Compassion and Supply

 Mark 8:1-9

In those days again, when there was a great multitude and they had nothing to eat, He called His disciples and said to them, "I feel compassion for the multitude because they have remained with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to their home, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a distance."  And His disciples answered Him, "Where will anyone be able to find enough to satisfy these men with bread here in a desolate place?"

And He was asking them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven."

And He directed the multitude to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well.  And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.  And about four thousand were there; and He sent them away.

Sermon for Seventh Sunday After Trinity              07/19/26

Compassion and Supply

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Terrorism.  Shootings,  Rapes and murders.  It is all over the news.  We have a daily feed of this terror stuff and it seems most of the perpetrators are Moslems.

+The almost automatic reaction to all of this is to wonder where and when it will all stop.  When will we be safe?  When can we stop worrying about all of this terrorism stuff?  

There are two answers; one is theological and the other practical and more politically-realistic.  The second answer is "Never."  Islamo-fascism is here to stay.  The war they are fighting has been going on for at least 1400 years.  Luther mentions it in his writings.  As long as Islam exists, and other religions survive, the war against the infidel will continue.  Terrorism is simply the form it has taken for the last thirty years, and it shows no signs of growing less fanatical or committed.  This is the war between Islam and Christianity, and it will outlive us all - particularly when our leaders find it inexpedient to recognize it for what it is and call a spade a spade.

The first answer, the theological one, is that we can stop worrying right now.  It is in the hands of God.  The victory is already ours in Jesus Christ.  Nothing will happen - either to us or to our nation - except what God permits in order to accomplish His good and gracious will.  Our task is merely to be faithful in what we do and what we say and how we do it.  They - whomever "they" are - don't control things even as far as they like to think.  God is in charge – and God loves us!  In every time of need, He has compassion on us in our need - and He has the supply of that which we need.  That is the message of our Gospel this morning.  So, let us consider the Gospel with the theme, Compassion and Supply.

The Gospel doesn't start with anything nearly as urgent or frightening as the London bombings.  Jesus has been teaching the multitude - which, in this case, means about four thousand people.  Mark calls it a "great multitude."  This crowd has gathered to listen to Jesus and has been together for three days.  Jesus notes that they have nothing to eat.  This doesn't mean that no one has had anything for three days - but their food has run out.  Jesus recognizes the reality of the situation: they have been with Him for three days, they have nothing to eat, and some of them have come from quite a distance.  Some of them may not have eaten for several days, and Jesus is worried because some of them will collapse on their way home, if He doesn't feed them.

Seeing their need, Jesus feels compassion for them.  They didn't need great things.  They weren't in any great danger - just hunger.  It was a common, physical need, but Jesus felt compassion for them in their need, and supplied them with what they needed.  Hence our theme, compassion and supply.  He has compassion and He has the Supply.

And what a supply!  Jesus starts with seven loaves of bread – although "loaves" is a misnomer.  Their bread was probably those little flat pancakes of bread, an inch thick, or so, and probably six or eight inches across.  It wasn't slicing bread, it was hardtack and tear-off-a-hunk sort of bread.  The word for "loaves" in the Greek means literally, "bread", and nothing more.  So Jesus starts with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish, and He distributes the bread and the fish to His disciples, and they start handing them out to the crowd, as they sit on the ground.  The miracle is that they never seem to run out of bread or fish until everyone has some, and everyone has had enough.

One of the comments I read about this was that Jesus gave all of the food to His disciples.  He didn't keep any for Himself.  He gave them everything and they distributed it.  Whatever Jesus may have needed for Himself to eat was apparently shared with Him by His disciples from their abundance, which He gave to them.  I don't know if that is true because the Bible doesn't go into those details, so it wouldn't be fair of me to preach on them as though it were absolutely sure and settled and so it means something.  But it is an interesting thought.  Jesus gives us all that we need, indeed all that we possess, and then whatever He needs to work in the world today, He gathers from the sharing of His disciples today with Him.  It is our offerings and stewardship and serving one another and meeting the needs of the ministry among us that echoes this sharing of the bread and the fish by those first disciples.  He serves us and then waits for us to serve Him back.

Then Jesus asks His disciples to gather up the leftover fragments.  When they gather them, they fill seven large baskets with the left-over bread.  These seven baskets together are more than the leftovers in the twelve smaller baskets when Jesus fed the five thousand.  We know that by the names of the baskets in Greek.  The point of this detail is simply that they had more left over than they began with.  Jesus provided abundantly!  He had the supply!

The whole thing is sort of like God feeding the people of Israel in the wilderness during the Exodus with the Manna.

One lesson we can take away from our Gospel this morning is that food is no problem.  We never need to worry about that because God can feed us when there is little or nothing at hand.  We have trouble believing that, most of the time, because we trust our eyes and our judgment too much and trust God too little.  But supply is never a problem - and Jesus demonstrated that He is compassionate.  He has compassion even in regard to those things we need only for our physical comfort and well-being.  Physical supply is no problem - and there is no shortage of compassion either.  Compassion and Supply.

Now, that is the meaning of this miracle.  All of the commentators say so.  I could end the sermon right here.

But what would be the fun of that?  We can take this miracle as an illustration of a greater principle, too.  We have a need.  We are sinners, and we are justly under the sentence of death for our sins, if we look at things without Christ.  We are hungry for what Jesus alone can give - forgiveness and life and resurrection from the dead.  Is that what this miracle means?  No.  But what I just said about our need is true.

And Jesus has compassion.  If He is compassionate about physical hunger, we know - because He has revealed it to us - that He is genuinely concerned about our greater and more urgent need.  He is so concerned that He took on our human nature and flesh and blood and bore the burden of the law for us, so that He could die in our place.  He did not need to do any of it, but He felt compassion on us.  So He bore the burden of the Law, and then bore the burden of the wrath of God over against our sins..

That is what the Gospel is about.  Jesus died for us to bear the justice of God over sin and to bring us what we really need - salvation!  He has compassion and He has the supply - forgiveness, life and salvation!

If we want to take it a step farther, we can look at the miraculous meal, and see there a sign pointing our hearts to our own miraculous meal, provided by Christ, who gives to His servants the food which He has blessed, and makes it sufficient to feed them all - us - with His body and blood to refresh us so that we do not faint on the way.

It all of this part of the meaning of the feeding of the four thousand?  No.  Not really.  But every bit of it is true - He has had compassion on us, and He has supplied us with everything we need, and feeds us with a meal the likes of which no one else could feed us.  He gives us His body to eat and His blood to drink for our blessing, our forgiveness, our refreshment, and our salvation.  It is just as it was back there, only better. 

But the miracle teaches us that we need never fear need, or lack of anything.  Jesus knows our every need, and He has compassion, and He will supply all that we need.  His willingness to do this for strangers just because they took a few days off and listened to Him should embolden us.  He does this for strangers!  What will He be willing to do for His own people, chosen and precious, adopted into His household as brothers and sisters?

We have no need that He cannot see, and will not fill.  We might have to wait for it - like these people waited three days for the feast - but He will provide what we need.  All that is left for us is to be faithful.  Trust Him.  Learn from the example of the feeding of the four thousand, and live in the moments you are given to live in as though it is true, and Jesus can and will provide.  Live as though it is true, because it is!

What we face today is not a lack of groceries, but a world of Islamic terrorists and a culture increasingly hostile to our confession.  Nevertheless, we still have all that we need to do what Christ would have us to do.  We simply need to be faithful, and trust Him - and now and then offer to Him from the abundance He has given us whatever He may need to accomplish His work in the world around us.

Compassion and supply.  That is our Lord and Savior - and we are His beloved people.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Better than the Best

  Matthew 5:20-26

"For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER' and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.'  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

"If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.  

"Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.  Truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent."

Sermon for Sixth Sunday After Trinity                07/12/26

Better Than the Best

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Sometimes planning only makes things harder.  Have you ever noticed that?  As some of you know, I plan the services a month or more at a time.  I do that primarily to plan the hymns so our music people have time to make their plans.  It is more challenging to produce the music for the service than it might seem, if you have never participated in doing so.  When I plan the services, I read the text and try to plan the theme of the sermon - that is how I know which hymns to pick.

