2nd Sunday in Lent – C LSB #’s 449, 436, 508:1-3, 5, 7
Text – Jeremiah 26:8 And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests & the prophets & all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die!” DEATH TO THE WORD OF GOD For years, people have tried to appease Vladimir Putin, hoping to draw him & Russia into the “league of free nations.” President George W. Bush said he looked into the eyes of Putin & saw a man with a good soul. It should be clear now that W was seeing what he wanted to see. In Ukraine, the true colors of President Putin are on full display for all the world to see. God does not work to appease those who are opposed to Him. On the contrary, when Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go, Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart in order to prove who truly has power. Then God destroyed Pharaoh & his entire army by drowning them in the Red Sea. In Jeremiah 26, it is God’s own people who have now hardened their hearts. They have been blessed by Yahweh for centuries yet are stubbornly going their own way & it’s in the entirely wrong direction. However, instead of trying to appease the people of the Southern kingdom, God sends Jeremiah to prophesy their destruction, unless they turn back. The nation had split into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon, & the Northern half had already been conquered & destroyed. They too had rejected the warnings of God against their false religions. The Southern kingdom had seen the demise of the north & took no heed of it. They continued to refuse the ways & the love of their Creator. These are the words that God sent through Jeremiah: “…If you will not listen to me & obey my word I have given you, & if you will not listen to my servants, the prophets – for I sent them again & again to warn you, but you would not listen to them – then I will destroy this Temple as I destroyed Shiloh, the place where the Tabernacle was located. And I will make Jerusalem an object of cursing in every nation on earth.” (Jeremiah 26:4-6 NLT) No appeasement there on the part of the Almighty Creator, & given those words, our sinful nature well understands the reaction of the people: “The priests & the prophets & all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests & the prophets & all the people laid hold of him, saying, ‘You shall die!’” (Jeremiah 26:7-8 ESV) When the city of Nineveh, in a pagan nation, heard the Word of God from the prophet Jonah, they repented & turned away from their evil. When the city of Jerusalem hears the Word of God from Jeremiah, they want to put the prophet to death. The reaction to Jeremiah’s sermon moves his audience further away from God & into even greater danger than before. However, Jeremiah is not responsible for how the people respond. He’s only accountable to God who gave Jeremiah the message to share. That Word of God was meant to kill the stubborn pride, arrogance & rebellion of the Southern kingdom. It was meant to kill those sinful attributes so that the holy attributes from God could thrive. The holy attributes that God’s Spirit creates in us are things like humility, self-control & repentance. Yahweh’s great act of appeasement occurred on the cross. That sacrifice was the one to end all sacrifices. It covers the sins of all people throughout all time. The wrath of God was satisfied there. There is no wrath left to come against us. To our sinful nature this is totally backwards, but it is surrender alone that brings life. Obstinance brings death. The false prophets & religious leaders would rather sell their souls than give up what they’d worked so hard to achieve. These hardened people rejected & attacked the Word & the messenger. Their rejection of God’s warning drove them even further from the safety of Christ’s love & salvation. What the false prophets & priests were hearing, from Jeremiah, as rejection & destruction was actually given as an invitation to life. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:9 ESV) Those are the words of another prophet quite a few centuries later. You know Him by the name Jesus. Jesus was on earth teaching people almost 2000 years ago. Jeremiah was prophesying over 2700 years ago. In the minds of so many people today, Jeremiah & Jesus, Babylon & Rome have nothing to do with our lives today. I would disagree, but I can make a case for this sermon in another way that is very current & extremely relevant, & it will grab your attention. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrates the mind of a man who might properly be described as ‘anti-Christ.’ I do not mean that Vladimir Putin is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, nor would I presume to know that the ‘end is near.’ Instead, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is exactly the opposite of Christ’s decision to set aside all His advantages in order to serve others & to sacrifice Himself for the sake of the world. In that sense, Putin is anti-Christ. Whereas Putin sees his position as a means of grasping more power & wealth at the expense of others, Christ demonstrates the sort of service & self-sacrifice that reflects what it means to be God. Christ’s self-giving then lies at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. So, as the world watches Putin & his regime attack the Ukrainian people, we are witnessing a moment in which Putin’s dismissal of God & His ways is resulting in devastating consequences.” (James Spencer, head of the D.L. Moody Center in Northfield, Mass.) Those words make a very appropriate application for the sermon text from Jeremiah, because the president of Russia is acting in a similar way to the chief priests & kings of ancient Israel. Those leaders were getting rich at the expense of the people they were supposed to be serving. Jesus came to set people free, not from an earthly kingdom, but from Satan’s kingdom which is an eternity in hell. Jeremiah was sent by God & was working for Jesus. He was proclaiming a message meant to set people free from leaders who were only serving themselves. The men, women & children of Judah were living as slaves to the things of this world, things that do not last. They were on the path to hell, but they did not want to hear that, because they themselves had chosen that path. Jeremiah was telling them, “You’ve made the wrong choice! Turn back!” But the people & their leaders were arrogant, proud & rebellious. The people of Judah were anti-Christ, just like Vladimir Putin is, but if self-sacrifice is the way of Jesus, where do you & I stand? Doesn’t the prospect of WWIII make us nervous because we’re anxious about losing the things of this world that we believe belong to us? When we think of the horrific suffering going on in Ukraine, aren’t we concerned as much for ourselves as we are for the Ukrainian people? And as much as Mr. Putin may be anti-Christ, through the war he’s waging on Ukraine, if we understand the Bible correctly, we realize that even a rogue president like Vladimir Putin is still a servant of God’s will. The Babylonians conquered the Southern kingdom by God’s direction so that His people might possibly wake up & turn back from their rebellion. It is almost certain that Yahweh is using the invasion of Ukraine to wake us up, & to wake up all the people of our world, that we too might turn from the path to hell & come back to our loving Creator instead. The central theme of the text from Jeremiah is that God is our refuge & without Him we are lost. Jeremiah faced death threats from a mob because he prophesied that the temple would be destroyed due to the religious hypocrisy of the very people Jeremiah was warning. These words of the Introit this morning, come from Psalm 74, but they speak on our behalf: “Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!” (74:1b-2a ESV) Still today, the Word of God is meant to kill pride, arrogance & rebellion, wherever it exists. Those attributes are signs of death, not life. The unique thing, in all the world, that Christian faith brings to this is love. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. The Gospel of John also tells us that Jesus is the Word & God the Father had the Word put to death in order to gain for you & for me, in spite of our sins, the gift of eternal life. In that context, the sermon title Death To The Word Of God is not so shocking, in fact if understood correctly it is comforting. Whatever God may be doing through Vladimir Putin that man is not as self-sufficient as he most likely thinks that he is. And whatever is happening to people around the world, but especially in Ukraine, God is still love. The heavenly Father is working, even through sin, to accomplish His will. He alone cannot be denied, & His love for us is real. He will do whatever is necessary to draw us back to Himself whenever we stray. That will at times be painful for us, in the here & now, but glorious for us in the ever after. As St. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:18-21: For many, of whom I have often told you & now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, & they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, & from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. Amen. Go to dark Gethsemane, all who feel the tempter’s power; your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour; turn not from His griefs away; learn from Jesus Christ to pray. Follow to the judgment hall, view the Lord of life arraigned; Oh, the wormwood & the gall! Oh, the pangs His soul sustained! Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn from Him to bear the cross. Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet, mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete. “It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn from Jesus Christ to die. Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay; all is solitude & gloom. Who has taken Him away? Christ is risen! He meets our eyes. Savior, teach us so to rise. Amen. LSB 436:1-4. Midweek 2 – 2022 LSB #’s 436, 419
