220130 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 (Epiphany 4C) January 30, 2022

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I’d like to begin today by talking about lovelessness. There is a kind of lovelessness that is irrational and there is a kind that is rational. Irrational lovelenssness just doesn’t make sense. Rational lovelessness makes sense. Irrational lovelessness is when people do things that are mean for no good reason. Rational lovelessness is when people do things that will make them get ahead of others.

Both kinds of lovelessness are real problems for us human beings. I think we’d like to believe that, by and large, we’re alright. If there is any lovelessness, then it’s of the rational kind. We’re mean in order to get ourselves or our team ahead. But that’s not true. It’s not hard to find meanness just for meanness’s sake. If you could be a fly on the wall of an elementary, middle, or high school classroom, you wouldn’t have to wait too long to observe meanness. There’s no good reason for this meanness. It seems to be done just for the pleasure of it.

Meanness can also be found in a lot of families’ homes. Fathers and mothers can be mean to their children. Perhaps they themselves were treated meanly by their parents and so they hardly know anything different. Sometimes children can be mean to their parents. They just want to hurt them. Siblings can be mean. Husbands can be mean to wives. Wives can be mean to husbands.

If we were required to give an answer for ourselves for why we are so mean we might say that we were somehow hurt by them at some point in the past. This is a condition that always exists, by the way, if two or more people live together long enough. So with the justification of having been hurt at some point in the past, whenever the opportunity arises to get back at them we make sure we don’t let that opportunity pass.

This is an evil spirit. Whether it is literally and explicitly demonic, I wouldn’t want to say, but it certainly fits the pattern of the devil and the demons. They are mean. They hurt for no good reason. One of the things that Jesus did as he moved about was he cast out evil spirits. We should not assume that we are somehow immune from having an evil spirit. A lot of folks figure that since we live in modern times there’s no such thing as evil spirits. Now we call these phenomena psychopathy and sociopathy, so no evil spirits around here! But the older way of speaking has something to it. It does a better job of explaining, for example, how it is that the victims of abuse can very easily end up being abusers themselves. The unclean spirit got passed on.

Jesus is the one who can truly get rid of evil spirits. The demons are subject to him because he is God. There’s nothing more fundamental to Jesus’s work than bringing about a change from lovelessness to love. As John says, “God is love.”  Lovelessness, meanness, is the opposite of God. God could have just destroyed us, which is what the demon of the man in the synagogue was afraid of, but instead of destroying us God redeems us and sets us free.

There is something old that used to be said at a Christian baptism, which very nearly made it into our hymnal (but some thought it to be too medieval). It was an exorcism said just before the baptism. It said: “Depart, O unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” Thankfully the hymnal committee wasn’t too modern to get rid of the renunciation of the devil. At baptism we renounce the devil. We renounce all his works. We renounce all his ways. We renounce our old Lord and believe in our new Lord—the Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Our Lord Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, which certainly includes irrational lovelessness—this meanness whose existence is hard to explain.

A more rational lovelessness can be much harder for people be ashamed of. Meanness is straight forward. When sin grows up it puts away these childish ways. Lovelessness learns logic and wraps itself up in fine sounding words. Instead of a loveless action being a loveless action it becomes a shrewd way to do business. Or it’s done to teach them a lesson. Through lying to one’s self disobeying the authorities is not disobeying the authorities. Adultery is not adultery. Stealing is not stealing. Gossiping is not gossiping. Coveting is not coveting. All these sins, you see, are not actually sins. They might be manifestations of great wisdom, or even, (God forbid!), the manifestation of deep piety. I’ve already mentioned that sheer meanness is devilish. You know what else is devilish? Lying.

It’s hard to know which of the two kinds of lovelessness is worse. We tend to think that random acts of meanness are worse, perhaps because we don’t understand them, but does having a rationale make the evil any less evil? Adam was led astray not just by the meanness of disobeying God, but also by the rationale that was supposed to make it acceptable.

People kind of pride themselves on not being psychopaths or sociopaths, like the ones on 48 hours or Dateline, who do evil things without hardly any reasons at all. Respectable people aren’t like that. But this is foolish. What credit is it to anyone to break God’s commandments with impunity because they can dream up some reason for doing it. Psychopaths, sociopaths, as well as the more sophisticated sinners all need to get thrown into the same pot. We are all sinners, the Bible says. We are all liars, the Bible says. If we are not set free from our bondage to evil spirits, then we will never be free. We will never love.

Love is a word that gets used so much that we all think that we know what it means. How could anybody not know what the word means? But if you think of how loveless we are by nature, then you will see how this assumption is mistaken. How can creatures who are loveless know what love is? To know what love is, we have to be taught by God. God is love.

The apostle Paul has been inspired by God. He teaches about love in our epistle reading today. I’d like to go through what he teaches so that we may be benefited by it. I want to give you a word of advice before we get into it. When you hear what Paul says you must be careful that you only judge yourself. If you don’t want to judge yourself, then you might as well leave, because it won’t do you a scrap of good to be thinking of other people’s lovelessness while ignoring your own. We each will be judged by God for our own actions. Nobody is excused because somebody else is worse. You are responsible for your own actions, so don’t waste your time puffing yourself up in comparison to somebody else.

Paul says, “Love is patient.” This word means that we should not be easily provoked. It is a sin to be angry. Anger is the sinful root of the fifth commandment.

“Love is kind.” This word means that a person is mild rather than harsh. There is an affection behind their actions rather than judgment and a disregard.

 “Love does not envy.” Literally this says, “Love is not zealous.” Zeal is not always a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it is done for one’s own personal advancement and hates it when anybody else is better than one’s self.

