Transfiguration

Matthew 17:1-9 - Transfiguration - January 20, 2013

Hear Him
Finding God in Christ Alone

“I don’t believe in God.”  You’ve heard people say it.  So have I.  But what does this even mean, “I don’t believe in God”?  If you think about it, it can be taken in two different ways. 

One: You don’t believe that he even exists.  That is, you don’t believe that he is out there at all the way a grown child no longer believes in Santa Claus.  Or two: You don’t believe in him; that is, you don’t believe that he is reliable or trustworthy or ultimately good—the way a betrayed child no longer believes in his dead-beat father.  Now, all sorts of people make this first claim.  He isn’t real, they say.  He’s a myth, they say.  People made him up in order to enforce their repressive standards of morality, they say. 

It’s easier for one to say this, that he doesn’t believe that God exists at all than to say that he is mad at God, or that God let him down, or that he is afraid of God.  Boy, what insecurity to confess to.  Oh no.  You don’t hear folks talk that way quite so much.  People guard themselves more than that.  You’ll sound a lot more intellectual, after all, if you just deny his existence altogether – like, hey, he’s thought about this; he’s broken the shackles of ignorance and superstition; this guy’s deep.  But it is not deep to deny God; it is foolish.   Not only because of the consequences, but because of the obvious fact that God most certainly does exist. 

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good” (Psalm 14:1 & 53:1). 

Baptism of our Lord

Matthew 3:13-17 - Baptism of Jesus - January 13, 2013

Fulfilling All Righteousness

Baptism works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. 

This is a lot of power to attribute to Baptism.  But we have the words and promises of God to prove our claim. We have these words of Jesus: He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe shall be condemned.  Baptism forgives sins.  Baptism gives to us what Jesus won for us.  Jesus said so.  He who believes what Jesus says has what his Baptism promises.  He who does not believe what Jesus says, rejects what Jesus has won.  We cherish our Baptism for the exact same reason that we cherish our Savior.  Jesus saves us by suffering and dying on the cross to take our sin away.  Baptism saves us by bringing to us the benefits of His great sacrifice.  Jesus saves us by overcoming death in our place and rising from the dead.  Baptism saves us because through it Jesus joins us to Himself – so closely — as Paul says, “we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

New Year's Eve

Luke 2:21- New Year’s (Eve) - December 31, 2012

According to the Law

It’s the last day of 2012.  Another year is passed.  For better or worse, this mile marker measures the accomplishments and events of our lives.  But I suppose we could use any other day as a mile marker.  Think of all the other calendars that measure the year.  There’s the fiscal year.  That’s important to some people.  There’s the academic year.  This is engraved in the mind of anyone who’s been a student.  There is, of course, the church year.  This is the one that governs what we celebrate here in church.  And finally there is the legal year, the one we’re all about to celebrate tonight, which runs from January 1^st – December 31^st. 

Legal year.  That makes it sound kind of unexciting.  But I call it the legal year, because that’s exactly what it is.  What else is it?  Tomorrow is legally, according to the law, 2013.  2012 will legally be over.  There’s no avoiding or undoing the passage of time.  We know that.  The law, however, with its legal years, makes sure that we don’t forget it either.  That’s what the law does in all of its forms.  It doesn’t make anything so.  It just tells you what’s what.   2012 will soon be over and it will be too late to make 2012 anything other than what it was.  That’s the law. 

Tonight we close a year lived under God’s grace by commending a new year into His care.   But consider what else brings us here tonight.  January 1^st just so happens to mark that day when the legal calendar intersects perfectly with the church calendar.  It’s really kind of neat.  Consider the theme.  Just as the year begins on January 1^st, according to the law, so also, for the church year, it is on January 1^st that we celebrate how Jesus placed Himself under the law.  In His birth, God submitted to our physical limitations.  That’s Christmas.  Eight days later, in His circumcision, God submitted to our legal restrictions.  That’s New Year’s. 

