Lent 4 Sermon April 2-3, 2011

April 2 – 3, 2011

Lent 4 - Laetare

John 6:1-15

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Lord said, “You shall not eat of the tree of knowledge.” But we did. We sought to be our own ethics committee, to discern for ourselves what is good and what is evil. And as is the case with almost all ethics committees, the first thing we failed to notice was our own evil. Instead we twisted in on ourselves and on our rights. We thought God was evil. God had told us that the fruit of the tree of knowledge was not fit for food. But we thought that we could see for ourselves that it was. Was it not pleasing to the eye, good for food, and capable of making us wise? Look at us now. How wise we have become!

The devil always lies. He never delivers. His promise of wisdom and being like God was a lie. We don’t get what we expected. We were misled, deceived. The wisdom he gave was simply the painful knowledge of the devil, Hell, and death. The Lord said you shall not eat of it. But we did. Now the ground is cursed for our sake. We ate of the tree of our own accord, with lust and greed, so now we eat of the cursed ground, by toil and sweat, all the days of our lives.

All our food comes from the earth and can be traced back to the sun. The sun energizes the grass. The cows eat the grass. We eat the grass and the cows. We are omnivores, so selfish that we consume everything. But our consumption comes always by toil, and not only that, it is not only in toil that we eat of the earth, but also all the days of our lives. We cannot live without constant food. In just a few hours our stomachs start to grumble. The children come home from school, just 3 or 4 hours after lunch, and declare: I am starving. They are not starving. But they are hungry. And they will be hungry all the days of their lives. This is the lot of fallen men, of those who toil upon the cursed earth and eat of it.

But even in the curse, there is mercy. Adam and Eve do not starve or go naked. More significantly, they do not die. Death has entered into the world. But death passes over them. The serpent is sent to eat the dust of the earth and to wait for the time when he will collect his ransom and bruise the Heel of God. And thus does the Lord multiply bread in the wilderness, to feed the hungry, without their toil. He has compassion on fallen men, on Adam and Eve in their sin, on us in all our troubles, self-afflicted and otherwise. He feeds them, and us, because they, and we, need it.

After the miraculous feeding, the crowd knew that He was the Prophet who to come. They sought to seize him and make Him King. They missed the point.

Their perception was not completely false. They did not substitute something evil for good. They substituted a lesser good, the prophet like Moses, for the greater good, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They took one piece of the Messiah, his power for miracles, and decided that was the chief thing. They felt His compassion, but failed to recognize its depth. It is as though they walked into a symphony hall with a full orchestra and heard only a single flute, and for the sake of that flute denied all other music.

They tried to make Him their king. This gives irony to the trumped-up charge brought to Pilate. Jesus resisted all efforts to make Him a king. He was after all King without their approval or vote. But the people who yelled crucify had tried to make Him king. They yelled crucify and pledged their allegiance to Caesar. “We have no king but Caesar,” they said. It is crass resentment on their part, like the fox declaring the grapes he could not reach to be sour. Jesus refused to be their King. So they charge Him with trying to be King. Yet He refused only because His compassion ran deeper than their desire. Thus they delivered Him to His destiny and mission, to His desire for them. Pilate plays his part by placing the title “King of the Jews” over His head. Then the Lord is lifted up from the earth to reconcile all men to His Father and to draw them to Himself.

The crowd’s perception was not completely false. The problem was that they failed to realize that this is only one part of His role. He did not come so much to heal diseases and multiply bread and fish. He came to be a Sacrifice, to lay down His life as a ransom, to pay the price required for sin. His miracles are like ripples in the water. They are like the twilight that precedes the dawn. The Creator is present in His creation. It falls back into place, re-orders itself, around Him. It does this because of the Blood He will shed, because creation is also redeemed. But the people see only the miracles, only the ripples. They don’t see the Blood. They are like children playing with empty boxes on Christmas morning or filling up with store-bought cookies before the meat is brought to the table.

