How to See Jesus Christ

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

Transfiguration Sunday
Mark 9:2-9
On this Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday of the Epiphany season, we’re going to explore the Gospel of Mark’s account of the day that Jesus took three of His disciples--Peter, James, and John--to a mountaintop, where His glory as God was made plain to see. 

Don’t you wish that we could see Jesus’ glory so clearly today? I believe that we can, even in the midst of the humdrum and difficulties of everyday life.

To start our exploration of Jesus' transfiguration and how it can help us to see Jesus, please turn to John 1:14. (It’s on page 739 in the sanctuary Bibles.) John, you remember, says that Jesus is the Word, Who was with God and was God. He then says this: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us...” 

In the Greek in which John (and the other New Testament writers) originally wrote his gospel, the word rendered as made His dwelling among us is eskenosen. It’s the verb form of a noun, skene, which means tabernacle or tent. John is saying that God Almighty took on flesh and experienced everything that we human beings experience because He pitched His tent among us. 

The idea of the tent or the tabernacle was important in the centuries before Jesus, in Old Testament times. 

In the 21st. century BC, God called a couple He later named Abraham and Sarah to leave their comfortable lives in the land of Ur and go live in a place God would show them after they’d gotten their start. God said that He would also make this childless and elderly couple the ancestors of God’s own people, of which we as people who confess Jesus Christ as Savior and God, are members today. From the moment God called, Abraham and Sarah lived in tents or tabernacles.

Some six-hundred years later, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, having been freed from slavery in Egypt by God, spent forty years in a wilderness before entering the land God had promised their ancestors. In the wilderness, they lived in tents. 

During their journey, the Old Testament says, God led them by a cloud. God was in the cloud, a bright and overwhelming presence shining within it. God’s perfection would kill any imperfect human being who came directly into His presence and, in fact, Abraham’s descendants--the Hebrews, the Israelites--begged their earthly leader Moses not to let them be exposed to God’s presence. The cloud in which God’s presence, holiness, and glory were shrouded were OK at a distance. But they didn’t want to see God up close.

The fact is though, God has never wanted to be removed from us. God cares about us. And while we should always approach God with reverence, awe, and holy fear, we also can treasure knowing that we were made for intimacy with God, an intimacy that God craves to have with us. That’s why God didn’t want to stay forever in the cloud away from His people.

Turn to Exodus 25:8 (page 56). There, God is giving instructions to Moses on how His people are to worship Him and He says: “...have them make a sanctuary for Me, and I will dwell among them.” God was instructing the people: “Pitch a tent for Me, that I may live among you.” 

For many years, as we mentioned, God’s people lived in tents while the presence of God lived among them in a tent that also housed the Ten Commandments. In the very inner sanctum of this tent was a place called “the holy of holies,” the place where the holiness of God dwelt on earth. 

Five hundred years after God gave those instructions to Moses, King Solomon built a temple which, like the tent in the wilderness, was a copy of God’s heavenly throne room. In the midst of it was the tabernacle, the holy of holies, the place where God pitched His tent. A curtain concealed the holy of holies, a wall that the people feared to breach, afraid, just like their ancestors, of meeting God face to face.

Now, we come to our Gospel lesson, Mark 9:2-9. Take a look at it, please. 

Six days before the events the lesson recounts, Jesus told His disciples: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

As our lesson begins, Jesus takes His core leadership group--Peter, James, and John--to a mountaintop. While there, verse 3 says, Jesus “was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.” At that moment, Peter, James, and John, though they didn’t yet understand it all, saw Jesus in the bright splendor of His deity. Jesus as Jesus had said would happen six days earlier, they saw the kingdom of God come with power!

Look now at verse 4: “And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses…” The main strands of the Old Testament scriptures are the Law and the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets pointed to Jesus and here was Moses, the great Lawgiver, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet, conversing with Jesus. 

Look at what happens next, in verse 5. “‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters...’” 

Can you guess what the word translated as shelters might be in the original New Testament Greek? It’s skenas, the plural word for tents or tabernacles. 

Jesus says nothing to Peter’s suggestion. But there are two problems with what Peter wants to do.  

First: Peter is putting Moses and Elijah on the same level with Jesus. Peter still doesn’t understand that Jesus is God in human flesh. 

Second: When the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us, God signaled that He was busting out of the confines of tents or clouds or any of the other straitjackets in which we try to put God. 

God wants to come into your life right now, today, with all its messiness and drama, boredom and challenge, joy and sorrow. 

God wants to be your Lord, Friend, and Savior. 

God doesn’t want you to wait for the sweet by and by to have an intimate relationship with Him. 

God wants in on every part of Your life, to rip out all the sin and hell that dwells within you (and me), and to give you (and me) new life. 

Peter doesn't understand any of these things about God yet. He has no idea that while grace is free, being Jesus’ disciple costs us the loss of everything that would keep us from following Him. 

It's out of this ignorance, Mark tells us, that Peter suggests building coequal dwelling places or monuments for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Mark says in verse 6 that Peter “did not know what to say, they [Peter, James, and John] were so frightened.”

The fear of the three disciples no doubt increased with what happened next. Verse 7: “Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: ‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!’” God the Father confirmed that Jesus is God the Son. 

Not long after these events, the God Who came to tabernacle among us would die on a cross and, strangely, the curtain of the temple, the wall between God and the human race would tear in two, from top to bottom. No longer would human beings need to offer sacrifices or live without the constant, sustaining presence of God in their lives. 

