[This is the sixth and final installment of our Facebook Live Bible study of the New Testament book of James. It's also the last of these studies I will do as pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. I'm retiring on December 31. I do intend to do more online studies, maybe a podcast or two, in retirement. We'll see what God has in mind. Watch for announcements.]
Showing posts with label 2 Peter 3:9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2 Peter 3:9. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Monday, December 16, 2019
Seeing Beyond 'Dissonance and Doubt'
[This message was shared yesterday morning during worship with the members and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 11:2-15
Do we see God as being tardy in bringing His kingdom fully into being with Jesus’ return?
God’s Word says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Jesus hasn’t yet returned to the earth do that all will have the time to turn to Him and to invite others to do the same.
Do we see the God we know in Jesus as belonging especially to our race, our country, our denomination, our family?
Jesus says that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him--whoever turns from sin and trusts in Him as God and Messiah--will have everlasting life with God. (John 3:16)
Do we see the mess our world is in and wonder when and if Jesus is going to act?
Jesus tells us in one place not to worry about the times or seasons and then says to we Christian disciples, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
Of John, Jesus says in our gospel lesson, “among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”
But then he says, “...yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11)
That’s you Jesus is talking about.
You: the baptized believer in Jesus Christ.
You: the One Who is being saved and daily transformed by the living Word, Jesus Himself.
Unlike John when he sat in prison, you know that Jesus died on a cross for your sins.
Unlike John, you know that Jesus rose to tear open eternity and a personal, eternal relationship with God for you and the whole Church.
Unlike John, you received the Holy Spirit when you were baptized.
Unlike John, as a believer, Jesus has taken up residence in your life to protect you from temptation and sin and to empower you to live in the peace of God that passes all human understanding. John could only look ahead in anticipation of what the Messiah would do.
You and I live in the certainty of what He has already done and know that our lives, our futures, our eternity can rest in a no more certain place of love, life, and forgiveness than the hands of Jesus.
You are greater than John because, as you receive God’s Word and the sacraments, God is tearing down what the poet and Anglican priest Malcolm Guite calls our “dissonance and doubt.” Jesus has already made you part of His kingdom! (The Six Days World Transposing in an Hour)
This Advent season, as we prepare for Christmas and for the day when Jesus will return to this world, once more listen closely to His Gospel Word, humbly receiving it each day and as we worship together where we hear, taste, and see it. Dissonance, darkness, and doubt will flee when you allow yourself to hear and see what Jesus has done at manger, cross, and tomb. You will see Him again for Who He is: the Messiah, our Savior, our King, our Lord, our God.
And in the seeing, you will know to Whom you belong no matter what. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 11:2-15
One of the stories my brothers-in-law like to tell is of the holiday years ago for which Ann decided to bake something special.
She asked me to pick up the ingredients while I was at the grocery store for other items. I picked up everything that Ann needed, arrived home, and, as Ann did things in the kitchen, pulled them out.
Imagine my surprise when Ann gasped as she pointed to the coconut I’d just bought. “You got a coconut?” “Yeah,” I told her, “It was on the list.” “No,” she said, “I’m baking. I needed coconut flakes. Not a whole coconut!” I’m sure that Ann had said “coconut flakes” when I jotted down “coconut.” But all I could see was the main staple of the diets of the castaways on Gilligan’s Island.
That little embarrassing incident illustrates dissonance, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as the difference “between the truth and what people want to believe.” When I saw coconut flakes on my list, despite what Ann had told me I was looking for, I started looking for the fruit. I was in the dark, living in dissonance from the truth.
Our gospel lesson for this morning, Matthew 11:2-15, finds John the Baptizer living in dissonance from the truth. The man who had faithfully prepared the way for the Messiah to be revealed was now in prison.
When John pictured the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed King, in his mind, he saw a king who would take an ax to the tree, that is the person, not bearing the fruits of repentance. He saw a king who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire and pull out his winnowing fork to separate the wheat and the weeds. He saw the Messiah taking control of God’s fallen creation, bringing judgment to those who walked away from God and new life who turned God the Father and to the Messiah. John was fed up with the sin of the human race and longed for the Messiah to make things right.
The picture in his mind that John saw of what the Messiah would bring about wasn’t wrong, any more than my picture of what a coconut looks like was wrong.
The problem was that John wasn’t seeing the whole picture. What he saw was incomplete. He was forgetting what else the Old Testament prophets meant when, under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, they spoke of the coming of the Messiah.
For example, in our first lesson for today, the prophet Isaiah says of Messiah: “...the eyes of the blind [will] be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” (Isaiah 35:5-6) The King of kings would also, Isaiah and the other prophets tell us elsewhere, suffer, die, and rise before bringing judgment and before God’s new, eternal kingdom would fully come into being.
From his place of dissonance and uncertainty, John the Baptizer sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3)
Jesus tells John’s disciples to be witnesses of all that they hear and see for John: “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). These are the things that the prophets said the Messiah would do.
And then Jesus says, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:6) John, Jesus is saying, don’t stumble in your faith. Don’t get tripped up by the incomplete picture you have of God in your mind when the whole picture is there to be seen, there to be believed for everlasting life. Don’t wallow in darkness when the Light of the world has come to be the Way, the truth, and the life.
What pictures of God do we keep tucked in our minds that keep us from fully living in the light of Who God really is?
Do we see God as an angry Judge, just waiting for us to stumble so that He can pounce on us and dispatch us to hell?
God’s Word tells us that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” who trust their sins and themselves to Jesus. (Romans 8:1)
Do we see God as removed from our struggles and griefs?
Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
She asked me to pick up the ingredients while I was at the grocery store for other items. I picked up everything that Ann needed, arrived home, and, as Ann did things in the kitchen, pulled them out.
Imagine my surprise when Ann gasped as she pointed to the coconut I’d just bought. “You got a coconut?” “Yeah,” I told her, “It was on the list.” “No,” she said, “I’m baking. I needed coconut flakes. Not a whole coconut!” I’m sure that Ann had said “coconut flakes” when I jotted down “coconut.” But all I could see was the main staple of the diets of the castaways on Gilligan’s Island.
That little embarrassing incident illustrates dissonance, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as the difference “between the truth and what people want to believe.” When I saw coconut flakes on my list, despite what Ann had told me I was looking for, I started looking for the fruit. I was in the dark, living in dissonance from the truth.
Our gospel lesson for this morning, Matthew 11:2-15, finds John the Baptizer living in dissonance from the truth. The man who had faithfully prepared the way for the Messiah to be revealed was now in prison.
When John pictured the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed King, in his mind, he saw a king who would take an ax to the tree, that is the person, not bearing the fruits of repentance. He saw a king who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire and pull out his winnowing fork to separate the wheat and the weeds. He saw the Messiah taking control of God’s fallen creation, bringing judgment to those who walked away from God and new life who turned God the Father and to the Messiah. John was fed up with the sin of the human race and longed for the Messiah to make things right.
The picture in his mind that John saw of what the Messiah would bring about wasn’t wrong, any more than my picture of what a coconut looks like was wrong.
The problem was that John wasn’t seeing the whole picture. What he saw was incomplete. He was forgetting what else the Old Testament prophets meant when, under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, they spoke of the coming of the Messiah.
For example, in our first lesson for today, the prophet Isaiah says of Messiah: “...the eyes of the blind [will] be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” (Isaiah 35:5-6) The King of kings would also, Isaiah and the other prophets tell us elsewhere, suffer, die, and rise before bringing judgment and before God’s new, eternal kingdom would fully come into being.
