Sermon for Lent 3

 

Jesus said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28)

You can read all over the place where Jesus would thus bless those who hear the word of God and keep it. So he blessed the mute demon possessed man who heard the word of the Lord, believed it and was blessed to speak again. So he blessed the Canaanite woman who believed the word of the Lord and trusted the Lord to have mercy when she begged and she was blessed to have her daughter healed. Blessed was the tax-collector who believed he was a sinner and sought mercy from the Lord, unlike the well-respected Pharisee who could not believe or keep the word of the Lord that told him to repent of sins and stop bragging. Blessed was Simeon who believed the word of the Lord that his eyes would see the promised Savior – Simeon was blessed to depart in peace. Blessed are you who are hearing the word of God and will keep it: keep it in your heart and in your mind and in your daily walk with the Lord.

That’s how you are blessed. Don’t covet other stuff that you are not given. Don’t get all discouraged because you don’t have this or that and say to yourself, “God hasn’t blessed me.” I don’t have all the money I want. I don’t have the best things. I don’t have the respect from others that I deserve. I don’t have the position I was always trying to get. I don’t have the people around me to support me and help me and make me happy. Those things are blessings when you get them from the Lord. But don’t despise him for how he chooses to give out blessings. Listen to Jesus: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” That’s the blessed state you have, regardless if other things haven’t worked out like you want.

Hear the word of God and keep it. Hear the whole word of God. Keep the whole word of God. Hear both the Law and Gospel of God. Keep the Law by turning away from sins and turning toward the way of the Lord. Hear the Gospel. Keep it by trusting the Lord when He says, “You are forgiven.” And go on your way in the newness of life that is yours through the Gospel. “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1).

The incident recorded in Jeremiah’s book that we read today is an example of this, a rather bad example. The hearers of the Word of God that Jeremiah spoke did not keep it. They rejected it.

Jeremiah was commanded by God to speak a word to the people. The Lord said to Jeremiah, “Do not hold back a word. 3It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds” (Jeremiah 26:2-3).

The Word of God is His will, but it is his resistible will. He allows it to be so, that men and women can hear his word and if they choose, they can resist it, reject it, not keep it, but dismiss it. The will of God is perfect. We know He gets what he wants, yet in this wicked world, there are some things that work against his will. The devil works against God’s goodness, wreaking havoc in the world and in the lives of the world’s occupants. The sinful human nature within each of us wants to thwart God’s good and gracious will, and won’t listen to the word and won’t keep it. It’s only by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit that anyone can hear and keep the words that the Lord speaks.

Jeremiah was given this message to preach to the people of Judah:   “You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not listened, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth’” (Jeremiah 26:4-6).

Shiloh was once, in the early history of Israel, a beautiful center of worship. People came there and received the means of grace. They sang the praises of the Lord. But some centuries before Jeremiah’s day, enemies of God’s people, probably the Philistines, destroyed it. So there were these ruins of the place, just 18 miles away from Jerusalem, where Jeremiah is preaching. It was a depressing, discouraging sight for the people to picture. They knew exactly what this warning meant. And it made them mad. They said, 9Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” (verse 9).

Now they got what Jeremiah was saying mostly right. But they missed the very key part. They didn’t keep the word that said: “If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not listened, then I will make this house like Shiloh.”

All these people had ears that were working. They heard the word. But their hearts were hard and selective in what word they kept. They got mad at Jeremiah -- more to the point, they were mad at God – but they directed their anger at Jeremiah. “You shall die!” They chose to believe that Jeremiah hated them, that he wanted their ruin. They accused him of prophesying against them. Jeremiah was guilty in their judgement of saying terrible things, things that some in our day have a powerful name for -- “hate speech.”

But, no, Jeremiah wasn’t speaking this out of hatred or malice. The Lord had told him to talk this way for their own good, for their preservation. The Lord’s desire was that they would turn, turn back to him.

The world around us hears what the Lord says but will not keep it. They hear only part of the Lord’s Word. He says do this, don’t do that. And they say, “God hates us. He won’t let us do what we want; He won’t let us be who we are.” They don’t hear and keep all that the Lord says, “If you will listen to me, it will be good for you. You will have life and salvation.

