Playing the Whore and the Lord Says, No More

At this time the Daily Lectionary Old Testament readings are from the prophet Jeremiah.  Yesterday’s lesson is Jeremiah 3: 6-4:2 in which we read:

The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?

False gods were worshiped on “…every high hill and under every green tree”.  Before the building of Temple in Jerusalem, Israel and Judah had some hundred shrines.  After the Temple was built, these worship sites became infused with Canaanite idolatry, combining the worship of the one true God with false gods.  This is called “syncretism”.  Since Canaanite idolatry was a fertility cult for the male and female deities to unite and so ‘insure’ the fertility of the land for a good harvest;  and so there were cult prostitutes to unite with the heretical priest to manipulate the deities for their favor.  Israel could well have been both spiritually and physically playing the whore, though the distinction between physical and spiritual is not as distinct as we tend to think.

What is a whore?  A woman who sells her body to men for sex.  Israel had sold out to false gods and it sure seems it is usually for sex as idolatry leads ever to fornication.  The prophetic pattern against sin is always in this order: idolatry, then immorality.  False gods demand exorbitant fees, and as they are demons (see 1 Corinthians 10:20) , we sell our soul to them,  the faustian ‘bargain‘, and so lose our soul.  Israel was losing her soul as were the Christians in Corinth.  The devil’s best stratagem is not necessarily and initially direct appeals to the flesh but appeals to spirituality and the so-called refinements of sophisticated spirituality.   This is great cover up  which eventually leads to lusts of the flesh, e.g. divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriage,”hooking-up”, orgies and drugs, pornography. We have seen this with churches one by one falling like dominos. 

The Lord first warned about the high places.  Israel bought into a lie, but the one true God can not be bought. He is truth as He is love.  Here we can see the utter reality of the Lord:  He can not be bought or need we to sell our souls to Him!  The false gods always want us to sell out our bodies and souls like a whore for the price of our freedom in Christ. He found and saved Israel, not Israel by herself at all.  He bought them and brought them with cords of love, Hosea 11:

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim* to walk;
    I took them up by their arms,
    but they did not know that I healed them.
⁴ I led them with cords of kindness,
    with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
    and I bent down to them and fed them.

 *Israel

And as the Lord spoke His Word through Jeremiah:

“‘Return, faithless Israel,
declares the Lord.
I will not look on you in anger,
    for I am merciful,
declares the Lord;
I will not be angry forever.
¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt,
    that you rebelled against the Lord your God
and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree,
    and that you have not obeyed my voice,
declares the Lord.

Return, faithless Church.  

 

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Appointed Psalm for 2 October

Psalm 3 English Standard Version (ESV)

Save Me, O My God

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

3 O Lord, how many are my foes!
    Many are rising against me;
² many are saying of my soul,
    there is no salvation for him in God (1).

³ But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.
⁴ I cried aloud to the Lord,
    and he answered me from his holy hill.

⁵ I lay down and slept;
    I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
⁶ I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
    who have set themselves against me all around.

⁷ Arise, O Lord!
    Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
    you break the teeth of the wicked.

⁸ Salvation belongs to the Lord;
    your blessing be on your people!

---

(1) St. Mark 15:  “So also  the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”

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The Commemoration of Jonah, Prophet

Lord God, heavenly Father, through the prophet Jonah, You continued the prophetic pattern of teaching Your people the true faith and demonstrating through miracles Your presence in creation to heal it of its brokenness. Grant that Your Church may see in Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the final end-times prophet whose teaching and miracles continue in Your Church through the healing medicine of the Gospel and the Sacraments; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Reading:  The Book of Jonah

About Jonah:

A singular prophet among the many in the Old Testament, Jonah the son of Amittai was born about an hour’s walk from the town of Nazareth. The focus of his prophetic ministry was the call to preach at Nineveh, the capital of pagan Assyria(Jonah 1:2). His reluctance to respond and God’s insistence that His call be heeded is the story of the book that bears Jonah’s name. Although the swallowing and disgorging of Jonah by the great fish is the most remembered detail of his life, it is addressed in only three verses of the book (Jonah1:17; 2:1, 10). Throughout the book, the important theme is how God deals compassionately with sinners. Jonah’s three-day sojourn in the belly of the fish is mentioned by Jesus as a sign of His own death, burial, and resurrection (Matthew12:39-41). (From The Treasury of Daily Prayer, published by Concordia Publishing House;  for more on Jonah go here.)

