Retirement Gathering Thank You, February 10, 2024

[I shared this thank you during a gathering held yesterday at Living Water Lutheran Church. It was originally scheduled for January 6, but I contracted COVID right before it was scheduled and it was postponed until yesterday. The gathering happened yesterday.]

Hebrews 1:3 says this of Jesus (I’m reading from the Good News Translation): “He reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word. After achieving forgiveness for the sins of all human beings, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power.”

Today, I thank God that in Jesus Christ, all my sins and all your sins are totally, completely forgiven.

Jesus, God the Son, achieved the forgiveness of our sins by dying on the cross.

God the Father confirmed this victory by raising Jesus from the dead.

Today, Jesus sits at the right side–the power side–of God the Father, the Conqueror of sin, death, and the devil, all for our sake, all to give us life with God that is ours today and will be forever.

Our call is to daily turn from sin and death–to repent–and to follow Jesus, trusting that–as you’ve heard me say before–when Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it.

He has done everything needed for your salvation, everything needed for you to be reconciled to God, everything needed to set you free to love God and love your neighbor.

Today, I also thank the people who have helped me to partake of the freedom of Christ and who have supported, encouraged, and nudged me not only as a child of God, but in my calling as pastor.

I thank Ann for being my wife for more than forty-nine years, for nagging me into going to Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus, where I, a rebellious sinner, an atheist, heard the Word of God that convicted me of my sin and then set me free with the Gospel about Jesus.

I thank Ann that she was supportive to me when I threw her the most unexpected curveball of her life. “Ann,” I said, “I think God is calling me to be a pastor.”

I thank our kids for enduring the lives of “pastor’s kids.” Both planned on being here when this gathering was originally scheduled. But after COVID scrubbed that and our son had to eat the cost of his airfare, we told both kids they didn’t need to be here.

Thank you to Living Water for going to the trouble of putting this gathering together. I feel a bit guilty about it when I consider all of the people who come to the end of their working lives without so much as a pat on the back. But thank you anyway…and thank you for the past ten years!

Thank you to my internship congregations and my internship supervisor and his wife, Pastor Jim and Jan. They gave me opportunities most pastoral interns don’t get: to preach and lead worship every single week.

Thank you too to the other congregations I’ve been privileged to serve as pastor–Bethlehem at Okolona, Ohio; Friendship of Amelia; and Saint Matthew in Logan.

Thank you too, to those from those congregations who are here today–and those who showed up a few weeks ago to find that the event had been indefinitely postponed. It has been an honor to serve as a Minister of Word and Sacrament and to have acquired lifelong friendships in each of these churches and communities.

Thank you to all of our friends–those we’ve known since elementary school, high school, college, seminary, early married life, and through all the subsequent years. We have laughed with you, cried with you, worshiped and prayed with you, in some instances traveled with you…and lived to tell about it. Each of you have been important in helping us to know God’s grace and in keeping our sanity, what’s left of it.

Thank you to all of you!

In retirement, I pray that God will help this saint and sinner to proclaim in whatever ways I can that, because in Jesus Christ, God the Son, all our sins ARE forgiven, we can trust in Him.

“For,” as Saint Paul tells us, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Thank you.

The Greatest Glory on the Mountaintop

[Below are the live stream videos of this past Sunday's worship services from Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, along with the message prepared for them.]





Matthew 17:1-9

This is the last Sunday of the Epiphany Season. Throughout this season, we’ve looked at incidents and words from Jesus’ earthly ministry that show us the truth that the Man Jesus is also truly God, the Savior of the whole cosmos. This truth is announced to us again today in the Gospel lesson, but maybe not entirely in the way we imagine.

