Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere

Washed in the Blood

2008-07-19T01:41:16-06:00

Preached at Higher Things - Amen Conference (July 2008)

In Nomine Iesu

Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Rev 22:14)

There is a famous scene in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Perhaps some of you have learned it; I did when I was in high school. Lady Macbeth is racked with guilt over the bloody murders she and her husband have committed. She roams through the halls of the castle in her sleep late at night, desperately wringing her hands, trying to wash away the bloody evidence that tortures her conscience to the point of madness. “Out damned spot, out I say!” but the spot just won’t go away. “Who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him,” she cries, scrubbing her hands. She can smell the blood on her hands. “All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

Sin has left its mark on you - on your soul, your body, your mind, your psyche, your robes. The damned spot of Adam, the original sin and the origin of all sins - your lies, your immoralities, your blasphemies, your idolatries, your greed, your coveting, your murders, your disobedience, insolence, arrogance, hatred - there’s no covering them up. They have all left a mark on you. You have blood on your hands. You search in this world for something that will wash that damned spot of sin away- drugs, alcohol, religion. You discover the terrible truth of Lady Macbeth. That damned spot doesn’t go away, no matter how hard you try. Your prayers and pieties won’t do it. Your guilt and shame won’t wash it away. The smell of sin is on you and all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten it. And then you hear Jesus say, “I am coming soon, bringing my recompense to reward everyone for what he has done.” So now what?

You need to wash, and I don’t mean clean up your act. You need to be cleansed, and like Lady Macbeth, you can’t do it for yourself. All you can do is wring your hands in madness. But is a detergent for the damned spot of sin - the blood of the Lamb, the blood poured out for you on a cross, the blood poured out on you in your Baptism. Though your sins be as scarlet, this blood of the Lamb will make them white as snow.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes.” Blessed are you baptized, believing one. The gates of the heavenly city lie open to you. The Tree of Life is waiting for you to pluck its life-bearing fruit. Earlier, John saw the worshippers of heaven, a congregation no ushering crew in the world could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. He asked one of the 24 elders, “Who are these in white robes and where did they come from?” And the elder said this: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Who would have thought that the Lamb would have so much blood in Him? And such a blood it is that can cleanse the spot of sin and wash it away forever! Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Have you ever wondered where your sins go when they are washed away? It all has to go somewhere, right? Ever wonder where where the drain goes, where the sewer pipe ends? It goes out, away, far away, deep into the earth, outside the city. There is no place for sin in the heavenly city of God.

Outside the city gates is the garbage dump, the septic tank, the cesspool, the place where the dogs hang out, not referring to the likes of that poor Canaanite woman with her puppy dog faith you’ve heard of, but those who revel in the stale stench of humanity gone bad - the sorcerers and the perverts and sexually immoral, the murderers and idolaters, and all who practice and delight in falsehood and lies. Do you lie? Outside the city gates would be our destiny too, were it not for Jesus.

But He was crucified outside the city bearing your sins on the garbage heap called Calvary. Jesus was made sin for us. He absorbed the damned, indelible spot of fallen humanity - Adam’s sin and yours - and washed it all away in the blood and water that flowed from His side and ran down the wood of the cross to the cursed, weedy soil, trickling down into the deepest depths of hell, where they belong.

If you wish to keep company with your sin, if you wish to commune in your corruption, if you wish to take delight in the evil you have done, then you must go outside the gates of God’s city, to the dogs. You must go to hell. But that’s not what Jesus has in mind for you. He died and rose so that you would have a rather different outcome.

The Spirit and the Church, say “Come.” You are invited. Come. Come, you sinners, poor, broken, needy. Come, young and old, torn by guilt and shame. There is living water to refresh you here, cleansing blood to wash away that damned spot. Flush it down the drain of your Baptism together with the old Adam and all his sinful desires and deeds. Let Jesus deal with it. He already has. Come, drink of that stream of forgiveness that flows from His cross to you. Come the church, God’s inn of mercy. Come to the ministry of forgiveness and healing, to your fellow priests clothed in Christ. Come, sons and daughters of Adam, no matter how great your sin, no matter how deep the stain, it’s all washed away by the slain Lamb who lives and reigns.

“Yes, I come quickly.” Jesus’ last word to His Church. “I come quickly.” Speedily. To save you. To raise you. To welcome you. To claim you. To forgive you.

And the Church, washed in the blood of the Lamb, responds with that little Hebrew word that encapsulates all of faith: Amen. “Come, Lord Jesus.”

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you, His saints.
Amen.

Another Mind-Set

2008-07-14T09:30:27-06:00

Romans 8:12-17 / 9 Pentecost (Proper 10A) / 13 July 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

Romans chapter 8 begins with a grand summary statement of what it means to be a baptized believer in Christ - “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” That is a Scripture worth learning by heart. It will have daily application in your life. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. An umbrella of grace and forgiveness covers you; you are clothed with Christ, shielded from the law, sin and its stain cannot harm you as you are in Christ.

Not only is there no condemnation, there is also freedom. The law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Though you are still a sinner, you are no longer captive to sin. Christ has freed you. Though you are still mortal and will one day die of something, you are no longer captive to death. Christ has freed you. He freed you by taking up your mortality in His own flesh, the flesh He took on when He was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary. And in that human flesh of His, He took up humanity’s sin, and particularly your sin. He became Sin for us, and in His death He became the ultimate sin offering for us.

In the flesh of Christ, the demands of God’s law are met. The sinner deserves to die. Christ became the Sinner and died our death, fulfilling ever aspect of the Law, every little mark and tick of the commandment. Not only is there no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus, but the just requirements of the Law, the perfect obedience that the Law demands are fulfilled in Christ and given to you as His gift so that also in you, a sinner from birth, the just demands of the Law are met. No longer do we live according to the flesh, that is, our sinful nature inherited from Adam, but now we live according to the Spirit, that is, our new nature given to us by Christ.

This requires an adjustment of thinking on our parts. Our minds are accustomed to focus on the flesh, on our sinful nature. Let your minds wander, and they will inevitably go there. You’ve probably noticed this in church or while praying or reading the Scriptures. We can be easily enthralled and absorbed by a movie or a sporting event for endless hours, but we all suddenly develop a case of spiritual ADD when it comes to the Word of God. Our minds do not naturally gravitate toward God. In fact, by nature they are hostile toward God and want nothing to do with His Word.

The mind captive to the flesh wants nothing to do with God. It’s like that hard pavement in the parable of the seed in the soil that Jesus told in our Gospel reading. The Word just pings off of it like hard tack. The mind held captive by the flesh is hostile to God. Have you ever met someone who was hostile to God? I don’t mean simply irked at Christians, which is often justifiable. I don’t even mean upset with the Church, which is often just as justifiable. I’m talking about outright hostility to toward God. Hatred toward the holy. Hostility toward what is pure and just and true. The mind held captive to the sinful nature cannot, will not, submit to God’s law, because it wants to be God. It says, “I’m all the god I need, and the only god I bow down and worship is myself.”

Those who are captive to the sinful nature cannot please God, Paul says. Jesus said the same thing. “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” He is the Vine, we are the branches. Joined to Him, abiding in Him in baptismal faith, we are fruitful in His life. Cut off from Him, apart from Him, we are as fruitless as the seed that soils on the hard pavement.

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” And the Spirit does dwell in you, because you are baptized. You have a new identity - child of God. The Spirit testifies to you, and His testimony is given in your Baptism. Child of God. That’s who you are. That’s the core of your identity. You may be many things in this life - father, mother, son, daughter, employer, employee, citizen, governor, pastor, parishioner. And you certainly remain in this life a sinner as long as you are alive. That doesn’t change. But what has changed is your identity, the core of your being. You are no longer identified with the flesh of Adam, but with the Spirit of Christ. A new you. A new creation. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”

In your flesh, you are dead because of sin. But your spirit is alive because of righteousness, that is, the righteousness that Jesus Christ has given you as His baptismal gift to you.

