211226 Sermon for St. Stephen, December 26, 2021

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It’s a little jarring, the day after Christmas, to celebrate the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Talking about a fiery man, who wouldn’t shut up, to the point where people pelted him with stones until he died—that stands in stark contrast with a certain view of the Christmas spirit. For many Christmas is a celebration of celebrating. Here we might ask, “What happened to the party?” Now we are talking about somebody who said such stark and stringent things that those who heard them screamed at the top of their lungs, dragging him outside of the city, bludgeoning him with rocks. Merry Christmas, right?

But people’s popular conception of Christmas is quite lacking when it comes to the real content of Christmas. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is different than Santa Claus. Jesus is the king of righteousness. Santa Claus, contrary to what you have been told, doesn’t keep track of who is naughty and who is nice. What gets Stephen into trouble is not that he’s been telling everyone he comes across that they are all jolly good fellows. He’s told them that they’ve been naughty. This has ticked them off. They don’t repent. They get even.

It is easy for us to forget how fundamental this kind of thing is to life. In our Gospel reading Jesus mentions the blood of righteous Abel. Abel was the second son of Adam and Eve. His older brother, Cain, killed him. Cain was the first human being conceived and born in the natural way. What is this first-born of the whole human race? He’s a murderer. Why does he murder? Because he is corrupt. He wants the good reputation of piety, but he’s not actually pious. God, who knows all things, knew this, and was not deceived by his sacrifice. God had regard for Abel and his honest sacrifice, but he did not have regard for Cain’s sacrifice. Abel was a living, breathing reminder of Cain’s inadequacy, corruption, unwillingness to do what is right. So Cain got rid of him.

This kind of thing is archetypical for life on this sin-infested planet. It happens all over the place. There is shady practice after shady practice. We become conditioned to it so that we hardly notice it. If we do notice it and do something about it, we’ll pay dearly for it, so it’s in people’s best interest to ignore it.

Let me try to explain the kind of thing I’m talking about. It’s a little hard to explain because it’s easy to think I’m just talking about one isolated thing here and another isolated thing there, when what I’m trying to get across to you is that this is thoroughly enmeshed into lives. But let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.

Let’s say there’s a business that bills by the hour. They start working for you a quarter to the hour until half past the hour. You get billed for two hours because time was spent during each of the hours of the day.

Another example: You buy something at Kohls. You use it for what you need, careful not to damage it. Then you return it and get your money back.

Another example: Mom or dad tell you to do something. You know what they mean, but you don’t do one iota more than what was literally said, because not each individual step was specifically laid out. Then you can plead innocence, “because you didn’t know.”

Another example: Your friends say terrible things. Perhaps they say blasphemous things, but you keep your mouth shut because you don’t want to hurt the relationship.

I could go on and on and on with these little things. I’ll spare you that, but let me point out one more thing: whatever your calling, your line of work might be, there is bound to be countless little tricks and lies and manipulations that happen day in and day out. Tiny dishonesties, even. They are assumed to be just the way that stuff gets done, so it probably doesn’t weigh heavily at all on anybody’s conscience. But it is crooked, corrupt, and when the light of truth shines upon it, people can see it unless they’ve become blind.

Jesus says that we are to be salt and light in the world. We are to let our yes be yes and our no be no. We are not to try to manipulate anyone. Paul says that we should not be conformed or schematized to this age—to the way that things normally get done. Instead we are to be metamorphosized, transformed in our thinking, to know what the will of God is. We should learn what is good and pleasing to God.

This requires active work on our part. What is natural is to always look out for yourself and not give a hoot what is good for others or pleasing to God. That is especially the case if the situation calls for us to be inconvenienced in order to do what is good and acceptable to God. And if we were called upon to suffer—like getting fired, or losing your social status, or being frowned—you can just forget it! It’s not going to happen.

But this is precisely what we as God’s children have been called upon to do in this life. We are to be straight, true, forthright, honest in this world. Without a doubt we are surrounded by crookedness and corruption, meanness and envy on every side. But we are to live according to a different set of rules—God’s rules.

And that means that we are going to clash with the world around us. We are going to have conflict in work and business. We are going to have conflict with friends and family. We are going to have conflict in a congregation. In all areas of life there is crookedness and corruption. But we are to be true, living sacrifices, commending ourselves to God who judges justly.

This is what St. Stephen did. He plainly interpreted the Scriptures in the synagogue of Freedmen. That might have been his own synagogue as well as Saul’s synagogue, who later is known as the apostle Paul. When Stephen interprets the Scriptures as pointing to and culminating in Christ, his compatriots are confounded. God also did signs through Stephen, which God did more often in those apostolic days. Stephen was not making a name for himself. He was testifying to Jesus. He was magnifying Jesus. It is obvious that Stephen does not bear ill will against his fellow men, even though they hate him. You can tell that by his prayer that God would not hold their murdering of him against them.

So Stephen suffered and died precisely because he was good. In this way he followed his master Jesus, who also was someone who was straight and true in the midst of a crooked generation who put him to death. Suffering for doing good is a high and holy thing. It is our highest calling as Christians. Stephen was the first Christian whom God chose to honor in such a way. Stephen’s life, testimony, and death are a precious gem. Plus it produced tremendous fruit in the man who would eventually become known as the apostle Paul.

Towards the end of the reading, you heard how the men who stoned Stephen put their outer garments at Saul’s feet. (That’s the same man we know of as Paul.) Saul was a ferocious persecutor of Christians, zealous for Jewish orthodoxy, but eventually he was converted by none other than the Lord Jesus when he was on his way to arrest some Christians who were living in Damascus. But people are not usually converted in a single day. I can’t help but think that Paul remembered the testimony, the grace, the forgiveness, and the prayer that came from Stephen.

There was no way for Stephen to know that one of those men for whom he prayed would become a great apostle. He certainly wasn’t engineering it in any way. It was natural fruit that grew from the cross that was laid upon him. His suffering for doing good, rather than for doing evil, had God’s own design behind it.

But some people might object to calling Stephen good. We have to note this, because such thinking is very common in our day. Some people will say that Stephen wasn’t very good because of the way that he talked to his fellow Jews. He said, “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit!”

There are many people who would throw a penalty flag here. He was roughing the hearer. He used unnecessary language. The words were too harsh. He could have said it in a nicer way. Stephen can end up being put on trial instead of the stiff-necked Jews who were resisting the Holy Spirit.

Not only can Stephen (and others like him) be put on trial, he can also be found guilty in the court of public opinion. I guarantee you that there were some people there who thought that Stephen got what was coming to him. They were appalled at how he was insubordinate to all the religious leaders in the room. He was too cheeky and bold. He needed to have somebody cut him down to size.

It is very important that you realize that when Christians suffer for doing what is good, they are usually painted as being bad by others. And that painting that is done by others can be and often is highly plausible. The apostles and Christians who were put to death were not put to death because they went around telling everyone they were such jolly good fellows. They stepped on a lot of toes, just like Jesus stepped on a lot of toes. Some of the people whose toes got stepped on repented. Others got even.

But ultimately such revenge is no matter. As Christians we are free. If you fear God, then you will not fear men nearly as much as you otherwise would. This freedom is a wonderful thing to behold.

Did you notice Stephen’s freedom? Perhaps the main reason why the crowd became so stark raving mad at him was precisely because of his freedom. He wasn’t scared of them. He testified to what he saw—Jesus at the right hand of God—even though he knew, and he knew that they knew, that this would absolutely enrage them.

When they started to bludgeon him with stones he prayed for Jesus to receive his spirit. He was not thinking of trying to figure out a way to save his life. He was thinking of Jesus. If he were begging for his life, or calculating a way to save his own life, he never would pray a prayer like that. Such a prayer was offensive to the bullies who were going at him. It just added fuel to their fury.

