Sermon, Sunday May 18 2008
Trinity Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
This morning in His Word, our precious Lord Jesus has made to us a truly extraordinary promise. Our Lord Jesus has promised us in His Word this morning that He is with us always, to the end of the age. Think about what an amazing promise that is. Our Lord Jesus promises that He is with us at all times and in all places, forever.
We can’t even really imagine how radical this promise is, let alone even coming close to trying to fulfill it ourselves. We certainly can’t do this in our own relationships. In marriage for instance there are careers that often necessitate being away from each other, there’s the driving the kids around, running errands, all sorts of things. And spouses just need to give each other their space. Even in the best of marriages that don’t end in divorce, one spouse always passes away before the other.
But of course it is not just our physical limitations or the constraints of time and space that make it impossible for us to even come close to fulfilling the kind of promise that Jesus makes to us in His Word this morning. In fact it is probably more so our sinful and selfish nature that makes this impossible for us.
As Luther said, "We are curved in upon ourselves……" As a people, as a species, we are just not inclined to look after the interest of others, of our neighbor before ourselves. Certainly we could all point to someone in our lives, be it a spouse, a child, a friend, a sibling, someone who’s needs we might have the ability and maybe even be inclined to look after more than our own. But our Lord sets the bar much higher than that.
The love that our Lord has for us is much bigger and more radical than that. In Matthew 5 our Lord tells us that our Father in Heaven makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and that He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
And again this promise that our Lord makes to us today in His Word is one that He promises to keep to the ends of the age. What He is talking about is eternity, and so He is not simply promising His faithfulness from that point on, but rather this radical promise also serves as a reminder of the selfless faithfulness that our Lord has shown through all time.
Our Lord’s selfless faithfulness to us began way back in creation and we read of this selfless giving in creation in our first lesson for today. I have been reading quite a bit lately about God’s created order. Now this term God’s created order refers to a structural or even hierarchical understanding of creation.
And so how this relates to our lessons this morning is the dominion of humanity over the rest of God’s creation. Our Lord gives us dominion over the birds, livestock and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. In other words, our Lord gives us dominion over the rest of creation. We are higher on the hierarchical scale than all the rest of creation.
And so indeed when we speak of an order in creation; that in creation we were given dominion over the animals and plants and fish etc. is a part of that order in creation and so reveals something to us about where we stand in regards to God as well as the rest of creation. But I think we also learn something of our standing with the Lord in the chronological order in creation.
I think it’s telling that before our Lord created us, He created that which He gave us dominion over. Everything that our Lord created before us was given to serve the uses and necessities of the life that He gives us.
Every thing that He created before us was created with us in mind. And it was created with the full knowledge that we were not worthy. He prepared for us all that we would need for our daily necessities and He continues to daily provide for our daily needs and preserves that which He has prepared for us and protects us from danger, and He has given us dominion over the rest of creation. And our Lord did all this and does all of this knowing full well that we are not worthy and that we would abuse the very dominion that He gives us.
Our Lord knew that we would fall far short of the image of God in which we were created, and yet He created us anyway. He knew that we would daily fail to answer His call to fruitful and caring stewardship of creation. He knew that our carelessness and neglect would lead to famine, plagues, pollution, and a vastly disproportionate distribution of wealth and resources that would leave most of the planet living in conditions that most would consider to be poverty.
He knew that we would fail to be the prudent, stewards of God’s rich resources that we are called to be. And history has shown us to abuse those resources all in the interest of seeking money, wealth and power.
And so why would our Father in Heaven give us dominion over anything if He knew that we would just abuse it? The answer is in some peculiar wording in our Old Testament lesson. In verse 26 and 27 it says "Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness…. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him." Why does it go from referring to God in the plural "our" to the singular He and His?
What the plural reference to God shows is the Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so our Lord selflessly gives of Himself by creating the world and everything in it and giving us dominion over the rest of His creation, knowing that we would exploit and abuse that dominion to our folly. But He also knew that He would be sending the Son. He knew that He would be sending the One through whom He would be with us until the end of the age.
He would be sending the One who, although fully human, would hold complete authority in Heaven and earth. He would be sending the One through whom we would be reconciled to our Lord. He would be sending the One who would permit Himself to lay down His life for us and pay the death-penalty that we deserve for the sinful abuse of the dominion that God the Father has given us. He would be sending the One who would bring forgiveness of our sin and abuse and the defeat of sin and the devil for us.
He brings this forgiveness to us through His Word and through the sacraments, through baptism which our Lord Jesus commands and institutes in the story from today’s Gospel lesson. And indeed in baptism we receive the gift of forgiveness of sins when we are marked with the cross of Christ and receive the gift of faith when we are sealed by the Holy Spirit.
And so in baptism we are also brought into the community of saints, or the Christian church, and it is through this community of saints that the Holy Spirit comes to us in the Word and sacraments sustaining and nurturing us in our faith. And that is what church is; it’s not a building, not a denomination, not a religion, it’s sinners gathered in the name of Christ around the Word rightly proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered.
And it is through these Word and sacraments, and the hidden power of forgiveness that we receive in them, that we are being made new and the old Adam or Eve in each of us is being put to death. We live in light of the promise given to us by the Son, that one day we will be new creations and restored back to the image of God given to us by God the Father which we tarnished with our sin and abuse. And so in the meantime, we are called to follow the lead of the disciples in the Gospel lesson and go forth and make disciples of our neighbors by sharing with them through Word and deed the love of the One who is with us now and has promised to stay with us, and has authority over us: Christ Jesus.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
This morning in His Word, our precious Lord Jesus has made to us a truly extraordinary promise. Our Lord Jesus has promised us in His Word this morning that He is with us always, to the end of the age. Think about what an amazing promise that is. Our Lord Jesus promises that He is with us at all times and in all places, forever.
