Now What?

[Below is both the live stream video of the 11:00 AM worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, and the text of the message presented during worship. Ordinarily, I would also link to our 8:45 AM service, the traditional worship service, but we had technical difficulties that prevent that.]



John 21:1-19

Today’s gospel lesson, John 21:1-19, is part of the epilogue of John’s gospel. John’s gospel, of course, has a prologue. It starts out, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) 

John’s prologue prepares us to hear Jesus when He says things like, “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.” (John 3:16) 

Or, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die…” (John 11:25-26)

But now, after taking us on this dizzying journey with Jesus, John comes to today’s Gospel lesson. The rest of the gospel poses questions like, “Who are you, [Jesus]?” (John 8:25) Or, “How can someone be born [that is, how can someone born in sin start all over again in the righteousness of God] when they are old?” (John 3:4) 

But, today’s lesson asks the question, “Now what?” 

After I’ve come to believe in Jesus as “my Lord and my God,” like the once unbelieving Thomas, and so have eternal life with God, now what? How do I live my life from now until the resurrection?

The opening of today’s Gospel lesson finds seven of Jesus’ disciples hanging out together. That in itself is healthy. We Christians need each other. This is why the New Testament book of Hebrews tells the Church: “to [not neglect to] meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another…” (Hebrews 10:25) 

So, here we meet those seven disciples of Jesus, gaining strength from their fellowship around God’s Word, but still not clear about what they should do now.

Then, Peter announces, “I’m going out to fish…” (John 21:3) Friends, the call to follow Jesus and the call to gather with His Church, is not a call away from the world or its mundane pursuits. Part of the call of Jesus is, as we’re regularly fortified and challenged by God’s Word through the Church in worship, the Church in study, and the Church in service, to go into the everyday places of life, fulfill our daily duties, and be Christ’s witnesses “out there.” 

We can’t share the Gospel with others if we spend all our time with the people in our church family who agree with us about Jesus. Imagine a football team that spent all of their games in a huddle. Not much would happen.

Jesus has sent us into the world. That’s why I told Trish a few weeks ago during our staff meeting that I want to personally devote two nights a week this summer to doing kindness outreaches. 

Peter decides to go fishing and the other disciples, even the ones who weren’t formerly fishermen, say, “We’ll go with you.” (John 21:3)

The disciples spend the night fishing and catch nothing. Life can be like that, even when you’re following Jesus. You seek to be faithful, maybe faithful in sharing Jesus with others, and nothing happens, no one is interested. At times like these, the life of discipleship seems futile and meaningless.

Early in the morning following this futile fishing venture, someone calls the disciples from the shore. They don’t recognize the risen Jesus at first. Jesus doesn’t say, as our translation puts it, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” (John 21:5) Rather than “friends," the word Jesus uses here to address them is Παιδία (paidia). It means children. It’s the Greek word that gives us the English words pediatrician and pediatrics. Jesus tenderly calls out to the disciples who have been seeking to be faithful in spite of the challenges of this world, “Children, you don’t have any fish, do you?” No, they don’t have any fish, the disciples admit.

So, echoing a similar incident that occurred near the beginning of His earthly ministry recounted in Luke, chapter 5, Jesus tells the disciples, still unaware of His identity, to throw their net to the right side of the boat. No one says as Peter did in that earlier incident, “We’ve been out all night. There aren’t any fish to be had.” Instead, like little children, credulous and unmarred by cynicism, they toss the net over the side of the boat. The net becomes so heavy with fish that they can’t haul it in. 

This is a picture of God’s grace. There is no end to it. He loves us. His Son died to free us from our sin, from death, and from our idolatries. He covers those who trust in Jesus with His abundant forgiveness and new life, even in the midst of life’s frequent futility.

I’d been called to the hospital room of a twenty-one-year-old who had been fighting cancer for seven years. She had taken a turn for the worse. On the car ride, I prayed I could get there before she died. I walked into her room to find her sitting in a chair, eating a chicken dinner her grandmother had sent. I just looked at her, a bit shocked. She smiled at me and said, “I know. I’m complicated.” After that rally, she did, some weeks later, die. But I reflected later that while her life had been complicated by cancer and this life, she wasn’t complicated at all. She trusted in Jesus and was committed to taking the next step in His rich grace even in the midst of great pain and uncertainty. 