Text – Luke 22:37 For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: “And he was numbered with the transgressors.” For what is written about me has its fulfillment. HE WAS NUMBERED AMONG THE TRANSGRESSORS Think with me about the meaning of this sentence: “I didn’t mean to do that!” If you say it a certain way: “I didn’t mean to do that,” or “I didn’t mean to do that,” you’re saying that your choices made something happen – but you had no intention of causing that. But if you say, “I didn’t mean to do that,” there’s wiggle room there. Something bad happened, & you did not mean to do that – but you realize you could have stopped it from happening, or maybe worse – you really should have known better. “I didn’t mean to do that...” Have you ever watched a car wreck happen? Some accidents are like lightning – no warning & so on. But there’s another kind of wreck, & long ago I saw one. The driver didn’t mean to do that, but he really should have known better. There was a red light up ahead: clue #1. There were cars stopped at the red light & their brake lights were showing: clue #2. There was a speed limit: helpful hint, there. But I was driving behind a car that just kept plowing forward without slowing down, & there came a moment when I realized that I was watching a wreck happen. You know how it can feel like slow motion. I saw it coming, & so I was able to not be involved. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries. But that driver who was not paying attention & hit the brakes too late, who fishtailed sideways & smacked into the back of that other car – that driver should have known better. I can imagine him saying to the police officer & then to his insurance company, “I didn’t mean to do that.” But he did do it. The reading for tonight, from Luke 22, reminds me of watching a wreck as it’s starting to happen. The apostles – Jesus’ handpicked inner circle – are there with Him in the upper room. The reading gives us a sort of back & forth, forth & back between the disciples & Jesus, Jesus & the disciples. But it’s painful to watch, & in a way it is frightening. The evil at work in the events leading up to Jesus’s passion & death ... well, the disciples are participating in that evil. They are engaged in folly, & they are arrogant, but they should have known better. Let’s spend some time in these verses & watch the spiritual car crash as it unfolds before our eyes. “A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And He said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, & those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, & the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.’” (Luke 22:24-27 ESV) If I can be a little bold here, the disciples might be described as ... stupid. A more biblical term would be “folly.” They are caught up in utter folly. There in the upper room, after Jesus has instituted the Lord’s Supper & predicted His betrayal, they get into an argument about which of them is the greatest. How did this happen? It’s hard to reconstruct it, so we won’t try, & Luke doesn’t want us to. He only wants us to see the evil of their folly. And it is evil. Did they mean to do that? Did they mean it for evil? In one sense, probably not. But what about the other sense, where they really should have known better? Yes, they should have known better. They’re arguing about who is the greatest ... while in the upper room with the One who actually is the greatest. Jesus has taught them, & He has showed them what true greatness really is. So, Jesus has to teach them – again. He tells them that they’re acting like pagans & Gentiles, like worldly power brokers & big shots. That’s the evil way of thinking about “greatness.” In verse 26, the ESV offers Jesus’ words, “But not so with you.” And while that’s a good translation, a literal one would be, “But YOU – not like that!” In this unexpected reign of God that Jesus has been bringing, & of which they have been a central part, status & importance are turned upside-down ... or maybe right-side-up. While Jesus is there, reclining with them at table ... He tells them that He will take the place of the one who serves them. Did they “mean for this to happen,” for their hearts to get caught up & twisted & focused on a breathtaking folly & evil? Yes, they did because they should have known better. Still in the upper room, we keep watching the wreck as it continues to unfold before our eyes. In verses 28-38, Jesus first comforts & then He warns His disciples – Simon Peter & then all of the others. But they reject His warning, & they shrug off the Master’s words. The only thing to call it is arrogance – pride – boastfulness. Let’s take a closer look. Jesus begins with comfort. The apostles are Jesus’ chosen, inner circle. They’ve been with Him, & there they are, still with Him – a few more hours, at least. Jesus makes a remarkable promise about their future; He promises them a share in His kingdom, in His reign. In fact, on the last day the holy apostles will in some mysterious way participate in the judgment. Without taking away from Jesus’ unique identity as the judge of the