Joy in Jesus!

[Below, you'll find live stream video of the modern worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. (The video of the traditional service has major video issues. So, I'm not sharing it.) Also below is the text of the message. Have a great week!]



Matthew 11:2-15

Charlie was an old man, a member of Ann’s and my home church. Afflicted with arthritis, he could barely walk. But he was in worship every Sunday and served with the church in many ways. Charlie had painted houses and put up drywall his entire working life, but had been retired twenty years when I got to know him. For many years of his retirement, except for when his daughters spelled him, he took care of his bed-ridden wife. Following a long illness, his wife died. On the day of her funeral, Charlie spent time talking with me and another twenty-something. This man, who would have seemed to have every reason to complain told us, “Mark and Whitie, the Lord has been awfully good to me. All I can do is thank and praise Him.”

What I saw in Charlie at this moment when he was grieving was Christian joy! Joy in the midst of this world’s darkness and fallenness.

That’s what this Third Sunday of Advent is about: joy. It’s called Gaudete Sunday or Rejoice Sunday. It comes to us from Philippians 4:4-5, which was historically used for the procession to the altar on this Sunday of the Church Year. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” the passage tells us, “I will say it again: Rejoice!”

So, what exactly did Charlie, broken down by aging, work, arthritis, and taking care of his wife for long years, have to rejoice over on the day of his wife’s funeral?

And, for that matter, what do we, in a crazy world filled with war, hatred, suffering, and death, have to rejoice over?

John the Baptist may have wondered the same thing. John was the only prophet who was himself the subject of Old Testament prophecy. In about 430 BC, God told His people through the prophet Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.” (Malachi 3:1) John fulfilled his call of preparing God’s people and all people for the saving work of the Messiah, the Christ: Jesus. In today’s lesson, Jesus confirms the greatness of John. “...among those born of women,” Jesus says, “there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist…” (Matthew 11:11)

But, as we meet John today, he’s in prison for his faith, hardly a joyful thing.

Whether for himself or for his own disciples, who were undoubtedly reeling, questioning God, as they’ve seen John put in chains, John sends messengers to ask Jesus a question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3) Is Jesus the One Who’s finally going to make this sin-imprisoned, death-filled world right? Is Jesus God in the flesh?

A cynical world writes faith in Jesus off as closed-minded stupidity. A brilliant young woman from Brazil named Sarah, who I follow on Twitter, who recently became a Lutheran Christian, reported this past week of the the place where she works, “Today I heard a ton of jokes about my faith…” She held her tongue although the group of men who joked about her faith all are living lives of unrepentant sin.

Sarah might well wonder if Jesus really has conquered sin and death when she, seeking to follow Jesus faithfully, is subjected to such nastiness and derision.

So might Christians in other parts of the world who are persecuted, facing arrest, violence, arson, and death.

Before getting self-righteous though, honesty compels me to say that while I am a baptized believer in Jesus, I only have to look in the mirror to see the same sin and insanity that makes being a disciple of Jesus hard.

I’m a sinner prone to breaking every one of God’s ten commandments, whether by thought, word, or deed.

I daily fail to love God completely.

Daily I fail to love others as I love myself.

I’m still a sinner.

So are you.

Does that mean Jesus is less than God the Son?

Or, are we to look for someone else, something else?

When John’s messengers asked Jesus this question, Jesus didn’t respond directly.

Instead, He pointed them to the things He was doing, things that the Old Testament, at various places, said the Messiah, the Son of God, would do when He brought God’s kingdom into this fallen world: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5)

The world waits–we wait–for Jesus’ second advent when He will make all things right.

But, for now, we know that Jesus is our strong fortress and our eternal hope in the midst of a crazy world.

We hold onto Jesus in faith because, sinners though we are, we also know that Jesus has conquered our sin and our death for all eternity! Jesus’ words stand in Scripture: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Many wonder if Jesus really is a conqueror who has overcome the world’s troubles. This appears to be the question that rattled either John the Baptist, his disciples, or both.

If Jesus was the Savior, why was John about to lose his head?

If Jesus is the conquering Lord, why is there cancer, war, despots and dictators, pandemics, ERs, and funeral homes?

A hint to the answer to these haunting questions can be found in our first lesson for today, Isaiah 35:1-10. Isaiah narrates the salvation story. All began in a garden, where God put the first human beings, Adam and Eve, in charge. Of course, humanity fell into sin, that condition of inborn distrust of God, our inborn predisposition to not trust God to take care of us which leads us to individual sins against God and others. Ever since then, God has been about calling us to repent and trust in Him, to trust that one day, beyond death and beyond the end of this cosmos, He will usher those who trust in His Son will live once more in a lush and perfect garden.

