Set Apart

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

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Advent is a season of anticipation. 

It recalls the centuries when God’s people anticipated the birth of the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One. 

In Advent, we also anticipate the coming of Christmas day. (Especially if you're about six or seven years old.)

But more than anything, Advent is a season in which we remind ourselves that we need to live each day in eager anticipation of Jesus’ return. 

One of the most ancient liturgical confessions of the Church is simply: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

Over the past two Sundays, the first two Sundays in Advent, we’ve talked about how to anticipate, how to wait, for the return of Jesus, how to get ready to meet Jesus, either at the ends of our own earthly lives or at the end of this world, when He will, as we confess each Sunday, “judge the living and the dead.” We’ve talked about preparing through daily repentance and daily renewal through the forgiveness God gives to those who trust in Christ as their only God and King.

But in today’s second lesson, the apostle Paul gives us a different way of looking at how to anticipate the coming of Jesus. It’s one I like a lot and it can all be summarized by a single word: sanctification. 

The word sanctification is rooted in a Latin word, sanctus, which means holy. The part of the traditional liturgy in which we sing, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God power and might, heaven and earth are full of Your glory…” is called the sanctus. 

The word holy means set apart, special, different. It could even be translated as weird, odd, not like other things.

This book is called the Holy Bible or Holy Book, because out of all the books in the world, this one is set apart. It is the Word of God. No other book can make that claim. 

Holy Baptism is set apart and different from any other baptism, including John the Baptist’s baptism, because Holy Baptism is set apart, the only baptism in which God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in the baptized. 

Holy Communion is unlike any other meal in which people have community with each other because in Holy Communion, we have communion with God, we receive the very body and blood of Jesus, and through it, God's forgiveness and life pulsing within us. 

Now, we’ve mentioned before what the Bible scholars call inclusios or inclusions. An important theme of a particular section of Scripture is underscored when a particular word or idea appears at its beginning and at its conclusion. That signals the reader that everything in between those two markers is about a single idea. These bookends form what they call “inclusions.” 

Pull out a sanctuary Bible, please, and turn to page 825 and then look at 1 Thessalonians 4:3. We’re not going to look at the whole verse right now, just the pertinent start of it. It says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified…” 

Now, turn the page and look at a line that comes almost at the end of our second lesson for this morning, to chapter 5, verses 23. It says, in part, “May the God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…”” 

So, the theme of this section of Paul’s first century letter to the Christians in the city of Thessalonica, including today’s second lesson is let God set you apart. 

Give God access to your heart, mind, and will so that He can make you over in Christ’s image. 

That’s God’s will for our lives, to make us more like the One Who died and rose to set us free from sin and death, set us free to be the people God had in mind when He formed us in our mothers’ wombs. 

We’re not supposed to look, act, sound like, or be like the rest of the world. We’re supposed to be set apart, different. 

In 1 Peter 2:11, we’re told, “...as foreigners and exiles...abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.” 

And in Romans 12:1-2, we’re told: “...in view of God’s mercy...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

It turns out that being open to the process by which God sets us apart from the world and makes us over into Christ’s image is precisely the way we prepare to meet Jesus. 

But what does that process look like? 

Please take a look at our lesson, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (page 826 in the sanctuary Bibles). Paul writes: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

Can you imagine anything harder than fulfilling the three imperatives that Paul gives in this one verse? 

"Rejoice always"? 

Even when the gift I’ve been unable to find at the first five stores also isn’t at the sixth? 

Even when my child is in the intensive care unit, his life hanging in the balance? 

Even when I’ve lost my wife or my husband? 

I think that we react in this way often because we don’t understand the difference between joy and happiness. (I know this is hard for me to remember!) 

Happiness is about the things that happen to us: We laugh at a joke, win the lottery, meet a friend. 

Joy is that deep in the bone sense of contentment that comes from knowing that because Jesus Christ died and rose and still lives and because I believe in Him, I have the forgiveness of my sins and life with God forever. 

Happiness happens to us because of our circumstances; joy is ours in spite of our circumstances. 

Joy can’t be taken from us even when we’re unhappy. (I have often found that an important truth to hold onto.)