This calls for a change of mind, in the Greek a metanoia, what we commonly translate as “repentance.” Repentance is a shift in the orientation of the mind away from the sinful nature and to our new nature in Christ, away from sin and death to righteousness and life, away from the old you and toward the new you. Imagine having an extreme makeover. Now I’m not advocating such things, but imagine going from an ugly duckling to magazine-cover gorgeous in some miraculous transformation. Now, are you going to sit around and dwell on pictures of your ugly duckling past? Are you going to go around as though you looked that way? Are you going to think of yourself as an ugly duckling? No, of course not. There is a new you. It may take a little adjustment in thinking and some getting used to, but the reality is that you are not the same as you once were.

Let’s move from the superficial exterior to the deeper places of the soul. You and I are born sinners damned to die as fallen children of Adam. And through no doing of our own, God in His mercy rescues us from the junk heap and makes us His own. He covers our sins with the clothing of Jesus, He washes away the stain of our guilt with the blood of Jesus sacrifice, He rescues us from this body of death and gives us life overflowing in abundance. So now where do you want to fix your mind? On that sinful nature that leads to death and hell? Or on that new nature, that new you in Christ that overflows with His life and Spirit and leads to eternal life? When you put it that way, there isn’t much to think about, is there? Of course not.

And that’s why Paul doesn’t tell us what to do, as if doing made us children of God, but he reminds us of who we are in Christ. He directs our attention, our minds, to Christ where we find our true identity, and everything outside of Christ suddenly becomes worthless and empty.

“Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to it” (the flesh messed up with sin brought us nothing but pain and misery and death). That’s what got us in trouble in the first place. Our debt is to live according to the Spirit of Christ, to put to death the deeds of the body, to drown the old sinful nature with all its lusts and actions in our Baptism, to daily repent and turn our minds away from our sinfulness and again to Christ who has rescued us.

You are sons of God. Imprint that in your minds. You belong to God in Christ as His free children. You’ve received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life that frees your mind and breathes life into your body. There is no condemnation for you as you are in Christ Jesus. And that means “no fear.” Yes, we are to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things,” but that fear is the right honor, respect, and awe that God deserves for having yanked us from the jaws of sin and death. It’s not the fear of punishment, wrath, and hell; it’s the not fear that would drive us from God, rather it’s the fear that swallows up all fear. If you fear God, what is there left to fear?

The Spirit causes us to pray as a little child - Abba, Father. Perhaps Paul had the Our Father in mind here. What a strange way to approach God! How dare we address the Creator and Lord of the universe in this way, on such familiar terms! Yet that is how we are given to pray, as a dear child coming to his or her dear Father in heaven and saying, Pappa. Daddy. Abba. No trying to butter up God or bribe Him or flatter Him. Just a little one saying Abba, Father. And the Father turns His ear, and says, “Did you hear that? Those are my children.”

Notice that Paul calls us all “sons” even when speaking of the girls, and there’s a reason for that. Son are heirs, and you are heirs in Christ, whether male or female. In Christ there is neither male nor female when it comes to inheritance of the kingdom. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Jesus, the only-begotten Son who receives all things from the Father, shares all things with His brothers and sisters, that is, with you.

“Heirs” is a grace-full word. To inherit you don’t do anything; you receive and benefit from the death of another. The death of Jesus has made the kingdom of heaven yours. Forgiveness is yours. Eternal life yours. That’s what life in the Spirit is all about. That’s what having your mind fixed on the Spirit means. Yes, we are called to suffer now, but that suffering is with Jesus, not on our own, in order that we may be glorified with Jesus on the day He appears to raise us.

Children of God; heirs of heaven - all thanks to Jesus.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Simul

2008-07-06T16:48:54-06:00

Romans 7:1-13 / 7 Pentecost (Proper 8A) / 29 June 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

Romans chapter 7 is a cold, wet rag of reality for anyone who thinks that being a Christian means you are free from sin. Those who speak of being a Christian in terms of the “victorious life” and living a sin-free existence while following “biblical principles” need to sit down and read Romans chapter 7.

Paul begins with an illustration from the marriage courts. A married woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. You know that. “Till death us do part.” That’s how it works. The marriage covenant holds until one or the other of you drops dead. Now Paul doesn’t mention divorce here, so don’t read it in. He’s dealing with marriage the way it ordinarily is supposed to go. Now if a married woman goes off and lives with another man while her husband is still alive and kicking, we call that “adultery.” We still do, last time I checked. But if her husband is dead, she’s free as bird to feather someone else’s nest, so to speak.

The point: Death is the end of the law when it comes to marriage.

Now the kicker. You also died to the law. We worked that last week, but in case you missed it or forgot, here’s a quick recap. You died in Christ. You were buried with Him in Baptism. God declared you forensically dead to the Law in your Baptism. Sin no longer reigns over you. Christ does. And you are to consider yourself dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. That’s the gift given you Baptism.

Paul says, you died to the Law though the body of Christ. Your as dead as dead Jesus hanging on a cross, when it comes to the Law. So you’re like that woman whose husband kicked the bucket. Free. Free to belong to the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Free to live a new life. Free to bear fruit to God as branches joined to the Vine.

There are two realities in our lives: our flesh and the Holy Spirit. Our flesh, which we inherited from Adam, is riddled with sin. Sin is a condition. It’s like cancer. It invades your body, takes over your cells, and wreaks havoc and death. And the flesh, riddled with sin, cannot cure itself. Sin in our flesh produces all that rebellion and misery we call “sins” - murder, theft, lying, immorality, greed, idolatry, you name it. Even if we were very good and innocent, like a newborn baby, we’d still have this condition called Sin that lords over our Adamic flesh and makes us captive to death. That is the reality of being a child of Adam.

But there is a second reality laid over that by God, namely, the “new life of the Spirit.” Since we have been declared legally, forensically dead in our Baptism into Christ, we are now free from the Law to live a new life of freedom in the Spirit, the fruit of which Paul describes elsewhere: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There’s no Law about those, they simply blossom like fruit on the good tree of faith in Jesus.

Now here’s the tricky part. The life we now life, the life we live by faith in Christ, is a life held in tension between these two realities - flesh and spirit. The spirit, that is, that life that is worked in us by the Holy Spirit to conform us to the mind of Christ, is certainly willing, but our flesh, which is remains riddled with Sin until it dies, is weak and ever sinful.

And it’s even worse than that. When Sin gets a hold of the Law, things go from bad to worse. That’s why the Law alone never makes anyone better. You can beat people over the head with commandments from dawn til dusk and they’ll never cease to be sinners. In fact, they’ll find new ways to express themselves as sinners! Paul recalls his childhood as he learned the Law at the feet of his teachers. His teachers taught him how to keep the Law, all the 613 dos and donts to please God. And he was doing fine, or so he thought. And then he learned the commandment about coveting, that funny commandment that deals with the heart so that no one even knows when you’re coveting. It’s just between you and God.

Paul says he heard the commandment, “You shall not covet,” and it was like the commandment “You shall not yawn.” The minute you hear it, you can’t stop yawning. (Maybe I shouldn’t have used that example.) He couldn’t stop coveting, became a veritable coveting machine. And this was from a Jewish kid who didn’t have a clue about coveting five minutes before!

So here’s the deal. Sin, that foreign thing that inheres in our flesh, seizes the opportunity of all those “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” and it deceives us to death. We think we can keep the commandment, and the harder we try, the worse it gets. The net effect is the opposite of what we expect: sin becomes utterly sinful under the Law. Sinful beyond measure. So sinful, you despair of ever saving yourself, which is precisely the point.

Paul goes on. The lectionary didn’t, but we need to. He says, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” Notice he doesn’t say, “I was unspiritual before I became a Christian and got straightened out,” but “I am unspiritual.” In your flesh, you are completely unspiritual, so you may as well forget about all that silly spirituality talk you hear that tells you the answer lies within you. It doesn’t. The problem lies within you. Paul says, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good lives.”

It’s as though there was a war going on inside himself. Paul says, “I want to do good. His mind is set on doing good. He has the will to do good. But he can’t pull it off. The good he wants to do, he doesn’t do. And the evil he hates, that’s what he does. And he the apostle Paul! His explanation: It’s not me. I’m dead. It’s Sin dwelling in me. He disowns his sin. He doesn’t identify with it. It’s a foreign element. You do that too. You’re baptized, dead to sin but alive to God in Christ. It’s not you, it’s Sin in you that’s the problem. And that’s not something you can deal with.

