His wounds are His glory and our healing

Sermon preached for Easter 2B, on Sunday, April 12, 2015

    Jesus dies and rises again and the best He can get from His disciples is them huddling behind locked dears with hearts closed off from joy by their fear!  Shouldn’t Jesus have expected more?  The locked doors did not stop Jesus but the fearful hearts – well, that’s another story.  The disciples were as afraid of believing in Jesus as they were fearful of the Jews.  Either way their lives were held captive by fear and doubt.  What would bring them peace?  What would comfort them?  What would restore their joy?  What would turn them to hope?
    No one would expect that the wounds of Jesus’ suffering and death could become the healing wounds of our grief and the comforting scars that would teach us hope.  No one but Jesus.  Into their turmoil, Jesus came and all He had to show them were the wounds in His hands and feet.  But it was enough.  And to fearful people, His wounds are still enough.
    Peace be with you. . . said Jesus.  Jesus spoke of peace to calm the real fears of people who have enemies, who face temptations, and who deal with the trials of daily live.  Jesus spoke of peace to bring forgiveness to the guilty consciences of sinners – even those sinners who betrayed Jesus and denied His resurrection from the dead.
    Jesus spoke of peace to turn the sorrows of the grieving into joy and to turn the sadness of their loss into the gladness of salvation.  All this Jesus spoke to them but still they were not ready to give up their fears or surrender their sorrows.
    The disciples who told Thomas they had seen the Lord had already seen His wounds and put their hands in them.  Now Jesus allows Thomas to do the same.  In the wounds of Jesus, Thomas’ doubts and fears melted away.  “My Lord and My God,” he cried.  And his heart finally knew rest, comfort, and peace.
    Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed...”  Now you might think that was a rebuke to Thomas.  We might be angry if people did not believe us but Jesus is remarkably patient with doubters and the fearful.  Thomas’ refusal does not anger Jesus.  Our Lord does not turn Thomas away but draws Him into the wounds that impart His promised peace.
    You and I worry about being afraid, doubting, sadness, and about fear.  These things only have power over us if we hide them!  It is true.  We face many enemies in this world.  We endure many tests.  We suffer many trials.  But own doubts and fears do not anger Jesus.  But, like Thomas of old, until we surrender our fears, doubts, and turmoil to the wounds of Jesus, we are frozen by them.  But in them we are free.
    Just as Jesus invited Thomas to touch Him and know the full comfort of His presence and His peace, so do we come here today.  Bidden by Jesus to find healing in His wounds, the Spirit works to muster the courage to confess our doubts, to surrender our fears, and to give up our distress.
    What our eyes cannot see, God gives us faith to see.  Faith becomes the eyes that see when the ones in our head see only dead ends, fear, doubt, guilt, shame, and upset.  Through the clear vision of faith, we see Jesus and His promised peace calms our fears, eases our doubts, and invites our trust.
    We wonder what age we will look in heaven.  Like those pictures of people in their youth that accompany obituaries, we dream of glory without scars and wounds.  But Jesus scars and wounds are not His shame; they are His glory. In those wounds is our peace, our forgiveness, and our hope. Far from hiding them, Jesus shows off the marks of His suffering that we might know what His wounds have accomplished for us and for our salvation.  His wounds are not His shame but His power to address each of us with His peace.
    The waters of baptism flows to unlock hearts closed by fear. It is the Spirit’s work, working through the Word, to break through the locked doors of our fears and our closed hearts.  It is the Spirit who moves us to confront our fear and doubt.
 The Word breaks through and in the very place of our doubts and fears, the Spirit plants the peace of Christ.  Where we were once held captive by fear and doubt, eyes of faith see the wounds of Christ and enter into freedom and hope.
    It happened for the ten disciples who first met Jesus after Easter. It happened a week later for Thomas, too.  And it happens for us every Sunday we come to behold the wounds of Jesus that heal our broken lives, forgive our shameful sins, erase our guilt, ease our fears, and answer our doubts.  The wounds of Christ are not His shame but His glory. . . and OUR glory.  Easter does not make them go away but allows us to see those wounds as the means of our salvation and invites us to trust in them always.
    Easter’ hope is not that we forget what Jesus suffered but that we glory in the wounds that have bought us back from sin and death and overcome our fears with hope.  So that in the midst of the worst of life’s troubles and trials, we too might see Jesus with eyes of faith and joyfully proclaim: My Lord and My God.  Amen.  Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia!

A noteworthy passing. . .

While attending to my father, I missed the death of Fr. Thomas Hopko, renown voice of Ancient Christian Radio, noted author, eminent professor, and well spoken defender of Orthodoxy.  He died on March 18 of this year.  Many know Fr. Hopko through his introduction to Orthodoxy, The Orthodox Faith: An Elementary Handbook on the Orthodox Church.  That is but one of the many contributions Fr. Hopko made over his life.

I personally knew him as an acquaintance during my time in New York and knew him much better through his print and radio work.  He was a most gracious individual and his lifetime of service has left us all the wiser and in his death the poorer.  Especially noteworthy was his representation of the Orthodox Church at ecumenical dialogues where he clearly and graciously presented the Orthodox faith.  Perhaps my first real encounter with Fr. Hopko was through his contributions to the book Women and the Priesthood, a work which continues to address the ongoing pressure on Rome, Constantinople, and the LCMS to ordain women.  I commend this little volume (if you can still find it)...

The Church rejected me. . .

No one who has admired British documentary television is unaware of the name Diarmid MacCulloch.  There is an article, really a preview to the article, which discusses a few things about this person who has brought so much good stuff to TV.  But the article is less than satisfying and, if it represents an authentic view of MacCulloch, it also represents a sadly parochial view of things not parochial at all.

Read the whole interview here. . .  I have excerpted a portion for comment.

MacCulloch’s life has in fact been significantly moulded by the two subjects that make up his latest programme. Aware from a young age that he was gay, MacCulloch – a parson’s son – considered this no barrier to entering the clergy. The Church was unsure how to treat his relationship with his boyfriend but ordained him as a deacon nonetheless. He says he thought of his relationship as more or less identical to that of any other clergy marriage, however disconcerting this was for his more conservative colleagues. It was when he was on the verge of being ordained as a priest that things came to a head: the presiding bishop said that he couldn’t go through with it “until the fuss dies down”, in MacCulloch’s words. Refusing to accept that he should have to compromise his sexual relationships for his career in the Church, MacCulloch walked away from his ordination. “What it represented was the Church rejecting me,” he tells me. If today he has any regrets, he hides them totally. For these reasons and more, he says that this series is “extraordinarily personal – it reflects what I want it to say”.

Let me begin by saying that no one has a right to be ordained or to have a "career" in the Church.  It is a privilege and a gift bestowed upon rather few.  Secondly, rejecting the ordination of someone is NOT rejecting the person or even judging them in the place of Christ.  The Church discerns God's guidance and acts to affirm the inner call of the few to the public order of the office of Word and Sacrament.  To fail to affirm the inner call is not to judge or condemn the individual who is not ordained.  It happens all the time.  Sometimes the candidates themselves come to a different conclusion and other times the Church does.