St. Peter makes this mistake when he tries to stop Jesus from going to Jerusalem. That is why he is so harshly rebuked: “Get behind Me, Satan. You have not in mind the things of God, but of men.” Peter’s motives weren’t evil. He wanted Jesus to teach. He wanted to be His disciple. He wanted Him to live. Those were good things, but they were lesser goods. This is the way of all heresy that arises in the Church. For it never says “God is evil.” But it always chooses a minor note instead of the symphony. It always emphasizes and applies what is good or true but it twists the good like unto the crowd that was fed by Jesus demanding He be their king.

Of course, this did not stop Jesus. He fed the crowd even though He knew they would turn on Him. He was not moved by their worthiness but by true compassion. He enriched their lives. The boy gave Jesus five loaves and two fish. That was faith. And it was risky. He might have lost it all, gotten nothing in return. He gave up what he had and Jesus multiplied it. Everyone ate and was satisfied by this boy’s gift. And twelve baskets overflowing, perhaps even going to waste, were left at the end. The boy did not go home empty-handed. He himself was fed and satisfied, as were those with him.

This is how our lives are lived in Christ. We often call it stewardship. The Lord provides for us through our neighbors. We bring our imperfect and risky offerings. They are sanctified and used for the Kingdom. They are pleasing to God. We do not go home empty-handed. We are fed and satisfied, so are those with us. Our lives in Christ are centered in the Sacrament of the Altar, where Christ, Our Lord, feeds our bodies and souls with His Body and Blood. This is our strongest connection to the Lord. It is where He forgives our sins by physical means and joins us to Himself, the holy angels and the saints. In this Sacrament we proclaim His death and are joined to the cross and raised in the resurrection. The Sacrament of the Altar is the epitome and the source of our life in Christ. We live from Sunday to Sunday, from Altar to Altar. But there is more to our lives in Christ than the Sacrament. There is more to our lives than the forgiveness of sins or the holy liturgy. Our lives in Christ include the good works we perform at home and in the world. He gives us a share in His kingdom. He used the boy’s bread and fish to feed the crowd. He uses your offerings and good works for His Kingdom.

Our Messiah, Jesus Christ, is the Prophet who is to come. He has compassion on the physical ailments and distresses of this world. He leads us out of slavery. He is the Son of David who rules in perfect justice, but by mercy. Yet His compassion is still deeper. He is also the Lamb of God who takes away our sins, who was bruised by Satan and laid to rest in the earth, who gave up His life to have us. He is our own High Priest who ushers us into the inner counsels of the Holy Trinity so that we boldly pray, “Our Father,” and also know that the Holy Spirit Himself prays for us. He gives us a share in His kingdom according to grace. He is the Way of Salvation, the Truth of God’s love for us, and the Life of those who love Him. Rejoice, O Christian: Jesus loves you.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lent Midweek 4 Sermon

Midweek 4

Sermon March 30, 2011

The Lowly Lamb of God

Philippians 2:5–11

“Ever patient and lowly” is the way the hymn “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy” (LSB 434) describes Jesus, and that sums things up. Last week we considered Jesus, the patient Lamb of God, the suffering Lamb. And we discovered that Jesus covers our sufferings in His sufferings. Tonight we focus on Jesus, the lowly Lamb of God. And once again, we find out that His lowliness is more than an example; it is a gift in which we find humility ourselves.

And that’s a good thing, because we don’t have much humility to spare. Humility is in pretty short supply. Several generations have grown up believing that the cardinal sin is not pride, but low self-esteem. Our world is populated by many people who pay no attention to the needs of others, much less to the will of God. They worship at the shrine of the unholy trinity: Me, Myself, and I.

Now don’t be mistaken—this is not just a problem ungodly people have. We cannot assume that we have escaped this trap ourselves. You and I daily are bombarded with a steady stream of messages that tell us we have an inherent right to be in control, that things should be just the way we want them to be, that our opinion is the only one that counts. Christians don’t walk away from such strong and unrelenting temptation untouched, especially when you consider that this message is extremely popular with the sinful flesh within. In league with the devil and the fallen world, our sinful flesh simply does not want to hallow God’s name nor let His kingdom come.

The Bible lists humility, along with kindness and meekness, among the Christian virtues (Colossians 3:12). Yet in many circles today any one of the three would be considered a sign of weakness. Lowliness doesn’t go over so well. We are told that to get ahead, we have to promote ourselves—humility is for sissies.

