Author: TechCommittee

May 19, 2024 Text:  John 15:26-27; 4b-15

Dear Friends in Christ,

We all have things about us that we don’t want to face.   For me, it is my age.  My whole life I have been the young whippersnapper.  Kindergarten at age 4, high school graduation at 17, the youngest in my class at seminary.  Recently at our joint Ascension Worship with Christ Lutheran one of their members came up to me and asked, “How long have you been here?”  I answered, “25 years.”  She replied, “I still remember when you came, we all thought you were 15.”  I feel great, can still compete athletically, and God pulls the strings of life and laughs, “Lueck, you are going to be a grandpa.”  What?!  All of us have things we don’t want to admit.  It can be hard to handle the truth.

Today we celebrate the coming of the Spirit of truth – the Holy Spirit promised by our Lord.  Are you happy about the Spirit’s appearing?

‘HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH?”

Our fear of the truth has pretty much put its meaning up for grabs.  According to apologist Greg Koukl, truth in our age is so nebulous that we are living with our “feet firmly planted in midair,” with nothing absolute in which to ground ourselves.  Truth suffers everywhere.  In our politics, in our education, in our business dealings, in our sports, in our institutions, even in our churches.  It is easy to see in others.  Do we see it in ourselves?

A biblical great had a hard facing the truth.  He was a King.  Went by the name David.  Had an affair with a bathtub beauty named Bathsheba.  Got her pregnant.  Had her husband killed.  Takes this war-widow as one of his wives.  David hopes no one knows – but God does.  Sends in a man on a mission.  Went by the name Nathan.  He tells David a little story and David gets enraged.  David wants justice.

David goes so far as to say, “The man who has done this deserves to die.”  What follows is one of the great dramatic moments in the Bible.  Nathan looks the king in the ye and says, “You are the man!” (2 Sam. 12:5, 7)  Ouch.  The ugly truth has to be faced.  David would repent and write in Psalm 51:3, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

The Spirit of truth is not sent purely for us to see the truth in our lives.  The Spirit testifies and points to the Word, revealing that God is truth, Jesus is truth, the Spirit is truth.  God is true to his Word.  The Spirit of truth comes convicting the “world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” (v. 8-9)

We know the long, dark shadow of David’s sin, covers us in darkness.  We like to keep our sins hidden.  We can spin some pretty good yarns to ward off suspicion and keep our reputation.  Whether forced to or confronted, the Spirit pierces our hearts and opens us up to reality.  He comes and says, “You are the man!  You are the woman!”  Not someone from the news channel or the internet or the great evil that is out there.  You.  You have been convicted.  How are you handling that truth?

There is another truth.  We can praise God for this truth.  Jesus promises, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” (v. 26)  God’s Word convicts of sin and judgment, but this same Spirit will also convict us of righteousness.  

The Spirit delivers this righteousness that our Savior has won for us by shedding His blood on the cross.  The Gospel delivers the beautiful truth that, despite our sin, God is for us.  God is true to His Word.  This Jesus died for us, rose for us, reigns for us, prays for us.  “God is faithful and just and will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn. 1:9)

I have a hard time facing my age.  The gray hair in the mirror gives it away.  I could try to cover it up with some chemicals, but the gray is always going to be there.  Much like sin.  We can try to hide it, but it is always there.  It isn’t going away until Jesus welcomes us into heaven.  I am probably always going to compete against my age.  It is who God made me to be.  I ask for his help in handling the truth.

What about you?  Where do you need to do some soul searching?  What truth do you have a hard time facing?  Remember this, in God’s household, there is life.  It is the life of Jesus Christ for the death of this world.  When you make the wrong choice, recognize it and repent.  The Spirit gives each of us this beautiful truth:  righteousness in exchange for guilt, forgiveness in exchange for shame, and life in exchange for death.  

The Spirit of the Truth, the Helper has come.  The Father takes what is His and declares it to you.  You can handle it right – Life and Truth?

Amen.    

