Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for today, Reformation Sunday, is Psalm 46.
“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” It’s the Lutheran epitome of
the Star Spangled Banner, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the 1812
Overture (with cannon-fire) comingled with Dixie. It makes our blood pump a
little stronger and we stand just a bit taller as we sing it. Martin Luther
wrote it around 1528, a Christ-centered rendering of Psalm 46. Open your hymnal
to #657 and look at it with me.
In verse one, God is our fortress standing firm against the
devil’s attacks, even though by the end of verse 1 it appears satan is winning
the battle (“on earth is not his equal”). Verse two doesn’t render much hope –
no matter how hard we try, we cannot
hope to defeat him. God, in His mercy, provides a champion: Christ
Jesus, His Son. Stanza three gives us powerful imagery of the eternal combat
that has raged since almost the beginning of time: one can imagine demons,
snapping, hungry to devour Christians while their chief roars in anger, but they
unable to touch us. One little word stops them, cold. What is that word? In
sermons, Luther sometimes implies the word is “Jesus;” other places, it’s
calling the devil what he is, “Liar;” in other readings, it’s implied Jesus’
final word from the cross, “Finished.” The final verse plays on the name of
Jesus as the Word made flesh: the Word – both/and Jesus and the His words – and
His Kingdom, of which we are part, endures forever. [1]
Luther wrote the hymn based on a Christ-centered reading of
Psalm 46. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be
moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the
mountains tremble at its swelling…” This text, too, fills us with a sense of hope,
endurance, and courage in the face of life’s difficulties. So, with war in Israel,
we pray “God is our refuge and strength.” With chaos in Maine, we pray, “A very
present help in times of trouble.” As society becomes less and less caring, we
pray, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way.” As a massive
storm rips the western Mexican coast and then floods North Texas, we pray, “though
the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.”
It’s relatively easy for us to sit here in our South Texas
church or homes, in climate-controlled comfort with plenty of food in the
pantry and in relatively good health, clean clothes on our back and a place to
call home, and sing the battle hymn of the Reformation, or read the Psalm. We
can even defiantly shout – as long as it’s merely theoretical – “Let the waters
roar, let the mountains tremble…” It’s easy to say it and affirm it when all is
well and good.
But when life hits hard, when the proverbial waters start
rising around our ankles, knees and hips, when emotional mountains shake,
rattle and roll, when our world is collapsing around us, it is much more
difficult to pray “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time
of trouble.” What happens when we are grieving? What about when we are broken?
What about when depression makes it so difficult to go to work, and interface
and interact with people that just getting out of bed is a small miracle? What
about when our kids struggle, or our parents struggle, and we just can’t fix it?
We turn to the Lord, but some times, it is as if our prayers fall on deaf – or at
least, non-listening – ears. Where is the God who pledged to be in our midst?
Where is the God who lifts out of the muck and mire? Where…how do we as God’s
people find comfort in times like that?
I’m not asking in a vacuum. The last few months have not
been kind to my mind and my spirit. Most of this was personal, as you can
imagine, but – like you – there are things about my work, my vocation, that
really got to me. But as I slipped and gradually accelerated into depression, I
found myself wrestling with these very questions. Where is God in the shadows?
How can I see Him when I can barely see anything outside my own struggle? I
know Psalm 46, mostly by heart, and I prayed it often. But, again being honest,
those words sounded hollow. I felt less like Psalm 46, “God is our refuge and
strength,” and more like Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Luther wrote this in a time of world-wide chaos. The Black
Plague had hit his part of Germany. The Turks were invading the Roman Empire,
threatening Germany to the east. Catholic armies fought against “rebel”
Lutheran forces. Within the church, Roman Catholics, other Protestants, and
Lutheran theologians often engaged in hot theological debates that sometimes
turned violent. Personally, Luther had a child die in the plague. He was less
than ten years removed from what many historians deem a psychological break-down.
