Friday, July 01, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
"A Little Glitch"
A little glitch can have a big impact, even in our relationship with God. That's why we need Jesus Christ! (Thanks to Carol, a Saint Matthew member, for pointing me to this insightful devotion.)
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
"A Small Untangling"
Pastor Russ Saltzman, who I knew briefly as I began my seminary education and he completed his at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, talks about his involvement with a new congregation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) in Nebraska. His reflections on that experience and on the departure of some people from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that gave rise to it are interesting in themselves. The discussion in the comments is also worth reading.
Monday, June 27, 2011
What I'm Reading Right Now
I started reading 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper a few days ago. I read it while I'm speed-walking at night. While the writing can be a bit clunky, this true autobiographical tale about the experiences of a Texas Baptist pastor who was, by all signs, dead for ninety minutes following a horrible accident, will keep you turning the pages.
When my wife and I go any distance together by car, she drives and I read aloud to her from a book that we've chosen. Right now, I'm reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, a multi-character biography involving Abraham Lincoln and his chief rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination, all of whom Lincoln brought into his cabinet. I read it myself right after it was first published. I'm enjoying sharing it with my wife now.
Back in 2006, when I first read the Goodwin book, I posted this and this about it.
When my wife and I go any distance together by car, she drives and I read aloud to her from a book that we've chosen. Right now, I'm reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, a multi-character biography involving Abraham Lincoln and his chief rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination, all of whom Lincoln brought into his cabinet. I read it myself right after it was first published. I'm enjoying sharing it with my wife now.
Back in 2006, when I first read the Goodwin book, I posted this and this about it.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Keeping Your Gold Medal
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]
Matthew 10:40-42
Imagine for just a second that you’ve turned on your TV to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.
This is always a popular event. Athletes from around the world march into a stadium for the official starts of the games.
But imagine, for just a second, a different kind of opening ceremony this time. On the field are row after row of pedestals, all of equal height. At the appointed time, just as always, all the athletes march into the stadium. But today, all of them stand on a podium and every single one of them, before a single game, quarter, period, match, bout, round, scrimmage, or scrum has happened, receive gold medals.
Every single athlete.
Then imagine the announcer saying, “You’ve already received your medals. You don’t have to play to win them. The goal of these games is to play so that you don’t lose your reward.”
Grace, God’s undeserved favor, God’s charitable action for us to save us from sin and death and to give us life with Him for eternity, is a reward we cannot earn.
It’s a gold medal God wins for us.
The New Testament book of Romans says that “God proves his love for us, in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
Before we even knew we needed a Savior, Christ died and rose for us.
Before most of us were aware of it, we were claimed by God in Baptism as His very own children.
Salvation, eternal life, the promises of Christ to be with us—all these things are ours not because of any good thing we have done, but simply because God has acted for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Life for the Christian is about keeping the prize—the reward—we’ve already been given.
Today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew comes at the end of what scholars call Jesus’ missionary discourse. It takes up all of Matthew 10.
Jesus is sending His disciples throughout their native Judea with “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.”
They’re to proclaim the good news of new life that comes only through Jesus.
Most of Matthew 10 is taken up with Jesus telling the disciples how they’re to conduct themselves while on their mission. But in our verses, Jesus tells them (and all of us who follow Christ) what’s at stake for those who have the choice of receiving or rejecting the people like us who share Christ with them. Nothing less than the gold medal of God’s grace is at stake.
Please pull out the Celebrate inserts from the bulletin and turn to today’s Gospel lesson. It’s short. You can read along with me as I read it again:
The only way we can receive the gold medal of God’s grace is to position ourselves in a faith relationship with Jesus Christ.
The rewards of eternal life with God come to those with faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus famously told Nicodemus, ““For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Now, it’s precisely here that we Lutheran Christians often get ourselves into trouble. We turn faith into some proposition we agree to, no different from saying things like, “I believe that rainbows are pretty,” or, “I believe that LeBron James is the greatest basketball player since Michael Jordan.” In other words, we turn belief in Christ into nothing more than intellectual assent.
But, as I’ve pointed out before, even the devil believes that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Jesus says the true believers in Him will be known by their fruits. The seed of true faith in Christ won’t sprout as sinful actions, even though on this side of the grave, you and I will never shake ourselves of our inborn human orientation to sin.
Yet, as the New Testament book of James reminds us, “Faith without works [faith without evidence of the lordship of Jesus in your life] is dead.”
To believe in Jesus—to have faith in Jesus—is to trust in Him and when we trust in Jesus, it will show up in how we live our lives.
It’ll show up in the decisions we make.
It’ll show up in the service we render in His Name and in our willingness to give a witness for Him, even in something as simple and fun as our “This meal’s on us!” kindness outreach cards.
Faith in Jesus is active reliance on Him in our lives.
I once heard what this means illustrated by the picture of a canyon across which a tightrope is strung. Born sinners, we start out lives on one side of the canyon while on the other is God and the life God wants to give to us—His presence with us today and His promise of eternity for tomorrow. There’s a shuttle that crosses the canyon. It's a man on a unicyle who tells each of us, “Climb on my back. I’ve never lost a single person. Not one. But you’ve got to trust me to get you across. I’m the only way.”
Of course, in this homely illustration, Jesus is the unicyclist and faith is our dependence on Him to take us through the often scary, tragic, hard, and unknown places of our lives, beyond death and to a resurrected life with God.
When Jesus sent the disciples out in Matthew 10, they had no idea what following Him might entail. He was inviting them to climb on His back across all the canyons of life.
They found that the life to which Jesus called them wasn’t easy. Judas, of course, bugged out and betrayed Jesus before Jesus went to the cross. Of the remaining eleven, only John lived to an old age. The rest of them lost their earthly lives taking the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus into the world. They didn’t always get this discipleship thing right. But there was a direction in their lives, a purpose. Their faith was more than something they said on a Sunday morning. It was the way they lived their lives. Christ gave them the rewards of His grace before they set out on their lifelong mission of faithfulness to Christ. And by their faithful reliance on Christ, they did not lose their reward!
The same can be true for all of us, whatever our professions or social status or age.
Earlier in Matthew 10, Jesus warned the disciples that not everybody would welcome them when they lived out their faith in Him. Some would reject them. Some would persecute them. Some would kill them. Yet, He told them to persevere in their trust in Him anyway.
He tells us to do the same, even when it would be easier not to persevere in following Him.
In one of my former congregations, I was approached by a church member, a really good man, who said that he needed prayer. Competent and thorough in everything he did, he said that he’d reached a crossroads in his professional life. “Every day, Mark,” he told me, “I’m asked to do things that are shady or unethical. It’s made very clear that if I don’t do them, I not only won’t advance, I probably won’t even have a job. I’ve got a lot of years in this profession. I’ve always gotten good reviews. But I think that if I left my current position over qualms about what’s right and wrong from a faith standpoint, I wouldn’t even get a good reference. Would you pray for me?”
That man was being called by Christ to choose between the rewards offered by his career—financial security, chief among them—and the rewards of life with God already given to him at Baptism. To take Christ or kick Him away, that was his choice. That was a tough call.
If we're truly living for Christ though, we will face those kinds of tough calls often, too. Following Jesus isn’t easy. Steve Taylor, a Christian poet-musician, wrote some years back, “It’s harder to believe than not to.”
To trust in the rewards of a Savior you’ve never seen more than you trust in the rewards of things you can see, like financial security, comfort, or popularity, isn’t an easy or obvious choice. But when we come to the end of our lives and we stand before Jesus, the wisdom of living a life of holding onto the gold medal of Christ’s grace will shine through. Our Lord will look at us and say, “Well done, good and faithful slave. Inherit the kingdom God has prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” We'll know for certain then that all the things we've worked and slaved for in this life die, rot, and decay; only those filled with the new life that comes from Jesus Christ will last.
Jim Elliot was a missionary who was killed by the Waodoni people in Equador to whom he had gone to share Christ. It was only years after his death that most of the people in the place where he was martyred, including people who had murdered him, came to faith in Christ. Some would say that Elliot’s death was a waste. But he wouldn’t see it that way. Elliot’s aim was always to honor the God revealed in Jesus Christ for the reward of eternal life that comes to all with faith in Christ. He knew that those who spend their lives trying to earn the rewards (and the regard) of this world are the ones wasting their lives. As he once said of his call to live for and share Christ with others, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
You can throw away Christ’s grace by failing to trust in Him to help you live for Him every day of your life.
Or you can hold onto Him.
If we will hold onto Christ and follow Him in every part of our lives, we’ll experience real purpose in our lives.
If we’ll turn back to Him for forgiveness and new life every time we become aware of our sin, He will give us a lifetime of fresh starts.
And if we will devote ourselves to truly believing in and following Jesus, we will never lose our reward.
We will never lose our gold medals. Amen
Matthew 10:40-42
Imagine for just a second that you’ve turned on your TV to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.
This is always a popular event. Athletes from around the world march into a stadium for the official starts of the games.
But imagine, for just a second, a different kind of opening ceremony this time. On the field are row after row of pedestals, all of equal height. At the appointed time, just as always, all the athletes march into the stadium. But today, all of them stand on a podium and every single one of them, before a single game, quarter, period, match, bout, round, scrimmage, or scrum has happened, receive gold medals.
Every single athlete.
Then imagine the announcer saying, “You’ve already received your medals. You don’t have to play to win them. The goal of these games is to play so that you don’t lose your reward.”
Grace, God’s undeserved favor, God’s charitable action for us to save us from sin and death and to give us life with Him for eternity, is a reward we cannot earn.
It’s a gold medal God wins for us.
The New Testament book of Romans says that “God proves his love for us, in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
Before we even knew we needed a Savior, Christ died and rose for us.
Before most of us were aware of it, we were claimed by God in Baptism as His very own children.
Salvation, eternal life, the promises of Christ to be with us—all these things are ours not because of any good thing we have done, but simply because God has acted for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Life for the Christian is about keeping the prize—the reward—we’ve already been given.
Today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew comes at the end of what scholars call Jesus’ missionary discourse. It takes up all of Matthew 10.
Jesus is sending His disciples throughout their native Judea with “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.”
They’re to proclaim the good news of new life that comes only through Jesus.
Most of Matthew 10 is taken up with Jesus telling the disciples how they’re to conduct themselves while on their mission. But in our verses, Jesus tells them (and all of us who follow Christ) what’s at stake for those who have the choice of receiving or rejecting the people like us who share Christ with them. Nothing less than the gold medal of God’s grace is at stake.
Please pull out the Celebrate inserts from the bulletin and turn to today’s Gospel lesson. It’s short. You can read along with me as I read it again:
[Jesus says,] “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”If the Olympic athletes in our imagined opening ceremonies don’t stand on the podium, they can’t receive the gold medal. They have to be positioned to receive the reward they don’t deserve.
The only way we can receive the gold medal of God’s grace is to position ourselves in a faith relationship with Jesus Christ.
The rewards of eternal life with God come to those with faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus famously told Nicodemus, ““For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Now, it’s precisely here that we Lutheran Christians often get ourselves into trouble. We turn faith into some proposition we agree to, no different from saying things like, “I believe that rainbows are pretty,” or, “I believe that LeBron James is the greatest basketball player since Michael Jordan.” In other words, we turn belief in Christ into nothing more than intellectual assent.
But, as I’ve pointed out before, even the devil believes that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Jesus says the true believers in Him will be known by their fruits. The seed of true faith in Christ won’t sprout as sinful actions, even though on this side of the grave, you and I will never shake ourselves of our inborn human orientation to sin.
Yet, as the New Testament book of James reminds us, “Faith without works [faith without evidence of the lordship of Jesus in your life] is dead.”
To believe in Jesus—to have faith in Jesus—is to trust in Him and when we trust in Jesus, it will show up in how we live our lives.
It’ll show up in the decisions we make.
It’ll show up in the service we render in His Name and in our willingness to give a witness for Him, even in something as simple and fun as our “This meal’s on us!” kindness outreach cards.
Faith in Jesus is active reliance on Him in our lives.
