Sermon for Sixth Sunday of Easter - Rogate Num 21:4-9

                                                                                    Easter 6

                                                                                    Num 21:4-9

                                                                                    5/10/15

            You are driving along and approaching some railroad tracks.  As you get closer, you see that the railroad crossing lights start to flash and the crossing gate is beginning to lower. When this happens, what is your reaction?

            Now hopefully, your first reaction is not to push your foot down on the gas pedal.  For the most part, train crossing accidents fall into two categories.  A larger number that you would like to think are not in fact accidents at all. They are instead suicides as a person uses the train to take their own life. More frequently, it is simply a matter of a person trying to beat the train to the crossing.  To do this successfully requires correct perceptual speed judgment of both the driver's own vehicle and the train. Accidents frequently happen because the driver underestimates the approaching train's speed. The reason for this is to be found in the way that the retinal image of our eye works and the fact that the person is viewing the train at an angle.  And it’s a simple fact – when the driver misjudges and there is impact, the train always wins.

            Now most likely your reaction when you get stopped at a railroad crossing for a train is different than mine.  You probably view it as an inconvenience.  Perhaps it makes you get a little impatient.  On the other hand, getting stopped at a railroad crossing and seeing a train go by makes my day.  I love it.  I mean, after all, I use vacation time to go watch trains.

            However, there is one scenario when I don’t feel that way.  If you live on the west side of Marion and you are going to go to Ray Fosse Park for baseball and softball, or if you are going to go to the Marion Soccer Complex, you have to cross over the Union Pacific tracks.  If I have left later than I should have in order to take one of the kids to a practice or game, the last thing I want to see is a 125 car coal train.  The difficulty involved in being late changes things for me, and even I get impatient when I have to wait at the crossing.

            In our Old Testament lesson this morning we hear that Israel became impatient on the way. And in this case too, it was because of difficulty.  Our text takes place after Israel had rebelled against God and had refused to enter the promised land.  As a result of this, God declared that those who were twenty years and older would not enter the land.  Instead, Israel would have to wander in the wilderness for forty years.  During that time the generation that had refused to enter the promised land would die off.

            Our text begins by saying, “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.”  As I was preparing for this sermon, I became curious about the Hebrew verb that is translated as “became impatient.”  It doesn’t occur all that many times in the Old Testament and when I looked at all the instances the thing that became apparent is that often it is associated with difficult circumstances.  So Job in the midst of his suffering says, “As for me, is my complaint against man?

Why should I not be impatient?”  Or as Delilah tried to learn the source of Sampson’s strength she nagged him with the question.  We are told, “And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death.” 

            The people of Israel became impatient on the way because things were not easy.  Yet they weren’t just impatient.  They also acted upon these feelings for we are told, “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’”

            Of course their statement ignored a couple of important facts.  First, Yahweh had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt in response to their call for help.  We hear in Exodus, “the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” They wanted to be rescued.

            And second, they were wandering in the wilderness because of their own sin.  God had brought them to the land of Canaan just as he said he would.  He wanted to give the land to them but they refused to enter because they did not trust God in the face of the report brought back by the spies who had scouted it.

            In addition they complained that there was no water, in spite of the fact that God had provided water for them in a miraculous fashion on multiple occasions – the most recent being in the previous chapter.  And on top of this they complained about the manna – the bread of heaven – that God was providing to sustain them.  In fact they said, “we loathe this worthless food.”

            But then you are really no different from Israel.  You complain about the hardships of living as a Christian in this world, and in so doing ignore the fact that God has saved you out of this world and made you a child of God.  You complain about the hardships that you experience in life.  And yet you have created so many of those hardships for yourself by disobeying God in the first place. 

            You become impatient on the way in this pilgrimage of life because of the difficulties, and like Israel your reaction is to ignore and even to denigrate the gifts that God provides.  You forget about the water that God has provided in the past – the water of your baptism and what it means for your present.  You look at the challenge of walking by faith when faced with cancer or mental illness and you question whether God can’t give you something more than just bread and wine on an altar.  Or perhaps your actions say that you consider it inconsequential as you let weeks pass without coming to receive it.

            Israel sinned against Yahweh in the wilderness.  And he acted in judgment against them.  We learn that God sent fiery serpents among the people who bit them and caused many to die.  Eventually the people had to confess.  They came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” 

            Moses prayed for the people and God responded, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” And then we learn that Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

            In our Old Testament lesson, Yahweh provides rescue through a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole.  During his ministry, our Lord Jesus applied this event to himself.  He indicated that it was a type – something in the Old Testament that pointed forward to a greater reality that God would carry out in Christ.  Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

            The Son of God entered into our world in order to be lifted up on the cross.  He came to bear our sins and die as the substitute who received God’s judgment in our place.  Through Moses God declared that all who looked at the bronze serpent – all who believed God’s word – would be delivered from death.  And now the word of the Gospel declares that all who look in faith towards the crucified Lord receive forgiveness and eternal life.  They receive this because Jesus was lifted up on a cross and then taken down and laid in a tomb. But he did not remain in the tomb.  Instead he burst through death and defeated it forever. 