From his place of dissonance and uncertainty, John the Baptizer sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3)
Jesus tells John’s disciples to be witnesses of all that they hear and see for John: “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). These are the things that the prophets said the Messiah would do.
And then Jesus says, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:6) John, Jesus is saying, don’t stumble in your faith. Don’t get tripped up by the incomplete picture you have of God in your mind when the whole picture is there to be seen, there to be believed for everlasting life. Don’t wallow in darkness when the Light of the world has come to be the Way, the truth, and the life.
What pictures of God do we keep tucked in our minds that keep us from fully living in the light of Who God really is?
Do we see God as an angry Judge, just waiting for us to stumble so that He can pounce on us and dispatch us to hell?
God’s Word tells us that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” who trust their sins and themselves to Jesus. (Romans 8:1)
Do we see God as removed from our struggles and griefs?
Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Do we see God as being tardy in bringing His kingdom fully into being with Jesus’ return?
God’s Word says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Jesus hasn’t yet returned to the earth do that all will have the time to turn to Him and to invite others to do the same.
Do we see the God we know in Jesus as belonging especially to our race, our country, our denomination, our family?
Jesus says that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him--whoever turns from sin and trusts in Him as God and Messiah--will have everlasting life with God. (John 3:16)
Do we see the mess our world is in and wonder when and if Jesus is going to act?
Jesus tells us in one place not to worry about the times or seasons and then says to we Christian disciples, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
Of John, Jesus says in our gospel lesson, “among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”
But then he says, “...yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11)
That’s you Jesus is talking about.
You: the baptized believer in Jesus Christ.
You: the One Who is being saved and daily transformed by the living Word, Jesus Himself.
Unlike John when he sat in prison, you know that Jesus died on a cross for your sins.
Unlike John, you know that Jesus rose to tear open eternity and a personal, eternal relationship with God for you and the whole Church.
Unlike John, you received the Holy Spirit when you were baptized.
Unlike John, as a believer, Jesus has taken up residence in your life to protect you from temptation and sin and to empower you to live in the peace of God that passes all human understanding. John could only look ahead in anticipation of what the Messiah would do.
You and I live in the certainty of what He has already done and know that our lives, our futures, our eternity can rest in a no more certain place of love, life, and forgiveness than the hands of Jesus.
You are greater than John because, as you receive God’s Word and the sacraments, God is tearing down what the poet and Anglican priest Malcolm Guite calls our “dissonance and doubt.” Jesus has already made you part of His kingdom! (The Six Days World Transposing in an Hour)
This Advent season, as we prepare for Christmas and for the day when Jesus will return to this world, once more listen closely to His Gospel Word, humbly receiving it each day and as we worship together where we hear, taste, and see it. Dissonance, darkness, and doubt will flee when you allow yourself to hear and see what Jesus has done at manger, cross, and tomb. You will see Him again for Who He is: the Messiah, our Savior, our King, our Lord, our God.
And in the seeing, you will know to Whom you belong no matter what. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Monday, August 05, 2019
Trusting God in the In-Between Times
[This was shared yesterday afternoon as Pastor Tom Brodbeck was installed as senior pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Springfield, Ohio.]
Hebrews 11:32-12:2a
People of Grace Lutheran Church, you have called Pastor Tom Brodbeck to be your senior pastor. In that role, God will daily call him to remind you, through the ministry of Word and Sacrament, to throw off every distraction and sin that might keep you from following Jesus, to persevere in running the race of faith in Jesus Christ in this time, and to fix your eyes on Jesus without impatience or fear. You could not have chosen a better senior pastor to serve and lead you. In fact, God chose him and, through prayer, you discerned and issued God’s call to Pastor Brodbeck. Kudos to you for listening to God!
Knowing him as I do, I know that Pastor Brodbeck will, like the preacher in Hebrews, encourage you to keep trusting in Jesus, because it’s not only through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we are saved, it’s also through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we persevere or even want to persevere as His people called to be obsessed with being and making disciples in this in-between time.
Just as today I charge my cherished colleagye Tom to take up the baton passed onto him by my equally cherished colleague Dan Powell and run the race Christ sets before him with perseverance, I also charge you, people of Grace Lutheran Church, to run that same race of faith and to encourage your leader along the way.
This is a congregation with a rich heritage. A cloud of witnesses who have been part of this church’s life and history are, along with the God we know in Jesus Christ, looking on today as you begin another leg of your race of faith. Know that there is nowhere you may go as a congregation, that, if you live in fellowship with Christ and with each other as people and pastor, Christ hasn’t already been. The “pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith,” as the preacher calls Jesus, is already blazing the trail for those who faithfully follow Him here at Grace Lutheran Church!
None of us knows when Jesus will return to close the curtain on this in-between time and bring His kingdom to final, eternal perfection. But I am sure of this: If together, people of Grace Lutheran Church and Pastor Tom Brodbeck, you keep following Jesus in this point in history, Jesus will take you exactly where He wants you to be. You can believe that! Amen!
[Pictured above are Pastor Bruce Kramer, Pastor Tom Brodbeck, and me, after yesterday's Service of Installation. It was a celebratory event.]
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Hebrews 11:32-12:2a
We live in an in-between time. For Christians, this is the time between Jesus’ ascension in the past and His return at an unknown point in the future. Life for disciples of Jesus is always a time of waiting and watching...and sometimes, of impatience.
The preacher of Hebrews, from which our second Bible lesson comes this afternoon, was addressing a group of people who felt the burden of life in that in-between time.
The preacher of Hebrews, from which our second Bible lesson comes this afternoon, was addressing a group of people who felt the burden of life in that in-between time.
They were Jews--Hebrews--who had come to faith in Jesus.
By faith, they trusted that Jesus is the Savior Who frees from sin, death, and futility all who trust in Him.
By faith, they were certain too, that one day, Jesus would return and make all things in this fallen world right, judging the living and the dead and raising up all who persevere in turning away from sin and death and turning to Him for life.
These Jewish Christians also likely knew about the things that Jesus said would precede His return and likely thought something like, “Earthquakes. Check. Famines. Check. Wars and rumors of wars. Check” and asked, “What’s taking Jesus so long? Why is He making us live in this in-between time?” After the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton in the past twenty-four hours, we may be wondering the same thing: “What’s taking Jesus so long?”
It was to Christians with questions like these that the apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Disciples of Jesus living in the time before Jesus’ return aren’t meant to obsess over God’s timeline. We’re meant to fulfill Christ’s calling on our lives, on the life of the Church. We’re to be and to make disciples. God means for that to be our singular obsession!
These Jewish Christians also likely knew about the things that Jesus said would precede His return and likely thought something like, “Earthquakes. Check. Famines. Check. Wars and rumors of wars. Check” and asked, “What’s taking Jesus so long? Why is He making us live in this in-between time?” After the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton in the past twenty-four hours, we may be wondering the same thing: “What’s taking Jesus so long?”
It was to Christians with questions like these that the apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Disciples of Jesus living in the time before Jesus’ return aren’t meant to obsess over God’s timeline. We’re meant to fulfill Christ’s calling on our lives, on the life of the Church. We’re to be and to make disciples. God means for that to be our singular obsession!