I once heard what this means illustrated by the picture of a canyon across which a tightrope is strung. Born sinners, we start out lives on one side of the canyon while on the other is God and the life God wants to give to us—His presence with us today and His promise of eternity for tomorrow. There’s a shuttle that crosses the canyon. It's a man on a unicyle who tells each of us, “Climb on my back. I’ve never lost a single person. Not one. But you’ve got to trust me to get you across. I’m the only way.”
Of course, in this homely illustration, Jesus is the unicyclist and faith is our dependence on Him to take us through the often scary, tragic, hard, and unknown places of our lives, beyond death and to a resurrected life with God.
When Jesus sent the disciples out in Matthew 10, they had no idea what following Him might entail. He was inviting them to climb on His back across all the canyons of life.
They found that the life to which Jesus called them wasn’t easy. Judas, of course, bugged out and betrayed Jesus before Jesus went to the cross. Of the remaining eleven, only John lived to an old age. The rest of them lost their earthly lives taking the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus into the world. They didn’t always get this discipleship thing right. But there was a direction in their lives, a purpose. Their faith was more than something they said on a Sunday morning. It was the way they lived their lives. Christ gave them the rewards of His grace before they set out on their lifelong mission of faithfulness to Christ. And by their faithful reliance on Christ, they did not lose their reward!
The same can be true for all of us, whatever our professions or social status or age.
Earlier in Matthew 10, Jesus warned the disciples that not everybody would welcome them when they lived out their faith in Him. Some would reject them. Some would persecute them. Some would kill them. Yet, He told them to persevere in their trust in Him anyway.
He tells us to do the same, even when it would be easier not to persevere in following Him.
In one of my former congregations, I was approached by a church member, a really good man, who said that he needed prayer. Competent and thorough in everything he did, he said that he’d reached a crossroads in his professional life. “Every day, Mark,” he told me, “I’m asked to do things that are shady or unethical. It’s made very clear that if I don’t do them, I not only won’t advance, I probably won’t even have a job. I’ve got a lot of years in this profession. I’ve always gotten good reviews. But I think that if I left my current position over qualms about what’s right and wrong from a faith standpoint, I wouldn’t even get a good reference. Would you pray for me?”
That man was being called by Christ to choose between the rewards offered by his career—financial security, chief among them—and the rewards of life with God already given to him at Baptism. To take Christ or kick Him away, that was his choice. That was a tough call.
If we're truly living for Christ though, we will face those kinds of tough calls often, too. Following Jesus isn’t easy. Steve Taylor, a Christian poet-musician, wrote some years back, “It’s harder to believe than not to.”
To trust in the rewards of a Savior you’ve never seen more than you trust in the rewards of things you can see, like financial security, comfort, or popularity, isn’t an easy or obvious choice. But when we come to the end of our lives and we stand before Jesus, the wisdom of living a life of holding onto the gold medal of Christ’s grace will shine through. Our Lord will look at us and say, “Well done, good and faithful slave. Inherit the kingdom God has prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” We'll know for certain then that all the things we've worked and slaved for in this life die, rot, and decay; only those filled with the new life that comes from Jesus Christ will last.
Jim Elliot was a missionary who was killed by the Waodoni people in Equador to whom he had gone to share Christ. It was only years after his death that most of the people in the place where he was martyred, including people who had murdered him, came to faith in Christ. Some would say that Elliot’s death was a waste. But he wouldn’t see it that way. Elliot’s aim was always to honor the God revealed in Jesus Christ for the reward of eternal life that comes to all with faith in Christ. He knew that those who spend their lives trying to earn the rewards (and the regard) of this world are the ones wasting their lives. As he once said of his call to live for and share Christ with others, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
You can throw away Christ’s grace by failing to trust in Him to help you live for Him every day of your life.
Or you can hold onto Him.
If we will hold onto Christ and follow Him in every part of our lives, we’ll experience real purpose in our lives.
If we’ll turn back to Him for forgiveness and new life every time we become aware of our sin, He will give us a lifetime of fresh starts.
And if we will devote ourselves to truly believing in and following Jesus, we will never lose our reward.
We will never lose our gold medals. Amen
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Good Question from Wednesday Night Discussion Group
On Wednesday night, during one of our weekly Read the Bible in a Year discussion groups, a great question was asked about the prophets Elijah and Elisha, whose stories are told in the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Kings.*
God empowered both of them to perform miracles, including bringing several dead persons back to life. The question raised was why neither Elijah or Elisha were hailed as the Savior of the world the way Jesus would be by some people about nine centuries later.
Here are a few possible answers that cross my mind.
First: Both Elijah and Elisha lived before anyone really considered the possibility of a Messiah. The two prophets lived in the northern kingdom of an Israel that had fractured in two after the death of King Solomon. The north, which took for itself the name of Israel, was mired in idolatry and arrogance while enjoying relative prosperity and stability. They weren't looking for redemption from Israel's God.
Second: Even if the people of the northern kingdom had had hopes for a Messiah, chances are that they would have been just as wary to see Elijah or Elisha in that role as the people of Judea (and their Roman overlords) were to see Jesus as Messiah eight centuries later. A Messiah/Savior rightly demands on our lives that we, as self-centered people, prefer not to meet. That's one big reason that many people spurn Jesus to this day.
Third: Neither Elijah nor Elisha ever made the same claims for themselves that Jesus made for Himself.
In John 10:30, for example, Jesus flat out says, "The Father and I are one."
Earlier in John's gospel, He tells some of His fellow Jews in a grammatically awkward phrase, "Before the Father was, I AM." "I AM," ego eimi in the Greek of the New Testament, translates the Hebrew noun and verb that Israel's God gave to Moses as His Name at the burning bush, Yahweh.
Jesus claims to be God in human flesh. From any other person, even miracle workers like Elijah and Elisha, this claim would be blasphemous. And it was on the charge of being a blasphemer that the Jewish religious leaders of His day sought Jesus' execution.
But Elijah and Elisha claimed simply to be prophets, people who go before others to tell them (and show them) the Word of God.
*Go here and type in 1 Kings, chapter 1 [1 Kings 1], if you want to see what we've been reading lately. Then, keep following the arrows leading you to the next chapters.
God empowered both of them to perform miracles, including bringing several dead persons back to life. The question raised was why neither Elijah or Elisha were hailed as the Savior of the world the way Jesus would be by some people about nine centuries later.
Here are a few possible answers that cross my mind.
First: Both Elijah and Elisha lived before anyone really considered the possibility of a Messiah. The two prophets lived in the northern kingdom of an Israel that had fractured in two after the death of King Solomon. The north, which took for itself the name of Israel, was mired in idolatry and arrogance while enjoying relative prosperity and stability. They weren't looking for redemption from Israel's God.
Second: Even if the people of the northern kingdom had had hopes for a Messiah, chances are that they would have been just as wary to see Elijah or Elisha in that role as the people of Judea (and their Roman overlords) were to see Jesus as Messiah eight centuries later. A Messiah/Savior rightly demands on our lives that we, as self-centered people, prefer not to meet. That's one big reason that many people spurn Jesus to this day.
Third: Neither Elijah nor Elisha ever made the same claims for themselves that Jesus made for Himself.
In John 10:30, for example, Jesus flat out says, "The Father and I are one."
Earlier in John's gospel, He tells some of His fellow Jews in a grammatically awkward phrase, "Before the Father was, I AM." "I AM," ego eimi in the Greek of the New Testament, translates the Hebrew noun and verb that Israel's God gave to Moses as His Name at the burning bush, Yahweh.
Jesus claims to be God in human flesh. From any other person, even miracle workers like Elijah and Elisha, this claim would be blasphemous. And it was on the charge of being a blasphemer that the Jewish religious leaders of His day sought Jesus' execution.
But Elijah and Elisha claimed simply to be prophets, people who go before others to tell them (and show them) the Word of God.
*Go here and type in 1 Kings, chapter 1 [1 Kings 1], if you want to see what we've been reading lately. Then, keep following the arrows leading you to the next chapters.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
God Has a Sense of Humor
Yesterday afternoon, I was stoked about pulling into the drive-through line at our local McDonald's. I was going to buy some bottled water.
No! It wasn't the water that I was excited about. I got into line mainly to use our congregation's new "This Meal's on Us!" card. I was going to pay for my bottled water and also pay for the order of whoever was ordering in the car behind me, then ask the cashier to give the card to that person. The card would explain why some stranger had just paid for their order.
Each "This Meal's on Us!" card tells the recipient that God loves them, no strings attached, and that Saint Matthew Lutheran Church stands ready to serve them in other ways in which they might need help.
I ordered my bottle of water, pulled up to the pay window, explained to the cashier what I was doing, and handed her both my credit card and the "This Meal's on Us!" card. The cashier processed the two transactions and gave the receipts to me.
I saw mine; a buck-fifty for my water.
Then I looked at the receipt of the next car. The person had ordered an iced-tea from the dollar menu!
At that rate, I was tempted to drive through three or four more times. But I had a shut-in to visit.
I'd sort of hoped, for my first personal kindness outreach in a while, to pay for an order that included about fifty Big Macs. You know, some stunner that would cause a tapped-out agnositc construction worker who'd been drafted to pick up burgers for the whole crew to break out into the Hallelujah Chorus.
But instead, God put a person in the line behind me who only wanted an iced tea from the dollar menu.
It was a humbling reminder that we don't undertake acts of kindness in Jesus' Name to get goose-bumpy thrills for ourselves.
We do them to share Jesus in the ways God determines to be necessary at the time. Then, we leave what happens as a result in the hands of God's Holy Spirit.
As my buddy, Pastor Steve Sjogren likes to say, "Small things done with great love will change the world." I'm learning to trust that God will use the small acts of faithfulness we do to bring positive changes to the world, one person--even one iced tea--at a time.
Meanwhile, as He puts me gently in place for my grandiose visions, I have to smile. God has a sense of humor.
No! It wasn't the water that I was excited about. I got into line mainly to use our congregation's new "This Meal's on Us!" card. I was going to pay for my bottled water and also pay for the order of whoever was ordering in the car behind me, then ask the cashier to give the card to that person. The card would explain why some stranger had just paid for their order.
Each "This Meal's on Us!" card tells the recipient that God loves them, no strings attached, and that Saint Matthew Lutheran Church stands ready to serve them in other ways in which they might need help.
I ordered my bottle of water, pulled up to the pay window, explained to the cashier what I was doing, and handed her both my credit card and the "This Meal's on Us!" card. The cashier processed the two transactions and gave the receipts to me.
I saw mine; a buck-fifty for my water.
Then I looked at the receipt of the next car. The person had ordered an iced-tea from the dollar menu!
At that rate, I was tempted to drive through three or four more times. But I had a shut-in to visit.
I'd sort of hoped, for my first personal kindness outreach in a while, to pay for an order that included about fifty Big Macs. You know, some stunner that would cause a tapped-out agnositc construction worker who'd been drafted to pick up burgers for the whole crew to break out into the Hallelujah Chorus.
But instead, God put a person in the line behind me who only wanted an iced tea from the dollar menu.
It was a humbling reminder that we don't undertake acts of kindness in Jesus' Name to get goose-bumpy thrills for ourselves.
We do them to share Jesus in the ways God determines to be necessary at the time. Then, we leave what happens as a result in the hands of God's Holy Spirit.
As my buddy, Pastor Steve Sjogren likes to say, "Small things done with great love will change the world." I'm learning to trust that God will use the small acts of faithfulness we do to bring positive changes to the world, one person--even one iced tea--at a time.
Meanwhile, as He puts me gently in place for my grandiose visions, I have to smile. God has a sense of humor.
Want to Know God? Read the Bible
Right now, members of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, and I are reading the Bible together in a year's time. We're reading it straight through, about three chapters a day, from Genesis to Revelation.
Here are a few thoughts underscoring the importance of constant study of Scripture that I've run across in the past few days.
Rick Warren, the pastor who wrote The Purpose Driven Life, tweeted this five days ago:
Here are a few thoughts underscoring the importance of constant study of Scripture that I've run across in the past few days.
