190224 Sermon on Luke 8:4-15 (Sexagesima) February 24, 2019

190224 Sermon on Luke 8:4-15 (Sexagesima) February 24, 2019

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he was arrested and brought to the chief priest’s house.  St. Peter followed at a distance and when Jesus entered the house, Peter stood in the courtyard, warming himself by a charcoal fire.  While he was standing there someone recognized him as being one of Jesus’s disciples.  And so she asked him, “Aren’t you one of Jesus’s disciples?”  And he said, “No.”  Then he was asked again, “You are one of Jesus’s disciples though, aren’t you?”  And again he said, “No.”  Finally they said, “But I can tell from your accent that you are a Galilean, you must be one of Jesus’s disciples.”  Then Peter swore, saying, “I do not know the man.” 

Peter had talked big about sticking with Jesus, come what may, but after Jesus was arrested, fear seized him.  He did not also want to be arrested and killed and so he cursed, swore, lied, and deceived in God’s name that he had nothing to do with Jesus.  Prior to this he had certainly believed.  In fact his fervent love for Jesus is clearly evident.  But now in the courtyard he is an unbeliever.

This goes to show that nobody is safe because of some imagined strength in the individual.  If anyone should have had the ability to retain his faith, then it should have been Peter.  He had been bold and courageous and all the other apostles looked up to him.  But he lost his faith here in the courtyard.  Likewise this can happen to anyone of us, and frankly it does happen.  None of us are safe until we close our eyes in death with the word of “Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner,” on our lips.  The forces against us and our Christian faith are strong and no joking matter. 

The only real history that counts is not about politics or progress or the other things you might find in history textbooks.  The only history that counts is the way that the Word of God has fared among certain peoples, families, and individuals, and this history is full of people who once believed, but in one way or another lost their faith.  Something happens along the way, just as we hear about Peter’s fall, and Christ is no longer confessed.  Without faith in Christ the forgiveness of sins is not received.  If such people are not converted again, then upon their death they will receive the just punishment for their sins in hell.

This extremely grave and serious matter is what Jesus takes up with his parable today.  Because we are familiar with this teaching we easily become complacent.  We know how the parable works and so we imagine that we understand it.  But we must realize that eternal lives are at stake.  This parable deals with the decisive factor of history sifting all people and every individual: What happens when people hear the Word of God?  Some believe.  Some don’t.  Some believe for a while, then fall away.  Some believe, but then the cares, riches, and pleasures of life choke it out.  Then there are some who endure and produce fruit.  The Holy Spirit rules their hearts and minds so that they are enabled constantly to serve God.  Jesus Christ becomes a living fountain in them, bubbling up more and more, unto eternal life. 

At the end of the history of this old world, there will be a story about each and every one of us.  The story of our earthly life will consist of stumbling, falling, and (God willing) getting back up again.  The reason why Jesus tells us this parable today is so that we can become wise, fear God, and be warned and strengthened for the battle of the Word of God for possession of our soul that lies ahead for each of us.  Opposed to the Word of God are the devil, the world, and even, mysteriously, our very own sinful flesh.  Jesus’s parable is about the fight that takes place in a person’s soul between good and evil.

And so let us get into it.  First is the soil that is along the path.  This soil is compacted and the seed doesn’t really have a chance.  The birds of the heavens come and gobble it up, lest it should sprout and grow.  Jesus says that these are those who hear the Word but it does not sink in.  Demons prevent it from happening.  These are people who hear God’s commandments and threats of punishment, but they do not fear.  They hear of the redemption and salvation that is worked for all people in Jesus Christ, but it changes nothing.  They go on living their lives according to their own lights.

Just as God’s goal for us is that the Word of God should have its way with us and that we should produce fruit, in like manner the goal for the devil and the demons is that our hearts should become stony and cold and hard.  The goal for them is that we should not be moved by anything.  Threats and punishments bounce off.  The love of God in Christ makes no impression.  For them life is about something else.  Their thoughts and actions that make up their life might involve noble and high goals and achievements.  Such people might cure cancer or bring about world peace.  But they have no love for Christ who died for them.  They remain under the devil’s thumb.

The second type of soil describes those who undergo persecution.  Everyone who believes in Christ is going to undergo persecution.  We might not yet be killed in this country, but that is certainly not unheard of elsewhere.  But even if we are not killed or physically harmed, we still must undergo the scorn or ridicule or belittlement of friends, family, or false brothers and sisters in the congregation if we hold to the truthfulness of our Christian convictions.  The devil’s goal with persecution is always that fear, shame, and other intense disagreeable emotions would turn us away from confessing the truth. 