Through Jesus, all who turn from sin in His Name and trust in Him alone as their God and King can have immediate access to God. That is the greatest miracle ever.

Need your sins forgiven or help with resisting temptation? Approach God in Jesus’ Name. 

Need guidance on how to live your life? Come to God in Jesus’ Name. 

Wrestling with a tragedy or setback that has befallen you? You may not get an answer to the question of why, but you will get God by your side. 

Jesus Himself was and is the only sacrifice needed to bridge the gulf between a perfect God and imperfect people like you and me. 

In verse 9, Jesus tells Peter, James, and John “not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” 

The reasons for Jesus’ instructions were simple: No one can really see Jesus for Who He really is, God in human flesh, until we see the cross of Jesus and know that it was our sins--yours and mine--that made Jesus’ death necessary. Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” Death is what we deserve for our sin. But sinless Jesus took the wages we earned onto Himself. 

And no one can see Jesus for Who He really is until we accept by faith the testimony about His actual, physical resurrection from the dead. Jesus rising from the dead is the sure sign that He and He alone is the only way to life with God. 

Until Jesus' death and resurrection happened, no matter how amazed Peter, James, and John must have been by Jesus' transfiguration, they could not see Who Jesus really was...and is. Until Jesus' death and resurrection call us to die to sin and death so that we may rise and live in what The Small Catechism calls, "everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness." 

Peter, James, and John didn't yet know what Jesus had come to bring into our lives. But today, on this side of Christ’s death and resurrection, God’s Holy Spirit sets us free to tell the world exactly Who Jesus is. It’s a freedom we exercise all too infrequently!

Today, at this moment, you and I can't see the risen Jesus physically. But we can see Jesus by faith in Him. 

We talk a lot about reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out here at Living Water. These are the three ways that you and I can see Jesus in our lives, the three ways in which His glory is revealed and we grow in our hope and confidence in Him. 

In response to what God has done for us in Jesus, we reach up to worship God, to receive His grace and forgiveness. 

In response to what God has done for us in Jesus, we reach in, sharing fellowship with His Church, engaging in small group Bible studies, praying and encouraging our fellow believers in Christ. 

In response to what God has done for us in Jesus, we reach out to unbelievers to make disciples, telling others the good news of new life for all who repent and believe in Jesus, AND we serve others in Christ’s Name.

Jesus wants to pitch His tent in your life every day. 

He wants to live with you now as well as live with you in eternity. 

Taking God’s extended hand of grace to reach up, reach in, and reach out, is how we can see Jesus ever more clearly in this life. 

And, we can be certain, with face to face clarity in eternity.  May we always see Christ clearly, starting now. Amen

Putting Valentine's Day in Perspective

Sundries posted this over on Facebook.

My Valentine by Paul McCartney (and a little more)

McCartney's song, written for his Kisses on the Bottom, which celebrated some of the great tunes of the mid-twentieth century made popular by the crooners his parents loved listening to when Macca was a kid. My Valentine is a joyful song set to a minor keyed, bluesy tune.

In this video, the guitar solo is actually played by McCartney's buddy, the actor Johnny Depp. On the original track, the solo is provided by Eric Clapton.

When McCartney came to the US to promote the LP, he re-entered the truly iconic Capitol Records studios, where he'd recorded Kisses, for an intimate concert that was live streamed on iTunes. Macca's voice was not at its best for that performance. (His voice has been in marked decline over the past decade, sadly.)

But the atmosphere of a live performance with a band anchored by Diana Krall on piano was enjoyable, as was Joe Walsh's solo on My Valentine.

I love this song.

My Hope for Brian Williams

I wrote about Brian Williams and the allurement of celebrity here.

But my hope is that the country, which has seemed so gleeful in its condemnation of and laughter at Brian Williams, will forgive him and that NBC will reinstate Williams once the anchor has done "his time."

How many of us, prone to exaggeration and telling what I call, "heroes of our own story" tales, haven't been guilty, unintentionally or otherwise, of the same wrongs as Williams? And most of us haven't been in the public eye when we've told such stories, meaning that we're not as widely and unceremoniously vilified for our exaggerations as Brian Williams has been.

The Williams story is, as I suggested in that earlier post, cautionary. Those with aspirations to be famous should think twice about their ambitions. Fame is like money, of which Jesus said: "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36) If fame or money become our aims, we may gain both but lose ourselves in the process.

Brian Williams, unlike many in the public eye, has admitted his wrong. Forthrightly, without excuses. Chastened, this man who has been, it seems, a responsible journalist, should get the grace and second chance that we all assume we ourselves deserve.

Some feel that Williams deserves no consideration because he has a lot of money, as though money softens the blow, as though money were his motivation for being a journalist. These ideas miss the point. No amount of money can compensate for the guilt and regret Williams must feel right now.

Nor can it give him the sense of fulfillment he likely felt from pursuing his calling as a fair-minded journalist.

Unlike some public figures, whose "apologies" are nothing but recriminations toward those who hold them accountable or who view their mea culpas as pro forma hoops they need to jump through in order to gain the honors they believe they deserve, Williams seems genuinely repentant.

His suspension seems to be an appropriate consequence of his breach of journalistic propriety. In other words, the "punishment" fits the "crime."

But, having accepted his medicine, Brian Williams shouldn't be forced to be a scapegoat wandering in the wilderness for the rest of his life.

