The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 14

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 13

Grateful!

Earlier today on Twitter, Lutheran layperson Steve Martin (not the comedian) quoted Paul's words in Romans 5:6: "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly."

Then, Steve writes, "If you happen to be ungodly then He died for you."

I had to respond, "That would be me: ungodly by nature, saved by grace through Spirit-given faith in Christ."

When, as an atheist, I observed the way the God we meet in Jesus was not just real, but also living and active in the lives of ordinary people in what was then my wife's home church, I was moved.

When I realized that He died and rose and was still calling and reaching out in love to someone like me who was so ungodly as to reject His very existence, I was overwhelmed.

I thank God that Christ died for the ungodly. That's the only reason I have hope in the midst of this world and hope for the world to come.

Rescued!

Below you'll find two things. First, video of yesterday's modern worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Then, below that, the text of yesterday's message. Have a good week. God bless you!

Mark 9:14-29
From time to time, news outlets report the stories of pastors or church members who die from snake bites incurred during their congregations’  worship services. Typical is an incident reported seven-and-a-half years ago from Middlesboro, Kentucky and the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus’ Name. Pastor Jamie Coots handled a rattlesnake during worship when he was bitten by the snake. He refused treatment at the church and went home. By the time he and his wife got to their house, he was unconscious. But when an EMS arrived, the pastor’s wife signed a form refusing medical treatment for her husband. Within an hour, Pastor Coots was dead.

Why would anyone go out of their way to handle a rattlesnake? People like Pastor Coots would point to Mark 16:17-18, where Jesus says of His followers: “In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:17-18) Of course, the takeaway from these promises by Jesus is not that we're to go our of our way to prove we have faith and or that we must do them in order to have faith, but that God will provide signs of His power over sin, death, and darkness in those with faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus doesn’t say that your need to handle snakes, drink poison, stand in the middle of traffic, leave your seat belt unfastened and text while you drive, climb onto a motorcycle without a helmet, or adhere the religious laws that the Pharisees were always chastising Jesus for ignoring to prove you have faith. People may fool themselves or fool others into thinking that such behaviors prove that they have faith; but God is never fooled! 

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the devil took Him to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem, about 150 feet above the ground below. Remember how the devil tried to use Old Testament Scripture to try to convince Jesus to prove His faith in God the Father? “‘If you are the Son of God, [the devil] said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written [and it is, in Psalm 91:11-12]: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands,  so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:6) The devil’s message to Jesus was that if Jesus really believed in the Father and if Jesus really was God the Son, He would throw Himself to the ground, sure that the Father would suspend the law of gravity and spare Him death on impact. Jesus’ response reminds us that no matter how large or small our faith in God, stupid is still stupid and faith is not deliberately enlisting in games of chicken with reality. Jesus replied, ““It is also written [and it is, in Deuteronomy 6:16]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:7)

As our Gospel lesson for today, Mark 9:14-29, begins, Jesus is returning with Peter, James, and John, from the mountain on which Jesus was transfigured while Moses and Elijah appeared to talk with Jesus and God the Father told the three disciples, “This is My beloved Son; listen to Him.” (Mark 9:7) At the base of the mountain, the disciples are squabbling with teachers of the Law. The squabbling is presumably over the fact that when a man brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus and meets only Jesus’ other nine apostles, the apostles say they can’t help the boy. Undoubtedly, the teachers of the Law, always looking for a way to make Jesus out to be a false teacher, jump on this and an argument ensues.

The fact that this situation has arisen at all is a bit surprising. Just a few chapters earlier in Mark’s gospel, we read that the Twelve were sent by Jesus two-by-two on mission journeys in which they “drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” (Mark 6:13) Yet, in our gospel lesson today, the nine apostles who had been on the flatlands while Jesus and the other three were in the heights, told the desperate father of a demon-possessed boy, “Sorry. There’s nothing we can do for you.”