Six days before the incidents recounted in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus foretold it all. Then, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, told Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) While Peter didn’t understand all the implications of his confession, he did understand that in calling Jesus the Son of the living God, he wasn’t calling Jesus a descendant of God the Father. When a Jew like Peter used this phrase, he meant what another Jewish believer, the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews, meant when he said of Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…” (Hebrews 1:3)

Peter said that Jesus was God. But Peter didn’t really understand what that meant. His lack of understanding showed when Peter was shocked as Jesus said that He, God in the flesh, was going to Jerusalem to be rejected by the religious and political leaders and by the people. There He would also suffer, be murdered on a Friday, and be raised by God the Father on a Sunday. Peter rebuked Jesus. Peter couldn’t imagine God suffering or dying. But Jesus called Peter “Satan” for standing in the way of God’s will that God the Son should take the punishment of death for sin that you and I deserve. Jesus said that all who would have life with God need to take up our crosses–that is, confess our sin and our need of God’s forgiveness–and follow Jesus. Then Jesus made this promise: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28)

Matthew tells us this morning that six days after this exchange between Jesus and Peter, Jesus took the same Peter, along with James and John to the top of a nearby mountain. Why did Jesus take these three guys with Him? Well, they were the inner circle of the inner circle of disciples. But another reason might be this: Peter, James, and John, by outward appearances, seemed to have the hardest time with their sin, wanting to be like God rather than following and worshiping God. Peter had tried to tell Jesus how to be the Messiah, as we’ve seen. And James and John, forgetting that the exorcisms and healings they’d done were the results of Jesus’ power working in them and not of their own power, once asked Jesus if He wanted them to call fire from heaven down on a Samaritan village that hadn’t welcomed Jesus. These men needed to be reminded that Jesus was God, not them. They also needed the forgiveness of God which comes only from Jesus.

In that, Peter, James, and John are no different from you and me. Like them, we can fall to the temptation of thinking that we are essentially good people who deserve the blessings of God. Like them, we can become upset when the plans of God don’t conform to the plans we make for ourselves. Like them, we forget that we have no right to enter the kingdom of heaven; that is a gift God gives to those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ. It is only God in Jesus Christ who makes sinners clean, justifying us, counting us innocent by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

You know what happened at the mount of Transfiguration. Matthew says, “There [Jesus] was transfigured [meaning His appearance was in some way altered] before [Peter, James, and John]. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Matthew 17:2) Soon, Moses, dead and buried centuries before, and Elijah, the prophet once transmitted to heaven by a chariot of fire, are there talking with Jesus. If the light that radiated from Jesus hadn’t reminded Peter, James, and John that Jesus really is God, the fact that these two Old Testament figures who talked with God on mountaintops are now talking with Jesus should have convinced them.

James would be martyred not long after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. So, we don’t have any record of what he thought about the Transfiguration. But John would say in the prologue to his gospel, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) And Peter would write: “...we were eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18)

But Peter and his companions didn’t mainly see the glory of God in Jesus’ transfiguration that day. On seeing Moses and Elijah, Peter in essence asks Jesus for permission to break the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” He wants to build three shelters to honor Jesus, Moses, and Elijah equally, as though the Light of God that day came from anyone other than Jesus, as though Moses and Elijah needed to be worshiped along with Jesus. The moment this seemingly pious suggestion leaves his mouth, God the Father shuts Peter off. “​​This is my Son, whom I love,” the Father says, “with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)

Friends, life with God will not be ours if we worship any god other than the One revealed to us in Jesus Christ. To those inclined to say, “My family is the most important thing,” or personal fulfillment, or health, or happiness, or lower taxes, or leading a good life, God says, “This is My Son…Listen to Him.” We human beings are intrinsically religious creatures. Anthropologists tell us that in every culture ever studied, people have had all sorts of gods they’ve worshiped: sex, fertility, money, possessions, the sun, the moon, the stars, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Our sinful human nature makes us want to worship something, anything that we think will give the god we’re born worshiping from birth–ourselves–what we want when we want it. We’ll glorify anyone and anything that will glorify us, explaining why we make the terrible choices we sometimes make in life, from the cars we buy to the political lies we fall for. 

You can imagine how guilty and small Peter (and the others) must have felt at that moment, prostrating in fear in the face of this condemnation of sinful idolatry. But this is the moment when the glory of God was fully revealed to Peter, James, and John. Matthew 17:7 says, “Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’”

That is Jesus’ message for you today too. You and I have been idolaters and sinners. We’ve been prone to go our own way, to ignore god, to glorify the shiny objects this world dangles before us. Our idolatrous natures cause us to metaphorically erect booths to what we deem to be holy things, godly values. But forgiveness of sin, freedom from death, and life with God, the things we most need for this life and the next, come from Jesus Christ alone. It was in seeing Jesus as the forgiving, saving God of all that Peter, James, and John saw the true glory of God at the Transfiguration.