In six months' time, Williams should be back at his desk on the NBC Nightly News. If not there, some other news organization should use his considerable talents.

At least that's what I think.

Why Were Old Testament Priests Required to Be Perfect Physical Specimens?

At Living Water Lutheran Church, we're reading the Bible together over the course of 2015 and holding weekly gatherings to discuss the twenty-one chapters we've read that week.

At last night's discussion, a really good question was posed: Why were the priests who offered the sacrifices made daily first in a tent in the wilderness and later at the temple in Jerusalem, required to be unmarred by physical defect?

Levticus 21:17-23 contains this uncomfortable set of qualifications from God:

For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.

One of the points that the editors of The Lutheran Study Bible make about these verses is that why "physical blemishes disqualified a priest from entering God's sanctuary or holy places...[the] disabled or misshapen were not regarded as profane, for the Lord allowed them to perform other tasks and eat holy food."

Still, these qualifications, which come in a list of otherwise defensible ones dealing with things like sin and integrity, are jarring. It seems inconsistent with what we know about how God, as evidenced repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments, loves all people.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament does provide some explanation for these requirements, though they do little to eliminate our concerns:

Just as animals with physical defects or blemishes [could] not be offered for sacrifice (22:19-22), priests who [had] a physical defect [could] not serve before the altar. Ritual purity [was] required for the sacred precincts of the altar, the sacrifice and the religious practitioner officiating at the altar in every religion in the ancient Near East. Priests [had to be] in perfect health and in full command of their bodies and senses.

So, the concern behind the requirements in Leviticus seem to have been not so much with creating a kind of super race of perfect physical specimens to serve as priests, but to ensure ritual purity in every way surrounding the sacrificial system.

Still this explanation is a guess at best and not very satisfying at that.

On further reflection, I feel that a few other things need to be considered before we leave this question so uncomfortably behind.

The first thing to remember is that some rules in Leviticus no longer apply. We've discussed this a number of times on this blog and in classes. In a nutshell, there are three kinds of Old Testament laws: (1) ritual/sacrificial law; (2) civil law; (3) moral law. 

The first two types have been rendered instructive but irrelevant for us today. 

The sacrificial system, along with priestly sacrifices, came to an end with Jesus' voluntary self-sacrifice on the cross. No further sacrifices are needed; we are saved by God's grace through faith in Christ alone.

The Old Testament priesthood ended at the moment Jesus Christ died on the cross. The New Testament book of Hebrews describes Jesus as our "great high priest." Unlike the Old Testament priests, Jesus is both sacrifice and the One offering up the sacrifice, Himself.

He is a high priest who understands our imperfections and, despite His sinlessness, allowed Himself to bear the burden of our imperfections and sinfulness on the cross. Hebrews 4:15 says of Jesus:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin.

More than that, this is a great high priest who shared in the physical limitations, injuries, and defects to which every human being is subject. You get the idea from reading the Old and New Testaments that Jesus was not an imposing physical specimen. Hundreds of years before His birth, the prophet Isaiah said of Jesus:

He grew up before [God] like a tender shoot,    and like a root out of dry ground.He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind,    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.Like one from whom people hide their faces    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:2-3)

So, if the Old Testament Levitical priests were physical specimens, the great high priest Jesus, God in human flesh, was not.

And maybe this gives us clues for the reason behind God instituting the physical qualifications for the priesthood we read about in Leviticus 21. Maybe ancient Israel, in the infancy of its historic mission to be God's "light to the nations" when these qualifications were given to His people in the wilderness, wasn't ready for priests who shared their weaknesses. 

Maybe only God Himself possessed the requisite empathy and compassion to be such a high priest. 

And maybe it was only after God Himself died at the hand of human weakness (and sin), then rose from the dead, that He was able to create a whole people--His Church--to share their weakness and God's strength with the world, and to confess their own weakness to God and be strengthened by His strong grace.

Lots of maybes. But, it's clear that no matter how troubling Leviticus 21 may be for us, it's not the final chapter in God's plan for the human race.

The Sadness of Brian Williams' Fall

Brian Williams' fall from grace and his six-month suspension--likely to become permanent--as anchor for the NBC Nightly News, saddens me.

While I haven't seen more than brief clips of his evening news broadcast for years, I always respected his reporting.

It isn't his reporting that has gotten him into trouble though. It's his celebrity that's done it. Or more accurately, his reaction to it. Williams' "misremembering" and exaggerations weren't told on his news broadcasts. They were parts of tales he recounted on late night talk shows and in other such entertainment venues.

There's good reason for anchors of network news shows to make appearances on talk shows. It's good for the ratings. It makes the individual who is the face of the evening broadcast accessible and, "real" to the public.

But when you get onto the celebrity circuit, you're given a platform on which you can make a fool of yourself without anyone suggesting that you stop. (At least for awhile.)

And, it seems, celebrity is like a drug. The applause, the adulation, and the laughs can, if one isn't careful, leave a person craving for more. So, the stories become more outrageous. Or the behavior does. You get too comfortable in the spotlight. As U2 puts it: "Some things you shouldn't get too good at/Like smiling, crying, and celebrity."

Celebrity can be deadly when it comes to someone at a young age. Elvis and Michael Jackson were addicted to it with horrible results throughout their lives. Celebrity can kill people. Or make them insufferable. Or unemployable. Or presumptuous.

