April 16, 2017 – Easter                                                         Text:  Luke 24:4-8

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Two summers ago we vacationed in North Carolina.  We rented an SUV and they gave us a larger one than we had requested with all the bells and whistles, including a touch screen GPS.  Now you need to understand I am a Rand McNally Atlas guy.  It’s simple and it doesn’t talk back to you.  On this trip we would occasionally use this new-fangled gizmo, but not well.  It would have an image of our vehicle driving through the grass or right off an exit ramp.  If we had followed this computer’s direction, we might not be here today.  We would be among the dead and not the living.

This morning, in God’s Word, we see a group of women looking for Jesus in a cemetery and an angel asking this ironic question . . .

“WHY DO YOU LOOK FOR THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD?”

These women were not confused.  They went to the last place anyone had seen Jesus, the tomb.  When we hear the angel’s question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the natural answer is “Where else would he be?”

These women had gotten up in love early that Sunday morning because they didn’t want to leave the body of Jesus in the tomb without proper burial preparations.  There were no funeral directors back then.  When they get there nothing is as they imagined.  There is no large stone to move, no Roman guards present, burial clothes on the ground and no body.  That is when two men in shining robes – two angels – appeared and said, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!”

Do the words sound like a rebuke?  The angel thought the women should have known better than to come to the tomb looking for a dead Jesus.  Jesus had told his followers many times over and over that he was going to die and rise again.  They failed to grasp what he was saying.

Isn’t that you and I as well?  We’ve been wrong so many times in our lives, especially about spiritual things, that we can understand why the women didn’t grasp the promise.  After all, who comes back from the dead?  At this time in history, life was cheap.  Almost half of all children died before adulthood.  Sure they knew of Lazarus and others that Jesus had raised, but who would raise Jesus?  The point of those miracles was that Jesus had power over life and death.  They should have trusted the promise, but they didn’t.

Jesus says, “I will be with you always.”  Do we take that to heart in our day-to-day struggles?  Jesus says, “I will never give you more than you can handle.”  Do we ever question his promise?  Jesus tells us not to fear death.  Do we live in anticipation of this reality?  Do we look for the living among the dead?

What difference does it make if you look for a name on a mailbox or a tombstone?  Well, you will probably find names in both places, but you can only visit a friend in one of those places.  That is the point of the angels statement, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  Someone might ask, “What difference does it make?”

It makes all the difference.  When our faith is weak and foolish, we look for Jesus in all the wrong places.  Where do we find the Savior?  We find him in the gospel.  We find him in the Word that is taught and preached.  We find him in our baptism, sins washed away.  We find him in Communion, where we receive the actual body and blood of the Lord.

In our sermons for Lent/Easter the theme has been “Ironies of the Passion.”  Things turning out differently than we would expect.  One of the great ironies of my lifetime is the life of Norma McCorvey.  She was Jane Roe of the famous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.  Do you know that her baby was never aborted?  That baby lived.  In the 1990’s Norma worked in an abortion clinic in Dallas.  In that same building was a pro-life clinic helping young women.  Norma met a young lady there who invited her to church and Norma became a Christian.  She fought the rest of her life to overturn the decision that involved her.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a famous atheist who fought to get prayer out of schools and founded the American Atheists organization.  Do you know that one her sons is a Christian?  The world would call these two situations – ironic.  I would call it the power of God as He works through His means.

That ultimate power is on display today – the tomb is empty!  He is not here.  He has risen just as he said he would.  No atlas or GPS will find his grave because it doesn’t exist.  Jesus is living and that means all our sins are wiped out and forgotten.  Jesus is living and that promises that we will live with him forever.  Jesus is living and we will see our loved ones who died in the faith again.

“Christ has triumphed, He is living!”  Then they remembered his words.  Blessed Easter!

Amen.

April 9, 2017 – Palm Sunday                                                Text:  Matthew 21:12-17

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

The Pastor of a large family likes to tell the story of one hectic Sunday when his son couldn’t find his belt.  Everyone was looking for it, no one could find it, and the Pastor was going to be late for church.  Then the son, seven years old asked a simple question, “Dad, have you prayed about it?”  The Pastor had been teaching the boy this lesson since he was born but did he remember to apply that lesson in a moment of frustration?