Rick Warren, the pastor who wrote The Purpose Driven Life, tweeted this five days ago:
We cant watch TV for 3 hrs then read the Bible for 3 min & expect to grow spiritually.
And I just read this from the final chapter of David Platt's fantastic Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (it comes as part of his plea to readers take on an experiment in radical Christian living that, interestingly, includes taking a year to read the Bible in its entirety):
I want to put a particularly strong emphasis on this step of the Radical Experiment [reading the Bible through in a year's time]. The Christian marketplace is filled with books today--some of them healthy, and some of them not so healthy. To be honest, I have been very hesitant to write this book, because I look at our bookstores and think, Do we really need another one? I suppose only time will tell if it was worth it, but time has already spoken on one Book.
God has chosen by his matchless grace to give us revelation of himself in his Word. It is the only Book that he has promised to bless by his Spirit to transform you and me in the image of Jesus Christ. It is the only Book that he has promised to use to bring our hearts, our minds, and our lives in alignment with him. I'm not saying that God has not used or blessed other Christian books throughout Christian history, but there is only one Book that he has perfectly inspired by his Spirit for the accomplishment of his purpose. When you or I open the Bible, we are beholding the very words of God--words that have supernatural power to redeem, renew, refresh, and restore our lives to what he created them to be.
Of course, there are passages of Scripture that trouble us or that we can't explain. But as you read the Bible daily, great themes of faith emerge, themes that will bring your faith and your relationship to God alive.
Don't be satisfied with a second-hand knowledge of God, a verse here, and a devotional thought there. Such things can be helpful to us. Hearing or reading the perspectives of others on passages of Scripture--like you get a daily devotional--can be a great antidote to our penchant for riding our personal hobby horses as we skim the Bible just for things we like. (And as readers of this blog know, I do read a daily devotional. But I also read and study chapters of the Bible each day, not just in preparation for preaching, but for other reasons.)
The daily reading of Scripture will move your relationship with the God ultimately revealed to the whole world in Jesus Christ to a ever-deepening level of intimacy, dependence, true awe of God, and true confidence in your living.
And, as with any relationship of love, the key is not some chimerical entity people call "quality time," it's quantity time. If we don't spend lots of time with God--in things like daily Bible reading and study, daily prayer, regular service in His Name--along with weekly group Bible studies and weekly worship, our relationship with God can only be superficial.
If you want more than a superficial faith or a superficial understanding of God, you can begin to address that desire by reading the Bible every single day.
The daily reading of Scripture will move your relationship with the God ultimately revealed to the whole world in Jesus Christ to a ever-deepening level of intimacy, dependence, true awe of God, and true confidence in your living.
And, as with any relationship of love, the key is not some chimerical entity people call "quality time," it's quantity time. If we don't spend lots of time with God--in things like daily Bible reading and study, daily prayer, regular service in His Name--along with weekly group Bible studies and weekly worship, our relationship with God can only be superficial.
If you want more than a superficial faith or a superficial understanding of God, you can begin to address that desire by reading the Bible every single day.
Monday, June 20, 2011
It's About Life and Death: Some Thoughts on God's Love for You
Today's Our Daily Bread devotion based on Psalm 117, a two-verse hymn of praise composed of just 30 words in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation I usually use when I read the Bible. David Roper, the writer of the devotion, cites a translation of the passage taken from The New International Version (TNIV) (I've italicized words I want to briefly talk about below.):
1 Praise the LORD, all you nations;
extol him, all you peoples.
2 For great is his love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.
Praise the LORD.
Here's Psalm 117 as rendered by the NRSV (I've italicized the words corresponding to the ones italicized above):
A covenant is a compact or agreement.
In Old Testament times, covenants were made (or cut) by conquering kings with their subject peoples. "I will be your king," a covenant might begin. "I will protect you from violence and thievery. In response to this, you will pay taxes, obey the laws, and be subject to service to the king."
Israel's God--YAHWEH, I AM--made a covenant with Israel. You see it embodied in the Ten Commandments, which begin, not with commands, but with a promise. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out the house of slavery..." (Exodus 20:3). Before issuing a single command of His moral law (valid today and for all time, by the way), God promised to be the God, Lord, and Protector of His people. It's only after issuing this promise that He says, in effect, "In response to this gift of grace, I expect you to fulfill the following commandments."
In Jesus, a new covenant has been instituted by God for the whole world. Jesus expresses it in, among other places, Mark 16:16:
Jesus puts the same point in a different way in John 3:16-18:
1Praise the LORD, all you nations!
Extol him, all you peoples!
2For great is his steadfast love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the LORD!The word from the Psalm's original Hebrew translated by the italicized phrases above, is a form of the Hebrew word, hesed. It specifically refers to God's covenantal faithfulness. The word means that God will not break the promises He makes in His covenants.
A covenant is a compact or agreement.
In Old Testament times, covenants were made (or cut) by conquering kings with their subject peoples. "I will be your king," a covenant might begin. "I will protect you from violence and thievery. In response to this, you will pay taxes, obey the laws, and be subject to service to the king."
Israel's God--YAHWEH, I AM--made a covenant with Israel. You see it embodied in the Ten Commandments, which begin, not with commands, but with a promise. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out the house of slavery..." (Exodus 20:3). Before issuing a single command of His moral law (valid today and for all time, by the way), God promised to be the God, Lord, and Protector of His people. It's only after issuing this promise that He says, in effect, "In response to this gift of grace, I expect you to fulfill the following commandments."
In Jesus, a new covenant has been instituted by God for the whole world. Jesus expresses it in, among other places, Mark 16:16:
The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.As was true in Old Testament times, when the patriarch Abraham believed in God's promises and God counted him righteous--right with God, free from the debt of sin which would have otherwise have cost him his life for eternity, under God's new covenant, those who believe (or trust) in Jesus, God-in-human-flesh, are forgiven their sins and freed from death in order to live with God eternally.
Jesus puts the same point in a different way in John 3:16-18:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God."This is the kind of love--hesed love, covenantal love--that Psalm 117 talks about. "I have done this for you (in ancient Israel's case, the this was deliverance from slavery in Egypt, in Jesus' case, the this is deliverance from slavery to sin and death), now entrust your life to me.
This is what God's love is like. It's love that calls people away from the sins that will kill them, back to the only one who can give them life.
It's not sentimental love. It's not mushy love. It's not about feelings. It's about life and death.
Accepting this love and Christ's authority over your life brings life. Rejecting Christ's love and authority spells death.
Covenant love--hesed--does not smile indulgently on our sins. It demands that we turn from our violations of the ten commandments--every day--and entrust our lives to Christ. (For a good rundown of the ten commandments and their meanings, go here.)
God loves sinners and hates our sins. He wants to love us back into relationship with Him.
But if we choose our sins over God, if we refuse to turn to Him, God is one king who will not force us to obey.
But if we choose our sins over God, if we refuse to turn to Him, God is one king who will not force us to obey.
He tries valiantly to free us from sin (and its rightful consequence, death). Not only did He take on flesh to die and rise for us in the person of Jesus Christ, today He will orchestrate events, encounters, experiences, and send messages to our hearts and minds in order to win us over. (This post may, in fact, be something God is orchestrating in your life this very moment.)
But He will not force us to come to Him.
The message of the Bible is simple: Come to the God made plain to all the world in Jesus Christ. Turn from sin and trust in Him each day. Let God's covenant love change your life and your eternity.
The message of the Bible is simple: Come to the God made plain to all the world in Jesus Christ. Turn from sin and trust in Him each day. Let God's covenant love change your life and your eternity.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
So, There's a Holy Trinity...What's That Got to Do with Me?
[Today, I did a re-run. Few sermons I've done in thirty years engendered more conversation than this one, given three years ago. I decided that on this Holy Trinity Sunday, I'd share it again. It was shared this morning during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20
I was about eight years old and I had a question. The first person to whom I posed it was my Mom. When I asked, she stammered. She probably hadn’t expected me to ask the question I asked at such a young age. And so, she told me that I should take my question elsewhere, not to my Dad, but to our pastor at the time, Reverend Blackburn.
I did. I walked up to him the next Sunday after worship and asked: “Reverend Blackburn, can you explain the Trinity to me?”
“Mark,” he told, “I think of the Trinity in this way. Water comes in three different forms: liquid; ice, a solid; and steam, a gas. But though it shows itself in different ways, it’s always water. In the same way, God shows Himself as three different personalities—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But God is always one God.”
That’s a pretty good explanation and it’s one I’ve used myself when inquisitive children ask me about the Trinity. But on this Holy Trinity Sunday, we may have other questions. First among them may be, “I lead a busy, often demanding, life. What does the Trinity have to do with the life I live? What’s the Trinity got to do with me?”
I hope to answer that question. But before I do, I should explain a little about the Trinity. The word “Trinity” is never used in the Bible. But repeatedly, by inference in the Old Testament and in plain words in the New Testament, the Bible affirms that three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are co-equal, co-eternal personalities of the one and only God the universe.
We see the footprints of what the theologians call God’s “triune nature" in three of our Bible lessons for today.
Our first lesson, which is the first of two creation accounts from the book of Genesis, we’re told that a “wind” moved over chaos when God created. The passage might as readily have been translated to tell us that the “spirit” moved over the waters because, as I mentioned last Sunday, the Old Testament Hebrew word ruach can be translated as wind, breath, or spirit. So, at the very beginning, we see God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And when I read Genesis 1:26, I picture God talking to Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—when God says, “Let us make…”
In our second lesson, which is from 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul tells the squabbling Christians in the Greek city of Corinth to live out a commitment to what’s best for one another. Live in peace, he tells them, and then he invokes the three Persons of the one God when He says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” In this phrase, Paul puts the three persons of the Trinity on a par with one another, all one God, three persons.
Then, there’s our Gospel lesson, from Matthew. It recounts how Jesus gave the eleven apostles what we call “the Great Commission." Jesus told them and us to teach the whole world about Him and the new life He brings to repentant sinners who believe in Him. Then, Jesus says, we are to baptize, “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” putting both Himself and the Holy Spirit Who on an equal footing with the Father.
“Fine,” you might be saying, “I accept the Trinity, although I don’t quite understand it. But what difference does God being one God in three Persons make in my life?”
Let me suggest three ways it may make a difference to you and me as we go through our daily lives.
Ann and I had been married about five-and-a-half years when my father offered the only piece of advice I remember him ever giving to me. Dad and I were alone when he asked me, "Are you and Ann ever going to have children?" I gave an intelligent reply: "I uh...We uh..." Dad said, "If you're waiting for the perfect time to have kids, the time will never come. You'll never be able to afford them." Then, this man who's the father of five gave his closing argument for having children. Do you know what he said? "Mark, there are no good reasons for having kids. Have them anyway."
There are lots of things we do that aren't really necessary. Having children is among them. So are creating art or music. So are starting a business, going on mission trips, telling someone about Jesus, perpetrating an act of kindness just to let them know that God loves them, no strings attached, or building a better mousetrap. There are so many things we do that we don't have to do.
But the desire to express ourselves or to give our love away is so powerful that we feel compelled to do the most extravagantly unnecessary things. This fact about we human beings, I think, is one way in which we reflect the presence of the image of God in us.
The Trinity makes a difference in our daily lives, first of all, because in the Three-in-One-God, we see overflowing extravagance of God's love! God gives us His love at least three times over!
God didn't have to create the universe or give us life. But He did.
God didn’t have to take on human flesh to die and rise for us. But He did.
God doesn’t have to reach out to us as He does today through His Holy Spirit, Who creates and nurtures the Church, inspired the Scriptures, and is still inspiring believers today. But He does.
God enjoyed completeness without us. But the Three-in-One-God wants us, wants us today, wants us for all eternity!
The Holy Trinity, this big, full God, cares about you. He’s invested Himself in all His fullness, in you and in your future. God does that over and over again. In the Trinity, God demonstrates, underscores, and underlines that you, your every moment, your every decision matters to God! That’s the first way in which knowing the Three-in-One-God makes a difference in our lives.
