Sacrificial Giving
Lent 2018
March 14, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Sacrificial Giving
Lent 2018
March 14, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
John 6:1-15
Lent 4 Laetare
March 11, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
“I don’t know what to do.” That is never a fun thing to say, much less feel. A sense of helplessness can quickly take a person down to despair and depression. It is a hard thing to experience, and it is a hard thing to watch others experience.
Three weeks ago, during the 1st Sunday in Lent, we heard of Jesus out in the wilderness with devil. No food. No crowds of people. After 40 days, He was hungry, but resisted the temptation to turn stones into bread. The devil offered Him a way around the cross, a way to control over the kingdoms of the world without suffering, but He resisted.
This week, from John 6, we hear of Jesus out in the wilderness again. This time, He is not alone. The crowds had followed Him there, hungry for a miracle, for solutions to their problems, for ways around their own suffering and control over more of their lives. And they don’t know what to do. It’s an impossible situation. 5,000 men, not counting women and children, so maybe somewhere around 10,000 people, had been listening to Jesus and now found themselves in the middle of nowhere, and now their immediate need is food. Jesus has created this crisis and He knew what He was going to do. He draws them out of town in order to teach them, to feed them, to reveal to them that He is the Son of God.
“Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He asks this of Philip, one of the first disciples. Philip doesn’t quite get it yet. He quickly responds that there’s no way there would ever be enough money, not even to mention, no grocery store out in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t know what to do, and for all appearances they are stuck in an impossible situation. And we know how Phillip feels, the anxiety, the fear, the despair, all for the same reason: we don’t consider the One who provides abundantly. We lament over our perceived lack, and too often complain that God isn’t doing anything that we want Him to do. We don’t know what to do.
And then the miracle happens. The crowd needs food. So Jesus multiplies the two fish and the five barley loaves, and they end up with more left overs than when they began. And so Jesus provides, just like He did when He changed water into wine, just like He did when He fed His people manna from heaven during the Exodus. Jesus does what He has been doing from the beginning, a miracle of creation and preservation of that creation, a miracle that scientism and evolution cannot begin to explain: that something came from nothing, abundance out of lack. Jesus who did not make bread for Himself, now makes it for the people. That’s who God is and how He acts out of sheer love for what He has created.
And now the crowds, brought of out of their despair and out of their need, rush to the opposite extreme. They see and experience the abundance, and they lust after more. An endless supply from a Prophet, no less. In Jesus is the miracle cure to their hunger and to their need. It’s a promise of free healthcare without the need to work, food boxes without the need of stamps or accountability, a king after their own making. So the crowds try to grab Him and try to make Him the king who would feed them, that would earthly needs could met in the fashion that they want. For Jesus, this temptation was no greater than that of the devil the last time Jesus was in the wilderness. But His time has not yet come. And His rule does not look like that of this world, nor that of the devil, nor the lustful stomachs or hearts of a crowd.
They don’t get it. Not Philip, not the crowd. And Jesus goes away to pray by Himself. We don’t have the words that He prayed, but no doubt it was for His disciples, for the crowd, for the purpose in which the Creator had joined Himself to His creation. And maybe even for us, those who come afterward with the same basic problems, the same lust, the same greed, the same questions, the same despair, the same doubt. We don’t know what to do.
And then the miracle happens. He takes a child, like Amelia, splashes her with water, speaks to her the creative and sustaining Word of God, and He provides an abundance and life that is eternal. He takes her, He takes all the baptized through the wilderness of this life, haunted by demons, tormented by lusts, filled with despair and doubt, looking for a king hoping to get free stuff, and He establishes His kingdom of grace and mercy and abundance. His kingdom is not to set up a political order or an earthly nation. But He has come to give His life as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, to give forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
This is not merely a miracle, then or now, demonstrating Jesus’ power and compassion, but it points us to the ongoing meal that He continues to provide for His people. He who supplied the bodily need of thousands in the wilderness offers us an abundance of food to sustain the new life that Christ has given. He gives us Himself through the Gospel, the good news that He gave His body and shed His blood for our redemption. He gives us Himself in His body and blood together with the bread and the wine. In the Lord’s Supper, we are fed with the bread of lift that forgives all our sins, grants us life and salvation, and strengthens us during our earthly pilgrimage. It’s no accident that from very early in Christian history 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish has served as a symbol for the Lord’s Supper, for Jesus continues to feeds the crowds in a miraculous and life sustaining way.
