​2nd Sunday in Lent – C                                                                                  LSB #’s 424, 586, 673
Text – Jeremiah 26:11
 
Then the priests & the prophets said to the officials & to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.” 
 
PROPHESYING AGAINST THIS CITY
 
 
If you have a driver’s license,  & a car,  you’ve probably run into this situation.   You’re cruising down the road & suddenly you spot a police car  lying in wait,  in case the officer needs to nab someone who’s flying over the speed limit.   What  is your natural reaction   upon seeing the car?  Is it not  slowing down?   You want to avoid the hassle  & the cost  of being pulled over. 
Ultimately,  laws against speeding are not meant to hassle us,  but to encourage safe driving.   That is a blessing to everyone.   Obviously,  there are differing opinions on what constitutes safe driving.   That’s why traffic court exists.     
If we know how to react  at the sight of a police car,  how much more  should we know  how to react  when we see death  lying in wait?      Have you thought about that?    After all,  that’s what the OT reading  is trying to point out – death is lying in wait  for the people of God.   Jeremiah  is simply trying to encourage  safe living.  
When it comes to speeding tickets,   reflexively   we slow down to avoid the hassle.  When it comes to death lying in wait,  we don’t react in the same logical way.   Instead, we suffer from a knee jerk reaction  against repentance.  From God’s perspective,  our refusal to repent is like seeing the police car  & speeding up instead of slowing down. 
Our knee jerk reaction against repentance  just adds sin  upon sin.   And that’s what Jeremiah was facing as he called the leaders & the people of Jerusalem to repentance.   How did you react to the reading from Jeremiah?   Maybe you can’t recall  ever hearing about the city of Shiloh,  Jeremiah’s reference to which  so upset the prophets,  priests & people  that they demand he be killed.   Are you struggling to understand  why it’s relevant to your life?   The Holy Spirit guided Timothy to give us instruction in that regard: “All Scripture is breathed out by God & profitable for teaching,  for reproof,  for correction,  & for training in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV) 
Since God’s Word tells us that it is relevant to people of God, that they may be complete, listen again to the sermon text: “Then the priests & the prophets said to the officials & to all the people, ‘This man deserves the sentence of death,  because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.’”  (Jeremiah 26:11 ESV) 
What the prophets,  priests & people were hearing   as rejection & destruction  was actually given by God as an invitation  to life & hope!  It’s similar to speed limits.  They are put in place as an invitation to drive safely & preserve life,  but we often look at them as  an infringement upon our rights.  We make a choice to regard speed limits  as good   or as evil. 
Jeremiah was warning the people of the punishment that was coming  for their refusal to repent & turn from their evil ways.   Death was lying in wait for them & they looked at Jeremiah’s prophesy as rejection & destruction.  However, they also could have heard his warning  as an invitation to turn back to God in order to have their life renewed. 
We know what happened.  Death was lying in wait, & the people refused to slow down.  They chose to add sin upon sin.  They chose death over life,  & in 586 B.C., Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian army.  God will not allow evil & death to remain forever.  He will act to cleanse His people from sin, but that cleansing entails the death of our sinful nature. 
If that which is evil is removed by repentance,  then God does not need to remove it  with His purifying judgment.  When the Holy Spirit calls us to faith in Jesus, He gives us the means to rid ourselves of sin.  It’s the gift of a repentant heart.  It’s a heart that turns back to God when it realizes  it has chosen death over life.  We practice this on Sunday mornings when we confess our sins & receive God’s forgiveness.  You probably don’t think of it in these terms,  but during confession & absolution,  you are actually rejecting the death that comes with sin  & you are accepting the life that our Father in heaven is renewing  within you. 
It may sound like splitting hairs, but instead of dying with sin,  in Baptism we die to sin, we die to our old sinful nature & we put on the new  saintly nature.  We are living out our baptism every time we do confession & absolution.  St. Paul wrote about that in Romans 6:
“We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death,  in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,  we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”  (6:4-5 ESV) 
When we see death lying in wait for us,  it is always wise to heed the Holy Spirit’s warning.   That’s what the OT reading is about, & it is very relevant to our lives even 2600 years later.   As we think of the people who were suffering the pain of loss in Jeremiah’s day,  it is wise to “slow down” & consider our own sinfulness,  & our own desperate need for salvation. 
When we realize these things, we should not delay repentance, any more than we should blow past the highway patrol at ninety miles an hour  & hope the officer doesn’t notice.  It’s not healthy to abuse God’s grace & try His patience.  Rather, we call out to God in confession that we might receive the gift of forgiveness, & true life, every moment  of every day.  
The season of Lent is meant to be a reminder of our need for that life,  a reminder of the need to turn away from the death of our sin.  God desires that everyone be saved & He alone knows the real truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth.  Jesus is the Truth,  & He is the Way to real Life.  What God means as an invitation to that life, however, can be twisted by our sinful nature & then heard as rejection & destruction.  Crass sin needs repentance, but so does casual sin, before we end up in crass sin.  Not that any one sin is worse than another.  All are equal in that they are against the same holy Creator.  But some sins do have more serious earthly effects. 
Paul, in the reading from Philippians, & Jeremiah of the OT reading, were sent among people who had wandered into the danger of crass sin.  These hardened people had rejected & attacked the Word & the messenger.  The Word was sent to draw them into refuge.  Their refusal to hear the Word sent them even further from the safety of Christ’s loving redemption. 
Jeremiah & Jesus offered life.  Many in their audience chose death.  Again & again, Jeremiah tried in vain to move the people back to God & away from the priests who led them astray & into great danger.  These prophets & priests would rather sell their souls, & the souls of their people, than give up what they’d worked so hard to achieve – power & status. 
In order to save, God cannot work to appease the lost.  Instead, He must work to kill their sinful nature.  Yet, even when we kill His Son,  the Father resurrects Him  for us!  It’s in that Son that we have life.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen. 
 