The example of Peter with which we began shows us this.  Fear and shame silenced him at first, and then eventually he outright denies Christ altogether.  We face this difficulty when people challenge us about the truth.  There are many ways this might happen.  They might say to us that God’s Word isn’t that important, or that it’s not reliable, or that something God has said isn’t actually true but outdated or harmful.  Confrontations are always unpleasant, and so we’d like to avoid them.  But these spiritual confrontations are more important than even physical conflicts like war, because these confrontations have to do with the soul and eternity.  Therefore we must pluck up our courage and open our mouths, regardless of the consequences. 

When we do not fight against lies, but instead remain silent, the fall has already begun—as we see with Peter.  That’s because the course is already being set where we are no longer desiring the praise of God, but rather the praise of our fellow human beings.  This is an intense, difficult, and dangerous struggle.  Jesus pictures that with the hot sun beating down upon the soil.  If there is no root, the plant will burn up and die.

Challenges to our faith, to say the right word, are intense and require courage.  Supposing we maintain our courage and our convictions, what then?  Then come the weeds of desires.  They start out small.  They grow over time.  They are never enough to choke out the life of faith at the start, but inevitably if they are not resisted, they will take over the entire garden.  The hot sun of persecution is the devil’s short game.  The weeds of cares, riches, and pleasures are his long game.  Slowly, ever so slowly, he nurses along what our flesh is already predisposed to prefer over the Christian life of sacrifice and love.  Discipline is gone and so the garden turns shabby.  At some point the crop is lost.  It’s hard to say just when.  And that works to the devil’s favor.  If we can’t tell just when our greed and lust will choke out our faith, then our flesh sees an advantage for itself.  If we can’t tell just when the cares, riches, and pleasure of life will choke out the Christian faith, then we might as well indulge these lusts up to but not past the point where we are no longer Christians.  Then we could have our cake and eat it too.  We could live for pleasure and not for love, but still go the heaven. 

But this is awful logic, particularly because it seems like it should work.  Fish might nibble at bait that is offered to them, and as every fisherman knows, sometimes they get a tasty meal without getting caught.  Likewise we can nibble at the cares, pleasures, and riches of life—disregarding sacrifice and love—and might get away with it for a time.  But somewhere in that bait is the devil’s hook.  And the trouble with all that tasting of it is that it only creates a hankering for more, until before you know it all our sacrificing and love are gone.  We produce no fruit.  We are living for ourselves.  Although we might remain members in good standing of the Christian congregation, we no longer care about the Gospel.  There is an honoring of God with the lips, but the heart is far from him.

Finally, the fourth type of soil are those who upon hearing the Word, hold it fast with an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience.  Being a Christian is much more a matter of standing and enduring, rather than wiping out all our enemies once and for all and being done with them.  We’d, of course, like that because then we wouldn’t need to continue to fight and work.  But overcoming the challenges that come with the Christian life is like doing the dishes.  As soon as you are done with them, they only get dirty again.  Likewise, the challenges to our faith do not stop until we lay down our heads in death.  Over and over again Christians are put to the test with persecution.  They are constantly annoyed by their sinful flesh which is always pulling them away from their first love of Christ.  But by God’s grace they endure these things. 

Therefore, Christians have their battle stories to tell.  The story is not of their own fortitude or strength or greatness, but the abiding love of God towards them—strengthening them when the stand, and picking them up when they fall.  What becomes abundantly clear with all the things that come in the Christian life is that we are dependent upon God’s mercy.  The Word of God is a precious thing that over and over again brings us to repentance and through faith in Jesus we receive the divine and almighty power of salvation—the forgiveness of sins that Jesus worked through his death and his resurrection.  The Christian story is the story of the sowing of the seed.  The word of God comes and does its work.

And so from Jesus’s parable today we can learn something important—especially in our day.  People think that being a Christian is the easiest thing in the world, that it’s no big deal, that seemingly nobody loses their faith, or ends up in hell if they have made some vague commitment to being a Christian.  But the truth is as the hymn writer puts it: “I walk in danger all the way.”  Jesus tells us this parable to warn us so that we are not complacent and apathetic when it comes to the Word of God.  If St. Peter was able to fall, then certainly each of us can also fall.  God was gracious to him and Jesus restored him to faith, but that is not something we should assume will always happen.  That would be tempting God.  Instead, we should learn from what Jesus actually teaches us in our parable.  Pay attention to the Word of God and do not think of it as a small matter.  In it is the Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.  Hear it with glad and open hearts, hold fast to that promise—applying it to yourself, and do not let anything get in the way of it.  Nothing is more important that the Word concerning the Son of God who became Man, suffered, died, and rose again for the salvation of sinners.

190217 Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16 (Septuagesima), February 17, 2019

190217 Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16 (Septuagesima), February 17, 2019

“What’s in it for me?”  That is a question that comes oh-so-naturally to us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.  “What’s in it for me?”  Sinful human beings are somewhat willing to sacrifice, work, and suffer, but only if there is a handsome payoff for all of that at the end.  If there isn’t a payoff, or the payoff isn’t as big as we want it to be, then good luck getting someone to sacrifice, work, or suffer. 

