Month: September 2019

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Holy Cross Day (observed) (John 12:20-33)

Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Lebanon, OR

Holy Cross Day (obs.) + September 15, 2019

Text: John 12:20-33

“Lift high the cross,” the Church sings, “the love of Christ proclaim, till all the world adore His sacred Name.”

The cross has been a symbol of Christianity for countless generations.  At a glance you can recognize a Christian or the church they belong to because it has a cross on it.  (You can also learn something when a group purposely doesn’t put a cross on anything.)  But I’m afraid that if enough crosses are stamped on things to identify us as Christians, it’s possible for us not to feel its full weight.

While Lift High the Cross, prominently featured in the Mission and Witness section of the hymnal, evokes images of military formation and victory in battle, that is not yet what we experience in our daily life. It is what we know from God’s Word and we hold to by faith, but the cross, this side of Christ’s return, is more often associated with pain.

The cross is a stumbling block.  Early Christians were ridiculed for such a stupid religion that we glorified an executed criminal: “Alexamenos worships his god,” one graffito teased as it depicted a man with a donkey’s head hung upon a cross.  The cross is an instrument of brutal torture and asphyxiation.  When Jesus breathed His last, it was after hours of agony bearing the sins of the world and just rejection of God.

But even if it is a stumbling block to those who are perishing, the crucified Son of God is the One in whom we glory.  By the grace of the Holy Spirit, we poor sinners know that through that shameful execution of Jesus, God the Father was offering up His Son as a ransom in our place, to save our lives from both death and hell.

Here in St. John’s Gospel, Jesus foretells His death and resurrection.  Yet, here He foretells it, not with echoes from the Prophets, but as a proclamation of the Father’s glory and His will for all men:

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

When the Son of Man is lifted up from the earth, suspended between earth and heaven—putting Himself in that breach between God and man made by sin—there He draws us to Himself with the almighty and renewing power of the Holy Spirit.

The occasion for Jesus saying this is some Greeks coming to see Jesus.  When these people come to see Him, He begins to teach them about what it means to follow and serve this Crucified Lord:

“25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

As we contemplate and celebrate the Holy Cross, this is a refresher for us as to its true significance in our lives:

  • When we are drawn to the cross, it is necessary that we die.  It’s an easy thing to wear a cross pendant around your neck, but when the cross is put upon us in Holy Baptism, “All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.” (Romans 6:3) We die to the old man with his corrupt desires, for “How can we who died still live in [sin]?” (6:2)  [Colossians 3:5-9] We die to sexual intimacy and desire except in  God’s institution of marriage. We die to the on-demand attitude of the world that imposes our personal preference on others and demands that everything—including corporate worship be to our liking.  We die to lusting after other’s lives.  We die to using our tongue as a weapon to wield against others, either with aggression and rage, or subtly as the snake [Gen. 3] with slander.  When we are drawn to the cross, all of those things must perish from us, and be nailed to the cross. And all who will not die to them endanger their salvation.
  • When we are drawn to the cross, we remove sins as far as the east is from the west.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Many think the central mark of Christians is their social ministry activities.  But when Jesus draws us to Himself, He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) That means a far more difficult thing than handing out a warm blanket and a bowl of soup.  “As I have loved you” comes from the One who laid down His life for His enemies.  True Christian love is that which forgives from the heart and will remember those wrongs no more.
    • I commend to you a practice that I’ve found helpful.  During the Lord’s Prayer, pause after the Fifth Petition, and say the names of your offenders out loud.  Say it and picture their sins being nailed to the cross.
    • If you don’t pray the Lord’s Prayer at home, start now—by yourself, with your family.  Jesus taught us this prayer so that we would know the blessings which flow through the cross, and so the cross would daily be a part of a Christian’s life.

There is no room for grudges—any—because God has forgiven the debt which would send us to present death and eternal suffering.  So, if we do what our Lord commands, let Him give us new hearts, contrite and humble, which “forgive as God in Christ forgave [us]” (Eph. 4:28). 