 
 
The sower sows;  his reckless love  scatters abroad the goodly seed,  intent alone  that all may have  the wholesome loaves that all men need.    Preach you the Word & plant it home  & never faint;  the Harvest Lord  who gave the sower seed to sow  will watch & tend His planted Word.  Amen.  LSB 586:3, 6.  

​Midweek 2 – 2025                                                                             LSB #’s 511, 914 tune 621, 979
Text – Genesis 7:11-12
 
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, & the windows of the heavens were opened.  And rain fell upon the earth forty days & forty nights.
 
CHAOS
 
 
On Good Friday of 1964, a massive earthquake occurred off the coast of Resurrection Bay, Alaska.  Eyewitnesses as far away as the town of Seaside, Oregon report that the water along the coast was first sucked out to sea, exposing the mud at the bottom of the Necanicum River & creating a trough 1200 yards west of the beach.[1]  
Then, the water level beyond the trough rose, until finally it all came rushing back in to devastate the town.    Water is one of the most destructive forces on earth.   From the very first pages of Genesis, God deployed His word in a battle with water.  There was a watery chaos that smothered any possibility of life until God divided it by His word.  
Yahweh fixed the firmament to keep the waters above separated from the waters below.  He opened a space in which life could dwell.  With those boundaries in place the water that existed in the Garden was a cool, life-giving mist – no longer the destructive watery chaos. 
After the fall, the waters take on an ominous tone.  When God saw human wickedness increase in exponential proportions, He removed the boundaries of the waters.  For 40 days & nights, the water came not only from above but also from the fountains of the great deep below.  
The separation that God had effected in day two of creation collapsed.   The waters came rushing back in to destroy life, except for Noah, his family & the animals on the ark.   The sea was no longer merely the force of chaos, but an instrument of God’s wrath & judgment against sin.  Yet, when St. Peter reflects on The Flood, he says that Noah was saved by the waters.  The instrument of God’s judgment at the same time became the means of salvation for Noah as he floated on top of the waters in the ark that God told him to build.    The sea also figures prominently in the history of God’s people as Moses was leading them out of slavery in Egypt.  
Pursued by Pharaoh, the children of Israel encountered an enemy even more ferocious – the sea.   They were trapped.   They could not go backwards for they would impale themselves on Pharaoh’s swords.   They could not go forward because there they would meet a watery grave.  But once again God separated the waters from the waters.  
The Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground.   In the beginning, God had opened up a space where human life could flourish.   Now, He opens up a space where the Israelites could escape.   Not so for the Egyptians.  For them, the sea was divine wrath.  For the Israelites, it was God’s salvation. 
When the Egyptians followed the Israelites into the sea, God took away the boundaries separating the waters from the waters.  The sea rushed in, sweeping away their chariots & drowning the entire army.  The sister of Moses sang: “I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously.  The horse & the rider He has thrown into the sea.” 
Jesus battled the sea in His earthly ministry too.  One day, sleeping in the back of a boat, a storm arose on the sea & threatened to destroy the disciples.  But Jesus awoke & said to the sea, “Peace!  Be still!” & there was a great calm.  (Mark 4:39) 