The only other way that the sinner is going to be impelled to work in that case is by fear.  Every kid knows what it’s like to be put to work on the basis of fear.  Mom or Dad or both are going to make my life miserable if I don’t do what they told me to do, and so I will do it.  How does it feel to work under those conditions?  Don’t they just hate doing it, and can’t wait to be done with it?  That’s because the only thing that we sons of Adam and daughters of Eve care about is what’s in it for us.  If we can avoid pain or be handsomely rewarded with money or glory or praise or self-esteem or some other payoff, then we might do something unpleasant.  Otherwise, it’s “no thank you.”

Suppose God thought the way that we do.  What’s in it for him with all the things that he does every moment in sustaining the universe?  The answer is nothing.  He isn’t benefited in any way.  But he is not slavish like us.  He is free.  He has his head up looking around.  He gives and gives and gives and gives.  He does this in spite of the way that he is paid back.  If he only did good to those who do him good, then even the very best and pious Christians would find that they have no help or comfort from God because they wouldn’t deserve it.  And what of those who are less than the best—are disobedient, unbelieving, unthankful?  If they were paid tit for tat they would have no happiness and only misery.  Life would be hell for them.  But God is patient and long suffering, desiring that his goodness might bring us to repentance.  He loads up even those who hate him with all kinds of good things.  God is love.  He is not motivated by what is in it for him.  He suffers so that we are benefitted.

There are a couple of Jesus’s parables that throw a spotlight on this difference between God who loves and we who don’t.  These parables are the one we find perplexing, because our Old Adam can’t understand them at all.  Our Gospel reading this morning is one of them.  There’s something that doesn’t sit quite right with us in the way that these workers are treated.  Some are hired at 6 o’clock in the morning.  Some are hired at 9:00.  Some are hired at noon and at 3:00.  Finally, some are hired at 5:00, one hour before quitting time.  You know how work is.  It takes you a little bit to get in the swing of things, and then at the end of the day you need to pick things up.  This doesn’t allow these last workers to get hardly any work done.  And yet they receive the same amount of money as the people who have been working all day long.

What gives?  Guess what happened the next day when the master of the house went strolling through the marketplace looking for workers?  If word got out what was going on he probably wouldn’t find anybody until 5:00.  Then he would have a busload of workers.  Why?  Because we are driven by the thought: “What’s in it for me?”  If I can get paid the same for working one hour or twelve hours, I think I’ll choose the one hour option.

But this is only because we don’t care about anybody else except ourselves.  This is proof that those workers don’t give a rip about the master of the house who hired them or the work that he might need to have done.  They wouldn’t care that they aren’t contributing anything, but only taking, so long as they get what they want. 

This is why it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.  Employers don’t give a rip about their employees and so they squeeze them for everything they possibly can.  Employees don’t give a rip about their bosses, and so they will do as little as they can—just enough to keep the boss off their back.  Or maybe if they have some self-respect, they’ll do more than the rest, but only so that they can have the payoff of praise or self-righteousness.  If the work should become harder or if they don’t feel sufficiently appreciated, then they will say, “See you later!” and move on to someplace else that holds better prospects of giving them what they want.  Because all any sinner cares about is, “What’s in it for me?”

Most people, and perhaps a goodly number of you included, do not think that this is sin.  But this is the root sin that corresponds to the root of God’s Law.  As St. Paul says, all the commandments are summed up with the one word of “love.”  God is love, and that is why he gives and gives and gives and gives some more.  And so there is nothing more wrong about us than that we don’t care about other people except ourselves and perhaps those select few whom we choose to also care about.  But Jesus says, “Love your enemies.”  Enemies are people who are out to get you and to hurt you.  “Love those,” Jesus says.

Again, most people are going to reject this because they hate God’s Law.  They think that it is unrealistic.  They might even think that it is dumb or evil because it tells us to always give.  If you are always giving, then that might hamper your quality of life.  It might even shorten the length of your life.  People who are always giving get worn out and used up.  This is good and holy in God’s sight because it is the way that we are conformed to the image of God’s Son.  Jesus loved and so he gave, until there was nothing left.  Blessed are those people who are his disciples, who learn from him, and follow him.  But the world doesn’t think of that as being blessed.  It sounds like a lot of work without any payoff.

At the heart of why Jesus’s parable is perplexing is that the supreme wisdom of the natural Man is taken down.  There is no more highly prized bit of wisdom to us as sinners than that we should try to get as much as we can for ourselves with as little effort as possible.  It is offensive to the natural Man, therefore, that there are workers who suffered more and did not get paid more.  According to the Old Adam that is either stupid or evil. 