Here’s another way. Since the Middle Ages, artists have crafted paintings and sculptures for churches called Gnadenstuhl. In these works of art, Jesus is on the cross, lifeless following His execution. His arms or the crossbeam of the cross are held aloft by the Father, Who is behind Jesus. And from the two of them, a dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, descends.*
We often think of the agony Jesus experienced on the cross, especially as He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” But we don't often consider the agonies of the Father and the Spirit as they watched the Son bear the sins of the world.
If you’ve ever been a parent who listened to a child cry over homework that seemed too hard, homework it would be easier for you to do for them, but which you know they must do themselves, you know the Father felt agony as Jesus completed His earthly mission on the cross.
If you’ve ever been a parent or a sibling or a relative of someone addicted to drugs and alcohol, knowing that their agony would go away for a moment if you slipped them the money they needed to buy the dope or if you gave them a drink, but for their good, you refused, then you know how the Spirit felt as He groaned in sighs too deep for words at the sight of Jesus in His death throes on the cross.
If you've ever spent days or weeks with loved ones as they lay suspended between life and death, you know what both the Father and the Spirit went through as Jesus hung on the cross.
These agonies the Trinity endured for you and me. And when the Spirit comes to us in Baptism, He brings God's compassion for us in all that comes to us in life. The Spirit comes to fiercely protect us from a life alone, compassionately placing us in the community of the Church, a spiritual family that allows us to experience something like the connectedness enjoyed by the Father, Son, and Spirit.
In the Trinity, God stands with us in our joys and in our sorrows, in everything that we go through. We know this because the Trinity was there together on the cross, sharing our life so that we can share life with God forever.
So the Trinity makes a difference by assuring us that we matter to God and that God stands by us always: Jesus says this is so to the close of the age. Now, here’s a third way the Trinity makes a difference in our everyday lives: He draws us into community with Him.
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, describes how the Three-in-One-God does this when, for example, we pray. “What I mean is this” he writes. “An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God [God the Father]. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God so to speak, inside him [God the Spirit]. But he also knows that all real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God [God the Son]— that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying — the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on — the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. The whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary act of prayer.”
God in His fullness, Who cares about us even though He doesn’t have to, Who is able to stand with us in every experience, also makes it possible for us to experience fellowship, community, with Him and with His family, the Church.
Pastor Mary Anderson says that at the age of three, she had her first experience of how something could be three and one at the same time. She watched her grandmother taking her afternoon nap and said, “That's Grandmamma, Mamma, and Odelle." Her grandmother smiled as she heard her granddaughter call her by the names by which her grandchildren, her daughter, and her husband called her. As Anderson puts it, "Three names, three relationships -- and yet the same person.”
The Holy Trinity—God in three Persons—is a mystery and that’s as it should be. As I often tell my Catechism students, if you could explain everything about God, then you would be God and you're not. But when we think about all the different ways in which people see us from day to day—friend, employee, boss, parent, child--then the Trinity isn’t so farfetched. And it matters to our daily lives that God is Three-in-One. In the fullness of the Trinity...
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20
I was about eight years old and I had a question. The first person to whom I posed it was my Mom. When I asked, she stammered. She probably hadn’t expected me to ask the question I asked at such a young age. And so, she told me that I should take my question elsewhere, not to my Dad, but to our pastor at the time, Reverend Blackburn.
I did. I walked up to him the next Sunday after worship and asked: “Reverend Blackburn, can you explain the Trinity to me?”
“Mark,” he told, “I think of the Trinity in this way. Water comes in three different forms: liquid; ice, a solid; and steam, a gas. But though it shows itself in different ways, it’s always water. In the same way, God shows Himself as three different personalities—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But God is always one God.”
That’s a pretty good explanation and it’s one I’ve used myself when inquisitive children ask me about the Trinity. But on this Holy Trinity Sunday, we may have other questions. First among them may be, “I lead a busy, often demanding, life. What does the Trinity have to do with the life I live? What’s the Trinity got to do with me?”
I hope to answer that question. But before I do, I should explain a little about the Trinity. The word “Trinity” is never used in the Bible. But repeatedly, by inference in the Old Testament and in plain words in the New Testament, the Bible affirms that three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are co-equal, co-eternal personalities of the one and only God the universe.
We see the footprints of what the theologians call God’s “triune nature" in three of our Bible lessons for today.
Our first lesson, which is the first of two creation accounts from the book of Genesis, we’re told that a “wind” moved over chaos when God created. The passage might as readily have been translated to tell us that the “spirit” moved over the waters because, as I mentioned last Sunday, the Old Testament Hebrew word ruach can be translated as wind, breath, or spirit. So, at the very beginning, we see God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And when I read Genesis 1:26, I picture God talking to Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—when God says, “Let us make…”
In our second lesson, which is from 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul tells the squabbling Christians in the Greek city of Corinth to live out a commitment to what’s best for one another. Live in peace, he tells them, and then he invokes the three Persons of the one God when He says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” In this phrase, Paul puts the three persons of the Trinity on a par with one another, all one God, three persons.
Then, there’s our Gospel lesson, from Matthew. It recounts how Jesus gave the eleven apostles what we call “the Great Commission." Jesus told them and us to teach the whole world about Him and the new life He brings to repentant sinners who believe in Him. Then, Jesus says, we are to baptize, “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” putting both Himself and the Holy Spirit Who on an equal footing with the Father.
“Fine,” you might be saying, “I accept the Trinity, although I don’t quite understand it. But what difference does God being one God in three Persons make in my life?”
Let me suggest three ways it may make a difference to you and me as we go through our daily lives.
Ann and I had been married about five-and-a-half years when my father offered the only piece of advice I remember him ever giving to me. Dad and I were alone when he asked me, "Are you and Ann ever going to have children?" I gave an intelligent reply: "I uh...We uh..." Dad said, "If you're waiting for the perfect time to have kids, the time will never come. You'll never be able to afford them." Then, this man who's the father of five gave his closing argument for having children. Do you know what he said? "Mark, there are no good reasons for having kids. Have them anyway."
There are lots of things we do that aren't really necessary. Having children is among them. So are creating art or music. So are starting a business, going on mission trips, telling someone about Jesus, perpetrating an act of kindness just to let them know that God loves them, no strings attached, or building a better mousetrap. There are so many things we do that we don't have to do.
But the desire to express ourselves or to give our love away is so powerful that we feel compelled to do the most extravagantly unnecessary things. This fact about we human beings, I think, is one way in which we reflect the presence of the image of God in us.
The Trinity makes a difference in our daily lives, first of all, because in the Three-in-One-God, we see overflowing extravagance of God's love! God gives us His love at least three times over!
God didn't have to create the universe or give us life. But He did.
God didn’t have to take on human flesh to die and rise for us. But He did.
God doesn’t have to reach out to us as He does today through His Holy Spirit, Who creates and nurtures the Church, inspired the Scriptures, and is still inspiring believers today. But He does.
God enjoyed completeness without us. But the Three-in-One-God wants us, wants us today, wants us for all eternity!
The Holy Trinity, this big, full God, cares about you. He’s invested Himself in all His fullness, in you and in your future. God does that over and over again. In the Trinity, God demonstrates, underscores, and underlines that you, your every moment, your every decision matters to God! That’s the first way in which knowing the Three-in-One-God makes a difference in our lives.
Here’s another way. Since the Middle Ages, artists have crafted paintings and sculptures for churches called Gnadenstuhl. In these works of art, Jesus is on the cross, lifeless following His execution. His arms or the crossbeam of the cross are held aloft by the Father, Who is behind Jesus. And from the two of them, a dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, descends.*
We often think of the agony Jesus experienced on the cross, especially as He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” But we don't often consider the agonies of the Father and the Spirit as they watched the Son bear the sins of the world.
If you’ve ever been a parent who listened to a child cry over homework that seemed too hard, homework it would be easier for you to do for them, but which you know they must do themselves, you know the Father felt agony as Jesus completed His earthly mission on the cross.
If you’ve ever been a parent or a sibling or a relative of someone addicted to drugs and alcohol, knowing that their agony would go away for a moment if you slipped them the money they needed to buy the dope or if you gave them a drink, but for their good, you refused, then you know how the Spirit felt as He groaned in sighs too deep for words at the sight of Jesus in His death throes on the cross.
If you've ever spent days or weeks with loved ones as they lay suspended between life and death, you know what both the Father and the Spirit went through as Jesus hung on the cross.
These agonies the Trinity endured for you and me. And when the Spirit comes to us in Baptism, He brings God's compassion for us in all that comes to us in life. The Spirit comes to fiercely protect us from a life alone, compassionately placing us in the community of the Church, a spiritual family that allows us to experience something like the connectedness enjoyed by the Father, Son, and Spirit.
In the Trinity, God stands with us in our joys and in our sorrows, in everything that we go through. We know this because the Trinity was there together on the cross, sharing our life so that we can share life with God forever.
So the Trinity makes a difference by assuring us that we matter to God and that God stands by us always: Jesus says this is so to the close of the age. Now, here’s a third way the Trinity makes a difference in our everyday lives: He draws us into community with Him.
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, describes how the Three-in-One-God does this when, for example, we pray. “What I mean is this” he writes. “An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God [God the Father]. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God so to speak, inside him [God the Spirit]. But he also knows that all real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God [God the Son]— that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying — the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on — the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. The whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary act of prayer.”
God in His fullness, Who cares about us even though He doesn’t have to, Who is able to stand with us in every experience, also makes it possible for us to experience fellowship, community, with Him and with His family, the Church.
Pastor Mary Anderson says that at the age of three, she had her first experience of how something could be three and one at the same time. She watched her grandmother taking her afternoon nap and said, “That's Grandmamma, Mamma, and Odelle." Her grandmother smiled as she heard her granddaughter call her by the names by which her grandchildren, her daughter, and her husband called her. As Anderson puts it, "Three names, three relationships -- and yet the same person.”
The Holy Trinity—God in three Persons—is a mystery and that’s as it should be. As I often tell my Catechism students, if you could explain everything about God, then you would be God and you're not. But when we think about all the different ways in which people see us from day to day—friend, employee, boss, parent, child--then the Trinity isn’t so farfetched. And it matters to our daily lives that God is Three-in-One. In the fullness of the Trinity...
- God assures us that our every moment matters,
- that He stands with us always, and
- that He wants us to live in constant relationship with Him.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?Like the psalmist, we might well wonder why a God so big and so great would bother with us, too. But the God revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shows us that He does care for us. More than we could ever imagine.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
More on This Year's Mission Week
As mentioned here on Wednesday, Monday through Friday was the 2011 Mission Week for the youth of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church and the adults who assisted and supervised them throughout. It's another way the people of our congregation try to share the love of Jesus Christ in practically.
On Thursday, the group did a lot of yard work for a couple who, because of illness, weren't able to keep up. Both Thursday and Friday, the group got some painting done at another local residence. Most of Friday was taken up with cleaning, sprucing up, and mulching at the church building.
Last night, we had a lock-in at the church building.
Thanks to Glenn and Sue for a great lunch on Thursday.
Below are pictures and videos from the week.
Dick and Stephen look over what needs to be done next.
Lori and Kirsten do some trimming. Laikyn takes the brush to a burn pile.
Mike and Kayla clear a path, while Jim, Critter, Jacob, and Stephen do some heavy-duty pruning.
The group works while the preacher takes pictures.
Jim scrapes.
Stephen puts down mulch at Worthington Park. The group did this work for Logan in Bloom in order to help prepare for this weekend's Washboard Festival in Logan.
Critter did the hard work of loading the mulch brought to Worthington Park in the back of a pick-up truck into buckets, then taking them to the other Saint Matthew folks spreading the mulch.
Had to include this one! Jacob and Critter continuing to transport mulch from the pick-up to other Saint Matthew folks at Worthington Park. When I said that we'd have to be our own media, it refers to the fact that I had just returned from the offices of the local newspaper to see if they'd be interested in covering our mission week. They were, but with it being such a busy week in Logan, they didn't have a reporter to spare. They asked if I'd submit a story. I will.