In Revelation, God overcomes the sea.  Before His throne is a sea of glass.  No more chaos & death.  It is completely smooth.  Finally, in the new heaven & the new earth, the sea “is no more.”  (Revelation 21:1)   This represents the final triumph of God’s word over the watery chaos.  So, you might think that a Christian is immune from this chaos, but not so!   Think of your baptism.  The Small Catechism tells us that baptism is water combined with God’s word.  In your baptism God throws you directly into that primeval battle recorded in the first pages of Genesis.  It should never be a surprise that the Christin life is a struggle!  Don’t be deceived about the Christian life.   It is not “nice.”  
When you look around you at the others in this room, you might be tempted to think that everyone else has it all together, & you are the only one who is a mess.   But what do you think the church is?   Is it a calm place, full of light & peace, in which we gather together in orderly fashion at an appointed time to hear a few polished words of fine rhetoric?  
Do you nod in pious agreement with the words of the preacher & say to yourself, “How nice”?   The truth is not nearly as innocuous as that.   We are baptized, which means we are in the fight of our lives!   Of course there are times we get overwhelmed by chaos.  Chaos is what sin brings – always! 
And the chaos is not just sin like getting angry with someone who steps on your foot, or driving 40 miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone.  I mean your life isn’t turning out the way you want it to.  Maybe you lost your parents when other people haven’t.  Or you’re single & don’t see how you’ll ever be married.  Or you think God could not possibly love you.  
Don’t fall for it.   Those attacks do not define “whose” you are, & the attacks are a microcosm of what’s playing out in the pages of Genesis.  We look to Noah & The Flood to understand what is happening to us.  The attacks against us are images of the primal forces in play at creation itself.  Whether chaos or God’s own wrath, is not always easy to tell.  
However, the watery chaos does suffocate life.  Yet, the catechism tells us that baptism is not just the water.  It is also God’s word.   Yahweh’s word separates the waters from the waters & opens up a space where life can thrive.  It divides the sea & lets the Israelites pass through on dry ground.   You can fight these battles & you can win because you have the word of God with you.  At His rebuke the waters fled & He “…set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.”  (Psalm 104:7 & 9 ESV) 
In this season of repentance, we acknowledge that we have been overwhelmed by the forces of sin & evil in our own lives, but we also acknowledge that we have God’s word, which is in ultimate control of those forces.  Even amidst the chaos you & I have the peace of the heavenly Father’s promises.  As the Psalmist said:
“…though its waters roar & foam & the mountains quake with their surging.  …we will not fear, though the earth gives way & the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.”  (Psalm 46:3 & 2 NIV)   Since God saved Noah, his family & enough animals to repopulate the entire planet, God is able to save us as well.  In heaven, there’ll be no more chaos, & we will flourish forever. 
In the name of Jesus.  Amen. 
 
 
 
Word eternal, through Your being God created all we see, when the empty spaces echoed with the Father’s “Let there be…” light & life burst from the glorious   power of Your majesty.        Still Your brooding Spirit hovers over chaos, dark & deep, calling out with invitation: “Rise, awaken from your sleep; Christ the Lord will shine upon you & from death your soul shall keep.”  Amen.  LSB 914:2-3. 