Paul says he finds the principle at work: two laws - the law of his renewed mind that delights in God’s law, and the law of Sin that’s at work in his flesh holding him captive. Talk about tension! Mind and members; Spirit and flesh. It’s a war going on inside the baptized believer. You think it’s easy being a Christian? Guess again. Never mind the phony prophets and televangelists who say “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. Jesus said, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.” And that sword cuts right through the heart of each and every one of us. It means literally losing your life, dropping dead to your self, in order to find your life in Christ.

Paul concludes, “What a wretched man I am.” Paul, a wretched man. This isn’t some kind of inferiority complex or lack of self-esteem. “Hey, don’t be down on yourself, Paul. You’re the apostle Paul. You’re doing great things - spreading the Gospel, starting churches. Look at all the great stuff you’re doing. You’re not a wretched man, Paul. Cheer up, look on the bright side.”

No, Paul says, “I am a wretched man. And I live in a body of death.” And so do you. And so do I. We live in a body of death, steeped in Sin, destined to die and rot in a grave somewhere. And the million dollar question: Who will rescue me? Who will save me from this body of death?” I can’t save myself. Someone else has to. And the answer: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There’s your answer. Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the One who saves us from this body of death in His Body given into death on a cross. He saves us from this body of death by baptizing our bodies into His death and grave. He saves us from this body of death by putting into our bodies His own Body as living Bread, and His own Blood, sacred Wine poured out for the world.

And don’t stop when you get to the end of chapter 7, lest you miss that stellar first verse of chapter 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of Sin. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature (that is, Sin inhering in our flesh), God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man (that is in our flesh without Sin) to be a sin offering.”

For now it’s a struggle. With our minds renewed by the Spirit, we serve the Law of God; with our flesh, corrupted by Sin, we serve the Law of Sin. That’s how it is - the life of Christ in a body of death. That’s why it must be by grace through faith for Jesus’ sake.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Dead and Alive

2008-07-06T08:55:29-06:00

Romans 6:12-23 / 6 Pentecost Proper 7A / 22 June 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6)

Another Sunday, another great text from Romans, today chapter 6, of which I just read the last verse. To fully appreciate this last verse of Romans 6, you need to grasp the entire chapter sixth chapter of Romans from the beginning. It really forms one complete thought. And that thought is this: You are dead to sin, dead to your self, dead to the Law. And at the same time, you are alive to God, alive in Christ, and free.

The chapter begins with a question: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? That’s a good question. Paul’s heard it many times, I’m sure, as he taught in the synagogues. He’s taught that the grace of God, His undeserved kindness toward sinners, a grace that reconciles the enemy, exceeds the worst of our sin. Not only that, the purpose of the Law, the commandments of God, is not to make men better but to make them worse, to amplify the Law and make sin utterly sinful so that people trust in Christ and not in themselves.

Now when you first hear that you are freed from the Law, that grace abounds over sin, that the sinner is justified freely for Christ’s sake, the first thing the old Adam in us thinks is this: Oh boy, now I can do whatever I want! In fact, why not sin, so that God can be even more gracious to me?

Paul’s heard the question before, and he anticipates it. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? The answer: Absolutely not! In fact, if you ask the question that way, you’ve missed the point entirely. You’re dead. “We died to sin, how can we still live in it?”

But I’m still alive and breathing, Paul. What do you mean, I’m dead. I’m not dead yet. I’m very much alive.

And Paul says, “That’s where you’re dead wrong. Don’t you know that those who were baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized in His death? Of course you know that. That’s basic catechism 101. You died. Not physically, as they say. That will happen soon enough. You died in a much more significant way. God declared you dead, like the judge that declared Steve Fossett dead, even though no one has ever found the body. You’re forensically dead; declared so by God.

When did that happen? When you were baptized. “We were therefore buried with Christ through Baptism into His death.” Baptism is a forensic act; an objective act of the Word of God working through water. God declares you officially dead. The rest, you might say, this business of dying we’re so occupied with, is simply catching up with what God has already declared to be a fact. You’re dead. Crucified with Christ. Buried with Him.

Now normally we think of being dead as a bad thing. Death is a bad thing. The wages of sin is death. In dying, we get what we deserve. What we deserve is to die forever. But God has a different plan. He wants us dead now, to tuck us into the death of Christ now, which is the only death that is safe for a sinner. Die with Jesus. Be crucified with Jesus. Joined to Jesus in His death.

People say, “I just want to die.” God says, “You’re on the right track.” Now you can’t kill yourself; that sort of death won’t work. God has to kill you. And He does it by putting you to death in Jesus and declaring you legally dead. Dead to the Law. So get it straight. You may think you’re alive, and in a certain sense you are. But as far as God is concerned, you’re dead, so you may as well get used to the idea. And when you do, you’ll find it a most liberating thing, really. The dead have nothing to lose. They are free.

God doesn’t declare us dead so we can be a bunch of deadheads or deadbeats, but so we might be free to be our true selves. “We were buried therefore with Christ by Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life.” Ah, you see, it’s no only about being dead, but being alive. Not in your selves, there’s nothing but death in there. But in Christ. You are alive to God in Christ, and being alive to God in Christ, you get to walk in newness of life. A new life now. You don’t have to wait around from the resurrection or what we call “heaven.” You are given a new life now even while you are dying and legally declared dead.

So you might say that God wants you “dead and alive.” Dead to sin and self; alive in Christ who is your Life.

Are you with me so far? Good! There’s more. Since God sees you as dead and alive, you may as well see it that way too. Who knows better anyway, you or God? Paul says, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” You are at once dead and alive. God has declared it to be so, and faith says, Amen, that’s the way it is. Dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That sets up today’s reading. Therefore, because you are dead to sin by God’s own declaration, and also alive to God in Christ Jesus, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey their passions. Your bodies, which were once instruments of unrighteousness are now instruments for righteousness. Your whole body, all its 2000 or so parts along with your reason, senses, psyche, mind, spirit, and however else you want to slice and dice it, belongs to God as an instrument of righteousness.

You have been rescued, brought from death, the wages of your sin, to life, as a free gift of God. You have been freed from the Law. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The Law cannot condemn you. You are no longer under Law, but now you are under grace, undeserved kindness. And being under grace means something - sin will have no dominion over you.

That’s God’s promise. Because you are under grace, because you are dead to the Law, because you are alive to God in Christ by His own declaration, sin will have no dominion over you. You will sin, certainly. You haven’t ceased to be a sinner. But under the grace of God, sin has no lordship over you. You are not ruled by Lord Sin but by the Lord Jesus.

Now that’s the amazing thing. It’s counterintuitive, opposite the way we think about things. You would think that being under Law would keep things in order, wouldn’t you? We run society that way. When there’s more crime, you need more law, tougher punishments, more dire consequences. But God does things oppositely. He declares us dead to the Law and the Law dead to us. And rather than putting us under the Law with threats of hellfire and brimstone, He puts us under grace, a rule of undeserved kindness and mercy. He justifies the sinner in Jesus.

So now what do you want to do? Keep on serving sin under the Law? Nonsense! There’s a better way. Where you once offered your bodies as slaves to sin, now being set free by Christ, you are free to offer your bodies as slaves to righteousness. This is the thing few people seem to understand, including people who supposedly know their Bibles. This is one of many reasons why the book of Romans is so important. There is no neutral ground. There is no neutral position between death and life, between sin and righteousness. You are either a slave to sin under the Law, or you are a slave to righteousness under grace. And notice something here: there is no crossover position either. There is no being a slave to sin under grace, nor is there being a slave to righteousness under the Law. Those combinations don’t exist.

There is only serving sin under the Law which leads to death; or serving righteousness under the Gospel which leads to holiness and in the end to eternal life. Lord Sin or Lord Jesus? Which do you want?

Dumb question, right? Exactly! That’s why all this hand-wringing about good works and sanctification doesn’t accomplish a single good work. All it creates is two kinds of sinners: frustrated ones and smug ones. Holiness is not something we accomplish in ourselves; it’s the fruit that God produces in us when we live under grace and serve the Lord Jesus, being dead to the Law and serving Lord Sin.

The wages of sin is death; wages you earn. The gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Gifts you receive. You are baptized. It is granted you, for Jesus’ sake.

Amen.

Reconciled!