We can’t even really imagine how radical this promise is, let alone even coming close to trying to fulfill it ourselves. We certainly can’t do this in our own relationships. In marriage for instance there are careers that often necessitate being away from each other, there’s the driving the kids around, running errands, all sorts of things. And spouses just need to give each other their space. Even in the best of marriages that don’t end in divorce, one spouse always passes away before the other.
But of course it is not just our physical limitations or the constraints of time and space that make it impossible for us to even come close to fulfilling the kind of promise that Jesus makes to us in His Word this morning. In fact it is probably more so our sinful and selfish nature that makes this impossible for us.
As Luther said, "We are curved in upon ourselves……" As a people, as a species, we are just not inclined to look after the interest of others, of our neighbor before ourselves. Certainly we could all point to someone in our lives, be it a spouse, a child, a friend, a sibling, someone who’s needs we might have the ability and maybe even be inclined to look after more than our own. But our Lord sets the bar much higher than that.
The love that our Lord has for us is much bigger and more radical than that. In Matthew 5 our Lord tells us that our Father in Heaven makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and that He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
And again this promise that our Lord makes to us today in His Word is one that He promises to keep to the ends of the age. What He is talking about is eternity, and so He is not simply promising His faithfulness from that point on, but rather this radical promise also serves as a reminder of the selfless faithfulness that our Lord has shown through all time.
Our Lord’s selfless faithfulness to us began way back in creation and we read of this selfless giving in creation in our first lesson for today. I have been reading quite a bit lately about God’s created order. Now this term God’s created order refers to a structural or even hierarchical understanding of creation.
And so how this relates to our lessons this morning is the dominion of humanity over the rest of God’s creation. Our Lord gives us dominion over the birds, livestock and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. In other words, our Lord gives us dominion over the rest of creation. We are higher on the hierarchical scale than all the rest of creation.
And so indeed when we speak of an order in creation; that in creation we were given dominion over the animals and plants and fish etc. is a part of that order in creation and so reveals something to us about where we stand in regards to God as well as the rest of creation. But I think we also learn something of our standing with the Lord in the chronological order in creation.
I think it’s telling that before our Lord created us, He created that which He gave us dominion over. Everything that our Lord created before us was given to serve the uses and necessities of the life that He gives us.
Every thing that He created before us was created with us in mind. And it was created with the full knowledge that we were not worthy. He prepared for us all that we would need for our daily necessities and He continues to daily provide for our daily needs and preserves that which He has prepared for us and protects us from danger, and He has given us dominion over the rest of creation. And our Lord did all this and does all of this knowing full well that we are not worthy and that we would abuse the very dominion that He gives us.
Our Lord knew that we would fall far short of the image of God in which we were created, and yet He created us anyway. He knew that we would daily fail to answer His call to fruitful and caring stewardship of creation. He knew that our carelessness and neglect would lead to famine, plagues, pollution, and a vastly disproportionate distribution of wealth and resources that would leave most of the planet living in conditions that most would consider to be poverty.
He knew that we would fail to be the prudent, stewards of God’s rich resources that we are called to be. And history has shown us to abuse those resources all in the interest of seeking money, wealth and power.
And so why would our Father in Heaven give us dominion over anything if He knew that we would just abuse it? The answer is in some peculiar wording in our Old Testament lesson. In verse 26 and 27 it says "Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness…. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him." Why does it go from referring to God in the plural "our" to the singular He and His?
What the plural reference to God shows is the Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so our Lord selflessly gives of Himself by creating the world and everything in it and giving us dominion over the rest of His creation, knowing that we would exploit and abuse that dominion to our folly. But He also knew that He would be sending the Son. He knew that He would be sending the One through whom He would be with us until the end of the age.
He would be sending the One who, although fully human, would hold complete authority in Heaven and earth. He would be sending the One through whom we would be reconciled to our Lord. He would be sending the One who would permit Himself to lay down His life for us and pay the death-penalty that we deserve for the sinful abuse of the dominion that God the Father has given us. He would be sending the One who would bring forgiveness of our sin and abuse and the defeat of sin and the devil for us.
He brings this forgiveness to us through His Word and through the sacraments, through baptism which our Lord Jesus commands and institutes in the story from today’s Gospel lesson. And indeed in baptism we receive the gift of forgiveness of sins when we are marked with the cross of Christ and receive the gift of faith when we are sealed by the Holy Spirit.
And so in baptism we are also brought into the community of saints, or the Christian church, and it is through this community of saints that the Holy Spirit comes to us in the Word and sacraments sustaining and nurturing us in our faith. And that is what church is; it’s not a building, not a denomination, not a religion, it’s sinners gathered in the name of Christ around the Word rightly proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered.
And it is through these Word and sacraments, and the hidden power of forgiveness that we receive in them, that we are being made new and the old Adam or Eve in each of us is being put to death. We live in light of the promise given to us by the Son, that one day we will be new creations and restored back to the image of God given to us by God the Father which we tarnished with our sin and abuse. And so in the meantime, we are called to follow the lead of the disciples in the Gospel lesson and go forth and make disciples of our neighbors by sharing with them through Word and deed the love of the One who is with us now and has promised to stay with us, and has authority over us: Christ Jesus.
Amen
posted by Steve at 9:31 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting sermon. It really made me think and right now, I'm still trying to process it. I will respond more later, after I digest this sermon.
Good job, though. I liked it alot
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