210829 Sermon for the Marytrdom of St. John the Baptist, August 29, 2021

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John the Baptist was put in prison for telling his ruler, Herod Antipas, that it was not right for him to divorce his own wife and to marry the divorced wife of his half-brother. John the Baptist was in jail for telling Herod that divorce is wrong, and marrying someone who has wrongfully divorced is adultery.

This was the same thing that Jesus taught. He was once asked about whether it was allowable to get divorced. He responded by saying that it betrayed a hardness of heart. That was why Moses allowed certificates of divorce to be issued. Then he says that it was not like that from the beginning. Adam and Eve became one flesh, so, Jesus says, “What God has joined together let not man separate.” Except in the case of sexual immorality divorce is not real and effective according to him. A wrongfully divorced person is committing adultery if he or she joins with another, and the person who marries a divorced person is committing adultery. In God’s sight the one who has wrongfully divorced is still married to their first spouse. The second spouse is like taking a lover while married.

Most people do not know what the Bible says about divorce because it is not a very popular teaching. It is not a very popular teaching because it condemns a lot of people. Nobody likes to be condemned. Most people don’t like to tell others that they are condemned. You might make them sad or angry. They might seek revenge. So everybody keeps their mouths shut for the sake of numero uno.

John the Baptist, however, did not keep his mouth shut. John was a man full of love and zeal. He loved the Lord his God. He loved the word of the Lord his God. He believed with all his heart that the word of God was a true and reliable guide for the way that human beings can be blessed beyond measure. So he was not ashamed of what God said and commanded, even if it made others sad or angry. Does not the Word of God put us on the spot all the time? Doesn’t it always reveal the shame of our nakedness?

That is because God’s Word brings light into the darkness of our lives. Jesus says that how we react to the light is the basis for how each and every individual will be judged. Jesus says, “This is the basis for the judgment: The light has come into the world, yet people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. In fact, everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, or else his deeds would be exposed. But the one who does what is true comes toward the light, in order that his deeds may be seen as having been done in connection with God.”

The light is good. We are evil. That is why we are so prone to shun the light and allow ourselves and all those we know and love to remain in the darkness. While we are in the darkness our wickedness is not known. Many hope that the darkness can go on forever, but it won’t. Everything will be exposed, Jesus says. The light is either going to shine on us in this life or it is going to shine on us when we die. It is much better that it should shine on us in this life, during this time of grace, so that we may repent and shun the darkness rather than the light. Then we can come to love the light rather than the darkness.

This is what would be pleasing to God too. Just before the quotation I just read to you from Jesus about the light he also rather famously says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up [on the cross], so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned, but the one who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” Then he says, “This is the basis for the judgment…”—the beginning of the quotation earlier. This is the basis for the judgment: whether we have loved the light or the darkness. So those who bring the light of God’s judgments are good, even if that light hurts our eyes that accustomed to darkness.

But not everybody will repent when they have been shown the light. Often people will shrug their shoulders and carry on the way that they have been. They will probably be annoyed or hold a little grudge against the one who called them to repentance. This reaction is the biggest reason why we Christians lose heart about using God’s Word. We simply don’t think that it will work. Why confront loved ones with their sins? Why go through the trouble? Why put a damper on the relationship or do worse damage by shining the light into the darkness? We suppose it won’t do any good anyway.

But this way of thinking is patently untrue. God’s Word is God’s Word. It is sharper than any two edged sword. It is living and active. The power of God is in it because the Holy Spirit always accompanies it. The Holy Spirit will do as he wishes with that word even apart from our intentions.

Consider the example of the prophet Jonah. God sent Jonah to the wicked city of Ninevah. God told him to preach repentance there. But Jonah hated the people of Ninevah because they were so wicked and cruel. He didn’t want to help them. That is why he boarded ship going the opposite direction and ended up being swallowed by a great fish. Finally he came to Ninevah and very half-heartedly said, “Repent. God’s judgment is about to fall on you.” Even though he didn’t like the Ninevites, and even though he gave them his worst sermon, God was in that word. The people repented with sackcloth and ashes.

So we shouldn’t be so clever as to think that God’s Word won’t work. We also shouldn’t work too hard to make it sound good so that it will be more successful. Study how John the Baptist preached. He tried to be as plain and simple as he possibly could. He didn’t whip up emotions like some tent preacher embarking on a revival. He spoke the truth. God’s truth brings light. That light offers a way out for those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. It gives them the possibility of a clean conscience—something that they purposely don’t think about while shunning the light.

Bringing the light, though, can also bring about martyrdom. The first martyr was Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, and the brother of Cain. When Cain looked at Abel he couldn’t stand the sight of him. Abel was the voice of his own condemnation. So he tried to put out the light by knocking the lights out of Abel. But it didn’t work. He was haunted by his evil actions against the godly man for the rest of his days. He is still haunted and will remain so eternally. He loved the darkness and that is exactly what he got whether he likes it now or not.

Today we also think of John the Baptist. He died for teaching what was right about marriage and divorce—an area of life already at that time which was poorly understood. Divorce, particularly among the movers and shakers like the Herodians, was common. When Jesus told his disciples about how stringent marriage was, and how divorce was not really an option, they were surprised. Given how prevalent and acceptable this sin had become, it would have been easy for John the Baptist to tell himself that he shouldn’t die on that hill.

This is a common problem for professional preachers. We like to tell ourselves that we should really overlook this thing or that thing, because there are bigger fish to fry. But John was a wonderful man. He wasn’t a liar, like so many professional preachers. He was a reliable guide because he only wanted to preach and teach what God had said. And so it came to pass that he ended up being put to death for standing up against what most consider to be a petty sin. The whole thing was rather pathetic instead of grand and heroic. The order for his execution came from a drunken vow at a birthday bash. The one behind the plot was a scornful woman who hated John for saying what was true.

When revenge is successful against those who bring the light, this can appear, yet again, to be a defeat. It can look as though God’s Word didn’t do any good. But God says that his Word always accomplishes the purpose for which he sent it. We are all familiar with God’s purpose where he will send his Word in order to open the eyes of the blind and give hearing to the deaf. His Word can be a shining light in a dark place, giving warmth and healing to those who embrace it. This is when God sends his Word in order to convert and save sinners.

But there is another reason why God can send his Word too. God can send his Word to harden the hearts of the disobedient. He speaks of this when he calls Isaiah to be a prophet in chapter 6 of that book. Jesus, also, speaks extensively about this in Matthew chapter 13. When God sends his Word to harden the hearts of the disobedient God makes it so that the Word will have no effect on them. Hearing they do not hear. Seeing they do not see. Otherwise they would be turned, but God, in his anger, prevents that for those whom he hardens.

So the killing of a prophet can be the way that God closes the book on an individual, on a congregation, on a church body, or on an entire nation. The faithful preacher is never harmed, ultimately. John the Baptist lost nothing when he lost his head. At that point he was no longer at home in the body; he was at home with the Lord. He did as the Lord bade him do. We cannot ask for anything better than that—that we remain faithful unto death. The house of Herod, however, only sank deeper and deeper, closer and closer to hell.

We know that Herod was by no means shaken up or became sober when he murdered John. It did not make him fear God. We can know this by the way that he treated Jesus on Good Friday. On Good Friday, when Pontius Pilate heard that Herod, the ruler of Galilee was in town, he sent Jesus over to him because Jesus was a Galilean.

Herod was glad to see Jesus, because he had heard that Jesus was able to do some pretty cool tricks. Herod tried to make Jesus put on a good show for him, but Jesus remained silent. Herod didn’t get mad. He got even. He put the king of the Jews in a splendid robe, mocked him, and treated him with contempt. Then he sent him back to Pilate. Luke tells us that Herod and Pilate became friends that day. Before that Herod and Pilate didn’t get along, but perhaps because they both thought that Jesus was so amusing and foolish, they became friends that day because of their shared contempt for the Lord of Glory.

