Here are reflections from a recent quiet time with God. I try to do this five days a week, letting God's Word speak to me in a dynamic, relational way. To see how I approach quiet time, read here. I hope that these journal entries are helpful to others. But nothing can replace your own personal quiet time encounters with God!
Look: “...And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:6)
God has just revealed Himself to Moses in Midian at the burning bush. When Moses realizes that he’s in the presence of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he hides his face. Moses understands the infinite distance between God and himself: God is immortal; Moses is mortal. God is perfect; Moses isn’t. God is the Creator; Moses is the creature. God is sinless; Moses is, like the rest of the human race, sinful.
No wonder Moses hid his face. His response is appropriate, understandable. Centuries later, Isaiah was conscious of the infinite distance between God and himself when he encountered God. He knew that for an unclean human to dare to look at God meant death. He cried out after God had initiated His call to Isaiah to be His prophet: “ “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)
Theologians and experts in comparative religions say that Moses and Isaiah experienced “numinous awe,” awe, respect, terror, fear in the presence of the God of all creation.
Neither in Biblical history nor in the history of Jews and Christians since would this be the first time that people experienced awe or terror in God’s presence. During their wilderness wanderings, the people of Israel, who God called Moses to lead, caught a glimpse of God’s holiness and were terrified. They asked Moses to act as a go-between so that they wouldn’t have to look at God and be killed by the infinite distance. "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die." (Exodus 20:19)
Decades later, Israel would marvel at how Moses enjoyed an intimate relationship with God. Deuteronomy 34:10 says, “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face…”
Here’s what strikes me in this passage: Where is my numinous awe?
I often seem to treat God as an afterthought.
Or I take Him and, maybe worse, His grace for granted.
I often ignore Him or treat Him like a buddy.
Listen: Of course, with Jesus, the new covenant or the new testament has come. God has revealed Himself to all people in Jesus Christ. John writes in the prologue to his gospel: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:19)
In Jesus, to use Martin Luther’s phrase, all are able to see God’s friendly face, the same friendly face Moses, Isaiah, and others came to “see” as their relationship with God developed.
God IS perfect. God IS immortal. God IS sinless, righteous, and, in Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich’s phrase, “wholly other.”
But God loves us, cares for us, and wants a relationship with us. If these things weren’t true, God wouldn’t have met Moses and Isaiah. And if these things weren’t true, He wouldn’t have reached out to Gentiles as well as Jews, to the whole world, in Jesus Christ.
God wants to be reconciled to us, to forgive us our sins, to give us new life, and to shower His love on us for all eternity. Jesus told Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
To all who repent and believe in God as revealed to us in Jesus, God offers life, forgiveness, citizenship in His kingdom, and intimacy with God.
Through Jesus, we can speak with God and ask of God anytime, anywhere. “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full,” Jesus says (John 16:24).
“...we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin [God has been subjected to temptation and death when He shared in human life in Jesus]. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Citizens of God’s kingdom, believers in Jesus, are to approach the God revealed in Jesus, our “high priest,” “with boldness,” the preacher in Hebrews says. But it’s interesting to see where Jesus is as we approach Him: “God’s throne of grace.”
No matter the intimate friendship with God that Jesus opens to those who believe in Him (John 15:15), He is still the King of all creation, my God, my Creator. He still deserves our honor, praise, and submission. When unbelieving Thomas finally realized all of Who Jesus is, he fell to his knees and confessed Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
The God Who seeks intimacy with me is also owed by submission, surrender, awe, and praise. In fact, His desire for intimacy with a sinner like me, along with His desire to cleanse me of sin and make me fit for living in His kingdom, should incite me to the deepest and most reverent of fear, honor, and praise.
But too often, I turn Jesus into a buddy.
Or my prayers are like emails dashed off to an indulgent uncle, an easy mark.
Not only does such an approach to God mock Him and His desire for closeness with us, it risks turning God into an idol, a good luck charm. Instead of being an expression of an intimate friendship with God, my “prayers” risk becoming messages to a false god I’ve created in my own head, a god I use for my convenience and comfort. I don’t want that! I want real intimacy with God! And I never want to forget that God is God and I am not!
Forgive me, Lord! For taking You for granted. For forgetting, in the words of the preacher of intimacy with You, that it is nonetheless, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Forgive me for forgetting that only You are God and I am not. With the saints in the heavenly city, help me to say and believe, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" (Revelation 5:12).
I realize that this is a practical issue. If I don’t reverence, fear, honor, praise, and glorify God, it indicates a deficiency in my understanding of You, a deficiency in my relationship with You.
Help me, Lord, to heed the words of the preacher in Hebrews 12:28: “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,”
Respond: Lord, to help me to get in the habit of acknowledging Your holiness and giving it to You, help me to spend time next week contemplating several passages of Scripture for five consecutive days: John 9:16-24; Revelation 5; psalms of praise. Help me to note reasons to honor and praise You. Help me to understand more fully the depths of Your love and grace. Teach me to honor You more fully as God. Help me to not be flippant. Help me to know You more fully as my best Friend, but not my buddy. In Jesus’ name I pray.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Friday, January 26, 2018
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Flying High with Two Religious Carnival Pitchmen (Ugh)
Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis are two heretics who espouse a false message referred to as the "prosperity gospel." Like people such as Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen, they tell people that if they give enough (especially to them) and pray enough and believe enough, they'll have riches and be happy and problem-free. (Clearly, they must not have noticed how the early apostles, like Jesus, had no wealth and were martyred for their faith in Christ.)
From this clip, I guess that they also never noticed that Jesus, even though He was intent on going to Jerusalem to fulfill His mission of dying and rising for us, always moved among the crowds and made Himself interruptible. When people asked for help--blind people, the parents of sick children, those suffering from some other affliction, those who had questions, He took the time to be with them and help them. Jesus had an agenda; but He knew that He could best pursue it by being interruptible, underscoring His identity as the long-awaited Messiah (the Christ) and helping people to see that He was the way to life with God.
The fact is that it's when we Christians move among people and allow ourselves and our agendas to be interrupted by the needs of other people that we do God's will.
Copeland and Duplantis seem to forget the whole point of God's incarnation, His taking on human flesh in Jesus. He came to move among the evil, the demon-possessed, the druggies, and everyone else. If God isn't too good to do that, then I'm surely not! Neither are Copeland or Duplantis.
I've had some of my most amazing opportunities to share Christ's love and to pray with and for people while flying on commercial jets.
The crap peddled her is nothing more than a rationalization for materialistic impulses. Duplantis and Copeland aren't seeking to help people or to glorify God, but to help and glorify themselves. Their private jets are no different than gold-plated coffins. Jesus' question applies here: "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36)
(Hat Tip to Ann Althouse for posting this video.)
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
From this clip, I guess that they also never noticed that Jesus, even though He was intent on going to Jerusalem to fulfill His mission of dying and rising for us, always moved among the crowds and made Himself interruptible. When people asked for help--blind people, the parents of sick children, those suffering from some other affliction, those who had questions, He took the time to be with them and help them. Jesus had an agenda; but He knew that He could best pursue it by being interruptible, underscoring His identity as the long-awaited Messiah (the Christ) and helping people to see that He was the way to life with God.
The fact is that it's when we Christians move among people and allow ourselves and our agendas to be interrupted by the needs of other people that we do God's will.
Copeland and Duplantis seem to forget the whole point of God's incarnation, His taking on human flesh in Jesus. He came to move among the evil, the demon-possessed, the druggies, and everyone else. If God isn't too good to do that, then I'm surely not! Neither are Copeland or Duplantis.
I've had some of my most amazing opportunities to share Christ's love and to pray with and for people while flying on commercial jets.
The crap peddled her is nothing more than a rationalization for materialistic impulses. Duplantis and Copeland aren't seeking to help people or to glorify God, but to help and glorify themselves. Their private jets are no different than gold-plated coffins. Jesus' question applies here: "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36)
(Hat Tip to Ann Althouse for posting this video.)
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Ambition
[This is the journal entry for my quiet time with God today. I hope that you'll find it helpful if you wrestle with the same temptations and sins with which I daily wrestle. To see how I approach my quiet time with God, read this.]
Look: “41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (Mark 10:41-45)
Jesus had just foretold His crucifixion and resurrection a third time when James and John approached Him with a request. They wanted to be His right- and left-hand men when He came to glory. They had no idea what they were asking for. Meanwhile, the other ten disciples hear about the brothers’ impudent desire and start haranguing about it. Clearly, they thought that they had equally valid claims to be elevated once Jesus fully ushered in His kingdom.
That’s when Jesus calls for a huddle. He says that the greats among the Gentiles (to be read here as, the fallen world) lord their authority over others. But, Jesus says that’s not how things go in the kingdom of God that He has brought into the world.
Listen: What’s interesting to me as Jesus explains what it means to be great in His kingdom is that He doesn’t put down the desire to be great. Instead, He redefines greatness. “...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Then Jesus says that we must take Him not only as our King and Savior; we must also take Him as our example: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” That phrase, Son of Man, references Jesus’ deity, His status as God enfleshed. Although Jesus has been given all authority (Matthew 28:19), He doesn’t lord it over people.
Instead, He became a servant: becoming human, subjecting Himself to human limitations, death, and temptation, washing the disciples’ feet, dying for the sins of the world.
That’s the point of the hymn that Paul quotes in Philippians 2:5-11:
To be great in God’s eyes and God’s kingdom is to dare to be a servant of others, to not toot our own horns, to not tell stories about my life in which I’m the hero, to not try to be the first one in line, to not resent others’ success, to not seek affirmation or accolades from the fickle world, to not put other people down in order to lift myself up.
It means to honor God, to share Christ, to show consideration and respect to others no matter how we may feel about them, to pray for those who rub us the wrong way or who have done us wrong, to pray for those we don’t understand, to help the poor, the despised, the neglected, to surrender all to Christ.
This is daunting. Even when I seek to be a selfless servant, I often find myself thinking, “Wow! I’m being a selfless servant.” That’s hardly the thinking of a selfless servant.
But instead of giving into despair, which Luther, in The Small Catechism, identifies as one of many “great and shameful sins,” I need to repent and ask God to change our ways of thinking. From an earthly, human point of view, I can’t see how God can make a selfless servant out of this bundle of selfish ambitions and desires. God though, can do anything. As Jesus says a few verses earlier in regard to those who worship their own wealth being able still to gain entrance into the kingdom of God: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)
God can save sinners like me. He can transform the self-absorbed into the selfless disciple, if my ambition is to be great in the eyes of heaven and not in the eyes of the world.
Knowing God’s grace and my own depravity, I would even say that if I want to want to be a selfless disciple while the old Adam is still saying, “Not really,” God will bring His transforming grace into my life and transform me.
I simply need to let Jesus in, to ask Him to work on me, to fill me with the Holy Spirit, to crowd out the old Adam in me with Himself, and to shut the old Adam down, to tie him up, and to destroy his power, as well as the power of the devil and the sinfulness in the world, over me.