“Love does not brag.” Bragging is a way to get ahead in life. If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else is going to do it for you. Everybody else is too busy tooting for themselves already. But someone who believes in God knows that God sees, judges, rewards, and punishes. We do not need to make our own case by bragging.

“Love is not arrogant.” The old King James says, “Love is not puffed up.” That’s an exact translation. Puffing one’s self up, thinking you are really something, is not love—except, of course, love for one’s self, which comes perfectly naturally to us sinners.

“Love does not behave indecently.” Literally this says, “Love does not reject the scheme of things.” The way things are set up is a scheme. Love does not require everything to revolve around one’s self and one’s own thoughts and desires. Love joins with the others so as not to bring about discord.

“Love does not seek one’s own.” Here, again, seeking one’s own can seem like the only way to get ahead in life. Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it. But Paul means what he says, even if people think he is stupid. Love isn’t zealous for one’s self, but for others.

“Love is not irritable.” The word here means “to sharpen, to make sharp,” as you would with a sword. So this is saying that love doesn’t have those little needling words and actions that are purposely done to annoy somebody else. They irritate. But they do not go so far or are so blatant that you can be charged with any serious crime. Another way you could put this is that love does not push the other’s buttons.

“Love does not keep a record of wrongs.” How prone we are to do this, and how poisonous this record of wrongs is for any and every relationship! Why does any relationship get destroyed? Isn’t it precisely because we tally up a good long list of why they are such bad people that not only is it allowable to write them off, it is positively the right thing to do? These damned records of wrongs are the documentation for every unhappy marriage, every divorce, every ended friendship. Whenever you start making a mental list of how much other people stink, realize that this does not come from the Holy Spirit, but from an evil spirit.

“Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” This shows that love is not merely utilitarian. There is a kind of love that is extremely pragmatic. There is a kind of love that is nice, non-judgmental, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. But the goal is only to look good in the eyes of our fellow human beings. It is a shallow love that won’t risk hurting someone in order to help them.

“Love bears all things.” This means that love will take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.

“Love believes all things.” This means that love is gullible. It’s willing to be hurt.

“Love hopes all things.” This means that love is not cynical. It doesn’t say, “They will never change,” so not only is it allowable to write them off, but it is positively the right thing to do.

“Love endures all things.” This means that love doesn’t quit.

In fact, “Love never comes to an end.” Love can’t come to an end. How could it? God is love. At this point in the reading Paul goes on to speak about heaven. Heaven is where we will no longer know in part, but will be fully known. Heaven is when we will no longer have to puzzle things out as in a mirror, but will see God, who is love, face to face. Heaven is where love will be all in all. Love never ends.

Since love never ends, I hope you can begin to see through those lies that we tell ourselves in order to justify our lovelessness. We make all those excuses for why we can’t possibly keep God’s commandments because, you see, otherwise we will be left behind. We can’t be naïve, or gullible, or a so-called doormat. That would be a waste. Not so. The opposite is in fact the case.

What good will it do you to have a charmed life for 70 years, or, by reason of strength, 80—always seeing to your own happiness first, and only willing to suffer for others if it is beneficial for one’s self? What are 70 or 80 years compared to eternity? Love never ends. God is love.

Paul says that when he was a child he spoke like a child, he thought like a child, he reasoned like a child, when he became a man he gave up childish ways. So also we have been born loveless. We are selfish. Nobody had to teach us how to lie or manipulate. This is how we were as a child. A lot of people think that growing up means you just get shrewder and shrewder, meaner and meaner, richer and richer, better and better. I suppose you can do that if you are training yourself for going to hell. There you will be taught by the true master how to get ahead in life.

As Christians we should put away these childish, selfish ways. Maturity is not cynicism and becoming worldly wise. Maturity is becoming like a child. Jesus points to the child as the one who is great in the kingdom of heaven. “Unless we turn and become like little children,” Jesus says, “we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Why? Because otherwise we don’t belong in heaven. With lovelessness, and tireless training in lovelessness, the sinner will go to hell, which is where he belongs.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to set us free from evil spirits. He came to open us up so that we can love. This is the work that God has begun in you with your baptism. Remain in Jesus’s word. Then you will be his disciple instead of the devil’s disciple. Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Being set free allows us to love others and not just ourselves.

220123 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (Epiphany 3) January 23, 2022

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Our epistle reading today picks up where our epistle reading from last week left off. Last week, if you remember, Paul was talking about spiritual gifts. One and the same Spirit gives different gifts to Christians. Among the gifts that he mentioned were the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. Faith is given by the same Spirit. Then he talked about gifts that were more common at apostolic times like miracles, prophesy, and speaking in tongues.

In my sermon last week I mainly spoke about how we should understand these unusual gifts and not be led to false conclusions about them.  If you missed that sermon, you can look it up at the website listed in the bulletin. The reading today picks up where we left off last week.

The final verse in last week’s reading was that the Holy Spirit distributes spiritual gifts to each and every Christian, howsoever the Holy Spirit might wish. One Christian is given certain gifts that are not given to another. The gifts that are given to another may not be given to one’s self. This is like the different parts of our body. The eye is a part of the body that has been equipped to do certain things that a hand cannot do. Likewise there are things that the hand is able to do that the eye could never do.

With this discussion of how the different members of the body of Christ are necessarily different from one another, and yet members of one body, Paul is addressing a problem in the Corinthian congregation. The church at Corinth was very vibrant and energetic. God gave them many gifts. They were excited to use the gifts that God gave them. But it also appears that they were seeking after glory for themselves with the gifts that had been given to them. Thus they were especially coveting the flashy, unusual gifts that would bring them glory.

