What's in Your Lamentations? - Lamentations 3: 22-33

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today is a first for me. In 21 years of ministry, I have never preached from Lamentations. Come to think of it, I am not sure I’ve heard a sermon from Lamentations. Have you? I doubt it. That’s in part because Lamentations only appears once in our 3-year lectionary: today, on the 5^th Sunday after Pentecost, year B. The next time you’ll hear from Lamentations, unless you read it yourself – which I do encourage, by the way – will be three years from today. But that’s only part of the reason why Lamentations doesn’t get much pulpit time. If you’ve ever read the book, you might understand why. If you’ve not read the book, the name itself, Lamentations, gives you a clue to its content with its root word, lament. A lament is a verbal description of suffering, affliction, and humiliation. It’s not always a request for its removal; sometimes it’s a catharsis, an emotional enema, as my undergrad advisor would say, pouring out the pain of the soul.  

It’s a tough, tough book to read and preach because it’s a book of lament. We don't like laments. We don't deal well with laments. In fact, we would rather do almost anything than have to sit and be present with someone who laments.  

Historically, Lamentations was read annually on the 4^th Sunday of Lent in the old, common lectionary. In the 8^th Century, selections from Lamentations were read throughout Holy Week. Those placements made sense, as Lent was a season of lamentation, considering the suffering and affliction that our sins have caused, and especially as we read of our Lord’s own laments in the Garden and at the cross.

Yet, here we are, a third of the way into the Pentecost season, with this reading from Lamentations. But, perhaps it is good that we are reading this text today for one, chief reason: suffering, and the Christian’s cries and prayers to God in the midst of that suffering, have no time constraints, for pain – emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual pain – has no limit in breadth, width, depth or time. God’s people hurt – not just during Lent. And we lament – not just during Holy Week. That was true of Jairus for his dying daughter. It’s true of us. Our lamentations rise to God – not just during the liturgically purple season, but any and every time as well. When questioned by the mysterious Man in Black about the death of her fiancée, the Princess exclaimed, “You mock my pain!” Immediately, the Man in Black snapped, “Life is pain, highness.”[1] Lamentations describes that pain, no matter when or where it strikes.

You hear it in the voice of Jeremiah, the Lamenter, as he returns to Jerusalem. “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave,” (1:1). The beauty of the city, the majesty of the city of David, the glory of the Temple of God was all gone and the people – God’s people, the people of Israel, the sons and daughters of Abraham – exiled into servitude. And Jeremiah laments.

But it’s not a mystery as to why this all happened. Jeremiah knows – even the people know! This has happened because of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. “Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy…” (1:8a). The Lord had been gracious, holding back His own anger against His people, patiently calling them to repentance again and again through the mouths of the prophets. There were times of repentance and renewal, times of faithfulness, but then the pendulum would swing back, a little further each time, until the Lord declared it was enough.

And, make no mistake, it was the Lord who did this. Jeremiah makes no bones about it, that the Lord has brought about this suffering, chaos and destruction. “The Lord has afflicted her,” (1:5) he said. The fire, the destruction, the death – He caused it all, giving Israel what was deserved for her sins.

You can almost imagine Jeremiah wandering through the city, walking through the once-proud walls, stepping over rubble, strewn pieces of pottery and long-dead fires, passing by corpses left to be buried by the dust of the air because no one was there to cover them. “Zion stretches out her hand,” he laments, “but there is none there to comfort her,” (1:17). And, then he comes to the high point of Jerusalem, to the pinnacle of Mount Zion where the Temple stood, the sacred Holy of Holies stands, ripped open and desecrated, the presence of God long since departed. “The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the Lord has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest. The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary…” (2:5-6).

And, as Jeremiah turns and looks around, down the streets and he smells and hears and touches and even tastes the destruction in the air, Jeremiah laments, “Look, O Lord, and see!... In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtered them without pity,” (2:20a, 21b).

Most of us are of Germanic or Czech roots. We are notoriously stoic with upper lips that have been stiffened by generations of European and American stoicism. So, do yourself a favor. When you read Lamentations – and, again, I encourage you to do so; it’s so important that the Holy Spirit saw fit to include it’s brief 5 chapters in the Sacred Scriptures – when you read Lamentations, do it slowly. Do it deliberately. In fact, read it out loud, without worrying what others might think, because that’s how ancient Hebrew poetry was meant to be utilized – out loud, so the words could be fully experienced, the feelings emoted, the pain and the grief they carry delivered to the soul.

It’s important to do this, because Lamentations teaches us how to bear afflictions, how to lament, as people of God. Wait, you say, we know how to lament; we do it all the time. But, do we? Conventional wisdom teaches us that lamenting is all about woe is me.  We’re good at wailing, hollering, carrying on and pitching a fit to gain attention. But the object of this is the unholy trinity of me, myself and I. The world’s idea of grieving turns us inward, to try to find answers to our grief from within. But, if we look to ourselves in the depths of despair, our strength is about like sand in the water or dandelions in the wind: worthless, meaningless, hope-less. If my faith is based on my faith, and my faith is fading fast, that is not of much value. Even Jeremiah agrees: “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”

So, Jeremiah, with his Lamentations, he teaches us how to have hope during these things: our afflictions, and our suffering, and our humiliation. Instead of pointing at me, myself and I for the answers to our sorrows, Jeremiah the Lamenter points us to God and to His promises. He laments to God, “Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope…” (3:19-21), and then he speaks the words of our text.

Open your bulletin; look at these words with me, look where hope is placed.  Look at the words: steadfast love – whose love? The Lord’s! - it never ceases; mercies – whose mercies? The Lord’s - that never end; His mercies are renewed every morning; great is your faithfulness. Our translation next reads, “The Lord is my portion.” A better way to understand that is “The Lord is my everything.” The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Over and over, Jeremiah points to God, turning, returning to God and what He knows of God and His goodness.

Again, St. Paul will say that suffering produces character, and character produces hope. God uses suffering to purify His people, to restore His people, for His purpose. In suffering, everything else is stripped away, except Him. He is brought into sharp focus. He gives hope. That is the only hope. To have that hope in the midst of that kind of loss, when you’re wandering through the rubble, stepping over corpses, remembering what was and seeing what is, to have that hope takes faith of incredible proportions.

For Jeremiah, and the ones returning from Exile, it would be faith in the promises of God, even while standing among a destroyed city. Israel would have to wait, quietly raising their lamentations for the salvation of the Lord. You and I, we sit quietly – sometimes in our homes, sometimes in hospitals, sometimes in the office of a banker, or lawyer, or doctor, sometimes in solitude, sometimes in a crowd, sometimes at the grave of a dearly departed, and we offer our laments. But these laments are always grounded in the hope of the One who not only hears, but who bore the laments of the world upon Himself. Jesus would sit alone in near silence, speaking only seven times from the cross, as the sins which caused the laments of the world were placed upon Him. He was whipped, beaten, and insulted, and exiled, separated from His own Father. We hear our Lord’s own laments, “Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me,” culminating with “Ali, Ali, lamma sabacthani – My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

And, the Lord, “The Lord will not cast off forever,” (3:31). “It is finished,” remember? On the third day, the One who was cast off, cast down, and cast away was raised to life by the Father who once rejected Him. And, in accepting that sacrifice, and in giving His only begotten Son life again, we have hope, hope for life – life now, even in our laments, and life into eternity when we will lament no more. Jeremiah teaches us to lament, in hope, through faith in Christ Jesus who lamented for us and in whom we rejoice.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him” (3:22-24). Those words, once spoken by a prophet in lament over a destroyed city, are now spoken by us. Those words and promises ground our life in times of lament, they form our worship with joy, they locate our witness to a world that does not understand, and they direct our hope, through faith, in Christ. And they remind us how good it is to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Amen. 

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[1] From The Princess Bride, c. 1987

"Don't You Care?" - Mark 4: 35-41

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Among the disciples were seasoned fishermen, but even they were frightened by the windstorm that had blown up. The boat was taking on water and starting to fill. Drowning is a frightening way to die. In that day and age, it was magnified by the idea that if you drowned, you were going into the abyss, the realm of the demons. Drowning was not only physical death but had eternal implications as well.

If you need help imagining this scene, the artist Rembrandt painted a picture about 400 years ago with his idea of what it looked like. He called it simply “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” In his picture some men fight the ship, some appear to fight the storm, some, it seems, are fighting Jesus, waking him from sleep, while collectively, they all fight for their lives. “Do you not care that we are perishing?” The question isn’t just reserved for passengers on a boat in the middle of a storm-tossed ocean. It’s one of the existential questions of our time, perhaps the greatest question of all time, and it’s a question that is asked still today, even by those of us who never get in deeper water than a bathtub.

We ask it in our personal lives when the waves of crisis break over us. Dad’s doctor says that he has only a few hours left to live; a day or two at max. I’m over-extended, the savings are gone, and I’m going bankrupt. It’s been 22 months and I still don’t have a job. What do you mean, you don’t love me anymore and you’ve found someone else? Ours is a modern day story of Job, and like him, we turn to the heavens and cry out to God, trusting He promises to hear, but wondering why He is so slow to answer, “I’m perishing, here! Do you not care?”  

We ask it as the winds of the world blow and threaten to knock us over. Nations practice brinksmanship to see who will blink first. Three more shootings this past week. True story, our oldest daughter was just a block or two away from where the bullets were flying in Austin last week...kinda takes the breath away finding that out.  The virus seems to not want to quit, and the very topic drives wedges between family, friends, and coworkers. There is terrible drought along the west coast while the upper Gulf coast cleans up from another flood event. All the while, society seems to slide further and faster toward Gomorrah.

We ask the question as storms swell and threaten to overwhelm, even in the church. We see brothers and sisters in Christ speak in anger and not in gentleness. We hear people assume the worst from what was done in love. There is gossip about others, talking and texting behind people’s backs and listening with itching ears, hoping for something to save for a later day. Some hearts grow hard, refusing to repent until the other one apologizes first, our Old Adam’s game of sanctified brinksmanship. Polls tell us that nationwide, the Christian faith is on the decline with church attendance, participation and offerings are all at record lows. Churches close, pastors resign, and parishioners are left wondering.

As the storm swirling around and, water poured into the boat; as hands fought to save the boat and crew while other hands were wringing in worry, the disciples found their Lord Jesus was asleep, resting comfortably, completely unconcerned and unencumbered by the roaring chaos. Their eyes see what is happening, and their hearts are filled with dread while also angry at his complete peace. It’s almost as if they are rebuking the Savior, as they demand of him, “Do you not care?”

It feels that way for us, too. In our losses, and our hurts, and our fears, and our experiences, we turn to the Lord, our words echoing the disciples, “Do you not care that we are perishing? Do you not care that mankind is perishing? Do you not care that your church is perishing?”

Why? Why were the disciples so afraid? They were afraid of the wind and the waves. But, why? The God of Creation is literally mere feet from them, in the stern of the boat. They are afraid of dying. But, why? They have the Lord of Life resting comfortably and peacefully, literally entrusting His own life into the hands of His Heavenly Father. All the while they scramble like – well, like drowning men. They were afraid of going to the other side, to the Gentile world, to the Decapolis, where bad things and bad people lived. They have the One who speaks and even the demons obey.

Jesus speaks, rebuking the wind and ordering peace to the sea. In the Scriptures, rebuke is a call of repentance. Peace is a word of restoration and wholeness. It may seem strange to us, to hear Jesus rebuking the wind and pacifying the seas, calling creation to repentance and restoration, but He is restoring creation. Literally, Jesus, who is the Word made flesh, who once spoke order into the nothingness of nothing in Genesis again speaks order into the chaos of the storm. With the same powerful voice that taught and healed and drove out demons, He calms the storm. From the great storm comes great calm.

Jesus speaks again, this time rebuking the disciples. “Why are you so afraid,” He said. “Have you still no faith?” This is interesting: Mark uses the word “great” three times in these verses: in v. 37, it was a great windstorm; then, in v. 39, there was great calm. Now, Mark says the disciples were filled with great fear and questioned who this was standing before them. They were afraid before, of the wind and waves, of drowning, even of their Gentile destination. But this…this was different. They way Jesus spoke to creation, the way Jesus calmed the storm, it was reminiscent of the Old Testament. Why were they so afraid? Their question was rhetorical: they knew exactly who He was. They knew the Scriptures. They knew the Psalms. They knew the prophets. He spoke with the power of God as of old because He was, is, and will forever be God. And they missed it. With faith absent, they had rebuked God and with the storm now dissipated and dissolved, there was God standing with them in the boat with nothing to protect them from their own foolishness.  

If you don’t know that the answer to the second question, “Who is this?” is Jesus, the Christ, then the first question, “Do you not care?” becomes even more terrifying. All he could be is a man who has empathy for his friends. But when this Man is also God enfleshed, when it is Jesus, the Savior, when it is the One who is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises to His people of old, then it is obvious.

Teacher, don’t you care? Of course, I do. I have rebuked the wind for you. I have delivered peaceful seas for you. I have rescued you. And, more than that, I am with you – both in storm and in calm. But, teacher, don’t you care? Of course, I do. What if I told you that you are already perishing in your sins and trespasses. The entire reason I became incarnate is because I care. The reason I teach about the kingdom of God being fulfilled is because I care. The reason I am heading to the cross is because I care. The reason I will rise from the grave is that I care. I care now and into eternity, and that care for you will never end.

Now, let me turn the question to you: why are we so afraid? There are lots of excuses: we are afraid of losing our property, our health, our lives; we are afraid of losing our status, our jobs, our families; we’re afraid of what people think of us and how they might treat us; we are afraid of losing our place in society, our place in the world, our tax-exempt status. We could extend that list ten-fold without even working up a good sweat. They are all excuses; they are all symptoms of the real issue. The real issue, the core sin that leads us to cry out, “Teacher, do you not care?” is that we do not trust Jesus and the power of His Word of promise, of life, and of rescue.

As He rebuked the winds, and spoke to the sea, and asked the disciples, so also Jesus calls us to repentance. He calls us away from all those excuses that get in the way between Him and us and He calls us back to His Word. He calls us to lift our eyes from things temporal and instead to look into eternity. As the metaphorical storms of this life swirl around us, know that He is with us no matter if they rage or if they are silenced; if they are great or small. So, what do we do when we feel like we are about to be overwhelmed, or as if Jesus doesn’t care?  

If you look at Rembrandt’s painting this afternoon, notice all of the details: The boat is riding high on a wave, with whitecaps crashing against the hull of the ship and spraying into the air. At the front of the ship, four professional fishermen are fighting, tooth and nail, to save the ship. Two other men are hanging on to guy ropes, clinging for dear life. One is hanging over the side, feeding the fish. One man has his back to Jesus but is hunched over, as if in prayer. If you look closely, in the shadows, there is a ghostly figure; one gets the idea he is praying to an unknown diety – strange, since Jesus is only a few feet away. One man is steering the boat, and Jesus is sitting at his feet. Three men, all with differing body language, face Jesus – one wringing his hands while looking out over the wind-swept water; one grabbing Jesus’ robe, as if demanding something; one with hands outstretched, as if pleading. It’s interesting – furthest away from Jesus, the storm rages: waves are huge, white-capped, foaming monsters, men are fighting creation for survival; nearer to Jesus, the storm is less intense but the men seem to be fighting against Jesus Himself.

Count the men in the boat, and you discover fourteen men: four up front, two hanging on, one steering, one getting sick, one praying to a strange diety, three facing Jesus – that accounts for the 12 disciples. Number 13 is Jesus. So, who is mystery man #14? Art historians tell us that Rembrandt liked to paint himself into his religious paintings, but in an unassuming way so that it would be easy to overlook him if you didn’t look closely. His robe is dark brown and blends in to the boat and the various accoutrements – ropes, buckets, and so on. But if you look closely, you notice two things: one, he is bowed at Jesus feet in prayerful homage and faithful reverence. You know this because, two, Rembrandt painted a faint halo around his head.

Rembrandt was pointing his viewers, reminding them, urging them to humbly sit at the feet of Jesus. Even if it seems He is asleep, He is not; He is fully aware of what is happening. Even if it seems He does not care, He cares deeply – enough to be with us, even in the midst of our suffering and struggles. Even if it seems we are perishing, Jesus will care for us into eternity.

There is one more detail I want to draw your attention to: Jesus is looking ahead. Ahead is the cross. There are two crosses in Rembrant’s painting: the first is the mast of the ship and it’s yardarm. But at the peak of the mast is a flag flapping in the wind. It’s also emblazoned with the cross. The cross is the place where Jesus demonstrated His great love for us by giving Himself as the world’s sacrifice for sin. The cross marks us as children of God in our baptism. And, as children of God, we live – we sail, so to speak – under the cross of Jesus, following it wherever Jesus leads us.

The Forgivable, Unforgivable Sin - Mark 3: 20-35

He said his name was Ernesto, but everyone called him Ernie. Actually, the name he said everyone called him, I can’t repeat in polite company. He said I could call him Ernie. Ernie was about my size, a little over 6 feet tall. He had black hair that fell past his shoulders, tattoos up both forearms that looked like he could straighten out horseshoes by hand. Physically, he looked like he could be a middle linebacker for the Texans, a bouncer at the toughest bar in town, a motorcycle gang rider, an oilfield roughneck, and either an undercover cop or the guy the undercover cop was trying to bust. His voice was such a low rumble that it had to come from between his ankles and his knees. While it was a soft voice, he spoke so powerfully that whatever words passed by his mustache and goatee, you knew it was important. In a word, he was tough looking dude.

And, he sat in my office crying like a child who woke up at midnight, terrified of the dark. His job had kept him out of church for several weeks, so he had been listening to the radio and a preacher who preached about Jesus’ words, “Whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Even as he was telling me this story, Ernesto’s voice cracked and he had to stop for a moment. Finally, he got to the crux of his burdened conscience: “…and I am afraid I have done sinned against the Holy Spirit and I am going to hell.” He hung his massive head in his massive hands, and his massive shoulders shook with the massive pain and fear he was experiencing.

Any time Jesus speaks words of punishment, it leaves us with an uneasy feeling. But, usually, there is a word of hope for a child of God to cling to. For example, when the woman comes to Jesus and begs Him to show mercy and He dismisses her as a dog, she turns in hope, “But even a dog gets the crumbs that fall from the table.” There is usually a word to cling to, but when He speaks so clearly of eternal damnation, it is absolutely terrifying. And, Ernesto was terrified.

Jesus isn’t speaking into a vacuum. This is early in His ministry. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has healed many, He has preached and taught, He has called the disciples to follow Him. Meanwhile, the crowds grow as Jesus’ popularity starts to rise. They begin to follow after Him, pursuing Him so vehemently that even when He goes home, He can’t even eat. His family thinks He is delusional. The reason is unclear in Mark’s reading: perhaps they think He is shirking responsibilities as first-born son; perhaps they are displeased that he has become an itinerant rabbi; perhaps they have heard He is being labeled as Messiah and doesn’t seem to be denying that idea; perhaps there is jealousy, the idea he’s getting too big for his britches. But, the family isn’t the only ones doubting Him. The scribes go so far as to label Him, not God’s anointed but instead as Satan’s instrument.

It’s an old game – if you want to get rid of someone, discredit them. In today’s culture, it’s called “cancelling” someone – literally, you shame them into social non-existence so that they have the value of a cancelled stamp. Twist their own words. Take a sound-byte out of context and you can make anyone say almost anything you want to. It doesn’t even have to be openly said – just a whisper of inuendo with enough of a hint of righteous indignation, and the rumor mill will do the rest. The old adage “where there’s smoke, there must be fire” comes true again.  There’s nothing new under the sun. The devil tried to do it with God for Eve – did God really say? He was discrediting the Word of God. The scribes to it to Jesus. They wanted to get rid of this Man who is preaching and teaching in God’s name and growing in popularity, and they accuse that Man of being filled with demons instead of the Holy Spirit.

You have probably heard this before, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand,” and “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It’s funny…it’s often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, quoted in his 1858 speech accepting the nomination as Senator for Illinois. Lincoln was speaking of how slavery was dividing the nation. The words belong to Jesus. Jesus isn’t espousing political unity, or social programming, or whatever hot topic was on the tongues of people in Jerusalem. He was speaking of Himself and the false accusation of the scribes. 

The argument is simple: if Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul, then how is it possible that He is also driving the demons out? He uses two small parables: if you are going to break into the house of a very strong homeowner, you had better tie him up first so you can steal and plunder.  

It’s both a statement in present tense as well as future tense. Jesus is not of Beelzebul, but from God, and He has come to put satan in his place. More than that, Jesus will enter into satan’s place and proclaim victory. He is speaking of His own death and resurrection. Jesus is referring to His descent into hell. Jesus doesn’t knock on the devil’s door and beg for mercy. Jesus blows down satan’s door, strides into the devil’s own throne room, and declares that the battle is over and Jesus is the victor over sin, death and the grave. Satan no longer will have the final word of guilt and shame against the child of God. Jesus will take the world’s shame into Himself; He will absorb the world’s guilt. He will carry it to the cross and die the sinner’s death. He is God’s Son, the perfect Lamb of God. Christ’s death will be once-for-all, He will be the substitutionary, vicarious atonement, a perfect payment for all of mankind’s sins. Sacrifices, completed; prophesies, fulfilled; promises, satisfied. Although Jesus is still several years from the cross, His ministry is demonstrating His divine power. He heals the sick, making creation whole. He drives out unclean spirits, showing that satan’s days are numbered. He faces and resists temptation, perfectly fulfilling the Law of God. He is, already, the Savior of the World, sent by God for the forgiveness of the world.

So, if that is true, that Jesus is the Savior of the world, and that in Him there is full and free forgiveness of sins, why does He say that whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin?

You heard this last week, and you probably know John 3:16 by heart, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son, that whosover believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Jesus is the Savior of the world because of God’s great love for His fallen creation. His death is the perfect payment for our sins. This is the gift. And the gift is received by faith. Faith receives the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But, man cannot receive the Gospel by himself. So, God provides the very thing needed: faith. Faith is the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, faith is completely, solely an act of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God works through Water and Word to create and sustain faith. You hear people speak of how they have decided to follow Jesus, or they have invited Jesus into their heart. Impossible.

Here’s an analogy that I use – wives, this is for you. Your husband wakes up, coughing, running a fever, aching. In a word, he’s miserable. You tell him that he’s sick. Of course, he insists he’s just fine. Finally, around lunch time, he goes to the doctor who then tells your dear, sweet hubby he is, in fact, sick and he needs to go home, take these meds, and rest. He comes home and you innocently ask, “What did the doctor say?” As if it’s a sudden revelation, he says, he’s sick. When did your hubby get sick? Was it when he got home? At the doctor’s office? When he woke up that morning? No. In reality, he’s been sick for a day or two – he just didn’t realize it. That’s an example from the negative. Turn the analogy: when we realize we have faith, it’s not because we have suddenly decided to follow Jesus. Faith isn’t because I suddenly woke up and said, “Yes! It’s true!” It’s because the Spirit of God has been at work in our hearts in ways we could never perceive, slowly planting the Gospel seed, nurturing it, growing it until we are able to say, “Yes, I believe.” Faith is the Spirit’s work in our lives.

So, the sin against the Holy Spirit, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, is simply this: to deny Jesus is the Savior and disallow the Spirit’s work in us. It’s one of the great paradoxes of Christianity. On the one hand, the Word of God is irresistible. It does exactly that which God would have it do. It creates faith, it sustains life, it gives salvation and forgiveness of sins all by the power of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, it is also conversely resistable. The old adam, the sinful nature, is able to resist the working of the Spirit in the heart. Like the three monkeys, if the sinful nature refuses to hear it, to see it, to receive the Word of God, it is denying the Holy Spirit. In short, blaspheming the Spirit is the outright refusal to believe in Jesus as Savior.

The Jewish leaders, the Scribes, they were guilty of this terrible sin. They were in danger of the eternal fires of hell because they would not, could not, believe that this Jesus of Nazareth was also Messiah for whom they so long waited. He didn’t fit the mold; He didn’t meet their expectations. It couldn’t be Him!  Jesus’ family was also in danger. It was easier to mock their own than believe He could be of God.

A moment ago, I said we are used to having a nugget of hope when Jesus speaks of eternal damnation. There is a kernel of hope, here, as well. Repentance is confessing one’s sins and turning away from them. Even when a soul sins against the Holy Spirit, the Word continues to be preached and read and the Spirit continues to work against that hardened heart. When that Word penetrates into the cracks and crevices, the Law does it’s work and leads that soul to recognize how far they have fallen, how great of a sinner they are, and how desperately they need Jesus. They want to leave the old life behind and to follow the Savior, instead. It may only be a kernel of faith, but that small faith is placed in the greatness of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. That is the power of the Holy Spirit. And, for that soul, there is forgiveness – even of this seemingly unforgivable sin.

I told Ernesto that he had not, in fact, committed this unforgivable sin. The beautiful irony is this: only a person who has faith would worry about it! An unbeliever wouldn’t care if they had sinned against God. Ernesto was firmly, and faithfully, in the arms of Jesus, a baptized child of God.  

So, what I told Ernesto in my office, and what I say to all of you. If you have ever wondered, like him, if you have ever committed the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the answer is that yes, your old, sinful self did exactly that. But God, rich in mercy, has made you His through water and word, filling you with His Spirit, enabling you to believe in Jesus as the Savior, forgiving you of all your sins. In Christ, by grace through faith, your sins – including any doubt you may ever have - are not held against you.  To Ernesto and to you I say this: As a called and ordained servant of Christ, I forgive you all your sins – including that of doubt – in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Depart in peace, your sins have been forgiven. Amen.

 

 

The Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity - Isaiah 6:1-8

In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In a few moments, we’re going to confess in the Athanasian Creed that the Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit is incomprehensible. When British author, Dorothy Sayers, heard this, she quickly added the phrase “the whole thing is incomprehensible.”

We’re living in a day and a time where the doctrine of the holy Trinity is unpopular. One could understand why, I suppose, because it is difficult thing to fully comprehend. That’s why we try to explain it using metaphors, such as “God is like an egg.” But, actually, that is both an incomplete and misleading metaphor. I can separate an egg into shell, white, and yolk, discard the shell, toss the yolk, and eat only the white but still have egg. If you try to separate the Triune Godhead, you no longer have God. You have a mess which is unbiblical and unChristian. 

I don’t know that any human being is able to fully comprehend the mystery of one God in three persons, three persons in one God, separate yet inseparable. The truth is that we don’t need to understand everything about the Trinity perfectly, but we are called by God to understand it as best we are able, using our intellect, our ability, and our human reason. It’s important because God reveals this to us in Holy Scripture. If God says it to us in His Word, we must believe it. If we believe it, then we must also speak to defend it. This is called confessing the faith. The Christian church not only confesses the faith every day individually and every Sunday corporately, but especially on this holy Trinity Sunday when we confess the triune God in the very precise and specific language of the Athanasian Creed.

Some people claim this understanding of God is too academic. God is no mere academic principal. Just ask Isaiah. Isaiah had no such difficulty in understanding and expressing the holy and Almighty God. He has a vision of God, and in the vision he sees the fullness of Almighty God sitting on a throne in the holy temple, and the train of his robe, a symbol of God’s divinity and His holiness, fills the entire temple. God is surrounded by six-winged seraphim all swirling around the throne, joining together and singing the incredible doxology, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is full of your glory.” The voices are so glorious and so powerful that it is as if an earthquake is happening, shaking the very foundations of the temple, as smoke fills the Holy Place.

The scene is almost beyond human comprehension. Artists have tried to capture this scene, our own minds try to imagine what Isaiah saw. While we may not know this side of heaven exactly what it was like, we have an inkling of the grandeur and can begin to appreciate the majesty of the moment. Because in that moment, Isaiah is absolutely overwhelmed.

And who wouldn’t be? This is God, Yahweh himself, I am who I am. This is God, who spoke to Abraham, promising that he would have a son, and through that son, the nations of the earth would be blessed. This is God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush and who led Israel from Egypt into the promised land, guiding Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. This is God whose very presence entering into the tabernacle and then the Temple, dwelling among his people. And when God spoke, whether in direct theophany as he did to Abraham and Moses, or through the mouths of his prophets who declared, “Thus saith the Lord,” it was God: mighty, powerful, all knowing, all powerful, present everywhere, both dwelling among and surrounding his people with his presence.

So you can understand Isaiah’s fear and terror when he sees the presence of God filled the temple. God is holy. Isaiah is not. God is eternal. Isaiah is temporal. God is Creator. Isaiah is creation. God is without beginning or end. Isaiah was born and some day he would face death. God calls. Isaiah was the one called. God is sinless. Isaiah is a sinful man who serves among sinful men and the holy, sinless power of God cannot abide the presence of sin.  

And, because of that, what could have been a moment filled with sheer awe and joy at seeing the majesty of God, the moment was instead filled with fear and terror. “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the middle of people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”  He had seen God. He was sinful. His countrymen were sinful. He would die for what he witnessed.

“Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” On this Trinity Sunday, that sentence stands as a remarkably clear confession of our own sins and the sins of those around us. Our lips are far from clean. Words of prayer and praise are far from our mouths as we instead use God’s name as a curse and slander our neighbor’s good reputation, all in the name of “truth” of course. But it’s not just our lips. Our ears join in, as we listen to the gossip around us, seeking out more and more that we can use against our neighbors. Our hands take that which isn’t ours, and lash out in anger instead of holding on to each other with mercy and compassion. Our feet fail to lead us in the paths of righteousness and the places where God’s people gather for receiving the gifts of God, choosing our own way instead. Our hearts are filled with greed and anger instead of love, joy and peace. Our eyes look at what isn’t ours to have, leading us to covet; our eyes look lustfully at others whom we are not given to love, honor, and cherish; our eyes lie and deceive to us that the fruit before us is good and pleasing and, besides, God doesn’t really mind if we give it a little taste…

And, when we consider that our lips are no better than Isaiah’s, nor are our hands, feet, eyes, and ears, or hearts, we realize that we, too, deserve nothing but death for we are unclean people, sinful people, who fall far short of the glory of God. “Woe is me. Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”

What is perhaps the most remarkable part of Isaiah’s vision isn’t that he sees God, and witnesses the angelic court of the King, and that he hears the choir sing. It’s not even that Isaiah recognizes his situation standing before God. It’s that even before Isaiah can ask for it, God shows mercy to Isaiah. In the mercy of Almighty God, even as He sits on His glorious throne surrounded by winged seraphs, He acts. The Lord sends one of His angels down to the temple and, picking up a burning coal from the burning altar, touches Isaiah's mouth. Here, God does not send fire in anger, but in His mercy, He reaches down and cleanses Isaiah's mouth. It’s as though the coal cauterizes the sins from his tongue.

The coal comes from the altar. The altar is the place where the sacrifices are made for the sins of the people. As this is taking place in the Temple, and Isaiah sees the throne of God, it is probable that this is a scene from the Holy of Holies, the locatedness of God’s presence at the ark of the covenant. The lid of the ark is called the mercy seat, the specific place where God promises to be among His people. Every year, the high priest would collect the blood of a perfect sacrificed lamb into a basin. Some blood would be sprinkled on the worshipping community of Israel, but the rest would be poured out on the mercy seat of the ark while the corpse of the lamb was consumed in fire.

The Old Testament sacrifice was a foreshadowing of The Sacrifice which was to come. Every year, the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, sacrifice had to be repeated. Countless lambs were slaughtered. Until Christ, the Lamb of God, is made the perfect, vicarious, substitute sacrifice for the world.  His mouth speaks blessings, not curses – even to those who drove the nails and beat Him mercilessly. His hands are held up in blessing, delivering His peace and His joy to those who believe in His name. His feet walked the way of the cross, carrying the sins of the world so that we do not suffer the eternal damnation that our sins deserve. His ears listened with compassion to the cries of the broken and repentant, offering mercy and forgiveness. And His blood is shed, a perfect sacrifice, covering our sins from God’s view so that all He sees is His beloved, redeemed people in Christ. And, today, so that you have no doubt that your sins have been atoned for, He places onto your lips, not a burning coal, but His very own Body and His very own Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of those same lips.

Your lips, redeemed by Christ the Crucified, today make the good confession of faith. Today’s world says, “you have your beliefs and I have mine,” while preaching tolerance with the mantra “just get along.” Regardless what popular opinion might be, as Christians we are not free to just believe whatever we want or to confess or practice that which denies the Word of God. The Christian church speaks boldly of the faith into which we were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: one God in three persons, made known to us through Jesus Christ, who sent His spirit that we might believe. The Church confesses it. And we believe it.

And, if you don’t fully understand the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, don’t worry. That doesn’t make you a less-than Christian. It is wonderfully, incredibly doctrine to help us understand a wonderful, incredible God. I actually find comfort in not being able to fully understand and explain God – if I could, what kind of God would that be? It’s not about passing a test. It’s about knowing God, through Christ, by the power of the Spirit, and knowing His love and mercy for us.

So, don’t worry about comprehending it all. Instead, receive the gifts that the Triune God gives you in Baptism, in absolution, in the Word, and in the Supper. And, with your cleansed lips give thanks to God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

"Can These Bones Live?" - Ezekiel 37: 1-14

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Beneath the streets of Paris, France, are miles and miles of tunnels that date back hundreds of years, used to mine limestone from beneath the city. In the 1700s, as the city expanded, cemetery space became more and more difficult to find. With no new ground available in the city, existing graves were opened and old skeletons were exhumed so that new corpses could be buried.  Wanting a safe and solemn place to store what was exhumed, the remains were taken to the empty, underground tunnels and placed carefully into shelves that were carved into the stone. Now, three hundred years later, these tunnels, colloquially called, “The Catacombs,” or les catacombes de Paris, and these ossuaries hold the bones and skulls of tens of millions of Parisians. In places, the bones are stacked so tightly and so high that it is as if tunnels are themselves nothing but bones.

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I have only seen photos of the catacombs with its ancient tunnels filled with dirty brown bones. Simply looking at these at these pictures, I am filled with mixed emotions. There is a very stark beauty in seeing part of the body that is normally hidden by muscle and sinew and enwrapped in skin. There is also a morbid curiosity: who were these people, what did they do, how old were they when they died, when did they live and what did they see? But there is also a certain, haunting, frightening quality. No matter how I might consider the pictures along philosophical or romantic lines, those bones are there for one reason and one reason only: le mort - death. The catacombs are filled with bones of the dead.

Bones humble us. Whether we are looking at skeletons in a museum, the model on the desk in the doctor’s office or at pictures in a book, the lifeless, breathless bones remind us of our mortality. From dust we are, and to dust we shall return.

Empty bones are a reversal of creation. In the beginning, God took dirt and formed it into Adam – “Adam,” by the way, is Hebrew for “dirt.” God’s sculpture looked like a man, but it wasn’t a man, having neither life nor breath in it. Son of man, can this dirt live? O Lord, you know.

There is a wonderful bit of word-play in Old Testament Hebrew. The same word, ruach, can mean Spirit, or wind, or breath, depending on the context. Most translations read that God breathed into Adam the breath of life. God’s Spirit blew and breathed life into the dirt, enlivening it from adamah, dirt, into Adam, man. Son of man, can this man live? Yes, by the power of God’s spirit who gave life. Later, when God choses to make a spouse for Adam, He does so using a bone – a rib – from Adam’s side. Adam rejoices in the gift: she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, he cries, and gives thanks to God for Eve. Her name, by the way means “Mother of all living things.”

But Ezekiel isn’t standing next to fresh dirt that is filled with possibilities. He’s not standing in the Garden of Eden watching God take a fresh bone from one to form another. He’s been taken up in the spirit of God – that’s vision talk – and led by the hand of God, and he is standing in a valley filled with dry bones that have been exposed to the elements: bleached white by the sun, washed clean by the rain, dried by the wind. These are very dry bones: hollow, marrowless bones, life-less bones, hope-less bones. Very dry, very dead bones, all left out on the valley’s dead floor. And these aren’t neatly placed skeletons either, organized and carefully preserved. These are scattered, mixed up here and there, as if they had been savaged and ravaged by the wild animals and carrion, unburied and unloved, cursed in death as they were in life. They are cut off from life, cut off from the resting places of their fathers, cut off and abandoned as nothing more than refuse.

Son of man, can these bones live? It doesn’t take an orthopedic specialist to interpret the vision. The greatest doctor in the world couldn’t do anything with these bones. There is no way on earth those bones can live. Or, can they?

In Ezekiel’s vision, the bones represent Israel who had become unfaithful, chasing after the gods – lower case g – of the heathen Gentiles. God punished Israel with the destruction of the nation, her soldiers killed in battle, her leaders and most noble citizens taken into exiled captivity, the cities leveled, and fields destroyed.  This all happened after the presence of God left the Temple and the Temple, once the beautiful, sacred House of God, was stripped of its sacred beauty, desecrated, and then destroyed. Literally, the nation and the people of Israel was nothing but a skeleton of what it used to be under David and Solomon.  The question, “Son of man, can these bones live?” isn’t really about the bones. This is a vision, remember? It’s about Israel. Is there hope for Israel? Is there life for the people? Is restoration possible, or are they cursed to die among the Gentiles, cut off from one another, cut off from the promises of God?

Son of man, can these bones, can Israel live? Yes: by the power of God, through the Spirit, working in the proclaimed Word of God, that which is otherwise dead can be made alive.

Ezekiel prophecies, as ordered by God, calling the bones into order and into structure. Then bones, them bones, them dry bones – bones that are dried up, with hope lost, and cut off from the living – them bones hear the Word of God and they respond. Foot bones connect to ankle bones that connect to leg bones that connects to thigh bones. Hip bones and back bones and ribs and tibias and fibias join in, and a skull rests at the top. The bones, the dry bones are connected, but can they live?

Ezekiel speaks again, as commanded by God. Ezekiel speaks, prophesying to the winds, to the very breath of God, and the spirit responds to the Word. God’s spirit gives life. A true breath of life rushes into those bones that are dead, that are without life. It is a re-creation that takes place, as the four winds – symbolizing the fullness of God’s Spirit – the four winds rush in. And in that moment the dead gives way to the living, and that which is empty of breath is filled God’s Spirit that rushes in like the wind blowing across fields and valleys.  The vision is a promise of what is to come for Israel, that they are still God’s beloved, and they will be restored and enlivened once again to be His army sent into the world. “I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.” (v.12).

Remember: this is a vision, a symbol of God’s people of God whose faith has died. The prophetic Word of God spoken by Ezekeil will call Israel to repentance and the Spirit, working through that Word, will both create and strengthen faith in that very same Word. Israel will be restored – not to a great political nation as it was under David and Solomon, but as the house of God. And through Israel, the Messiah will come and a New Israel will be established. The New Israel is called, simply, the Church.

On Pentecost Sunday, the apostles stand on the shoulders of Ezekiel and they speak prophetically and powerfully to the Jerusalem crowd. Themselves empowered by the Spirit of God, the Word they proclaim is carried by the Holy Spirit into the ears, hearts, and minds of the people. Peter preaches, telling the crowd – possibly even some of the same people who fifty days earlier shouted for Jesus’ crucifixion – that Jesus is the Messiah for whom Israel had long waited and He is the One whom the Church proclaims into the world. The Spirit’s mighty work on Pentecost - tongues of flame, the sound of the rushing wind, the hearing of the Good News in their own languages – it’s so that people can hear of Jesus. Peter preaches to the dead bones of the people in Jerusalem, telling them that Jesus is the one who is cast out into the valley of death. He dies out near the city dump where the bodies were tossed like detritus, nothing more than flotsam and jetsam of human remains. He was cast out from His own people and died a common criminal and was buried in a grave, just like His father, David. But, sons of Israel, these bones of Jesus will live. On the third day, He rose from the grave, alive and victorious over sin, and death, and the devil, and the grave.

And, through that prophetic Word, “thus says the Lord,” the Spirit of God worked mightily and powerfully, creating faith in the hearts of thousands who, then, carried that same Spirit-empowered Good News to their homes and communities. The Spirit, working through the Word they shared continued His work of leading people to Jesus.

Son of man, can these bones live? It is tempting for us, I think, to sit here on this Pentecost morning and lament that we have not experienced such a Pentecost moment, either as part of the spiritually dead-to-life crowd, or as the proclaimer of the Word that enlivens. If we equate the work of the Holy Spirit only with the dramatic, extra-ordinary events such as what happened in the valley of bones, or in the streets of Jerusalem, we will be disappointed. We make jokes about being Lutherans and Germans and not being the excitable sort. We don’t talk a lot about spiritual gifts or about how the Spirit moved powerfully in that sermon or worship service. But, make no mistake: the Spirit is very much at work here, today, among us. He is constantly at work in our lives, making our bones – our faith in Christ – alive and strong. For most of us, before we could even speak or understand what was happening, through water and Word, He created faith in us, faith in Christ, through our Baptism. For others, He began working in us through the Word that was spoken to us by friends, family, and pastors who faithfully spoke of Jesus as Savior. In those words, by means of the Word, the Spirit worked powerfully to create faith. For all of us, He continues to work through that same Word of God that was given to the prophets and the apostles, faithfully proclaimed to you, faithfully read and studied by you, faithfully shared by you to your children and grandchildren.

He works to point you to Jesus, the Savior of the World, and day in and day out, through that same Word of God, He holds you close to Jesus so that on the day of resurrection, the say of Jesus’ return, you too will be raised and say, “Yes, these bones do live.”

 

 

Jesus Died to be Your Friend - John 15:9-17

Last week, we heard Jesus talk about vines and branches. Most of us don’t know much about those things. We plant gardens, we raise vegetables, we have fields of grass and grain, but very few of us know much about vines and branches, about grafting and pruning and such things. It’s just not our wheelhouse.

This week, Jesus speaks of friendship. Now, that’s something we can understand. We have lots of friends, of varying degrees of closeness. If you think of it like a bullseye, out here we have acquaintances – people we know casually, like at work or school. We know their names, maybe a little about him or her, just enough that we can say hi and have a quick conversation. But, if push came to shove, the acquaintance probably isn’t someone you would hang around with. You wouldn’t invite them to a party or go to a movie with them, take them dancing or out to dinner with them. Why? Well, you’re acquaintances…that’s all.

Then, there are people with whom we are friendly. Sort of Level Three friends, so to speak. Maybe you played on the same team a few years ago, or worked on a project together, and found you have some common interests, or know some common people. You could talk with these people and not feel uncomfortable, you could sit down at lunch and carry on a conversation that has some real meaning. You could talk about some things of substance, but there are still things you don’t talk about. You’re just not *that* close. The Level Two friends are like these, except you’re a little closer.

And then there are the Level One friends. Level One friends are the people nearest and dearest to your heart. We use terms like “best” friend to describe these people – even if we seem to have more than one best friend. These are the people we hang out with all the time, we look for them at lunch, we text them all afternoon, we talk on the phone, we blow up their Instagram pages and tag them constantly in our social media. These are the people who are sometimes even closer than our own brother or sister and, sometimes, we even think of them as family.

And, if you have a friend like that, you have a gift, indeed because a friend like that is a rarity. Friendship, companionship is something that is a core need for human beings. People are not made to be alone. God realized this in the Garden of Eden when He created Eve to be Adam’s helpmate. Outside our parents, and later, when you marry, a friend is a gift and a really good friend is a very, very special gift. Even Solomon, in his wisdom – or, perhaps because of his wisdom – had a difficult time, finding only one upright man among a thousand and no righteous woman at all (Ecc. 7:28).

We yearn for, we long to find that one-in-a-thousand friend, the friend who sticks with us without any strings attached, who loves us for what we are and in spite of what we aren’t, who defends, supports, loves, and cares for us in your time of need and whom we can love reciprocally in their time of hardship. And, men – lest you think this is only for women, I assure you, this is even more true for us, to have a friend who is even more dear than a brother.

There is a fad that comes and goes, to give friendship jewelry. I think girls do this more than boys, but once boys get to a certain age, they will sometimes give a piece of friendship jewelry to a girl. There are friendship rings, friendship bracelets, even friendship necklaces. Some are handmade, some made out of metal. Some are made in pairs or with parts that match like puzzle pieces to show how close their friendship is.

Today, I want to give each of you a friendship gift. In your bag is a wood cross. It’s to remind you of your greatest friend of all, Jesus. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down His life for His friends.” That’s the mark of the truest, greatest friend of all: He is willing to surrender His life for you.

And, here’s the most remarkable thing about it: He dies for friends who wanted nothing to do with Him. He’s speaking to the Twelve on Maundy Thursday evening. In just a few hours from that moment, when He is arrested, all of the disciples will run away and leave Jesus alone. When asked, they’ll deny knowing Him. And when Jesus breathes His last, only His mother and one of the disciples will stand at the foot of the cross to watch Him die.

That was then, we think, this is now. We would never run away. Yes, yes we would. Yes, we will. Yes, we do. We turn the Commandments into mere suggestions that we can pick and chose, twist and manipulate. When friends challenge us to defend our Christian faith, instead of confessing, to preserve a friendship we crawfish and say, “well, it’s just one way to get to heaven.”  Jesus’ name becomes a punchline, God’s name becomes an expletive, our Baptism is only a picture in mom’s photo album, and confirmation is nothing more than a reason to get presents. What a friend we are for Jesus.

Yet, Jesus dies for us for exactly those very reasons. He dies a sinner’s death so we do not. He calls us to repentance in His name, to live in our Baptism knowing that we are great sinners but He is an even greater Savior. Christ’s friendship is grounded in a unique love, far, far different from what the world considers as love. Jesus’ love is unconditional. It’s as if He is saying, I am willing to do something so radical, so remarkable, so reckless that you cannot even begin to imagine it. I do this because I know what you truly need and what is best for you, even if you do not understand, reciprocate it to me, or appreciate what I am about to do for you. I am going to do for you what is in your best interest, even though you hate me because of it. This great love of Jesus leads Him to the cross. He dies for the world – even His friends who betrayed Him, who denied Him, who ran away into the darkness to leave Jesus alone. Jesus dies for you, for me, for a world of sinners. He buries our denials in the grave and He does not bring them back with Him to life. He rises, glorious and victorious so that you can be His friend into eternity. He choses us, His imperfect friends, to be His friends…holding us so dearly that it is as if we are His brothers and sisters.

This friendship is a no-strings-attached relationship. You don’t have to dress like Him, you don’t have to talk like Him, you don’t have to like the things He likes. But we do get to love like Him. That’s His only command, and it’s not a burdensome command. In the Old Testament, there were Ten Commandments. Jesus reduces them to one: love.

Jesus says, “Abide in my love.” Abide means to remain, to sit, to dwell, to stay put. That’s the confession you will make in a few minutes: that you will remain in this faith into which you were baptized. Christ has called you His friend, He has given you the greatest gift of all in His death and resurrection, simply because He loves you. Remain in that love. How? Be here, in His house; receive His gifts; grow in faith; grow in love.

The other way you remain in that love is to love one another. Jesus dies for you with this great love; He died for the person next to you out of the same love. If Jesus loves you and you and you, what else can we do except to love one another as Jesus loved each of us.

There will be days when your friends fail you. There will never be a day when Jesus fails you. He is your greatest friend, willing to give Himself for you. This cross is a reminder of His great love for you. So, keep this cross close. I keep mine on my desk. I have another one in my side-table drawer in my bedroom. I make them and give them as gifts to my friends. But, I’m giving it to you, not to remember me. I’m giving it to you to remember Jesus.

Ralph was dying of cancer. I gave him one of these crosses for his birthday a few months before he died. After that, he had that cross with him practically every moment of every day, awake or asleep; at home or in the hospital. One day, I asked him why keep it literally on his chest all the time and he simply smiled and said, “It reminds me of Jesus.” When he passed away, the family left it in the casket with him. Ralph died with Christ in his baptism 78 years ago. He clung to that cross in his life; he had it with him in death, too.

That’s the beauty of Jesus. He is with us in life and in death, in days when our faith is strong and in days when our faith is weak. He holds us close to Him. Why? Because He is our friend and He loves us enough to die for us. Amen.

When We Feel Like Branches Chopped From the Vine - John 15:1-8

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“I am the vine; you are the branches,” Jesus says. This is a mini parable, of sorts, picture language of how Jesus connects us to Himself in Holy Baptism, joining us into His body, the Church just as a vine dresser grafts new branches into established vine-stock. Connected to Him, His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, fills us and we produce spiritual fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control – which we share with others in the name of Jesus. Christians produce Christ-like things because He is in us and we are in Him.

It’s worth noting and remembering the context of John 15. This happens before Easter, on Maundy Thursday night while Jesus and the disciples are sitting at table celebrating Passover. This is a final time together where Jesus is reminding the Twelve that He must suffer and die at the hands of the chief priest, the Sanhedren, and the Roman government and be put to death. He will be taken from them in His death. This reinforces His promises to His disciples but it also deepens the promise: He is not only dwelling with us (John 1:14) but because we are connected to Him, as branches to a vine, He is within us.

A couple years ago, Megan and I planted a peach tree in the back yard. Notice: I planted a whole tree. I didn’t lop off the branches and stick them in the ground, nor did I plant a branchless trunk in the ground. I planted a tree. Branches have no life apart from the trunk. The trunk is there to feed the branches so they can produce fruit. No branches, no peaches; no trunk, no branches, no peaches. Trunk plus branches equals tree equals fruit.  Here is the comparison: we have no life of our own. Our life comes only from Jesus. His resurrection from the dead has revealed that He is the source of all life. Though we die, we shall live. He has defeated sin and death for us, and now nothing can separate us from His love. He gives us life – not just life after death, but life now even as the Kingdom continues to enfold around us. His forgiveness, His life, His salvation flows from He, who is the vine, into us, who are the branches. This life flows into us, and we fill the world with the spiritual fruit that is produced in His name.

But, I’ve lost track of the number of times where Christians – well-grounded, faithful Christians – have asked me, “But Pastor, if this is true, then why do I feel so alone? I if I am connected to Jesus, why do I feel that God is so far from me? Why do I feel so weak, as if my faith is drying up?”  Why, indeed? If we are as connected to Jesus as a branch is to the vine from which it comes, why do we feel this way?” The assumption is almost always that we have remained stationary and that Jesus has somehow moved from us. These thoughts, these feelings, they are frightening. They lead to secondary questions: I thought He would never leave us or forsake us. I thought He loved me. Does this mean my faith is leaving? Does this mean I am no longer His? Why has Jesus left me?

If this is you, or if it has been you in the past, or one day when this is you, I want you to know that these feelings and thoughts are not unique. They have happened to me, to people whom I know, and probably to the person sitting next to you, in front of you, and behind you. They happen to God’s people from time to time. It’s part of life in this world, part of life under the cross of Jesus. And, when it happens, we cry out to God for His mercy and kindness.

Why does this happen? Why does it feel as if this is happening to us? It makes sense if it was someone unfaithful, who doesn’t care if they are still connected to Jesus or not. But this is us, children of God that it happens to.

This is the tussle, the wrestling of faith. The German word for this is anfechtung and it does a better job than we can do in English. Anfechtung wraps together temptation, and trials, and affliction and tribulation. It means the gut-wrenching struggles of life over and against the life of faith. When things come at us we experience anfechtung as wrestle in faith because we remember and we know the promises of God that we have heard over and over and over again. These kinds of prayers and concerns are even in the Psalms – Spirit inspired words recorded in the Scriptures for you. “O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God!” (Ps. 83:1)  “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” (Ps, 74:1)  “Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!” (Ps. 55:1) “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1)  Even Jesus prays like this, using Psalm 22 as He hangs on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

But, where are you, O God? I’m calling; are you listening? Am I to believe this thin promise against all of the evidence of bad things that is in my face. It seems God Himself is pushing against us, as if he says, “I don’t want anything more to do with you.” And we wrestle and we tussle in faith because we remember, by a thin thread, and we can still feel on our foreheads the drop of God’s Baptismal promise, “You are my beloved…”  

Obviously, I am speaking today to Christians, to fruit-bearing children of God. Connected to Jesus, it is both what we are and who we are. Yet, Jesus says, “Every branch is me that does not bear fruit He (that is, the Father-Gardener) takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes.” There is a difference, here, in what the Gardener is doing. An unfaithful branch, a not-fruit-bearing branch, a branch that is not doing that for which it is purposed, a branch that is not fulfilling its connectedness to the vine, it is cut off. It is taken away, presumably to the burn pile, both so that it does not detract from branches that are fruit bearing but also so that it does not cause other branches to likewise not bear fruit and become unfaithful. But the fruitful branch, the fruit-bearing branch, the branch that is doing what it is given by God to do, that branch is pruned. Why is that?

It’s interesting that the word that St. John uses here, which our translation calls “pruned,” in all of Greek literature it is never used to speak of pruning, that is carefully trimming a branch to improve production. The verb isn’t about pruning; it’s about cleansing. Verse three uses the same word and our translation gets it right – Already you are clean.  Think about it this way: the branches that bear fruit, He does not cut off and destroy, but the Father-Gardener cleanses it. He sanctifies it. He holies it.

He holies us by stripping away so much of what is in here, the things that would compete for Jesus’ attention, that we think are important, so that it forces us more and more to cling to nothing but the Vine and the Vine alone. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the Vine I cling.” When we realize this, that He is cleansing us, we also realize He is not far from us but close…oh, so close, as a gardener is to his precious vines and branches. The Father-Gardener prunes, He cleanses by stripping away anything that would keep us from Jesus. He is drawing us closer to Jesus by stripping away anything that would separate us from Him. The Law teaches us we have many things to confess week after week – our self-righteousness, our perceived strength and wisdom, our intellect, our self-focused faith - and life stripes them away – God strips them away - one by one.

He keeps stripping away. It’s mysterious and strange isn’t it how He does this? He cleanses away things that get in the way of Jesus. But sometimes, in your life and mine, He even prunes some of the good things He has given us. We know the loss of loved ones. What gifts of God these people are, but He strips them away from us in His mysteriously known time. And finally, one day, He will strip away from us our very lives itself. I don’t know about you, but I do know that the prospect of dying scares me a bit. I don’t think I am wrong in admitting that. The Valley of the Shadow is dark, and it is long, and it is looming. And when I am at the edge of the valley of the shadow, nothing is there that can bring me through that except to cling to He who is the Vine, to trust that He will never cut me off, that He will never crush a bruised branch. He will hold on to me, with hands of forgiveness, and compassion, and grace, and mercy, and He will carry me through the valley into the banquet hall of the feast which is yet to come.  

Do you feel separated from Jesus? The Father-gardener has prepared a nursery especially for you, where you vines are able to be strengthened to the Vine. It’s called the Lord’s House. Jesus is here, for you. When you feel weak in faith, don’t stay home. Come to the nursery. Come and be fed with life-giving water, faith-strengthening Words, life-renewing bread and wine, His body and blood. Come and be connected to the Vine, along with other branches around you. Here, in the Lord’s House, you discover this wonder. Jesus also strips the sin and the guilt away. That makes a difference when the evidence, the sights we see, it seems He is so far away. He is not far; He is near. He speaks to you: you are clean because of the words I spoke to you.

It’s worth noting and remembering the context of John 15. This happens before Easter, on Maundy Thursday night while Jesus and the disciples are sitting at table celebrating Passover. This is a final time together where Jesus is reminding the Twelve that He must suffer and die at the hands of the chief priest, the Sanhedren, and the Roman government and be put to death. He will be taken from them in His death. This reinforces His promises to His disciples but it also deepens the promise: He is not only dwelling with us (John 1:14) but because we are connected to Him, as branches to a vine, He is within us.

“Life narrows down, and crisis comes, and suddenly only one thing matters. And suddenly only one thing matters, and there in the narrow place stands Jesus.”[1]

 

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[1] Arnold Kuntz, Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted. St. Louis: CPH. Date, unknown.