When you don’t know what to do, cling to Jesus, and see that everything is done for you. Repent of your pride, of your selfish quest for control and power, of your despair and doubt. Feast on the true body and blood of our Lord in the Holy Sacrament that is the spiritual food for eternity to all who believe. Cling to Jesus, to His death and resurrection, and to life everlasting.
Jeremiah 26:1-15
Lent 3 Oculi
March 4, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Pious King Josiah had died. Johoahaz had ruled only three months, and now wicked Johaikim sat on the throne of King David. In the early years of his reign, the Lord commanded His prophet Jeremiah to go the temple court and preach to the Jews there. Jeremiah, the iron prophet, had one charge, and one charge only: to speak God’s Word to God’s people. The purpose was simply this: that the people of God would repent, that they would turn from their evil ways and not bring disaster upon themselves because of their evil deeds. Repenting from their evil, they might receive the blessing of God, that is, forgiveness of their sins, life, and salvation.
Now, one might hope that when the Law of God demands repentance from God’s people that they would actually repent. Not so much in this case. For Jeremiah’s faithful proclamation, his arrested and tried for treason. The people not only protest the Lord’s message, but also His messenger, and they cry for his blood. “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears” (Jeremiah 26:11).
But it was not yet time for Jeremiah’s blessed death. When challenged, he does not back down or apologize or wiggle his way out of a serious, and potentially deadly, situation. His defense is simply this, “The Lord sent me to prophesy…” His authority comes only from the Lord, as do His words.
As for Jeremiah, they may do with him as they please. He is ready to die. Yet to sentence him to death would be murder, and his blood would be would upon them. Would that all God’s pastors, all God’s people, act the same when they are faced with persecution. Whether they stand firm in their faithfulness of not, there is One who shed innocent blood so the wayward and lost, the stumbling and stricken, the proud and the arrogant would repent of their sin and that sin might be forgiven. Jeremiah’s situation foreshadows the Christ. It will not in too many more weeks that we hear again words that ring out throughout all history, such as in Matthew 27:25, Pilate relents to the murderous crowd crying for Jesus to be crucified, the people answered Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Innocent blood was shed, and by His blood we are healed. By His blood, the good, the right, the mending of soulds and lives takes place.
The Lord still sends His messengers with a word from the Lord, to proclaim not the opinions and works of man, but the work of Christ. He places pastors in the pulpit and in the lives of His people with the same message of repentance and faith. Repent of your sinfulness, of your stubbornness against the Lord, of your treating God’s Word and His pastors as something placed in your lives to speak peace, even when there is no peace. And I get it, you think of yourself as not bad, at least not as bad as rebellious Judah. But you are no different. You have the same sinful heart, the same sinful pride, the same reluctance to hear and obey God’s Word, and your sin deserves the same disaster.
So people of God, repent. Mend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God. Jeremiah’s Hebrew word here translated “mend” is very difficult to put into English. KJV translates it as amend, or to make amends. There is no doubt that this is part of a Chirstian’s life of repentance and faith. The idea is to make something good. So we might say that somebody “made good” on a promise. If something goes wrong with a product or service we’ve purchased, we just want them to “make it right,” to put things right.
There are things we’ve done that cannot be undone. And much suffering in this life comes from the memory of things that cannot be put right. Our failure to act, to speak, often cannot be remedied. The moment has passed, we failed our neighbor, and now nothing can be done. Amends cannot truly be made, we have lost the power to make it good, make it right.