Here, again, it is not as though the Word of God failed. By these men’s evil deed the greatest good was brought about by God. Jesus was sacrificed. Like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so he was lifted up on the cross, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. The book was closed for many of the Jews—especially the high and mighty. God rejects the proud, but gives grace to the humble. The Jews, those who were formerly the people of God, became the most zealous and ruthless persecutors of the Christians. And so it came to pass that the Gospel came to the Gentiles instead.

When we hear about the beheading of John the Baptist, we should not become afraid. Nor should we think that the Word of God failed or was of no effect. We should not become fearful of the light of God’s Word because those who sit in darkness hate it so much. We should not put that light under a bushel basket. There are more important things that keeping one’s head. When we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. If this temporary earthly tent is destroyed, we know that we have a building, built by God, an eternal dwelling in heaven.

You have all been given the privilege of being bearers of the light. You have all been given the knowledge of how to get to heaven. You well know that we do not get to heaven by sinning and more sinning, sitting in the darkness and hoping that nobody finds out about what we have done. You know full well where that will land anybody and everybody who lives with such an evil conscience. And so bring the light of God’s Word to bear on those in your life. Don’t lessen God’s Law or try to make it more palatable. Tell it straight like John the Baptist did. It’s not all bad to follow John’s example. You don’t always and only preach condemnation. To those who become aware of their sin and darkness, you may also follow John’s example: point to Christ and say, “There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

210822 Sermon on 2 Corinthians 3:4-11 (Trinity 12), August 22, 2021

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Mt. Sinai was the place where God led Moses and the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. Mt. Sinai is in the Sinai peninsula—a very desolate, desert-like place. God had to feed them with manna, and water them with water from a rock, otherwise they certainly would have died. At Mt. Sinai God took up residence at the top and manifested his glory. Moses tells us that his glory was such that there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud that covered the mountain, smoke like smoke from a kiln, the earth quaked, and the sound of a ram’s horn that grew louder and louder.

It was from Mt. Sinai that God gave the Ten Commandments. These were words that God spoke directly to the Israelites from the top of the mountain. When God had finished speaking the Ten Commandments, the people said, “Please, quit speaking to us. If you keep speaking with us we will die. Speak to Moses instead.” And so it came to pass that God called Moses to the top of the Mountain while the people were gathered below. Moses was on top of the mountain for forty days and forty nights. God told him many things. He also gave him two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments inscribed upon them, which Moses brought down with him.

When Moses came down from the Mountain he did not realize that his face was shining. His face was shining because he had been speaking with the Lord. This amazed the Israelites so that they were afraid to come near him. When Moses spoke to the people and when he spoke to the Lord he would speak with them without a veil. When he was done speaking he would put a veil over his face. Evidently his appearance was so unnerving that it was easier to look at the strange sight of a veiled man than it was to see the glory of the Lord being reflected from his face.

This is important information for our epistle reading this morning. In the section that was read, Paul is trying to impress upon the Corinthians that the New Testament, which Paul has preached to them, is more glorious than even the old covenant that God gave through Moses. There are several points of comparison that Paul makes. The old was of the letter. The new is of the Holy Spirit. The old kills. The new gives life. The old works condemnation. The new works righteousness. The old has been brought to nothing. The new is enduring. There is an obvious imbalance here. The new is better than the old. Thus, Paul argues, if the old had so much glory that people weren’t able to look at Moses’s face because of its reflected glory, then how much more glory must the new testament have that Paul has preached to them?

Before we get into how what Paul is saying is true, I’d first like you to notice how easy it would be for someone to think that what Paul has claimed here is false. Paul says that what the Corinthians have been given is more glorious than what was given at Mt. Sinai. It is easy to ask: Where’s the mountain? Where’s the smoke? Where’s the thunder and lightning? Where’s the horn that blasts louder and louder? Furthermore, where’s the mighty nation of Israel—hundreds of thousands of people, whereas the number of Christians at that time were nowhere near that? Where’s the shining face of Paul? There were none of these things!

And yet Paul has the audacity to say that the glory of the New Testament is such that the old has come to have no glory at all. It’s like how the glory of the sun so outshines the glory of the moon that when the sun is out, we cannot see the moon. The glory of the New Testament is so great that the glory of Mt. Sinai is nothing. Paul isn’t saying that the two glories are close. It’s hard to tell which is greater. No, he is saying that the glory of the New Testament blows the other one out of the water.

Obviously the glory that Paul is talking about is not as visible to the naked eye as the glory we hear about at Mt. Sinai. The visible, auditory glory of Mt. Sinai is absent from the New Testament church. None of the unusual signs that accompanied the apostles were even close in grandeur to the miracles God worked at the time of Moses. Hollywood would be much more interested in turning Exodus into a movie script than the book of the Acts of the Apostles. So what glory is Paul talking about?

He is talking about the glory of Jesus Christ. Specifically he is talking about Christ the crucified. Elsewhere he tells the Corinthians in the strongest language possible that he was determined to know nothing among the Corinthians except Christ and him crucified. Not everybody is going to be able to see the glory of Christ the crucified. Paul flatly states this not long after our reading.

He says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing. In the case of those people, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from clearly seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is God’s image.”

Those who have been blinded by the god of this age look for so-called “practical” results, or they are looking for a show. Those who have been blinded by the god of this age are looking for practical things like fame and fortune. Or they are looking for power. They are looking for a god who will overwhelm them with signs and wonders. They believe that they would believe in such a god and submit to him.

Consider Jesus on the cross. The people did not believe in him while he was struggling for breath, wracked by torment. They knew why he was being punished. They could read the charge against him nailed above him: “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.” They knew that he had said he was the Son of God. The soldiers laughed because of the ridiculous disconnect between what their eyes were seeing and the magnificent claims that Jesus had made about himself. They said to him, “Come down from that cross, then we will believe in you.” They just wanted a little sign of power, instead of the miserable display of weakness that appeared to not live up to the claims.

In like manner people think that Christianity would be a whole lot more persuasive if only we could muster up some razzle dazzle. If we could just have lightning come from our fingertips. Or if we could heal some diseases. Or even if we could just blather in tongues! Something! Anything! By making a powerful impression we would prove our case. Then people would believe and obey God’s commandments.

This is where the example of Mt. Sinai and the Israelites is so instructive. What we think should happen with overwhelming displays of power is not what does happen. God partially revealed his glory at Mt. Sinai. Even with just this partial display of his glory the people were going out of their minds in fear. They were so afraid they thought they were going to die. Meanwhile with this powerful display of God’s glory God says, “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not.” God issues his commands and there wasn’t a single one among them who could have had any doubt that God had the power to enforce his commandments down to the letter.

But what happens while Moses is on top of the mountain for those forty days and forty nights? The people make a graven image, a golden calf, even though God very emphatically forbade such a thing in the Ten Commandments that he had just spoken to them! They knew the commandment. They knew God could severely punish them—they felt his tangible presence and power. And yet they broke the commandment anyway. Run through your mind the whole history of the Israelite people under Moses. They saw the most powerful signs and wonders and yet they broke God’s commandments continually.

This shows us that our reason is blind and foolish when it comes to these things. What we think will work, doesn’t work. We always think that the Law will do the trick, and the harsher the better. It is true that the Law is good and holy and powerful, but we are evil, sold under sin. So the only thing that the Law can do with us is condemn us and kill us. And since the Law is the way that it is, and we are the way that we are, no sinner wants to be around the Law in its clarity and simpleness unless he or she has been made secure by turning to Christ. Apart from Christ it makes sinners terribly uncomfortable because it kills and damns.

Since our faith in Christ is so weak so often, we can’t hardly help ourselves: We throw a veil over this Law that makes us so uncomfortable. We modify it, lessen it, make it reasonable, make it so that we can actually fulfill it. But this is a sure-fire way to deaden our conscience and make us immune to the Gospel. The Gospel is only accessible to those who see the Law unveiled, who die to the Law because they know that they have not kept it and cannot keep it, and vow to live in Christ instead. The letter of the Law came with glory, but contrary to what we might think, that glory did not convert and save. The Law condemned and killed all those who did not fulfill it.

