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".)

"Only Jesus Would Take Our Place in Hell"

 Matthew 27:45, 46

Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour.  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?"

Palm Sunday                         3/29/26

"Only Jesus Would Take Our Place in Hell"

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This morning we come to the foot of Golgotha.  This morning we look at the cross, not empty in victory, nor empty to declare the completed work of Christ.  This morning we want to look at the crucifix — the cross with the broken body of our Savior hanging on it.  We want to consider what our Lord did for us.  We want to measure its depth and severity.  We want to understand our sins in all of their horrible power and evil, and come to know the true riches of forgiveness and life.  To do that we need to meditate on the sufferings — called the Passion of our Lord.

I cannot imagine what it is like to have nails driven through the palms of my hands.  I can only imagine that it hurt a great deal.  I have had someone stomp on my foot, on the instep, that tender part above the arch.  The pain was blinding.  Still I cannot conceive of what it must have felt like to have a huge spike driven through His feet and into that cross.

 It is just within my imagination to guess what it might have been like when they covered His face and punched Him.  Then they laughed and asked Him to tell them who hit Him.  I think I can conjure up what it is to have someone make fun of you, mocking you in your time of pain and helplessness.  I have never experienced it to anywhere near the degree that Jesus did.  But I can kind of imagine.  

I have been lashed, although nothing in my experience has prepared me to conceive of what the thirty-nine lashes with a cat-o-nine-tails might have felt like.  Historians tell me that men often died during the beating from the shock and pain of it.  The scourge had bits of rock and metal and bone tied into the lashes to bruise and cut and tear the flesh as the victim was beaten.  What a horrible thing, and then, at the end of a day of other beatings and torture and no sleep such as Jesus had.  But what our text today describes goes way beyond anything I can even begin to imagine. "Only Jesus Would Take Our Place in Hell"

That is what our text describes, you know.  Jesus took our place in the torments of Hell.  The agonies of Hell are more than just the burning pain of the body.  I suspect that those pains alone would be enough to drive a sane man out of His mind.  Imagine being on fire, fully conscious and aware of every sensation.  You have probably burned yourself.  Picture that pain, all over your body, growing more intense as the moments pass, as burns do.  Imagine a pain everywhere, inside and out, eyes and nose and mouth.  Your fingers, your legs, your back, pain everywhere, so that it hurts to touch and it hurts not to touch.  I have tried to imagine it at times and it makes me shiver with horror.

Now try to understand that all of that torment is not the worst part of hell.  It is there, and real, and unrelenting, but it is not the worst of it.  The worst of it is the separation from God.  You see, even on our worst days, we live and move and have our being in the presence of God.  He is the source of life, and hope, and health, and every good thing.  We are not fully conscious of Him, and yet we utterly depend on Him.  It is just as we are not conscious of the air we breathe, unless it gets cold or too hot, or begins to disappear.  Our lives are filled with goodness and comfort and peace by Him.  Every form and experience of well-being is from Him.

Although we cannot begin to imagine what it would mean or how it might even be possible, Hell's greatest torment is separation from God.  That torment is coupled with the gnawing certainty that we could have avoided it, that our presence in Hell is our fault.  That is what Jesus referred to so often when he said, There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jesus endured that torment for us.   He bore the cruelest pains -- physically and mentally and spiritually.  And He bore pains that He alone is equipped to feel.  We cannot imagine them, but He is God.  He is fully aware and fully in tune with what those benefits are.  He endured their loss for us, for our sake, for our salvation.  He endured their loss in eternity, since He is both True God and True Man and therefore not only a creature of time and of this world, but also the One who exits in eternity.  Whatever He endured, He endured in eternity, where there is no time and no limit.

Jesus bore the pains of hell for you for eternity.  Only Jesus would do such a thing.  But even more remarkable and striking is the fact that He who IS God was forsaken by God.  So as Jesus endured the unimaginable for us, He was forsaken by God the Father to bear His torments -- our torments -- alone.  His earthly friends and disciples had deserted Him and now His heavenly Father abandoned Him, leaving  Him utterly alone.  I cannot imagine what that sort of pain that is, what that sort of identity crisis must be like.  But Jesus bore it for you and for me because of our sins.

That is why we call that day Good Friday.   It is good for us that Jesus bore this torment and not us.  He saved us from it all.  And  only Jesus would take our place in hell.  St. Paul talks about this in Romans, chapter 5, For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus said it this way, Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  How much greater must that love need be to die in this way, and to bear our sins and their punishments on the cross?  And while He was suffering torments that you and I cannot imagine, and which, because of Him, we, who believe, will never experience, He was careful to fulfill Scriptures and to point our attention to the Scriptures so that we might not miss what was really happening there.

The cry of Jesus from the cross was genuine and heart-felt.  It had to be.  The physical pain was enormous.  He had just come through a night of torture and beatings.  He hung by nails driven through His hands.  He had nails driven through the most sensitive part of His feet.  He dared not put any pressure on those feet, except when His weight had so stretched the chest muscles that He could not exhale to take a fresh breath of air.  Then He had to stand up on that brutal nail.  He would pant and breathe, and try to ease the pain in shoulders that had borne His weight and hands that burned with infection and with the pain of a spike, maybe a half an inch in diameter driven through them.

When the pain in His feet became too great again, he would fall back onto His arms to begin the tormenting process over again.  That was the Physical agony He endured when He cried out those famous words.  There was the sorrow and the loneliness of the cross, and His abandonment by God to bear our pains  and the just punishment of our sins.  But He chose His words from Scripture, to express that awful agony.  He chose the words which begin Psalm 22, My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken Me?  He chose those words so that those who stood around could clearly see that all that had been prophesied by David nearly a thousand years before was unfolding before them in this tortured man.

He cried out in Hebrew, so that the youngest son of the Commandments — that is the meaning of the words bar Mitzvah  —   so that from the newest young man to the faith of his fathers unto the eldest of the children of Israel could identify what was happening on that cross.  He cried out for you, too.  Psalm 22 also says,   You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel.  For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Neither has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

We are the descendants of Israel, spiritually.  We are the ones of whom Jesus did not despise the afflictions.  He did not hide His face from us, although we deserved it and our plight was due to our own sins, but Jesus went to the cross to suffer not only cruel torture, but all that we by our sins have deserved.  When we cried to the Lord, He heard.  And even before we cried.  