What must be singled out, however, is the repudiation of compromise or sacrifice for the sake of the vocation of the Pastor.  MacCulloch seems to believe, as many do today, that the Church must affirm everything about the individual or the Church is rejecting everything of the individual.  Here again the burden is always placed on the Church.  Why is the Church the evil one for requiring any candidate to live up to certain standards of moral life and conduct?  Furthermore, is it the Church or is it Scripture?  Is the problem with narrow minded sex obsessed church leaders or is the problem with broadminded sex obsessed people insist upon the freedom to live as they choose AND serve the Lord as they believe they are called?

If you make certain things (gender and sexual orientation) the non-negotiables when requesting ordination, you automatically make it hard on the Church.  For the pastoral vocation is recognized in part by the selflessness of the will and the shape of service.  This is even more profoundly true when you make the rejection personal.  We have given into the idea that ordination is a right, that this is the arena in which we must be allowed to serve or we are personally rejected, and that every aspect of the Church's life must be conform to the idea of rights, demands, and personal choice.  In doing so we leave people with the mistaken idea that if they cannot have it on their terms, they are turned away.  In truth, they were headed in the wrong direction from the get go. 

No, Mr. MacCulloch, the Church did not reject you.  You made it impossible for the Church to be faithful to Christ and to affirm your calling.  But you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not the first nor will you be the last to stand before the Church and insist that they must take you as you are or not at all.  Not just in this case but in every case when people make such demands, I only pray the Church has the wisdom to politely but firmly say "thanks, but no thanks."

Loss of reverence -- cause or symptom. . .

There are many, sometimes me included, who attempt to blame everything that is wrong in the church upon a lack of solemnity, a deficiency of reverence and respect.  At the same time it is easy to blame the advent of contemporary worship as the chief culprit of this casual attitude toward the things of God.  While it is surely true that some of the blame can rightfully be laid at the explosive growth of entertainment style worship in which having a good time seems to be the primary purpose of those who gather in God's house, it is not responsible for everything that is wrong.  In fact, many have suggested that contemporary worship in which the music and message are an appeal to the taste, preferences, and pleasure of the person is itself an outgrowth of a greater problem.

Someone has done a study to show that the Boomers (my generation) were less likely to attend worship than their parents and their children even more less likely.  It stands to reason that their children will be even more distant from the Lord's House on the Lord's Day.  In other words, you cannot blame Vatican II and its after math both in Rome and outside of Rome for all our problems today.  Of course, this is correct.  The transformation of worship into a self-centered and a self-serving entity has sealed the deal but our souls were already restless and itchy for change.

We have lived too long to believe the tempting lie that if we all went back to page 15, to Thees and Thous, and to the good old hymns of long ago, everything would change.  I have personally been in worship services where the liturgy was wonderful but the people were not.  What we need is nothing less than a wholesale rediscovery of sin and its painful reality.  Only when we know fully the consequence of sin and our garden rebellion will we awaken to the immensity of God's gift in the person of His Son to be our Savior.  Jesus the life coach commands little in the form of respect or awe but Jesus the God-man who lives the holiness we cannot and dies wearing our guilt, well, that Jesus compels us to honor Him.

Repentance.  That is the key.  And before we hear and heed the call to repentance, we must be convinced that sin is real, that death is our enemy, that Satan roars about seeking to devour us, that evil is more than not getting what you want, and that none of us can contribute one bit to the big fix our sinful condition needs.   It is an old fashioned word in a world where self-interest prevails but it is the word that dare not be far from our lips and its call far from our ears.  It is what happens in the preparation for the Divine Service each Sunday, privately with the Pastor during the week, alone in our thoughts and prayers, and the uncomfortable awareness that grows with our study of God's Word.  We are dead in trespasses and sin and cannot free ourselves.  Mea culpa.  Mea culpa.  Mea maxima culpa.  Beat the chest.  Let out the sigh.  Choke back the tears.  This is the repentance that the Spirit bears as its fruit in our lives -- from this grows faith and hope and trust and from nothing else.

Yeah, contemporary worship that glories in technology and elevates our love of self to virtue is bad.  It is real bad.  But it is the bad we love to hear, the lies we love to tell, and the deception with which we are most comfortable.  It has born terrible fruit in our lives and worship that is for me, of me, and about me is one of those poisoned fruits -- not the cause but the fruit of a life of self-awareness of everything but sin and its death.  Loss of reverence is not merely caused by our worship troubles -- it bore this rotten fruit and taught us to love what is killing us.

The treasures of the past

I posted it a while ago but it is worth another look.  Held in trust are all sorts of treasures hidden in the Vatican -- not so much to prevent us from seeing them but to preserve them and because the sheer number of items kept is more than can be displayed. . . take a look!

Gender and the Liturgical Distinction

The fact that men and women are physically different seems lost as a distinction worthy of note today.  The push is on an equality in which no distinctions are allowed or in which distinctions there is no inherent difference to prevent one from being interchangeable with the other.  Just as GLBT equality has taken the stage today, so did feminism push an equality in which distinctions were always suspect and therefore no real distinguishing characteristics were allowed.  In this way different but equal is refuted even though the anatomy of male and female insist upon such difference.  Just as the GLBT community has insisted that their cause was the next logical step after women's liberation, so did the voice of feminism insist that its cause was the next logical step after racial distinctions were bridged -- although the male and female dichotomy of our existence offers an obvious reality that no racial distinction can justify.

For too long we in the Church have been limited to either liberation or misogyny.  If we hold to orders for male only, it would seem that women are not equal nor are they valued.  If we hold to orders for either male or female, we are left with the inescapable conclusion that the Church and Scripture (at least the catholic tradition on Scripture on this point) were always wrong in the past and are wrong now with respect to the ordination of women.  So we have struggled with creative ways to say what we did not want people to think was in any way offensive to women.  We have mostly failed in that regard and nearly everyone is embarrassed of confounded either by the choice to ordain or not to ordain women.

Peter Leithart is a writer with whom I do not always agree but he has written briefly on the First Things Blog about a liturgical distinction as part of God's creative order in which complimentarity and equality fit together in a way that is fresh amid the stale old arguments pro and con the ordination of women.  You can read it all here but I will quote a couple of paragraphs.  It makes you want for more from this author -- not always a feeling you get by reading anywhere (including here!).  Leithart is not absolutely unique -- what he is saying has been said before by others -- but how he says it is the key.  He speaks clearly and winsomely for the ordination of males only and I would love to see how he would handle a fuller treatment both of the concepts and the texts:

First Timothy 2:12–14 is one of the texts most commonly cited in debates over women’s ordination: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, then Eve. And not Adam was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.”

Some inside and outside the Church regard this text as prime evidence that Christianity is inherently misogynistic. Even for Christians who take the text at face value, it seems a thin reed. What hath Adam to do with the pastoral ministry?

Paul knows what he’s about. In Genesis 2, the human race starts out in God’s house, the garden-sanctuary of Eden. Nearly every feature indicates that the garden is a temple. Like other biblical sanctuaries, it’s oriented to the east. It’s a well-watered spot, a place of life-giving food, a sacred place where Yahweh is present to his creatures. After the fall, cherubim are stationed at the gate, anticipating the cherubic guardians of the tabernacle and temple. Later sanctuaries are reconstituted gardens; the garden is a proto-sanctuary.

Adam is created first and commanded to “cultivate and keep” the garden—or, better, to “serve and guard” it. Both terms describe priestly ministry. Priests are guardians of holy places and household servants of the Great King of Israel, and Adam is the first of the line.