“Here I am!” Jesus says to the Christians in the ancient city of Laodicea who had become blase about their faith in Him. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
If I aspire to greatness in the kingdom of God, I must daily repent and daily be renewed by the power of God’s saving Word and His Holy Spirit’s life-giving power. Sometimes I want this; but, Lord, I do want to want it. Since I’m giving you that inch into my life, please, Lord Jesus, take a mile! Take all of me!
Respond: Lord, help me today to pray for those who, over the course of my life, have been my detractors, those I have hurt, and those I have found difficult. Help me not to think about what people think of me. And help me to point others to You. Help me not to aspire to be honored by the world in any way, but only to live a life that honors You. Today, I ask You, Lord, to crucify the old Mark with all his vain ambitions so that the new Mark, the Mark turned to You alone for life and affirmation, may rise with renewed vigor. In Jesus’ name. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Look: “41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (Mark 10:41-45)
Jesus had just foretold His crucifixion and resurrection a third time when James and John approached Him with a request. They wanted to be His right- and left-hand men when He came to glory. They had no idea what they were asking for. Meanwhile, the other ten disciples hear about the brothers’ impudent desire and start haranguing about it. Clearly, they thought that they had equally valid claims to be elevated once Jesus fully ushered in His kingdom.
That’s when Jesus calls for a huddle. He says that the greats among the Gentiles (to be read here as, the fallen world) lord their authority over others. But, Jesus says that’s not how things go in the kingdom of God that He has brought into the world.
Listen: What’s interesting to me as Jesus explains what it means to be great in His kingdom is that He doesn’t put down the desire to be great. Instead, He redefines greatness. “...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Then Jesus says that we must take Him not only as our King and Savior; we must also take Him as our example: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” That phrase, Son of Man, references Jesus’ deity, His status as God enfleshed. Although Jesus has been given all authority (Matthew 28:19), He doesn’t lord it over people.
Instead, He became a servant: becoming human, subjecting Himself to human limitations, death, and temptation, washing the disciples’ feet, dying for the sins of the world.
That’s the point of the hymn that Paul quotes in Philippians 2:5-11:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:Aspiring to greatness is not a bad thing. But we must redefine our understanding of greatness. Greatness is achieved not be ascending above others. Greatness is something to which the human ego, human pretensions, and human sensibilities must descend. In the Kingdom of God, the way up is the way down.
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
To be great in God’s eyes and God’s kingdom is to dare to be a servant of others, to not toot our own horns, to not tell stories about my life in which I’m the hero, to not try to be the first one in line, to not resent others’ success, to not seek affirmation or accolades from the fickle world, to not put other people down in order to lift myself up.
It means to honor God, to share Christ, to show consideration and respect to others no matter how we may feel about them, to pray for those who rub us the wrong way or who have done us wrong, to pray for those we don’t understand, to help the poor, the despised, the neglected, to surrender all to Christ.
This is daunting. Even when I seek to be a selfless servant, I often find myself thinking, “Wow! I’m being a selfless servant.” That’s hardly the thinking of a selfless servant.
But instead of giving into despair, which Luther, in The Small Catechism, identifies as one of many “great and shameful sins,” I need to repent and ask God to change our ways of thinking. From an earthly, human point of view, I can’t see how God can make a selfless servant out of this bundle of selfish ambitions and desires. God though, can do anything. As Jesus says a few verses earlier in regard to those who worship their own wealth being able still to gain entrance into the kingdom of God: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)
God can save sinners like me. He can transform the self-absorbed into the selfless disciple, if my ambition is to be great in the eyes of heaven and not in the eyes of the world.
Knowing God’s grace and my own depravity, I would even say that if I want to want to be a selfless disciple while the old Adam is still saying, “Not really,” God will bring His transforming grace into my life and transform me.
I simply need to let Jesus in, to ask Him to work on me, to fill me with the Holy Spirit, to crowd out the old Adam in me with Himself, and to shut the old Adam down, to tie him up, and to destroy his power, as well as the power of the devil and the sinfulness in the world, over me.
“Here I am!” Jesus says to the Christians in the ancient city of Laodicea who had become blase about their faith in Him. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
If I aspire to greatness in the kingdom of God, I must daily repent and daily be renewed by the power of God’s saving Word and His Holy Spirit’s life-giving power. Sometimes I want this; but, Lord, I do want to want it. Since I’m giving you that inch into my life, please, Lord Jesus, take a mile! Take all of me!
Respond: Lord, help me today to pray for those who, over the course of my life, have been my detractors, those I have hurt, and those I have found difficult. Help me not to think about what people think of me. And help me to point others to You. Help me not to aspire to be honored by the world in any way, but only to live a life that honors You. Today, I ask You, Lord, to crucify the old Mark with all his vain ambitions so that the new Mark, the Mark turned to You alone for life and affirmation, may rise with renewed vigor. In Jesus’ name. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Monday, January 22, 2018
How Jesus Disciples Live
[This was shared during worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church yesterday morning.]
Mark 1:14-20
In today’s short gospel lesson, Mark 1:14-20, Jesus shows us something of what it is to be His disciple. It boils down to four words:
Take a look at verse 14, please: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.” (Mark 1:14) John’s ministry had been preparation for this moment when Jesus began His ministry. John had worked to get people ready for the coming of Jesus, the King. “After me,” John had said, “comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” (Mark 1:7)
Verse 15: “‘The time has come,’ [Jesus] said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”
The word translated as “time has come” is, in the Greek in which Mark wrote his gospel, Πεπλήρωται, from the verb πληρόω. It means full up, fully complete. The time was full up, Jesus was saying. Full up for the kingdom of God to be ushered into our world by the King of kings, Jesus!
There may be no more overlooked Biblical concept than the kingdom of God. Yet Jesus talks about it all the time.
When we think of that phrase “kingdom of God,” we might think of something that will happen in the future, beyond our own deaths, after our resurrections.
This view of God’s kingdom turns this life into nothing but heaven’s waiting room.
Not only is that incredibly boring, it’s built on a false understanding of the kingdom that Jesus came to bring to us.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to petition God, “Thy kingdom come.” When we say that, we’re not asking God to make us part of His reign after we die. We're asking God to reign over our lives right now.
In explaining this petition of the prayer, Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism: “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit [now], so that by His grace we believe His holy Word [now] and live a godly life now and in eternity.”
Jesus says in John 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
He says to those who come in contact with Him, “...the kingdom of God is in your midst." (Luke 17:21)
And 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “... if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
So, Jesus comes to bring us into direct relationship with God our King in these days, as we walk on this earth! We become citizens of His kingdom now. We don’t have to wait till we die!
Jesus explains exactly how the kingdom of God comes to us in verse 15 of our gospel lesson too. When Jesus brings God’s kingdom to us--in His Word, in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, in the fellowship of other believers, we enter the kingdom of God and we enter it at deeper and deeper levels of connection and joy when we “repent and believe in the good news.”
Those are the first two aspects of being disciples in the kingdom of God: repenting and believing in the good news.
Let's unpack those two things for a moment.
As you know, a lot of people have the wrong idea about repentance. Repentance does begin with sorrow for sin, with regret over hurting the God Who made us and sent Jesus to die and rise for us. But after sin has been confessed honestly to God, repentance ends with the joy of reconciliation with God. It ends with God telling us we are forgiven. Repentance clears the clutter of sin that otherwise obstructs our relationship with God. His life flows to us again.
To believe in the good news is to believe in Jesus, to trust that when He died on the cross, He died for my sins, to trust that when He rose from the dead, He did so to give me life. That’s good news! “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)
Discipleship begins with repentance and belief. These two things alone are enough to save us. They are gifts God gives to those who are open to Jesus. Repentance and belief in Jesus, both of which only God the Holy Spirit can create within us, are the conduits by which we are saved by grace through faith in Christ.
But we live in a world darkened by sin. And until our own physical deaths, you and I will be dogged by our sin and the temptation to sin. Unless we remain resolutely connected to Christ, we can fall away from God. We can lose our ways.
This is why Jesus told the disciples who wanted to sleep at Gethsemane, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
So, on top of repenting and believing, the disciple of Jesus will diligently seek to follow Him.
They follow Jesus so that they can be filled with God’s strength and not have to face life or temptations to sin on their own.
In our gospel lesson, Jesus finds Simon and Andrew, two brothers who are fishermen, and tells them, “Come, follow me…” (Mark 1:17). Later, Jesus calls another set of brothers, John and James, to follow and they do (v.20).
But what does it mean for you and me to follow Jesus?
Imagine for a second a couple who get married, then decide, even though they live under the same roof and have jobs in the same city, that they’ll just see each other for one hour every week...unless they have something more interesting or fun to do.
How deep do you think their relationship would be?
How prepared do you think they’d be when adversities hit?
You couldn’t really describe what they had as a marriage, could you?
As ridiculous as that illustration sounds, it precisely describes the manner in which most people who call themselves Christians approach the most important relationship in their lives, their relationship with Jesus.
They set up a time to meet Jesus every week (unless something more interesting or fun comes along) and then forget Him the rest of the week. Weekly worship with fellow believers is essential to the Christian life; I'm not knocking it. But if that’s the only connection you have with Christ over the course of your weeks, how deep can your relationship with Christ really be? How prepared will you be for life’s adversities when Jesus is nothing more than a distant acquaintance?
We need to spend some focused time each day in prayer, in reading God’s Word, in asking Jesus, “What do you have in mind for me to think or do in this passage of Scripture today, Lord?”
I also find myself as I grow older more closely adhering to Paul's admonition to pray without ceasing. Many times over the course of my days, I'll find myself talking with God about one thing or another. I'll be driving along in my car, praying. And I know people who pass by think I'm talking to myself. I don't care what they think! I want to keep praying that God's kingdom will come to people.
But even if you're not that crazy, having a daily focused time with God is important. If it seems too hard to do for say five days a week, try at first to do it one day a week, then two, and so on. And, if you need help in even getting started on following Jesus in this way, contact one of the members of our Life and Learning Team to ask them for tips.
So, disciples of Jesus repent, believe in the good news, and follow Jesus. And then, they fish. Jesus told Simon and Andrew to follow Him “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 1:17)
This metaphorical description of every disciple's mission would have resonated with Simon and Andrew. And not just because they were fishermen.
You see, God’s people, the Jews, viewed the sea as a daunting, evil thing. It was a place of death and ferocious sea monsters. They remembered Genesis 1, in which God’s Holy Spirit moved over dark chaos to impose order, bring good from evil, and to create life.
To fish for people is to draw them out of chaos, sin, evil, and darkness.
To fish for people is to bring them to life with God, to the light of God’s goodness.
To fish for people is to make disciples.
I try to go fishing all the time, even though it doesn’t come naturally to me, even though I would rather keep to myself. (Believe it or not...and Ann will vouch for this, I am an introvert. God has had to kick me out of my shell and still has to remind me to move beyond myself all the time!)