The rich, abundant grace, love, and favor of Christ are on offer to us all, no matter how complicated (or futile) our lives can become.

John is the first to recognize the man on the shore as the risen Jesus. On hearing John say, “It is the Lord,” Peter throws himself into the water to meet Jesus. 

This incident provides another contrast between that earlier miraculous catch of fish Luke talks about and this one. There, you’ll remember, after Jesus caused Peter’s nets to fairly burst at the seams, Peter fell on his face and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) But now Peter can’t wait to get to Jesus. 

This is the difference between life under the Law and life under the Gospel. 

A life lived under the Law is one in which we labor under the delusion that we can or must be good enough or work hard enough to gain God’s favor and forgiveness. That was the life that Peter was living earlier. God’s Law is good because it describes the life of righteousness. But it’s pure egomania for us to think that we can keep God’s Law. As the layperson (not the comedian) Steve Martin, wrote on Twitter the other day, “The job of God’s Law is to obliterate any confidence that you might have in anything outside of Jesus Christ.” Martin Luther said that the function of God's Law is to drive us to despair over our sin to the foot of Jesus Christ, to the only One Who can set us free from the debt for sin we owe our Maker!

But now, after Easter Sunday, Peter understands that despite his sins, he lives life under the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we still sin. That’s why Jesus calls us to daily acknowledge our sin so that its power over us can be covered in the grace of Jesus. 

This is what Peter experiences now as he comes into Jesus’ presence. 

On the shore, Peter finds that Jesus has lit a charcoal fire, “burning coals” in our reading translating the Greek word, ἀνθρακιὰν (anthrakian), from which we get the English word, anthracite. The only other time we encounter this word in the whole Bible is in John 18:18, where Peter warms himself by a fire set by Roman soldiers in the place where Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. As Peter sees the burning coals, he no doubt remembers how he had abandoned the Lord on the night of Jesus’ trial.

Peter doesn’t run away though. He already knows that Jesus has forgiven him and sent him into the world, as he sends us, despite our sins and imperfections, to point others to Jesus as the way and the truth and the life. 

Jesus then, in a reversal of Peter’s three denials of his Lord, underscores His forgiveness and His sending of Peter, when, three times, He asks: “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17) 

When we live under Christ’s Gospel, not only are our sins forgiven, we also have a mission, to feed the Church and to feed the world on the truth of the same Gospel that has saved us from sin, death, and darkness for everlasting life with God.

Following Jesus isn’t easy. Jesus tells Peter that his life is no longer his own, that he will die as one sent into the world to fish for people. But, you can be sure that as he walked with the risen Christ for the rest of his life, Peter, knowing that he lived under Christ's gospel, would always say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) 

Jesus has died and risen for you. That's an accomplished fact. 

So, now what? 

How should we live each day? 

Simply in this way: By turning to Jesus each day, confident that wherever we may go and whatever the duties of our lives may call us to do, we live under His gospel, set free to be God’s people now and always. 

Amen

My Lord and My God (Sunday Worship, Living Water Lutheran Church)

Here's Sunday worship from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Below the video is the manuscript for today's message. God bless you!



John 20:19-31
One day during seventh-grade English class, our teacher, Mrs. Biggs, told us that we were going to have a say in what book we would read together over the next six weeks. 

She gave us three choices. I can’t remember what the other two were. But I do remember the one I definitely didn’t want to read: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

I thought I would be bored out of my skull if we read that book. But the vote for the Holmes stories was nearly unanimous. 

Then I read the stories and got hooked. I read all twelve in the collection even before we were actually supposed to be reading them for class. I loved them for the puzzles they presented, the vivid characters, the strange plot twists, and the friendship of the brilliant Holmes and the sometimes clueless Watson. I couldn’t stop talking about the stories. And for Christmas that year, I received the complete Holmes collection: all fifty-six short stories and four novels. I still have that book!