It is said of the devil that he is a very proud spirit. The one thing he can’t stand is being despised or neglected. He wants people to think that he is really something. People’s evil spirits are like that too. When they’ve decided that they don’t like a person, the one thing they can’t stand is for that person to be free and easy. They want that person afraid of what might happen to them. They want to control and dominate. However, a very common feature that is seen in a great many of the stories of the early Christian martyrs is that even though they were staring death right in the face, they were not afraid. They were free.

But they were also gracious. They were not trying to upset people with their freedom. By the power of the Holy Spirit, they loved those who were hurting them. They prayed for those who persecuted them. Their lack of malice towards the ones who were hurting them is an important sign that makes Christian suffering different from the suffering of others.

Now let’s talk about you. You are children of God. You are free. You are to stand up and fight for what is true and right. Then you are to not lose your courage when you get blowback from it. God knows what is going on. You aren’t alone. The people who look like they can do terrible things to you are no match for God. And it might be that God will produce tremendous fruit from the cross that he lays upon you. You can’t know that. But God already does. What’s important is that you understand what Peter says in his first epistle: You should not be ashamed of suffering for doing good. That is a blessed thing, a following after our master, Jesus.

211225 Sermon for Christmas Day, December 25, 2021

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The message that the Bible gives us is that God dwells with his people. In our Old Testament reading today we heard about God entering the tent that God had instructed Moses to build. For about ten chapter of Exodus there are very specific and elaborate instructions that are recorded. The tent had three parts. There was a curtain placed around the whole perimeter, kind of like a wall. The tent itself was to be inside this courtyard. There were two chambers in the tent. The ark of the covenant was to be in the most holy place in the back. That was where God dwelt.

In our reading, the glory of God that was manifest in the cloud came to rest in that tent so that Moses could not go into it. When the glory cloud would go up from the tent the people would pack their things. They would follow God wherever he led. When he came to rest, they would unpack their things, including the tabernacle that God had instructed them to build, and they would stay there until the cloud of his glory would go up again.

This was a new epoch for God’s people. With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God did not stay with them in such a way. God would appear to the patriarchs from time to time and speak to them by the Angel of the Lord. When he appeared he would give them promises to encourage them. But he did not dwell with them the way that he dwelt with their descendants as he led them out of Egypt with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. After the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle was built, that was the way that God dwelt with his people.

Among all the nations of the earth that existed, it was only among the descendants of Jacob that God dwelt. This made them a holy nation. They were blessed by being in God’s presence, whereas those who were not holy were repelled by God’s presence. That’s the way it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Those who have been prepared to be in God’s presence by being forgiven and sanctified find God’s presence to be healthy and life giving. Those who are unholy and sinful bear God’s holiness.

The Old Testament, from Exodus onward, has this presence of God among his people at the heart of it. God is present with them first of all in the tabernacle, then later with King Solomon’s temple. Generation after generation God sanctified these people. They were blessed to know him and his Word in this life and were prepared to live with him in a yet more intimate and better way in the next.

A new epoch for God’s people came with Jesus. The Apostle John speaks to this in the opening words of his Gospel that we heard this morning: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him everything was made, and without him not one thing was made that has been made… This Word that existed already at the beginning became flesh in the person who was named Jesus. God dwells among us in this Jesus.

I mentioned last Sunday that there is nothing in the Old Testament that holds a candle to what the angel Gabriel said to Mary. The God of the Temple and the tabernacle, the God of Mt. Sinai, the God who created the world was going to take up residence in her womb. This is astounding almost to the point of being absurd. On the other hand, though, it is quite in keeping with the general way that God operates.

When God chose a nation to be his own, he did not choose the most powerful or populous nation. He chose Abraham, and his wife, Sarah. He chose them when they were childless and already well advanced in years. They didn’t even have any offspring who could receive the inheritance that God was promising to them.

With the new epoch of God’s grace that came through Moses, you see the same thing. This people hardly deserved to be called a nation. They were an enslaved people under the Egyptians. They didn’t have any autonomous government. They didn’t have a military. God fought for them and subdued the Egyptians with his mighty arm. They were a wandering band for forty years before they entered into their promised inheritance in Canaan.

After that, through all the years when the Israelites lived in Canaan, they never developed into anything more than a regional power. They never became as great as the Egyptians before them or the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans after them. They were a small people with the great God in their midst.

The birth of Jesus fits this pattern. At this time the Israelites were again a subjected people. The Romans ruled over them. The flesh and blood for the eternal Son of God was chosen to be from a virgin who didn’t even live in Jerusalem. She lived in Galilee, the hinterlands.

It’s quite clear that Mary and Joseph did not have a lot of money. Otherwise they never would have found themselves in the straights that they were in at the time of Jesus’s birth. If they could have afforded it, they probably would have found some better accommodations than a manger for his bed. The sacrifice that they gave at the temple shortly after his birth was the cheaper option of two pigeons instead of the more expensive option of a lamb.

Plus, what’s much more, who should believe Mary and Joseph? It’s one thing to be a nobody from nowhere without a penny to your name. It’s another thing to be disbelieved as a charlatan and a fool. To this day there are people who think that it is impossible that Jesus does not have an earthly father. They think that he was conceived by an earthly father out of wedlock.

This is how it has always been, however. People who looked at Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would not have believed that God was in their midst. People who looked at the nation of Israel while they were enslaved, but also when they were at the height of their power, would not have thought that God was in their midst. This is especially the case with the virgin Mary. But to those who have believed, this is a wonderful thing in their eyes. God despises the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

This general pattern of God’s grace being found among the poor and humble continues on to this day. God dwells in humble little churches that have to struggle to find a way to pay the bills. The big churches with the big endowments, the National Cathedral, or St. Paul’s in London, quite literally have unbelievers preaching unbelief to those who go to hear them. It was not the biggest, most beautiful building within which the Christ child was found. He is content to dwell in places where we wouldn’t even dream of giving birth to our babies.

So you do well to not be put off by appearances. The way things look is one thing. What God promises is another. The truth is that God’s people have never looked very impressive. In fact, whenever they started to look impressive they tended to depart from their faithfulness. But God’s people have always been blessed with the most wonderful promises.

The same is true for you as God’s people. Take, for example, what was said in our Gospel reading this morning. You, who have believed, have been given the power, the authority, the status of being a child of God. John says you have been born not of blood, or the desire of the flesh, or of the husband’s will. You have been born of God.

I cannot conceive of a higher or better thing than that you should have Jesus as your brother and God as your Father. That is what John is saying. This is what God has done by uniting himself with us. The promise is high, almost to the point of absurdity, because the appearances do not match up with it. But the appearances will come eventually when the time is right.

Right now we are God’s workmanship. He who has begun a good work in you is going to bring it to completion on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then you will behold the splendor of our God who now works among us in a humble and hidden way, preparing us for the holiness that is to come. That will be the final epoch of God’s grace when everything will be as it should be.

211224 Sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 (Christmas Eve) December 24, 2021

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The prophet Isaiah speaks about the coming Christ hundreds of years before he was born. Isaiah says in our reading tonight: “People walking in darkness have seen a great light. For those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.”

Walking in darkness is bewildering. You cannot see where you are going. You cannot anticipate problems or dangers. You might not get to where you are going because you don’t know the way. You might not even know where you are supposed to be going.

This is a good description of us. What is life all about? You might get almost as many explanations for what life is all about as the number of people that you encounter. Everybody has different ideas of what happiness is. There are different goals for life. On good days people try their best to get to where they think they will be happy. On bad days people don’t even try. They make peace with the darkness, bide their time. Are they waiting for it all to be over?

