March 28, 2024 – Maundy Thursday Text:  Luke 22:7-20

Dear Friends in Christ,

Things in our “God on Trial” series are about to get hectic, a little crazy.  The enemies of Jesus are ready to pounce.  Judas is now on their payroll, and it could happen at any minute.  Somewhere out there in the city, they lurk and conspire.

Soon it will come to a head:  their plot – and God’s plan.  Here is what is coming in the next 24 hours – the mob arrest in Gethsemane, the trials before Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod, and Pilate again; the crucifixion and death on Calvary, and the burial in the tomb.

But not yet.  For a few hours in this second-floor room, it is just Jesus and his disciples.  How He has longed for this moment.

“RESPITE”

This time with his disciples is precious to him.  He enjoys being around them.  It is a good respite before the turmoil.

It is more than that, of course.  They are not just hanging out watching the NCAA basketball tournament.  They have gathered to celebrate the Passover – to remember the night the Lord rescued the Israelites from Egypt.  The Lord led them out of slavery, and they celebrated with a meal.

It was not just a look to the past but also a look ahead.  The perfect Lamb of God, the Christ would be sacrificed for the people.  His blood would protect them from God’s wrath.  He would give them freedom from their slavery to sin and death.  

We haven’t hit on the best part yet.  On this night for the first time, Jesus grants to his people his real body and blood, the very things he’ll give in death the next day.  He gives a down payment on the new covenant, the new pact God will make with sinners – sealed with Jesus’ blood shed on the cross – a promise of forgiveness through faith.  Jesus institutes a meal that is still being celebrated every week in Christian Churches around the world.  How we long to take our places at the table.

Our enemies, like Judas, are ready to pounce.  They lurk outside these walls looking to put God and his people on trial.  They ridicule the words God has given us and conspire to prevent those words from influencing our culture and our children.  That is why it is good to be in this room, God’s House with God’s people.

We cannot deny that we bring our sin in here.  The church doors are not some kind of airlock that keeps spiritual contaminants out.  Where there are sinners, there is sin.  Sin was in the upper room in the hearts of the disciples.  We drag our guilt in here with us for all the times we have been easy prey for our greatest enemy.  We carry in our doubts and fears.

Which is why we need to be here.  In this room, Jesus gathers us together to assure us that his blood covers our sins and shields us from God’s anger.  When you hear God’s Word here, Jesus is speaking to your hearts just as if he were sitting across the table from you.  More than that, he invites you to the table.  Gives you his body and blood in an unbreakable pact, a promise of forgiveness through faith, sealed with the blood of the Lamb of God.

When do you need a respite?  For me it will be next week.  The last two months have been crazy busy.  But I am not alone.  In this sanctuary we have people changing jobs, planning to move out of state, contemplating their future, traveling for work or pleasure.  We have others dealing with sickness, chronic pain, or family problems that won’t go away.  The reasons we need a respite are endless.

Tonight, Jesus gives the invitation.  “Come with me to a quiet room.  Come recline at my table.  Let’s celebrate a special meal together.  I have made the preparations, there is nothing you need to do.  The food is ready.  The drink is prepared.  It is my body and blood.  Let me serve you.  Let me strengthen you for the struggle of tomorrow.”  Here, in this moment, at this table, it is just you and Jesus and the company of heaven.

And one more thing.  As Jesus gathers us, he gathers us together in one body.  To your right and to your left, here at Jesus’ Table, are your brothers and sisters, who are fighting alongside you, facing the same enemies, needing the same Divine strength, and receiving the same forgiveness with you.

It is about to get hectic, but this Supper is a respite.  Here we find peace.  Here we kneel in the presence of God.  Here we are surrounded by his people.  Here it’s like . . .

Heaven.

Amen.  

March 24, 2024 – Palm Sunday       Text:  Zechariah 9:9-12

Dear Friends in Christ,

A few weeks back I was watching a college basketball game between Creighton University and the University of Connecticut.  U Conn at the time was the #1 ranked team in college basketball.  Creighton beat them.  This brought the usual storming of the court by the students.  As I watched this unfold on our television, I focused in on one student in the middle of the melee.  He was hopping up and down with his phone in one hand well over his head, probably filming the whole thing.  He was totally oblivious to everything else, but he was getting the picture or video he wanted.  It was all about him.  Can’t anybody enjoy the moment these days without getting out their phone?  Don’t we all have less pictures in our homes these days because we no longer have cameras?  So much of history is going to be lost to cyberspace, but that is a whole other sermon. 

Today is Palm Sunday, and while we don’t get the gospels we used to get as kids that told the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey, we get a glimpse of it in today’s Old Testament lesson.  So come along . . .

“FOLLOWING THE DONKEY”

We begin, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Jesus is riding into the fray of chariots, war horses, and battle-bows.  He rides and is ready to cut them off with merely a word.  Once more today we welcome heaven’s King.  He arrives in triumph but still rides that same old donkey.  His technology hasn’t changed.  His mount is as effective in cutting off a chariot or war horse as it would be in a dogfight against an F-15.  Apparently, no matter the age, this is the only way he enters the world’s battles.