During the season of Lent, in our midweek services, we’ve been considering the ironies of the passion.  Irony is an outcome that’s the opposite of what you might expect.  You wouldn’t expect a child to take a minister to school on such a basic matter of faith.  But that’s what the Scriptures say about children and their faith.  Today is Palm Sunday.  We just sang “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.”  This morning, we want to consider the incident that inspired that stirring hymn.  We want to see the irony in the question Jesus’ enemies asked:

“DO YOU HEAR WHAT THESE CHILDREN ARE SAYING?”

Matthew writes in our text, “But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did…”  What does wonderful mean here?  In this instance it caused the people to wonder – to be amazed.  Jesus did things on this day that caused people’s mouths to hang open in surprise.

What things were so wonderful?  Certainly the triumphal entry into Jerusalem caused people to sit up and wonder.  But the incident in our text happened after that.  It’s Monday of Holy Week.  Jesus goes to the temple and what does He find?  Moneychangers and merchants.  But these sellers of goods were over charging to make more money and the priests were getting a cut of it.  It’s like buying a hot dog at a ballgame; it costs a lot more than it does at the grocery store.  People were being cheated so Jesus drives them out.

The second thing happening is “the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.”  This then caused the third wonderful thing.  He called forth a response of faith.  Children were shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  The children were still singing the praises that had excited them the day before.

The children understood it was Messiah, the Christ.  Hosanna means, “to save.”  This is what the children shouted.  The Holy Spirit was working and that’s not ironic because we expect God to work through His Word to change hearts and minds.  The reaction of the Jewish leaders – “they were indignant.”  These men who spent their days reading the Bible did not recognize the Messiah.  They were angry that other people were claiming He was the Savior.  We must catch the irony in this action as Matthew presents it.  The most awful disorder of the buyers and sellers, the stench of cattle, the haggling and dickering were quite acceptable to these priests – there was money in it for them, but these innocent children who were voicing the praise of Jesus and giving Him the title which His great deeds demonstrated was his due, were intolerable to these men.

Children knew their Savior while the theologians didn’t.  My friends, it’s no different today.  People who don’t believe in Jesus think we’re just stupid or misinformed.  One of the saddest realities of the Christian Church in the 21^st Century is the large number of Pastors and professors who do not believe in Jesus anymore – at least not the way these children did.  They don’t accept a Savior who died and rose to give us eternal life.  They don’t claim God in the flesh who paid for our sins.  They deny the prophecies of the Old Testament that tell of the coming Savior.  Why do they refuse to see the truth?

Because they don’t want to believe it.  People will believe in a past life you were Napoleon or Joan of Ark.  They will believe in God talking to us through feelings.  God coming down to earth to pay for our sins with his own blood so we won’t go to hell – well, not that!  Why not?  Because that would mean God is a judge and that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong that every person on earth must submit to or suffer the consequences.  People don’t buy into that.  They think right and wrong mean’s what is best for them in any situation.  Eternal standards, absolute rules – people today just won’t swallow that because it would finally mean that some people are, in fact, wrong.

Simple Christians the world over see Jesus with the faith of a child.  They recognize the only answer for the guilt we feel over our sin and for the hurt and sadness that sin causes in our lives is Jesus.  Yes, that does mean there is absolute right and wrong.  But the Christian, in childlike faith has no problem saying, “I have done wrong, I have hurt others, said things I shouldn’t.”  The forgiveness we receive rode into Jerusalem to begin a week of redemption for all mankind.  God has forgiven us and given us eternal life.  Do you understand what these children are saying?

Jesus did.  “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.”  God ordains praise from the children’s lips.  He does this through Baptism and the gospel message they hear at church.  Through Lutheran elementary school and Sunday School.  Through family devotions and prayer time.  God reaches into these little ones hearts and fills them with joy in their Savior and confidence in His promises.  So what is the problem with us as adults?  We poison our faith with our reason or limit it with our assumptions.  The child just believes.

Where can adults get the faith of a child?  Only in one place – the gospel.  The gospel in Word and Sacrament.  The gospel that the Savior died and rose for us that we are forgiven.  God gives us that faith and He calls forth our praise.

Do you hear what these children are saying?  Join them in their song of praise!

Amen.