The group pictured at Glenn's and Sue's, where they worked hard and then enjoyed a fantastic lunch provided by our hosts!
Stephen and Jacob tell me about the work the entire group had done that morning. We ponder the mystery of what we later learned is a defunct man-cave. But where's Critter?
In this picture, some of our group can be seen putting down mulch. From left to right: Jacob, Dick, Kirsten, Lori, Stephen, Mike, Kayla, (Jim's hat visible above her), and Critter.
Mike works hard.
On Thursday, the group did a lot of yard work for a couple who, because of illness, weren't able to keep up. Both Thursday and Friday, the group got some painting done at another local residence. Most of Friday was taken up with cleaning, sprucing up, and mulching at the church building.
Last night, we had a lock-in at the church building.
Thanks to Glenn and Sue for a great lunch on Thursday.
Below are pictures and videos from the week.
Lori and Kirsten do some trimming. Laikyn takes the brush to a burn pile.
Mike and Kayla clear a path, while Jim, Critter, Jacob, and Stephen do some heavy-duty pruning.
The group works while the preacher takes pictures.
Critter did the hard work of loading the mulch brought to Worthington Park in the back of a pick-up truck into buckets, then taking them to the other Saint Matthew folks spreading the mulch.
Had to include this one! Jacob and Critter continuing to transport mulch from the pick-up to other Saint Matthew folks at Worthington Park. When I said that we'd have to be our own media, it refers to the fact that I had just returned from the offices of the local newspaper to see if they'd be interested in covering our mission week. They were, but with it being such a busy week in Logan, they didn't have a reporter to spare. They asked if I'd submit a story. I will.
Stephen and Jacob tell me about the work the entire group had done that morning. We ponder the mystery of what we later learned is a defunct man-cave. But where's Critter?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Scandals
In this era when there are few moral standards, a new scandal seems to hit every week. As a society, we feign being scandalized, but we don't seem to really know right from wrong.
It isn't that the so-called "puritanical" crowd goes after folks like Representative Andrew Weiner; it's, by and large, those who claim that truth is relative who get all hot and bothered about these "scandals," many of them pols who fearfully anticipate how their constituents might react if they don't respond the scandal du jour with moral rectitude.
The people least scandalized by "scandal" are, it seems to me, those seeking to authentically follow Jesus Christ. People like this recognize that the whole human race, including themselves, are faulty and sinful. They recognize sin and the need for the forgiving grace that comes from God through Christ.
If crimes or violations of ethical standards are violated, there must be consequences, of course. But Christians are "shockproof" when it comes to human frailty; we recognize the disease from the inside out and that prayer for all sinners is our weapon of choice, not the nastiness of the mob.
It isn't that the so-called "puritanical" crowd goes after folks like Representative Andrew Weiner; it's, by and large, those who claim that truth is relative who get all hot and bothered about these "scandals," many of them pols who fearfully anticipate how their constituents might react if they don't respond the scandal du jour with moral rectitude.
The people least scandalized by "scandal" are, it seems to me, those seeking to authentically follow Jesus Christ. People like this recognize that the whole human race, including themselves, are faulty and sinful. They recognize sin and the need for the forgiving grace that comes from God through Christ.
If crimes or violations of ethical standards are violated, there must be consequences, of course. But Christians are "shockproof" when it comes to human frailty; we recognize the disease from the inside out and that prayer for all sinners is our weapon of choice, not the nastiness of the mob.
What a Steady Diet of Soft Drinks Will Do To You
What we in Ohio call "pop" isn't good for you. (Thanks to The News Diva for linking to this article.)
The Mission Week So Far
Today brought us to Day 3 of our local mission week.
By way of background, three years ago and again two years ago, a large group of Saint Matthew youth and a few adults, including me, participated in Group Workcamps mission trip weeks, in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Nashville, Tennessee. As had been true of a mission trip I took with youth and adults from a congregation I previously served, we had great experiences on both of those trips, working with folks from other congregation (of varying denominations) working with places like community centers, thrift shops, Christian education programs, senior centers, and so on. We cleaned, planted, weeded, mulched, sorted, built, painted, and so on.
Last year, we decided that we would "go local" and do our own local mission "trip" in our home area of Logan and Hocking County. It went so well that we opted to do it again this year.
The reason we undertake mission weeks--or many of the other things we do to share God's love in practical ways with others--is pure and simple: Jesus has told us to! We remind ourselves of this throughout the week. Biblical passages we've looked at on the first three mornings of this year's mission have reminded us of this:
Here's this year's mission week schedule for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. We...
Among the projects we've taken on this year
We've been blessed with the help, supervision, transportation, and food provided by adult members of the congregation.
The youth who have participated have, once more this year, dug in and worked hard and had fun together!
I love the way the mission week brings youth and adults together.
Today, we put a little bit of fun and a great additional service project into the week's mix. We met at the church building at 7:45, then drove to Columbus, about an hour away.
In the morning, we toured the American Whistle Corporation's small manufacturing facility. This company is the only manufacturer of metal whistles in the United States. The ten employees churn out tens of thousands of whistles every year. This was interesting and the tour guide made it lots of fun. (I got the idea for doing this after seeing the tour featured on Ohio News Network. American Whistle Corporation's manufacturing process has also been profiled on the Discovery Channel.)
After the tour, we went to Tommy's Pizza's East Lane Avenue location, across from the campus of The Ohio State University. Although my pizza-eating days are largely over (except for the occasional half-slice of the real stuff or individual servings of the healthy stuff), Tommy's remains my favorite pizza on the planet. And while Martha and I ate our salads and many dove into subs, I think the rest of the group enjoyed their pizza. Before eating, the sixteen of us joined in praying a common Lutheran table grace:
People needing food evidently screened into the process when they arrive at the pantry.
Volunteers then meet these folks with shopping carts and proceed to help to bag items from categories like grains, proteins, meats, vegetables, breads, greens, and fruits.
What I love about the process is that, for the recipients of the food, it's more like going shopping than it is sticking out their hands. That diminishes any threat to their dignity.
I also love the interaction with the clients the process gave to volunteers like us. It was fun talking about various foods and different ways of preparing them with folks as we moved from aisle to aisle with shopping carts today.
Most of our folks were involved in dealing with the recipients directly in this way. But some of our young people were drafted to bring food items upstairs from a basement storage area, replenishing supplies on the main floor. This was really needed, as some of the LSS staff told us that today brought an unusually large number of folks to the pantry today.
There were a number of volunteers from Bank of America too. They appeared to be working really hard.
I was unable to snap pictures at either the American Whistle Corporation or at the food pantry. I took some pictures and videos on the Monday and Tuesday of our mission week. I'll hopefully post those later.
In no particular order, I want to thank the following folks for their hard work with the mission week so far:
Kayla
Isaac D. (aka: Critter)
Jacob
Stephen
Laikyn
Kirsten
Lori E.
Mike M.
Jim V.
Jim K.
Dick B.
Martha S.
Bob and Carolyn
Martha
Sarah G.
Isaac G.
Megan G.
Debbie K.
Cameron
Nancy
Jim F.
Tony (aka: Chuck!)
We're also thankful to all who have donated items and money. I'm especially grateful to all who are praying that God will keep us safe, teach us to serve in Christ's Name, and have fun. (I hope that I haven't forgotten anyone!)
More volunteer names will be added as we come into the last two days of the mission, which will include a Friday night sleep deprivation...er, lock-in.
By way of background, three years ago and again two years ago, a large group of Saint Matthew youth and a few adults, including me, participated in Group Workcamps mission trip weeks, in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Nashville, Tennessee. As had been true of a mission trip I took with youth and adults from a congregation I previously served, we had great experiences on both of those trips, working with folks from other congregation (of varying denominations) working with places like community centers, thrift shops, Christian education programs, senior centers, and so on. We cleaned, planted, weeded, mulched, sorted, built, painted, and so on.
Last year, we decided that we would "go local" and do our own local mission "trip" in our home area of Logan and Hocking County. It went so well that we opted to do it again this year.
The reason we undertake mission weeks--or many of the other things we do to share God's love in practical ways with others--is pure and simple: Jesus has told us to! We remind ourselves of this throughout the week. Biblical passages we've looked at on the first three mornings of this year's mission have reminded us of this:
- In Acts 1:6-8, the risen Jesus, just before going to heaven, told His disciples to share the Good News that all can have new and everlasting life with God when they turn from sin and believe in Him. As followers of Jesus, we're to share this wonderful news in both word and deed in our own communities and in the whole world. We do this through our mission weeks.
- Acts 2:44-46 finds the first Christians not only being outwardly focused toward the world, serving and loving others outside the Christian family, but also looking out for others within the Christian family. We do this through our mission weeks, when we undertake projects for some folks from within out own Saint Matthew congregation.
- Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that we aren't saved by the kinds of good works we do during our mission weeks. We are saved from sin and death by Christ's death and resurrection and our faith in Jesus. But, James 2:14-17, reminds us that if you have become one of God's people through Christ, then you will undertake good works as a way of thanking God and loving God back.
Here's this year's mission week schedule for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. We...
- meet at 8:00 for breakfast, devotions, and prayer (the devotions remind us of why we serve)
- split into two crews to take on two projects at the same time
- have a lunch provided for us by wonderful folks or fix our own from lunch meats we have on hand
- do more work
- finish up at 3:30
Among the projects we've taken on this year
- scraping and painting a porch
- weeding flower beds
- weeding and mulching at a local public park
- volunteering at a food pantry
- made logs
We've been blessed with the help, supervision, transportation, and food provided by adult members of the congregation.
The youth who have participated have, once more this year, dug in and worked hard and had fun together!
I love the way the mission week brings youth and adults together.
Today, we put a little bit of fun and a great additional service project into the week's mix. We met at the church building at 7:45, then drove to Columbus, about an hour away.
In the morning, we toured the American Whistle Corporation's small manufacturing facility. This company is the only manufacturer of metal whistles in the United States. The ten employees churn out tens of thousands of whistles every year. This was interesting and the tour guide made it lots of fun. (I got the idea for doing this after seeing the tour featured on Ohio News Network. American Whistle Corporation's manufacturing process has also been profiled on the Discovery Channel.)
After the tour, we went to Tommy's Pizza's East Lane Avenue location, across from the campus of The Ohio State University. Although my pizza-eating days are largely over (except for the occasional half-slice of the real stuff or individual servings of the healthy stuff), Tommy's remains my favorite pizza on the planet. And while Martha and I ate our salads and many dove into subs, I think the rest of the group enjoyed their pizza. Before eating, the sixteen of us joined in praying a common Lutheran table grace:
Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed. AmenWe had six youth, three children, and seven adults for our foray to Columbus and, after lunch, we went to the Lutheran Social Services food pantry on Champion Avenue on Columbus's south side. This is an impressive operation.
People needing food evidently screened into the process when they arrive at the pantry.
Volunteers then meet these folks with shopping carts and proceed to help to bag items from categories like grains, proteins, meats, vegetables, breads, greens, and fruits.
What I love about the process is that, for the recipients of the food, it's more like going shopping than it is sticking out their hands. That diminishes any threat to their dignity.
I also love the interaction with the clients the process gave to volunteers like us. It was fun talking about various foods and different ways of preparing them with folks as we moved from aisle to aisle with shopping carts today.
Most of our folks were involved in dealing with the recipients directly in this way. But some of our young people were drafted to bring food items upstairs from a basement storage area, replenishing supplies on the main floor. This was really needed, as some of the LSS staff told us that today brought an unusually large number of folks to the pantry today.
There were a number of volunteers from Bank of America too. They appeared to be working really hard.
I was unable to snap pictures at either the American Whistle Corporation or at the food pantry. I took some pictures and videos on the Monday and Tuesday of our mission week. I'll hopefully post those later.
In no particular order, I want to thank the following folks for their hard work with the mission week so far:
Kayla
Isaac D. (aka: Critter)
Jacob
Stephen
Laikyn
Kirsten
Lori E.
Mike M.
Jim V.
Jim K.
Dick B.
Martha S.
Bob and Carolyn
Martha
Sarah G.
Isaac G.