With Paul’s discussion of how the members of the body are necessarily different from one another, and yet members of one and the same body, he would have the Corinthians understand that Christians are not meant to be in competition with one another. A body works together. A body cannot be made up of members that are all the same, otherwise that is not going to be much of a body at all. As Paul says, “If we were all an ear, where would our sense of smelling be?” Ears should not wish to be noses; noses should not wish to be eyes. The different members of the body are essential for the body to function because of the different abilities that are given to each member.

Whether a member of the body is an ear or an eye is something that God determines. Paul says, “God has arranged the members in the body, each and every one of them, as he desired.” No matter how much an ear might wish to be an eye, there’s nothing that an ear can do to make itself into an eye. In a sense, this is what the Corinthians were trying to do. The ones who had not been given the gifts that had been given to others really wished that they had those gifts. They wanted the glory that would come along with that. But whatever gifts there might be, if they are genuine, are from God. His intention is that the gifts should be beneficial to the body of Christ, to the fellow members of the body.

There are also parts of the body that God has put together that are thought to be weaker. Paul doesn’t specifically say which members of the body he is talking about, but he does contrast these so-called weaker members with the eye, the ear, and the nose. They eye, the ear, and the nose are sensitive members. They are very special. The eye, especially, is not only very useful, but it is also very beautiful to look at. What is some other slab of flesh compared to the eye? “But,” Paul says, “the members that are thought to be weaker are necessary.” Why? Because God made it so. He is the one who has put the body together the way he wants.

Here I’d like to pause in my explanation of Paul’s words to point out something that I think is important. Paul is speaking here in a way that is very different from what comes naturally to our sinful nature. We are not naturally content with the lot that God gives us in life. Sometimes, in fact, our teachers explicitly teach us to be discontent with who and what we are. The rationale behind that is if we are discontent with who and what we are, then we will want to become something better.

For example, our kids are generally taught that it is better to be a leader than a follower. They are taught that it is better to be good at sports than not good at sports. They are taught that everybody is supposed to have super high test scores. Everyone is supposed to be the best, and the only way to be the best is to be discontent with the way that one happens to be. The result of all this is self-loathing on the one hand wherever we supposedly do not measure up, and a drunken euphoria over achievements on the other.

This is such a standard way of thinking about life, that we all assume that this is just the way that it is supposed to be. We are all taught these slogans, and they appear to us to be true, and even pious: “Be the best that you can be.” “Shoot for the stars.” “Never give up.” “Nothing is impossible,” and so on. But you will not find any of this taught by the Bible.

It’s true, there are a few passages that get torn out of their context and get put onto plaques and paintings for wall art. If you actually look up what is being talked about in those passages, you will find that they never, ever are talking about digging deep within one’s self in order to get up to the next and higher plane of existence. What the Bible does say is that this striving after personal glory can hardly be done without sin.

Just think of the very first sin. Adam and Eve became convinced that the way that God had made them was not quite good enough. They were truly, exceedingly wise in their own way, but certainly not wise in the cynical, scoffing ways of the devil. They believed that they could become better by setting God, God’s designs, and God’s law aside. They would reach out and take for themselves what would bring them glory and happiness.

When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they did become more knowledgeable in a way. They learned first-hand the horror of evil, the terror of alienation from God, and the sadness of self-loathing. But they did not become wiser. They become much stupider—particularly in understanding the meaning of their lives as God’s creatures. This stupidity has been passed down to us through original sin.

So what is the alternative to this way of living that we are all so accustomed to? It is being content with God being our creator and we being God’s creature. We are finite. Not all gifts have been given to any one of us. We should not covet what has not been given to us. We should be thankful for what God has given to us. We should seek to fill our lives with thanksgiving to our Creator—hymns of praises.

Nowhere in the Bible do you ever find God commanding us to hate ourselves. It is not God pleasing to hate ourselves. It is not God pleasing to hate our bodies. How common it is for people to hate their bodies because they do not look a certain way! Sometimes people can whip up such a hatred for their bodies and for themselves that they will be propelled to harsh action to change it. But where does the Bible ever say anything about doing this? If anything the Bible warns against strange measures being taken with food. Instead of hating our bodies, we should give thanks to our Creator for our bodies. Who cares if you don’t look like a model? God’s gift to you of your body is something to thank and praise God for, even if it is thought to be way down there on somebody’s scale of what a body is supposed to be like.

It is not God pleasing to hate our minds. Some people have been given a gift for cleverness or complex reasoning. Maybe you have not been given such gifts in as much abundance as has been given to others. So what? You don’t become any cleverer by hating the good gift that God has given to you. Instead of coveting what has been given to others, be thankful to your Creator for giving you what you have.

Perhaps we could sum up the difference between the way that our teachers have taught us to live to the way that the Bible teaches us to live by where our focus lies. The way that we have been taught to live is that we should be obsessed with ourselves. We should scrutinize and evaluate, hate our short-comings with a white-hot hatred, and love ourselves to death for whatever is supposedly good about ourselves.

There’s another way to live, but very few people ever even try it—that our focus should be on the Creator who gives us gift after gift instead of upon ourselves. We should thank and praise him for filling our lives with good things. Instead of hating what he has chosen to give us, we should thank him for it, because it surely is not as bad as our evil spirits and the evil advertisements make it out to be.

When God blesses us with glory or success, we should thank and praise him all the more, because it certainly came from him. Earlier in this letter Paul asks the Corinthians: “What do you have that was not given to you?” That’s the truth. Whatever we have or don’t have is according to God’s choosing, blessed be he! What unnecessary torture we put ourselves through with our incessant coveting! Turn your eyes away from yourselves and from other people and look up to your Father who is in heaven.