living & the dead, the twelve will sit on thrones as they judge the twelve tribes of Israel. That’s what Jesus says! You get a glimpse of this remarkable future promise to the twelve in Revelation 21, with the vision of the New Jerusalem on the Last Day. When the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, & this earth is renewed, that city will have 12 foundation stones to match the 12 gates. On the foundation stones are written ... the names of the twelve apostles. Mysteries here, to be sure, & we can’t explain everything that Jesus intends to say. But what a promise! Why does Jesus make this promise here, now, that night, in the upper room? It’s to strengthen & steel the apostles for what is coming, so after the promise He warns them about what is coming. To Simon Peter, Jesus speaks directly – very directly. Satan is present, Satan is active, Satan is powerful, & he is after not only Simon Peter, but all the apostles: “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you (it’s plural, “all of you”), to sift you like wheat.” (Luke 22:31 ESV) It’s going to be the hardest thing they’ve ever known. But Jesus’ prayer for Simon means that after the time of trouble, Simon will return to faith, & then he must strengthen the others. Jesus is warning him, but for now Simon rejects the warning. “I’m ready,” he says, “to go to prison, & even to die with you!” (Luke 22:33) What? Jesus just told him that he’ll be blasted & twisted ... but that the time will come when he will turn again in faith to Jesus. But Peter says, “No. That won’t happen. I’m ready.” He says that to Jesus’ face. Did Simon Peter mean to do that evil? Yes – because he should’ve known better. He should have listened to Jesus, right there in front of him. And Simon keeps on not listening when Jesus says, “You will deny me three times today before the rooster crows.” Peter is not listening; Peter is proud, but that night when the rooster crows, then he remembers. And his pride is gone. And he weeps bitterly. The folly & the arrogance don’t stop. Jesus turns to the others, asking them to remember how He sent them out to minister & do miracles (in Luke 9) & how all their needs were met when they went out in His name. And they remember, “We lacked nothing, Lord.” But now it will be different, Jesus says. Evil is coming. Evil is ... present. And the one perfect man, the one truly innocent man will be counted among transgressors. Written in Isaiah, it must come true, & it will. So Jesus says, “Be ready. Prepare yourselves. You’re going to need a sword!” Is the Lord of gentleness telling them to arm themselves? No – no He’s not. Luke’s alone is the gospel that tells us Jesus not only stops the sword swinging in Gethsemane, but Jesus then immediately heals the wounded man. He’s not telling them to arm themselves, but that’s how they take it because they’re not listening. They do not realize Jesus is warning them, trying to prepare them for how hard it is going to be. But as Peter thought he was ready, the rest of them say, “Look! We’ve got two swords!” And the tone in Jesus’s voice when He replies? I’m just guessing, but I think it’s a sad & weary voice: “It is enough.” Enough with your boasting & your arrogance, enough with your folly. I’m trying to teach you but you are not listening. Evil is coming & they should have known better. Their evil is in the room, with Jesus. Still, God is not allowing that time in the upper room to be wasted. It is not simply a time of misunderstanding, folly & arrogance. As we watch the wreck unfolding before our eyes, we see God’s plan unfolding as well. We see God using evil to move His design forward. The disciples didn’t mean to do that ... but they should have known better. Thankfully, God knew better still, & He meant it all for good. Ponder this. The disciples’ folly is like a sign – a huge, unmistakable arrow – that points away from them ... & right at Jesus. Who is the greatest among them? Who even understands what true greatness is? While they bicker & fight, only One understands. The folly is all around Him & He stands out so wise, so strong, so lowly, & so great. Jesus is among them as the one – the only one – who serves. The disciples’ arrogance is like a piece in a puzzle. It’s not the center of the puzzle, thank the Lord. But their evil is part of it, & it fits right into the plan, right into the pattern taking shape as Jesus moves toward the fulfillment, as He says, the fulfillment of what is written about Him. That pattern will bring the great, wise, serving, innocent Son of God into the midst of sinners, of transgressors. That is Isaiah’s prophecy: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:12) And as Jesus said, it must be fulfilled in Him. When Isaiah is fulfilled, it will be like a rock that is dropped in a pool of water ... you can watch as the circles get larger & larger. “He was numbered with the transgressors” – there will be one evildoer on His right, & one on His left. At that place called “Skull” all around Him Jesus is numbered with the transgressors – the