What the Gospel teaches us, however, is that neither the work nor the reward is the main thing.  Our flesh is always drawn to pay close attention to both these things.  But what is important and life-changing for these workers in the vineyard is not that they are going to get filthy stinking rich.  Rather the main thing is that they were chosen by the master of the house.  They had been standing in the marketplace as worthless pieces of trash—standing idle, caring only about themselves, knowing nothing of love, deserving of nothing but punishment—but the master of the house has called them unto himself: “Come, and be mine,” he says.

Likewise, the main thing for us as Christians is the call that we have received from God to be his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve him with everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.  Each and everyone one of you has been called to be God’s own.  Each of you have been spoken to by God.  You have all been baptized.  You have all been united with Christ.  That is God saying to you, “Come, and be mine.  Come, and work in my vineyard.”  I said the word “work” and your Old Adam might immediately protest, “I don’t want to work!” but don’t be fooled—that is not where the emphasis lies.  The emphasis is on the word, “Come.  Come, and be mine.” 

It’s like when Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  Come.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Jesus speaks of “work” here too with the word “yoke.”  A yoke is that piece of equipment that animals use to pull stuff—to do heavy work—but the emphasis obviously is on the invitation to fellowship with him.  The yoke will follow as a matter of course, but it will be found to be easy and light.  That is not because what Christians do is not difficult or dangerous.  To the contrary!  But the joy that we have in God our Savior renews the spirit and makes difficult thing easy and bitter things sweet so long as we don’t give in to our Old Adam.  This is part of the transformation of our hearts and minds that the Holy Spirit works in us so that we are made different from this old, evil, selfish world and begin to covet those true treasures which rust and moth cannot destroy, and thieves cannot break in and steal.

Those who by the Holy Spirit know the goodness of being called into the vineyard of the Lord are not going to begrudge that joyous thing to anyone.  If someone is a Christian his or her whole life, then this is a cause for rejoicing.  If someone is brought to repentance for sin and is saved from hell only moments before their death, then Christians will rejoice then too.  What matters is not the work or the suffering of the enduring of persecution, but that the love of God has been poured into our heart and Christians are glad to see that happen also for another.  In the parable all the workers receive a denarius.  They all get the same thing.  The reward for Christians is the crown of everlasting life of fellowship with God who is Love.  There is nothing more or higher or better that can be given than that.

At the end of Jesus’s parable today he says, “The last will be first, and the first last.”  This contradicts the way that we normally think.  According to our thinking the last will be last and the first will be first.  In a similar way we might think that those Christians who work more or suffer more should receive higher wages.  But Christians themselves will tell you that it is not the work or the suffering or the hope of reward that they are care so much about.  They treasure the call to be God’s own.  God has loved them and therefore called them.  They now love because he first loved us and want to be with him.  Something inevitable that goes along with this is enduring the attacks of the devil and the world who hate them, but that is not the main thing.  The main thing is being together with Jesus.

And so as Christians we need to learn new ways of thinking that are different from the ways that we might think by nature.  The mentality that asks, “What’s in it for me?” is the reason why this world is torn apart by greed, lust, divorce, frustration, bitterness, sadness, and a whole host of other evils.  The world knows nothing of genuine love, even though it chatters about love unceasingly.  Those who think that the highest wisdom of life is the accumulation of pleasure and riches will be offended by Jesus’s parable.  It won’t seem fair that although the experiences of Christians differ, and some have it harder than others, that they are all made equal receiving the same reward. 

But only caring about yourself and your own interests is not the supreme wisdom.  The devil and sinners are dead wrong.  Love is better wisdom and it will finally prevail.  In this world it might seem as though the opposite of love is what is going to get you ahead, but that is false already in this life.  The apostles and martyrs who died because they loved Jesus did not live bad lives.  The lived the best of lives.  It is foolish to want to live differently than them.  We should covet their zeal and love, for these are treasures that will not be destroyed at the end of the world.  Everything else will.

The supreme wisdom of love also continues into the life of the world to come, in heaven, love will fill everything as St. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.  Meanwhile in hell those who are only looking out for themselves and their own interests will be tearing each other apart.  All the restraints God places on our lives in this world to keep people’s lusts in check (and there are many of them), will be taken away.  We live in a dog-eat-dog world, but hell is a dog-eat-dog world where nothing is held back. 

Jesus tells his parables so that we can learn from them and become wise according to the true wisdom.  The world’s wisdom of self-interest is false.  The better wisdom of love will prevail over everything. 