Perhaps now you can begin to see what Paul is talking about with the glory of the New Testament of the Holy Spirit. Thunder, lightning, smoke, and earthquakes are glorious. Stern commands and sentences of death and damnation are so glorious that we cannot stand to look at them as being applicable to ourselves. But what are these things compared to God’s image, Jesus, who meekly comes to poor miserable sinners? Our Savior comes to us as the baby Jesus, born of the virgin Mary. Who can be afraid of a baby, suckling at his mother’s breast? He comes to us as a Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep. He puts the wayward sheep on his shoulders and carries it back to the flock. This is God. The God of Mt. Sinai is the same God who searched out broken hearted Mary Magdalene on Easter morning to bring her the glad tidings of great joy which is for all people.

This ministry of the Holy Spirit works righteousness, as opposed to the ministry of the letter which works condemnation. The Law is always saying, “Do this!” but it is never done. The Gospel says, “Believe this.” and it has already been done. For the Gospel delivers God’s own righteousness in Jesus Christ. Jesus fulfilled the Law with all its demands. He did what we have not done. All that we have not done was placed upon him and he suffered and died in our place. Thus the Law has been brought to an end—that Law that came with such great glory. This is a glory that is so much greater that the old glory ceases to have glory. This glory is God’s humble and gentle condescension to us in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit’s proclamation of the forgiveness of our sins.

This New Testament of the Holy Spirit also has a better effect in our lives than does the stern preaching of the Law. The Holy Spirit is given to those who believe. The Holy Spirit is God. By his almighty power he curbs and softens the evil heart that we have inherited from Adam.

The prophet Ezekiel tells us what God told him about baptism and the New Testament church. God says, “I will sprinkle purifying water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurity and from all your filthy idols. Then I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will carefully observe my ordinances.”

The greater glory of the Holy Spirit is hidden in the lives of Christians. In whatever callings a Christian might have, the Holy Spirit is at work. He pumps love into our daily life. The result is a quiet and peaceable life. We aren’t on the six o’clock news. We don’t blow the trumpet so that everyone can see our good works. We do our good works in secret, as Jesus tells us we should do, and our God who sees what we do in secret will reward us openly.

While the goodly part of the glory of Christ and of the New Testament remains hidden to the naked eye now, it will not always be that way. Included in the glory of the New Testament is Christ’s resurrection, and therefore also our resurrection. One day we will see God in our flesh and behold him face to face. Love will fill all things. God is love. Then we will much better understand the truth of what Paul says in our Epistle reading today. The glory of the New Testament is so much greater than the thunder and lightning of Mt. Sinai that the glory of the Law no longer has any glory at all. The greater glory of God’s reconciliation and dispensing of righteousness in Christ who was crucified is so bright, that it completely eclipses everything else.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

210815 Sermon for St. Mary, Mother of our Lord, August 15, 2021

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It is kind of hard for a protestant to observe the festival that we are observing today. Whereas Catholics and Eastern Orthodox love their ideas of who Mary is, protestants are a little leery of talking about her. That is understandable. Both of these confessions go too far with their devotion for Mary. They say things about her that aren’t true. Then, because of these false beliefs, they often believe in Mary more firmly than they might believe in Jesus or God.

So what do these other churches teach about Mary? First of all they believe that Mary was immaculately conceived. The word “immaculate” means “pure.” So by immaculate conception they mean that Mary was born without sin. In a way, it’s like she is a second Eve. Eve was created without sin, but by her sin, she and Adam contaminated our human race with sin. Mary, as the second Eve, is without sin, so that she can conceive Jesus, the second Adam, without sin.

Although the Catholics go too far with this, ascribing sinlessness to Mary, there is a bit of truth here. It is true that Jesus was immaculately conceived. The human nature that Jesus inherited from Eve was not contaminated by original sin, the way that all of us have been conceived in sin by the sinful seed of our fathers. The Scriptures say of Jesus that “he knew no sin.” He received everything from her that being a human being means, but he was not born with original sin. He was pure from the moment of his conception.

When the Catholics ascribe this to Mary, they are going beyond what we can know from the Scriptures. The Scriptures do not say that Mary was born without sin. In fact, the Catholics take it one step further and say that Mary’s mother, who is not even named or mentioned in the Scriptures, was made to be without sin.

Although Mary’s sinlessness is not taught by the Scriptures, Pope Pius IX declared in 1854 that Mary’s immaculate conception was the official Catholic teaching. In order to be a Catholic in good standing, it is necessary to believe that she was conceived without sin. In 1870, at the first Vatican Council, this teaching was affirmed when the council declared that official statements of the Pope are infallible. These are known as ex cathedra statements. There have only been two times when the Pope has made use of this so-called ability. The first was declaring the immaculate conception of Mary. The second one also had to do with Mary.

This second decree is especially connected to today, August 15, in the Catholic Calendar. If you looked at a Roman Catholic Church calendar you would not see “St. Mary, Mother of our Lord” written on today. Instead you would see the feast called the “Assumption of Mary.” In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared that Mary being assumed, or taken, into heaven, body and soul, is official Catholic teaching.

The reasoning behind this goes like this: Mary was conceived without sin and was sinless. As you well know, the wages of sin is death. So wherever there is no sin no death is due. Since Mary is held to be without sin, she couldn’t have died like everybody else. So they teach that instead of dying she “fell asleep.” This is known as the “dormition of Mary.” “Dormition” means to fall asleep. Then, after having fallen asleep, she was taken into heaven, body and soul, just like we hear of Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus.

Although the Bible says absolutely nothing about these things, the so-called vicar of Christ, the Pope, has decreed that these things are to be believed by Christians on pains of losing their salvation. It is hard to see a clearer example of the Pope putting himself in the place of God as Paul prophesied in 2 Thess. 2.

Requiring folks to believe in something that is by no means certain is bad enough, but these false ideas also have led to serious false beliefs that are at the very heart of the Christian faith. Their belief in the sinlessness of Mary has not been left as some bare factoid. It has been incorporated into their understanding of salvation. So the Catholic church teaches that Mary is the co-redemptrix, or co-redeemer, alongside Jesus the Redeemer. The sinless flesh which Jesus received from Mary is taken to be part of how we are redeemed. Thus she should be regarded as a contributor to our salvation. The Catholic church does not teach that Mary is the Savior or that she is God, but I don’t see how they could come any closer to that kind of idea. And, practically speaking, many Catholics treat Mary as God.

There is a prayer practice among Catholics known as the rosary. It is a necklace with beads where the one praying prays different things for each bead. Alongside the Lord’s Prayer and the Gloria Patri are prayers to Mary. A portion of this prayer we heard in our Gospel reading: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.” Then it goes on to say, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death. Amen.” The Scriptures do not teach us to pray to mere human beings—no matter how holy they might be. Nor do the Scriptures promise that such prayers are effective. On the other hand, we are strictly commanded to make prayers to God, and we have many promises that God hears those prayers.

It might seem as though criticizing the Catholic church is rather fussy, hair-splitting, and uncharitable. After all, the Catholic church is correct about most of the moral issues where our fellow protestants have gone completely off the rails. But  the Catholic church makes mistakes often in this way. The Catholic church has the Gospel. It has baptism. It has the Lord’s Supper. But it directs its people away from these certain things that are instituted by God and have his promises attached to them to things that have no such basis in the Scriptures or God’s promises. The Gospel and the sacraments are obscured by teaching people to rely on things that have been invented by men. They have rejected the reforms our forefathers brought to their attention. Nobody is saved by believing in lies—no matter how beautiful or devout those lies might appear to be.

The purpose of observing the festival today is the same as it is for any of the other saint’s days that we might observe. A few weeks ago we observed the day that is set aside for the apostle James. A couple weeks from now we will be considering the martyrdom of John the Baptist. We understand that these saints are not gods. We do not pray to them. We do not put our trust in them for our redemption or salvation. That trust belongs with Jesus alone. He alone died for us and rose from the dead, redeeming us from sin, death, and the devil.