Perhaps even worse is living with the sins committed against you. Your father abused you. Your mother mistreated you. Your wife left you. You were taken advantage of sexually, or emotionally. Someone used you for a time to gain influence or money, then discarded you when a better opportunity came along. Someone made a promise and then didn’t even try to keep it. A kid laughed at you on the playground and it still hurts, decades later. You get accused of a horrible deed or having a wicked motivation, and it ruins your day or maybe your year.
“Mend your ways and your deeds,” says the Lord, and we try. We maybe even succeed, a little. We get back to praying and reading the Bible. We try again to be nice, we renew our commitment to giving an offering from our firstfruits rather than our leftovers, we hold our tongue a little better, calm down a little before answering that email, avert our eyes from the forbidden image instead of worshiping what the LORD has withheld.
“Mend your ways and your deeds,” says the LORD, but we can’t mend them – not all the way. We can’t mend them to perfection, as the Lord says, “Be perfect.” We can’t mend them to holiness, as the Lord says, “Be holy.” We can’t mend them to the point of turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, loving our enemies, praying for our slanderers, giving thanks to God when things are at their worst.
And we can’t mend the ways and deeds of others that have harmed us. We can’t mend the broken bones and broken hearts that we’ve suffered. We cannot repair the damage to our reputation, the failures of our upbringing, the problems of others. No, we cannot make amends, not all the way, not what’s needed.
This is why our Lord Jesus comes. The language of the Gospel gives a picture of our condition: we are imprisoned in the fortress of a strong man. A tyrant rules, the devil, and there is peace, but it is a peace that permits no freedom, not truth, no permanence. There is no escape from this strong man. He is fully armed with accusations about your sinfulness, guarding his own. But into that hell comes One stronger than the strong man. He overcomes the devil, He takes away the accusations, and takes broken people as His spoil so that He might mend the broken heart, the broken life, the broken world. He drives the demons away and brings the Kingdom of God.
Nowhere else is this more clearly exhibited than in your Baptism. Through that Baptism, Christ Himself says to the unclean spirit, “Depart! Make way for the Holy Spirit.” By that Baptism He removes the guilt of sin and fills the child of God with His Spirit, with His grace, with His love. Then He takes that child, still broken in body and soul but now in the hospital of the Church – He takes the broken human being and says, “Come, follow Me, follow Me to the cross, to the grave, to Easter” where all things are mended, are made good and right and true.
That’s the journey we are on during Lent, in fact, during our whole Christian life. We follow Jesus, the mender of all things, the one who mends the ways and doings of sinful humanity. During this journey, we will seek to imitate Him by mending our own ways and doings. Walking in love, seeking forgiveness from those we’ve hurt. Forgiving those who have hurt us. Not having sexual immorality or impurity or covetousness or foolish talk or crude joking even be named among us. Doing what is proper as children of light, as saints, not sinners, though we struggle being both this side of glory.
Come now, you who are forgiven by Christ, come to His table to feast on His body and blood, for here He continues to mend you, and so mend also your ways and your deeds.
*Some of this sermon was adapted from a sermon by Pr. Christopher Esget, http://www.esgetology.com/2013/03/03/sermo-dei-oculi-lent-iii
Confession of Sins and Absolution
Lent Midweek 2018
February 28, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Tonight we consider a third godly habit, that of Confession of sins and absolution. From hearing the word to speaking the Word back to the Lord, this then shapes how we view things and how we act as Christians.
Responsive “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But... if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We know these words because we have heard them countless times, we have prayed them just as often, and that habit shapes us into doing them. It leads us to the realization of that the truth that we are sinful and unclean, we sin against God in thought word and deed by what we have done and by what we left undone. To confess our sins is to acknowledge before God the truth that He has spoken about us in His Word, our sins, and what our sins have deserved and demanded.
