Series B- Proper 13 - "What must we do to be saved?" John 6:22-35

The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."
Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 6:22-35

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Gospel lesson, with special emphasis on verses 28 and 29. “Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” Thus far our text.

Dear friends in Christ. When I was a child growing up here in Lincoln, I was a member of the Boy Scouts. It was a fun chance for my friends and me to go off camping or hiking or do all sorts of other fun activities. Throughout all of these fun activities I was always working to advance myself in rank. I went all the way from lowly tenderfoot to Eagle Scout. It was fun to get a new badge and to have a little awards ceremony when the you were advanced to the next rank. The only trouble was to go from one rank to the next, I had a set number of requirements I had to accomplish. I had to earn this many merit badges and do this many hours of service work to become the next rank. I had to work to earn each and every advancement in Boy Scout rank.

That is the way it is with many things in our world today isn’t it? We have to earn things to actually get them to belong to us. To own a car, many 16 year olds have to go and get a part time job to pay not only for the car, but for the gas to make it go, and most expensively, insurance. To own a house, people have to work for years and years to pay off the mortgage, and they also have to pay the gas bill and the electric bill. These things have to be earned. You have to work hard to earn things. Even our relationships work that way. To remain good friends with someone, you have to spend time working on the relationship. To keep my wife happy, I have to work hard and turning my socks right side out before laundry day. (Though she might tell you I don’t do well at that.) Everything here on Earth we have we have to go and earn for ourselves.

The old saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But what about at Church? What about Religion? What about the thing that brings us all together today in this building? What do we do to earn salvation? We must ask our selves the same question that the crowds asked Jesus in our text. As verse 28 says, What must we do to work the works of God?

This is at times a very difficult question, one where the answer is not clear to us, just as it was not clear to the crowds in today’s text. They basically ask Jesus, what are the requirements to your club, how do we advance?

Just like the crowds in today’s text we ask what must we do… but we don’t always listen for the answer. Instead we have our own ideas. We think we already know what we need to do to please God. And I would venture a guess that almost all our answers fall into one of two camps. We either think we have to be absolutely perfect to the point of legalism, or we think that it doesn’t matter and we can do whatever we want. These two camps form opposing views on what God wants from us in our lives. They both try to answer the question of what we must do, but both fall short of the mark.

Let’s take the first group, the legalistic camp. It is the thought that if we do enough nice things, if we are good enough people that we can earn our way to heaven. It’s the thought that if I do enough community service I can advance to the next rank in holiness.

This point of view isn’t only in religion, it is everywhere. We see this sort of thing all the time on television. When I watch the evening news on television they always end there broadcast with someone who is doing a wonderful thing for their community. They tell you what a wonderful person they are, and how you should go and do the same. Be a wonderful person, and you will earn yourself nationwide praise on the evening news.

Sadly there are churches that teach the same thing. They teach you that you have to earn Jesus’ love and concern by doing a certain list of things. They ask you questions about what your purpose in life is. They give you steps to complete, “Do these 10 steps and you will be a better Christian, then Jesus will really love you.” They want you to be your best self now. These churches and books tell you that they are telling you about Jesus, when in reality they are only telling you about yourself. “You, you, you,” not Jesus. They are taking the focus off of Jesus Christ, and putting it on what you can do yourself.

They answer the question in today’s text, saying to do the work of God, you must be perfect, love your neighbors, love your family, love strangers and always do your very best to help them. They are those coaches that you had in childhood sports who told you to give 150% on the field. Sometimes, we fall into this camp. Sometimes we become legalistic. We pretend to obey every single letter of the law. The only problem is that we can’t. We can’t be perfect, sin affects us too much.

All of us have sinned, and in that sin we are incomplete. On our own we are dead. We cannot do it ourselves. And we know that from our lives. If we are honest with ourselves we know that we have not done all we could to love our neighbors or our God. Even if we say we do, we really don’t.

So if we can’t do it for ourselves, if the legalistic way doesn’t work, then how do we do the Works of God? There are other people we see in our world that have a different answer to that question. They say that you do the works of God not by worrying about fulfilling the law, but by doing what feels good to you. These are the people of the second group. They say, if it is something you want to do, then it must be something God wants you to do. They throw the law completely out because they feel they can’t obey it. They feel it is only a hindrance. Instead these people say that doing the work of God is being true to oneself.

This unfortunate point of view has allowed all sorts of evil to creep into the church. This is what allows homosexuality into so many churches in the world today. This is also why there are struggles with woman pastors in so many denominations. This is why so many churches throw out God’s word contained in the Liturgy for something that makes them feel upbeat. If it feels good for you, then do it, right? If we throw out God’s law, and only do what feels good to us, then we no longer listening to God, and if we aren’t listening to Him how can we be doing His work?

We too fall prey to this problem. We too have our own pet sins that we enjoy. Every once and a while when I drive, I like to yell at another car that I have judged to be operated by a rather second rate driver, even though God’s word tells me to love my neighbor. But I do it anyways, because I have judged it to be the right thing to do at the time. Its what I feel at that moment.

What about you? Do you have a similar issue? It might be with anything, it could be with alcohol, it could be with something of a sexual nature, it could be those swear words that escape your lips. The list could go on and on. Do you care that God says no to some things, or do you feel a little differently about things that God’s word says? Often times these people put there own life experiences at a higher level than what God’s word says.

This too is empty. This too will not save anyone from their sin. Instead it separates people from the true God. When asked “What must we do to do the works of God,” this answer says, “Nothing.” In fact, it echoes what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden, “Did God really say?” Just like the legalistic point of view, this view disrupts our view of the Gospel. When we hear the question, but ignore the answer that God gives us, we end up separated from God.

So what is the answer, what must we do to do the works of God? To know, we must look at what God answers us in His word. Let’s look at what our text says. “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent.’” That’s it. That’s the work. It isn’t living a prefect life, it isn’t doing whatever makes you feel good about yourself. No. It is believing in the living Son of God who was sent to set you free from sin. It is having faith in the dirty and bloody death of Jesus, and believing that in the end, death had no power over him. It is this that sets us free, that earns for us eternity.

But how do we believe. This is a question that I struggled with for a long time. I even remember when I first began attending Good Shepherd having a long conversation with one of the pastors here about it. “How do I make myself believe? I just can’t seem to make myself.” That my friends is the beauty of it. We don’t do anything. That faith, that belief, is all a gift. It comes to us as a wonderful present from God. We receive that faith and trust in Jesus through the Word and Sacrament. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper we receive faith as a gift. In the hearing of God’s word, preached and heard in the liturgy, we receive Jesus as a gift.

Each of us, on that day when we were baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, were brought into the family of faith. There we began to struggle with this belief in our lives. Yes, it is not always a constant thing, in our sin, our faith does waver, but we have the daily promise that baptism gives to us. It is the promise that daily we will die to sin and raise with Jesus Christ, just as he died on a cross and raised again. In those baptismal waters we are washed in the blood of Jesus, the blood he shed for us, and then raised into glorious life.

Here at this altar, we have that grace poured out on us again and again as we come to receive the very body and blood of Jesus. We partake in that body which was beaten, bloodied and killed upon a cross. In that eating God works the miracle of faith in us, just as He did in baptism. And as we gather together to hear that word, that faith is strengthened.

You see, Faith is completely a gift from God. We don’t do anything to believe in the one God sent. God gives us that belief, just as He gives us the promise of eternity. It is as we confess in the Catechism, I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, and sanctified and kept me in the one true faith. This is God’s promise. It is not a promise to take lightly, it is a promise sealed in blood. It is a promise that was earned for us by the blood of the one God sent.

Dear friends in Christ, what must you do to advance in faith? What must you do become a child of God? In our text today, Jesus tells us the answer. Nothing, He has done it all for you. It is through faith by grace that you daily receive the gifts God gives. It is in Jesus that you have done the works of God. It is in those precious means of grace, that you are God’s children. It is God’s promise to you, sealed in Christ’s blood. It is our faith, believing in the one God sent. Amen.

Final Vicarage Sermon "The Gospel is not Hidden"

Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text today comes from the book of 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4. “Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:1-6) Thus far our text.

Dear Friends in Christ, when I was a kid, my brothers and I used to play hide and seek. I am sure all of you have played it. Everyone goes and finds a hiding spot while another person goes out to look for them. I always liked to be “It” because it was easy to find my brothers. They would do there best to hide, but there was always something that gave their hiding spots away. There was always a way to find them. Maybe one of them would be partially visible, or maybe you could hear them whispering. In any case, it was impossible for them to hide perfectly. It was impossible for me the great hide-and-go-seeker to not find them.

Our Gospel lesson says the same thing, with a little bit of a twist. In our lesson, Satan is trying to hide the good news about Jesus. He is trying to cover it up as best he can and to prevent us from seeing, hearing, and believing it. He is trying to keep us from finding Jesus using deception, sin, pain and suffering. Through these things, it is difficult to tell if Jesus really is there or not. It is difficult to tell if Jesus actually existed or not. It is difficult to believe the Gospel.