2008-07-05T21:46:01-06:00

Romans 5:6-15 / 5 Pentecost Proper 6 / 15 June 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

There are texts that grab you and won’t let you go until you say something about them. Romans chapter 5 is one of them. It more or less preaches itself, which saves the preacher a bit of trouble. But that’s not why I selected it. I want to preach this text because it goes to the heart of what we believe - that God justifies the ungodly in His Son, that God reconciles His enemies to Himself in the death of Jesus, that you and I as children of Adam are rescued from sin and death as a free gift of grace, God’s undeserved kindness, through faith.

Perhaps the greatest danger is that we already know this, or should know it, and so we’re inclined to say, “Been there, done that, Preacher. Now get on to something useful, something relevant, something we can use in our daily lives as we slog our way through this world.” But nothing we say is going to mean anything or have any value without this at the heart and core.

Think of a bicycle wheel - this is the hub on which all the spokes hang and around which the whole thing turns. If we don’t get this, and believe this, we aren’t Christian, no matter how relevant or useful our teaching may be. Take this away, then the Christian faith becomes nothing more than a second rate religion among the world’s religion.

I’m going to lay it out rather simply this morning. Three main points:

First, that Christ died for the ungodly.
Second, that this death reconciles us to God.
Third, that this death to applies to every child of Adam.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.” “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ died for us. In our place. As our Substitute. Look at Jesus hanging dead on the cross and then think of all the biblical stand-ins - the ram that spared Isaac, the Passover lamb, the scapegoat of Yom Kippur, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah - “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” Christ the stand-in for sinners, Christ the vicarious Victim.

Christ is godly, we are ungodly. Christ is sinless, we are sin-full. In His obedience to the Law, He becomes one of us and one with us in His death. Examples are hard to find. Paul says you might find someone who will die for a good person or lay down his life to save someone he loves. How about those hikers who were caught in a snowstorm. One saved the other two by using his body as a shield against the cold. His death is heroic - he laid down his life to save his wife and friend.

Or what about soldier who lays down his life to save a fellow soldier. The battlefield abounds with those kinds of stories of heroism. Or the hero who dies defending country and liberty. Those are certainlyh valiant, heroic deaths. But they aren’t vicarious in the sense we are talking about here. Heroic yes, but not vicarious. Not as substitute sacriices.

Christ died for the ungodly. For sinners. For His enemies. He took the place of His enemies. Not His family and friends, but His enemies. Those who wanted Him dead and gone. You and I are included that too. Yes, you good, decent, hard-working church-going, right decision making people are, apart from Jesus, ungodly, sinful, enemies of God. And this is how God shows His love - while we were yet sinners, dead in our sins as collective humanity, Jesus Christ died for us.

One life in exchange for another. He becomes the sinner in place of every sinner; and we in Him become the saint, holy and righteous before God. That’s what Paul means when he says we are “justified by His blood.” The blood of Jesus shed on the cross is your righteousness before God. It covers who you are with who Jesus is. When God looks on you, He doesn’t see your sin any more, but He sees the blood of His Son, that perfect life lived in your place. And even though your sins are many and great, that blood is greater. He became your sin in His death, and by His blood you are declared to be righteous, innocent, holy, blameless before God.

Do you see why this has to be repeated and reviewed and why we can never take it for granted? This is the part that is so unbelievable, what we cannot by our reason or senses believe - that Christ should come and die for the ungodly, for sinners, for His enemies, and that in this death we are justified before God.

You see what it means? It’s the end of all transactions with God, of all attempts to bargain with God or bribe Him or obligate Him. God acts. He loves us in His Son. And He does it without asking our permission. He just does it.

Second, that death of Jesus reconciles us to God. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, not that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.” It makes peace. God has made peace with you in Jesus. This isn’t the kind of reconciliation we usually think of, where two parties are at war with each other and someone is called in to bring them to the bargaining table and work out terms for reconciliation. Labor disputes and marital disputes are settled that way. You give a little, you get a little, you get on with business.

But God reconciles the enemy while he is still the enemy. He makes peace with the sinner while he or she is still a sinner. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them.”

On Good Friday, in the darkness of Jesus’ death, God said to the world, “I am at peace with you.” In your Baptism, when water was poured on you in the Name of God, the Father said through His Son by the Holy Spirit, “I am at peace with you.” In the Supper, with Jesus’ own Body and Blood as gift to you, God says again, “I am at peace with you.”

Reconciled. Do you realize the implications? It isn’t a matter of “getting right with God” but of believing that in Christ you are right with God now as you are. And it applies not only to you but to the entire human race.

That’s the third point: The death of Jesus applies to every child of Adam without exception. Jesus is literally the Lamb of who God who takes away the sin of the world. Paul puts it this way. Sin and death came into the world through one man - Adam. And even before there was the law to keep an accurate bookkeeping of sin, there was death, the wages of sin. In Adam all die. Adam in his body “embodied” all of humanity so that when he died to God because of his sin, all of humanity died. Adam’s sin and death is also our sin and death. There is no escaping it. “Like father, like son,” as they say. And also like daughter.

But Adam was a “type of the coming One.” That means Adam, in his embodiment of humanity, was a prophetic picture of Christ in His incarnation, embodying all of humanity in His body. Jesus is the “second Adam,” the new Head of humanity. The first Adam brought sin and disobedience and death; the second Adam (Christ) brought holiness and obedience and life. He kept every little point of His own law and became obedient to it to death on the cross.

There’s the important part: As far as the sin of Adam goes, and it includes every human being ever born, so far and further goes the justification that comes with the blood of Jesus. As far as the death of Adam goes, and it extends to every human being ever born (we all die), so far and further goes the life that comes through that one man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive. If you can say it about Adam with respect to sin and death, you can say it about Jesus with respect to justification and life.

Today is Father’s Day, the flip side to Mother’s Day. As we remember our fathers and give thanks to God for them, and as we pray for all fathers everywhere, we are reminded that we are reconciled to our Father in heaven. He is good; He is gracious; He is at peace with us. He loves us in His Son Jesus. And we rejoice in God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

It’s basic, it’s foundational, it’s the hub, heart, and core of what we believe. And it bears telling over and over and over again, lest we for even a brief moment forget it.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

The Triune Mystery

2008-05-19T10:52:24-06:00

Matthew 28:16-20 / Holy Trinity / 18 May 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Today we rejoice in the mystery of that invocation and the mystery of our faith - the “tri-unity” of God - that God is three Persons in one divine Being and one divine Being in three Persons, neither confusing the Persons or dividing the Being.

That mystery is already revealed in the first sentence of the Bible in the book of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The word for “God” - Elohim - is a plural and yet there is but one God. The Spirit of God, whom we know as the Holy Spirit, is there too, hovering like a mother hen over the face of the Deep. And the Word is there too, as God speaks and it is so. John identifies this Word as the eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father. And so you might say that the entire work of creation is from the Father through the Son (the Word) by the Holy Spirit.

Each creative day gives us a daily liturgy for prayer and praise, reminding us that no matter where we look in this marvelous and intricate creation, we are seeing the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The creative days also give a liturgical structure and rhythm to our own work week. You might say that Genesis chapter 1 is the rhythm of the symphony of creation, the drumbeat of the cosmic order, under the creative direction of the Divine Designer.

Listen to the rhythm:

Day one (Sunday): Light. “Be light,” and light there is. The work week begins with light. And it was good.

Day two (Monday): Sky. The earth’s unique atmosphere making ours a rare gem of a planet among the planets - oxygen and water, dancing clouds that produce rain and let in sunshine. Clear yet protective. And it was good.

Day three (Tuesday): Sea and dry land and their playful interface of beach and tidepools. How we love the shore, the place where sea and dry land kiss. And it was good.

And more: Plants springing up from the dry land in all their wonderful diversity. Marigolds and dandelions and oak trees and jacaranda trees along with tasty avocado, orange, lemon, almond. And it was good.

Day four (Wednesday): Sun, moon, and stars. A grand cosmic light show for signs and seasons. Sun and moon - the right size, the right distance, the right relationship to each other. The next time there is a total eclipse of the sun (which will be August 1 in Siberia, in case you want to see it), notice how the moon perfectly covers the sun like a lens cap. And it was good.