Mary, also, was a human being just like any other human being. She was redeemed and saved by the blood of her Son, Jesus, just like all other human beings. She believed in Jesus and thereby received God’s grace. What is truly extraordinary about Mary is what is true about every one of us—assuming that we believe. God loved her and chose her for salvation, and she believed that. That is all the honor that anybody needs. Trying to rise above this is to try to make Mary into something that she is not—some kind of god or quasi-god.

This is not to say that Mary was just like us in every respect, or that we are just as good as Mary. We are the same as Mary so far as God’s redemption and salvation is concerned. We are not the same as her, but almost certainly lower than her, when it comes to her gifts. Elizabeth was entirely correct when she said, “Blessed art thou among women.”

There are two high and important gifts that Mary was given that I’d like to talk a little bit about today: her faith and her wisdom.

Mary’s remarkable faith can be seen at the annunciation. The annunciation is when the angel Gabriel announces to her that she is the recipient of grace, the Lord is with her, and she is blessed among women. Then he goes on to tell her that she will conceive and give birth to a Son. Even though she was a virgin and would remain a virgin, the Holy Spirit would come upon her, overshadow her, and the one born of her would be called the Son of God. To all of this that the angel said to her Mary responded: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said.” Thus she conceived, and Jesus began to grow in her womb.

At the annunciation Mary did not consult her reason. If she had, her reason would have contradicted her faith. She also did not consult her emotions. She was frightened by the angel. The road ahead was not an easy one. She was going to become pregnant without being married. What would her fiancé Joseph think? What would the people in the town whisper? Her faith made her despise whatever shame might come upon her from men. She was not looking to be successful or powerful according to worldly standards. She was content with God’s favor resting upon her. Through that faith she became the mother of God.

To this very day the teaching of the virgin’s birth is an easy target for people who impress themselves with their own powers of reasoning. The math doesn’t add up. They might think it is impossible because of the DNA. These are the proud of whom Mary speaks in the Magnificat: God has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

Which brings us to the second outstanding attribute of Mary that I’d like to consider today—her wisdom. Consider Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which we heard in our Gospel reading today:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,

because he has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed,

because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm.

He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones.

He has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy,

as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.

 You should notice that Mary’s wisdom is very much a product of her faith. Mary believes in the greatness of the Lord. She believes in his action and salvation. Consequently she is not impressed with the proud, the rich, and those who sit on thrones. God can and will bring them down. On the other hand God will raise up the humble who believe in him. Although the believer might be despised as a fool, poor, weak, and sinful, God will come to his or her aid. This is all to say that believing in God’s grace and power is wise. This wisdom won’t get you good grades in school. It is not your ticket to Hollywood or Wall Street. But these things are passing away. God’s Word will never pass away.

And so it seems quite plain to me that you will be much better off learning from Mary rather than regarding her as the co-redemptrix or the source of immense spiritual power. It seems to me that such reasoning contradicts what Mary herself says in the Magnificat. In her song she does not sing about how great and powerful she is. She says the opposite of that. She is poor and lowly, but God is great. Imitate her faith and her wisdom.

210808 Sermon on Jeremiah 8:4-14 (Trinity 10) August 8, 2021

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Sermon text:

Knowing what is wrong in any given situation is usually more than half the battle. If you know what is wrong you can efficiently go about fixing it.

For example, ever since we moved into our house we would occasionally hear mice running around in the attic. We’ve dealt with it over the years by throwing some mice poison up there. Usually after a day or two we wouldn’t hear the mice anymore. But then, after some time passed, they’d come back again. Obviously they were getting in somewhere. Over the years I’ve tried to think about where they might be getting in, but all the holes I plugged weren’t it.

This summer I’m replacing the siding on my house. This past week when I pulled some of the old siding off, I could plainly see where they were getting in. Without pulling off the old siding, I never would have been able to find the route they were using to get into the attic. Now that I know what is wrong, it is easy to fix. In another week or so, the mice won’t be able to get in anymore. A lot more had to be done in order to find the problem, than it is to fix it.

This same thing is true in all the different facets of our lives. Oftentimes, medically, it is crucial to find out exactly what is wrong so that it can be healed if possible. Or consider the state our society has been in ever since this virus showed up last year. A great deal of our fear and consternation has been caused by not knowing exactly what is wrong.

How bad is the virus? What should be done to prevent its spread? Who is telling the truth? Who is trying to sell ads? Who is buying the ads? Who is buying the politicians? How should this whole situation be interpreted? We are not all on the same page. We’re not very tolerant of those who do not think the same thing as we do. Deep down we all think, “I’m right, and they are wrong.” What a contentious mess this has created! If we could all know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of what is going on, we’d be a lot closer to addressing the situation efficiently.

This is also completely applicable to our situation religiously. Knowing what is wrong is more than half the battle. In my office I have a copy of a painting of the final judgment. It shows the resurrection of the dead. The individuals are being weighed, that is to say, judged, and some are going to the right, escorted by angels into heaven. Others are going to the left, being dragged into hell by demons. If people are able to acknowledge this as being true we are well on our way to faith in Christ. If people acknowledge that they will be judged by their Maker, they will know that things can’t go on like they have been. They will know what’s wrong.

But as you know full well, this is not the only interpretation of what our life will come to. Some say that there is no God. Some say that there is a God, but he doesn’t judge anyone. Some say that there is a judgment, but we decide what’s right and what’s wrong instead of the Ten Commandments. There is no agreement about our predicament, thus there is no agreement about the Savior.

This is true about this great and final judgment. It is also true of God’s judgments leading up to that time. In our confession of sin in the divine service we confess that we have sinned against God and therefore deserve his temporal and eternal punishment. God punishes eternally in hell. He also punishes temporally, in time, now in this life. Anyone who reads even a small portion of the Bible knows that this is true. God threatens to punish all who break his commandments. Therefore we should fear his wrath and not do anything against them. There are countless examples of God punishing people for their sins. Obviously this continues into the present time. Floods, fires, diseases and disasters of every kind are wrought by God, for nothing happens apart from his will. These scourges most certainly are his punishment for sin. But how do these things get interpreted?

Most people think the same thing about God’s temporal punishment as they do about his eternal punishment. That is to say, most people do not think that God punishes anyone. To provide explanation for these bad things other gods get appealed to. It’s a matter of luck or fate. This god was acknowledged even by the pagan Greeks and Romans that we like to look down our noses at as being so primitive and stupid. Or there is more of na embodied god who is called in to provide explanation—Mother Nature. She determines the weather, because, weathermen. Ancient equivalents of this goddess are found all over the place. Some people in our time have begun to worship her more formally, much like our ancestors did in the distant past.

But most people don’t think too hard about what happens or why. The appeal to Mother Nature without knowing what they are really saying. Most people just kind of float through life. They live how they want. They want good times. They hope the good times keep rolling, but if they stop, Oh well. Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow. The Psalms describe us quite well when they say, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”

God has spoken to us and caused it to be written down so that we may correctly interpret our lives. Without God’s Word a person might interpret life in any number of ways as we’ve already said. With God’s Word we learn what is right and what is wrong. We learn how God punishes sin and blesses righteousness. Most importantly we learn how he has intervened in the midst of our wickedness and revealed God’s righteousness by faith in Christ. This way we will not continue to go our own way like a horse plunging into battle. We most certainly would do that without God’s Word and the Holy Spirit in that Word who converts those whom he has chosen to believe in that Word.

In our Old Testament reading the prophet Jeremiah was inspired by God to speak God’s own interpretation of these people’s lives. God says to them that he has been watching them. They have become totally unfeeling. Though they sin, they do not feel bad. They’ve forgotten how to blush. Wickedness abounds all around them, but they don’t care. They don’t raise a fuss. They throw up their hands and say, “What can we do about it?”