But, we can get impatient watching and waiting for Jesus to return. And our impatience will likely grow if we get pressured by others to turn from Christ. Many scholars believe that the Jewish Christians to whom the book of Hebrews is addressed were facing pressure from the Roman Empire to renounce Christ and return to Judaism. The Romans viewed the Christian proclamation of Jesus as the Lord and the Son of God as a threat to the emperor who they also called “Lord” and the “Son of God.”
The preacher in Hebrews encourages the Jewish Christians to stand fast, to cling to Christ and not be intimidated by the Romans. The Romans could take away their lives on earth; but only Christ could give them life with God that never ends, making Roman threats irrelevant. “So do not throw away your confidence,” the preacher says in Hebrews 10:35, referring to faith in Christ. “it will be richly rewarded.” These words echo those of Jesus Himself, in Matthew 24:13: “...the one who endures [in faith] to the end will be saved.”
To encourage the Jewish Christians he was addressing, the preacher asks them to remember all those who, starting in Old Testament times, had persevered in trusting in the God Who promised the world a Savior centuries before that Savior appeared in Bethlehem.
To encourage the Jewish Christians he was addressing, the preacher asks them to remember all those who, starting in Old Testament times, had persevered in trusting in the God Who promised the world a Savior centuries before that Savior appeared in Bethlehem.
He mentions leaders like David and Samuel who “through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised [by God]; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.”
He mentions a long train of nameless Old Testament and intertestmental saints who experienced persecution, flogging, stoning, chains and imprisonment, and death, who endured poverty, disdain, and hardship.
He mentions those who, for their faith in the God Who would later send Jesus, were forced into hiding, forced to scavenge and live off the land.
The preacher says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised [they didn’t receive what you and I too often take for granted: Jesus and life in His name], since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
Think of it: Only together with us, believers in Jesus who live in this time between Jesus’ ascension and return to the world, would those old believers be made whole, complete, through what Jesus has accomplished on the cross, enduring the tests and temptations of this life sinlessly, so that He can give all who believe in Him everlasting life with God!
Those of us who live in this in-between time should never be discouraged: Can there be any doubt after Jesus’ death and resurrection that following Him is the way to life, even life beyond the grave?
After recounting all those believers who endured in faith in anticipation of the Savior Jesus, the preacher says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [all those believers before Christ, watching us today in the arena of this in-between world], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
After recounting all those believers who endured in faith in anticipation of the Savior Jesus, the preacher says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [all those believers before Christ, watching us today in the arena of this in-between world], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
People of Grace Lutheran Church, you have called Pastor Tom Brodbeck to be your senior pastor. In that role, God will daily call him to remind you, through the ministry of Word and Sacrament, to throw off every distraction and sin that might keep you from following Jesus, to persevere in running the race of faith in Jesus Christ in this time, and to fix your eyes on Jesus without impatience or fear. You could not have chosen a better senior pastor to serve and lead you. In fact, God chose him and, through prayer, you discerned and issued God’s call to Pastor Brodbeck. Kudos to you for listening to God!
Knowing him as I do, I know that Pastor Brodbeck will, like the preacher in Hebrews, encourage you to keep trusting in Jesus, because it’s not only through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we are saved, it’s also through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we persevere or even want to persevere as His people called to be obsessed with being and making disciples in this in-between time.
Just as today I charge my cherished colleagye Tom to take up the baton passed onto him by my equally cherished colleague Dan Powell and run the race Christ sets before him with perseverance, I also charge you, people of Grace Lutheran Church, to run that same race of faith and to encourage your leader along the way.
This is a congregation with a rich heritage. A cloud of witnesses who have been part of this church’s life and history are, along with the God we know in Jesus Christ, looking on today as you begin another leg of your race of faith. Know that there is nowhere you may go as a congregation, that, if you live in fellowship with Christ and with each other as people and pastor, Christ hasn’t already been. The “pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith,” as the preacher calls Jesus, is already blazing the trail for those who faithfully follow Him here at Grace Lutheran Church!
None of us knows when Jesus will return to close the curtain on this in-between time and bring His kingdom to final, eternal perfection. But I am sure of this: If together, people of Grace Lutheran Church and Pastor Tom Brodbeck, you keep following Jesus in this point in history, Jesus will take you exactly where He wants you to be. You can believe that! Amen!
[Pictured above are Pastor Bruce Kramer, Pastor Tom Brodbeck, and me, after yesterday's Service of Installation. It was a celebratory event.]
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
The Only Worthy One
Today, for my quiet time with God, I read Revelation 5. To see how I approach quiet time, see here. Below is my journal entry for this morning.
Look: “Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’” (Revelation 5:5)
The scroll, containing God’s plan for saving human beings from sin and death, is in God’s right hand. Its perfection is signified by its being sealed seven times.
As John sees and experiences this vision, he’s driven to despair. Because no one is found who is worthy, that is, no one is without sin, to open the scroll, humanity is doomed.
But then one of the elders reassures him. The Lion, Who also has the appearance of a Lamb who has been murdered (Revelation 5:6), is worthy, the elder says. This is "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
I'm unworthy of opening the scroll.
The human race is unworthy of opening the scroll.
But the Lion Who is the Lamb, Jesus, true God and true man, can and does open the scroll because with His blood, He “purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).
Listen: Jesus is able to save me from sin and death, to save me from myself. And Jesus alone is able to do this.
Only He is able to break open the scroll and unleash life on and bring into the kingdom those who believe in Him.
I can’t break open the seal myself. I’m incapable of offering myself and making a perfect atoning sacrifice for my sin (or anybody else’s). I can’t perform my way into God’s kingdom. Intellectually, I know this is true. But I am sure that at some level, I still harbor the legalistic notion that I can be good enough to deserve the kingdom of God. I can’t be. My good works can’t break the seal.
Nor can the seal be broken by anyone or anything else. Revelation 5:3: “...no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it.” That means that it can’t be broken by religions. Buddha, Allah, Mohammad...none of them are true God and true human, none of them died for my sins, none of them were raised from the dead by God the Father.
Only One has conquered sin and death. Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Jesus says: “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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18)
Jesus is the One Who has earned the right to break the seals on our behalf by dying for us, although we weren’t worthy of the sacrifice of the sinless Lamb of God. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
Jesus is God. Jesus a sinless Man Who bore all of our sins and took our punishment for them. Jesus is the only way to life with God.
It’s telling that, in Revelation 5, after Jesus steps forward to break the seals of the scroll, not only do the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders who have been worshiping the Father, now worship Jesus as well, but they each hold “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people” (Revelation 5:8).
Before His crucifixion, during His time on earth, Jesus had said: “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:24). The One Who breaks the seals is the one to Whom and through Whom the prayers of God’s people must go. To speak to God in any name other than that of Jesus, is to send letters to the wrong address.
(This doesn’t mean that parroting the words, “in the name of Jesus,” acts like a good luck charm for our prayers. To pray in Jesus’ name means also that one understands that we only dare approach God’s throne in the name, in the power, and in light of the self-sacrifice of Jesus. In other words, we pray in Jesus’ name when we have faith in Jesus as our Lord, God, and King.)
The bowls of incense containing the prayers of God’s people are brought to Jesus. He is the only way to God.
Respond: In many ways, this is a despairing day. So much bad news from Washington and other parts of the country and the world. And there is bad news from among our friends. I want God’s kingdom to break into this world in its fullness, banishing the bad, the sad, the sinful, toppling the arrogant and the foolish.