According to The New York Times, Williams approached NBC executives about taking over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno. That probably should have set off alarm bells at 30 Rockefeller Center. But when "the talent" does or says something goofy, you do what you can to protect the cash cow by gently rebuffing them and sending them on their way, as NBC execs apparently did.

That works until the celebrity goes one goofy too far. That's what has happened to Brian Williams.

It's sad. Williams has been, from all appearances, a good journalist for years. And while in this hypermediated age in which people get their news constantly from the Internet, the nightly news broadcasts aren't as important as they were in the age of Cronkite and Huntley & Brinkley, Brian Williams was deemed credible and watchable by more viewers than his competitors. He was seen as the best at what he did. But it wasn't enough for him, apparently.

Once a person tastes celebrity, it seems, it rarely is.

[This has been cross-posted at The Moderate Voice]

Prayers...

...for X appreciated today. That's all. Just pray for X. Especially around noon Eastern time. Thank you.

Maybe the Most Un-Hip Song You'll Hear Today

London Town is probably one of Paul McCartney's worst solo LPs. (OK, he recorded it with Wings. But let's face it, all the Wings releases were really McCartney solo projects.)

Yet, as a friend of mine once said of Macca, "Even when he's bad, he's good." By that he meant that even when the tunes are sappy and the lyrics absurd schlock, which has happened more than a few times through the years, McCartney's sense of melody and penchant for compelling arrangements can pull you in.

I'm Carrying is a flimsy tune from London Town. But confession of a guilty pleasure: I love it.

What man in his right mind wouldn't want to compose something like this for his woman? And my guess is that most women wouldn't mind being on the receiving end of this schmaltzy Valentine.

So, suspend your cynicism for two-minutes-and-fifty-five seconds and picture yourself as either the male or female lead in a real-life romantic comedy. The couple, for whatever reason, haven't seen one another for a time. The guy, heart on his sleeve, carnation on his lapel, and gift packages in his hand shows up...hoping, hoping, hoping. The girl opens her door. Their hearts beat quickly when they see each other and, for a moment, neither says anything. Then these words tumble from his mouth...

Favorite Line from "Four Five Seconds": The Power of Weakness

Having heard the McCartney/Rihanna/Kanye collaboration, Four Five Seconds about four, five times, I'm not that into it. But, for me, one line from the song is a keeper:

...all my kindness is taken for weakness

Mistaking kindness for weakness in others is one of the biggest things we human beings make about others, I think.

But kindness is a way love and true strength are enacted.

If there's anything I learn from Jesus and the Bible, it's that love is expressed in actions, even toward those we find exasperating...or hateful.

In Jesus Christ, God has done the ultimate kindness for the human race. He bore our sin on the cross in order to take the punishment, death, we deserve.

Then He rose from the dead to take back from Satan and the evil of this already dying world the everlasting life that God intended for all of us.

And then, through no merit of our own, He offered the victory over sin and death He had won, along with eternal life with God, as free gifts to all who renounce sin and trust Him to destroy the sin in us.

The world mistook Jesus' kindness--His willing submission to death on a cross in spite of His power to evade it and to destroy those who took His life--for weakness. It still does.

But Jesus expressed the very strength of God in His seeming weakness.

The same is true for all who bear the Name of Christ, God in the flesh. 

God answered the apostle Paul's prayers for deliverance from a persistent "thorn in his flesh" by saying that He would not say, "Yes" to that prayer because, "...my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). God's power is manifest in those willing to have their emptiness and weakness filled by the One Who made the universe with His strength and His goodness.

God's power too, is seen in the willingness of Jesus followers to serve others in precisely the way Jesus has served us on the cross and from the empty tomb. 

In what was the Gospel lesson in many churches across North America yesterday, we were told that Jesus healed the mother-in-law of His disciple, Simon Peter. Immediately afterward, Mark says of the woman that "she served them," meaning Jesus, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. 

Some read this or hear this and are horrified. A woman gets healed and the first thing she has to do is serve others. Humiliating, right? 

But people who react in this way mistake kindness for weakness. 

Simon Peter's mother-in-law "got it" before her son-in-law did. She understood that when the God of the universe serves you and loves you, the only reasonable and appropriate response is to be a servant. 

She understood what James and John still had not gotten nine chapters later in Mark's gospel. The two were certain that Jesus was going to be a worldly triumph--Grammys, Oscars, Nobel Peace Prizes, landslide election victories, vast wealth, and military conquest in hand--and could make them His president and prime minister. "Grant," they asked Jesus, "that when you come into your glory, we'll sit on either side of you." 

Jesus disappointed them with His answer, no doubt. At least until after His death and resurrection, when they finally began to "get it." Jesus said:"...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:44-45)

Those who are truly great understand that in the kingdom of God which Jesus has brought into our world the last will be first and the first will be last. Status means nothing to them. As Grammy Award winner and Christian rapper Lecrae noted on his Facebook page on Saturday, as he found himself surrounded by musical superstars, "There is no one I can meet in the world to make me any more valuable than God has already made me." 

When you know that, in Christ, you have the approval of God, you can afford to look weak to the world. You can dare to be kind knowing that however much others may abuse you for it, God is with you and you can never be separated from Christ. Kindness rooted in the certainty that you belong to Christ always is an act of boldness and courage. The kind are subversives in a conspiracy with Christ to overthrow the kingdoms of this world and boldly proclaim that, "There is no king but the God we meet in Jesus and wouldn't you like to be part of His kingdom?"

