Jesus’ spiritual food gives life forever.

 

Sermon for Pentecost 14, August 25, 2024

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, in truth and love.  Amen.

John 6:51-69  ⁵¹I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.  The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  ⁵²At that, the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.  ⁵⁴The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day.  ⁵⁵For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.  ⁵⁶The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.  ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died.  The one who eats this bread will live forever.”  ⁵⁹He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.  ⁶⁰When they heard it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching!  Who can listen to it?”  ⁶¹But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this cause you to stumble in your faith?  ⁶²What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  ⁶³The Spirit is the one who gives life.  The flesh does not help at all.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.  ⁶⁴But there are some of you who do not believe.”  For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray him.  ⁶⁵He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father.”  ⁶⁶After this, many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore.  ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the Twelve, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”  ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom will we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (EHV)

Jesus’ spiritual food gives life forever.

Dear disciples of the Living Bread,

            Upon hearing Jesus speak these words, many of those who followed Him found His message too hard to accept, so they turned away.  The Jews of Jesus’ day certainly didn’t understand what Jesus was about.  However, to truly understand what Jesus was teaching requires a certain level of understanding God Himself, which, by definition, is impossible for any of us mere mortals.  All that being said, however, we can understand this: that Jesus’ spiritual food gives life forever.

There are some who associate this portion of John’s Gospel with the Lord’s Supper.  Yet, Jesus spoke these things to His followers some time before He instituted His Supper on the night He was betrayed.  Though some parts of this teaching seem to relate, Jesus’ message here is more related to His human existence and divine nature which together bring us the Word of life. 

At that time, many of Jesus’ followers were primarily looking for an earthly king to make life easier and to ease their hardships and illnesses.  Likewise, it could be said that many Christians today seek a Savior in much the same way.  They want earthly peace, an end to poverty in the world, retribution for perceived hurts, and a lengthy list of other personal desires.  Yet, while many of those desires can be noble goals (actually goals for us to work on ourselves), Jesus didn’t come to make life on earth a paradise.  He came into this world to bring us peacefully home to His Father in heaven.

Our text comes after Jesus fed the crowd of five thousand men plus women and children.  Some in that crowd wanted to take Him by force and make Him king.  They were controlled more by natural desires for an easy life than by a desire for peace with God.  This question of a desire for peace with God is worthy of our consideration.  I suspect that many people around us don’t give it much thought, and there is a good chance we haven’t spent much time considering it either. 

For the natural man, the desire for peace with God often brings great fear.  People experience troubling events, illnesses, accidents, or storms, and many assume God is punishing them for some perceived fault or guilt.  In the Bible, Job’s friends are a prime example of people assuming that God directly punishes us for some sin.

In our times, it is more likely that people have been trained to believe that God either doesn’t exist or is not actively involved in our world.  These ideas have been pushed for several hundred years now, and they have benefited no one, but even at that, many will blame God when hard times come.  At the same time, because we were raised in the Church, and taught about Jesus’ love and what He did to save us, we may fall into the trap of thinking that we deserve God’s benevolence, or perhaps, we just don’t realize how greatly we have been blessed by the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.

The point Jesus is making, here, is that no person can survive into eternity without Him.  Like the Israelites in the wilderness needing God to provide bread for their physical survival, we all need Jesus to provide for our spiritual and eternal lives.  Therefore, just as the Lord sent down bread from heaven in the manna, He sent down His Son to provide us with spiritual food by joining the divine nature with human flesh so that Jesus could live for us, and especially, so that Jesus could bear our guilt and the punishment of death and eternal damnation we deserved.

At the beginning of this Gospel, St. John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)  Thus, when Jesus speaks of consuming His body and blood in order to live, what He is really saying is that we need to consume His holy Word by faith.  It is His Word of grace that brings us peace.  Jesus said, “The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died.  The one who eats this bread will live forever.” 

Jesus had also told His followers, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life.” (John 3:36)  In regard to this faith in Jesus, St. Paul wrote “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)  Therefore, God’s Word isn’t something irrelevant, unnecessary, frivolous, or mythical; it is literally the spiritual food we need to consume so that this world is not the best thing we ever experience, because for the one who does not learn about Jesus and believe in Him, the eternal destiny is everlasting torment and pain separated body and soul from God’s love.

Many of the people that first heard Jesus speak these words understood Him to mean only a physical eating of His flesh and blood which was offensive to their religious upbringing.  Through Moses, God says the life is in the blood, therefore Mosaic law required that no blood be consumed.  Of course, that is also why it makes Godly sense that Jesus’ spiritual food gives life forever for Jesus said, “My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.  The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.” 

