Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter - Misercordias Domini

                                                                                     Easter 3 
                                                                                     1 Pt 2:21-25 
                                                                                     4/10/16

It should be obvious that we find today to be meaningful. The Scripture readings for the Third Sunday of Easter – Misercordias Domini – have caused many to call today “Good Shepherd Sunday.” In the Old Testament reading God says, “Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”

 In our text, the Epistle lesson, Peter says, “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” And of course, in the Gospel lesson Jesus declares, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
 

This theme catches our attention because we are, after all, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. The defining feature of this congregation is the window behind me that depicts Jesus lovingly holding a lamb in his arms. It is now illuminated at night so that those at evening services and those driving by on Westminster Drive can see it. This image appears on our church stationary, on our t-shirts and even on my business card.
 

And in fact, the Good Shepherd connections don’t stop there. In a timing that almost seems to have been scripted, I officially announced my acceptance of the call to Good Shepherd on Good Shepherd Sunday in 2006. Now almost ten years later, it appears that it was meant to be.
 

Good Shepherd Sunday has a warm and fuzzy feel – kind of like that lamb Jesus is holding in our window. The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd calls to mind the tender and caring love of our Lord. He is the one who like a shepherd gathers in his sheep and cares for them. Or as our text says, “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”
 

Now this is certainly all true. And more than that, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who has done the unthinkable. As our Lord says in the Gospel lesson, “I lay down my life for the sheep.” Jesus is the One who has given himself as the sacrifice for our sin. That is what almost all of our text today is about.
 

Peter tells us that “Christ also suffered for you.” And then he goes on to use the words of that Old Testament text the proved so crucial for the early Church’s understanding of what had happened on Good Friday. Weaving in the words of Isaiah chapter 53 about the suffering Servant, Peter tells us, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
 

Jesus Christ the sinless One bore your sins in his body on the tree. Sinners who sin cannot live with the holy God. And so Jesus became the sinner in your place. He received the judgment that you deserve for all of your selfish actions. He received God’s wrath for all of the angry words you speak. He died for you, and then on the third day God raised him from the dead. Because of this Peter can says, “By his wounds you have been healed.”
 

Not long ago we had gone out to take care of some errands. We usually go out through the garage to the van. The door into the house from the garage has a glass screen door that has the usual mechanism to close it. To be honest, ours causes the door to close very slowly.
 

We left the house and returned more than an hour later. As we pulled up to the house we saw an unexpected sight. There, sitting next to the garage door, were our two dogs, Luther and Noel. What had happened is that sometimes, the last person out forgets to shut the door into the house as they walk out into the garage. The screen door closes slowly, and the dogs who have followed us to the door slip out before the screen door closes. In this case we must have been in such a hurry that not only did we not notice this – we also didn’t realize that the dogs had gone outside the garage.
 

The dogs were outside the house, unattended for an extended period of time. But when we returned, there they were, sitting next to the garage door. Luther and Noel are not dumb. They know where home is. They know they have it really good. They didn’t wander off.
 

While the dogs were too smart to wander off, you and I are too dumb not too. Jesus is the shepherd and we are the sheep. Sheep, as you have heard many times, are proverbialy dumb. They wander off. Though we had wandered off into sin, by his death and resurrection and through the work of the Holy Spirit in the Means of Grace, Jesus has brought us back to himself. And even when we stumble in sin, he continues to bring back repentant sinners.
 

That’s all good stuff. It’s all true stuff. It’s the kind of stuff you expect to hear on Good Shepherd Sunday. But our text from 1 Peter also contains a surprise. There is something here we probably don’t expect.
 

Peter begins our text by saying, “For to this you have been called.” “This” refers to the previous three verses in which Peter has said, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”
 

Our translation says “servants,” but Peter here is clearly talking to slaves. Peter says it finds favor in God’s eyes when a Christian slave suffers unjustly because he or she is mindful of God. The apostle says that it finds favor in God’s eyes when a Christian slave does good and suffers because of it.
 

And before you think that these words and this idea do not apply to you because they are addressed to people in the situation of ancient slavery, consider what Peter says in the next chapter. There he writes, “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.”
 

Peter says this and then adds, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” It is the exact same argument as in our text where the apostle explains, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you.”
 

