Sermon Sunday February 17, 2008

Second Sunday in Lent
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has anyone ever asked you if you have been ‘born again?’ It’s a common expression heard in the Christian community. Some will even say that you must be ‘born again’ in order to truly be saved. And they would be right. You see, this expression is actually drawn from verse three from our Gospel lesson where Jesus tells Nicodemus that nobody can see the Kingdom of God without being ‘born from above.’
The version that we read from this morning does translate it as ‘born from above’ but there are many translations that say ‘born again.’ They are both acceptable translations because the Greek word, anothen, that the translation is derived from actually means both ‘from above’ and ‘again.’ And so like I said, both are acceptable, but inevitably having to choose one is going to lead to emphasizing one aspect of what Jesus was saying over the other, and I believe He wanted us to know both. That is I think He wants us to know that as children of God we are born both ‘again’ and ‘from above.’
When we focus on the idea of being born again often it will be reduced to something that we do. We might even have specific steps that we can take or a prayer that must be said before we can be born again. But when we do that we are not taking God’s Word seriously enough. Whether it is translated as ‘again’ or ‘from above’ this is clearly something that happens to us. We are passive recipients of this new birth which is from above.
The reason we do this, that is try to turn it into something we do, is because deep down we are all like Nicodemus; the Pharisee who Jesus is speaking with in today’s lesson. It doesn’t make sense to us that we can be either ‘born again’ or ‘from above.’ When we find ourselves confronted with this Word from Jesus that we must in fact be ‘born again’ before we can see the Kingdom of God, like Nicodemus, we find ourselves asking "How can this be?" And indeed, once we have been born, how can we possibly be born-again? But that is what your Lord Jesus says to you this morning; that your’ seeing the Kingdom of God is dependent upon you being born again, it is dependent upon something happening to you.
And yet we will try to take this task on ourselves. We’ll try to turn it into something we do. We’ll try to convince the world and ourselves that we are true and proper Christians, not through the faith that we confess, but through our own personal morality and piety. We find ourselves looking to our own personal progress or some other visible sign to confirm our faith.
But the closer you look at yourselves the more you find yourselves failing at every turn, breaking every commandment. The closer you look at yourself you see yourself seeking your own glory rather than for opportunities to share God’s love and glory with your neighbor. The closer you look the more you see yourself for the sinner that you are and thus you find yourself doubting God’s Word and/or God’s faithfulness. You become so self-focused that you fail to see and address the spiritual and physical needs of your neighbor.
And it’s because we are like Nicodemus. We come to Jesus in darkness. And obviously I am not just referring to the fact that Nicodemus was in literal darkness, but he was in grave spiritual darkness also. And this is the only way we can "come" to Jesus. We bring nothing to the table. This is not a cooperative effort. In the midst of our darkness Jesus brings with Him the light of forgiveness, redemption and new-life from above.
Whether we remain in the darkness is revealed not by our morality, not by some act of piety in the face of the light of Christ coming into our darkness. Nicodemus was a law-abiding Pharisee. He was not one of the corrupt religious leaders who was trying to persecute Jesus or was threatened by Jesus. As far as morality goes, Nicodemus probably could have gone toe-to-toe with Billy Graham. But what we see in Nicodemus is that even the most moral and pious people can still be in the dark when it comes to Jesus.
But that is actually good news. The pressure is off of you. You don’t have to be Billy Graham, in fact it wouldn't make a lick of difference if you were. The light that Christ brings into your darkness is so bright that no matter how pious or moral a person is, the light of Christ will expose us all as the sinners that we are, even if you are Billy Graham. But it is for sinners that Christ came.
And so this morning your Lord comes to you in His Word telling you that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man has been lifted up on a cross for you. He has been lifted up on a cross where He has taken on your darkness and given you His brilliant light. And He calls you today and comes to you today, bringing you the brilliant light of forgiveness and redemption.
And whether we are in the dark or light is revealed by how we react to the light of Christ as it exposes us for the sinners that we are. If we run from that light then we inevitably run to ourselves and we remain in the dark. But if we don’t run and hide from the light as it exposes us, sins and all, then there is only one place to go; to the cross where we can see our darkness being taken from us and in exchange we receive the glorious light of Christ’s righteousness, as we are given new life as we are born again and from above.
Jesus makes a parallel between His being lifted up on the cross and when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. God had sent poisonous serpents among the Israelites because of their unfaithfulness. And at the people’s request, Moses prays for the people and the Lord tells Moses to put a serpent on a pole and when one of the poisonous serpents bites someone that person would look at the serpent of bronze on the pole and live.