Yahweh’s “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him” should be understood in this context. What Adam needs is not a friend, but a liturgical partner—a hearer and speaker to converse about the word of Yahweh, a singer to harmonize his praise, a respondent to his versicles, a table companion to break bread with him in the presence of God. Once Yahweh forms Eve, Adam is to guard and serve her too. He speaks Yahweh’s word to her and shares fruit from the tree of life. Paul says elsewhere that the woman is the glory of the man, and, in guarding Eve, Adam guards a bright radiance of glory.

Satan’s temptation is a perverse liturgy: first the serpent’s deceptive word, then “sacramental” food that opens Eve’s eyes. Instead of guarding Eve, Adam stands passively “with her” (Genesis 3:6), watching in fright as the serpent seizes Adam’s liturgical role. Adam falls in that he forsakes his priesthood.

Men and women are biologically different in ways that used to be obvious to everyone, but Genesis isn’t about biology. Churches are confused about ordination because we are materialists who identify the order of creation with biology, who assume that everything but physics is cultural construction. Liturgical differences aren’t imposed on the more basic physical differences. For Paul and Genesis, differences between male and female are essentially symbolic, fundamentally liturgical.

Born or Made? A distinction that matters to some

For many years now the old debate about whether homosexuality is genetic and therefore "natural" or a choice has been considered a settled question.  For most proponents of homosexual marriage and the recognition of homosexuality as the moral equivalent of heterosexuality, the answer is genetic.  The anecdotal evidence seemed to support this.  Gays are not made but are born this way.  It is an argument that matters only to those who are predispositioned to believe that if it is genetic, it is natural and to reject it is an affront to both nature and God (God as non-judgmental love).

Well,it may not be so settled after all.  Studies of identical twins seem to suggest that it is not genetic at all -- at least not in any way, shape, or form that we can recognize or understand now.  It appears that these studies tilt the balance to choice.  Gays are made and not born.  I am sure that this probably will not change many minds.  We tend to settle into our own opinions rather comfortably.  But... you might want to read up on it here.

Let me quote a couple of pertinent paragraphs:

Eight major studies of identical twins in Australia, the U.S., and Scandinavia during the last two decades all arrive at the same conclusion: gays were not born that way.  “At best genetics is a minor factor,” says Dr. Neil Whitehead, PhD. Whitehead worked for the New Zealand government as a scientific researcher for 24 years, then spent four years working for the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency. Most recently, he serves as a consultant to Japanese universities about the effects of radiation exposure. His PhD is in biochemistry and statistics.

Identical twins have the same genes or DNA. They are nurtured in equal prenatal conditions. If homosexuality is caused by genetics or prenatal conditions and one twin is gay, the co-twin should also be gay.

“Because they have identical DNA, it ought to be 100%,” Dr. Whitehead notes. But the studies reveal something else. “If an identical twin has same-sex attraction the chances the co-twin has it are only about 11% for men and 14% for women.”

Because identical twins are always genetically identical, homosexuality cannot be genetically dictated. “No-one is born gay,” he notes. “The predominant things that create homosexuality in one identical twin and not in the other have to be post-birth factors...”

Still, many misconceptions persist in the popular culture. Namely, that homosexuality is genetic – so hard-wired into one’s identity that it can’t be changed. “The academics who work in the field are not happy with the portrayals by the media on the subject,” Dr. Whitehead notes. “But they prefer to stick with their academic research and not get involved in the activist side.”

An Easter Wednesday Homily

Preached for the Divine Service Mid-week after Easter (John 21:1-14)

    Work and food.  When life gets you down, when you get thrown a curve ball, when things turn from predictable to scarey, there are couple of things you can count on to restore some balance to your life.  Go to work and pour yourself into that work so that you forget what is bothering you.  Turn to the comfort foods that fill your belly, make you sleepy, and, of course, make you fat. . .

    We see both of them at work in this Gospel reading.  Peter has had enough stewing and fretting over Jesus dead and alive again, so he is going fishing – not recreational fishing but his first vocation, fishing for fish.  The other disciples run out the door with him.  Great idea!  Life may be upside down but work has its own rhythm and escape.

    But there was no escape.  Jesus was there.  And listen to what He says: Children, do you have any fish.  Ouch.  Children?  Really?  They were men, strong men, mighty fishermen.  Their hands were coarse and rough.  They had aged prematurely from too much heavy work.  And Jesus calls them kids.  Sheepishly they answer no.  No fish today.  Only troubles, trials, and tribulations.

    Then Jesus has the audacity to tell them what to do – as if they had not already tried every trick in the book.  Put the net on the other side of the boat.  It was too much.  Too many fish and too much to take in.  Peter runs to the shore leaving the heavy net to the others.  But what was Peter running to and what was he running from – could they be the same thing?

    On the shore Jesus invites them to eat... He too bread, gave thanks and fed it to them with the fish.  No subtly here.  Upper room memories were intended.  Jesus feeds them just as He directs them in their new vocation as fishers of men.  Their future was not in a boat or on the sea but with Jesus – even when the mystery, the uncertainty, and the unpredictability.  Jesus is everything.  This was the third time that Jesus showed Himself to the disciples as the risen Lord.

    So you come today.  Maybe the house needs cleaning, the yard needs work, TV is calling, or perhaps the mall.  It is easy to turn to our familiar haunts when life is too much to deal with.  Work, play, and food.  That is what comforts us.  The truth is that sometimes it is just plain uncomfortable to be a Christian.

    Jesus knows that.  He knows us.  He gives us a new vocation as His witnesses who love our neighbors as He has loved us and as people who tell others what we believe.  And He feeds us.  Not the ordinary bread that lasts but hours but the bread of heaven which feeds us eternal life.  And He gives us the blood that cleanses us from all our sins.  Our comfort does not lie in running from faith or running from Scripture or running from the Church.  Our comfort, as uncomfortable as it sometimes is, lies in Christ and in the new calling of our baptismal lives and in the new food that anticipates the marriage supper of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end.

    You are right to come.  The Lord’s sacramental presence in Word and meal beckons you from the ordinary routines of our lives.  And the Lord’s sacramental presence in Word and meal sends us forth for the new baptismal vocation of worship, witness, service, and mercy work.  This is our comfort – not escaping from the hard things of the Kingdom and the hard sayings of Jesus but facing them, confronting them,  chewing on them, and digesting them.

    Come, have breakfast. Amen.

The Easter Vigil as you did not see it here. . .

This was a portion of the Easter Vigil at St. Patrick, Seattle, in 2010.  And then people wonder why folks are distancing themselves from the Church -- especially men and older boys!

Plus, the architecture of the chancel is especially strange -- altar to the side as if it were a secondary piece of furniture!  Weird!

Off Broadway does not belong in the Sanctuary during the Easter Vigil.

Watch the vocabulary. . .

In the city where I live you can choose from the 180 Church or Exit One Church or One Church among the myriad of names chosen by those on the cutting edge of modern Christianity.  I suppose I should not complain but I will.  Whatever happened to the use of Biblical words or the names of saints or doctrinal names -- like Grace or Faith or Resurrection or St. Paul or St. John or St. Mary or Holy Trinity... among others?  Okay, so I am being trivial here.  But the truth is that not only the names of our churches have veered from the vocabulary of Scripture, so have our conversations.