May 12, 2024 Text:  1 John 5:9-15

Dear Friends in Christ,

About 15 years ago Anthony Esolen wrote this in an article entitled “Nowhere Man.”  “’Behold,’ says the Psalmist, ‘I searched for the place of the wicked man, and he was no more.’  It is the second clause (his place knows him no more) that expresses the greater dread, of a death beyond death.  It is the terrible prospect of a total and unalterable severance – expressed as a loss of place.  How should it be, if one were wiped clean from the memory of earth and heaven and all that dwell therein?  How should it be, not to cease to live, but to have one’s few days of life delivered over – in their essence – to nothingness?”

Western Civilization has succeeded.  It has reduced the Christ to a minor player on the stage of human history.   What has been, what is, and what’s to come will not be altered by Him who sits in the heavens and laughs.  When it comes to Christ and possessing eternal salvation . . .

“EITHER YOU DO OR YOU DON’T”

John writes, “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son.  Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.  Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son.” 

Concerning these verses, it has been correctly noted by Mark Jeske:  “People of all cultures are used to hearing human testimony in court and assigning great weight to it.  How much more impact does the Christian message have since God is talking!”  And this insight.  “There is only one truth – God’s truth…Christianity is not one of many philosophies that you can select interesting views and ideas from as though in a cafeteria.”

Well, our text says it, “Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar.”  The hatred may grow in intensity against Christ and the Church, but Paul gives this chilling truth.  “Do be deceived:  God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.” (Gal 6:7)

I want to live forever, don’t you?  Not here though.  In heaven, with the Triune God.  The older I get the less I want to put up with the crap of this world.  It all ends eventually at the grave.  But John gets us past the grave when he writes, “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Either you do or you don’t.  There is no middle ground in Scripture.  The wages of human sin is always death.  Christ alone enters humanity and offers the alternative.  It’s a gift.  Given to the sinful and undeserving.  God has given to us eternal life in his Son. 

Many of you know George Orwell’s book 1984.  Orwell was a socialist.  In 1940 he wrote of Europe’s rejection of God, and he approved of that.  But listen to how he expressed his approval:  “For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on.  (Like the present pruning going on in America).  And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came.  But unfortunately there had been a little mistake:  the thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire . . . It appears that amputation of the soul isn’t just a simple surgical job, like having your appendix out.  The wound has a tendency to go septic.”

Wow!  Man does reap what he sows.  Either you believe in the Son or you don’t.  You can’t straddle the tree branch.  “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (v. 12)  There are a lot of people around us crashing to the ground who need our prayers.

Friend, you have got to do something with Jesus.  By the power of the Holy Spirit embrace Him.  Or by human might reject Him.  Either hang on to Him or throw Him out.  There is no in-between.  Another way.  A something else.

We are identified with Christ. You sang it with belief, didn’t you?  “The Church’s one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord…With his own blood He bought her, And for her life He died.”  He died for our sins and then rose for our eternity.  Christ comes to you and I again and again in the Word and the Sacrament.  He did it all…for us.  We are so identified with Him that it isn’t an issue of either we do or either we don’t know and find comfort in His mercy and eternal life.  It is not “either you do or you don’t” for us.

We do.  Forever.

Amen.  

May 5, 2024     Text:  1 John 5:1-8

Dear Friends in Christ,

In our English language we have words that can have two opposite meanings.  One of those words is “overwhelm.”  On the news this week, we saw towns “overwhelmed” by tornadoes.  A city can be “overwhelmed” by an invading army.  We can be “overwhelmed” with grief at the death of a loved one.  In all these examples, “overwhelmed” is negative.  But it can also be used in a positive way.  I was “overwhelmed” with joy at the outpouring of support.  

The disciples saw it played out in their lives.  They were called to work alongside the Savior of the world and their world was turned upside down.  They were “overwhelmed” by the miracles and the healings and the way this man spoke.  Positive.  They also had times of being “overwhelmed” by the waves at sea or the soldiers marching into the garden or the trial and horrible crucifixion.  Peter’s denial and Judas’ betrayal “overwhelmed” them with sin and guilt.  Negative.

John knew the feeling.  John writes today to the Christian congregations so that they would not be “overwhelmed” by the world.  Which way is it going to be . . . 