Usually this sermon-theme planning works out okay.  Sometimes, however, I come back to the text and discover that I overlooked something, or I cannot imagine what I was thinking of when I planned the theme that I put on the planning form.  The hymns are almost always appropriate - but writing the sermon can get to be a challenge, trying to fit into a theme I no longer see or resonate with.  I am sure you have had the same experience now and then, you know, reading a Bible passage and seeing one thing in it at one time, and reading it again weeks or months later and seeing something else, or something more -and wondering how you missed it earlier.

The reason for that is that the Word of God is living and active - according to the Bible itself.  God is at work through His Word, and He opens up certain things to us at the time we need them - as they apply to our situation at the moment.  It is the same Word, and it says the same things, and means the same things - but we just pick up on how it applies differently in different situations and according to the need of different moments.

I only mention that because each time I read our text for this morning, I see something more - something I either did not see earlier, or saw and dismissed from my planning, and cannot put out of my mind as I consider the text anew.  So, while we wrestle with this Gospel lesson, this morning, we will do so under the theme, Better Than the Best.

The theme came from the first sentence of our Gospel, "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  Although we carry a prejudice against the Pharisees because of the condemnation of Jesus, the truth is that they were pretty good people.  They were ultra-moral.  They were the most diligent of the Jews in minding the Law and keeping their religion's rules and regulations.  They were the kind of people that made others feel unclean by comparison, and they didn't have to brag about it to do so.  They did brag, but they didn't need to in order to make others feel less religious or less righteous.  They were really the Best.

Jesus didn't condemn them for keeping the Laws, but for their hypocrisy.  They were keeping the rules, but they had forgotten God.  They had the form of their religion, but they did not love God.  They didn't understand the rules they were keeping - or the reasons for them.  They were just about being the best without really thinking much about why or how their observance of their own religion matched up with the religion they were supposedly observing.  Some of them were masters of putting on a good show publicly, and accommodating every vice and lust without anyone seeing it.

Jesus knew the truth, however.  He saw their empty formalism.  He saw the pride behind doing outwardly and slavishly what God desired they do from their heart - out of love for their God and Savior.  The Pharisees didn't even call themselves "Pharisees".  That name means the "separated ones".  They called themselves "Haberim", meaning "The Associates" or "The Brothers".  Their public nick-name is the one that stuck, however, because they thought they were better than anyone else.  And, in terms of keeping the rules, they were.

And Jesus said "that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  You need to be better than the best.  Then Jesus goes on to sharpen the Law for us so that we understand that even if mere formalism were our goal, we would find it far more difficult than we might imagine.  It is not just enough, for example, to refrain from killing our neighbor.  We must also not speak ill of him or call him a rude name.  Even being angry is as bad as murder, but calling them a name or saying "You fool!" is enough to send you to hell.  The demands of the Law are far more exacting than we like to think.

They are so exacting that if we were to try honestly to measure up for ourselves, we would find ourselves failing miserably.  And that is the point of the Law.  It accuses.  The Law always accuses.  The law should always remind you forcibly that you are fit for hell, and you deserve no good thing from God whatsoever.  If you hear the Law preached and come away from it feeling pretty good about yourself, and think that you're not so bad after all, either I haven't done my job right, or you have not been paying attention.

So, just in case, listen up: the Pharisees were the very best at outwardly observing the Law and keeping the rule, and Jesus said that unless your righteousness was greater than that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  Note that Jesus did not say "might not" or that you could miss - but that you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  You've got to be better than the best. 

Then comes the part that jumps up and grabs me - the part I didn't think about before.  Jesus talks about making friends with your opponent at law.  "Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.  Truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent."

I have to confess that I have preached this as I have heard it preached in the past - reconcile with your brother now - you know, make hay while the sun shines.  But as I prepared to write this sermon, it just didn't fit.  The thought is okay, God would have us reconcile with one another - its just that it really never seems like that is what Jesus is getting at there.  He does that in the verses before, when He tells us to leave our gift at the altar and go and be reconciled with our brother before we present our gifts.  More than just saying, "God loves a cheerful giver," Jesus is saying there that God doesn't want anything from you - not offerings or worship or anything until you get right with your brother down here.  It is like where John writes, in 1st John, "If someone says, ‘I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."

Jesus tells us in our Gospel that we have no business even approaching God with anything standing between us and our brother - that is, a fellow believer.  He speaks there of reconciliation and setting things right man to man and woman to woman so clearly that it cannot be what He is talking about in these last verses of our Gospel.

Then it struck me, our ‘opponent at law' is God Himself.  The judge will be Jesus at the end, and jail from which we shall never escape ‘until we have paid the last cent' is hell.  Jesus is preaching the Gospel here, sort of.  He is saying fix the problem of sin while you are on the way - you know while you are alive, before you face God at the end.  But we cannot.  We need to be better than the best.  We need to be better than we can be, and each one of us has dared countless times to come before God with anger and hard feelings standing between us and someone else, even between ourselves and those who also profess faith in Christ.  So what are we to do?

Since we are lost already - and we cannot make friends with our opponent at law while we are on the way - we need Him to rescue us.  And that is precisely what He has done.  He took the entire burden of our sins and paid the price, bore the penalty, endured the wrath of God which was ours by right and by deserving.  Jesus did all of that on the cross with His brutal death, and He invites us to make friends by taking Him at His Word and trusting His promises and believing that because of His death, and it is proclaimed by His resurrection, our sins are fully and freely forgiven, and that He that believes and is baptized shall be saved!

How do you make friends?  Trust Him.  Take Him at His Word.  If you do, and you take that seriously, you have that righteousness which surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you have the righteousness of Christ by His gift and grace.  You are cleansed by the waters of Baptism, and you are filled with the righteousness of Christ by forgiveness and by the in-dwelling of Jesus Christ in you which you receive as you eat of His body and drink of His blood in the Holy Sacrament.  In Christ, you are declared by God to be better than the best – at least the best that man can accomplish by his own powers and natural abilities.

Our lesson this morning is a piece of the Sermon on the Mount.  Many people love the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus taught it and they interpret it as pure Gospel, somehow.  It is not.  It contains some of the sternest Law of the entire Bible.  Jesus made the Law more demanding and exacting and comprehensive – as He did in our Gospel lesson this morning – so that no one could misunderstand and dream that they could earn eternal life.  Obviously, that hasn't stopped most people – not even most who call themselves Christians – but you should not allow yourselves to be deceived.

The message this morning is, give up on yourself.  You are not good enough.  Throw yourself on God's mercy, and He will have grace and forgiveness and salvation for you, if you humble yourself and repent, and trust Him.  When you do, the Holy Spirit will work in you through Word and Sacrament, and your life will demonstrate the sincerity of your faith as He leads you to live a changed, repentant life.   Sadly, your life on this earth won't be perfect even then, but our life and our perfection is not our hope.  Our hope is built on nothing less that Jesus' blood and righteousness.  In Jesus Christ, and only in Jesus Christ, are we better than the best.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

The Joy of Salvation

 Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax-gatherers and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.  And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."  And He told them this parable, saying, "What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it?  And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'  I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!'  In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Sermon for Third Sunday After Trinity                                                06/21/26

The Joy of Salvation

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Most of my life I have heard about the joy of salvation.  Of course, it is only natural since I sang about it almost every Sunday for a great portion of my life in the words of the offertory, drawn from Psalm 51.  I remember the popular slogans of my youth, "J is for Jesus, J is for Joy!"  There was a great emphasis on the joy the Christian life.  It was the first real challenge to my life in faith because, frankly, I didn't feel all that much joy.  I still don't.