Since some people try more and other people try less, it might seem as though they should not be put into the same group. It might seem as though some people have their stuff together. They’re going someplace. But this is an illusion. We are all in the darkness. It’s like being in a cave where there is no light whatsoever. Whoever is in that place is in the darkness. It doesn’t matter if people are moving around a lot, or a little bit, or not at all.

Perhaps it is nobler to be moving about. At least that’s trying. The thought is that if you keep trying, and you never give up, then maybe you will find the light. Maybe you will arrive at happiness. But this almost makes the situation worse. If everywhere you decide to go is necessarily going to be the wrong place to go, then you are always only busy getting to the wrong place.

It’s like Sisyphus from Greek mythology. His punishment in Hades was that he had to roll an immense boulder to the top of the hill, only to have it roll back down to the bottom again where he’d have to start all over. Fighting against the darkness, looking for meaning and happiness, sounds like it’s the thing we should be doing. What good is it, though, if all the striving comes to nothing?

In contrast to this dreary darkness, Isaiah’s claim, God’s claim, concerning the Christ, is just as stark and grand as it sounds. “People walking in darkness have seen a great light. For those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.” There is darkness and there is light. All live in the darkness no matter how relatively successful each might be. The light—that’s Jesus. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He is the light that no darkness can overcome.

This sounds like it is automatically a good thing. Our problems are solved. In a place where everything is pitch black, to have the light suddenly appear, that’s marvelous. There’s no other way of getting out of the darkness than by this great light. This is true, but the light of Christ is not always welcome.

Jesus says, “This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, but the people loved the darkness more than the light. They loved the darkness because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does worthless things hates the light, and does not come near the light, otherwise their works would be exposed.”

This, at least, has to be said in defense of the darkness: Darkness seems to give us the freedom to pursue what we want. We do things in secret without really having to think about it, because nobody’s going to know. What isn’t known won’t hurt us. We learn this as little tikes. The darkness seems to give us the freedom to do what we want.

So we should not think it is strange, that when this great light dawns upon us, that we can end up hating the light and loving the darkness. We don’t want to make a clean break with our life of doing what we want. There are things that we would like to continue to do in the darkness even after the light has come. It is not uncommon for Christians to want to bring a little piece of hell with them, some sin that has given them solace or satisfaction over the years. But that is not possible. The light obliterates the darkness.

This can seem to be a great hardship, but really it isn’t. There is a great delusion with secrecy and darkness. The lie is that what we pursue in the darkness is good because we enjoy it. It’s the spice of life. It’s like an alcoholic thinking of his alcohol as his medicine. He can’t do without it. But the alcohol is not giving him life. It is dishing out death, one dose after another. So it is with all that gets pursued in the darkness. There is an implied promise that we will be blessed by pursuing such things. But all that gets accomplished is that we become more fearful of God and his judgement. The last thing we want is for the light to come and expose what we have been doing.

A further delusion is that if we abandon those things that we love to do in the darkness, then life will be boring and lame. But God is not stingy with his blessings. God is well pleased with us creatures doing our creaturely things. He wants us to eat and drink and be merry. Intimate love is so well pleasing to him that he crowns it with the birth of children. A trick gets pulled on us when we think that pursuing illicit things in the darkness is the only way we are ever going to be truly happy.

One old Christian thinker said that evil is not able to create anything. It only takes things that are good and twists them, perverts them, so that they become shameful. There might be a bit of truth lurking in the idea of taking something of hell with us into heaven. Whatever is truly good, whatever comes from the Creator, that gets twisted in the darkness, this goodness is stored up for us in heaven. It is the darkness that we have to leave behind, not the goodness. It is the lying that we have to leave behind, not the enjoyment.

Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus is good. Light is good. The light purifies and gives life. These things are true, no matter what anybody might say about them. Jesus has not come to take anything away from us except the darkness, the lies, and the sins. He does not take away. He gives.

The first thing from which everything else must flow is the way that God accepts us and takes us in as his own. Isaiah says, “For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given.” This is speaking about Jesus. Jesus was born and given as God’s gift to us. As the Redeemer and Mediator he reconciles sinners with God. For the sake of Jesus, and his cleansing blood, we do not need to be afraid when God’s light exposes our lives. For the sake of Jesus we are well pleasing to God.

Once we have understood that God accept us, saves us, justifies us in Jesus, we can begin to live a new life. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Taking up our cross and following Jesus, we learn from him what is good and what is evil. What is good is love. What is evil is a bad conscience before God, and a fearing of his light.

Slinking about, fearing exposure, is not good. It never has been good. It never will be good. That’s because it is alienation from God from whom all good things come. Jesus’s redemption overcomes this alienation and reconciles us to God. Every single one of us has been redeemed by Jesus. Through him we can live in light. Then we are not living in dread, fearing exposure, but are looking forward to more light and more life from God.

Apart from Christ there is only darkness. Nobody knows what he or she is doing as they search about for happiness. It inevitably ends with the futility of death, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. “But,” as Isaiah says, “To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given.” “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. For those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.” He does not come to take away anything from you except the lies and the sins that were never really good for you anyway. Trust in him. Follow him. Then you will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

211219 Sermon on Luke 1:39-56 (Advent 4) December 19, 2021

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Let’s begin by setting the scene for our Gospel reading this morning.

Earlier in this first chapter of Luke he speaks of the way that two baby boys were miraculously conceived. One of them was John the Baptist. The other was Jesus. John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was a priest. One day he had the honor of doing the priestly duties in the Temple when an angel of the Lord appeared to him. Zechariah was frightened, but the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid. Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son. You are to name him John.”

This was astounding to Zechariah because he and his wife had been unable to have children. Now this angel was telling him that he would have a son when he and Elizabeth were old. Because he did not believe the angel, God made him mute. From that time until his son was born, and Zechariah wrote on a tablet that his name was to be John, he was not able to speak. When his ability to speak returned to him, he sang the song that we call the Benedictus. This is the song that we sometimes sing during the Matins service instead of the Te Deum.

This baby, born to Zechariah and Elizabeth in their old age, was John the Baptist. His conception was miraculous because his parents were old and otherwise unable to have children. The other miraculous conception is what happened with Mary.

Mary lived in Nazareth of Galilee. She was engaged to be married to Joseph. One day God sent the angel Gabriel to her. He said, “Hello, you who are highly favored by the Lord. The Lord is with you.” Mary was perplexed at his words, and tried to figure out what sort of greeting this was. The angel responded, “Do not be afraid. God is well pleased with you. You will conceive and bear a Son. The name you should give him is Jesus. He will be the Son of the Most High. God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.”

As you can imagine, Mary had a hard time understanding this. She asked how this would be, since she was a virgin.  Gabriel answered that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, the power of the Most High will overshadow her. That is why the child who is born of her will be holy. He will be the Son of God.

Mary responded in a wonderful way. There has never been a higher Word that has been spoken to a human being. There is nothing in the Old Testament that even holds a candle to what the angel just said to Mary. She doesn’t ask for any signs or wonders to confirm the word. She simply responded, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your Word.”

The Gospel reading that you heard this morning is what immediately follows after this. The angel had told Mary that her relative, Elizabeth, was also pregnant, sixth months along. Mary went to visit her. She went from Galilee in the north down to the south, south of Jerusalem, into the hill country. Zechariah and Elizabeth were living in a town somewhere in this region.