190210 Sermon on Matthew 17:1-9 (Transfiguration), February 10, 2019

190210 Sermon on Matthew 17:1-9 (Transfiguration), February 10, 2019

Glory is something that is very important and yet it is something that is hard to understand.  What is glory?  We’ll get to God’s glory, but let’s start with glory among us.  Glory is when a person is set apart and made praiseworthy because of something about them.  An athlete achieves glory and is given praise when he or she is better than the rest of the competitors.  The scholar achieves glory and is given praise when a scholarship or award is given.  A rich person is glorious in the display of treasures that sets him or her apart from those who can’t afford such things.  Glory makes a person different and praiseworthy.

What is the glory, then, that God has?  He is set apart and different.  He is worthy of praise.  He is the most powerful.  He is wisest.  All wealth does not really belong to any person, because each will die and it will go to somebody else.  God alone possesses it all.  This makes him glorious, set apart, and worthy of all praise because nothing is good except him.

What effect does glory have on the person who is beholding it?  Again, we might see this better if we first consider the glory of human beings.  When we come into the presence of someone whom we know as having more glory than us we become bashful.  If we aren’t sure that they have more glory than us, then we might compete with them, hoping to have more glory than they have.  But when we are sure that they have more glory than us, then we become reserved and deferential.  Someone who is poor, for example, might become embarrassed of their poverty when they come into the presence of someone rich, because the richness of the one brings attention to what is lacking in the other.

This might help us understand a little bit better what is going on when people come into the presence of God’s glory.  The surpassing goodness of God brings into sharp contrast what is lacking in us.  This is what we see in the Bible, without fail.  Whenever the fullness of the glory of God is beginning to be made known the people who see it are deeply affected. 

There are many examples of this, including our readings for today, but we can see this effect in a special way with Moses on Mt. Sinai.  Moses boldly asked God once, “Show me your glory,” but God said to him, “No one can see God and live.”  But so that Moses could get an idea of God’s glory he shunted him away in the cleft of a rock, shielding his glory from Moses with his hand as he passed by, and Moses was allowed to look after he had passed by.  Even though Moses did not fully see God’s glory, it had a lasting effect on him.  When he came down from the mountain his face glowed with the reflected glory of God.  The people couldn’t stand to look at him and so he put a veil over his face and would only take it off when he went to speak with God.  Here you see the power of God’s glory, and it was not even the fullness of his glory, but only his backside.

Now consider the final destiny of all people and every individual, including you.  Job says that he knows that his Redeemer lives and at the last he shall see him face to face with his very own resurrected eyes.  The glory of the Lord is coming to you.  This is not something that is boring.  Rather, it is precisely the absolute opposite of that.  There is nothing more stupendous, terrifying, amazing, mind-boggling, exciting—and maybe we can wrap all these words into one: there is nothing more glorious than to be in the presence of the living God.

Experiencing the glory of God is the major theme that runs through all history including each of you and this present day, and we see this clearly taught in the Bible from beginning to end.  In the beginning, Adam and Eve were created in God’s image.  They were by no means as glorious as God.  They were less than him.  But they were also compatible with God.  They did not feel ashamed when the thought of him and his glory came to mind.  They took delight in God even as God took delight in them.

This, however, was horribly marred by sin.  After Adam and Eve sinned they did not want to be together with God.  They ran away from him.  They were now in need of redemption, which God promised to provide for them in the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head.  From this point on, because of the marring effect of sin, Adam and Eve and all their children could no longer see God and live.  There was no longer fellowship and communion with God by sight, but only by faith, and this faith is notoriously weak as we can see in all of God’s people from the beginning until now.  It is not until the sin in us is dead by virtue of the fact of us dying, and being transformed by the resurrection from the dead in Jesus that we will once again be partakers of the fullness of God’s glory like Adam and Eve were before they sinned.

In the meantime, before we are transformed by the resurrection of our bodies, we are nursed along by God as we see in the Old and the New Testaments.  In the Old Testament God hid his glory in the tabernacle and later the temple, but the people were given access to him and his glory to strengthen and preserve them in their faith.  The Law that Moses received on Mt. Sinai taught the people how they could live together with God and his glory without being harmed by it, because they were sanctified by the sacrifices God prescribed for them.

The Old Testament was preparation and a foreshadowing of what would come with the New Testament.  The sacrifices and blood of animals would be replaced by the one and only great atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross.  He was punished in our place for the sins that we have committed, having taken them upon himself.  The price of our redemption from the serpent was God’s own beloved Son.  It is by his death and resurrection that we have the sure and certain hope of seeing God in all his glory and being blessed by the radiance of that Sun instead of being scorched and burned as we otherwise would be with all our sin.  The warmth of that Sun has healing in its wings and we shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.  Meanwhile the wicked shall be burned like stubble.