“OVERWHELMED OR OVERCOMING?”

False claims were rampant when John writes this.  The virgin birth was denied, Jesus and the Christ were divided, and Jesus was buried but had not risen.  People had been conquered by the world.

People are still conquered by the world.  The virgin birth is still denied.  God becoming man is denied.  Jesus rising from the dead is denied.  All we have are new faces being put on the same heresies. 

We do not want to be “overwhelmed” by these deniers.  We don’t want to become complacent, or compromise our faith.  We do not want to stand in fear of rejection or conflict.  The world is powerful.  The voices of the world are powerful.  The devil is working.  How do we know all this?  Because there are pews in this sanctuary this morning that were formerly occupied by every Sunday worshippers and leaders in our church.  They now sit in silence because their hearts and minds have been “overwhelmed” by the world.  It is probably about the saddest thing a Pastor and congregation can experience.

John’s encouragement is that we “overcome” the world.  “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” (v. 1).  We overcome as we love and live out the command of God in our lives with one another.  Christ sacrificed on the cross our sins of doubt and complacency and compromise and silence.  

This faith in Jesus as the Law-keeping, sin-bearing Redeemer of the world is the “victory that has overcome the world.” (v. 4). The world’s desires pass away and the one who “does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:17)

The object of our faith is Jesus the Christ.  He secured the victory for us by “the Spirit and the water and the blood.”  The life-giving Holy Spirit, by the life-cleansing water of Baptism, connects us to the life-redeeming blood of Jesus, who has overcome the world.  Jesus is God enfleshed coming to us yet today in his body and blood here in the sacrament of the Altar.  The church is nourished and overcomes the world.

In Christ we have overcome the world.  Without him the world would “overwhelm” us.  Victory in Christ.  That is the theme by which Sat. John lived and with which St. John died.  Christ breathed that divine theme into the Revelation of John, his last testimony to the churches John so loved.  In the New King James version of the Bible John uses the word “overcomes” seven different times.  Here are just two of those verses.  Revelation 2:7 – “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life.”  Revelation 3:5 – “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”

We are not “overwhelmed” by the world – or by whatever may happen to us in it – because we are, as St. John says, those who, in Jesus Christ, are overcoming the world.

Amen. 

April 28, 2024 Text:  1 John 4:1-11

Dear Friends in Christ,

You are familiar with Catherine the Great and Alexander the Great, but do you know Abbas the Great or Cnut the Great, or even that Herod was called Great.  We have the Great Lakes and Great Wall of China.  In the last ten years someone came up with GOAT – Greatest of All Time.  We use this in sports.  Is Michael or the Lebron the greatest basketball player.  For football is the greatest a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver.  In baseball, pitcher or hitter.  The only sport where everyone agrees is in hockey, where Wayne Gretzky is known as “The Great One.”  This all means they are greater than others.

Our text identifies the one who is truly and eternally and universally greater than all others, and it assures that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (v. 4)

“GREATER THAN . . . “

The world has always been made up of competing belief systems and ideologies.  We might call them the “spirits of the age.”  They want to claim us as their own.

John warns his hearers, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit.”  Every belief system is not the same.  If you are not connected to the “vine” of Jesus Christ as heard in our Gospel, then some other ideology is controlling your mind.  

In our First reading today, we had Philip and the eunuch.  The eunuch lived in a culture not connected to Christ.  As Philip talked this man was changed and eventually baptized.  He had overcome the “spirit of the age.”

The aged John wrote this letter around AD 80. The prominent city in this Greco-Roman culture was Ephesus.  It was a diverse city by the sea.  Its temples and works of art attracted tourists.  Unbridled sexuality was expressed openly in the public theater and arts.  It prided itself on religious diversity.  Ephesus was internationally recognized as a “sanctuary city.”  All of this challenged the faith of John’s “little children.”  Therefore, he warned that these “spirits” could lead them astray.  They were to test these spirits.  Were they of Christ or apart from Christ.  He stayed connected with them as they engaged in this spiritual warfare.  Just like a parent today whose son or daughter leaves home to study or work in Chicago, New York, San Francisco.