Some people do, or at least they seem to.  They smile a lot and talk about the joy of the Christian life.  I used to feel cheated, when I heard about all that joy and felt so little of it.  Then I read.  I read the Bible.  I read Luther.  I read the Confessions, and slowly it all began to make sense to me.  Our life in Christ is not about joy right now - not the "tickles your fancy and makes you want to dance a jig" kind of joy.  Our life in Christ is promised to be a life of suffering like Christ, of the hatred of the world, and of our being faithful in all circumstances, good or difficult.

Jesus talks in our text about joy over salvation.  He tells the parable of the Sheep that was lost and found, and the Coin that was lost and found.  It is a lesson about salvation and tells us about that joy.  Our theme, this morning, is the joy of salvation.

Before I go any farther, I want to be clear on this "feeling the joy" thing.  I have felt some joy, pure joy in my life over the faith.  For me, it is not a continuous experience.  It is not even a frequent thing.  Some people seem to have this on-going sense of wonder and joy of which they are conscious.  I want to do nothing to diminish that.  I don't want to be understood as discouraging it or judging it in any way negatively.  If your feel excitement and joy about your salvation, go with it and have a good time.  There is nothing even remotely wrong with feeling it.

According to all that I have been able to learn, however, most people don't have an on-going sense of joy in faith.  There is often peace, comfort in times of distress and fear, and a pleasant hope for blessings and life beyond death - but not too many people report joy as their constant companion in faith.  But some people tell us that we are supposed to feel it, and they (and others, at times) make many people think that they should be feeling it, and cause many people to wonder what they are lacking, and where they are deficient in faith because they don't have this constant awareness of joy.

One of the messages I want to deliver this morning is that there is nothing necessarily wrong with those who do not have that sense of joy.  The Bible does not promise it or command it, and Jesus tells us that we will have sorrow, suffering, and pain as our part in the Christian life.  What can be dangerous is the expectation of that joy, and the idea that we should be feeling it and if we are not, something is missing and we need to go out and find the feelings.  If mean, if you got ‘em, enjoy ‘em, but don't depend on them, and don't expect them, or make them the measure of true faith.  That expectation will betray you.  

The joy we will often possess is the quiet joy of the confidence that death is not the end, that we will see our loved ones, who also believed, again, and that our troubles are not outside of God's control or awareness, but we have a loving Father who will care for us, and that when the worst happens in this world, we have eternal life and peace and joy to look forward awaiting us at the end.  Not Yahoo! joy, but Ahhhhhh! joy.

The other message this Gospel lesson speaks of is the joy of salvation which has nothing to do with how we feel, but is the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.  The joy spoken of in our Gospel is the joy of God, and those who are His heavenly host, over the rescue of the individual sinner.

You might ask yourself at times, "How could God send His only-begotten Son to become one of us, to suffer and die in such an awful way."  Yes, He did it for us, and, yes, He did it for our salvation.  The cross is the sign of the love of God for us and of the payment Christ made for sins we have committed that we might be forgiven.  But how can anyone do such a huge and horrific thing?  This text begins to open the door to understanding, when we see the joy which God has over each and every one who repents.

We can understand the nature and the depth of that joy by thinking about the parable.  Imagine being a shepherd.  The sheep are not merely the job of the shepherd - not if he is a good shepherd.  They are his passion.  Sheep can be pets, as you get to know them, and they get to know you, and they are a form of wealth.  Sheep provided milk, and therefore cheese, and wool for clothing, and the very occasional meal of meat.  The more sheep you had, the richer man you were.  The man in the parable had one hundred sheep, and one of them was lost - a significant portion of his wealth and future earnings potential.  

When Jesus asked, "What man among you . . . ?", He indicated that this was not an unusual thing to do - probably not an unusual occurrence among shepherds.  He expected them to understand and maybe even feel the urgency of the search and the joy of finding the lost sheep.  We have each misplaced things of value and searched for them, and we know the relief and delight in finding them at last.  That delight and joy is the response of all of heaven over a single sinner who repents.  It is heaven's response because it is the joy of the Lord.

Generally, shepherds were men.  Jesus told the next parable to make the point clear even to a woman.  A woman would often be in charge of the family resources around the home.  A woman without a man, in that society, would be absolutely without a provider, so here resources would be far more important to preserve.  The size of the coin is not particularly important, but it is one tenth of what she has.  Losing it, she sweeps and cleans and does not cease to search until the coin is found, and when she recovers it, it is a cause of joy and relief and celebration.  That is what the joy of salvation is, for God in heaven.

"God loved the world in this way", says John in chapter 3, verse 16 of his Gospel, "He gave His only-begotten Son that anyone that believes in Him should not perish, but have life everlasting."  And having loved us with such a love, He delights and rejoices, as does all of heaven, when His love bears such fruit that a man or a woman repents and believes, and fulfills the goal and purpose of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Scholars debate whether the parables should be called the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin, or the Parable of the Found Sheep and the Parable of the Found Coin.  It really doesn't matter.  It is the explanation of Jesus for His taking the time to sit and fellowship with the sinners, the really unsavory people of His day.  It is the explanation of the great love of God for us that each of us, insignificant and weak and sinful as we are, bring such joy to all of heaven when we hear the Gospel, turn from our sins, and call upon God for grace and forgiveness. 

We are the weak and unsavory, over whom there is joy in heaven.  Each one of us was brought – one at a time – each in our own order and way – into the presence of God with joy.  The joy of salvation will one day be shared with us in a fulness we cannot comprehend right now, but today, we have reality of life here and now.  We have aches and pains.  We have sicknesses and troubles.  We have people telling us ‘doctrine doesn't matter', that ‘we are too picky about truth', that ‘there is no difference between the various religions because we all want to go to heaven, and we all believe in God in some way, and it is just a matter of insignificant particulars of doctrine'.  Besides, who knows which of us is right?

These are the tribulations and persecutions which we face today.  It could be better.  And it could be worse.  Our calling is not ‘to know all the answers to every question someone can dream up'.  We are not commanded to win every battle, or even understand why it is worth fight for.  Our call is to trust God, to take Him at His Word, and to be faithful.  We are to confess the truth we have been taught to believe, and know that when we do, and stand faithfully in His grace, God will do what needs to be done so that the joy of heaven will increase as one by one, sinners repent and find peace and forgiveness and life everlasting in the cross of Jesus Christ.

Don't look for the giddy ‘joy of salvation' that we hear much about in our society.  If you have it, enjoy it, but don't depend on it.  Depend on Jesus, and trust the Word of God even when life doesn't feel so good, and we are not having such a fun time.  No one said it was going to be easy, or that we would enjoy the ride.  God has only promised that He would make the journey down that narrow and difficult road that leads to salvation with us, and that when we arrive at our destination, we will find that it was well worth it to have remained faithful.

Peter, in our Epistle this morning, captured the same message:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.  Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.  And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

Jesus explained in our Gospel His willingness to spend time with sinners by telling His critics of the joy of God over each one of them that repented.  He has that same joy over each one of us.  As we confess the faith day by day, we search with Jesus for the lost, and, God willing, now and then we are the tools of causing even more of God's great joy in saving us, poor miserable sinners.

To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Setting Priorities

 Luke 14:16-24

But He said to him, "A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.'  But they all alike began to make excuses.  The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.'  And another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.'  And another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.'

"And the slave came back and reported this to his master.  Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.'  And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.'

"And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.  For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.'"

Sermon for Second Sunday After Trinity                                         06/14/26

Setting Priorities

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

"First things first."  That is the saying I have heard all of my life.  It is all about setting one's priorities.  For most of my life, the temptation has always been to do everything first but what needed to be done, and then to do that only when confronted by a deadline.  I have had a great deal of success managing things by facing a deadline - and I have often found it difficult to organize myself and motivate myself to do things before they needed to be done.  When I am really under the gun, I often find myself helplessly drawn to read a good book, further increasing the pressure to get things done.  One might suspect that I have trouble setting priorities.

But I do not.  I know what is important, generally, and I always have my eye on the ball, so to speak, even if I don't seem to be paying any attention at all.  My seeming inattention is simply how my brain works and organizes things.  So far, I have never shown up for church without my sermon ready, the paper I was to deliver in hand, or my assignment incomplete.  If it sounds strange to you, how I approach things, imagine how it seems to me, since this is not a conscious avoidance thing.  It just works that way.