When we confess that we are by nature sinful, we are saying what the Word of God declares us to be true about our fallen human nature. We are sinful by nature. But we must be careful here in what that means. While we are sinful by nature, our human nature is not itself sin. Christ did not assume sin when He became man. But He did assume a human nature. He redeemed and healed our human nature. At His return, He will glorify our nature by raising our bodies from the dead and making them incorruptible.
Think of it more in these terms. Sin is like a cancer that has spread throughout our human nature. Cancer isn’t the body, but it is a corruption in the body. In the same way, sin corrupts our nature. The sin infects us, but it is not us. This corruption is not something that results from us sinning, but rather the sin that shows up in our lives is caused by this cancer. We sin because we are sinners.
Sin corrupts our nature and shows up in the various sins of our lives. And they all have one things in common: they all want God out of the picture. We want to be God. We want our will to be done. This also helps to explain why bad things and evil happens in the world. How can someone shoot up a school? How can a person treat someone else less than human? How could the holocaust happen, or war, or abortion, or good people do bad things.
Normally, when talking about habits and disciples of the Christian life, the issues that are being dealt with are the sins and the good character traits. While these things are fine in and of themselves, that’s not what we’re talking about here. The bad habits are just the symptom, as the good habits are just the result. The real issue is deeper, it is one of the corrupt human nature and the medicine of eternal life. That is how Luther can say in his Large Catechism that when one is urged to go to confession, he is simply urged to be a Christian.
In John 8:31-32 Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, You are My disciples. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Abiding in the Word of God makes you see the truth. The first part of the truth is the revelation of our sin. The Law accuses us of our sinfulness. And the second part of that truth is the revelation of our Savior. The Gospel shows us Jesus and what He has done for sinners. That is all wrapped up in Confession and Absolution.
Confession is of the things that people who are not used to a liturgical service often wonder about. There are only a few other instances where a group of people get together and begin with such a blunt reality check, and most of those, like addiction support groups, do it because of Christian influence. Together, we own up to the truth about ourselves. We don’t always confess our individual sins, but we confess the deeper issue – our innate sinfulness. It’s a harsh reality, but it’s not the last word. Because there is a deeper truth than the one that we speak about ourselves. It is the truth that God speaks to us about Himself and what He has done to the sinful corruption inside us. It is the absolution, the pronouncement that God justifies the sinner, declaring him or her to be righteous in His sight.
Confession, then, is asking for something that only God can give. It is not something we give ourselves. Absolution always comes to us from the outside, received as a gift. The pastor stands in the stead, in the place of, Christ and by His command to simply be His mouthpiece, the voice that declares God’s truth. The absolution is not partial, it is total. It is as sweeping and complete as the confession. All sins owed up, all sins forgiven. Anchored in the universal atonement of our Savior, who by His blood shed upon the cross has won forgiveness for the entire world. The absolution is one of the methods that the Lord delivers that forgiveness. It’s not words that applied to a sin, but applied to sinners.
We take this habit of confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness into our homes and our lives. There’s no more personal place where this is lived out than with our families. Husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, do not go to sleep at night when unresolved or unforgiven sin is between you.
We closed by going through the confession and absolution found in Compline LSB 254
Your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Genesis 32:22-32
Lent 2 (Reminiscere)
Wrestling with God
February 25, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Daily Prayer
Midweek Lenten Service 1
February 21, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Having heard the Word of the God, the most natural response of a Christian is to pray, that is, to speak back to God. Yet one of the aspects of the Christian life that most people struggle with is prayer. Whether it be not knowing what to say, or how to say it, or how to make the time. We know we are to pray without ceasing, as St. Paul encourages in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Easier said that done. One who does not learn to pray habitually at set times does not tend to make progress in the art of praying at all times. From the earliest days, God’s people have recognized two times when it is especially important to pray: morning and evening. The beginning and the end of the day, when we get up and before we lie down, are two activities that mark human life.