Those who are especially responsible for helping the people to interpret their own lives, the prophet and the priest, are greedy for gain. The prophet and the priest should teach them what is right and wrong so that they can fear God’s wrath and turn to him in repentance. But whenever anybody is called to repentance it angers and annoys them. If people get angered and annoyed, they might quit putting their money into the offering plate. So the prophet and the priest say, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. The prophet and the priest shall receive the stricter judgment.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, speaks what God has given him to speak. He tells the people that God is angry with them. In his anger he is going to give their wives to other men—the raping and pillaging soldiers that God is going to bring upon the land. He is going to take away all the property that they were so hungry and greedy for. They thought that they were going to be able to keep all the stuff that they had worked so hard for, but who can stand against God? Their zeal for living a good life is what had prompted them to despise God in the first place, but now even what they have will be taken away from them.

And why does God do this? It is not because God is as unpredictable as the weather. God’s will always remained the same. It was the people who did not believe him. The people did not like Jeremiah even though he spoke God’s Word to them. They preferred the gurus who promised them that things were fine. The good times will keep rolling.

The same thing is true with Jesus. He was hated by the Jewish leaders because he called them to repentance. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem in our Gospel reading because he can see God’s fiery wrath that is about to be unleashed against them. A day is coming when they will be hemmed in on every side by the Romans so that they resort to eating dead bodies and even their children. Why? Jesus answers: “They missed the time of their visitation.” God came to them in Jesus, taught them his will, but for one reason or another they rejected this interpretation of life and preferred some other.

The wrath of God that is meted out with viruses and famines, war and bloodshed, sedition and rebellion, and other painful and dramatic scenes is terrible and terrifying—especially when we imagine that they could possibly happen to us. But these things can have a silver lining. They might wake some people up from the dream state they have been in where they are floating through life not knowing what is going on. When God afflicts you with his wrath there is nothing better that you can do in response than to turn to the One who has struck you and seek his forgiveness. Quit living in rebellion to God’s commandments and start believing his promises, lest something worse should happen to you.

Because of this silver lining that can accompany these painful things, these things are not the worst of God’s wrath, even though these are the things we fear the most. The worst of God’s wrath happens without many people even realizing it. It certainly doesn’t get reported on in the news. The worst of God’s wrath is when he takes his Word away from us. God ultimately says, “Fine, have it your way.” “You don’t want to hear God’s Word? You don’t want to be corrected for what you do wrong? You don’t care about God’s promises of salvation? Then you will not have these things. Maybe you will have gazillions of dollars and party all the way to the grave. Maybe you will be rich and famous. But you will not know God until it is too late.”

This, the worst of God’s wrath, does not get recognized as easily as other manifestations of God’s wrath. We have an intense fear of suffering and death for ourselves and those we love. When God hardens our already cold heart, it happens without being noticed. We think everything’s fine. We think there is peace. We might end up persecuting those very messengers who pronounce God’s judgments and warnings. “They don’t know what they are talking about… Plus they are divisive and irritating. We’d be better off without them.” And so it comes to pass that they indeed live without them.

I fear that this is the very thing that we are living through as a people. The hearts of our people are colder than ice towards God. Nobody fears his wrath. Few love his promises. We don’t have the strength to tell people who are living in rebellion against God that they are bringing disaster upon their own heads. We’re content with people living however they might see fit.

It would be a good thing if this miserable virus and everything that has accompanied it were recognized as God’s wrath. The leaders of our people have let us down. We’ve been led to believe false things—and not just with this pandemic. For decades, for example, they have been telling us that our biggest problem is “The economy, stupid.” We have shallowly believed that so long as we have stuff and more stuff we are making progress. Meanwhile we have been regressing, terribly, in what we know of God’s will. So long as people are buying and selling everything must be going fine, they essentially say.

If you want to be happy, which is to say, blessed, rend your hearts and not your garments. Turn to the Lord your God. Make confession for your sins, you parents’ sins, your children’s sins, and your grandchildren’s sins. Let us put away alternate gods, alternate interpretations of life, and embrace the interpretation that God teaches us in his Word.

For good reason the Psalmist says, “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Without God’s Word we might go hither and yon, but it is all in darkness and it will end in eternal darkness. God’s Word leads us to Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the light of the world. He is the living bread that comes down from heaven. He does not teach or promote wickedness. He forgives sin, and leads us in paths of righteousness. Knowing what is wrong is over half the battle. When you understand what is wrong with you and with this world, it is easy and enjoyable to embrace Jesus as our Savior. He does all things well.

210801 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:6-13 (Trinity 9) August 1, 2021

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Sermon manuscript:

The natural heart of man, darkened by sin, has a very poor understanding of God and what he is like. We can’t help but apply our own standards and think that they are good enough.

So, for example, we might think, “I’ve gone to church my whole life. I must be among those who will be saved.” Or, “I’ve never murdered anyone. I’ve never done drugs. I’ve never done this, that, and the other thing that I see everybody else doing.” “I’ve been able to keep a job. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve worked hard.” We, that is to say, our flesh, derive a great deal of comfort by weighing and comparing ourselves over and against others. We might not be the best people, but there are a whole lot of people who are much worse than us.

These thoughts, which come so naturally to us, are very powerful. The only thing that can break them is the Word of God. Even then, for most people, the Word of God goes in one ear and out the other, as Jesus speaks about with his parable of the sower of the seed. But these vain thoughts about ourselves and about our salvation must be broken if the Holy Spirit is to dwell in us and we be saved. Our natural thoughts do not come from the Holy Spirit who is always magnifying Christ. Our natural thoughts are always singing our own praises, assuring us over and over, that we must be fine just the way we are.

Our stupid fallen flesh has been the same ever since the fall into sin. Thus the flesh of the Christians in the town of Corinth was the same as that of Adam and Eve’s. It is also the same flesh as ours. It should not be surprising, therefore, that what Paul has to say to the Corinthians is directly applicable to us. The Corinthians were a lot like us. They were rich. They were surrounded by temptations. Their surrounding culture was full of sex and merchandise. They relied upon their proud Greek heritage as much as we rely upon our proud American heritage. They became distracted by all that the world had to offer. Their faith, hope, and love in God grew cold. They thought, “What can it hurt that this person or that person should fall into sin? Aren’t we all sinners? God can’t condemn all of us, can he?”

Paul is speaking to these kinds of thoughts in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. He brings to bear the example of the ancient Israelites to counter their foolish thoughts. The Corinthians were thinking, “We’re fine. There’s no problem. Haven’t we been baptized? Isn’t Paul the one who founded our congregation?” Just before the portion of this chapter that we heard this morning Paul lists the credentials of the ancient Israelites. They were all under the very cloud of God’s presence. They all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. They ate spiritual food. They drank spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them—and that rock was Christ, Paul says. Just think of all the amazing sights, sounds, and miracles that these people witnessed! If anybody should be able to brag about their credentials, then it should be these ancient Israelites, shouldn’t it?

Then comes this sobering statement: “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them. He had them die in the wilderness.”

What was wrong with these people? What kind of horrible monsters were they that God killed them in the wilderness? They weren’t too bad by most standards, and when they did sin it seemed somewhat understandable, to say the least. One time they made a golden calf as a way to honor the Lord God, then they had a big festival at church, full of fun and interesting things to do. Everybody thought it was a smashing success. Then there were those times when they grumbled because they completely ran out of money. They couldn’t get any food. They couldn’t even going to get any water. There was one time where they watched some movies that they shouldn’t have watched and God slaughtered 23,000 of them.

Then there was that time when they were afraid that they were going to die at the hands of the Canaanites who had big armies and think walls—many more resources than this rag-tag group of recently freed slaves. These are the sins—particularly that last one—which provoked God to the point where he decreed that they would all die. None of them would enter the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Only their grandchildren would enter it.

Here we see the many arguments our flesh has for why we should be saved fall to the ground. We’re members of an orthodox Lutheran Church. The Israelites were blood descendants of Abraham. We’ve gone to church our whole life. The Israelites never departed from church. The only sins we commit are the ones that we couldn’t help but do because we are tempted beyond what we can bear. The Israelites only worried and grumbled because they had no food and no water. How would you react if you had no food and no water?