The people in the story Jesus tells have lost their sense of priority, or they have set their priorities poorly.  Jesus tells us this parable to focus on two aspects of the story - the ones who were invited, but did not come, and the response of the man who was giving the dinner to the casual disrespect of his invitation.  Israel was the invited guests, and the host is God, the dinner is salvation, and we are the ones along the highway and in the hedges, the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.  Our theme is Setting Priorities.

To be honest, the parable is not properly understood without the context of the entire chapter of Luke in which it appears.  Jesus is facing a test at the home of Pharisee to which He had been invited to eat.  They bring a man in to see if Jesus will heal him on the Sabbath.  Jesus asks them for their judgment in the situation, and they refuse to speak, so He heals the man.  Then Jesus explains His action by asking them about which one of them would allow an ox or a son to fall into a well on the Sabbath, and not rescue it or him?  Clearly, it is an issue of priorities: Sabbath Law or Ox or son?  Just as clearly, Jesus expects them to choose the ox or the son, but to say so might be seen as blasphemy, so they keep silent.

Then Jesus talks about humility.  He advises that they not seek the place of honor when invited to a dinner, but take the lowest seat, and allow themselves to be honored by being moved up, rather than shamed by being made to give the place of honor to someone else, and be humiliated.  Of course, there are risks with humility.  Your host might not see anything amiss in your taking the place of least significance, and then you will find out where you really belong, in his estimation.  The question is, which is more important, the place of honor with the risk of embarrassment, or the opportunity for recognition and honor with the risk of finding out that you do not merit any - but without the humiliation before others?  Again, it is a question of setting priorities.

Then Jesus tells the man who had invited Him that when he gives a luncheon, he should not invite family and friends, people he would like to impress who might also return the kindness of his invitation, but rather invite those who would have need of the invitation, and no means to repay his kindness - the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.  Jesus says that such kindness would be repaid by God at the resurrection.  This presents another setting of priorities - good times and good will here and now, or later with the Lord.

At this point in the narrative, someone spouts off with the seemingly out-of-place comment, "Blessed is everyone who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!"  I have kind of puzzled over that for a while, but I never got too intense with it because it was the verse just before our Gospel text for this Sunday in the Church Year, and I was always wanting to preach about the invitation, and our gracious inclusion in the banquet of salvation.  Still, it was an odd interjection.  At first, I thought the person was crying out some odd praise of God and of salvation, but the more I thought about it, the less it seemed to fit.  Why say that now, in this place in the story?  And why, in seeming response to the outburst, does Jesus tell the parable of the banquet spurned?

Then it struck me.  It is just like when I preach about how rich we are, and how God gives us our riches for His purposes, and I get the sort of responses that say, 

"There is nothing wrong with my going on vacation, 

or owning nice things, 

or visiting my children in another state.  

When you preach about how we use our time or our things, Pastor, you make me feel guilty.  But I have every right to do with my life and my possessions what I please.  You can't tell me I have to do this or that to go to heaven." 

Of course, I cannot - and I really do not want to.  That would contradict the Gospel.

Jesus was talking about priorities, and confronting how everyone tends to deal with life, and with one another, and with God.  He was explaining how God looked at things - the divine values and priorities, and the guy who shouted out the "Blessed is everyone who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" was trying to excuse their priorities, and dismiss what Jesus was saying by saying "We are all going to eat bread in the kingdom, and no one is going to be unhappy to be there, so what difference does it make if do this or that, how we manage the little stuff, or how we treat the poor?"  It was a "Just get off our back!" kind of thing.  Being Jews, you know, the Chosen People, they knew they were going to go to heaven, and they really wanted to pay more attention to life on earth, right now, and worry about heaven once they got there.

Jesus' response said, in effect, that might be true for those who are going to heaven - but how do you know that you are going to make it?  Jesus took the presupposition which lay behind the man's statement, and showed him the truth about it and what it meant.  Israel - as individuals, not as the entire nation - lived more or less just as the man had asserted.  They lived like so many of us twenty-first century Christians live today; taking God and eternity for granted, and making the most of the day we live in, but according to the purposes of the flesh, not according to the purposes of God.

The moment came - and it is never at convenient time that it comes - and the call went out, the dinner is ready, everything is prepared, come to the feast.  But those invited - the Chosen People - found themselves too wrapped up in the affairs of life to heed the invitation.  The one was busy with land he had purchased.  The next was occupied with oxen - five yoke of ‘em.  The third was newly married.  Who could deny them the right to business, wealth, or family?  Surely, they had every right, and it was all God-given, so no one could say it was evil gain or something they ought not to have or ought not to be doing.  Still, when the call to the dinner came, the dinner took second place to the other things.

Was the dinner less important to them?  I don't think so.  Did they not care about the dinner?  I would guess that is not true either.  It was just a matter of priorities.  Israel had gotten so wrapped up in living in the blessings of God that they lost sight of both the Giver and of the purpose of the gifts.  The land, the oxen, and the wife were more real and more urgent to them than God and salvation.  They didn't say they didn't want God or eternal life, they just wanted them on their terms and when they were ready.  They had forgotten that love and hate in the sight of God is not the same as it is in our thoughts.  With God it is a matter of setting priorities, and anything preferred to or more urgent than God means you love that thing and despise God.

Because they found everything more urgent and real than God and faith and salvation, they were found to be unworthy - and God went out and dragged the socially unworthy in and gave them the banquet.  You and I are those blind, crippled, lame, and worthless people who just happen to have stumbled into the riches of eternal life and salvation.  We did not find it or choose it, but we were found in the hedges and the back-alleys of life and compelled to come in.  That is the grace of God.

Jesus prepared the feast of salvation by His death on the cross for our sins, and dragged us into the dinner hall without asking for our consent.  See, the banquet rests on the table before you this morning!  Here is life and salvation, forgiveness and peace, and resurrection and joy.

Of course, now that we have become the chosen ones, we also run the risk of taking it for granted, and finding other things more exciting - and more urgent - and more pleasurable, and skipping the meal anyhow.  But this parable does not tell you ‘to beware', it tells you of the wonderful grace of God in bringing you into this banquet of life and salvation, so that you may rejoice and give thanks!  Still, we can see what ‘taking it for granted' can lead to, or rather, lead away from.

It is about setting priorities.  The argument about priorities is not with me, or with Jesus.  It is an argument with your flesh.  God will not be put in second place, and salvation will not wait for you to exercise your perfect rights as an American to have and to do and to go and to enjoy.   If there are more urgent things in your life, well, then there are more urgent things in your life.  We ask nothing you cannot freely give or do.  The Lord loves a cheerful giver.

But remember, while everyone in heaven is going to be delighted to be there, not everyone who thinks they are going will be in heaven.  Those who take it so much for granted that they can count other things more precious or more urgent run the risk of finding that the call to the banquet that they were waiting for came while they were busy with something else - too busy to come to the banquet.

Look at what you've got.  Count the blessedness of being dragged in, unworthy though we are, to the banquet of Salvation.  Give thanks, and keep your wits about you.  You are chosen for something you don't deserve, but you really want and need.

 Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren.  He who does not love abides in death. . . .  We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  . . .  Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Therefore, Pray!

John 16:23-28

"Truly, truly, I say to you, if you shall ask the Father for anything, He will give it to you in My name.  Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.  These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will speak no more to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.  In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father.  I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again, and going to the Father."

Sermon for Rogate Sunday                                                             05/10/26

Therefore, Pray!

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There are few Bible passages that have caused the kind of confusion that our Gospel lesson has.  Jesus speaks to His disciples about prayer, and what He says sounds to some ears as if Jesus is giving us the authority to use God like a catalog - you phone in your request and, shazam!, there it is, delivered right to your door.  That isn't exactly what Jesus is saying.  It is, however, about prayer, and about our relationship with God the Father.  Jesus does promise to answer to every prayer, so our theme, this morning, is what the text finally says to us - Therefore, pray!