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, for example, Paul talks about the difference between the grief of those who follow Christ and those who don’t: Those without Christ grieve with no hope; those who trust in Christ still grieve. It would be unnatural not to. But they have an eternity of hope. They have joy.

Back in our lesson, Paul says, to “pray continually.” (Some translations put it, "pray without ceasing.") 

I’d guess that in my years as a pastor, this is the passage about which I've gotten the second greatest number of questions. “‘Pray continually’ or ‘Pray without ceasing,’” someone will ask. “How on earth am I supposed to do that? Don’t I have other things to do in life?” 

Yes, you do. 

And so did Jesus. 

And it’s from Him that we can learn what this means. 

Jesus had intense times when He went off by Himself to pray, of course. 

He also prayed publicly with other people. 

But Jesus was also in continual fellowship with God the Father. In John 5:19, Jesus says of Himself, “...Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Jesus remained prayerfully connected to God the Father all through His day. And if Jesus needed to pray constantly like this, how much more do we need to do the same thing? 

Trying to live the Christian life without the power God gives to us through prayer in Jesus’ Name is like trying to drive our cars without gas in the tank. It doesn’t work. 

The prayerless person simply isn’t prepared for the inevitable tough times of this life...or for the coming of Jesus. 

I once saw evangelist Billy Graham on a late night talk show. He amazed the host by saying that the whole time he was being interviewed, he was praying, asking God to help him say the right thing, to glorify God even in this interchange. That’s praying continually, even while hard at work.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” This passage has been the subject of maybe the greatest number of questions I've gotten as a pastor. 

It’s important to note that Paul says to pray in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. Not all circumstances that come into our lives are blessings, you know. Evil things come from the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. Jesus makes clear that all disease is ultimately attributable to the devil. But even in the midst of life's difficulties, even horrors, we have reason to be thankful to a God Who understands us and has conquered for all eternity our enemies, sin and death.

An elderly man, deeply shaken by the death of his wife, told me that every night, amid tears of grief, he fell to his knees and thanked God for the years they’d had together and for the hope of eternity through Jesus Christ that they’d shared. Even in sadness, he was thankful and had God’s peace, what Paul calls elsewhere in the New Testament, a “peace which surpasses all understanding.”

Starting at verse 19 of our lesson, Paul continues: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all;hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” 

We live in a cynical time, a time too, in which people doubt the notion that there are any hard and fast truths. So, when people--even Christian people--hear others speaking in the Name of Jesus, claiming that what they say has the backing of God’s Word in Scripture, we tend to be cynical. We tend toward skepticism in the face of witnesses for Christ who display what one Bible scholar identifies as the key characteristics of John the Baptist: “public, certain, and humble.”

Part of our skepticism may be that we don’t know God’s Word well enough to know what “prophecies” spoken in Christ’s Name are true or false. 

A knowledge of God’s Word is just as important as prayer in helping us get through our days, living in hope, or anticipating the coming of Jesus. 

In fact, if prayer is conversation with God, reading and digesting God’s Word is essential to prayer. 

Our words of prayer to God are mere responses to the Word from God. 

We respond to its call to repent, to believe, to trust, to live in the assurance of His love, grace, and provision, to call on God and be saved, and to call on God in every time of need. 

When we know God’s Word, we grow up, no longer, in the words of Ephesians 4:14, “...infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” This is one reason why I hope that you’ll join the journey through the Bible in 2015.

Paul’s words for this morning end in a prayer. Verse 23: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” 

May God grant these things to us as well. 

As we submit to God, allowing Him to set us apart and sanctify us, worship with His people, soak in His Word, thank Him in all circumstances, pray continually, and receive His body and blood, may you and I be ready to truly celebrate Christmas, be ready to meet our Lord face to face, be ready to face life and death and eternity. Amen

"10 Historical Myths About World Christianity"

From a professor at the University of Edinburgh.

Good Intentions

Pastor David Wendel's 2014 Advent devotions are rooted in the passages of Scripture found in the daily lectionary of Lutheran Book of Worship. The verses explored by Wendel are part of the Gospel of Luke's account of Jesus' crucifixion:

But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and death."
Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me." (Luke 22:33-34)

The interchange between Peter and Jesus happens just before Jesus' arrest and subsequent execution. 