So, at Jesus’ behest, I go fishing for people.
Last night, I made a run to a Kroger deli.
Not my usual one.
I was trolling different waters last night.
I happened to be in uniform, my clerical collar. That can be more of a disadvantage than an advantage.
Whatever, I followed my usual pattern of interaction: I struck up a conversation with the clerk who waited on me. “Have you been busy today?” “No need to put paper between every slice of cheese.”
This is the way you start when you go fishing for Jesus:
Fishing for people is the greatest expression of love in the world.
Repent. Believe. Follow. Fish.
This is how disciples live.
This is how Christ uses us to make more disciples.
May we always be faithful disciples of Jesus. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Mark 1:14-20
In today’s short gospel lesson, Mark 1:14-20, Jesus shows us something of what it is to be His disciple. It boils down to four words:
- Repent
- Believe
- Follow
- Fish.
Take a look at verse 14, please: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.” (Mark 1:14) John’s ministry had been preparation for this moment when Jesus began His ministry. John had worked to get people ready for the coming of Jesus, the King. “After me,” John had said, “comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” (Mark 1:7)
Verse 15: “‘The time has come,’ [Jesus] said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”
The word translated as “time has come” is, in the Greek in which Mark wrote his gospel, Πεπλήρωται, from the verb πληρόω. It means full up, fully complete. The time was full up, Jesus was saying. Full up for the kingdom of God to be ushered into our world by the King of kings, Jesus!
There may be no more overlooked Biblical concept than the kingdom of God. Yet Jesus talks about it all the time.
When we think of that phrase “kingdom of God,” we might think of something that will happen in the future, beyond our own deaths, after our resurrections.
This view of God’s kingdom turns this life into nothing but heaven’s waiting room.
Not only is that incredibly boring, it’s built on a false understanding of the kingdom that Jesus came to bring to us.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to petition God, “Thy kingdom come.” When we say that, we’re not asking God to make us part of His reign after we die. We're asking God to reign over our lives right now.
In explaining this petition of the prayer, Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism: “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit [now], so that by His grace we believe His holy Word [now] and live a godly life now and in eternity.”
Jesus says in John 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
He says to those who come in contact with Him, “...the kingdom of God is in your midst." (Luke 17:21)
And 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “... if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
So, Jesus comes to bring us into direct relationship with God our King in these days, as we walk on this earth! We become citizens of His kingdom now. We don’t have to wait till we die!
Jesus explains exactly how the kingdom of God comes to us in verse 15 of our gospel lesson too. When Jesus brings God’s kingdom to us--in His Word, in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, in the fellowship of other believers, we enter the kingdom of God and we enter it at deeper and deeper levels of connection and joy when we “repent and believe in the good news.”
Those are the first two aspects of being disciples in the kingdom of God: repenting and believing in the good news.
Let's unpack those two things for a moment.
As you know, a lot of people have the wrong idea about repentance. Repentance does begin with sorrow for sin, with regret over hurting the God Who made us and sent Jesus to die and rise for us. But after sin has been confessed honestly to God, repentance ends with the joy of reconciliation with God. It ends with God telling us we are forgiven. Repentance clears the clutter of sin that otherwise obstructs our relationship with God. His life flows to us again.
To believe in the good news is to believe in Jesus, to trust that when He died on the cross, He died for my sins, to trust that when He rose from the dead, He did so to give me life. That’s good news! “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)
Discipleship begins with repentance and belief. These two things alone are enough to save us. They are gifts God gives to those who are open to Jesus. Repentance and belief in Jesus, both of which only God the Holy Spirit can create within us, are the conduits by which we are saved by grace through faith in Christ.
But we live in a world darkened by sin. And until our own physical deaths, you and I will be dogged by our sin and the temptation to sin. Unless we remain resolutely connected to Christ, we can fall away from God. We can lose our ways.
This is why Jesus told the disciples who wanted to sleep at Gethsemane, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
So, on top of repenting and believing, the disciple of Jesus will diligently seek to follow Him.
They follow Jesus so that they can be filled with God’s strength and not have to face life or temptations to sin on their own.
In our gospel lesson, Jesus finds Simon and Andrew, two brothers who are fishermen, and tells them, “Come, follow me…” (Mark 1:17). Later, Jesus calls another set of brothers, John and James, to follow and they do (v.20).
But what does it mean for you and me to follow Jesus?
Imagine for a second a couple who get married, then decide, even though they live under the same roof and have jobs in the same city, that they’ll just see each other for one hour every week...unless they have something more interesting or fun to do.
How deep do you think their relationship would be?
How prepared do you think they’d be when adversities hit?
You couldn’t really describe what they had as a marriage, could you?
As ridiculous as that illustration sounds, it precisely describes the manner in which most people who call themselves Christians approach the most important relationship in their lives, their relationship with Jesus.
They set up a time to meet Jesus every week (unless something more interesting or fun comes along) and then forget Him the rest of the week. Weekly worship with fellow believers is essential to the Christian life; I'm not knocking it. But if that’s the only connection you have with Christ over the course of your weeks, how deep can your relationship with Christ really be? How prepared will you be for life’s adversities when Jesus is nothing more than a distant acquaintance?
We need to spend some focused time each day in prayer, in reading God’s Word, in asking Jesus, “What do you have in mind for me to think or do in this passage of Scripture today, Lord?”
I also find myself as I grow older more closely adhering to Paul's admonition to pray without ceasing. Many times over the course of my days, I'll find myself talking with God about one thing or another. I'll be driving along in my car, praying. And I know people who pass by think I'm talking to myself. I don't care what they think! I want to keep praying that God's kingdom will come to people.
But even if you're not that crazy, having a daily focused time with God is important. If it seems too hard to do for say five days a week, try at first to do it one day a week, then two, and so on. And, if you need help in even getting started on following Jesus in this way, contact one of the members of our Life and Learning Team to ask them for tips.
So, disciples of Jesus repent, believe in the good news, and follow Jesus. And then, they fish. Jesus told Simon and Andrew to follow Him “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 1:17)
This metaphorical description of every disciple's mission would have resonated with Simon and Andrew. And not just because they were fishermen.
You see, God’s people, the Jews, viewed the sea as a daunting, evil thing. It was a place of death and ferocious sea monsters. They remembered Genesis 1, in which God’s Holy Spirit moved over dark chaos to impose order, bring good from evil, and to create life.
To fish for people is to draw them out of chaos, sin, evil, and darkness.
To fish for people is to bring them to life with God, to the light of God’s goodness.
To fish for people is to make disciples.
I try to go fishing all the time, even though it doesn’t come naturally to me, even though I would rather keep to myself. (Believe it or not...and Ann will vouch for this, I am an introvert. God has had to kick me out of my shell and still has to remind me to move beyond myself all the time!)
So, at Jesus’ behest, I go fishing for people.
Last night, I made a run to a Kroger deli.
Not my usual one.
I was trolling different waters last night.
I happened to be in uniform, my clerical collar. That can be more of a disadvantage than an advantage.
Whatever, I followed my usual pattern of interaction: I struck up a conversation with the clerk who waited on me. “Have you been busy today?” “No need to put paper between every slice of cheese.”
This is the way you start when you go fishing for Jesus:
- You strike up conversations.
- You ask questions.
- You show genuine concern.
- As time goes on and people get to know you, as appropriate, you mention your faith in Jesus.
- As they share things about themselves, you ask if you can pray for them.
- You plant the seeds of the good news of the God Who sent His Son Jesus so that all who believe in Him will never die, but have everlasting life with God. You go fishing.
Fishing for people is the greatest expression of love in the world.
Repent. Believe. Follow. Fish.
This is how disciples live.
This is how Christ uses us to make more disciples.
May we always be faithful disciples of Jesus. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Saturday, January 20, 2018
A Place, A Hope
[This message was shared earlier today during the memorial service for Jane, a disciple of Jesus who was part of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Psalm 23
John 14:1-6
My wife Ann and I first met Jane in August, 2013, when we came for a visit with the people of Living Water for a weekend designed to help the congregation look us over and decide exactly what they wanted to do with us. We knew Wayne a bit from his work on the call committee. But Jane was a new acquaintance.
She struck me immediately as a person of faith in Jesus, good humor, a quiet commitment to serve others (including needy animals), and a live-your-life-come-what-may attitude.
All of those attributes were tried greatly over the last year-and-a-half of her life.
Someone has said that adversity has a way of showing who a person really is. Since the onset of her medical issues, who Jane was could be clearly seen.
She was exactly who she always seemed to be the first time we met her--a person of faith and good humor, a person committed to service who took life as it came to her--and even more.
She was so intent on not having people fuss over her in the period before her death that her passing caught many by surprise.
Wayne, David, Anne, and all of you who make up Jane’s family, we know that you grieve the loss of a loved one who was such a vital presence in all of your lives.
But we pray that you can take comfort from the same faith and hope that allowed Jane to be the person she was, even at the end of her life.
In Jesus Christ, we can all have the same hope and power for living and the power to face dying that we saw in Jane. That’s why the words of Jesus in today’s gospel lesson, John 14:1-6, are perfect.
They’re words spoken by Jesus in a moment a bit like this moment. Jesus is in the upper room with the apostles. He’s made it clear that He is about to die and the apostles are shocked and grief-stricken.
But Jesus assures them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jesus had a place prepared for Jane.
He has a place prepared for anyone who dares to let go of things like our common human desire to be our own gods, our puny imagination’s inability to fathom the possibility of a power greater than us, or our unwillingness to accept the witness of the church’s first martyrs that this Jesus, seen to have been murdered on a cross, was also seen to have risen from the dead. Jesus has a place in His kingdom for anyone who opens their minds, hearts, and wills to Him and His good news.
Jane knew that. Jane lived that. She was one of the people who, by her faith in Christ, let eternity slip into this life, allowing all of us a glimpse of what promises belong to those who believe and how those promises can impact the ways we live, the priorities we adopt, the promises we keep.
Her illness baffled Jane and caused her suffering, to be sure. The nights seemed especially hard for her. But her illness didn’t disrupt Jane’s faith or destroy her hope. She lived in simple, faithful response to the message in the only sermon by Jesus quoted in the gospel of Mark: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
The time has come.
Jesus has died and risen for needy mortals like you and me.
He has prepared a place for all who turn from their sin and receive God’s forgiveness and trust in the gospel message of new life for all who trust in Christ.
It’s time now to turn to Jesus and live with God in our lives.
When Thomas heard Jesus speaking of the place that he was going and that the apostles knew where that was, he was baffled. What was Jesus talking about? Several years into their apprenticeship under Jesus, following Jesus everywhere He went, Thomas still had no idea where Jesus was taking him. “Lord” Thomas says, “we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” To be with the God Who made you and loves you and sent His Son to die and to rise for you, the way is Jesus Christ.