But I must not regard Jesus’ seeming delay in making all things right as a bad thing. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) I have repenting to do. I have witnessing to do.
Since I’m not the one who can break open the scroll and its delay might actually be to my advantage, giving God more time to break me of my sin and fashion Christ in me (2 Corinthians 3:18), I should not weep (or sigh, or complain, or bemoan, or rail against rotten people, or murmur, or give into misplaced spiritual pride, or despair over my own sin).
I should worship the God revealed by God the Holy Spirit in God the Father and God the Son, Who has saved me by grace through faith in Him, and be about my business. My business is Matthew 28:19: “...go and make disciples of all nations...”[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
God, help me to be focused on worshiping You and making disciples today. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
Monday, November 13, 2017
Ready to Meet Christ
[This was shared during worship yesterday morning with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 25:1-13
This past Thursday, I met my dad, three sisters, two of my aunts, and two of my cousins for a late lunch at the Route 68 Grill in Bellefontaine. (Yum!) Later, we went to my aunt’s house, where she treated us to desserts, including gluten-free fare for me. (Let me just say parenthetically, that I am now a fan of Amish Pink Salad!)
The lunch conversation got interesting when someone said, “I’ve been praying lately for Jesus to come back.” And someone else said, “Doesn’t it seem like the world is getting worse and worse all the time?”
I agreed, of course, that the day of Jesus’ return--His second coming--will be wonderful.
But, I said, that I actually am happy for Jesus to wait as long as God the Father wants Him to wait. Second Peter 3:9 says: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise [of His second coming, when He will put things right and unveil His new creation], as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
In other words, God has delayed Jesus’ certain return in order to give us time to turn from our sin and trust in Jesus and to give Christ’s disciples--you and me--the greater opportunity to make more disciples.
Which, of course, begs the question: How well and faithfully are we disciples using this time before Jesus’ return? Or this time before you and I will meet Jesus face to face?
We all agreed on that point and after a time, we also agreed that the world isn’t any more evil than it was the day Adam and Eve fell from grace. The world has been in bondage to sin, incapable of saving itself, and in need of a Savior ever since.
Different sins go in and out of style. But we can say as surely of the human race in 2017 what the apostle Paul wrote of it in 55AD, quoting the Old Testament: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [Romans 3:10-12]
Given that reality about each of us, the second question that comes to the fore is this: Are we ready for Christ’s return? Are we ready for the judgment? Will we stand before Christ at the judgment in our sin and therefore, unworthy of His new creation, or will we be covered by Christ’s righteousness and enter His kingdom?
Frankly, I hadn’t given today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 25:1-13, more than a once-over when we had that conversation. But as I studied it on Friday and early yesterday, I realized that it points to the answers to the questions our table talk raised.
Through the centuries, people have tried to turn Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, told in today's lesson, into an elaborate allegory. They’ve said that the oil stands for this, the torches stand for that, and so on. The parable though is, as we’ll see, simpler and more direct than that. It has a simple and important message. So, let’s look at the parable now.
In the lesson, we catch Jesus in the middle of talking about the end of this world, when He will return and judge the living and the dead, an event that will happen in one fell swoop. Verse 1: “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.”
The word translated as lamps here is more appropriately rendered torches. It refers to a simple torch made of rags twisted on top of a stick after the rag has been soaked in oil. A soaked rag would burn for fifteen minutes. But one not prepared in that way would burn out in a matter of moments. That’s why some of the bridesmaids brought extra oil with them.
As we mentioned a few weeks ago when talking about first-century Judean weddings, the groom’s party might show up for the wedding and the subsequent week-long reception (!) at any time after the marriage agreement has been reached. Even in the dead of the night. The bride’s attendants would have had to be ready to escort the groom and his party to the site where the wedding will happen at any moment.
Here’s the thing: All ten of the bridesmaids in Jesus’ parable are looking forward to the wedding. All ten of them fall asleep filled with eager anticipation of the celebrating and the partying. They’re all picturing a happy time of dancing, feasting, and flirting. But they’re not all ready.
Now, I’m no judge of the human race. That job is God’s alone and I have no intention of applying to replace Him in that job. I’m too busy attending my own knitting to judge someone else for dropping a stitch.
But I have to say that sometimes, when I attend the funerals of people who never seemed to give God a thought and hear their loved ones talk about how the deceased is now with God, I can’t help wondering. Jesus says in Matthew 10:32-33, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”
None of us knows everything that transpires in a person’s life. None of us knows what encounters that even the most violent of atheists may have with God and His Word, as planted by some compassionate Christian disciple earlier in their lives, as they approach the gates of death.
But Jesus does say that His people will be recognizable to others “by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20). In other words, faith in Christ is demonstrated in our priorities, our decisions, the ways we treat others, the way we repent when we know we’ve done wrong, the way we own Christ as our Savior.
It’s in a faith in Christ active in love that we prepare ourselves for Jesus’ return, that we ready ourselves for judgment, confident that, though we are sinners, Christ has covered our repentant lives with His amazing grace!
It’s one thing to know about Christ’s return. It’s another thing to be ready for Christ’s return.
The bridesmaids knew that a wedding could take place at any time. But they weren’t ready for it.
Are you and I ready to meet Christ, now, today, tomorrow? That’s an enormously important question.
Verse 6: “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. [That literally means, they lit their torches.] The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’”
Don’t misunderstand. Jesus is not here commending selfishness.
As Lutheran Christians, we believe in letting the whole of Scripture interpret Scripture. This principle of Lutheran Biblical interpretation prevents us from isolating a piece of Scripture and riding it like a hobby horse, making it say what we want it to say. When you let Scripture interpret Scripture you look for the meaning of individual passages in light of the witness of the whole Bible.
And in this case, Scripture tells us that the God we meet in Jesus never has been selfish and has never commended selfishness. The Lord Who underscores the Old Testament command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Matthew 27:39) and gave His Church a new command that we as disciples “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34)...This Lord is not going to tell you to be selfish or refuse to share with others the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus.
What Jesus is saying here though, is that no one can make your preparations for meeting Jesus for you. Christian faith is lived out with support and encouragement from and accountability to Christ’s church. The Church is indispensable. But each of us is either saved or damned individually, one by one. On the day of Christ’s return, He will judge us on our individual faith in Him. Not our parents or grandparents’ faith. Not our spouses’ faith. But on our faith in Christ alone.
About a week after Jesus had risen from the dead, the apostles encountered Him on the lakeshore. Jesus feeds them fish He’s prepared. The dinner done, Jesus asks Peter three times and in different ways, “Simon, do you love me more than these?” Whether we’re seeking to answer that question with a, “Yes!” through lives of daily repentance and renewal, will tell us whether we’re ready for Christ’s return or not.
Do we love Christ more than we love our sins?
Do we love Christ more than we love things we covet or lust for?
Do we love Christ more than the fears that keep us from doing God’s will?
Do we love Christ more than our desire to be in control?
More than our desire to give our kids way more than they need?
More than anything?
If we are seeking day by day to say, “Yes,” to Christ and no to the finite, dying stuff of this world--no matter how imperfectly we may seek them, we will be ready. Our lamps will be trimmed. We will be ready to meet the Lord face to face.
In verse 12 of our lesson, Jesus says that after the foolish bridesmaids had finally gotten oil for their torches, they showed up late for the wedding feast. They bang on the door, trying to get inside.