Not so in the kingdom of God. To put yourself ahead of God and other people is not a mark of independence and initiative; instead, it is the sure sign of an idolatrous heart. Christ tells us: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. . . . Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30–31). That’s the sum total of the Law of God. And that Law still holds. St. Paul writes in the verses immediately before our text: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). Unfortunately, all too often that is not the way it is among us. When it comes to humility, we are sadly lacking. Instead of counting others more significant than ourselves, it is just the other way around: we consider ourselves most important of all.

This puts our text in an entirely different light. When the apostle writes, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5), we are struck immediately by two things. First, the sad fact is that our natural attitude is not very Christlike when it comes to humility. What should be is not what actually is. Second, what we do not have in ourselves we are given by faith in Jesus—the humble attitude of Jesus is one of the gifts He gives to those who love and trust in Him. When you have Jesus by faith, you also have all His gifts. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened,” He said, “and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:28–29a).

As we watch Jesus throughout this Lenten season suffering the consequences of our sin, we are struck again by His deep and profound humility. He never once complained of injustice or returned violence for violence. As Isaiah wrote: “Like a lamb [that is led] to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Yet that clear and evident humility of Jesus was not weakness, but strength. “No man takes [My life] from Me,” Jesus said, “but I lay it down of My own accord” (John 10:18).

Jesus is not a helpless victim in His suffering and death. He remained perfectly in charge throughout the whole ordeal. It looked for the entire world as though He was defeated that day they flogged Him nearly senseless and then nailed Him on the cross to die, a beaten and bloody pulp of a man. Yet Jesus was and remained God throughout His torment; for the only way captive humanity could be rescued and released would be if God Himself became the ransom price.

That, of course, is exactly what happened. St. Paul paints the scene in vivid detail in our text: “being in very nature God, [He] did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing” (Philippians 2:6). Jesus was indeed equal with God, being the eternal Son of the Father, with whom He had existed from all eternity as one with the Father and the Spirit, three individual persons yet eternally one undivided God. Jesus was always in the form of God, yet when the time came for Him to ransom mankind; He surrendered His equality with the Father and emptied Himself of His divine glory, exchanging the form of God for the form of a servant, being born in human likeness.

With three hammer blows the apostle drives home the deep mystery of the incarnation and the profound wonder of our redemption: taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, being found in human appearance. God of God and Light of Light, true God from all eternity, Jesus Christ is also true man, freely sacrificing His divine majesty to come down here among us to be suckled and diapered like any other infant. Only thus could He rescue and save the whole rebellious world. Now, that’s humility for you—but that’s not the totality of Christ’s humility.

The apostle continues: “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). Now I dare say we have heard so much about the cross in this church that we have almost become numb to it. Yet there is a shocking frankness about these words that likely doesn’t come across in plain English. Every faithful Jew who knew his Bible knew that there was a unique horror to the cross—and it wasn’t what you think. Our thoughts likely turn to the macabre—the gruesome horror and physical agony of nails being driven through human flesh. Although that was bad enough—and struck terror in the hearts of the bravest of men, even in the morbid world of the first century—there was a special horror to death by crucifixion among the people of God. All victims of the cross were automatically under the wrath of God. In the Book of Deuteronomy, the Lord had explicitly warned Israel: “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

So the lowest point in the humiliation of Jesus was exactly this: that He willingly placed Himself under the judgment of God in His death. Yet again note how Jesus was in complete control even in this: “He humbled Himself” (Philippians 2:8). The Son of God deliberately and freely chose to relinquish His divine glory, to empty Himself and come among us as a man, then to lower Himself still further all the way to death in obedience to the Father’s will. He suffered no ordinary death, but the superordinary death of the cross, there to be cursed for us in order to bursting the bonds of the curse that held all mankind captive.

Talk about lowly. Is there anyone here who would go to such great lengths for the benefit of someone else? If you know your own heart, you know the answer is no. Humility may be fine for other people, lowliness may be well and good, but the sinful heart just doesn’t want to go there. Who would want to take a back seat to somebody else? So everybody around us pays the price.

When our stubborn pride gets in the way, it causes more than enough hurt to go around. No wonder, then, that a lot of those nearest and dearest to us are injured in the process. No wonder that many of our friends and family go begging for sympathy and love because our self-inflated ego doesn’t leave them room to breathe.