[1] https://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/education/science/docs/tsun2975/tsun2975_appendixC.pdf.

​1st Sunday in Lent – C                                                                                    LSB #’s 419, 355:1, 4-6; 761
Text – Deuteronomy 26:6-7
 
And the Egyptians treated us harshly & humiliated us & laid on us hard labor.  Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, & the Lord heard our voice & saw our affliction, our toil, & our oppression.
 
CRYING TO THE LORD
 
 
    “…turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)   From the moment God rescued the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt, He continually warned them about the dangers of forgetting who it was that delivered them.   He pleaded with them, “…why will you die, O house of Israel?” 
Once the people of God entered the Promised Land, they became prosperous because of the Lord’s blessing.   Sadly, that prosperity caused them to forget how dependent their existence was upon the God who had rescued them from slavery & poverty. 
While they lived under the iron fist of Pharaoh, there was no hope of escape & no chance of prosperity.   Exodus 2 tells us, “During those many days the king of Egypt died, & the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery & cried out for help.  Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.”  (2:23 ESV) 
By the time you’ve read through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus & Numbers, in Deuteronomy 26, Moses is giving a summary of their history as a people.   He begins with Jacob, “A wandering Aramean was my father.  And he went down into Egypt & sojourned there, few in number, & there he became a nation, great, mighty & populous.”  (26:5 ESV) 
As Moses recounts their history, he reminds them of the turn of events that put them into desperate straits, “And the Egyptians treated us harshly & humiliated us & laid on us hard labor.  Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, & the Lord heard our voice & saw our affliction, our toil, & our oppression.”  (Deuteronomy 26:6-7 ESV)   It was not the Israelites who made a name for themselves.  It was Yahweh who called them out of the land of Egypt & gave them their identity as His people. 
Each of us has many different identities, depending on the group we’re with.  For just a short list, we can be child, parent, coworker, employer, citizen & church member all rolled up into one.   Each of them, or all of them, can be our identity depending on the circumstances at the time.   Yet, because of sin, none of us can live out those identities perfectly. 
However, there is one identity that matters infinitely more than any other.  That identity is child of God.  It matters more than any other because that one is our ticket to heaven.  The other factor that is supremely important is that in Christ, we can perfectly live out our identity as child of God.  We can say that because Christ lived out that identity for us, & He did so perfectly. 
It’s not what we do that counts.  It’s whose we are.   Belonging to Christ means we get credit for everything He has done.   What our sinful nature does with that news is not pretty.  In our weakness, we see God’s mercy & forgiveness as something to be taken advantage of.  We reason that if Jesus did it all, then we can just kick back & relax. 
To counter that, Moses gives the people of God instructions before he dies.  When they enter the Promised Land:
“…you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, & you shall… go to the priest who is in office at that time & say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’  Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand & set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.”  (Deuteronomy 26:2-4 ESV) 
 