“Do not believe every spirit.”  The spirit of compromise or the confession of Scripture?  The spirit of relativism or the “the way, the truth, and the life” as uttered by Jesus?  The spirit of immorality or making the God blessed choice?  The spirit of toleration or calling something wrong?  The spirit of intimidation wrought by political correctness or standing firm in the pages of the Bible?

Test all of this.  “We are from God.  Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.  By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (v. 6).   St. John says the “spirits” are discernable.   How?  “By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” (vs. 2-3)

It is and always will be about Jesus.  Jesus is greater than…the spirits of every age.  Jesus is greater than…the spirit that minimizes or denies human sinfulness.  Christ dies for it.  Jesus is greater than…the spirit of the antichrist working in the world.  Jesus is greater than…our sin of giving in to those spirits in thought, word, deed.  Jesus is greater…than our heart when it condemns us.  Jesus is greater than…the world working to overcome us.  Christ’s dying and rising overcomes.

As we confess Christ, God abides in us.  The Ethiopian eunuch received Christ through Baptism.  We too as we are baptized into Christ.  John spoke about the Word of life.  We see with our eyes and receive with our hands the crucified and risen body and blood in the Holy Supper.  This greater than meal sustains us.

As the “Spirit of truth” moves in us we love one another.  We bear Christ and confess Christ to one another and to the spirit of the age.   We dispense with fear.  We are not afraid of the world and who is in it.  Holden told me recently of a group of men sharing Christ in and around the bars of downtown Bloomington on a weekend evening.  Could you and I do that?  They can.  We should have it in us because we know this truth, “he who is in us is greater than . . . he who is in the world.”

Amen.      

April 21, 2024 Text:  John 10:11-18

Dear Friends in Christ,

Remember the game show Let’s Make A Deal?  Hosted by Monty Hall, the players had choices.  Many times, the choice would be between something they already had and what was behind door #1, door #2, or door #3.  Sometimes it was a better prize – a car or vacation – but at other times it would be a donkey or big stuffed animal or a car that wouldn’t run.  

In our text for today it is about Jesus being the Good Shepherd.  In fact, John 10:1-18, is all about this theme.  Preceding our text, in verses 7 & 9 Jesus calls Himself “the door.”  I like that.  A door has two sides.  There is a blessed thing about Jesus:  Jesus is both the Good Shepherd and a door.

John 10 gives us this good news that Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Door . . .

“PROTECTS HIS SHEEP”

Hello fellow sheep.  Do you need some protection?  Again, a door has two sides.  On one side Jesus is providing his grace and mercy.  He opens His gracious hand to provide us pasture and living water – food and drink.  On the other side He closes the door so that we receive protection from the thieves and wolves.  We need help so the false shepherds do not steal our soul.

In the First Reading from Acts, the leaders of Israel were annoyed because the disciples were teaching about the resurrection of Jesus.  After all that had happened, they still didn’t believe.  The wolves, the Sadducees and high priests, wanted to scatter the flock.  Peter, moved by the Holy Spirit made this wonderful witness, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Let’s go back to a famous door.  One day, on orders from the Almighty, Noah and his sons built an ark.  This ark had a door.  The rains started up and at some point, Noah and his family boarded the ark.  Then what did they do?  They closed the door.  When that happened, the rain fell for God’s judgment.  For the people who still had faith, this small group of eight, the door provided protection.  Eventually, the rain would subside and Noah was able to open the door and reveal God’s Blessing on the earth.  Judgment was also present.  The door was shut on those who did not believe.  It was the same door, but your eternal fate was determined on which side of the door you were on.

Like on Let’s Make A Deal, we enter doors all the time that reveal something new.  Someone’s home you have never been to, a new school you will be attending, a hotel room in a foreign city, a restaurant you have been excited to chow down at, a medical room awaiting a doctor’s diagnosis, a funeral home to pick out a casket.  Some doors you can’t wait for.  Some doors you would like to never face.