We’ve taken a good long pause here to consider how things are among us, but this hasn’t been entirely beside the point. The Corinthians were cut from the same cloth that we have been. They had the same desires and foolishness that we suffer from, even if it might not have been so extreme and overwhelming among them as it is among us. They, too, thought that they could transform themselves into being an eye, when they were in fact—let’s say—a hand, and coveting only brought with it sadness and backbiting as a result.

The truth for them is the same as the truth for us. God has made us members of Christ’s body. He has apportioned to each what is proper and good. Those members that are thought to be weaker are, in fact, necessary and good. God is deserving of thanks and praise also for those members who do not have what is thought to be the shine and shimmer of others.

Let’s sum up: Just as God has joined together the members of our own body, so he has joined together the members of Christ’s body. To each and every member of the body of Christ God has given different spiritual gifts. None of us are sufficient on our own, just as an eyeball lying on the ground is no longer beautiful, but completely repulsive. It is repulsive, destructive, and divisive to brag one’s self up and to look at others and wonder, “What’s wrong with them? Why aren’t they like me?”

The way that we all are has been brought about by God. He is the one who has shaped and formed us, incorporated us into the body of Christ, and thereby given us life. We have not become members of the body of Christ by virtue of our own striving or accomplishments. It is something that God has given to us.

Thus we should thank God for putting us into the body of Christ and thereby giving us eternal life. He has also given us whatever gifts we might have. There is no gift that we have that did not come from him. And as far as how we should look at the follow members of the body of Christ: We should love them, which we will hear about next week, with the continuation of our reading from this week.

220116 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 (Epiphany 2) January 16, 2022

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It is not uncommon for people to think that if the Bible is true, then there should be lots of miracles. The Bible records many unusual signs and wonders that God has performed. The way the thinking goes is that if the Bible is true concerning these things, then these miracles need to keep happening.

It is understandable how a person could arrive at such an opinion, but it is not right. The Bible does, indeed, record unusual things that God did. But God does not just work through unusual means. In fact, he only rarely uses unusual means. All the other times he works through ordinary means.

Ordinary means would be those ways that do not appear unusual. Adam and Eve, for example, simply told their children what God had revealed to them. Abraham told Isaac about the covenant that God had made with him. We tend to think that speaking is not a big deal. We do it all the time. It can seem as though God’s not involved in it at all, because he does not come with thunder and lightning and smoke like he did at Mt. Sinai.

To illustrate God’s ordinary means we should say something about how God works in the Old Testament after the time of Moses. God gave the Israelites the tabernacle / temple. He proscribed priests and sacrifices for them. This was the way that God’s holiness was communicated to them.

So it is also with the New Testament. Jesus instituted and commanded baptism as a new birth in the Holy Spirit. Jesus instituted and commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper. He says that the Lord’s Supper is the New Testament in his blood for the forgiveness of sins. These, together with preaching, are the ordinary means for Christians to receive God’s grace and holiness.

But, as the saying goes: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” These ordinary means that God uses to communicate his will towards us, his grace and favor towards us—they become boring. Our reason starts to think that they must not be that valuable because only rare things are valuable. The Word and the Sacraments are given out quite liberally and no bills get sent out for services rendered. And so Christians might go hankering after something a little more exotic, a little more uncommon.

So when we read a portion of the New Testament like our reading today from 1 Corinthinans 12, we might think, “This should do the trick!” Paul speaks of “spiritual gifts.” Among these gifts are messages of wisdom, knowledge, and faith. He also speaks of some spicier gifts.

He says, “And to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts. Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues.”

As you well know, these gifts have not been given to me or to any of the other members of this congregation. I’m not aware of anyone who can heal. I don’t know of anyone who has performed miracles. None of us have been able to know the future. When we think we do know the future, we are often wildly wrong. No one has spoken in tongues. Since no one has spoken in tongues, there is also no need to have tongues interpreted.

These were gifts that God gave to the apostolic Christian church. We hear of them not only here, but also in the book of Acts. God performed unusual signs through these earliest Christians, perhaps to confirm the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus. Since these signs were present among the Christians of the apostolic church, many people get deceived into thinking that there must be something deficient about the Christian church of today. We do not have these signs or we do not have them in like measure. This is a very dangerous and destructive deception. Although it has the appearance of being biblical, it definitely is not.

There is a big difference between miracles happening and miracles being required. God is free to do miracles. The Bible tells us about them. Nowhere in the Bible do you ever hear him requiring his people to perform miracles. There is no expectation that God’s people should perform miracles that are recognized as being miracles as by outsiders. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, miracles are not that terribly common in the history of God’s people.

Since the Bible records those times in the history of God’s people where God did things that were unusual, folks get the idea that miracles were happening all the time. That is not true. The Bible is not an exhaustive, minute-by-minute, or even year-by-year account of each generation of God’s people. There are many gaps of hundreds of years where the Bible doesn’t say anything about what was going on with God’s people.

During those times the people continued on with the ordinary means whereby God dealt with his people. They preached the Gospel. They went to the tabernacle / temple. They observed the festivals. The people during these times were not deficient or inferior to the people of God who were living during those times when God did more unusual things.

Whether God did unusual things or not does not indicate that God was more pleased or less pleased with the people living at time that he did them. Take, for example, the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. I don’t think there has ever been a generation of people who saw more of God’s signs and wonders than this generation. They saw the plagues God inflicted upon Egypt. They crossed through the Red Sea on dry ground. God rained down bread from heaven. He made water come out of a rock. They saw God’s glory in the cloud and at Mt. Sinai, and many more.