It’s a reign or dominion where the blind will see, the lame will walk, the leprous will be cleansed, the deaf will hear, and the poor, those laid low by sin and death, will hear the good news of Jesus that brings us life.

Many of the things prophesied by Isaiah were already seen in what Jesus did when John’s messengers went to Jesus.

But Isaiah said there was to be more even than these things to the kingdom brought by the Messiah.

While at his first advent, in His earthly life which began on Christmas, Jesus came submissively, dying for our sins like a lamb led the slaughter, there will be a time, according to Isaiah, when “[Jesus] will come with vengeance; with divine retribution…to save you…” (Isaiah 35:4)

It will be a time when “no lion…nor any ravenous beast,” not even the sin of the devil, the world, or our sinful selves, will be able to attack or wreak havoc on the lives of those who live daily turning from sin and daily turning to Jesus in faith.

The wilderness will rejoice and blossom, blessing all people with God’s plenty!

So, how can we be certain of Jesus and the Bible’s promises about Him?

How can we have joy in Jesus as our Savior and Deliverer even in the midst of the madness of this world and in the face of our own intractable sin?

When John asked a similar question, Jesus pointed John to what He was already doing, the very works the Old Testament prophets said that the Messiah was going to do when He brought His kingdom to us. “I’m doing the works of the Messiah,” Jesus was telling John, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:6)

And when you and I today, on December 11, 2022, look at what Jesus has done, we can see even more than John could have from Herod’s prison cell!

We can see Jesus crucified for us, praying for our forgiveness with His dying breath.

We can see Jesus risen, showing Himself to be what He claimed to be: “...the resurrection and the life,” the One in Whom we can believe and have everlasting life with God! (John 11:25)

We can see Jesus today in His Word–preached and shared and sung, imparted in water and bread and wine.

We can pray to God in Jesus’ name and know the peace of God that passes all understanding.

We can live with joy even in sorrow and uncertainty, knowing that, though everything around us crumbles in uncertainty, the God we know in Jesus Christ can be counted on to stand by us always, forgive our sin, redeem our lives, and, at the end of all ages, raise our dead bodies to live with God always.

Jesus is the source of unending joy, even now.

With Charlie and all the saints, living and dead, we can join the apostle Paul in saying, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Amen

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 21

Just Keep Praying

[From my journal for today, December 8, 2022.]

One of the great mysteries from Genesis 18 is: What would have happened if Abraham had prayed to God, "Suppose there are no righteous people in Sodom. Will you still destroy it?"

Sodom deserved to be destroyed for its evil rejection of God and all the sin that followed. (Just as we all deserve death.) But Abraham was allowed, by virtue of God's covenant with him, to pray on behalf of others. He already had, like a bargain-hunter in an ancient marketplace, gained promises from God not to destroy Sodom for the sake of 50, then 45, 40, 30, 20, and 10 inhabitants of the city.

But Abraham stopped at that.

Did he think, "There are certainly ten righteous people left in the town where my kinsman Lot and his family live"?

Or, did he lose his nerve after so much intercession for others? Did he, as I often do, lose interest in what he was praying for?

We can't know the answers to those questions for now.

But this incident in which Abraham stopped his praying for Sodom followed by Sodom being destroyed, tells me that when I'm praying and so, have God "on the line" anyway, I can pray boldly and exorbitantly in Jesus' name, trusting God to separate "the wheat from the chaff," the holy from the unholy, the good from the bad, the will of God from the nonsensical, the necessary from the harmful.

This little chart (done by a non-artist, it should be pointed out) is how I picture what happens when believers in Jesus pray to God the Father in the name of Jesus, God the Son. (Check further: Ephesians 3:20.)

Lord, teach me to pray with faith to ask you for anything boldly and through Jesus, to do so trusting in Your will to always be superior to mine. Amen

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 20

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 19

Truth at the Jordan: The Message of John the Baptist

[Below is the message from this past Sunday's worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 3:1-12

This past week, a colleague of mine posted a picture on Facebook that probably expresses what we all secretly think on hearing about John the Baptist as we get ready for Christmas. Here it is:



Now, it’s true that we can call John the Baptist the last of the Old Testament prophets. We can also say that he called those who made a show of repenting for their sins and did other religious acts “a brood of vipers.”

But John also proclaimed the Gospel, the good news about God acting in the crucified and risen Jesus to save us from sin and from death and to give us life with God.

John proclaims both God’s Law, God’s commands that we love God and love neighbor, and God’s Gospel, the good news that God makes innocent any sinner who, by the power of God’s Word, trusts in Jesus as Lord and God!

