[This is the message prepared for presentation at the funeral of Elmer, a member of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. The funeral took place earlier this evening.]
Matthew 11:28-30
Mark 1:15
Galatians 5:22-23
John 11:21-27
Yesterday, I visited with one of the people in our congregation who knew Elmer best. He told me, with conviction, “Elmer was the gentlest man I ever met.” This echoes Sharon’s words: “Elmer was a gentleman.” Someone just told me, "He was a gentle giant."
The dictionary says that one way the word gentleman can be defined is, “...a man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior.” That’s certainly part of what marked Elmer as a gentleman. But even more, I think, Elmer had a gentle spirit, a servant’s heart. In Elmer, love for God and love for neighbor was manifest in a simple willingness to do for others.
Everyone who got to know Elmer at Living Water can attest to his gentleness. On learning of Elmer’s passing, one member of the congregation wrote, “Loved Elmer's hugs and smiles. Heaven has a beautiful saint. I will miss him!”
Elmer was also a man who loved to have fun. He had a ready laugh, liked to dance and play golf (and did so nearly to the end of his life) and spend time with people.
Where exactly did Elmer’s gentle, loving personality come from? Well, genetics played its part, I’m sure. And he likely was nurtured to be such a person by his family. Nature and nurture have their effect.
But I think that there was a deeper reason for why Elmer was the kind of man he was.
You know, Jesus invites all we human beings--sinful mortals in need of saving--to daily turn from sin and turn instead to Him for the forgiveness of our sins and life with God that begins in this imperfect world and that will be brought to perfection when all who trust or believe in Jesus will be raised from the dead just like Jesus.
Jesus speaks of this promise a lot.
For example, Jesus once told the crowds that were thronging around Him: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent [that is, turn from and repudiate your sin] and believe the good news!” [Mark 1:15]
The good news is what Jesus talked about on another occasion: “For God so loved the world [He said] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]
But what interests me in connection with Elmer is how Jesus talked about the good news--the gospel--that saves those who lay down their sins and trust their lives to Him in yet another verse of the Bible. There Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30]
The gentleness of spirit we all observed in Elmer came from the Savior in Whom he believed.
This is the Savior Who promises that if we will lay down the burdens of sin, death, and futility into which we’re all born, and take on instead, the yoke of being a follower of Jesus, this gentle, humble Savior will give rest, serenity, peace to our souls.
Once we rest easy in Jesus, we have nothing to prove to God or the world, no incentive to crawl over others in order to stand out or be successful, only to do our best to love God and love others in response to what God has done for us in Christ.
When we daily renounce our sins and daily follow Jesus, we are infused with the power to live with the joy, hope, life, compassion for others, and being at ease in our skin that we saw in Elmer.
Through our faith in Jesus, God unleashes the Holy Spirit in our lives and we reflect the very gentleness we all so appreciated about Elmer.
God’s Word tells us, “...the fruit of the Spirit [the evidence of God living in us] is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” [Galatians 5:22-23] This is what we saw in Elmer.
Of course, the good news of new life through faith in Jesus transforms much more than our lives on this planet. It also gives us an eternity with God, an eternity without fear or death, without goodbyes or grief, without pain or sorrow. It gives us a life with God that never ends.
In the passage we read a few moments ago, we’re told about Jesus going to the little village of Bethany, where a friend of his, a man named Lazarus, has just died. One of Lazarus’ sisters, Martha, is upset with Jesus and tells Him that if He had been around to help Lazarus, her brother would still be alive. But Jesus reminds her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)
Because he believed in Jesus, trusted Jesus as the Lord of his life, the gentleman we remember today, Elmer, will enjoy a perfect life with God that never ends. I’m sure that Elmer wants nothing less than that for all of you.
Let the gentle Savior Jesus cover your sin, overcome your mortality, and give you life with God.
Let Jesus into your life to give you life eternally and to transform you in His gentle image each and every day. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Growing in Christ (Part 2, Bearing Fruit for God's Kingdom)
[This was to have been shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio during worship this morning. But we were snowed out.]
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Last Sunday morning, we showed you what we think of as a “video postcard”: a graphic illustration of the pathway of discipleship, the pathway of a deep, joyous, and eternal relationship with the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Let’s take a look at it again.
The pathway of discipleship we seek to follow and to make possible for people both within the congregation and beyond these walls begins with knowing Christ.
To know Jesus Christ is to know Him as “the way and the truth and the life.” When we know Christ for Who He is, we know that He took our sins on Himself at the cross and made it possible for us to know God, to have life with God, now and in eternity.
Christ sets us free from the world’s punishing demand that we prove ourselves worthy. By His death and resurrection, Christ covers sinners who repent and trust in Him with His grace. And so, we have nothing left to prove. Hebrews 10:14 tells us that “by one sacrifice [Christ] has made perfect forever those who are being made holy [that is, eternally set aside as God’s people by grace through faith in Jesus].”
To know Jesus is to know Him as Savior, Lord, and God. “Truly this man was the Son of God [meaning, in the parlance of first-century Judea, God the Son, God Himself],” the Roman soldier announced when He saw the manner in which Jesus died for others. (Mark 15:39)
“My Lord and my God!” Thomas called Jesus when he finally knew that Jesus was more than just a great teacher (John 20:28).
To know Jesus is to know God’s love for us and the salvation from sin, death, hell, and futility that He gives to those who trust in Him. This is God’s gift for sinners who trust in Christ: “For it is by grace you have been saved,” Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us, “through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
When we know Christ, His Word has been planted in our lives and, as Jesus says, we ourselves become like seeds must be planted and die in the earth in order to come to life and to grow and thrive as children of God.
Growing in Christ, the second leg of the pathway to discipleship, isn’t easy. It entails dying to our old sinful selves so that we can become the people God designs us to be. “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus tells us, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)
God wants all people to know Christ and grow in Christ so that they can show Christ.
But growing in Christ--what the theologians call sanctification--isn’t something we do.
It happens in the same way that we come to know Christ and life with Him in the first place: By the power of His Word to transform us, to enter into our lives, calling us to turn from sin (to repent) and to trust Christ not only with our sins, but also with our lives, our past, our present, our future, our all.
Paul talks about how growing in Christ happens in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18. Let’s take a look at it now. It begins: “Since we have such a hope [that is, the hope of having a portion of the glory of God in eternity with Him], we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.”