What gives? Just this, I think. The disciples had been sent on their earlier mission by Jesus, empowered by Jesus to bring the good news and signs of His dominion over sin and death. But they’d derived the wrong message from their experiences. They developed not faith in Jesus, but faith in themselves. They’d come to assume that if they were good people or knew about Jesus or said the right words and went through the right motions--in other words, if they complied with certain religious rules--they could handle anything life brought their way. In other words, their faith was in their faith and not in Jesus. No wonder Jesus says, “You unbelieving generation,...how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” (Mark 9:19)

Jesus then calms the chaos and turns His attention to the boy and his father. “If you can do anything,” the father says to Jesus, “take pity on us and help us.” (Mark 9:22) Jesus sees his tentative faith. “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” These words of Jesus are often misconstrued. Jesus isn’t telling us we need to have a positive attitude. Or that we must have a monster, never-a-doubt faith. Nor does Jesus mean that we will necessarily get everything we want when we pray. Jesus Himself would later pray in the Garden of Gethsemane that somehow His work of saving us could be accomplished without His having to go to the cross and die. But He also tells the Father, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” Listen, friends: God hears our prayers offered in Jesus’ name when our faith is weak and when it’s strong. When we’re helpless enough to own our need of God, casting aside all thoughts of of placing faith in our faith or our virtues or our goodness, turning in desperation to Christ alone, our prayers have power. Self-confidence in faith or prayer is an oxymoron. Only prayer and faith that put their trust in Jesus, however weak our trust may be, is worthy of even being called “faith” or “prayer.” That’s why what the father says to Jesus next in our lesson is so powerful: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24) Now, that translation isn’t the best. More literally, he prays to Jesus: “I believe; rescue me despite my unbelief.” “I believe; rescue me despite my unbelief.”

Folks, let me tell you something you may have heard before: We are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone! Don’t let anyone tell you what you have to do to gain salvation or make sure God hears your prayers. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, has already done everything necessary for you to be saved from sin and death and to be a child whose prayers are offered to heaven in Jesus’ name. Baptized believers know that’s true! Faith is not a human decision, but a gift from God given to us through the Word and the Sacraments. We are not rescued from sin and death, nor are our prayers heard by God, because of our religious works or by our playing chicken with death like the snake-handler churches or doing some other religious ritual. Our prayers are not heard by God because we have a self-confident faith in our faith. We are daily called to be like the desperate man in today’s Gospel lesson, turning to Jesus in trust, whatever the deficiencies of our faith, and knowing that, since we cannot save ourselves, we need Jesus to save us: from sin, death, darkness, and ourselves. In these days, I can’t think of a more apt or necessary or truthful prayer that we could offer than the one one offered by the father today, the prayer Jesus heard and answered, “I believe; rescue me despite my unbelief.” You can be sure that the Savior Jesus Who has already died and risen for you, will hear such prayers and answer them. Amen

Remembering September 11

“After John [the Baptizer] was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:14-15)

September 11 reminds us of how temporary life is. The 3000-plus who lost their lives that day had no idea when they woke in the morning that it would be their last. The next moment and the next breath aren’t slam-dunks for any of us. The same is true for our neighbor. God’s call to each of us is to trust the Savior Jesus Who brings and Who IS good news: the forgiveness of sin and new, everlasting life for all who daily turn away from sin (repent) and believe in Jesus.

That good news consoles believers and gives them hope beyond the next moment or next breath.

It gives us the certainty too that the crucified and risen Savior is with us always, has the fate of all creation in His hands, and no matter what evil days befall us, those who trust in Him will never be separated from Him, not even in death.

Christians aren’t to seek out danger, death, or grief, of course. Jesus refused the devil’s temptation to jump from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem.

But even in evil days and circumstances, God’s promise is true: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved...” (Acts 16:31)

[The image above is from Reuters News Service: https://www.reuters.com/.../defining-images-from-the-9-11...]

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 12

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 11

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 10

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 9

Clean!

[The video below is the worship service of the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, yesterday morning. Below that, you'll see the transcript of the prepared sermon. Have a blessed week.]



Mark 7:14-23
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” (Mark 7:15)

These words would have been explosive to Jesus’ original hearers, undermining much of the false teaching they’d heard from their own religious leaders.

Jesus makes this statement after the confrontation with the Pharisees and Scribes we heard about in last Sunday’s Gospel lesson. There, the Pharisees and Scribes tried to chastise Jesus for allowing His disciples to eat with ritually unclean hands despite the “tradition of the elders.” After telling His accusers, “...you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down…” (Mark 7:13), Jesus, in today’s lesson, calls the crowd following His every move to come hear a statement that the Pharisees would have thought--and most people today were they to really think about it--would find deeply offensive.

The Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ day thought that all human beings were born sinless and clean. They thought that if a pure, sinless human being sinned, it was because of something outside themselves, what they called “a mother of defilement,” tripped them into it.