When we are drawn to Him who hung on the cross, we receive the Life of the World.  It is true that the Lord Jesus draws all people to Himself, but only some heed the call.  Not by your own reason or strength, but because the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel are you here (or reading this) today.  And because you have ears to hear, you are blessed.  The Lord who has drawn you to His cross, forgiven you all your sins, now also invites you to taste of the fruit of His cross: His very Body and Blood given and shed for you.  You are drawn not only to follow Him, but to have Communion with Him.

The holy cross of Jesus became yours when you were baptized into his death and resurrection.  The holy cross is yours every time you pray to God your Father in the Name He gave you.  The fruits of the holy cross are in you as you eat His Body and drink His blood.  So, you see the cross is far more than a symbol to quickly identify Christians—it is a Christians very death, and eternal life.  Glory be to God forever. Amen.

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12th Sunday after Trinity (Mark 7:31-37)

Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Lebanon, OR

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity + September 8, 2019

Text: Mark 7:31-37

Jesus performed many healings in His ministry.  He raised Peter’s mother-in-law when she was sick with a fever, He healed lepers, cured lame and swollen limbs, and made the blind to see.  What the people say is true: “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  But among the healings He did, this is one of the strangest: He puts his fingers in the man’s ears, spits and touches his tongue, and speaks a word in Aramaic (which the Evangelist does the favor of translating for Christians of following generations).

We can relate with the desire for miraculous healing.  We often expect that from the doctors, with mixed results.  Sometimes they get it right and a new medicine will really alleviate your rheumatoid arthritis.  But as many of you know, there are times when the doctors either can’t do anything, or make mistakes.  Test after test, scan after scan, but no relief.  Like the woman with the flow of blood in Mark 5, “who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:25-26)

I’m sure somewhere in history there has been someone crazy enough to emulate what Jesus did here, as if it were a magic formula.  How gross that would be, and I suspect the only result was copious amounts of ear wax and sprayed spittle.  But the key is not found in what Jesus did, as if He were a wonderworker.  The key lies in who this man has been brought to.

Jesus says, “Ephatha! Be opened!”  He is the Creator, of Whom “all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).  He speaks, and it happens.  He who formed the ear and the tongue [Ps. 94:9] has the ability to reform what was malformed by sin and death.

But how He restores His broken creation is not just with a word (although He does say to the leper in Mark 1:41, “Be clean,” this is not all it takes).  It takes the Creator Himself coming in the flesh of man, into the wretched and sin-filled world.  As Matthew mentions, “This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.’” (Matt. 8:17)  He not only took them, but He took our trespasses and shed His blood as the one sacrifice for the sins of the world.  The Creator Himself lay in the grave, and thereby overcame the sway that sin and death have over each of us.

We wish that God would enable doctors to take away our cancer, give us relief from our chronic aches, and undo our foolish mistake that landed us in physical therapy.  And sometimes He does, but our hope must not be in healing in this life.  Jesus says in the next chapter of Mark, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:34-36)  If we follow Him, let us deny ourselves the physical healing we would wish, and accept each cross that He has laid upon us—the cross of memory loss, of arthritis, of seizures, of physical pain—and follow Him.  He is able if He wills to give us relief at the proper time.

We live in hope, because this is the same One who stood at Lazarus’ tomb:

32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”…38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:32, 38-44)

This is what He is going to do for the bodies of us all, when we are nothing but breathless dust.  He will say to us at our tombs, “Come out,” and the dead will be raised imperishable, immortal—no aches, no aging, no wrinkles, no defects—for eternity.

But even while we live in hope of the Last Day, our hope is in the Word He speaks now, for He does speak powerful Words of life to us.  He speaks in the words, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Together with the water, these are the words of rebirth, birth from above.

He speaks in the words of the absolution on His servant, the pastor’s, lips: “Peace be with you, I forgive you all your sins.”

He speaks in His Word to you, which His Spirit carries into your heart, “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12-14)  It convicts you and puts your sinful flesh and all its desires to death, and raises you with Christ to new and eternal life.

Even if He doesn’t take away the ailments in this life, He has healed you with a healing that will last through death.  That is the Christian’s hope, in which we are saved. Amen.