Finally—and this argument always provides such comfort to our flesh—we suppose that God can’t send everybody to hell. He can’t punish everybody. We have to be at least in the top 50% as far as how good we are, so we and those we love have to be among those who are saved.

Just look what he did to these Israelites. They broke the Law, and they were punished. It did not matter who they were or what they had done otherwise. For forty years God sequestered them in the wilderness without house or home until they died. If God did this to the Israelites, what might he do against you or those whom you love who can’t hold a candle to the Israelites?

There is a common assumption that it is the easiest thing in the world to get into heaven: It seems everybody can think and live however they please. I’ve never yet been to a memorial or funeral where it is said that the deceased went to hell. Everybody gets a free pass. Or, among Christians, it might be believed that you have to know the magic words. You can live however you want, just make sure that you don’t forget the magic words. So is that what was wrong with these Israelites? Did they forget the magic words?

So what recourse is there? What can be done? The answer is “nothing.” There was nothing that the Israelites could do. Every time they tried to act they just added sin upon sin. When they tried to fix their food and water problem, they disbelieved in God and believed in Egypt. When they tried to fix their Canaanite problem they were rejecting the Lord as their warrior. When God told them that they would spend 40 years in the wilderness as punishment, they tried to fix that too. All of a sudden they figured that it was not so bad of an idea to fight the Canaanites, but God, of course, was against them. They lost terribly. There was nothing that they could do. They were wretched. Anything they tried to do only made it worse.

The same thing is true for every single human being on this planet, without exception. No one is righteous, no, not even one. Those who do badly have no hope. They wallow in their sin. Those who try to do better only make themselves more guilty. They believe that they can buy off God with their hypocritical, self-chosen, works. The most sophisticated do-gooders commit the worst sins as they play around with things that God has said and given. This makes them more blind than they were to begin with. They end up being blinder than the prostitutes and tax collectors, who at least have this going for them—if they are honest with themselves, they know the truth that they have no hope of being justified in God’s sight.

Paul tells us that God gave his Law in order to show sin, to magnify sin, and create terror. This is quite contrary to how we naturally and rationally think about God’s Law. We think God gave his Law so that we can carefully consider what it says, apply ourselves to whatever it says, and little by little, so long as we never give up, we will come out smelling like a rose.

That would, indeed, work, if we were already good to begin with. Perhaps that’s kind of like what Adam and Eve could have done. But we are evil. The Law is good, but we are evil, and so we use the Law wrongly. The only way that it can be used rightly is when we listen to what it says—namely, that we haven’t kept it, that we, of ourselves, cannot keep it no matter how hard we try. If there is to be anything good, it isn’t going to come from us. It is going to have to come from God.

This teaching, that we are completely without hope, and that the preaching of what’s right and wrong will only makes us worse, splits the world in two. Most people reject it because they have never heard of it. They look for hope where there is no hope. They look for salvation where there is no salvation. They believe in idols of every kind—even very churchy idols. They don’t know anything different.

And even if they do hear Paul’s preaching they think it is nasty. “What, are we a bunch of slobs who are incapable of improving ourselves?” “What about that wonderful lady down the street who has just been a peach? Is such a nice lady like that going to go to hell? Is there no hope for her?”

It is a hard thing to have all that we see and know and trust in taken away from us. We like to believe that the people we know are on their way to heaven. All of our flesh’s thoughts that we have considered truly provide comfort. That’s why we think them! The only problem is that they are lies. They will provide comfort for a time, but they are going to fail.

So most people hate Paul’s preaching, which is to say, they hate Christ’s cross. They reject it, fight against it, and want to rehabilitate our capacity for furthering our salvation. Rare is the person who covers his or her mouth and says, “O my God, he’s right. I have no hope. I only make things worse. Those rare occasions where I’m striving for righteousness is just so that I can glorify myself. I belong in hell as someone who hates God and everything about him including his beloved Son.” This is a bitter, ugly confession. It has to be squeezed out of us against our will when our abominable sin has been found out.

But, as Paul says, “God imprisoned all people in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all.” Again: “Scripture has confined all people under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” God’s Law has to crush us and kill us so that we quit believing in ourselves or in any other lie. Then we can believe in Jesus Christ. We have to die to the Law, so that we can live to another. We have to quit evaluating ourselves, praising ourselves, building our case for why we and those we love have to be on our way to heaven. Instead we have to say, “In the hour of death; and in the day of judgment, help us, good Lord. We poor sinners implore you, to hear us, O Lord.”

Such faith in Jesus our Savior will not disappoint us. Lies disappoint. The truth holds fast. Jesus, with this work of redemption and justification, holds fast.

And so those who believe in Christ have a strange song they sing. They tear down whatever people might believe in that is not Christ. They slaughter the sacred calves that everybody else bows down and worships. They will even tear down highly religious things, such as God’s Law, when these things are not used rightly. The whole world is to become guilty, so that Jesus, and him alone, is the only righteousness for all and to all who believe. We are weak, but he is strong. We are condemned and guilty, damned to hell, and whatever we might try to do about it will only make it worse. Our works, even our good works, are terrible. Jesus, though, does all things well. What are his works? He has chosen us and prepared for our salvation before the foundation of the world. He died for us while we were sinners under God’s wrath. Now we belong to him.

And he gives us his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit assures us that Jesus is God’s Son, that we will not be disappointed by believing in Jesus, and therefore gives us peace. The Holy Spirit assures us that we will not go to hell—not because of what we have done or left undone, but because of Jesus’s work of atonement. The Holy Spirit also forms us and shapes us, setting us on the path that we should go, sanctifying us, killing our Old Adam and raising us with Christ. He raises those who fall and strengthens those who stand. In this way God is our warrior who leads us into the Promised Land despite our weakness and sin. He defeats the devil and all enemies, putting them under our feet.

We, and everyone we might know and love, no matter how good they might seem, are dreadful and evil. There is no hope in such people. Our only hope is Jesus.

210725 Sermon on Mark 10:35-45 (St. James the Elder) July 25, 2021

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July 25 is the day that has been set aside in the church calendar to commemorate James the Elder or James the Greater. Calling him the elder or greater differentiates him from James the Younger or James the Lesser. There are two men named James in the New Testament who are rather important. The James who is commemorated today is one of the twelve apostles. The other James is known as the brother of Jesus. He ends up becoming the bishop of the congregation in Jerusalem. This other James is also the author of the book of James. But today we are focusing on James the Greater.

Let’s begin by briefly reviewing what we know about James. James was one of the twelve. He was also part of that inner circle among the twelve who were with Jesus on a few occasions where the other nine were not. The other members of this inner circle were John, his brother, and Peter, his cousin. Peter, James, and John were all called to be apostles at the same time as we heard several weeks ago. They were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus ushered the fish into Peter’s nets so that they began to break, it was James and John whom Peter called out to in order to help him. After that all three of them dropped their nets and followed Jesus.

James and his brother, John, were sons of a man named Zebedee. They also got the nickname of being sons of thunder. It is believed that they got this nickname because they were exceedingly earnest and zealous. One time when they came upon a village that did not receive Jesus they asked him if they should call down fire upon it. Also in our reading today they ask Jesus if they can sit at his right and his left—a rather cheeky thing to do, which we will speak more of in a minute. Obviously these two were not wilting daisies.

In our first reading today, from the book of Acts, you heard about how James died. James was the first of the twelve who was martyred. He was executed by King Herod. This might have been as soon as only a couple years after Pentecost. Jesus had asked James whether he was able to drink the cup that Jesus drank, and to be baptized with the baptism Jesus was baptized with. So it happened. James died because he testified that this world is evil, God is good, and Jesus is the Savior of sinners. For disrupting the party, which all the Herodians seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed, he was put to death.