Peter, we know, isn't good for the promises he makes here. On the black night of Jesus' show trial, Peter is identified by people in the crowd as one of Jesus' followers and on three occasions, denies any association with Jesus. 

The seasoned Christian has a tendency to either lament Peter's spinelessness or to take comfort in our own fear.

But maybe we should have a different reaction. 

All of us tend to condemn those who say one thing and do another. And for good reason. There are few things more contemptible in others--or in ourselves--than intentionally committing to one thing and failing to do it. Or intentionally committing not to do one thing, then doing another. With other Christians, I often confess to God that I have "sinned against [Him] in thought, word, and deed, by what [I] have done and by what [I] have left undone."

It's still sin to willfully break our promises to God. Peter still needed to repent and reclaim his faith in Christ after Christ had risen (John 21). 

But the evidence indicates that Peter's "denial" was not seen by Jesus as being on a par with Judas' "betrayal." 

There appears to be a difference between what we often call "good intentions," the breezy, thoughtless promises we make that carry no commitment and no real intentionality, and those promises we truly intend to make but that we allow our sinful natures to prevent us from fulfilling. 

In the former cases, our spirits are disengaged from and indifferent to the promises we make. 

In the latter, our spirits are willing but our finite, selfish human natures--what the Bible calls our "flesh"--is weak, irresolute, flaky. (See here.)

I think that Peter's denial fell into this latter category. Unlike Judas, there was no premeditation in Peter's failure to stand by Jesus. He'd had actual good intentions.

That's why, I think, Jesus didn't give up on Peter. On the first Easter Sunday, an angel tells the women who have come to Jesus' tomb, thinking Jesus was dead that, in fact, Jesus had risen from the dead, then gives these instructions: "...But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee.'" (Mark 16:7)

The angel, God's messenger, singled Peter out for inclusion.

Peter remained part of Jesus' plans and within the scope of His forgiving grace despite failing to meet the bold commitments he made on the Thursday of Jesus' arrest.

I take comfort from this. 

Like Peter, I've made bold commitments to Jesus. And I have failed to keep them. Sometimes spectacularly so, at least in my own mind.

But the God we meet in Jesus penetrates my heart and knows the difference between so-called good intentions and the actual variety. In his charge to his son, Solomon, King David in the Old Testament said: 

"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever." (1 Chonicles 28:9)

In Jesus Christ, God grades those who genuinely repent and trust in Christ as their only hope on a grace curve.

He "remembers that we are dust" and, so meets us with forgiveness when we, seeing our failure to fulfill our intentions to love God and to love others, repent and seek His power to live differently today than we did yesterday.

It's to bring the possibility of such grace to us that Jesus was born, died, and rose again: to make us right with God, to help us to live in the light of heaven and not the darkness of hell, and to give us life with God that never ends.

Thank God for that.

'The Sword of Contention'

That's the title of this new novel by my friend, Mike Adams. Just downloaded my copy onto Kindle.

It's a work of historical fiction peopled by some real life characters and their actual circumstances in sixth century Britain.

"Don't give up on Me"

Here.

In the Bleak Midwinter by James Taylor

Jesus' Agenda of Radical Transformation

Pastor David Wendel, assistant to the Bishop of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), has produced an Advent devotional, which you can download here. The Bible verses are drawn from the daily lectionary appointed for the Advent season. Today's devotion is really worth taking the time to read:

Wednesday of the Week of Advent II

Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and do not sin again.” –John 7:53-8:1

There are those in Christianity today who celebrate what is called “radical hospitality.” They have read the Scriptures and convinced themselves that the Lord Jesus Christ was radically hospitable, welcoming all people, regardless. In a sense this is absolutely true. He spoke with all people—those who thought themselves righteous and those who knew they were terrible sinners. There was no one Jesus wouldn’t speak with, sit with, or engage in conversation. We wouldn’t rightly call this “hospitality,” but love, kindness, mutual respect and regard for all God’s created children. We do well in life and in our congregations to have that same love, kindness, respect and regard for all people—even the greatest sinners!