Day five (Thursday): Fish in the sea; birds in the air - showing the artistry of the triune God in all their glorious shapes and sizes and colors, showing the humor of the triune God with all their wonderful mating and nesting rituals. Just by looking at them, you know that fish and birds belong to the same liturgical choir. And it was good.

Day six (Friday): The animals - domestic, wild, creeping - in all their diversity from aardvaark to zebra, from the ant to the guerilla.

And more: last of all in the grand hierarchy, Man uniquely in the image of God. If God is the conductor of creation’s symphony, then Man is the concert master. Again the triune Mystery as God speaks to Himself - “Let us make man in our image.” Like the Persons of the Trinity, man is made for relationship. Male and female He created them. And God blessed them to be fruitful. And it was very good.

Day seven (Saturday): Rest. The endless day. The day with no morning or evening. It is God’s reminder that we live by faith and not by our works. Faith rests in God and enjoys the fruits of our labors and of God’s. We rest by faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

Each creative day reflects the creative work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each work reflects the love of the Father, the wisdom of the Son, the life of the Spirit. Everywhere you look and listen there is worship of the triune God, the liturgy of the creation. The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands, as do sea and dry land, plants, sun, moon, and stars, fish and birds, animals and man - a chorus of praise.

Our sin destroys the harmony and the rhythm of creation. It is a sour note, a random, chaotic noise, disturbing the order. The whole creation feels it and groans down to the smallest living creature. It is the foreign, alien word - the lie to Eve and to Adam - God is not true; you can be like God. We see the effects - destruction, devastation, decay, death. The earthquakes, the whirlwinds are the groanings of the creation waiting for our redemption, for the new creation, for our resurrection. We see the effects in our own lives - the brokenness, the hurt, the diseases, the suffering, the killing.

The Father loves His cosmos. He hates nothing He created. He shows His love for the cosmos by sending His eternal Son, the Word, in our flesh. Jesus came to embrace the world, to shed His blood on a cross, to die and rise, and in dying and rising to rescue all that He had made from decay and destruction. This is the triune God’s second great work: redemption. He redeems what He created.

We talk about “saving the earth.” We didn’t create it, and we can’t save it. We can take care of it and be stewards of its resources but we can’t save it. Jesus has, by His dying and rising. He has brought the new creation, by water and Spirit, in Baptism. He has poured out His Spirit on the face of this dying earth by the preaching of the Gospel, the good news of His atoning death and life in His resurrection.

Jesus holds “all authority in heaven and on earth.” He received it from the Father from all eternity. The Son of God in human flesh reigns over His creation, having redeemed it by His blood. He’s “the man in charge.” With His authority, He authorizes His Church to make disciples of all the nations, as many as He died for, everyone without exception. Disciples are made by baptizing and teaching. Baptizing in the triune Name - the fulness of the God’s self-revelation, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching the fulness of what Jesus entrusted to His Church. In this disciple-making, Jesus is present - “Lo, I am with you always.”

This is the third work of the triune God: sanctification - to make holy by water and the Word.

The new creation has already come in Jesus. A new first day, a day of light and life. The resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit tell us that even as the old is passing away, even as the grand diversity of species go extinct and the very life of the earth is threatened with change and decay, even as we ourselves die, a new creation has already dawned with the open, empty tomb and the outpouring of the Spirit.

That’s why the Church worships on Sunday - it’s new creation day, the first day of an eternity in Christ of which you already participate through your Baptism. Your life is already hidden with Christ in God. You already live in the trinitarian love of God as a sinner justified for Jesus’ sake, baptized in the Name.

The small catechism teaches us to invoke the triune Name every morning when we arise and every evening before we go to sleep. “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Every morning we consecrate our work day in the Name of God who made the heavens and the earth. And every evening we offer up that day’s work as a living sacrifice to the God who redeemed us and all creation with the blood of His Son.

Also here at Holy Trinity - 46 years of discipling the nations, of baptizing and teaching under the grace of God. Such a privilege it is to confess the Name, to worship the Name, to glorify the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen

O Day Full of Grace

2008-05-14T10:42:58-06:00

John 7:37-39 / Pentecost A / 11 May 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink, whoever believes in me. As the Scripture says, “From his heart will flow rivers of living waters.” (John 7:37-39)

Today is one of the highest and holiest days on our calendar. It’s a day we dare not forget, for if we do, we will forget the one who birthed us, washed us, nurtured and fed us. How dare we forget the womb that birthed us, the breasts that nursed us, the arms that comforted us. Of course, I’m talking about Church, our spiritual mother of our baptismal birth. Pentecost is, in a very real sense, our Mother’s Day, the day of the Church and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And of course, happy Mother’s Day to all who are mothers, and thanks be to God for our mothers.

St. Cyprian once said: "No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.” There’s a great deal of truth to that. You always know who the mother is. And the mother will tell you who the father is. The Spirit of God cries out “Abba, Father” and testifies to our spirits that we are the children of God. And the Spirit speaks through the Church by which we were born of water and Spirit in Holy Baptism.

That’s why it’s fitting and proper on this Mother’s Day to recognize that Pentecost is about holy Mother Church. We cringe at that phrase sometimes. Part of it, I suspect, is our residual anti-Catholicism. It sounds just a bit too “Catholic” for our protestantized ears. Holy Mother Church. We have no problems with calling God “Father” (unless, of course, the feminist theologians have invaded our thinking), but we are reticent to realize that we also have a mother in our baptismal birth from above. Drawing on an analogy to Sarah, the wife of Abraham, the apostle Paul calls the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church, “our mother.”

You sometimes hear Pentecost called the “church’s birthday” but there already was a church before Pentecost. It numbered about 120 disciples including Jesus’ mother and brothers. Properly speaking, the Church was “born” on Good Friday, the day that Christ, the second Adam, died on the cross, and in the sleep of His death, a new Eve, the mother of all the living, was fashioned from His side by the water and the blood. As Eve was taken from the side of her sleeping Adam, so the Church was made from the baptismal water and the eucharistic blood that came from the side of Christ on the cross. As Eve was called the mother of all the living, so the Church is the mother that bears all believers in Baptism to eternal life.

John tells us in the prologue to his Gospel what it means to be the children of God: “To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, nor of a husband’s will, but born of God.” Not of natural descent - you aren’t naturally born a believer. Nor of human decision - you don’t decide to believe. Nor of a husband’s will - children of God are not conceived in the natural way.

Our small catechism puts it this way in the third article, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or senses believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him. We believe that we do not naturally believe. Our hearts are naturally dead toward God, dead in sin, hopelessly turned inward, without fear, love, and trust in God. We must be born anew, “virgin born” through water, Word, and Spirit.

Pentecost is not the church’s birthday, but the church’s birthing day, her delivery day. The day that mother Church bears her first children by the preaching of the Word and by Holy Baptism. Three thousand were baptized that day. Three thousand heard the preached Word through Peter and came to the birthing waters of Baptism with the promise that they too would receive the gift of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit. And not only them, but also their children. Pentecost is the church’s delivery date, the day she gave birth to three thousand born from above children of the heavenly Father through water and the Spirit.

The day is significant. Pentecost means “fifty.” Fifty days after the Passover came the winter wheat harvest festival. It was the celebration of the first fruits, the first harvest of the year. At the time of Jesus, it was also a day to celebrate the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. These two themes come together - the harvest and the giving of the Word. Fifty days after Jesus’ death and resurrection comes the first fruits of the harvest, the first believers to believe through the apostolic Word and Baptism. It also comes with all the Sinai-signs - fire and wind. Three thousand people, from among the thousands that were in Jerusalem for Pentecost, heard the Word of Christ preached by the apostles, were baptized by them, and received the Holy Spirit.

In other words, those three thousand came to faith the way we came to faith. Not by walking around with Jesus, as the disciples did. But through the preached Word and through the water of Baptism. That’s why the day of Pentecost is so important in the life of the Church. These are the Church’s first children, of whom you and I are also numbered. And they were born again in the same we are born again, through water and the Word. Whoever has God as his Father has the Church as his Mother.

You don’t bring honor to Father while dishonoring Mother. Like all mothers, the Church is not without sin. But that’s no excuse for despising her or neglecting her. Luther said that we ought to thank God daily for our mothers even if they did nothing else than bear with us for nine months. Without them, we wouldn’t be around. And without the Church, flaws and all, we would not have the gifts of Baptism, the Word, the Supper. The Church is our mother. And we might wish for another, as I once did when I put a sign in the window that read, “Mom for Sale 5 Cents.” Ah, she’s the only we have, and thank God for her. Through Mother Church the Spirit, the Word, the water come to us to birth us to new life.