It’s no accident that Luther composed prayers for just these occasions, his morning prayer and evening prayer. These are not wholly original. He models his prayers on those in the Roman breviary, a daily prayer and service book, purging those prayers of their moralistic content and focusing on the God who has saved us and still preserves us. In these prayers we see elements of the first article of the Creed, the second commandment and the Lord’s Prayer.
The purpose is simply to help children (and adults) understand how our lives are to be ordered by prayer. Even the apostles felt the need to ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and Jesus gave them a form to follow in the Lord’s Prayer, a form which the church uses to this day. As we look at the morning and evening prayers we see the rhythm of the Christian life played out.
In the morning, Luther says, make the sign of the cross and invoke the name of the Triune God. The sign of the cross is an ancient gesture confessing to whom we belong, that we are marked with the cross and God’s name at our Baptism, and marked at the grave. Rising in the morning each day, we are encouraged to make the sign and invoking the name of God in whom we live, move, and have our being. It’s interesting that the German of the Small Catechism reads slightly different than our English and could be translated a little more literally: The power of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit Amen. The power to make it through the day, comes from our Triune God and not from ourselves. For where God has placed His name, He has placed Himself.
Then say the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. We say back to God in summary what He has said to us, we confess our faith, reminding ourselves to whom we pray and what this Triune God has done, still does and will continue to do. Then, pray the prayer that our Lord Jesus taught us. The morning prayer which follows specifically thanks God for His protection the previous night and asks Him to keep us from evil during the coming day. Luther then suggests that Christians then joyfully go about their day’s work, entering into it with a hymn to the Ten Commandments or whatever one’s devotion may suggest. Here we see Luther acknowledging that the law serves as a guide to the Christian as they go about their daily task. What could be more joyful in our life in this world than, by God’s power, living our lives in accordance with His will?
When evening comes, as we retire for the night, Luther provides a routine in similar form. Again, it begins with thanks to God that He has kept us from harm and danger. While the day begins with a prayer that our doings and life may please Him, the evening prayer includes the petition that He would forgive all our sins where we have done wrong. Confession of sin, therefore, may and should be made directly to God, as well as confessed to one another so that verbal absolution can be given. If you’re married, or if you have children, do not let the sun go down when there is something between you. Confess your sins, forgive the sins of others, and commend your lives and your rest to the Lord.
The morning and evening prayers reflect the rhythm of daily life. We begin each day thanking God for His protection and praying that we might live the day in a way which is pleasing to Him. Then at night we pray for forgiveness for those things we have done wrong, for even though we are His children we still sin daily. Only when we remember this and know that we have forgiveness can we, as Luther puts it, lie down and sleep in peace.
Evening and morning are not the only times to pray, of course. Luther also provides prayer to be used “at the table,” that is, at meals. He saw it important to both ask for a blessing as one is about to eat, and then to give thanks after the meal is over. Prayer before eating begins with verses from Psalm 145, “The eyes of all look to you …,” acknowledging God as the giver of food, not just to us human beings, but to every living thing. Saying He “satisfies the desires of every living thing,” means that we recognize we have from Him all we need, therefore there is no need either for greed or anxiety. In view of this, we then pray the Lord’s Prayer, which includes the petition asking for daily bread, then asking God to bless us and to bless the gifts He is giving to us. Then, following the meal, a prayer of thanks is to be said, also based on the Psalms, and including the Lord’s Prayer. One might see here that good manners toward God prevail, as before the meal we say “please,” and after the meal we say “thank you.”
Morning and evening, at meal times, provide a simple, practical framework for prayer and thanksgiving to spill out into the rest of our lives. It teaches us to train our eyes to see what is in front of us, whether it be a new day or the rest of sleep or those things needed for this body and life, and to recognize the hand of God the Giver and Protector, to give Him thanks, and to call upon in all times of trial or need.
So, memorize prayers that are informed by Scripture. They provide words, and faith, and comfort, and hope, for any and all situations in life. Memorize by repetition, teach it to yourself and others by doing it. It’s that simple.