religious leaders & soldiers mocking Him, goading Him, telling Jesus to save Himself & be the greatest. But Jesus has come not to save Himself. In God’s way Jesus will be the greatest. Numbered with the transgressors ... the circle widens, & reaches back to the evening before. In that upper room are more transgressors with Jesus – Peter, & the other apostles. Jesus was numbered with the transgressors ... as the circle widens & reaches into the future, all the way to this evening, to this room; here are more transgressors with Jesus in our midst. God’s own Son overcomes the evil in my life & in yours. He overcomes it by arriving in the midst of it & dying. He lets the evil win & do its worst so that it can’t do anything anymore. Jesus entrusts His spirit for a time into His Father’s hands. The Father honors His Son & raises Him from the dead. Jesus overcomes the evil. It can’t do any more damage; it did all that it could, & Jesus still won. Risen from the dead, Jesus has authority here tonight, to forgive your evil & mine, to keep us in His care all the way to the day of His glory. When you’re in the middle of a wreck as it’s happening, it is hard to see things coming. But sometimes God does help us see it & I see my stupidity in how I compare myself with you & thinking that somehow, I’m greater than you are. Yes. Sometimes God helps us to see our arrogance, our pride, our thinking that we can go our own way without the mercy & strength that only Christ gives. It is difficult to see it coming but sometimes God makes that happen, & we praise Him for it. So, I invite you to ask God for that kind of honesty & humility, to ask God’s mercy to see the folly coming, to turn away from pride. In doing that, Jesus alone will receive all of the glory. But sometimes we dive into that evil, don’t we? We judge each other. We live as though we were the masters of our own fate, the lord of our days & our schedules, our wallets & our relationships. “I didn’t mean to do that, but I did it anyway.” When that happens, remember: “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” And pray that God will take my folly & your pride & turn it into a sign, a huge, bright arrow that points us away from ourselves & points us to Jesus. He was numbered among the transgressors. He is here, among us to do good. In Jesus, God meant all of it for good. In the name of the Father & of the Son & of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet, mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete. “It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn from Jesus Christ to die. Amen. LSB 436:3. 1st Sunday in Lent – C LSB #’s 656, 424, 419
Text – Luke 4:1-2b And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan & was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days. THE 40 DAY DIET The year 2022 is still fairly new, yet history shows that by March the New Year’s resolutions of most people have already been long forgotten. Going on a diet is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions, with over 40% of people making that choice. You’ve heard some of the names – Keto, Paleo, Mediterranean, and Atkins & Low Carb. The 1st diet to become popular appeared in England in 1863. It was called the Banting Diet & was named after the undertaker who came up with it. Doesn’t that make you wonder if anyone looked for a conflict of interest in the design of his plan? However, thousands of years before that God’s Holy Spirit came up with a diet plan for Jesus – 40 days of nothing. That plan became necessary because of the very 1st diet plan of a certain fruit that Satan urged upon Adam & Eve. Because God’s 1st son ate forbidden fruit, Jesus would eat nothing at all. Then Luke comments, “And when they were ended, He was hungry.” The weak point of many diets is that they leave you feeling constantly hungry. It is difficult to be content in this sinful world, & our own sinful nature constantly wants more. No matter how many blessings are given to us by the heavenly Father all of it quickly becomes what we expect & then take for granted. By tomorrow it’s, “God, what have you done for me lately?” Satan knows that better than we do & he certainly uses that to his advantage. Knowing that Jesus is literally starving, the 1st temptation he throws at the Son of Man is to satisfy His hunger, “…command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” (Luke 4:3-4 ESV) It’s difficult to imagine that our answer would be the same. Our daily lives prove otherwise. We’d be zapping those stones to bread in a heartbeat & asking Satan to pass the butter & the strawberry jam. That’s just one reason why the eternal Son of God took on human flesh & was born into this world. You & I need someone to take our place & live the life that God called us to live. We simply cannot do it. The only way for us to truly live is to stay constantly connected to the source of our life. The devil is not actually trying to feed Jesus in the wilderness & he’s not trying to feed us in our lives. The devil is trying to bleed us dry, to