Moses is not laying out requirements to get to heaven.  We often take it that way because our sinful nature is corrupt & incompetent.    What Moses is spelling out for us is how our saintly nature responds to God’s mercy.  It responds by joyfully giving back to our Lord, a portion of everything Yahweh has given to us.  It’s a reflection of how corrupt we are, that Moses needs to tell us how a child of God lives.  That’s how often our sinful nature drowns out the desire of our saintly nature to thank God for His gifts.   We are much more familiar with this aspect of our saintly nature – when life takes a turn for the worse, we know what to do.  We cry out to the Lord for help. 
Even then, our sinful nature may tell us it’s hypocritical to seek God’s help when we’re in trouble if we don’t thank Him when life is going well.  The flaw in Satan’s temptation is the suggestion that we’re only hypocritical when crying to the Lord for help.  The truth is, as sinners we are hypocritical 100% of the time.  The only solution to that is crying to the Lord for help. 
As Ezekiel wrote, “…turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (33:11 ESV)   God longs to hear our cries for help, because it is His holy desire to save us from sin, death & the devil.  It is God’s holy desire that we learn what it is to live as a holy child of God.   For this life, we see that but dimly.  In heaven, we’ll know it in perfection. 
For this life, we should never be ashamed of crying to the Lord for help.   Satan wants our pride to get in the way, but, as St. Paul wrote in the Epistle lesson, “…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  (Romans 10:13 ESV)  
God has blessed our nation tremendously, & with that comes tremendous temptation.  Wealth & a life of leisure get in the way of humility.   They foster pride in what we’ve accomplished.  God knows the temptations we face, so Jesus came to take our place, even in crying out to the Lord:
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”  (Matthew 27:46 ESV)   In the distress of crucifixion, Jesus cried out to the Lord.  He did so out of perfect obedience to the heavenly Father, but that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Jesus as Lord & Savior.  Jesus was perfectly living out His identity as the Son of God, & you & I benefit from that in every way.  As Moses considers the benefits we receive from our Father, he shows us that the only proper thing for us to do is to take our offerings to the Lord.  Those offering are, as is often said – time, talent & treasure.  When we refuse any or all of them, we are following Satan’s lead. 
To that attitude of the heart, God calls out, “…turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)     Following the Holy Spirit’s lead, we willingly offer our time, talent & treasure out of gratitude & not because of coercion or feeling guilty.  Jesus came to offer His life & He did so willingly, because of His great love for us. 
Moses taught his people how to live.  Jesus taught us, & lived it for us, to set us free.  Yes, we still fail, but we fail in confidence knowing that Jesus did everything on our behalf.  In being set free, we are now able to serve our Lord willingly out of joy & gratitude.  That is what Moses wants us to focus on. 
Satan wants us to focus on our failures.  Jesus has erased them so they can hound us no more.  Your chief identity is child of God, & your Father in heaven is taking care of all things for you.  Amen. 
 
 
 
O Fount of hope, how long, how long?  When will You come with comfort strong?   O come, O come, Your throne forgo; Console us in our vale of woe.    O Morning Star, O radiant Sun, when will our hearts behold Your dawn?   O Sun, arise; without Your light we grope in gloom & dark of night.     Sin’s dreadful doom upon us lies; grim death looms fierce before our eyes.   O come, lead us with mighty hand from exile to our promised land.  Amen.  LSB 355:4-6.  

​Ash Wednesday – 2025                                                                                 LSB #’s 500, 979, 801
Genesis 1:9-10
 
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, & let the dry land appear.”  And it was so.  God called the dry land Earth, & the waters that were gathered together He called Seas.  And God saw that it was good.
 