When we swallow God’s Word with whole-hearted trust in His promises, we are truly and completely connected with the Savior who conquered death so that just as He now lives forever, so shall we.  Again, we read the explanation of the Holy Spirit through St. Paul’s letter to the Roman congregation: “If we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6:5)  In other words, when we are connected with Jesus through faith in His Word, we are united with his resurrection unto life eternal.

As Jesus taught this concept, however, many found it too hard to believe.  Still today, many find it too hard to believe the teachings of the Bible.  They want answers to earthly problems without concern for our true spiritual need.  Jesus told those who would depart from Him, “The Spirit is the one who gives life.  The flesh does not help at all.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.  But there are some of you who do not believe.”  For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray him.  He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father.” 

Dear friends, not one of us came to believe in Jesus by our own volition or choice.  Then again, no one else ever has either.  Jesus makes it clear that it is by His Father’s choice that we are brought to faith.  That takes the burden off of us and gives us the assurance that it truly is God’s will to save us that brings us to where we can hear the Word and the Spirit can use that Word of the Gospel to convert us and bring us new life.  Why some don’t believe and be saved is not for us to understand.  We are merely to treasure the Good News of what Jesus has done for us so that we have the forgiveness of all sin and the reward of faith which is life in heaven.

Our text closes with one of the most eloquent and confident statements of faith known to mankind.  Jesus asked the Twelve, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom will we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”  Like Peter, we believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God, and by believing in Him as our Savior and Redeemer, we, who once were dead in trespasses and sin, now have life everlasting and eternal peace with God.  We have a home in heaven bought and paid for by the blood of God’s Lamb, His own dear Son, Jesus Christ.  This truth became Peter’s bold confession after Jesus returned to heaven.  When put on trial and commanded not to preach about Jesus, Peter’s response was to declare confidently, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Years later, a Roman jailer was ready to commit suicide rather than to face the wrath of his superiors when he thought Paul and Silas might have escaped his jail.  He was saved by Paul’s intervention at the last moment.  The jailer’s thankful response then was to ask, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:30-31)  This confident invitation is basically the rallying cry of the Christian Church ever since Jesus entered this world, because Jesus’ spiritual food gives life forever.  Amen.

Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds.  Blessed be his glorious name forever.  May the whole earth be filled with his glory.  Amen.

God’s wisdom exceeds what man can imagine.

 

Sermon for Pentecost 13, August 18, 2024

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.  Amen.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16  ⁶Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, but it is not a wisdom of this world or of the rulers of this world, who are being reduced to nothing.  ⁷Instead we speak God’s wisdom that has been hidden in mystery―before the ages, God foreordained that this wisdom would result in our glory.  ⁸None of the rulers of this world knew it.  (If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.)  ⁹But as it is written: “What no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no human mind has conceived―that is what God has prepared for those who love him.”  ¹⁰But God revealed it to us through his Spirit.  For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.  ¹¹Indeed, who among men knows a man’s thoughts except the man’s spirit within him?  So also, no one else knows God’s thoughts except God’s Spirit.  ¹²What we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God.  ¹³We also speak about these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words.  ¹⁴However, an unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually evaluated.  ¹⁵But the spiritual person evaluates all things, and he himself is evaluated by no one.  ¹⁶Indeed, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Who will instruct him?”  But we have the mind of Christ. (EHV)

God’s wisdom exceeds what man can imagine.

Dear brothers and sister redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,

            The Judeans of Jesus’ day considered themselves keepers of wisdom as they dreamed of a return to the glories of David and Solomon’s kingdom.  The Roman Empire of that time considered itself to be the most powerful force on the planet and the leaders of that kingdom confidently thought themselves smarter and wiser than any other people around them.

In much the same way, the great thinkers of our time believe themselves the holders of all that is wise and good.  So much do they think of themselves that many of them mock anyone who might be involved in the Christian faith.  Some say religion is a crutch to get us through our troubles.  Some imagine us fools for believing in what they consider myths and tall tales.  Yet, there remains one constant in all of this—something that has not changed since Cain wandered the earth searching for some purpose after being cursed by God for his wicked murder of his brother and rebellion against God’s wisdom—that one thing is this, God’s wisdom exceeds what man can imagine.

Throughout the course of human existence, mankind has tried to find wisdom, success, and power in his own understanding.  We see this today as scholars and scientists routinely imagine great thoughts for how this world came to be, though the Bible clearly shows that their ideas are figments of their overactive imaginations.  Even as these men and women discover more and more of the mysteries of how this world works, most of them still miss the hand of the Creator behind everything in this world.  Archeologists search and dig for clues to explain what happened in the past and predict what we might expect in the future, but again, their imaginations far exceed their abilities. 