You are blessed when you hear the word of God and keep it. All the word of God. Turn from evil and do good. Repent and believe God. Hear him describe how he made you, body and soul. Hear him when he tells you that you live in a world broken by sin, and that your misdeeds and your godless thoughts have broken your life further. Hear him when he says, Repent and walk in my ways. Hear him now when he tells you of the cross of Jesus where your sins of deed and thought are forgiven and removed, for Jesus’ sake. Again, this week’s Collect, let us pray:

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

 

 

Sermon for Quinquagesima

 

Knowing Jesus in His Suffering – Luke 18:34

 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished” (Luke 18:31).

You could see as you followed along in this Gospel reading for the day that there are two paragraphs, two scenes in the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first scene, Jesus tells his disciples what is going to be happening when they go up to Jerusalem. He is going to be handed over to the Gentiles, the Roman occupation force. They will treat him shamefully, spit on him, kill him, and on the third day he will rise. And the disciples don’t get it. These things are hidden from them. They can’t see what he’s talking about.

In the second scene, there’s a blind beggar in Jericho, and he sees. He gets it. He’s told that Jesus of Nazareth is coming by, and he knows enough to call on him by a different title. He calls out Jesus, Son of David, have mercy in me. He acknowledged Jesus to be the long promised King that Israel had been waiting for, like the great King David only different, better. The blind man knew and trusted to call on this promised one, this promised Messiah. “Have mercy!” Jesus calls this faith the man had. He had faith, he believed the Son of David, the anointed Messiah, could help in his affliction.

Luke, guided by the Holy Spirit, had to choose carefully what events about Jesus life to record. He didn’t have the time or the ink to record it all. So it’s important to see what he included. And it must be intentional that he included these two paragraphs one after the other showing this great contrast between the disciples’ cluelessness and the blind beggar’s faith.

It was worth writing down, worth passing on that the only one who got Jesus, on this trip up to Jerusalem was a blind man.

The disciples knew Jesus of course. They’d been with him all along. They heard him preach and learned his lessons. But when he talked about his suffering, his humiliation at the hands of evil men, his cross, they did not grasp what was said.  There is a clear contrast here: the one who suffers calls out to Jesus and has faith in what Jesus does. Those who are well and at ease, are blind to understand why Jesus does what he came to do. The disciples were just going along that road heading to Jerusalem. Making progress on the journey, refusing to believe that there would be suffering and cross ahead. The blind man, in his ailment, could only cry out in faith.

Thursday last week I was visiting with the three year old children at Fun in the Son preschool. It was about first thing in the morning and I asked them “Are you going to have a good day today?” And these three year olds were so bright and chipper and excited about every little thing so of course they said, “Ya!” It was snowing and there was a wind chill. And all of us had wet and muddy shoes. But it was a good day for all. I love the optimism of children.

But I am an old Lutheran pastor. I had to bring it all back to reality. Especially the reality that we hear from God:  Law and Gospel. So first the law.

I asked them, “Do you ever have a bad day?” And they couldn’t even answer that. All they could think of was that they were having a great time at the moment.  But I gave them some examples. What about when you are hurt and have an ouwie? Do you ever cry ‘cause you don’t get your way? What about when you’re angry because your friends mess up your stuff? And then each one started remembering a time or two when they had had a bad day. I assured them that Jesus loves them each, when they are having a good day or having a bad day.

So let me ask all of you those same questions: do you ever have a bad day? Like when you are hurt and have an ouwie? Do you ever cry ‘cause you don’t get your way? What about when you’re angry because your friends mess up your stuff?  Please know that Jesus loves you, when you are having a good day and when you are having a bad day. And this goes against our thinking, but it’s true: It’s on the bad days when we are most likely to cry out “Lord, Have mercy on me.” In our good days, when we are just going along, forward down the path ahead, we don’t grasp the need we have for the Lord.

We often pray together about the bad days. We pray that God would save us from the hurts and suffering, protect us from our enemies, deliver us from evil. We ought to also pray, “God save us from our good days.”

Thanks be to God for good days. Enjoy them. But let’s not covet them. Nor should we fear bad days. In all our days, we trust the Lord Jesus who loves us.