It’s not a pretty picture. But that is what happens when selfish pride takes over. Lowliness goes out the door, and humility doesn’t even show up on our radar screen. That is when people get hurt. And make no mistake about it, we injure ourselves as well. When pride runs amok, it not only affects other people, it also cuts us off from God.

To the walking wounded, then, the message of the lowly Lamb of God this night comes as healing medicine for the soul. For our Lord Jesus walked the lowly, lonely road that led to the cross precisely to remove the injury and hurt that you and I have done in our sinful pride. The death He died on His cross in abject lowliness and humility was our death. The curse He bore in that shameful death was our curse. Now the power of that curse is broken. The warfare between God and mankind is over and done. We have received from the Lord’s own hand double for our sin. The miserable record of our sin, all the hurt and shame of it, is blotted out in Jesus’ blood.

In exchange for the misery of our sin, we receive the very life of Christ, the lowly Lamb of God. What you see now is only partial. The life of humility and lowly service we now live is only part of the picture. First, comes the cross, and then the crown. Because our Lord Jesus, the lowly Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, humbled Himself and obeyed His Father’s will all the way to the death of the cross, “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11).

Daily Readings for April 3-9, 2011

Daily Bible Readings 

April 3 Genesis 41:28-57; Mark 11:20-33 

April 4 Genesis 42:1-34, 38; Mark 12:1-12
April 5 Genesis 43:1-28; Mark 12:13-27
April 6 Genesis 44:1-18, 32-34; Mark 12:28-44
April 7 Genesis 45:1-20, 24-28; Mark 13:1-23
April 8 Genesis 47:1-31; Mark 13:24-37
April 9 Looking Forward to next Sunday: Genesis 22:1–14; Hebrews 9:11–15; John 8:(42–45) 46–59

 

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT (Judica)

Genesis 22:1–14; Hebrews 9:11–15; John 8:(42–45) 46–59

Jesus Is Our Redemption

In the temple Jesus said, “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death” (John 8:51). For Jesus came to taste death for us—to drink the cup of suffering to the dregs in order that we might be released from its power. Clinging to His life-giving words, we are delivered from death’s sting and its eternal judgment. Christ is our High Priest, who entered the Most Holy Place and with His own blood obtained everlasting redemption for His people (Hebrews 9:11–15). He is the One who was before Abraham was, and yet is his descendant. He is the promised Son who carries the wood up the mountain for the sacrifice, who is bound and laid upon the altar of the cross. He is the ram who is offered in our place, who is willingly caught in the thicket of our sin, and who wears the crown of thorns upon His head (Genesis 22:1–14). Though Jesus is dishonored by the sons of the devil, He is vindicated by the Father through the cross.



Sermon Lent 3 March 27, 2011

Oculi Lent 3

March 27, 2011

Luke 11:14-28

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is the way of the wicked to call what is good “evil,” and we have all done it. We have vilified those we disagree with. We rarely call our opponents in politics, at the work place, at home, or in the Church “evil.” But we've called them “closed-minded,” “hateful,” “legalistic,” “Pharisaic,” “stupid,” “racist,” and “liberal.” Our intentions in all criticism, in arbitrary accusations, character assassinations, and plain old name-calling has been to make ourselves look good and to enact some vengeance, born of envy or anger, disgust or ignorance, but never of charity, on our opponents. We've made ourselves the judge. We've relished our anger. Repent.

Our mothers were right. Whenever we point at someone four fingers point back at ourselves. Our insults and complaints reveal more of ourselves than they do of our opponents.

Hear the today's Gospel and see yourself not in Jesus but in the Pharisee’s. The Lord was working good, was casting out a demon. But some in the crowd hated Jesus, no matter what He did. Their hearts were full of envy and rage. They couldn’t stand or accept His good deeds. So they called him evil. They said, “He drives out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” They were saying, “Jesus is in league with Satan.”

The accusation tells us nothing of Jesus, except that He had power over demons, but it reveals much of the accusers. Who sides with the demons against Jesus? Who prefers the demons over Jesus? Who sows seeds doubt? Who demands a sign from heaven?