LAW
 
 
Mark Twain once saw a man shot in the street.  It gave him bad dreams.  He dreamt over & over again that some idiot had put a large family Bible on the old man’s chest to help him, but it only made it harder for him as he labored to breathe.  Twain then remarks, “In my nightmares, I gasped & struggled for breath under the crush of that vast book for many a night.”[1]  
As we enter a season of repentance, we need first to come to terms with what we think of the Bible, particularly of God’s law.   If we think of the Bible as a book of arbitrary rules & boundaries that systematically restricts our humanity, crushing the life out of us like an anvil on our chest, then it’s going to be difficult to engage in anything like true repentance.  
If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d likely end up with resentment.  We can try to act like good Christians & conform externally to the demands of God’s law.  However, if we’re not convinced in our hearts that this way of life is what humans look like when we’re thriving, then, we run the risk of accumulating bitterness & resentment against our Creator.  
The creation account in Genesis 1 encourages us to think of God’s law not as a heavy burden, but as a set of boundaries that open up space for life to flourish.   Take day two of creation.  God separates the waters from the waters.  He installs the sky to keep the waters above away from the waters below.  That space is where life flourishes.  
As the account continues, God fills that space with land, plants, birds & animals.  Last,
but not least, God puts Adam & Eve there.  If God had not established the boundary, we’d have nothing but watery chaos.   The fish might be ok.   The rest of us wouldn’t have a chance.  Since we are created in the image of God, we imitate this boundary making activity in many aspects of our lives.  
We build houses, which are like artificial skies that keep the waters away from us.  We clean those houses, which is another way we impose order on our environment & try to keep chaos at bay, giving us a safe space to live.   Likewise, the rules we impose are, hopefully, designed to keep danger & chaos at a minimum.  
“Don’t play in the street,” is not an arbitrary exercise of impulsive parental control.  It is meant to keep our children safe.  God’s laws are precisely that kind of boundary.   The 5th commandment, “You shall not murder,” sets a limit on human behavior that prevents chaos in society.  If you remove that rule from human conscience, what would daily life be like?  
You’d have to be suspicious of every stranger.  You’d have to be on guard at all times, ready to fight or flee.  You could have no pleasant interactions outside your immediate family.  If you step out into the world, you step into a chaos that would exhaust & overwhelm you. 
Returning to the example of our homes, what would happen if we took the view that the structure of our house is arbitrary & overly restrictive?  I don’t like that my kitchen window separates me from the outdoors, so I break it!  That wall is in my way, so I tear it out.  That went well, & I take out another wall.  Oops, that was load bearing.  Soon the rain is pouring in!  
The ashes this evening are a sign, & a reminder, that we as the human race have wrecked our home.  God formed Adam from the dust of the ground & breathed into his lungs the breath of life.  But when Adam & Eve broke God’s command, God pronounced the curse, “Dust you are, & to dust you shall return.”  He reversed the original creation by taking back the breath of life, leaving Adam to revert to the dust from which he was taken.  It’s poetic justice.  “You don’t like the way I put you together?  Then I’ll allow you to fall apart.”   That is the situation for each of us.  Our bodies are the houses that we destroy through sin.  The ashes remind us that we all labor under the curse that is turning us back into dust. 
There are some sins for which that is obvious.  An addict, for example, most likely knows that he is ruining his own life, even if he cannot find the strength to break free on his own.  Much sin, however, is more subtle than that.  If we pay attention to the hints that life gives, we put together the clues that something is not right. 
From the outside, it looked like John had the perfect life.  Married with two children, he had a good job & a spacious home.  Everything was going his way, but none of those things filled the emptiness & vague sense of longing that he had.  It was as if he had some sort of wound in the core of his being.   He lived, in Thoreau’s words – a “life of quiet desperation.” 
A sense of emptiness is a clue that all is not well.   It’s a hint that our decisions & achievements have pulled us out of step with the way that God designed the universe, & us.  True repentance is coming to terms with those things that pull us out of step with God.  It means desiring to put them away & to live more & more in the space where life can flourish. 
It can sound doable, but we do not have the resources to fill our own emptiness, much less to overcome death & condemnation.   As we approach Easter, we recall that our Savior talked about a house.  Not just a house – a temple.  “Destroy this temple, & in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)  
The temple Jesus was referring to was not the one in Jerusalem, but the temple of His body.   He took our place under the ancient curse & allowed death to claim His holy flesh.  That satisfied God’s curse upon sin.  On the third day Jesus raised His body, restoring life & immortality to the human race.  In our struggle against sin, we long for the day of our resurrection to perfection & glory.  There, all who have trusted in God’s promises will flourish forever & ever.  It is that hope which makes true repentance possible. 
The hope of eternal life as a free gift, lifts the weight of the law off of our chest & allows us to breathe.  As the Holy Spirit breathes through us, the law can function as a set of boundaries which open up space for life to flourish, even here on earth.   May the Holy Spirit enable you to see the safe space created for you by God’s law.  Amen. 
 
 
 
God, whose almighty word chaos & darkness heard & took their flight: Hear us, we humbly pray, & where the Gospel day Sheds not its glorious ray, let there be light!       Spirit of truth & love,   life-giving, holy dove, speed forth Your flight;   move on the water’s face, bearing the lamp of grace, & in earth’s darkest place let there be light!     Holy & blessèd Three, glorious Trinity, wisdom, love, might!   Boundless as ocean’s tide,   rolling in fullest pride, through the earth, far & wide, let there be light!  Amen.  LSB 979:1, 3-4.