Living the Christian life we are called to a self-discipline, not always choosing what is easy, not avoiding what is difficult just because our flesh finds it unpleasant and unfun.

So we are given a time of discipline and self-reflection. Lent starts Wednesday with Ash Wednesday. I ask you to use these next couple of days to think about your personal observation of Lent. In Lent we meditate on Jesus’ cross even as we take up our own and follow him.

As Jesus headed up to Jerusalem and to the shameful treatment he would receive there, so we follow him, knowing Jesus as the one who suffers for us and who suffers with us.

We will have the Divine Service this first Wednesday in Lent, beginning with the confession of our sins and hearing the absolution of the Lord. Reflect beforehand on what you will be confessing, what is on your mind and in your heart and what is leading you to call out to “Jesus, Son of David, Have mercy!”

Consider what you can do this Lent, setting aside some time to pray, to listen, to discipline self, with the goal of Easter in mind. Easter is a good day. Not just because it is easy, fun, comfortable. But because our Lord brings us with him through the bad days and good days, through suffering and the cross, and finally into his eternal life. Amen.

 

Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord

 Matthew 3 [when Jesus was baptized] behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (vs. 17).

You gotta know some stuff. You have to learn. Most stuff, even if you have already learned, you gotta hear it again every so often, else it gets lost to the fog of time and competing memories. Christian faith is more than just knowing stuff, you gotta believe it, trust in it make it yours for life. But never get to thinking that faith is completely different than knowing stuff, or that knowing stuff is a hindrance to believing. You have to know what it is you are believing. The baptism of Jesus was recorded in the Gospel so Christians would know about God, and about Jesus and about your life with God and with Jesus.

First, about God.

The Christian confesses, “I believe in one God.” There is only one God. That’s made clear throughout all the Bible. All the other supposed gods are made up in the imaginations of men and women, or worse yet, are demons, masquerading as gods. God, the true God, is One a complete and perfect unity.

The Christian says, “I believe in God the Father and I believe in God the Son and I believe in God the Holy Spirit.” God the Father, whom we pray to as we’ve been taught to say, Our Father who art in heaven. God the Son, who was born at Bethlehem to be our Immanuel, our God with us. And God the Holy Spirit whom we were given at our baptism and remains with the believer lifelong comforting with peace, joy, faith, self-control and all his other fruits. Three “Persons”, as the way we’ve come to talk about it, while still One God.

That great moment at the Jordan River, the One God showed Himself in three persons. The Father spoke from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The Son of God was standing in the water, being baptized by John. The Holy Spirit presented Himself in a visible form, a dove.

We Lutheran Christians have benefited from the insights of Martin Luther on lessons like this. He said, This shows that baptism is no ordinary human custom and practice. It is a divine command and promise. The Triune God Himself shows baptism to be a divine act when He, Father, Son and Holy Spirit show up at the baptism John was doing in the old Jordan River.

Now about Jesus, you gotta know somethings about Jesus.

John was reluctant to baptize him at first. By all rights he should have been. Just previously it is recorded that John was preaching to the people of that time, “I baptize you with water for repentance” (vs. 11). Jesus was sinless. He had nothing to repent. Repentance was inappropriate for him. It’s for all the rest of us, including John. So John says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (vs. 14).

The Son of God humbled himself. He with the Father and the Holy Spirit is forever one God, enthroned in the glory of his heavenly home. He came down from heaven and became a man. Jesus, the man, did all things that a man has to do, including submitting himself to another, John the Baptist and preacher. He was “fulfilling all righteousness”.

Jesus is our Immanuel -- God with us.  He is with us in the waters of baptism.

This passage is so helpful in teaching us about Jesus -- who He is and What he does. The Father’s voice from heaven says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus is the Man in the river. Jesus is the Son of God. Who is Jesus? True God and True Man.

The Father tells what Jesus does when he says, “With whom I am well pleased.” The Father is pleased. Without Jesus there is so much that the Father is unhappy with. He had told the world what he wanted, the Ten Commandments. But people did not do them, and today, even more so, the Commandments of God are not honored or obeyed. The world is filled with problems because of this. People get sick, get old, and die. So you might be left wondering, what’s God think about me, a poor sinner?