This, of course, is the opposite of what the Bible teaches about we human beings.

In Genesis, God says that “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood…” (Genesis 8:21)

And King David was compelled to confess of himself, “Surely I was sinful at birth…” (Psalm 51:5)

The Bible teaches and our experience should show that we do not have to be taught to be sinners or how to sin; it’s our nature to sin.

But we do like to think of ourselves as pure and clean. That way, whenever we do sin, we can blame it on someone else. That’s what sinners do.

“He hit me first…”

“They shouldn’t have made fun of me…”

“She shouldn’t have been wearing that revealing outfit…”

“My husband doesn’t understand me…”

“I come from a broken home…”

“The devil made me do it…”

In all of our excuses, we human beings pretend that we, innocent little lambs, would never do anything wrong, if it weren’t for our being misled, provoked, sinned against, enticed, or tested by some “mother of defilement.”

The Pharisees and scribes were so convinced of the intrinsic goodness of Jews, if not of the rest of the human race, that they misused the Laws of God. They turned the observance of these Laws into ladders by which people could climb to life with God, to righteousness.

But righteousness, or rightness with God, has never been something human beings could earn.

Righteousness has always been a gift God gives to those who trust in Him.

The Bible says of ancient Israel’s patriarch: “Abram [later Abraham] believed the LORD, and he [God] credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

As part of the Law God gave to His people, the Jews, God designated some animals as clean and others as unclean. The clean animals were those that could be used in offerings to God and for eating. The unclean animals could be used for neither purpose.

God didn’t make these designations because there’s something more sinful about a pig than there is about a lamb. God, in fact, gave the Jews these dietary laws for a different reason.

Back in 1970, Sparky Anderson became the youngest manager in major league baseball when he took the helm of the Cincinnati Reds. That was a period in which, even more than today, most players wore their hair long and had beards, sideburns, or moustaches. Early on, Anderson met with his players and asked them all to cut their hair short and lose their facial hair. He didn’t do this because he thought there was anything wrong with long hair or beards. He just wanted his team to look different from every other team in baseball. He wanted to set them apart.

God gave dietary ordinances to His people to set them apart from the rest of the world. Until the Messiah came into the world, the Jews were to observe these ordinances as signs that they were part of God’s team in and for the world’s salvation.

As Mark observes in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus has now abolished such laws.

And after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, He told Peter he could eat of any animal in the world, saying, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15)

The Pharisees and Scribes saw the observance of dietary laws not as something Jews did as a sign of their identity with God and His people, or as a sign of their gratitude for God’s grace, but as something they had to do to be holy, to be righteous. But as Jesus explains to the disciples in private in today’s lesson: “...nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them...For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (Mark 7:18-19)

Then, Jesus says: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them.” (Mark 7:20)

He then identifies twelve common human sins, six of them sinful behaviors and six of them sinful attitudes: “sexual immorality [that is, sexual intimacy or sexual behavior outside of marriage between a man and a woman], theft, murder, adultery [this is sex outside of marriage between those married to other people], greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly [this is foolishness or recklessness].” (Mark 7:21-22)

All of these sins have something in common, Jesus says.

They’re not caused by our diet or what we watch on the Internet or our TVs.

They’re not caused by the devil, other people, or the world, although each of these things may present us with enticements to sin.

And none of these sins come from God. God doesn’t make you commit the sins you like to commit.

No, the reason we sin, Jesus says, is very simple: “All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:23)

Now, people like the Pharisees and scribes, who think that they were born pure as newly-fallen snow must always look for something to make them right with God and their own consciences: a dietary law, a supposedly godly plan of self-improvement, another good deed, another act of penitence. All of these approaches lead either to a false sense of security in one’s own goodness or in despondence at the truth Saint Paul describes in Scripture: “what I want to do [a life of undefiled purity] I do not do, but what I hate [sin] I do.” (Romans 7:15)

Sin is an inside job and we there is nothing we can do to make ourselves clean.

Nothing that comes into us or at us from the world can make us unclean. We already are unclean. But there is One Who can enter our lives and make us clean!

Jesus cleanses all those who turn from sin and trust in Him of all their uncleanness.