This is the glory of God: Jesus, the way and the truth and the life, through whom we have life with God. He’s the Savior Who overcomes the sin, suffering, and death we all experience in this life to give us everlasting life with God. Along the way, He allows us to be touched by His glory and His glorious love for us. He’s doing it again today in His Word, in the fellowship of the saints, and in the gift of His body and blood. He does it when water is splashed on her head in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By these means, Jesus assures us that beyond the days of our Lents, the horrors of our Good Fridays, and the griefs of our silent, Holy Saturdays, glory, eternal glory, with God awaits all who daily turn to Christ in repentance and faith. Our Savior Jesus comes to forgive our sins and give us life in God’s glorious kingdom. Dear friends in Christ, you can trust in Him!

Renewed in Thankfulness and Awe

God amazed and humbled me as I spent my quiet time with Him again this morning. (I explain quiet time here and here.) To consider God marshaling His majesty and power to take the form of a servant and make purification for my sins on a cross, when I take time to consider it, overwhelms me.

When coupled with an amazingly answered prayer from yesterday, one answered in the most unlikely of ways, I'm looking at God with renewed awe and thankfulness this morning.

From my journal, here's what God told me today as I read Hebrews 1 and found my attention drawn to Hebrews 1:3. (The parenthesis show verses of Scripture to which God led me today.):

Look: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (Hebrews 1:3)

This verse tells me everything I need to know about Jesus in order to be reconciled to God and saved from sin and death.

Jesus is God, reflecting the radiance of God that shone on Moses’ face after he met God and the holy fire that so intimidated the people of Old Testament days.

The whole world exists and continues to exist because of “his powerful word.” Jesus is the Word uttered by God in Genesis (John 1:1-14; Genesis 1-2). He speaks and life happens.  

If Jesus weren’t still speaking, “Live!” the universe would cease to exist.  

And one day, when the Father gives the signal, He will bring an end to speaking this world to life and He will usher in a new heaven and a new earth for all who believe (Matthew 24:36; Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1).  

This will come to all who have believed the Word about Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 3:16-18; John 10:30; John 14:6).

Paul says in Romans 1:16-17: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”

The Word shared about the Word Who sustains the universe and Who “provided purification for [our] sins” creates new life for those who believe (2 Corinthians 5:17). Simply put, speaking the message about Him makes faith and new life happen: “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

Wow!

And now, in consequence of the victory He’s won for us, Jesus sits “at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” From there, He can bring the prayers who are empowered to speak to God by the grace Christ gives to sinners who repent and believe, to the Father. Jesus speaks His Word of forgiveness over us (Acts 10:43) and we can then approach God in intimacy and boldness that the ancient Israelites chose to delegate to Moses (Hebrews 4:16; Exodus 20:19).

It remains “a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Were we to do so uncovered by the grace of God given in Christ, we would stand naked in our sin, condemned, and ticketed for death. But when the Word of Jesus has been spoken over us and we believe, we can come before God as children, just as Jesus has taught us to come to Him (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:16; Luke 11:2).

Listen: In this verse, I see God as, in Tillich’s phrase, “wholly Other,” infinitely different from me, infinitely greater than me, infinitely purer, infinitely more self-giving. I see Him as the One Whose word brought the universe into being and Who continues to speak it into being even as it dies in its sin (Colossians 1:16-17).

I also see Him as the God Whose love for me and all sinners is so infinite that He chose the path of submission to a cross in order to provide purification for my sins.

How can I callously disregard all that God has done and is doing for me by sinning against His revealed will?

And when I do sin, how can I callously refuse to repent and once more trust in the One Who has done all of this for me?

When I do, the One Who did all of this speaks promises through His Word given to the apostle John: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)

Respond: Lord, help me today to hear and heed Your Word, to trust and live: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) In Jesus’ name. Amen!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]