These people had miracles coming out of their ears. And yet, what does God say of them? He says that they are a stiff-necked people. He becomes so angry at them that he several times tells Moses that he is going to wipe them all out and make a nation of Moses and his descendants instead. But Moses interceded for his fellow Israelites, and God did not carry through with his threats.

So we should not think that the more impressive the signs, the happier God must be with us. The more unusual the signs, the more spiritual power a group of people must have. The primary thing about being the people of God is not having spiritual power. The primary thing is to know the will of God towards us by his Word and promises. This is the way it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for as long as this present age lasts. What God’s people have had in common from the time of Adam and Eve is God’s promise of mercy and salvation in Jesus. This word from God to us does not need signs and wonders to make it true, effective, or believable.

In fact, Jesus complains about the Jews at his time who were always wanting him to perform more and more miracles. He tells them that they are an evil and adulterous generation as they are hankering after miracles. He tells them that the only sign they are going to get is the sign of Jonah. Jonah spent three days in the belly of the fish. The Son of God would spend three days in the belly of the earth, dead, in a tomb.

How’s that for a sign? Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is a miracle that doesn’t suit people’s fancy to this very day. Those Jews who were wanting him to do miracles certainly would not have been impressed with him being crucified and buried. If anything they would have taken his crucifixion as a sure-proof sign that Jesus was an imposter and an evil-doer. He was getting his come-uppance for what they took to be blasphemy. The signs that they were keeping an eye out for were signs that appeared powerful and impressive, and so they rejected the Son of God. So we must not judge God and find his ways unsatisfactory because they don’t match up with what we think would be powerful and effective.

Folks want flashy signs. Barring that, they tend to think that spiritual gifts do not exist at all. This is another error that we must be on guard against. Some people know that the crazy things that are touted among the Pentecostals are not right, but then they fall off the horse on the other side. They don’t think that God is involved in the lives of his people at all.

Paul begins our reading today by saying, “I do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning spiritual gifts.” Spiritual gifts exist. Some of the spiritual gifts that he goes on to mention were special to that particular time in the history of God’s people. We see this kind of thing elsewhere in the history of God’s people. It’s like the way that God manifested himself to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai as I mentioned. He did tremendous and unusual things before them. It wasn’t always that way, however. Later in the history of God’s people there weren’t these unusual things.

So it is also with the time of the apostles. At their time there were unusual signs. We should not expect, and we certainly shouldn’t require, that such signs should be done among God’s people today.

On the other hand, there are spiritual gifts that are always present among God’s people. Paul says that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Here we do not have a flashy sign. Saying that Jesus Christ is Lord will hardly impress anyone, but it can only be said by the Holy Spirit.

Paul also speaks about wisdom, about knowledge, about faith. These come from the same Holy Spirit. These, also, can be easily despised. It is very common for people to think that it is no big deal to believe that Jesus is Lord. Knowing Scripture is not highly regarded as a life skill. Having God’s wisdom often looks terribly impractical according to the way that the world thinks. Regardless of what our reason thinks of these gifts, they are gifts from the Holy Spirit nevertheless. They are present among God’s people.

Paul also speaks about spiritual gifts in his epistle to the Christians in Galatia. He says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” These gifts, which are given to those who believe in Christ, are priceless. They renew our sin-sick hearts. They bring about miracles of self-less love and sacrifice. But they are not terribly flashy. If you compare these fruits of the Spirit to lightning coming out of your fingertips, you know that the world is going to be more impressed with the lightning. But the world is stupid. It doesn’t know what is truly good.

The Corinthians, to whom Paul is writing in our Epistle reading, have the same flesh and blood as anybody else, and so it seems that Paul is gently teaching them not to overestimate flashy gifts and to crave those gifts that are beneficial for others rather than those gifts that are more likely to puff up the one to whom the gifts have been given.

Our reading today is from chapter 12. In the very next chapter, chapter 13, Paul says that the spiritual gift that they should prize above all others is love. 1 Cor. 13 is the so-called “love chapter,” which is fairly well known. This is where he says things like, “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not puffed up. It does not seek after its own. Love never ends.” The Corinthians were looking for those gifts that would make them appear great in the eyes of their fellows, but that is not right.

Jesus says, “Whoever would be greatest must become as the least. Whoever wishes to be first must become a slave. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.”

So we must be on guard against two things that our flesh more easily believes rather than the truth. Our flesh thinks that either Christians should be doing miracles every day of the week and twice on Sundays in order to be genuine and believable. That’s the one extreme that we are prone towards. The other extreme is that God doesn’t work at all. It is thought that there are no spiritual gifts. The spiritual gifts that are always present among God’s people are not recognized as miracle. Spiritual gifts must only be flashy and unusual ones like dreams, speaking in tongues, or miracles of healing.

But the truth is that spiritual gifts do exist. God gives them to those whom he has chosen for salvation. But they are not readily apparent to outsiders. They might not even be apparent to ourselves as we battle against the flesh, the world, and the devil. But the Holy Spirit is quietly at work in the people of God. He is healing them from their unbelief and sin-sickness. It’s like when a seed is sown in the earth. First it sprouts, then come the leaves, then comes the ear. So also the Holy Spirit works through his Word and Sacrament. Quietly and unassumingly the Holy Spirit increases our faith towards God and our fervent love towards one another.