Between that first Easter and the culmination of all these great things with Christ’s second coming, God continues to nurse us along with his New Testament just as he did in the Old.  He gives us his glory—not in its raw, naked power, which would destroy us—but clothed, so that we may be strengthened and preserved in our faith by it.  And so God has given us the washing of rebirth and regeneration in holy baptism by which we are united with Christ in his saving death and anticipate our resurrection with him.  This is a truly glorious thing even if it goes unrecognized by the scoffers and unbelievers who think that it is nothing.

God gives us the glory of Christ’s own body and Christ’s own blood united with the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.  Jesus himself calls this the “new testament” that is given and shed for the forgiveness of all our sins and for the remembrance of Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross.  Those who receive this sacrament worthily, that is, by faith in Jesus’s words, are greatly benefited by this contact with the glory of God.  Those who receive this sacrament unworthily are scorched and harmed by it as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11.  God’s glory as it is communicated in the sacraments are no play thing to be taken lightly.

Thus we see in the New Testament that God nurses us along with his glory.  He does not do this with tents, tabernacles or temples.  He does it by the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.  The proclamation can be done with words alone as Christians testify to their hope in Jesus, or it can be in the form of the sacraments which God has given to us to receive his glory and to be enriched by it.  This nursing along of our faith has taken place from the first preaching of the Gospel in the Garden of Eden and will last until the end of the world.  The whole reason for this preaching is so that one day our faith may be replaced by sight and we can behold the full glory of God in heaven.  This is the salvation that we are speaking about when we speak of Jesus as our Savior.

What we have been talking about today with God’s glory and the way that he communicates that glory to us is relevant to our topic today, which is Christ’s transfiguration.   Here we see Jesus transformed in his appearance.  The glory that he has as the eternally begotten Son of God shines through, and Peter, James, and John see what was otherwise hidden.  Jesus speaks to Moses and Elijah, the two great figures from the Old Testament.  Moses represents the Law.  Elijah represents the prophets.  Both of them point to Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s revelation.

Upon seeing this glory St. Peter has a pretty reasonable suggestion from an Old Testament point of view.  He knows that he is seeing God’s glory before him just as the Israelites saw God’s glory being manifested at Mt. Sinai.  He comes up with a way to keep that glory around and suggests tents or tabernacles—one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus.  He’d like to make this situation more permanent because he recognizes that this is something good that is happening before them.

But he isn’t even done speaking when the Father interrupts him.  Peter’s plan won’t do.  This man Jesus is God’s beloved Son with whom he is well pleased.  The Father is well pleased with the Son not just as he goes from triumph to triumph and is praised and lauded by the people like he was on Palm Sunday.  The Father is also well pleased with the Son when he is abandoned by everyone, is spit upon, mocked, and nailed to the cross.  Jesus was not going to sit in a tent or a tabernacle to be worshipped that way.  He was going to be glorified (as Jesus says several times) when he was lifted up upon the cross, dying for the sins of the whole world.

The Father says to Peter, James, and John, “Listen to him.”  “Listen to Jesus.”  It might be relevant what happened just before the transfiguration.  Just before this is when Peter tells Jesus that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Jesus gives him the name “Peter” for his good confession.  But then Jesus tells them how it is necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, be mistreated by the authorities, suffer, be crucified, and die, and be raised on the third day.  This is when Peter is given the awful name of “Satan” when he discourages Jesus from such a course of action.

Perhaps when the Father tells these men to listen to Jesus he is telling them to put aside whatever thoughts of glory they might have or how they think God ought to be worshipped.  Jesus is going to be glorified and should be worshipped when he is on the cross, in agony and sadness and despair, for that is where the love of God for you is made manifest.  His greatest glory is not so much just in the way that he is more powerful than everything else, but in the depth of his love for you, and the lengths that he goes to for your forgiveness and salvation.

When the bright cloud overshadowed these men and the voice spoke to them they fell to the ground.  I think our translation might be a little bland when it says that they were “terrified.”  It was more than that.  They were extremely, extremely terrified.  They were so frightened that they almost died.  The glory of the Lord brought out all that was so sorely lacking in them.  But then when it was all over they lifted their eyes and saw Jesus only.

That is a good word for us to end on today.  Although I’ve spoken a lot about God’s glory today, I don’t really understand it.  There is no way for us to understand it until we experience it.  And even then, I’m of the opinion that it will take eternity to begin to understand it.  But what is really necessary is that we focus on Jesus only.  If we look to him, the Good Shepherd, then we will not go wrong.  Sheep do not understand what the shepherd is doing, and we won’t understand everything about God and his glory.  But as the Father say, “Listen to Jesus.”  In another place Jesus says, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me.  They hear my voice and follow me.”

Great, magnificent, mind-blowing things are in store for each one of us.  The glory of God awaits us.  That can be a frightening thing.  But Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.  Follow me.”