You heard how several unusual things happened and were said when Mary arrived at their house. When Mary said hello, John the Baptist leaped and stirred about in the womb of his mother. Elizabeth then is filled with the Holy Spirit and confesses her faith. She believes in the baby whom Mary is carrying in her womb. That baby would only be called an embryo in our medical terms. Jesus was only weeks old at that point, a tiny human being. Elizabeth, like Mary, believes in the Word of the Lord. This child is God’s Son, miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Elizabeth is wonderfully comforting and encouraging to Mary. If people at that time were anything like they are at our time, then Mary would not have been treated very respectfully by everyone she came across. The way Elizabeth treated Mary must have been a nice reprieve for her. You can perhaps picture an older woman comforting a younger woman who otherwise might be treated quite roughly and rudely by others. In her comforting, Elizabeth especially points to Mary’s faith. She tells Mary that it was very good that she had believed. The promises that God spoke to her are going to be fulfilled.

Then Mary sings a song. You might also be familiar with this song. We call it the Magnificat. It is sung during Evening Prayer or Vespers. It is a great psalm, as great as any that you might find in the Bible.

The opening theme pervades everything that Mary has to say: “My soul magnifies the Lord,” or “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” Her thoughts are taken up with the promises and power of God.

This is remarkable when you consider what else is going on with her. She had left Nazareth and gone way down to the south. Luke doesn’t say why she did that, but it might be because she all of a sudden became pregnant. Not everybody is going to believe that that child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. She is very pious, but in the eyes of others, it appears that she is a sinner.

She also must have been concerned about what her fiancé, Joseph, might think of her. The first thought that would come to anyone’s mind would be that she had been unfaithful. He knew it wasn’t his child, so whose was it? Joseph, for his part, also had a great faith. When he was told in a dream that the child the virgin Mary was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit he believed it. This was another miracle, a gift from God.

Regardless, however, this must have weighed upon Mary’s mind. In general, Mary was not in a powerful and proud state as far as her circumstances were concerned. There would have been plenty for her to complain about and to feel sorry for herself about. There is not the slightest hint, however, of self-pity in her song.

In fact, the song is a song of victory, like the great psalms in the Old Testament. Mary is joyously defiant of anyone who would be her enemy. This is not because she found some self-worth inside of herself or embraced her feminine power. It was because she believed in the Lord her God. Specifically she believed that God had not despised her for her humility (like human beings tend to do), but instead had chosen her. Since God had chosen her there was nothing that should hamper her joy even though there was plenty of fodder available for feeling blue if she had wanted to pursue such thoughts.

Here we have a good lesson concerning faith. We should learn it well, so that our souls may magnify the Lord along with her. It is not enough to believe that God or Jesus exists. It is not enough to believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, died on Good Friday, and was resurrected on Easter. These are all facts that the demons are surer of than we ever will be. Faith is when you believe that the Lord your God is for you. He’s on your side. He has chosen you. He’s begun a good work in you. Having begun a good work in you, he will bring it to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It can be hard to believe that the Lord God has chosen you. Just consider your humble estate. I see no royalty before me to day. Consider, more dreadfully, the bad things that you have done. You’ve broken all of God’s commandments. You haven’t been loveable. And yet you’ve been loved. God’s love for you has prompted him to see to all your needs of body and soul. There is no element of your life that has not been seen to by God.

Redemption has been worked by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He did this sacrifice one time and it was for all people. It is the great sacrifice that makes all things clean. He has brought the word of his favor to you, just like he brought it to Zechariah or to Mary. One way or another God has said to you, “You are my highly favored one.” It probably wasn’t by an angel. It might have been when you were baptized. It might have been when you heard some preaching. It might have been when you were talking with a friend. Barring all those other ways, it is being spoken to you now. Whatever way that word has come to you, you should believe that God is for you. That he has chosen you for salvation. Your sins cannot stop God. He is more powerful than your sins.

He is more powerful than anything. He is more powerful than death. He is more powerful than the United States of America. He brings down rulers from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. You can be joyous no matter what your circumstances might be when you realize that God is for you. He has chosen you. There is nothing that can stop your happiness because there is nothing that can stop God who is for you.

“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” We talked about that last week. You can rejoice in the Lord in any and every circumstance. There is no exception whatsoever because God is more powerful than everything and anything. But remember what I said about that rejoicing. It doesn’t mean that you have to have a smile on your face or that you have to jump and skip around. Inwardly the Christian may be rejoicing while outwardly there are all kinds of bad things going on. But we have been set free from being slaves to our circumstances. We are not dependent upon good circumstances in order to have our joy in God.

Mary had joy despite many things that would have been very discouraging. She rejoiced in God her Savior. She would continue to have joy in her Savior. When Jesus was just born, and when Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple, old Simeon made a prophesy concerning Jesus and concerning Mary. He told Mary that Jesus would cause the rise and fall of many in Israel. He would be a sign that was spoken against. And as for Mary, a sword would pass through her soul, he said.

A sword would pierce Mary’s soul. Like any mother she loved her child. Furthermore, she believed the Word that was spoken to her about him. She believed that he was the Holy One of God. And yet Jesus was denounced as a heretic. He was said to be possessed. He was said to be an agent of Satan. He was mocked and crucified. Mary was at the cross with only a tiny handful of others who were courageous enough to show their love for him at his darkest hour.

Don’t think that Mary had to have taken back her Magnificat when that sword was passing through her soul. Don’t think that Christian joy is dependent upon the circumstances that we are in. Those whom God loves he also chastises. The path by which we are led into eternal life is one that is specifically tailored for us. It has highs and lows. It is filled with unexpected twists and turns. It teaches us not to rely upon ourselves or upon the strength of our faith or upon any good works that we might do. God teaches us to rely upon him. Though the earth be moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of the seas, we will not fear. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

So you may sing the Magnificat, not just as Mary’s song, but as your song, regardless of your outward circumstances. Your outward circumstances, to be sure, are different than the outward circumstances that Mary found herself in when she sang this song. But what matters is that your inward circumstances are the very same as her inward circumstances. Why is Mary singing? It is because the Lord has done great things for her. He has chosen her. He is her Savior. Those very same things are also true for you. It does not matter who you are or what you have done in the past. Jesus died for you. You are highly favored by God. Believe this and it is yours.

211212 Sermon on Philippians 4:4 (Advent 3) December 12, 2021

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Sermon manuscript:

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Rejoicing is celebrating, being happy. We know how to rejoice. We rejoice when good things happen to us. We rejoice when we get some unexpected money, when we get a good deal, when it’s time to have fun with friends. Nobody has to tell us to rejoice. The circumstances prompt us to rejoice. We might not even be able to help it.

There are two modifiers, though, to Paul’s command to rejoice. We are to rejoice in the Lord. That’s the one modifier. The other modifier is that we are to rejoice always. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? We know how to rejoice in good circumstances. How do we rejoice in the Lord? This can only be done through faith. There is no way for anyone to know the Lord God except if he reveals himself to them. Only those who believe in what he has revealed of himself can ever rejoice in him.

What has God revealed about himself? He is your God. You are his people. In the whole Bible this is always what he has to say, no matter who he is dealing with, so long as they are his chosen ones. He says the same thing to all of them: I am your God. You are my people. Stay close to me. I am your rock and your castle. For you I strive and wrestle. I am yours and you are mine and where I am you may remain. The foe shall not divide us.

Whereas the circumstances are what make us rejoice otherwise, what makes us rejoice in the Lord is what he has revealed of himself to us. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. His mercy endures forever. Just as you might rejoice that you can put some new-found money into your pocket, so you can rejoice that God is yours and you are God’s. This good relationship is something to rejoice about.

The other modifier is that we should rejoice always in the Lord. Nobody’s in the habit of rejoicing always. Nobody celebrates always. The party has to come to an end sometime. The circumstances that cause us to rejoice either get taken for granted or go away. We do not rejoice always. And Paul is not calling upon us to rejoice always in the normal way we use that word. We are to rejoice always in the Lord.

