Sermon Sunday January 27, 2008

Third Sunday after Epiphany
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This morning I am going to dispel a myth for you. You may not like to hear it, but it’s true. OK are you ready? I hate to be the one to break it to you, actually I enjoy it, but anyway here I go; There is no such thing as a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I am sorry that is just not what being a disciple of Christ is about. I know, I know, you say but there’s always those people on television talking about their personal relationship with Jesus. I know, there are all those nice preachers on television who will tell you that Jesus is concerned about all the personal little nuances of your life and that He wants you to have everything that you want. Well I don’t know how to sugarcoat this so I am just going to say it ‘They’re wrong.’
Now this is not to say that Jesus is aloof and that He doesn’t care about the challenges and struggles that you face on a day to day basis. Of course He does. When you are experiencing pain and struggle He enters into that with you, comforting you and nurturing you in His love. But He doesn’t do this through your innermost and personal thoughts and desires. He doesn’t do it through an inner-voice that only you hear. He does it through His Word and the sacraments.
You have a relationship with Jesus, but it’s no different from anybody else’s. The same Christ Jesus who claims you as His own in the waters of baptism, claims all baptized believers in the waters of baptism. And it is also through this community of faith, these baptized believers, you guys, that Jesus comes to you in your time of need.
You can see the problems with this idea of a personal relationship with Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson where it says that Jesus went and made His home in Capernaum so that what had been spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Capernaum was a gentile town. The prophecy from Isaiah refers to it as being in ‘Galilee of the gentiles.’
To live in Galilee automatically colored someone as being second-class.
Capernaum was also a small town. Why would Jesus go set His home-base in Capernaum?? Why not Jerusalem?? That was the center of Jewish life and Jesus was a Jew.
Jesus went to Capernaum and set His home-base in Capernaum because the Kingdom of God is not a private kingdom intended only for the circumcised. And from Isaiah’s prophecy we can see that it was never intended to be that way. Jesus’ arrival in Capernaum means that the Kingdom of God is bursting forth beyond boundaries that had been trying to keep the Kingdom private for centuries.
Jesus living in Capernaum shows us that while, like I said earlier, Jesus does not want our relationship with Him to be a personal thing for us, He does come to us in our loneliness and despair. Living in Galilee, which is the region where Capernaum was, would have been very lonely and isolated. They would have intentionally been shut-off and separated from the rest of society. The people there would have probably felt like they had been forgotten.
But in the midst of all that loneliness and despair Jesus bursts on the scene and says one of the most groundbreaking and transformative things in all scripture when He proclaims "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near."
This is what He does for us daily in Word and sacrament and fellowship, He enters into our separation and calls us out of it. And notice when He does this in Galilee He does not do it privately. He doesn’t go to each person and politely tell them that He has a separate Word for each and every one of them. He comes bursting in proclaiming to all of them ‘Repent for the kingdom of Heaven has come near.’
They were a people separated in darkness and now they were all being confronted with the light that would bring them out of the darkness. What Jesus was doing here was more than liberation from physical separation. By His mere presence He was alleviating the most grave form of separation that they were experiencing.
This is the separation and the darkness that we would all be doomed to if it were not for Christ Jesus and His perfect life, death, and resurrection. This is the darkness of sin, death and the devil and without Christ Jesus we are completely powerless to it and we would be lost to that darkness for eternity. Paul writes of this separation in Ephesians 2 where he does refer to it as separation from Israel. But it’s a separation that is defined not by our national citizenship but by our separation from Christ.
Jesus comes bursting upon the scene and bursts open the boundaries of the Kingdom of Heaven. And in that same passage from Ephesians we are told that through the blood of Christ, we who were once far away, we who were once without God and without hope have been brought near. We are no longer foreigners and aliens, we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven and of God’s household.
We have been transferred from the darkness of sin, death, and the devil and into the Kingdom of the beloved Son in whom we have redemption and forgiveness. Where we go there is the Kingdom of Heaven.
And I hate to break it to you, but in the eyes of many in the culture we live in, this makes us dangerous. We live in a culture where we are constantly told that we should not impose our faith on other people. But this faith that we have been called to, this faith that is contagious, cannot be contained. We have no choice, through faith in Christ Jesus, we are a part of the Kingdom of Heaven and that Kingdom refuses to be restrained by any boundaries. Where we are, the Kingdom of Heaven is coming near.
While it is most certainly true that Jesus calls us to faith by what could seem like a very personal method in that He meets us where we are at, just as He did for Simon, Andrew, James, and John, the good news is He doesn’t leave us where we are at. He calls us to faith, telling us to follow Him as He leads out of the darkness of bondage to sin, death, and the devil and into the light of forgiveness in His name and to our place in the kingdom of Heaven.
And having been brought of the darkness and into the light He sends us out as bearers of that light. He calls us to bring the light of the Gospel to our neighbor in Word and deed. The last thing He wants that light to be for us is something personal. No we are called to make it public through Word and deed to our neighbor.