Many religions claim saviors, but none have a Savior like Jesus Christ.  Almost every religion has a God of some sort.  But none has a God who humbles Himself to bear the pains of His people; pains brought on them by His own justice, which fell upon His people because of their own conduct, pains He endured in order to save them.  None of them have a Savior who endures such torment with such grace and humility.  He did not cry out.  He did not curse.  He did not rumble and threaten and lecture.  He simply suffered -- enduring everything we have earned by our sins.  None of them has a Savior who died for the life of those who hate Him so that He can offer to them peace and forgiveness and eternal life -- and claim them as His own by grace.  No one else knows a God of grace who takes their place.  Only Jesus would take our place in Hell.  

Only Jesus.

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

(Let the people say "Amen".)

The Twin Sisters: Gluttony and Lust

 Romans 6:8-14

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

The Sixth Wednesday of Lent                                             3/25/2026

The Twin Sisters of Gluttony and Lust

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

This evening I would like to introduce you to a pair of ladies, twins, and really all-American girls!  To some of you, they will be total strangers, and this will be the first time you have ever met.  Some of you will find them strangely familiar, perhaps, although you have never been properly introduced before.  Still there may be others of you who are quite well acquainted with them.

Let me introduce you to the twin sisters of Gluttony and Lust.   If you find them a little disgusting, don't let it bother you.  They have no sensitivity to what others think, and you're right, they are disgusting.  They are also deadly murderers.  They murder souls.

Now, before I have any women's groups upset, let me explain.  I call these two sins "twins" because they are so much alike, and I call them "sisters" not because they are feminine – or particularly the sin of women – but because they are so seductive and alluring to the unwary, and, let's face it, a woman is the symbol of all that is seductive and alluring and attractive.  When I imagine gluttony and lust, however, I see two aged and over-painted flirts trying to look seductive and desirable, but looking totally disgusting instead.

Let me introduce you to gluttony first.  Ms. Gluttony is known for her consumption.  Gluttony is usually equated with consuming great quantities.  But gluttony doesn't consume for the sake of getting the food, or whatever, eaten.  There is no need to consume anything specific in gluttony, nor any great desire for whatever it is that is being consumed.  It is just consumption itself.  It is not even consuming for the sake of getting full, for Ms. Gluttony cannot get full.  She doesn't taste, particularly, or admire the quality of that which she consumes.  She just consumes.  And gluttony doesn't just consume other things.  The glutton consumes him or herself as well, in his or her gluttony.

The consuming is actually an escape.  The glutton is in flight from life.  Often people view gluttony as one of the more sociable and companionable sins.  Sometimes it masquerades as a fun time for a group, but gluttony is a very solitary sin.  Gluttony is focusing on the thing consumed and on self getting that consumable thing and consuming it.  In eating, the glutton escapes thought and purpose and interaction with others, and focuses on eating.  She doesn't focus on taste, color, smell, the sensation of being filled, or anything else.  The glutton focuses on consuming.

The glutton doesn't escape into enjoyment, but from it.  The glutton is incapable of real appreciation of beauty, taste, or fun, because the glutton is fleeing from the pressures of reality, and therefore the qualities of it, in favor of non-demanding bowl of swill.

Therefore, Ms. Gluttony is also devoid of gratitude.  She can never give thanks because it is either just swill, and not worthy of thanks, or she is ignoring it and fleeing from it.  In this lack of thanksgiving, gluttony is like the other sins.  Pride is offended by beauty or worth in anything but itself, and so gives no thanks.  Envy cannot bear the sight of beauty in another, and cannot see it in itself.  Anger will destroy it if it cannot possess it.  Greed sees the beauty in others only if they are reflecting his.  Sloth doesn't have the spirit or energy to enjoy or appreciate beauty.  Lust seeks beauty, but doesn't know how to enjoy it.  And gluttony doesn't see beauty, but reduces everything to the level of swill.  Therefore, none of the sins can, or wants to, give thanks.

Ms. Gluttony is usually identified with overeating.  It is a common sort of gluttony which overeats, although eating too much is not necessarily gluttony, but there are other sorts of gluttony.  One popular form today is dieting.  The focus is the same, on the consumable items, and on the self, but this gluttony expresses itself in denial of food instead of over-use of it.  It is still self-consuming, and it is still escape from the pressures of reality into one's stomach.

Another form of gluttony is drug abuse.  What else is a "high" but an escape?  And everyone knows that if you are "into" drugs, then talking about them, or the high, or getting the drug, or preparing to use it, or using the drug is the entire life of the glutton for drugs.  Almost the same gluttony is the alcohol gluttony, which is most graphically illustrated on skid row, but is no less present in the Bloody-Mary breakfast, the six martini lunch, and the dinner wines and after-dinner drunk of the social drunk.  Much that is simple gluttony is passed off as helpless  alcoholism.  And then there is more than just a symbol in the phrase "a glutton for punishment," or for work, or for youth, or life.

But enough "flattery" for this sister, Lust is every bit as charming as her twin.  So, let me introduce you to Lust.

First of all, I can say that everything I have said about gluttony applies to Ms. Lust.  She deals with consuming, she, also, is an escape from life, and she is thankless too.  But Ms. Lust deals primarily in sex.

Actually, Lust deals in sex and in self-love.  Lust is pure craving.  Lust has no concern with partners, quality, morals, or anything, only with satisfying the craving.  Lust is very lonely, although she has a lot of company and is often found mingling in a crowd.  But she is not interested in the crowd, or the mingling, only in the craving.  And she is empty, because there is no time for joy or beauty, or love  or anything, only the craving which refuses to be satisfied, and which demands more and different every day.

It is a common thought that lust stirs up sex, excites it.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Lust kills it, Lust dries it up, it empties it of meaning and enjoyment.  Lust actually takes what is free and natural and good, and makes an onerous task of it.  It makes a work ethic of it, and tells the lustful one to work at it, work harder!, to satisfy that craving.

Lust offers nothing to another; no permanence, no obligations, no relationship, no responsibility, no involvement.  And lust receives just as little.  When all is said and done lust walks away with nothing, not even satisfaction.  Nothing has been added to ease the pain, or the loneliness.

Lust, like gluttony, feeds on other sins.  It feeds on envy that wants to have what everyone else has, and claims the right to have it.  It feeds on greed which wants to have, or possess without purpose to the possessing , and while taking no joy in having, other than simply having. It feeds on sloth, lacking the desire or the energy to get involved or to take any responsibility. It is like gluttony in this too, it is mindless, and sense-less.  It thinks nothing, and it feels, sees, tastes, and hears nothing.  Only the craving.  And it escapes a world full of reality by contemplating its craving like Buddha's navel.