Christmas 1

Luke 2: [22-32] 33-40 - Christmas I - December 30, 2012

Remembering and Waiting for Christmas

Simeon was just and devout.  Of course, his justness—his righteousness he got in the same way that we get ours.  He believed the Gospel.  That’s what it means to be devout: To be devout is to make faithful use of the Means of Grace.  It is to go to church and hear the word of God, knowing and believing that that is where you receive the righteousness of Christ.  Being just and being devout go hand in hand.  Simeon waited for what God promised in His word, and God counted this faith to him as righteousness in His sight. 

Simeon waited for God to redeem Israel.  He waited for God to bring salvation to the Gentiles.  He waited for the Temple once again to be filled by the Glory of the Lord.   He waited for what God had promised.

But, unlike his fathers who went before him, to Simeon the Holy Spirit actually revealed that before he died, he would see with his own eyes the promised Messiah.  And he finally did.  And when he did, he gave two blessings.  He blessed God.  And he blessed Mary and Joseph.  I’d like to consider both of these blessings this morning. 

Christmas Day

John 1:1-14 - Christmas Day - December 25, 2012

The Word Remains Flesh
In Jesus Christ, God Has Come to Stay

At the risk of spoiling whatever rhetorical force these opening words might have had, I would like to encourage you all to pay close attention and learn – learn about Christmas.  This will not be a fluffy sermon.  But it will be true …

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee. How much less this temple which I have built!” 

So said Solomon, the son of King David when he dedicated the first and greatest Temple in Jerusalem that was constructed under his peaceful reign.  It was beautiful.  It has been called the eighth wonder of the ancient world.  If the gold and silver and other precious materials used in its construction were valued today – just the materials – it would amount to as much as $200 billion.  The nations gathered to hear Solomon’s wisdom and to marvel at the Temple he built as a dwelling place for the Lord God of Israel.  Heaven and earth couldn’t contain Him – hence Solomon’s exclamation of marvel – yet God chose so kindly to be available exclusively there where He said He would dwell. 

Christmas Eve

Luke 2:11-12 - Christmas Eve - December 24, 2012
Word & Sign: Finding God’s Glory

There is something very peaceful about the image of the shepherds watching their flocks by night.  How relaxing.  What opportunity for contemplation.  What time for staring at the stars and considering those words of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”  Ah, the glory of God.  So gentle.  So sweet.  There’s something kind of romantic about the scene.  Peaceful. Uneventful. But then the sky cracked.  An angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around him.  And they were greatly afraid.  And they should have been.  The glory of God, the thing of thoughts and musings turned out to be terrifying.  But what did the angel say to them?  “Do not be afraid.”  

They needed to hear that word.  The glory of God seems to be synonymous in our minds with, maybe beauty, or amazingness.  But the glory of God reveals man’s unworthiness.  The glory of God causes fear in man, because it reveals how far we have fallen.  Only when God assures us that His glory is present for a peaceful purpose can the heart take courage.  The Gospel tells us not to be afraid. 

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Advent 4

John 1:19-28 - Advent IV - December 23, 2012
Rejoicing in the Power of Our Baptism

Last week our Introit began with those words from Philippians 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  And now today these same words serve as our Epistle Lesson: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  It’s the same theme.  That’s OK.  It’s fitting that two Sundays in a row address the theme of rejoicing, because both these Sundays’ Gospel lessons deal with the same theme of faithful Gospel proclamation.  Again and again the preacher preaches what needs to be heard.  Again and again you gather to hear the same thing.  You don’t fill your quota for the month or season.  No.  You gather regularly to hear the good news that brings you to heaven where true joy neither dims nor dies.  You come to receive Jesus – because in Him alone we rejoice.  And again, and again, we rejoice. 

John the Baptist was teaching who Jesus was, and what He came to do.  And his instruction can be summarized under three topics: 1) He preached repentance.  2) He baptized.  3) He pointed to Jesus.  Now all of these three, of course, go together.