And so be aware of but not discouraged by Paul’s warning from the second lesson where Paul warns that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. It is foolishness because it is our death. It is the death of our sinful self. It is the death of all of our delusions of our own righteousness and piety. But then when all their illusions have been shattered and the reality of their powerlessness has been revealed, then the Gospel comes and calls them out of the darkness and into the light of forgiveness.
And so, again we are not each called to our own individual purpose and separate personal relationship with Jesus. We are called to be united in the same mind and the same purpose; and that purpose is to continue to bring near the Kingdom of Heaven.
Amen

Sermon Sunday January 20, 2008

Second Sunday after Epiphany
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel lesson Andrew says to his brother Simon that they have found the Messiah. He makes it sound as if he had been out looking all over the place and after much hard work they found the Messiah. But when you take an honest look at the picture that this passage unfolds before us you can see that Andrew saying that he has found the Messiah does not really capture the whole sense of what exactly is going on here.
The passage begins with John the Baptist and two of his disciples, one of whom was Andrew. They see Jesus coming toward them and John proclaims Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God. Apparently this doesn’t have much of an immediate effect on the two disciples of John since they don’t really show much of a reaction but simply stay with John, so it appears that at least right then, there is not a whole lot of looking for Jesus going on there.
But then the next day they see Jesus again and John once again proclaims Jesus to be the Lamb of God. And for some reason, maybe it’s something about the way John expresses himself, but for some reason this time they follow Jesus. And Jesus turns around and asks them what they were looking for. It seems that they are not really sure how to respond to that so they respond to Jesus’ question by asking Him where He was staying. And He simply tells them to come and see. And that is what they did.
But right from the beginning we can see that the Messiah was not something that they would have found on their own. They need John the Baptist to point to Jesus twice before they seem to take any interest in Him and then even after they start walking toward Jesus and Jesus turns and asks Andrew what he is looking, Andrew seems like he is not very prepared to answer the question. He doesn’t really seem to know what he is looking for. He doesn’t really know how to answer the question. But Jesus says to him come and see.
And after all of that, when he sees his brother, Andrew still tries to take credit for at least part of what had just happened. He sees his brother Simon and tells him that he and the other two disciples have found the Messiah. Now, in defense of Andrew, the Greek word used here that ‘found’ is translated from has been defined as referring to learning the location of something either by intentional searching or by unexpected discovery, kind of like how Columbus discovered America while he was out on a fishing expedition. So it’s possible Andrew could have been referring to unexpectedly discovering Jesus.
I remember when I was in college, I had a classmate who would wear a t-shirt that said in bold letters “I found Jesus.” And then right below that in smaller print in parentheses it said something like “He was hiding behind the couch the whole time.” And no matter how you react to that, whether you are offended by that or you find it humorous, there is truth to what that t-shirt said. Not that Jesus plays hide and seek with us and we have to go find Him, but that we try to convince ourselves that on our own we can find Jesus or that we have.
But the truth is we are just like Andrew in today’s lesson. If it had not been for God speaking through John the Baptist pointing Andrew to Jesus and then Jesus Himself telling Andrew to come and see, or whatever other means Jesus used to call Andrew to Jesus then Andrew would have never found Jesus on His own.
And neither would we. If Jesus did not call us to faith then we would never find Him on our own. We are surrounded by means that the devil will use to try to divert our attention away from the One Who has given His life for us. We are all religious in one way or another, even the most ardent of atheists. We all want to believe in something bigger than ourselves. But if we are left to our own devices then what we end up filling that void with will be something or someone that falls far short of the almighty God.
Left purely to our own free-will, we would fill that void with astrology or horoscopes. Or perhaps we would fill it with our careers. Or maybe money would become that thing bigger than ourselves that we all look for. Or maybe science would become our god. If it weren’t for the Holy Spirit calling us to faith through God’s Word and sacrament and each other then we would just end up buying into any one or more of the many false gods that sin, death, and the devil try to tempt us with.
Even within Christianity people are seduced by the myth that we can find Christ Jesus on our own. It has become increasingly popular for self-professed Christians to reject any sort of organized worship. It’s a “me-and-God” approach to faith and it deludes us into thinking that we can be children of God on our own terms. It deludes us into thinking that we can find God wherever we want and for that matter that we can define God however we want. We would all like to have a god of our own creating.
But our Lord refuses to be found anywhere other than in that which points directly to His risen Son. It is only in the One who shed His blood, died and was raised for you that our Lord will be found. It is only in your Savior Christ Jesus who reveals Himself to you in the Word proclaimed and in the sacraments and through fellowship with the community of saints that your Lord will be found.
You can look all you want in all the nooks and crannies that your free-will might lead you to in order to try to find God somewhere other than in Christ Jesus, but these will inevitably fall short. But, just as He comes to you in baptism through no efforts of your own our Lord will continue to come to you; calling you, forgiving you, redeeming you and claiming you as a child of God and a saint.
You are a saint not because of any pious efforts on your part to find God, you are a saint only because God has found you and claimed you as a child of God. You are a saint because Christ Jesus comes to you in Word and sacrament and fellowship and says to you ‘Come and see.’ Indeed in today’s 2nd lesson when Paul refers to those who are ‘called to be saints’ he is referring to ‘those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.’