This means that our rejoicing is probably going to look a little different than the rejoicing and celebrating that we might see or experience with Christmas presents, for example. Sometimes people get the idea that the Christian life is supposed to be uninterrupted happiness, never-failing victory, a charmed life. This is not what we see, though, when we examine the people who have believed in God before us in the Bible.

We do not see this even with Jesus. He did not always skip around with a smile on his face. He didn’t look this way when he was being whipped or crucified. When he was looking ahead to the suffering that was coming upon him, he prayed that the cup should pass from him.

And yet, we must say that Jesus rejoiced in the Lord always. Rejoicing in the Lord does not have to match up with certain looks on one’s face or even certain feelings or emotions. Rejoicing in the Lord is inextricably tied up with faith in him. To believe in him is to trust in his salvation. No matter what might come our way, no matter which cross God might lay upon us, we can rejoice in our salvation. We can rejoice always, because salvation is his business and not ours. Since it is his business, and not ours, we can rest assured that it will never fail.

Consider Paul who penned these words. Earlier in the letter he says that he is writing while he is shackled with chains. He is in prison for preaching the Gospel. He is on his way to Rome where he will be tried and falsely found guilty. Since he was a Roman citizen it is thought that he was executed by having his head chopped off instead of being crucified. Being crucified was considered to be too shameful of a punishment for Roman citizens. Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and non-citizens.

In the midst of all of this perhaps Paul’s rejoicing may have occasionally faltered, for he was flesh and blood like any one of us. But in the main, there’s no reason to think otherwise than that he continued to rejoice in the Lord always. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he was grinning or skipping while he was being led to the executioner. People think rejoicing has to mean a certain look or a certain visible emotion. But that’s a rather superficial way of thinking. Paul believed in the Lord his God and rejoiced. Would he have rather had his head on a pillow rather than on the chopping block? Perhaps. But he took what the Lord gave him, trusting in his steadfast mercy.

Apply this also to yourself. Unless Christ comes back first, one day you are going to be dying. The circumstances will probably be such where you definitely do not feel like rejoicing in the normal way that this word is used and understood. But you are not a slave to your circumstances, where the circumstances dictate everything that’s going on with you. You have a relationship with the Lord.

It is my great wish for you that you are blessed to have someone with you at that time to help you die well. I hope that you have someone who knows God’s revelation of himself to us. Knowing that revelation, that person can tell you about the Lord God. Knowing God’s revelation, you can rejoice in the Lord while you are dying.

There’s nothing magical that has to happen. There’s nothing that has to be charged with the right emotions, or perfectly persuasive. All that’s necessary is to hear what God says about himself and about you.

What God has said is that he is yours, and you are his. You can stay with him. The foe can’t divide you. Just as God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision, so God has given us the sign of baptism. God says so often in the Old Testament that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the believing descendants of Israel always rejoiced to hear that. The Lord was their God. Their God was for them, no matter what circumstances they happened to be in.

You are a Christian. You have been given the name of Christ. You are baptized into him. You have eaten his body and drank his blood. The Lord God has revealed himself to you thoroughly. What he reveals about himself is that he forgives you and graciously receives you. No matter what happens to you, you cannot be separated from this God, because he has joined himself to you.

Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” He really means it. Rejoice in the Lord always. Death can be really hard. It can be really painful. But in the midst of this sorrow and sadness you can look to your God’s salvation of you like it’s a north star. It is a true guide. It will not lead you astray. It’s the only true guide.

It’s not uncommon the hear people say that they hope that they die in their sleep or that they will die very suddenly. There’s nothing wrong, per se, about dying in your sleep or very suddenly, but I think it’s overrated. This kind of talk makes people hope for something that doesn’t happen all that often. Plus it makes people afraid to die in a slower way. That’s not good. We’re already screwed up enough as it is when it comes to our feeble attempts to cope with dying and death. We don’t need to have Christians fear it on top of all that.

A good death is one where a person is given the opportunity to rejoice in the Lord by hearing his promises, even while their body is shutting down. A good death is one where the person who is dying is given the opportunity to believe in Jesus’s victory over death, even while they are experiencing the unpleasant side effects that go along with death. The person who dies with trust in Christ the crucified dies well, no matter what the circumstances of that death might be.

Helping your friends and your loved ones to die well does not take a lot of smarts. You don’t have to be a gifted speaker. The main thing that it requires is courage. To help that courage along it is also very helpful to be well catechized, to know God’s revelation. If a person does not feel like they know who God is and what he has revealed, they probably won’t have the confidence to speak about him—especially in such a fraught and stressful situation.

Regardless, the main thing that is needed is courage. I have become convinced that there are powers and principalities that shut us Christians down from talking to one another about God and what God has revealed. We are comfortable talking about the weather, about sports, about what-have-you, but if someone starts to talk about God we get very nervous. It’s as though this is something that is strictly set apart. Only the pastor can speak that way. This is false, false, false.

By your baptism you have been given the keys to the kingdom of God. You have been given all that Christ has. There is nothing that a pastor has that you don’t already have by virtue of your baptism. The only difference is that God has given me the job of doing this full time. The Law or the Gospel that you might speak is no less effective or powerful than the Law or the Gospel that I might speak. The Sacrament that you might administer, an emergency baptism, for example, is no different from the Sacrament that I would administer.

All of this is to say that you are fully equipped to tell your loved ones about the God who has revealed himself to us in Christ the crucified and risen. You may urge your loved ones to rejoice in the Lord always, just as I’ve urged you in this sermon. The message that makes all the difference is the one that says God has chosen you. This is what we are to believe in. I can authoritatively declare that God has chosen you because he has baptized you. You are hearing his word as it is being spoken right now. This Word of God says that he is yours and you are his. Where he is, you may remain. The foe shall not divide you.

How can we not rejoice (even if it be quietly and inwardly) when we hear that we have such a great and powerful friend as God himself? If there were any circumstances over which we  could rejoice, it certainly has to be this. The mercy of God is beyond our comprehension. His power knows no bounds. He loves you and receives you, even though you are a sinner. There is peace between God and you because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

211208 Sermon on work (Advent 2 Midweek) December 8, 2021

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Last week’s reading was the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes. Our reading tonight is chapters 5 and 6. Our reading next week will be the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. So our reading tonight is from the middle of the book. It is a continuation of the theme that was established right away at the beginning. We talked about this last week: All is vanity. All is vapor, totally vapor. It vanishes in the wind. Nothing lasts on this earth.

Our reading tonight brought up several topics. I’d like to focus on just one of them: work. A common reaction that people have when they hear that all is vanity, whatever we might work for is not going to last, is that we might as well just give up. We might as well not get out of bed in the morning. We certainly shouldn’t work. We should just live for pleasure—doing whatever we think is going to be the most enjoyable. These are usually all kinds of leisurely activities that we otherwise do not normally pursue because we are busy doing our work. This, we suppose, would be a lot better if it is vain to build towers that reach to the heavens or try to make a name for ourselves by becoming great.

But this desire to escape into pleasure is also vanity. Living this way does not provide the happiness that it is supposed to. Leisurely activities are great as a change of pace. Special food and drink is delicious when it is a treat. When these things become standard fare, we become bored and restless with these just like we do with anything else. There seems to be a general law in life that we build up a tolerance to stimulants in our using of them. Very often the idea of doing something is better than the actual doing of it.

For example, I have known several different people who have gotten a house on a lake. Going to the lake is a lot of fun. Boating, fishing, waterskiing, and what have you all sound like lots of fun, and they are. The whole reason why a person might buy a house on a lake is because they’ve engaged in these activities and like them. They’d like to be able to pursue them more often and more easily. But in the cases that I know of, where a person buys a house on the lake, they eventually quit doing these activities. They are all fun for a while, but then they quit being as fun. Maybe these activities end up only being done when there’s company. The company enjoys it, because it’s different and fresh for them, but the people who live there could take it or leave it.