He faces the hostile crowds and the empire’s governor and soldiers with nothing but his integrity, memory of His Baptism and the word of truth that declared who He is.  We have seen him arrive so many times that we know how the journey ends, with beatings and torture.  The King comes into his glory on a wooden, cross-shaped bloodied throne.

Every year we follow the donkey.  We walk beside the donkey-rider.  What are we going to witness when we get to Jerusalem?  Are we jumping around the donkey rider with our phone trying to get a picture for our Facebook or Instagram account?  Or are we paying attention to what is happening?  See, it is not about you and snapping the right photo.  Nobody cares….except the one on the donkey.  That is where our eyes and ears should be focused.  

We follow closely as he takes us into places he warned us about.  We too stand before kings, governors, the powerful rulers for his sake, armed with our integrity and grounded in our Baptism.  We hear that voice, “You are my child.  Our lives are bound up with each other.”  

The donkey rider leads us into boardrooms and classrooms and prisons and kitchens and bedrooms where people with powerful words rip and tear at each other.  He leads us to so many places, all named Golgotha, where the innocent are caught in deadly traps, where children and dreams die together in such numbers that we cannot even remember them for their sheer multitude.  Those places become our places in this world, the places where we most truly belong.

What is this donkey rider going to do?  He is going to cut off the chariot and the war horse and the battle bow.  He is going to speak peace to the nations and through his blood bought covenant he is going to set us prisoners free from our waterless pit.  He will restore us and make us prisoners of hope.  Knowing the dungeon of our sin has been expunged by the donkey rider. 

Our journey in following the donkey can be at times fearful and lonely.  But we have been following since Advent when Isaiah bid us to rise up from our far-off exile and make a glorious return to Jerusalem on the King’s grand, new highway.  The prophet promised that we would go out in joy and be led back in peace.  The hills and mountains would burst into song and the trees would clap their hands in accompaniment.

So, when we find ourselves in the wilderness, we need to remember to sing.  “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna!”  The hills echo our songs.  And the trees?  Yes, they did applaud. 

We are still singing today as we go into Jerusalem.  We must follow the donkey because we are about to witness our salvation.  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Jerusalem!  The praise of our gentle King will carry us onward as we follow the donkey.

Amen. 

March 20, 2024 – Lent Text:  Luke 23:26-34

Dear Friends in Christ,

There are less and less Christians in the United States.  A middle schooler is shamed by his teacher in front of the class for saying he believes God created the world.  A woman loses her job for refusing to go along with immoral and unethical behavior.  People give caricatures of Christians that are unflattering.  Does any of this bother you?  Should we look for pity?  Is that what Jesus would say?  

Jesus sure makes for a sympathetic figure on his way to Golgotha.  Actually, pathetic might be a better word.  His back is shredded.  Face is mangled from the punches.  Blood is dripping from the thorns.  He has been up all night and is exhausted, he can’t even carry his own cross.  And you Christians, this is your Savior from sin?  Ha!

No wonder the women were mourning.  They were in tears at the brutality.  As He walks to the cross does Jesus need our  . . . 

“SYMPATHY”

Well, does he?  Look at the text.  “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.”  Just five days earlier, Jesus had wept for the people of Jerusalem.  Because they rejected the Messiah, they would experience God’s judgment.  History records that is what happened to mothers and children when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem a generation later. 

Jesus uses a proverb for a warning.  “For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (v. 31).   Jesus is saying that if he, the innocent one, was tortured and put to death, how much more could the sinful inhabitants of Jerusalem expect to suffer and die?  Could we turn that saying toward us?  If Jesus, the perfect Son of God, was put on trial and suffered, why would we sinners be surprised when the same happens to us?

When we watch Christianity decline, when we see portions of society leaving godly values behind, when we might experience some form of rejection because of our Jesus connection, do we see ourselves as victims in need of sympathy?  If we do, then we have lost perspective.  We still are blessed in our freedom to worship and to wear a cross and to say a prayer and witness to our faith.  Look around the world brothers and sisters at our fellow Christians in other parts of the world who are hiding for their faith, smuggling in their Bibles and going to jail for preaching Christ crucified.  If we are playing the woe-is-me mentality than we are sinfully self-centered.

God never told us to play the victim.  Self-pity is the opposite of what we see in
Jesus.  His pity is not for himself but for the women – and the children and their husbands and all their countrymen who are going to suffer.  His pity extends to the cross, “Father, forgive them.”  Forgive who?  The disciples?  Those poor women?  No, the soldiers who are driving the nails through his hands and feet.

  Jesus’ words reveal a heart focused not on self but on others.  Jesus had sympathy for us.  Relish that for a moment.  Jesus didn’t just weep for you, he took God’s punishment for you.  He died for you.  He shed his blood to cover you, to hide you from the destruction to come.  Through pain and fatigue and insult, you were on his mind.