But the bridegroom, standing in for Jesus, says from inside, “Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.”
You’ve probably heard me say it before: The Christian faith isn’t about what you know or what you do. The Christian faith is about Who you know and what He has done for you on a cross and from an empty tomb.
If we expect Jesus to know us at the judgment, He must know us now, in this life. He must know that we trust in Him, follow Him, and draw life from Him and not from the world. The door will be shut to us if we wait until the party has started.
So, Jesus says in verse 13: “...keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” We don’t know the day or hour we’ll meet Jesus at the end of this life or the end of this world. But we get ready to meet Him and for ready for everything in this life by knowing Him and following Him now, trusting in Him now. Be ready for anything; surrender your life and your priorities to Jesus every day. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 25:1-13
This past Thursday, I met my dad, three sisters, two of my aunts, and two of my cousins for a late lunch at the Route 68 Grill in Bellefontaine. (Yum!) Later, we went to my aunt’s house, where she treated us to desserts, including gluten-free fare for me. (Let me just say parenthetically, that I am now a fan of Amish Pink Salad!)
The lunch conversation got interesting when someone said, “I’ve been praying lately for Jesus to come back.” And someone else said, “Doesn’t it seem like the world is getting worse and worse all the time?”
I agreed, of course, that the day of Jesus’ return--His second coming--will be wonderful.
But, I said, that I actually am happy for Jesus to wait as long as God the Father wants Him to wait. Second Peter 3:9 says: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise [of His second coming, when He will put things right and unveil His new creation], as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
In other words, God has delayed Jesus’ certain return in order to give us time to turn from our sin and trust in Jesus and to give Christ’s disciples--you and me--the greater opportunity to make more disciples.
Which, of course, begs the question: How well and faithfully are we disciples using this time before Jesus’ return? Or this time before you and I will meet Jesus face to face?
We all agreed on that point and after a time, we also agreed that the world isn’t any more evil than it was the day Adam and Eve fell from grace. The world has been in bondage to sin, incapable of saving itself, and in need of a Savior ever since.
Different sins go in and out of style. But we can say as surely of the human race in 2017 what the apostle Paul wrote of it in 55AD, quoting the Old Testament: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [Romans 3:10-12]
Given that reality about each of us, the second question that comes to the fore is this: Are we ready for Christ’s return? Are we ready for the judgment? Will we stand before Christ at the judgment in our sin and therefore, unworthy of His new creation, or will we be covered by Christ’s righteousness and enter His kingdom?
Frankly, I hadn’t given today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 25:1-13, more than a once-over when we had that conversation. But as I studied it on Friday and early yesterday, I realized that it points to the answers to the questions our table talk raised.
Through the centuries, people have tried to turn Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, told in today's lesson, into an elaborate allegory. They’ve said that the oil stands for this, the torches stand for that, and so on. The parable though is, as we’ll see, simpler and more direct than that. It has a simple and important message. So, let’s look at the parable now.
In the lesson, we catch Jesus in the middle of talking about the end of this world, when He will return and judge the living and the dead, an event that will happen in one fell swoop. Verse 1: “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.”
The word translated as lamps here is more appropriately rendered torches. It refers to a simple torch made of rags twisted on top of a stick after the rag has been soaked in oil. A soaked rag would burn for fifteen minutes. But one not prepared in that way would burn out in a matter of moments. That’s why some of the bridesmaids brought extra oil with them.
As we mentioned a few weeks ago when talking about first-century Judean weddings, the groom’s party might show up for the wedding and the subsequent week-long reception (!) at any time after the marriage agreement has been reached. Even in the dead of the night. The bride’s attendants would have had to be ready to escort the groom and his party to the site where the wedding will happen at any moment.
Here’s the thing: All ten of the bridesmaids in Jesus’ parable are looking forward to the wedding. All ten of them fall asleep filled with eager anticipation of the celebrating and the partying. They’re all picturing a happy time of dancing, feasting, and flirting. But they’re not all ready.
Now, I’m no judge of the human race. That job is God’s alone and I have no intention of applying to replace Him in that job. I’m too busy attending my own knitting to judge someone else for dropping a stitch.
But I have to say that sometimes, when I attend the funerals of people who never seemed to give God a thought and hear their loved ones talk about how the deceased is now with God, I can’t help wondering. Jesus says in Matthew 10:32-33, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”
None of us knows everything that transpires in a person’s life. None of us knows what encounters that even the most violent of atheists may have with God and His Word, as planted by some compassionate Christian disciple earlier in their lives, as they approach the gates of death.
But Jesus does say that His people will be recognizable to others “by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20). In other words, faith in Christ is demonstrated in our priorities, our decisions, the ways we treat others, the way we repent when we know we’ve done wrong, the way we own Christ as our Savior.
It’s in a faith in Christ active in love that we prepare ourselves for Jesus’ return, that we ready ourselves for judgment, confident that, though we are sinners, Christ has covered our repentant lives with His amazing grace!
It’s one thing to know about Christ’s return. It’s another thing to be ready for Christ’s return.
The bridesmaids knew that a wedding could take place at any time. But they weren’t ready for it.
Are you and I ready to meet Christ, now, today, tomorrow? That’s an enormously important question.
Verse 6: “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. [That literally means, they lit their torches.] The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’”
Don’t misunderstand. Jesus is not here commending selfishness.
As Lutheran Christians, we believe in letting the whole of Scripture interpret Scripture. This principle of Lutheran Biblical interpretation prevents us from isolating a piece of Scripture and riding it like a hobby horse, making it say what we want it to say. When you let Scripture interpret Scripture you look for the meaning of individual passages in light of the witness of the whole Bible.
And in this case, Scripture tells us that the God we meet in Jesus never has been selfish and has never commended selfishness. The Lord Who underscores the Old Testament command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Matthew 27:39) and gave His Church a new command that we as disciples “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34)...This Lord is not going to tell you to be selfish or refuse to share with others the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus.
What Jesus is saying here though, is that no one can make your preparations for meeting Jesus for you. Christian faith is lived out with support and encouragement from and accountability to Christ’s church. The Church is indispensable. But each of us is either saved or damned individually, one by one. On the day of Christ’s return, He will judge us on our individual faith in Him. Not our parents or grandparents’ faith. Not our spouses’ faith. But on our faith in Christ alone.
About a week after Jesus had risen from the dead, the apostles encountered Him on the lakeshore. Jesus feeds them fish He’s prepared. The dinner done, Jesus asks Peter three times and in different ways, “Simon, do you love me more than these?” Whether we’re seeking to answer that question with a, “Yes!” through lives of daily repentance and renewal, will tell us whether we’re ready for Christ’s return or not.
Do we love Christ more than we love our sins?
Do we love Christ more than we love things we covet or lust for?
Do we love Christ more than the fears that keep us from doing God’s will?
Do we love Christ more than our desire to be in control?
More than our desire to give our kids way more than they need?
More than anything?
If we are seeking day by day to say, “Yes,” to Christ and no to the finite, dying stuff of this world--no matter how imperfectly we may seek them, we will be ready. Our lamps will be trimmed. We will be ready to meet the Lord face to face.
In verse 12 of our lesson, Jesus says that after the foolish bridesmaids had finally gotten oil for their torches, they showed up late for the wedding feast. They bang on the door, trying to get inside.
But the bridegroom, standing in for Jesus, says from inside, “Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.”