So it seems as though people should be happier if they are not working and can devote themselves full time to their leisure activities, but that is not the case. Often respectable people will look down at those who don’t have jobs with the idea that they are undeserving of any pity. It is thought that those without jobs must be living it up, having a grand old time. Generally speaking, I do not think that this is the case. Life for these folks appears to be a seeking after one escape after another. They are looking to escape their boredom and misery but they cannot. All is vanity. This dream of letting yourself go, indulging in one treat after another, is supposed to make a person happy, but it does not.

It is in this regard that I think Solomon’s words about work are instructive as an alternative to how we naturally think. He says, “The worker’s sleep is sweet, whether he eats little or eats much.” He also says, “It is beautiful to eat, to drink, and to look for good in all a person’s hard work which he has done under the sun.” Here we have some positive thoughts about work that come from a man whose general theme otherwise is that all is vanity.

The fact is that we human beings were created to work. Even before the fall into sin God put Adam in the garden. He was to look after it and tend it. He was to exercise dominion over it and give names to all the animals. God did not set him upon a couch where he could be fed grapes and fanned and massaged. These things are good in their place, but the place for rest and relaxation is that those activities are not to be the main thing in life. If they are the main thing in life, then we won’t be truly happy. The main thing in life is that we should be active, that we should work. This is something good.

I certainly hope that God has blessed you with the experience, at least at one time or another, where you have found work to be pleasant. On the other hand, I have no doubt whatsoever that you have all experienced work to be a burden. That’s very common. It is rarer (but not that rare) that we should also enjoy our work from time to time. Sometimes even when we are really huffing and puffing, slaving away, there may well be a part of us that rejoices.

I also hope that you have been blessed by God with the experience of a worker’s sleep being sweet. Sleep after hard work is mighty refreshing. It’s similar to the way that hunger is the best spice. Ordinary food can taste mighty good to the one who is hungry. The joy in that sleeping and in that eating cannot be bought with any amount of money. It can only be known by the one who has experienced it. But it can only be experienced by the one who also has suffered somewhat.

I’ve done some hard labor during my life. I’ve known the sweetness of sleep and the goodness of food and drink. But I also know how I’m happy to be done with the hard work that brings about these pleasures. I was glad when the summer was over and I could go back to school and not have to sweat it out in the heat. So something that the fall into sin seems to have done to us is that we have lost our enduring joy in work. Thank God we catch glimpses of it every now and then otherwise work would be more disagreeable than it already is, but for the most part our joy in our work is fleeting.

Regardless, to me it seems helpful to point out that work is good for its own sake. Work is good if you are doing one thing or another thing. Work is good if you work indoors or outdoors. Work is good if you get paid a lot or if you get paid a little, or if you are only receiving room and board. What is good about work is that it is productive and helpful.

But we are prone to grumble and complain, and thus make work a torture. Bitterness with our work makes the work all the harder. Instead of thinking about the work that we do, and doing the work well, we end up trying to escape it. We think about how our coworkers are no good, our tasks are no good, our pay is no good. We’d be a whole lot better off if we worked someplace else, with different tasks to do, with better pay. Sadness, laziness, despair, meanness, and a whole bunch of other evil spirits crowd out all joy. It is usually these unhappy people who look with the most envy and anger at those who do not work at all. They wish that they could do the same as them.

But these are things that cannot be solved by changing outward circumstances. We are dealing with spiritual things here. A diseased spirit cannot be happy no matter what job that person might have. A diseased spirit cannot be happy whether the person works or not. On the other hand, a healthier spirit is going to find joy in work no matter what crosses are placed upon the person. A healthier spirit does not believe that coveting is the key to success. A healthier spirit does not believe that making monuments with money or accomplishments is the key to happiness. A healthier spirit is thankful to God rather than being engaged in never-ending negativity.

Notice that I said “a healthier spirit” instead of simply saying “a healthy spirit.” On this earth there is no one who has arrived at perfect health after the fall into sin. The only exception to that is Jesus. There you see a healthy spirit, who rejoices in the will of the Father, no matter what the will of the Father might be. With us, and with our fallen flesh, we will not arrive at perfect health until we are purified in heaven. Then we will know what it was like for Adam to work before the fall into sin. But until then, even the best of us are going to be tried with times of grumbling and sadness.

It is important, however, that we see these things for what they are. They are not good. I know that it is unbelievably common for us to grumble and complain with our work. It’s so common that nobody thinks twice about it being acceptable. But bitterness, boredom, sadness, envy, and other common afflictions with work do not come from good sources. They come from evil sources. There’s nothing the devil would like more than to strip us of all joy and thankfulness. He would have us be blind to anything that is good, and super-attentive to all that is bad.

Our work—no matter what that work might be, whether we are paid for that work or not—is a very important part of our life. If this part of our life can be ruined by evil spirits, then what great sadness the devil can work upon the earth! Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Prayer is a good way to drive the evil spirits away. Thankfulness, also, that is, praising and giving thanks to God, is a powerful tonic for our sadness.

With the way that Solomon says that all is vanity, a person might think that this would be true also about our work. But Solomon does not say that work is vanity. If you work for money and prestige and retirement, then, to be sure, that is vanity! But that is not why work is given to us. Work is the way that we can live happily and help other people. Work is an important part of our lives as God’s creatures.

God drive away evil spirits from you and give you his Holy Spirit. May your hearts be filled with love and thankfulness.

211205 Sermon on Luke 3:1-20 (Advent 2) December 5, 2021

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We spend a lot of our lives getting prepared. Children get prepared to go to school. Those in school get prepared to go to college. Those in college prepare for getting a job. Those with a job prepare for getting a house. We get prepared for marrying a spouse. We get prepared for having a child. We get prepared for grandchildren. We get prepared for retirement. We get prepared by writing a will. We get prepared for having a funeral. We prepare for a lot of things.

One of the things that we should be prepared for, but often don’t prepare for, is to meet Jesus. The necessity of preparing for other things is obvious. We know that we have to prepare, otherwise it isn’t going to happen. When it comes to meeting Jesus a common thought seems to be: “I’m already prepared."

“I went to Vacation Bible School when I was a kid. I went to Sunday School.” But these are pretty shabby preparations. Even lackadaisically attending the divine service every week can be pretty shabby. We prepare much more thoroughly for all kinds of other endeavors in our life. What if kids studied God’s Word as hard as they study to get a good job? But that doesn’t happen. The reason is that we don’t care. We figure that we’re already prepared, so we can indulge in whatever we might want to indulge in as the main thing in our life.

This is strange, if you think about it. How can anything be more important than meeting God? But we are not nearly so logical or wise as we like to believe. Unbelief is deeply seated in our flesh. We lack the ability to think seriously about our Maker. We follow every distraction that might come our way.

It’s like we’re supposed to be on our journey to God, but every off-ramp that comes along we can’t help but take. The billboard says, “Pleasure here!” And off we go. “Honors and recognition here!” and we put on our blinker. We are ready and willing to prepare for absolutely anything that holds out promise for our happiness and blessing, so long as it is not the one thing needful.

This is why it is necessary for God to send John the Baptists. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for the Lord. Like a good roadbuilder he shaves off the mountains and hills and fills in the valleys. He makes the crooked places straight. He makes the rough places smooth.

Or, to continue on with the analogy that I’ve already started, the John the Baptists whom God sends put up roadblocks for the exits on the highway to our God. We need to prepare to meet the Christ. We’re never going to be prepared if we are always getting off the highway to pursue any and every other goal besides meeting our Maker.

