Sermon -Sunday December 10

Luke 3:1-6 , Luke 1:68-79 (Luke 1:78)
Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It has been suggested that Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus and the events surrounding it is often regarded as the "real" one and is often the preferred account. Some believe that this is because Luke adds a great deal of historical detail that kind of makes the story come alive.
And we see evidence of Luke’s attention to historical detail right as today’s Gospel lesson opens. Luke doesn’t just begin by giving the year, and that’s probably because there would have been several different calendars in circulation at the time. He begins by referring to the political situation by stating that it was the fifteenth year of the reign of Emporer Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee etc. These great historical details bring the reader back into the time of when this happened and make it so there is no confusion as to when these events took place.
While these historical details might make the story come alive, in one sense, I think in another sense they could potentially hold the story back a bit. In other words, as great as these historical details are, when we put too much focus on them, then we see Luke’s account as less scripture and more story. Even when we refer to it as "The greatest story in the world" we are still limiting it to simply a story and we potentially limit it’s ability to be seen as scripture or a living Word of God that speaks to us today just as much as it spoke to the people who gathered to hear John the baptist as he proclaimed a baptism of repentance.
As much as you might like the Christmas season, there is at least a part of you that likes to keep these events as a story. You don’t want to bring them up too close and personal because then they become a little too real. It’s much easier to see these events as happening to people in the past or characters, as if you were reading a book or watching a movie. That way you don’t have to acknowledge that the words of John the baptist to prepare the way of the Lord and to make the paths straight, are also directed at you.
And it becomes easy to do this when you see Luke use words like emporer or ruler and he refers to people like Herod and Pilate. That enables you to see Luke’s historical context as being so different from ours. Surely if John the baptist came today he wouldn’t act the same way, because we are so different right?
Maybe Luke uses different words to describe the political situation, but it’s pretty much the same basic structure. He starts by referring to the national authority and then with Pilate what would have been the equivalent to a state authority and then finally on to the more municipal authorities. The overall political climate is different to be sure, but structurally and functionally it’s pretty similar.
So maybe things aren’t quite as different as we thought, but we still wouldn’t need someone as rough and abrasive as John the Baptist today because that was a pre-Christian era. The events of the gospel had yet to unfold so that had not been moved and touched by the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
They were just a bunch of heathens who worshiped pagan gods. Their culture was simply designed around the political and economic powers of those who are rich and powerful. We don’t do that. We don’t play favorites. The rich and famous don’t have any significant influence in our culture right?
Like, John the Baptist, you are also living in a pre-Christian era. Yes, it’s true that you have the benefit of the Gospel, you know historically how the events that John the Baptist was proclaiming would unfold. You know about the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus and what those events meant. But to say that you are living in a post-Christian era is to say that your era has been defined by Christianity, that your era at large has embraced the truth of the Gospel as it’s own.
When you are reminded of the reality that many of our brave men and women will be spending this Holiday season away from their families this year because they are thousands of miles away from their family laying their lives on the line does it seem like we are living in a post-Christian era? What about when you go to a nursing home and you see the loneliness and the hurt in the eyes of so many of the residents? What about the rampant commercialism that convinces us to give more to those who already have much than to those who are truly in need? Does that seem like a post-Christian era?
You and the culture and the era that you live in are in just as much need for the words of John the Baptist today as the people of John’s time were, back then. Today’s Gospel lesson is not simply a story about John the Baptist, in fact John the Baptist is not even the primary player in today’s Gospel lesson.
After Luke gets through his introduction where he is setting the proper historical context through identification of the political leaders he doesn’t then immediately speak of John the Baptist but instead he speaks of the Word of God coming to John the Baptist. And in our Old Testament lesson from Malachi we read of the prophecy that announced that John the Baptist where God speaks through Malachi and announces that He will send a messenger to prepare the way, and this messenger will be like a refiner’s fire.