Now, there is nothing wrong with their searching for the mysteries of creation except that they rule out the clear truth that God is the force and Creator of everything in the universe.  Furthermore, mankind has never been able to discover the true purpose behind our lives and everything we deal with in this world.  As Paul explains by the inspiration of the Spirit, “What no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no human mind has conceived―that is what God has prepared for those who love him.”

You see, dear friends, there is more to life than existing on this planet until we die.  God created us to live, and to have a relationship with Him that lasts forever.  God created us to have a people He could care for, and He created this world so we would have a place to live and meaningful work for our lives.

Part of what confuses the human mind is that things changed drastically when Adam and Eve fell into sin.  No longer was there peace and harmony in God’s creation.  No longer was man at peace with God.  In fact, mankind began to fear God and be terrified of His judgement because we all fell under the curse of sin which is death.  We lost our likeness to God’s perfect image.  We lost the ability to do His will.  We lost the knowledge of His perfect love.  Then, when mankind’s wickedness grew to unbearable limits, God destroyed the world with a flood that altered earth’s entire landscape completely.  Thus, the more people try to live without God, the more confused they become.

Therefore, unbeknownst to the natural man, Jesus came into this world to restore what we lost in the fall.  He came into this world to make us right with God, to take away the curse of sin by becoming sin for us, (2 Corinthians 5:21) and to live righteous holiness in our place so that God could count us as if we had never sinned at all.  The leaders of the Jews and Roman authorities had no understanding of God’s plan to save us, yet their devious hatred for God’s Son led to them carrying out the death that gives us life.  This is what Paul is talking about in our text. 

As Paul proclaimed the Good News of all Jesus had done to save us from eternal damnation, many people rejected the teachings as incomprehensible.  Today, just like it has been throughout history, God’s Word cannot be comprehended apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.  At the same time, we rejoice, because the Spirit works through that Word of grace to give us understanding of God’s salvation plan and work.  It is the Spirit working in us through the Gospel that opens our eyes and our minds to the truth of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ—all because God’s wisdom exceeds what man can imagine.

Now, in the kingdom of the world, none of this makes any sense at all.  Natural man assumes that he must do something to please and satisfy whatever god he trusts.  Yet, the harder he tries, the further he gets from the salvation that is granted only by grace through faith.  Therefore, like Paul and his fellow apostles sent out by Jesus, “We preach Christ crucified—which is offensive to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  We preach Christ crucified, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:23-25)

No human thought could ever devise such a plan to save foolish sinners from the judgment and condemnation we all deserved, but God is not merely a just God, He also loves us with an unending love that desires to save us from our own foolishness.

Of course, no matter how hard we might have tried to discover God and to reconcile ourselves with Him, we lacked any kind of ability to do so.  Accordingly, God sent out His messengers to bring us the message of life.  With His Spirit working through and by the Gospel, God changes us from the foolishness of our own thinking to possessors of true wisdom and the gift of forgiveness and salvation.  The Gospel becomes both the means and the truth that gives us faith in Jesus.

Here, Paul wrote, “What we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God.”  The blessings God’s Spirit has brought to us have given us understanding that worked our faith in all that Jesus has done to reconcile us with God.  That means that having heard the prophecies of the Old Testament that point to Jesus as the Savior of the world, and then hearing how Jesus has fulfilled those prophecies with His life, death, and resurrection, we were taught the wisdom of God which gives us life.

No plan we might have devised would have satisfied God’s righteous judgment and still brought us reconciliation and everlasting life.  God’s plan, however, works perfectly for His purpose, because His own dear Son took on our guilt and paid the price for us all with His death on the cross.  Therefore, the demand of the Law is satisfied, and by the power of the Father in heaven, Jesus was raised from the dead to live forever.  For His commitment to His Father’s will and amazing sacrifice, Jesus is now granted authority to judge and rule the world for those who believe in Him.

Dear friends, for the natural mind, there is a lot of mystery in God’s plan of action.  Yet, God is not confused, nor is He diminished by the grace He has shown us.  In fact, God glorifies Himself by being the salvation we need to be reconciled with Him.  Thus, just as He intended from the beginning, we now have a relationship of peace with our Creator, and God has provided everything we have needed to dwell safely with Him both now and in eternity.

Because of the life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and by the faith in Him worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, you and I possess the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Through the washing grace of the water and Word of Baptism, we are cleansed of all that God would find detestable, and by His holy will, we have been adopted into His family, with all the privileges of those who inherit the victory Jesus won for all on the cross.