In the world we see all sorts of other things besides Jesus. We see murder, and war. We see hunger and pain. We see sickness and death. We see these things as we watch the news. We see these things as we look at our own lives. Sin is everywhere, and at times it seems like the Gospel is nowhere like it is hidden.

With all of these bad things going on, we wonder, “Where is God? Where are all of those wonderful promises that God had made to us? Where can we look for comfort and hope when all we see is pain and suffering? Is God hiding from us?

Sometimes, it seems like God is hiding and we are only left with pain and suffering. Every where we look we see this pain and suffering. Many of us daily deal with this. Perhaps we have a loved one who is sick, or dying. Perhaps there is someone we know who has faced a terrible tragedy. In my time here, just over the last year, I have seen many who have to struggle with pain for a loved one. Almost all of us here have had to deal with some sort of physical struggle, one which leaves us asking, “Is God hiding from me?”

But God is not hiding himself. Instead it is our sin that takes our eyes off of him. It is our sin that separates us from him. Our text says: “the god of this age is blinding many from seeing the truth of the Gospel.” The god of our age is Sin, it is Death and it is the Devil. Those things are blinding our eyes from seeing the gospel clearly, from knowing where and how God works. It is those things that makes it seem like God is hiding.

This is all the work of Satan. He takes great delight in our suffering with sin and death. He loves watching us struggle. He loves it when we doubt that there is a god. Satan loves that we often times wonder if God is hiding from us, or that God doesn’t care about us.

He loves it when we have those doubts, because it makes it easier for us to trust in something else. When we doubt in God, when we think he is hiding from us, we think we have more authority in our lives. We think we can decide what is right and wrong for our own lives. When we think God is hiding from us, we think we are free to sin as we please. Millions of people today struggle with this. It leads to abortions, it leads to sexual immorality, it leads to idolatry. Most importantly, it leads us to the false assumption that we can do whatever, and not get caught! If God is hidden, we are free to be our own God.

This is what we want. We want to be in charge of ourselves. Because we want to be our own boss, we often times our selves hide from God. We are afraid of God, so we pretend like He isn’t there. We know that God is just, and that God is holy and that we are not. We don’t want to come into his presence because we know that we are incomplete. Each and every one of us has sinned. Each and every one of us has failed to fulfill what God wants us to do. Instead we are continually falling short of what he wants from us. We don’t love our neighbors. Instead we bicker and fight. Instead we complain about them to others. We don’t even love God himself. Instead we criticize him for the way He handles things. We hate him because we think He is making us suffer though this life here on Earth.

We don’t want to be in God’s presence. We want him to hide, it is safer for us if He is not around. We would rather be separated from him. But separated, where can we look for help? Where can we look for hope, in whom can we trust?

But God did not hide himself. There is hope. Even as Satan tries to hide God from our eyes, God makes such a loud and bold proclamation that we cannot miss what he has to say. We cannot miss the Gospel, because it is all around us. We hear this message here at Mt. Calvary. It is here and in other churches that the Gospel is boldly proclaimed to all who would hear it. And that message is this, as our text says. “Jesus Christ is Lord.” Jesus Christ, the man who came and lived among us was also true God. As true God he fully paid for all of our sins by dying on the cross. That is the Gospel, Jesus Christ Crucified for all your sins.

As I said, that message is what is preached here at Mt. Calvary. That is the very reason that I have been here for the last year. To preach the Gospel to you, and to learn how to better preach it in the future. I have loved getting to know you, but more importantly I have loved telling you about Jesus. That is what Vicars and Pastors are supposed to do! St. Paul even talks about it in our text today. “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” As my time here comes to a close, that is what I pray has been proclaimed to you. I have loved being here, and will take many fond memories with me. But unless I did my best in preaching the gospel, none of it was worth anything. It is the gospel that unites us. It is in that Gospel that we put our hope.

And it is not only through the hearing of God’s word that we receive the Gospel. There are other means by which we get the good gifts of God. God does hide, but God hides right where he has promised to be. God hides much like my brothers, where we can always find Him. God is hidden in Bread and Wine, which when we eat it, we receive the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for our sins. God is hidden in water as a baby receives the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism. There God is hidden right where we can find him. We have access to God, we can come into contact with Him. Satan cannot keep us away from Jesus.

Because we cannot be separated from Jesus our sin has been hidden, because it has been covered in the blood of the lamb. No matter how hard anyone looks, they cannot find a sin that Jesus will not forgive. Jesus Christ died, to hide our sins away for ever. Now we are free from them. No longer do we need to hide ourselves from Him, because we have forgiveness. As our text says, the God who said, “Let there be light” is the same God who says, “Let your sins be forgiven by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Just as my brothers were never really hidden away from me, so too is God never hidden from us. He is always right where he promises to be. We know and we can trust in the ministry that God has given to us, Word and Sacrament. As I head back to Ft. Wayne tomorrow, I will take great joy in knowing that we all share in this Gospel message. We all have the promise that God will not hide from us, and that we cannot hide from God.

Series B-Trinity Sunday-"Who knows what God is like?"

Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text today is from the book of Romans, chapter 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Thus far our text.

Friends in Christ, today is Trinity Sunday. We sometimes dread this day of the year, because we know that church will be 10 minutes longer than normal. No not because of my sermon. On this day every year, we take the time to say the longest of all our creeds, the Athanasian Creed, and it is long, two pages in our hymnal. We say this creed to try and get an idea of what God is like. We always have the question, what is God like? People paint pictures of what they think the trinity looks like or even what God the father looks like. We can think of some of paintings. Perhaps we get an idea of God being like His depiction on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Maybe we even have another way of thinking about God. There are all sorts of books that attempt to describe what God is like. But does any human depiction really make sense? Can our limited understandings actually understand what God is truly like? Who is God?

When we think about God, often times we think that He rather mysterious. We have a difficult time understanding him, and there is good reason for that. If we were to glance at the words of the Athanasian Creed, we would see that it does make God out to be rather mysterious. With all the discussion there in about equal and coequal and begotten and infinite, it is difficult to understand what it is really telling us about God.

And we do struggle to understand God. As I said earlier, our minds are rather limited. When we think about the Trinity, it is impossible for us to understand. We can’t fathom how three persons could be one God. We can’t understand how one of those persons took upon Himself human flesh. It just doesn’t make sense. And it never will.

Our minds are full of sin, and being as such, they cannot understand something that is without sin. God is mysterious to us because He is without sin. He is mysterious to us because our limited sinful minds are unable to understand something that is not like us. It is impossible. God will always seem mysterious because He will always be holy. As our text says today, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”

God is also powerful. In fact, it is often times God’s power that we are more worried about. God is the almighty all powerful Creator of the universe and all that is in it. He is so powerful; He even did all of this with simply his word. He said “Let there be,” and there was. That is God’s infinite power.

God’s power can be a little nerve-racking for us, because we don’t have the same power, in fact we are completely at God’s mercy. He can do what ever He wishes to us at any time. Have you ever stopped to think what God’s awesome power really means for us? Especially as we are sinners, and He is not. God has almighty power, and we have disobeyed Him in our thoughts words and deed, by what we have done and by what we left undone.

Perhaps this illustration will help. Imagine that you are a cricket, and not just any cricket, but one that has been captured by a person, and is now firmly trapped in that person’s hand. As the cricket there are only two things you really know. First that the person has you completely and totally surrounded, and you can’t escape him. Secondly that with little thought, that hand could squash you completely and totally.

Is that how you feel about God? That He is inescapable no matter what you want or desire. Do you sometimes want to hide things from Him, even though you know you can’t? Are you in fear of Him, in fear that He will squash you without so much as a second thought? At times in our lives this is the way it seems. Our struggles seem so great that we struggle to come to any conclusion other than that God must be planning on squashing us, there is no escape, He is after us and we are doomed. God is powerful.

So God is Mysterious, and God is Powerful, and now, we also know from scripture that God is just. As I mentioned earlier, this also is truly scary thing for us. God is just. He cannot stand sin. He will not allow it to come into his presence. He will deal with it harshly and justly. He will destroy those in sin eternally. They will forever be apart from Him.

That is a scary prospect if we are honest with ourselves. We are sinners, we are not holy. We can tell this by the things we do, by the way we lust after all sorts of wicked things. What’s more, we often times pretend to have the same attributes as our Holy God. We pretend that we are mysterious, like we have some big secret that the world needs to find out about us. We pretend that we are powerful, that we can really make a difference in the world, and we pretend that we are holy. We pretend that we are not sinners and that we are not guilty, even though we are.

When we hear these things about who God is, there is little good news for our ears. But there is one more way in which we can know God: By what He does. And what He does makes those other attributes not bad news, but rather good news.

What God does is rescue. What God does is save. What God does is pour out mercy upon people. He loves His creation. We see that in the way that He sent His Son Jesus Christ for us. He gave His only begotten Son, the second person of the Trinity to die for your sins, and for the sins of the world.