The Bible tells us: “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Friends, we don’t need to simply be morally remodeled. Our sin isn’t like some minor traffic ticket for which we pay a nominal fine and go on our merry ways. Sin is who we are and our sinful nature warrants death, eternal separation from God. We need to die to our sin--as we do in Holy Baptism and every time we confess our sins to the Father in Jesus’ name.

When we die to sin, we rise in Christ. We become, by God’s grace, new people. If we walk with the God we meet in Christ, the Bible says, “the blood of Jesus, [God’s] Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

I recently finished re-reading a novel that I wish everyone would read. It was written by a Swedish Lutheran pastor and theologian of last century, Bo Giertz. It’s called The Hammer of God and shows in the stories of several pastors over three centuries how, like the Pharisees and scribes, even pastors--ministers of the Word and Sacrament--can turn the Gospel into a set of laws that rob people of life with God.

In the latter chapters of the book, an older pastor confronts a younger pastor because the younger one has become a popular preacher by telling people every week how they have to try harder, how they have to show their commitment to Jesus, how they need to work at being holy. Preachers can gain big audiences by feeding people self-centered religiosity.

The younger pastor is astounded when some of the parishioners who most fervently embraced his preaching and teaching became so certain of their own goodness and self-generated righteousness that they effectively abandoned Christ, His cross, and the good news that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. The young pastor himself became discouraged because he realized that he didn’t feel righteous or live sinlessly.

The older pastor said he would be interested in knowing what passages of the Bible the younger one underlined or noted in his reading.

There is a tendency among those who fall into thinking like that of the Pharisees and Scribes to do one of two things with their Bible notes and underlines. Either they note the things at which they feel they must do better or they note the perceived sins of rotten people they know.

But the older pastor issued a challenge. When you read the Bible, he said, make note and write in the margin two words, “For me.” Note the places in which God acts for you in Christ despite your sins and imperfections.

Christ took on human flesh for me.

Christ died for me.

Christ rose for me.

Christ instituted Holy Baptism for me.

Christ instituted Holy Communion for me.

Christ gives the gifts of repentance and renewal for me.

Your forgiveness, your life with God, your growth in faith: None of these things come to you by your efforts; they are gifts of pure grace from God.

Friends, Jesus is telling us two things today.

First, He’s saying, “Don’t be proud”: None of us is pure inside. We are all, at best, sinners saved solely by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This side of the grave we remain saints and sinners.

And, Jesus is also telling us, “Don’t be ashamed”: Jesus Christ bore your sins at the cross, He loves you with a passion that not even death could overcome, and all who trust in Him will never be put to shame. All who believe in Him will share in His resurrection.

By His blood, Jesus has made you clean and has covered you with His righteousness.

And to that, all of God’s people can say a relieved and joyous “Amen!”
 

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 8

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 7

The Real Law and the Real Gospel

Immediately below, you'll find video of this morning's worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. After that, you can read the text of today's message. Have a blessed week!



Mark 7:1-13
In seminary, we Lutheran pastors are taught that every sermon we preach must include both God’s Law and the Gospel.

God’s Law is anything that makes a moral demand upon us and reveals our sinful natures. God’s Law, distilled in Jesus’ Great Commandment--to love God completely and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, which itself summarizes the two tables of the Ten Commandments, shows us how God expects human beings to live and how far any human being is from keeping those commandments. God’s Law, from “You shall have no other gods before Me” to “You shall not covet [what is your neighbor’s],”  is meant to drive us to despair through recognition of the fact that we can never do enough or be good enough to merit entry into God’s Kingdom. God’s Law leads us to say, “I am lost and I need to be found!”

The Gospel, on the other hand, is what God has already done in Jesus Christ to save we sinners from the death and condemnation we deserve. The apostle Paul proclaims this Gospel--literally, this good news--when he says in Romans: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8) In other words, in Christ, God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves: Christ lives a life of utter obedience to God’s Law of love for God and love for neighbor, bearing the condemnation for sin we deserve, so that we can have life with God. As Paul also says in Romans: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) The Gospel leads us to confess that in Jesus Christ, we have been found!

So, what to do with today’s Gospel lesson, Mark 7:1-13?

In it, we find Jesus, going full-tilt Law on Pharisees and scribes--that is, supposed teachers of God’s Law--who have gathered around Jesus. Their probable motive is the same one they’ve had for previous encounters with Jesus: They want to make Jesus look like a fake teacher who violates and teaches others to violate God’s Word and God’s Law.