That brings us to the Gospel text for today. I took the liberty of rearranging the sentences a bit from what you have in front of you. The Greek permits that. Jesus says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and let him drink, the one believes in me.” To thirst is to be dried up and parched. Relief comes from the outside, not the inside. When you’re thirsty, you need seek a source of water and it isn’t in you. To “drink” of Jesus is to trust Him, to take Him at His word, to hear Him, to drink in all of His gifts by faith.

As the Scripture says, “Out of His heart will flow rivers of living water.” The “his” belongs to Jesus, not to you. In the OT, God is the source and fountain of living water. Jesus promised to give the Samaritan woman living water. It isn’t from our hearts that living water flows, but from the heart of Jesus. From our hearts flow murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, gossip, slander, greed, idolatry - all that is wrong and broken and evil in our lives. The outflow of our hearts is an effluent of sin. Not fresh living water, but raw sewage.

But from the heart of Jesus, pierced for our iniquities by a Roman sword, there flows living water, water mixed with His life’s blood. (John is the one who captures this detail for us.) Jesus is the source, the fountain of that living water that cleanses from sin, that births us with a new and heavenly birth from above, that marks us as a new creation, children of God redeemed by Christ the crucified. Baptismal water is that living water Jesus was speaking, a water that flowed from His wounded heart to you in your Baptism.

John explains that Jesus was speaking about the Spirit that was to come. First Jesus had to die; it is out of His death that life flows. Then, risen and reigning, Jesus breathes out His Spirit, with the signs of fire and wind and languages. And three thousand thirsty sinful souls were quenched with water and the Word. They were baptized. And then there were more, as the three thousand went back to their homes, and the Church spread literally by word of mouth, words from mouths to ears carried along by the Spirit.

And as these last days draw to their close, that stream of living water flows to you - baptized, believing, forgiven, born anew of water and Spirit, born from above of Mother Church, heavenly Jerusalem, our free mother who bears her children in the freedom of Christ.

And so as we give thanks to God on this day for the gift of our mothers who bore us and nurtured us, we give thanks to God for the Church, our spiritual mother, who birthed us in Baptism and nurtured us with the pure spiritual milk of the Word.

Oh day full of grace! Happy Mother’s Day. Blessed Pentecost.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Living Stones, A Holy Priesthood

2008-04-25T09:04:54-06:00

1 Peter 2:2-10/ 5 Easter A / 20 April 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

Who are you? There’s a deep question to get things rolling. Who are you? In the martial arts they teach you to know your center of gravity. If you know your center of gravity, you aren’t easily knocked over, no matter how hard you are hit. It allows you to stand firm in the midst of battle without being locked in place. You can move and act with confidence, because you know where your center of gravity is. If you don’t know who you are, you have no personal center of gravity. You’re easily knocked off balance by the slightest thing. You let other people define who you are, lay expectations on you, try to bend and mold you to their idea of who you are.

When we don’t know who we are, we tend to ball up on ourselves, assume a kind of fetal position with respect to the world. And we never mature, we never grow up, when we don’t know who we are. We have no sense of meaning, purpose, place. We simply exist and let others or our circumstances define us.

Who are you? Peter answers that question for some newly baptized Christians in his first epistle, part of which you just heard. They are newborn infants that need to nuzzle up to the breast of mother Church, to drink the pure spiritual milk of the Word so that by it they would grow up to salvation. They have tasted that the Lord is good. They have come to the table, still dripping wet from their Baptism, wearing white robes, oil running down their faces and onto their robes. They have come to eat their Savior’s body and drink His blood and taste that the Lord is good.

Now Peter tells them who they are as baptized believers: They are living stones built into a spiritual temple; and they are a holy and royal priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Another way of saying it: they are worshipers who worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.

They are living stones, and so are you. You probably never thought of yourself as a stone before, let alone a living stone. Stubborn as a rock, maybe. Jesus named Cephas “Peter,” petros, which means rock, but we know how solid he was. You are living stones. Not dead rocks, but living stones. Alive because you have come to the Living Stone, the rejected Rock named Jesus, the Stumbling Stone that God the Father laid in Zion that causes men who refuse to believe to stumble in their attempts to save themselves, and yet saves those who fall on Him in faith.

That’s how it is with Jesus and His death and resurrection. He’s the big Rock in the middle of the religious road. There’s no avoiding Him. You’re going to have to deal with Him sooner or later. Now or on the Last Day. And you can’t be agnostic about Him. Either you will trip over Him to your eternal shame and ruin, or you will fall on Him in faith to your salvation. He is the Way, and there is no other way; He is the Truth, and there is no other truth. He is the Life, and there is no other life.

He is God’s cornerstone, the elect one and precious. He is the eternal Son of God, the elect Son chosen to be the world’s Savior. Jesus is the only one who is elect in Himself. Everyone else is elect in Him; just as you are living stones only as you are joined to Jesus the Living Stone. Without Jesus, you are just a dead pile of rubble. In Baptism, God takes you, a dead rock, and makes you alive in Christ Jesus, a living stone. A precious stone, worth the price of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross.

Notice this. You are a stone in a temple; you are a priest in a priesthood. There are no loose boulders, no isolated priests. Stones have a building; priests have a priesthood. There is no such thing as an isolated Christian believing on his own or her own. The same Spirit who calls you also calls me and gather us together into congregations that manifest the whole gathered church.

Christians congregate. It goes with being baptized. You are living stones built into a house built by the Spirit, a Spirit-built house, the Church. It’s noteworthy that none of the descriptions of the church are individual in the Scriptures. No “I am the church, you are the church.” The church is always an aggregate whole - a body made up of members, a priesthood of priests, a temple of stones, a household of family members, a nation of citizens. When we congregate, especially to worship, we are doing the natural thing for baptized people to do. We are following the urging of the Spirit that calls us together. Even our Lord promises to meet us in congregations, where two or three are gather in my Name, there I am in their midst.

So let’s be done with this individualized “spirituality” that floats around today. Yes, if you were on a desert island all alone, there would be no one with whom to congregate, and Christ would still be with you. And if you brought a Bible along with you on your desert island, then that’s all the preaching you would have, and it’s all you would need. But we’re hardly on an island here, are we? And God is so much richer in His goodness toward us. He brings us together. He arranges to have the Word laid into our ears. The Body and Blood of Jesus put in our mouths. Taste and see that the Lord is good! And nothing tastes better than forgiveness, life, and salvation in the Name of Jesus.

You are a stone built into a spiritual house. You have a place and a purpose, and without you, the building is impoverished, the priesthood is lacking. Every baptized man, woman, and child has a place and a purpose in the Christ’s priesthood.

You are a chosen race, as OT Israel was once a chosen group of people. Don’t think of “race” the way we commonly do. Rather, a chosen group, selected to show God’s mercy to sinners to the world. He chose you. You didn’t choose Him, He chose you. You say, “But I didn’t do anything.” That’s right. He chose you to show the world that it’s by grace and not by works. You say, “But I’m not a very good person. Why would God choose me?” Precisely the point - to show the world that it’s not about being good, that God is merciful to sinners, that He justifies the ungodly.

You are a royal priesthood - kings and priests. You say, “I don’t feel like a king and a priest. No one treats me like king and a priest.” That’s right. That’s why you have to be told; you wouldn’t know that. You are kings in Christ’s kingdom; priests in His priesthood. But don’t priests wear robes? You do. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have been clothed with Christ.” You wear Christ like a robe. I wear a robe to remind you of the baptismal robe you wear. You could all wear robes, but then you’d have another excuse not to come to church on Sunday. I’m happy if you don’t wear beach clothes.

You say, “But don’t priests do religious things?” And that’s where your old Adam has you tricked. He’s very religious that old Adam of yours. He thinks you have to get religious. Spiritual sacrifices are what Paul calls “living sacrifices,” the worship of your day to day life. Your vocation, your calling as father, mother, son, daughter, worker, citizen, worshiper. This is the liturgy of life. You’re a priest. You consecrate stuff with the Word of God and with prayer. All that ordinary stuff of your day to day work is holy because you are holy on account of Christ.