The mistake people make, however, is in thinking that Jesus welcomes even the greatest sinners without confronting their sin. In our reading for today, Jesus is in the Temple in Jerusalem, teaching. And the Pharisees bring to him a woman caught in adultery, asking the Master what ought to be done with her, as the Law of Moses commands that she be stoned to death. In response, Jesus answers with some of the most memorable words ever spoken, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” And all walk away, for they were all sinners. And does Jesus now say, “Nice to meet you— have a good day”? Does Jesus now say, “Go and keep on living as you have been living—in adultery”? No—he says, “Go, and do not sin again.”

This is certainly not radical hospitality. This is not acceptance of the woman, regardless of her sin. This is not welcome for the sinner, come as you are—remain as you are. Rather, Jesus offers radical transformation. Jesus isn’t about issuing judgments and condemnations, so much as calling people to life-changing transformation, as a result of their encounter with him.

Lord Jesus, as you come to us in Word and Sacrament, turn our hearts and transform our lives that we may go and sin no more. Amen.

Welcome to Our World by Michael W. Smith

One of my favorite Christmas songs.

Just Arrived...

My copy of Goliath by Steve Taylor and The Perfect Foil.

The Lovers That Never Were by Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney's voice on this one, co-written with Elvis Costello, sometimes seems a bit strained to me. And I could have done without the background repeats on the final run through the chorus.

One other aspect of the song I don't like is its accusatory tone in the second verse. People often have good reason for not pursuing relationships that have nothing to do with unkindness, even when they love the other person...sometimes because they love the other person.

Ultimately though, I feel that this is a great sad song about a love that never happens.

Favorite line: "I know there will be a parade of unpainted dreams."

The Lovers That Never Were appeared on McCartney's spotty 1993 release, Off the Ground.



Here are the lyrics:

I have always needed somebody girl
But I close the doors to keep out the world
But for you, I would be here all alone locked in a photograph
All of the clocks have run down, lover beware
We'll be the lovers that never were

I hang patiently on every word you send
Will we ever be much more than just friends?
As for you, you sit there playing this game you keep me waiting
When all of the clocks have run down all over the world
We'll be the lovers that never were

For as long as the sun shines in somebody's eyes
I believe in you baby, so don't tell me lies
For as long as the trees throw down blossoms and leaves
I know there will be a parade of unpainted dreams

And I know dear, how much it's going to hurt
If you still refuse to get your hands dirty
So you, you must tell me something, I love you
Say goodbye or anything all of the clocks have run down
Times at an end, if we can't be lovers we'll never be friends

For as long as the sun shines in somebody's eyes
I believe in you baby, so don't tell me lies
For as long as the trees throw down blossoms and leaves
I know there will be a parade of unpainted dreams

Songwriters:
COSTELLO, ELVIS / MCCARTNEY, PAUL

Published by
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

This Cracked Me Up

Well played, Mr. President.

Christians: Ebenezer Scrooge, George Bailey, and the Grinch Can't Do What Only You Can Do

It's that time of year again. The time when one of Christians' favorite indoor sports is lamenting how advertisers, retailers, and the big bad media have taken Christ out of Christmas. These lamentations are often accompanied by references to how different things were "back in the day."

Really?

Think of the Christmas classics that have warmed our hearts for decades.

How much of Christ is there in It's a Wonderful Life? It's my favorite movie. But there's no mention of Jesus' birth in it, except for the incessant rehearsal of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing by one of George Bailey's daughters.

The only mention of Jesus in The Bishop's Wife comes at the end, during the bishop's Christmas Eve sermon, when he holds Jesus up, not as the Savior of the world, but as an example of good living.

Most of the Christmas Classics--from How the Grinch Stole Christmas to The Polar Express, from A Christmas Carol to Christmas in Connecticut--have nothing to do with Christmas.

They're wonderful, heart-warming stories. But they're not about Christ at all.

The media, advertisers, and the retailers have always loved turning the Feast of Christ's Nativity into a festival of winter sentimentality and materialism. It sells. And it's less controversial. (The rare exception being, A Charlie Brown Christmas, among others.)

So, why the laments? The culture's Christ-less Christmas is nothing new. We Christians need to get over it.