But the John the Baptists whom God sends do not have a very easy time doing this. With practically all the prophets whom God calls to be his messengers, they all answer pretty much the same way. They all say, “Not me. I don’t want to do this.” People are stubborn as mules. We want to do what we want to do. While we are doing what we want to do we want to be assured that what we are doing is fine. It is in the nature of roadblocks that they are essentially saying, “This isn’t fine. You aren’t fine if you do this.” People don’t like hearing this.

This is what brought about John the Baptist’s death, as Luke mentions at the end of our reading. He told Herod and Herodias that it was wrong for them to divorce their spouses so that they could be together. They were committing adultery with each other. They, and especially Herodias, did not like this. When an opportunity arose to remove the head of John the Baptist from his shoulders and put it on a silver platter, she jumped at the chance. She didn’t repent. She got even.

Or so she thought, anyway. She thought that she won in a contest between herself and John the Baptist, but John the Baptist was never playing her game. All true prophets and all genuine Christians do not say what they say because they want to dominate over other people. They do not put up roadblocks because they want to throw their weight around like a bad cop. They are following instructions that have been given to them by God. Herodias thought that she was in a contest with John the Baptist, but the fact of the matter is that her contest was with God. She proved her guilt by the way she treated the prophet whom God sent her. She thought she won, but she is going to lose.

John the Baptist, for his part, lost nothing when he lost his head. He too was and is dealing with God. God doesn’t need glue to put his head back on. His ways of healing are much more marvelous than that. Doing the right thing, acting according to the Word of God regardless of the consequences, is powerfully comforting. John the Baptist could be satisfied that he had said and done what was right.

Those who are warned, however, and plunge right on ahead, driving through the roadblock, their consciences testify against them. That’s the best case scenario. If they still have a conscience there’s a chance that they can still get back on the highway to God. If they become proud of their rebellion against God, then there’s less and less hope for them as time goes on. They confirm themselves and strengthen themselves in their errors. They are lost in the imaginations of their hearts.

They don’t know the way to the highway. They cease to know what is really good and what is really evil. They don’t know which way to go. They end up going after the things that they think are good, which are actually worthless or evil. They don’t do what is good because it does not suit their fancies or advance their own ambitions. By all outward appearances they may appear perfectly fine or more than fine. They might still retain membership in the church. But God judges justly. Whether a rebuke, a warning, a roadblock was justified or not is something that God is going to decide. Whatever you might think about it won’t matter in the slightest.

Christianity is a religion of repentance. It’s been a religion of repentance from the very beginning. Adam and Eve had to change directions. The whole Bible testifies to practically all the great ones needing to change direction. Repentance is painful. It always feels better to believe that we are just fine the way that we are. But the way we are is sinful and unclean. If we just continue according to our own inclinations, then it is inevitable that we will not be on the highway to our God.

Since Christianity is a religion of repentance, it is extremely important that we be sensitive to the John the Baptists that God sends into our life for our own good. Some of these people who speak God’s truth to us might be called by God to preach in an official and public capacity—like me as a pastor. Others will not be officially called, but will speak God’s Word because they are Christians. Regardless of how God sends his Word to you, be careful that you do not despise it.

It might seem that whatever gets said to you is not God’s Word. It is easy to think that whatever gets said is just a personal hang-up of the person (or the goody-two-shoes) who is talking. It is easy to resent being told what to do. It is easy to deflect the message that should bring about repentance into something else. A person, for example, could complain about John the Baptist’s appearance, or his diet, or his harsh words. But all these are besides the point.

If you are confronted by a Word from God that gets your goat, here is some advice. Step back for a moment and think about what is going on. Ask yourself whether this person who is talking to you hates you. Do you think John the Baptist hated those who he talked to? Even though he could become very angry, it was not hatred that prompted him to speak. Even when he called the crowds who were coming to him a brood of vipers, it was so that they would wake up and repent. Perhaps the one who has spoken to you desires goodness and happiness for you. They can see that the way that you are going is definitely not going to turn out well. Even if God doesn’t take away your happiness in this life, you will be responsible for your rebellion against him in the next.

On the other hand, it is possible that the one whom you are dealing with could be evil. It is certainly possible for people to abuse each other spiritually. It’s not like every rebuke and warning has to be automatically listened to. Sometimes the person whom you are dealing with hates you, and, for example, wants to dominate over you. Plus they do it in the Name of God. Shame on them! They will be severely judged for doing that, for there is hardly a worse sin a person could commit than to mislead and harm while claiming to speak for God. Jesus warns us against wolves wearing sheep’s clothing.

It is important, therefore, that we do not simply accept whatever anybody and everybody might say. We’ve been given the Bible to know what is right and what is wrong. No human being, no matter how saintly or kindly that person might appear to be, has the right to contradict Scripture. So if someone speaks to you in such a way where he or she is claiming that it is what God says, then you do well to see that it is found in Scripture. In this endeavor, though, make sure that you don’t let the devil or your flesh trick you. The devil has been known to quote Scripture too. Sometimes people can be awfully clever, twisting the Scriptures towards their own purposes.

There are big challenges in knowing whether something that has been said is true to God’s Word or not. Such is life. Don’t be a lazy fool, like so many, who say that they can’t be bothered to know whether something is true or not. They want to pass off this task to someone else so that they are no longer responsible. You should recognize this as a foolish thought if you only think about what is going on. It’s not like this is some isolated part of our existence that we can hire someone to do for us. This is talking about the main thing. There is the highway to our God with many exits. If we end up getting off the highway, and then complain about it being hard knowing where to go, there is no one who is going to suffer for that except one’s self.

There is a divine story to all of our lives. God is dealing with each one of us. While we are in the midst of it, we usually don’t have the perspective where we can see the big picture. I’m old enough now to look back on my own life and see some critical moments where God sent a John the Baptist into my life. I must continue to be on the lookout for these gifts from God—gifts that are sometimes really painful. I will need these gifts until I’m safely laid into the grave if Christ doesn’t come first.

Eventually everyone will be able to see those critical moments in their life where they were urged to repent. It is so important that we not be like Herod and Herodias. It is so important that we do not get mad at John the Baptist instead of listening to him. Otherwise the rebukes and warnings that get spoken to us might haunt us eternally. We might wish with every fiber of our being that we had heeded the warning instead of plunging headlong into whatever it was that we wanted to continue to do.

This is not child’s play. It is not the case that what is important about your life is all the other stuff and church is just a hobby or a custom. The highway to our God is the main thing. See to it that you stay on the steep and narrow way.

211201 Sermon on Ecclesiastes 1-2 (Advent 1 Midweek) December 1, 2021

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

We tend to get comfortable with certain interpretations and understandings of our life where we figure we know what things are all about and we take that for granted. Who we are, and what we hope for, end up being pretty stable. We know who we are and we know what we would like to have happen. We might accumulate some wisdom for ourselves. We lay down some rules for ourselves, which we figure should help us get what we want. We are something of a work-in-progress. We make our way through the course of this life, trying to do the best for ourselves. The hope is that tomorrow will be better than today. Maybe, through wisdom and hard work, we can bring about a better tomorrow.

These kinds of thoughts are what Solomon calls in this short book of Ecclesiastes “vapor,” or another way that this same word gets translated in older translations: “vanity.” This is a peculiar word. The only way that anybody is going to learn anything about what the word means is from the Bible. Outside of the Bible nobody ever speaks this way. “Vapor” or “breath” is a good literal translation, but there’s something more that needs to be understood about it. It is not just the mist or the puff of air. It’s really about the way that something so quickly goes away.