No matter what you find behind the door, the Good Shepherd is there.  You receive Jesus as your Lord and master.  Outside these doors, many are rejecting Jesus.  They are outside the ark we might say.  Judgment is raining down.  

But you are safe.  Just like Noah was safe from the wind and waves and flooding waters, you are safe from God’s judgment.  You are protected from the wrath of God.  Sheep are put into pens with doors closed to keep out the wolves.  In the same way, Jesus is watching over you and keeping you safe from the devil and his evil angels.  Inside these doors of our church, God feeds and nourishes you.  You hear His voice in the preaching and proclamation of God’s Word.  You drink from the living water that flows from the baptismal font.  You eat the food that he has prepared at his banquet table, bread and wine that is his body and blood that offers you forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

Don’t be afraid.  Let the Holy Spirit take your hand.  Reach out.  Turn the knob.  Open it.  Go ahead.  Heaven and all its glory, all the blessings of God Almighty given for you. Come, enter through the door that is Jesus and find your Good Shepherd waiting for you.

Amen.  

April 7, 2024 Text:  John 20:19-31

Dear Friends in Christ,

If you are a parent, there is one moment that stands out.  The first time you got to touch your baby boy or baby girl.  The skin, the warmth, your flesh and blood in your arms.  It’s emotional.  It’s life-changing.  You can’t forget that time.  I couldn’t stop kissing the boys.  That touch that started in Overland Park, Kansas and Normal, Illinois delivery rooms continues to this day.

Touch is so important.  The disciple Thomas was a toucher.  It was a moment in his life he won’t soon forget.  

“THE TOUCH OF THE LORD”

The research is clear, people, especially children need touch.  If children are not touched, they grow at a slower rate, they are sicker, they have more trouble socially and they display more angry and depressed emotions.

It doesn’t stop there.  When you meet that special someone, you want to hold hands, put your arms around each other, sit close.  Do you married couples have that secret touch between the two of you that says, “I love you.”

We need that kind of touch.  The one that says love, assurance, closeness, comfort, happiness.  Touch says the other person is there, alive, real – and so are you.

We get to Thomas.  He’s a doubter.  A little skeptical.  See, he wasn’t there when Jesus first appeared risen from the dead.  He would not believe unless he touched Jesus.  “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (v. 25)

It is over a week later that Jesus appears.  Jesus must know that Thomas is doubting because it is Jesus who says these words, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.  Do not disbelieve, but believe.” (v. 27)  Just the right touch.  He gets to touch the Lord and Thomas says, “My Lord and my God.” (v. 28)

In Jesus’ lifetime there was a lot of people who needed to see him.  There were people who needed to touch him and be touched by him.  When he blessed the children in Luke 18.  When he placed the mud on the eyes of the man born blind in John 9.  The woman who needed to touch his cloak in Luke 8.  The washing of the disciples’ feet in John 13.  Those are just a few of the many times that the touch of the Lord was important.

We need the touch of the Lord.  The sign of the cross on our forehead and hearts and then the water touching our head in Baptism.  Jesus is there.  At the baptismal font, we touch and have been touched by Jesus in just the right way.

As we come to the altar the touch of the Lord is here.  He has promised to be in that piece of bread and sip of wine.  His body.  His blood.  The living Jesus, right there.  Among us.  Touching us.  Jesus is close to us and saying, “I love you.”  He is giving assurance, comfort, and joy as he purifies us from all sin.  He is real, present, and alive – and so are we when we touch that bread and wine, that body and blood.

When we are touched by the Lord, we then extend that touch to others.  In ministry touch is so important.  The sick and the dying and the struggling want to know that someone is there.  As members of Christ, we give hugs to our fellow brothers and sisters.  We give mutual consolation to each other.  In a way, that’s Jesus touching us through his Church.

One day we will have the same joy and wonder of touching Jesus as Thomas did.  His resurrection says our hope is that touch and being touched will not end at the grave, but will be ours again on the Last Day and for all eternity.  The leper, the abandoned child, the brokenhearted, the grieving parents, the son who remembers – all need the touch of the Lord.  Jesus incredible gift to us is that we are, and we will be touched by the Lord.

Amen.