This is not sweet-by-and-by stuff! We can have life with God right here and now. Jesus promises all who follow Him: “I am with you always.” Even now, as you pass through “through the darkest valley.” The Savior Who could not be contained by death is unlimited in His capacity to give you the strength, peace, and hope of God.
King David, writing in Psalm 23, showed that he knew the God ultimately disclosed to all the world in Jesus. That’s why he could say that he feared no evil and that God could comfort him even in darkness.
He can bring comfort to you too.
The apostle Paul once addressed the disciples of Jesus in the first-century church in Thessalonica. The Thessalonian Christians grieved and worried about the eternal destinies of loved ones who had trusted in Jesus but who had died before Jesus returned to the earth. Would they miss out on the resurrection when Jesus returned to the world?
Paul told them that he didn’t want them to grieve like the rest of the human race. They grieved as people, he said, “who have no hope.”
Followers of Jesus grieve. Death is real. Loss is real. Missing those we have loved is real. I spoke with a widow the other day who said of her husband, “I miss him every day.”
But followers of Jesus also have hope.
In Jesus, they know the God Who sustains and encourages the grieving and protects them from despair.
In Jesus, they know the God Who understands our pain.
And in Jesus, they know the God Who has overcome illness, grief, and death, Who has blazed the trail to an eternity with God filled with joy, life as it was meant to be lived, useful work, and utter love.
They know the God Who through Jesus promises that if we will accept the crucifixion of our old sinful selves, sharing in His death, He will share Christ’s resurrection victory over death!
Because Jane followed Jesus, she is experiencing the eternity Christ prepared for her even before she was born.
And I know that if there is one message she would have me share with you today, it would be this: To be comforted, to live life to the full, to face death without fear or cynicism, follow the Lord that has prepared a place for you.
Follow Jesus.
Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Psalm 23
John 14:1-6
My wife Ann and I first met Jane in August, 2013, when we came for a visit with the people of Living Water for a weekend designed to help the congregation look us over and decide exactly what they wanted to do with us. We knew Wayne a bit from his work on the call committee. But Jane was a new acquaintance.
She struck me immediately as a person of faith in Jesus, good humor, a quiet commitment to serve others (including needy animals), and a live-your-life-come-what-may attitude.
All of those attributes were tried greatly over the last year-and-a-half of her life.
Someone has said that adversity has a way of showing who a person really is. Since the onset of her medical issues, who Jane was could be clearly seen.
She was exactly who she always seemed to be the first time we met her--a person of faith and good humor, a person committed to service who took life as it came to her--and even more.
She was so intent on not having people fuss over her in the period before her death that her passing caught many by surprise.
Wayne, David, Anne, and all of you who make up Jane’s family, we know that you grieve the loss of a loved one who was such a vital presence in all of your lives.
But we pray that you can take comfort from the same faith and hope that allowed Jane to be the person she was, even at the end of her life.
In Jesus Christ, we can all have the same hope and power for living and the power to face dying that we saw in Jane. That’s why the words of Jesus in today’s gospel lesson, John 14:1-6, are perfect.
They’re words spoken by Jesus in a moment a bit like this moment. Jesus is in the upper room with the apostles. He’s made it clear that He is about to die and the apostles are shocked and grief-stricken.
But Jesus assures them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jesus had a place prepared for Jane.
He has a place prepared for anyone who dares to let go of things like our common human desire to be our own gods, our puny imagination’s inability to fathom the possibility of a power greater than us, or our unwillingness to accept the witness of the church’s first martyrs that this Jesus, seen to have been murdered on a cross, was also seen to have risen from the dead. Jesus has a place in His kingdom for anyone who opens their minds, hearts, and wills to Him and His good news.
Jane knew that. Jane lived that. She was one of the people who, by her faith in Christ, let eternity slip into this life, allowing all of us a glimpse of what promises belong to those who believe and how those promises can impact the ways we live, the priorities we adopt, the promises we keep.
Her illness baffled Jane and caused her suffering, to be sure. The nights seemed especially hard for her. But her illness didn’t disrupt Jane’s faith or destroy her hope. She lived in simple, faithful response to the message in the only sermon by Jesus quoted in the gospel of Mark: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
The time has come.
Jesus has died and risen for needy mortals like you and me.
He has prepared a place for all who turn from their sin and receive God’s forgiveness and trust in the gospel message of new life for all who trust in Christ.
It’s time now to turn to Jesus and live with God in our lives.
When Thomas heard Jesus speaking of the place that he was going and that the apostles knew where that was, he was baffled. What was Jesus talking about? Several years into their apprenticeship under Jesus, following Jesus everywhere He went, Thomas still had no idea where Jesus was taking him. “Lord” Thomas says, “we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” To be with the God Who made you and loves you and sent His Son to die and to rise for you, the way is Jesus Christ.
King David, writing in Psalm 23, showed that he knew the God ultimately disclosed to all the world in Jesus. That’s why he could say that he feared no evil and that God could comfort him even in darkness.
He can bring comfort to you too.
The apostle Paul once addressed the disciples of Jesus in the first-century church in Thessalonica. The Thessalonian Christians grieved and worried about the eternal destinies of loved ones who had trusted in Jesus but who had died before Jesus returned to the earth. Would they miss out on the resurrection when Jesus returned to the world?
Paul told them that he didn’t want them to grieve like the rest of the human race. They grieved as people, he said, “who have no hope.”
Followers of Jesus grieve. Death is real. Loss is real. Missing those we have loved is real. I spoke with a widow the other day who said of her husband, “I miss him every day.”
But followers of Jesus also have hope.
In Jesus, they know the God Who sustains and encourages the grieving and protects them from despair.
In Jesus, they know the God Who understands our pain.
And in Jesus, they know the God Who has overcome illness, grief, and death, Who has blazed the trail to an eternity with God filled with joy, life as it was meant to be lived, useful work, and utter love.
They know the God Who through Jesus promises that if we will accept the crucifixion of our old sinful selves, sharing in His death, He will share Christ’s resurrection victory over death!
Because Jane followed Jesus, she is experiencing the eternity Christ prepared for her even before she was born.
And I know that if there is one message she would have me share with you today, it would be this: To be comforted, to live life to the full, to face death without fear or cynicism, follow the Lord that has prepared a place for you.
Follow Jesus.
Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Friday, January 19, 2018
How do I live in God's Kingdom TODAY?
Most days, I try to begin the morning in quiet time with God. You'll see an explanation of how I approach quiet time here. Below is the journal entry for today's quiet time.
Look: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mark 1:14-15)
Jesus brings the kingdom of God. He embodies it. He is its king. Jesus is saying here, I think: “You’ve been looking for the kingdom of God. Here it is. And if you want to be part of it, you need to do two things. First, turn away from your sins and trust in the forgiveness I bring from God. That’s what it means to repent. Second, trust in or believe in the gospel. The gospel is the good news that all who trust in God’s Son, crucified and risen for us, is part of God’s kingdom.”
And when is someone part of God’s kingdom? NOW. The kingdom will come in its fullness, of course, when Jesus returns to the earth, closing down this old creation, and those who have trusted in Him rise to be with Him eternally in His new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). But the kingdom has already come to us. When we repent and believe in Jesus, we are in the kingdom now.
Jesus says in John 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
And He says in Luke 17:21, that “...the kingdom of God is in your midst."
Listen: How do I live in Your kingdom now, Lord?
In the high priestly prayer offered in the garden before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed to the Father: “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:14-15)
It’s Jesus’ will for His disciples to live in the world while not being of the world. We are to be cordial and loving toward the world, but when its worship, values, actions, thoughts, and approach to justice conflict with those of God’s kingdom, we’re to stand with Christ. To manifest the kingdom of God today, we must be in but not of the world.
This is hard.
But I have several important resources to rely on when it comes to being in but not of the world.
Jesus mentions one of them in this petition of the prayer: God’s Word. Spending time in God’s Word is essential. Otherwise, my brain gets addled and I go to the default position of my sinful, human nature. Spending the first hours of my day Fox and Friends or Morning Joe will help me live in the kingdom. (Help me to remember this, Lord.)
But this will only happen, I think, if my reading of God’s Word is begun, filled with, and supported by the very thing that Jesus did in the garden. He prayed. I must pray. Prayer is a conversation in which I connect with God. When I ask God to show me what I need to see in His Word, I find that I see lots more of God and His will for my life than I would if I approached it as a reading assignment.
These are two private resources God gives to us to buttress kingdom-living, to foster our own growth as disciples.
But God also makes me part of the body of Christ, the indispensable Christian community.
People who profess faith Christ but don’t want to have anything to do with the messy business of being part of His family, the Church, are at risk of becoming lost sheep who wander away from Christ and His kingdom. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20)
We are made for life in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). When the kingdom of God comes fully, we will be part of an eternal kingdom that lives out the great commandment, a fellowship in which we love God and love others.
Other Christians may annoy us, offend us, even harm us. But we need Christ’s body, the Church.
It’s in the body of Christ that we hear God’s Word, not always as we want to hear it, but as read and proclaimed; we receive the sacraments, in which God claims us as His own (Holy Baptism) and which renews us and fills us with Christ’s very life (Holy Communion); we commit ourselves to mutual care and accountability.
Respond: As I think about how I can manifest my citizenship in God’s kingdom right now, I ask, Lord, that You will help me:
1. Express love for my fellow citizens of the kingdom today.
2. Look for opportunities to share Christ with those who seem to live outside of the kingdom.
3. Seek justice for those who are abused or left behind by the world’s system of warped values.
4. Treat others with simple decency.
Help me in these ways, Lord Jesus, to live as one saved by Your gospel and so prove to be an ambassador in this foreign land in which I live on this side of the resurrection (1 Peter 2:11-12; 2 Corinthians 5:20-21)
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Look: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mark 1:14-15)
Jesus brings the kingdom of God. He embodies it. He is its king. Jesus is saying here, I think: “You’ve been looking for the kingdom of God. Here it is. And if you want to be part of it, you need to do two things. First, turn away from your sins and trust in the forgiveness I bring from God. That’s what it means to repent. Second, trust in or believe in the gospel. The gospel is the good news that all who trust in God’s Son, crucified and risen for us, is part of God’s kingdom.”
And when is someone part of God’s kingdom? NOW. The kingdom will come in its fullness, of course, when Jesus returns to the earth, closing down this old creation, and those who have trusted in Him rise to be with Him eternally in His new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). But the kingdom has already come to us. When we repent and believe in Jesus, we are in the kingdom now.
Jesus says in John 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
And He says in Luke 17:21, that “...the kingdom of God is in your midst."
Listen: How do I live in Your kingdom now, Lord?
In the high priestly prayer offered in the garden before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed to the Father: “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:14-15)
It’s Jesus’ will for His disciples to live in the world while not being of the world. We are to be cordial and loving toward the world, but when its worship, values, actions, thoughts, and approach to justice conflict with those of God’s kingdom, we’re to stand with Christ. To manifest the kingdom of God today, we must be in but not of the world.