This voice of one crying out in the wilderness, this preparing of the way of the Lord is not an event that is trapped in time, it is an event that was foretold by God through Malachi, and it was re-iterated years later by God in the Holy Spirit through John’s father Zechariah as we read in the psalm for today and it continues today. In all of these cases; through Malachi, Zechariah, and John himself, God is the primary actor. And now today, God continues this work of preparing the way for His Son through you.
But of course, there actually is a difference in the Word that you have been called to proclaim and the one that was proclaimed by John the Baptist. Luke is very adamant about stressing the importance of the baptism of repentance that John proclaimed but he also makes sure to make a distinction between John’s baptism and Christian baptism or Holy Spirit baptism. In the third chapter of Luke’s Gospel we read where John saying that he baptizes with water but the one who comes after him, Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
This is the baptism that you have been called to proclaim because it is the baptism by which you have been claimed by Christ, marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.
John the Baptist urged the crowds who followed him to participate in a baptism of repentance and to help in the preparing of the way for the coming of the Lord. Jesus entered into human life as a baby, lived the life of a humble carpenter, led a faithful, servant-oriented ministry for about three years which then led to the ultimate act of servanthood when He laid down His life for you on the cross and defeated sin, death, and the devil three days later in the resurrection. The Word that John the Baptist preached was one of preparation; preparation for the salvation that would come through Jesus. The Word that you have been called to carry to your neighbor is one of salvation accomplished.
Christ is born, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Christ will come again, and when He does He will finally usher in the new world, or the post-Christian era. But in the mean time there is still preparation to do and the risen Christ, in the Holy Spirit is active in with and under you, carrying this good news of salvation accomplished to a pre-Christian culture desperately in need of a Word of hope. I found a poem written by Gen-Xer that illustrates how hungry our culture, your neighbor is for this Word of hope that you have been given. I will read an excerpt from it, imagine these being the words of someone in your life who does not share the faith that you have been baptized into.
(Read poem)
And so, the preparation of the way of the Lord continues in you today. In the sixth year of the administration of President George W. Bush, when John Hoeven was governor of North Dakota, and John Pitinger was the mayor of Grenora and Martin Hanson was the recently elected county commissioner, the Word of the Lord came to you, and you went out into your neighborhood and into you schools and into your workplaces proclaiming a baptism of salvation accomplished.
Amen

Sermon -Sunday December 3

Luke 21:25-36
Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says "..raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." That is what this season of Advent, that we enter into today, is all about. It is about the drawing near of your redemption. Although, as strange as it may seem, I think sometimes the message of the coming of redemption gets lost in Advent, and not just in the crass commercialization that we see this time of year.
What I mean is that we forget that this season of Advent has a dual meaning. When someone says the word Advent, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?? Maybe it’s the lighting of the candles, or the stories of Joseph and Mary, or the shepherds or the wise men, or the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary. Those are all well and good, and they serve as wonderful reminders of the waiting that was done by the Hebrew people for the birth of the Messiah, but that remembrance is only one of the meanings of Advent.
Advent also serves as a reminder of the waiting that we as Christians experience today as we await Jesus’ promised return. Remembering the past is important, but we need to remember that this Advent season has a living word that speaks to us today, delivering us a promise of redemption that is at once, already attained for us on the cross, and still to come in the faithful promise of Jesus’ return, and it’s that advent that we live in everyday and not just the four weeks leading up to Christmas.
And we get a great taste of this living word that Advent has, in today’s Gospel lesson. In fact when you think of how we traditionally think of Advent as this time to remember the past, this morning’s Gospel lesson seems like an odd choice for the first day of Advent.
The lesson opens with Jesus speaking of a time when there will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and there will be distress among nations confused by the roaring of the seas and the waves. That sounds a lot like what we see on the evening news today. Then Jesus says that people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world. Jesus is talking about His return here, of His coming back with power and great glory.