Part of the problem with under-standing the text is the translation we use.  It says, "If you ask the Father for anything, He will give it to you."  All of the translations tend to sound the same - some use the word "Whatsoever" instead of "anything", but it tends to come across in the English as a broad guarantee that we can get anything and everything from God simply by asking.

And we can!  The fact that I have to point that out is part of what makes this so difficult to understand for so many people.  But Jesus was not promising that we will get everything we can conceivably pray for.  That is where the language barrier still stands in our way sometimes.  Jesus was not promising that anything we asked would automatically be given as much as He was promising that every prayer would be answered, that God the Father was listening to our prayers, and wanted to hear our prayers, and that we could count on God the Father just as we have counted on Jesus Himself.  Jesus was also actually subordinating Himself to the Father.

Remember that Jesus was speaking to His disciples.  We are the recipients of the promises, but we were not the original audience.  Those disciples were accustomed to Jesus, in the flesh.  This text comes in the middle of Jesus warning them that He was going away, and they would not see Him, and their hearts would know sorrow on account of that.  These disciples were accustomed to asking things of their Master - and receiving something in response.  They were not accustomed to asking for motorized toys, or even candy bars, but when they asked Jesus a question, He answered.  When they wanted to eat, they got to eat - now and again they ate miraculously.

Jesus was telling them that when He was gone from among them, they were going to have the same relationship with the Father that they had with Jesus.  They would not be praying to Jesus, but to God, and He would deal with them just as they might expect Jesus would.  He would answer.  Whatever it was that they needed, God the Father would provide.  Jesus even made the point that He wasn't going to have to intercede with the Father for them, in order to get what they needed, but the Father Himself would listen and answer their prayers because He loved them!

He loved them because they believed.  In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father.  Jesus takes His place behind the Father - we call that the subordination of the Son to the Father - and God the Father deals with us, just as lovingly and just as intimately as Jesus did with His inner circle of disciples.  He loves us because we love Jesus and believe God's Word about Jesus.  Praying in Jesus name doesn't here mean just stapling the name onto our prayer, but praying to God on account of Jesus 

– because we know what He did 

– and because we know why He did it 

– and because we know what it means for us and our relationship with the Father.  

– It is, in other words, a prayer which flows from a heart of faith.

Jesus tells us these things for our comfort and our peace of mind.  Life is not going to be comfortable at all times, and we will be tempted to despair.  Jesus tells us of the Father's love for us so that we will be able to approach any situation with faith in Him.  More than just comfort, Jesus says He wants us to know this that our joy may be full.  Our joy is filled up by trusting what we know, and by making use of what He teaches us.

What we know is the Gospel.  We know the reality of sin.  We know how frequently we go our own way, and feel as if we can handle life without considering Jesus.  The verses just preceding our text talk about how the disciples will have sorrow, but the world will have joy, but then our sorrow will be turned to joy.  Jesus uses the image of a woman in labor; the pain before, the joy afterwards.  That is how the gospel works in us and for us.

While we live in this world, we have the joy of the Gospel, but the sorrow of the hatred of the world, and the sorrow of our own sinful flesh longing and lusting for sin.  We have the sorrow of guilt and of the knowledge of our sins.  The world has no problem with sin.  It rejoices in sin.  The world loves to lead us to sin for it understands on a primal level that sin separates from God.

Of course, when I speak of the world as a sentient being, I am not referring to grass and trees, but to the society of men under the guidance of the "ruler of this world," as Jesus described the devil.  Men have consciousness and intelligence, and so does the leader of all those who live without Christ.  He leads and plans, and so do those who follow him.  That's where persecutions come from.  We have been safe from persecutions, in this country, at least open and overt persecutions, but that time is coming to an end.  

I read this past week or so, an on-Line  column about the senseless and growing violent hatred towards Christians in this country - coming from the Main Stream Media, certain politicians, and the intellectual elites.  There was a report about the Biden administration deliberately targeting Christians: "The Biden DOJ aggressively targeted and harassed Christians, privately called them "CULTISTS" and sought out HARSH prison sentences for peaceful protest." It is growing.  Strong language and virulent aspersions are aimed with increasing frequency and energy at just-plain-old-fashioned Christians.  We are called ignorant, demented, backwards, dangerous.  Our intelligence is impugned in speeches and in print.  We are accused of doing things we don't do, of trying to commandeer the country and force our values on the world.  We are likened to Hitler, accused of being insane, and pictured as an enemy that must be eradicated - and this by people who don't think that Islamic terrorism is really a big problem in the world.  

Jesus said the world would hate us.

Those who spew such hate language at us are "the world" of which I speak.  They have effectively removed historic Christianity from the public square in our culture, and they want to silence anyone that might bring a Christian perspective into the arena of politics or government policy or education.  Think of Assassination attempts against President Trump ands the successful assassination of Charlie Kirk.  They have likened the humble confession of the Christian faith - or Christian-based morality - to terrorism.  They make the lives of God's people difficult and bitter, as in, the disappearance of religious symbols from the streets and buildings of our towns, and hearing our current president castigated for speaking about being a Christian and viewing his responsibilities as president from a Christian faith perspective.

The sorrow we know now is the sorrow of the cross.  It includes our sins, and the sins of those around us, and the displeasure of the world - even that part of the world that calls itself our friends, our family, or, sometimes, fellow Christians.  The joy the world knows is the joy of seeing the influence of Christian thought and morality diminish.

It is in the face of these pains and pressures that Jesus reminds us that we are not alone, nor are we bereft of any help.  Just as He would stand up for His disciples and speak against the hostility of the world toward them, and give them peace, and provide for them - so will our heavenly Father do for us.  He gives us the promise that God will listen to us and answer any and every prayer.  "If you shall ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My name.  That is, He will listen to every prayer, and answer it just as Jesus would - not necessarily giving us every single thing we might think to include in a prayer, as though He were an on-line catalog service, but guiding us, blessing us, protecting us, and providing for our needs, and helping us in every trouble and in every circumstance.

Our joy now is that we are never alone, and never without resources.  We have God standing here, ready to hear, eager to answer, promising help and supply in every need.  He promises all of that to us because He loves us.  He loves us particularly because we love Jesus, we believe in Him and hold to Him and serve Him and call ourselves by His name, and stand with Him for blessing, or for the abuse and hatred of the world.

And how could we do anything other?  We are filled with Him.  We are in Christ and Christ is in us, and we stand in the world as Christ, with His holiness and with His glory, 

– and with His power.  We have His Word.  We eat His body and drink His blood.  We love with His love, and we suffer the hatred of the world for Him.  And the heavenly Father loves us and desires to help us stand faithfully in Him and in His love.

Of course, our joy will finally be made complete on the great day of the Lord, when He shall bring us to Himself, body and soul reunited and outfitted for eternity.  And He gives us this privilege and power of prayer so that we may stand firm, and may finally taste that ultimate joy.  And knowing the truth of all of these things, our theme this morning is, Therefore, Pray!

Use this gift of God and call upon Him in every need, and never doubt that God desires your prayers, and He will listen, and He will answer with everything you need, and all that will be of blessing for you.  After all, it part of your birthright and inheritance as the child of God in Jesus Christ.  It is comfort when you need it.  It is power when you need that.  It is the source of wisdom and a fountain of strength and protection from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in a world stacked against you.

Therefore, pray.  Pray often.  Pray with confidence.  Never give up on prayer.  Take advantage of the love of God for you - because that is precisely what He wants you to do.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Do Not Be Amazed!

 Mark 16:1-8

And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him.  And very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.  And they were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?"  And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.  And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed.  And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified.  He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.  But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He said lo you.'"  And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Sermon for Easter Sunday                                                     04/05/26

Do Not Be Amazed!

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

He is Risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

How exciting that first Easter must have been!  And yet the women were filled with fear -- so much fear that they did not tell anyone what they saw, at least not right away.  They did not do as the angel told them.  They were confused - such a quick trip from the deep grief to the excitement of the resurrection.  And they saw the angel, and they were amazed!