Many of the Christian laments and groanings are rooted in a more basic problem: We Christians are terrible about passing our faith along to others in our personal relationships. For decades, Christians have relied on the culture (or the preacher or the Sunday School class) to pass along the truth that God came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ, took our rightful death sentence for sin, and rose from the dead so that all who turn from sin (repent) and believe in Him as their only God and King, have life with God, imperfectly in this imperfect world and perfectly in the perfect world to come.

We can't trust the culture to share that message. It's not the job of moviemakers, toy manufacturers, or Macy's. It's someone else's job altogether.

In today's installment of Our Daily Bread, we're reminded of God's instructions to His people, Israel, delivered through Moses, just before Israel entered the Promised Land. God gave His people what's become know as the Shema:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

A relationship with God is passed on person to person: parent to child, child to parent, friend to friend, co-worker to co-worker, neighbor to neighbor, classmate to classmate.

We can't rely on a culture that isn't so much antagonistic to Christian faith as it is, as it always has been, indifferent to Christian faith, to pass it on to our neighbors and friends.

People do not come to faith in Christ by cultural osmosis. It's passed on from one flesh and blood human being who believes in Christ to another flesh and blood human being.

That's why, writing decades after Jesus' resurrection, the apostle Peter told Christians living in what is today called Turkey:

...be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,  keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 3:15-16)

As a Christian, I believe that everyone who calls out in faith to the God revealed in Jesus Christ will be saved. But, as Paul writes at another place in the New Testament:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (Romans 10:14)

Paul wasn't talking about professional preachers proclaiming the Good News of new and everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

He was talking about every Christian, in their sitting at home, in their walking along the road, in the morning and in the evening, being ready to do things like...

• offer to pray for others to the God with whom they have intimacy through Christ;
• offer to help them when they need child care or a lift to work;
• serve meals to homeless people; 
• be considerate of those others disrespect;

and, in a thousand other ways, earn the right to tell others about the eternity of hope through Christ that causes us to gratefully love God and love the people for whom Jesus Christ died and rose...everybody.

You might earn that right with something as simple as telling the clerk at the store, "Merry Christmas" or "God bless you" during this Advent season.

Jesus isn't relying on the culture to share His gospel with the world. He's relying on people who follow Him to do that.

Christians, that's us. Will we do it? 

Getting Ready for a New Day

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

Mark 1:1-8

Truth is a rare commodity, it seems... 

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

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

Truth is often is short supply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prophets always told God’s truth. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John was pointing to Jesus. 

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

He was the center of attention. 

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

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

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

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

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

I know that it is for me. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16] 

This describes the great God worthy of our complete surrender!

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

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

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

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

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

We need to be ready for that day. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not surprised, but...

...U2 got only one Grammy nomination for its latest LP, Songs of Innocence, and Lecrae received only two for his album, released on the same day, Anomaly. Peter Furler got no recognition for his wonderful Sun and Shield. Sigh.

Reaching Up, Reaching In, Reaching Out

Shared this today with the people of Living Water Lutheran Church of Springboro, Ohio, on the congregation's Facebook page:

Remember the five building blocks of church life and of personal discipleship?

• Love God
• Love our neighbors
• Love our brothers and sisters in Christ
• Make disciples for Christ
• Personally grow in Christ

Growing in Christ entails a commitment to building our lives on these five building blocks, which we have summarized as:

• Reaching up
• Reaching in
• Reaching out

Reaching up means loving God through worship and prayer.

Reaching in entails loving our church family through mutual care and through involvement in group Bible study.

Reaching out includes making disciples through involvement with kindness outreaches and personal faith sharing and serving our neighbors through congregational opportunities and in our everyday lives.

Reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out reflect levels of growth as followers of Jesus.

It begins with worship of God and a relationship of daily contact with God, when we seek His forgiveness and His guidance and will for our daily lives. That's reaching up.

It continues with a commitment to caring for the needs of our fellow Christians, serving and encouraging them not only in adversity and not just with words, but with acts of practical service. A strong congregational family that shares in the love of Christ and works out conflicts in healthy, Christ-honoring ways is a launching pad for the deepest level of Christian discipleship. That's reaching in.