Jesus’ name even means that, in the Hebrew original the name Jesus means “The Lord saves.” And that is what God does. That is truly how we know about God and about the Trinity. It is through Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified. As the Athanasian Creed says, “Jesus Suffered for our salvation.” There do we see the attributes of God clearly.

Yes we are sinners, but Christ dies for them. He washes us in His very own blood. There is not a single sin that cannot be forgiven. Jesus was served our punishment, He suffered in our place. He was killed because we fell short of what God wanted, and then He delivered that forgiveness to us. Christ has died for our sins, and now we are set free.

God is not just some cruel torturer from above, no, He is full of love. Through the death of Jesus, we better understand what this love is all about, and how the Trinity works. When we look at God through the lens of Jesus Christ crucified, we still see a Holy God, but now this Holiness is passed on to you and to me. Not by our own works, but instead by the work of Jesus. Through his death you have been returned to a relationship with God.

Through that same lens, we see God’s powerfulness, and it no longer is something to be afraid of, but instead something used to set us free from sin. God could have left us alone. God could have squashed us like a bug, but instead, He used His almighty power, to save. He did everything necessary, and everything imaginable to rescue you, not to punish you. He did this because of Jesus’ death.

And the mystery of it all is why? Why does God save us sinners? Why does He care about us when we turn away from Him every day? Because He loves us, and because Jesus suffered for us. It isn’t because of our own preconceived notions of God. It isn’t because we did something good, or are really smart. Rather it is the very nature of God, the nature of the Trinity to save sinners from sin. God the Father created you, God the Son rescued you from sin death and the devil, and God the Holy Spirit points you to that faith everyday of your life. God, Three in one, one in Three, loves you and has rescued you from your sin.

So what is God like? As our text says, “"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! He has rescued us from our sins. That is the important thing to know about God. Amen.

Series B-Pentecost-2009-G- "The Holy Spirit Testifies About Jesus"

"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you."

-John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text today is the Gospel lesson; especially verse 26 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” Thus far our text.

Dear friends in Christ, I like to go hunting every fall. I enjoy getting out doors and spending some time out in God’s beautiful creation. I especially enjoy it when I got to go pheasant hunting with my dad. My dad owned 2 Britney spaniels, pointing dogs. These dogs would run in huge circles wherever they wished, sniffing for birds. Upon finding some sort of bird, they would come to a perfect stop instantly, and point to where the birds were. They would stay there pointing until we could get up there to flush the birds, so that we, hopefully, could hit them. The dogs loved this, they loved the opportunity to run and to point birds. That’s all they did. They would point the birds and wait for you to flush them. And if you missed, the dogs would be sure to give you a sideways look, as if saying, “I pointed them out to you, and you couldn’t even hit them?

Friends, the Holy Spirit works the same way. The Holy Spirit is always pointing something out to us, Jesus. On this great church holiday, Pentecost, we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit, but even then, it is not just the Holy Spirit that we need to think about, but instead we need to know what the Holy Spirit does. How the Holy Spirit points not to Himself, but instead to Jesus Christ and Him crucified for all of our sins. Our text today makes that clear, as Jesus says, "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me.” The Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and Jesus alone. He is like a giant road sign that says “Hey Jesus is this way! Follow me to Jesus”. But sadly, we as sinful human beings sometimes struggle with this. We don’t always understand or listen to the Holy Spirit. And when we misunderstand the Holy Spirit, we misunderstand who He is testifying about, Jesus Christ.

To know how we misunderstand who the Holy Spirit is testifying about, we have to know how it works. Jesus promises in today’s text that He would send a helper, a counselor, who when He comes will guide you in all truth. This promised helper is the Holy Spirit, and even today He does the will of Jesus. He convicts of our sin as we hear God’s word, and He pours out forgiveness through both Word and Sacraments. We call these the Means of Grace, where God works with us poor sinners today. These are the ways that we get the forgiveness of sins earned for us by Jesus on the cross.

But often times today, we ignore the work of the Holy Spirit. We ignore the means by which He is a helper and counselor to us. Instead we neglect and ignore His work, and end up looking for God in all the wrong places.

Take the first of the means of grace, God’s word. How often in our lives do we neglect hearing God’s word. Yes, we come to church, but do we always pay attention to God’s Word outside of Church? I know that for myself, a vicar at a church getting ready to return to studies at the Seminary, it is very difficult to keep in God’s word every day. Sure I look at it, and I study it for sermons, but it is difficult to get into God’s word for the purpose of devotion. There is always something else to do, rather than read a few chapters of scripture. I can watch the television. I can clan the house. I can go for a jog, or a walk. I can find hundreds of different things to do to avoid God’s word, to ignore the work of the Holy Spirit pointing me towards Jesus.

What about you? Do you sufferer from the same excuses that I have? Do you too avoid God’s word? Even today, people struggle to believe whether or not the Bible is the truth, or if it really means what it says. When this happens, we begin to doubt God’s word itself, and when we doubt God’s word, we doubt whether or not the Holy Spirit works through that word or not.

With this the other two means of grace, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper also suffer. It is the very word and promises of God themselves that make those two things so valuable to us as Christians. In Baptism we believe that we are connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus. But if we doubt God’s Word, we can’t really believe that to be true. If we doubt God’s word, Baptism becomes just a nice symbolic act. And the Lords’ Supper is where we eat the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, but if we doubt God’s word, it is a nice little post sermon snack.

With these doubts, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit who Jesus sent, is no longer connected to God’s word. And if it is not connected to God’s word, it isn’t really a help at all. Yes, we may look for the Holy Spirit elsewhere. Perhaps we try to find him in other places, maybe in how we feel, maybe in how we think, maybe in what we “do” for Jesus. But He has not promised to be there. The Holy Spirit promises to work through God’s word, and so it is there that we must find him, even though, that is not where we often times look for Him.

If we ignore the Holy Spirit, it would be like hunting with my dad’s pointers and when they went on point by a bird, searching the next field over looking to scare up the birds. No longer would we actually find any birds to even shoot at. No longer would we be trusting our helper, or our counselor. In the same way, when we ignore the means of grace by which the Holy Spirit work, we ignore who they point to.

But that is not the way we hunt, and it is not the way that Christians find the Holy Spirit. Today on Pentecost, we heard in the Epistle lesson how the Holy Spirit was poured upon the apostles like tongues of flame. How the Holy Spirit came upon them and caused them to go out and testify that day, not about themselves, but instead about Jesus Christ. You see the Holy Spirit isn’t out there pointing at himself, but instead is always telling us about Jesus.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit that tells us today, “Even though you are a sinner, even though you are guilty, Jesus has died for you.” Jesus was beaten and bloodied, for you. Jesus was mocked and ridiculed, for you. Jesus was nailed upon a cross and left to suffer there until death, for you. And then Jesus raised from the dead on the third day and now lives and reigns for all eternity, for you. All of these things were done for you and for your sin. This is the message of the Holy Spirit. And it doesn’t end there. Instead there is more good news in the message of the Holy Spirit. He proclaims now that you are directly connected to that suffering and death.

How? Through those means mentioned above. It is in these means that God gives by the work of the Holy Spirit we are brought to and sustained in faith. In these things, the Holy Spirit shouts, “Jesus died for you,” and now you hear that message with your ears. The Holy Spirit shouts, “You have died and risen with Jesus, because you are washed in the waters of Holy Baptism.” You now partake in that very body and blood of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ at the Lord’s Supper. These things all point us directly to Jesus Christ.

Yes sometimes in our lives we struggle with what we believe about them. Yes sometimes we even ignore them, or mistreat them, but they are always there pointing and directing us back to the cross. Even when we turn and stray away, the Holy Spirit returns us to the correct path.

On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and now He testifies about Jesus Christ crucified.

Because of the Holy Spirit’s testimony, the apostles testified about Christ Jesus, and that message through the Holy Spirit has come down over thousands of years, and now the Holy Spirit testifies that same message to you. Jesus Christ has died for your sins. Jesus Christ suffered for you. Jesus Christ loves you, and will be with you always, even to the very end of the age. “There He is in the hearing and study of God’s Word. There He is in the receiving of the Sacraments.” The Holy Spirit is there to point and guide us, so that we cannot miss Jesus.

Friends, the Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and how Jesus saves you from your sin. You are now forgiven, because Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit tells us about it. That is what Pentecost is all about. Amen.

Now may the peace of God which far surpasses all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord unto Life everlasting. Amen.

June Newsletter Article

As we announced a few weeks ago on Ascension Day services at Church, Elizabeth and I are the proud parents of a blueberry sized baby. We are expecting him or her to be born in early January. We are both excited, but are also a little bit nervous. There are now so many things to worry about, and to take care of.

We are excited, because God’s word tells us that this baby is already a human being. From the moment of conception, God has knit together this baby in the womb. (Psalm 139:13) In other words, we aren’t waiting to be parents, we are currently parents, because God has already made this tiny baby a person. This person has a soul and is loved and cared for by God.