As ugly, as over-painted and disgusting as these two sisters are, they have a peculiar seductiveness to them, and they draw many unawares under their spell.  But there is an escape from them.  There is a way to say, "No!"

The first step is self examination.  Look carefully and honestly at yourself and see if the description fits you.  Are you a glutton?  Are you lustful?

The second step is faith.  That involves repenting, and trusting God for forgiveness.  It also involves commitment to Christ and a desire to live in accord with His will.

The third step, which can only be used if you have already accomplished the first two, is our text tonight.  Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

If we believe, we have been buried with Christ in our Baptism, into His death.  And the one who has died is no longer under sin, for verse 7 says that he who has died is freed from sin.  Having died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him – both in eternity and now.  For the death that Jesus died He died to sin once and for all – for all people and for all time.  Having died, there is no more death for Him, or for us who have shared in His death by Baptism.  The life He now lives, He lives to God, and so must we.  So, St.  Paul tells us to consider ourselves dead to sin.

We are, now, dead to sin – and we ought to reckon ourselves, to consider ourselves to be so.  Many times this feels contrary to fact because our sinful nature still lives and still hungers after sin and corruption, but the truth expressed in God's Word is that we are truly spiritually dead to sin, and alive to God, in Christ Jesus.  With that fact in mind it is clear that sin is unnatural for us spiritually, and that we must stop it, by the power which God gives us, wherever we can.

Our text says, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts."  Instead of using our bodies as tools of Satan and sin we are to present them in daily living to God as tools of His will and service for Him.  And we are even given God's promise that when we recognize that we are no longer spiritually alive to sin and no longer need to serve it, with God's help, sin shall not be master over us!  We are not under the control of sin any longer, but of God.  We are no longer under the law which spurs sin on in us, but under the grace of God which forgives our sins and promises to release us from the doing of sin as well as the guilt.

lf we so consider ourselves, and live with God's help, we can escape our twin sisters of gluttony and lust.  We can live as His people and serve Him as tools of righteousness.  We may not be able to stop sinning entirely in this life, but we can escape the control of sin, and the soul-murdering plots of these two aged and over-painted flirts, the twin sisters of Gluttony and Lust.  God grant you the faith and the strength to escape all of the snares of these and all other sins, for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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

(Let the people say "Amen".)

What Are You Hearing?

 John 8:46-47

"Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God."

Sermon for Judica Sunday                                                  03/22/26

What Are You Hearing?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Let me present you with a conundrum, this morning.  One truth that we have observed is that your perception determines reality for you.  A second truth is that reality shapes your perceptions.  The conundrum, or puzzle, is which truth is most persuasive in your life?

First, we observe that who you are and what your prejudices and values are can shape what you perceive.  A situation may be seen as a failure, or an opportunity.  A helping hand may be perceived as a kind thing, or condescension, a ‘leg-up' or an attempt to weaken and disable.  How often does it happen that something you think is good is described by someone else as a bad thing?  This power of perception to change reality for you is at least partially responsible for the animosity of the radical Islamicists for America.  They perceive our freedom as an evil thing, a fundamentally immoral condition that must be eradicated.  Clearly, how you look at things changes the reality of what they are for you, and how they function in your life.

The same example of the radical Muslim also demonstrates how reality shapes your perceptions.  It is his poverty and his commitment to a certain kind of Islamic thought that causes Him to think of liberty as dangerous.  Other examples might include how a woman perceives certain things differently than a man simply because she is a woman, or how the reality that something has never been accomplished before causes people to perceive it to be impossible , or beyond their reach.  I often use the example of Roger Bannister, the first man to ever run a mile in less than four minutes.  It was May 6th, 1954.  He ran the mile in just six tenths of a second less than four minutes, but he was the first man to accomplish it in well over a century of people trying.  His record was broken in less than three months, and the current record is three minutes forty-three point thirteen seconds.  Until Roger Bannister did it, everyone thought it was impossible, and once he did it, they all knew they could, and did.

Our text is another example of the conundrum.  It is also a deeper mystery which amazes us, and gives us cause to praise God, and totally disallows decision theology, and finally asks us to ask ourselves a question, the question that is our theme this morning, "What do you hear?"

"He who is of God hears the words of God."  Here is the conundrum presented.  Who you are, the reality, shapes what you can perceive - the Word of God.  Everyone who was listening to Jesus was hearing the same words, weren't they?  Yet they were not all believing what Jesus said - in other words, they were not perceiving what they heard to be the Word of God, nor "hearing" it in the sense that they believed it and understood the truth of His words.  Jesus said that they reason they could not perceive it was the reality of who they were - or, more precisely, who they were not.  They were not "of God."

Before our text, in John, chapter 8, Jesus preached that unless they came to know Him and trust in Him they would die in their sins.  He explained that He was the Savior, the Messiah who was prophesied.  Then He said, "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  It was that passage which caused them to rebel.  They said [they] were Abraham's children and that they had never been enslaved!  How dare He say such a thing!

Jesus explained that He was talking about sin, and being a slave to sin.  He told them that He knew the evil in their hearts, their desire to kill Him, and that they were doing the will of their father - meaning Satan.  They challenged Jesus and He responded with the truth of who He was and who they were, and finally came to the passage we have chosen as our text.  And Jesus explained that because they did not believe in God, or know Him, they could not believe what Jesus said, either.  Their reality, as unbelievers, and therefore servants of the devil, made it impossible for them to understand correctly or believe the Word of God.  Their reality informed their perception, and their perception changed the nature of the reality of what they were hearing from the precious and life-giving Word of God, to something confusing and obnoxious, and unbelievable.

First, let me show you how this answers decision theology so decisively.  Since no one who is not "of God" can hear, that is properly understand or believe the Word of God - as Jesus demonstrates in our Gospel this morning and teaches in clear words.  So, obviously, no unbeliever can hear, properly understand, nor believe the Word of God, either the law or the Gospel.  So how would anyone find the wisdom to choose to be a Christian, and decide for Christ, when they cannot understand the Gospel or believe it because they cannot "hear" the Word of God until they are "of God"?  Decision theology calls God a liar, which is kind of what Jesus was talking about when He asked them which of them convicts Him of sin, and why don't they believe His words - which obviously the Arminian (the ones who believe that being and becoming a Christian is accomplished by an exercise of their free wills) is also doing.  They deny Christ's honesty and truth by claiming to be able to decide for Christ.

Anyhow, the question the text raises for you is "what are you hearing?"  

When God's Word is preached, what do you hear?  "He that is of God hears the words of God."  As it was back then, so today, it is often difficult to listen to, and sometimes is not inviting to believe.