Amazement is always the response of humanity when it sees God at work!  The angel told them not to be amazed - not that this was not God at work among us, but that this is what Jesus came for, and this is what Jesus promised would happen, and this is what we ought to have expected.  But we did not, and they did not.

It seems a little silly telling twenty-first century Christians not to be amazed on Easter.  I mean, who is?  We have seen this day come and go for years - and our families, often, for centuries.  What is there to amaze us?

That is a good question, and one that we will answer this morning.  It should amaze us that all of this Gospel stuff is true.  God is not like mankind always pictures Him, when they depart from the book.  He is not a God who demands human sacrifice.  He is not the sort of God that wants to make man miserable.  He is not a God of caprice, like the ancient Gods of the Romans and the Greeks, who came to earth with human lusts and human weaknesses and overweening pride.  Nor is He distant from us and disinterested in us.

These are the evil things man imagines about God, depending on whether his experience of life is good at the moment or pain-filled and frustrating.  We should stand in utter amazement at God, He is loving.  He is just.  He has granted us nearly perfect autonomy of action, even though we are totally dependent on Him and His blessings.  He is intimately involved in our lives.  And He balances all of these seemingly contradictory attributes while blessing us and protecting us.

We abused our autonomy in order to reject Him who is life and well-being.  We sinned.  We need to understand that we have no way to comprehend the depth of the offense of sin against His holiness, and we sinned by direct rebellion and rejection of Him even though we need and depend upon Him daily. That rejection is called sin, and it is evident in our gossip, in our easy and unprovoked angers, in our lies, and in our wickedness toward one another, all of which should have brought us immediate and eternal death.  We had spurned and rejected Him who gives us life and all things.

But God loves us.  We should be amazed at that, all by itself.  He loves us not only so much, but in such a way that He found the way to punish our sins with death and so maintain His perfect justice, and yet still preserve and save us.  That is what Jesus accomplished.  In point of fact, God did require human sacrifice, because He had declared that the soul that sins shall die.  And, to accomplish both His justice, and our salvation, God laid upon Jesus the sins of us all, and put Him to death in our place.

On Easter morning, the one we celebrate today, and every Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead.  His rising was God the Father s declaration for all who would see it that Jesus was the perfect substitute, and that the payment was accepted, and that our sins were forgiven, and that God was freely bestowing the gift of salvation and eternal life on all who would take Him at His Word, believe what He proclaimed about Jesus and promised in connection with Him and His life and His death and His resurrection and trust Him.

We should be amazed at the love of God.  What a price He paid to redeem us from our own sin and rebellion!  What a marvelous and incontrovertible sign of His love He has given to us. What glorious evidence of forgiveness and life everlasting He has provided in the resurrection.

We should be amazed that it is true!  Who has ever seen a resurrection? Ordinarily, the dead stay dead!  But the message of the resurrection of Jesus is that they will not stay dead forever.  These all will rise body and soul, just as Jesus did.  We, too, shall rise!  Jesus rose - all the scoffing of the skeptics aside.  Jesus rose, teeth, hair, bones and all!  He rose to show us what rising from the dead will be like, and to demonstrate the truth of the promises.

We shall rise one day, body and soul reunited.  We shall be whole and well and alive for eternity, on that day.  We shall be ourselves and recognizably so.  Christians often celebrate Easter in a cemetery because the cemetery looks to be our final and utter defeat, and yet it shall be the field of our victory in Jesus Christ on that last day.

The world has long denied that Jesus rose.  The Jews said the body was stolen, just as the Bible reports they did.  Unbelievers inside the church and outside of her have said that it never happened.  But we have the eyewitness reports.  We have the testimony of hundreds, encapsulated here on the pages of Scripture.  We have the reluctant testimony of the Jews - the grave was empty and they did not have the body! We should be amazed that it is true!

We should be amazed that we can look at the details of the most exciting story in human history and not cry aloud with joy and praise to God for all that He has worked for us!  Or perhaps we should be ashamed that we can look at such wonderful gifts and promises, so clearly witnessed and proven, and yet we are often not brought to shouting our joy and triumph!  Our sins are paid for and forgiven – taken away, and nailed forever to the cross in the body of Jesus.  We have evidence of eternal life beyond death.  We have the promise of God that we too shall rise.  We should be amazed, and thrilled, and shouting for joy, He is risen!

Do not be amazed, the angel said.  What he meant was, You should have known.  You should have expected this.  He told you Himself.  Those words apply to us too.  We should not be surprised.  We should, however, be delighted and rejoice this morning.  Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, first-fruits of those who believe.  We too shall rise!

Let us rejoice this Easter morning!  He is Risen!  He is risen Indeed!!  Hallelujah!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

The Passover Is Here

 Exodus 12:1-14

Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers  households, a lamb for each household. Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israelis to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. And they shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. 

Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste-- it is the LORD S Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments – I am the LORD. And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.

Maundy Thursday 4/02/2026

The Passover Is Here

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This evening we commemorate and celebrate one of the most often remembered, and most often disregarded days of the life of Christ.  We mention it, although we rarely think about this day, even when we speak of it, every time we speak the Words of Institution in preparation for receiving the gift of God in the Sacrament.  We say, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the same night on which He was betrayed, . . .".  That night was tonight, what we now call Maundy Thursday.  It was the night that the Lord left us His last will and testament in this supper.

We often ignore the fact that this holy supper took place in the context of the celebration of the Passover.  I mean, we know it happened that way, but unless a pastor preaches about it, we tend to ignore that fact.  The Passover was Jewish.  We are Christians.  End of story.

But the Passover is here! Jesus did not intend to end or supersede the Passover celebration.  He intended to fulfill it and to fill it with even deeper significance.  He established the Passover as a memorial to be celebrated as a feast to the Lord as a permanent ordinance.  Those words are all from verse 14 of our text.  Jesus did not intend to end the Passover, but to fulfill the type and give it greater meaning and to allow His people to celebrate the fullness of the true Passover.

Our text lays out the first Passover.  It tells Moses how to instruct the Children of Israel to prepare for the night when the Angel of Death would visit Egypt and end the life of the first-born of every womb – man or beast, except those who were in dwellings marked with lamb s blood on the door frames.  Those he would "pass over" and spare the lives of the first-born within.

Moses was to instruct them on how to prepare the lamb (they cooked it whole, with head and fur, and guts inside -- roasting it over an open fire).  They were to be careful not to break any of its bones.  They were to eat it dressed for travel – with cloak on their back and staff in hand, and sandal on their feet, for it was a meal of haste.  They were to have unleavened bread, because they would not have time for bread to rise.  They were to eat it with bitter herbs (today they often use horseradish) to symbolize the bitterness of their bondage in slavery in Egypt.

The Passover meal was to be the reminder for them of the saving acts of God, rescuing them from bondage and giving them their homeland.  It was a reminder of His power, and of how suddenly He accomplished what had seemed impossible just days before.  It was a reminder of what they had left behind so that they would not desire to go back.  It was part of what made them a people of the covenant.  If they did not participate, they were not Israel.  If they were not Israel, they were also not allowed to participate.

Over the centuries, a ritual arose and evolved around the Seder.  It evolved into a much more elaborate meal with symbolism to instruct the young and remind the older ones of the great truths of their faith.  They stopped eating the Seder standing, and reclined at table.  They developed the ritual of the Afikomen - or "after meal" – a dessert type ritual dealing with broken and hidden Matzoth.  They developed the custom of the four cups of the Seder.  But the essence remained – the bread of haste, the sacrificed lamb and the message of the great saving work of God.

Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples on the same night in which He was betrayed.  He did more than celebrate it, however, He changed it.  With His coming, and with the events of the next seventy-two hours, the foreshadowing function of the Passover would be complete.  The Passover Lamb would be replaced by the Paschal Lamb.  Instead of the lamb of the Passover shedding his blood for the lives and safety of the Children of Israel, as God worked their salvation from slavery in Egypt, the Lamb of God would shed His own blood for the sins of the world and to redeem and save all men from bondage to sin and captivity to death and hell.  The Passover meal would never again require a lamb to die.  The symbol was superseded by the reality.