This is hard.
But I have several important resources to rely on when it comes to being in but not of the world.
Jesus mentions one of them in this petition of the prayer: God’s Word. Spending time in God’s Word is essential. Otherwise, my brain gets addled and I go to the default position of my sinful, human nature. Spending the first hours of my day Fox and Friends or Morning Joe will help me live in the kingdom. (Help me to remember this, Lord.)
But this will only happen, I think, if my reading of God’s Word is begun, filled with, and supported by the very thing that Jesus did in the garden. He prayed. I must pray. Prayer is a conversation in which I connect with God. When I ask God to show me what I need to see in His Word, I find that I see lots more of God and His will for my life than I would if I approached it as a reading assignment.
These are two private resources God gives to us to buttress kingdom-living, to foster our own growth as disciples.
But God also makes me part of the body of Christ, the indispensable Christian community.
People who profess faith Christ but don’t want to have anything to do with the messy business of being part of His family, the Church, are at risk of becoming lost sheep who wander away from Christ and His kingdom. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20)
We are made for life in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). When the kingdom of God comes fully, we will be part of an eternal kingdom that lives out the great commandment, a fellowship in which we love God and love others.
Other Christians may annoy us, offend us, even harm us. But we need Christ’s body, the Church.
It’s in the body of Christ that we hear God’s Word, not always as we want to hear it, but as read and proclaimed; we receive the sacraments, in which God claims us as His own (Holy Baptism) and which renews us and fills us with Christ’s very life (Holy Communion); we commit ourselves to mutual care and accountability.
Respond: As I think about how I can manifest my citizenship in God’s kingdom right now, I ask, Lord, that You will help me:
1. Express love for my fellow citizens of the kingdom today.
2. Look for opportunities to share Christ with those who seem to live outside of the kingdom.
3. Seek justice for those who are abused or left behind by the world’s system of warped values.
4. Treat others with simple decency.
Help me in these ways, Lord Jesus, to live as one saved by Your gospel and so prove to be an ambassador in this foreign land in which I live on this side of the resurrection (1 Peter 2:11-12; 2 Corinthians 5:20-21)
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
You never can tell when you might need a ukulele
More than seven years ago, I wrote about the sadness with which I'd watched Martin Scorcese's documentary biography of George Harrison. I saw part of it again recently. I'd forgotten this story told by Tom Petty about the day Harrison came to give him unsolicited ukulele lessons and then, opened the trunk of his car. It made me smile.
Monday, January 15, 2018
Reuben, Dysfunctional Families, Depending on God
[I try to keep a quiet time with God five days every week. Below is my journal entry for today. Here. I explain how I approach my quiet time with God.]
Look: “When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him [Joseph] from their hands. ‘Let’s not take his life,’ he said. ‘Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.’ Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.” (Genesis 37:21-22)
Reuben is a man in the uncomfortable middle. Nine of his brothers are intent on murdering their step-brother Joseph.
In these circumstances, nine people constitute a mob and Reuben is afraid to stand up to them. They want Joseph, the kid brother preferred by their dad in their dysfunctional extended family, gone. (This rings true: Extended families often behave exactly like willful, controlling mobs, anxious to keep its members in line.)
The nine want to murder Joseph. Reuben wants to rescue Joseph and take him back to their father. But, fearful of his brothers’ rage, sure that he can rescue Joseph later, he suggests that the mob simply throw Joseph into a cistern. Then he, Reuben, would go back, free Joseph, and return the kid to Jacob.
Compromise and calm can be good things. Shrewdness can be too. Jesus says that believers are to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). But when our shrewd acts are rooted in our own analysis and not in the mind and plans of God, they can backfire. “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 16:25).
Later, when Reuben returns to the cistern to rescue Joseph, he finds that his brothers have sold the younger brother to passing slave traders. He goes to his brothers and says: “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
Reuben then acquiesces to the brothers’ plan of lying to their father about what had happened to Joseph. Joseph must have been killed by a wild animal, they intimate. Reuben may have rationalized being a party to this lie. “After all,” he may have thought, “better for my father to think that Joseph is dead than to learn he’s still alive and set us off to search for a brat nobody liked.”
Besides, the lie was now being enforced by the conspiracy that had been hatched at Dothan. The mob (the family) had proven ruthless enough to dispose of those who stood in their way; who was to say that they wouldn’t go after Reuben if he showed any inclination to break from the conspiracy?
Reuben had reason to feel guilty on multiple counts: (1) for not standing up to his brothers in the first place; (2) for hatching his own plan, relying on his own resources; (3) for not trying to find Joseph after he had been sold into slavery.
Listen: Peer pressure can a be a horrible thing, especially when the peers in question are one’s own family members. Families can have a brutal way of pigeonholing and suppressing their members.
This happens a lot when there are dysfunctionality and favoritism from parents. These spawn a kind of dog-eat-dog nastiness among siblings that remains into adulthood. I’ve observed this many times, making the story of Joseph and his brothers accessible and believable.
The basic problem, of course, is disconnectedness from God. When we remain connected to the God now revealed to everyone in Jesus, in faith buttessed by worship, prayer, receiving Holy Communion, and remaining in fellowship with God's people, the Church, God gives us the capacity to deal with things like family dysfunctionality, fear of the crowd, and our own limited thinking. As we pray to God in Jesus’ name, He supplies the Holy Spirit to give us faith, authentic repentance, guidance, a desire to do what God wills, love for God and for others, and courage.
These are all assets that Reuben could have used at Dothan and beyond.
Even his fear of death at the hands of his brothers in revenge for his helping Joseph would have been overcome. When we cultivate a close relationship with the God we know in Jesus, we know that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to us.
In fact, there is a kind of living death that Reuben must have endured all of those years.
Not all things that people know need to be revealed, of course. The Hebrew midwives were right to conceal the birth of Hebrew boys from the murderous Pharaoh (Exodus 1:19). Corrie ten Boom and her family were right to conceal the Jews they attempted to save from the murderous Nazis.
Sometimes, I think, it’s also best to conceal facts that would only hurt, disrupt, or kill relationships. Much of the Oprah-zation of America, our practice of spilling all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, is predicated on the idea that this is healthy for the one doing the revealing. But how healthy, how helpful, is it for the one to whom sinful thoughts and actions of which they had no knowledge of them are revealed? Jesus says that one day, all of our secret thoughts will be revealed, of course (Luke 8:17).
But God’s Word also tells us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Some people speak the truth but without a hint of love, making others miserable. They speak it in order to shock, to elevate themselves, to bring others down. This is weaponizing truth, a bit like what the serpent did in the garden when he told Eve that if they ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, they wouldn't die. That was a true statement, in a way: Eve and Adam didn't die immediately after eating the fruit. But what the serpent concealed with his artful truth-telling was that because they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve would die, just not right away.
We should always, I think, prayerfully examine our motives before speaking truth to someone else. God, in fact, may sometimes call us to keep our traps shut and keep the misery to ourselves rather than unnecessarily spreading it to others.
This, in fact, maybe what Reuben thought he was doing by not telling his father all those years what had really happened to Joseph. On that then, we might want to give Reuben a pass and spare him our judgment. (This is an example of why I'm so happy not to be God!)
But since Reuben was complicit in so many ways with what happened to Joseph and he failed to do the right thing because he relied on himself rather than on God, it’s hard not to see him as a morally compromised person.
The question that remains, of course: Is God showing me some of myself in Reuben? Is there something in Reuben story indicating that God wants me to see or change my own behaviors?
I have to say yes. Like Reuben, I’m prone to stand down when I should stand up. Like Reuben, I can be fearful of what others might say or think of me rather than heeding God’s will. Like Reuben, I often busy myself with my own plans when I should be consulting with God regarding His plans for me.
Respond: Help me, Lord, in a tangible way, to stand with You today. And help me today to make plans in consultation with you and not with my own heart, mind, or preferences. In Jesus’ name I pray.
Look: “When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him [Joseph] from their hands. ‘Let’s not take his life,’ he said. ‘Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.’ Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.” (Genesis 37:21-22)
Reuben is a man in the uncomfortable middle. Nine of his brothers are intent on murdering their step-brother Joseph.
In these circumstances, nine people constitute a mob and Reuben is afraid to stand up to them. They want Joseph, the kid brother preferred by their dad in their dysfunctional extended family, gone. (This rings true: Extended families often behave exactly like willful, controlling mobs, anxious to keep its members in line.)
The nine want to murder Joseph. Reuben wants to rescue Joseph and take him back to their father. But, fearful of his brothers’ rage, sure that he can rescue Joseph later, he suggests that the mob simply throw Joseph into a cistern. Then he, Reuben, would go back, free Joseph, and return the kid to Jacob.
Compromise and calm can be good things. Shrewdness can be too. Jesus says that believers are to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). But when our shrewd acts are rooted in our own analysis and not in the mind and plans of God, they can backfire. “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 16:25).
Later, when Reuben returns to the cistern to rescue Joseph, he finds that his brothers have sold the younger brother to passing slave traders. He goes to his brothers and says: “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
Reuben then acquiesces to the brothers’ plan of lying to their father about what had happened to Joseph. Joseph must have been killed by a wild animal, they intimate. Reuben may have rationalized being a party to this lie. “After all,” he may have thought, “better for my father to think that Joseph is dead than to learn he’s still alive and set us off to search for a brat nobody liked.”
Besides, the lie was now being enforced by the conspiracy that had been hatched at Dothan. The mob (the family) had proven ruthless enough to dispose of those who stood in their way; who was to say that they wouldn’t go after Reuben if he showed any inclination to break from the conspiracy?
Reuben had reason to feel guilty on multiple counts: (1) for not standing up to his brothers in the first place; (2) for hatching his own plan, relying on his own resources; (3) for not trying to find Joseph after he had been sold into slavery.
Listen: Peer pressure can a be a horrible thing, especially when the peers in question are one’s own family members. Families can have a brutal way of pigeonholing and suppressing their members.
This happens a lot when there are dysfunctionality and favoritism from parents. These spawn a kind of dog-eat-dog nastiness among siblings that remains into adulthood. I’ve observed this many times, making the story of Joseph and his brothers accessible and believable.
The basic problem, of course, is disconnectedness from God. When we remain connected to the God now revealed to everyone in Jesus, in faith buttessed by worship, prayer, receiving Holy Communion, and remaining in fellowship with God's people, the Church, God gives us the capacity to deal with things like family dysfunctionality, fear of the crowd, and our own limited thinking. As we pray to God in Jesus’ name, He supplies the Holy Spirit to give us faith, authentic repentance, guidance, a desire to do what God wills, love for God and for others, and courage.
These are all assets that Reuben could have used at Dothan and beyond.
Even his fear of death at the hands of his brothers in revenge for his helping Joseph would have been overcome. When we cultivate a close relationship with the God we know in Jesus, we know that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to us.
In fact, there is a kind of living death that Reuben must have endured all of those years.