Reaching out is being the vital connection between Christ and a world lost in sin, death, and darkness. It shows in acts of service to neighbors--locally, nationally, and internationally. In the next few years, there will be more opportunities given to the people of Living Water to grow in this area. We will be allowed to take baby steps in ministries of outreach such as kindness outreaches, but also in personal discipleship. God wants us to feel confident in fulfilling our one and only mission as Christ's Church, making disciples. That's part of reaching out.

Please prayerfully consider where you are on the reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out continuum and ask God to help you move with faith, hope, confidence, and humility toward becoming more of what the Lord can empower us to be as individuals and as a congregation.

God bless you!
 

Happy Beginnings

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, today.]

Mark 13:24-37
A confession: I’m a sucker for chick flicks. A friend recommended one of them, The Lake House, to me and so, this past week, when I saw that it was going to be on, I set my recorder and watched it the next night.

I don’t want to give it all away if you haven’t seen it. (I loved it, by the way.) But The Lake House revolves around two people, played by Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock who, having realized their love for each other, nonetheless face the impossible obstacle of living in two different time periods, able only to communicate, miraculously, by letters they place in the mailbox of a lake house.

It’s hard for two people to get together under those circumstances. And so, Bullock’s character, tired of the futility and the sense of defeat, tells Reeves’ character that while they had been involved in a beautiful fantasy, they should leave it behind and move on with their separate lives. But Reeves’ character responds with a simple message: “Don’t give up on me.” (I will tell you that there's a happy beginning at the end of the movie, but that's all.)

The plea of Reeves' character, “Don’t give up on me,” is really the message of Jesus to us on this first Sunday in Advent.

“I know that You can’t see Me right now,” Jesus, the groom, is telling us, the Church, His bride. “I know that our only communication is through the printed Words of the Bible, the water of Holy Baptism, the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the fellowship of people as imperfect and as needy as you are. There will be tough days when My love for you will seem to be making impossible promises and giving you seemingly impossible hopes. But it is going to work out. With God all things are possible.”

“We will be together one day,” Jesus is telling us. “There will be a happy beginning beyond the world's endings. Don’t give up on Me.” 

This, in fact, is truly the message of the entire Advent season. Don’t give up on Jesus.

Advent, of course, is just a human creation. But it’s a shrewd one. Think about it: Here we are preparing for the celebration of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. You may have noticed, though, that few of our preparations, whether as individuals, families, or nations, includes anything about Jesus.

One reason for that, I think, is that, in our minds, we tend to put Jesus in the past. He lived on this earth in the past. He died in the past. And we Christians believe He also rose in the past.

We seem to live in separate times, the notion of connection between us an impossible, beautiful fantasy. And so, we move on with our lives as though Jesus weren’t even there.

Advent is a gauntlet thrown down before a disbelieving world and an often disbelieving Church and, calling our attention to God’s Word, the Bible, tells us, “The same Jesus Who was born at Christmas, died on Good Friday, and rose on Easter, is coming back and when He does, He will bring a new heaven and a new earth and an end to this world. What good will all your frenzied materialism be then?"

Advent says: “Do not make the mistake of giving up on Jesus. Trust in Him."

We see that message in today’s Gospel lesson, Mark 13:24-37. You’ll find it on page 710 of our sanctuary Bibles.

Now, in this passage, we find Jesus speaking, I think, simultaneously about two different times and events, compressing them into a single narrative.

On the one hand, He’s talking about the invasion of Roman armies and their desecration of the temple in Jerusalem, an event that would happen about forty years after Jesus spoke these words. That event, Jesus asserts, will be the result of God’s chosen people’s failure to reach out with His love and grace to the whole world.

The Temple, the Old Testament teaches, was meant to be a house of prayer and worship for people of all nations, Jews and Gentiles. Empowered by regular encounters with God in the temple, Israel was to be God’s messenger into all the world, teaching people to repent and believe in the God of Israel in order to have new life with God. As God told the people of Israel through the prophet Isaiah: "“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Instead, Israel largely chose either to ignore or horde God. But faith in God, just like the manna with which God fed His people Israel in the wilderness, will go bad if it’s horded. It must be given away or it will rot, die, or disappear. Whenever Israel forgot God and its mission to the world, it always led to problems. And in His words today, Jesus is saying, it would ultimately lead to its destruction as it did in 70 AD.