Jesus took the unleavened bread of the seder, and gave it new significance.  Some suspect that it was the afikomen, the piece of Matzoth broken and hidden early in the meal, only to be found and enjoyed later.  Jews who have become Christians see the death of Jesus in the breaking of the afikomen, and the burial of our Lord in the hiding of the afikomen, and the resurrection in the "finding" of the afikomen at the end of the meal.  Jesus took the sacred bread of haste, and proclaimed that it was His body, and commanded His disciples to "Do This" – often – in remembrance of Him.

Jesus then took the third cup of the Seder.  We know it was the third cup because it is placed after the meal – when He had supped (in the King James s English).  St.  Paul called the third cup "the cup of blessing." That is because they spoke a special blessing over the third cup at the traditional Seder.  The third cup was known as the "Cup of Redemption."  It had come to symbolize the blood of the Passover Lamb, and commemorated God s saving acts, and His will to save.  This is the cup which Jesus declared was now His blood – blood shed for each of us for the remission of sin.  Then Jesus commanded that we do this also – often – in remembrance of Him.

This Holy Meal we receive, of which we commemorate the establishment particularly on this evening, is the Passover.  It is not the Passover of the Angel of Death in Egypt which we commemorate, however.  It is the Passover of the angel of death and eternal damnation which we celebrate.  In Jesus Christ, the death which we have earned in sin has been passed over, and we have been redeemed and rescued.  The bondage to sin and Satan and Hell has been broken and ended for all who believe.  The bread of haste has become a koinonia – a participation together in the very body of Christ and in all that Christ has won for us.  It establishes our unity and oneness, and our eating of it declares to all the world that we are united in this faith and in this salvation.

The Cup of blessing which we bless is no longer merely wine, but it is also filled with the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross for our blessing and salvation.  The cup of redemption of the Seder has become more than a mere symbol, it is the cup of redemption, filled with forgiveness of sins and salvation for those who drink of it knowing what it truly is and trusting in the promises of God in connection with it.  This cup is also a communion– a participation together in the blood of Jesus Christ and in what that blood has done and can do.

This is the Passover.  We no longer need to kill a lamb for it, for the Lamb of God is here, in, with, and under the bread and the wine with His true body and blood for us and for our salvation.  We still eat the Lamb, but in and under the form of the elements of this holy meal.  It still reminds us of our rescue, and it works in us the rescue of which we are reminded.  It still points to the promised land – only ours is the new heavens and the new earth of eternal life.  It still makes us part of the people of God.  Paul writes, 1 Corinthians 10:17 "Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread."  It is our sharing in this one bread that establishes our unity in Christ.  

This is the truly ecumenical meal, for all who believe share in it, and only those who share in our faith are welcome to it.   As with the Passover of ancient Israel, the outsider who partakes incurs the judgment of God, Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.  But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.

Modern Christians sometimes say that this is "What is left of the Passover." I say that it is the whole of the Passover and more.  It has been called the "Medicine of Immortality," for by receiving it we are healed of sin and death, and prepared for everlasting life and glory.  It is the cure for sin, for it brings forgiveness of sins to the believer, and in so doing heals him from death, and imparts even to his flesh the power of the resurrection to glory.

The Passover is here! It continues as a memorial and a feast to the Lord.  It defines who we are, and marks us as the people of God.  It serves to hold before our eyes the saving acts of God, For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup.  you proclaim the Lord s death until He comes.   It is, in every respect, the Passover meal of the true Israel of God, the children of the promise.  Come, eat and drink and celebrate the Passover with your Lord!

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say "Amen.")

The Nature of Sin

 1 John 1:8-10

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Good Friday                                               4/03/2026

The Nature of Sin

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

Tonight we close our series of sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins, also called the Seven Cardinal Sins.  We close it by discussing the nature of Sin.  But first, we might ask, "why the seven deadly sins?"  Where did they come from?  Why did anyone come up with a list like this?  It is never mentioned in Scripture.  

Well, over the centuries, the people of God had noticed that most sins fed on other sins, and that our sinfulness feeds on the doing of sins and grows stronger in the presence of sin.  There are countless stories where evil runs amok until it burns itself out where there is no other evil to feed on.  I have even seen a movie in which the evil protagonist was finally isolated in a sphere of pure goodness (something you can only do in a movie!)  and died screaming because it was alone.

All fiction aside, sin feeds on sin.  One evil makes the sinner bold to commit an even greater evil.  The story is common, even in our newspapers, of the murderer who also commits other senseless acts of evil, simply because it is his nature.  Evil feeds on evil and breeds evil.

And certain evils seem to underlie all other evils.  Pride seems to be an element of most sins.  Greed can be often found in many sins.  Envy, or gluttony, or sloth, or anger: they all join together in strange and exotic combinations to make up the component parts and the causes of other sins, such as murder, rape, or theft.  So these most common – and generally least objected to sins – came to be focused on as the deadly sins.  Its not that the other sins are any less deadly, but these were the ones fewest were on guard for.  These seven are "only human."  Except in their grossest forms, we rarely hear anyone object to them.  They are rarely thought of as sinful, let alone described as great sins.  Some Psychologists will call them the necessary components of a healthy personality.  Sometimes we even hear them described as though they were virtues!

But the problem is Sin.  Sin is that strange, inexplicable yet omnipresent "thing" that spoils life, sours relationships, and wreaks havoc in our societies.  Sin is the enemy.  But we don't naturally tend to treat it as such.

Instead, people try to joke about sin.  They try to make it out to be fun, or at least funny.  Whee!!  Aren't we having a good time sinning!?  Oh, isn't that man's Lust funny?  Will you look at that comical pride!  Our comedies and our comedians overflow with the joy and the jokes of Sin.  We have watched "Will and Grace," which told us about a wonderful, platonic relationship between a homosexual lawyer and his ditsy, straight female friend, who occasionally live together, once in a while find themselves in bed together, and neither one of them can get sex often enough to be satisfied.  Then there's "The Practice" which let us watch a crew of lawyers whose ethics are questionable, whose sex lives are played out on screen for us, and who seem to tolerate anything except morality.  Then we still have reruns of  "The Golden Girls" for geriatric sin, lust, greed, and so forth.

I confess, certain sins often do seem to have their comic aspects.  Some so-called "dirty jokes" are hilarious, if you can overlook the gross immorality involved.  And certain sins are temporarily fun.  That is the drawing card sin so often uses.  It promises fun, or pleasure, or profit.  But it doesn't have the surgeon general's warning label telling you in advance that the fun is only short-lived, and is followed by a long period of emptiness and defeated-ness.  As fun or funny as Sin may appear from the outside, viewed from inside it is deadly, and depressing, and destructive.

But we are talking tonight, not about sins, but about Sin (with a capital "S").  We are not focusing on the specific acts and attitudes we call sins, which come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but on that grand, singular reality called Sin, which underlies every specific instance of sin.  And Sin is deadly destructive.  Sin is hurt.  Sin is loneliness.  Sin is alienation from others and from yourself.  It destroys relationships, and robs one of their own estimate of their own worth.  What we hear joked about is a deadly, destructive force in our lives–and our world.

Now, you would think something as sinister as I have described Sin to be would be readily identifiable as such, wouldn't you?  But the reality is that Sin is not so clearly seen to be the enemy.  The reality is that Sin can only be seen as sinful from the vantage point of revelation of the Will of God.

We can see that this is true from the Greek theater.  The Greeks knew about the problem of evil.   But they didn't understand it.  They saw evils as just one of the two great realities of this life, and accepted it as such.  They saw themselves as hopelessly caught up in a mechanistic world–and they might be caught by good, or they might get crushed by evil.  It was all in the fates, and they were helpless to do anything about it.  So, it really didn't matter which.  And it really didn't matter what they did or said.  You can see it in their drama.  The stories make no qualitative distinction between good and evil.  Their heroes were equally good and evil.  They would usually suffer heroically through evil circumstances, sometimes winning and sometimes losing.  It really made no difference to the play.

