June 5, 2022                                              Text:  Genesis 11:1-9

Dear Friends in Christ,

    In watching a recent episode of American Built, they focused on the Willis Tower in Chicago one the tallest buildings in the world.  When the Sears Corporation had it built in the early 1970’s it was to function as their corporate office.  The other motivation in play was that Chicago wanted the tallest building in the world.  Something that had been around since the Great Pyramid was built in Egypt.  Man is always trying to outdo each other.  It is so obsessive and competitive that there is an organization, The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, that has become the official referee.

    Today in our text there are people who want to make a name for themselves.  They want to be known over all the earth.  They are all speaking the same language.  What are they saying?  They want to live apart from God.  Man cannot survive this way.  The Lord will make this clear by what He says.  Let’s hear it together . . . 

“NOW YOU ARE TALKING MY LANGUAGE”

    At this time in history all of mankind is descended from Noah.  Remember, the ark builder?  Because they were all related, they all spoke the same language.  Just because they had this in common did not mean they had total unity.  They were still out for each other.  This happens when we fail to communicate with our Creator.  When we are not communicating with God, then we are not able to communicate with each other.

    Look at our communication in the United States.  We speak English, the universal language of the world.  Go anywhere, which I did on the internet this week, and they have signs in English.  We may have the same language but are we understanding one another?  When gas hits five dollars a gallon and energy prices are spiking, and we can’t hire enough workers to produce goods and services even when we have let millions of new people into our country there is a communication breakdown.  People babel on about solutions but they are all speaking a different language. 

    When some see a beating heart as not a child, we are speaking a different language.  When some see marriage as beyond a man and a woman, we are speaking a different language.  When some are comfortable with anarchy and chaos, we are speaking a different language.  But at the root of all this miscommunication is men and women who want the power of God.  

    That is what happened in Shinar.  Look at their language in verse 4.  “Let us build ourselves…let us make a name for ourselves.”  They have forgotten the original “let us” moment of Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  This was the Holy Trinity speaking.  Nothing can be made apart from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Now we are starting to hear some language we can get behind.

    What motivated the Lord to intervene?  The key here is in verse 6, “this is only the beginning of what they will do.  And nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”  Man is a conceited mess.  If the human race remained united in self-interested pride, there would be no limit to people’s rebellion against God.

    The Lord intervenes in the affairs of man.  He must.  His divine power altered their though processes, making it impossible to communicate and trust one another.  The tower was to reach the heavens, but the all-knowing, all-powerful God came all the way down to inspect this tiny structure of man.  The early Christians understood this verse to refer to the preincarnate Jesus.  Now You Are Talking My Language.

    The Son of God is the Word made flesh.  The Word of God in the flesh confuses the word of man.  Man always talks big, always makes plans apart from God but God’s Word is always the final answer.  

    Here we are in society, in families, in schools, in jobs, in churches.  We all speak the same, except for an accent or variation here and there.  Yet, look at all the misunderstandings we encounter.  Husband and wife.  Child and parent.  Teacher and student.  Boss and employee.  Communication breakdowns hurt and they can linger, and they can tear apart relationships.  

    God comes into this world of ours every day.  In the person of Jesus Christ, we have a Savior who spoke a language that even his 12 closest buddies didn’t always understand.  But they would.  They would see Him die.  They would see Him rise from the dead.  They would see Him ascend to heaven.  They would receive His forgiveness and share in his glory.  On Pentecost they would be given power from on high.  They would need this strength when people didn’t understand their salvation message.

    You and I have what they had.  The Lord speaks to us in language easy to understand.  Water and Word.  Bread and wine and Word.  He answers our prayers and forgives our misunderstandings with others.  His language is our language.  In a world of confusing language, He calms the troubled heart.  In a society of profane language, He lets our light shine with the words we use.  He wraps us in His arms and says, “I love you and will use your witness.”

    Now you are talking through Me.  Thank you Lord.

                                    Amen.           