What’s more, I believe that we can trust that this baby has faith. The baby comes to church every week with my wife, and shortly (as the ears form…) will be able to hear the entire congregation singing hymns. It will hear the sermons and scripture readings where the Word of God will be read and proclaimed in it’s truth and purity. Furthermore, the baby eats whatever Elizabeth eats. When she partakes in the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the baby too partakes. Thus a baby is partaking in the forgivness of sins even in the womb. Through these means, babies have faith, the same way that you and I have faith.

That is not to say that the baby is perfect. Quite the contrary, this baby is a sinner, a poor miserable one. Scripture tells us that “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5) This can’t be denied, though many try to. Babies are sinful. Our confessions speak of sin as being curved in upon oneself (incurvatus est) and that is what we see in babies. There only concerns are about getting fed, or changed, or how they feel.

Babies are sinful, just as you and I are. At times we even tease each other about our sin, saying, “Quit your whining you big baby!” or other such things. Saying these things acknowledges not only the sin in our babies, but also in ourselves. We too are often only concerned with ourselves, curved in upon ourselves. With this, we are living in sin.

But just as the baby in my wife’s womb is being brought to faith by the Means of Grace and the work of the Holy Spirit, so too are we. God washes us in baptismal waters, the same way he does for a newborn baby. God also keeps us in the one true faith through the hearing of His word and feeds that faith through the eating of the very body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

These gifts are freely given to us, so that we who because of sin were separated from God now freely trust in Him. It is a miracle. Nothing in what we say or do should lead us to believe in God, but still through His work, He leads us to trust in Jesus Christ crucified for the sins of the world. In the same way he does so for babies. Yes it seems like babies shouldn’t be able to believe, but God works a miracle in their hearts, and brings them to faith. We shouldn’t be able to believe either, but God allows us to believe.

“But Vicar, babies can’t understand anything? How can they understand faith?” Faith is not about understanding. Faith is about God working salvation for us through the cross, even when we don’t understand it. Faith is about God bestowing those gifts to us though we don’t deserve them. Faith is about Jesus Christ. As I said in last months article, Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It is completely and totally God’s work.

For this reason, I have no doubt that the baby growing in my wife’s womb already has faith in Christ. It already trusts in Jesus, and thus is already a member of the eternal kingdom of God. That baby has already come into contact with the Means of Grace. We too have been brought into contact with those Means, and now we too have faith. God is good and gracious.

Easter 7 Series B 2009 "The Name of Jesus"

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.
I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth;
your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

-John 17

Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text today is the Gospel lesson, with special emphasis on the first two verses.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Is your name important? Does it actually mean something, or does it mean nothing? In the play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet determines that a name doesn’t really mean anything, saying “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”
It seems like names don’t mean anything. We toss them around and use them like they don’t matter. I can’t remember how many times, when I was in trouble as a kid, that my mom would call me both of my brothers names before finally realizing that it was me, Adam, that was in trouble. She knew which one was the one who was in trouble, but she the name wasn’t the important thing at the time.

And many of us don’t like our names either, we change them or shorten them, we pick nicknames and demand that people call us that instead. For us people in today’s day and age, names just aren’t really that important at all are they? No matter what you call something, it just doesn’t change what it is.

But to God, names are important. To God names mean something. Throughout the pages of scriptures, God gives people names that mean something. These names identify who the person is, and what they have done or will do. We have Peter, whose name mean rock, and upon whose confession, “You are the Christ” the church is founded. We have Abraham, whose name means Father of the People, who became the father of many nations. The list goes on and on, but the most important name is the name of Jesus, the Greek version of Joshua, which means the Lord saves. Jesus, who would die on a cross for all of our sin, has the very name meaning he will save us.

In today’s text, Jesus prays that the Father might keep us in the name that God has given, the name of Jesus, the name “The Lord Saves.” In that name we are one, in that name we are united as the Church of Christ.

But we haven’t always been in that name. We were born of another name, We were born into the name of sin, into the name of Death, into the name of the Tempter. We have been held captive to this name. We could serve no other name on our own. Instead we were held bondage to the owner of this name, Satan.

We have been subject to the name of Satan since almost the very dawn of time. It was when our forefather Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil that we have been bound to that name. In that act, all of us have been sold into slavery to Sin death and the devil.
And we can see that in our daily lives. We are slaves to sin, and because of that we can not truly love God. Our sin shows itself in every way imaginable. St. Paul tells us in Galatians 5, that the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. Those are the things we are guilty of. We are guilty of these things because each one of them stems from our broken relationship with God. These things are sin. Sin tarnishes the name of God, it separates us from him.

When we are separated from God, we no longer have his name upon us, instead we have the name of Sin Death and the Devil. And really, we don’t want to have God’s name upon us do we? How many times in our lives do we avoid the opportunity to witness to who’s name is upon us? We are at times embarrassed to be known to be a Christian, to have Jesus’ name upon us. Our text tells us that because we have God’s word, that the world will hate us. We don’t want to be hated, we want to be liked. We want to have friends. We want respect. Instead we brazenly claim any other name we can, but we ignore the name of God. We don’t want to claim that name for ourselves. But we will claim any other name.

I am an American. I am a South Dakotan. I am a republican, or I am a democrat. I am doctor, I am a Teacher, I am a whatever, but when it comes to faith we feel like we have to be careful who knows what we believe. We have to be careful who we share our faith with. I don’t want to put my job on the line by claiming to be a Christian. I don’t want to offend anyone who thinks differently then me because I am a Christian. So I will just keep it quite and inside. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be embarrassed infront of my friends, so I ignore my faith in public.
Its easier to do that. We don’t want people to think badly of us. We don’t want to be criticized. Instead we want everyone to like us. But God says in our text today that he has given us his word, and that the “world has hated them” because of it. The world hates Christianity because it is not of this world.

But we do have God’s name upon, even though we are in sin. Even though we deny it before the world, we are God’s possession, and we do have His name upon us.

You received that name in the waters of Holy Baptism. You received a new name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That name is the name above all names, the name at which all other names will bow. That is the name of Jesus. You receive it upon you, and it claims you as its own.

In the ancient Christian church, all the baptisms, for both adults and children were done at one time, the day before Easter. At that time all the baptismal candidates would come into the church in the very early morning before Easter Dawn, and they would be washed in the baptismal waters. Upon coming out of the water, they would receive a new Christian name, and leave behind their old pagan name. Instead of having the name of Apollo, the pagan god, you would have the name Christopher, the bearer of Christ. Instead your pagan name you received a Christian name, one that marked you as Christ.

In modern baptism, we have a remnant of that, as the Pastor asks, “What is this child to be named?” and immediately following, that baby is baptized into the name of God. In baptism we too have left behind our old name, the name of Sin, the name of Death, the name of the devil. Now we have a new name, one that marks us as belonging to Christ.

In the book of Revelation, we see that name being recorded in the book of Life. In baptism, your name was recorded into that book, written in the blood of the lamb. You see it isn’t just claiming the name “Christian” that saves you. Instead it is that by being washed in that name, you are connected to the very death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When you received the name of God, you died with Christ on the cross. When you received the name of God, you laid dead with Christ in a tomb for three days. When you received the name of God, you rose victoriously with Jesus, and now will never die again. Now you have eternal life and you have it to the full.
Friends in Christ, Jesus has given you his name, so that when God the Father looks at you, he doesn’t see your former name of sin, he doesn’t see all those times when you thumbed your nose at Him. Instead, God sees Jesus every time He looks at you. Thus He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you are serving me in Christ’s name, the name of Jesus, the name which means God saves.”

Jesus prays in today’s text that you might be kept in that name. IN our world today, we will face many struggles. People will die unexpectedly. Friends will suffer from sickness and disease. People will hate you because you are in that name. Through it all, God has promised to keep you in that name. God has promised that you will remain His, for nothing can snatch you out of his had. He has promised, and that promise is written in the blood of Jesus Christ, crucified for the sins of the world.

Jesus name means God saves. Jesus name is written upon you. Jesus name cannot be erased by anyone else no matter what. You are His. He will now guard and protect you even to life ever lasting. Names do mean something. God’s name means you have forgiveness life and salvation. Nothing is as sweet as that promise: Life in Jesus Name.

Amen.

May Newsletter Article

No, this is not a sermon, but it is still something I wrote.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for." -Hebrews 11:1

Faith is a difficult thing in today’s world, especially if we look at the definition that the author of Hebrews gives. In today’s world, “Seeing is believing.” If you can’t see it or touch it, then how do you know that it is real? Science takes that to the extreme saying for something to be true, we have to be able to duplicate it in a lab, and be able to explain it.

We like to be able to follow that law, “Seeing is believing.” We want to be able to have some sort of proof that what we believe is the truth. We don’t always get that in religion. We can’t talk to any eye witnesses from the day of Jesus. There aren’t photographs of Jesus on the cross, or even more importantly for faith, resurrected from the dead. We don’t have recordings of Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount. We don’t have scientific evidence of any of Jesus’ miracles. All we have is 4 different historical accounts of Jesus (the Gospels) and a few other references in history, along with a smattering of letters written by early Christians. Is that enough to believe?