It’s important to remember that putting the serpent on the pole did not get rid of the poisonous serpents on the ground. It did not keep the people from getting bit, although it did save people from dying from the bite. And in the same way, Christ Jesus being lifted up on the cross for our sin did not get rid of the human sinfulness on the ground. We are still afflicted by sin and cancer and the flu and pneumonia and death. But we have the promise that by looking not to ourselves but to the One who gave all for us on the cross, Christ Jesus, we have new-life. We are born-again from above.
And through this new birth we receive eternal life. And eternal life does not just mean that we are going to Heaven, although that is part of it. Eternity does not begin when Jesus comes back. Eternity begins for us at the font, in baptism when we are claimed by Christ, when we are born again, from above. Eternal means being able to see God’s power in your life in the world, it’s realizing that you are living in and by the power of God, those in the dark can’t see this.
We live in a world of Nicodemus’, and that includes us, but more importantly it includes your neighbor. We live in a world of people who hear God’s promise of new life from above and they say ‘How can this be.’ Well you have been called to tell these people, your neighbors, how it can be. You have been called to tell them of the God whom Paul refers to when He says of our Lord that He gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.
He has been doing this literally since day one when He said ‘let there be light’ and ‘there was light.’ And this continued throughout history, including at your baptism, where through God’s Word you were proclaimed to be a child of God and so you are a child of God. And now you can trudge forth to your neighbor filled with the faith of Abram knowing that your eternity in God’s Kingdom has been secured, and through Word and deed you can shine the light of Christ upon your neighbor, and when their sin is exposed to them, show them not how to run to themselves, but show them the Son of Man lifted up for them where He took all of our darkness and in exchange gives us the brilliant light of His righteousness, forgiveness and new life from above.
Amen

Sermon Sunday February 10, 2008

First Sunday in Lent
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am currently reading a book called "The Defense Never Rests." It was written by a man named Craig Parton and in it he tells of how he came to Lutheranism. He tells of growing up in the Christian Science tradition and then in college becoming very active in evangelicalism. And then I believe when he was in graduate school when he took a class that compared different Christian denominations. Through this he began to learn about Lutheranism and saw a lot in Lutheranism that he felt was lacking in evangelicalism. And then one fateful Good Friday night he went to his first Lutheran service and he was hooked.
And he said that one element of the Lutheran traditions that he was particularly struck by was the small catechism. What really impressed him was that the catechism got right down to the essentials. He said it "majored on the majors and refused to let the student of Scripture get lost in the trees." He loved how it how it focused on what is called the sedes doctrinae; or "Seat of doctrine-i.e., Bible verses that establish Christian dogma.."
And as a person who did not grow up Lutheran but was drawn to Lutheranism as an adult, I can relate to that experience myself. And for me, one of the things that I have come to appreciate, that seemed to be lacking in the tradition that I grew up in, is the seasons of the church year, particularly Lent. Lent, like the catechism gets right to the heart of the Christian faith.
Lent doesn’t water anything down for us. In Lent we are confronted face to face with the suffering and agony that our Lord Jesus endured on our behalf in the final steps of His journey to the cross and on the cross. We are confronted with the reality that it is our sin that He atones for on the cross and it is our sin that killed Him.
And so here you are in the first week of Lent and you are confronted with these scripture passages, these words from God, that get right to the point by confronting you with the reality of temptation and your weakness to it. Through the Word that your Lord brings to you today you are reminded that from the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden on into Jesus’ temptations, right on into today and your daily lives, the devil entices us with things that appear to be good.
We are confronted with a Word today that reminds us that Satan is in fact a real entity and force in the world that we live in. He is not a metaphor or a symbol, he is real, and he lives to oppose the coming of the Kingdom of God.
It was the devil whom our Lord Jesus was confronted with in the Gospel lesson for today. The devil comes to Jesus in the wilderness with three temptations. In the first temptation the devil comes to Jesus tempting Him to use His authority and power to turn stones into bread. What was so wrong with this?? Jesus’ hunger would have been alleviated and He would have been able to meet the needs of others. This would have met many people’s expectations for what the messiah was supposed to be and so it would have given Jesus enormous political power.
But it also would have meant Jesus denying His humanity and the trust in God that Jesus teaches of in Matthew 6 when He teaches the disciples to strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness and that in that God will provide for their needs.
And so Jesus resists that temptation by quoting to the devil from scripture where it says that "One does not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God." And so the devil responds by doing what the devil does, he takes something good and distorts it and tries to use it for something other than it’s intended purpose. In this case the devil tempts Jesus to throw Himself from the pinnacle and then quotes a portion of scripture in a way that would make it seem as if it were promising that if Jesus did do that then God would send angels to bear Him up.