 

What a happy sound to hear God the Father say He is pleased. Do you know what will make God happy? There’s Jesus, doing all righteousness, being born in humility, being baptized with us sinners, teaching the Father’s word, dying for our sins and living again for our eternal life.

 

Now, you gotta know somethings about what the baptism of Jesus has to do with you.

 

Romans 6 gives additional thoughts to this. St. Paul writes “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6:4)

 

Right there in baptism, Jesus us Immanuel, God with us.

 

Jesus didn’t have to be baptized. You did.

Jesus didn’t need to repent of sins. You do.

Jesus didn’t need any forgiveness. You do.

Jesus didn’t need to die. You do.

 

There He is with you and you with him, buried with Him through baptism into death.

 

Have that picture in mind of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there on the banks of the Jordan River. It’s for you that they are there. The Father is pleased with you, because you are baptized and given Christ’s righteousness. The Son is there, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. The Holy Spirit is there, teaching you to learn and believe the love of Jesus and your new life with God who is well pleased.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon for Advent 4

Elizabeth said to Mary, “For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44).

Mary heard some spectacular news when the angel Gabriel came to her from heaven. Gabriel told her she would have a baby, and the Baby is the Son of God. And then to add more believability to it, Gabriel also told Mary, “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:36-37).

So Mary thought it good to go visit her relative Elizabeth. And as she approached the home of Elizabeth and husband Zechariah, she called out her greeting, and before she could reply her greeting in return, Elizabeth was interrupted by this commotion. The baby in her womb leaped for joy. As depicted on the service folder cover, little baby John, leaped for joy. John heard the greeting. John somehow, with the help of God, knew what was going. John believed. John leaped for joy.  His Savior had come. The Savior of the world was here in the womb of Mary his mother. The promised Lord and Messiah has come down from heaven to earth and was made man, ready to deliver us. John believed this and the fruit of that faith was joy.

Now I know skeptics and critics will scoff and say, “No way.” Babies don’t know anything. They can’t believe anything. They cant feel joy or grief.” And so they disrespect, they despise babies.  

Elizabeth says it right, the movement she felt was Baby John’s joy. Verse 41 says, “And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit”. This was not her imagination, her wishful thinking, her personification of the mass of tissue in her womb. This was her understanding, as she was led by the Holy Spirit, inspired to believe and confess.

The example of Elizabeth and Mary’s babies gives us even more reason to love children, born and unborn. We want them to be baptized, because they can believe. We don’t want them aborted and thrown away. We don’t disrespect and despise them. We love them, honor them and admire them. We grown ups, should have such joy.  We hear that Baby Believer John leaped for joy in the present of his Savior, Baby Jesus, and we should conclude this. We should have such joy.

Now a person might say, “It was easy to have joy then”. They were full of the Holy Spirit, according to Luke. There were these miracles happening all over. Elizabeth’s having a baby in old age. Mary’s having a virgin birth. There’re angels popping up all over. They had lots of reason for joy. But by comparison, life here and now is so ordinary. Plain. Boring.

In her song, the Magnificat, Mary praises God for, as she says, “great things he has done for me.” She admits in the Magnificat that she is a handmaiden, a servant of the Lord. She was plain, simple, ordinary, engaged to plain, simple, boring carpenter from Nazareth, an ordinary, plain, boring town. But then Mary tells what the Lord does. He blesses the plain and simple. He lifts up the humble and brings down the proud in the imagination of their proud hearts. The Lord does not bother with the rich, the famous, the powerful who believe they don’t need The Lord and don’t need his saving. The way the Lord works is he blesses the poor sinner and forgives. He has grace for the weak and the dying and gives eternal life. He has regard for the sorrowful, and he gives them comfort and joy.

So we may not live in such marvelous times as Mary and Elizabeth and John. We might not be famous and fortunate. But we have God’s favor. We can look back at this Magnificat regularly, not just in Advent. We can hear again and again, the comforting words of Mary, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we can apply them to ourselves. She said, “The Lord has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” Find reason for joy in that.