May the Holy Spirit, by the Gospel in Word and Sacrament, continue to strengthen your hope and confidence in God’s salvation work so that when Jesus returns to judge the world, He will welcome you into everlasting glory.  All, because God’s wisdom exceeds what man can imagine.  Amen.

Amen.  Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and might belong to our God forever and ever.  Amen.

At home in the mansions of peace.

 

O Lord, we are gathered in sorrow, yet not as those who have no hope.  We thank You for all the blessings bestowed on our brother, now fallen asleep and for all the blessings given through him.  But most of all, we thank You for making him Your dear child by faith in Jesus Christ.  Give us to have that same trust in Jesus always.  We ask this all in His holy name.  Amen.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

For our words of comfort this morning, we read Jesus’ words recorded by St. John in his Gospel,

John 14:1-7, 27  “Do not let your heart be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many mansions.  If it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am.  You know where I am going, and you know the way.”  “Lord, we don’t know where you are going,” Thomas replied, “so how can we know the way?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father, except through me.  If you know me, you would also know my Father.  From now on you do know him and have seen him. … “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.” (EHV)

Dear friends of Del Geihl, and especially you, Nellie, your family, and Del’s nieces and nephews,

            This morning, as we mourn the passing of our loved one, we each face the reality of our own mortality.  Whenever we must experience the death of a loved one, we can be wondering, “Why?”  Why did it go so quickly?  Why did this person I love have to die?  The blunt answer is sin. 

Now, that may sound shocking to some.  How dare I call this good man, this loving husband, dedicated worker, patriot, and volunteer, this committed Christian and faithful friend, a sinner?  Yet, we have the evidence right in front of us that Del was a sinner, because the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23) and Del’s remains are here before us and soon to be placed in a grave in our cemetery.  For you and me, every death is a reminder that we, who also are sinners, will someday be laid down in the dust of death and face the divine and righteous Judge of all things. 

As offensive as it may be to hear that Del and all of us here are sinners, we must remember that Jesus was also speaking to sinners, but sinners who believed in Him as their Savior.  Of course, when Jesus spoke the words of our text, His disciples didn’t yet fully understand what that meant.  Jesus had just explained that He would soon die a cruel death at the hands of His enemies, and His disciples were shocked and offended.  Yet, Jesus’ death was by no means the end of His life, nor is this the end of Del’s life, for he is At home in the mansions of peace.

To His shocked and fearful disciples, Jesus offered true comfort as He said, “Do not let your heart be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many mansions.  If it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am.”  Why is this such great comfort?  Because ever since sin entered the world, God has had a plan in motion to save us who were cursed by sin.  In His plan of rescue, God sent His own dear Son to live a holy life for us, and He gave His Son into that painful, cruel death on the cross to pay for our debt of guilt for all our sins.  The Holy Spirit through St. Paul explains that “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

What that means for us when we mourn the passing of a dear Christian is that we do not mourn as those who have no hope.  This past Tuesday, Del was called out of this world to stand before Jesus as the Judge of the world, but because Del believed in Jesus and everything Jesus has done for him, Del had nothing to fear.  As he stood before God, Jesus was there with him to testify that “Del is counted holy because I lived for him, died for him, and rose again to give him new life.  I have redeemed this man to be in My house forever.”  Jesus was there to welcome Del home as a true child of God, washed clean and adopted through the water and Word of Baptism into the Kingdom of heaven and the family of our Creator. 

Today, we have the same comfort Jesus was offering to His disciples—that their true, everlasting home is not here on earth but in heaven where there is never again any suffering, illness, pain, war, or death.  Del is now rejoicing with his fellow saints in heaven who believed in Jesus as their Savior and were counted righteous on account of their faith in Jesus.

Many of you may know that Del built a home here in Cottonwood for himself and Kate, and he loved that house.  When he and Nellie married, Del was so excited to have the opportunity to buy that home back, and he and Nellie also shared the joy of living in a home that Del built.  Yet, they knew it was only temporary.  Del knew that, so at the same time, he was also looking forward to the mansions our Savior has built for His followers in heaven, where there is nothing to threaten the glory and joy that Del now enjoys At home in the mansions of peace.

As much as Del liked to talk about the floods and tornadoes he survived, imagine his joy in celebrating that no trouble will ever again threaten him.  He never again has to march off to a foreign war.  Never again will the vagaries of this life cause him pain.  Never again will he be separated from his God who loved him enough to live and die and rise again so that Del and you and I may rejoice forever in the glory of our God.