It begins in worship. Priests gather for worship, and your priesthood is to hear the Word, receive the Body and Blood, and offer your spiritual sacrifices of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. That’s how you “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” That’s what’s happening in the liturgy when you say your “amen.” You’re doing your priestly work, offering spiritual sacrifices, not to atone for your sins but because your sins are atoned for by Jesus’ sacrifice. That’s why your sacrifices, your worship, is acceptable to God. It comes to the Father “through Jesus Christ.”

It extends through all your life. Priestly work doesn’t just happen on Sunday morning or whenever you come here. Priestly work goes on where God has called you to be a priest - at home with your children, in your community, in your workplace, in the classroom, on the playground, with friends, family , coworkers, neighbors. You are priests of God blessing, teaching, praying. Baptism permits you to worship God, to pray, to praise, to give thanks, to bless others, to teach others. That’s what priests do.

The mother nursing her baby, the father teaching his children, the worker doing excellent work, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker are priests to God in Baptism, offering up their work, their lives and bodies, as living spiritual sacrifices through the one atoning Sacrifice of Jesus.

You are a holy nation. God’s nation. The United States isn’t God’s nation; it’s just another nation among the nations in the eyes of God. Israel today is not God’s nation. God’s nation is the Church, His baptized believers united with Christ in His death and resurrection. You are a holy nation. You may be American or a citizen of some other country, but that’s your temporary citizenship. Your permanent citizenship is in God’s nation.

Once you were not a people. LIke Hosea’s son - Lo Ami - not my people. What a thing to name a son. Not my people. Once you were outside of God’s mercy. Like Hosea’s daugher - Lo Ruhamah - not mercied. What a thing to name a daughter. Not mercied. Imagine Hosea calling the kids for dinner - Not my people, Not Mercied. I’m sure the neighbors loved it.

That’s what it means to be outside of Christ. You are not God’s people, you are not mercied. That’s what happens when in unbelief you trip over the the stumbling Stone. Not my people; not mercied.

Who are you? You know who you are. You are living stones in God’s temple; a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. You are God’s prized possession. You are baptized into Jesus Christ, the crucified, risen, and reigning Lord. He is the source of your identity. He is your center of gravity. Built on Him, baptized into Him, believing in Him, nothing can knock you over.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Shepherd and Door

2008-04-14T15:19:06-06:00

John 10:1-10/ 4 Easter A / 13 April 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

Jesus the Good Shepherd; Jesus the door for the sheep. The images are comforting and “pastoral” in the literal sense of that word. The word “pastor” is Latin for shepherd. In the Scriptures, “shepherd” and “bishop” (or as we have it “overseer”) run together too, which is why you see bishops in the church carrying shepherd’s staffs. A bishop is a shepherd of souls under the Good Shepherd who is Jesus. Jesus the good Pastor.

To speak of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is to call up the Good Shepherd psalm (Psalm 23) with all its pastoral allusions. David, the shepherd-king boasts as a sheep bragging about his shepherd, “The LORD is my shepherd, and boy do I have it good! I lack nothing. Listen to what he does for me. He makes me lie down in fresh, green pastures of His Word. He leads me beside quiet cooling water of Baptism. When I fall down, he restores my soul. He knows how I love to wander, and so he leads me in the well-worn ruts of righteousness for His name’s sake.

David then turns to his Good Shepherd and speaks to him in prayer. “Even though I walk through the dark valley where death is all around me and the wolves gaze on me from the cliffs, I’m not afraid. I fear no evil. Why? For Thou art with me, walking ahead of me through death and on to resurrection and life. Your rod of the Law, your staff of the Gospel, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me, right there in the presence of my enemies - your Body and your Blood given and shed for me. You anoint my head with the oil of forgiveness, absolving all those pesky sins that nag at me like flea bites on my nose. I have it good. “My cup runneth over.”

And then David speaks to himself and to us once again in the confidence of faith. “Surely goodness and mercy will dog me like sheepdogs, all the days of my life. And I know how it all comes out in the end when the Lord is my Shepherd. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Nice to hear, isn’t it? Even for a city kid like myself who has no idea what it means to be a shepherd, the image is comforting. Too bad we reserve Psalm 23 for funerals. I go to the hospital and pull out Psalm 23 to pray with someone and they think I’m administering a Lutheran form of last rites. And that’s too bad, because Psalm 23 is for the living, for those whose life is hidden in Christ by faith, for those who live even though they die.

Now to be a sheep of the Good Shepherd’s flock means that you have to accept that fact that you are a sheep, which from everything I’ve read isn’t a terribly flattering picture. Sheep are mean, prone to wandering, not terribly bright, and very dependent, which is precisely the picture that God is painting here. We are mean, kicking and biting and head-butting each other in constant effort to be the top sheep. We are prone to wander, following every false path, chasing down every poisoned weed and polluted puddle. And we aren’t terribly bright when it comes to the things of God. In fact, we are clueless by nature, and without the Holy Spirit we wouldn’t have a clue no matter how many degrees are hanging on our wall.

It all boils down to dependency, and the fact that we cannot save ourselves. We need a Shepherd, a Bishop of our souls, who will feed us, care for us, sustain us, deliver us. And that we have in Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd is contrasted with the thief and the robber. The Shepherd enters by way of the door, but thieves and robbers climb in some other way. The “other way” is not the way of Jesus’ death and resurrection. You can always tell a thief or a robber from the shepherd by the message he brings. Listen carefully. Anyone who does not preach Jesus Christ to be your Shepherd, who bore you sins on the cross, who laid down His life for your salvation, in whom you are justified before God freely for Jesus’ sake, is not speaking on behalf of the Good Shepherd.

It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing a clerical collar, a ton of gold robes, a business suit, or a Hawaiian shirt. It doesn’t matter if his hair neat and moussed or all messed up, whether he is clean shaven or has a beard down to here. It doesn’t matter whether he uses PowerPoint or powerful points to make his point. If what he says is not connected to the narrow door of Jesus’ death and resurrection, he is a thief and a robber and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It doesn’t matter if he heals your dandruff, gets you off of drugs, and makes your bank account swell. If he doesn’t preach Christ and Him crucified, he’s a thief and not a shepherd.

The sheep hear the shepherd’s voice; their ears perk up. He calls them by name, and they follow him. Luther said that the church is a flock of holy sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd Jesus. He also reminded pastors that their job was to make the voice of the Good Shepherd heard and not their own bleating. “He who hears you, hears me,” said Jesus.

That puts us pastors who believe this at a bit of a disadvantage these days. The trend is to win people with the messenger rather than the message. You hear talk about “dynamic” preaching and “relevant” teaching. We have no idea how “dynamic” Jesus was as a speaker, do we? The apostle Paul admits to being more impressive in print than in person. And as for “relevence,” Paul admitted that the Jews were looking for miracles and the Greeks had a hankering for great rhetoric and wisdom and all the Paul had was a crucified Messiah named Jesus, which the Jews stumbled over and the Greeks that was foolishness.

Here’s the problem. We sheep like to hear how good we are and how great potential there is in us just waiting to be released if we have enough faith. We love to hear about ourselves. Let’s admit it, the last thing we want to say on Sunday morning is what poor miserable sinners we are. That’s hardly going to motivate sheep to greatness! Yeah, and we’ll follow anyone who dangles a little sweet morsel of Religion in front of our noses, a sweet hour of prayer that will make us feel good about ourselves and feel cozy with God.
But that is not the green pasture Jesus has in mind for you, His sheep. He’s rescued you from slavery to self, to sin, to death. He freed you to be the people of His pasture. He’s marked you as one of His flock in Baptism. You bear the Good Shepherd’s seal of ownership, right there on your forehead and on your heart, the mark of the cross, His death for you. Don’t forget whose you are because that tells you who you are. You are a sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd who laid down His life to seek and save you in His death on the cross.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. He sounds nice enough, maybe even nicer the the shepherd, but don’t trust him for a second. The devil does masquerade as an angel of light, we are told. He’s a religious devil who would love to throw some distractions your way, a few false paths to deflect you from those boring, well-worn ruts of righteousness. You know what he wants. He wants to get between you and Jesus, and he’ll throw anything in there. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter. But that didn’t work with Jesus because the stricken Shepherd rose from the dead. So plan B is to distract the sheep and get between them and the Shepherd. Just a little daylight between you and the Word, a little gap between you and the altar, just enough to get you to follow the thief to your doom.