Not all things that people know need to be revealed, of course. The Hebrew midwives were right to conceal the birth of Hebrew boys from the murderous Pharaoh (Exodus 1:19). Corrie ten Boom and her family were right to conceal the Jews they attempted to save from the murderous Nazis.
Sometimes, I think, it’s also best to conceal facts that would only hurt, disrupt, or kill relationships. Much of the Oprah-zation of America, our practice of spilling all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, is predicated on the idea that this is healthy for the one doing the revealing. But how healthy, how helpful, is it for the one to whom sinful thoughts and actions of which they had no knowledge of them are revealed? Jesus says that one day, all of our secret thoughts will be revealed, of course (Luke 8:17).
But God’s Word also tells us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Some people speak the truth but without a hint of love, making others miserable. They speak it in order to shock, to elevate themselves, to bring others down. This is weaponizing truth, a bit like what the serpent did in the garden when he told Eve that if they ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, they wouldn't die. That was a true statement, in a way: Eve and Adam didn't die immediately after eating the fruit. But what the serpent concealed with his artful truth-telling was that because they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve would die, just not right away.
We should always, I think, prayerfully examine our motives before speaking truth to someone else. God, in fact, may sometimes call us to keep our traps shut and keep the misery to ourselves rather than unnecessarily spreading it to others.
This, in fact, maybe what Reuben thought he was doing by not telling his father all those years what had really happened to Joseph. On that then, we might want to give Reuben a pass and spare him our judgment. (This is an example of why I'm so happy not to be God!)
But since Reuben was complicit in so many ways with what happened to Joseph and he failed to do the right thing because he relied on himself rather than on God, it’s hard not to see him as a morally compromised person.
The question that remains, of course: Is God showing me some of myself in Reuben? Is there something in Reuben story indicating that God wants me to see or change my own behaviors?
I have to say yes. Like Reuben, I’m prone to stand down when I should stand up. Like Reuben, I can be fearful of what others might say or think of me rather than heeding God’s will. Like Reuben, I often busy myself with my own plans when I should be consulting with God regarding His plans for me.
Respond: Help me, Lord, in a tangible way, to stand with You today. And help me today to make plans in consultation with you and not with my own heart, mind, or preferences. In Jesus’ name I pray.
Proud and Happy to be associated with Haiti
I posted this three days ago over on Facebook. It came in response to comments attributed to a prominent public figure.
[SMI Haiti is the organization through which we work and minister in Haiti.]
Our congregation has an ongoing relationship with several Haitian churches and communities. Haiti does suffer from grinding poverty, ongoing government corruption, the effects of natural disasters, and the impact of voodooism and other superstitions.
But the people there inspire us with their amazing faith, resilience, love, commitment to education and mutual service. We love Haiti and God loves the Haitian people as surely God loves all people.
We are proud and happy to be associated with Haiti and all the other places we do ministry. In fact, I know I speak for the many people of our congregation who have been touched by our Haitian partnership that the Haitian Christians have given far more to us than we have given to them. They have taught us so much about Jesus and what it means to be His disciples.[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
[SMI Haiti is the organization through which we work and minister in Haiti.]
Tuesday, January 09, 2018
"He's probably brought it on himself..."
That line is from a recent Tracey Ullman sketch on the BBC. It features a stinging role reversal: A man is robbed at knifepoint and female cops suggest he was at fault for the event because he dressed in a way that signaled he liked people taking his possessions. It made me laugh...and think.
Women, of course, face this kind of absurd reasoning whenever they contemplate filing complaints for sexual assault or sexual harassment. The male-dominated world is often slow to accept that women are innocent victims of assault or harassment, that they didn't do something to "deserve" what happened to them. Some women even buy this nonsense.
I hope that events of recent months will encourage women to speak up when they're victimized by harassment or assault. And I'm praying that we males will believe them!
Women, of course, face this kind of absurd reasoning whenever they contemplate filing complaints for sexual assault or sexual harassment. The male-dominated world is often slow to accept that women are innocent victims of assault or harassment, that they didn't do something to "deserve" what happened to them. Some women even buy this nonsense.
I hope that events of recent months will encourage women to speak up when they're victimized by harassment or assault. And I'm praying that we males will believe them!
Monday, January 08, 2018
The Clash of Kingdoms
[This was shared yesterday morning during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 2:1-12
Our gospel lesson for this Sunday of the Epiphany presents us with a clash of kingdoms.
At one level, the clash is between the baby Jesus and Herod the Great.
But, more accurately it’s a battle--the battle--between God, on the one hand, and all the demonic kingdoms of darkness, sin, and death of this world.
Jesus, King of the Jews, came into the world to die and rise for a human race in need of saving, then to share His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. From the moment of Jesus’ birth, the mission of the kingdoms of this world was to prevent Jesus from successfully completing His mission.
The clash of kingdoms began on the first Epiphany.
Matthew tells us about it in today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 2:1-12. Take a look at the first verse, please: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”
When Jesus was born, most of His Judean homeland had no idea.
Think of that! The Messiah promised by God hundreds of years before showed up and the only ones to notice were a few shepherds and two old people in the temple--Simeon and Anna--eight days after Jesus’ birth.
Everyone else was oblivious.
But the Magi, these foreigners from the East, who held a superstitious belief in the power of stars had, back in their homeland, noted a strange astronomical phenomenon and, believing that such things indicated some important event on earth, then apparently rummaged through other people’s cultures and books to determine that this star was announcing the birth of the King of the Jews.
And then, they followed the star.
The Magi had more faith in the God first revealed to Israel than the people living in the holy land at that time!
They show us that just because you’re a member of the religious club--just because you’re a genetic descendant of Abraham or you take up a place on the membership rolls of a church--doesn’t mean you follow God or that you belong to God.
The key issue always is whether we trust God first revealed to Israel, now known definitively in Jesus. At some level, the Magi trusted in God.
And they cared about the birth of the King of the Jews because some of the prophecies of the King found in the Old Testament said that this Messiah would be more than a King to the Jewish people. He would bring God’s reign to the whole world. He would make God’s salvation available to all people.
For example, Isaiah 11, written about eight centuries before Jesus’ birth, says of this King: “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” (verses 4-5) And through Him, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (verse 9)
Back to our gospel lesson, verse 3: “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.”
Herod wasn’t a Judean. He was an Edomite, a thug appointed to be king by the murderous Roman Empire. He was a puppet.
The Romans helped Herod spread the fake news that he was a descendant of King David.
In exchange, Herod was submissive to the Romans.
And the Empire didn’t care when Herod murdered people he feared would overthrow or undermine him. It's why Herod would later murder the baby boys in Bethlehem. It's why he murdered his own sons. It's why he arrested John the Baptist.
The Magi may have been “wise men.” But they were naive about Herod and the Judea into which Jesus was born.
The Magi thought that, as the king of Judea, Herod would already know about the birth of Jesus.
They thought too, that Herod would be as excited as they were about Jesus.
But Herod was disturbed, though he evidently hid it behind a poker face. Verse 4: “When [Herod] had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.”
A Jewish king would have known the answer to that question. Herod has to be told.
Verse 5: “‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” The priests and teachers were quoting Micah 5.
Matthew already told us that both Herod and Jerusalem’s elite were “disturbed” at the thought that the King of the Jews had been born. They had built comfortable lives in the kingdom of darkness. So had many people who depended on Herod’s puppet regime and the Roman government--merchants, farmers, craftsmen--for their wealth.
And, of course, the lion’s share of the Judeans would have found Jesus disturbing too, having no interest in the Kingdom Jesus came to bring, a kingdom that doesn’t promise wealth or ease, but forgiveness of sin--even for the sins we don’t want to give up.
Three decades after the events in today’s lesson, the Judean crowds, disappointed that Jesus wasn’t going to throw out the Romans and give them the goods and privileges of this world that they wanted, turned on Him. Herod then was just the first of many to be disturbed by Jesus.
Truth be told, Jesus can disturb us.
We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness.
We don’t like to think that our being all-around wonderful people isn’t what makes us fit for God’s kingdom.
And when we hear Jesus say things like, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24), we look for ways to hold back some parts of our lives for ourselves.
We’re still born wanting to “be like God.”
We want to be our own kings.
And so, Jesus is disturbing even to us.
But it’s only in giving up on the little kingdoms each of us try to build that we can take the free gift of new and everlasting life with God that Jesus offers. It was an offer in which Herod had no interest. Are we interested?
Verse 7: “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.’”
Consider how evil Herod is. With murder in his heart, he claims he wants to worship Jesus. Lying comes naturally to people mired in the kingdoms of this world.
When life is all about yourself, anything you can do to promote the self, preserve the self, boost the self is fair game.
But Jesus tells us: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25).
Are we willing to lose our lives, including the dying comforts of this world, in order to gain life with God that never ends?
What are we willing to let go of in order to take hold of Jesus?
Verse 9: “After [the wise men] had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.”
They were ecstatic! They were in the presence of the King of the Jews, the object of their search, the hope of generations, the fulfillment of God’s great promise of grace!
When I considered these words this past week, I couldn't help recalling the words of the old spiritual: "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble." That's how the Magi must have felt on seeing Jesus!
And so what did they do? Verse 11: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Jerusalem didn’t worship the King of the Jews and on a Friday we now call Good, Jerusalem would, on behalf of the whole sinful human race, kill Jesus.
But these foreigners welcomed and worshiped Jesus!
Listen: God cares about you. But He doesn’t care who you are.
He doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done.
He doesn’t care what your parents did, good or bad.
He doesn’t care where you’re from.
If you will welcome Jesus and His reign over your life, if you will submissively trust in Him, you will be part of His eternal kingdom.
Even Gentiles.
Even Americans.
Even Lutherans!
Verse 12: “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the first Epiphany for me is this: God will guide those who listen for His voice. (Even the naive!)
The Magi heard God’s call in a far-off land. They heard Him now as He pierced their naivete, allowing them to be instruments for protecting the Child and in protecting the Child, ensuring that Jesus would fulfill His mission of dying and rising.
Just as He did with the Magi, God gives each of us a part in Jesus’ mission in the world.
We are to be and to make disciples.
And He both calls and empowers each of us to do our part.
Our mission is best filled not with flashy programs or glitzy concerts or multimedia presentations, but as we allow ourselves to be the humbled and humble instruments of God’s grace, letting people encounter Jesus in the simplicity and authenticity of our faith in Him.
The most vivid and influential witnesses for Christ in my life haven’t been preachers, but laypeople who followed Jesus:
When you think about it, it was, ultimately, a simple personal encounter with the baby Jesus that caused the Magi to know that the needed to bow down and worship Him.
And because Jesus promises to be with us always (Matthew 28:20), He can also be present in our humble encounters with Him when we worship, pray, study His Word, and receive the Sacrament and in our humble encounters with others as we tell them, “We’ve met the King. He’s changed and is changing me forever. Come and see” (John 1:46).