Now, Jesus says elsewhere, that He is the temple that cannot be destroyed and today He sends all who believe in Him into the world to make disciples.



But in today's lesson, Jesus also speaks more generally of the end times, when this world will come to an end and He will establish His eternal kingdom.

Verse 24: “But in those days, [Jesus says] following that distress [times of persecution and hardship He has been talking about in earlier verses], the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;  the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ [Here Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament book of Isaiah.] At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

The first time Jesus came into our world, He did so on a silent night in an obscure village of which the world would not have heard. God sent His angels to announce the birth only to shepherds, people on the bottom end of the economic and religious food chain. Jesus lived and died and rose again in a backwater country that had spent most of its history under the thumbs of foreign powers.

But when Jesus returns, there will be nothing obscure or silent about it.

The whole world will know at once, “in the twinkling of an eye.” And, He will send His angels out to gather together His elect--those chosen for salvation not by fiat, but because they have believed in Jesus Christ. They are elect because God has saved them by His grace through their faith in Jesus.

Interestingly, that word that we translate as elect is, in the Greek language in which the New Testament was originally written, eklektos. It literally means "called out from." But it's transliterated into the English as eclectic, a word that can mean, diverse.

The elect the angels will gather on the day of Jesus' return from this world will be diverse, eclectic. They will come from "every nation, tribe, people and language," formed by the Holy Spirit into a single family through their faith in Christ.

The elect are the people who refuse to give up on Jesus.

They face tragedy; but they don’t give up.

They face death; but they don’t give up.

They face opposition for their faith but keep believing.

They wrestle with the will of God, but keep holding onto Jesus.

They’re the people who believe that it’s always too soon to give up on Jesus, the conqueror of sin and death.

They trust the promise of Jesus in Matthew 24:12-13: “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”



Verse 28: [Jesus goes on] “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

Two messages come to us from Jesus here, I think:

(1) Most obviously, be ready for His return;

(2) And you never can tell when His return may happen because every condition necessary for His return has already happened while Jesus was still on the earth.

It’s such a silly waste to look for “the signs of the times.” The world was already full up on those signs, full up on sin and death even before Jesus went to the cross. It was ready for the end even then.

So, our focus shouldn't be on speculation. It should be on being ready for Jesus to return.

And how we do that is to keep repenting for sin and to keep trusting Jesus, the Way and the truth and the life, to cover our sins with God’s forgiveness and to fill us with life eternal.

We get ready for Jesus’ return by following Him now and into eternity even when the world wants to tie Him down to the ancient past.

That’s why the words with which Jesus closes in today's lesson, found in verses 32 to 37, boils down to one word alone: “Watch.”

The One we try to tie to the past is actually our future and through the eyes of faith, we need to keep focused on Him.

One Bible scholar has observed that, “Modern Christians often think, ‘Since the time [of Jesus’ return] is unknown, it could be hundred, or thousands, or millions of years from now…[But Christ’s words for us this morning should cause us to think]...’since the timing is unknown, it could be today! Maybe this evening, or at midnight, or when dawn breaks.’”

The scholar goes on to ask: “But does anyone actually think that way? Does anyone go through every day, wondering at morning, noon, and night if now is the time that someone long gone might return?"

"Yes," he says. "People who are in love do that.”

Are we in love with Jesus enough to take Him at His word that one day He will return and make all things right?

Because of the love God has shown us in Christ, because of the cross and empty tomb, because the Holy Spirit has given us faith in Christ, we know that we are loved and we know that it’s safe to love Him in return. We're on solid ground in loving Him back. Christ’s love is one that will never let us down.

And so we wait for His return.

We wait with eager anticipation.

We ready ourselves while we wait by attending to His Word, worshiping with His people, receiving His body and blood, sharing His love and His message with others.

This Advent season, may Christ teach us to look forward to a lot more than Christmas day.

May He teach us to live lives spent in active attentiveness to Him.

May we learn to watch for Him and, in the watching, be ready for anything in this life or in the one to come.

When we watch for Jesus and trust in Him to return, to dry our tears and to make things right, we can be assured that beyond all the endings--beyond the end of this world, beyond the ends of our own lives, He will bring us a happy beginning that never ends. Amen