It wouldn’t be enough to be published in a scientific paper as truth, not according to modern standards. But some things in life are unexplainable. Some things in life are completely beyond explanation, despite the efforts of people everywhere. No matter what science says to try and explain it, it can never fully understand the love a mother or father has for their child. It cannot explain the reason that someone will forgive someone else time and time again, even when the same situation happens over and over. These things are completely unexplainable.

Faith is also unexplainable. It sounds ridiculous to human ears because it involves trusting in something we can’t see. We cannot see God, and we cannot always tell how he is caring for us or providing for us. It is impossible. But there is still a certainty that we have. We know that God loves us and provides for us. We know that Christ has died for our sins. We know that God will give us eternal life in heaven with him. We know these things, but we cannot prove them or see them.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” That is faith, that is why we confess we have faith, and not that we have “certainty.” As Thomas first saw Jesus resurrected and said “My God and my Lord,” so too do we say it now, though we have not seen Jesus face to face like Thomas. But Jesus speaks of us saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen, but yet believe.” (John 20) That is us. We have not beheld Christ with our eyes, but we believe, because we know him to be there in truth. In this case, seeing is not necessarily believing.

Even though seeing is not believing in this case, we do physically experience Christ. We partake in His very body and blood, even though we do not understand why. We eat them and in that eating gain life and salvation. We are covered by His blood in the waters of Holy Baptism, but we don’t understand how. It is about more than just understanding it is about faith. It is being certain of what we cannot see or understand, and being sure of what we hope for.

Series A-Easter 2-2009- "Don't be afraid of Jesus."

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

-John 20:19-31 NIV

Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen. Our text today is from the Gospel reading, with special emphasis on the first verse. “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Thus far our text.

He is Risen, He is risen indeed, alleluia, amen. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today’s text is about fear. Not that fear you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize you didn’t get your homework done for your 6th grade English teacher. Its not about that fear you get every April 14th, knowing that your taxes need to be mailed in the next day. No, friends, this fear is something even more powerful than that. It is even worse than that fear you have after you watch that scarey movie at your friends house. Today’s text is about fear over life and death, and fear over the punishment of your sins. Today’s text is about the worst kind of fear, eternal fear, meeting your maker fear.

Today’s text takes place on the evening of the very first Easter. The disciples are all gathered together, but they are not celebrating. Peter and John had seen the empty tomb that morning, they had spoken with Mary Magdalene, but they weren’t excited. Instead, the disciples had locked themselves together in a room. They had the door firmly bolted, the windows pulled shut, and they were deathly afraid.

Why were they afraid?

Our text gives us one of the reasons, they were afraid for fear of the Jews. They were afraid that those same people who three days earlier had killed Jesus would come after them. After all they had been followers of Jesus of Nazereth, a man who was crucified, being accused of trying to overthrow Roman rule. A man who, when asked, “are you the King of the Jews,” responded, “yes it is as you say.” Jesus claimed to be the king of the Jews, and neither the Jews nor the Romans liked it.

Now with Jesus gone, with Jesus crucified, the Disciples are afraid that they are next on the list for crucifixion. They are afraid that they will be the next ones nailed up for the world to ridicule. They were afraid. And we can’t blame them can we? After they had seen Jesus beaten, tortured, and slowly killed, and they didn’t want to suffer the same fate, so they were lying low. They were trying to fly under the radar, they were hiding. Today they are locked up in a house, avoiding anyone who might accuse them.

But they aren’t only afraid of the Jews who killed Jesus. No, they are also afraid of the “King of the Jews”, Jesus. What? How can they be afraid of Jesus? They are afraid because of what they did as Jesus was arrested and tried and crucified. One of their number, Judas, betrayed Jesus into the hands of the Jews. Peter denied Jesus three times, and then ran away weeping. The other ten disciples didn’t even wait around long enough to deny him, instead they fled into the night. At the time when Jesus was most in need of friends, they abandoned him. They left him to die on His own, to suffer unaccompanied.

But now they have heard a new report. They have heard that the tomb is empty, they have heard that Jesus is no longer dead, that what He said about Himself was the Truth, that He must die and then raise again on the third day. Now they are afraid of Jesus, they are afraid that He will come find them and pay them back for what they did to him. They are afraid that Jesus will seek revenge on those who abandoned Him.

And they should be afraid, they had abandoned the Lord and Creator of Heaven and Earth. It doesn’t take much imagining to see that is not the kind of person you want to make angry. What punishment could God have waiting for them, it could be worse then the punishment that the Jews have waiting for them.

So here sit the disciples, locked in a small house, waiting for which ever group finds them first. They are afraid, afraid that their lives are forfeit. Afraid that they shortly die, either by the hand of the Jews who killed their master, or by the master they betrayed.

They have the doors locked, to try and keep out those who want to harm them, they have the doors locked, so that only the people they want to let in can come in. So instead of celebrating that first Easter evening, they are afraid. There they are that first Easter evening, alone, scared, locked in, waiting whatever may happen.

Those foolish disciples, don’t they know they don’t have to be afraid? Don’t they know that everything will work out? What’s the big deal, Jesus has raised from the dead? Don’t they get it? But we are guilty of the same thing. We too have fears in our lives. We too struggle to trust that God will really take care of us whatever befalls us in our Earthly lives.

What are you afraid of? What things do you run away from, hide yourself from? What things are you afraid of more than anything else. All of us have something we are afraid of. Are you afraid for your family, for their future? Are you afraid that you might not have enough money to provide for them in these difficult times? That is a very real concern in this day and age. Many of our retirement accounts have lost half their value. People are losing their jobs all over the country and we fear that it might be only a matter of time before it is our turn. Are you afraid for your loved one who is sick, and facing death? It does hurt when we see that person in pain, sometimes we would rather run away than stand up and face the problems that the world presents us with. Do you have a loved one who is struggling with a particular sin, and the pain of seeing what they are doing to themselves is almost too much to bear. Are you afraid of confessing Christ, or do you run away like the disciples?

All of us deal with these struggles, all of us deal with this sin. It is a fact of our lives here on Earth. All of us are guilty of something, some sort of sin, and as a result we live our lives in fear, fear of what the consequences will be, fear of what tomorrow may bring.


We too are often afraid of Jesus. Just like the disciples we are afraid of what will happen when Jesus returns and judges us for our sin. What secret sin do you harbor in your heart? What guilt is there that you hide away from everyone, that you don’t want anyone to know? Just like the disciples, we have abandoned God at some time or another. We know that Christ will return again on the last day, He has promised it. We even confess it in the creed when we see “from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead,” that’s you. He will come to judge you. So what do you do?

We try to hide our sin. Just like the disciples locked themselves in a room to hide because of fear, we too hide our sin away, deep down where we think no one can see it but ourselves. We try to hide the sin, and go on like it isn’t there. But it is there. It is there, and no matter how deep we try to hide it, no matter how much we try to not think about it, its there. Jesus knows our sin. We can’t hide it from him. He knows it, and He died because of it. We can’t run from him. We can’t keep him out.

Just like the disciples, we struggle with fear. We hide because of our sin. WE are a little bit afraid that Jesus will show up, and condemn us because we are not worthy to follow him.

But Jesus comes. In our text today, even though the disciples had locked themselves in, Jesus comes. So too for you, no matter where you lock yourself away, Jesus comes. He will find you no matter what. Our text says, “When the disciples were together with the door locked, Jesus appeared and stood among them and said, ‘peace be with you.’” Peace. Peace be with you. Peace is not what the disciples have been expecting. They have been expecting the judgment that comes with abandoning God, the judgment that leads to eternal death in hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, but instead, Jesus speaks peace, peace be with you. Jesus knows that they have abandoned him, Jesus knows they ran away from their troubles and their danger, but He still loves them, He still cares for them. He still speaks peace.

This voice that speaks “Peace be with you,” is the same voice that spoke, “let there be light, and there was.” When Jesus speaks peace, peace there will be. The disciples no longer are afraid, but instead can now rejoice, Jesus has risen and now He gives us peace.

Now He gives you peace. Now He speaks those same words, to us poor miserable sinners. Peace. Not as the world gives, does Jesus give to you, no, Jesus gives real peace. Eternal peace. He gives peace that can overcome all of those difficult situations in our life. He gives peace that can over come those deep dark secrets and sin that we hide away. He gives peace, which surpasses all our human understanding.

Just as the disciples could not keep this peace away by way of locked doors and closed window, so too, can you not keep Jesus from giving you His peace.

No, St. Paul even says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In that promise, you have peace. You don’t need to be afraid, God gives Peace. He promises it by His death and glorious resurrection. It is a promised sealed in His blood. It is a promise of peace.