Megan G.
Debbie K.
Cameron
Nancy
Jim F.
Tony (aka: Chuck!)
We're also thankful to all who have donated items and money. I'm especially grateful to all who are praying that God will keep us safe, teach us to serve in Christ's Name, and have fun. (I hope that I haven't forgotten anyone!)
More volunteer names will be added as we come into the last two days of the mission, which will include a Friday night sleep deprivation...er, lock-in.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
These Lines Will Go Into a Song, If I Ever Get It Finished
The tentative title of the song is The Stranger, not to be confused with the Billy Joel composition of the same name. In this case, the Stranger is a real person. These words come from the perspective of somebody who knows the Stranger:
When I say the things they want to hear
They're quick to smile and lead a cheer
But when I speak truth that they despise
They mock and spit and roll their eyes
Sunday, June 12, 2011
There Are No Second Class Believers!
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today. Today is Pentecost Day, the third great festival of the Church Year.]
Numbers 11:24-30
Acts 2:1-20
If there’s nothing else you remember from today’s sermon, please remember this: There are no second class believers!
Our Bible lessons from Numbers and Acts for this Pentecost, the festival of the Holy Spirit, drive this point home. In the whole history of the world, any person who has called on the Name of the Lord is saved from sin and death and futility. That includes you!
Bob Dylan once sang that “even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.” It was a reminder that all human beings are equal in their failings, flaws, and sins.
Dylan was right. But those who believe in Jesus Christ are also covered by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for sinners like you and me. We are covered by the grace—the charitable forgiveness and acceptance of God—given to all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ. There are no second class believers!
There are differences in function among us. But that doesn’t make a preacher more important than a plumber, or a theologian more of a Christian than a teacher. The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
God always grants the Holy Spirit to every believer, no matter what their individual talents or professions, all for the same single purpose.
Please pull out the special insert and look at our first lesson from Numbers. Now, to those of you who have been participating in Read the Bible in a Year, the background of this particular passage will be familiar. Numbers recounts some of what happened when God’s people, Israel, after more than 400 years of enslavement in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for forty years before arriving in the land that God had promised them.
Numbers tells us that God’s people tested God (or rebelled against God) seven times in this period. (Likely they tested God even more than that. But Numbers tells us about seven major incidents.) Our text comes in the narration of the second test, a time when not just the people of Israel rebelled against God, but their leader Moses did too!*
Just a short time before, the people had been on the brink of starvation when God started daily to provide them with manna, a mysterious bread-like substance. The people had been grateful for God’s provision for a time. But now the people were whining about wanting to have meat to eat. “We’re tired of this manna!” they said. Fed up with the complaining of the people, God tells Moses, “The people want meat? I’ll give them meat. I’ll give them so much meat that they’ll end up vomiting it through their noses.”
That’s a lot of meat! And it’s this overabundant promise and threat that saw Moses rebel against God. Totally forgetting who had been providing Israel—and him—with “daily bread,” Moses asks where on earth he was supposed to get so much meat? He also wonders what God expected him to do with such a people. Here, Moses is expressing two feelings: doubts about God’s power and frustration with having to be Israel’s earthly leader.
To Moses’ doubts, God asks, “Is the Lord’s power limited?” (Or, more literally, “Is the Lord’s hand too short?”) Here, God was reminding Moses that He was no less powerful than He had been on the day He delivered them from Pharaoh. In the midst of crises, we need to remember that the God Who was helping us yesterday can still help us today.
To Moses’ frustrations, God orders that seventy elders of Israel be gathered near the tent containing the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence lived among His people. There, God poured out His Spirit on the seventy. They began to prophesy. That is, they spoke God’s Word. Moses didn’t need to go it alone in sharing God’s Word with the people. Just as happened on Pentecost ten days after the risen Jesus ascended to heaven, the elders with Moses in about 1400BC, were empowered to tell about “the mighty deeds of God.”
After this amazing event took place, two other Israelites, Eldad and Medad, neither one an elder, who had drawn close to God just as the elders were getting together, gave evidence that God’s Spirit had come to them, too. They began to proclaim God’s greatness. They prophesied.
A young man heard this and found it highly irregular. This guy was like the person who says at a Church Council meeting, “We’ve never done it that way before.” Or even worse, the person at the same meeting who adds, “And we never will.” He didn’t think that Eldad and Medad were authorized to have the Holy Spirit. So, he ratted them out. Hearing this complaint, Joshua begged Moses to stop Eldad and Medad. But Moses wouldn’t do that. “Are you jealous for my sake?” Moses asks Joshua. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!”
Pentecost celebrates the day when God’s Holy Spirit came to the first followers of Jesus. Just as Jesus had instructed them before He ascended into heaven, they had prayed for the Spirit’s power to come upon them. And He did, empowering them to tell, in ways the thousands gathered in Jerusalem that day could understand, the mighty works of God. That included the mightiest work of all, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, true God and true human being, so that all who turn from sin and believe in Him can live eternally with God!
The odd thing is that the Holy Spirit had already been given to these believers. In John, chapter 20, the risen Jesus breathed on the first Christians and told them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But you see, the Holy Spirit can breathe on us anew, even when our enthusiasm is waning or times are tough.
That’s because the Spirit is infinite. He’s not like gas you pump into your car that runs out. And even if you’re full of the Spirit, He can fill you up even more. The Spirit can be “pressed down, shaken together, running over” in us. The Spirit ensures that there are no second-class believers. All who believe in Jesus Christ are given the capacity to trust in God and the ability, within their own spheres of life, to share Christ with others.
Of course, some Christians would rather remain second-class believers. That way, they don’t feel the need to live or share their faith. The excuses are many: “Let the younger ones do it. I did my time.” “I’m not very good at that.” “I don’t know my Bible very well (and I’m not going to try to do so either).” And so on.
But others are happy to have the Spirit’s power to fulfill their calling to spread the Good News of Jesus in their own ways. At a conference, I heard a pastor recount the day he told a carpenter (God likes carpenters, you know) that even in his carpentry shop, he could be an ambassador for Jesus. Tears welled up in the man’s eyes as he asked, “I can do that?”
In recent days, I’ve read about other Christians who have claimed their God-given places as first-class believers who share Jesus with the world. I read about an engineering student who graduated magna cum laude who’d had offers from top firms. But during his junior year, he’d given his life to Christ and subsequently decided to take a lower-paying job with a firm that worked to provide engineering for people in Third World countries.
I read about a teacher who had worked in a suburban school district, but decided that her way of following Christ must take her to an inner-city classroom instead. But she went the extra mile, visiting her students’ homes, trying in her own way to share Jesus. At one home, she discovered that the girl in her class was one of five children, aged 3 to 15, being raised by a single mom in a few rooms, with a few beds, their apartment heated by the kitchen oven being turned on and left open. That teacher didn’t go to the church council to ask for permission to be a Christian. She simply went to some of her prayer partners from church and together, they began taking care of this family, telling them about Jesus as they did.
I read too, about a retired couple who spend most of their time going to the sites of natural disasters, bringing help. The husband even went to Sri Lanka during a civil war. When asked why they do what they do, this guy asked, “What else would we do in our retirement years?” Besides, he went on, his main object in life is to share Jesus with as many people as possible.
All of these people—and millions more—have shaken off the lie about some Christians being more important than others or being more able to spread the Good News of Jesus than others. They’ve committed themselves to sharing Jesus where they are, with the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to them.
Another person like this is our own Mike McGonagle. Once again this year, Mike will be working with our youth on their local mission “trip.” Mike can share Christ in ways that I never could because the Spirit has blessed Mike with gifts I don’t possess. And Mike will tell you that last year’s mission was one of the most gratifying experiences of his life. The service God may call us to render in Jesus’ Name will vary widely, but the Holy Spirit can empower each of us in our own individual serving.
Martin Luther said, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is [also] a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” In the power of the Spirit, we are both lords and servants, all in the Name of Jesus. There are no second-class believers.
Let today be your Pentecost. Claim all it is that God has called you to be and that the Holy Spirit has empowered you to be: In your own way, dare to tell others about Jesus.
In a word, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, take the life God has given to you and LIVE! Amen!
*Moses did this again during the sixth rebellion of the people against God recorded in Numbers.
Numbers 11:24-30
Acts 2:1-20
If there’s nothing else you remember from today’s sermon, please remember this: There are no second class believers!
Our Bible lessons from Numbers and Acts for this Pentecost, the festival of the Holy Spirit, drive this point home. In the whole history of the world, any person who has called on the Name of the Lord is saved from sin and death and futility. That includes you!
Bob Dylan once sang that “even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.” It was a reminder that all human beings are equal in their failings, flaws, and sins.
Dylan was right. But those who believe in Jesus Christ are also covered by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for sinners like you and me. We are covered by the grace—the charitable forgiveness and acceptance of God—given to all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ. There are no second class believers!
There are differences in function among us. But that doesn’t make a preacher more important than a plumber, or a theologian more of a Christian than a teacher. The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
God always grants the Holy Spirit to every believer, no matter what their individual talents or professions, all for the same single purpose.
Please pull out the special insert and look at our first lesson from Numbers. Now, to those of you who have been participating in Read the Bible in a Year, the background of this particular passage will be familiar. Numbers recounts some of what happened when God’s people, Israel, after more than 400 years of enslavement in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for forty years before arriving in the land that God had promised them.
Numbers tells us that God’s people tested God (or rebelled against God) seven times in this period. (Likely they tested God even more than that. But Numbers tells us about seven major incidents.) Our text comes in the narration of the second test, a time when not just the people of Israel rebelled against God, but their leader Moses did too!*
Just a short time before, the people had been on the brink of starvation when God started daily to provide them with manna, a mysterious bread-like substance. The people had been grateful for God’s provision for a time. But now the people were whining about wanting to have meat to eat. “We’re tired of this manna!” they said. Fed up with the complaining of the people, God tells Moses, “The people want meat? I’ll give them meat. I’ll give them so much meat that they’ll end up vomiting it through their noses.”
That’s a lot of meat! And it’s this overabundant promise and threat that saw Moses rebel against God. Totally forgetting who had been providing Israel—and him—with “daily bread,” Moses asks where on earth he was supposed to get so much meat? He also wonders what God expected him to do with such a people. Here, Moses is expressing two feelings: doubts about God’s power and frustration with having to be Israel’s earthly leader.
To Moses’ doubts, God asks, “Is the Lord’s power limited?” (Or, more literally, “Is the Lord’s hand too short?”) Here, God was reminding Moses that He was no less powerful than He had been on the day He delivered them from Pharaoh. In the midst of crises, we need to remember that the God Who was helping us yesterday can still help us today.
To Moses’ frustrations, God orders that seventy elders of Israel be gathered near the tent containing the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence lived among His people. There, God poured out His Spirit on the seventy. They began to prophesy. That is, they spoke God’s Word. Moses didn’t need to go it alone in sharing God’s Word with the people. Just as happened on Pentecost ten days after the risen Jesus ascended to heaven, the elders with Moses in about 1400BC, were empowered to tell about “the mighty deeds of God.”
After this amazing event took place, two other Israelites, Eldad and Medad, neither one an elder, who had drawn close to God just as the elders were getting together, gave evidence that God’s Spirit had come to them, too. They began to proclaim God’s greatness. They prophesied.
A young man heard this and found it highly irregular. This guy was like the person who says at a Church Council meeting, “We’ve never done it that way before.” Or even worse, the person at the same meeting who adds, “And we never will.” He didn’t think that Eldad and Medad were authorized to have the Holy Spirit. So, he ratted them out. Hearing this complaint, Joshua begged Moses to stop Eldad and Medad. But Moses wouldn’t do that. “Are you jealous for my sake?” Moses asks Joshua. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!”
Pentecost celebrates the day when God’s Holy Spirit came to the first followers of Jesus. Just as Jesus had instructed them before He ascended into heaven, they had prayed for the Spirit’s power to come upon them. And He did, empowering them to tell, in ways the thousands gathered in Jerusalem that day could understand, the mighty works of God. That included the mightiest work of all, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, true God and true human being, so that all who turn from sin and believe in Him can live eternally with God!