But, in light of that, He’s talking about people being in fear and confusion. If Jesus’ promised return is something that gives us hope, then where is this fear and confusion coming from? Well, if you notice, as the conversation goes on, Jesus makes a transition from referring to "they" or "people" to referring to "you" which of course today includes you. And it’s when He makes that transition to referring to His disciples that He says "…your redemption is drawing near."
As a disciple of Jesus, for you, the day of Jesus’ return is something to look forward to. It is something that gives you hope in the midst of the advent that you live in every day as you live in your baptism. But there is also the reality that for some it will be a day of judgment. It is a judgment that you all deserve but by the grace of God through the waters of baptism you have been delivered from that judgment.
But some haven’t and some won’t. And while it is not up to you to decide who will and who won’t, the Holy Spirit uses those whom He has already called by the Gospel into faith in Christ Jesus to continue to reveal God’s kingdom to the world around us.
Jesus uses a parable about a fig-tree sprouting leaves and thus indicating that Summer is coming, as a parallel to the signs that will indicate that Jesus’ return is coming soon. Whether is indeed a strong indicator of the passing of time and when we are approaching certain seasons. I don’t think any of us here need to be told that winter is coming soon after the whether that we have had this week.
And, Jesus does seem to be trying to set a tone of seeing and believing. And with something like the weather, seeing generally does translate into believing. For example, maybe you have trouble believing the weatherman on the news when he tells you that it is likely to snow the next day. But when you wake up and see your lawn covered in snow, you realize he was right. You believe what he said.
But when it comes to signs of God’s kingdom, seeing doesn’t necessarily always translate into believing. The kingdom of God is revealed not only through the signs that Jesus is referring to in today’s lesson but also through signs that reveal themselves on a daily basis. I am referring here to the revealing of the kingdom of God that takes place through God’s people. When you proclaim the good news of Christ Jesus to your neighbor, when you share the love of Christ with your neighbor, God’s kingdom is revealing itself to your neighbor through you.
Of course that does not mean that people are always going to believe, or recognize, those signs of God’s kingdom. Whether we are talking about the dramatic events such as the distress among the nations or the roaring of the seas and the waves that Jesus refers to in today’s Gospel lesson, or the everyday events of you sharing the love of Christ and proclaiming the Gospel with your neighbor, we all see the signs of the coming of God’s kingdom. But we don’t all come to the same understanding of these signs.
Some people react to the signs with great fear, some people might react to the signs with denial and rejection. But the only reaction that provides eternal hope and comfort as we live in the daily advent of waiting for Jesus’ return is faith. And it’s not a faith that comes from within you, but one that you are called to through the Gospel.
Some people will see the signs and they will continue to look within themselves for the proper reaction, and that can only lead to fear and rejection. But that doesn’t mean you stop being a sign of God’s kingdom to them. That doesn’t mean that our Lord does not have a place for them in His kingdom. The eternal destiny of your neighbor is not for you to decide.
To roughly paraphrase one of my favorite theologians, "If someone is within earshot of your proclamation of the Gospel, the only proper assumption for a citizen of God’s eternal kingdom, is to assume that God also has a place reserved for that person in His eternal Kingdom and that you have been placed in that person’s life to be a sign of God’s eternal Kingdom."
The kingdom of God, simply put, is a place where God rules as king. That kingdom has arrived and, God rules in the form of His Son who arrived as a baby in a manger, and who would grow to die a criminal’s death on the cross where He took your sin, and your sin died with Him. And three days later, He was resurrected and sin, death and the devil were defeated for you, and in exchange for your sin, He gave you righteousness and new life.
The coming of God’s kingdom means a release for all of God’s people from bondage to the competing forces of sin, death, and the devil. That is the kingdom that you have been brought into through the waters of baptism. The Holy Spirit, through the Gospel has called you into faith and you have seen the signs of God’s kingdom and by the grace of God, you recognize these signs for what they are.