190203 Sermon on Matthew 8:23-27 (Epiphany 4) February 4, 2019

190203 Sermon on Matthew 8:23-27 (Epiphany 4) February 4, 2019.mp3

Our Gospel reading this morning is one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible.  Put yourself into the shoes of these disciples.  They start making their way across the sea, which presumably is not too big of a deal for them.  We know that several of them were commercial fishermen before they left their nets to follow Jesus, so they knew what they were doing.  Everything was going fine when suddenly a great wind arose and enormous waves came with it.  The Sea of Galilee is a very large body of water and so it is capable of producing enormous waves.  The boats that the disciples were in were made accordingly for that.  These people didn’t go to the trouble and expense of making a boat only to have it sink.  Their boats were large—made for the conditions a person might find on such body of water.  And yet, the waves were such that they began to go over the side and started to slosh around the bottom of the boat.

This is a very bad thing to have happen at such a time as this.  The more water that goes into the boat, the heaver it becomes, the lower it goes in the water, and the easier it is for more waves to start to pour in.  And that seems to be exactly what was happening.  Water was coming over the side and the boat was being filled up.  There’s so much water coming in that there’s no use in trying to bail it out.  In only a moment or two the boat would sink below the water and the men would be forced to swim.  But there would be no way that they could stay afloat.  Waves that are high enough to sink one of those boats are surely great enough to swallow up a man.  So when these men say to Jesus, “Save us, Lord, for we are perishing,” they say this because they really are dying.  In a matter of minutes they will be dead.  And so you can imagine that they might have been a lot of screaming and yelling, “We are dying!”

We are confronted with two strange facts at this point that we will get back to when we finish our story.  First, Jesus was sleeping through all this being tossed about by the waves and all the rest of the commotion.  I guess that goes to show that he truly was tired.  Second, it is also strange what he says upon being awakened.  Before he even got out of his bed he said to these frantic men, “Why are you afraid, Oh you of little faith!”  If a person shouldn’t be afraid when their boat is sinking in a terrible wind storm in the middle of the sea, then when should a person be afraid?

But Jesus has mercy on the men.  He gets up and rebukes the wind and the sea.  That means that Jesus tells the wind and the sea to knock it off.  Amazingly, the wind and the sea listen to him.  Immediately the wind stops.  Once a wind stops it doesn’t take long at all for waves to stop too.  The apostles say that a great calm came over the whole place.  Maybe you folks who have gone to the lakes in the north woods know what this is like.  When there is no wind at all the lake can become like a sheet of glass and it is indeed very calm.  The change of circumstances had to have been almost overwhelming.  Seconds before they were all convinced that they were dying and they couldn’t keep their footing as the sinking boat was being tossed by the waves.  Now they are sitting still and nothing is moving.  They have gone from believing that they are going to die, to an absolute calm.  The apostles say that the men “marveled.”  That means they just couldn’t believe what had happened.  “Who is this Man whom even the wind and the waves obey?”  By this sign Jesus manifested his glory and the disciples believed in him all the more.

Now let’s go back to what we find strange about this story: Jesus’s lack of concern.  Worry is what can keep a person up at night so that they cannot sleep.  Jesus is not worried.  He is sleeping like a baby.  And it wasn’t as though he had been living a boring life with nothing to think about.  Just before the disciples stepped into the boat Jesus had healed countless people of their infirmities and diseases.  He had wrestled and cast out demons who were possessing people, and he was silencing them when they wanted to speak.  Demons are not harmless playthings, but powerful and dangerous and only fools believe that there is nothing to fear about them.  The reason why Jesus said they were getting into the boat and going to the other side is because he was tired and needed to get away from the crowds who were following him.

And so with all this activity that Jesus had been doing and which had made him so tired, you are witnessing how the oldest promise God made to us human beings was being fulfilled by Jesus.  He is the Christ.  His healings were the signs of the removal of the curses that came with sin.  He was driving back diseases and death.  He was removing the evil spirits to make room for the Holy Spirit.  Even if he were not worried with all the dangers that went along with the work that he was doing, then you would still think that the excitement of what was taking place might make for light sleep.  But Jesus sleeps deeply.  He is at peace even though the whole world has been thrown into turmoil around him.

And this is not something that is just meant for Jesus—that this is a personal attribute or option that he has chosen for himself, but his disciples can act however they want.  The disciples, like Jesus their teacher, should be unconcerned, not worried.  That is why Jesus rebukes them when they awaken him saying, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” 

Being unconcerned seems at first glance to be totally impossible.  In a matter of moments they will sink into the sea and be drowned and dead.  How could a person be unconcerned and not worried?  The answer is: only by having faith in God’s promises.  What does God promise?  He promises a glory about to revealed in us that the whole creation has been groaning for and waiting for—the revealing of the children of God (those united with Christ) in the resurrection from the dead.  The resurrection from the dead, and the final defeat of sin, death, and the devil, and life together with our Creator who has loved us is the ultimate goal of all of God’s people at all times.

