Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the theme verse for today, from Psalm 24.
I suspect that when most people
read Genesis one, two and three, they focus only on creation and the fall, the
sharp contrast between God’s statement, “It is good,” and then the terrible
declaration, “Cursed are you.” We read it, we hear it, and, I suspect, feel a
tinge of sadness at what could have been.
But when you read those first
three chapters, do not skip over Genesis 3:15, that over and against the
now-fallen world, God promised to Adam and Eve an heir that would redeem Adam,
Eve, and eventually all humanity, from the curse of the sin of disobedience and
lawlessness. This Promised Seed would un-do the Fall, brought upon humanity in
the Garden, that plunged all humanity into sin. The Catechism uses clinical,
doctrinal distinction between kinds of sin, using words like commission and
omission, original and actual. Those are good and useful, but sometimes, simple
is best, and the simple truth is that the consequence of Adam and Eve still
remains with us because “Sin is every thought, desire, word, and deed which is
contrary to God’s Law” as we have learned in the Word of God and Luther’s Small
Catechism.
The King is coming. Throughout
human history, God pictured the coming redemptive King through various images
of His promise, providence, provision, and protection for His people. The
Psalms are useful because they give us poetic pictures of just what the
Messiah-King would do and what He would be like. Inspired by the Holy Spirit,
David saw God’s redemptive glory in the return of the Ark of the Covenant from
Obed-Edom to Jerusalem to the place of worship. God’s sanctuary was now in
Zion, the Temple. For David, with the glory of the Lord coming to His people,
redemption was near.
King David proclaimed: 7 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted
up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is this King of
glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle! 9 Lift up your
heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may
come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of
glory!
While this is true of all of
Scripture, I think it is more true of how we read Old Testament, namely that we
forget there was a context in which the Scripture was written. In other words,
David was writing to his fellow Israelites about their hope in the promises of
God to be fulfilled in Messiah. But the Scriptures remain living and active, so
just as the words were for ancient Israel, they are still for us, today, as
well, and so Christ comes to us in the Word of the Lord. But these Words aren’t
just for today. They seek to lead and guide us, in faith, to remain steadfast
in hope until Christ comes again on the Last Day.
It is obvious the world needs to
be rescued from itself. The onslaught of brokenness, destruction, disease, and
death are all around us and we make it worse with our selfish ambitions, hatred
of others, and self-centered greed. People argue, is the world getting worse
the longer the Lord waits to return. Maybe, but there is nothing new under the
sun. Genesis chapter 6, verse 6 tells us, And the LORD regretted that he had
made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. It’s a theme repeated
through the Scripture, the fallenness of man. Even the Apostle Paul spoke of
the days of lawlessness [2 Timothy 4].
We could easily become downcast
and heart-broken because of the evil of our world. “Man’s inhumanity to man”
refers to human cruelty, barbarity, or lack of pity and compassion toward other
humans — essentially, mankind’s ability to see and treat other people as less
than human. On dark days, difficult days, it is tempting to give up because of
the constant bad news; but David’s Psalm calls us forward with God’s hope,
peace, joy, and love. We are not hopeless people; we are people of Hope. We
have Good News in a bad news world. The King IS coming! In fact, the King has
come and Christ is the King of glory! Paul reminds us, that is, in Christ, God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against
them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are
ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on
behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor.
5:19–21).
Today is LWML Sunday. The stereotype
is that the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League is nothing more than a group of
women who sit around, drink coffee, and chit-chat the time away. The LWML is
much more than that. The heart of the LWML is a love for Jesus and a desire to
spread His message of hope and life. If you would permit me a moment, last
Monday, we laid Gerry Hornstein to rest. You probably know that she was very
active and involved with our LWML organization and also the Zone (made up of
congregations from here to Katy) and the District (the State of Texas), as well
as the National organization. Back in April, our LWML hosted the spring
mid-coast LWML zone rally. We had about 35 or so ladies present. Unfortunately,
Gerry was not one of them. She was in the hospital, something that was becoming
more and more frequent over the last couple years. She very much enjoyed being
part of the LWML, both here at Zion and with the zone, and she looked forward
to those times of fellowship and coffee with her sisters in Christ. I helped
with the opening of the zone meeting and excused myself to go into town to see
her. She was very disappointed because she had helped with the planning,
selecting the theme, and the service project for the event. But, she wanted
details – how many ladies were there, how was it going, was there enough food,
so on. Then she asked me what my devotion was about. I smiled and said,
“Jesus.” She took a sip of coffee, lamented that it wasn’t very good, and then
said, “Well, that’s what it’s supposed to be about, isn’t it?”
Her comment embodies the entire
mission and ministry of the LWML. We thank God for the faithfulness of the
Lutheran Women’s Missionary League in sharing that word of Hope and
encouragement, to “Lift up your heads.” When people wonder why, why to have
such hope in a hope-less world, the LWML points to Jesus: The Lord, strong and
mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!
The Good News of Jesus is our
only hope, the King of glory. He comes in, with and through the Word, Water,
Bread and Wine. Through these means of grace, God provides temporal and eternal
means for receiving the King of glory right now and throughout eternity.
Because the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by
faith” (Romans 1:16,17). The Gospel is the life-changing message of God for the
world. It changed lives from one seeking to appease the wrath of God by doing
good works, to receiving the good grace of God in Christ who declared “It is
finished.”
The world has been in the throes
of sinful behavior since the ‘Fall.’ Oftentimes we make believe our times are
the worst of times. Surely, we have seen some horrific and horrible atrocities
in our time: wars, the senseless killings of babies, children and adults;
poverty, homelessness, addictions, every kind of evil one can imagine. We would
surely give up, but for the grace of God. As Noah found favor in the eyes of
God, so we too find favor/grace in our King, Jesus, as we look beyond the
brokenness of our humanity to the blessed hope of His coming in His
resurrection.
While today is LWML Sunday, and
we see the work this women’s organization does for the Church across the world,
mission is not just – to use the term – “women’s work.” It’s not just for a
committee, or a small group, or for missionaries, or for someone else. We, all
of God’s people, are called to mission. But why is that important? What’s the
big deal?
A little fearful child, sleeping
alone in the darkness of her room, cried out to mom and dad as a storm rolled
across her Midwest-town. “Mom, dad, come in here,” she cried in the dark of
night, as the storm rolled and roared as if it was in the room with her. Mom
and dad consoled her and reminded her that they were in the next room and God
is in the room with her so she need not fear. They encouraged her to go back to
sleep. Awakened again and again by the rolling and roaring storm, she said to
her parents the last time they entered her room, “I know you said God is in
here with me, but I need someone in here with skin on them. “
In a world of darkness, ours is
the gift – yes, gift – to be able to be that one, the flesh-and-blood people of
God who point people to the Light of Jesus, the King of Glory, and encourage
people to lift up their heads. “Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up,
O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory?
The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!”
But, more than being the
flesh-and-blood messengers, we speak of our Savior who took up skin for us. A Savior
who took on flesh and blood and the sin of humanity in His body, made His way
down the road of agony, pain, and suffering, nailed to a tree, and died for the
sins of the world. May this LWML Sunday remind us to be mission-minded and
share the Gospel throughout the world so that all will know of Christ, God's
coming King of glory who provides redemption to all who believe in Him,
everlasting life, now and in eternity. Amen.
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