Have you ever noticed how skeptics can become the biggest fans of something they once disdained? And it’s often these people who have what’s called “the zeal of a convert.” It’s often former skeptics who tell us the most about the things they once dismissed but have come to love.

Our gospel lesson for today, John 20:19-31, gives us a portrait of such a person. His name is Thomas. He was called to be an apostle of Jesus, one of the twelve Jesus would send into the world to witness that all who believe in the crucified and risen Savior will have eternal life with God and plant Christ's Church everywhere.

At the beginning of his gospel, John introduces us to Jesus, the Second Person of the Triune God, the one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Jesus, John said, is the Word, God the Son, Who spoke the universe into being. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John says (John 1:1). 

Later in that same chapter, he says, “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) 

John spends the rest of his gospel recounting signs, sermons, and dialogs pointing out to those who dared to pay attention that Jesus was no ordinary man. They all demonstrated that Jesus was more even than the Messiah, the Christ, who God’s people had long-awaited. Jesus was God the Son in the flesh, the Creator becoming one of His creatures so that in His sinlessness, He could die for sinners and win eternity for all who believed in Him, their sins forgiven, made forever new.

Now, Thomas was with Jesus throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry. He knew that there was something special about Jesus. That’s probably why he kept following Jesus. But he refused to give in to the enthusiasm of faith. (The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek phrase, en Theos, in God.) 

Thomas held back, determined not to get hoodwinked into giving his loyalty to anyone. Not even Jesus. 

Thomas was there to see Jesus bring sight to the blind man who, when Jesus identified Himself as the Son of Man had told Jesus, “Lord, I believe” and proceeded to worship Jesus as God (John 9:38). But while others exhibited faith in and devotion to Jesus, however imperfect, Thomas folded his arms. 

When Jesus announced His intention to go to Bethany after His friend Lazarus had died there, Thomas was less than enthusiastic. Bethany was in the heart of the territory from which Jesus and the twelve had just run for their lives. At Jesus’ announcement, Lazarus cynically told the others, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16) 

Even at the Last Supper, after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and after Thomas had heard Jesus speak repeatedly of how He was going to Jerusalem where God the Father would glorify Him, through His death, resurrection, and ascension, Thomas asks Jesus, Who had told the disciples that they knew the Way He was going, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5) 

When Jesus told Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” Thomas remained immune to Jesus’ Word (John 14:6).

After Jesus’ died and all hope of His being the Messiah seemed gone, the other disciples, grief-stricken and disappointed, nonetheless stayed together, probably drawing comfort from one another. Not Thomas. He was nowhere to be found on Easter Sunday morning. He had moved on. 

Nor was he around on Easter Sunday evening when Jesus entered a locked room to greet the disciples and show them that He had conquered sin, death, and the grave for all who believe in Him. When, a week later, Thomas was told about several encounters Jesus’ other disciples had with Jesus raised from the dead, Thomas refused to believe.

I have a confession to make. 

I can sometimes be a Thomas. 

I live on the Easter side of Jesus’ time on earth. 

I believe in Him as my Lord and King. 

But sometimes I act and live as though the Word never became flesh and dwelt among us, that He never died to destroy the power of sin and death over me, that He didn’t rise to make me a new creature to whom He wills an eternity of good. 

I can wake up and go through the next sixteen hours of my day like someone who never heard of Jesus. I can live like Jesus never died and rose for me. Like those who don’t know Jesus, I can stew over how things are going to turn out, forgetting that the Lord Who was raised by God the Father on Easter has believers and our ultimate destination in His strong grip, that Jesus has prepared a place for us with God in eternity and He will be with us every step of the way on this earth. 

How about you? 

Can you be a Thomas? 

Do you sometimes let unbelief, cynicism, skepticism, selfishness, or a kind of thoughtless, default atheism setting cloud your vision of Jesus, of Who He is, and of what He has done for you on the cross and from the empty tomb?

Today brings you (and me) good news! 