Never confuse kindness for weakness...especially in Christ or in those who strive to live faithfully for Him.

Does Jesus Heal?

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

Mark 1:29-39

Some people may hear the Gospel lesson for this morning and say, “That’s nice. Jesus healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and others. Why doesn’t He heal people today?”

The answer, of course, is that He does.

In an October 25, 1999 article of The Archives of Internal Medicine,  seven physicians, a hospital chaplain, a social worker, and a scholar associated with leading hospitals from around the country, presented the findings of their research on the connection between intercessory prayer—prayer offered on behalf of others--and the recovery of coronary patients. The researchers set up what’s known as a “double blind” experiment on those recovering from heart problems. There were 990 patients in the study. Prayers were said for some of them. Prayers were not offered for the others. The doctors treating the patients didn’t know who was chosen to be prayed for and the subjects of the prayers didn’t know either. But a list of first names was given to people in local churches who prayed for those on the list each day. Neither the people doing the praying, nor the people being prayed for, nor the researchers knew who had been chosen to be the target of prayer. 

And what happened? Those for whom prayers were said recovered more quickly. As the researchers put it in the conclusion of their abstract (I love this), “This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.” (1)

Now, if this were an isolated study, it wouldn’t mean much. But in recent decades, literally hundreds of objective scientific studies, conducted at major hospitals and universities, have been done looking into the connection between things like faith, prayer, and worship attendance on the one hand and healing and health on the other. The results are stunning.

A few examples: A 1972 study of 91,909 people in Washington County, Maryland “found that those who attended church once or more a week had significantly lower death rates from…coronary-artery disease (50 percent reduction), emphysema (56 percent reduction), cirrhosis of the liver (74 percent reduction), suicide (53 percent reduction).” (2)

“A 1978 study of 355 men in Evans County, Georgia showed that those who attended church one or more times per week had significantly lower blood-pressure readings than individuals who attended church less often. The positive link between church attendance and lower blood pressure held up even if the church attenders were smokers!” (2)

Now, I know that I’m preaching to the choir here. Many of you in this sanctuary this morning would affirm that the God we know in Jesus Christ is still in the healing business. Certainly, God uses doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals to bring His healing. But, as study after study has confirmed, their efforts are enhanced by prayer. 

In my years as a pastor, I’ve learned that many health care professionals know this. One surgeon I met years ago made a point of asking when I would be joining the patient he was operating on for prayer before surgery. “I want to be there when you pray,” he told me. “And would you please pray for me, too?” I was happy to do that. 

That has happened several times before surgeries for members of Living Water in just the past year or so. One morning, the family and I were asked by both the surgeon and the anesthetist if we would pray with them.

God is still in the healing business. In his book, The Faith Factor, Dr. Dale A. Matthews tells the true story of Barbara, who suffered from cancer. Barbara was in worship one Sunday at the Anglican church she attended when the priest read the Gospel of Mark’s account of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. Not wanting to call attention to herself, Barbara believed that if she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment as He passed, she would be healed. As Barbara prepared to go to the altar to receive Holy Communion, a thought crossed her mind: “I could be like her.”

She looked at her priest who was, she thought, “standing in” for Jesus as He presided over the Eucharist. “She decided that she would touch the priest’s robe when he gave her the communion wafer.” As Barbara tells it: “I touched his robe, and he couldn’t have known that I did, though he did know about my cancer. He did something in that moment that I had never seen him do before: he put down the paten with the communion wafers and came over to me; laying both hands on my head, he prayed for my healing.”

Barbara wasn’t healed instantly. But she knew that God was healing her. As she explains it, though at that point her healing wasn’t physical, her heart was healed. “I had complete trust in God and his love, something [God] knew I needed far more than any other kind of healing at the moment.”

Of course, you and I know that not every one for whom we pray is healed. And even more than that, Pastor Mark Dahle, a Lutheran pastor who has written and spoken about his California congregation’s healing ministry, reminds us, everybody for whom we pray will eventually die. We live in a fallen and imperfect world. Death comes, as does suffering of all kinds. Faith in Jesus is no insurance policy against the reality of living in a dying world.

So, why did Jesus heal Simon’s mother-in-law and the others our Gospel lesson tells us He healed? Why does Jesus heal today?

We get at least one answer to that question from an interchange that happens between Simon and Jesus before dawn, the day after Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law and after Jesus has just spent time in prayer.

It had been a busy Sabbath for Jesus. After worshiping and teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum—where, you’ll remember from last week’s Gospel lesson, He had cast out a demon--He’d gone to the house of Simon and Andrew for dinner, healed Simon’s mother-in-law, cured many who were sick, cast out demons, and then before sun-up, prayed. 

While He was praying, Simon and the others hunted Jesus down. They clearly wanted Jesus to go back to the scene of so much triumph and success. Instead, Jesus tells them, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

For Jesus, healing was never an end. It was only a means.

John’s Gospel constantly refers to Jesus’ healings and other miracles as signs. Signs point to something more significant, more meaningful than themselves. The miracles of Jesus point us to the simple, powerful fact that Jesus has power over life, death, suffering, disease, sin, the devil, our sinful selves, and every other one of our enemies.

What Jesus came to do during His time on earth was share a plain message, one that will change our lives forever if we let it. In Mark 1:15, we find the only of sermons Jesus that Mark recounts: The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

He says, in effect, “Turn from sin—repent—and trust in Me to give you life forever—fuller life today and totally new, restored life forever with God.”