I have already lamented here how my own church body seems to be in love with the term entrepreneurial.  We are told to be entrepreneurial pastors and churches and we give out awards for entrepreneurial leadership.  Last time I checked this was a term for economics or business.  I am a card carrying capitalist and I do not dislike the term but I dislike the way we have peppered our conversations with terminology borrowed not from Scripture or even Christian history and theology but other ologies or areas.  The more we distance ourselves from the Biblical vocabulary, the easier it is for us to distance our faith and teaching from Biblical doctrine.

Over the past third of century as a pastor, I have heard about the need to vision cast, adopt new paradigms, write mission statements, and define core values.  Such stuff consumes the bulk of the American economy.  Ask any nurse, for example, how much of their time for patient care is wasted on customer relations, customer satisfaction, telling people the hospital vision statement, sharing the core values with the people in the waiting room, and filling out or asking people to fill out customer satisfaction surveys.  Yes, I get that health care is a big and competitive industry but why are we saddling those who must care for patients with the burden of helping hospitals build brand loyalty, achieve high consumer preference scores, and convince them that this hospital is better at providing service that satisfies than another hospital down the block?  In the same way, we as pastors are told to spend our time studying demographics, putting in good signage, writing mission statements, clarifying core values, and building an entrepreneurial sacramental ministry (whatever the heck that means).  We are here to preach and teach God's Word, administer the sacraments, console the dying and grieving, call the erring to account, pray for the flock in our care, etc...  but we hardly have time for that when we are so busy borrowing the latest, greatest business trends.

We ought to be concerned.  We ought to be worried.  We ought to be cautious about the easy way we have translated the church into a business, the ministry into entrepreneurship, the Gospel into a product, customer satisfaction into the goal, and increased market share as the purpose of our churches.  We are raising generations of people who find it harder and harder to distinguish the church from business and more and more passive and high maintenance about the level of customer service they expect -- and it is not a good thing.

Some of the best sermons I have ever heard were sermons I did not like or want to hear.  They drew blood, exposed my weakness, and confronted my sin in uncomfortable but essential ways.  And then the drew me from myself to the arms of Jesus outstretched in suffering.  Our people have been deceived by pastors who distract the church and its ministry from the Word of God, from the Gospel of Christ crucified, and from a life of sacrificial service loving God by loving our neighbors in His name.

At the same time, our people are more Biblically illiterate than ever and find it hard to distinguish truth from error, heresy from orthodoxy, and the Word of God from the ramblings of people about their feelings.  The church is not a business.  It not in business to satisfy people.  The Church is the body of Christ and she exists to proclaim Christ's death for the forgiveness of sins to every age, people, and place until He comes in His glory.  The Church will not be evaluated by people but will be judged by the Father.  He will not ask if we have been successful but we will be asked if we have been faithful.  Perhaps WalMart cannot afford to do business like that but the Church cannot afford to do business like WalMart.

The decline of intact families. . . a sad prophecy

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an enigma among politicians.  He was a staunch Democrat who worked in Republican administrations, a liberal who took what today are described as conservative positions.  He was prophetic but in a sad sort of way.

Fifty years ago this month, Moynihan, then a 37-year-old social scientist working in the Labor Department, wrote a report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” that was leaked in July. The crisis he discerned was that 23.6 percent of African American births were to unmarried women. Among the “tangle” of pathologies he associated with the absence of fathers was a continually renewed cohort of inadequately socialized adolescent males. This meant dangerous neighborhoods and schools where disciplining displaced teaching. He would later write: “A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority . . . that community asks for and gets chaos.”

Academic sensitivity enforcers and race-mongers denounced him as a racist who was “blaming the victim.” Today, 72 percent of African American children are born to single women, 48 percent of first births of all races and ethnicities are to unmarried women, and more than 3 million mothers under 30 are not living with the fathers of their children.

Read the Washington Post story recalling Pat Moynihan here...Will is correct.  We have lied to ourselves and the sad truth is that now the problems of African Americans have become the problems of all of us.  At the time Moynihan decried the decline of the African American family, 1 of every 4 births to that segment of our population was to an unwed mother.  Now that statistic has tripled and half of all first births of all races is to an unwed mother.  Intact families have become not merely a minority but an unusual option among the myriad of shapes for American families.  Diversity glories in this idea of choice but in this case the children are suffering.  The children are not only suffering during their childhood years but their whole adult lives are dramatically impacted by this phenomenon.


The breakdown of the family has become pandemic and it is not an African American problem but one shared by all ethnicities.  Churches have reacted by strengthening the ministries provided to families but it does not replace a home in which mom and dad are both there for their children.  The great lie that unhappy parents is worse on children than divorce has propagated the false notice that divorce is not bad but better than the other alternatives.  As important as it is for churches to serve the families as they find them, nothing can replace the intact family.  Churches have to learn to regain their voices when it comes to the sad state of broken families and wounded children.  The strength of a nation lies in proportion to the weakness of its most fragile family.  Churches must do more than survey the ruins and figure out how to help; churches need to take the lead in reestablishing the intact family as more than an oddity but the goal of everyone, for the sake of parents and for the good of their children!

Presbyterians Take the Plunge

In case you have not heard, the Presbyterian Church USA has put both feet forward.  In the past it merely allowed their pastors to officiate at same sex weddings but now it has endorsed a new definition of marriage in which two people make a commitment (without specifying who those two people are or should be).

Once again there was a lot of hugging and many tears shed by those who have fought long and hard for this moment.  It is usually that way.  But little ever seems to be said for those who in regret and loss acknowledge that their church body has departed from uniform and unanimous Christian history and identity.  Those folks were not hugging or crying in joy.  They were watching the demise of their church body and the exchange of truth and catholicity for lies and a moment of deception.

Let me say this clearly.  This has nothing to do with hatred for or antagonism against homosexuals.  What it does have to do with is the hubris of the moment in which people filled with pride believe that they are taking a step for justice when in reality they are surrendering the faith to a wisdom that claims to be higher than God's and to a truth that trumps God's yesterday, today, and forever Word.  There is no love in deciding to ignore God's Word.  No one who loves homosexuals or heterosexuals should be happy about choosing lies over truth.  This is not something against homosexuals but for the divinely ordered pattern of human family.  This does not mean that everything heterosexuals do is okay because they are straight.  This is about the choice to ignore the reality of sin and its corruption of desire and God's order for what can only be described as selfish purpose.

If we can abruptly determine that what we think or feel or desire is more important that God's order and Word in this area, then we are not immune from other steps that will further distance us from the Lord and leave us still in our sins and still without hope for redemption.  The problem here is not isolated to one decision but to a perspective which ultimately places human reason and feeling above divine revelation.  That does no one any good.