Jesus Christ’s suffering and death for us has not only provided our salvation. In our text Peter declares, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” When Jesus suffered unjustly, yet continued to trust the Father’s will he was providing the model for us to follow. When he was reviled yet did not respond in kind he was showing us how we are to live. And so Peter can say in the next chapter, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.” You are called to follow Jesus in doing what is right even in the face of suffering, “because,” Peter says, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.”
 

Jesus’ suffering and death is an example for us. Yet we would be in trouble if that was all there was to it. After all, we would simply be cast back on our own resources. However Jesus did not just die. As we have been celebrating since Easter, he also rose from the dead. And this fact has changed everything for us. Peter begins this letter by announcing, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
 

The new life of the resurrection has already begun in us. Peter says we have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. How did this happen? The apostle explains this as he talks about how Christians are to treat one another. He writes, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
 

The Holy Spirit has given you new life through the Word. You know that you have new life because you have received rebirth through the washing of water and the Word in Holy Baptism. Now through the work of the Spirit, the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives you hope. We know how the story turns out. We have already gotten to peek at the end of the book. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has shown us where we are heading, and the Spirit who raised Jesus is at work in you. He will do that same thing for you on the Last Day, and already now the Spirit provides the means by which you can follow in Jesus Christ’s steps.
 

Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd who has given his life for us his sheep. He suffered for us as he bore our sins in body on tree, and by his wounds we have been healed. His trust in God the Father as he faced suffering and his willingness to suffer for doing what is right in God’s eyes provide an example to us. Peter says in our text, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.”
 

But Jesus is the One who rose from the dead. And we are enabled to walk in his steps through the work of the Holy Spirit. We have been born again to a living hope through Jesus’ resurrection. The Spirit has caused us to be born again through the Word and now we can follow in Jesus’ steps because we know where they lead – resurrection and eternal life with Christ.

Mark's thoughts: Forty days

Unlike Christmas, the world devotes little attention to the time leading up to Easter. A few bunnies go up as decorations and the stores put out Easter candy in the week or two leading up to the day, but otherwise there is not all that much to mark its approach. Like Christmas, as soon as the day has passed, the world moves on to other things.  

In the Church we spend four weeks during Advent preparing for Christmas and then twelve days celebrating Christmas itself. And while the Church’s celebration of Christmas differs from the world, our celebration of Easter differs even more. We spend five and a half weeks during Lent preparing for Easter. And then we spend forty days celebrating the presence of the risen Lord with his disciples up until the day of his ascension. Eastertide itself extends for fifty days until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.
 
These forty days between Easter and Ascension are important for our understanding of the Christian faith. Luke begins the book of Acts by saying: 

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:1-3 ESV). 

The appearances by the risen Lord were not a one day event. Instead, they extended over the course of forty days. These days were the occasion when Jesus Christ provided many proofs that he had risen from the dead, and during this time he engaged in teaching the disciples.
 
These appearances occurred at (John 20:11-18) and near the tomb (Matthew 28:7-10 ). They occurred in Jerusalem itself in a room twice (Luke 24:36-49; John 20:19-23; 20:24-29). They occurred on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). They occurred in northern Israel on a mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20) and at the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-14).

Encounters with the risen Lord were not limited to the twelve, or even to a small group. The apostle Paul told the Corinthians: 

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallenasleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:1-8 ESV)

Forty days of appearances to different groups of people in different places. Why were the disciples willing to suffer imprisonment and even death? They knew that the crucified One had risen from the dead! They knew because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that the message they preached was true, and so nothing else mattered.
 
From the beginning, Christians were very open about the fact that the faith they proclaimed stood or fell with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul told the Corinthians:

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:14-19 ESV)

Yet the disciples knew for certain that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. They didn’t have to wonder whether they were mistaken about something they had experienced one Sunday. Instead, they had encountered the risen Lord on multiple occasions in different places during the course of forty days. As Paul went on to say, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20-21 ESV).
 
The disciples bore witness to what they had seen and heard by their lives … and their deaths. They travelled around the Mediterranean world and proclaimed Christ in the midst of great hardships (2 Corinthians 11:23-29). They even gave the ultimate witness by dying for Christ – by being martyrs for Jesus (a Greek word that means “witness”).
 