May 29, 2022                                    Text:  Acts 1:12-26

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Concordia Publishing House is the publishing arm of our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  A few years ago, they greenlighted a book entitled, Gory Deaths.  Why would they publish such a book?  Well, the subtitle may help a bit:  Not-So-Nice Bible Stories.  The book is written by Rev. Jonathan Schkade and proven to be quite popular.  Yes, they are gory stories, but they are also Bible stories and we do believe that Scripture is God-breathed, right?

    This morning let’s focus on two of the gory stories in the book.  One is in our text for this morning from Acts 1.  The other is not explicitly in the text but relates to every other story in the Bible.  You will see…be patient as we view . . . 

“THE GLORY IN GORY”

    Let’s get to the first gory story.  It starts out calm enough.  Jesus has ascended to heaven as the disciples are without their leader.  Kind of like getting dropped off at college.  OK, now what, I am on my own.  The disciples have each other but they are down a man.  If I recall one of them did a dastardly deed and now we are getting to the gory story.

    The Apostle Peter does the honors.  “Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.” (v. 18).   How do you handle those words?  Do you picture the scene?  Block it out?  Many of us grew up in the era of Freddy Krueger, Jason and others in horror movies.  It could be frightening unless you suspended belief and knew it was just Hollywood trickery.  Judas’ death was no prop.  It had to be horrible to see and witness.  How far this disciple had fallen.

    Humankind has always had horrible, bloodthirsty enemies.  Satan, the one behind the actions of Judas.  He too was once a follower of Jesus, but he rebelled against God and now he works on the hearts of men and women to turn them from Jesus.  It all started with his deception of Adam and Eve.

    Sin.  1 John 3:8 says, “The devil has been sinning from the beginning.”  He brought sin into the world.  He continues to wreak destruction against God’s creatures and creation.

    Death.  It didn’t take long for gory death to make an appearance in the Bible in the person of #’s 3 and 4 – better known as Cain and Abel.  It was a slaughter over nothing more than jealousy and anger.  Gory stories abound in Scripture – the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, military slaughters.  Death can be graphic just like the death of Judas.

    Hell.  Judas not only suffered physical death, but he had the most horrific fate:  eternal death.  It is important we continue to talk about hell in the church.  Many today want to deny its existence for their own, selfish reasons.

    This death of Judas reminds us of the horrors in this life.  In my profession I have seen some pretty awful things.  Many of you have as well.  The shootings the last few weeks again remind us in horrible, horrible ways of the depravity of man.  The devil is a roaring lion who wants to devour us.  Help!

    We have it.  The glory in gory.  The death of Jesus appears as a chapter in the book Gory Deaths.  It is not unthinkable or heretical to compare the two.  They have a few things in common and many things different.  

    Judas and Jesus both died on a tree.  Judas by hanging himself.  Jesus nailed to the tree by others.  Judas’ tree was just that.  The tree of Jesus is actually a glorious tree for all who believe.  It was a bad Friday when Jesus suffered and died but we now celebrate it as Good Friday.  We hang crosses in our churches.  We wear them around our necks.  We place them on the walls of our homes.  We celebrate this so-called instrument of death because it is actually an instrument of life.  

    Judas and Jesus died gory, bloody deaths.  Judas place of death was called “Field of Blood.”  We turn away from his gory death.  The blood of Jesus on the other hand, “cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Jn. 1:7). We fix our eyes on the cross we don’t turn away.  We also rejoice to partake of this body and blood in, with, and under bread and wine for our life and salvation.

    Both Judas and Jesus were abandoned in death.  Judas’ “camp became desolate.”  He died alone as he faced separation from God.  Jesus was forsaken by his disciples and His Father.  But this provides us comfort.  He had to be forsaken to die in place.  He was our sin-bearer.  The promise now is that God will not leave us or forsake us.

    The gory yet glorious death of Jesus assures us that all our bloodthirsty enemies have been vanquished forever.  The gory death of Jesus allows us to taunt death, hell, sin, and Satan:  “’Death is swallowed up in victory.’  ‘O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?’  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:54-57)

                                        Amen.