This is what the devil did in the desert when he asked Jesus to leap from the Temple. “Force the angels to catch you. Make your Father proved His power and His love.” The crowd already had a sign from Jesus: He cast out a demon. But unbelief always wants something more. Envy is never satisfied.

Jesus would later say to this same crowd that an evil generation seeks a sign. They refused to be satisfied and would not trust in Christ and His Word. They demanded proof. Jesus said He would give them was the sign of Jonah, the sign of a man buried three days in the belly of death alive out of death to preach repentance and salvation to the Gentiles. That’s the sign faith clings to--the sign of the cross, Christ crucified and risen to save sinners, death spitting up its prey.

You were once darkness, under the influence of demons, calling good things evil, being filled with rage, lust, and envy. Jesus shines in the darkness. He has suffered demons. He has taken your accusations, your vilifications, your sins. He was executed as a sinner, with wicked men, to wash your sins way. He has thus rescued you from the devil’s domain. He gives His own mercy and grace to you. He has broken the devil’s grip on all creation and cast him into Hell to pull you out. He shines with the light of grace, undeserved and perfect love. He loves you. Thus you have been brought into the kingdom and given God's own Holy Spirit. You are baptized. Your tongue is loosed to sing His praise. He has you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.

Still fallen men call what is good evil. They attack God’s Word by calling it a human-created fiction. They say Christians are intellectually foolish and psychologically weak, Christianity is an offense that should die its own death. But God has chosen nonsense in the world to shame the wise. God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen you, in His mercy, to be vilified with the Lord, to go the way of the cross, to move from the Pharisees to Jesus.

The devil is obviously strong. He has great power. He is ruthless, and also clever. But Jesus is stronger. He exercises His strength not with spectacular power, violence, or deceptions, but instead He submits to all the devil has. He lets the devil do his worst, bring his full power to bear, and He turns the other cheek. He uses Satan’s strength against him. It is not a surprise. It is exactly what was prophesied. The devil knew. He quoted the Word of God in the desert. But in the end, he was a fool who could not resist the chance to kill God even though this is how he lost humanity. Jesus did not use not evil disguised as good, that is the way of the devil. Jesus used good disguised as evil. The unjust death He died, the innocent for the guilty, is good. His crown of thorns, His bloody arms and legs, His dying thirst are good. The centurion's conversion and the repentant thief are good. The death of Jesus appeared evil but is the ultimate and greatest good. It is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. The strong man's strength is no more. The Lord infiltrated the enemy's camp. He destroyed death from behind enemy lines. The devil’s armory was turned on the devil and then demolished. So that he has nothing left to use on us and no way to keep us in.

It was by a tree that the devil overcame the human race and plunged creation into darkness. So it is by the Tree of the cross that the devil is overcome. It was by death that Satan sought to steal away man’s glory. So it is by the death of Jesus Christ that the glory of man is restored. Satan is caught in his own trap, succumbs to temptation, bound and defeated. The strong man is out-maneuvered by the Stronger Man whose strength is not hatred and rage but love and mercy. The war is over. Satan is defeated. Jesus is the Victor.

The devil is defeated. But he still lashes out in a frenzy, like a drowning man seeking to drag everyone down with him. His strength is gone. He has no accusations left. Death itself is undone. But the devil thrashes about with such violence that some are deceived and think it is strength. Thus do defeated, evil spirits return. And if the freed heart is not filled with good, the demons are not replaced with the Lord, then the last state of that man is worse than the first.

The unclean spirits must be replaced with the Holy Spirit. And those who have the Holy Spirit hear the Word of God and keep it and are thereby blessed. Blessed are those whose wickedness has been covered and sins have been forgiven. Blessed are those who confess what is evil as evil and confess what is good, even the Lord Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection, as good.

You are such people. For though you have called good evil and vilified your opponents, so also have you confessed your sins. You are not a hypocrite. You have not claimed to be anything other than a sinner. Neither are you wicked. For you do not call your sins good. You confess them. You call them evil. You repent of them. And you also confess the goodness of Jesus Christ, of His Holy Cross, of His power over death and the devil, and of His Holy Sacraments. You expect and receive forgiveness. You hear the Word of God and keep it, which is to not to say that you obey it perfectly but that you believe it, you trust it, you hope in it. Jesus Christ is your Lord.