And yet, even though he has died, he lives. Whoever lives and believes in Jesus never dies. Whenever the Christian church commemorates the saints it is different than when the world remembers someone. For the world, when someone dies, that’s it. Fiery James, faithful unto death, is alive with his soul with Jesus. His body awaits the great Day of the Lord. Whatever fame or recognition he might have from men is unimportant. He has received his reward from God. There is nothing better that any creature could hope for than to hear these words from the Creator: “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your master.”

Now let’s turn to our Gospel reading where we heard about this interaction between Jesus and the brothers James and John.

Mark tells us that James and John came to Jesus with an unusual request. Let me quickly note that Matthew adds a significant detail. Matthew tells us that James and John came to Jesus by sending their mother—which is what the art on the cover or our bulletin depicts. Sending your mother as an ambassador only makes the situation more unusual when they say: “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask.” Whenever a conversation begins that way, you can be sure that something unusual is about to happen.

“Make it so that we sit at your right and your left in your glory,” they say. Something we might expect is that Jesus would not be pleased with such an idea. The world is always hungry for glory and honor. The Bible teaches that this honor and glory belongs to God. We are told over and over again in the Scriptures that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Here James and John are asking to be seated at the best spots.

Jesus does not rebuke them, however. Jesus had a fine sense for what people were actually after. He must have sensed that James and John were not thinking in a worldly way. Jesus asks them if they are able to drink the cup that he is going to drink and be baptized with the baptism Jesus is going to be baptized with. They answer, “We can.”

The way that Jesus then responds shows that he is not like us. Proud men are fond of asking rhetorical questions of those they deem unworthy. Proud men ask others whether they think they can do their job. Proud men believe that only they can do their job. Everybody else is unqualified or inexperienced. So if proud men ask whether someone can do their job and the other says, “Yes, I can,” then proud men say, “Ho, ho, ho! You think so do you? You’d better have a second thought coming!”

If there were ever a situation where this lording it over others seems to be appropriate, it might be this situation. When Jesus speaks of this cup and this baptism he is speaking about his suffering and death. By his selfless love, Jesus was going to drink the cup of suffering and be baptized in blood. He would not be put to death because he was a criminal and evil doer, but precisely because he loved God and strove for what is good. Jesus’s suffering and death would redeem all people as justice is carried out upon him for the sins that you and I have committed. When James and John say that they can do what Jesus does, it seems like the more accurate answer for Jesus to give would be, “No, you can’t.”

But Jesus is an unusual person. When there are differences among us, we always want those differences to remain so that we look good. If we are better looking than someone else, we want it to stay that way. If we have more money than somebody else, we want it to stay that way. If we are more morally upright, we want it to stay that way. With Jesus, even though he is vastly superior in every respect to everyone else, he does not use this difference to glorify himself, to magnify how terrible everyone is compared to him. He uses his immense power to lift others up so that they become like him. He doesn’t laugh at how others don’t measure up. He wants others to be better. If it were possible, he would even have others be better than himself.

So Jesus says to James and John, “You’re right. You will drink the cup that I’m going to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I’m going to be baptized with.” He wonderfully does not domineer over these disciples, who probably don’t know what they are saying. It’s like he’s looking on them as a kindly father might deal with his young son. The father knows that the son has a long way to go before he can do what the father does, but he wants to help his son, not humiliate him. He wants to encourage him. So he tells the son that he’s going to be just as good as he is, if not better.

Here James and John were wanting to follow in the footsteps of their master, Jesus. Here is a greatness and a glory that is good to strive after. Striving to have your name written in the history books, or to have everyone wish that they were you, is sinful pride. Luther called pride the queen of sins. It was sinful pride that came before the fall into sin. They wanted to be like God. This is the kind of pride that angers God so that he becomes an iron wall. But striving to become more like Jesus is no sin. This kind of glory is beneficial to others, because the goal is to make other people better—even better than yourself. It is not the one who has a lot or who is receiving a lot who is great. It is the one who gives who is great.

But if this endeavor is genuine and Christian, it will always be a kind of glory that is utterly hidden and even repulsive to the world. Jesus died in shame. He was bruised, covered in spit, and mercilessly mocked. This is what the world always does when their works, that they are so stinking proud of, are pointed out as evil. That would be the way that the apostle James died too. People thought that he was judgmental and insubordinate to the Jewish authorities. I’m sure he made no secret of what he thought of Herod’s abominations. He was too religious, too zealous. Perhaps you noticed in the reading that his arrest and execution pleased the people. They were  glad that he got what was coming to him. The people didn’t like James.

Do not romanticize the cross that Jesus gives us to carry. The cross is ugly and offensive to the world and to our reason. It appears to be unnecessary and fruitless—like someone is just throwing his or her life away. Christian suffering is not just when our money, our business, or even our lives are taken away. These are things that people might be willing to bear because there is a kind of glory that our reason can recognize as being great in that. No, Christian suffering includes even having our good name taken away.

In this we follow Jesus. Nobody was better than Jesus, but what did people say of him? The Jews thought that he was a dangerous heretic, the worst of the worst, destroying Moses’s Laws and leading people into hell. To this day the orthodox Jews see Jesus as the worst of the worst. The Romans thought that he was a total nutjob. He claimed that he was a king. He claimed to be important. When he was hanging on the cross they came up with some pretty funny jokes about that. Even Jesus’s own disciples, by and large, abandoned him. They thought that he must have been an imposter when he said that he was the Christ, because there he was—condemned and dying. Only those who have eyes to see and ears to hear can perceive the glory of God in such things.

But if this is the glory that you would like to strive after, then blessed are you! If you want to drink this cup and be baptized with this baptism, then you should be encouraged, just like Jesus encourages James and John here. Having the ambition of loving more, serving more, suffering more gladly, blessing those who curse you, loving your enemies—these are the best of things. These are the things that the Son of God did. God loved his Son and everything that Jesus did. Every moment of Jesus’s life was precious to him as he loved and loved and loved even to the end. You may be sure that God is well pleased with you, as his good and faithful servant, when you are following in the footsteps of Jesus.

And when we follow in the footsteps of Jesus we don’t need to be too worried about falling into pride. The cross will see to that. When the other disciples heard about James’ and John’s request they were indignant. “Who do they think they are?” they wondered. But Jesus cleared that up pretty quickly. Worldly people are always wanting to be the best and sit at the best seats and have everybody wish that they could be as good as they are. “That’s not how it should be among you,” Jesus says.

“Instead,” he says, “whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Here we do not have a race to the top, where we are stepping on whomever we have to in order to get there. This is a race to the bottom if you will. Who can serve more? Who can put others ahead of themselves? That one is the great one.

And so the apostle James was made great. He walked in the good works that God had prepared beforehand for him to walk in. He did not despise the cross and seek to be rid of it. He was not ashamed of the name of Jesus or of the Gospel. He was faithful unto death and has received the crown of everlasting life. He is an example for us to follow. God approves of his Son, so you should strive to drink the cup he drank, and to be baptized with the baptism with which he was baptized.

210718 Sermon on Genesis 2:7-17 (Trinity 7) July 18, 2021

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

Over the centuries there have been a lot of different ideas about what an ideal human existence might be like. The Egyptians had their views. The Greeks had their views. So on and so forth. There is also a certain view of what our existence as human beings should be in our own time and place.

An important component of our own views that we should mention right off the bat is that we don’t really care about those ancient views because we have advanced far beyond them. The ancient people were primitive and stupid. We are advanced and brilliant. So unless you want to be primitive and stupid, you had better think like all modern people think. We are essentially taught that there is only one right way to think about how we should exist as human beings.

Let’s speak a little bit about the content of this modern view. Perhaps its most important idea is that we are masters of our own destinies. We are competent, and we have been empowered. We have invented marvelous machines, marvelous drugs, marvelous systems of government, marvelous financial tools, and so on. All of these marvelous things allow us to shoot for the stars—literally. One day we might discover some wormhole in space-time that will allow us to colonize other planets. We have the potential to dominate. The only thing that can stop us is if we quit trying.