We are happy to hear good things, which is why every television evangelist rips the promises of God out of their context and waves them about to impress the crowd.  They tell the people what they want to hear, instead of telling them the truth.  When they hear the truth, they violently reject it.  Oddly, they don't mind the law so much as the Gospel.  The promises of God are disconnected from the context in which they are spoken, and severed from the context of faith and salvation, and made to sound like God wants everyone to be rich, or God is going to make everyone eternally blessed, without regard to their life, or their relationship to Him.

The people who preach these things do not hear the Word of God, and so they preach the doctrines of demons, designed to lead the flock before them astray.  The crowd that listens, and raises their hands in a fit of "spiritual ecstasy" at these distortions of God's Word are denied the truth, and find their satisfaction in the false teachings of their preachers, to their destruction.

You, however, know better.  You have heard the truth.  Sometimes the Law is hard to listen to - but it is the Word of God.  The Jews that Jesus spoke to could not listen to the law either.  They wanted a law they could keep.  They wanted the honor and respect of being the chosen people and the children of Abraham, and they would reject anything, including the Gospel, that denied them the respect and glory they felt that they deserved.  We sometimes find the law too demanding, and discover that it does not fit into our lives here at the lake.  It asks - no, . . . it demands too much from us.  It seems to want our time and our money and then, we are supposed to feel all guilty and ashamed - and that is just not comfortable with us.

But the truth is that you spend your money on yourselves far more freely than you spend it on the Word of God.  You take your time, and your trips and your family get-togethers and your entertainments far more seriously - and sometimes more frequently, than you take worship, or fellowship with the saints around Word and Sacrament.  Your time and your energy are focused on yourselves much more religiously than on your faith, or on the work which God has set before you as an individual member of His body, or before the body of Christ to which you belong, right here.  And when I say those sorts of things, it makes you mad - or at least really uncomfortable.  So, when that happens, what are you hearing?  Are you hearing the Word of God?  How is your reality shaping your perceptions?  How are your perceptions shaping your reality around you?

You should feel guilty, and ashamed at times.  You should be prodded by the Law into self-examination.  And you will find sin.  I know that you will because when I hear the same words that I preach to you, I am accused, and I must wrestle with my own sins and selfishness, and the coldness of my devotions and prayers.

But I also hear the Gospel.  I hear it because I preach it.  Jesus knew what a rotter I am, and how I could not turn away from my sins because I am a slave of sin in my flesh.  So He redeemed me - and redeemed you.  He traded His holiness and righteousness for your sins and mine and took the judgment of God against us on His shoulders, bore the sentence of the wrath of God against us on the cross.  "He was wounded for our transgressions.  He was bruised for our iniquities.  The whipping that wins peace for us was laid upon His back, and with His stripes, we are healed."  "He was made sin for us, He who knew no sin of His own, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!"  His death on the cross was ours, taken for us.  And we have been given His righteousness and holiness and the love of God which He has merited, and the everlasting life which He has earned is now ours by His gift!

Are you a sinner?  Not in Him!  Should you feel guilty and ashamed?  NO!  Not if you believe that in Jesus Christ you are cleansed, redeemed, forgiven, and beloved of God.  He has declared you "Not guilty!"  "‘Come now, and let us reason together,' Says the LORD, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.'" Those words are the Gospel - God's Word.  What are you hearing?

The Gospel is forgiveness and life - but only for sinners.  People who cannot hear the Law, that Word of God, cannot hear the Gospel rightly either.  They hear the words, they just don't receive them as God's Words.  And why is that?  "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them," – if it may be said about you that you cannot find your comfort in Christ – is "because you are not of God."

You should never feel really pleased about who you are apart from Christ, or how you handle things on your own wisdom and power.  You should find that peace only in Jesus Christ, who has reconciled you with the Father, and redeemed you from your sins, and counts you as perfectly holy, with His own righteousness.  The things of daily life, they will always be something short of right and good.  Our sinful flesh will see to that.  It doesn't mean we don't try to be good, it means we know the truth.  We try, and we fall short of perfection.  But our hope in built on Jesus Christ, and His perfect righteousness, and His atoning, propitiatory, redemptive death on our behalf.  And His resurrection, of course, where the Heavenly Father proclaims that this sacrifice for sin was sufficient and paid the price of our corruption completely by raising Jesus from the dead.

What are you hearing?  It is life, and peace, and forgiveness, and joy.  It is the Word of God, and it meant for your ears, and your hearts, and your consciences.  To doubt either the law or the gospel is to call Jesus a liar, and I know that none of you would want to do that.  Jesus said, in our Gospel this morning, "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death."

So, what are you hearing?

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

(Let the people say Amen)

More than You Will Ever Need

 John 6:1-15

After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).  And a great multitude was following Him, because they were seeing the signs which He was performing on those who were sick.  And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.  Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.  Jesus therefore lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to Him, said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?"  And this He was saying to test him; for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.  Philip answered Him, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little."

One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?"  Jesus said, "Have the people sit down."  Now there was much grass in the place.  So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

Jesus therefore took the loaves; and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted.  And when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost."  And so they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten.  When therefore the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world."  Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Sermon for Laetare Sunday                                               03/15/26

More Than You Will Ever Need

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One of the challenges of this time in history is that, as a Christian, we have trouble understanding what we can trust in God for, and how much we dare to trust in Him.  It has always been a challenge, I suppose, but, in our day and age, we are far removed from the magical and mystical and miraculous.  We have centuries of "modern" men telling us that the miraculous is not possible and cannot touch our lives.  When people talk earnestly about trusting God they usually mean for something ephemeral and distant, like salvation after death.  Most of the time, we tend to make that shift in meaning in our own minds too.

Our Gospel lesson stands as a testimony against such thinking.  It means to tell us what we can trust God for and how much we can trust God.  The answer is, of course, everything - we can trust God for everything He has promised which is everything we need.  Add to that thought that we can trust Him absolutely – as long as we are trusting Him and not trying to make Him be our concierge.   When you trust in God, our text illustrates for us that you will have more than you will ever need.  And that is our theme this morning.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus was healing - and we might presume teaching, as well.  A great crowd was following Him.  Some probably wanted to be healed, or have a relative healed.  Some probably came to see Jesus do miracles.  Others followed Him to hear Him teach, and believed that He was someone worth listening to.  