Shortly after Jesus spoke these words, His enemies were celebrating what they thought was a victory over Jesus as they put His crucified and pierced body in a stone tomb.  Yet, that was not the end.  Because Jesus wanted to end suffering and death, He rose from that grave in triumph over the devil and over all the sin, temptations, and pain the devil has caused throughout history.  Our Savior testified before the world that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)  God sent His own beloved Son to give us a peace that will never end.  Not a peace like an armistice that might be declared between two warring sides that still don’t trust each other, and could break it at any time, but rather, a peace between God and His people, a peace that never ends, because it was earned by God’s Son to give permanent harmony between our faithful, unchanging God and the people who trust in Him, a fellowship of love that lasts forever.

Jesus promised this to all of us who follow Him by faith.  As He taught His disciples of the salvation He was winning for the world by His life and death, Jesus promised, “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.”  Jesus gives us true peace that can never be taken away, because Jesus paid the full redemption price for the reconciliation between God and mankind.

Dear friends, trusting in Jesus, we have nothing to fear.  We have the sure and certain hope that all the sins of the world have been paid for, and God remembers them no more, just as He has promised.  We also have the sure and certain hope that on the last day, our Lord will return and raise from the dead all those who have been called out of this world before that great and glorious day.  We have Jesus’ assurance that we will see Del again, not with a body troubled by the curse of sin but with his body and soul renewed to live forever with all who walk with Jesus by faith.

I am sure you can all imagine how excited Del must have been when he returned home after his tour of duty in the Korean War, and we know how excited Del was to move into his new home with Kate, and then many years later to walk into that home again with Nellie, his beloved wife and friend.  So, imagine how joyful it is now that Del has been welcomed into the rest and peace of the mansions of heaven to be surrounded by those he loved while alive here on earth, and the many faithful Christians he honored with his service in the honor guard through the years.  His remains now rest for a time until the Lord Jesus returns to raise up all from the dead and to reunite both body and soul to be with Him in joy and peace forevermore.  Then, Del and all who believe in Jesus will be forevermore At home in the mansions of peace.  Amen.

The peace of God, established and won for you and for all by the sacrifice of God’s own precious Son, be with you always to the very end of the age.  Amen. 

Jesus, our Sabbath rest, covers all our sin.

 

Sermon for Pentecost 12, August 11, 2024

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.  All who do his precepts have good understanding.  Amen.

Exodus 16:15-31  ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” because they did not know what it was.  Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given to you as food to eat.  ¹⁶This is what the Lord has commanded: All of them are to gather as much of it as they need to eat.  You are to take an omer per person based on the number of people each of you has in your tents.”  ¹⁷The Israelites did this, and some gathered more, some less.  ¹⁸When they measured it with an omer, the one who gathered more did not have too much, and the one who gathered less did not have too little.  All of them gathered as much as they needed to eat.  ¹⁹Moses said to them, “No one is to leave any of it until morning.”  ²⁰However, they did not listen to Moses.  Some of them left part of it until morning, and it became full of worms and stank.  So Moses was angry with them.  ²¹They gathered it each morning.  All of them gathered as much as they needed to eat.  When the sun grew hot, it melted away.  ²²On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers for each person, and all the leaders of the community came and reported to Moses.  ²³He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: Tomorrow is a complete rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord.  Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, but set aside for yourselves all the rest of it to be kept until morning.”  ²⁴So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it.  ²⁵Moses said, “Today eat whatever is left over, for today is a sabbath to the Lord.  Today you will not find any around the camp.  ²⁶Six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”  ²⁷On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather it, but they did not find any.  ²⁸The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you people refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions?  ²⁹Look, the Lord has given you the Sabbath.  Therefore, on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread.  All of you are to stay where you are.  None of you are to leave your places on the seventh day.”  ³⁰So the people rested on the seventh day.  ³¹The house of Israel called it manna.  It looked like white coriander seed, and it tasted like wafers made with honey. (EHV)

Jesus, our Sabbath rest, covers all our sin.

Dear sojourners in a barren land,

            Just what does this text have to do with us today?  If that question was on my mind when I began writing this sermon, I can imagine that you also wonder.  This is such an amazing miracle to read about, but what does it have to do with us thirty-five hundred years later?  It would be easy to pass this event off as mythology as many modern scholars do.  Or we could merely scratch our heads and walk away, but then we read the Lord’s demand of the Israelites, “How long will you people refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions?”  Again, the modern mind may respond, “Wait a minute, how can God be angry over such small infractions?”  Some people kept this miracle food overnight when commanded not to, and others went looking for it on a day God said it wouldn’t be given, but why would that be so serious?  Wouldn’t a good God give the people a break?