The New Testament tells us that, as disciples of Jesus, we can bold in living, bold in sharing Christ with others, bold in praying. “...the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline,” 2 Timothy 1:7 reminds us.
In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul is telling us that because God has planted--not a wish, but a certainty guaranteed by Christ’s death and resurrection, but the hope of glory with Him, we can be bold in living as confident, joyful Christian disciples.
Unlike the Hebrews of Old Testament times and even, Paul says, his first-century Jewish contemporaries, we can turn to God in Jesus’ name with unveiled faces, without pretense, without feigned holiness, just as we are without one plea.
A child needs never be ashamed to come to his or her father or mother, no matter how inadequate they feel or how sinful they may feel, knowing that while their father or their mother may discipline them for their wrongs, they will never stop loving them. Their parents' love will always be available to them.
At the funeral of famed evangelist Billy Graham, his daughter spoke of how as a young woman, she defiantly married a man that her parents had warned her against. When the marriage went bust, she was afraid that her father would condemn or even disown her. But when she went to her parents’ North Carolina home following the divorce, her father embraced her with love and support. If a forgiven sinner like Billy Graham, or the mother or father of any child, can love and accept their children, think how much more the perfect God we know in Jesus Christ is willing to do the same thing and so much more for us when we turn to Him!
There need be no veil, no wall, between God and us. At the moment Jesus died on the cross, we’re told, the curtain concealing the holy of holies, the place where God dwelt on earth in the temple, was torn in two. When we turn to God through the crucified Jesus, there is no distance between God and us at all. We can approach our Father with boldness and confidence, knowing how much He loves us and always wants what’s best for us.
We turn to Jesus when we heed the Spirit’s call to worship with God’s people, when we confess our sins in Jesus’ name, when we hear, read, and reflect on His Word, when we receive the sacraments. These are means by which God helps us to grow in Christ.
Paul underscores this in the balance of our lesson. Verse 16: “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Remember the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well outside the village of Sychar? Her sins were notorious. She’d been with lots of men and was living with another. But when, the Word made flesh opened her to see the truth, she knew that she was in the presence of a Man who, improperly, according to the standards of the time, talked with a woman--a sinful woman--in public. This man, she told others, “told me everything I ever did,” and knew all about her, yet offered her everlasting life with God anyway.
When we meet Christ the Word, whether in the Bible, in worship, in prayer in His name, or in the sacraments, He changes us just like He began to change the woman at Sychar that day.
You may remember the REVEAL study we did some months ago. It showed us steps in the pathway of Christian discipleship like our knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and showing Christ and it underscored this truth: Every step of Christian growth happens because of the Christian’s daily interaction with God’s Word.
The more I stand under the authority of the God I meet in Scripture, the more I grow as a disciple. The more I turn away from encountering the God of Scripture, the less of a disciple I become, the less I reflect Christ's presence in me.
In our passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul says that we are “transformed,” using the same word Mark uses of Jesus’ being “transfigured” on the mountain before Peter, James, and John.
Imagine what Paul is saying! As we dare to spend time with the God we know in Jesus and the love letter He has given to us in the Bible, God undertakes the most unlikely makeover in history.
Paul says that when we come into the presence of God’s Word, “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another…”
We grow in Christ when we dare, boldly, to spend time in His presence each day.
And the result of this growth? More and more each day, in ways we ourselves do not understand or even perceive, we reflect the presence of Christ in our lives.
We look more and more like Jesus, without our even knowing it, because God is doing His work in our lives. His glory comes to live in us!
Don’t be skeptical, underestimating what God’s Word can accomplish in your life. “...the word of God is alive and active,” the Bible tells us [Hebrews 4:12]. And God says that “[My word] will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” [Isaiah 55:11]
I sometimes wonder why God puts up with me, why He doesn’t condemn me for my sins, my sinful thoughts, the fitful, imperfect way I follow Him. But when I spend time in God’s Word, like you and I are right this moment, I am assured that, if God can be patient with me as He works to transform me after the image of Jesus, I can be patient with me and with my life in Him too. I can be patient as the master sculptor does His work on me, happy to pray, with the prophet Isaiah that, “We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” [Isaiah 55:11]
And don’t think that I’m laying some new law on you, some grim obligation. I’m simply inviting you to spend time with Jesus each day. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus tells us [Matthew 11:28]. God wants us to rest easy in His grace.
You and I can’t make ourselves holy; that’s totally the work of God and the tool He uses to accomplish it is His Word.
Let God’s Word work on you, in you, and for you.
None of these are things that we do, but are things God offers to us.
So, don’t try to play the Christian or make yourself Christian; that never works!
Let Christ, the Word of God, work in you and, whether you perceive it or not, you will be growing in Christ. More next Sunday. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Last Sunday morning, we showed you what we think of as a “video postcard”: a graphic illustration of the pathway of discipleship, the pathway of a deep, joyous, and eternal relationship with the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Let’s take a look at it again.
The pathway of discipleship we seek to follow and to make possible for people both within the congregation and beyond these walls begins with knowing Christ.
To know Jesus Christ is to know Him as “the way and the truth and the life.” When we know Christ for Who He is, we know that He took our sins on Himself at the cross and made it possible for us to know God, to have life with God, now and in eternity.
Christ sets us free from the world’s punishing demand that we prove ourselves worthy. By His death and resurrection, Christ covers sinners who repent and trust in Him with His grace. And so, we have nothing left to prove. Hebrews 10:14 tells us that “by one sacrifice [Christ] has made perfect forever those who are being made holy [that is, eternally set aside as God’s people by grace through faith in Jesus].”
To know Jesus is to know Him as Savior, Lord, and God. “Truly this man was the Son of God [meaning, in the parlance of first-century Judea, God the Son, God Himself],” the Roman soldier announced when He saw the manner in which Jesus died for others. (Mark 15:39)
“My Lord and my God!” Thomas called Jesus when he finally knew that Jesus was more than just a great teacher (John 20:28).
To know Jesus is to know God’s love for us and the salvation from sin, death, hell, and futility that He gives to those who trust in Him. This is God’s gift for sinners who trust in Christ: “For it is by grace you have been saved,” Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us, “through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
When we know Christ, His Word has been planted in our lives and, as Jesus says, we ourselves become like seeds must be planted and die in the earth in order to come to life and to grow and thrive as children of God.