You’ve probably heard me say it before: The Christian faith isn’t about what you know or what you do. The Christian faith is about Who you know and what He has done for you on a cross and from an empty tomb.
If we expect Jesus to know us at the judgment, He must know us now, in this life. He must know that we trust in Him, follow Him, and draw life from Him and not from the world. The door will be shut to us if we wait until the party has started.
So, Jesus says in verse 13: “...keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” We don’t know the day or hour we’ll meet Jesus at the end of this life or the end of this world. But we get ready to meet Him and for ready for everything in this life by knowing Him and following Him now, trusting in Him now. Be ready for anything; surrender your life and your priorities to Jesus every day. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Uncertain World, Certain Savior
Matthew 11:2-15
If this morning’s Gospel lesson leaves us a little uncertain, set a bit back on our heels, it’s understandable.
Last week, on the Second Sunday of Advent, we heard John the Baptist’s confident proclamation of the impending appearance of God’s promised Anointed King—what the Hebrew of the Old Testament calls the Messiah and the Greek of the New Testament calls the Christ.
In the Christ Who was coming, John told the crowds who heard him preach, God was getting ready to re-establish His reign over a sinful, rebellious world. When Jesus later showed up to be baptized by John, in a passage not a part of last Sunday’s lesson, John must have felt that all his preaching had been proven true. Jesus was the Messiah He’d been waiting for!
When we fast forward to the Gospel lesson for this Third Sunday of Advent, we come to a very different scene.
If John was like most of the Jews of his day, his expectations would have been that the Messiah, the King of kings, was going to push the bloodthirsty, corrupt Judean kings off of their thrones, would save the people from their foreign overlords, the Romans, and would take away the power and prominence of the vain and faithless rulers of Judea’s religious life—the priests and teachers of the law. Like other Jews, John probably expected the Messiah to execute a clean sweep of what we would call church and state, making everything in society right. John thought that the Messiah would, in one famous phrase, bring “hope and change” and, in another famous saying, “drain the swamp.” (I'm being bi-partisan.)
Since John's encounter with Jesus at the Jordan River, Jesus hadn’t taken over the government, led a military junta, established a government program, or punched anyone in the nose.
Instead, Jesus had undertaken a ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, and miracle working. Great stuff, but not exactly what John had expected!
Herod, the Romans, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees were still in charge. And as we meet up with John the Baptist today, he’s in prison, the once-confident preacher wrestling with doubt.
With a probable death sentence hanging over him and with the kingdom of God seeming no nearer than it had been when he first began his ministry, John sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else??” [Matthew 11:3]
John wanted to hope in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t seem to be meeting John’s expectations. John wondered, “Is Jesus the Messiah we’ve been waiting for?”
Have you ever been there?
Have the promises of Jesus to hear and answer your prayers sometimes mocked your faith?
Have your life circumstances cast your faith in a sovereign, loving God in doubt?
Have questions pressed on you as you’ve watched loved ones suffer or die, or you’ve struggled with health issues, financial issues, or when your sense of purpose in life has disappeared?
Have you played by God’s rules and watched people who ignore them seem to skate through life as you face troubles and difficulties?
The truth, if we’re honest I think, is that we have all been there in the prison of doubt and uncertainty John experienced in that prison cell.
And so, John did what millions of people have done through the centuries when wrestling with their questions and doubts. He turned to Jesus. He asked Jesus, in effect, “Are You the One in Whom I can place all of my trust and hope?”
Jesus’ response to John’s question in today’s Gospel lesson is not just for John the Baptist, it’s for all of us who have ever doubted, who have wrestled to understand God’s plans in the midst of unbearable pain or indecipherable situations.
Please look at our Gospel lesson, Matthew 11:2-15, starting with verses 4 to 6. It says: “Jesus replied [to the men John had sent to Jesus with his question], ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 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. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’”
Jesus didn’t deny that He was the King Who would bring judgment on the unbelieving world. And He would confirm that He was to be the judge of the world many times.
In answer to John’s question though, Jesus pointed John to all the signs that showed Him to be not just the Messiah, but the Lord of all creation, Who can speak a word and create life where there was death, wholeness where there was brokenness.
To John’s doubt and disappointment, Jesus says, “Consider the evidence. I’m doing the things that God told the prophets He would do when His kingdom came into this fallen world.”
There’s another message in Jesus’ words, though. It’s this: Change your expectations of the Messiah. Change your expectations of God.
I’m not saying that there is any limit to God’s power or to God’s willingness to hear prayers offered in Jesus’ Name. In Jesus, we meet the sovereign, almighty God of the universe Who can do anything, Who is committed to bringing the world’s injustice to an end, Who will allow those who refuse to trust in Him to go their own ways for eternity, and Who, by His cross and resurrection, has destroyed the power of sin and death for all eternity for those who believe in Christ! Everything that Jesus did, including His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His rising from the dead, show us Who Jesus is and the good plans God has for those who repent and believe in Jesus.
But Jesus’ kingdom hasn’t come in its fullness yet.
Right now, you and l live in a world in which bad things happen to faithful people. It can cause us to question, just as it did John the Baptist.
The week before she died, a friend of ours, being ravaged by cancer, wrestling with her suffering, worried about her husband and two young children, but holding onto Jesus in the midst of it all, confided to me, “I keep wondering what it is God wants me to learn from all of this.”
I think that, like John the Baptist, she wondered, when Jesus was going to act decisively. When would God finally act to bring about the promise given by God through the prophet Isaiah and repeated in the New Testament book of Revelation: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” [Revelation 21:4]
That promise will come to pass. The God Who was born in a stable, lived among us, died for us, and rose to give us life can be counted on to make things right.
Until then, He gives the Church, the fellowship of forgiven sinners.
He gives us His perfect Word.
He gives us the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, filling us with His Spirit and with His life.
He gives us a mission of reaching up to God, reaching in to grow together as Christians in His Church, and reaching out to help others to know and follow Christ.
And this life, with all its troubles, is also God’s gift to us.
But we know that God also gives new life, one free of sin, death, and darkness.
So, why doesn’t God set things perfectly, totally, completely right for us now? Take a look, please at what the apostle Peter has to say about that in 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
If we’re inclined to see Jesus as a hedge against the nasty realities of life, a cosmic Santa Claus who makes life just go away, we need to change our expectations. As was true for Jesus, before our resurrections, there will be challenges to face, hurdles to overcome, crosses to bear.
But God doesn’t let us have pain, hardship, or uncertainty because God is slow in acting or because God lacks the power to act.
Instead, God is giving us the gift of time.
And when, like John the Baptist, we wrestle with our questions, Jesus calls us to focus our hopes on Him alone.
After the friend I mentioned earlier had died, I was handed a note she had written for me to read in just that situation. (She had written notes for many people to read after she died.) She said, in part, “Please help everyone to know that just because I have died doesn’t mean that their prayers did not ‘work.’ Healing is so much more than having a whole and perfect body…I’ll be seeing you again—then we can forget all of this sadness…”
While we await the return of the Messiah Who came to our world on the first Christmas, we can live in this uncertain world with the absolute certainty that Jesus will make all His promises good for all who trust in Him.
When we let that certainty fill us, we can face everything with joy and peace, the very blessings of which the angels sang on the night of Jesus’ birth!
May we join their song every day we live and on into the eternity with God that the crucified and risen Jesus gives to all who repent and believe in Him! Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared during both of the congregation's worship services today.]