Sin, death, and the devil have been defeated and you have been freed from their clutches. But they have not been eliminated. That day is still to come. That comes at the complete fulfillment of God’s kingdom when Jesus returns. And our Lord has promised through faith, that you will recognize the signs and the complete fulfillment of your redemption on that day.
In the meantime, as you live in the daily advent of waiting for that day, you are called not only to look up to see the signs of God’s kingdom that Jesus has promised you will recognize, but perhaps more importantly you are called to be a sign of God’s kingdom to your neighbor.
Amen

Sermon -Sunday November 26

John 18:33-37

Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This week when I was discussing these lessons with some of my colleagues at our weekly text-study, the subject of the film the Passion of the Christ came up; specifically the portrayal of Pontius Pilate in that film. A fellow pastor mentioned that they felt that the portrayal of Pilate in that film was overly sympathetic to Pilate himself and the conflict that he went through. They said that the film almost made Pilate look like a nice guy.
I had to disagree, in fact I really appreciated the way Pilate was portrayed in that film because I think in a lot of ways, the conflict and struggle that was illustrated in the film through Pilate’s struggle with the question of what to do with Jesus, was an illustration of the struggle that we all go through every day, living in our baptism. I would suspect that was part of the reason why he was portrayed as bing as conflicted as he was, and to dwell on the historical accuracy is to miss the point.
On the outside it would appear that Pilate was indeed struggling with the question of what to do with Jesus, but I believe, on the inside he was struggling with the question of which kingdom he was loyal to. Was it the earthly kingdom that he already served as governor or should he be loyal to the kingdom of this king who stood before him as a condemned criminal?
I think that this is the question that we all struggle with everyday, the question of which kingdom we should be loyal to. Now, maybe you’re wondering which kingdoms I am talking about.
How it relates to the Gospel lesson is in the fact that Pilate was struggling with the loyalty that he held to the Roman emporer and the sense that he had that there was something not right about what was taking place before his eyes. Pilate saw that the image of Jesus as a blaspheming troublemaker that the chief priests were trying to convince him of was actually quite different from the reality of this man who stood before him.
This is indeed a powerful illustration of the struggle that we all go through everyday. In God’s Word and Sacrament, Jesus is revealed to you in the same way that He was revealed to Pilate; as the King of a Kingdom that is not of this world, but also as a condemned criminal. And like Pilate you find reasons to reject Jesus and to condemn Him to death.
Like the chief priests who falsely accused Jesus, our secularized culture also falsely accuses and portrays Jesus. If Jesus, or His church isn’t flat-out being accused of being too exclusive or even divisive or narrow-minded for holding to the professed truth of Jesus as being the only means by which a place in God’s Kingdom is attained for us, then He is being reduced to being merely a good teacher or a good philosopher.
In the name of not sticking out or not offending people, we allow ourselves to buy into this worldly, culture-driven image of Jesus. We shy away from confessing Christ Jesus as the Name above all names and thus reduce Him to a name among many other names. We reduce him from the King of kings to a king among many other kings. And in so doing, we just condemn Him to death once again. At the heart of this is our sinful refusal to properly distinguish the eternal kingdom of Christ Jesus from the temporary kingdom of the world.
Martin Luther wrote often of what he referred to as the two kingdoms. Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms basically asserts that God is the ruler of the whole world and that He rules in two ways. He rules all people; Christians and non-Christians, in his earthly kingdom through the agency of secular government, or through the law. He rules Christians in His Spiritual kingdom through the Gospel, or by the means of grace. Contrary to what some have suggested, Luther is not advocating a separation of church and state, but rather a proper distinction between church and state. This is basically an extension of law and Gospel.
What Luther is talking about is recognizing the proper place of the earthly kingdom and spiritual kingdom in the life of the Christian. In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world. As Christians living in the United States, you are citizens of both an earthly "kingdom" and a spiritual kingdom. The spiritual kingdom that you belong to in Christ Jesus is eternal, while the earthly kingdom is temporary, and thus subservient to the spiritual kingdom. But that does not mean that you are called to withdraw from the temporary earthly kingdom, but rather you are called to walk in the midst of that earthly temporary kingdom with an awareness of your status as an eternal citizen in God’s kingdom as it says in Philippians 3:20.