Growing in Christ, the second leg of the pathway to discipleship, isn’t easy. It entails dying to our old sinful selves so that we can become the people God designs us to be. “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus tells us, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)
God wants all people to know Christ and grow in Christ so that they can show Christ.
But growing in Christ--what the theologians call sanctification--isn’t something we do.
It happens in the same way that we come to know Christ and life with Him in the first place: By the power of His Word to transform us, to enter into our lives, calling us to turn from sin (to repent) and to trust Christ not only with our sins, but also with our lives, our past, our present, our future, our all.
Paul talks about how growing in Christ happens in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18. Let’s take a look at it now. It begins: “Since we have such a hope [that is, the hope of having a portion of the glory of God in eternity with Him], we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.”
The New Testament tells us that, as disciples of Jesus, we can bold in living, bold in sharing Christ with others, bold in praying. “...the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline,” 2 Timothy 1:7 reminds us.
In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul is telling us that because God has planted--not a wish, but a certainty guaranteed by Christ’s death and resurrection, but the hope of glory with Him, we can be bold in living as confident, joyful Christian disciples.
Unlike the Hebrews of Old Testament times and even, Paul says, his first-century Jewish contemporaries, we can turn to God in Jesus’ name with unveiled faces, without pretense, without feigned holiness, just as we are without one plea.
A child needs never be ashamed to come to his or her father or mother, no matter how inadequate they feel or how sinful they may feel, knowing that while their father or their mother may discipline them for their wrongs, they will never stop loving them. Their parents' love will always be available to them.
At the funeral of famed evangelist Billy Graham, his daughter spoke of how as a young woman, she defiantly married a man that her parents had warned her against. When the marriage went bust, she was afraid that her father would condemn or even disown her. But when she went to her parents’ North Carolina home following the divorce, her father embraced her with love and support. If a forgiven sinner like Billy Graham, or the mother or father of any child, can love and accept their children, think how much more the perfect God we know in Jesus Christ is willing to do the same thing and so much more for us when we turn to Him!
There need be no veil, no wall, between God and us. At the moment Jesus died on the cross, we’re told, the curtain concealing the holy of holies, the place where God dwelt on earth in the temple, was torn in two. When we turn to God through the crucified Jesus, there is no distance between God and us at all. We can approach our Father with boldness and confidence, knowing how much He loves us and always wants what’s best for us.
We turn to Jesus when we heed the Spirit’s call to worship with God’s people, when we confess our sins in Jesus’ name, when we hear, read, and reflect on His Word, when we receive the sacraments. These are means by which God helps us to grow in Christ.
Paul underscores this in the balance of our lesson. Verse 16: “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Remember the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well outside the village of Sychar? Her sins were notorious. She’d been with lots of men and was living with another. But when, the Word made flesh opened her to see the truth, she knew that she was in the presence of a Man who, improperly, according to the standards of the time, talked with a woman--a sinful woman--in public. This man, she told others, “told me everything I ever did,” and knew all about her, yet offered her everlasting life with God anyway.
When we meet Christ the Word, whether in the Bible, in worship, in prayer in His name, or in the sacraments, He changes us just like He began to change the woman at Sychar that day.
You may remember the REVEAL study we did some months ago. It showed us steps in the pathway of Christian discipleship like our knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and showing Christ and it underscored this truth: Every step of Christian growth happens because of the Christian’s daily interaction with God’s Word.
The more I stand under the authority of the God I meet in Scripture, the more I grow as a disciple. The more I turn away from encountering the God of Scripture, the less of a disciple I become, the less I reflect Christ's presence in me.
In our passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul says that we are “transformed,” using the same word Mark uses of Jesus’ being “transfigured” on the mountain before Peter, James, and John.
Imagine what Paul is saying! As we dare to spend time with the God we know in Jesus and the love letter He has given to us in the Bible, God undertakes the most unlikely makeover in history.
Paul says that when we come into the presence of God’s Word, “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another…”
We grow in Christ when we dare, boldly, to spend time in His presence each day.
And the result of this growth? More and more each day, in ways we ourselves do not understand or even perceive, we reflect the presence of Christ in our lives.
We look more and more like Jesus, without our even knowing it, because God is doing His work in our lives. His glory comes to live in us!
Don’t be skeptical, underestimating what God’s Word can accomplish in your life. “...the word of God is alive and active,” the Bible tells us [Hebrews 4:12]. And God says that “[My word] will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” [Isaiah 55:11]
I sometimes wonder why God puts up with me, why He doesn’t condemn me for my sins, my sinful thoughts, the fitful, imperfect way I follow Him. But when I spend time in God’s Word, like you and I are right this moment, I am assured that, if God can be patient with me as He works to transform me after the image of Jesus, I can be patient with me and with my life in Him too. I can be patient as the master sculptor does His work on me, happy to pray, with the prophet Isaiah that, “We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” [Isaiah 55:11]
And don’t think that I’m laying some new law on you, some grim obligation. I’m simply inviting you to spend time with Jesus each day. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus tells us [Matthew 11:28]. God wants us to rest easy in His grace.
You and I can’t make ourselves holy; that’s totally the work of God and the tool He uses to accomplish it is His Word.
Let God’s Word work on you, in you, and for you.
- Don’t turn from God, but turn to Him each day.
- Have a quiet time with God in His Word.
- If you can do it, become part of a small group that reads the Word and prays together.
- Be in worship each Sunday, take Holy Communion every time it’s offered.
None of these are things that we do, but are things God offers to us.
So, don’t try to play the Christian or make yourself Christian; that never works!
Let Christ, the Word of God, work in you and, whether you perceive it or not, you will be growing in Christ. More next Sunday. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Over on Twitter
There's much to commend #WesternCivilization: the Magna Carta, Shakespeare, Leonardo, constitutional democracy, the Civil Rights movement, C.S. Lewis, the Reformation. (I could go on.) But #whitenationalism and #whitesupremacists are not among them. Those are sinful & unAmerican.— Mark Daniels (@MARKJDANIELS) January 11, 2019
This Portion is Everything!
“‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’” Lamentations 3:24 ESV
The word translated as "portion" from the Hebrew in which the Old Testament was written can be rendered, "portion, tract, territory, part, equal share." It can even refer to booty, as in the spoils of war.
To say that the Lord is my portion then seems to say that having a relationship with Him, to trust in Him, means that we have a share in His kingdom.