Repent. Trust. That’s Jesus’ message in a nutshell. Its validity is underscored by HIs miracles, by His suffering death on our behalf, and by His resurrection.

Jesus once asked an important question. “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” [Matthew 16:26] Today’s lesson, I think, asks a similar question: “What good is it to have perfect health, but not have life with God?”

Jesus Christ heals. And, by the power of His death and resurrection, the ultimate healing, the one that matters for all eternity, is the healing of our broken relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. The healing Christ brings to those who repent and believe in Him will be our joy for all eternity. It can also be our comfort, our strength, and our hope even now. Amen

(1) I had heard of this research before. But I'm grateful to the late Father Andrew Greeley for pointing to it.

(2) These are cited in a book by Dr. Dale A. Matthews, here. Dr. Larry Dossey also has spent years cataloging scientific studies specifically showing the connection between prayer and healing. Both Matthews and Dossey are physicians.

Confessions of a Hermit

In an article about tonight's Grammy Awards show, TIME tells me:

You’d have to be a real hermit to have survived 2014 without hearing Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” blast from a passing car, or Sam Smith’s cherubic falsetto finding your ears in a shopping mall.

I guess I'm a hermit. I don't recall hearing either song, although I have recently read that Smith reached an out of court settlement with Tom Petty for plagiarizing one of Petty's songs.

OK, I'm headed back to my cave.

Two Results of Blue Laws' Repeal: Less Education, Less Income

"Blue laws," for those too young to remember, were in force in many states and communities across the United States when I was growing up. They forbade businesses, except for a few given exemptions like pharmacies, from being open on Sundays.

Of course, these laws reflected the Christian tradition of observing the day of the week on which Jesus rose from the dead as a sabbath.

Personally, I think it's fine idea for businesses to take one day a week off, especially if they do it in order to encourage their employees to rest and focus on the Word of God. But I don't think that people should be coerced into observing a sabbath. The New Testament knows nothing of a coerced faith.

But a study cited by a recent edition of the Harvard Business Review Daily Stat, shows that the repeal of Blue Laws has resulted in a work force less inclined to seek higher education and who earned less as a result. Check it out:

February 5, 2015

The Lure of Mall Jobs Hurts Students’ Educational Prospects

The repeal of “blue laws” in American states had a harmful effect on young people’s education and earnings: Their number of years of completed education declined 0.11 years, their likelihood of finishing high school fell by 1.2 percentage points, and their subsequent adult wages decreased, says Dara N. Lee, an economist at the University of Missouri. Lee studied 16 states that, from 1955 to 1991, repealed laws requiring stores to close on Sundays. The expansion of Sunday retail activities led to a decline in church attendance and drew more young people into the labor market and away from school, the research suggests.

SOURCE: The Impact of Repealing Sunday Closing Laws on Educational Attainment

Aaron Craft is Getting Noticed

Aaron Craft, the former Ohio State point guard, seems finally to be getting some of the notice he deserves from the NBA. Toiling in basketball's D-level, he continues to be a great ball handler, an effective thief on defense, and a spark plug who can ignite his teammates. (Glad a high school friend posted this over on Facebook.)

Fast Food (sic)

Whoever snuck the s in “fast food” is a clever person.
— CallTheMarketingGuy (@OurMarketingGuy) February 7, 2015

That reminds me of the admittedly adolescent humor of Randy Stonehill's early-1980s song, American Fast Food. (Listen to it by clicking below.)

I was happy to learn that the fast food chain with the big red M on its restaurants is losing its traditional foothold with the younger demographic. Hoping that my kids' generation will choose to eat more healthfully.

[Also see: 5 Problems That'll Challenge McDonald's No Matter Who is CEO]

Jesus is Not Your Co-Pilot

Have no idea who the tweeters involved here might be, but I love this. I am nothing without the God we meet in Jesus Christ alone.

Jesus is not your copilot. He’s in the driver’s seat. And you’re in the back, on a stretcher. ~ @jaredcwilson
— Todd Adkins (@ToddAdkins) February 6, 2015

Illegal Immigrants Almost Certainly Not Responsible for Measles Outbreak

The facts along with some analysis in an even-handed article.

What's the Deal About Unleavened Bread?

About fifty people at Living Water Lutheran Church are reading the Bible together this year. We gather for weekly discussions of the readings, one during the day and one in the evening every Tuesday.

Last night, we discussed Exodus 19-40. One participant asked what the big deal about unleavened bread was in the Old Testament. It's required in many sacrifices and it's used at Passover.*

The answer I gave is one that I think I was taught and is based on God's instructions for the Passover given in Exodus12. There, in verse 11, God says: "This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover."

What I was taught was that if you're in a hurry, as the Hebrews were when they prepared to leave Egypt, you don't have time to wait for leavened bread to rise. And that was the explanation for the use of unleavened bread.

But something about it just didn't set right with me. I knew that there was more to it than that and as I was studying this morning, I realized that, while the answer I gave was true enough for Passover possibly, it doesn't the mandate for unleavened bread in so many other Old Testament rituals. In studying today, I realized that there was a lot more to it than that.

In Matthew 16:6 and Mark 8:15, Jesus is quoted as warning His disciples against the "yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

According to footnotes in the Life Application Bible:

Yeast is a bacterial fungus or mold, the active ingredient in leaven. Yeast, therefore, is an appropriate symbol for sin. It grows in bread dough just as sin grows in a life. A little yeast will affect the whole loaf, just as a little sin can ruin a whole life.