Only the Holy Spirit can create and sustain faith in Jesus Christ. But as we share the good news about Jesus with others and as we face the assaults of the devil against our own faith, the events during the forty days during between Easter and Ascension provide comfort, strength and encouragement that we need.

Sermon for Second Sunday of Easter - Quasimodo Geniti: Jn 20:19-31

                                                                                         Easter 2
                                                                                         Jn 20:19-31
                                                                                         4/3/16

Well that must have been an awkward week! As we listen to our Gospel lesson this morning it is easy to overlook the implications of the fact that the text moves from events on the evening of Easter Sunday to those that occurred on the evening of the first Sunday after Easter. 

It is, of course, an account that we know well. Thomas is not present with the disciples on the evening of Easter. The risen Lord appears to the disciples. But when they report this good news to Thomas he says, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Then we hear about what happened a week later on the next Sunday evening when Thomas is present and the risen Lord appears to the disciples again.
 
But in between these two events is a week. For a whole week Thomas was living in the midst of the disciples. They were filled with joy. After all our Gospel lesson tells us that on the evening of Easter the “disciples were glad when they saw the Lord” – a statement that can also be translated as “they rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
 
Certainly they did not yet understand all that the resurrection of Jesus Christ meant. But their Lord who had been crucified had risen from the dead! Already now they were beginning to think back on what Jesus had said and done. As I mentioned last week, at the beginning of his ministry Jesus had visited Jerusalem and cleansed the temple. When the Jews challenged him to do something that proved his authority to do this, Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The answer seemed to make no sense. Yet John tells us, “But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
 
Thomas on the other hand clung to his rejection of the very thing that now shaped and formed their life. Imagine what that was like during the course of the week. In our text we hear the disciples report to Thomas what had happened. But it seems unlikely that the disciples only mentioned Jesus’ resurrection appearance once to Thomas. Surely they tried to persuade him during the course of the week as they bore witness to what they had seen and heard.
 
Why did Thomas reject what they said? Our text doesn’t explain his reasons. It only reports his demand for physical confirmation – to put his finger in the mark of the nails and put his hand into Jesus’ side where the spear had pierced him. It surely wasn’t because he didn’t think a resurrection was possible. After all, apart from the Sadducees this was a common belief in first century Judaism. It was something that was a regular part of Jesus’ own teaching.
 
Perhaps the crucifixion of Jesus had just been too jarring for him. We now know that there was a fairly wide diversity of messianic expectation in first century Judaism. But one thing that tied all of these expectations together was that the Messiah would be a powerful and mighty figure who would defeat evil and bring rescue to God’s people. And for all of these expectations there was one absolute proof that an individual was not the Messiah: When the Romans killed him. A dead Messiah was no Messiah.
 
In our own day too, there are reasons why people reject the resurrection. For many the cause is a pseudo-scientific view of science. This week I sent out the link for a fascinating piece by Ian Hutchison, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. He is also a Christian who believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 
He addresses the fact that many people today believe that anything that does not conform to the laws of science is impossible. And he comments, “Today’s widespread materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are ‘inviolable’ is not necessary for science to function. Science offers natural explanations of natural events. It has no power or need to assert that only natural events happen.”
 
Unbelief is the basic challenge in our lives. The devil, the world and our own sinful nature want us to doubt. It is the resurrection and the Holy Spirit poured forth by the risen Lord that has powered the Christian faith. What sent the apostles out into the Mediterranean world and beyond in order to share the Gospel? What prompted them to bring a message to a world that sounded like foolishness – the message of a crucified Savior? It was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus had died on the cross for the sins of all and had defeated death in his resurrection. The resurrection of the Last Day had begun in Jesus!
 
It is the resurrection of the crucified Savior that plays the same role in our lives. Why can we be sure that our sins are forgiven? Because the crucified Lord rose from the dead. Why can we trust that God is still in charge in the midst of circumstances we don’t understand? Because the crucified Lord rose from the dead. Why do we face illness and death in confident trust in God? Because the crucified Lord rose from the dead.
 
This is not what the devil wants. And so he works through the world and our own sinful nature to cause us to doubt. He works to create a disconnect between what we believe about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the way we live our lives.
 
Thomas didn’t just doubt. He rejected the witness to the resurrection that other disciples were providing. And so we learn in our text that eight days later, Jesus’ disciples were inside again, and this time Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and just as on the previous Sunday he said, “Peace be with you.”
 