Today, it means, in part, that those who follow Christ have a share in the victory over sin and death He won over the cross, as well as a share in His eternal life. This assures us that, through Christ, God gives us a full and equal share as "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17). To have the Lord as our portion is to have everything: Life with God, full, eternal, never-ending, complete.
What an amazing, comforting, and inspiring thing! By grace through faith in Christ, we have a portion of the legacy of life, forgiveness, and eternity Christ died and rose to give!
"Therefore I will hope in Him."
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
The word translated as "portion" from the Hebrew in which the Old Testament was written can be rendered, "portion, tract, territory, part, equal share." It can even refer to booty, as in the spoils of war.
To say that the Lord is my portion then seems to say that having a relationship with Him, to trust in Him, means that we have a share in His kingdom.
Today, it means, in part, that those who follow Christ have a share in the victory over sin and death He won over the cross, as well as a share in His eternal life. This assures us that, through Christ, God gives us a full and equal share as "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17). To have the Lord as our portion is to have everything: Life with God, full, eternal, never-ending, complete.
What an amazing, comforting, and inspiring thing! By grace through faith in Christ, we have a portion of the legacy of life, forgiveness, and eternity Christ died and rose to give!
"Therefore I will hope in Him."
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Monday, January 07, 2019
Sunday, January 06, 2019
Knowing Christ (Part 1, 'Bearing Fruit for God's Kingdom')
[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]
Matthew 2:1-12
I have a terrible sense of direction. Without a GPS, a roadmap, if I’m driving outside of familiar territory, I quickly get lost. Even with GPS, I sometimes get lost, as happened when, after my interview with Living Water’s call committee five years ago, speaking with Ann on the phone, I traveled twenty-five miles west on I-70 before realizing I was going the wrong way.
Truth is, good sense of direction or not, we all need maps, pathways, to take us where we intend to be. The Magi, the wise men from the East in today’s gospel lesson, didn’t have a roadmap or GPS, but their pathway was marked out for them by both a star set in the sky by God and by God’s Word, which told them there would be a Savior of the world born among God’s people, the Jews.
Over the past four years, we’ve been seeking to respond to God’s call here at Living Water to be a disciple-making congregation, to being and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
In that time, we’ve laid out a vision: to make disciples, just as Jesus commissions us to do.
We’ve identified our mission: to
We’ve identified our portrait of a disciple. A disciple, we’ve said, daily:
As a result of our commitment to being and making disciples, the only job Christ gave to His Church, we’ve instituted small groups in which we can read and reflect on God’s Word together, grow in faith together, pray together, encourage one another, and be accountable to each other. There will be new small groups this year.
We’re also committed to making disciples through every ministry in this congregation: from the Knitwits to the Haiti mission; from Upward Sports to Chevy Chase tutoring, among our adults and among our children and youth.
Taking Faith Home is also part of our discipleship initiative.
We want every member of Living Water to be a confident and faithful believer in Jesus, disciples who live in hope and can share that hope with others!
So, we have our vision, mission, and portrait of a disciple, all rooted in biblical truth and many hours spent in prayer for God’s guidance.
Today and over the next three Sundays, we unveil the pathway, the roadmap, our congregational GPS, by which disciples are made.
This is what we’re aiming to have happen in the life of every person we touch, both within Living Water and out in a world as much in need of Jesus Christ as the wise men were two-thousand years ago: To create opportunities for people to follow the roadmap to a deep and intimate walk with the God revealed in Jesus Christ. In the video, we have a postcard summarizing the roadmap, the pathway.
Truly, none of us can make disciples of other people. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3 tells us, “...no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Knowing this, Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism [show these words onscreen, please]:
We can be used by God to make disciples in our own homes, at work, at school, at play.
We can help people along the pathway of knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and then, showing Christ to the world. That, in fact, is what we’re here for as Living Water Lutheran Church!
We become disciples when we get to know Christ. The wise men, familiar with the Old Testament prophecies of a saving King, saw a star and believed it to be a sign of that King’s birth. God invited them to know God the Son, Jesus, and to worship Him.
When they arrive in Jerusalem, believing that Herod must know of and be rejoicing over the birth of the Messiah (they only learned later how evil and paranoid Herod was): “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.”
You see, God created a thirst and an appetite within the wise men to know and to worship Jesus.
By our faithful discipleship and unashamed witness for Christ--telling others what He has done for us on the cross and from the empty tomb, talking about how He is giving us life with God, joy in the midst of sorrow, hope that trumps death--we can be used to create an appetite for Christ in others too.
Saint Paul asks the Church about our unbelieving neighbors: “How...can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’" (Romans 10:14-15)
Now, when Paul talks here about preaching, he doesn't have in mind the people who speak to us on Sunday mornings, but every Christian disciple, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to tell others about Christ. Today, disciples are made when Christians take Jesus’ lordship and His great commission seriously and, sharing Christ and His Word with others, become the lights who in a dark world, like the star of Bethlehem, lead others to know Jesus.
If we’re going to follow the discipleship roadmap, it starts with knowing Christ.
And if we’re going to help others to know Him, we must make knowing Him through His Word our daily pursuit.
After all, we can’t give away a Savior we don’t know ourselves! When, after their long journey, the wise men finally came in contact with the Christ, we’re told in today’s gospel lesson: “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.” (Matthew 2:11)
The wise men had been willing to do anything to know Jesus. Can the same be said of us?
Although it’s the first step on the pathway of discipleship, our need to know Christ and be rooted in Him never stops. You may have learned the alphabet when you were small, but you will never outgrow your need of the alphabet every day of your life.
The apostle Paul wrote years after he had come to know Christ as his God and Savior: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11) Paul wanted his life to go in the right direction. I think that we all do too.
Our call at Living Water Lutheran Church is to drink deeply of God’s Word and all the means of grace He creates to give us that Word--to Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, in daily Bible reading and quiet time and small groups, in worship and Bible study, in prayer and service in Jesus’ name--so that we know Jesus Christ and we can help others know Him too.
More next Sunday. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 2:1-12
I have a terrible sense of direction. Without a GPS, a roadmap, if I’m driving outside of familiar territory, I quickly get lost. Even with GPS, I sometimes get lost, as happened when, after my interview with Living Water’s call committee five years ago, speaking with Ann on the phone, I traveled twenty-five miles west on I-70 before realizing I was going the wrong way.