So we must not be led astray on this important topic that so easily becomes obscured in our day due to Pentecostals on the one hand, and rank unbelievers on the other. God reveals his will towards us with his Word and Sacraments. That’s the way he’s always done it. This is his usual means of dealing with his people. He can also deal with us in unusual ways, but we shouldn’t expect that, and we certainly should not require it. He gives his Christians those spiritual gifts that Paul talks about, but sometimes we have a hard time seeing them clearly, and unbelievers hardly ever recognize them. But those common gifts that cause us to be believing towards him and loving towards our neighbor are the best gifts God gives.

220109 Sermon on Luke 3:15-22 (Baptism of our Lord) January 9, 2022

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

We entered the season of Epiphany with the festival of Epiphany this past Thursday. The word “epiphany” means, “to be revealed.” So Epiphany and the season of Epiphany has as one of its main emphases the way that this person named Jesus was revealed to be something more than an ordinary person.

The Epiphany festival itself is about the way that wise men came from the east. They gave gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus. What is of greatest significance is that they bowed down and worshipped Jesus. That is something that should never be done with anyone or anything that is not God, so by this activity the wise men are confessing their faith that Jesus is God.

The festival that we are considering today, the Baptism of our Lord, is on the first Sunday after Epiphany. It is an appropriate thing to consider to kick off the season of Epiphany since this baptism is very revealing. Two very important things can be seen at Jesus’s baptism—the Holy Trinity and Jesus as the Christ. There are hardly any more important things that we could possibly know since the Holy Trinity describes God and Christ is our Lord and Savior.

Let’s begin with the Trinity. Let me remind you about the simple reason why we speak of the Trinity. The word, “Trinity,” is a made up word. You won’t find it in the Bible. It is the combination of two numbers—three, tri-, as in triangle or tricycle; and one, uno, unity. So the word Trinity means “three-one-ness.”

While the word, “Trinity,” is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures, the thing that the word is describing is very easily found in the Scriptures. The Bible says two things very emphatically. The Bible says that there is only one God. Deuteronomy says, “The Lord your God is one.” That’s the one thing the Bible says about God. The other thing that the Bible says about God is that he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We call these the three persons.

So we speak of the Trinity or the Triune God because the Bible very emphatically and clearly speaks of God as one. The Bible also very emphatically and clearly speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The goal is speak of God as the Bible speaks of him. The goal is not to make this idea plausible or acceptable to our reason, otherwise we may very well decide to revise what the Bible says so that we can better understand it or convince others to believe it.

The Baptism of our Lord is one of the many places where we hear of the three persons of the one God. The Son, Jesus Christ, is in the Jordan River with John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit took on the bodily form of a dove and descended upon him. The Father spoke from heaven. He said that this man Jesus is his beloved Son. He is well pleased with him. Here we see how all three persons of the Trinity are involved and approving of the ministry, life, death, and resurrection of the Christ.

Some Christians, who already aren’t too big fans of the Trinity, will try to make better sense of what the Bible speaks about by talking about “dispensations.” By the word “dispensation” they mean a time of special prominence and importance. So they say that the Old Testament was the dispensation of the Father. Supposedly the Old Testament is full of wrath and violence, and it is imagined that this is the special area and expertise of God the Father. The New Testament times are the dispensation of the Son. Here, supposedly, we see a kinder and gentler side of God. Finally, supposedly, we are now, in our times, in the dispensation of the Spirit. So during our times we are supposed to be on the lookout for special and unusual miracles that are supposed to come from the Holy Spirit, but I suspect come from evil and deceiving spirits.

This is a very dangerous false teaching. It strikes right at the root of the Christian faith. Our faith is in nothing else whatsoever except our God. This teaching goes about revising who our God is. To my mind there is almost the fabrication of a whole new god, masquerading under the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are not special dispensations that are particular to each of the persons of the Trinity. We say this quite often in our worship services, and it is true: as far as our God is concerned “as he was in the beginning, he is now, and will be forever.”

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the one true God is eternal. God has no beginning and no end. All three persons of the Trinity were present at creation. God the Father created. He did this through the Word, the Son, as John’s Gospel teaches in his first chapter. And the Holy Spirit was there, hovering over the face of the waters.

Here at the Baptism of our Lord the Holy Trinity manifests himself again. God the Father is not some supposedly mean, bad god as the dispensationalists claim. As Jesus embarks upon his great ministry that will culminate in the atonement and salvation of all mankind, the Father says, “This is my Son whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” There is no division or antagonism between the persons of the Trinity. What is pleasing to the Father is pleasing to the Son is pleasing to the Holy Spirit. What is pleasing to God is the wonderful life and work of this man Jesus, who is Christ and God.

This brings us to the second very important thing to be seen at the Baptism of our Lord—how Jesus is the Christ. We are so accustomed to hearing “Jesus Christ” that it can almost seem as though Jesus is his first name and Christ is his last name. But the word “Christ” has much more significance than just being a name.

The word “Christ” means “anointed one.” Anointing is the pouring of something on someone, usually on one’s head. We don’t do that much anointing in our times. Baptism, actually, is about the only anointing that we do. In baptism we anoint people’s heads with water. In the Bible anointing was more common and laden with significance. It was the way, for example, that priests and kings were put into office in the Old Testament. Instead of kings being crowned in the Old Testament, they were anointed with oil. The Old Testament kings were christs, in a sense, in the sense that they were anointed ones, but of course we rightly reserve the term “Christ” for Jesus as the king who was promised to come and save his people.

The promise of the coming Christ, or King, is the scarlet thread that runs through all of Scripture. Already at the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden God promised to send a Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. Later God promised that a descendent of David would sit on his throne forever and ever. This promised King is Jesus, and at his baptism we see how he is anointed.