And indeed you are among those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but that is only the case because He has called you first. He has called you to faith and He strengthens, nurtures, and sustains you in your faith and He promises that He will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so you are free to hear the cries of your neighbor who may be looking for God in all the nooks and crannies where they will not find Him. You are free to go to them, share your faith with them, invite them to church. You have been called to your friend, neighbor, co-workers, etc. to be a light to them., so that salvation will reach the ends of the earth.
And you don’t need to worry about saying the exact right thing or saying it in the right way or looking properly pious. Just simply share the love of Christ with them and through that the risen Lord Jesus will speak through the Holy Spirit to say to those whom He has called you to ‘Come and see.’
Amen

Sermon Sunday January 13, 2008

Baptism of our Lord
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we remember the baptism of our Lord. The baptism of our Lord. Why would our Lord need to be baptized? Why would Jesus the sinless Son of God and Savior of all God’s people need to be baptized? If this question doesn’t seem strange to you then maybe we should begin by reminding ourselves of just why we need to be baptized.
In his instruction on baptism in the Large Catechism Martin Luther begins first of all by pointing out that baptism is necessary because it is commanded by God. Indeed in the great commission from Matthew 28 we are commanded by Jesus to go therefore and make disciples of all nations. And the first step Jesus gives us in that process is baptism.
Luther points out that this command reminds us that baptism is “no human plaything but instituted by God Himself.” He goes on to say that it is solemnly and strictly commanded that we must be baptized or we shall not be saved, and that we should not regard it as an indifferent matter like putting on a new red coat.
Luther contends that it is of the greatest importance that we regard baptism as excellent, glorious, and exalted. Do we do that? Do we regard baptism as excellent, glorious, and exalted? Or do we think of it as just a ceremony? Perhaps it’s a nice little ritual that we do, but not really anything more than that. We go through all the motions like we think as highly of it as Luther says we should. We say all the right words. We dress up. We pick out sponsors. Family comes in from out of the area and attends the service. There might even be a nice meal after the service.
But when we have a baptism do we really think about what it means for the one being baptized? Do we really think about what God does in baptism? For that matter do we even really believe that God does something in baptism? Or do we allow ourselves to be convinced of one of the biggest lies and myths that has infected Christianity? This is the lie that we are the ones who do something in baptism.
Or do we take our Lord at His Word when He tells us that baptism is necessary and that He is the actor in baptism and through baptism He is at work killing the sinner in us and bringing forth the new creation in us? Do we take our Lord at His Word when He promises us that through baptism He is at work making disciples?
And so now having been reminded of why we need to be baptized the question still remains, why would Jesus need to be baptized? And indeed in today’s Lesson as Jesus approaches John the Baptist in the Jordan to be baptized, John himself seems to be a little confused telling Jesus that he should be baptized by Jesus. But Jesus wouldn’t have it and He tells John that it is proper for Jesus to be baptized by John to fulfill all righteousness.
Righteousness here is referring simply to the will of God. Jesus corrects John but He does not scold him. This was not like Peter rebuking Jesus or asking Him who would be the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. This was not a situation where John was blinded by his own pride or sinfulness. John was right in recognizing His need to be baptized by Jesus, after all he did say that Jesus would come baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire. John’s timing was just off a bit, well by about three years. The time when Jesus brought baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire would come but this was the time for Jesus to be baptized.
By submitting to baptism Jesus was beginning the process of emptying Himself by identifying with sinful humanity. Jesus said that He came to serve and not to be served, and that service begins with Jesus submitting Himself to John’s baptism. But that emptying of Himself that is marked by service to others would continue with Jesus fellowshipping and eating with unholy sinners, and Jesus reaching out to sinners and bringing miracles and healings and recovery of sight for the blind, both physical and spiritual, and this service-bound emptying of Himself would ultimately culminate in Christ Jesus dying a sinners death, dying your death on the cross. It is all part of the emptying of Himself-the God who becomes truly human.
And after seeing the faithfulness of the sinless Son of God we see the response of the Father in Heaven who says “This is my Son, the beloved in whom I am well pleased.” And indeed He is the sinless Son of God who yet comes as a servant; the servant whom the prophet Isaiah alludes to in today’s Old Testament lesson when the Lord proclaims through Isaiah “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon Him;” This is the one whom Isaiah promises would open the eyes of the blind, and bring out the prisoners from the dungeon.
What we see with Jesus’ baptism is the Son of God answering the call of His Father in Heaven who calls Jesus in righteousness. And He calls Jesus to the emptying of Himself that would begin with submission to John’s baptism and would continue as He continued to call unholy sinners to repentance and forgiveness, and called those same unholy sinners to proclaim His name throughout the world.
In this baptism of Jesus from today’s Gospel lesson we see the anointing of the Vessel through which God would use to bring healing to a broken world; to bring new life to a world and to a people held captive to death. Jesus’ baptism was the beginning of what would end up being fulfilled with Jesus going through death, dying on the cross, bringing your sin with Him, but then three days later walking victoriously out of the tomb.