Truth is, good sense of direction or not, we all need maps, pathways, to take us where we intend to be. The Magi, the wise men from the East in today’s gospel lesson, didn’t have a roadmap or GPS, but their pathway was marked out for them by both a star set in the sky by God and by God’s Word, which told them there would be a Savior of the world born among God’s people, the Jews.
Over the past four years, we’ve been seeking to respond to God’s call here at Living Water to be a disciple-making congregation, to being and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
In that time, we’ve laid out a vision: to make disciples, just as Jesus commissions us to do.
We’ve identified our mission: to
- (1) reach up to worship, praise, and know the God revealed in Jesus Christ;
- (2) reach in to grow together, pray together, and learn together and to serve and love each other as Jesus’ people; and
- (3) reach out to share the good news of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
We’ve identified our portrait of a disciple. A disciple, we’ve said, daily:
- (1) loves Jesus above all;
- (2) lives in the light of God’s Word;
- (3) denies the dark side;
- (4) embraces God’s will, obeying Jesus;
- (5) loves other believers as Christ loves us;
- (6) joins in Christ’s mission of reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out.
As a result of our commitment to being and making disciples, the only job Christ gave to His Church, we’ve instituted small groups in which we can read and reflect on God’s Word together, grow in faith together, pray together, encourage one another, and be accountable to each other. There will be new small groups this year.
We’re also committed to making disciples through every ministry in this congregation: from the Knitwits to the Haiti mission; from Upward Sports to Chevy Chase tutoring, among our adults and among our children and youth.
Taking Faith Home is also part of our discipleship initiative.
We want every member of Living Water to be a confident and faithful believer in Jesus, disciples who live in hope and can share that hope with others!
So, we have our vision, mission, and portrait of a disciple, all rooted in biblical truth and many hours spent in prayer for God’s guidance.
Today and over the next three Sundays, we unveil the pathway, the roadmap, our congregational GPS, by which disciples are made.
This is what we’re aiming to have happen in the life of every person we touch, both within Living Water and out in a world as much in need of Jesus Christ as the wise men were two-thousand years ago: To create opportunities for people to follow the roadmap to a deep and intimate walk with the God revealed in Jesus Christ. In the video, we have a postcard summarizing the roadmap, the pathway.
Truly, none of us can make disciples of other people. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3 tells us, “...no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Knowing this, Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism [show these words onscreen, please]:
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, and sanctified [that is, made holy] and preserved me in true faith. In the same way, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and preserves it in unity with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church, He daily forgives abundantly all my sins and the sins of all believers; and at the last day, He will raise me and all the dead and will grant everlasting life to all who believe in Christ. This is most certainly true!Only God can make disciples of Jesus. But He uses His Church--you and me--to do it.
We can be used by God to make disciples in our own homes, at work, at school, at play.
We can help people along the pathway of knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and then, showing Christ to the world. That, in fact, is what we’re here for as Living Water Lutheran Church!
We become disciples when we get to know Christ. The wise men, familiar with the Old Testament prophecies of a saving King, saw a star and believed it to be a sign of that King’s birth. God invited them to know God the Son, Jesus, and to worship Him.
When they arrive in Jerusalem, believing that Herod must know of and be rejoicing over the birth of the Messiah (they only learned later how evil and paranoid Herod was): “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.”
You see, God created a thirst and an appetite within the wise men to know and to worship Jesus.
By our faithful discipleship and unashamed witness for Christ--telling others what He has done for us on the cross and from the empty tomb, talking about how He is giving us life with God, joy in the midst of sorrow, hope that trumps death--we can be used to create an appetite for Christ in others too.
Saint Paul asks the Church about our unbelieving neighbors: “How...can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’" (Romans 10:14-15)
Now, when Paul talks here about preaching, he doesn't have in mind the people who speak to us on Sunday mornings, but every Christian disciple, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to tell others about Christ. Today, disciples are made when Christians take Jesus’ lordship and His great commission seriously and, sharing Christ and His Word with others, become the lights who in a dark world, like the star of Bethlehem, lead others to know Jesus.
If we’re going to follow the discipleship roadmap, it starts with knowing Christ.
And if we’re going to help others to know Him, we must make knowing Him through His Word our daily pursuit.
After all, we can’t give away a Savior we don’t know ourselves! When, after their long journey, the wise men finally came in contact with the Christ, we’re told in today’s gospel lesson: “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.” (Matthew 2:11)
The wise men had been willing to do anything to know Jesus. Can the same be said of us?
Although it’s the first step on the pathway of discipleship, our need to know Christ and be rooted in Him never stops. You may have learned the alphabet when you were small, but you will never outgrow your need of the alphabet every day of your life.
The apostle Paul wrote years after he had come to know Christ as his God and Savior: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11) Paul wanted his life to go in the right direction. I think that we all do too.
Our call at Living Water Lutheran Church is to drink deeply of God’s Word and all the means of grace He creates to give us that Word--to Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, in daily Bible reading and quiet time and small groups, in worship and Bible study, in prayer and service in Jesus’ name--so that we know Jesus Christ and we can help others know Him too.
More next Sunday. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, January 02, 2019
Why Jesus Threatens Rulers...and Us
This coming Sunday, January 6, brings us to Epiphany Day on the church calendar.
This day commemorates when wise men from the East followed a star to the house where the baby Jesus was living with His parents. (The word epiphany means to shine upon or to manifest and refers less to the star than to Jesus Himself, the light of the world, God revealed in human flesh.) The star was a sign to the wise men that a new king had been born, one foretold by Old Testament prophecy, with which they were familiar.
Before getting to Bethlehem, the wise men--logically--decided to stop in Jerusalem to ask the ruling king of God's people, Herod, where they could find the newborn king. But Herod had no idea about the birth. And, as they would come to understand, Herod didn't really welcome the news.
Matthew 2:3 says, "When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him." Why were the leaders of Jewish religious and political life disturbed?
It's simple. They, especially Herod himself, didn't want any rival kings. They, like the Romans and millennia of despots who followed, were rocked because Jesus' lordship trumps the governments and pretenses of all earthly kings and rulers. Those who seek to rule as gods, without accountability to God or to others, are always threatened by Jesus. That's why Hitler coerced much of the Church in Germany. It's why Communist rulers tried to destroy the Church. It's why despots like Putin, Xi, and others hate the true Church that proclaims Jesus is Lord.
Truth be known, Jesus poses a threat to each of us because of our inborn human desire to be like God, rulers of our own fiefdoms.