Ideas like that are common in our time, for most people tend not to take God’s law seriously.  Oh sure, it’s easy to condemn the bad examples we see in other people who flaunt their disrespect for God, who kill their babies, live together in sin, swindle their neighbor, cheat, steal, and lie, but good Christians like us would never do any of that, would we?  Perhaps we look at these instructions that the Israelites ignored and consider it a minor fault.  We might even ask, “What does it matter if I look lustfully at another man’s wife, or daughter?  What does it matter if my language gets a little salty when I am among friends or coworkers?  Does it really matter if I worry about how much rain we are getting, or still need?  What difference does it make if I want what someone else has?  Or maybe at the age many of us find ourselves, does it really hurt anything if we complain about the health problems God has allowed to enter our lives?  Does any of this stuff really matter in the kingdom of heaven?

In case some of you don’t remember your catechism classes anymore as I suspect there are many for whom that might be the case.  No offense, please, because I don’t remember a lot about mine either.  Yet, I know from the experience of teaching catechism classes that every command we study shows that none of us are innocent of breaking it, and in fact, even the most minor infraction is offensive to our holy God.  Furthermore, every time we break any commandment, even ever so slightly, we are really breaking the First Commandment, also, for even the littlest disobedience shows that we do not truly, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37) 

In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us why God took the Israelite mistakes so seriously:

They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.  They all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them―and that rock was Christ!  Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them.  He had them die in the wilderness.  Now these things took place as examples to warn us not to desire evil things the way they did. (1 Corinthians 10:2-6)

The fact of the matter is that every sin, even those seemingly small and insignificant faults, are little rebellions against our holy and righteous God.  Every one of those sins, even only one sin, would be a rebellion against God and banish us from heaven.  Therefore, God was angry at what we might consider very minor sins, because that meant His chosen people were in open rebellion against their Lord. 

Considering that, how might we be in open rebellion against God?  Might it be dumb little things like going a few miles per hour over the speed limit?  Could it be enjoying our favorite movies or television shows that titillate a little, or leave us laughing at sexually suggestive material?  Might we extend that to supporting legislation that goes against God’s plan for human relationships?  If we think God was angry at the Israelites, how can He not be just as angry with us and with the culture we live in?

Dear friends, if you have been paying attention in the culture wars, I am sure you have heard some little voices out there yelling that God is indeed angry with us and we are doomed to destruction unless we all clean up our act.  Unfortunately, most of the people declaring that gloom and doom also have precious little idea how we might do that.  They will hammer the law into our heads like a railroad spike being driven into the ties, but the law won’t save anyone; it only condemns us for our weaknesses.  Some might glibly say that all those other people who are so wicked are doomed.  Yet, the truth is that on our own, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, or to satisfy God’s sense of justice. 

Still, there remains a sure and certain hope.  In this text, Moses recorded a hint at that hope as he relayed the message of the Lord, “Look, the Lord has given you the Sabbath.  Therefore, on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread.  All of you are to stay where you are.  None of you are to leave your places on the seventh day.” 

The word Sabbath means “rest.”  The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus is our rest.  Jesus is our Sabbath.  He is our perfect obedience and the promise of our holiness and life.  Those worship laws that God gave to Israel were intended to point them forward to Jesus, and to the freedom from sin and guilt that is found in Jesus.  God wanted those people to trust Him implicitly as their Savior.

Fifteen hundred years later, when the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath laws, Jesus responded by telling them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)  Consequently, St. Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit to teach us, “Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were coming, but the body belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17)

So, what does all this mean?  First, it is painfully evident that none of us are any less guilty on our own than those rebellious Israelites in the wilderness.  Yet, far more importantly, we have been made righteous before God though faith in Christ Jesus, and this wasn’t some decision we made, nor any work that we accomplished, nor even any attempt at obeying the laws God laid down for His chosen people.  Instead, Jesus, our Sabbath rest, covers all our sin, just as St. Paul was also inspired to write,

God, because he is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in trespasses.  It is by grace you have been saved!  He also raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  He did this so that, in the coming ages, he might demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith―and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God―not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:4-9)

What God was looking for from those Israelites was not perfect works but complete trust in His love, His promise, and His mercy.  The second person of the Trinity was leading God’s people through the wilderness to the promised land.  Through His servant, Moses, the Lord was giving them His law and His message of saving grace through faith.  Yet, the Israelites were often guilty of willfully ignoring the God who saved them from slavery in Egypt.  The question for all of us is will we also ignore God’s mercy, or will we trust Him to provide everything thing we need for body, soul, and eternity?