3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
We do not wait idly by and withdraw from the temporary and the worldly and the secular. God reigns over both the eternal and the temporary and thus He calls us to both. In the midst of the worldly we are called to proclaim the eternal through words and deed to our neighbor. Contrary to what we might have seen suggested by some politicians in the recent elections, we are not called to apprehend the worldly and claim it as the eternal, but rather our calling is to be an eternal light in the midst of the darkness of the temporary and the worldly.
In today’s Gospel lesson we read the story of Jesus on trial in front of Pontius Pilate. We read of Pontius Pilate bowing to the demands of the secular even though it appears he may have seen a glimpse of the eternal kingdom in the man Jesus, who stood before him falsely accused. But because you know the end of the story, you know that God’s love would not be contained by Pilate’s sinful weakness. Pilate’s weakness may have opened the door for the crucifixion of Christ Jesus, but it was part of the eternal plan all along.
The condemnation that Jesus faced at the hand of the chief priests is your condemnation, and Pilate’s weakness is your weakness. Christ Jesus took your sin and weakness and condemnation with Him to the cross and in exchange, through the waters of baptism, you have been given eternal righteousness, and forgiveness and redemption.
Jesus is the one we read about in our second lesson for today who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving His God and Father. This is the priesthood that we are baptized into. In baptism we die to the worldly but we are born anew to the eternal. As it says in 1st John chapter 5.
1 John 5
5:4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
The question that Pilate struggled with was not so much what to do with Jesus, but who Jesus is. And in many ways you may find yourselves struggling with that same question. But in baptism, Christ Jesus comes to you daily in Word and Sacrament. In baptism, the Holy Spirit calls you to faith through the eternal truth of the Gospel and you are brought face to face with the reality of God’s eternal, unconditional love. In faith you are grasped by the answer to the question that Pilate was struggling with, "Who is Jesus?" He is the, Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer, the Messiah. He is the eternal truth that frees you from the bondage of the temporary.
Amen

Sermon -Sunday November 19

Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This week’s Gospel lesson is pretty scary. Oh, it begins innocently enough with one of the disciples marveling at some large stones that a temple is constructed out of and pointing them out to Jesus. But then Jesus responds by telling the disciple that the buildings and the stones that the disciple is marveling at will be destroyed and that not one of the stones will be left upon another.
And then a few more disciples ask Jesus when all of this will take place. Jesus then warns them not to be deceived, and that many will come in His name. And then He tells them that there will be wars and rumors of wars and nation will rise against nation and that when all of this takes place ‘…the end is still to come.’
Are you scared yet? Think about it. Wars and rumors of wars? We are currently involved in a war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan and there are rumors that we might be headed toward military conflict with Iran and North Korea. Surely this must be it. I mean, I was watching television this week and there was a fairly well known televangelist on there and he was talking about the end-times and how all these prophecies had been fulfilled and that he believed Jesus was coming back soon. He was saying that we, as the church better make sure we’re ready. And he was speaking of Jesus’ return as something that we should have some anxiety about.
Why? What is there to be afraid of?? We shouldn’t be afraid of Jesus’ return, we should look forward to it. God has always worked in the midst of conflict. In Isaiah 19, the prophet tells of a time when brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city and kingdom against kingdom.
Jesus’ return is not a threat, it’s a promise. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus is saying this to His disciples. The warning to watch out for people who would try to mislead them definitely applied to what the disciples would go through. Not only would people try to deceive them away from their newfound faith in Jesus, but people would try to persecute them and kill them.