But, as the Old Testament reminds us, wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord, the recognition that God is God and we're not and that life is only ours when we yield to the lordship over our lives of the One revealed to all the world in Jesus.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
This day commemorates when wise men from the East followed a star to the house where the baby Jesus was living with His parents. (The word epiphany means to shine upon or to manifest and refers less to the star than to Jesus Himself, the light of the world, God revealed in human flesh.) The star was a sign to the wise men that a new king had been born, one foretold by Old Testament prophecy, with which they were familiar.
Before getting to Bethlehem, the wise men--logically--decided to stop in Jerusalem to ask the ruling king of God's people, Herod, where they could find the newborn king. But Herod had no idea about the birth. And, as they would come to understand, Herod didn't really welcome the news.
Matthew 2:3 says, "When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him." Why were the leaders of Jewish religious and political life disturbed?
It's simple. They, especially Herod himself, didn't want any rival kings. They, like the Romans and millennia of despots who followed, were rocked because Jesus' lordship trumps the governments and pretenses of all earthly kings and rulers. Those who seek to rule as gods, without accountability to God or to others, are always threatened by Jesus. That's why Hitler coerced much of the Church in Germany. It's why Communist rulers tried to destroy the Church. It's why despots like Putin, Xi, and others hate the true Church that proclaims Jesus is Lord.
Truth be known, Jesus poses a threat to each of us because of our inborn human desire to be like God, rulers of our own fiefdoms.
But, as the Old Testament reminds us, wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord, the recognition that God is God and we're not and that life is only ours when we yield to the lordship over our lives of the One revealed to all the world in Jesus.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Sunday, December 30, 2018
A change to the College Football Playoffs?
I've probably watched a total of six quarters of college football this season. Between big money despoiling the game and the risk of head injuries that are endemic to the sport (to which I don't want to be an accessory), I've pretty much given up on my former Saturday obsession.
But after the convincing defeats meted out to Notre Dame and Oklahoma in yesterday's championship semifinals, it gives me the impetus to throw in my two cents on an idea I have for changing the College Football Playoffs (CFP). Feel free to take the idea for what it’s worth. (And it’s probably not worth much.)
Here's the idea. Instead of expanding to an eight-team playoff as some are so fevered to do--many being the same people who wanted this format when just two teams were picked for a championship game and said they’d be content with a 4-team playoff), what if the committee delayed announcing the four entrants for the CFP AFTER all the bowl games are played, say on January 2?
That would give lots of bowl games greater significance and incentivize players who want to showcase their talents for NFL scouts as they play against top-tier opponents.
I'm sure that if the CFP committee could delay picking the four teams in the playoffs until after defeats like the ones suffered by Notre Dame and Oklahoma, neither of those teams would be involved in the national championship.
With a little adjusting, this approach would only add, at most, two games to teams’ seasons.
It’s possible that under this format, perennial also-rans like UCF, with convincing bowl wins over Power 5 opponents, could get invited into the CFP. (Which may be one reason that the Power Five conferences wouldn't adopt this idea.)
But after the convincing defeats meted out to Notre Dame and Oklahoma in yesterday's championship semifinals, it gives me the impetus to throw in my two cents on an idea I have for changing the College Football Playoffs (CFP). Feel free to take the idea for what it’s worth. (And it’s probably not worth much.)
Here's the idea. Instead of expanding to an eight-team playoff as some are so fevered to do--many being the same people who wanted this format when just two teams were picked for a championship game and said they’d be content with a 4-team playoff), what if the committee delayed announcing the four entrants for the CFP AFTER all the bowl games are played, say on January 2?
That would give lots of bowl games greater significance and incentivize players who want to showcase their talents for NFL scouts as they play against top-tier opponents.
I'm sure that if the CFP committee could delay picking the four teams in the playoffs until after defeats like the ones suffered by Notre Dame and Oklahoma, neither of those teams would be involved in the national championship.
With a little adjusting, this approach would only add, at most, two games to teams’ seasons.
It’s possible that under this format, perennial also-rans like UCF, with convincing bowl wins over Power 5 opponents, could get invited into the CFP. (Which may be one reason that the Power Five conferences wouldn't adopt this idea.)
The Fine Print
[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, this morning.]
Luke 2:22-40
Whenever people get new high-tech gizmos, as some of you may have received on Christmas morning this year, their response usually follows a two-step pattern. Step one follows the initial excitement over getting the gizmo: They try to make it do all of the things that they’ve heard it can do. Step two follows the realization that they don’t understand everything about the gizmo: They have to stop and read the instructions, including the fine print, the tough stuff. This can be overwhelming. But the promise is that if we’ll put up with the pain, there will be gain.
Our gospel lesson this morning sort of follows this same pattern. Only both the pain it talks about is infinitely more difficult and the gain is eternally more sublime.
And today, God asks us, “Will we take the pain in order to experience the gain?”
The lesson recounts an incident that took place many weeks after Jesus’ birth. On that night, the shepherds went to the child and confirmed for Joseph and Mary what this couple already believed they’d heard from God, that this baby really was the Christ, the Savior long promised by God. That must have been a moment of quiet euphoria for Mary and Joseph. They weren’t crazy. The two of them truly had been chosen by God to play a part in the salvation history of the world. (Just as you and I have our roles to play in salvation history as we follow Christ and share Him with others.)
Take a look at our lesson, please, Luke 2:22-40. It begins: “When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took [Jesus] to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons.’”
Under Old Testament law, a woman who had given birth was required to wait several weeks, then be purified--offering a sacrifice--in order to be able once more to fully participate in Jewish religious life. (By the way midwives had to undergo such purification as well. Because Joseph acted as Mary's midwife, some scholars believed that both Mary and Joseph were at the temple to offer sacrifices for purification.)
So, purification was one reason for the visit to the temple. But Mary and Joseph also went there to consecrate or dedicate their child to the Lord, God the Father.
They were soon to learn through two unexpected interruptions, only the first one of which we’ll talk about this morning, that God had them in the temple for other reasons. Have you found yourself in a similar situation? You go somewhere for your reason and then learn that God has you there for His reasons. Our niece told us yesterday about going to the grocery to pick up a few items. But while there, she ran into a friend going through a tough time and spent an hour-and-a-half listening and offering encouragement. On that day in the temple, there were two things that Mary and Joseph needed to be told. That's the reason God wanted them to go to the temple when they did.