First of all, he is baptized, that is to say, anointed, with water by John the Baptist. Furthermore, it is of the highest significance that he is not anointed just with oil, like the Old Testament kings before him, but the Holy Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit descends in the bodily form of a dove and alights above Jesus’s head. This is Jesus the Christ, Jesus the anointed one, Jesus the King. From this point onward Jesus is going to accomplish the great purposes for which the Father has sent him. This is going to culminate in yet another anointing and the greatest manifestation of him as the King.

Do you remember what Pilate had written on Jesus’s cross as the great charge against him? He had them write: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” There Jesus was anointed with his own blood, a crown of thorns upon his head. Pilate was being ironic when he had that written. What Pilate meant to say was that this is what happens to those who claim to be king. His intent was that people should laugh at the disjunction between the grand title of king on the one hand, and this miserable worm of a man who writhed upon the cross on the other.

But this was of God. That title speaks the truth. Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. He is the Christ particularly when he was suffering on the cross as punishment for the sins that we have committed. He is accomplishing God’s purpose of bringing about atonement. God’s just wrath is being poured out upon him instead of upon us. When that Father says at Jesus’s baptism, “This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased,” this means that he was pleased with all of Jesus’s life. Surely this also includes the great culmination of Jesus doing the work of being the Christ—when he was crucified.

Contrary to the dispensationalists, the Father does not hate human beings, but rather loves them. The way that he loved the world was by sending his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son in the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. This salvation is the work of the Christ and of the triune God.

The Baptism of our Lord is an epiphany. It is truly revealing. It reveals the Trinity. It reveals the Christ. All things in heaven and on earth are being brought together in this man Jesus, standing in the Jordan River.

Finally, we should also mention the great importance of our own baptism as well. It is easy to despise baptism. It’s just an anointing of water. Many Christians don’t remember being baptized because they were baptized as babies.

But Christ commanded that we should be baptized. By that baptism we are united with Christ. We are united to the Triune God.  Baptism connects us with Jesus and God. It is the full bestowal of all that Jesus the Christ accomplished for us by his holy life, atoning death, and his glorious resurrection and ascension. In the words of our Small Catechism: “It works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this as the words and promises of God declare.”

Thus our baptism is an epiphany as well. When we were baptized God revealed himself to us so that we may believe in him and be taken up into his saving will.

220102 Sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14 (Christmas 2) January 2, 2022

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

Let me begin with a story that some of you will get and some of you will not get. A person went to a mechanic one day because their car wasn’t working right. They went into the waiting room while the mechanic looked over their car, high and low, left and right. The mechanic walked into the waiting room, wiping his hands on a rag, and said, “It’s the muffler belt. It’s shot. You need a new muffler belt.”

Some of you are going to understand that this is a joke. Others won’t quite get it. Whether you get it or not has to do with how well you understand how cars work. You’ve probably heard of cars having mufflers. You’ve probably heard of them having belts. But if you know how mufflers work and how belts work, then you will know that there can’t be any such thing as a muffler belt.

Mufflers are the pipes that carry the exhaust from the engine to the back of the car. Besides carrying the gasses, they also muffle the sound of the engine that would otherwise be much louder. That is why they are called mufflers. But basically a muffler is a fancy pipe.

Belts run on pulleys or wheels. They transfer energy from one part of the machine to another part of the machine. Belts do tend to break or need to be replaced, so a mechanic telling you that you need a new belt isn’t that surprising. But there’s no way that there could be any belts on a muffler. That’s like saying you could get into your car and drive across the ocean. It’s not going to happen. It can’t happen. But you can’t know that without already having a good bit of knowledge going into it.

Jokes are a pretty sophisticated way of talking. If you don’t know what is being talked about, then you probably won’t get the joke. Praising, giving praise, is another sophisticated way of talking. Let’s say that someone starts singing the praises of the Ford 5.0 liter engine. They start listing off thinks like torque and horsepower. Some of you are going to get that praise. A lot of us, including myself, might start to get a little glassy eyed. The praise is meaningful to some. To others is just a bunch of blah, blah, blah. You might need to learn some stuff in order to understand why someone might be excited.

Our epistle reading this morning is a hymn of praise. That makes it one of these higher levels of talking. If you don’t know what Paul is referring to, then it is going to sound like a bunch of blah, blah, blah. Just as a car enthusiast won’t take the time to explain horsepower or torque while he is singing his praises, so also Paul is not explaining the different things that he is referring to in this hymn to God the Father, about his Son Jesus Christ.

So we will have to do some work before we can begin to understand what Paul is saying. Even then, I think you should take this bulletin home and carefully read through it again later today.

Let’s begin by talking about the main theme of Paul’s hymn before getting into the details. The main theme is that Paul is praising God the Father. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Three times in these verses he refers to God’s glory. God’s glory is to be praised. Praise and glory go together. It is the glories of the 5.0 liter engine that lead some to sing its praises. God’s glory provokes praise.

Let me give you a couple examples of God’s glory, before going into the glories of God are specifically talked about in this hymn. God’s creation itself is an example of God’s glory. All the things that God has made—its strength, its beauty, the joy it gives us—these are God’s accomplishments that provoke praise. Another example of God’s glory is the way that God liberated Israel who was enslaved under Pharaoh. God twisted Pharaoh’s arm to let them go. Then he destroyed Pharaoh and his chariots, throwing them into the sea. This was God’s accomplishment that calls forth praise. So it is with all of God’s accomplishments in the Old Testament.