The problems with modern Christianity have the same root -- deafness to the voice of God and hearts hardened by desire so that feelings are more important than anything else.  Churches that refuse to countenance a change in the definition of marriage are not choosing straight over gay or the sins of the majority over the sins of the minority.  They are attempting within the bounds of human frailty to exercise fidelity to the revealed will of God.  Jesus died for sinners -- of all kinds, shapes, and sizes.  His blood cleanses us from sin -- the darkest and deepest stains of sin.  His desire is that all would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.  Redemption is not for the good or the holy or the straight but for all sinners who come lamenting the desires of their hearts, the thoughts of their minds, the words of their lips, and the actions they have taken.  Redemption makes us new -- it does not save by ignoring wrong or putting a stamp of approval on what was and has always been wrong.  Straights have to face up to a history of abusing the gift of marriage, of choosing cohabitation over marriage, of sex that seems without self-control, and of a self-righteousness that judges the sins of others as greater than their own.  But gays have to face up to the fact that the Bible does not, has not, and will not be reconciled to same sex marriage or to the same sins of others practiced with a same sex partner.

The easy route is to ignore the hard truth of God's Word and choose to redefine marriage as if it were just a word.  The harder path is always to be faithful to the Scriptures, to speak the truth not in judgment but in love, and to insist that every and all sinners come through trust and repentance to meet the God of mercy and grace.

Two crosses of death, one cross of life. . .

Sermon for the Resurrection of Our Lord, preached three times on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015.

    Three crosses were planted in the earth on Good Friday.  Three crosses bearing three broken bodies.  It was a scene of terrible suffering.  Two were eating the bitter fruit of justice.  All three crosses were instruments of punishment and death.  The soldiers came to break the legs of the victims as if their suffering was not enough.  But it was not.  Justice is not easily satisfied and its cost is more than we bargained for.  We say we want justice from God but the two crosses of the thieves show us the cruel face of fairness.  Their crosses were ugly and brutal, a past with no today and no tomorrow – only yesterday.
    None of us wants to look there.  We don’t want to see the broken body of the bitter thief who lashed out at Jesus.  We don’t even want to see the body of the repentant thief.  Yes, he was sorry but what difference did his regret make?  He suffered and he died.  It is the same for us.  No matter how sorry we are, sorry does not fix it.  It cannot prevent suffering or ward off death or make for happy endings to our sins.
    But there was another cross there.  For all His words, Jesus lay as dead as the thieves crucified on either side of Him.  He died before His legs could be broken.  His death was as curious as His life. 
Unlike the thieves whose suffering turned people away, the cross of Christ compels people to look and even find hope in the wounds of Jesus.  Joseph of Arimethea asked for the body. A few quick preparations and an unpretentious burial in a borrowed grave was all the clock had time for before the Sabbath began. 
    They told themselves they would return and do better by Jesus.  They knew Jesus deserved more.  So in the midst of their hopes and dreams dashed in bloody sweat, a big sigh, and “It is finished,” they consoled themselves with thoughts of Sunday.
    Now here we are picking up the story three days later.  The Sabbath is over.  Nobody knows what happened to the bodies of the two thieves but everyone knows what happened to Jesus.  Very early on the first day of the week, at sunrise, they went to the tomb.  Loaded down with burial spices, they went for closure and comfort.  Even with their broken hearts and sorrows they also wondered.  Why didn’t Jesus fight His betrayal?  Why didn’t He defend Himself in the trial?  Why didn’t He plead for Himself and for His life?
    The stone stood in their way.  But when they got there the grave was open.  Where Jesus had lain, a young man, and the burial cloths were left.  “Don’t be afraid!  You seek Jesus the Nazarene. 
He is risen.  He is not here.  Go, tell Peter and His disciples.  He has gone before you into Galilee; he will meet you.”
    No one had ever gone to finish a burial to find an empty grave, an angelic greeting, and the promise of the resurrection. The women did what we all would have done.  They ran for their lives – literally.  In shock they realized that Jesus had kept every promise He made.  In place of their terror of death came the greater terror of life – of sins forgiven, of death overcome, of liars, fornicators, murderers, thieves, and all kinds of people given new and everlasting life!
    Could it be that of those three ugly crosses, one which was planted in death could become a tree of life?  Could this life planted in death bear the fruit of everlasting life for you and me?  Could Jesus taste the poisoned fruit of death that came by Adam to give us the fruit of life to eat?  Can sinners hope for forgiveness?  Can the dying hope for life?
    And who could the women tell?  Who would believe them?  How would they explain it?  What did this mean for the future? Isn’t that why we are here today?  We have the same fear and trepidation about Easter.  We hate death but we get it. We don’t know what to expect of life, of empty graves, and of a future death cannot touch.  We cannot explain Easter.  It asks us to trust in what our eyes can’t see, our hands can’t touch, and our minds can’t fathom.  We are as fearful as those women who came to that grave so long ago.
    If Easter is true, then life today also changes.  What is important and what is not important changes.  What matters and what does not matter is transformed.  People have had issues with Mark’s Gospel because it ends so weird.  It ends exactly right.  Life is easier to get with the predictable death we hate but we have made our peace with than with a new future.
    Christ is risen!  The cross was supposed to be about death but now it is a tree of life.  The life that Jesus surrendered on the cross became the life in which we now hope.  The grave that once said “the end” now has become “the beginning.”  It is good news – wonderful news and yet it challenges everything we have come to know and believe about life and death.
    Christ lives – not for Himself but for guilty sinners, shameful people with pasts and secrets, wounded people with no hope of healing, and sorrowful people who long to for consolation.  He is risen for dying people who carry in their bodies heart disease, cancer, alzheimers, diabetes, aids, emphysema, and every other damnable illness of these mortal bodies.  He sets free the immoral, the evil, the addict, and the guilty from their sins.
    The miracle is not simply that Christ lives for you but that He died for you – the Good Shepherd for His sheep, He  who walks the valley of the shadow to shine the light of life.  He who feeds us on the rich green pastures and gives us to drink of the still quiet waters.  Christ died for you and lives for you.
    It is outrageous, confusing, confounding, and it seems too good to be true.  He has crushed our fears and vanquished our enemies.  And here we are to feast upon the bread of heaven and to drink the cup of salvation and to praise the Crucified One who rose to grant us new life.  Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

[1] When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. [2] And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. [3] And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” [4] And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. [5] And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. [6] And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. [7] But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” [8] And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.    (Mark 16:1-8 ESV)

Holy Saturday Waiting. . .

Holy Saturday is the odd day of Holy Week.  It is a day when seemingly nothing happened.  The Gospels are largely silent about this day, the Sabbath Day whose coming pressured the faithful to rest Jesus' body in the grave as quickly as they could.  Well, I guess you could say we do know something about this day.  It was a day of worship.  The faithful went to church (synagogue?).  They found refuge where they knew they would -- in the community of the faithful, around the Word of the Lord.  Perhaps that is the first lesson of this day.  Those who think that doubts or troubles or anger with pastors or parishioners will dissipate because they stay home from church find no support from the faithful long ago.  They knew that the only rest anyone can find is the rest that flows from God's promise and our faith in that promise.

So they went to church. . . and they waited.  We have a lot of trouble waiting for things.  We are generally not very patient as people We have fast food, drive up windows, and self-check out lines because we don't want to wait.  It should not surprise us that waiting is the hardest part of faith.  Yet waiting is an act of faith.  We do not wait as the aimless whose restless hearts live in anxiety and fear.  We wait upon the Lord.  We know this Lord as the one who loved us that He gave His only-begotten Son who was born in our flesh and blood to suffer and die in our place upon the cross.  We are not waiting for the unknown but for that which we know in the promise of Christ.