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” The risen Lord stood in their midst and called Thomas to believe.
 
Several years ago I mentioned in a sermon that there is a great irony about Thomas. We all know the phrase to which this text has given rise: “doubting Thomas.” John’s Gospel begins by telling us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John then goes on to describe incarnation as he says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
 
John begins the Gospel by telling the reader that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. Then we wait in the Gospel for someone to confess this. We wait and wait until finally we hear it on the lips of … Thomas. The risen Lord called Thomas from unbelief to faith – a faith that confesses Jesus as Lord and God.
 
In response Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Our Lord’s words express a basic distinction that we can’t get around. Thomas and the apostles were there to see Jesus crucified and then to encounter him for forty days after his resurrection. We were not.
 
The Word became flesh and acted in a particular place and time in human history. That’s actually very good news – it is Gospel. It means that God has acted in our time and space in order to give us forgiveness and salvation – people who live in time and space. Because of his great love, in the incarnation God entered into our world and existence in order to suffer and die for you. It really happened and so it really has meaning for you.
 
Now it true that we don’t live there and then. But Jesus says in our text that the status of being blessed – of enjoying God’s end-time salvation – is open to us as well. It is open to us in the same way that it was to Thomas. It is available by faith.
 
And the last verses of our text tell us how God bears witness to the resurrection of Jesus and calls us to faith. John writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
 
John’s Gospel focuses our attention on the signs that Jesus did – signs that reveal his saving glory. After Jesus turns water into wine, John tells us, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.” Jesus’ signs reveal his glory and call forth faith.
 
Immediately after reporting Jesus’ interaction with Thomas John says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.” The appearance to Thomas is itself a sign. And John tells us about it so that it can do the same thing it did in Jesus’ day. He goes on to add, “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
 
We see the signs in the inspired Scriptures – words provided by the Spirit of God. On the night when he was betrayed Jesus promised to send the Spirit – the Helper. He said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
 
In the inspired word of God we continue to see the signs of the risen Lord – signs that reveal his saving glory and call forth faith. Yes the signs can be rejected. But it was no different in Jesus’ day. As John tells us about Holy Week in Jerusalem, “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him.” But just as it was in Jesus’ day, so it is now. They are signs that reveal Jesus saving glory “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Mark's thoughts: The exact opposite of error leads into the opposite error

Doing the exact opposite of an error usually just leads you into the opposite error.  I thought this as I read the post God’s Love Song of Salvation.  On the one hand the author has a valid point. The primary purpose of the Old Testament is not to provide moral examples.  It is instead the revelation of God working out his promise to save all of humanity – a promise fulfilled in Christ.

Yet this is where the problem arises and an appropriate correction turns into error.  The straw man of moralism is set up and then destroyed by the truth of Gospel, grace and forgiveness.  It all sounds so good because now we are really doing “Law and Gospel.”  Now “God is running all of the verbs.”  Now we have escaped the moralism that confounds American evangelicalism.

This is the move that radical Lutheranism and its radical grace set before us all the time these days.  It is so very seductive because what it says is true.  Yet it ceases to be the truth when this is all that is said, all the time.  For if we are to be biblical, we need to recognize that there is another side to the matter.

You see, the saints of the Old and New Testament (and the rest of the Church’s history as well) are examples we are called to imitate.  There is a writer – I don’t know his name – who once talked about them in this very way.  He wrote:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.

By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:1-38 ESV)

Now in this text the saints of the Old Testament are certainly being held up as examples.  They are examples of how a faith that trusts in God’s promises lives and acts. To ignore this is to omit a biblical truth.  This in turn is part of a larger effort that ignores the repeated biblical emphasis that Christians are to live in ways that are generated by faith in Christ. They are to imitate Jesus Christ.  After all, Jesus is an example. At least Martin Luther thought he was.

There is another text that treats the saints of God’s people as examples.  It says:

Concerning the cult of the saints our people teach that the saints are to be remembered so that we may strengthen our faith when we see how they experienced grace and how they were helped by faith.  Moreover, it is taught that each person, according to his or her calling, should take the saints’ good works as an example (AC XXI.1).

Doing the exact opposite of an error usually just leads you into the opposite error.  Don’t follow there.