But Jesus goes right back to the source, the Word of God, and throws it right back in the devil’s face and rightly quotes another passage that says "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." And finally the devil, in what seems to be a last ditch attempt, tries to tempt Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world and says that he will give them to Jesus if He would fall down and worship Satan. And finally Jesus fires back with another Scripture passage that says "Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him." And He simply commands the devil away from Him.
It’s interesting that right from the beginning of this passage, the devil is referred to as ‘the tempter.’ Temptation is one of biggest weapons in the devil’s arsenal. That is his modus operandi, as it were. He will appeal to our pride, our shame, the law, our sinful nature, but all of that is done in the interest of tempting us. As I said earlier, the devil lives to oppose the kingdom of God. Well, what better way to tear down the kingdom of God than to tempt away it’s members?
And in our Old Testament lesson we can see just how powerless we are to temptation. Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil and they fell for it hook, line, and sinker just as any one of us would have. And Jesus knew just how vulnerable we are to temptation, and for that reason He included it in His instructions for us in how to pray. Indeed the sixth petition in the Lord’s prayer is that we not be lead into temptation.
We are attacked everyday by the devil’s slings and arrows of temptation and everyday we fail in the face of such attacks. We fail when we give in to the devil’s temptation to fear, love and trust anything other than God or when we measure God’s faithfulness to us by how comfortable we are. We give into the devil’s temptation when we seek our own glory over God’s glory or even when we fail to be thankful for the blessings that God showers upon us. We fail when we put the desires of our own sinful body ahead of the needs of our soul. These are really just the tip of the iceberg. We constantly give in to the devil’s slings and arrows of temptation and deception.
The truth is Adam and Eve’s sin is our sin. Put any one of us in the Garden of Eden and the same thing would have happened. But there is Another who is not susceptible to the devil’s arsenal of temptation and deceit. He is Christ Jesus and we see in today’s Gospel lesson that when He was confronted by the temptation of the devil He always had an answer and ultimately He fired back by simply saying to the tempter "Away with you Satan!" And He came out of the wilderness and continued on the path that would lead to His enduring great suffering for you.
The attack from the devil would not stop. But Jesus would continue undeterred to calvary where He laid down His life for you, and took on the punishment that you deserve. And He did this for you. He did this to fulfill the righteousness that Paul speaks of in the second lesson for today; the righteousness that leads to justification for all. He did this to take upon Himself the guilt of all of us who were made sinners through the sin of Adam and Eve and give to us the righteousness that secures for us our place in God’s kingdom.
And so today Satan’s attacks of temptation continue. But in the face of those attacks you have been given a Word from God’s mouth. And that Word promises that by the obedience of Christ Jesus you have been made righteous. And so when the devil’s attacks continue, and they will, you can simply turn to the tempter and say "Away with you Satan." And this is also a Word that you are called to bring to your neighbor so they can know that the act of obedience of Christ Jesus that has made you righteous was done for them also and that there is place for them in the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom that the tempter is committed to destroying.
Amen

Sermon Sunday February 3 2008

Transfiguration Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The story of the Transfiguration that we read about in today’s Gospel lesson is one of the most unusual stories that will come up over the course of the church year. I really don’t think that we can even begin to imagine what it must have felt like to be Peter, James or John witnessing all that was going on.
The passage begins with a reference to where they were time-wise with the phrase "six-days later." Well what’s that referring to?? Six days after what?? Well in the section from Matthew’s Gospel just preceding this Jesus tells His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief-priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Peter, of course famously misunderstands Jesus and tells Him that this must never happen. Jesus responds by saying "Get behind me Satan" and calls Peter a stumbling block and tells him that he has in mind the things of men and not the things of God.
And so, six days later is where today’s Gospel lesson begins. And so six days later we see Jesus with Peter, James, and John going up a mountain. But we can also see, because of the previous passage that Jesus is firmly focused on the road to the cross. He is firmly focused on what His Father has sent Him to do, and in spite of the disciple’s distraction with things of men and their inability to comprehend what exactly is going on, Jesus still brings Peter, James, and John with Him to the mountaintop.
He brings them with Him, but I am sure He figured that they were probably going to misunderstand the magnitude of what was about to take place before them. But He brings Peter, James, and John with Him and it says that He was transfigured before them and His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became a dazzling white, and then suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him.