And The Lutheran Study Bible echoes this point in one of its footnotes:

Leavening was a symbol of sin (cf. Lk. 12:1). Abstaining from leaven symbolized the new life cleansed from the sinful nature.

Leaven is a symbol of sin. That's the main reason God's ancient people were sometimes mandated to abstain from its use.

Of course, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, Old Testament ritual or sacrificial law was no longer needed. Jesus is the definitive sacrifice for the human race: "the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world." That means, of course, that all who trust their sins and their lives to Him, in other words, all who believe in Him, have no need of further sacrifices. Dietary regulations in the Old Testament all were related to the ritual/sacrificial system. In Acts 10:13-16, God definitively proclaims that these laws are no longer essential for a relationship with Him.

[You might want to go here for a discussion of the three different types of law in the Old Testament.]

*Passover, of course, commemorates when the angel of death passed over the dwellings of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, sparing their first born, while the first born of Egypt all were killed. That grim event was the final sign from God that caused the hard-hearted Pharaoh to let God's people go. Passover celebrates God's deliverance of His people from slavery and foreshadows the eternal deliverance from slavery to sin and death God grants to all who believe in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

I Don't Need All the Answers

Today, Sundries, over on Facebook, shared this:

Being faithful to the Bible very often means admitting that there is no clear answer.

I like this.

One of the things that won this one-time atheist over to faith in Christ was the Bible's clear-eyed realism about humanity and the limits of our capacity to fully understand life's deepest mysteries. In John 20:30-31, John says that there was much more that Jesus did that he didn't include in his book, but that what he did write was meant to lead us to faith in Christ and so that, having that faith, we might have with God through Him.

The Bible is not a book of science. It doesn't claim to answer all the questions of this life, only those about our relationship with God and the way to life with Him, not inconsequential questions. In fact, life's most important questions. 

But those who pit the Bible and science against each other understand neither. The Bible encourages us to unravel scientific mysteries (and others), but it gives no formulas to do so.

It tells us about the awesome, just, gracious God of the universe, enough for us to have faith, to know to repent and believe in Him, and to live in the assurance that He is with us in this imperfect world and will give us life as it was meant to be beyond the gates of death. The Bible tears the curtain between God and us, ushering us into a relationship with Him, into the blessed assurance that all who repent and believe in Christ have the free gift of life with God forever.

From the certainty of this relationship, God gives us the freedom to be all for which He made us.

I can't know everything about God or His purposes. If I could, either He wouldn't be God or I would be. And since I know that I am emphatically not God, I am enabled by the Holy Spirit to believe in the God to whom the Bible, the apostles, and all the saints of every time and place have given witness.

One day, the Bible assures, we will know perfectly, even as God has perfectly known us. For now, this imperfect person strives by God's grace to see through a glass darkly and remain content in the knowledge that the God of all creation took on human flesh, bore the burden of my sin on the cross, and then rose from the dead for me. (1 Corinthians 13)

It's overwhelming. It's staggering. But by the grace of God, I believe. And, while there are times when I definitely would like more of the answers, in the end, knowing what I do of the gracious God revealed in Jesus Christ is more than enough for me.

Authority

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

Mark 1:21-28
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright tells the true story of an incident that happened at sea. The operators of a tourist boat, filled with cars and people on their vacations, failed to close the boat’s doors properly. After the boat had shoved off, water began to pour into the boat. People were thrown into panic. They were terrified and their shrieks of fear filled the air.

Suddenly, a passenger--not a crew member--took charge of the situation. In clear and confident tones, he told people what to do. A sense of relief began to replace the panic as the man’s fellow passengers realized that someone was taking charge. Many were able to get on lifeboats that they might otherwise have missed in the dark and the frenzied rush. The man who took control also went down to find people trapped in the hold, then formed a human bridge, holding onto a ladder with one hand and the mostly submerged ship with the other, enabling more people to cross to safety.

Later, this man was found drowned in the boat’s hold. As Wright puts it: “He had literally given his life in using the authority he had assumed—the authority by which many had been saved.”

In today’s world, we don’t much care for the whole idea of authority. We don’t want anybody telling us what to do, even when the person in authority seems to know what they’re doing and to have our best interests at heart…even when the authority figure in question is God. It’s so hard for us to trust even the God we meet in Christ. Yet Jesus tells us (and backs up the authority of His words through His death and resurrection): “I am the way, and the life, and the truth. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” That’s authority!

Do we truly believe that Jesus has the authority to make that command and that promise?

Or do we repose greater trust in ourselves, our families, our work, our wits, or our pleasures?

The choice between heaven or hell, life or death, purpose or futility, connection to God and others or utter, stark eternal aloneness resides in the issue of who we will give authority over our lives: Jesus Christ or ourselves.

In first-century Judea where Jesus lived, there was no shortage of people who claimed to have authority. Roman governors and soldiers, priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, tax collectors: They all barked out orders, religious and secular. And while they might gain outward submission, none could command true respect. None of them acted like the passenger who saved so many on that tourist boat, a man many of his fellow passengers had probably never met, but were willing to follow.

And none of the would-be authority figures people encountered in Jesus' day spoke or acted like Jesus.

All of this may help to explain our Gospel lesson for today, where we’re told that Jesus’ fellow Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum were “amazed” by Him, because, verse 22 says, “He taught them as one who had authority, and not as the teachers of the [religious] law.”