starve us to death, by deceiving us into disconnecting from the source of all life – from Jesus Christ. Any healthy diet always has the goal of limiting the number of calories we consume. In spiritual terms, what if we followed Jesus & gave up telling lies? In the wilderness, Jesus refused to accept the lies of the devil. And confessing the truth also means to renounce whatever is false. In the rite of baptism, we highlight that with these words: “Do you renounce the devil, & all his works, & all his ways?” The temptation of Jesus gives us a glimpse of how Satan works in our daily lives. It gives us a glimpse of how he works in hearts & the minds of everyone here this morning. St. Luke gives us a glimpse of how Satan works in the hearts & minds of anyone who is out there watching our livestream. The devil takes what appears to be the truth & turns it into something that is false. Most of all, the devil tries to deceive us into thinking that we have to do something, to play some part, in gaining our way to heaven. He suggests that we would need to do this, or that we have to avoid doing that if we expect to join God in heaven. Instead of telling us to eat more kale, the devil tells us we have to do more good works. Instead of telling us to avoid eating sugar, the devil tells us to avoid associating with people who don’t think or vote like we do. Then, on the other side, he tells us that we can never do enough good to earn God’s favor so don’t even bother. He tells us that God made us the way we are so eat, drink & be merry while enjoying whatever it is that makes you feel good. Sin, guilt & shame are the only items on Satan’s diet menu, & Jesus swallowed all of that, He devoured every last bit of Satan’s cooking, as He hung on the cross & took His last breath. By His death & resurrection, Jesus set us free from the demands of the devil. Jesus released us from Satan’s prison. Yes, sin is still with us. Bad diets & unhealthy food still abounds in this world, but we no longer belong to this world. We truly are aliens living in a foreign land. We are simply sojourners passing through this life on our way to the next. Baptism is our passport to eternal life. The Body & Blood of Christ are now the diet given to us by our Savior. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus tells us, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (ESV) It’s true, our lives don’t often feel that way, but God’s children live by faith, not by sight, & not by our feelings either. That’s how Jesus conquered Satan, by focusing on faith in the heavenly Father instead of focusing on His hunger of the moment or focusing on any anxiety about the cross in His future. Then, Jesus used the Word of God to fend off Satan’s attacks. In our struggles against sin, & against our emotions, & our desires, a diet of God’s Word will sustain us & protect us as well. Here are some of those words: “‘And he brought us into this place & gave us this land, a land flowing with milk & honey. And behold; now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God & worship before the Lord your God. And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you & to your house, you, & the Levite, & the sojourner who is among you.” (Deuteronomy 26:9-11 ESV) Moses wrote those words as the people were about to enter the Promised Land. Yet, we can apply them to Christians wherever they may be. As we are members of God’s family, we already have eternal life. We already live in the Promised Land of heaven by faith, no matter what our circumstances are. Yes, it takes faith to see that. The believers in Ukraine, in spite of all that’s going on there, are in the Promised Land just as much as we are. That’s how radical God’s teaching is. That’s why a steady diet of God’s Word & Christ’s body & blood are so important for sustaining the true life that we have already now. Apart from Jesus Christ we have no life. So He came to live in our place, not just on the cross, but in all the ordinary daily things that we do as well. Jesus came to make all of our lives holy & to make them a blessing to others. We find rest in that Good News & it then empowers us to be the children that God has called us to be, repentant & forgiven. Amen. O Christ, You walked the road our wandering feet must go. You faced with us temptation’s power & fought our ancient foe. No bread of earth alone can fill our hungering hearts. Lord, help us seek Your living Word, the food Your grace imparts. When lures of easy gain with promise brightly shine, Lord, help us seek Your kingdom first; our wills with Yours align. O Christ, You walked the road our wandering feet must go. Stay with us through temptation’s hour to fight our ancient foe. Amen. LSB 424:1-2, 4-5. Ash Wednesday – 2022 LSB #’s 429, 436, 425