Jesus is the winner in the clash of kingdoms.
Let the whole world know! Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 2:1-12
Our gospel lesson for this Sunday of the Epiphany presents us with a clash of kingdoms.
At one level, the clash is between the baby Jesus and Herod the Great.
But, more accurately it’s a battle--the battle--between God, on the one hand, and all the demonic kingdoms of darkness, sin, and death of this world.
Jesus, King of the Jews, came into the world to die and rise for a human race in need of saving, then to share His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. From the moment of Jesus’ birth, the mission of the kingdoms of this world was to prevent Jesus from successfully completing His mission.
The clash of kingdoms began on the first Epiphany.
Matthew tells us about it in today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 2:1-12. Take a look at the first verse, please: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”
When Jesus was born, most of His Judean homeland had no idea.
Think of that! The Messiah promised by God hundreds of years before showed up and the only ones to notice were a few shepherds and two old people in the temple--Simeon and Anna--eight days after Jesus’ birth.
Everyone else was oblivious.
But the Magi, these foreigners from the East, who held a superstitious belief in the power of stars had, back in their homeland, noted a strange astronomical phenomenon and, believing that such things indicated some important event on earth, then apparently rummaged through other people’s cultures and books to determine that this star was announcing the birth of the King of the Jews.
And then, they followed the star.
The Magi had more faith in the God first revealed to Israel than the people living in the holy land at that time!
They show us that just because you’re a member of the religious club--just because you’re a genetic descendant of Abraham or you take up a place on the membership rolls of a church--doesn’t mean you follow God or that you belong to God.
The key issue always is whether we trust God first revealed to Israel, now known definitively in Jesus. At some level, the Magi trusted in God.
And they cared about the birth of the King of the Jews because some of the prophecies of the King found in the Old Testament said that this Messiah would be more than a King to the Jewish people. He would bring God’s reign to the whole world. He would make God’s salvation available to all people.
For example, Isaiah 11, written about eight centuries before Jesus’ birth, says of this King: “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” (verses 4-5) And through Him, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (verse 9)
Back to our gospel lesson, verse 3: “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.”
Herod wasn’t a Judean. He was an Edomite, a thug appointed to be king by the murderous Roman Empire. He was a puppet.
The Romans helped Herod spread the fake news that he was a descendant of King David.
In exchange, Herod was submissive to the Romans.
And the Empire didn’t care when Herod murdered people he feared would overthrow or undermine him. It's why Herod would later murder the baby boys in Bethlehem. It's why he murdered his own sons. It's why he arrested John the Baptist.
The Magi may have been “wise men.” But they were naive about Herod and the Judea into which Jesus was born.
The Magi thought that, as the king of Judea, Herod would already know about the birth of Jesus.
They thought too, that Herod would be as excited as they were about Jesus.
But Herod was disturbed, though he evidently hid it behind a poker face. Verse 4: “When [Herod] had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.”
A Jewish king would have known the answer to that question. Herod has to be told.
Verse 5: “‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” The priests and teachers were quoting Micah 5.
Matthew already told us that both Herod and Jerusalem’s elite were “disturbed” at the thought that the King of the Jews had been born. They had built comfortable lives in the kingdom of darkness. So had many people who depended on Herod’s puppet regime and the Roman government--merchants, farmers, craftsmen--for their wealth.
And, of course, the lion’s share of the Judeans would have found Jesus disturbing too, having no interest in the Kingdom Jesus came to bring, a kingdom that doesn’t promise wealth or ease, but forgiveness of sin--even for the sins we don’t want to give up.
Three decades after the events in today’s lesson, the Judean crowds, disappointed that Jesus wasn’t going to throw out the Romans and give them the goods and privileges of this world that they wanted, turned on Him. Herod then was just the first of many to be disturbed by Jesus.
Truth be told, Jesus can disturb us.
We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness.
We don’t like to think that our being all-around wonderful people isn’t what makes us fit for God’s kingdom.
And when we hear Jesus say things like, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24), we look for ways to hold back some parts of our lives for ourselves.
We’re still born wanting to “be like God.”
We want to be our own kings.
And so, Jesus is disturbing even to us.
But it’s only in giving up on the little kingdoms each of us try to build that we can take the free gift of new and everlasting life with God that Jesus offers. It was an offer in which Herod had no interest. Are we interested?
Verse 7: “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.’”
Consider how evil Herod is. With murder in his heart, he claims he wants to worship Jesus. Lying comes naturally to people mired in the kingdoms of this world.
When life is all about yourself, anything you can do to promote the self, preserve the self, boost the self is fair game.
But Jesus tells us: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25).
Are we willing to lose our lives, including the dying comforts of this world, in order to gain life with God that never ends?
What are we willing to let go of in order to take hold of Jesus?
Verse 9: “After [the wise men] had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.”
They were ecstatic! They were in the presence of the King of the Jews, the object of their search, the hope of generations, the fulfillment of God’s great promise of grace!
When I considered these words this past week, I couldn't help recalling the words of the old spiritual: "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble." That's how the Magi must have felt on seeing Jesus!
And so what did they do? Verse 11: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Jerusalem didn’t worship the King of the Jews and on a Friday we now call Good, Jerusalem would, on behalf of the whole sinful human race, kill Jesus.
But these foreigners welcomed and worshiped Jesus!
Listen: God cares about you. But He doesn’t care who you are.
He doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done.
He doesn’t care what your parents did, good or bad.
He doesn’t care where you’re from.
If you will welcome Jesus and His reign over your life, if you will submissively trust in Him, you will be part of His eternal kingdom.
Even Gentiles.
Even Americans.
Even Lutherans!
Verse 12: “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the first Epiphany for me is this: God will guide those who listen for His voice. (Even the naive!)
The Magi heard God’s call in a far-off land. They heard Him now as He pierced their naivete, allowing them to be instruments for protecting the Child and in protecting the Child, ensuring that Jesus would fulfill His mission of dying and rising.
Just as He did with the Magi, God gives each of us a part in Jesus’ mission in the world.
We are to be and to make disciples.
And He both calls and empowers each of us to do our part.
Our mission is best filled not with flashy programs or glitzy concerts or multimedia presentations, but as we allow ourselves to be the humbled and humble instruments of God’s grace, letting people encounter Jesus in the simplicity and authenticity of our faith in Him.
The most vivid and influential witnesses for Christ in my life haven’t been preachers, but laypeople who followed Jesus:
- the house-painter who told me how good Jesus had been to him even as he grieved the wife he adored on the day we buried her;
- the nurse who took my face in her hands after my first sermon and said, “Mark, honey, I see the Holy Spirit in you. Don't ever lose Him!”;
- the mentor in the faith who put up with my immaturity because she saw in me someone Jesus had died for.
When you think about it, it was, ultimately, a simple personal encounter with the baby Jesus that caused the Magi to know that the needed to bow down and worship Him.
And because Jesus promises to be with us always (Matthew 28:20), He can also be present in our humble encounters with Him when we worship, pray, study His Word, and receive the Sacrament and in our humble encounters with others as we tell them, “We’ve met the King. He’s changed and is changing me forever. Come and see” (John 1:46).
Jesus is the winner in the clash of kingdoms.
Let the whole world know! Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Save me, Lord, from being a snob
This is the journal entry from my quiet time with God this morning. To see how I approach quiet time, go here.
Look: “Abraham replied, ‘I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’” (Genesis 20:11)
For the second time since he and his household left Ur to go to the land that God would show him, Abraham lies to a local king about who his wife, Sarah, is.
While it’s true that Sarah is his half-sister, more significantly, she is his wife.
Here, the king in Gerar is warned in a dream that Sarah, who has been taken into his household to be one of his wives, is actually already married to Abraham. God warns him of dire consequences if he keeps Sarah. (In fact, already, the women of Gerar are unable to conceive children because of this un-consummated adultery.)
I know nothing about the religious life of Gerar. But it is clear that there were people there who had encountered the God of Israel (as the king’s dream demonstrates) and that they had some recognition of His power.
So, the king asks Abraham why he had lied about Sarah. This verse is the first part of Abraham’s “explanation.”
Listen: What strikes me about Abraham’s answer is his belief that no one in Gerar fears the God he knows so well. “There is surely no fear of God in this place…” he tells himself.
Abraham assumed that only he knew God. And while it is true that Abraham was to be the father of the nation of Israel and the spiritual father of all who come to know Israel’s God through Jesus, he should have known, of all people, that God was never completely unknown in the world.
Back in Genesis 14, after fighting in a war for the liberation of family members, Abraham met a man who seems to show up from nowhere. He wasn’t a kinsman. He was Melchizedek, who came from Salem (later renamed Jerusalem). Here’s what we’re told:
“Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” (Genesis 14:18-20)
(The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus Himself was a priest in the order of Melchizedek.)
My point is that Abraham underestimated both the power of God’s continuing presence to the people of the world and the fear of Him--awe, respect, and terror of His power--that existed among these “foreigners.”
He reminds me of the self-pitying Elijah, who told God: "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." (1 Kings 19:14) I can hear the whininess in Elijah’s voice!
But God told him: “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel--all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him." (1 Kings 19:18)
In other words, God was saying, get over your self-pity and your self-righteousness. There are more around you who believe than you know.
And there are more who are willing to believe than we know, apparently. When Jesus gave the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:14-18; Luke 22:44-49; John 20:19-23; Acts 1:8), commanding the Church to share the good news of new life for all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ, the underlying assumption was that even people who knew nothing about God would want to be reconciled to Him through God-enfleshed, Jesus. Jesus deemed all people worthy of, needy of, and susceptible to salvation by grace through faith in Him.
The apostle Paul understood the fact that he could find people open to the gospel wherever he went, even among non-Jews, Gentiles.
Acts 17 contains one of my favorite incidents from Paul’s life and ministry. He goes to Athens. Everywhere he looks there, he sees statues to various deities. This is an abomination to a Jew. To Christians too. For those of monotheistic faith, there’s only one God and to give credence to dumb idols is a violation of the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods.”
But the evidence of idolatry didn’t cause Paul to be dismissive of the Athenians. He didn’t think, as Abraham had, “there’s no fear of God here” and conclude that trying to fulfill the great commission there was a waste of time.
Instead, he went to the Areopagus, the center of town where people discussed ideas and issues. It was sort of like Twitter without the 280-character limit. Then this happened:
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said:
“Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-31)
Paul begins by commending the people for the desire they have for the “unknown God” and he shows them how even one of their own poets had some level of fear in the one true God of all creation.
Paul would suffer many times for his faith. But, unlike Abraham, he never disdained the possibility of faith in those around him. And he never lied to save his skin.
I confess that I can be an awful lot like Abraham and Elijah, men of faith who often yielded to their fears and self-righteousness.
Paul had his own faults (I think of him as prickly), but he seems never to have allowed fear of the world to trump his fear of the Lord or his faith in Christ.