In +Jesus' Name. Amen.

Lent Midweek 3 Sermon March 23, 2011

Midweek 3 Sermon

The Patient Lamb of God

1 Peter 2:21–24

March 23, 2011

“Lamb of God, Pure and Holy”—that beautiful Lenten hymn (LSB 434) ties all our sermons together this season. Tonight, our meditation takes a more personal turn as our concentration shifts to the third line of the hymn: “ever patient and lowly.” So we fix our attention on “the patient Lamb of God.”

In our text St. Peter speaks of the example of Jesus, and we are all ears. God knows the school of hard knocks leaves us battered and bruised much of the time, and most of those injuries we have not deserved. Despite our best efforts to play by the rules and lead a godly life, we often end up with the short end of the stick. So while we are licking our wounds, we wonder: Is there another way, perhaps? Could Jesus provide us with a model of how to handle undeserved opposition? Maybe a dose of what He dished out in the temple against the money changers would prove helpful. Maybe a whip and a few well-chosen angry words would teach people a thing or two. Just what do you do when you do good and suffer for it? Is there another way?

But St. Peter leaves us no wiggle room. Want to know what to do when you suffer for doing good? Suffer, that’s what. “To this you were called,” writes St. Peter, “because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). The patient Lamb of God, you see, does not mean just a lamb who is tolerant and enduring. “Patient” means “suffering.” Tonight we consider the suffering Lamb of God. He is our example, writes St. Peter. He is the one who suffered for us.

And this suffering Lamb of God is not just a pattern or a mentor in suffering. Jesus wrote the book on suffering, and He wrote it in His own blood. He, the one who suffered for us, has called us to suffering. “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me,” says Jesus. Christians ought not be surprised when suffering comes their way; it is part of the deal. Along with Jesus comes His cross. You cannot have a Jesus who doesn’t suffer. There simply is no Jesus like that. The very reason He left His Father’s throne and came down from glory was to lower Himself all the way to death, even death on a cross. Jesus came to lay down His life as a ransom for sinners. This is the measure of His love, and the Father’s love, for a lost and fallen world. “In this is love,” wrote St. John, “not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son as the payment for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Yes, this Jesus whom we love is the patient Lamb of God, the suffering Lamb of God who suffered for us. He left us an example, that we should follow in His steps. Make no mistake about it, those footsteps are marked by hardship and suffering. “Come, follow Me,” says Jesus. Then He walked the sorrowful road to the cross. The very fact that we follow Jesus will get us in trouble. It gets us in trouble with the devil, but also with an ungodly and unbelieving world. We get in trouble with the devil and the world because they are allied against Jesus, and we are aligned with Jesus—we belong to Him. It should not surprise us, then, that the going can get tough in this world, because the enemies of Jesus are enemies of His friends too.

We keep wondering what went wrong when things go bad in our life; we think that if we are on God’s side everything should be fine and dandy. Not so, says St. Peter. “To this you were called,” (1 Peter 2:21). Because Christ suffered for you, you ought to expect to suffer when you have done nothing wrong. This is the life you have inherited because you belong to Jesus. Following in His steps means you share in His sufferings because you have the same enemies He has. These very sufferings, therefore, are the mark of authentic Christian faith; they show that you belong to Jesus, the patient Lamb of God.

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Ok, but that’s only half the story. These words are quoted from the prophet Isaiah, where we see the full extent of the trials of the suffering Messiah: “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth” (Isaiah 53:9). It is a package deal, this patient love of Jesus for His Church. It includes not only suffering but also death. That is how we confess it in the baptismal creed: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.”

So when we read the Passion history in these Lenten services, it is not so we can feel sorry for Jesus and all He went through at the hands of those bad people. Those cunning enemies of Jesus didn’t do Him in. Rather, it was the deliberate plan of God to make Jesus the victim of our sin so we could go free. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed” (see Isaiah 53:5).