Reflection:

We simply stand under God’s overflowing grace like rain, allowing its cool refreshment to fill our dry cracks. Then we pick up the bucket and dump it on someone else. Grace flows from Yahweh not on those who attempt to earn it, but on those who confess their need for it. The Spirit-empowered response is then to share it. But Jonah is like the angry older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:28-30): he views God’s lavish welcome for undeserving sinners who repent as an insult to his “deserving” self. The prophet has yet to embrace the Law and Gospel character of God expressed in James 2:13: “For judgment is without mercy to one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (From Dr. Reed Lesssing’s Commentary on Jonah)

Jesus made a comparison between Himself and Jonah when He was asked for sign, see St. Matthew 12: 38-42.   Here are some more details of a comparison between Jesus and Jonah.

Jonah ran away and the Lord ran to His people.

Jonah ran away twice.   The Lord never runs away and He sought Jonah twice, as He sought Adam, you, more than twice.

The Lord put Jonah in the belly of the great fish because Jonah refused to preach repentance to Ninevah. The Lord was put in the belly of great fish, death, “the heart of the earth”, because He preached repentance.

The Lord heard Jonah cry out in prayer in the belly of the great fish  to be saved and he was heard. The Lord cried out, not for His salvation (as He did not need to), but ours and He was heard:  “It is finished” (John 19:30).

The Lord punished Jonah in the belly of the great fish. The Lord took on the punishment which He did not deserve, the chastisement of us all, that makes us whole (cf. Isaiah 53).  He was not punished for His sin, for He had none, but He became sin.

The Lord called Jonah to preach His Word. The Lord is the Word made flesh (St. John 1: 14), God’s own sermon to us all and in particular in His three nights in the heart of  the earth, preaching our salvation by faith through His grace through the Word of His blood (cf.Hebrews 12:24).

The Lord caused the great fish to spew Jonah out of the belly of the great fish. The Lord laid down His life to take it up again and death could not hold Him (John 10:18).

Jonah was disappointed and angry that the Ninevites repented and that the Lord did not destroy them.  Jesus rejoices that so many came to faith and He sent out His apostles with the message of the Kingdom of God.

Jonah was swallowed by the great fish. Jesus swallowed up death itself.

 Behold, something greater than Jonah is here!  Allelulia!

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Quotes for the Octave of the Feast of Holy Cross Day

⁶ A voice says, “Cry!”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades
    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
    surely the people are grass.
⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40: 6-8

What we think is weighted with glory in this world is but a blade of grass in the Lord’s eyes, but the glory of His love for sinners in Jesus Christ, who bore the weight of the sin of the world in His Body, lifted upon the Cross, outweighs all this world’s vain glory.

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9/11 and the Crucified and Risen Lord

I am re-reading That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, the third of Lewis’ space trilogy.  One of the main places in the novel is Belbury, the headquarters of the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments, or “the N.I.C.E.”.  The N.I.C.E is an institute that wants to take over England and the world and make it devoid of all ‘superstition’, especially the Christian faith.  A main character, Mark Studdock, has been selected to join the N.I.C.E.  He is an unbeliever. In this scene Mark is being programmed under the threat of violence to think “objectively,” meaning without influence of the “chemical reactions” that produce our moral (read emotive) judgments. The scientist in charge of his progress commands him to trample an almost life-size realistic crucifix. Mark hesitates… and puts his life in danger.

Mark was well aware of the rising danger. Obviously, if he disobeyed, his last chance getting out Belbury alive might be gone. The smothering sensation once again attacked him. He was himself, he felt, as helpless as the wooden Christ. As he thought this, he found himself looking at the crucifix in a new way—neither as a piece of wood nor a monument of superstition but as a bit of history. Christianity was nonsense, but one did not doubt that the man had lived and had been executed thus by the Belbury of those days. And that, as he suddenly saw, explained why this image, though not itself an image of the Straight and Normal, was yet in opposition to crooked Belbury. It was a picture of what happened when the Straight met the Crooked, a picture of what the Crooked did to the Straight—what it would do to him if he remained straight. It was, in a more emphatic sense than he had yet understood, a cross.