Jesus can sympathize with us in our weakness.  His heart still goes out to us when we suffer, including and especially when we suffer for his name.  Don’t wallow in self-pity.  Look past yourself to him.  Let him help you carry your crosses and give you strength in His Word and Sacraments.  

He allows us to have sympathy for our brothers and sisters in the faith who are struggling with pain and temptation.  We have fellow Christians feeling alone because of the attacks on their faith.  Our Savior would have us pray for them, reach out to them, and remind them of his promises.

Then our Lord would direct our sympathy toward our enemies.  There is a destruction coming that is worse than what happened to Jerusalem.  The people of the world, even the ones who make our lives harder as Christians, don’t know it’s coming!  Just like those putting God on trial.  They do not realize they are fighting against the Son of God, and they have no idea how badly that fight will end for them. 

What can we do for these misguided souls?  Warn them.  Pray for them.  Tell them about God’s forgiveness.  Point them to a Savior whose compassion knows no limit.  In other words, let’s save the sympathy for others.  God can change their hearts, like he did a centurion soldier – “Surely he was the Son of God.”  May that be our prayer.

Amen.    

March 17, 2024         Text:  Hebrews 5:1-10

Dear Friends in Christ,

You need the backstory to a God-ordained moment.  I pick the hymns and sermon texts a month at a time.  This text was chosen at the end of February.  Also, on that day I may make little notes of possible themes for the sermon.  For this sermon I wrote this, “Come To Jesus Moment.”  You will see how it fits momentarily.  But what does God do on the week I am going to preach this text?  He has President Biden caught on a hot microphone saying, “Netanyahu (the Israeli Prime Minister) and I need to have a Come to Jesus meeting.”  Wow!

Ok, now let’s get to the expression – “Come to Jesus Moment.”  What is the meaning?  In simple terms it can mean a religious conversion.  In today’s usage it more often means a “hard talk, wake-up call, seeing the light, facing the facts.”  It has become a workplace cliché and in 2013 Forbes magazine listed it as one of many overused buzzwords.

Abram, later to be known as Abraham, had a come to Jesus moment with Melchizedek which sets up our Epistle reading for today.  There is a tie-in between Melchizedek and Jesus.  

“A PRIEST FOREVER”

Melchizedek only has a few verses in Genesis 14, his 15 minutes of fame were brief.  He is mentioned in Psalm 110 and here in our text.  He is a strangely significant person.

Melchizedek appears at one of the lowest points of Abram’s journey through life.  God has promised him an heir and offspring and a new land and to make his name great.  However, after several years, Abram’s situation in life has gotten worse rather than better.  He has endured a famine, sought refuge in Egypt and then was deported and he mediated a dispute with his nephew Lot.  Then he gets drawn into a war just to save Lot.  He has gone through a lot and still has not received the promised heir.  He needs a sympathetic ear.

God has something greater.  As the dust of the battle settled, this man Melchizedek, the “king of Salem” and priest of God Most High, suddenly appears to Abram – with bread and wine, no less.  He blesses Abram, vindicates him, and defends his cause.  This is Abram’s come to Jesus moment.  Abram is strengthened to continue patiently waiting for the Lord’s promise.

That is all the biblical history of Melchizedek.  But you are beginning to see why he is so significant for us today.  Christ is our priest just like Melchizedek was for Abram.  But Jesus is even more.

Like Melchizedek, Christ enters our life right when we need him, but he never disappears.  In Holy Baptism, we, like Abram, have been called by God.  It is not to a life of ease or worldly glory.  Jesus tells us in the Gospel our call is to be servants, not masters, and to be slaves, not lords.  Our worldly situation is not always pretty.  We battle the world and our sinful flesh.  We sometimes think life is getting worse instead of better.  We too need a sympathetic ear.

Our brothers and sisters in Christ are nice for these conversations, but like us they are weak and sinful.  Their perspective can be skewed by past experience.  We need more.  We need a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

This is where Christ is to us as Melchizedek was Abram – and more.  Christ intercedes for us.  In verse 7 of our text it says, “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications.”  Christ Jesus is here for us.  Christ is obedient.  His obedience took Him to the cross.  Christ suffers for us.  This Lent we again our reminded of what the Savior went through to pay for our salvation – blood and love flow mingled down.  Christ is the source of our eternal salvation.  Isn’t great to know where the path ends?  The golden streets of heaven.  Perfection forever.  No more life getting worse, it is all better, positive, uplifting.

These are not our “Come to Jesus Moments.”  They are Jesus coming to us moments.  That is how we are to see it.  He is our priest forever.  Like Melchizedek, Christ feeds us.  In, with, and under the bread and wine, he gives us his very body and blood to forgive our sin, strengthen our faith, and energize us to press on.  Like Melchizedek, Christ blesses us by His Word, and by that Word he vindicates us from our enemies:  sin, death, and Satan.

Jesus has come to you – a priest forever.  Quite a moment, wouldn’t you say?

Amen.