Our text tells us that it was the season of the Passover, not so much to tell us what time of year it was, but to connect the events of this account to the Passover theologically.  Passover was, of course, the great rescue by God from slavery in Egypt.  He rescued His people with signs and miracles and great power.  God brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness and provided for them - for forty years, but the time factor isn't significant here.  God fed His people with Manna - and He demonstrated Himself to the nation, Israel, as their God, the One whom they could trust.  He made a covenant with them in the wilderness, and it all began with the Passover.  And it is this connection with caring for the people, and feeding them miraculously, and showing Himself to be their God and giving evidence that they could trust Him and depend on Him, that probably warranted mentioning that "the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand." 

Anyway, Jesus feeds the crowd, much to everyone's amazement, with five loaves and two fish.  The loaves were probably about the size of a small tortilla, and about an inch or less thick.  Matthew give us no information on the size of the fish, but I am guessing that the young boy was not carrying a pair of twenty-pound carp or eighty-pound catfish with him.  Even if he had been, they would have been woefully insufficient to feed the roughly five thousand people who were fed that day.

Jesus probably began with less food than it would have taken to satisfy the Twelve disciples.  And when they were all done, the disciple gathered up the leftover pieces - the ones big enough to bother saving, and they ended up with twelve full baskets of bread pieces.  The baskets were, according to the Greek word used, somewhere between the size of a five quart ice-cream pail and a five gallon bucket, but the point is that when everyone had eaten all that they wanted, and were satisfied, they had several times more in left overs than when they started in the first place.

The people there were so impressed by what Jesus did, that they decided to seize Jesus and force Him to be their king.   They knew a good thing when they saw it, and they reacted to free food the same way we do - get it while the getting's good.  Jesus perceived that they were planning this action, and He slipped away without them noticing His departure, and went up on the mountain alone to pray.

Now we know the details, we have to ask ourselves, what does this tell us?  I imagine that depends on how much you want  to see.  Jesus was facing an insurmountable task.  He was going to feed five thousand people with little or no food.  The situation was huge and the resources for it were extremely limited, and yet Jesus did it.  He fed those five thousand people and He had more left over - many times more - than He had when He started.

What needs or troubles can we imagine that Jesus cannot handle for us?  

What tasks are we facing that we feel we lack the resources to accomplish?  

How much of our doing what Jesus gives us to do actually depends on us?

These are the sorts of questions you have to ask yourself.  It would probably be helpful if you were honest with yourselves when you answered, too.  The trouble we often have is that we don't really expect Jesus to really help.  We don't start things until we have a sense that we can succeed.  We don't really expect divine intervention at any point.  And when we finish, and have succeeded, we feel like we accomplished it, but we church-types often piously say that this is the thing that the Lord has made, while thinking that we actually did it.

The truth is that we tend not to start anything, even as a congregation, we don't think we can finish.  It isn't that we don't think we should do it, it is just that we want to be confident we have the resources to do it before we begin.  Well, with Jesus, we have the resources.  We have more than you will ever need.  If Jesus give us the task, He will see it through to completion.

Does that mean that we don't count the cost, or plan, or try to be wise about what we do and how we do it?  No.  We have to think, and Jesus calls on us to act - you know, do the things that need to be done.  We are to do what we believe we have been given to do, and approach it with confidence that Jesus will bring us through to success, if what we are doing is what He wants done.  The disciples were asked to prepare the people for food.  They did not have food, nor did they know how they would feed all those people - and yet Jesus did it.

This miracle is not the only time Jesus did the impossible.  It is surely not the most impressive time.  The most impressive example of that is when He rescued us from our own sins.  The verdict of God from the very beginning was that when one sinned, that one died.  "The soul that sins, it shall die."  That was the judgment of God.  Sin simply earned death - and that death was more than just physical.  It included eternal torment and suffering.  That was what God wanted to rescue us from.  He couldn't just ignore our sins and pretend that they did not happen, however.  That would have made God unjust and an accessory to our sins.  He had to punish them, and punish them with death, as stipulated originally.  But His goal was to preserve us alive and rescue us from our condemnation.

He did that by sending Jesus.  He sent the Second Person of the Trinity, true God and yet, not the Father.  He was incarnate - that is He took on flesh and blood, and became a man as Mary heard the Word of God with faith and bowed her head and said, "Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord, Let it happen to me just as you have said it would."  With that, Mary became pregnant, conceiving in her womb the child who would be born nine months later and be named "Savior", or literally "God is Salvation" - Jesus.

He kept the Law which man failed and refused to keep.  He lived without sin, just as He required of Adam and Eve and all of their children.  They did not obey, but Jesus did.  He obeyed God, as Scripture puts it, even to the point of death on a cross.  Having fulfilled all righteousness, He deliberately gave up what He had earned and now deserved - life without end in the favor of God the Father - and took in exchange our guilt, our shame, and our condemnation, and our death.  

Every step of the way He endured the taunting and tempting of the devil, and resisted.  When a word would have set Him free He kept silent.  When silence would have served Him, He spoke.  Everything He said was true, but it was also spoken with the full consciousness that it would ignite their anger and cause them to continue to march Him to the cross.

He died deliberately for us.  Because He is God He is of greater value than all of us combined, so His one death redeemed us all.  Because He has taken our death, He now has the right to give to us the life eternal which He has earned.  And He pours that treasure out upon all people everywhere, without consideration of their worthiness or holiness.  He has appointed faith as the means by which we receive and hang onto this treasure of grace.  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

Further, He knows that we are, by nature, not able to trust Him or love Him by virtue of our own corruption in sin, so He sends His Holy Spirit out through the preaching of His Word to work faith in the hearts of those that hear the good news of this Gospel.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  Now, all who hear have the Holy Spirit at work in them.  Many reject that work, and deny God's goodness, grace, and mercy.  They are those represented in the parable of the Sower by soil of the hard-trodden path upon which the seed falls, and the birds of the air eat the seed up.  They had the treasure delivered to them, but they rejected it for something or someone else.  But anyone that believes, which is accomplished only by the very work of the Holy Spirit within them, has life everlasting, and resurrection from their graves to come, and God is with them even now, day by day.

The feeding of the five thousand reminds us that we can trust God in Jesus Christ in all things, and that He will provide abundantly.  That provision isn't just for in the sky, bye and bye.  He provides for us now, each according to His good plan for our service for Him.  He provides food and clothing and the needs of this life, and lots of our wants as well.  He feeds us with His holy body and precious blood in this Sacrament, to strengthen us, and to cleanse us, and to teach us to trust in Him and in His love for us individually, personally.

He also cares for us in our day to day pressures, desires, passions, and temptations.  He does not always give us what we desire, and surely not what we expect, any more than those five thousand who were fed followed Jesus expecting a meal out there in the wilderness.  He provides what we need, and then some, so that we may accomplish what He has planned for us.