But the coming of Christian theology, and the Christian definition of Sin as destructive and life destroying changed things.  Man was no longer a worthless pawn, but a person , engaged in a cosmic battle!  Suddenly what one did, and what happened to the individual was significant!  The individual was important.  The individual had intrinsic value and worth.  Choices really mattered.  You could see this change even in drama.  In Shakespeare, Sin was what destroyed a life.  Sin stole a person's nobility.  Sin robbed and Sin killed.  Sin took the personal worth away from the sinner.

And now in our modern times, we have gone back to the machine.  In an era which titles itself the "post-Christian Era" the individual has again lost his value.  Our philosophies cannot see any difference between doing the right and the doing the wrong–only between getting away with it or getting caught.  Sin doesn't matter to our society.  That's why we can let pornography and prostitution flourish freely in the same neighborhood as a church, or gamble, even illegally, and justify it by saying that everyone does it.  It just doesn't matter!

And our drama shows it.  Watch the movies.  The monster kills thousands, eating, stepping on them, spraying them with radioactive breath.  In movies today the good guy loses.  He doesn't make any lasting mark.  It doesn't matter that he was good.  In some movies, we end up rooting for the bad guys, or the criminals.   If so-called good people don't come off as secretly wicked, hypocrites, or imbeciles, then there is no real difference between good and evil.  We have the Charles Bronson-esque hero.  This is the kind that we have to know in advance is the good guy because the methods and behaviors, the language and violence of the good guy is the same as the bad guy, only more so.

Our casual acceptance of Sin shows itself in the psychologies of today.  We accept the abnormal and twisted as an alternative lifestyle.  We treat one another as behavior groupings and not as people.  We find ourselves helpless to improve our situations because we don't recognize what is wrong with them to begin with.  We try to cure the disease by treating the symptoms, and it isn't working!  We have come to view ourselves as accidents, as products of evolution.  So we can abort or euthanize the unwanted and inconvenient.  We see ourselves as biochemical data-banks, conditioned by life and experience just as surely as a computer is programmed by a programmer.  We can no longer recognize our own value or purpose, and we have no idea what to do about it.

And the problem is Sin.  Sin is destructive.  Sin is when and why we strike out at others in pain, or greed, or pride.  Sin is violence toward others . . . intentional violence!  Sin is also striking at ourselves.  We strike at ourselves in anger, frustration, fear, and helplessness.  Sin robs us of control of ourselves, and we begin to feel cheaper, and less human, and less worth the effort, any effort.  In one way or another, we destroy life – or the value of life – by sinning.  And it is this destruction of ourselves that we perceive so clearly, and punish so severely by sinning all the more, and thereby destroying ourselves and others all the more to punish our wickedness.

Sin is perversion.  Sin twists everything until black is not black, and white is not white, and until we prefer the comforting shades of grey.  Sin makes us tell one another in song and story, in play and movie, that the one who remains moral, the one who clings to the faith and to what is right is sick.  The brave and healthy one abandons all morality and curses God!  Our philosophers have said that God is a crutch for those who are not able to face life on their own.  And what teen-age boy hasn't suggested that immorality is the best way for his girl to show her love?

Our age tells us that the radical and the revolutionary, the demonstrator is the one who has been faithful, who has kept the faith.  But history, even modern world history, shows us just how faithless these have been when they have been granted power.  Psychology shows us how their commitment is more to the rebelling than it is to the cause they choose.  Our age also tells us that to be free means to be free from any restraint to evil.  Freedom from morality, freedom from goodness is called true freedom.  But why not freedom from evil?  Why is it that true freedom is seen only as an escape from what is good and wholesome, and the pressures to be good, if Sin does not pervert?

And Sin is slavery.  Freedom requires choices.  And choice requires more than one option.  But when we define freedom as being without one of the two possible alternatives, we have only one choice, and that makes us slaves.  We may be slaves to ourselves, to our lusts, our passions, our whims and impulses, but we are slaves none the less.  We become slaves to lust, slaves to our egos, and slaves to sin, just as the Bible describes us.

And Sin is godlessness.  When a Christian repents, he or she doesn't just repent getting caught.  If we really repent, we aren't just sorry about the coming punishment, or the possibility of punishment, we are sorry for sinning.  We are sorry for cheapening our lives, and we are committed to not doing again that something to be sorry about!

And when we repent, we don't just repent to ourselves, or to others, but to God.  Even the atheist is "sorry to God" for his mistakes.  But for the Christian the Bible paints an even clearer repentance.  "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight!"  Joseph, tempted by Potiphar's wife does not reckon the sin as evil against his master, or the wife, or even himself, but cries out in horror, "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God!?"  If we look at Sin honestly and ourselves realistically, we will have to find ourselves in the same position as the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, where he writes, "Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from this body of death?"

But the cure is here, in Scriptures.  Here in 1 John1:8-10:  If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

This is the cure for our lost and impoverished condition in sin.  It begins, as they all have throughout Lent, with recognizing honestly that we have sinned.  Yes, even we Christians have "daily sinned much and indeed deserved nothing but punishment."  To assert that you have not sinned is a lie.  It is either intentional lying, or it is evidence that you have lost contact with reality.  Everyone sins, and so says the Bible.  Good or bad, as we may judge the individual, everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Then, when we have seen our sins, the next step is to confess them to God, against whom we have sinned.  We must admit them, be sorry for them, and resolve in our secret and earnest intentions not to sin again.  We call that repenting.  When we repent, God forgives.  John writes that when we repent, God is faithful.  That means He will forgive us each time we repent.  But be clear on this.  God will not even hear the kind of repenting which knows that it wants to sin the same way again, and plans to sin again.  But sincere repentance which resolves to improve God forgives each time, for He is faithful.

And John tells us that God is righteous to do so.  The King James Version says that God is "just" to forgive us.  He is just because He is not simply wiping the slate clean and kindly forgetting that we did anything wrong.  No, God punishes every sin, in Jesus.  The debt has already been paid.  We celebrate that payment today, and we will gather Sunday to celebrate the declaration of God that the payment was sufficient and was accepted.

God is just in forgiving our sins because the penalty for Sin has already been meted out, and all that is lacking is our receiving of the ledger receipt marked "paid in full", which we receive through faith.  He is just to forgive all of us for all of our sins for Sin is the offense, not just the specific sins, and all Sin has been met by the complete wrath of God in Christ Jesus.  Now all can be justly forgiven, both those whom we see as good, and those whom we see as bad, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

And God does forgive us!  John writes that He cleanses us.  He forgives and wipes us clean from all past unrighteousness.  Then He cleanses our hearts and our desires, and enables us to begin to serve Him, and to do His will, and to perform righteousness here in this life, to some extent.

The last verse of our "cure" tells us that either you are a sinner, or a saint.  Strangely enough, that means that either you confess your sins openly before God, and are forgiven and made holy through Jesus Christ, and become thereby a saint, or you are a sinner, and an enemy of God.  Impenitence is an attack on God.  Denying your sinfulness – whether you do it publicly, or just privately in your secret, inner thoughts – is calling God a liar, and making yourself His enemy.  You can be a sinner, and never admit it, and never be a saint.  But you have to know that you are a sinner, and confess it and repent before you can be made a saint.  And you must never lose sight that even us saints are still sinners and in need of forgiveness daily – or you will immediately cease to be a saint at all!

Well, there it is.  Finally we are finished.  The Seven Deadly Sins.  And it is a fitting night to finish with it, for it was on this night, almost two thousand years ago, that God finished with Sin for us forever.  He died on a cross to lift its burden off of us.  It was a Friday then, too.  At first they called it God's Friday.  Then they called it Good Friday.  Although that was a mispronunciation of God's Friday, it is true none-the-less.  The anniversary of the death of our Lord Jesus is a Good Friday, for it is also the anniversary of the end of the reign of sin, and the beginning of the victory of our Lord Jesus – and our victory over these Seven Deadly and all other Sins.

 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.    

 (Let the people say "Amen".)