In just the previous chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has fed 5000 with five loaves and two fish, then walked on the raging waves of the sea, and healed countless people. These acts were leading some to declare Jesus the Messiah sent from God or even God Himself. For none of them did Jesus ask for money, power, influence, or anything else. But none of them caused the Pharisees and scribes to praise God or to extol Jesus as Savior.

Instead, the Pharisees were bothered by Jesus.

Specifically, they wondered why Jesus didn’t make His disciples wash their hands before dinner. They ask Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5)

Two points need to be made about this question.

First, the Pharisees aren’t interested in hygiene. They didn’t know about germs and couldn’t have cared less if they had.

That leads to the second point about the Pharisees’ and scribes’ question: The “law” they see Jesus’ disciples violating isn’t part of God’s Law at all. It’s actually part of what they themselves call “the tradition of the elders.” Essentially, they’re accusing Jesus and His disciples of blasphemy against God because they don’t adhere to a rule that’s part of the traditions handed down orally by Jewish rabbis.

Jesus will have none of this though. He cites words from God that make up part of the passage from Isaiah that’s our first lesson for today: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”

And then Jesus says, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” (Mark 7:8)

Jesus needs to go “full-tilt Law” on the Pharisees and scribes in order to remind them of what God’s Law actually says. We need to be reminded of that sometimes, I think.

A pastor once told me about a parishioner whose child was to be confirmed on Pentecost one year. The parishioner had come from a church where the confirmands marched into the sanctuary in the middle of the service like bridesmaids were once taught to walk down the aisle. When the pastor told this woman that wasn’t how they planned to conduct the service, she became incensed. Finally, the pastor told her that if the other parents in her child’s confirmation class wanted to do that, it was fine with him. He was trying to convey to her that it really wasn’t that important. When the other parents said they didn’t feel this tradition of her former church was really necessary, the woman went to the church council. When the council told the woman they saw no reason to mandate a “Here Comes the Bride” procession, she left the congregation, saying she was going to find a church where her child could “really be confirmed.”

We religious folks do have a tendency, as Jesus says, to “let go of the commands of God and [hold] onto human traditions.”

For the Christian, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with traditions as long as we don’t confuse them for the Word of God, the will of God, the Law of God.

The Pharisees were so hung up on doing things in what they thought was “the right way” that when the long-promised Messiah came into their lives, they spurned Him for not doing things “the right way,” their way.

But why do we do this, invent our own versions of handwashing laws or another Jesus mentions in our lesson that the Pharisees and scribes liked, refusing to take care of their parents and instead, piously giving extra money as offerings?

One reason we erect these fake religious laws is that, unlike God’s Law, we can keep the ones we make up. They’re within human reach. For the adult child in first-century Judea who would rather not give his parents any money, the Pharisees’ law was terrific. And, to take another example, the law about handwashing was easier to keep than God’s actual command to love God and love neighbor.

Another reason we religious folk adopt these law traditions is to look righteous, to appear to be good God-believing people. To make an impression on people. This is why Jesus uses the term hypocrites to describe the Pharisees and scribes. Hypocrite was the word in the Greek in which Mark wrote his gospel for actor. Jesus was saying that through their fake laws born of tradition, His accusers were play-acting at faith in God. But our relationship with God and our eternal salvation doesn’t depend on how we look to other people.

A friend of mine and I were talking the other day and agreed that one of the greatest gifts we’ve received through Christ is the freedom from being overly concerned with others’ opinions of us. There’s freedom in knowing that the only assessment of our lives that matters is the assessment of God. Those who think that God’s assessment of them depends on how they keep God’s Law or the expectations of others rooted in human traditions must either be left in despair or in a false pride that leads to hell. But those who know that God saves us through the Gospel live with joy even in sorrow and peace even in turmoil and calm, no matter what the world thinks of them.

Jesus perfectly keeps the actual Law of God we human beings can’t keep.

He dies as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

He rises from the dead.

He does all this to deliver everlasting life with God to all who repent and believe in Him.

Life with God is no more complicated than that.

We don’t need human rules to do what only Jesus has done for us.

And so, we are left again today with Jesus’ words from the Gospel of John: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29)

Jesus has been sent to you to bring you a life with God that begins now and is carried on to perfection beyond the grave. Neither God’s Law nor human traditions can save you for this life. Only Jesus can. Trust in Him. Amen