And so He paved the way for the arrival of the baptism of the Holy Spirit with fire. And this is the baptism through which you have been claimed by Christ. This is the baptism through which you were sealed by the Holy Spirit. This is the baptism through which the death of your sinful self began. This is the baptism through which you have been called to righteousness.
Perhaps you have seen the commercials on television for Las Vegas that say “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Well the same cannot be said for the waters and the Word in baptism. What happens at the font does not stay at the font.
The claim that Christ Jesus makes on you in baptism stays with you. The righteousness that your Lord calls you to in baptism stays with you. The emergence of the new creation in you that began at your baptism continues through your whole life on into it’s fulfillment at the resurrection. The declaration of you as a beloved child of God that began at your baptism stays with you.
As you sit right now listening to the Word being proclaimed to you, you are being renewed in your baptism. You are being called in righteousness. The faith that calls you in baptism is being preserved, nurtured, and sustained. You are reminded again of the claim that Christ has made over you in the waters of baptism; the claim of the One who’s love you can never be separated from. And none of this is of your own doing. None of this comes from anything that you did at your baptism. It all comes from what your Lord did for you at your baptism and continues to do through Word, sacrament and fellowship as you live in your baptism.
And so you don’t have to worry about making yourself righteous, you are being made righteous as you live in your baptism; as the Holy Spirit comes to you, and makes you righteous by bringing you faith in the One who fulfills all righteousness. And so now you have been freed to answer your call to be a witness to all that Christ did. You can answer the command to preach and to testify that Christ Jesus is the One ordained by God as the judge of the living and the dead.
He is the judge and we have been judged guilty. But He has taken the sin that condemns us and left it in the tomb. And through the faith that the Holy Spirit calls us to and brings to us, we have been pronounced forgiven. And it began with the baptism of our Lord.
Amen

Sermon Sunday December 30, 2007

First Sunday after Christmas
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well here we are this morning still in the Christmas season. I mean we got the white paraments out, I got my white stoll on. And that means that we are still in the Christmas season. Christmas is not just a day it is in fact a season and we are still in it. And so with that in mind why would we be confronted with a Gospel lesson that seems so harsh and so, dare I say, even ugly?
I mean, although this week’s lesson is from Matthew whereas last week’s was from Luke, chronologically the Gospel this morning begins not long after last week’s Gospel lesson left off. Mary and Joseph have completed their journey to Bethlehem. Jesus has been born in a manger. The shepherds have shown up after being visited by the Angel of the Lord, and they have heard the multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom He favors.’
We are still in Christmas. Most of you probably still have your trees up and lights on your house if you put some up. Shouldn’t we be joyous?? Shouldn’t we be happy?? Then why do the scholars who put the lectionary together follow up last week’s Gospel lesson with a passage that seems to be filled with death, destruction and evil??
The Christ child has just been born and now Joseph is visited yet again by an Angel of the Lord and this time the Angel tells Joseph to take Mary and the baby Jesus and flee to Egypt because Herod has set out to destroy the baby. Jesus has just been born. Joseph and Mary haven’t even had time to enjoy the gifts of frankincense and myrrh that they received, whatever that is. And so they do flee to Egypt and they manage to remain there until after the death of Herod.
But, and this is where this passage often makes people pretty uncomfortable, before Herod died he did something pretty despicable. He realized that he had been tricked and deceived by the wise men whom he had ordered to find the Christ child and then tell him where the Christ child was. Of course Herod was deceptive also. He told the wise men he wanted to go pay homage to the Child when he actually just wanted to kill Him.
Well the wise men found Jesus but never went back and told Herod where He was. And this made Herod very upset. It made Herod so upset in fact that he ordered the death of all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger.
So again, why in this season that is supposed to be so full of joy and happiness are we confronted with a text that is so brutal? Why? Because that is what Christmas is about. Jesus is born and immediately He experiences the ugliness of a sin-filled world that is in such great need of Him. He barely has a chance to experience the loving embrace of His earthly parents before He is being rushed off to Egypt because His life is at stake.
This is the world that Jesus comes into. Truth be told there are some who question whether the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ that Herod ordered in frustration over being deceived by the wise men ever really happened. It’s not mentioned in any of the other Gospels and there is no record of it anywhere else.
On the other hand it is certainly not far-fetched to think that something like that could have happened. The Jewish historian Josephus writes about Herod ordering the execution of three of his sons, so this is certainly not out of the realm of possibility for Herod. And certainly it is not out of the realm of possibility for the world that we live in that is so severely plagued by sin, death, and the devil
Does this story of Herod’s despicable slaughter of the innocents make you uncomfortable?? Does the possibility that it didn’t happen somehow make you a little more comfortable?? If it does, ok, but is this story any more brutal than so much of the other brutality that we as humans have inflicted? Is the slaughter of the innocents any more brutal than the nearly three hundred Sioux men, women, and children who were killed at Wounded Knee in December 1890? Is it any more tragic than the concentration camps of World War II? Is it any more tragic than the lives being sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or for that matter is it any more tragic than the literal slaughter of the innocents that we see with abortion and the over 1 million lives per year that abortion takes? Or really is it any more tragic than the three funerals that I did in the last two weeks?