Fortunately, the Good Shepherd knows His sheep and their wandering ways. That’s why He has a rod and a staff. The rod is there to ward off the wolves and the thieves. It’s occasionally there for a bit of discipline too, and we need that discipline as well. We don’t like it, but coming from the Good Shepherd, we know that it’s love and not wrath. And the rod of the Law is especially there to drive us back to the Good Shepherd’s fold in case we think we can go it alone without our Shepherd. The Law is good, remember. It drives us to Christ and puts a fence around us so we don’t stray.

There is the gentle shepherd’s staff, with that round crook, by which a shepherd can lift a sheep up when it’s cast down. The Gospel, the good news of free forgiveness for Jesus’ sake. The good news that ungodly sinners stand before God righteous and holy by His declaration for Jesus’ sake. The Good Shepherd gently nudges the sheep with His staff, reminding them “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”

One of the things a shepherd does for His flock is lie in the opening of the pen at night. Every night, the sheep are herded into their enclosed pen. That’s what Jesus means when He says, “I am the door of the sheep.” He literally lays down His life for the sheep. He lies in the door of death, and through His death, His sheep can go in and out and find pasture. Through the narrow door of Jesus’ death there is life for you, life in abundance, and eternity of life. He’s done it for you - died, rose, reigns. And in the Good Shepherd’s flock you are safe forever.

If anyone tries to come after you and take away your salvation, the Good Shepherd says, “Over my dead and risen body.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

On the Road to Emmaus

2008-04-07T07:44:28-06:00

Luke 24:13-35 / 3 Easter A / 6 April 2008 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA

In Nomine Iesu

It was a long, slow seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus for two disciples on that first day of the resurrection.   Cleopas, whom some believe to be the brother of Joseph, Jesus’ uncle so to speak, and another disciple are walking back to their homes. As they walked, they talked about all that had happened the past week. The arrest, the trial, the crucifixion, the burial, the odd news from the women of the open, empty tomb, angels (were there one or two?), the report of Peter and John. But no sight of Jesus.

They had staked their lives on this Jesus from Nazareth. Everything they had. They thought He was the one. A Prophet powerful in word and deed. He made blind men see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear. He raised the dead. They hoped He was the messiah, the promised One who would redeem Israel. And then in one short week their hopes seemed to come to ruin. Jesus was dead, buried, and now nowhere to be seen.

Disappointment, disillusion, grief, bewilderment, confusion, sadness. What words can describe what goes through your mind as you walk that lonely Emmaus Road? You trusted Jesus and now He seems to have disappeared without a trace. You feel betrayed, used maybe, certainly sad. Rumors don’t provide any comfort. Even reports of a vision of angels rings hollow. It all seems to hang on that little sentence, “But Him they did not see.”

They had to see Jesus. Unless they saw Him, they would not believe. Unless they saw Him, there would be no point in going on. Unless they say Him, all they could do is walk the seven miles back from Jerusalem to Emmaus as the late afternoon sun was setting.

A stranger caught up with them. It was Jesus, but their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. Note that. It wasn’t that they were so caught up in their grief that they didn’t recognize Him. It wasn’t a case of the “eyes made blind by sin.” They were not permitted from recognizing Him. Jesus concealed His identity.

Why? Why play this little game with two grieving disciples? Why not just show yourself, as Jesus did to Mary Magdalene? Jesus is still the Teacher. First, He wants to hear from their own lips what they believe about Him. It’s something like walking into a room where people are talking about you and don’t know that you’re there. What they say to Jesus about Jesus betrays the fact that they do not yet take Him at His word. He said He would die and in three days rise. They’ve been counting the days. They knew it was the third day, and getting late. Yet they did not believe the good news from the women.

Jesus chides Cleopas and the other disciple. “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” The reason they were sad and moping was that they were being foolish, that is, faithless, with heart slow to believe. It wasn’t their eyes, it was their hearts that were messed up. Hearts weighed down by sin, alienated from God are slow to believe, even when they beat in the chest of a near relative and another close disciple. Our hearts are slow about the things of God, alienated from God, turned away from God and turned inward on self. Our hearts do not naturally believe the promises of God. They must be made new, softened by the Word, enlivened by the Spirit.

“Beginning with Moses and the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” He taught them the proper way to interpret the Scriptures. Not as a book of rules or an owner’s manual for life. But as God’s revelation of His Son. It doesn’t say exactly what Jesus talked about, but I imagine He talked about the Passover, the Exodus, the sacrifices, Isaiah’s suffering servant, and all the images behind which He had been hiding. It must have been quite the Bible class on that Emmaus Road. The two disciples reported that their hearts were burning, which means they were taking it all in and everything was clicking at lightning speed.

Have you ever had a case of Scripture heartburn? I call it “seeing in primary colors,” everything is so crystal clear, all the pieces come together, you think you’re head is about to explode for joy. That’s the power of the Scriptures when they are read through the death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus had said that the Scriptures were speaking about Him. He speaks through the Scriptures. As the OT dots are connected, and Jesus is revealed as the Lamb of God chosen from eternity to bear the world’s sin in His dying and rising, slow hearts become believing burning hearts.

They still don’t recognize Jesus. Their eyes are still kept from recognizing Him. He wants to teach them so they in turn can teach others. He would not be seen for too much longer. Forty days, to be exact, and then He would ascend in glory and be hidden from their eyes until the Last Day. How would they hear from Him? Where would they go when their hearts were slow and sad? To the Scriptures. To the Word of God.

There’s a popular old Easter hymn by C. Austin Miles back in 1912 that you don’t sing around here for good reason. It’s called “In the Garden.” It has a refrain that goes,And

He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Now I know this isn’t on the cutting edge of contemporary Christian music, but the sentiment is still popular that Jesus walks with us and talks with us as He did with Mary Magdalene in the garden. But the Emmaus road teaches something different. He walks with us and talks with us in the Scriptures. Do you want to have an Emmaus walk with Jesus? Then take and read. Come to the church and hear. Take a stroll through the Scriptures searching for Jesus’ death and resurrection, and your slow, sad hearts will burn too. Save the garden for bird watching.

They came a fork in the road, and Jesus pretended to go in the other direction. Still hiding Himself, still more to give. The two disciples urged Jesus, “Stay with us, it’s almost sundown.” So Jesus went to their house. At supper, He seems to take over the house and make it His own. He takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and begins to distribute it to them. Sound familiar? It should! Echoes of the upper room the week before, the Passover table, the breaking of the bread. “This is my body.”

And then, at that very moment, with the bread, their eyes were finally opened and they recognized Jesus. Just as suddenly, Jesus disappeared from their sight. Poof! He was gone. Curiously, they didn’t ask, “Where did He go?” They didn’t have to ask. They knew where they could find Jesus. It was where He promised to be for them - in the Scriptures and in the Breaking of the Bread. Word and Sacrament, as we Lutherans like to say it.

I hope you can see how the Emmaus Road shaped Christian worship from the earliest centuries. We hear from Christ in the Scriptures; He reveals Himself to us in the Supper. And that’s the point of the Emmaus Road. This in-between time, between Jesus’ resurrection and our resurrection, is not a time for seeing with our eyes but of hearing with our ears the Word and receiving with our mouths the Body and Blood. This is how Jesus walks with us and talks with us and tells us we are his own. The liturgy is our Emmaus Road from death to life, from sorrow to joy, beginning with our death and burial in Baptism, walking the Scripture road with hearts aflame with faith, leading to the table where Jesus is made known to us in the Breaking of the Bread.

There is a beautiful prayer for Easter evening when our journey on the Emmaus Road comes to its ending:

Abide with us, Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.
Abide with us and with Your whole Church.
Abide with us at the end of the day, at the end of our life, at the end of the world.
Abide with us with Your grace and goodness, with your holy Word and Sacrament, with         Your strength and blessing.
Abide with us when the night of affliction and temptation comes upon us, the night of         fear and despair, the night when death draws near.
Abide with us and with all the faithful, now and forever.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen