Author: TechCommittee

January 29, 2023             Text:  1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Dear Friends in Christ,

In the morning fog of November 6, 1632, around 25,000 Swedish soldiers knelt in prayer.  The Swedish Lutheran king, Gustavus Adolphus, led them in singing “May God embrace us with his grace.”  The Swedes under Adolphus joined the Thirty Years War to salvage portions of Northern Europe and Germany for Lutheranism.  The fog lifted and the German city of Luetzen was set ablaze by Roman Catholic troops.  The king clapped his hands and shouted, “God’s will be done!  Jesus, help me fight to the glory of your holy name!  Forward!”  The troops engaged the enemy.  When the line collapsed, the king hurried in to rally the men.  He found himself in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.  His horse got shot and then his left arm.  He kept encouraging the men.  Then he was shot in the back, fell off his horse, was stabbed and shot in the temple.  This 38-year-old warrior king who helped to save Lutheranism was now dead.  His death passed through the ranks, the troops rallied, and the Swedes won the most crucial battle of the war.  Victory in defeat.

Gustavus Adolphus was wise, powerful, and of noble birth, but even he tasted the way God works in the world.  God works with a heavenly wisdom made perfect in “weakness” and “foolishness” according to worldly standards.  Are you . . .

“A FOOL IN THE WORLD OR A BOASTER IN THE LORD?”

To find the fools in the world is easy.  They think they are wiser and smarter than the rest of us.  “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  Paul then writes, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles.”  The world is constantly falling all over themselves with their silliness.  Crazy what the cross can do, right?

Look at it this way.  The world is dictated by Christianity.  Always has been, always will be.  We’ve numbered our years around Christ’s birth.  We’ve numbered our days – seven days in a week – since creation.  All major holidays are because of Christianity.  We talk of sin and grace and heaven and hell and good and bad and even say things like, “amen, brother” because of Christianity.  Most of the schools and hospitals and charities of the world have sprouted up because of Christianity.  We toil in work as the Bible says and still post the Ten Commandments in many of our courthouses.  And even when it looks like the world wants nothing to do with Christ, a football player gets injured in a nationally televised game and what does society do?  Everyone prays.  Where did they learn that?  Right, you know.  You see, the Lord is much wiser than the world.  He knows men and women are going to be fools.  Oh, how He must enjoy it when they think they have all the answers.  Do you ever join the foolishness of the world?  Follow after the talking heads?  Get led by the hand to believe the food you eat, the air you breathe and the Bible you follow is toxic?  Really now, is a woman praying silently outside an abortion clinic, a danger to society?  See, how foolish the world is?

God in the person of Jesus Christ came into this foolish world. Remember how many times he made the wise people look dumb.  The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the Roman judges.  God chose the “low and despised” who is the source of our life – Christ Jesus.  The cross looked like a disaster.  But from Calvary came deliverance from death.  The mourning that came from Jesus in the tomb, actually brought forth life when He rose again.  All of this has been revealed to us who call Christ our Savior.  The Holy Spirit helps us to boast in the Lord because we know that we have righteousness and redemption and sanctification.  Call us fools all you want because we know who we are.  God’s child, saved by Him through Jesus.  We are forgiven our foolishness as we stand before His cross and eat his body and drink his blood.  God chose us to pray for the wise and the politically correct and those that are confused and caught up in the foolishness of the world.  

In South America, there lives a curious little spider which has its home underneath the water.  It forms a tiny air bubble around itself and sinks to the bottom of the pond.  It can remain for hours, living below the water, yet breathing air from above.  When it returns to the surface it is perfectly dry.  It is in the water and yet separate from it.  The spider only survives as long as it maintains contact with the air from above.

This spider survives because of its air bubble.  As Christians we only survive in the world if we remain in contact with God’s Word and Sacraments.  It insulates us from worldly thinking.  We cannot escape the world until the day we die.  The spider lives in the water yet remains separate from it.  We live in the world, but do not follow the foolishness of the world.  They see the cross as nothing or something to be afraid of.  We see it as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  We want to boast about the Christ of the cross and the Lord allows us to do that.  As with Gustavus Adolphus, death turns to life for us as well, and apparent defeat turns to victory.  In that, let us boast.

Amen.   

January 22, 2023 – Sanctity of Human Life Sunday Text:  Genesis 1:26-31a

Dear Friends in Christ,

Marriage is a blessing, a gift from God who created us.  Marriage promises companionship and pleasure.  But the meaning of marriage does deeper.  We are each fearfully and wonderfully made.  We each have a cardiovascular system, a digestive system, a circulatory system, all whole and fully integrated.  Only one system is not complete in each of us – the reproductive system.  When it comes to sex, we are complementary creatures.  Two become one.  Husband and wife together accomplish what they cannot do alone.  No amount of social engineering or perverted sexuality changes the fact – you need the sexual organs of a male and a female for life to be created.

God intended marriage leads to children.  Let’s recognize this – not every couple can physically bear children.  They may be past childbearing age or have infertility which can be a heartbreaking issue.  Children tie marriage together in permanence and life-long fidelity.  The Sanctity of Life and the Sanctity of Marriage go hand in hand.  This our theme for This Sanctity of Human Life Sunday . . .

“FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MARRIAGE, THEN COME . . .”

Marriage changes things.  Our family lived it and is living it.  Friday, January 13, at approximately 5:20 p.m. we were no longer just dad and mom.  We are now also father-in-law and mother-in-law.  Our verbiage changes.  It has gone from girlfriend to fiancé to wife.  If the Lord has it in His plans we look forward to grandpa and grandma, though personally I know we are much too young for that.

Husband and wife are an extension of God’s work of creation.  They become an image of Christ and the Church.  We are not just factory parts that reproduce.  Each of us comes from the creative hand of God who loves and uses procreation to continue His good creation.  The family that arises from this gives us a higher glimpse of love and a better perspective on God’s love.  Being a dad has enlightened for me what God gave up with His Son.  The sacrificial understanding becomes all too real when the Lord blesses with children.

The problem is we mess with God’s perfect plan.  We distort the one-woman, one-man marriage with all sorts of silly ideas that we want to play house with.  When we redefine the most important relationship from the beginning of creation then problems will ensue.  All of us can lose marriage’s intrinsic link to children.  When the “be fruitful and multiply” just becomes a suggestion then we see what is occurring.  People are having less children and marriage is becoming less important.  This has societal and economic impacts.  The good news – many Christian homes are having multiple children which bodes well for our future. 

Long before the push for abortion was the agenda of sexual liberation.  Margaret Sanger wrote that “through sex mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, which will light up the path to paradise.”  The ultimate taboo for Sanger was large families.  She wrote, “The most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families.”  My sociological observation on this is limited, but the ones in large families I know have been blessed and happy.  

This has been a challenge for the church.  I know of very few LCMS churches who have larger Sunday Schools today than in years past.  We need to reaffirm self-evident truths.  Children are a gift from God.  Marriage was designed so these children have a father and a mother.  This gives us hope for the church.

Perhaps as Lutherans we would do well to recover the Hebrew wedding toast, “L’Chaim,” which means “To life!” – that is – “To new life!”  Marriage is more than securing financial stability and present happiness.  Children are a gift worth more than all the money and experiences in the world.  Like I have told our boys, “Someday you will know why mom and I have been so blessed by you.”  They have to experience it and I pray they will.  Children bring joy to a congregation.  A child can light up a room.  I viewed two youngsters at the wedding dance having the time of their life.  It gave me the warm fuzzies.  No wonder our Lord loved to hold children in His arms.

This is all said with sensitivity to the barren, the widow, the orphan.  This is life in a fallen world.  Let’s open ourselves up to the love of marriage as God intended.  We rejoice when a child is born.  We celebrate when that child is baptized.  In the waters, we see hope, we embrace the future, we taste eternity.  As we care for our children, our Heavenly Father cares for us.  We thank God for male and female.  We praise God for the good gift of children.  

In this dark world, there is this message of hope.  We have a life-affirming faith that stands in wonder at the birth of the Christ Child.  We give thanks that in Jesus, through His death and resurrection, our lives – and those of our children – will have no end.

Amen.    

January 15, 2023                                Text:  John 1:29-42a

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Have you played the blame game?  The one where Adam blamed Eve for his troubles.  The same game where Eve blamed the serpent.  We even print t-shirts to put on youngsters with sayings like, “It’s my sister’s fault”, or “my brother did it, not me.”

    What if I told there are Christian churches where there is no blame game because there is nothing to be blamed for.  What if I told you this is being taught in a Lutheran Church.  Pastor Dawn describes herself as a “21st Century Progressive Christian Pastor.”  She preached on the text that we have before us today at Holy Cross Lutheran in Ontario, Canada.  She handled it differently as we see from her theme, “Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?  It ain’t necessarily so!”  Oh . . . she used “ain’t.”  Sit back and listen – it gets worse.  Here is a small portion:

    “To this day many Christians believe that though you and I deserved to be punished for our sins, that God sent Jesus to absorb that punishment as a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter…The projection of a literal sacrifice for sin depends upon a pre-Darwinian understanding of creation…So, becoming one with God is not about blotting out the stain of original sin, but rather evolving into our fullness as creatures grounded in the creator and source of our being…Jesus did not die for our sins.  Jesus revealed a God who calls and empowers us to step beyond the survival mentality that warps our potential and to become so fully human that God’s love can flow through us to others.”

    I told you it was going to get worse.  If this is the Christian Church, we might as well go home.  We are wasting our time.  I pray you know; you are making good use of your time in the Father’s house this day.  We have a message that answers the question . . .

“WHO DO WE BLAME?”

    Jesus.  He is the one the Old Testament was waiting for – what all that bloody sacrifice in temple was all about.  “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”  Jesus.

  He was the one the whole creation was waiting for – waiting for the full payment to be made so that his new Adam might restore all things.  “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”  Jesus.

This is what the whole New Testament Church is still about – what goes on here today and each Sunday in fact.  Jesus.

Each of us has sinned and will sin.  We need to fess up.  Repent.  All that we do, and leave undone, is our fault.  Yet, even doing this – admitting our fault and then being allowed to blame someone else – God Himself, of all people – this would still do nothing for the guilt or consequence, would it?  Someone still has to pay.  

We know all this.  We understand justice.  God is just.  He is justice itself.  Justice must be fulfilled.  So, God tells us to blame Him as if He did all these terrible things.  “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

He did, and it was finished.  He did die in our place.  He did accept all sin as His own.  He paid the penalty on the cross for the whole world.  Justice has been done.

So, yes, we are to take our sin – all of it – and place it on his head and send it with him into that bleak and desperate place to die.  Outside the city wall.  To the cross of Calvary.  Leave it there.  In him.  On him.  This is why Jesus came.  He is the Lamb of God who takes the blame.  He accepts the blame, so we won’t be blamed.  He gladly accepts the eternal consequences, so we don’t have to.

So, fess up.  And when the devil comes with his list of your misdeeds you go right ahead and tell him it’s all true.  Yes, all of it.  And remind him there is probably more he doesn’t know about because he is not God.  You can tell him you are in fact a whole lot worse than he knows.

But Jesus knows.  He came for that very reason.  He came to take the blame.  He has taken care of it.  “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

                                            Amen. 

January 4, 2023 – Baptism of our Lord                      Text:  Matthew 3:13-17                                    

Dear Friends in Christ,

    At this time in the church year things can move along rather quickly.  Epiphany was Friday – the visit of the Wise Men.  Now here we are two days later and the Baptism of Jesus.  He is an infant on Friday and a 30-year-old at His Baptism.  We fast forward to this unique event, a baptism unlike any other, yet a baptism that lays the groundwork for our own baptism.

    When Ed Koch was mayor of New York City, he was famous for strolling the streets and asking his constituents, “How am I doing?”  He took his cues and set his course based on their replies.  He was pleased when they were pleased.

    How’s Jesus doing?  We have a vested interest in the answer.  In our text we will discover that answer.  

“HOW IS JESUS DOING?”

    It is an odd question for us to be asking.  Does Jesus need our approval?  What kind of focus group do we think we are?  He is Jesus, after all.

    But even Jesus had his critics.  Even Jesus had those who questioned what he was doing.  The Pharisees and Sadducees make their first appearance in Matthew.  In the verses preceding our text they are questioning John about Baptism.  They don’t think they need to repent and confess their sins before being baptized.  They had their good works.  They had their heritage.  They were descendants of Abraham.  Ironic that they would play that card because Abraham was one who lived by faith with repentance and trust in God’s promises.  If John is touting this Jesus who is mightier than him, well these folks have a problem with Jesus too.  And as we know this will not be the first time that they question what Jesus is doing.

    But why baptize Jesus?  Why does someone who is sinless need this water of the Jordan?  Jesus had no need of this.  But Jesus makes a point:  I will be baptized.  Why?  Because I have come for sinners.  I stand with sinners.  I shoulder the burden of all.  This is the start of his three-year journey to the cross.  

    The Pharisees and Sadducees would say that he has blown it.  What is he doing mixing with this crowd?  They will be a constant focus group and a pain in the side of Jesus throughout his ministry.  But their approval doesn’t count.  “How am I doing?” the question goes.  Jesus doesn’t need to wait for the polls or the election.  He has immediate feedback which is better than any exit poll.  Jesus is baptized, comes out of the water, and immediately heaven stands in solidarity.  “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  Not just anyone, but a “Son.”  Not just pleased, but “well pleased.”

    God stands in solidarity with Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah.  We can understand if those on the riverbank were stunned and confused.  There were messianic expectations, some quite extraordinary.  This Jesus looks ordinary.  Beware of wanting Him on our terms.  Rather, take what is given, trust what is said.  It is rude to remake a gift.

    This “Son” would come for other sons and daughters.  He would come for prodigals who left the faith.  He would come for children who never knew the faith.  He would come for you and I so that we could be accepted by the Father.  Jesus is here for us sinners.  But God in solidarity with Jesus puts things in a new Epiphany light.

    God gives His approval that Jesus is doing great.  Here is how the circle works.  Jesus in solidarity with sinners, God with Jesus, and God with us.  How so and where?  In our Baptism.  Jesus’ baptism obviously is not identical with our own.  The path for Jesus was not finished.  There are still cross and empty tomb to come.  We are baptized into that death and resurrection.  His baptism is ours as our sin is His.  Martin Luther calls this the “happy exchange” that happens in our baptism.  “Who for us and for our salvation” as we confess in the Creed.  Christ’s name is put on us.  All righteousness was eventually fulfilled in Christ.

    Have any of you read where church roofs have opened with doves descending and voices from the sky giving approval during a baptism?  I haven’t either.  There is no need for that.  Something spectacular still happens as the Father, as Christ, stand in solidarity and give the Spirit.  As the Trinity is invoked and the water is sprinkled, we stand in awe at the power of our Lord.  His salvation is our salvation.  You are watermarked.

    How is Jesus doing?  In this God is well-pleased.  That is all that matters, right?                                                        Amen.    

January 1, 2023 – Circumcision and Name of Jesus                          Text:  Luke 2:21

Dear Friends in Christ,

    I am sure all you noticed the brevity of the Gospel lesson this morning.  “At the end of eight days.”  This is not an arbitrary time.  This is an appointed time with an appointed meaning.  Why is the eighth day so important?

“WHY THE EIGHTH DAY?”

    Why not some other number?  Why eight days?  Here is one thought:  the eighth day is the best day for circumcision because on it baby boys produce the highest percentage of vitamin K and prothrombin, which are necessary for coagulating blood.  Interesting fact, because we wouldn’t want all those baby boys bleeding to death.

    Beyond the physical benefits of the eighth day, there is probably a more theological reason.  When God gives the command to circumcise, He is making good on his promise to deliver his people.  This wasn’t just freedom from Egyptians and Canaanites; it is the triumphing over this sinful world.  A new heaven and a new earth.

    When God first creates, He does so in six days and then rests on the seventh.  This is the first creation.  But we have a new creation on the horizon.  This world will be destroyed and made new again.  God again is the architect, and this new work begins when Jesus rises from the dead.  He is the reason for the resurrection unto eternal life.

    Try to follow this.  Jesus died on Friday.  Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath.  Easter Sunday then came.  The Sabbath is the end of the week or the 7th day.  Jesus rises on Sunday which is actually the first day of the week.  Seven days plus one day = eight days.  The beginning of a new creation.

    This is why sometimes you hear of an eighth-day theology.  The Early Church shaped their baptismal fonts with eight sides – for in Baptism, like we witnessed today – something new is being brought forth.  It is also a reminder that eight souls were saved on the ark when the floodwaters came – Noah, his wife, three sons, three daughters-in-law.

    It all starts to make some sense now.  It is a foreshadowing of being made new, being added to the kingdom of God, rising together in the resurrection and inheriting a new creation prepared for us in Christ Jesus.

    “At the end of eight days . . . he was circumcised.”  If you have sons you have experienced their pain.  Most of us had it done in the hospital after their birth.  It was hard to watch the nurse take them away and you just cringed when they were gone.  It started a lifetime of hugging, kissing and love after they experienced pain.

    Joseph and Mary probably watched, which would be even more difficult.  They provided the comfort.  But the pain Jesus went through would be multiplied.  The shed blood of His circumcision would lead to the shed blood of Holy Week.  The blood of Christ is first spilled here in the circumcision.  It points to the purpose of His life.  He has come to shed His blood for all. 