Think of King David’s psalm, Psalm 23—a favorite for many Christians and understandably so.  He says: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside still waters, he restores my soul.”  But what is the climax, the capstone of this psalm?  It comes at the end when he says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  That means, “I’m going to have goodness and mercy while I live here on this earth, but the thing that I’m really waiting for is to be in the Lord’s house forever.  What I’m really waiting for is heaven, when I will never depart from the Lord’s presence.

Or take another much loved psalm, Psalm 27.  Again the opening might be familiar to us: “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom then shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life—of whom then shall I be afraid?”  Later in the psalm David makes a demand of the Lord.  What is it?  Is it money?  Is it a long, healthy life?  No, this is what he says, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require : even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple.”  The one thing he will require of this Lord God is that he may dwell in the house of the Lord, to see beautiful glory of the Lord, to be in his temple.  This, again, is speaking ultimately of heaven.  By the redemption and reconciliation that are in Jesus Christ and by our union with him in baptism, we are enabled by the forgiveness of sins and Christ’s righteousness to be together with our holy, almighty God, and this is the ultimate goal of all Christians.  If it isn’t a person’s goal, then they are an unbeliever.  They do not believe God’s promise.  Inevitably their hope and their fulfillment must be in something else.

But what does this have to do with a sinking ship and what seems to be a very quickly approaching death for these disciples, and Jesus’s rebuke of them for having very little faith?  God’s ultimate promise of communion with him in heaven makes what happens in this life of only secondary importance.  St. Paul in our epistle reading says, “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worthy of being compared to the quickly approaching glory that is about to be revealed in us,” that is, in our resurrection from the dead.  To be sure, the disciples were suffering during this storm, but it is in fact nothing compared to what God has prepared for those who love him.

And so we need not think of this life as having the ultimate importance, because it doesn’t have the ultimate importance.  What is really important to you and to your life is not that it should be filled with this and that wonderful experience or happy memory.  What is important for you is the Creator who has made you—the one to whom all people are accountable (whether they believe that or not).  And in order that you should be pardoned for your sins and be given the gift of righteousness he has sent his Son as the Redeemer who suffered the punishment that is due for your sins in your place.  And to show you that you shall not die, but live, Jesus was raised from the dead.  And in order that you may have faith and look forward to the ultimate promise of communion with God he sent the Holy Spirit to you by the preaching of his Word and by the administration of his Sacraments so that you can be set free from the fear of death and embrace the God who has loved you so. 

Your God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is what is really important to you and to your life.  Everything else is secondary.  Whether we live out the rest of this hour or the rest of this day or the rest of this month or the rest of this year, or whether we have many, many years ahead of us—none of this is that important.  Faith in God’s promise does that to us.  It makes all that other stuff secondary.

And so as we live by faith we take life as it comes without attaching ultimate importance to it.  Sometimes there is smooth sailing.  Sometimes there is wind and waves.  Sometimes you are being led to green pastures and still waters.  Sometimes you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.  Regardless of the circumstances you are given the privilege to fear no evil, for Jesus the Good Shepherd is with you.  His rod and his staff comfort you. 

And when that time shall come where you are laid down in death, you can be sure that you shall rise again to new life, and even to your true life, for that life will no longer be oppressed by sin as we are in this life.  There is always hope in Jesus.  Even if that boat would have sunk on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples would have been cast adrift, Jesus could surely raise that boat again and gather the disciples to safety.  After all, that would be something less than what Jesus actually did when he rebuked and silenced the wind and the waves whom he was mad at for frightening his disciples.  There’s no telling what he might do and so there is always hope in Jesus.  “Do not be afraid, Oh you of little faith.”

Jesus says to his disciples in another place: “I have said these things to you so that in me you may have peace.  In the world you will have troubles.  But take heart; I have overcome the world.” 

Apply these words to what you have learned about Jesus today from our Gospel reading.  He has told you about what happened with these disciples so that you may have peace in him.  You can never go wrong when you are trusting in Jesus.  In the world you will have troubles.  The wind may blow, the waves may become strong.  The water might be coming over the side of the boat so that you are sinking.  But Jesus says to you, “Take heart.  I have overcome the world.”  That means, “Do not despair.  I will set all things right.”  He might not set things right in the way that you might expect him to or perhaps want him to, but he overcomes in his own way and at his own time.  When the time is right he will rebuke whatever enemies you might have and put them to shame, overcoming them.  Finally he will even rebuke and bring to nothing our final enemy, death, with the resurrection from the dead.  He has overcome the world—he has overcome all obstacles—not for himself (because he had no need of that).  He did it and does it all for you.