Sermon Texts

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.     

December 18, 2022                                Text:  Isaiah 7:10-17

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Is God with us?  Is Immanuel here?  This must have been a question of the Boston College football team on November 28, 1942.  They were the top-ranked football team in the nation and that day they were playing Holy Cross before 41,000 at Fenway Park.  Boston College had only allowed 19 points in eight games.  Holy Cross was a three-touchdown underdog.  That day the Holy Cross Crusaders defeated Boston College 55-12.  The largest margin of defeat by a top-ranked team in college football.  A loss.  A defeat.  A bad day for the Boston College team.  Because of this defeat the team cancelled a victory party that night at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub.  That same night, 492 people died when the Cocoanut Grove caught fire.  The 2nd largest loss of life in a fire in the United States.  

    There are two ways to look at that story.  Some will say God was there because a football defeat saved the lives of many young men.  Some will say He wasn’t there because 492 perished.  How do you see it?

“IS GOD WITH US?”

    If you have a hard time with these questions, you are not alone.  You are not the first to question God’s presence.  There are very few humans who have never questioned God.  It has been ongoing since He brought people into the world.

    God had a great relationship with Adam and Eve.  Walking and talking.  His presence was obvious.  Once the serpent led them into sin, they started to doubt His reliability.

    Moses ran into this problem when he went to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God.  The people got fidgety and began to question the presence of God.  By Exodus 32 they came to the amazing conclusion that God didn’t exist so they had to make their own god – the golden calf.  When God didn’t respond, they concluded He was no longer there.

    This is what we see in our text from Isaiah 7.  King Ahaz doubted God was with him.  God had promised to be with his people forever but now they are surrounded by foreign armies.  They looked around and were not sold on God’s presence.

    Enter Isaiah.  His message was short and direct to King Ahaz.  God is with you.  He said so.  Believe, man.  God even goes to this extreme.  He invites Ahaz to ask him for a sign.  But Ahaz wouldn’t do it.  He had already lost his faith.  He had already put his faith in a “golden calf”; this time it was an alliance with a foreign army.

    That is when Isaiah spoke those words that Matthew would quote seven hundred years later.  You don’t trust God enough to ask for a sign?  “The Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (v. 14)

    How many times do we act like King Ahaz?  Is God with me?  We have been baptized into His name.  We hear His Word of assurance constantly.  We see Him working through His means in the world.  You and I are the most blessed people in the history of the world. 
It should be an easy call, but we let our eyes deceive us.  “The world’s a crappy place.”  “Where is God now that I have cancer?”  “He can’t be here.  Come hang out with my family for a day.”  The serpent has us believing that God isn’t reliable.  “Take a look around man, you must be a fool.”  Are we?

    Sinful fools maybe but can’t we see the Lord at work?  A child born to a maiden?  C’mon God can’t you do better than this?  Immanuel appeared as Jesus.  This child was and is the eternal Son of God.  He is God’s sign.  He is God’s proof.  He is God’s guarantee that He with us.  This is why Christmas is big.  God with us – He came to save us.

    In 1946 at the Los Alamos Atomic Laboratory Dr. Louis Alexander Slotin and seven co-workers were experimenting with plutonium.  Harmless by itself but deadly in certain combinations.  A chain reaction started.  The room filled with radioactivity.  Slotin acted at once.  He separated the pieces of plutonium with his bare hands.  He died nine days later.  His actions saved his colleagues.

    When God became Immanuel He didn’t come into the world as a safe, sterile laboratory experiment to study how things were down here.  He became part of our world – – our sinful, corrupt world, dangerous, dripping with death.  And our sin and death He got all over His hands, knowing it will kill Him – and save us.

    God is with you.  You know that because of your Baptism.  As you scurry from one errand to another, one gathering and then another.  Remember your Baptism – in the way you treat clerks and other shoppers, in the way you treat visiting loved ones that may be hard to love, in the way you select gifts for others.  Your Baptism is a sign that babe is the manger is not only the Savior of the world.  He is your Savior from sin.  