If this morning’s Gospel lesson leaves us a little uncertain, set a bit back on our heels, it’s understandable.
Last week, on the Second Sunday of Advent, we heard John the Baptist’s confident proclamation of the impending appearance of God’s promised Anointed King—what the Hebrew of the Old Testament calls the Messiah and the Greek of the New Testament calls the Christ.
In the Christ Who was coming, John told the crowds who heard him preach, God was getting ready to re-establish His reign over a sinful, rebellious world. When Jesus later showed up to be baptized by John, in a passage not a part of last Sunday’s lesson, John must have felt that all his preaching had been proven true. Jesus was the Messiah He’d been waiting for!
When we fast forward to the Gospel lesson for this Third Sunday of Advent, we come to a very different scene.
If John was like most of the Jews of his day, his expectations would have been that the Messiah, the King of kings, was going to push the bloodthirsty, corrupt Judean kings off of their thrones, would save the people from their foreign overlords, the Romans, and would take away the power and prominence of the vain and faithless rulers of Judea’s religious life—the priests and teachers of the law. Like other Jews, John probably expected the Messiah to execute a clean sweep of what we would call church and state, making everything in society right. John thought that the Messiah would, in one famous phrase, bring “hope and change” and, in another famous saying, “drain the swamp.” (I'm being bi-partisan.)
Since John's encounter with Jesus at the Jordan River, Jesus hadn’t taken over the government, led a military junta, established a government program, or punched anyone in the nose.
Instead, Jesus had undertaken a ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, and miracle working. Great stuff, but not exactly what John had expected!
Herod, the Romans, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees were still in charge. And as we meet up with John the Baptist today, he’s in prison, the once-confident preacher wrestling with doubt.
With a probable death sentence hanging over him and with the kingdom of God seeming no nearer than it had been when he first began his ministry, John sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else??” [Matthew 11:3]
John wanted to hope in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t seem to be meeting John’s expectations. John wondered, “Is Jesus the Messiah we’ve been waiting for?”
Have you ever been there?
Have the promises of Jesus to hear and answer your prayers sometimes mocked your faith?
Have your life circumstances cast your faith in a sovereign, loving God in doubt?
Have questions pressed on you as you’ve watched loved ones suffer or die, or you’ve struggled with health issues, financial issues, or when your sense of purpose in life has disappeared?
Have you played by God’s rules and watched people who ignore them seem to skate through life as you face troubles and difficulties?
The truth, if we’re honest I think, is that we have all been there in the prison of doubt and uncertainty John experienced in that prison cell.
And so, John did what millions of people have done through the centuries when wrestling with their questions and doubts. He turned to Jesus. He asked Jesus, in effect, “Are You the One in Whom I can place all of my trust and hope?”
Jesus’ response to John’s question in today’s Gospel lesson is not just for John the Baptist, it’s for all of us who have ever doubted, who have wrestled to understand God’s plans in the midst of unbearable pain or indecipherable situations.
Please look at our Gospel lesson, Matthew 11:2-15, starting with verses 4 to 6. It says: “Jesus replied [to the men John had sent to Jesus with his question], ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 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. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’”
Jesus didn’t deny that He was the King Who would bring judgment on the unbelieving world. And He would confirm that He was to be the judge of the world many times.
In answer to John’s question though, Jesus pointed John to all the signs that showed Him to be not just the Messiah, but the Lord of all creation, Who can speak a word and create life where there was death, wholeness where there was brokenness.
To John’s doubt and disappointment, Jesus says, “Consider the evidence. I’m doing the things that God told the prophets He would do when His kingdom came into this fallen world.”
There’s another message in Jesus’ words, though. It’s this: Change your expectations of the Messiah. Change your expectations of God.
I’m not saying that there is any limit to God’s power or to God’s willingness to hear prayers offered in Jesus’ Name. In Jesus, we meet the sovereign, almighty God of the universe Who can do anything, Who is committed to bringing the world’s injustice to an end, Who will allow those who refuse to trust in Him to go their own ways for eternity, and Who, by His cross and resurrection, has destroyed the power of sin and death for all eternity for those who believe in Christ! Everything that Jesus did, including His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His rising from the dead, show us Who Jesus is and the good plans God has for those who repent and believe in Jesus.
But Jesus’ kingdom hasn’t come in its fullness yet.
Right now, you and l live in a world in which bad things happen to faithful people. It can cause us to question, just as it did John the Baptist.
The week before she died, a friend of ours, being ravaged by cancer, wrestling with her suffering, worried about her husband and two young children, but holding onto Jesus in the midst of it all, confided to me, “I keep wondering what it is God wants me to learn from all of this.”
I think that, like John the Baptist, she wondered, when Jesus was going to act decisively. When would God finally act to bring about the promise given by God through the prophet Isaiah and repeated in the New Testament book of Revelation: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” [Revelation 21:4]
That promise will come to pass. The God Who was born in a stable, lived among us, died for us, and rose to give us life can be counted on to make things right.
Until then, He gives the Church, the fellowship of forgiven sinners.
He gives us His perfect Word.
He gives us the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, filling us with His Spirit and with His life.
He gives us a mission of reaching up to God, reaching in to grow together as Christians in His Church, and reaching out to help others to know and follow Christ.
And this life, with all its troubles, is also God’s gift to us.
But we know that God also gives new life, one free of sin, death, and darkness.
So, why doesn’t God set things perfectly, totally, completely right for us now? Take a look, please at what the apostle Peter has to say about that in 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
If we’re inclined to see Jesus as a hedge against the nasty realities of life, a cosmic Santa Claus who makes life just go away, we need to change our expectations. As was true for Jesus, before our resurrections, there will be challenges to face, hurdles to overcome, crosses to bear.
But God doesn’t let us have pain, hardship, or uncertainty because God is slow in acting or because God lacks the power to act.
Instead, God is giving us the gift of time.
- Time for us to repent and surrender to Him;
- Time for us to share the good news of the baby born in a manger who went to a cross and rose from the dead for all sinners, making new disciples for Jesus;
- Time for us to serve others in Jesus’ Name;
- Time for us to grow as believers who are fit for eternity with God.
And when, like John the Baptist, we wrestle with our questions, Jesus calls us to focus our hopes on Him alone.
After the friend I mentioned earlier had died, I was handed a note she had written for me to read in just that situation. (She had written notes for many people to read after she died.) She said, in part, “Please help everyone to know that just because I have died doesn’t mean that their prayers did not ‘work.’ Healing is so much more than having a whole and perfect body…I’ll be seeing you again—then we can forget all of this sadness…”
While we await the return of the Messiah Who came to our world on the first Christmas, we can live in this uncertain world with the absolute certainty that Jesus will make all His promises good for all who trust in Him.
When we let that certainty fill us, we can face everything with joy and peace, the very blessings of which the angels sang on the night of Jesus’ birth!
May we join their song every day we live and on into the eternity with God that the crucified and risen Jesus gives to all who repent and believe in Him! Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared during both of the congregation's worship services today.]
Monday, November 30, 2015
How to Use the Gift of Time
[This was shared this morning during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church.]
Luke 21:25-36
Jesus tells us in verse 34 “be careful” of ourselves, to stay awake, to stay alert, to what Christ may be calling us to do in any given second.