    What pain have you felt?  What pain are you feeling?  What emotional hurt weighs on your mind?  The pain and agony that Jesus felt, like all those baby boys felt, will only be the beginning of what He must undergo for the redemption of mankind.  The life of Christ will be one of suffering.  It will be one where He submits himself to the will of His heavenly Father and thereby lays down His own flesh and blood for the life of all fallen mankind.  This was God’s plan since the fall.  Look at the name – Jesus – God saves.

    Jesus has come to hug and kiss and love us.  He provides the comfort in the midst of our pain.  He sympathizes with us because He experienced it.  Like our boys when going under the knife, do we cringe still at the Lenten/Easter story?  Do we still see the pain?  Do we acknowledge the agony?  Does the shed blood make us turn away because we know it is our sin that causes Him so much discomfort?

    That is how great His love is.  He is worthy of His name because He saves.  He saves you and I from discomforts that could be debilitating.  Would you ever want to go through the death of a loved one without hope?  By coming in the flesh, by shedding His blood, and by rising again on the third, that is the first, that is, remember, the eighth day.

    This Day of Circumcision gives us hope.  It encapsulates the curse of the fall, the promises of the Gospel in the Old Testament, and their fulfillment in the New Testament.  It even points us forward to the return of our Lord in glory, who at that time will consummate all things and make them new in the new heaven and the new earth.

    In the name of Jesus.

                Amen.    

December 24, 2022                                      Text:  Matthew 1:18-25

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Isn’t it interesting how life can play out depending on if you have a girl or a boy?  When the obstetrician said “boy!” both times in our life, we knew we had the rehearsal dinner.  And we do, in January, as Karson gets married.

    Another thing with the sex of the child is color.  We have always associated boys with blue.  So, let me say, I am not color blind.  I know the liturgical color is white for tonight.  But I am wearing the royal blue.  Why?  Because tonight we are going to talk about . . . 

“THE COLORS OF CHRISTMAS”

    Our first color for tonight is this beautiful royal blue.  When we have this color during Advent we all love it.  We have more positive comments on this royal blue than any other liturgical color.  Matthew states clearly that Jesus is not just another baby born in the squalor of the times.  He is a son, a male – royal blue.  He is a King.  The long-awaited Messiah.  Chosen by God.  Foretold by the prophets.  The one the apostles would proclaim.

    Jesus was not conceived like other children.  God showed His supreme authority over nature.  It was God entering into the human world to experience it in human form.

    The Kingdom of this royal blue baby was not of this world, but His infancy certainly was.  He was nursed and nurtured, caressed and cradled.  He hungered.  He needed a changing.  He slept.  He gave up his equality with God.  Paul writes, “taking the very nature of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a. cross.” (Phil. 2:7-8)

    Our second color for tonight is red.  Jesus, the wondrous Babe of Bethlehem, came to die the death of a sacrificial lamb.  He came to make a conquest of life and death with new life.  The red blood of the cross would lead to the hues of heaven.  Jesus came to offer our world hope and peace.  Jesus came so that our lives would be less “blue” and more royal.

    Our third color for tonight is black.  Dark.  Deadly.  Blots out the light.  The infant child would become the man Jesus.  He would experience darkness at His death.  He would enter the darkest, blackest place you can imagine – the din of hell itself.  He would go in our place.  He would enter in dark and come out in light.  He declared victory over the devil, He overcame sin for us, He has taken away the blackness of our own death.  We shall see the light when we enter the eternal palace.

    That leads us to our fourth color for tonight – white.  The liturgical color for both Christmas and Easter.  They are tied together.  Christ has to be born to die and rise again.  Christ had to become man to pay for the world’s transgressions.  Christ came in our place so that when we face death all we see is white.  The angels of heaven.  The brilliance of the Lamb around the throne.  White light forever and forever.  There is no darkness.

    This Christmas we are reminded that these are color swatches in time.  Christ grew beyond the shades of human coloring to be the vivid Lord of all.  From cradle to cross.  From Bethlehem’s cave to Calvary’s crucifixion.  Jesus painted an image of God’s immense love for us.  

    As we savor the goodness of His love in a simple wafer of bread and sip of wine, we recognize that Jesus imbues our lives with more than color – He offers forgiveness and love that never blur or fade or wash out.

    Let us, then, like the shepherds, savor the miracle of Christmas and experience the baby blue of God’s grace and His salvation.

                        Amen.