The odd thing is that the Holy Spirit had already been given to these believers. In John, chapter 20, the risen Jesus breathed on the first Christians and told them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But you see, the Holy Spirit can breathe on us anew, even when our enthusiasm is waning or times are tough.
That’s because the Spirit is infinite. He’s not like gas you pump into your car that runs out. And even if you’re full of the Spirit, He can fill you up even more. The Spirit can be “pressed down, shaken together, running over” in us. The Spirit ensures that there are no second-class believers. All who believe in Jesus Christ are given the capacity to trust in God and the ability, within their own spheres of life, to share Christ with others.
Of course, some Christians would rather remain second-class believers. That way, they don’t feel the need to live or share their faith. The excuses are many: “Let the younger ones do it. I did my time.” “I’m not very good at that.” “I don’t know my Bible very well (and I’m not going to try to do so either).” And so on.
But others are happy to have the Spirit’s power to fulfill their calling to spread the Good News of Jesus in their own ways. At a conference, I heard a pastor recount the day he told a carpenter (God likes carpenters, you know) that even in his carpentry shop, he could be an ambassador for Jesus. Tears welled up in the man’s eyes as he asked, “I can do that?”
In recent days, I’ve read about other Christians who have claimed their God-given places as first-class believers who share Jesus with the world. I read about an engineering student who graduated magna cum laude who’d had offers from top firms. But during his junior year, he’d given his life to Christ and subsequently decided to take a lower-paying job with a firm that worked to provide engineering for people in Third World countries.
I read about a teacher who had worked in a suburban school district, but decided that her way of following Christ must take her to an inner-city classroom instead. But she went the extra mile, visiting her students’ homes, trying in her own way to share Jesus. At one home, she discovered that the girl in her class was one of five children, aged 3 to 15, being raised by a single mom in a few rooms, with a few beds, their apartment heated by the kitchen oven being turned on and left open. That teacher didn’t go to the church council to ask for permission to be a Christian. She simply went to some of her prayer partners from church and together, they began taking care of this family, telling them about Jesus as they did.
I read too, about a retired couple who spend most of their time going to the sites of natural disasters, bringing help. The husband even went to Sri Lanka during a civil war. When asked why they do what they do, this guy asked, “What else would we do in our retirement years?” Besides, he went on, his main object in life is to share Jesus with as many people as possible.
All of these people—and millions more—have shaken off the lie about some Christians being more important than others or being more able to spread the Good News of Jesus than others. They’ve committed themselves to sharing Jesus where they are, with the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to them.
Another person like this is our own Mike McGonagle. Once again this year, Mike will be working with our youth on their local mission “trip.” Mike can share Christ in ways that I never could because the Spirit has blessed Mike with gifts I don’t possess. And Mike will tell you that last year’s mission was one of the most gratifying experiences of his life. The service God may call us to render in Jesus’ Name will vary widely, but the Holy Spirit can empower each of us in our own individual serving.
Martin Luther said, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is [also] a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” In the power of the Spirit, we are both lords and servants, all in the Name of Jesus. There are no second-class believers.
Let today be your Pentecost. Claim all it is that God has called you to be and that the Holy Spirit has empowered you to be: In your own way, dare to tell others about Jesus.
In a word, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, take the life God has given to you and LIVE! Amen!
*Moses did this again during the sixth rebellion of the people against God recorded in Numbers.
Friday, June 10, 2011
How Not to Be Creative...and Why You Should Be
Filmmaker Geoff Talbot recently posted on How to Improve Your Imagination, where he made this interesting suggestion:
You were created in the image of God and God is the Creator. We're all meant to create things, whatever our jobs or stations in life. Be human...create!
One simple way of increasing your creativity is to use the law of opposites...When you come up with an idea of what to write, of how to play a character, or of what to paint on that canvas… STOP… and ask yourself what is the opposite of that idea, now create something about that.In the spirit of Geoff's blog, in which all posts are seven sentences long, and his suggestion on how to be creative, here are seven guaranteed ways toward not being creative:
- Tell yourself, "It's never been done that way before."
- Tell yourself, "It can't be done."
- Never plan.
- Never ask questions.
- Never talk with people who are smarter or wiser than you.
- Never ask for help.
- Never pray.
You were created in the image of God and God is the Creator. We're all meant to create things, whatever our jobs or stations in life. Be human...create!
Thursday, June 09, 2011
God's Sledgehammer is Starting to Help Me See
Tonight, during my fast walk workout, I read chapter 6 of David Platt's extraordinary, Radical. There, Platt challenges American Christians to consider what God might be asking us to give up in order to provide for the needs of "the least of these," including the 26,000 children who die of starvation in the world each day. I find what Platt writes disturbing and exhilarating!
After reading that, I opened my laptop for a look-see at some of my favorite blogs and other web sites before hitting the sack. I came to this post on obedience to God by my bud, Steve Sjogren.
First Platt. Then Sjogren. God is clearly
After reading that, I opened my laptop for a look-see at some of my favorite blogs and other web sites before hitting the sack. I came to this post on obedience to God by my bud, Steve Sjogren.
First Platt. Then Sjogren. God is clearly
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Grilling One Sacred Cow
I hate nostalgia. That's because nostalgia pines for "good old days" that exist only in people's imaginations. This punctures one object of nostalgia.
If You're Not Famous...Be Thankful
Rare is the person who can handle success, prominence, or fame. Fame often leads to a sense of entitlement and invincibility. Fame isn't good for a person's soul.
These lessons have been made clear as I, along with the folks of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, as part of our Read the Bible in a Year project, have been recently reading about Israel's first king, Saul, in 1 Samuel.
Saul was, by turns, diligent in his duties one moment and arrogant in the abuse of power the next.
Saul never seemed to fully understand that, through his anointing as king, he had been made a servant of God and of Israel, not just of himself.
This lack of understanding once led him to quake among the baggage when his people needed him to command them in war. It also led him to disobey God, employing his own faulty judgment instead of depending on God, all in a gambit to win the favor of those he led.
In time, Saul came to view his fame not only as an entitlement, but as an extension of himself and his personal identity. That, in turn, fed a paranoia that--among other things--caused him to seek the murder of his best and most loyal military leader, David, and to treat the members of his own family as chess pieces to be moved around for his purposes.
As I watched an excerpt of the tearful press conference of Representative Anthony Weiner yesterday, I thought of Saul. Maybe if Weiner weren't a six term congressperson from New York, he wouldn't have done the things to which he admitted yesterday. But fame and prominence, even the smallest whiffs of it, can make the most stable and sober of us think that we're "all that."
A sense of entitlement--an idea that whatever might be vices in others really aren't vices in us--can actually come to any of us at any time, even if our name is known to only a handful of people.
Narcissism, total self-interested self-regard, is something with which we are all born and which it's the job of every parent to wean out of their children.
This inborn trait is what the Bible is talking about when it teaches that we are all born in sin, sin being a condition of self-will over against loving consideration of God or others. (By the way, that's why Jesus says the Great Commandment is to love God and love others. And it's because we can't conquer the condition of sin that leads us to do all manner of stupid, hurtful things, that Jesus calls all people to turn from sin--or repent--and believe in, entrust their lives to, Him. Jesus can erase the power of sin over our lives and help us, in this lifetime, to be recovering narcissists, and in eternity, be utterly free to be the people God originally willed us to be.)
So, if you're not famous, be thankful. It can create such false notions of invincibility, power, and entitlement that it can close your conscience to heeding what's right or correctly identifying what's wrong at any moment in your life.
And if, like me, you're just another ordinary member of the human race, I hope that you can be honest enough to say that, even without fame, you've acted like a person of entitlement who treated God and others with contempt, as though they were bit players in the more important production of your life. If you can muster that level of honesty with God and with yourself, you'll be onto something. You'll be close to surrendering to Christ and His better will for your life.
Finally, if you're prone to join the late night talk show comics in laughing at Anthony Weiner, please don't. His actions are admittedly wrong, even childishly so. But what he needs more than our derision is prayer.
So do we all.
That, of course, doesn't mean that the people for whom we pray shouldn't be held accountable, if their actions are illegal or violate the ethics rules of their professions.
But we can pray for Anthony Weiner or any political leader of either party facing similar humiliation in the face of their own revealed bad judgments and hubris. In 1 Timothy, the first century evangelist Paul writes to a young pastor named Timothy:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2for kings and all who are in high positions...That's what I try to do for all political leaders on a regular bases. If you're skeptical about including leaders in government in your prayers, consider this: It can't hurt!
And while you're praying for them, you can also thank God that you're not famous.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Aiming Toward, "MIssion Accomplished!"
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]
John 17:1-11
Please pull out the Celebrate insert from your bulletin and look at today’s Gospel lesson, John 17:1-11. Keep it handy.
In this lesson, Jesus does an extraordinary thing: He lets us listen in on His personal prayer to God the Father.
Now, I don't know about you, but there are things in my personal prayer time that I want to keep strictly between God and me. I don't want anybody listening in.
But Jesus has no secrets. The Word made flesh, is an open book.
The entire Bible, in fact, reveals that God has always been an open book. The New Testament book of Romans reminds us that, “…what can be known about God is plain…, because God has shown it…”
We see God's openness in other ways. The Bible affirms, for example, that God’s law—His will and His commands for humanity—has always been written on our hearts, giving all of us a strong hint, long before we even hear the Name of Jesus, that there is a God Who made and cares about us.
But more than that, God has taken the time and effort and sacrifice to live out His love for us and make it possible for all who turn from sin and believe in Him to live with Him eternally. God has lived His love for us out loud for everyone to see!
In the prologue to his account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, John the Evangelist says, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
John goes on to say of Jesus, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, Who is close to the Father’s heart, Who has made Him known.”
Jesus has no secrets. Jesus is in the disclosing business.
So, what exactly does He disclose to us in today’s Gospel lesson?
First: He discloses a heart filled with celebration.
One of my nephews, Andrew, is graduating from high school. There’s going to be a celebration later today. The unspoken theme will be: mission accomplished. That's the theme of all graduation parties!
(And sometimes, their theme is "Shwew!")
In His prayer in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus takes a victory lap. He exults in His accomplishment on earth even before He goes to the cross or is raised from the dead.
Jesus knows that He already is what He was sent into the world to be: “the way, and the truth, and the life,” the only way for human beings to know God and the only way to the life that the life-giving God of the universe gives to those who repent and trust in Christ.
Look at what Jesus says He has already accomplished at the moment He utters His prayer.
In this prayer, Jesus rejoices in the strength that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit had given Him to accomplish it all and He prays, in essence, “Father, mission accomplished!”
As He prays, Jesus knows, of course, that He has one thing left to do on this earth, one more definitive act disclosing Who He is and Who God is.
He must die.
He must give His life for those given to Him by the Father.
This is the ultimate thing that Jesus discloses to all who are open to the truth. Martin Luther said that if we want to know what God is like, we only need to look to Jesus on the cross.
And that’s why with jubilation, Jesus, God on earth, intent on doing God’s would, on the Friday we call Good, having fully disclosed the heart, mind, and will of God, decide on the cross the moment at which He would breathe His last, call out to the Father, “It is finished,” (“My mission is accomplished.”) and then give His life to God.
The Father wouldn’t let this be the end for Jesus, though. The sinless Savior Who offered His perfect life as the perfect sacrifice for our sin could not remain dead. He had to be raised up so that all people would know about their chance to turn to Him (turning away from their sin), entrust their lives to Him, and live with God eternally.
So, in this prayer, Jesus celebrates what He accomplishes for the glory of the Father and for our eternal good.
And then: Jesus discloses a request to the Father.
In verse 5, Jesus asks, “Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had in Your presence before the world existed…”
The glory of God was displayed in Jesus in many ways. It was seen when...
And yet the glory of God disclosed in Jesus on all those occasions and others we might name, were mere hints, dim reflections, brief tastes of the glory Jesus once enjoyed as God the Son in the halls of heaven before the creation of this world!
Now, in this prayer, having accomplished all that He had set out to do in taking on human flesh, Jesus asks the Father to give that glory back to Him again.