The Cross is the place where, “…the Straight met the Crooked” and in the midst of the ruins of World Trade Center workers found beams from the twin towers in the shape of a cross, see the header picture above of that cross.  The Straight met the Crooked and the sign of the cross shows, “…what happened when the Straight met the Crooked a picture of what the Crooked did to the Straight-and what it would do to him if he remained straight”.  It is only in the helplessness of the very Son of God is our help for those who mourn, for those who are angry, for those who make for peace, for those who protect us from evil.

President George W. Bush, at a service at the Washington National Cathedral, on September 14, 2001, observed:

Our purpose as a nation is firm. Yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed, and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there is a searching, and an honesty. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Tuesday, a woman said, “I prayed to God to give us a sign that He is still here.” Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing.

God’s signs are not always the ones we look for.

He has given us the sign that He is still here.  Even in the midst of tyranny, He will depose the tyrant and the terrorist.  In the midst of the rubble, His sign was still there. He calls to remain Straight, love our enemies but never surrender to them.  It was not the sign we were looking for, but the one we needed. He has entered our history and will lead us home. 

Collect of the Day

Most merciful Father, with compassion You hear the cries of Your people in great distress.  Be with all who now endure affliction and calamity, bless the work of those who bring rescue and relief, and enable us to aid and comfort those who are suffering that they may find renewed hope and purpose: through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

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The Commemoration of Joanna, Mary and Salome, Myrrhbearers, 3 August 2,015

Suggested Lection:

Psalm 45:1-9
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 23:54-24:11 or Mark 16:1-8

Joanna, Mary, and Salome:  Known in some traditions as “the faithful women,” the visit of these three persons and other women to the tomb of Jesus on the first Easter morning is noted in the Gospel records of Matthew (28:1), Mark (16:1), and Luke (24:10). Joanna was the wife of Cuza, a steward in Herod’s household (Lk. 8:3). Mary, the mother of James (the son of Alphaeus), was another of the women who faithfully provided care for Jesus and His disciples from the time of His Galilean ministry through His burial after the crucifixion. Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee (Mt. 27:56), joined with the women both at the cross and in the bringing of the spices to the garden tomb. These “faithful women” have been honored in the church through the centuries as examples of humble and devoted service to the Lord.

Writing

Why was Christ’s resurrection revealed to these women first? There are several answers.

• First, God was keeping His ancient custom of choosing what is foolish, undistinguished, and despised in the eyes of the world in order to put the strong and lofty to shame. (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-28) These women were despised not only due to the weakness of their gender but also because of Galilee, their homeland. (see John 1:46) But God exalts them by revealing to them the resurrection of His Son, which is an excellent article of our faith.
• Indeed, He even sends them to the apostles to share the message of Christ’s resurrection with them, so that they become, as the ancients say, like “apostles to the apostles” …
• Third, in this way God wanted to prevent the accusations of the Jews. The high priests lied, saying that Christ’s disciples had stolen the body of their master. In order to provethe shamelessness and absurdity of this lie, it happened by God’s marvelous providence that these women came to the grave before the apostles. Now, it is highly unlikely that these few women could have stolen the body from a grave guarded by soldiers and closed by a large stone.
• Fourth, through the woman Eve, death came to all human beings. On account of this, Christ wanted His resurrection, which brings us righteousness and life, to be told to others by women. At the fall of the first human being, these three worked together: the devil, who deceived; the woman, who proclaimed his talk further; the man, who ate and corrupted human nature. So also,Christ’s resurrection, these three worked together: Christ, who rose and redeemed human nature; the angel, who proclaimed the resurrection; and the women, who carried the joyful message further.

Now if Christ was pleased with the zeal of these women, which was yet bound together with significant weaknesses of faith, and did not let them come away from the tomb empty, how much less will He let those go away empty who in true faith seek Him who rules at the right hand of the Father!