On this day the Church has historically welcomed new people to the faith through baptism and confirmation.  The dark night of Holy Saturday gives way to the bright morning of Christ's resurrection and this has been a symbolic moment rich in imagery and meaning for the newly baptized and confirmed.  You might say that the whole life of the baptized is a life of waiting, of joyful expectation not complete until we close our eyes this side of glory and awaken them to see Jesus face to face.  I think of my Dad who we buried only a week or so ago and of the fulfillment of the baptismal promise given to him so long ago.  I think of my own wait for the blest reunion with those who have gone before, who died in Christ.  I think of the restless character of the soul searching for place and belonging that is not stilled or met until we rest in Christ.  Yes, whether you like it or not, Christian life involves much waiting.

Easter is not a surprise ending for us but the ending we know and for which we hope.  This day is sort of like the children waiting for Christmas morning to see what gifts were brought.  We wait because we know there are gifts given, blessing awaiting us, and a future prepared.  Such a wait is not drudgery even when it may seem long.  It is how we anticipate in this life the promise of the life to come.  So wait with me. . . what is to come is beyond imagination and far beyond our expectations -- what God has prepared for those who love Him.  And it all starts with an empty tomb.  Shhhhhhh.... Easter is coming!

What kind of family?

Good Friday Noon 2015 + In the Name of Jesus.  Amen
    Almighty God, we beseech You graciously to behold this, Your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was content to be betrayed and given up into the hands of wicked men and to suffer death upon the Cross.  Amen
    What an odd prayer.  On Good Friday, when we admit that our sins put Jesus on the cross, we have the nerve to pray the Father to behold us, His own family, for whom Christ was content to suffer the betrayal of friends and the suffering of wicked men to the cross. Who would want to claim such a family!  Disciples who run and hide when Jesus meets the cross.  People who still hide our faith and find it hard to admit we are really sinners or whose sins required death to pay their guilt.
    We might have trouble connecting family to the cross, but not Jesus.  From the cross He spoke to blessed Mary His mother, “Woman, here is your new son.”  And to John, “Here is your mother.”  From that moment on they were family.
    I have to admit that if I were suffering on a cross for the sins of the world, I would not be thinking of my mom or my dad or my wife or my kids.  I would be thinking of me and screaming in the pain of it all.  But in the midst of the wounds He wore for the world, Jesus cannot help but think of family – and not only Mary His blessed mother but those who through His death would become His brothers and His sisters by faith, His forever family of heavenly promise.
    We all have relatives we would choose to forget if we could.  We do not live in picture perfect families.  Every one of us suffers from some measure of dysfunction.  Warts and all.  That is how families come.  The TV shows about family all look and sound hideous with fat and weak fathers who goof up all the time and loud domineering mothers who try to manipulate everything for themselves and deceitful, conniving children who think love has a price tag on it.  As much as we hate to admit it, there may be more truth in this than we care to admit.  We all have our skeletons.  Can Jesus love people like us?
    For surely Jesus sees accurately.  He is not naive or idealistic.  He knows us as we are and not as He would like to think we were.  He knows us as sinners.  He sees us as the screwed up dads and moms and kids we are.  How could God love us?  But in the moment of His greatest test and torment, when He could easily disown us and turn His back on our need, He loves us.  He claims us – sins and all.  He loves us and saves us even at the cost of suffering and death.
    We wonder “who is my brother” – especially when family means coughing up money to bail them our or vouching for those who you know will screw up again or forgive those who will only do the same thing to you as quickly as your forgive them.  We wonder about our families but we need not wonder about Jesus.  He is our brother.  He has shown His love for us that while we were yet sinners and enemies He died for us. 
    Jesus asked once “Who is My brother?”  He was not asking because He did not know the answer.  He was asking because we do not know the answer.  Jesus is our brother not because we are worthy of Him, no, He is our brother because He has chosen to love us, to die for us, and to redeem us.  Here on earth love has different forms and faces.  Not with God.  For God so loved means that this is how God loves – in only one way – the cross.
Who is Christ’s brother?  “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister,” says Jesus.  What is the will of His Father in heaven?  That all would be saved and come to the knowledge of Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
    Jesus’ family is dysfunctional – not just His brothers who refused to believe in Him or blessed Mary who pondered and grieved for Him.  You and I are the dysfunctional brothers and sisters of Jesus whom He has claimed by His death, forgiven of our sins,
and restored to the placed He has prepared for us in the family of God that is His Church.
    When Jesus speaks from the cross: “Woman, behold your Son.” “Behold your mother.” He takes care not only of Mary or John but of all Marys and Johns and Larrys, too.  He expends His blood in suffering to redeem us lost and broken people and make us His family the Church.  The Church is not some fake family or symbolic family.  The Church is the family for whom Christ died, the family that endures to eternal life.  We are not family because we act like it – we squabble and whine and compete and backbite like the best of them.  No we are family because we share a common life – born of the baptismal womb to everlasting life – One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
    You are His own, whom He has called by name.  You belong to Him.  He has called you from darkness into His marvelous light, died your death that you might live, and lives to set you free.  You are His family, His brothers and sisters whom He has redeemed by His precious blood.  The people for whom He sets a table and feeds us to everlasting life on His flesh in bread and His blood in wine.
    Christ’s death is solitary but it is not barren.  As Jesus describes, His life is a single solitary seed planted in death that bears much fruit.  You are that fruit – those for whom He died and by whom live as His forgiven and redeemed people by faith.  He binds us together in the blood thicker than water through the water that washes with His blood.  He daily forgives all sins to me and all my kin.  And on the last day He will raise up me and all my fellow believers to everlasting life.  There is no family greater than this.  In the end it is not arrogance that claims the title family but faith that Christ means what He has said, He has accomplished what He has promised, and He can be trusted to give us what He has pledged.  Amen.

He was crucified. . .

John 18-19:42   (ESV)

Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus

18 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” 5 They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.” 9 This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.” 10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.) 11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
Jesus Faces Annas and Caiaphas

12 So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people.
Peter Denies Jesus

15 Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in. 17 The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 18 Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.

The High Priest Questions Jesus

19 The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. 20 Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.” 22 When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?” 24 Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
 
Peter Denies Jesus Again

25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, “You also are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.
 
Jesus Before Pilate

28 Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.[f] It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered him, “If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” 32 This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

My Kingdom Is Not of This World

33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 40 They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.

Jesus Delivered to Be Crucified

19 Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3 They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” 6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

12 From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” 13 So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” 15 They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
 
The Crucifixion

So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic.[k] But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,
      “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

So the soldiers did these things, 25 but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
 
The Death of Jesus

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
 
Jesus' Side Is Pierced

31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

Jesus Is Buried

38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus[l] by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds[m] in weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

Is it I?

Sermon for Maundy Thursday Evening, preached on April 2, 2015.