The truth is, in the eyes of our Lord, death for any of His people at any age is tragic because it is not what our Lord intended for His people. What the tragedy of death shows us is that when we say that Jesus came to save us from our sin, we are talking about more than simply the act of sinning or our sinful deeds, although that is certainly a part of it. But it is not the core of why Jesus came.
But the author of Hebrews cuts right through all of the self-focused, works-based, morality centered stuff that we like to think that the Gospel is about when he tells us that our Lord has sent Jesus so that "through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death."
And so what it means when we say that we are sinners, is not simply that we sin, which of course we do. But at it’s core what it means is that through our sinful nature, the one who has the power of death, the devil, takes hold of our lives and holds us in captivity through the fear of death. But the author of Hebrews also has good news for us today.
In the Hebrews lesson we are assured that Christ Jesus came to be like His brothers and sisters, us, in every respect so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. And He made that sacrifice of atonement for you when He took all of your death and sin with Him to the cross where He destroyed the one who has the power of death.
When Herod sought to destroy Jesus, it was the devil himself at work through Herod, seeking to destroy the One who would come and destroy the devil, and the devil failed. In fact he never really had a chance. Whenever I do a funeral I am always struck by the words from one of the prayers that I recite where it says that we ask God to enable us to see in death, the gate to eternal life.
But that is exactly what Jesus does. That is the Gospel. Sin came into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve, and that was tragic. And we see the effects of that to this day whenever see tragedy such as war, death and violence. Whenever we see death, we see the fall of humanity. Yes we see it when we commit sinful deeds, but they are a result of the sinful nature that takes hold of us, the sinful nature that leads to death, and that is why Jesus came.
Where sin came into the world and ushered in your sinful nature, the prophet tells you that Christ Jesus has come in and declares you to be His and becomes your Savior in the midst of your distress. And it is no angel or messenger that saves you but the presence of Christ Jesus Himself. He doesn’t come to you merely to try to prevent you from making a few mistakes in moral judgment or to give you encouragement, ultimately leaving redemption in your hands. He comes to you and flips the death that binds you upside down, and gives you new life and makes of you a new creation, with the promise that one day all things will be made new. And He does it Himself by claiming you in baptism, coming to you in His Word and His supper, nourishing you and sustaining you in your faith.
And so when you see death and destruction and it makes you uncomfortable, remember that our Lord came into the world in the midst of death and destruction. Where you see death and destruction, Christ Jesus is bringing new life in the midst of that death and destruction through you. You have been freed from captivity to death, so you no longer need to fear it. Your Lord Christ Jesus has flipped death upside down and made of it a gateway to eternal life. That is what His presence does. And that is the Gospel.
Amen

Sermon Monday December 24, 2007

Christmas Eve
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has there ever been a more blatant example of what it means to be among those walking in the darkness that our Old Testament lesson refers to than the words from our Gospel lesson "..there was no room for them at the inn." Talk about someone in need of a do-over or a reset button, it’s the innkeeper.
If only the innkeeper would have known the miracle that God was about to bring about through this wayward couple that happened to be traveling through, certainly they could have found somewhere for Joseph and Mary to stay. This Innkeeper had a golden opportunity to allow the most momentous birth in the entire history of all mankind to take place in their place of business, instead they let the opportunity pass them by.
Now in defense of the Innkeeper, this had to have been a pretty busy time with the registration going on and all these people who come from Bethlehem flocking back there for the registration. Really it’s not surprising that there was no room at the Inn. Business-wise, the Innkeeper probably saw the registration as the golden opportunity because of all the business that was flowing in. The Innkeeper was blinded by a desire for money. The Innkeeper was walking in darkness and missed the great light that walked before them.
And of course, having the benefit of over 2000 years of hindsight, it’s easy to be critical of the Innkeeper. It’s easy to condemn the Innkeeper for completely missing this situation of the extraordinary appearing among the ordinary that was set before them. But the truth is this is something that we fail at probably everyday. We don’t just fail to see the extraordinary among the ordinary, we fail to look for it.
We may talk about how much we admire the generosity of people like Mother Teresa or other people who give so generously of their time and talents, some of us might even donate something to charity this time of year or maybe even spend some time volunteering this time of year. And that’s all well and good, but in our day-to-day lives we are most likely to be just like the Innkeeper, so focused on what we think is important that we run the risk of missing out on the extraordinary coming to us in the midst of the ordinary.
And ironically we are perhaps more likely to allow this to happen this time of year more than any other time of the year. The innkeeper was probably pushing himself to the limit so he could keep up with all the potential business that was coming in then, while trying to secure repeat business for the future. Well this time of year, often we are so busy shopping and making plans that we lose sight of what really is important not just this time of year, but all year all the time.
Around this time of year we always hear all kinds of people trying to give their spin on what Christmas is really all about. Sheila and I were watching the Glenn Beck show last week and he had a guest host on this particular night. And the guest host was saying that he believed Christmas was really about visiting family and friends and enjoying each other’s company. Sheila rolled her eyes and sneered something like "Oh c’mon that’s not what Christmas is about." And she was right.