Like John, the beloved disciple, who saw the empty tomb on the first Easter Sunday morning and believed, Thomas got his chance to see the risen Jesus on the following Sunday. 

And when that happened, Thomas, the hardened skeptic, became the only person in the Gospel of John to make this ringing confession about Jesus: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). 

No one had previously dared to say Who Jesus was (and is). 

Thomas confessed Jesus not just our Lord. Not just the Lord Who conquered sin and death and Satan. 

Thomas looked at Jesus and declared Jesus to be God! 

Jesus says of believers like you and me, who have received the Word about Jesus that would be shared by the lives and martyrdom of witnesses like Thomas, Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, and Paul, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

We are blessed. 

Although like Thomas, we can doubt or be disbelieving or forgetful, we are blessed. 

That’s because the truth of our faith in Christ is not measured either in how often we allow our human nature to get in the way of trusting in Jesus. It isn't measured in our imperfections. 

Our faith is truly seen in this: in how, when confronted by Jesus in His Word, in the Sacraments, and in the fellowship of the Church, we realize again that this Jesus, this One raised from the grave on the first Easter, is Lord and God and His Word has transformed us from sinners dead in their trespasses and given us the saving faith to say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

Friends, Jesus never tires of coming to us and always remains the Word made flesh, true God and true man, Whose desire above all else is to fellowship with us and make us His forever. 

May we who, by the power of God's Word about Jesus, give us the zeal of converts, people who sold out to Jesus that we can't keep from telling the world about Jesus and His gospel.

And when Jesus calls us, may we always hear His voice and may we always come to Him, our Lord and our God. Amen

Victory in the Wilderness

[This message was shared this morning during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 4:1-13

Today’s gospel lesson, for this First Sunday in Lent, is Luke 4:1-13. This is Luke’s account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by the devil. 

The most important thing to remember from this incident is that Jesus, the Son of God, succeeds where Adam in the garden of Eden and ancient Israel in the wilderness failed. And He did this for us, despite the unneeded and unwanted suffering and death it brought to Him.

So, let’s look at what happens, starting at verse 1: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”

Jesus has just come from being baptized in the Jordan River by his relative, John the Baptizer. There, Jesus heard God the Father tell Him, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22) 

We know from the rest of Scripture that when Jesus is described as “the Son of God,” it means more than I mean when I speak of our son and our daughter. Colossians 1:15-17 says of Jesus that He is “...the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Jesus is both God and human, “the Word [made] flesh” (John 1:1, 14).

Others in Scripture have been portrayed as God’s sons, but in different ways. 

For example, in Hosea 11:1, God recalls, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” 

And, in the passage just before his account of Jesus’ temptations, Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy back to “Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38).” The meaning here is that Adam was generated from God’s creativity. God looked on Adam and Eve in much the same way parents look on their children, with love. 

But in the garden, lush with everything he could possibly need, Adam, the son of God, fell prey to the temptations of the serpent, feeling the impulse to stuff his face with the very fruit God had told him not to touch. 

Similarly, about 1500 years before the birth of Jesus, God led His people Israel out of slavery in Egypt and, taking them to the promised land, oversaw the testing of their faith in the wilderness. Israel, even its leader Moses, didn’t pass with flying colors. A whole generation of Israelites, save for two--Joshua and Caleb--died on a forty year journey that should have taken eleven days because it fell prey to temptation, worshiping other gods, rebelling against God.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus, the Son of God, is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Jesus spends forty days there and is, like Adam and Israel, tempted to sin and to rebellion against God the Father. Jesus goes there to begin the process of erasing the sin and death that had enslaved humanity since Adam and Eve fell into sin and to fulfill the mission of Israel to bring light and life to all nations.

Verse 3: “The devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’”

The word devil translates the word in Luke’s original Greek text, diabolos. We get the word diabolical from this. The word itself means one who slanders, defames, accuses falsely. The devil likes to slander, defame, and falsely accuse human beings, especially those who seek to follow Jesus, because of his deep resentment toward the human race. 