Why would the disciples put up with all that? Jesus had just told them not to be alarmed. He assured them that they didn’t need to worry about all the hardship and the strife that they would encounter. And yet, after Jesus had gone up to Heaven, not only do the disciples not worry about the hardship they would endure, but they walk right in the midst of hardship and strife with no hesitation, as they furthered the ministry of the early church.
Most, if not all of the early disciples, would end up being martyred for their faith. I am not simply talking about the twelve apostles that we all know about, I am talking about the hundreds of witnesses who began the church by spreading the Gospel. What would drive them to do that??
They understood that the time that we spend waiting for Jesus’ return is not to be spent being passive. As we wait for Jesus’ return we are to proclaim His good news of salvation and forgiveness with our neighbor through our words and actions. The televangelist that I spoke of earlier said something else that, frankly I found to be a little disturbing. He said that he tells his congregation that he believes Jesus will be coming very soon. That’s not the disturbing part. The disturbing part was when he followed that up by saying that he tells them that “If they have a soul that they would like to save then save it.”
‘What’s wrong with that?’ you ask. First of all, we don’t save anyone’s souls, the Holy Spirit calls people through the gospel, that we are called to proclaim, and brings them into faith. And secondly, we are not called to proclaim the Gospel only to those whose souls we want to save, we are called to proclaim the Gospel to all nations or all people.
This past week when I was at the Word Alone conference, the president of Word Alone was speaking about frustrations that she has experienced in the past as a parish pastor working with people to come up with ‘mission statements’ in some of the various congregations that she has served in. She said she now believes that every congregation’s mission statement should be the great commission from Matthew 28:19, which of course is the command to ‘…make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ and teaching people to obey what Jesus has commanded. She said when we get that one figured out then we can move on to a new one.
See, when Jesus tells the disciples of these buildings being destroyed and not one stone being left upon another, He is talking about more than a building. The point is not the building, but what is inside the building; God. That building would have been seen as the place where God dwells. Jesus isn’t just talking about the destruction of a building, He is talking about the barriers between sinners and God being broken.
And yet, we still can’t help but cling onto that image of God as being confined to a building. What do you suppose the ratio would be of time spent at council meetings talking about the upkeep of the building as compared to time spent talking about the presence of Jesus in word and sacrament?
I am not suggesting that we abandon all of our practical concerns. Those are very much a part of the reality that we live in. But we are called to address these matters in a way that is informed by our calling to proclaim the good news of Christ Jesus to our neighbor. And we are called to do this, not just in church affairs but in our daily lives.
We can’t define this calling on our own terms. We can’t make it dependent on our abilities to pay the bills. If this building were destroyed tomorrow, your calling would still apply to you. You would still have the same calling to proclaim the Gospel to your neighbor. The great commission would still be extended to the Grenora/Zahl area and beyond.
Indeed Jesus will come back one day and that is good news. In the meantime you are not called to try to define your calling on your terms, and you are not called to try to figure out when Jesus will return. In fact, when you start thinking that any part of God’s will is in any way dependent upon your ability to figure it out, you will only end up getting it wrong. Sin emerges when you start thinking that your salvation is dependent upon anything you do.
Jesus offered a single sacrifice for your sins, and by that single offering He perfected you, as we read in our lesson from Hebrews today. In baptism you are filled with the very confidence that the author of Hebrews writes about; the confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus.
And the sanctuary is not just a building, but the new and living way that has been opened for you through the curtain, and that curtain is the flesh of Christ Jesus. Through the sacrifice made for you on the cross you are able to hold fast to your faith in Christ Jesus.
In our lesson from Hebrews, we are reminded that He who has promised is faithful. Jesus is coming back and He has promised to be faithful. He doesn’t need us, nor want us to try to figure out when this will happen. God wants you to recognize the freedom that you have been given through the death and resurrection of His Son, Christ Jesus when sin, death and the devil were defeated for you and freed you to proclaim the Gospel through words and deeds to your neighbor. And that is nothing to be afraid of.
Amen