—Martin Chemnitz (He has been called the “second Martin”, the first being Martin Luther;  all of the above from The Treasury of Daily Prayer, Concordia Publishing House)

Reflection:  They brought myrrh.  We remember myrrh every Christmas as the magi brought”gold, frankincense and myrrh”. The magi were hard-core pagan magicians and unexpectedly they bring expensive gifts for the King!  Myrrh was a costly ointment used for fragrance.  In the Song of Solomon myrrh is used to scent the marital bed.  It was also used for burial of the dead to cover the smell of death, but it is finally only perfume, a cover up and sin and death “stink to high heaven”.   The faithful women bear myrrh to the tomb and unexpectedly they find out:  He is risen!  They did not have to anoint His Body!  As  Christ Jesus is the sweet fragrance of His Resurrection by which He has conquered death, no cover-up of death  but swallowing  up death: Christ the death of death our foe, Christ the life of all the living.  Along with Joanna, Mary and Salome, we are joined with Paul and all the Church to be the “aroma of Christ”:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. ¹⁵For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, ¹⁶ to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2)

Let us pray…

Mighty God, Your crucified and buried Son did not remain in the tomb for long. Give us joy in the tasks set before us, that we might carry out faithful acts of service as did Joanna, Mary, and Salome, offering to You the sweet perfume of our grateful hearts, so that we, too, may see the glory of Your resurrection and proclaim the Good News with unrestrained eagerness and fervor worked in us through our Lord Jesus Christ, who rose and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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The Commemoration of Justin Martyr, 1 June anno Domini 2,015

Biography:  born at the beginning of the second century, Justin was raised in a pagan family. He was student of philosophy who converted to the Christian faith and became a teacher in Ephesus and Rome. After refusing to make pagan sacrifices, he was arrested, tried and executed, along with six other believers. They were beheaded.  The official Roman court proceedings of his trial before Rusticius, a Roman prelate, document his confession of faith. The account of his martyrdom became a source of great encouragement to the early Christian community. Much of what we know of early liturgical practice comes from Justin.

Timeline
30	Crucifixion of Jesus; Pentecost
65	Peter and Paul executed
70	Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus
100	Justin Martyr born
165	Justin Martyr dies
180	Irenaeus writesAgainst Heresies

For Christians, such as this Lutheran pastor, the order of service from the 2nd Century, as described by Justin Martyr is quite familiar:

On the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a given city or rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things. Next we all rise together and send up prayers.

When we cease from our prayer, bread is presented and wine and water. The president (or Presiding Minister, that is, Pastor/Bishop) in the same manner sends up prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people sing out their assent, saying the ‘Amen.’ A distribution and participation of the elements for which thanks have been given is made to each person, and to those who are not present they are sent by the deacons.

Those who have means and are willing, each according to his own choice, gives what he wills, and what is collected is deposited with the president. He provides for the orphans and widows, those who are in need on account of sickness or some other cause, those who are in bonds, strangers who are sojourning, and in a word he becomes the protector of all who are in need.

In an excellent article by Pastor Mark Surburg, They worshipped when?!?, also quoted the Roman, and pagan, historian Pliny, who lived 50 years before Justin the Martyr, the following about Christians:

They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when   called upon to do so.

Please note, as  Pastor Surburg commented that the early Church met “before dawn” and Justin says they met as long as time permits because Sunday was not a day off!  They seem to have lived in a 24/7 world. Our brothers and sisters in the Lord back 1,900 years ago woke up really early for the Divine Service on Sunday befodre they would go off to work.  As our culture and society becomes increasingly antogonistic to the Church, it will take faithfulness to receive His Word and Sacraments. Pr. Surburg:  

As the era of the post-Christian world continues to advance in our culture, we are encountering more and more situations that reflect the experience of our early Christian forefathers.  Sporting events, school activities and a growing list of other endeavors are scheduled for Sunday morning.  The faithful practice of the Christian faith will require an ever greater commitment.  It will require sacrifice in order put Jesus Christ first as the Lord of our life.  The saints who have gone before provide both a model and an encouragement.  They show us what Christians have done in order to be faithful, and they demonstrate how by his grace God enabled them to do this.

No wonder that the “memoirs of the Apostles” that were read would have included this Scripture from the Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2:  111-12:

“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” 

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Sermon, Third Sunday of Easter, 19 April, 2,015, @ Concordia Lutheran Mission

The text for this morning’s sermon is the Gospel Reading, St. Luke 24: 36-49, especially these verses:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, ⁴⁶ and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, ⁴⁷ and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

When a man appears out of nowhere, who was dead, the first thing that comes to the Old Adam’s way of thinking: It’s a ghost!  So right away the Lord questions, does a spirit, a phantasm have flesh and bones? Yet He again appeared among the 12, flesh and bones.  He who needs no food eats and most importantly, no ghost has wounds. In the movie “Ghost”, the ghost, played by Patrick Swayze comes back to his wife. He was brutally killed, this ghost had no wounds. He came back to get his murderer.   The Lord has the wounds of the Cross and is risen for the repentance of even murderers.  The Lord cares for His flesh and blood, that is our flesh and blood, and our spirits and minds.