So, let us look to the future and work while it is still day, as we say in that old prayer, before the night comes when no man can work.  Let us do what we believe the Lord would have us do with faith and confidence and trusting that we will have more than you will ever need.  As it is true for salvation, it is true for all that God would have us to do in Jesus Christ. He feeds us, and He will guide us and grant us everything we need to serve Him faithfully, and more than you will ever need.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The Three-Toed Sloth

 Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The Fourth Wednesday of Lent                                 3/11/2026

The Three-Toed Sloth

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

In South America there is a very large mammal that is called a "sloth".  There are various kinds of sloths–there are very large ones and there are some-what smaller, ones, very shaggy ones, and some that are not quite as shaggy–lots of kinds of sloths, and I know very little about any of them.  But when I was in grade school I heard about one that really caught my fancy.  It was called the three-toed sloth.  I don't know why it caught my fancy, but it did.  I read about it.  It was a great big animal, it was kind of slow-moving, and nothing seemed to rile it.  It had no natural predators and no animal seemed to shake it up a whole lot.  And it occurred to me that would be a very good image for our cardinal sin tonight – the sin of "sloth".  

And so I'm going to have you imagine tonight that our sin tonight is the animal – the three-toed sloth.  Let us imagine tonight that we are standing here in our zoo looking at the this three-toed sloth in its cage.  We are going to examine this strange and yet somehow very familiar beast.  I'm going to ask you to imagine one more thing tonight.  Imagine that the three-toed sloth is like the fabled werewolf in this, that when the three-toed sloth bites you, you become a sloth.  That way as we meditate tonight on this cardinal sin we can ask ourselves, "Have I been bitten?"  "Am I a sloth?"

Now the power of the animal, the three-toed sloth, lies in the claws of the beast.  Everything it does and all the damage it can inflict, does with those three toes from which it gets its name.  And the claws on the end.  The three-toed sloth eats with those claws, it rips things apart with those claws, tree trunks and big things – I mean it's a powerful beast.  It walks on those three toes.  It climbs trees with them.  And I'm sure you have seen pictures of them, or at least cartoons of the sloths, hanging upside down from those three toes.

Well, our cardinal sin of sloth walks on three toes as well.  The first toe of our sloth is despair.  By now I'm sure you are getting pretty familiar with that one.  It shows up in a lot of our cardinal sins, "despair."  The sloth feels impotent.  It feels powerless to the effect of things that go on in its life.  Rather than seeing that  powerless, that feeling of dejection, impotence, as a challenge to get out there and do something about it, the sloth feels defeated by it.

Now you look around you today, you will see marks of that three-toed sloth all over the place.  People today feel powerless.  They feel powerless in the face of government.  They feel powerless in the face of big corporations.  They feel powerless in the face of rising gas prices.  They feel powerless in the face of crime.

Powerlessness faces everybody today.  And people despair before it.  You would think when they saw all of these things happening, people would say, "Well, I guess I've just better get up and do something about that!"  But no!  What do people do today?  They hide!  People hide from life.  They hide from voting.  They hide from standing up and making their voice heard.  They throw their hands up in the air and say, "Oh!  What's the use.  I can't do anything anyhow."  They hide!

The three-toed sloth's common reaction whenever it's threatened is to just stop all movement in the threatening area and hope the world goes away.  That's the first toe.  That despair leads to the second toe of our sloth.

The second toe of our three-toed sloth in our imaginary zoo tonight is "desire-lessness."  That's not to say that the sloth does not have any desires.  The sloth may well have normal desires – may want to be happy, may want to be comfortable.  They want to be rich and famous.  But the despair leads the sloth into the desire-lessness in that the sloth is not willing to pursue those things.  Is not willing to pay the price of trying to become rich or comfortable, or happy.  You see the sloth is hiding from life.  The sloth is hiding from any kind of commitment.  Nothing rattles the sloth.  Life can deal him what it may, there is nothing that will stir the sloth into action.  The sloth simply refuses to be moved.  In this the sloth seems to be very tolerant.

In fact one Christian writer, a woman named Dorothy Sayers, writing about sloth, says "In the world it's called ‘tolerance', in hell it's called ‘despair'.  It's the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, lives for nothing, but remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die."

Sometimes a sloth can be identified by what he says, such once-popular phrases as, "Hang loose" or "laid back" or "heavy, man".  Those are the signs of sloth.  Now those happen to be phrases that were popular among the younger half of humanity which makes it seem like sloth is peculiar to the youth.  But it is not!  "I couldn't care less," or "What's that to me?", or everybody's favorite, "Live and let live."  Those are the verbal footprints of the sloth in the older generation.  They all indicate apathy, a desire-less-ness, an unwillingness to stand or become personally involved in anything, to become committed to a cause.  In pathology sloth means a morbid inertia, that is a death-like stillness.  It means the same thing spiritually.

This spiritual immobility is the third toe of our imaginary sloth.  That is where the sloth is most damaging.  Sloth is the hatred of all things spiritual which require any effort.  Oh, sloth loves the good, sloth loves the sweet spiritual experiences.  What the sloth can't stand is the day-to-day grind in between.  What the sloth can't stand is the work needed to acquire anything spiritual, be that knowledge or experience – only that comes to it freely, what happens to move across it, will the sloth accept.  And you will see plenty of proof of it today in what we call "the Neo-Evangelical Movement" – what might be called the "new Protestantism".

Every day that "the Neo-Evangelical Movement" grows by hundreds, and maybe thousands of people who have joined it, deliriously happy over their being "born again."  But look, look for the signs of that new life.  Look for the signs that those people are newly created in Christ to live the good works that God had intended for them.  Look in our society for that.   The signs of the presence of Christ in our society are shrinking day by day, not growing, and in the "the Neo-Evangelical Movement", and in any church.  And now days when anybody does enter on that straight and narrow way they do it with a sense of repugnance and reluctance.  That's sloth!  It gives an appearance of laziness to some people sometimes.  But it is something far more lethal.  It is a state of directionless which is thoroughly self-centered.  There is no plan.  There is no agenda.  There is no cohesive meaning or purpose in life, for the sloth, only the ego.

Once people were known by what they had accomplished, or what they were striving for.  Today people want to be identified by what they happen to be thinking at that moment, or their geographic location, simply for the fact that they exist, as though everyone else did not in some weird way.