    Think back to the opening illustration.  Was God there?  Yes.  In good times and bad times.  In wins and losses.  In life and death.  Always with us . . . until we are with Him.

                                                Amen.    

December 14, 2022 – Advent                                    Text:  Isaiah 9:6

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Are we at peace tonight?  In one way, yes.  Our church is pretty peaceful in the evening.  The lights of Advent/Christmas, the cross, the banner, the fellowship of our fellow members.  We can come into this sanctuary and have a peaceful time.

    How far to do we have to venture before that peace starts to wane?  Economic uncertainty, government honesty and encroachment, conflict in the home, random killings.  Take a wider path and nations continue to fight nations.  There has never been a time in our lifetimes where countries have not been at war with one another.  We have men and women around the world trying to keep the peace.  It’s a battle.

    We need some help, but not from human beings who have shunned God and therefore find themselves jumping from one failed solution to another.  There is only One who can give us help.  We are preparing to celebrate His birth.

“THIS CHILD IS . . . THE PRINCE OF PEACE”

    Let’s fix these words on our hearts this evening as they continue to build and intensify.  “See that no one leads you astray.  For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.  And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.  See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place (must, not might), but the end is not yet.  For nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matt. 24:7-8)

    Why do men and women continue to think we can find peace within ourselves?  Is heaven on earth within the grasp of man?  Do these words of Jesus say anything close to that?  Has the Camp David Peace Accord or Détente or any other various peace agreements held on forever?  The first peace treaty was in 3100 BC and the latest in 2021.  In between have been thousands of such pacts.  Do you see the peace that they strive for?

    Have you seen this bumper sticker?  “It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity.”  What our technology has done is exacerbate the flaws of humanity.  It intrudes into our personal lives, created a massive arena for gossip and slander, distracts communication and thought, and has dumbed down worship and growth in the Word of God.  In the last month I have had two instances of church business.  What used to take a one-minute phone call now takes 20 minutes on a computer and the frustration of creating another password.  Why, oh why, must be complicate things?  Peace, hah!

    We need these words of Jesus.  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.” (John 14:27). We need His peace.  When we stand before God we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We are enemies of God, separated from God by our sin.  We have no peace within ourselves apart from Christ.

    Christ intervened.  “But God shows his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  God is at peace with us.  For the sake of Christ’s suffering and death, the wrath against us because of sin has been removed.  We are no longer an enemy of God.  

    Commentator Gary P. Baumler writes:  “Jesus’ peace is not the same as the world’s peace.  It doesn’t depend on harmony between countries and tranquility in families.  It isn’t as fragile as the next temper flare-up or grab for power.  It isn’t disturbed by plans gone awry.  Even Jesus’ arrest, trial, torture, and crucifixion couldn’t cancel it.  Jesus’ peace calms troubled hearts and makes fearful hearts confident.  His peace transcends human understanding and sustains us in all conditions.  His peace keeps us at one with God and serene in our salvation.  We need not be afraid or overcome by troubled hearts.”

    How significant are the words of Paul?  “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus’ peace is beyond us.  It is above man’s mind.  It is grace.  Though still sinful and at times ignoring God and our walk with Him, because of the work of Jesus, He is always there and He always loves us.

    Of course, we still live in the moment.  Our lives can be chaotic.  The world a wicked place.  Shortly after the Apostle Paul was stoned at Lystra, the disciples declared to the church then – and now – “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”  No commentary needed.  Just our ears.

    As King David wrote, “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”.  We venture through it day by day.  Yet, our Prince of Peace, who has gone ahead of us says, “I have overcome the world.”  He has.  The Prince of Peace says, “Let not your hearts be troubled.”  It is the Prince of Peace who says to our still sinful ways, “…whoever believes…is not condemned.”

    Finally, it is this Prince of Peace who enters our daily walk in the valley of the shadow of death and enables us to say, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

                            Amen.