Text – Luke 22:6 So [Judas] consented & sought an opportunity to betray Him to them in the absence of a crowd. You Meant It For Evil, But God Meant It For Good In the rhythm of the church year, here we are again – Lent. It’s a time to reflect & repent, to pray & to praise, to recall & to rejoice in our Lord Jesus as He moves humbly toward the cross. Lent leads us to Easter when Jesus rises powerfully in victory from the grave. These 40 days are a time for blessing, as we await the return of our Jesus. Here’s another blessing. The Holy Spirit gave to us not one, but FOUR books, FOUR Gospels. Each of them is about the same Jesus. Each of them tells of His movement toward the cross & His bursting forth from the tomb. Yet, each of them is like a beautiful painting or portrait of Jesus from a slightly different angle. They complement one another – yet each gives its own beautiful perspective for Lent & for Easter. This year, we follow the leading of the Gospel according to Luke. This evening, Ash Wednesday, as we begin our Lenten journey toward Easter – how shall you & I sum up Luke’s inspired presentation of Jesus? Before answering that, let me ask another question. Do you recall the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis? Here’s a summary. Joseph was the favored son of his father, Jacob. His older brothers resented him. Of course, Joseph wasn’t faultless in this, but the hatred of his brothers grew – so they abused him (evil!), sold him as a slave to traders going to Egypt (evil!), poured animal blood on his coat & told their father Jacob that Joseph has been killed by wild beasts (evil!). In Egypt Joseph’s life was up & down, but finally through God’s blessing, he rose to prominence & God used Joseph’s planning & wisdom to save many people from starving to death – including his own father & the brothers who had done to him such evil. Then Jacob, the father, dies. Joseph’s brothers are afraid that now, Joseph will take his revenge, but instead he says something to them about their history & about the years that have gone by: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20 NASB) Now don’t misunderstand Joseph’s words. His brothers meant evil against him & it was evil. They meant evil, & they did evil. God did not change that part – not at all. But Yahweh used the evil for a larger purpose even when no one knew what He was up to. Everyone was clueless as to what God was going to do – but God was not. The Great I Am never is. This Lent, we’re going to ponder Luke 22, 23, & on into the victory of Luke 24. We begin by reflecting on the reading you’ve heard, & we’ll see some very important truths. The 1st is this – it’s time for a greater Passover. Luke goes out of his way to mention no less than five times that it is a particular time of year, a particular festival is about to happen: Passover. Luke says it in verse 1, then in verses 7 & 8 along with 11 & 13. There’s a lot to be said about the Passover, but I’ll just say this. Passover was the time when Israel remembered. They remembered that they were living under the thumb, under the power of evil. In our day think Vladimir Putin. The descendants of Abraham were slaves in Egypt, centuries before the night that St. Luke is describing. Evil had come against them; evil was done to them. Pharaoh & the gods of Egypt resisted Yahweh’s plan to set His people free. Even though God sent plague after plague, Pharaoh’s heart was hard, & even after Pharaoh allowed Israel to leave ... he changed his mind & hunted them down, chasing them through the middle of the Red Sea. He tried to enslave them again. He meant evil – but God meant it for good, to save Israel, while Pharaoh & his army He drowned in the sea. God’s people, they stepped out onto dry land, they passed through death & out into life with their God. Their enemies meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. What God did at Passover long before, what God did through the Exodus from Egypt, God is going to do in a greater way in Jesus, His faithful Son. That’s the 1st truth emerging from Luke’s Gospel. It’s Passover & this time there will be a greater salvation, a greater deliverance than ever before, a greater movement into death & out again into life. Here’s the 2nd truth. Evil is going to come against Jesus. Evil men of every sort, & Luke emphasizes that the evil one, Satan himself, is the driving force behind the plan to destroy Jesus. Just look at the line-up of evil in these verses. Verse 2, at the Passover, “…the chief priests & the scribes were seeking how to put Him to death, for they feared the people.” (Luke 22 ESV) The priests & the scholars who were supposed to guide & uphold the people, preparing them to receive their own Messiah, these men were looking for a way to put Messiah to death. And Luke says, “for they feared the people.” Did they think the people would defend Jesus, would stop them from doing evil to Him? If so, they overestimated the faith & the courage of the people. But it’s not just these twisted religious leaders. Luke rushes on; verse 3: “Then Satan entered Judas called Iscariot.” Satan has been the evil “strong man” who hates God & who makes people his captives. In Luke 13 Jesus healed a woman whom Satan had bound with illness for 18 years. In Luke 10 Jesus sent out 72 disciples. They cast out demons, & Jesus