Sloth is a form of self-idolatry.  To stay with our image of the sloth in the zoo you might call this self-worship one of the parents of the sloth.  And if we do then the other parent of the sloth is despair in the mercy of God.  The sloth does not trust God.  The sloth does not believe that God's promises are true.  He doesn't believe that God loves him, that God is going to guide him and bless him day by day.  The sloth doesn't trust in any benevolent guiding force here in this life or for the next life.  No, the motto of the sloth is, "Look out for yourself, if you don't, who else will?"  For the sloth, Number One comes first – and last.  Purpose, direction, causes – these are the things that lead away from self.  The sloth is into self-actualization.  Or in the words of the sloth, "I got to be me."  That's the sloth.  "You are you," the sloth says, "And I'm me.  And if somewhere in that lovely path of life we happen to meet, fine!  And if we don't happen to meet, that's fine too."

Henry Fairley, in his book, "The Seven Deadly Sins Today," writing about sloth says that, "the slothful person has made a religion of himself.  And that of all our sins, we Americans have made sloths most nearly into a religion."  Minding your own business, not getting upset, that's what counts.

Sloth helped crucify Christ!  Think about this!  One week before His crucifixion, Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, amidst thousands of people cheering Him wildly, calling out praises to Him as God, as Savior, as "King of Israel," throwing their clothes down in the dirt for the donkey he was riding to walk on.  And now a week later the crowd is calling for His death.  You can't mark a change like that up to the crowd being fickle.  No, you mark it up to the sloth.  The people who had been lining up the road and singing praises a week earlier, were now at home.  They just didn't want to get involved.  Justice wasn't reason enough.  And that Man what they had just recently sung praises of and waved palm branches before, He was secondary.  Oh no!  Take care of No. 1 first!

Even the disciples, that night, denied their Lord rather than take a stand.  That night it was more important to save their own skins.  And because of a city full of people, and yes, even the Roman Governor, felt powerless and defeated – because they put self-interest and inactivity first rather than protecting the innocent – rather than standing up for the one that was King, because they had been bitten by the three-toed sloth, our Lord was crucified on that day.  But in that crucifixion comes the power now to put the sloth to death.

And this may be familiar too!  The first step, as always, is to repent.   Turn away from that sin – that is what repent means.   It means to change your mind from rebelliousness against God to sorrow over sin.  And then it means that you listen to the Gospel.  Nowhere is the Gospel more clearly stated than in our Scripture passage tonight which tells us "You are saved by grace".  You are saved by the free gift of God, a salvation totally unearned.  Because of God's gift you have the blessings of the forgiveness of your sins.  Because God wants to give it to you, you have life everlasting.  Because of what Christ has done, God is pouring these blessings out, just giving them away.   God is looking with favor on all those who trust Him, He is looking upon them with the same love and the same sense of favoritism with which He looks upon His only-begotten Son.  

Now far from earning any of this, our text carefully points out that it is not on the basis of what we have done, not on the basis of works, but that God is simply giving it to those who believe, because of Christ.  Think about that!  Your salvation and everything in this life has been taken care of now, because of Jesus Christ.  Almost two thousand years ago everything you could possibly do for yourself was already done.  Oh, and this Gospel is deadly to a sloth.  

Instead of directionless and purposeless, we are now God's creation and He has created us for a purpose.  We are now God's workmanship, the text says.  We are now newly created in Jesus Christ, and that for the purpose that we might do those good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do.  Most of you probably recognize that we are talking about Ephesians 2:8-10.  In our new creation we find our direction.  There we find our purpose, and purpose and direction are deadly to a sloth who must always focus in on himself.  And when we stand before God in this world, reborn in Christ, we have that purpose and that direction.  

Our purpose is to go out and live the life, to do the works that God prepared before He ever called us into Christ, works which God prepared for us to do, to walk in the path which He set for us.  That's purpose!  And what are the works that God set out for us?  

Works like faith in His promises, instead of despair in the mercy of God; works like witnessing to our Lord in His marvelous grace instead of worrying about self-actualization and singing "I've Got to be Me."  

Works like holy living with joy instead of approaching the straight and narrow with a sense of dread and despair.  Here you find purpose and direction enough to kill any three-toed sloth.

And direction?  The direction we are on is toward Heaven!  The direction of the three-toed sloth is Hell.  Opposite directions!  And as I said, "purpose and direction kills the sloth."  So our cure is God-given purpose and divine direction in faith and in the Gospel.

And that completes our examination of the three-toed sloth.  He's deadly!  And he is not just limited to imaginary cages in imaginary zoos.  You can find his footprints all over.  Have you been bitten by one?  If so the cure is in our text this evening, "For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And that not of yourself is the gift of God, not as a result of works that one should boast.  For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

Beware of the three-toed sloth, for Christ's sake.

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

(Let the people say "Amen".)

Christus Victor

 Luke 11:14-28

And He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb; and it came about that when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.  But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons."  And others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls.  And if Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.  And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges.  But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder.  He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.

"When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.'  And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first."

And it came about while He said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."  But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it."

Sermon for Oculi Sunday                                                            03/08/26

Christus Victor

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Sometimes following Jesus – even just believing in Jesus – is a difficult thing.  He says things that don't mesh with our world-view.  He does things that are unexpected.  Oh we expect the things He does in the Bible, because the Bible has been there all of our lives and so it seems to make sense to us.  It didn't make sense to everyone back then, any more than the things that God is doing today - or putting us through - make sense to us today, at times.  Even when it did make sense, it wasn't what they wanted to hear or wanted to see and so they chafed against it and rebelled against it.  Jesus called them on it, and explained the truth to them so that we would see it today.  

Our theme this morning is "Christus Victor", which means "Christ the Victor" or "Christ is the Victor".   I chose those words because of Jesus' words in our text, "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters."  Let us consider the words of Jesus today and see what it means is our lives day-to-day that Christ is the Victor.

Our Gospel opens with Jesus casting out a demon.  You would think that would be a good thing, wouldn't you?  His adversaries found fault with Him anyhow.  They said that He was in league with the devil, and that was how He was casting out demons.  The truth of the matter was that everyone who saw it was impressed.  The text says that "the crowds marveled."  They all knew that such a thing came from God - but to the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes of the Temple, it was an awful blow.  This Jesus guy was just getting out of hand.  How do you compete with a man who can do the things Jesus could do?  And it was so clearly from God that they felt compelled to try to diminish Jesus' authority and stature with the people before they lost all influence with the people themselves.