The phrase “the Passion of the Christ” means His suffering and all that it included. St. Peter gives us the shorthand version: “When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). That about sums up the suffering of Jesus. From His first words at the cross until His last, Jesus’ sole concern was to do the Father’s will in giving His body and shedding His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. He did not utter a word in self-defense or revenge from the beginning to the end. Instead, Jesus began by saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And He ended by saying, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Now that is love for you. Love never seeks its own way but pours itself out for others. At the cross we see Love incarnate pouring Himself out for the sins of the entire world. This is a patient love, a suffering love. Having loved His own, Jesus loved them all the way to death, even the death of the cross. That is the measure of His love, this patient Lamb of God, this suffering Lamb.

We do not enjoy suffering and hardship. And we Christians don’t seek out suffering. We will take it when it comes our way because we know it goes with the territory. As Peter says, “To this we were called, because Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). But suffering is never an end in itself.

The suffering of Jesus on His cross was not for its own sake. St. Peter reminds us when he writes: “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).

The reason Jesus was sacrificed is that He was the sin-bearer—but not His sins; rather, He bore our sins. All our selfishness, all our pride and arrogance, all our impenitence, all our stubborn refusal to love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves, all our impatience and petty irritation with God and other people, all our refusal to let God be God, and all our prideful attempts to build ourselves up by tearing others down—each and every one of these sins of ours deserve death. So it is no wonder that Jesus died, though He is God who cannot die. For He is our sin-bearer, who bore all our sins in His own body.

And when Jesus, the patient Lamb of God, bore our sins in His suffering and death, He bore them all away. He removed once and for all the death penalty that stood against us. In a mysterious way, we died, too, in that death of His. St. Peter explains it this way: “so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). Here is where Christ’s patience becomes our patience: since by the grace of God all our impatience and ungodliness was given to Jesus in His death, He has taken it all away and given us His own righteousness. We have not just a new way of life, but a whole new life. When we are insulted, we need not retaliate; when we suffer, we need not threaten. And that’s good to know.

You may have suffered a lot because of the words or actions of others over the years, and you are not alone. Many of us are among the walking wounded. It is a tough, dark world out there. In such a world people get hurt. But remember that when Jesus was wounded for your transgressions, He also took your hurt with Him to His cross. By His wounds you have been healed. Your hurt comes to an end in Him who cried out in triumph that day at Calvary: “It is finished!” You need not carry your hurt with you any longer. Jesus bears your grief’s and carries all your sorrows. There is healing in His holy body and most precious blood.

A whole new life in Christ and His righteousness is yours, then. Take it and go with it into life. Live in Him as He is alive in you—this patient Lamb of God who bore all your sins in His own body on the tree. By His wounds you have been healed.

Lent 2 Sermon March 20, 2011

Lent 2 Reminiscere

March 19-20, 2011

Matthew 15:21-28

“Lord, help me.”

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is not right to give the children's bread to the dogs. But this woman is bold. Her response to being ignored was to keep on asking. Her response to overhearing that He came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel was to fall down and worship Him. Her prayer for her daughter's demon possession is simply, “Lord, help me.”

Then He says, “It is not right to give the children's bread to the dogs.” But she is bold. She does not quit. She has the promises. She has the Scriptures. She waits on the Lord, for Him to show His mercy, to bare His arm, to reveal Himself. She does not want the children's bread. She wants more. She wants His bread.

“Yes, Lord,” she says, “yet the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Lord's table.” Put me in your lap, Lord. Scratch behind my ear. Throw the ball. And let me eat what falls from the loaf of which You eat. I want a part of Your bread.

Better to be a doorkeeper in the House of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Better to be a dog in the home of the Lord than to be the play thing of demons.

Now, some would say that we should not see in this bread anything of the Holy Communion. They tell us that every instance of bread or wine in the Scriptures is not a sacrament, does not bestow the forgiveness of sins, and is not the Body and Blood of Jesus. Sometimes, they say, bread is just bread.

Is that so? Is bread, from the perspective of heaven, ever “just” bread? Does God ever feed us, provide for all that we need to support this body and life, in a casual, even accidental way? Is there any providence from heaven, any feeding, any love or mercy of God apart from the Body and Blood of Jesus crucified and raised? No. Everything goes back to the cross and the Holy Communion brings the cross back to us.