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself (Jesus) likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵ and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”(Hebrews 2: 14-15)

Body and soul in the forgiveness He has won for all.  He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, He came that they might be fulfilled, all the promises of God fulfilled, which we cannot fulfill in a thousand lifetimes or reincarnations.  Now the Lord speaks of the entire Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets AND the Psalms, the Writings are fulfilled.  The  Scripture does not give eternal life, but they clearly, unmistakably, and without error point to Christ Jesus who does give eternal life, raising us up out of the mire and death of transgressions. 

 At the beginning of the written Gospels, Jesus tells Peter, James and John that from now on they would fish for men.  Now the risen Lord has given them the net:

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, ⁴⁷ and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” 

The Lord’s net is repentance and forgiveness of sins proclaimed in the Name of Jesus.  The chaotic far and wide sea and ocean is in deep turmoil, “all nations”, all the Gentiles.  Jesus sent the Apostles in the  huge Ninevah of this world.  The Lord’s will is all to be saved, to be fished out of the depths of the world, the flesh and the devil in His mercy  won for us all in His death and resurrection.  Jonah did not want to go to Ninevah as the Lord called him to preach.  The Lord went into Ninevah willingly.  Jonah was not executed.  The Author of life who carried all sin and death, was killed and was raised. 

Jesus taught that the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms are fulfilled in Him and are written about Him.  God is just.  He hates the sin but ever loves the sinner.  The Lord’s will is the just must of Christ Jesus bearing the sin of the  world upon the Cross. The three fold division of the Old Testament is the very pattern of Christ: 

In the Law of Moses, it is clear:  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  Deuteronomy 6:5 and equally clear is the text, “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself”, Leviticus 19: 18.  Jesus put those two passages together to sum up the 10 commandments, the vertical and the horizontal of the commandments and more:  In His Spirit and flesh they are put together perfectly, as He is true God and true man, perfect love that casts out all fear, for you. 

In the prophets, Isaiah saw the day of the One who would be the Suffering Servant.  The prophets of Israel were not treated well at all by Israelites.  They were thrown into cisterns, marked for death, killed, mocked and despised.  The false prophets who taught false doctrine were warmly  welcomed into the courts of the cultured despisers of the faith.  In Isaiah 52 and 53 is the depths of the prophecy of the Suffering Servant.  Luke 22: 37³⁷ For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.”  He cited Isaiah 53: 12.

In the Psalms:   When Jesus was upon the Cross, dying for your life here and to eternal life, He prayed Psalm 22: 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22 is clear: IN the depths of the rout of the world, the flesh and the devil, Jesus triumphed.  The Psalms foresaw the royal Davidide, the King descended from David would come forth and yet this King would be David’s King, and our as well, yet more than King:  Savior. 

Law of Moses, Prophets and Psalms are all the Word God fulfilled in Jesus Christ.   I do not need to have a Phd in theology to understand the Bible.  The usual lament about the Bible is that it is so difficult to understand.  The Bible is so plain. From today’s Epistle reading (1 John 3), Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. I get it. This practice does not make perfect, quite the opposite. Equally clear is godly repentance and sorrow over sin leads us ever to the Lord. Johann Gerhard preached this well:

Whoever preaches forgiveness of sins without preaching repentance is not holding to Christ’s command. For He sets both together: repentance and forgiveness of sins. Wherever there is a broken and shattered heart, there Christ wants to live, Isa. 57:15,wants to impart His blessings which He won through His death and resurrection. He, indeed, calls sinners to Himself, but [He calls them) to repent, Matt. 9:13. True repentance is the pathway by which sinners come to grace.

Isaiah 57: 15 is this Word:

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
    who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
    and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
    and to revive the heart of the contrite.

In Psalm 51, after David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and his sin was shown to him by the preaching of the Law by Nathan the prophet, David prayed:  “…a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (verse 17).  Out of the depths, the Lord can reach those who have been humbled by their wrong, when we repent.