And, following his conversion to Christ, Paul seems to have usually seen the possibilities in others. He never underestimated God’s love for those who didn’t know God fully. And He never underestimated God’s capacity to love them to life with Him through Jesus.
Respond: Today, Lord, help me to see people, all people, as You see them: As objects of Your love for whom Jesus died and rose; as susceptible, by the power of Your Holy Spirit to the proclamation of Jesus as Lord; as people to whom Your truth is owed. Save me from being a snob. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Friday, January 05, 2018
Choosing Christ and the cross over the easy lies I tell myself
I met the Lord today during my quiet time in Genesis 12-14. Below is my journal entry from that encounter. To see how I approach quiet time with God, see here.
Look: “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, ‘I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is his wife.” Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.’” (Genesis 12:11-13)
Abram (later Abraham) is the patriarch of Biblical faith. Through the grafting of grace, God makes all who believe in His only Son Jesus spiritual descendants of Abraham (Romans 11:11-31). So, it’s instructive, sometimes inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable to observe him.
In chapter 12, Abram is instructed by God to leave his home of Ur to a land that God would show him. This land was God’s pledge to Abram’s descendants. In obeying God, picking up stakes and moving his entire household, Abram exhibits faith, the kind of faith in God I would like to have.
Abram goes to the promised land, traveling around for a time. But when a famine hits the land, he books. He heads for Egypt.
A history of God’s people going to Egypt in times of crisis would later develop. The Israelites were more or less forced to go to Egypt during a later famine after God had placed Joseph, Abraham’s great-grandson, in a place of authority through which he could save the people.
In the New Testament, another Joseph, selected by God to raise Jesus in his home, is told by God to go to Egypt in order to save the Christ Child from the murderous intentions of King Herod.
Though Genesis records God’s command to Abram to go to the land He would show him, we have no indication as to whether God told him to go to Egypt when the famine hit. Abram may have just thought, “There’s no food here. I’ll go to Egypt.”
It’s plausible to believe that the trip to Egypt was all Abram’s idea when we see the plot he hatches just as he, Sarai (later Sarah), and their people and livestock are about to enter Egypt. He tells Sarai that he’s afraid that if the Egyptians think he’s married to Sarai, they’ll kill him so that one of them can have her for their wife.
Listen: There are several problems with this plan:
1. Abram is thinking instead of praying. Had he prayed instead of thought, allowing God to guide his thinking, he wouldn’t have suggested such a conspiracy to his wife. I think of Proverbs 14:12 (again!): “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”
Certainly, we’re to think. God gave us our brains. But we need to let God lead our thoughts. If we don’t let God lead, we’re led into sin and into death, separation from God.
2. Abram is yielding to his fears, not following the God who had called him to faith. In this instance (and in another one when Abraham did the same stupid thing), fear beat out faith. Not good!
God had promised Abram: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)
God had shown Abram the land that He was going to give to him. Abram knew that God was good for His promises and that in order for Abram to become the ancestor of a great nation, he would need to father a son. Inherent in that promise is another one, that Abram wouldn’t die before he had fathered a son.
Yet, Abram decided to place greater faith in his own intellect, his own analysis, and his own plans than he placed in God.
3. Abram is essentially giving his wife permission to commit adultery in order to save his neck. Not even the Pharaoh thinks that this is a good idea! When Pharaoh finally learns that the woman he’s taken into his house for a wife is already Abram’s wife, he’s horrified. “What is this you have done to me?” he asks Abram. “Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” (Genesis 12:18-20)
Abram isn’t only sinning against God then, he’s encouraging his wife to do so and enticing the Pharaoh to do so.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis’ observation in Mere Christianity, there have been cultures that have said that men should have only one wife and others that said they could have multiple wives. But no culture has ever said that it’s OK to take another man’s wife or another woman’s husband. This was true even before God gave the ten commandments to His descendants at Mount Sinai. So, Abram is skating on extremely thin ice.
Nonetheless, this third “problem” (read sin) with Abram’s plan is just the result of the fundamental sin: Failing to trust in God.
Like Abram, I sometimes fail to trust in God. I value my own thinking more than I value His. I value my fears more than my faith.
To trust in anyone or anything--even rational fears, even smart analysis, even feelings of love--more than we trust in God is idolatry.
Every sin, in fact, from taking God’s name in vain to murder, from gossip to theft, is idolatry.
Abram’s problem in the wilderness is that he was conflicted about who to worship: God or himself.
That’s what lay behind his other conflicts: God or his fears, God’s promises or the temptations and dangers of the current circumstances.
It’s amazing to me how often this conflict between following God, on the one hand, and following my thoughts, my fears, my plans, my reasoning, or my feelings, come into play in my life.
This conflict is caused by my resistance to the anvil of sanctification on which God wants to forge me and my character for faithful living with Him now and in eternity.
God is interested more in my eternal comfort and my having a God-seeking character than he is in me avoiding problems in this world. (And to God, even death is only a problem, one solved by the resurrection of Jesus in which those who repent and believe in Jesus have a share.)
It can be painful to opt for the eternal security of life with God over the immediate security of doing what we think is right, which is why I try so hard to avoid what God wants to tell me, why Abram concocted his lying conspiracy, and why the hardest petition of the Lord’s Prayer for me is, “Thy will be done.”
It is painful. Every day, Lord, I have to ask You repeatedly to make war on my penchant for comforting myself, for doing what I want to do, for ignoring Your gracious call to turn from temptation and sin and to turn to Christ with honesty and transparency.
It’s painful to heed Your words, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
The New Testament books of 1 Peter and Colossians, among others, promise that those who submit to this process will be transformed, becoming more like Christ, fit for eternity with God, fit as an instrument of God’s grace and love in this world.
But what Your Word tells me God is: It is through this painful process that You can set me free from fear and allows me to become my better self. It’s a process that will be incomplete before my time on earth is ended, I know, Lord. But I need the courage to stick with this process, to learn to yield to You, to ask You to guide my thinking and my living.
Abram was confused. He didn’t know what he wanted more, security or You. My desires get similarly muddled, Lord. I need to be unmuddled every single day.
Respond: God, in Jesus’ name, set me free from myself. Set me free from sin. Set me free to live for You with joyful abandonment. You know me: You know how relentlessly willful I can be. You know too how fearful I can become of offending someone. When sin or fear or idolatry tempt me this day, help me to resist. When tempted to act on a comforting lie rather than Your life-giving truth, help me to choose the truth. Help me to follow Jesus and live, no matter how others may judge or dismiss me as a fool or even hate me. No matter how hard following You may sometimes be. Let me opt for the pain of following You over the death that comes from following myself. Let me act on my faith today. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, January 03, 2018
Noah, the Flood, Christ, and Baptism
This is from my quiet time journal. Quiet time is a period I try to spend with God about five days a week. To see how I approach it, read here.
If you haven't yet been baptized and would like for Christ to claim you in this way, I urge you to contact a local congregation close to you to set up a time to talk about the meaning of baptism and what faith in Jesus is all about. Here is a list of congregations in the denomination of which I'm a part; one may be close to me. (In sharing this list, I'm not insinuating that Lutherans are the only Christians around. It's just offered as a handy list for your convenience.)
If you haven't yet been baptized and would like for Christ to claim you in this way, I urge you to contact a local congregation close to you to set up a time to talk about the meaning of baptism and what faith in Jesus is all about. Here is a list of congregations in the denomination of which I'm a part; one may be close to me. (In sharing this list, I'm not insinuating that Lutherans are the only Christians around. It's just offered as a handy list for your convenience.)
Look: “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’” (Genesis 8:21-22)
After the world-destroying flood, Noah and his family worshiped God. They offered a sacrifice which we can infer was no pro-forma performance, but an act of true worship and gratitude to God for His grace.
In the Old Testament we see that God has no regard for “going through the motions” worship.
For example, God says through the prophet in Amos 5:21-24: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
And in his great prayer of repentance, King David notes: “...you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17)
In the New Testament, John recounts Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman by a well near the village of Sychar. Perceiving that Jesus is a prophet, the woman tells Jesus that His people (the Jews) saw Jerusalem as the proper place to offer worship to God, whereas her people thought it was properly offered in Samaria. But Jesus told her: “...the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him…” (John 4:23)
What God wants when we worship Him, pray to Him, and interact with Him is authenticity: authentic repentance, authentic praise and honor. No going-through-the-motions. No trying to find the right feelings or the right words or the perfect gestures. No desire to get what we “need” (read, want) out of it, whether it’s goosebumps or material well-being.
Noah’s worship pleased God. And it wasn’t because Noah was perfect or “religious,” whatever that means. Nothing had changed about Noah or Noah’s family or the human race of which they were a part.
Before the flood began, Genesis 6: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) It was human evil that caused God to regret making human beings and to cause the flood (Genesis 6:6). After the flood, Genesis says, “... the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 6:21). Nothing had changed about the human race.
But God hadn’t changed either. I see from the verses that so struck me today how much God loves us, in spite of our evil. He doesn’t want to see us destroyed. He loves us and wants to spare us the consequences of our sinfulness (“the wages of sin is death”: Romans 6:23). God wants to extend His grace to us. When we meet His grace with our trusting faith, as Noah and his family did, God saves. God acts on our behalf.
Listen: God entered our world in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1-2, 14; Colossians 1:15-20) in order to immerse His sinless life fully in the chaos of our sin and death and, after dying, rising in order to open up the only pathway to a resurrected life with God.
Jesus referred to His submersion into death and His rising to life as His baptism: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50)
And it is through baptism into Christ, the baptism of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19) that we are today spared the consequences of sin and death. The old self dies and the new self, the Christ self, rises.
First Peter talks about how Jesus’ accomplishment is sacramentally imparted to us. Recalling Jesus’ death and resurrection, Peter writes:
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because] they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” (1 Peter 3:18-22)
After this amazing action of God, giving us a share in Christ’s victory over sin and death through our Baptism, our call is just this: to trust, to believe, just as Noah and his family did.
As the apostles told their jailer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." (Acts 16:31)
Authentic faith in God as revealed to all the world in Jesus.
Authentic repentance in Jesus’ name.
This is what God asks of us whose hearts and minds are still soaked in evil. His promise of new life with Him will hold, overcoming our sin and death; our part is to trust in Him and His promises.
Respond: Today, Lord, help me to trust in You and not lean on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6).[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Tuesday, January 02, 2018
Politics aside...
...I feel sorry for young Barron Trump, being dragged in a tux to a New Year's Eve party with a bunch of old people. (At his age, anyone over twenty-five falls into the "old people" category.)
Monday, January 01, 2018
Another tune that starts as a love song...
...and ends as a political statement, this time one against war as a general proposition: Calico Skies by Paul McCartney.
"May we never be called to handle
"All the weapons of war we despise..."
"May we never be called to handle
"All the weapons of war we despise..."
New Year's Day by U2
It's a song that starts out sounding like a love song and reveals itself to ultimately be a political statement, born of the Troubles.
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