This is the honest to goodness truth, Jesus came into this world to save sinners, sinners like you and me, sinners like those wayward Israelites, sinners like the Egyptians who enslaved God’s chosen people, and even sinners like the worst people you have heard of or known.  Jesus lived in perfect obedience to His Father’s will for all of us.  Furthermore, Jesus carried the sins of the world to that cross on Golgotha, and there, Jesus gave His life in full satisfaction of the law’s demand of death for our sin.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit comforts us with the assurance that “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)  Therefore, when the Holy Spirit worked faith in Jesus in your heart, He gave you new life and a willing spirit, and the Father in heaven counted you as holy and righteous in His sight.

Dear friends, through Baptism, God has washed away our guilt and given us faith in Jesus.  Through His word of promise, the Holy Spirit continues to feed and strengthen our God-given, saving faith.  Then, with His true body and blood in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, our Lord Jesus assures us that all sin is forgiven, and we are purified to stand before God in peace.  Trusting in your Savior, Jesus, come forward this morning to eat and drink that holy meal.  Come to the Lord Jesus to taste and see that Jesus, our Sabbath rest, covers all our sin.  Amen.

After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.  To him be the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.

Do not be afraid; Jesus is I AM.

 

Sermon for Pentecost 11, August 4, 2024

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Mark 6:45-56  ⁴⁵Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he himself dismissed the crowd.  ⁴⁶After he had sent them off, he went up the mountain to pray.  ⁴⁷When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and Jesus was alone on the land.  ⁴⁸He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.  About the fourth watch of the night, he went to them, walking on the sea.  He was ready to pass by them.  ⁴⁹When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought he was a ghost, and they cried out.  ⁵⁰They all saw him and were terrified.  Immediately he spoke with them and said, “Take courage!  It is I.  Do not be afraid.”  ⁵¹Then he climbed up into the boat with them, and the wind stopped.  They were completely amazed, ⁵²because they had not understood about the loaves.  Instead, their hearts were hardened.  ⁵³When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there.  ⁵⁴As soon as they stepped out of the boat, people recognized Jesus.  ⁵⁵They ran around that whole region and began to bring sick people on their stretchers to where they heard he was.  ⁵⁶Wherever he entered villages, cities, or the countryside, they were laying sick people in the marketplaces and pleading with him that they might just touch the edge of his garment.  And all who touched it were made well. (EHV)

Do not be afraid; Jesus is I AM.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            The events of our sermon text take place immediately after Jesus fed five thousand men and uncounted women and children with just a young boy’s lunch.  As soon as His disciples had gathered up the twelve basketfuls of leftovers, Jesus sent them away to cross the Sea of Galilee.  To me, it seems like a rather odd series of happenings to close out the day.  Yet, Jesus was certainly intentional in everything He did that evening, and it was all to teach us, Do not be afraid; Jesus is I AM.

Now, I understand if you think that theme is a bit strange.  Yet, the series of events shows us that Jesus knew the hearts and minds of all those people—actually, knew their intentions long before they themselves understood what they had seen.  St. John tells us that in their appreciation for the miracles Jesus performed that day, the people in the crowd intended to take Jesus by force and make Him their king. (John 6:15).  They wanted a Savior who took care of earthly needs instead of a Messiah who would reconcile them with God.

Mark tells us that the disciples were also likewise confused about Jesus.  They saw the miracle worker.  They recognized that Jesus came from God, but they didn’t yet see Jesus as who He really, truly is, the very Son of God in human flesh.  Those twelve men had already observed countless miracles.  They had received hour upon hour of personal instruction from our Lord, and still, like us sometimes, their minds remained a bit dull to the reality of who Jesus is.

The sad truth of our day is that many, many people, and church bodies as well, view Jesus as something of an influential Teacher, or perhaps, as a vending machine of miracles, and sometimes we can fall into the same trap.  We might say our prayers with the attitude, Jesus give me what I want, not what You want for me.  Too many people of our times even question the sanity of those who believe Jesus ever lived or did any of the things the Bible says He did.  Thus, we should ask, how many doubts and fears enter our minds, especially when the winds of the world turn hard against us?

St. Mark reported, “Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he himself dismissed the crowd.  After he had sent them off, he went up the mountain to pray.”  Immediately after the miracle was complete and the disciples had picked up the surplus, Jesus sent His disciples away to keep them out of the traps the crowd intended.  More importantly, Jesus then sent the crowds away and took Himself into solitude to pray to His Father, as was Jesus’ custom on a daily basis.  Surely, Jesus was praying for guidance from His Father, for the strength to do His Father’s will, and likewise, just as He continues to do today, Jesus interceded for those people who wanted to misuse God’s mercy and grace.  Therefore, we can be assured that Jesus was also praying for you and me and for everyone who would ever believe in Him and for many others to turn from their wickedness and join us in the Christian faith.