[1] Harriet Elinor Smith ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 158. 

​In the daily battles we face, against all the effects of sin, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture.  We heard of that in the meeting, this past week, between president Zelensky of Ukraine & our own president & vice president.  It turned into a shouting match even though all three of them are on the same side, against the dictator who invaded Ukraine & is responsible for the war. 
There are over a million casualties already.   Entire cities have been obliterated by missiles & bombs.  All this for Putin’s ego trip, & now Trump, Vance & Zelensky have fallen into a similar ego trap.  Their spiraling down into self-centered details caused them to completely lose sight of the big picture.   Fighting against Satan’s design is never easy. 
The point is to end the killing & to establish a more permanent peace.  Pride needs to be set aside.  Sacrifices need to be made.  Allowing a lack of gratitude to get in the way of that, is childish on the part of all three men.   Due to their personalities, they have allowed ego to blind themselves to the big picture. 
In the epistle reading, the author of Hebrews is trying to take our eyes off of our personal struggles & point us to the big picture.   His first point is that our personal struggles, every single one of them, are only temporary.   That’s not easy to grasp when you’re suffering with pain or heartache, with loss or loneliness. 
If you cut your finger, what happens to all of your attention?   Does it not immediately focus on nothing but the cut, & the blood?   Whatever else you were doing is completely forgotten.  It’s lost in the rush to examine the damage.   That cut is a very temporary event in your life, but any sort of big picture focus evaporates the moment you feel the blade slicing through your nerve endings.  
Moses & Elijah, both dead for over 500 years, appeared with Jesus at His transfiguration.  Both men had seen endless problems while serving God on earth, but now all those problems are long gone.   As Moses & Elijah appear on the mountain, with Jesus, they are living the big picture.  They are no longer doing battle against sin. 
In heaven, there’ll be no trauma left from any of our suffering here.  In heaven, it will be as if that suffering never happened – no more nightmares, no more flashbacks, no more anxious moments from fearing a repeat of your past ordeal.   That’s why the 3rd chapter of Hebrews addresses its audience in this way:
“Therefore, holy brothers & sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling…”   From our perspective, dealing with all the things that go tragically wrong in this world, you can’t get any more “big picture” than heaven.  And because it is The Big Picture, it’s easy to lose sight of it here, where Murphy’s Law rules the day.  On earth, anything that can go wrong – will. 
We tend to get wrapped up in those things that go wrong, either trying to fix them or surrendering to despair because of them.  Hebrews is telling us, “Don’t let the sinfulness of this world drag you down.”   Who you are is not defined by the tragedy & sorrow of this world.   As the saying goes, “We are in this world, but we are not of the world.” 
That saying brings balance to the picture.  We are in the world.  We should never deny that.  Jesus does not call us to live some kind of fairy tale existence.  In this world we will have tribulation, but Jesus tells us He has overcome the world.   That’s why Hebrews addresses its audience, “Therefore, holy brothers & sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling…” 
Who you are is not defined by the sinfulness & the brokenness of this world.  You are
defined by the call that the Creator of the universe has extended to you.   And that call is a heavenly one, even if you aren’t there yet.   Father, Son & Holy Spirit have called us to receive an eternal inheritance.   That is who we are already today.   Taking our eyes off that big picture is dangerous because what our eyes see here brings despair if we look at things honestly.  
I love these lyrics, from the song Time, that was performed by Pink Floyd, because the words so perfectly describe life as people see it even when they have faith in Jesus as Savior:
And you run & run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking;     Ecclesiastes 1:5
And racing around to come up behind you again.     Psalm 19:4, 6     
The sun is the same in the relative way   but you’re older;
Shorter of breath & one day closer to death.     Job 14:1-2
 