Usually when people offer up their view of what Christmas is ‘really’ about, it’s usually meant to be in opposition to the notion that Christmas is about shopping and all the commercialism connected to it. And that’s certainly important to remember, especially since we all probably give in to that rampant commercialism at least a little bit this time of year. But I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually believes that Christmas is about commercialism or spending money.
And so just because someone recognizes one thing that Christmas isn’t about, doesn’t mean that they recognize what Christmas really is about. Spending time with family, being nice to each other, being generous, that’s all a part of Christmas in that it’s part of what we do at Christmas, but that doesn’t mean that is what Christmas is about. Christmas is about our Lord coming to us and bringing to us the extraordinariness of Himself wrapped in the ordinariness of an infant, of a baby born in a barn.
He was born in a barn because there was no room at the Inn, and so Joseph and Mary moved on. They moved on and ended up in a barn and our Lord appeared as an infant in a manger. While the Innkeeper missed the miraculous nature of what would soon take place with the birth of this child, the shepherds on the outskirts of town would not miss it.
Of course they had the advantage of having an angel appear to them and pronounce to them what was taking place. And the shepherds were initially every bit as oblivious as the Innkeeper. It says that an Angel of the Lord appeared to them and they were terrified. They immediately assumed that what was taking place before them was not something to rejoice over, but something to be afraid of. But then we hear the Angel say to these shepherds the same thing that he said to Joseph in yesterday’s Gospel lesson when Joseph was considering dismissing Mary instead of taking her as his wife.
The Angel tells the shepherds not to be afraid, and that he is bringing for them good news of great joy for all people. And he tells them to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the messiah, the Lord. And then the Angel tells them where they would find this Savior. He doesn’t tell them to go to some great palace or some elaborate temple.
He tells them that they will find the child wrapped in bands of cloth lying in a manger. For a long time, I thought a manger was just a crib. But then I found out what it really is; a feeding trough for livestock. Well that had to take these shepherds at least a little bit by surprise. But again, that is what this season is about; the extraordinariness of God appearing to us in the midst of the ordinariness of our world.
And so these shepherds, after witnessing a sign of a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, heed the words of the Angel and they go the Bethlehem to see the Christ child. And they see that the One who had been foretold; the great light who would lead His people out of darkness had appeared as a newborn child in a manger in Bethlehem.
And so they do the only thing they can do after everything they have seen, they respond in the only way that they can think of. They go and tell everyone about it. They glorified and praised God for all that they had heard and seen.
They go out and they tell people about this extraordinary Child who appeared to them in such ordinary circumstances. They tell people about this Child who will grow up and live among His people, teach and preach and then He will die under circumstances that will seem to some to be just as ordinary as His birth. But when He was born He was wrapped in bands of cloth. When He died He would be wrapped in our sin and in our bondage to our plans and our obsessions and addictions. Through His death He would free us from all that binds us. Through the resurrection sin, death and the devil would be defeated.
And now it is our turn to walk in freedom. The grace of God that we read about in the lesson from Titus has appeared. Salvation has come. And that grace and salvation comes to us daily, even when we are like the Innkeeper and become too focused and even obsessed on what we deem to be important. Even then our Lord continues to bring the extraordinariness of Himself to us in the midst of the ordinariness of our lives; the ordinariness of a preacher proclaiming God’s Word to you, the ordinariness of the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, the ordinariness of the baptismal font, and the ordinariness of each of you.
So now the Christ child has appeared and we have been freed to take our cue from the shepherds, and go about the business of glorifying and praising God and through the Holy Spirit bringing the extraordiness of the Lord to the ordinariness of our neighbor, sharing the love of Christ with them through Word and deed.
Amen

Sermon Sunday December 23, 2007

Fourth Sunday in Advent
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am going to do something this morning that we don’t really do that much. No I am not talking about another Advent hymn. I am going to talk this morning about Mary’s husband Joseph. If I were going to give this sermon a title, it would be “More than a babysitter.”
And of course I would be referring to Joseph. We tend to just brush Joseph aside completely. I mean, as Lutherans we don’t really talk about Joseph or Mary that often. But with Mary, we’ll at least maybe say a few nice things about her this time of year. But we never really talk about Joseph. He has been reduced to an afterthought. In other words we have reduced Joseph to a babysitter. But I think when we take a more in-depth look at Joseph not only do we get greater insight into the husband of Mary, but more importantly we get a greater insight into and appreciation for what our Lord was doing in the midst of Joseph’s life and continues to do today.
Early on in our Gospel lesson we see that Mary was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit, although most people probably presumed it was the result of adultery. With that in mind it is said that Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly, which meant basically that he would divorce her.
Now on one hand, one could think Joseph was simply looking for the easy way out here. On the other hand, someone could think “Well who could blame him?” In the eyes of the culture they were surrounded by, Mary was an adulterer. And the law of the land at the time dictated that a man divorce his wife if she were guilty of adultery. As a woman, Mary was already a second-class citizen. But add what many assumed to be adultery, and she would be just about as low on the social stratosphere as one could get.