Jesus is Risen, but we don’t have to be afraid, we don’t have to worry about what will happen when He gets here, because He brings peace, He brings life, He brings His love. He speaks loving words to you, “Peace be with you, for you are mine.” Amen.

Easter 2009 "The Resurrection of the Dead."

Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text today comes from the Gospel of John, chapter 11. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha the sister of the dead man said to him, “Lord by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Thus far our text.

He is risen, He is risen indeed, alleluia, amen. That phrase has been the greeting of the Christian Church at Easter for thousands of years. In the ancient church it was even the greeting of Christians year round. In that simple phrase, “He is risen,” our entire faith is summed up. We believe that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and that we too will be raised from the dead.

A few days ago, we gathered together and meditated on the torture that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ suffered. We saw Him beaten, spit on, mocked, tortured and crucified. We saw as He cried out in a great voice, “It is finished, Tetelestai,” and earned our salvation as He gave up His life. This morning, we look back with certainty, knowing that when the tomb in which He was laid was found empty, our salvation and eternal life was truly earned for us. The empty tomb meant that Christ is no longer dead, and that death no longer has power over us in our sin. Instead we are now Christ’s, now we have certainty of life.

But do we have certainty? Do we really believe that Christ was raised from the dead? I have never seen anyone rise from the dead. I have never seen someone whose heart has ceased beating for more than a few minutes, who has come back to life. I have never seen a person who’s body was bloated and decaying in a tomb for three days, rise again. It is beyond what I can understand. It doesn’t make sense. It seems beyond belief. But that is what we proclaim today with loud alleluias. He is risen, he is risen indeed, even if I struggle to believe it. He is risen, because God has power over life and death.

Scripture tells us that Jesus is not the only one who rises from the dead through the power of God. We have several more examples which show us that God has the power over life and death. We have Jairus’s daughter, who dies and is raised by Christ. We have the widow’s of Nain’s Son, raised by Jesus. And we have the most famous, Lazarus, Jesus’ friend who was raised by the power of Christ.

If we look at the story of Lazarus, we see it is quite the interesting story. It takes place about a week before Good Friday. We see that a friend of Jesus is sick, and dies. They bury him in a tomb, and by the time Jesus arrives, he has been laying there for four days. 2000 years ago, in the warm spring climate of Israel, it did not take long for a body to begin to deteriorate. It didn’t take long for the stench of death to come from a body. Lazarus died, and after four days, the text makes note that his remains would already have been decaying. There is no doubt at this point that Lazarus is dead. He has passed into eternal rest, and nothing can bring him back.

The family, certain of this has begun to mourn and wail. All of Lazarus’s friends come and weep for the loss of their friend Lazarus. But he is gone, nothing can bring him back. Even Jesus mourns at the loss of Lazarus. He mourns that because of sin, mankind must die. He mourns that in our sin we must deal with death. Lazarus too was a sinner, and in that sin, he has now died. The loss assosciated with death overcomes all those around.

But Jesus had said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And here he proves it. Jesus has the tomb opened, and standing outside calls forth Lazarus. He who was dead is returned to life. He is raised from the dead and he is returned to his family. The mourning of loss turns into joyful shouts, and accolades. By the mere speaking of His words, Jesus brings one of his believers back to life. By the speaking of His words, Christ can make death run backwards.

This is quite the magic trick isn’t it. Except that it isn’t a magic trick. Today, you can go and see this, Lazarus’s first tomb. You can walk down inside of it, and see where Jesus called Lazarus forth from death. You can walk the same steps Lazarus walked out of the tomb. This isn’t a magic trick it is the work of God. It is a miracle that God used to show that He truly is the Resurrection and the Life (John 10)

This miracle happened, because Christ is true God. It happened because shortly after raising Lazarus, Jesus was headed to his own suffering and death. Unlike Lazarus, Jesus would not die for his own sin, but instead for your sin. Jesus would suffer and die, and be laid in a tomb, just like Lazarus.

Imagine that you are one of the disciples on Easter Saturday. The man who you quit your job to follow has been brutally killed before your eyes. You thought he would be ushering in a new Israelite kingdom, but instead He was arrested tried and crucified. He died on a cross on Good Friday. What now for you? You are afraid to even go outside for fear of being arrested yourself. You are afraid of being condemned yourself. What can you do? Where will you turn?

But Christ has power over death and life. Even though He is killed, the grave cannot hold him in. Even though He was executed, His life could not be permanently ended by human means. Instead, Christ is the Ressurection and the Life. He is the one who has control over life and death.

And He has earned that right. He earned it by obeying God’s law completely and totally. He earned it by passively submitting to the will of the Father and drinking the cup of wrath prepared for sinners. Christ took our place and He suffered for us. And when our salvation was assured to us by the spilling of his holy precious blood, He announced to the world that sin and Satan were defeated by His resurrection.

On this day, almost 2000 years ago, His tomb was found empty, just like the tomb of Lazarus was found empty. Just as He called Lazarus back into life, God the Father raised Jesus back to life through His glory and power.

Bur Jesus’ resurrection was even more wonderful than Lazarus’. Lazarus would die again. Lazarus had two tombs, one in Bethany and one that church tradition holds was in the city of Larnaca on the island of Cyprus. He served as a pastor there until again he died and was reburied.

Jesus will not die again. As the prophet Isaiah says, “He has swallowed up death forever.” (Isaiah 25:8) Where O death is thy victory, Where O death is they sting? (1 Corinthians. 15:55, Hosea 13:14) It is gone forever. Death cannot defeat Jesus Christ, because by his own death, he defeated death. On that first Easter morning, when the tomb was found empty, that message has resounded throughout all the world. “Through Christ, death is defeated. Through Christ you have life.”

This is the Easter Message, Christ has risen, he has risen indeed. And this message is important to the whole world, especially to us poor miserable sinners. We hear promises in God’s word about our own selves. We hear that we have not kept God’s law. Scripture even says that “If we say we are without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” We are poor miserable sinners, and as sinners we too must die. Just as Lazarus died from his illness of sin, we too will die unless we live to see that last day. Just as Jesus laid in a tomb, we too will lay in a grave of some kind.

It is the price that we must pay for our sin. It is the consequence of our disobedience to our heavenly Father.

And we see that in our daily lives. Even when we try to obey God, we fail, we cannot keep His laws. And in our failure we feel trapped. We are uncertain which way we should turn. We are uncertain if there is a way out at all! All we can do is flounder around in our sin.
Being trapped in our sin is very much like being trapped in a grave. In our sin we are dead. In our sin we cannot climb or dig our way out. There is nothing that we can do. We are stuck, permanently. Just as a dead Lazarus could not remove himself from his own tomb, neither can we rescue our selves. We are lost in our sin. We are dead in sin.

But Christ is risen. His tomb has been opened and the message of His victory has been spread over the entire Earth. It has come to our ears as we hear that beautiful message both in song and word. Alleluia. Christ the Lord has Risen today. I know that my Redeemer lives. Alleluia. That message has come to our eyes as we see a tomb opened with angel proclaiming the victory of the Lamb. We taste that message as we this morning participate in the body and blood of the God man, Jesus Christ. And this body and blood we eat is no longer laying dead in a tomb, instead it is the body and blood of the Living Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ is Risen.
Because Christ is risen, so too are you risen. One day, we may die, but we still have the promise of eternal life. In Christ, you have life. In Christ you no longer need fear death or the power or the power of the devil. You are set free, to live and reign with hi for all eternity. In Christ’s life, you too receive life, life to the full.

How do you receive this gift? In the waters of Holy baptism we already have died with Christ and been raised with Him to everlasting life. We no longer need fear death, for Christ has overcome. The strife is over, the battle done. Now is the victor’s triumph won. Now be the song of praise begun. Alleluia.

Death has no power over you. Even if you shall die, yet shall you live. In Christ there is victory. In Christ you triumph, the enemy is destroyed. Today, you have eternal life. You are risen with Christ.

Christ is Risen, He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen!

Good Friday, Jonah, 2009

This year, my vicarage congregation preached through the book of Jonah for its Lenten series. This is my Good Friday sermon.

Jonah 4.

But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?" Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint.

He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."

But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the television show Jeopardy has been a popular one for a long time. In it, three contestants must answer trivia in the form of a question. The interesting part is that when the contestants choose a question, the host does not give them something to answer. Instead, the host gives them an answer. Then, the contestant must come up with a question that corresponds to that answer. So if the answer is “This prophet of the OT was bald, they must respond “Who is Elisha.” The answer is given before the question is asked. It is a fun game to watch, and I am sure that almost every one of us has seen that show, and watched it for a time.

Friends, today is Good Friday. Today we see our answer. Just like in Jeopardy, today we have the answer to all of our questions, before we even ask them. We see God’s answer to questions like, “Are you really out there God, Do you really care for me, will you take care of me, will you be with my loved one? We see the answer as we are gathered here today, almost 2000 years exactly to when our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross. This was God’s answer to Sin. This was how He responded to what was going wrong in the world, and this was how He planned on setting it right. God’s answer was the death of His one and only Son.