We see how John proclaims these two elements of God’s message to all people especially in two verses of today’s Gospel lesson, verses 2 and 12. Let’s unpack each verse to see how John the Baptist shouldn’t be seen as the party pooper of our Advent and Christmas gatherings and, more importantly, how in his words, he gives us the Gospel, and in fact, gives us Christ Himself.

In  verse 2, John says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The word translated here as repent is, in the Greek in which Matthew writes his gospel, metanoiete. It literally means change of mind. But even that doesn’t fully convey what repentance is.

Looking at the Bible’s teaching on this subject, our Lutheran confessions tell us that, “repentance consists of two parts. One part is contrition, that is [listen to this] terrors striking the conscience through the knowledge of sin. [This isn’t terror at the propspect of being punished for our sin, but terror at the thought of being separated from God, the giver of every good and perfect blessing. The confessions go on to say that…] The other part [of repentance] is faith, which is born of the Gospel…[this faith] believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven. [Repentance then] comforts the conscience and delivers it from terror.” (Augsburg Confession, Part XII)

Repentance then is both sorrow for sin and, by faith, reconciliation with God Who, through Jesus, saves us from the eternal consequences of our sin!

So, in verse 2 of our lesson, John is telling us that, in Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom, His reign, the enveloping grace of God has come to us. We don’t have to do anything or be anything for this to be so. Before we ever gave God a thought, God decided to act and then acted decisively in Christ to come to us and save us from ourselves.

This word of good news from God tells us that we can turn from our self-absorbed, self-involved ways–turn from sin–and live under God’s loving reign now and always: forgiven, free, filled with hope!

Repentance assures those who confess their sin and their need of Jesus that we will be changed from God’s enemies to God’s friends, now and eternally!

In verse 12, John says of Jesus, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

At His second coming, His second advent, Jesus will “judge the living and the dead.”

Those who have harbored the fantasy that no God created the universe in which we live and those who have entertained the equally false fantasy hat they are good enough on their own to earn being part of the kingdom of heaven, will all be eternally condemned. Jesus says His angels will throw those who have refused to believe in Him “into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:42)

This is not what God desires. Otherwise He wouldn’t have bothered coming to be our Savior. The Bible tells us that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth…” (1 Timothy 2:4)

But, just as you can’t blame the death of the man who decided to keep sitting on the roof of his house on the helicopter pilot who lowered a rope to save him from the flood, we can’t blame God when people who have refused Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and new life are condemned.

As Jesus says elsewhere: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath [God’s condemnation of the sin into which we all were born]  remains on them.” (John 3:36)

But to those who have had their minds changed and their thinking clarified by God’s Word and have so, trusted in Christ instead of themselves, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34)

John the Baptist was sent by God in these last days of this universe’s life to tell us to turn to Jesus with our sins and regrets.

We can do that because Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, has already turned to us with His forgiveness and grace, working to not only change our minds, but our whole lives, to make us God’s people, to usher us into God’s kingdom.

The promise is true: “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Friends: Because Jesus has already come near to you and comes to you again today, you can turn in daily repentance and faith to Christ and know you belong to God forever. Amen

Why Watch?

[Below is the sermon prepared for this past Sunday's worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. You can also view live-stream videos of both worship services. Have a good week!]

Matthew 24:36-44

Back in the days before cell phones when I was a new pastor, I was late for a wedding. Ann will vouch for me that on this occasion, my lateness wasn’t my fault. (There’s a long story about that which I won’t tell at this time.)

I’ll never forget the frenzy I was in to get to that wedding!

I drove at seventy miles an hour on country roads in Defiance County to make it.

Once I’d arrived, I saw the entire bridal party, including the bride and the groom, already standing before the altar while the organist, stalling for time, improvised the world’s longest version of Here Comes the Bride.

At last, sweaty and disheveled, I took my place before the couple. The groom leaned forward and whispered to me, “I knew you’d make it, pastor.”

I patted him on the hand and said, “You have more faith than I do.” 

The word advent, for which this season is named, means arrival or appearance. During Advent, we remember the first appearance of God among us in Jesus Christ on the first Christmas.

We also remember that Jesus will one day appear again.

In His second coming, He will judge the living and the dead and He will fully establish the Kingdom of God.

To those who have rejected Jesus’ gifts of forgiveness and new life, Jesus will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)

To those who have lived in the daily repentance and faith to which the crucified and risen Jesus calls all people, He will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34)

For believers in Jesus, His second advent on what the Bible calls the Day of the Lord, will be vindication for trusting in Him. Jesus will prove good for His promise: “....the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13)

In today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 24:36-44, Jesus calls us to believe in Him not just to take care of us when we die, rise, and go to Him, but also to trust that one day, He will return to this physical universe He created and make all things right.