said that He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Satan is the strong man, but Jesus is the stronger man who has come to bind Satan. Now the evil one engages in the battle to destroy the Son of God. And Satan uses ... Judas! We may be so accustomed to the story that we don’t even feel the shock & the tragedy of that. He was one of the twelve ... Judas! We don’t know & we must not guess how it happened ... but Judas! He approaches the chief priests & together they make a plan. They think they need to avoid a crowd – but the crowd will turn on Jesus too, & cry out for Him to be crucified. At the 1st Passover in Egypt, the evil was bad enough. As Judas gives Jesus a kiss, it is worse. Evil is coming – against the very Son of God. Now, a beautiful 3rd truth from this reading. This truth is made all the more wonderful because of the 2nd truth we just highlighted – the evil in verses 2-6. That evil is like the darkness that grows all around you when thunderstorms are building & rushing toward you. Human enemies. A human traitor. The great supernatural enemy. These are all allied, joined together – whether they know it or not – against Jesus. As we know, their plan is going to work even better than they hoped & probably prayed for. The people will not defend Jesus; the crowd too, will cry out for His death, His destruction. Verses 2 – 6 of the reading are filled with evil that is going to happen, but the 3rd truth emerges when Luke emphasizes something at verse 7 & four times thereafter. Five different times, Luke tells us that everything is ready; things are prepared. “Prepare the Passover ... Where shall we prepare? ... A large upper room furnished ... prepare there ... & they prepared the Passover.” Prepared. Ready. The Lord Jesus has made arrangements. He has made sure that things are ready, that everything is prepared. All that is because Jesus is ready; Jesus is prepared. He knows about the evil, He knows what is coming. He knows that all He will have left is to trust ... & to know ... that the Father’s plan is coming true. His plan is bearing fruit. That’s why in Luke, & only in Luke, the last thing Jesus says from the cross is, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Evil is coming, & God’s plan – GOD’S PLAN – is for evil to do its worst, for sin & Satan to rule. Jesus says this, only in Luke when He is arrested, “This is your hour, & the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:53b ESV) But Jesus is ready, & He knows that in this greater rescue than Joseph accomplished for his brothers, in this greater exodus than Moses performed, Jesus knows that His enemies meant everything for evil, & that they would do the ultimate evil. But Jesus’ Father meant it for good, so that the greatest salvation of all will come. Peter thinks he is ready to die with Jesus, but he is not. The women don’t believe that Jesus will rise from the dead, so they get spices ready & on that 1st Easter, they go to anoint the corpse of Jesus. They were wrong. Jesus is ready to face the evil & take it into Himself. He knows that God the Father will raise Him from the dead & give a victory over sin & evil that will never, ever pass away. Everything is ready. What parts will you & I be tempted to play in the evil that comes against Jesus? We will explore that this Lenten season, & by God’s grace, once again we will repent & turn away from that evil, whatever form it takes in our daily living. What doubts plague you, as you see the power of evil in our world? How often does fear cripple us, & deceive us into thinking that maybe God can be caught off guard, that He was not ready for the evil this time? There are people in Ukraine struggling with that doubt this very moment. This Lenten season we will open up our fears & our doubts, in order to give them to Jesus because He has undone the evil, & He lives forever. Because He lives, nothing – not death or life, Satan or struggle nor anything else – nothing can separate us from God’s love in His crucified, risen, ascended & returning Son. Our Jesus. Our Savior! When the Lenten journey is finished, how will our faith be different? Well, in the most important way of thinking, Christian faith is never different – it is always the same, holding on to God’s promises & relying utterly on Jesus. But this Lent we can pray that our faith will grow, & our grip will tighten as we hold on to Jesus. We can pray that our mouths will be opened, & we will say to Satan, & to every enemy, & strangely even to ourselves: “You cannot take God by surprise. Jesus is ever ready, ever ready to save & to redeem. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” In the name of the Father, & of the Son, & of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go to dark Gethsemane, all who feel the tempter’s power; your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour; turn not from His griefs away; learn from Jesus Christ to pray. Amen. LSB 436:1. |
AuthorPastor Dean R. Poellet Archives
April 2024
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