But all of this dominating doesn’t come without a cost. It’s not very popular to talk about these costs. It hurts the narrative. But you can judge for yourselves whether our belief in ourselves hasn’t come back to bite us.

This miserable plague that has afflicted our planet for the last 18 months seems to have been cooked up in a virology lab in Wuhan. Scientists from around the world thought it would be a good idea to engage in some “gain of function” research. What “gain of function” means is that they take normal viruses that have appeared in nature and they see if they can somehow soup them up and make them more contagious and lethal. Why? Who knows?

Another important example of the price we’ve had to pay is with more immediate ways of destroying ourselves. Surprisingly we have managed to refrain from baking whole cities at a time with our thermo-nuclear bombs. We’ve had the technology available for 76 years. We’ve had the bombs on hand, ready to go, ready to mutually annihilate one another, for about 60 years. I wonder if some day there might be someone who believes that he has the potential to dominate, and he will stop at nothing until he has brought it about. Perhaps it’s better to rule over a wasteland than be a small fry, lost in the shuffle of history.

A few years ago a massive machine called the Large Hadron Collider was brought online in Switzerland. This machine smashes together atoms and parts of atoms at tremendous speeds, just to see what might happen. The theoreticians said that what might happen is that they’d create a black hole. The possibility was ever-so-remote, but just maybe. The problem with a black hole, though, is that they don’t get smaller. They suck into themselves whatever might be around them. They are very mysterious, unimaginably powerful things. A black hole in Switzerland would crush this planet in short order.

As Christians who confess what the Bible teaches, we believe that this world is going to end. To be sure, it is God who is going to bring that about. It seems fitting to me, though, that the way that God might do that is by us destroying ourselves. In mankind’s relentless pursuit for the dominion and the power and the glory, perhaps one of these experiments is going to blow up in our own face. Perhaps they already are.

So if this is the modern view of how we should exist as human beings, what is the Bible’s view? Our Old Testament lesson gives us some insight into that question. This reading is from Genesis chapter two. Here Moses is speaking about life in the Garden of Eden prior to the fall into sin. God created Adam. He made trees grow from the earth—beautiful trees and beneficial. He put Adam into that Garden to work it and take care of it.

And what was Adam thinking about while he busied himself? He wasn’t thinking about buying the neighbor’s back forty. He wasn’t thinking about ways that he could capture the market and take everybody’s money. I don’t think he was thinking all that much about tomorrow. He was receiving his daily bread, day by day. He was like the birds of the air. The birds are not wracked with worry about where their next meal is going to come from. The heavenly Father feeds them. Adam was seeking first the kingdom of God and all other things were added unto him.

Instead of being preoccupied with his own glory, Adam was having the best of times tracing the glory and beauty of God. We like looking at the lines and contours of the things we love. Adam loved the Lord God. No one had to tell him to fear God or trust God because Adam loved God. Adam loved the Name of God. He called upon it in every trouble, prayed, praised, and gave thanks. God’s Word was a lamp to his feet and light to his path. God’s word was good to eat and nourished his mind. It gave him light and life and happiness.

So if Adam was happy, and Modern Man is unhappy, do we need to get rid of our cars and computers in order to be happy? This thought shows us how foolish we have become. We are always thinking that we can fix things by manipulating the outward things in our life. We think, “If only I had this, then I’d be happy.” Or, “If only I didn’t have this, then I’d be at peace.” Whether a technology, a program, an institution, what-have-you exists or does not exist is not what is important. It was not the presence or absence of gadgets or what nots that made Adam happy. Adam’s love of God is what made paradise paradise.

The way that paradise was lost was by Adam changing his mind. He came to believe that he could secure his happiness by manipulating the fruits of a created tree rather than dealing with the Creator. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil made Adam wise precisely in his being obedient to God’s command and heeding his warning.

A lot of people think that Adam and Eve became wiser when they ate this fruit. However, whatever knowledge they gained of evil, they lost even more knowledge of what was good. I suppose they came to know evil in a different way than before, but they most certainly lost their fear, love, and trust in what is good.

Accordingly, immediately, they began to prepare for their battle against nature and against God. When God, who is goodness itself, strolled his way through the Garden in the cool of the day, Adam and Eve hid in the bushes. There is no more tragic and awful scene than that. There is no better description of the way that we are with our fallen nature—hiding from God. Hiding, because we have sinned. The wages of sin is death. “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” The failure to know what is good, and to believe in him, is terrible.

While cowering in the bushes, wishing that mountains would fall on you, being terrified of God, is tragic and awful, it is the best and the highest knowledge that we can attain with our fallen human nature. It is the wisest we can get. It is far wiser to do this than it is to believe the devil’s stupid lie that God just won’t care. There are precious few in this world who hold to this knowledge—precious few who are afraid of God. They think that they’ve somehow gotten some kind of special knowledge about God. As it turns out he doesn’t really care whether we are sinful or not! Or they believe that we’ve moved on from God and can do better by making our own way with our own inventions and plans.

Not only have these people lost the knowledge of what is good. They’ve also lost the knowledge of what is evil. They are stupider than Adam and Eve, who at least still had the good sense to be aware of their guilt and shame, and to take God at his word when he told them they were going to die when they sinned against him.

God could have left them in that tragic and awful state, but he didn’t. He did not wait for them to redeem themselves or even to come to their senses, because that would never happen. Instead he spoke the truth to them to undo the newly entered lies. He did not hold back on their sins. They tried to wiggle out from under their guilt by passing the buck, but to no avail. They were sinners. God also plainly told them that they would be cursed because of their sin. No facet of this earthly life was left untouched, which is true to this present day. Nowhere is the fall into sin more evident and palpable than in our own darkened souls. But he also promised to give them Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. A second Adam would be born from a second Eve. He would bind the devil and plunder him of all his possessions. This Son of God and seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. God received them back for Jesus’s sake.

God took them back, and he really meant it, but things were never the same for Adam and Eve or for all the believers after them. The flesh is fallen. The curses endure. We have to believe in God’s goodness rather than fully experience it. There is a part of us that is unbelieving and hostile to God and everything about him. That same part of us loves and trusts in created things rather than in the Creator. All believers have something of a split personality. We do not always feel like tracing the fair beauty of the Lord our God.

This is a terribly humiliating and disappointing thing for us believers who are still in our flesh. Thank God, it will not always be that way. A day is coming when our sinful flesh will die and we will be raised with purified bodies. Then, for the first time, we will know the joy of loving the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength, and with all our soul. Once again we will be wise. We will know what is good.

But we do not sit idly by, waiting to be raised and healed in the future, as though our baptism is ineffective in this life. A beginning of the holy life is already begun in this life by the almighty Holy Spirit. And thus there is something that we can learn from Adam in his pre-fallen state. We can copy him. Outwardly our lives might be rather different than his. We have clothes and tools, nuclear bombs and souped up viruses. But what is the same is that we have the same Lord God. He loved and accepted Adam. He loves and accepts us for Jesus’s sake.

We do not need to depend upon how we can supercharge this life, escape to another solar system, or have our name written in a history book. The goodness of God is to be seen in the so-called little things in life that aren’t actually that little: He daily and richly provides me with all that I need for this body and life. He gives me food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like. We do not need to look for exotic and unusual things that are good. His mercies are new every morning.

Because we value such different things, there will always and necessarily be a disconnect between worldly people and believers in Christ. Worldly people are always going to be looking for the next big thing that will give them happiness. They will move, and they will shake. They will cut figure. People will put their trust in them.

Believers always have to work on putting their trust in the Lord our God. Sin has put cataracts on our eyes so that we have a hard time seeing how God takes care of us every day, just like he did with Adam, and that our future is secure in him. Our future is secure to the point where we can say:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me.”

“I know that my Redeemer lives. At the end of time he will stand over the dust. Then, even after my skin has been destroyed, nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God. I myself will see him. My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger.”

We are not looking for how we can conquer nature and extend our lives and influence to the greatest extent possible. We are looking for God.