The crucified and risen Jesus intends to make His whole creation, from human beings made in His image who trust in Him all the way down to the smallest atom, new, eternal, healthy, sinless, pulsing with the very life of God!

Four times in today’s lesson alone, Jesus promises that He will be back. This is a gospel promise.

Jesus calls us to be as watchful for and certain of His return as that bride and groom were for me on their wedding day.

Jesus says that the people of Noah’s day were so caught up in living their everyday lives, like we can be, that they weren’t ready for the flood. They weren’t watching for God to act. As a result, they were all taken away and only eight faithful people who anticipated God’s action were left behind to live in God’s provision and grace.

Jesus tells us that no one knows the day of His return, but that we should always be watching for it. You “must be ready,” He tells us, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Matthew 24:44)

So, why? If the day of Jesus’ return is in His hands, not ours, why do we need to be watchful for it?

New Testament scholar Jeffrey Gibbs rightly says that we can only speculate as to why Jesus tells us to watch for Him. But Gibbs offers five possible reasons that, I hope, will help you watch for Jesus not just in Advent, but in your whole life.

First: If we fail to watch for Jesus, we can lose our faith and fall away from Jesus. When we forget that Jesus is returning to judge the living and the dead, we can make ourselves “open…to distraction and temptation.” The time between Jesus’ first advent on the first Christmas and His second advent is, as Gibbs says, a time of great spiritual danger for all Christians.

A pastor Ann and I knew was well-loved by his family and congregants, a magnet for new members, an excellent preacher. But over time, being successful and comfortable became more important to him. He annually charmed his congregation into big pay increases, took up hobbies that occupied chunks of his time, seemed always to be buying or wanting something new, and eventually, left his wife for another woman. Quite simply, he had stopped watching for Jesus. I don’t know if that pastor ever repented, I pray he did. But when I learned of his death several years later, I couldn’t help reflecting on how sad it is when we Christians take their eyes off Jesus!

The apostle Peter tells us: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

A second reason to keep watching for Jesus: We can forget what we’ve been given to do as disciples. Every baptized believer in Jesus has been given a mission and the ability to do our part in it. We’re to make disciples by sharing Christ and His gospel with others. But if our focus is always on our careers, our kids, our happiness, our leisure, we’ll forget all about our mission as Christians. Christ empowers us to care about whether our neighbors know that Jesus is coming back one day. When we forget Christ, we lose our power to love as we’ve been loved.

Third: When we forget to watch for Christ, we can start to think that the world around us doesn’t matter. But it does matter! The Bible says: “​​This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9) When Jesus comes back, it will be to save the world, the cosmos. He cares about it and calls us to care about it too.

Fourth: When we forget to watch for Christ’s return, “we can get discouraged,” deciding just to pull back and just survive.

Early in one of my favorite movies, Casablanca, its main character, Rick, says, “I stick my neck out for nobody.” That’s the motto of a person who’s given up all hope in God. You even hear it from people who call themselves Christians. The preachers of false gospels lie to you and tell you that if you just “believe in Jesus,” your life will be trouble-free, even prosperous. But God’s Word tells us, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 16:19)

When we watch for Jesus’ return, we can face the challenges and adversities of this life, even stick our necks out for our neighbors, knowing that Jesus will give eternity to those who watch for Him!

Fifth: In watching for Jesus’ return, we look for the One everyone secretly longs to see. Billy Graham told the story of a missionary in China who was stopped by an elderly man on the streets. What brought the missionary to China, the man wondered. The missionary began to tell Him about Jesus: how God so loved the world He sent His one and only Son so that all who turned from sin and believed in Him would have everlasting life with God. The old man began to weep. He said, “All my life I knew He was there, I just didn’t know His name.”

Dear friends in Christ, you and I know the name of Jesus.

We have been blessed to be baptized into His name, His death, and His resurrection.

We have heard His Word of all Law that calls us to repentance and His Word of Gospel that assures us of His love and teaches us that we can trust in Him for life and wholeness, forgiveness and peace.

We know that one day, He will return, as the Bible tells it, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead [who have trusted in Christ, watched for Him], will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)

Today, Jesus tells you that as surely as He died and rose for you, He will return for you!

When we see Him, all who have watched for him will be able to say, “I knew you’d make it, Jesus.”

Watch for Jesus, dear friends, because, out of His infinite love for you, He is watching for you! Amen

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 18

I got off to a skittish start on this one, late getting to my computer after running an errand following tonight's midweek Advent Vespers worship and subsequent kindness outreach. But I think I clarified things along the way. 

Chapter 8 of Daniel, which this study examines, is often overlooked. It deserves our attention as it assures us that God is acting even in the most trying circumstances of life and history to give life and forgiveness to all who trust in Him!

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 17

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 16