What made Jesus so authoritative to these people? Two things possibly.

First, Jesus taught as one who wasn’t looking out for himself. In Mark 10:45, Jesus: “...the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

We don’t know if Jesus used words like those in the synagogue at Capernaum, but the worshipers there that day would have clearly sensed that when Jesus called them to follow Him, He wasn’t doing it to feed His ego, fill His wallet, or gain political power.

Philippians 2:5-11 says that though Jesus was equal to God the Father, He “emptied Himself,” became a slave for our sins and died on the cross for them so that the Father could raise Him up, opening eternity to all who move away from sin and turn in trust to Jesus. Jesus had authority because He was looking out for you and me, not Himself. And so He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, “Father...not what I will, but what You will.”

Here’s the other thing that may have given Jesus’ teaching authority that day: He taught as one with un-derived authority. By that, I mean when Jesus spoke, He clearly wasn’t just quoting the God of the Old Testament. Jesus was and is the God Who spoke to the world into existence, founded the nation of Israel on the barren womb of Sarah, led His people out of slavery in Egypt, and promised that Israel would fulfill its mission to be a light to all the nations by being the birthplace of the Savior of the nations, Jesus Himself.

Scholars say that when rabbis taught in the synagogues of Jesus’ day, they would preface their points with phrases like, “Moses said…” or “Rabbi So-and-So taught…” While He sometimes quoted from the Old Testament, Jesus had no need to resort to citations or footnotes to buttress the power of His words. He spoke with the clarity and authority of God’s own voice. Often, when Jesus cited passages of the Old Testament, He would say things, "You have heard it said...but I tell you." He spoke with the authority of God Himself.

Though the worshipers at Capernaum could not have articulated a confession of Jesus as God in the flesh, the Messiah King yet, they knew that there was something more authoritative about Jesus’ teaching than the teaching they ordinarily heard.

But someone in their presence knew the facts. Please look at verses 23 and 24 of the Gospel lesson. Mark says: “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’”

The demon understood that Jesus was God in the flesh.

The problem, from Jesus’ viewpoint, was that the people of Capernaum didn’t yet understand the full truth about Jesus. And unless we understand that following Jesus means submitting to the daily crucifixion of our sins and our inborn desire to be the ultimate authorities over our lives, we’re not ready to follow Jesus.

Jesus would later say in Mark 8:34, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

There are many people today--many of them filling up the membership rosters of churches--who don’t follow Jesus, but simply hover around Him because they see Him as a cosmic rabbit’s foot or a dispenser of blessings for which they can make deals.

They aren’t Jesus’ disciples. Jesus never makes deals. Instead, He’s in the gift-giving business.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But we know that in order to take hold of this gift, we must let go of the old sinful self. Our old sinful selves must be crucified...every day!

And, even when we do that, day-in and day-out, Jesus doesn’t promise that all will go smoothly. Think about this: Even after Jesus brought His friend Lazarus back to life, Lazarus had to die again! Bummer!

But Jesus does promise to be with us always and, as He said to Lazarus’ sister on the day He called Lazarus from the grave: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Jesus couldn’t risk seeing the people of Capernaum come to hover around Him on the testimony of a demon. When the enemies of God define what it means to follow Jesus, they always get it wrong, either turning Christian faith into a spiritual Disneyland without difficulties or a painful struggle to please a cruel God. In Jesus’ cross and empty tomb, we see that neither picture of God is true.

But, at Capernaum near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, neither cross nor empty tomb had happened yet. So, Jesus did something that, afterwards, His early disciples would see as a sign—an epiphany—of His identity as God in human flesh.

Look at verse 25. Jesus rebuked the demon. “‘Be quiet!’ said Jesus sternly. “‘Come out of him!’ The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.’” Later in His ministry, Jesus would still wind and waves, causing His disciples to ask a similar question, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Both are good questions! Who is this guy with authority over demons, wind, waves, and, as we’ll see, life and death?

The answer can be found in Genesis 1, where we’re told that before the universe was formed, God’s Spirit moved over “the deep,” a roaring storm, and spoke to it—“Let there be light…” “Let there be dry land…” “Let there be grass and fields and trees and fruits…” “Let us make human beings in our image…”

Jesus spoke to and subdued all that is in opposition to God with the same voice God used to bring creation into being!

The people of Capernaum didn’t see this about Jesus yet. They didn't understand yet that Jesus was God as well as man. But they were amazed. It would only be after Jesus' death and resurrection that His first followers would understand what Jesus had shown and what Jesus had taught them about His identity as God in human flesh.

A friend of ours came home one day to discover that his wife had left him. For months, He tried to claim control of his life by throwing himself into long work days and non-stop busy-ness. He didn’t have a demon. But the devil was riding on his back.

Friends finally got to him though. We told him how Christ helped us through tough times and gave us hope for tomorrow. That didn’t make all his pain go away. But as he began to walk with Christ, the need for frenzy subsided. He knew he didn’t need to be in control. Christ set him free.

That’s what the authority of Christ over the chaos of this fallen universe can do for all who believe in Him. It frees us from sin and death and the need to be our own gods.

Christ wants to give that same peace to you and me every day. May Christ help us to turn each day from a self-driven life and turn instead to Him. May we learn the power that comes from surrender to Jesus, when we give Him complete authority over our days and our eternities. Amen