Forgive me for my crudeness here, but it’s like someone passing gas in a 40 mile an hour wind. That fart isn’t going to stick around for long. It’s here one moment. Less than a moment later, it is gone forever. You can’t put it in a bottle and store it on the shelf, no matter how hard you try. Resistance is futile.

“Futility” is another good word to use to help us understand what Solomon and the Bible mean by “vanity.” Instead of saying that everything is vapor, or everything is vanity, you could also say, “Everything is futile.” There’s no getting around it. There’s no working harder or smarter. The end has been predetermined, and there’s nothing that can change it.

Of all the thoughts a person could possibly think, there is no thought that the world hates more than this one. Most people will not even allow themselves to go there. They don’t even think about it. It is strictly forbidden. Such thoughts are evil.

Take, for example, a cancer diagnosis. Not all cancer diagnoses are the same. Some are quite curable. Others are terminal. Even with a terminal diagnosis of cancer, however, it is against the rules to say that resistance is futile. This is especially the case if a person is young and otherwise healthy. It is so unbelievably impolite, or even evil, to say that there’s nothing to be done. Instead what everyone is supposed to say is that there’s always hope. Who knows? Maybe there’s some experimental treatment. Maybe herbal medicine might help. Hope is dished out by everyone, including the doctors, until the bitter, bitter end. It’s not until the patient is on the morphine drip that the truth may be aired that curative efforts are futile. By then the patient might already be in a coma.

Even at this point, however, we still don’t give up. Immediately the gears get changed. If we get stuck going one direction, then we’ll back up and go another. If one hope is dashed, then it’s time to move on to another. And so at the death bed the family might start to think and talk about the way that the one who is dying will be remembered. The hope for them to continue to live physically is futile, but surely the person can live on in the memories of the people who are left behind. Hope springs eternal.

This too, unfortunately, is vanity. It’s not going to happen. The memories are going to die just like their bodies did. The next generation might hold on to some memories. But what about the generation after that? By the time the third or fourth generation rolls around the memories are completely and totally obliterated.

You can know this just by consulting what you yourself know. Maybe you remember some of your great-grandparents. What kind of memories, though, do you have of those great-grandparents who died before you were born? That’s just three generations back. Four generations and the best you can hope for is that the name is remembered. Which of you can quickly and easily recall even the names of your 16 great-great grandparents? You probably have to consult some book that you have stuck in the closet.

Each of those people, your blood relatives, lived just as full and rich of lives as you have lived. People at their funeral dinners may very well have said that they were quite the character and nobody will ever forget them. Now only their names are known and hardly anything more. Resistance is futile. This is a rude thought. Sentimentality vanishes like it’s caught in a 40 mile an hour wind.

We’ve looked at but one example of the way that cherished hopes about our lives and our memories are dashed. Nothing is off limits, though, when it comes things that are vain. Solomon says, “Nothing but vapor, totally vapor. Everything is just vapor that vanishes.” He is not talking about just a little part of our lives. He’s not talking about being a couch potato, playing video games, or other things that people enjoy denouncing. He’s saying that about all aspects of our lives. Solomon was a great man. He was strong. He was wise. He was no slouch. He got busy.

He says in our reading, “I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted every kind of fruit tree in them. I made reservoirs of water for myself to irrigate a forest of sprouting trees.” He had all kinds of employees. He had all kinds of assets. He even had all kinds of lovers.  No pleasure was withheld from him. He even had pleasure in how he worked hard.

Now tell me: What else should he have done? How could he have lived a fuller and richer life? He was thoroughly engaged and had the resources to fulfill every aspect of his life on this earth. He challenged himself mentally—planning and executing projects. He exercised his will with hard work and a fit body. His emotional life was not neglected either. He was a person who had it all together. He was like those people you see who wear all the right clothes, go to the right gym, eat the right food, and have overachieving children.

But what does he say about all this? He lists all his magnificent accomplishments, then he says, “I turned my attention to everything that my hands had done and to how hard I had worked for it. Note this: it was all vapor, all chasing the wind. There was no benefit under the sun.”

This thought can only be learned from the Bible. It is absolutely hateful to the unbelieving world. People draw fatalistic conclusions from it. People think, “Well, if all these worthy endeavors are futile, then I might as well seek out the bottle and the porn shop. I might as well give myself over to debauchery.”

But this is kind of like the way that we speak about the person who is dying or who has died. The noble, robust, physical life has ended. At least we can hold on to this ghostly kind of life with the memories. In like manner, when people hear that their noble efforts are futile, they think that they can at least live for the basest kinds of pleasure.

But Solomon is quite clear about this. This also is vanity. Pleasure is futile too. When he says that all is vanity, he means all is vanity. The Bible means it. All is brought to nothing. All is destroyed. All the things that people trust in are going to be revealed for the impotent and worthless things that they really are.

There is only one exception to the oppressive rule of vanity and futility that otherwise governs our existence. Paul says in Romans chapter 8: “Creation was made subject to futility, not by its own will, but by the will of the one [that is, God] who subjected it.” This shows us that the meaninglessness and futility of all man’s hopes and ambitions is not because of fate or chance. Futility is because of God. He subjects creation to futility against its will. But he does it for a purpose.

Paul goes on: “Creation was subjected to futility in hope, that even creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption, in order to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Here we have another strange thought, so we’ll really need to pay attention here. We’ve already mentioned one strange thought that the world cannot stand—that all creation is subject to futility. Here we have another, that’s similar. The world will never believe it or like it. The thought is that we will be set free from our slavery to corruption. Other words for “corruption” are “rottenness,” “decay,” “decomposition.” We should be set free from our slavery to dying, to rotting.

As it is, we are enslaved to getting old, breaking down, decomposing, even while we are yet living. Once we die our bodies are enslaved to all kinds of nasty processes. Formaldehyde or cremation is only able to mask it somewhat. There’s no staying alive once we have died. We are enslaved to corruption. There is only one way out of this, and that is Jesus who died and is risen.

So according to Paul’s teaching in Romans 8 we have some very strong statements. First of all, God has subjected creation to futility. This has been the main thing that we’ve talked about tonight. All hopes and dreams, no matter how lovely or popular they might be, are nothing but vapor, totally vapor. Every hope for lasting happiness, for immortality, for leaving your mark on this world, is a hope that is dashed to the ground. And God is the one who does this. If nothing else, he will put this futility on display when he brings about the end of the world. This is the one strong statement.

The other strong statement is that God does this in hope. The hope is that we should be set free from the slavery of death and decay that nobody can otherwise escape. The way that we are set free is through Jesus who died once and for all, but who now lives and will never die again. God has had pity on us poor creatures who have no hope otherwise. But through Christ alone we are set free from death and decay. Even more than that. Paul says that we “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

As it often happens, both of these thoughts are too much for the world. The futility that is spoken of is too deep and too horrible. The world wants to believe that death isn’t that bad. It’s not that big of a deal. We can still remember and celebrate, so on and so forth. To these commonly held dreams the Bible says no. Such thoughts are vain.

On the other hand, the Bible says that we will be set free from death and decay. The stranglehold that death and decay has on this present world is going to be broken. We will even be God’s very own children, free and unencumbered. This is too high, too glorious for the world. The world knows nothing better and strives for nothing higher than having your name written in some dusty old history book that children are forced to read. Believing that we can become and, in fact, are God’s children through baptism is too strange, too unbelievable.

This is why it is so important that you do not despise preaching and God’s Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. You aren’t going to find these truths told to you anywhere else. In fact, the opposite of these truths will be endlessly drummed into your ears from practically every possible source.

You do well, though, to ignore these futile voices and believe that Jesus is the only decisive factor. Outside of him, everything is vanity. In him is more than we can possibly think or imagine.