And yet, in the Gospel lesson we see Joseph was not acting out of selfishness or even self-preservation. In the Gospel lesson we read that Joseph considered divorcing Mary not to save himself from any trouble but to save Mary from the hassle of having her name dragged through the mud by dragging her through the courts.
Joseph loved Mary and it appears that at least a part of him wanted to stay with Mary. But he honestly believed that divorcing Mary was the right thing to do. He probably believed it would have been the best thing for Mary since it would have saved her the hassle of her name being dragged through the mud.
He probably believed it would have been the best thing for him since it would have prevented him from being looked down upon by other men in Mediteranean society. And he probably also believed that it would have been the best thing for the culture at large, because all the laws of the land told him that divorce was the best thing to do.
And then this angel appears to Joseph. And it says that the angel appears to Joseph after Joseph had “resolved” to divorce Mary. When you resolve to do something that isn’t usually a decision that is made quickly. The use of the word ‘resolve’ there suggests to me that Joseph struggled with this decision.
I don’t believe that Joseph necessarily wanted to divorce Mary, but he had convinced himself that he would have been doing the right thing. After all that is what the law said. The law, which at the time would have been a hybrid of both civil and religious rule, told him that divorcing Mary was the best thing to do for all parties concerned, including the baby. And so Joseph, binding himself to reason and logic and the law resolves to do what, in his mind he sincerely believed was the right thing to do, even though in his heart, I believe he wanted something else.
And so along comes this angel, and the angel comes not with a word of wrath or threat or ultimatum. The angel comes with a word of hope and he tells Joseph not to be afraid. The angel doesn’t so much command Joseph here to take Mary as his wife, as he does frees Joseph to take Mary as his wife. And Joseph does what the Angel of the Lord tells him to do. He defies what the law and what his culture and what all his sense of reason and logic told him to do, and he took Mary as his wife, and he names the child, which in those days would have been the same as claiming the Child as his own.
And he did this knowing that it wasn’t going to be easy. He did this knowing that it was going to be downright scandalous. He did this knowing that he would now be viewed with great contempt by his male peers because in their eyes his actions would reflect weakness, because he allowed his love for his wife to outweigh the importance of doing the ‘honorable’ thing.
But again, this is what he really wanted to do. The only reason Joseph had even considered divorcing Mary was because he had bound himself to what seemed reasonable and logical, and what his culture told him was the right thing to do.
But don’t misunderstand me. Ultimately this is not about Joseph, it’s about what God was doing with Joseph. It’s about our Lord refusing to be bound to what society deems to be logical and honorable. It’s about our Lord bringing hope in the midst of hopelessness and promise in the midst of despair.
It’s about God coming into our sin-filled world to change the world, and He does it in the most unlikely of ways. He doesn’t come with great splendor or great military might. He doesn’t come as an earthly king. He comes as a baby. Not only does He come among us as a baby, but He comes in the most hopeless and scandal-ridden way He could; as the infant child of a woman many believed to be an adulteress, and a man who had lost any redeeming sense of honor with his peers because he married this scandalous woman.
And our Lord’s first appearance among us does not come with great pomp and circumstance. He appears among us at night in a barn that probably didn’t smell that good since it was filled with animals and I don’t have to tell any of you that barns can often smell pretty bad.
And none of this was dependent upon Joseph and we see this in our Old Testament lesson. God tells this person Ahaz to ask for a sign. Ahaz refuses saying that he doesn’t want to put God to the test. Ahaz had bound himself to the law. But God wouldn’t be stopped and He sends the sign to Ahaz anyway through Isaiah who prophesies the birth of Christ.
And so in the same way, even if Joseph had not done what the Angel of the Lord told him to do, God would not be stopped. The Christ child had been conceived. The wheels were already in motion. The One whom the Angel of the Lord promised Joseph, was coming to save His people from their sins, was already on His way.
And so when the world looked at this scandalous situation of Joseph and Mary and the questionable lineage of the child whom Mary was carrying what they saw was scandal, hopelessness and despair. But of course they were wrong. What it really was was hope appearing under the sign of it’s opposite.
And as hopeless and scandalous as things might have appeared, it would only get worse. The One who came to save us from sin would do it by laying down His life for us. The fulfillment of the hope that appeared in the midst of scandal would mean suffering, shame and death for the One whom the Angel of the Lord told Joseph about. But this same One whom Joseph named Jesus, came walking out of death three days later, and hope was fulfilled as sin death and the devil were defeated for you.
And now we are in second Advent as we await our Lord’s return in glory. But in the meantime He continues to come to us through His Word and the sacraments and in each other, as He continues bringing hope under the sign of it’s opposite to us and to our neighbors through us.
Amen

Sermon Sunday December 16, 2007

Third Sunday in Advent
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus if He is the One to come or if we are to wait for another. John the Baptist does this. Why would John the Baptist question whether or not Jesus is the One to come?? I would think if anybody, John the Baptist would have a certain sense of security about this. I mean he was the one chosen by God to prepare the way for the arrival of Jesus. He baptized Jesus. In last week’s Gospel we read that he proclaimed Jesus as being One who baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.