In these earthen vessels the Lord pours out His mercy to us as His blood covers our sin and comes into these earthen vessels.  We are made His own to act as His own.  The Bible is clear:  You know the Lord is righteous, from today’s Epistle reading, “…you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.” We are born of Him. We are God’s children now.  His Word in our ears and hearts that we may share the vessel of His Word with others, our families, our co-workers, our friends, our colleagues…Abide in Him is the continual encouragement of the Word. Christ, and His unilateral redemption and salvation opens our hearts and minds to understand the Scripture and love and serve our neighbor. He opened their minds to understand Scripture, that all of the Bible points to Christ and undeserved grace, God’s grace in creating, redeeming and sanctifying us. Grace is sheer gift poured into our hearts, as the grace of God is key to the Bible.  Paul called us earthen vessels,not cracked pots, or crack pots (!). We hold stuff and we can hold the wrong stuff, but in repentance the turmoil of sin is gone, He filled us with the Holy Spirit.

Yes, there are Scripture passages that are hard to understand.  Luther wrote about not understanding Scripture passages:

To many people a great deal remains obscure; but that is due, not to any lack of clarity in Scripture, but to their own blindness and dullness, in that they make no effort to see truth which, in itself, could not be plainer.

A musician does not know and understand every piece of music, an artist every work of art, a chemist every equation, etc. but they can still all do their vocation well, as their understanding and love of their vocation increases. So can we as Christ’s communion and brethren.  We need to read the Bible daily because daily we need to be so fed by what we have read.  “I don’t have the time.”  If I can watch Big Bang theory for a half an hour, I have time for the Scripture.

The great orator of ancient Rome, Cicero said: “Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.”  This also is true regarding the Lord’s written word in the Bible. The Lord reads us like a book, and by His grace alone, He has written us into the Book of life, as we believe. In Jesus Christ, His Word in the Bible becomes the times of refreshing. Read to lead.  Read to lead and so serve someone who might be lost.  Read to lead to stay true to the way who is Jesus.  The task of the saved mind is simply put:  read to lead.
  

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2nd Sunday of Easter: Sermon @ Concordia Lutheran Mission

 “…He showed them His Hands and His side.”  (St. John 20: 20)

How did they know it was Jesus?  After all, He had risen from the dead, like a diver into water, Jesus could come into a locked room.  He was in His glorified body, denser and more real than the reality He created.  The disciples knew it was the Lord because He showed them His hands and His side, the wounds of the Cross, God’s wounds.  These were the scars of the Roman soldier who lanced Him in His side, and the mark of the spikes that nailed Him to the Cross.  I focus on the Lord’s pierced hands.

In the second congregation where I was the pastor, St. Matthew’s, built during the Great Depression, has great stained glass windows:  Jesus preaching, Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus healing. The now wounded hands of Christ Jesus had broken the bread and blessed the Cup. His hands blessed the children. They pointed to the Scripture as He read from the Torah in Nazareth’s synagogue.  So many times, He touched the sick and the suffering to heal and raise up.  He touched the funeral bier of the son of the Widow of Nain.   He lifted up His hands in prayer and in prayer folded them in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.  His hands lifted up in blessing.  His hands bound when He arrested.   In all the stained glasses you and I have seen in Sanctuaries, have you ever seen one stained glass in which Jesus is wielding a sword or a club, pointing at someone and yelling, making a fist…flipping the bird at someone?  Of course not, because Jesus never did so and His hands were so nailed to the Cross for what our hands have done and undone.

God’s Law commands us: Hands off!  Hands-off children for sex!  Hands off, abusing your child or spouse in abuse.  Hands off the merchandise, it’s not your.  Hands off the keyboard at the computer for porn.  Hands off  any unclean thing…and God does not make unclean things, we do.   And God’s Law points us beyond it’s necessary negative to protect us from ourselves and each other  to the positive:  hands on in love of God and love of neighbor.Hands to build, and not destroy, to write, to draw, to paint, to sew, to eat, to drink, to pray,to hold to care and protect, not to strike in hate or anger. yet, in this fallen world, we might have to pull a trigger, fight to defend against evil.  This is  the reason police and military are noble and needed vocations in the world.  We can so love and when we do not, and we preach so you may not sin, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.² He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2: 1)