But this isn't the feeding of the five thousand or turning water into wine. There is no actual bread even as there are no actual dogs. These are metaphors. There is only the Lord, His disciples, the woman, her daughter, and the demons. The demons are not metaphors. They are real, so is the daughter sorely vexed and the mother full of fear. Jesus is not a metaphor either, nor are His disciples. They are real. They are there.

The Lord acts strangely. What the disciples want of Him, I do not know. They ask Him to release her or send her away because she is crying after them. Is this because they are annoyed, tired of the cries. Or are they embarrassed that He ignores her? Are they moved by compassion? Does His silence, His ignoring of her valid cry, concern them? Are they helpless and heartbroken or just annoyed? I don't know, but I suspect it is a complicated mixture of things. In this, at least, I feel at one with them. How many times has it seemed to me as though the Lord ignored the prayers of people sorely in need and how badly I, the “professional church worker” have wished for a miracle not only to help the needy but also to show that my God is real and has power. In any case, the apostles are not metaphors. But they are helpless. And though they are not metaphors they are prototypes of the Ministry. They can't do a thing for the woman or her daughter, who are prototypes for the laity. The apostles and the woman stand before demons as helpless as we stand before cancer, war, poverty. All they can do is pray.

But this is the Lord's intent. He is not a prototype. He is the antitype. He is the fulfillment of all the prophecies and types, of all the hopes and dreams of the world, of all creation. His intent is that His pastors would pray and that the people would pray, that they would come to Him with the boldness and confidence of dear children asking their dear father. The woman puts the apostles to shame. She is better at prayer than they are. She is bold. She is confident. She wants not the children's bread, she wants to share in His bread.

Is this only a metaphor? Does she really mean only something other than bread? She is not, after all, an actual dog. I think she wants more than bread, but that she also wants bread. She wants to eat with Jesus, to be in fellowship with Jesus. Her prayer has grown from, “Have mercy on me for my daughter is possessed by a demon” to “help me” to “share Your bread with me.”

Could it be Eucharistic? That is, in asking for bread, is she actually asking for what Our Lord gives in the Lord's Supper? The Lord's Supper is not a metaphor or symbol. The bread we break is His Holy Body, crucified and risen, given to us to eat with our mouths to forgive our sins. Doesn't her plea for bread have something to do with how the Lord helps us, has mercy upon us, delivers us and our children from demons? Of course. Then it is Eucharistic.

But here is really why it is Eucharistic, not simply because she mentions bread, but because the Lord is constant and unchanging. He did not one day decide to try something new and invent the Holy Sacraments. This is how He always is, always interacts with His people. He feeds. The sacrifices were mainly meat for eating. The Manna in the dessert was also food. But man does not live by bread alone, even by Manna alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, even as Our Lord reminded the devil last week. So the Lord does more than feed the Body. He provides for the soul through the body. You can't wash a soul. So you wash the body with water and the Name of God and the soul is thereby washed. We call that baptism. You can't touch the soul or feed it apart from the body, so Jesus feeds our bodies with physical food that conveys food for the soul, with what the soul needs to be strengthened and cleansed. He does not sit in heaven and think nice things toward us. He actually enters into creation. He speaks through human words, in a human voice. He feeds with bread and wine. He washes with water.

Food is not a metaphor. It is real. So is God's grace. God's Word has taken up flesh to be our Savior, to walk among us, to suffer as us, to be punished and killed in our place. He has accomplished what He was sent to do. He has pulled us out of Hell that we would have communion with Him. He enters into us by way of the mouth, feeds us with Himself and thereby consumes us, makes us a part of Him, while taking residence in us. It is not the children's bread He gives. That would not be right for us, mere dogs, Gentiles. But He came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He is not lying when He says that. So the woman must be transformed. She must join the house of Israel, become a son of Abraham, an heir of promise. The Lord does this. He transforms her through His Word. But still He gives more than the children’s bread, to her and to us. For He gives out of His affection and generosity. He gives Himself, the Bread come down from heaven, the Bread of Life.

He hears the woman's prayer. He gives Himself to her. The demons depart, banished. He hears your prayer as well. He gives Himself to you in His Bread. The demons cannot have you. They depart. You, O House of Israel, are His.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.