            Like the Israelites, we too are journeying on the way.  We are on this pilgrimage of life.  For us too the way is difficult.  Some of this is caused by the fact that we live in a fallen world.  Some of it we cause for ourselves because of our own sinful decisions. Yet because Jesus, like the bronze serpent, was lifted up we now have forgiveness and life.

            God has provided the means by which he gives this forgiveness and life to us as he sustains us on the way. And we see in our text the model and pattern by which he works. In our text God attaches his promise to the located means of the bronze serpent on a pole.  He uses something that is located in the midst of the people. They are told what he is using and where it is found. And through faith in God’s promise the people receive rescue and life. 

            God has not changed the way he does things.  He provided the serpent on a pole as the located means of his rescue.  In so doing he pointed forward to the located means of the flesh of incarnate Son of God who was nailed to the cross and rose from the dead.  And now God works through the located means of water, and bread and wine. Like the bronze serpent on the pole, God takes these things and adds his promise to them.  He adds his word to them so that they become the means of his forgiveness and salvation.

            In this sermon I have repeatedly drawn out similarities between Israel in the text and our life as Christians today. But there is one very important difference.  The people of Israel were on the way. But the majority of them would never reach the goal. They would never enter the promised land because of their rebellion.

            You are on the way too in this pilgrimage of life.  But in your case, you know with certainty that you will enter the promised land of resurrection and the new creation.  You know it for sure because Jesus has already entered for you.  As those who have been baptized into his death, you know that you have died with Christ.  You also know that you will share in his resurrection.

            So like the Israelites in our text, let us look in faith at the bronze serpent on the pole.  Let us look at Jesus who was lifted upon the cross in order to give us forgiveness and eternal life.  Let us look in faith at the water of our baptism, for their your sin was forgiven and you have the assurance that you too will be raise. And let us look in faith at the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar. Through this located means Christ gives us his true body and blood given and shed for us.  He give us forgiveness of sins and life.  Through this food God sustains us on the way as we journey towards the promised land.     

           

           

           

           

Commemoration of C.F.W. Walther, Theologian

Today we remember and give thanks for C.F.W. Walther, Theologian.  Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (1811-87), the father of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, served as its first president from 1847 to 1850 and then again from 1864 to 1878. In 1839 he emigrated from Saxony, Germany, with other Lutherans, who settled in Missouri. He served as pastor of several congregations in St. Louis, founded Concordia Seminary, and in 1847 was instrumental in the formation of the LCMS (then called the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States). Walther worked tirelessly to promote confessional Lutheran teaching and doctrinal agreement among all Lutherans in the United States. He was a prolific writer and speaker. Among his most influential works are Church and Ministry and The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel.

Collect of the Day:

Almighty God, you give the gift of teachers to your Church.  We praise you for the gifts of grace manifested in your servant Carl Ferdinand, and we pray that your Church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Commemoration of Fredrick the Wise, Christian Ruler

Today we remember and give thanks for Frederick the Wise, Christian Ruler.  Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony from 1486 to 1525, was Martin Luther's sovereign in the early years of the Reformation. Were it not for Frederick, there might not have been a Lutheran Reformation. Born in Torgau in 1463, he became so well known for his skill in political diplomacy and his sense of justice and fairness that he was called "the Wise" by his subjects. Though he never met Luther, Frederick repeatedly protected and provided for him. In all likelihood he saved the reformer from a martyr's fate. Frederick refused the pope's demand to extradite Luther to Rome for a heresy trial in 1518. When Emperor Charles V declared Luther an outlaw in 1521 at the Diet of Worms, Frederick provided sanctuary for Luther at the Wartburg castle. On his deathbed, Frederick received the Lord's Supper in both kinds--a clear confession of the evangelical faith.

Collect of the Day:

Together with Fredrick and all your saints who now rest from their labors, we look forward to your future coming to usher in your new creation--a place free from sin and death, a place where all our voices will praise You without end for Your great glory. Until that appointed time, continue to sustain us in this certain hope throughout all our earthly days; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Sermon for Fifth Sunday of Easter - Cantate James 1:16-21

                                                                                    Easter 5

                                                                                    James 1:16-21

                                                                                    5/3/15

            We live in a time when people spend their lives looking down.  When you go to a restaurant you often do not see people looking at each other, but instead they sit there looking down at their smart phones.  When you go to a sports practice for children or youth – and I have some experience with this one – you see people sitting on a bleacher looking down at their smart phones.  Basically when you go to anything where people are not required to be actively doing something or to be focused on something else, you find them looking down at their smart phones.

            It’s really not surprising that our smart phones attract so much attention.  When you combine the ability to communicate instantaneously with access to the internet all in the palm of your hand, that is an incredibly powerful draw.  Add to this of course that access to the internet means not simply access to unlimited amounts of reading material, but also the ability to interact on social media, and you have a black hole in your hand with seemingly unlimited power to suck you in.  People spend their lives looking down, and until the next breakthrough in technology that transcends the smart phone, I think they will continue to do so.