Paul, however, is focused on one multifaceted thing: our Lord Jesus Christ. In these twelve verses Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” at least eleven times. When you read through it again, pay attention to how often he says either “in Christ,” or “in him.” When it says, “in him,” it is referring to Christ. So, overall, Paul says, “In Christ,” God accomplished this. And “in Christ,” God accomplished that. These accomplishments are God’s glory that call for our praise.

But here we run into another difficulty when it comes to our praise. God’s accomplishments in Christ are of a far higher order than earthly things. We can somewhat understand the glory of God by looking at his creation. We can somewhat understand the glory of God in him defeating the Egyptians. It is harder for us to see how the redemption of his blood forgives our sins or makes us blameless before God. It is harder for us to see how we are adopted as sons through Jesus Christ.

One part of this problem is that we haven’t yet experienced even the tenth part of what God accomplished for us in Christ. This is kind of like talking about torque or horsepower to someone who isn’t a car person. There’s probably no better way to understand torque than to experience the feeling of being pushed back in your seat when the gas pedal is punched to the floor. There’s probably no better way to learn what horsepower is than to see a truck pull something really heavy.

But, as Paul says in our reading, we, for whom God has done all these thing in Christ, haven’t gotten our inheritance yet. We have the Holy Spirit, sure, but we have not yet had our bodies finally redeemed from death and decay. How can we know what it is like to rise from the dead when we haven’t yet experienced it?

So this is one part of the problem: we haven’t experienced anything that is even similar to the accomplishments of God that Paul is praising him for. The other problem is much more serious. It is our active hostility towards heavenly things, and our insatiable craving for earthly things. Characteristic of this mentality is how we get carried along by the spirit of this age. We get deceived into thinking that reality is only the things that are seen. We think that what is permanent and important are the nuts and bolts of this world.  We over-estimate the importance of things that we see and can buy and can consume.

When it comes to a person’s relationship with God, on the other hand, this is taken as something very light and unimportant. Either people take it for granted—something that no one needs to worry about, or God is seen as premodern and mythological—again, something that no one needs to worry about. What do we need to worry about? Getting ahead in life.

And so we have a very hard time appreciating the things that Paul is talking about because our flesh is hostile to such thoughts. In fact, just after where our reading ends, Paul has what seems like a strange prayer. He prays that God would bless the Christians in Ephesus with the Holy Spirit so that they may know Jesus. They are already Christians, and yet Paul prays that God would intervene so that they may know Jesus. This shows us that knowledge of Jesus is different than gaining a knowledge of torque or horsepower. There is a deadness and a hostility that needs to be overcome.

Understanding the difficulty of knowing Jesus, and asking God to give us his Holy Spirit, let’s return  to the main theme again. Paul is praising God the Father for his glory. The glory that is being praised is “in Christ” this, and “in Christ” that. Let’s briefly go through the accomplishments that God has worked in Christ:

He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He has chosen us before God created the world. He makes us holy and blameless. He chose us to be adopted as God’s children by being united with Christ.

Paul speaks about the way that we have come to be saved. We have not been saved by the use of Ten Plagues or by the opening up of the Red Sea, like it was with the Israelites. Instead we have been saved by a sacrifice that Jesus has done. In Christ is redemption, the forgiveness of sins, through his blood. He gives us wisdom and insight, not of earthly things, but of heavenly things. Christ came in the fullness of time, as the heart of God’s will toward us. At the end of time all things are going to be brought together in Christ—things in heaven and things on earth.

Here, again, we see how mistaken our thoughts about reality can be. Right now it seems of little consequence if a person believes in Christ or not. It can seem much more important how much money, prestige, or fun a person might have. But all things are going to be brought together in Christ. He will be the only thing that matters. Paul says in another place that all things will be put under Jesus’s feet, then he will hand everything over to God the Father, so that God will be all in all.

But let’s finish what Paul says in our reading about the things that God accomplishes in Christ. In Christ we have an inheritance. Abraham’s descendants inherited the land of Canaan. We have a greater inheritance in heaven. Finally, in Christ we heard the word of truth, which is the good news of our salvation. And in Christ, when you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is the down payment of the inheritance, the redemption of our bodies.

With all of the things that we have talked about God accomplishing in Christ, perhaps you have understood certain things more and other things less. Maybe some of the things sound like torque or horsepower. It is important that we are not satisfied with Paul’s hymn of praise sounding like a bunch of blah, blah, blah.

There is literally nothing more important that Paul could possibly be talking about. All things are going to come together in Christ. Plus he is not talking about something that is unrelated to you and to your future. The things that he is talking about are going to affect you directly and personally. This is not a hobby. This is God and you. It is God’s relationship with you. And what are the terms of that relationship? It is the thing that Paul keeps saying over and over in this hymn. The terms of this relationship is: “In Christ, in Christ, in Christ.”

So do well to take in hand that strange prayer that Paul has for the Ephesians—that God would give us the Holy Spirit so that we may know Christ. When was the last time that you prayed for God to give you a knowledge of Jesus? Just as a lack of knowledge of the 5.0 liter engine might prevent us from singing its praises, so also it is our lack of knowledge of Jesus that prevents us from joining in with Paul in praising the glory of God in Christ. It is because we do not understand the greatness of what has happened in Christ, that our praise falters. Instead our thoughts and our subsequent praises may well be directed towards other things—ourselves, or our family, or something else of ours, for example.

So, as I mentioned at the beginning, you probably have to do a little work to understand the glories of God that Paul is praising him for in our reading. Read through this reading again, later today. Join in with Paul, praising God for the glories he has accomplished in Christ. Those glories of God have been done for you out of love for you.

211226 Sermon for St. Stephen, December 26, 2021

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

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

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

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.