That is the harsh reality of life in this world – a creation that has been corrupted by sin.  And our lives here in the US are still pretty good compared to many places around the world.  Living by faith,   not by sight,   is living by the big picture that people who follow Jesus are partakers of a heavenly calling.  And that calling influences how you & I respond to suffering. 
Whom exactly the letter of Hebrews was written to isn’t certain.  A fairly good guess is that the recipients were a small group of people who had renounced their former allegiances to the pagan Roman culture of the day.  This new allegiance would have brought them into conflict with the people around them.  They likely experienced:
Slander, social discrimination, physical abuse, exclusion, imprisonment & confiscation of property.   This would have been done in order to shame them & bring them back into line with the dominant social order.  By eroding their status & reputation, this social pressure threatens to weaken their commitment to Christ. 
The letter to the Hebrews seeks to counter the moral & spiritual lethargy that would have come from being publicly rejected & shamed.  Hebrews was written to encourage the people of this congregation as they faced their daily battles against all the effects of sin.    All God’s children face those daily battles, & quite often we lose sight of the big picture & forget which side we’re on.  We forget that all of us in this room are on the same side against the dictator who brought sin into God’s perfect creation.  Pride & ego were born in Satan’s heart. 
You & I are bigger than that by virtue of the heavenly calling we’ve received from Jesus.  Yet, we do not live a fairy tale existence & sin still has its way with us.  Hebrews makes the point   that Jesus knows full well the struggles we face, & He will never abandon us.   The 12th chapter of Hebrews recorded these words of encouragement:
“…since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, & sin which clings so closely, & let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder & perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, & is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”  (12-1-2) 
For true encouragement, it doesn’t tell us to look to our commitment to Christ.  It doesn’t tell us to look at the good things we do for others.  It doesn’t say, you’re such a good person with a kind heart.  The word of God says, “looking to Jesus, …who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the same, & is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” 
Talk about a heavenly calling, & Jesus did that for you.   That’s how much the almighty God wanted you to experience your heavenly calling even here on earth.   He knows that you need to grasp something of the big picture already now to help you realize that you are an integral part of something so much bigger than you can see with your eyes. 
“Therefore, holy brothers & sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling,” has been the focal point of the sermon.  The heavenly Father wants us to know of our lofty status because the devil is constantly trying to convince us that we are lost & damned.  Satan is lying.  However, the 2nd part of the sermon text is also key: “…consider the Apostle & High Priest of our confession: Jesus.”   God knows that you & I will lose our way in this world.  Even though we are partakers of a heavenly calling, in this life we are still corrupted through & through.  We cannot help but sin & that gives us plenty of opportunities to be discouraged. 
As a result, even though we are partakers of a heavenly calling, here & now,   you & I continue to fall short of God’s will.  So, the author of Hebrews does not point us to ourselves for hope.  He does not point us to our goodness nor to any sincerity in our faith.  He points us to Jesus!  That is where all our hope rests – in the almighty Son of God. 
And that is why Jesus was transfigured before three of His disciples, so that when the proper time came, they could share what they saw with the others.  At the time of the transfiguration, they had not a clue, that Jesus was sharing with them a glimpse of heaven.   The author of Hebrews is teaching you & me that we are partakers of that glory already even now. 
Faith in Jesus is not just about healing & comfort in this life.  It also looks to a day when God will make all things new again.  As the text from Hebrews comes to an end, it says, “Christ was faithful as a Son over His house – whose house we are.”  As His children, we are the house of God.   The Holy Spirit lives within us.  Could God ever abandon His house in heaven?  
The answer is “No.”  And neither will God abandon you.  Amen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
How can I thank you,  Lord,  for all Your loving-kindness,  that You have patiently borne with me in my blindness!   When dead in many sins & trespasses I lay, I kindled, holy God, Your anger every day.    It is Your work alone that I am now converted; over Satan’s work in me You have Your power asserted.   Your mercy & Your grace that rise afresh each morn have turned my stony heart into a heart newborn.    Grant that Your Spirit’s help to me be always given lest I should fall again & lose the way to heaven.  Grant that He gives me strength in my infirmity; may He renew my heart to serve You willingly.  Amen.  LSB 703:1-2, 4.