            While we spend so much time looking down, people in the ancient world spent much time looking up.  We live in a world where we feel the need to be entertained constantly.  Much of this entertainment is visual in nature.  The ancient world led a much slower life with far less entertainment.  It was also a life that spent far more time outside at night.  Whether because it was due to work, or because the roof was a more comfortable place to sleep in the summer, people often found themselves outside with time on their hands.  And when they did, they looked up.

            The ancient world was far more attuned to the moon, the planets and the stars. I don’t know about you, but apart from the Big Dipper, I can’t name or find anything in the night sky.  I don’t pay any attention to what phase the moon is in, and I only really notice it on random occasions.   By contrast the ancient world paid attention.  Some of this was for practical reasons. And some of it was for religious reasons since it was very common to think of the heavenly bodies as astral powers – divinities that controlled life. This kind of thinking was everywhere in the first century world in which James wrote.

            It is therefore not surprising that James begins our text by writing: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  God is described as the “Father of lights.”  He is the Creator of all of things in the heavens and controls them.  We heard about this in last week’s Old Testament lesson from Isaiah in which God said, “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.”

            James says that there is no variation in God.  He is reliable.  You can count on him.  And what you can count on him to do is to give good things.  Our text says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”  God is the giver of good things.  Now it is easy to lose sight of this fact and focus on the good things themselves.  It is easy to focus on our own actions and think that we can take credit for those good things.  And so James warns about this, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.”

            God is the giver of all good things.  James has just said that what he doesn’t give to us is temptation.  He writes, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”

            God doesn’t seek to lead people into sin.  Instead James says that we take care of that on our own.  He writes just before the start of our text, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James has written one of the best descriptions of how sin works in our life.  Our desire lures and tempts us.  You don’t have to look outside yourself for the reason you do the things you shouldn’t.  It’s right there inside you.

            Our desires are disorderd.  Since we don’t fear, love and trust in God above all things, we desire things. We put them first.  This desire conceives and gives birth to sin.  It prompts thoughts and actions that are sinful. And this sin brings forth death because that is what sin always does.  It kills.

            This is who you are.  And because this is so, salvation was never going to come from inside you. When you look inside, you find nothing there except crud.  So instead, salvation comes from the outside.  It comes from above, from God who is Giver of every good and perfect gift.  James says in our text, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

            While sin brings forth forth death, God gives us life by the word of truth.  He gives us life through the Gospel.  The Giver of good gifts gave his Son by sending Him in the incarnation to suffer and die on the cross.  But this is a story about giving life.  And so God gave new life – resurrection life – when he raised Jesus Christ from the dead.  He began in Jesus the resurrection of the Last Day that will be ours when Christ returns.

            Now, God has given you saving life.  He has begun that new life in you through the work of His Spirit.  As James calls Christians to live in ways that reflect what God has done for them, he says, “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”  For all of us, that word has been implanted with water.  In Holy Baptism God used water and the Word to join you to the saving death of Jesus Christ. The saving Word that joins you to Christ has been implanted in you and has made you a child of God.  It is through this word that you have been made “a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”  You have been redeemed, and your redemption is the beginning of God’s saving work that will extend to his whole creation.

            This is a word that you continue to receive as you hear it read and proclaimed.  It is a word that you continue to receive as Christ’s Gospel words are spoken over bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar – as he says given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

            God has given you the gift of life from above through his word – through the Gospel.  And this means something.  It does something. It leads you to do something.  James writes, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  In that very practical way that characterizes this letter, James tells us how to live as those who have been brought forth through the word of truth. 

            He says be quick to hear.  James urges a desire; a willingness; an eagerness to listen to others.  When we are quick to listen we are not rushing to form our own judgments about the actions of others, but instead we are allowing the best construction to be placed on them.  When we are quick to listen we show that we care for others because we are ready to hear what they are experiencing.

            James says Christians are to be quick to listen. They are, however, to be slow to speak.  If you are familiar the book of James, it’s not hard to understand why he says this.  It’s because of the tongue.  Later in chapter three he writes, “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”  When we are slow to speak we are careful to keep the tongue fenced in behind teeth and lips where it does no harm.

            We are to be slow to speak because when we are quick to speak, it is often because we speak in anger.  James says in our text that we are to be slow to anger.  The reason for this is that           “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  We like to talk about “righteous anger.” But the reality is that we give ourselves too much credit.  Instead, quite often our anger is sinful.  When sinners get angry, we tend to sin.  It’s just what we do.  Our motives, our goals, what we do and what we say get pulled into sin’s gravitational field. This is why James says that we need to be slow to anger.  In general the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

            Instead, because of what God has done for us in Christ we need to be quick to love; quick to serve; quick to forgive.  This is not something that we can do on our own.  It requires instead that we confess and repent of the presence of sin in our life, and that we turn to the source of forgiveness and life that James describes in our text. For as he, “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”