He tells us this not only so that we can resist temptations that could leave us trapped in sin and death when Christ returns or when we see Him face to face as the judge over our lives. Jesus also tells us to stay awake and alert so that, no matter what’s going on in our lives or in the world, we keep pursuing the commission He has given to us of making disciples of our unbelieving or spiritually-disconnected neighbors. To live as anything other than a disciple of Jesus in this troubling, challenging world is to follow a dead end street leading us to nowhere.
If you had the cure for cancer, you wouldn’t keep it to yourself. As a follower of Jesus, you have something that even the merged pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Allergan don’t have: the cure for sin and death and meaningless life. That cure is Jesus Christ.
Trust in Him.
And then, in as many ways as you can every single day, share Him!
Time is running out.
Luke 21:25-36
Today is the first Sunday of the first season of the Church Year, Advent. Advent means coming, as in “Christ came to us on Christmas day” and “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”
When Christ comes back, He will finally and completely establish His kingdom with those of us who have, as the Bible says, “longed for His appearing” and have endured in faith in Him alone. Advent reminds us of this truth.
But when will Christ return?
Under what circumstances?
And what does it all have to do with you and me?
Under what circumstances?
And what does it all have to do with you and me?
Jesus addresses these questions in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 21:25-36. At the outset, Jesus says: “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world...”
We read these words and, being clever, we figure that the end of this world and the return of Jesus must be close at hand. And that’s true. An old friend approached me recently and asked, "So, do you think we're getting closer to the day of Jesus' return?" I told him yes, that every day since Jesus spoke the words in our gospel lesson for today, we've been getting closer to Jesus' return.
But a careful reading of the lesson shows us that Jesus doesn’t describe the so-called “signs of the times” so that clever people like us can make predictions about the future. In Acts 1:7, Jesus tells us, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority”
By talking about the signs of His coming back to the world with His kingdom, Jesus was not really making predictions about the future at all.
Slip down to verse 32 in our Gospel lesson. There, Jesus says: “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Jesus is saying that all of the drama, killings, terrorist attacks, damaging earthquakes, and wars that He said must precede His return would all take place within the lifetimes of the first people to whom He spoke these words in the first-century AD.
It’s because all of the signs of the end that Jesus spoke about with His disciples had already taken place twenty centuries ago that many early Christians began doubting Jesus and their faith in Him. “If Jesus hasn’t come back yet, despite the mess the world is in,” they reasoned, “maybe He never will come back. Maybe Jesus isn’t good for His word.”
Peter wrote to Christians dealing with these kinds of doubts and questions in 2 Peter 3:9, where he says: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” “You Christians overcome by the hardships you undeniably endure in this life,” Peter was saying, “get over yourselves!” It's not bad advice for us either.
Today, on the authority of God’s Word, given through Peter, we know that Christ hasn’t come back to this world yet because He loves those who don’t know Him and need Him.
These people need time to hear the Gospel, the good news of new and everlasting life through Christ.
They need time to turn from sin, time to embrace the gift of faith in Christ.
These people need time to hear the Gospel, the good news of new and everlasting life through Christ.
They need time to turn from sin, time to embrace the gift of faith in Christ.
That group of people includes you and me, people who need to turn from the obsessions du jour and turn to Christ for grace and to ask Him to daily call the shots over our lives.
And here’s the key takeaway for you and me as Christians this morning: Christ has also delayed coming back in order to give you and me the time we need to share with our neighbors and world the message about Christ and the salvation that comes from having a relationship with Jesus Christ alone.
Our call as Christians is clear: By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we know that we've been "justified," counted guiltless for our sins despite our guilt. By grace through faith in Jesus, you and I are OK with God. So now, we’re to love our neighbors enough to help them to follow Christ and to be OK with God, too.
And how do we do that? By putting the faith we here confess into action seven days a week:
- sharing Jesus with those who have nothing to do with Him or His Church;
- inviting them to join us for worship or Sunday School or Bible study;
- showing mercy and forgiveness to people who have hurt us (just like Christ did for us on the cross and does for us);
- listening to the hurts of others and offering to pray with them and pray for them;
- serving others in the Name of Jesus;
- owning up to it when others confront us for the ways our words or actions or indifference have hurt them;
- giving food to the hungry;
- taking time each day to read God’s Word, offer prayer, and tell others about Christ;
- and, if you're a parent, sharing a prayer with your child every night before they go to bed. (This is a powerful witness, I have learned.)
Jesus tells us in verse 34 “be careful” of ourselves, to stay awake, to stay alert, to what Christ may be calling us to do in any given second.
He tells us this not only so that we can resist temptations that could leave us trapped in sin and death when Christ returns or when we see Him face to face as the judge over our lives. Jesus also tells us to stay awake and alert so that, no matter what’s going on in our lives or in the world, we keep pursuing the commission He has given to us of making disciples of our unbelieving or spiritually-disconnected neighbors. To live as anything other than a disciple of Jesus in this troubling, challenging world is to follow a dead end street leading us to nowhere.
He was aimless and scattered, living on that dead end street. His only goals in life were to have fun and to be seen by others as the smartest guy in the room. A friend would tell him years later, “I worried about you. You just didn’t seem to have any focus, like any wind that came along would carry you to God-knows-where.”
By the grace of God, a wind did come along. It was the Holy Spirit Who carried that young man to a Lutheran church.
There he found himself, inexplicably, being drawn to interact with a woman more than forty years his senior.
She took this young man under her wing, put up with his immaturity and flippancy and self-regard, and taught him Who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him as your only God, King, and Savior.
She taught him about the hope that belongs only to those who follow Christ.
She taught him how to pray.
By her words and her actions and her patience, she proclaimed Jesus to that young man.
And to his amazement, he found that through the ministry of that nearly seventy year old woman and the other followers of Jesus he met in that Lutheran congregation, God had sparked the gift of faith in Jesus Christ within him.
That young man is not so young any more.
And he’s still a sinner in daily need of the forgiveness and new life that comes to those who entrust themselves to Jesus Christ.
He makes mistakes all the time.
But my life has been changed forever. Like the prodigal son of Jesus’ story, I was dead and am alive again, was lost and have been found.
All because a group of Christ-forgiven sinners who made up Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus, including Martha Schneider, grateful for the grace of God given in Jesus Christ to them, shared the Word in its purity and administered Holy Baptism and Holy Communion rightly.
And this is how the Church, Christ's body in the world, people like you and me, are used by God to make disciples.
Who will you share Christ with this week?
The clock is ticking.
We don’t know when Christ will return. We don't know how much time each of us personally has on this earth.
But we do know that, as surely baby Jesus once came upon a midnight clear, the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus will return.
This time, His coming won’t come on a silent night. There will be nothing quiet about His judging “the living and the dead,” not on the basis of their works, or church membership, or popularity, or wealth, or power, but solely on the basis of whether we have trusted Him with our lives and let Him cover everything that is sinful and dying about us with His forgiveness and grace. Jesus will come in glory and, when that happens, time for the world and time for you and me will have run out. There will be no more chance for anyone to repent and believe in Him.
Make it your daily aim to share Christ in some way with those who, absent a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, will stand naked in their sins when they meet Jesus, eternally distant from Christ’s grace and forgiveness, facing a Christ-less eternity.
If you had the cure for cancer, you wouldn’t keep it to yourself. As a follower of Jesus, you have something that even the merged pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Allergan don’t have: the cure for sin and death and meaningless life. That cure is Jesus Christ.
Trust in Him.
And then, in as many ways as you can every single day, share Him!
Time is running out.
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