    We say it every Sunday – on the night when Jesus was betrayed, He took bread. . .  as if this detail were merely a time stamp to locate when it all happened.  Perhaps we think it references Judas – he was the betrayer who sold Jesus for a few easy pieces of silver after dipping bread into the dish with our Lord.
    The disciples seemed in the dark about it all – except when Jesus talked about who would betray Him.  Then they perked up.  “Is it I?”  They asked with forced voices, holding back their tears.  Though Jesus draws their attention to Judas His betrayer, notice that does not reassure them, “No, its not you.  You are the good disciple...”  Why not?  Because Jesus knew what they knew -- their betrayal would also come just as you and I betray the Lord over and over again in thought, word, and deed.
    Is it I?  What an honest question!  In other words, it could be me.  I am weak and my heart is black with sin.  I am fearful and choose the easy road all the time.  Is there anyone here who does not believe it could have been any one of those disciples. . . or YOU. . . or Me?  Who among us has not disowned the Lord over and over again in countless ways?  We have betrayed our Lord with sins, with shameful thoughts, with hateful words, and with empty hearts.  Yes, we all know it could be you... or me.  and it has been, too. 
    And, in fact it is.  We are all guilty.  But listen to Jesus.  Just as Jesus does not give false comfort to those who know better -- no, you did not deny Me -- Jesus gives real comfort.  This is My body given for you and my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.  As real as our sins of denial and betrayal, so real is the forgiveness in the blood of Christ that is our drink and His flesh that is our food.  Just as your guilt is yours, now Jesus has made His blood yours. And in that blood is power to cleanse the guilty.  For you Jesus has shed His blood.  For your sins, for your death, for your betrayal, and for your shame.
    For you Christ shed His blood and now gives you this blood to drink.  You are a sinner of Christ’s own redeeming.  For you Christ gives His flesh as food.  The bread placed upon your lips is bread for sinners, flesh that pays sin’s price, and forgiveness for the guilty.  For you Christ places His cup to your lips that you might drink and be cleansed and made new.
    We are too quick to point to others when look at sins.  The truth is that the sins we cannot stand in others tend to be the sins of which we are most guilty.   We are too quick to explain away or excuse or justify our sins as if words can minimize the guilt and shame of what we have said and thought and done.  We are to quick to compare our sins to others as if somehow all of us being guilty makes none of us guilty. There is no comfort in this, no consolation that we are the best of the worst.  No, comfort cannot be found where guilt remains and shame convicts.  We need the One who is strong enough to overcome guilt, to steal from us our familiar and pet sins, and to cleanse our hearts.
    Instead, what we need to do is to admit that it is me – I am a poor, miserable sinner.  But Christ died for sinners.  His blood cleanses sinners.  His bread dipped in the suffering for our sins feeds us sinners and makes us whole.  There is nothing here for the righteous who believe they have no sin, nothing here for the holy who believe they have kept themselves pure, and nothing here for the comparatively good -- who settle for being on the better side of the bad or the best of the worst.  No, the comfort here is for sinners who know and confess, "It is I. . . "  Until the day when Christ comes to drink it new in His kingdom without end, we come as sinners admitting that we are the guilty ones – while at the same time pleading the blood of Jesus in which we were cleansed, and which now we drink for forgiveness of those sins.  Amen.

Still keeping the Passover. . .

Sermon for Holy Thursday, Noon, preached on April 2, 2015.

Two weeks ago I prayed at my father’s bedside.  Yes, he was old and, in the last two weeks of his life, very ill, but I am a son and I was not ready to give up my father.  I prayed that the angel of death pass him by.  Like Israel of old rushing their preparations to keep to God’s timetable, I took refuge in the mysteries of God’s will and His mysterious ways.  Late into the evening, my father died.  But the angel of death did not come.  Instead the angels came to usher him into the place of everlasting light and life.  He is not now dead for those who live in the Lord live even if they die and those who live and believe in Him never die.
                   
But there is one for whom the angel of death did come.  No, I am not referring to the Egyptians and their stubborn refusal to bend to the will of God.  I am thinking of Jesus.  No blood was painted over Him.  No lamb sacrificed for His relief.  No second chance would save Him.  No hesitation of His will would avoid the outcome.  No chance this angel of death would pass on by in search of another.  Jesus came to meet the angel of death.  Indeed, death would not pass from Jesus to another victim but would meet its match in the One who was born to die, for the sins of the whole world and for the death to end death’s reign.

That is the Passover meaning of this day.  Christ is the Lamb of God who did not save Himself but gave Himself into death for us.  He has painted us with His blood in baptism.  He endured the loneliness of His Father’s rejection for us.  Our sins made Him ugly and unrecognizable to the Father who loves righteousness.  Jesus did not welcome the agony of this death but He did welcome the fruits that would be borne of His death for the life of the world.

This is what ties Holy Thursday and the Passover meal to Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Christ meets the angel of death and dispenses him for all who trust in His saving death and who glory in His triumphant resurrection.  Hell is not a geographic place but the ultimate separation from the God who is light and life.  None of us need know this darkness and terror but Jesus had to embrace it alone and fully in order to save my dad and to save us.

When Christians sing “it is not death to die” we are not singing of sentiment or of some peace we have made with death; we are singing as those for whom Christ lived and died and in whom we too shall rise with Him to our own joyful resurrection and to the blest reunion in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb that has no end.

To explain all that would happen Jesus did not write a theological treatise nor did He attempt to simplify the great and eternal matters that He was born to accomplish.  Instead, He took bread, gave thanks and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take, eat, this is My body which is given for you...”  And after supper He took the cup and when he had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, “Take, drink, all of you, this is my blood of the covenant shed for you for the forgiveness of sins...”  He kept the passover not with piety or prayers but with His holy self-offering of His flesh for the life of the world and His blood to cleanse all sin.

And now we keep it too.  We keep it for my father and yours, for moms and children, for brothers and sisters, for friends, and neighbors, who die in the Lord.  What is important here is that they do not meet the lonely death Christ endured but the death that is the tool of God to bring us from mortality to immortality, from perishable to imperishable, from an end to the beginning of all that God has prepared for those who love Him.  This is what we eat, what we celebrate, what we recall, and what we anticipate in this sacred and blessed meal. . . now and in all the days until Christ comes to drink anew with us in His everlasting kingdom.  For dad, for you, for me, for all the baptized, and for all who hear the Word of God and keep it with faith.  Amen.

An interesting perspective. . .

Reading some posts about Lutheran sacramental piety, I found one voice from outside Lutheranism presuming that Lutherans are basically Word only people who called the sacraments visible Word and who find nothing distinctive or unique about the means of grace.  In effect, it is as if grace were like food value with its nutrients for the spirit and where you got them about as significant as the choice between broccoli and brussels sprouts (both find choices, to be sure).  This author's reading of Luther, limited to be sure, suggested to him that Lutherans do not place a high value on the sacrament, specifically upon the Mass, and have a very utilitarian sacramental theology.  In addition, it is his presumption that Word here means reading, hearing read, hearing teaching, and hearing preaching as all pretty much the same.  Another perhaps understandable but false conclusion about what Lutherans believe, confess, and teach.

The grace we receive from the means of grace (the Word and the Sacraments) is Christ and His Spirit, imparting His gifts.  So, yes, the grace is Christ -- whether preaching, absolving, baptizing, or communing.  But to say that the means of grace are a smorgasbord in which we choose the personally preferred means is to miss Lutheran theology and its distinctives entirely. 