The devil is a fallen angel. And angels, aren’t as important in God’s creation as human beings. Only humans are created in God’s image. This is why the devil set out to lure the human race away from God. 

Jesus says that the devil is the father of all evil and lies in the world (and of everyone given over to lying and evil as their way of life) and that he has been a liar, a deceiver from the beginning. People who make lying their way of life are of the devil. 

The devil, the liar and slanderer, calls Jesus’ place as the second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, into question. He’s challenging Jesus to prove Himself. He tells Jesus to take care of His hunger by turning stones to bread rather than fulfill His mission of enduring temptations sinlessly so that He can offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for human sin.

Verse 4: “Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, in which Moses recalls when the people of Israel went hungry in the wilderness, wanting bread to eat, and when God, by the power of His Word, created something called manna for them to eat. God gave the people of Israel exactly what they needed from day to day, their “daily bread.” Moses said that we can’t live just for the bread we plant, harvest, mix, and bake. We must rely totally on God. Jesus did. And, unlike Adam in the garden, who ate fruit he didn’t need and so dishonored his relationship with God, Jesus refused to create food He could have used for Himself. Jesus lives for God and for us. Who do we live for?

Verse 5: “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.’”

In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve wanted to “be like God.” In the wilderness, ancient Israel erected a golden calf to worship and manipulate for its own purposes. Jesus could have taken the kingdoms of this world without saving us. But He refused to do this. He knew that only His death and resurrection could allow us to become part of His kingdom. Our eternal life with God was more important to Jesus than His temporary comfort. That’s a measure of the depths of His love for each of us. Without relying on the God we meet in Jesus, it's impossible for us to dismiss taking the easy path and opt for doing the will of God as Jesus did.

Verse 8: “Jesus answered, ‘It is written [again citing words from Moses’ words in Deuteronomy about Israel’s wilderness experience]: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” Jesus is ready for temptation not just because He’s the Son of God, but also because He knows God’s Word and through God’s Word, He knows Christ. If Jesus needed to know God and His Word to get through the wilderness, how much more do we need God and His Word?

Verse 9: “The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;  they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’”

The devil is a cunning jerk. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” The devil would have liked nothing better than to have devoured Jesus, gobbling up our chance for life through faith in Jesus in the bargain. He cunningly uses God’s Word from Psalm 91, twisting the promise God gives to help His people into a magna carta for human stupidity, a blank check for believers to do any lame-brained thing that comes into our heads in order to prove that God is good for His word. That’s why in verse 12, Jesus cites another passage from Deuteronomy: “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Jesus turns each of the devil’s temptations away. Ambrose, an ancient church father, said that in the three temptations with which the devil tried to trap Jesus, the temptation to turn stones to bread, to worship the devil, and to take the kingdoms of this world rather than institute the kingdom of God for all who trust in Jesus, there was “every human transgression...for the courses of our own [forbidden] desires are the delight of the flesh [taking care of ourselves without regard to others], the pomp of vainglory [our love of being number one], and the greed for power.” The temptations with which Jesus contended in the wilderness are the same ones that confront you and me every day. One contemporary New Testament scholar calls them “the normative seductions of our...culture.”

And they always have been. But unlike Adam and Eve and ancient Israel, who were defeated by the seductions--the temptations--to sin, Jesus succeeded in resisting them and so, has was able later to win everlasting life with God for all who turn away from sin, as He did in the wilderness, and follow Him. 

But if it’s our intention to follow Jesus to life, we need to watch out. The devil is still looking, in the words of verse 13 of our lesson, for “opportune times” to trip us up. Referring to the gospel--the good news of forgiven sin and new life for all who trust in the crucified and risen Jesus, the preacher in Hebrews tells a people flirting with defection from faith in Christ, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” (Hebrews 2:1-3)

Jesus won a victory in the wilderness because His eyes were turned always to God the Father and His purposes. Isaiah 45:22 tells us, “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” 

In Lent and in all of life, our call is to keep turning to Jesus so that He can give us life with God. That’s what Jesus died and rose to make possible, so that we can, day after day and into eternity, turn to Him and live. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]