Verse 25 and forward: “Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God…”
This wasn’t part of Mary’s and Joseph’s plan. A stranger, an old man who, it turns out has deep faith has been praying that the Messiah would be revealed to him before he died appears. When the old man sees Jesus, he does a shocking thing, taking the baby Jesus from His parents, he cradled Jesus in his arms. The man’s name is name is Simeon, meaning God has heard in Hebrew. Simeon was overwhelmed with joy because he knew that, at long last, God had heard his prayers. The Holy Spirit had assured him that his prayers would be heard. And on that day, the Holy Spirit moved him to go to the temple courts.
Is there any good or godly thing for which you’ve been praying for years? Or that you started to pray for and then gave up, not because the Holy Spirit seemed to tell you that God wanted you to stop, but because you got tired of praying? Because you were discouraged. Because you felt defeated. Ann and I were talking about that very subject on the way here this morning. There's something we've prayed about for years and nothing seems to change. Have you been there?
Listen: In another chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus is quoted telling a parable about a widow who had been wronged by someone in their community and a corrupt judge whose judgments were usually bought and paid for. The widow had no money. She couldn’t pay the judge off. (Any more than you or I can buy God off!) Jesus says though that because the woman would not give up on petitioning the judge to bring her justice, the unjust judge finally gave in and saw to it that the woman got all the money that was owed to her.
After telling this story, Jesus says that if an unjust judge can be worn down to do right by a person and hear their pleas, how much more will our loving God in heaven Who wants to do the right things for us answer our prayers?
There are, as we’ve said before, four answers that God can give to our prayers: no, maybe, wait, and yes. When we pray to God for answers, we’re asking God that His good and gracious will be done. We do the asking, but we leave the answering up to Him. And God will answer prayers offered in Jesus’ name at just the right time.
This isn’t magic. This is faith. And sometimes, God’s answers to our prayers will require us to give up on our imperfect will to yield to His good and perfect will.
Sometimes, God's answers to our prayers will mean turning away from sinful habits we enjoy so that we can embrace the blessings wants to give to us or to those for whom we incessantly pray.
Apparently, in Simeon’s quiet times with God, the Holy Spirit had assured him that he would see the Messiah. Now here Jesus was in the temple courts! You can understand why he scooped Jesus up into his arms!
Then Simeon did what people on whom the Holy Spirit rests always do: Simeon prayed some more! Verse 29: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
Years ago, I heard a hospice nurse tell the true story of an old man in her care. As his life ebbed away, the man was in a coma. The nurse knew that the man deeply believed in Jesus, the only One Who can give us everlasting life with God. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but she decided to worship God and sing what she knew was his favorite hymn. “Jesus loves me, this I know / For the Bible tells me so / Little ones to Him belong / They are weak, but He is strong” [You know the words] “Yes, Jesus loves me / Yes, Jesus loves me / Yes, Jesus loves me / The Bible tells me so.”
She had just sung those last lines when the man opened his eyes, pushed himself off the bed, and said, “And don’t you forget it!” In the next moment, he fell back to the bed and peacefully passed from this life.
In the temple, Simeon tells God that he can peacefully die because God had sent the Savior to bring new life not just to God’s first people, the Jews, but also to Gentiles, like you and me, who repent and believe in Jesus!
Mary and Joseph heard in Simeon's prayer further confirmation of Who their child was (and is).
But then came part two, the fine print, the kind of stuff we like to gloss over, the hard part (verse 34): “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Anyone who really gets around Jesus sees things about themselves they’d rather not see. Coming into the presence of the “Light of the world” is not an easy thing.
When we come to Jesus, we see our sins in the light of His perfection.
We see our mortality in the light of His eternity.
We see our weakness in the light of His infinite strength.
Like Adam and Eve after their fall into sin, we want to hide.
Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we want to farm out our relationship with God to preachers and Sunday School teachers.
But Jesus wants us to come to Him personally because it’s only when we see our sin and our neediness that we’re ready to turn to Him for life, strength, and hope.
It’s only when we let Him crucify our sinful natures, that He can bring us to the life God has in mind for us: a life with God filled with His goodness!
Simeon was telling Mary and Joseph, especially Mary, a hard truth: The world would speak against her Son, the world would demean Him. And when she saw Jesus die on a cross, Simeon warned her, the pain in her heart would be like a sword piercing her soul.
Mary and Joseph needed to give up on any thought that they could control the Child, the Savior, Who had come into their lives.
This was the fine print that God chose Simeon to deliver that day in the temple.
It’s our fine print too.
This baby is the Savior of the world, the only One Who can dispense life to human beings who are otherwise destined for death and separation from God.
But like Mary and Joseph, if we’re to take hold of all the grace God wants to give to us through Jesus, we must daily surrender our wills to God’s will and ask God to give us the strength to let go of all that keeps us from following Him.
We need to accept the momentary pain that sometimes seems it will never end in order to experience the eternal gain Christ died and rose to give to those who trust in Him.
We need to daily ask God to make room for Jesus in our lives, because that’s really what faith is: God, through the power of His Word, spoken, preached, taught, and given in Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, clearing out the sin and death in our lives to make room for Jesus.
And as we daily receive God’s grace given through Christ, we, like Simeon, faithfully pray and live and follow and see how God acts to give us resurrection life with Jesus. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Luke 2:22-40
Whenever people get new high-tech gizmos, as some of you may have received on Christmas morning this year, their response usually follows a two-step pattern. Step one follows the initial excitement over getting the gizmo: They try to make it do all of the things that they’ve heard it can do. Step two follows the realization that they don’t understand everything about the gizmo: They have to stop and read the instructions, including the fine print, the tough stuff. This can be overwhelming. But the promise is that if we’ll put up with the pain, there will be gain.
Our gospel lesson this morning sort of follows this same pattern. Only both the pain it talks about is infinitely more difficult and the gain is eternally more sublime.
And today, God asks us, “Will we take the pain in order to experience the gain?”
The lesson recounts an incident that took place many weeks after Jesus’ birth. On that night, the shepherds went to the child and confirmed for Joseph and Mary what this couple already believed they’d heard from God, that this baby really was the Christ, the Savior long promised by God. That must have been a moment of quiet euphoria for Mary and Joseph. They weren’t crazy. The two of them truly had been chosen by God to play a part in the salvation history of the world. (Just as you and I have our roles to play in salvation history as we follow Christ and share Him with others.)