But what was the question? What question is asked that required an answer of sacrifice, an answer of death? The question is found in today’s text as God asks the question: Should I not be concerned about that great city? This question could be asked of anyone of us. Should I not be concerned about you, O Israel. Should I not be concerned about you Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church? And we have seen His answer. God’s son hangs from a tree, suffering death in our place. Jesus is the answer.

God asks Jonah this question in today’s text, but we never hear Jonah’s answer. It is an open question. We never hear an answer, because God isn’t only asking Jonah, He is also asked to you. Because there is no answer given in the text, you have to answer. Should God be concerned about sinners? Take into account, as you answer those in the world who suffer, with earthquakes in Italy, and shootings here in Brookings, Those who suffer from cancer or hunger. It is asked about those neighbors that we don’t get along with, those politicians we don’t like. It is asked about you. Should God be concerned about the salvation of all including you, who daily live in the world? Well, should he?

We look in the world and all we see is sin. We see nations fighting against nation, because they disagree about who owes who a few million dollars. We see gangs murdering people over a few ounces of some drug. There are rapists, there are murderers, and there are terrorists out there? Do they deserve salvation? Should God be concerned with them? I mean these people are awfully sinful. Many of these people don’t ever go to church. Many of these people probably use language that we think is inappropriate, they might be stinky or dirty, they may not have a home. Do these people deserve god’s salvation? Should God be concerned about sinners?

Do you? Do you deserve God’s attention, do you deserve His grace. Should God be concerned with you? No, you are not a murderer. No you are not a druggie, as far as I know not a one of you is a terrorist. But you still sin. Each one of you is full of that very same sin. It permeates your entire being. It is that lust you have for anything else besides God. And we have that lust almost every second of the day. We are greedy for money. We lust over making our self feel important and making others feel worthless. We want to be in control of our own lives, to be our own god. We want to be the judge of what is right and wrong. And this is only the start of our sins. The list for them could go on for miles and miles. We are sinful. We have disobeyed God in everything that we have done.

Do you deserve God’s Grace? Should God be concerned about you? If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We haven’t done anything to earn it. In fact, we struggle even doing the minimum required of us. Despite what the world says, being a nice person, some of the time, does not earn you eternal salvation. God demands more. God demands more than we could ever pay. We cannot earn God’s attention. Everything we do is sinful. Isaiah says “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” Its true. We don’t deserve God’s attention.

We are the city of Nineveh in today’s text. We are sinful. We are the huge monstrous nation, set in our sin, ignoring God, concerned only with our selves. We are headed for our own destruction. In our sin, the only thing that we do earn for ourselves is death. Just as Nineveh was on the path to destruction by God, as Jonah preached, 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. We too are on the path to death. One day, we will face death, our bodies will be placed in the ground and our life will end. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Just as Nineveh was to be destroyed, we too are to face death.

But should God concerned about us sinner? We have the answer. We have the proof that God is concerned and that He does care about sin. We have Jesus Christ hanging on a cross, bleeding, suffering, dying. That is the proof that God cares about our sin, he cares and He wants to take it away from us.

This answer has been prepared before the world even began. God in his divine foreknowledge prepared to rescue us from our sin, he prepared to save Nineveh, to save you. When God created the world, he created Iron, and that iron would later be dug up, smelted and forged into nails, nails which could pierce a man’s hands and his feet. God created trees, which could be cut down, and reburied in the ground to form a cross, a cross on which a person could hang and die. God arranged that people would be born, people who would shout, “Crucify, crucify,” and that it would be done. The answer is already there. God prepares salvation for you. God’s answer is Jesus Christ.

There is our answer, Christ crucified for the sins of the world. Is God concerned about our sin? Yes. He is so concerned, that he is willing to die for it. Death is what we deserve, but it is the price Christ pays. Now God gives life. God gives life to you through the suffering and death of his Beloved Son Jesus.

Today we gather on Good Friday. We gather and receive the gifts that were earned for us 2000 years ago on the cross. Now at this time of the day, Jesus was only half way through his time on the cross. He was being ridiculed, mocked. His bloodied back was rubbing up against rough wood. His mouth is dry, he is in great pain. Upon his head, thorns are pushing into his skull. He is spit upon. He is laughed at. Jesus hangs naked on a cross. Jesus is suffering your death. This is the death he has rescued you from. Jesus is suffering your guilt, for your sin. Jesus answers the question, Yes, God is concerned about you. So concerned that Christ will suffer this… for you. Through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, he takes it away. He takes it as far away as the east is from the west. You are set free. Now you have eternal life, now you have the promise of no more crying, or suffering, no more death. Because Christ loves you.

Now we may ask those many questions in our life. “Are you there God?” “Yes, I am with you, I promised to be with you always, and that promise is sealed in my blood.” We can ask, “Lord, do you understand what my life is like, the struggles that I go through?” and God can reply, “Yes I do, I was made man, and lived a life. I was brutally beaten and murdered, I know your struggles, and I promise to bring you through them. That promise is sealed in my blood.” “God, do you love me? Are you concerned about me, a sinner?” And the reply is “Yes, No greater love is there than this, that one give up His life for his friends. I love you that much.” And that promise too is sealed in Christ’s blood.

Friends in Christ, our answer to all of those difficult questions is before us today. Our answer hangs, suffering and dying upon a cross, his arms extended, his back beaten and bloodied. Yes, God is concerned about the great city, even as Christ is nailed to the cross, you are main concern. God is concerned about you. The Lord cries out as they crucify him, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Shall Christ be concerned about you? Yes, forever yes. Amen.

Series B-Lent 3-2009-G-"Zeal for your house will consume me."

Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Gospel lesson, with special emphasis on verse 17 “His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'”

Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Have you ever been really zealous for something? You all know that I am zealous for Nebraska football and Dark Chocolate. Some of my other sermons have made that pretty clear. What about you? Are you a zealous for the South Dakota State Jackrabbits? Are you zealous about a particular political cause? Do you get really zealous about cooking, or if not cooking then about eating what someone else has cooked? Most of us are zealous about something or another.

Today, in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus too is zealous. He displays a great passion for something. So much so that The apostle John quotes psalm 69, saying that Christ’s zeal would even consume him. That it would eat him up. Christ was zealous for something, even to the point of death. This zeal causes Christ to over turn the tables in the temples courts and drive out the money changers and those selling animals for sacrifice. Jesus’s zeal causes him to cleanse the temple of all that was unholy. What is the point of this? What is Jesus’ zeal really accomplishing?

The temple in Jerusalem was the central point of Jewish worship at the time. It was a huge structure, dominating the city of Jerusalem. The actual temple itself was 150 feet tall and 150 feet wide. It was built on top of a mountain which had been built up to a 35 acre flat space which was covered with different courts and huge pillared buildings. The temple was the crown jewel of Jerusalem. Not only were the buildings impressive, but the temple itself was holy because they were the dwelling place of God. In side the Temple, in a room that was 30 feet cubed was the Holy of Holies. The place where God dwelt on Earth. In the Holy of Holies, God promised to be among his people. It was where Sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins were supposed to take place. It was the place where you went to be in the presence of God.

You would think that the place where God was supposed to live would be a place revered as holy and treated as such. But it wasn’t. In today’s text we see that the temple grounds had become filled with sin. People were selling animals for sacrifices, and charging more than they were worth. At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a big deal does it? I mean we here are Americans, we don’t mind people making a profit off of something. But these people are not making an honest profit. Instead they are making a profit off of the forgiveness of sins. To be forgiven of sins, a person

To be made right before God, one needed to sacrifice an animal. They needed blood to be shed. They needed to buy a sacrifice to be killed. And so there were booths set up in the temple for people to buy these animals. The problem was that they charged much more for these animals than they would anywhere else. These people were taking advantage of God’s holy presence to make themselves rich.

No longer was God’s house holy. NO longer was God’s house a place of prayer, instead it was now a place of market, as today’s text says. Instead of a place to freely receive the forgiveness of sins, the temple instead became a “Den of thieves”. A place of God’s holiness had now become a place of sin, of guilt. Not because God abandoned it, but instead because those who were there in it were themselves full of sin. People, even in the temple of God had lost sight of God.

Even in today’s world, churches have at times lost sight God. They preach universalism, not the Trinity. They preach wealth and prosperity, but not Chirst. They teach decision theology, not Grace.

While these things are not problems here at Mt. Calvary, we still have our own struggles. Those of us who come here are also full of sin. Those of us who come here are also guilty before God. This sin falls upon each one of us. There is not one of us who is not guilty.

Scripture tells us that our bodies themselves are temples to the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Each and everyone of us here is a temple. But we often times lose track of God and follow our own selfish devices instead of Christ. Instead of being temples to the Holy Spirit, we often times would rather be temples to other things. We set up our own little booths, altars to our own pet sins.