And so with Jesus standing right before them, transfigured as He was in dazzling white, with Moses and Elijah who seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere, with that, Peter, James, and John get a whole new insight into Jesus. They are finally beginning to understand who Jesus is.
And we can see this in how Peter reacts to all of this; not just in the fact that He calls Jesus Lord, but in what Peter suggests that they do. Peter says that it is good for them to be there and that if they wish, he could make three dwelling places; one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus.
With the transfiguration and the appearance of Moses and Elijah Peter seems to be understanding who Jesus is. I mean he is at least putting Jesus on the same par that he puts Moses and Elijah because he offers to make a dwelling place for Jesus as well as Moses and Elijah. And so we can see that Peter is at least beginning to understand who Jesus is but He is still a long ways away from understanding why Jesus came, what purpose He came to serve, what His coming and what His life, death and resurrection would come to mean for him and for everyone else.
Peter still had the same problem that he had in the previous passage when Jesus told him that He would have to suffer and die and be raised again. Peter had his mind on things of men and not on the things of God. The exact reasons why Peter wanted to make these dwelling places in uncertain. Maybe he simply wanted to show a sign of respect to Moses and Elijah. Maybe he wanted to have some sort of worship service with them. No matter what the reason, it appears that Peter wanted to stay up there on that mountain. And he wanted to because, like I said he was focused on things of men and not on things of God.
And Peter’s confusion is our confusion. We are also too focused on things men and not on things of God. It’s not the idea of who Jesus is that makes us uncomfortable, it’s the idea of what Jesus had to do for us. It’s the idea that our only hope of being able to stand in front of God is Jesus going where He is going in this passage; the cross. That is what Jesus is focused on. That is where He is ultimately headed. That is where He knew the road that He was on would take Him; the cross, where He took an all of your sin and death.
We don’t like confronting the reality that Jesus had to take that road to Calvary. We don’t like it because it shatters all of our illusions of ethical and moral progress. It forces us to confess the times when we love creation more than the creator, when we fail to proclaim His name when we have the opportunity. It brings us face to face with our desires for earthly wealth and prosperity even in light of all that our Lord gives us which we don’t deserve. It forces us to confront the reality that the sin that binds us is so much bigger than us and that we are powerless to it and the only hope that we have in light of sin, death, and the devil is faith in the One who took on all of that sin Himself and in the process defeated death and the devil for you.
Like Peter we cannot even hope for faith without divine revelation, without that faith being brought to us. And so in today’s Gospel lesson, we see that Peter’s self-focused plans to build three dwelling places that would enable him and James and John to stay up on the mountain with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are interrupted. They are interrupted by the appearance of a bright cloud in which they hear God the Father say of Jesus "This is my Son, the Beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him!"
In Peter’s confusion God sends a Word. He says to Peter, James, and John that Jesus is His Son and then commands them to listen to Him. This command to listen to Jesus would have referred to everything that Jesus had said previously such as when Jesus told Peter, James and John that it was necessary for Him to suffer and die and be raised again. It would have referred to His moral and ethical teaching as well as anything else He said.
And so it is with us. In the midst of our self-centeredness and confusion our Lord sends a Word. In spite of all the mistakes and ineptitude Jesus never gave up on Peter, James, and John, He continues to come to them. And after hearing the voice of God the Father from the cloud proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God, Peter, James, and John are overcome by fear. But Jesus comes to them and simply says to them "Get up and do not be afraid." And they got up and followed Him and they would continue to misunderstand and get things wrong, and the truth is they really wouldn’t begin to listen to Jesus until the resurrection. It wasn’t really until sin, death, and the devil had been defeated that Peter had fully cast aside all of the cleverly devised myths that he refers to in the second lesson for today.
But the Word made flesh Christ Jesus refused to leave Peter in his delusions and He does the same for you. And today He comes to you in a Word. It is a Word first heard for most of us in the waters of baptism where we are declared to be a child of God, claimed by Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit. But just as it didn’t end for Peter, James and John on the mountain, it doesn’t end for you at the font.
The Word will continue to come to you through men and women moved by the Holy Spirit; through preachers and parents and sponsors and teachers and neighbors. The Word comes to you in the tangibility of the Lord’s Supper in the bread and the wine. It is a Word that comes to you and on one hand does the same thing that the Word that confronted Peter, James and John did; it points to Christ. On the other hand it is different than the Word that spoke so boldly on that mountaintop. That Word testified of Jesus and what He was about to do, the Word that comes to you brings you a Word of promise and assurance of what Christ Jesus your redeemer and Savior has already done for you. Why would anyone not want to listen to a Word like that?
Amen