Take a look at our lesson, please, Luke 2:22-40. It begins: “When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took [Jesus] to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons.’”
Under Old Testament law, a woman who had given birth was required to wait several weeks, then be purified--offering a sacrifice--in order to be able once more to fully participate in Jewish religious life. (By the way midwives had to undergo such purification as well. Because Joseph acted as Mary's midwife, some scholars believed that both Mary and Joseph were at the temple to offer sacrifices for purification.)
So, purification was one reason for the visit to the temple. But Mary and Joseph also went there to consecrate or dedicate their child to the Lord, God the Father.
They were soon to learn through two unexpected interruptions, only the first one of which we’ll talk about this morning, that God had them in the temple for other reasons. Have you found yourself in a similar situation? You go somewhere for your reason and then learn that God has you there for His reasons. Our niece told us yesterday about going to the grocery to pick up a few items. But while there, she ran into a friend going through a tough time and spent an hour-and-a-half listening and offering encouragement. On that day in the temple, there were two things that Mary and Joseph needed to be told. That's the reason God wanted them to go to the temple when they did.
Verse 25 and forward: “Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God…”
This wasn’t part of Mary’s and Joseph’s plan. A stranger, an old man who, it turns out has deep faith has been praying that the Messiah would be revealed to him before he died appears. When the old man sees Jesus, he does a shocking thing, taking the baby Jesus from His parents, he cradled Jesus in his arms. The man’s name is name is Simeon, meaning God has heard in Hebrew. Simeon was overwhelmed with joy because he knew that, at long last, God had heard his prayers. The Holy Spirit had assured him that his prayers would be heard. And on that day, the Holy Spirit moved him to go to the temple courts.
Is there any good or godly thing for which you’ve been praying for years? Or that you started to pray for and then gave up, not because the Holy Spirit seemed to tell you that God wanted you to stop, but because you got tired of praying? Because you were discouraged. Because you felt defeated. Ann and I were talking about that very subject on the way here this morning. There's something we've prayed about for years and nothing seems to change. Have you been there?
Listen: In another chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus is quoted telling a parable about a widow who had been wronged by someone in their community and a corrupt judge whose judgments were usually bought and paid for. The widow had no money. She couldn’t pay the judge off. (Any more than you or I can buy God off!) Jesus says though that because the woman would not give up on petitioning the judge to bring her justice, the unjust judge finally gave in and saw to it that the woman got all the money that was owed to her.
After telling this story, Jesus says that if an unjust judge can be worn down to do right by a person and hear their pleas, how much more will our loving God in heaven Who wants to do the right things for us answer our prayers?
There are, as we’ve said before, four answers that God can give to our prayers: no, maybe, wait, and yes. When we pray to God for answers, we’re asking God that His good and gracious will be done. We do the asking, but we leave the answering up to Him. And God will answer prayers offered in Jesus’ name at just the right time.
This isn’t magic. This is faith. And sometimes, God’s answers to our prayers will require us to give up on our imperfect will to yield to His good and perfect will.
Sometimes, God's answers to our prayers will mean turning away from sinful habits we enjoy so that we can embrace the blessings wants to give to us or to those for whom we incessantly pray.
Apparently, in Simeon’s quiet times with God, the Holy Spirit had assured him that he would see the Messiah. Now here Jesus was in the temple courts! You can understand why he scooped Jesus up into his arms!
Then Simeon did what people on whom the Holy Spirit rests always do: Simeon prayed some more! Verse 29: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
Years ago, I heard a hospice nurse tell the true story of an old man in her care. As his life ebbed away, the man was in a coma. The nurse knew that the man deeply believed in Jesus, the only One Who can give us everlasting life with God. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but she decided to worship God and sing what she knew was his favorite hymn. “Jesus loves me, this I know / For the Bible tells me so / Little ones to Him belong / They are weak, but He is strong” [You know the words] “Yes, Jesus loves me / Yes, Jesus loves me / Yes, Jesus loves me / The Bible tells me so.”
She had just sung those last lines when the man opened his eyes, pushed himself off the bed, and said, “And don’t you forget it!” In the next moment, he fell back to the bed and peacefully passed from this life.
In the temple, Simeon tells God that he can peacefully die because God had sent the Savior to bring new life not just to God’s first people, the Jews, but also to Gentiles, like you and me, who repent and believe in Jesus!
Mary and Joseph heard in Simeon's prayer further confirmation of Who their child was (and is).
But then came part two, the fine print, the kind of stuff we like to gloss over, the hard part (verse 34): “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Anyone who really gets around Jesus sees things about themselves they’d rather not see. Coming into the presence of the “Light of the world” is not an easy thing.
When we come to Jesus, we see our sins in the light of His perfection.
We see our mortality in the light of His eternity.
We see our weakness in the light of His infinite strength.
Like Adam and Eve after their fall into sin, we want to hide.
Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we want to farm out our relationship with God to preachers and Sunday School teachers.
But Jesus wants us to come to Him personally because it’s only when we see our sin and our neediness that we’re ready to turn to Him for life, strength, and hope.
It’s only when we let Him crucify our sinful natures, that He can bring us to the life God has in mind for us: a life with God filled with His goodness!
Simeon was telling Mary and Joseph, especially Mary, a hard truth: The world would speak against her Son, the world would demean Him. And when she saw Jesus die on a cross, Simeon warned her, the pain in her heart would be like a sword piercing her soul.
Mary and Joseph needed to give up on any thought that they could control the Child, the Savior, Who had come into their lives.
This was the fine print that God chose Simeon to deliver that day in the temple.
It’s our fine print too.
This baby is the Savior of the world, the only One Who can dispense life to human beings who are otherwise destined for death and separation from God.
But like Mary and Joseph, if we’re to take hold of all the grace God wants to give to us through Jesus, we must daily surrender our wills to God’s will and ask God to give us the strength to let go of all that keeps us from following Him.
We need to accept the momentary pain that sometimes seems it will never end in order to experience the eternal gain Christ died and rose to give to those who trust in Him.
We need to daily ask God to make room for Jesus in our lives, because that’s really what faith is: God, through the power of His Word, spoken, preached, taught, and given in Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, clearing out the sin and death in our lives to make room for Jesus.
And as we daily receive God’s grace given through Christ, we, like Simeon, faithfully pray and live and follow and see how God acts to give us resurrection life with Jesus. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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