And yet, in today’s lesson he doesn’t seem so certain. Well in John’s defense he was in prison and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he was killed for his bold witness. And truth be told there is actually some debate as to whether or not John actually questioned whether or not Jesus was the One to come or if he was simply doing this for the benefit of his disciples.
But in the end, that is not really that important. What matters is that the question was asked. John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked Him whether He was the One to come of if they were to wait for another. What is important is that there were doubts.
And so I ask you how certain are you that Jesus is the One to come?? How certain can we be this time of year that Jesus is indeed the One to come? How certain can we be when it seems like every year this season becomes a little bit more about commercialism and a little bit less about the birth of the Christ child? How certain can we be when around this time of year that is supposed to be so festive and joyous, the suicide is rate is higher than it is any other time of year?? How certain can we be when we turn on the news at night and hear about war and mass shootings in schools and malls and churches??
Well Jesus gives us a little clue in today’s Gospel lesson when He tells us that blessed is anyone who takes no offense at Him. Well that seems easy enough. If we are not offended at Jesus then we can rest in the assurance of His promise and blessing.
And so comes the question ‘Do you take offense at Jesus?’ I mean maybe you like the Jesus who teaches us about love and forgiveness. Maybe you’re pretty comfortable with the Jesus who gives the blind their sight or the Jesus who gives the deaf their hearing or the lame their ability to walk or provides cleansing for the lepers or raises the dead.
But how comfortable are you with the Jesus who demands perfection? Do you like the Jesus who tells us that it’s not enough to love our brothers and sisters but that we must love our enemies also?? He comes demanding that we be perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect. He comes demanding that we stay perfectly in His Word.
He comes telling us that even just looking at someone of the opposite sex with the slightest hint of lust is the same as committing adultery with them. He tells us that by just getting angry at someone, we are just as guilty as if we had killed them. In our Gospel lesson Jesus says that nobody among all of humanity is greater than John the Baptist, and yet even the least among those in the Kingdom of Heaven are greater than John. Jesus comes ushering in the Kingdom of God but then sets the standard for that kingdom impossibly high for us to attain.
And the truth is that offends all of us. It offends us because it shows us how completely powerless we are. When Jesus comes in demanding perfection, showing the complete futility of our best efforts it offends us. It offends us because it disarms us. Jesus calls us to take all of the focus off ourselves and to put it on Him and our neighbor. And so even if you were somehow able to go one day without externally breaking one of the Ten Commandments, you don’t swear, you don’t steal, you don’t murder, you remember the Sabbath, you honor your parents, you don’t covet anything, and by the way if you figure out a way to go an entire day without coveting something, let me know how you do that.
But even if you did that, all the while you would fail to look in your heart, and you would forget the impure motives that drove you to do this. You would forget that you were driven not by a desire to love and serve your neighbor or even to love and serve your Lord. You would be working purely from a compulsion and desire to avoid hell or go to heaven. There is nothing wrong with wanting to go to heaven or to avoid hell, but you can’t do it on you own, and as soon as you even slightly entertain the notion that you can then you have broken the first commandment, and when you break one it’s the same as breaking them all.
You see we must be offended by Jesus, because only when we are offended by Him are we made aware of just how completely powerless we are. And it’s for the powerless that Jesus came. This is what He reminds John’s disciples of when He tells them to go tell John what they hear and see; that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.
And that last one about the poor having good news brought to them covers all of us. And that good news is the antidote to the most fatal form of powerlessness, the powerlessness that we all suffer from. We are powerless to save ourselves from ourselves; more specifically from our sin.
But Jesus, taking the form of a servant, takes on our powerlessness and our sin and takes it with Him to the cross where He bore the penalty for it. And He left it in the tomb. And so there is no longer any need to be offended. Quite to the contrary we can rejoice that where we are powerless Jesus is all powerful, where we can’t even take the first step in bringing the kingdom of God to ourselves, Christ Jesus brings it to us daily in His Word and Sacrament and in fellowship with other believers.
And so in this Advent season as we await the coming of our Lord, not just His coming to us at His birth which we will remember in the approaching Christmas season, but His promised return in glory still to come, we can rejoice and take comfort in that promise that all has been done for us already, that the Kingdom of God is already our’s and is already here in Word and Sacrament and fellowship.
As the world constantly tries to bombard us with reasons to wonder if Jesus is indeed the One who is to come, let us take comfort in the words of James from today’s second lesson who tells us “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.” And the coming of the Lord is indeed near, It is as near as the Word being proclaimed to you and the Lord’s Supper we will be partaking in a few minutes.
James also tells us that we can take comfort in the example of suffering and patience set by the prophet who spoke in the name of the Lord. And so we go to the prophet Isaiah from our first lesson for today who tells us that the Lord is bringing a Holy Way, a highway for God’s people, and in these words of Isaiah we receive one of the most encouraging and comforting words in all of scripture when Isaiah says that not even fools will go astray. And that good news that not even fools will go astray applies to all of us, so there is no reason to be offended by that.
Amen