If you ever promised to pray for someone, did you sometimes forget to keep that promise?  Did you always pray with fervent confidence that God would do exactly what was best for the person you prayed for?  Or, have you ever questioned why God didn’t give you exactly what you desired?  My friends, I can assure you that Jesus’ prayers were perfect and His perfection in prayers is now credited to you by faith.  Therefore, as in all sins and weakness, Jesus lived for your righteousness.

More Good News can be found in this text.  In the middle of that night, sometime after 3:00 in the morning, the disciples were still struggling to cross that open water.  What normally would have taken them a few short hours at most, had become a struggle to survive.  Mark reports that the winds were battling against them, tossing them about on the sea.  Then, as if that wasn’t scary enough, suddenly the disciples—all of them together—observed Jesus walking upon the water.  I can hardly imagine how that looked to see Jesus calmly striding along as though to pass them by while they fought for their lives in the midst of the raging storm.  Did they recognize Jesus?  Not hardly!

No, those disciples, who one would assume knew Jesus so well, thought it might be a ghost, or some other fantasy of the mind.  It made them even more terrified.  Mark tells us the disciples didn’t understand Jesus from the great miracle they had seen and participated in just the afternoon before.  They took those five loaves and two small fish from Jesus’ hands and passed the pieces out among thousands of people and somehow didn’t recognize this could only be the God who provided manna in the wilderness for their ancient forefathers. 

Jesus’ disciples still didn’t see Jesus as He truly is.  In this, we get our answer as to why the Lord conducted such a strange series of events that night.  Even if the whole world doesn’t recognize Jesus as the Son of God and Redeemer of all, He wants His disciples to know the truth.  It took another miracle to open the eyes of those men, just like it took another miracle to open our eyes to see Jesus.  I suppose you could almost liken that night to the disciples’ baptisms.  If not theirs, surely ours.  In the pouring on of the water and Word at our Baptisms, Jesus is opening our eyes and minds to know Him as our Lord and Savior and God. 

Now, of course, just like those twelve, we need to be kept in that faith for it to benefit us.  Later on, Judas abandoned that truth, and it cost him his eternal life.  Yet, God kept the eleven believing in Jesus even when their faith was tested by the rejection of the world and even when seeing their Lord die on a cross for them and for us.  They still needed to hear Jesus say again and again, Do not be afraid; I AM.  Yet, from that point on that self-description that the Jews hated to hear Jesus use, and they used it to falsely condemn Him for claiming to be God, became for His disciples full assurance of the truth.

Dear friends, when we read this text, we may marvel at how Jesus performed so many miracles, so many, many healings in those days when He walked this earth.  We might even feel a twinge of jealousy, especially, when it seems like maybe He isn’t hearing our cries for mercy and help.  Whenever we may begin to doubt Jesus’ love, we must recognize that our doubts come in when we stop looking at Jesus as He truly is, the Son of God who knows everything, sees everything, and works all things “together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

That night, the disciples didn’t yet comprehend Jesus as He truly is.  It is possible that they may have even questioned His judgment for sending them out into that lake right before the storm.  I don’t know whether they questioned that, but I am sure they wondered why they were out in that raging wind.  Jesus knew what He was doing.  He wanted them to see Him as the true Son of God, controller of wind and wave, the Giver of food and life, the Healer and Physician of both body and soul.  Just as importantly, Jesus wants us to see that while there will be many troubles in our lives, and often many dangers and hardships that seek our harm and destruction, Jesus knows it all, well in advance, and He will be there to help us through the storm.

In our reading from 1 Kings, we saw how the Lord was protecting His people in Elisha’s time.  You and I can be just as confident as Elisha that if the Lord would open our eyes to the see behind the curtain of this world’s conditions, we too would see His angels guarding and protecting us from the enemies who seek our destruction.  In fact, that protection is found for our souls in His holy Gospel.  The Good News of all our Savior has done for us, and all He continues to do to ensure that we make it safely home to heaven with Him, is what gives us faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our Rescuer in times of trouble, and indeed, the Giver of life everlasting through faith in His sacrifice on the cross.

Whenever Jesus referred to Himself as the I AM, the Jews took great offense and tried to kill Him.  They knew Jesus was claiming to be God.  Unlike the disciples, however, the Jews rejected that truth and it led to their destruction.  For you and me, the great I AM, the Son of the Living God, came down to earth, took on human flesh, and lived, suffered, died, and rose again, so that through faith in Him, you and I have forgiveness and life everlasting.  With His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus took away every sin of doubt, weakness, worry, or fear that may have ever troubled you.  God bless you in that faith.  He has made you His own dear child by the blood of His Son.  Do not be afraid; Jesus is I AM.  Amen.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, both soul and body, be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.  Amen.