So they made up the "in league with the devil" thing.  They didn't think it through, they just said what they thought would hurt Jesus in the eyes of the people.  Others of their number were demanding that Jesus do something really impressive, something clearly ‘a sign from heaven' to prove Himself to them.  Think about it – He was doing things only God can do, and He was so clearly God's man that the religious leaders felt the only way to diminish Him in the eyes of the people was to pretend that either He was in league with Satan or that He had done nothing special, and so they needed proof before they could believe what was painfully obvious to them in the first place.  Makes sense, eh?

Jesus pointed out their illogic - if the devil is working against himself, how could he possibly succeed?  Then He confronted them with the question of why they accused only Him of being in league with the devil.  When others did these sorts of things, they never challenged them.  But, as we say today, ‘what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.'  If Jesus was in league with Satan [they even used the spooky sounding name Beelzebul (or Beelzebub) for the devil - the Lord of the Flies, or the God of the Demons].  They were working on the creep-em-out factor, [not unlike the style of modern politics aimed at our President] then, Jesus said, who are the others in league with, you know the ones of which you approve - and the ones everyone else believes are good, godly men?  Consequently, Jesus said, they shall be your judges.

Then He made the point out loud that His adversaries wanted to avoid the people making in their heads - if Jesus was doing this by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has come among them - the Savior is here.  Their plot to discredit Jesus backfired, and opened the door for Jesus to make explicit what had been only implicit before.  Jesus was the Victor there.

We are often tempted to do something like those adversaries of Jesus did.  If we don't like the direction the Lord is leading us, we try to cast it into terms that favor our preferences and deny the leading of the Lord.  I am talking about when, where God seems to be taking us is going to take too much of our time, or too much of our attention, or too much of our energy, or too much of our money.  You know, when being the kind of Christian that Jesus talks about, and the Apostles taught us about, is not compatible with our modern individualism.  It is the sort of situation in which our rights and our liberties stand at odds to the sort of commitment that faithfulness to Christ seems to demand.  We want to believe that lukewarm Christianity is better than no Christianity at all - in open denial of what Jesus said in Revelation 3:16, in the letter to the church at Laodicea, "'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth."

Our vacations and our family visits and our other ditherings seem to be challenged by the concept of faithfulness to Christ and His people.  Our hobbies and our toys and our entertainments seem to be threatened by the demands of genuine Christian faith and commitment.  When we feel that tug of conscience, we want to make the preacher back up a little and lighten up - sort of like the Pharisees wanted Jesus to back off and shrink in the estimation of the people.  Note that no one has said anything to me - so I am not talking about complaints spoken to me, here.

Jesus answered them with a couple of parables: the Parable of the Strong Man Guarding His Home, and the Parable of the Unclean Spirit.  These are different answers than you might expect in the heat of conflict.  Jesus tells a parable on the devil - Satan is the strong man who guards his house until a stronger man than he comes and takes everything away.  Jesus is the stronger man.  Consequently, those who try to prop up the devil, even inadvertently, are working against Jesus.  The only way to work with Jesus is to be affirmatively on His side.  Neutrality, lukewarm-ness, and just not being involved, all serve the devil - He who is not with me is against me - and He who does not gather with me scatters.

Then Jesus describes First Century Israel as the house of the unclean spirit that has been driven out.  He was driven out by the coming of Jesus Himself.  But when Jesus has gone, the devil will return, and since Israel rejects Jesus, the last state is worse than the first, and the evil of the last state is far deeper than the first.  That worsened condition is described as the first spirit bringing seven more spirits, more foul than himself, to live with him.  And look at Israel, the people.  They no longer hope for the Messiah.  They actively oppose Him.  They were once at least the people of the covenant before Jesus came, even if they failed to keep it, and they once had the Word and the prophets.  Today they are empty, and the religion of the covenant is now a pagan and idolatrous religion, because their Savior - their God - has come, and they rejected Him.  They chose the familiar, and the personally preferable to the true and the saving.

‘He who is not with me is against me' is Jesus' way of saying Solo Christo - in Christ alone - to the Jews of His day.  If we are not pulling on the oars with Him, we are dragging the anchor.  If we are not working together with one another faithfully in the church, we stand guilty of working against Jesus Himself.

One of the women there that day was so impressed with the wisdom and truth of what Jesus said that she cried out, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."  She meant to praise Him for His wisdom and holiness - good things, but Jesus answered her, and answered those who had been made to feel foolish by His response.  He indicated that the really significant thing was not how impressed they might be with Him, but how they dealt with God's Word.  He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it."  The true blessedness is in believing the Word of God both with your mind and with your life - not just thinking it is true, but living as though it is true.

That Word says that your sins are forgiven.  Jesus took the wrath of God against you and your sins and suffered on the cross what you have earned including death itself.  He died that you might live.  He bore your sins that you might be forgiven and live in holiness before Him.  Believe that Word!  What a wonderful gift - and what a wonderful Gospel.  Believe it with your mind and believe it with your actions.

Do we dare to behave like the Pharisees were behaving, as though this wondrous good news is not so special as it seems?  Can it be that faithfulness and holiness can take a back seat in the life of a true believer to the pleasures and priorities of modern American life, with all its wealth and possibilities?  Jesus and His obvious God-connections were getting in the way of the plans and priorities of the leaders of the Temple religion, and, although they saw the truth, they thought that they could cool it down and re-prioritize things safely.

Faith in Christ and true faithfulness will call us to changing our behaviors, re-aligning our priorities, doing things first which we would rather leave for later.  You probably feel the tug-of-war in yourself between what you kind-sorta think you ought to be doing as a faithful child of God, and member of this body here, on the one hand, and the tug to enjoy what is yours, take the time for yourself, do what is every American's right to do, and call Christ unreasonable for suggesting (even though it is your own mind doing all the talking) that you live sacrificially as a deliberate Christian rather than self-indulgently as one who has every right to own, to do, or to go as you please.

Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.  The strong man in your life has been destroyed, and Jesus has taken his place - by taking yours on the cross.  He has set you free - from sin, and from the slavery to yourself and your flesh - to serve Him.  "Sin shall not be master over you, for you are no longer under law, but under grace."

So, what should you do?

I'm not going to tell you.  I cannot.  

Believe the Word of God, of course.  Walk in faith.  Live every moment in the presence of God, and in the light of His love for you and the marvelous gift of your forgiveness and salvation. 

 And remember the principle, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver."  That applies to your time.  It applies to your morals.  It applies to your energy.  It applies to your talents.  It applies to your entertainments, and it applies, finally, also to your money.  

You have the Word of God, now how you respond, by the power of God within you, is up to you.  Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.  And here, too Christ is victor!

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

(Let the people say Amen)