Each one of us has that pet sin. That one sin we just can’t give up. Maybe it is gossiping. Maybe it is that four letter word that pops up in daily conversation. We each one of us pollute the temple of our bodies with sin. We turn away from the one true god and instead trust in those other things.

In the catechisms, Luther tells us that an idol is anything that we trust in more than God. What is your idol? Be honest with yourself. In what do you trust more than God. Your family? Your job? Your retirement account. These subtract from God. These take our eyes of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. These turn us into unholy temples.

So we see, we are much like the temple in Jerusalem was. We are filled with the filth of sin. We are thieves who even being in the presence of God take our eyes of the cross of Jesus. We, like the temple are not holy.

Our text today quotes Psalm 69 when it says, “Zeal for his house shall consume him.” This psalm describes how the holy one of God will suffer, in fact it is the psalm that is refered to while Jesus is on the cross when he receives wine mixed with myrhh to drink and spits it out. This psalm refers to the crucified Christ.

This Christ went zealously, with out turning to the left or the right, all the way to the summit of a hill called Golgotha on a Friday we call good to suffer and die for you and for your sin. He did this willingly. He did not turn and run from this cruel death, but instead faced it knowing the pain and agony that went with it. He did this to cleanse the world of all of its sin. He did this to take the sin and remove it from you as far as the East is from the West.

This same Jesus Christ, who went to the cross, in todays text begins his work of cleansing. He went into the temple and overturned the tables of those who would make a profit off the Gospel. He kicked out those who would make God a god of human prosperity. He drove out those who would make God into a god of demands, and made God back into a God who gives grace freely. Christ drove the sin out of the temple.

So too does Christ cleanse the temples of our bodies. Christ does this by covering us with his own blood. He poured it out upon us in the waters of Baptism. He pours it out upon us here today in the hearing of His word. Christ zealously poured out his blood to forgive you of your sin.

He drove out all the sin out of the temples of our body. Don’t get me wrong, we are still sinful. The Catechism teaches of our need to daily die to sin and raise with Christ. That is what we do. Christ drives out the sin, and we immediately try to put it back again. He knocks down our altars and immediately we rebuild them. But have no fear, Christ is the one who wins this battle.

You see Christ’s himself is also the temple of God. He is the place where God dwells on earth. He is God hidden in human flesh, Deus Obscondus. In our text He says “Destroy this temple” meaning his own body, “and I will raise it again on the third day. Christ has done this. He died, and he rose, so that one day we too will die and rise with him again for eternity. Then the temples of our bodies will be free from sin forever. Then we will have all of God’s gifts. Then we will finally be pure and holy temples to God almighty. We might be zealous about things, maybe football, maybe the SDSU Jacks, but we are not as zealous as Christ is for taking away our sin. Zeal for Christ’s house will consume him. Christ’s zeal is for you, and giving you life.

Amen!

Series B-Lent 1-2009-G-"Repent and Believe"

Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Gospel lesson, with special emphasis on verse 15, “(and Jesus said) “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Thus far our text.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Lent is here. The paraments are now purple. The crucifix on the altar is veiled. The hymns are now of a more somber note. Lent is here. But what does this mean? WE are supposed to be repentant, but how do we do that? If you are like many people, you do this during Lent by giving something up. Maybe you won’t eat any chocolate. Maybe you won’t watch your favorite T.V. Show. Maybe you won’t eat any red meat. Whatever the case, we do this to try and show that we are really repentant. But often times we fail horribly. I can remember the time that I tried to give up Dark Chocolate for Lent. I think I lasted until Elizabeth walked out of the room, then I ran to the kitchen shoved some in my mouth and turned around just into to say with a very full mouth, “Mwhut” to Elizabeth. Yes even in this time of repentance, our sin gets the best of us.

That is why today’s Gospel lesson is so important to this season. In today’s text, Christ calls us first to repentance, and then secondly to belief. Christ’s call reflects the entire purpose of Lent. We are to repent and the believe the Gospel.

In today’s text, we see the message of all of Christ’s ministry. Through out his entire ministry, he is calling for repentance and then belief. When he spoke to sick people He said, "Repent and believe in me. When He spoke with the apostles He told them to repent and believe in me. Repent and believe, repent and believe. But what does this mean?

To understand what Christ is preaching, we have to understand what true repentance is. Scripture and our confessions are clear about what Repentance is. It means that we are aware of our sin, and our inability to change our sinful life, and that we are in sorrow or terror of the consequences. We have to know that our sin is terrible and that because of it we cannot stand in God’s presence, and that we do not deserve his grace. Repentance is realizing that God is just in his dealing with sin, and that your own life is forfeit. It is knowing you are doomed.

How do you know that? It is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. It is only through the examination of what scripture says and through the work of the Holy Spirit that we come to be truly repentant. It is through the preaching of the Law. St. Paul tells us that clearly in Romans 3, that "through the Law that we become aware of our sin."

Examine your own life. This Lent we are to examine our own lives and see our sin. How do we know what our sin is unless God first tells us, “You shall have no other Gods,” or “You honor your father and your mother”? So are we sinners? Yes, completely and totally. We cannot keep the law. God tells us things that we cannot do. Take for example our Lenten promises. Last year, I promised God that I would give up dark chocolate for the season of Lent. But almost as soon as I promise to do that, I fail. In my sin, I cannot do the things I ought to do.

Neither can you. Each and every one of us has fallen short of the glory of God. God’s word says “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But we fail at this. We get into petty squabbles about silly things. We complain about the way people do certain things. We shout at people’s driving habits, or when they don’t shovel their side walks. We sin. God’s word says “Don’t commit adultery.” But even when we think about someone lustfully we have already committed that sin in our heart. Promiscuity surrounds us. People on Television have sex with whomever they please whenever they please, and we like that Idea. Sex is used to sell us bubble gum and beverages. We sin in all of these things and more. We are guilty. God’s word says so.

And scripture teaches us that we don’t only sin against one another, but that we also sin against God. We often times struggle in our faith to believe that the scriptures are actually the word of God. Isn’t it easier to believe that the Bible isn’t God’s word, then it is to believe that we have done so many things wrong. Isn’t it easier to believe that all these things happen just by chance rather than to believe that we are guilty before God? It is. Even this displays our sin. At times we lack faith, and in this lack of faith, we sin. St. Paul says so in Romans 14, "All that doesn’t flow from faith is sin." God’s word is clear. Through the Holy Spirit’s work, we can see how we fail in all of these things. We can see how we are not worthy. God uses this to cause that terror and sorrow over our sin, because only then are we prepared to hear another word. Lent is the season where we recognize this. Lent is the season where we listen to God’s word and notice our own sinful selves. Lent is the season that prepares us for receiving God’s gifts.

Yes. God’s word does speak to us words about our sin. Yes God’s word does teach us that we fall short and that we are not holy within ourselves. But Scripture also tells us another word. A word of hope. A word of forgivness. A word of life.

God did not desire us to be lost forever. Instead he sent us His own Son as a sacrifice of atonement. That is what we are preparing for in Lent. You see, Lent is not only about being repentant, it is not only about feeling really bad and really sorry for our sin. No, it is a preparation for the gift of God. God makes us repentant so that we might believe.
And what do we believe in our repentance? Today’s text makes it clear. We believe the Good news. That good news is nothing other than Jesus Christ crucified for the sins of the world. Jesus, who “though he had no sin became sin for us,” as it says in 2 Corinthians came to earth to suffer. He came to earth do be beaten bloody and nailed upon a cross for you and for your sin. Jesus came so that you might eat his body and drink his blood, and thus receive life and salvation. Jesus came to rescue you, he came to die for you.

Christ has come, and taken our own sin upon himself. He took that sin to the cross and killed it there. He suffered the punishment that we deserved. Our sin has been atoned for by the shedding of his blood. The book of Hebrews tells us that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins. We are now forgiven, because we have been covered with that blood.

So this lent, we repent of our sins, because we know the price that was paid to forgive them. We repent of our sin because Christ had to suffer. We repent, because he suffered in our place. Now we no longer have the guilt associated with our sin. Instead all we have is Grace from God. Now we are given life and salvation. Now we can look ahead to that Easter Joy, knowing that just as Christ was raised from the dead, so too will we be on the last day. The Kingdom of Heaven is near, and Christ has earned us a place in it. Already we feast with him in his kingdom. Here today in repentance we will partake of the very body and blood of the Christ, the heavenly feast.
You see, repentance and forgiveness are the life cycle of the Christian. We repent of our sin at the beginning of the service, and then receive forgiveness from the lips of Pastor Naasz, when he says, “I as a called and ordained servant forgive you all your sins.” It is not from Pastor that this forgiveness comes. Instead it comes from the one who suffered and died.

This Lenten season, we remember why we are repentant. Not so we can prove that we can go with out dark chocolate, when really we can’t. Not to show off to others about how holy we are, because we aren’t. Instead we repent because Christ calls us, “The Kingdom of Heaven is near,” he says, “Repent and believe the Good news:” The good news that Christ has died for all of your sins.

Amen.