Some have described Lutheran piety as a Word piety.  Others have said we have a baptismal piety.  Still others have called our piety Eucharistic.  Not very many have ever suggested we have a piety built upon penance or absolution, though a case could be made when you consider how Lutherans describe the article on which the church stands or falls (justification).  While people may have a preference, Lutheran piety is not what we feel or like but what our confessional documents proclaim.  Therein we are clear in confessing our great love for and highest esteem for the Word preached and taught and the baptismal gift of regeneration and new life and the Eucharistic gift of eating and drinking the blood of Christ.  Lutherans often say where the forgiveness of sins is, there is life and salvation.  This forgiveness comes to us in several means and with it life and salvation.

On this day we recall with greatest affection and esteem, the most wonderful gift of the body and blood of Christ in this blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  While others may want to pull things apart, we see them all entwined in the Divine Service.  The invocation calls us to baptism and to those who wear the name of the Triune God.  Apart from God's call and Spirit imparting this baptismal gift and the faith to receive it, there can be no worship at all.  The Service of the Word reminds us that the Word is not merely some written record of facts but the living voice of God addressing His Church with the gifts and blessings won by His Son and imparted and received by the ministry of the Spirit.  When Lutherans say "Word" we do not think primarily of people at home reading or studying their Bibles but the Word in the midst of the assembly, the Divine Service.  Private devotions as well as the formal catechesis of the Church support the ministry of the Word within the Divine Service but neither compete with nor detract from, much less substitute, for the Divine Service.  The Sacramental meal imparts to us the flesh of Christ for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses us from all sin.  There is no sense here in which these merely duplicate one another.  When we say visible Word we mean that the sacramental means are no less efficacious or effective in bestowing faith and feeding that faith than the Scriptures, the Word of God as preaching or in written form.

Sadly, too many Lutherans in the pew have developed a rather protestant piety in which the Sacraments are less important and less necessary than the Word.  No Lutheran should ever be comfortable saying or believing this.  We do not pick and chose from Christ's words nor do we pick and choose the means of grace that appeals to us.  We receive what Christ gives.  We do not disdain any of His gifts (at the risk of disdaining Him as gift and giver).  We do not elevate one above the other for the work together by Christ's institution and design.

Tonight when we observe Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday), we do so rejoicing in the gracious God who gives us rich and extravagant gifts.  He gives us His bread in the Word that proceeds from His mouth and His bread that is Christ's flesh for the life of the world and for our own life.  Read John 6, read the Words of Institution, and read the sacramental teaching of St. Paul in Corinthians.  If we hear this Word, then we will keep the Sacrament, esteem it with greatest reverence and awe, and rejoice in its blessing and grace by eating and drinking in faith Christ's flesh and blood, as His own words describe and teach.

Lutheran hymnals sing the Eucharistic devotion of Aquinas along with Luther's Eucharistic piety and we see no divide, no contradiction.  This is Christ's body and this is His blood, given and shed for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, for our life and salvation.  For Luther the highest esteem and reverence for the Lord's Table is to come in faith, eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ, while rejoicing that this gift and blessing and grace is "for you."

Don't let the facts stand in our way. . .

Never mind that 19 states have virtually the same law that Indiana just past protecting freedom of religion. . .  among them such bastions of conservatism like Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island...

Never mind that President Clinton signed a national version of this law (check it out Hillary). . .

Never mind that the politicians and businessmen so offended by Indiana's law count China as an ally and do business with countries that really persecute gays and lesbians. . .

Never mind that few of the people who are against the law have even read it. . .

We don't need to be in possession of the facts to be morally outraged and to claim the higher ground of anti-discrimination. . .  all we need is a media prone to speak before thinking and a cause that has claimed its place among the heroic fights of history (such as those who stood against racial discrimination when laws prevented people from eating or drinking from a fountain or using a restroom or voting or owning property, etc...). . .

Religious Freedom Restoration Acts first came about after the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which “narrowed protections for the free exercise of religion.”
In response to the court’s ruling, Congress sought to restore religious freedom by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, popularly known as RFRA.  The legislation won unanimous support in the House, passed 97-3 in the Senate, and was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton.  Since then, in addition to Indiana, 19 states have passed their own state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Another 11 states have RFRA-like protections provided by state court decisions.

Read here for a spirited defense of the reason for this legislation or here for the suggestion that moral outrage in search of a cause has swayed those 30 something and younger. . .   I have no doubt that gays and lesbians DO suffer from some discrimination but if you look at the world news you might find that the religious freedoms explicitly spelled out in the constitution are under great attack and we are on the verge of silencing religious speech when it conflicts with politically correct thinking.  GLBT folks have great access to and powerful friends within the media and are in little danger of being silenced.  Orthodox Christianity is not so fortunate.

David Brooks has also weighed in. . . 

And here the ever reasoned voice of Robert Reno. . .

Worst in a string of bads. . .

Gene Veith has written of the newly published work of archaeologist Simcha Jacobovici entitled   The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus’ Marriage to Mary the Magdalene.  He also notes that The Los Angeles Times called it perhaps the worst book ever written about Jesus.  If true that would be saying something since there are so many bad books about Jesus.  In fact, we find ourselves victims of so many bad books about Jesus that it is hard to find time to note or refute the exaggerated, invented, and extrapolated lies about Jesus that are paraded as if they had as much truth and legitimacy as the the words of the Scriptures.  And it is a sad truth that too many Christians are so ambivalent or uncertain about the Word of God that they are distracted and beguiled by such fanciful works of fiction acting as if they were established fact.  So, every year about Easter time we must undergo innumerable specials on TV about Jesus that spend as much time on suggestion as Scripture and we must endure new books published to undermine and deceive us from the truth once and everywhere believed to the imagination of authors who have but one purpose in mind -- to sell books and make money!

Read what Anthony Le Donne wrote:  Here are some of the claims that Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson make: (1) a 6th century text that never once refers to Jesus or Mary Magdalene is secretly about Jesus, Mary, and their children; (2) the character “Joseph” named in this text represents Jesus, Apollo, Helios, Mithras, and a Roman emperor simultaneously; (3) Mary Magdalene was not Jewish and was, moreover, a priestess of Artemis; (4) when Jesus refers to the Queen of Sheba (Matt 12:42), he is speaking of Mary in code; (5) Jesus — not a peasant, but a powerful figure in the world of Roman politics — was the victim of not one but two assassination attempts, both of which he survived; (6) the Roman general Germanicus was the second threat to Jesus, but a Roman prefect named Sejanus saved him, Mary, and their children; and (7) the wine of the Last Supper symbolized Mary’s menstrual blood. As you will see below, this is only a small sampling of this book’s originality.


I will leave it to others to spend their time debunking the invention from the history -- too much to do and too little time.  What I will say is this, what is the matter with Christians who are so easily undone from the truth of God's Word by the fanciful imaginings of so-called academics or experts?  Wake up and smell the roses, people of God.  Turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to everyone of those purveyors of lies.  They will stop writing and their works will stop being published when the money dries up -- WE hold the key.  If WE stop purchasing these things, talking about them, giving them undo credibility, etc... they will disappear.  The money train is the reason for all of this -- and fifteen minutes of notoriety!  Don't ask your pastor about the books or read the books.  Read the Scriptures and ask your pastor about the Word of God.  It will be salutary for you and for him and it will strengthen your faith.  Why do we pay good money to be insulted by the manufactured stories of authors whose only intent is to destroy the truth?  Why do we always make ourselves out to be April fools?  They are not joking but their science is a joke, just like the creative interpretation which begins with a conclusion.  Christians, do not be fooled!