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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.

April 2, 2017 Text: John 11:1-45

Dear Friends in Christ,

Do you remember the first time someone close to you died? I was 10 years old, it was the end of March and a family friend 45 years old was killed in a car accident in northern Illinois. My parents received a call about 8 pm and they loaded myself and my younger sister in the car. We drove one-hour south to the family farm where this man had lived. Usually this trip meant a great meal and riding tractors and horses and watching the cows being milked. This night was different. It was surreal. People were everywhere, yet nobody was talking except in a whisper. We made our way to the living room where the man’s widow and two daughters were. It is a night I will never forget.
There was something different about that night. Death was the cloud that hung over the whole house. Its power, its finality, its merciless advance into the life of loved ones touched every heart and left a trail of sorrow and grief in its wake.
Jesus knows. When Jesus approached the tomb of Lazarus the Greek says his body literally shook. He cried. He was one with all of humanity. Our God is a man. He sympathizes with us in our weakness. He shares our grief. Even as He is touched by death, He overcame it for us. And so in our text we are reminded . . .
“I AM Resurrection and Life”
Lazarus’s death is for the glory of God. When Jesus hears the news about Lazarus’s illness, he stays put in Bethany for two days. There’s no mistaking – Lazarus is dead. Jesus allows Lazarus to die that all might see the glory of God, that all might believe.
Lazarus’s death is an occasion to call Martha to faith. Jesus gets to Bethany. Martha approaches. Where was Martha’s mind? Martha was stuck in the trauma of the past: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v. 21) Martha’s mind was on the hope of the future: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (v. 24) Where was Martha? Anywhere but the present.
If you have had someone close to you die, you can relate to Martha. When my mom died I didn’t dwell a lot on the past, but I certainly had most of my focus on the future. Plans had to be made. Relatives were flying in or driving. It was three days – visitation, funeral, and burial in Wisconsin that literally wore me out more mentally than physically. Throw in there a blizzard getting to Decatur the day of the funeral and I was wiped out. It was hard to stay in the present as things out of my control were swirling around our family and myself.
Jesus takes Martha out of the past, out of the future, to himself: “I AM the resurrection and the life.” (v. 25) To believe in the great I AM is to live forever and not die. To believe in the great I AM is to have the resurrection as your own present possession. To believe in the great I AM is, at the day of death, merely to fall asleep in the hope of waking up again. Jesus asks Martha if she believes this, which elicits a wonderful confession of faith from her. She confesses Him to be the Christ, the Son of God.
Lazarus’s death and rising point to Jesus’ own death and resurrection…and ours on the last day. This fifth Sunday in Lent is a dress rehearsal for Holy Week, preparing us for the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why did Jesus die? To take our sin upon himself, so that, by his death, “he might destroy the one who has the power of death.” (Heb. 2:14) Jesus has the last word. Eternal life is ours through faith in Christ and his work for us. We share in the hope of the resurrection. Just as Jesus called Lazarus from the grave, we who sleep in the dust of death shall one day hear the Lord’s voice: “Come out.”
After that night at the farm we would be going to the funeral. I knew that meant seeing the dead body in the casket. Something I was quite apprehensive about. That one-hour trip to St. Paul’s Lutheran in Strasburg, Illinois never went quicker. There he was lying in the narthex. The Pastor gave a wonderful, comforting sermon to the family and a 10-year-old boy. Some years later that same 10-year-old boy would be in that same pulpit preaching the funeral sermon for the man’s widow. Doesn’t God have a beautiful way of dealing with us?
Death is still hard for those of us left behind. But our Savior who wept over the death of Lazarus has promised us a heavenly reunion because of His power that has overcome death. Life for us does not end in death. We will rise again on the Last Day and forever celebrate the joy of life we have in Jesus Christ, the great I AM who is the resurrection and the life.
Amen.