Having been public enemy, wanted dead or alive by both secular authorities and
the Pope himself, friends kidnapped him and squirrelled him away in the high
castle of Wartburg. Reportedly, he saw the face of the devil in his room,
throwing a bottle of ink at it and ordering him to depart in the name of Jesus
Christ. Other times, he was so depressed that over and over, line after line,
he wrote, “Baptizato sum - I am baptized,” filling precious pages
of paper with those words while clinging to God’s promises to him in Water and
word.
Water and word… That is where our Lord is. That is where the
Psalmist takes us, too. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of
God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she
shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns,” (Ps. 46: 4-5). OK…so
how does that help?
You remember how Jesus connected the temple with Himself:
“destroy this temple [referring to Himself] and I will raise it again in three
days,” (Jn. 2:19). In the introduction to His gospel, John make it even
clearer: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling (literally, His tenting)
among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came
from the Father, full of grace and truth,” (John 1:14). Psalm 46 is helping us
connect these dots: the tabernacle of God is no longer a place but a person –
in Jesus, God is present among His people. In Christ, God is entering into
time. In Christ, God is a present help in time of trouble. In Christ, God is
restoring creation towards Eden by healing the sick, feeding the hungry,
driving demons out, and raising the dead. In Christ, God provides living water
so that whoever drinks of Him will never be thirsty but will instead have
eternal life.
And, we’re back to water flowing to the city. Again, the
city isn’t a place – it’s people, and the locatedness of the people isn’t
geographical, but spiritual – that is, the Church. The mercy of God flows to
the Church, distributed to the people through…water and word.
In your baptism, God is readily found, an omnipresent help
in times of trouble. Baptizato sum
– I am baptized. Isn’t it a beautiful irony, that when waters of life roar and
foam and rise and threaten to overwhelm, our Lord calls us back to the calm,
comforting, washing gift of Holy Baptism, washing away our sins, pouring out on
us the holiness of Jesus, giving us the gift of eternal life in that heavenly
city of God? Baptizato sum – I am baptized. You have been baptized into
Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection, an ongoing present-tense reality with
an eternal reward in the resurrection of body and the life of the world to
come. Baptizato sum – I am baptized. St. John picks up this image of a
heavenly river in His Revelation, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for
the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” (Rev. 21: 1-2). And then John
sees it: “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the
throne of God and of the Lamb,” (22: 2). Baptizato sum – I am baptized.
In Christ, I am God’s and nothing can separate me from His love. Mark yourself
with the sign of the cross, the daring brand of Jesus, placed on your head and
heart. Open His
Word and His promises contained therein. Read the Psalms – the prayerbook of
the church. Water and word; Word and water. Baptizato sum – I am
baptized.
Remember this: the world was once rescued through a flood as God
destroyed everything but Noah, Mrs. Noah, their sons and their families, and
the animals on the ark. You have been rescued through the waters of Holy
Baptism. You have been carried through that Flood in the ark of the church. “Church”
is an odd noun. It’s singular, but in Greek, the language of the New Testament,
it is a singular-plural, that is, it is a singular unity of many. Literally,
church (singular) means “called out ones” (plural). In other words, within the
church are many. You are not alone in the Church.
That is something we can do better – living out the togetherness
of the church, putting into practice the oneness we share in Christ, seeing
each other as part of the body, so closely connected that when one part
rejoices, we rejoice together and when one hurts, we hurt together. We may not do it perfectly, but the Church
still stands and the Church is Christ’s.
So, when the waters roar and foam, when the mountains shake, when
the shadows lengthen, when the valley of the shadow is frightening, God is
present. God will carry you through the storm and through the flood. But, then
again, that’s nothing new for Him. He’s already done it.
God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
How present?
He is present in His Son, who entered time and creation to save you.
He is present in His Word, delivered through His Son, to proclaim His love for
you.
He is present in water, poured over you, uniting you to Christ and forgiving
your sins.
He is present in bread and wine, both the meal and the host, for those who are
weak and struggling.
He is present in the Church, through which He calls, gathers, and encourages.
He is present here.
He is present for you.
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