Blessed are those who believe but have not seen.  How will those who have not seen believe?  By the Word the Apostles first preached, the Word of His Wounds, “…and with His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:  5), the very Wounds of God for men and women wounded in sin, mortally wounded.  The Elizabethans had it right in their expression, God’s Wounds. All the disciples knew it was the Lord when He showed them His hands and side.  We preach Christ’s Wounds, the indelible mark of our salvation.  His wounds are the sign of forgiveness and our wounds healed in His forgiveness can give witness to the crucified and risen Lord.  “…and with His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53). Wounds left uncared for will fester and become infected.  Even such a small wound untreated will become worse with infection.  Even when we think the trespass is no big thing, a mere peccadillo, we begin to think all wrong is such and it was not a mistake that the Lord went willingly to the Cross, but the sin of the world a world and its enormity, and  we can be much too much part of in its darkness. This meme is based upon a liberal church body’s slogan, God’s Work, Our Hands but this meme here is more like it.  It was the hands of so called justice that drove nails in and with the spite and venom of us all, biting and devouring each other.  We do not know our good works, we know alone God’s good work:  His Son’s death and resurrection alone.  In sign language, the sign for Jesus is:

The Church’s sign as well.

We do not need a Cross tattooed to our bodies to be reminded of the grace of the crucified and risen Lord forgiving us. Our wounds leave scars, body and soul.  Our wounds healed in the Lord’s forgiveness are trophies of the Lord’s grace for each and every one us.  Our wounds are a sermon of His forgiveness for us.  The disciples fled from His Cross.  Peter denied Him three times.  Jesus did not come back to get them, to strike them with His hands but to show them His hands and His side, the wounds of their forgiveness and ours in His perfect patience.  He breathed on  the Apostles the Holy Spirit with the charge to forgive the repentant, and to retain the sins of those not repentant so they may turn to the Lord again, abounding in steadfast love.  The breath of the Holy Spirit is the Word of the Gospel, His forgiveness as His hands show forth the proof of His Word.

What binds us together as Christ’s Church is not our shared spiritual experiences.  “We are bound together by faith, not by experience.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).  Jesus Christ binds us together, the Word made flesh.  When even well-meaning Christians attempt to bind a congregation in their best life now, the only thing that happens is, we are in a bind. When we sin, we have the Advocate with the Father, and it’s not us!  The Lord gave the Holy Spirit to the disciples so that the fruit of Christ’s suffering, crucifixion and death could be distributed.  The fruit is His forgiveness by His grace, mercy and peace in God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

This forgiveness is hands-on.  Jesus sent His apostles.  Jesus hands on His hands-on forgiveness to Thomas as well in the good confession: My Lord and my God, the entirety of the 2nd Article of the Creed in a nutshell.  1 John 1: 1:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life…

This is the apostolic witness.  Jesus is our  Advocate when we sin and word “advocate” in Greek is “paraclete”, another Name for the Holy Spirit. Paraclete also means “Comforter”.  Jesus has brought the wounds of the Cross into heaven itself.  His Blood is the “propitiation”, the atonement for, “…the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2)  Not just some sins, but all trespass, and not limited to the elect but for all so that many believe and be saved.

The Lord is patient as we see in His resurrection as He sought the lost, the afraid and mourning disciples.  1 Corinthians 13:  “Love is patient“.   1 Timothy 1, the Apostle Paul ids himself as the “foremost of sinners” who persecuted the Church, so that , “…Jesus might display His perfect patience“.  The Apostle Peter wrong in his second letter, chapter 3, verse 9:

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

The word is Greek for patience is “makrothumia” and is better translated in the King James:  long-suffering.  “Macro”, opposite of “micro”, long and thumia, suffering.  The Lord suffered long in His life upon earth and the risen Lord, bearing the wounds, still long-suffers for us.  He has made us His own.

Luther:  “Whoever touches a Christian believer touches the apple of God’s eye”.  When I was in Jerusalem, our Israeli guide, Ari, at every site associated with Jesus, the Ascension, the Garden of Gethsemane,would tell our group, “This is an authentic site of Jesus”.  We do not have to go to Jerusalem for authentic sites of Jesus.  You are. Where the Baptized are, the Holy Communion shared, the forgiveness of sins extended, when one repents and returns to the Lord our God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love: these are all authentic sites of Jesus Christ.  His hands-on forgiveness and with Him faith, hope and love, marks us as His own, so we out of pure faith love as He first loved us.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Tuesday in Holy Week: Christ Proclaims He Will Be Lifted Up

 

COLLECT OF THE DAY:

Almighty and everlasting God,grant us by Your grace so to pass through this holy time of our Lord’s passion that we may obtain the forgiveness of our sins; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord,who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

READINGS:

Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 71:1-14;  1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (26-31);   John 12:23-50

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  ^“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”-John 12: 32

Reflection:  Congregations, churches, pastors, priests fret over the question:  how do we attract new members?  What is our “draw”?  I have  asked that question and that is more than a simple admission, it is more like a confession.  Is it our choir? Our youth program?  Our peppy service?  Our warm and welcoming people?  Our meals on wheels?  etc. etc. etc.  All those things can be fruit of the Gospel but they are not the Vine from whence comes the fruit, see John 15:5.  There is only one “draw” in the Church, for the life of His world and you in His new creation:  Jesus Christ. The Greek word for “draw” is figurative of the pull on a man’s inner life, usually called the soul, the heart, the mind, that is, body and soul.    The Greek word in it’s more pedestrian sense means to haul, drag, draw something, such as a sword.   The crucified true man and true God compels, draw forth men and women to Himself.  Sadly, many will simply walk away from the crucified Lord, thinking they can get by.  But to those who confess they are dead, Christ gives life to those in the tombs .  Jesus had said to Nicodemus that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so will the Son of Man be lifted up,John 3:14. The Israelites were biting and devouring in each other and complaining against God and His anointed, Moses.  God appointed poisonous snakes to bite and devour them, as an outward sign of their inward, soul sin.  Moses prayed.  The Lord said take a bronze serpent and lift it up in the middle of the camp and whoever looks upon will be healed.  If you were dying this would be compelling and draw you forth.  The bronze serpent was not magic but God attached His Word of promise to that snake.  Upon the Cross it was the Word made flesh, nailed to the Cross, Incarnate and the beginning of the fulfillment of the Incarnation to draw off the poison of the dying.  Compelling.

“When I study God’s Word, I find that Christ not only has the form of a serpent without venom;  but I also feel a power in Him which will cure me of venom…Even a cow could stare at the serpent—but how could that help her?…It was not an angel, a principality, or any of the world’s mighty who became incarnate and died for us—no, both the angelic and the human nature would have been too weak—but it was the divine nature that assumed humanity. It was Christ who adopted our flesh and blood that we might be saved through Him.”(Luther)

In the verse John 3:14 and in this one for Holy Monday, Jesus used the word “lifted up”.   People manufacture “worship experiences” to give an emotional “lift” in order to “draw” people to church.  From what I have seen, read and heard, the centrality of the Crucified is diminished and can disappear. Christ Jesus can no longer draw people to Himself.  This is not Biblical.  It is written that our preaching IS, not “was”, Christ and Him Crucified (1 Corinthians 1:22-24).  H0ly Baptism is into His Crucifixion and Resurrection (Romans 6:2-4 ; Colossians 2:10-12 ).  Holy Communion is the preaching of the Lord’s Death (1 Corinthians 11:26). In His Body given unto death is our life:  ALONE.    The Cross stands at the center, radiating out, Christ Jesus embracing us in His forgiveness.  And so the Christians from almost day one would trace the Sign of the Cross over their bodies.  And so the cathedrals in Europe were cross-shaped.  Crosses and crucifixes hang about our necks and adorn our walls. He draws us with our heavy hearts, hearts burden with cares and worries, with iniquity.  Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord. He who was lifted up can lift us up in, by and with  the utter grace of His forgiveness.   He is the Draw Who alone saves.

He bows His head on the timber-trunk of the cross to kiss us in love. He stretches out His arms in order to embrace us in love. He prays for His crucifiers because He suffered out of love for them. His side is opened up with a spear so that the flame of heartfelt love might break forth from it, “so that we through the wound’s opening may behold the mystery of the heart.” In love He longs for us, and thus He said: I thirst [that is,] for your salvation.”By Your struggle-unto-death and Your bloody sweat, help us dear Lord God.” (Pr. and Prof. Johann Gerhard)

O Lord Jesus Christ, You are the One who became a curse on the timber-trunk of the cross for us. Make us partakers of this divine blessing. Let Your holy blood flow over us so that we thereby are washed of our sins and are given to drink of eternal life. O You eternal High Priest, let Your intercession redound to our good, so that in the power of the same we may benefit from Your holy suffering and may obtain forgiveness of sins. Amen.

(Prayer by Johann Gerhard)

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