The Father will do just that when He raises Jesus from the dead on the first Easter Sunday and so, makes the Name of Jesus the Name to which eventually, every knee will bow and every tongue confess, “that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.”
(It turns out that even those who reject Jesus and will tragically, live with the consequence of their rejection of “the only Son of God” will also, in the end, acknowledge the glory of God seen in Jesus.)
If there is one thing more than any other that Christ’s Church needs today, it’s a renewed sense of the glory of God!
I’ve mentioned before the woman who approached me after worship one Sunday in a former congregation. She was upset with the words of Psalm 111:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...” (The same words appear also in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10.)
She affected that voice that some people use when trying to show their piety and said, “I don’t think that we should be afraid of God.” Look, Jesus says that we are His friends when we keep or strive to honor His commandments. He promises to stick closer to us than a brother.
But Jesus, God in the flesh, is not our buddy, not our rabbit’s foot, nor our ATM, nor our good luck charm.
He will be there to judge us at the end of history.
Paraphrasing Bill Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable, Jesus brought us into this world and He can take us out.
He is God almighty.
He alone deserves all our allegiance, honor, loyalty, and thankfulness because, through His “amazing grace,” He saves all who trust in Him from sin and its consequence, death.
We must understand that the God disclosed in Jesus Christ is not a salesperson with whom we can negotiate a price, but the Lord of the universe and that to have Him and the eternity only He can give, we must bow, we must surrender to Him.
It's when we understand this that we’ll be on the road to the wisdom that leads to life.
In this prayer in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus, Who laid His glory by for His time on earth, is reclaiming that glory.
But here’s the really astounding thing.
It’s a theme of the New Testament that the life of Jesus is replicated, reenacted, in baptized believers in Him. All who are baptized and live in daily repentance and renewal can say with the New Testament, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me.”
This is what Luther was getting at when he said that whenever the devil came knocking at his heart's door with temptations, announcing that he was looking for Martin Luther, Jesus went to the door in his place and said, "Martin Luther used to live here. But now I live here. Now, go away and don't come back any more!"
It was because of Christ living in him, that the first century preacher Paul, before his death, could write to the young pastor Timothy with the same sense of fulfillment and jubilation we see in Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel lesson on the brink of His death.
Listen closely to Paul's words (this is from The Message translation):
In taking this attitude, millions of Christians turn a deaf ear to the needs of 4.5 billion people who may die today without ever hearing the Good News of new life through faith in Jesus Christ.
And in thinking that Jesus’ call only applies to some spiritual elites, we also deny ourselves the very sense of fulfillment and the enjoyment of God’s glory that Jesus exults in in today’s Gospel lesson and that He wants us to have!
We, each of us, need to consider how we can restructure our personal lives to fulfill the mission Christ has given to each of us, so that we too can exult in the sense of fulfillment from a life spent in giving God glory.
We may not be able to go to foreign countries in pursuing God’s intentions for our lives.
But each of us is called to fulfill the whole mission of Christ’s Church in our own individual lives. Our sponsorship, through World Vision of three year old Toiba in Kenya, involvement with CHAP, the 30 Hour Famine, the PPSST Food Drive, the upcoming local mission trip, Friend Day in November, upcoming servanthood evangelism events, and above all, our personal willingness to share Christ with the spiritually disconnected, are all ways in which we can lead the life of purpose that gives God glory that Jesus Christ wants each of us to experience.
We need to encourage one another in living out our Christ-given mission to the whole world. It’s to help us fulfill this single mission that Jesus prays in verse 11: “Holy Father, protect them in Your Name that You have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
When I come to the end of this life, I want to be able to pray with the same sense of jubilation and fulfillment we see in Jesus in our Gospel lesson.
I want to be able to look back on a life in which I loved God, loved the world, and took my part in making some disciples of the world’s 4.5-billion unreached people.
I want to be able to say, “Mission accomplished.”
How about you?
If it’s your desire to fulfill God’s purposes for your life, ask Christ to live fully in you…and then go wherever He leads you. Amen
John 17:1-11
Please pull out the Celebrate insert from your bulletin and look at today’s Gospel lesson, John 17:1-11. Keep it handy.
In this lesson, Jesus does an extraordinary thing: He lets us listen in on His personal prayer to God the Father.
Now, I don't know about you, but there are things in my personal prayer time that I want to keep strictly between God and me. I don't want anybody listening in.
But Jesus has no secrets. The Word made flesh, is an open book.
The entire Bible, in fact, reveals that God has always been an open book. The New Testament book of Romans reminds us that, “…what can be known about God is plain…, because God has shown it…”
We see God's openness in other ways. The Bible affirms, for example, that God’s law—His will and His commands for humanity—has always been written on our hearts, giving all of us a strong hint, long before we even hear the Name of Jesus, that there is a God Who made and cares about us.
But more than that, God has taken the time and effort and sacrifice to live out His love for us and make it possible for all who turn from sin and believe in Him to live with Him eternally. God has lived His love for us out loud for everyone to see!
In the prologue to his account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, John the Evangelist says, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
John goes on to say of Jesus, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, Who is close to the Father’s heart, Who has made Him known.”
Jesus has no secrets. Jesus is in the disclosing business.
So, what exactly does He disclose to us in today’s Gospel lesson?
First: He discloses a heart filled with celebration.
One of my nephews, Andrew, is graduating from high school. There’s going to be a celebration later today. The unspoken theme will be: mission accomplished. That's the theme of all graduation parties!
(And sometimes, their theme is "Shwew!")
In His prayer in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus takes a victory lap. He exults in His accomplishment on earth even before He goes to the cross or is raised from the dead.
Jesus knows that He already is what He was sent into the world to be: “the way, and the truth, and the life,” the only way for human beings to know God and the only way to the life that the life-giving God of the universe gives to those who repent and trust in Christ.
Look at what Jesus says He has already accomplished at the moment He utters His prayer.
- In verse 6: “I have made Your Name known to those whom You gave me…”
- In verse 7: “Now they know that everything You have given me is from You…”
- In verse 8: “for the words that You gave to me I have given to them, and [they] know in truth that I came from you…”
In this prayer, Jesus rejoices in the strength that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit had given Him to accomplish it all and He prays, in essence, “Father, mission accomplished!”
As He prays, Jesus knows, of course, that He has one thing left to do on this earth, one more definitive act disclosing Who He is and Who God is.
He must die.
He must give His life for those given to Him by the Father.
This is the ultimate thing that Jesus discloses to all who are open to the truth. Martin Luther said that if we want to know what God is like, we only need to look to Jesus on the cross.
And that’s why with jubilation, Jesus, God on earth, intent on doing God’s would, on the Friday we call Good, having fully disclosed the heart, mind, and will of God, decide on the cross the moment at which He would breathe His last, call out to the Father, “It is finished,” (“My mission is accomplished.”) and then give His life to God.
The Father wouldn’t let this be the end for Jesus, though. The sinless Savior Who offered His perfect life as the perfect sacrifice for our sin could not remain dead. He had to be raised up so that all people would know about their chance to turn to Him (turning away from their sin), entrust their lives to Him, and live with God eternally.
So, in this prayer, Jesus celebrates what He accomplishes for the glory of the Father and for our eternal good.
And then: Jesus discloses a request to the Father.
In verse 5, Jesus asks, “Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had in Your presence before the world existed…”
The glory of God was displayed in Jesus in many ways. It was seen when...
- He fed 5000 people with a few scraps of bread and some fish
- He turned water into wine
- He raised His dead friend Lazarus from the grave
- He gave sight to a blind man
- He empowered a paralyzed man to walk again.
And yet the glory of God disclosed in Jesus on all those occasions and others we might name, were mere hints, dim reflections, brief tastes of the glory Jesus once enjoyed as God the Son in the halls of heaven before the creation of this world!
Now, in this prayer, having accomplished all that He had set out to do in taking on human flesh, Jesus asks the Father to give that glory back to Him again.
The Father will do just that when He raises Jesus from the dead on the first Easter Sunday and so, makes the Name of Jesus the Name to which eventually, every knee will bow and every tongue confess, “that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.”
(It turns out that even those who reject Jesus and will tragically, live with the consequence of their rejection of “the only Son of God” will also, in the end, acknowledge the glory of God seen in Jesus.)
If there is one thing more than any other that Christ’s Church needs today, it’s a renewed sense of the glory of God!
I’ve mentioned before the woman who approached me after worship one Sunday in a former congregation. She was upset with the words of Psalm 111:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...” (The same words appear also in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10.)
She affected that voice that some people use when trying to show their piety and said, “I don’t think that we should be afraid of God.” Look, Jesus says that we are His friends when we keep or strive to honor His commandments. He promises to stick closer to us than a brother.
But Jesus, God in the flesh, is not our buddy, not our rabbit’s foot, nor our ATM, nor our good luck charm.
He will be there to judge us at the end of history.
Paraphrasing Bill Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable, Jesus brought us into this world and He can take us out.
He is God almighty.
He alone deserves all our allegiance, honor, loyalty, and thankfulness because, through His “amazing grace,” He saves all who trust in Him from sin and its consequence, death.
We must understand that the God disclosed in Jesus Christ is not a salesperson with whom we can negotiate a price, but the Lord of the universe and that to have Him and the eternity only He can give, we must bow, we must surrender to Him.
It's when we understand this that we’ll be on the road to the wisdom that leads to life.
In this prayer in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus, Who laid His glory by for His time on earth, is reclaiming that glory.
But here’s the really astounding thing.
It’s a theme of the New Testament that the life of Jesus is replicated, reenacted, in baptized believers in Him. All who are baptized and live in daily repentance and renewal can say with the New Testament, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me.”
This is what Luther was getting at when he said that whenever the devil came knocking at his heart's door with temptations, announcing that he was looking for Martin Luther, Jesus went to the door in his place and said, "Martin Luther used to live here. But now I live here. Now, go away and don't come back any more!"
It was because of Christ living in him, that the first century preacher Paul, before his death, could write to the young pastor Timothy with the same sense of fulfillment and jubilation we see in Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel lesson on the brink of His death.
Listen closely to Paul's words (this is from The Message translation):
I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, [God is] an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for His coming.In his wonderful book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Pastor David Platt talks about how many American Christians think that Jesus’ call and command for radical discipleship, including the call to love all the world and to carry the good news of Jesus to all the nations applies to other people, not us.
In taking this attitude, millions of Christians turn a deaf ear to the needs of 4.5 billion people who may die today without ever hearing the Good News of new life through faith in Jesus Christ.
And in thinking that Jesus’ call only applies to some spiritual elites, we also deny ourselves the very sense of fulfillment and the enjoyment of God’s glory that Jesus exults in in today’s Gospel lesson and that He wants us to have!
We, each of us, need to consider how we can restructure our personal lives to fulfill the mission Christ has given to each of us, so that we too can exult in the sense of fulfillment from a life spent in giving God glory.
We may not be able to go to foreign countries in pursuing God’s intentions for our lives.
But each of us is called to fulfill the whole mission of Christ’s Church in our own individual lives. Our sponsorship, through World Vision of three year old Toiba in Kenya, involvement with CHAP, the 30 Hour Famine, the PPSST Food Drive, the upcoming local mission trip, Friend Day in November, upcoming servanthood evangelism events, and above all, our personal willingness to share Christ with the spiritually disconnected, are all ways in which we can lead the life of purpose that gives God glory that Jesus Christ wants each of us to experience.
We need to encourage one another in living out our Christ-given mission to the whole world. It’s to help us fulfill this single mission that Jesus prays in verse 11: “Holy Father, protect them in Your Name that You have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
When I come to the end of this life, I want to be able to pray with the same sense of jubilation and fulfillment we see in Jesus in our Gospel lesson.
I want to be able to look back on a life in which I loved God, loved the world, and took my part in making some disciples of the world’s 4.5-billion unreached people.
I want to be able to say, “Mission accomplished.”
How about you?
If it’s your desire to fulfill God’s purposes for your life, ask Christ to live fully in you…and then go wherever He leads you. Amen
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