Consider how it went for John. He heard the voice of the mother of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the book, What to expect when you’re expecting it tells how researchers found that in the third trimester, that’s what baby John was, babies will turn their heads toward an interesting sound coming from outside the womb. John heard. John believed. John leaped for joy.

Well that’s how it is for you too. You’ve heard. You believed. You’ve been given the fruit of such faith, including joy.

You have heard what your Savior says. He says, I am with you. Because of the miracles that were happening to Mary, the miracles that were happening in Mary, Jesus is with us. He took on flesh and blood. So he can say, “I’m with you.” I’m not a God who is far off in the heavens. I am in the flesh, in the world, in your life.” The fullest expression of that word from the Lord is when He says “take, eat, this is my body.” “Take, drink, this my blood.”

You have heard what your Savior says, when in death at the cross he said, “Father forgive them.” Your sins and guilt are erased by his words.

Even until your last hour in this life, you will have the words you’ve heard, to trust in, to be comforted by, to have joy in. He says, You will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Sermon for Advent 2

“Watch Yourselves”

Jesus said, “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap” (Luke 21:34).

This might be unexpected to some, that we start off December in church hearing a dire, stern warning from the Lord. Judgement Day is coming. Watch yourselves. If someone comes to church with worldly expectations of what we will do here, it might be confusing to hear the Advent message “watch yourselves lest the end of the world come upon you suddenly like a trap.” If a person comes into church expecting to hear a happy Christmassy message, to get some warm feelings on a cold day, to have a comfortable, cozy experience like watching a Hallmark movie, then it’ll be jarring to listen to this message from Jesus: “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. . . [so] Straighten and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

You notice of course, how there’s a difference between the world’s celebration of Christmas and the Church’s celebration of Christmas. One very significant part of that difference is timing. The world around us has already made a good start on the holiday season. While in the church, we are saying “not yet”. The Gospel reading for the day, is not yet Christmas, it’s an Advent message, preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which will happen soon, we are to expect.

“Not yet” is an important concept of the Church and the Christian life. “Not yet”, we are not in heaven yet. Our journey is not yet complete. Our struggle is not yet over. If you hope to feel good in this life, life will treat you with difficulties that will teach you to say, ‘not yet’ but true and full happiness must wait into the life to come with the Lord.

The church’s disciplined pattern of waiting and saying, “Not yet” is good practice for life. We are living in this “not yet” time. Sure, you know that Jesus has come into this world, born in Bethlehem and crucified outside of Jerusalem. So you know you’ve been saved and given eternal life. But you do not yet feel it, see it, enjoy that new life fully. You gotta wait for it. Faith is edified and strengthened when you tell yourself, not yet, I have to wait for the blessings my Lord has promised me. I have to take his word for it that it is all coming when the time is right. But for now, I have to have patience and exhibit endurance and hope in the Lord.

Patience, Endurance, Hope -- These things are fruits of faith, fruits of the Spirit. The Lord Jesus invites us to take these fruits as we wait for his coming and the consummation of all creation. He says, “watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap”

As we wait and watch, we will see the signs that day is approaching, like the new leaves on the fig tree giving signs that summer is about to return. There will be signs in the universe and signs in people. “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, ²⁶ people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.” For generations we have been noticing the signs in the heavens and on earth: Natural disasters, wars and rumors of wars. But note also how Jesus says fear that people have is a sign of the approaching end. This worldwide rise in fear and anxiety in the souls of people is a sign for us that the Lord is preparing to bring an end to this world and have His Kingdom come.

So, therefore, “straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” says Jesus.

That is his message to you who have this “not yet” attitude, who are waiting for him to come, ready for him to come, because you love him. Have patience. Exhibit endurance. Hope in the Lord and in his promises. “Watch yourselves.” “Take heed” was the old way of saying it. Jesus says, “But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

“Stay awake”. What’s that mean for you? Jesus is talking in parables, in figures of speech, in metaphor. This isn’t the physical distinction between sleep and awake. We should all get our needed physical rest. But Jesus hear speaks of spiritual wakefulness.  Here’s three examples of how you stay awake spiritually.

First, pray. Pray that you may have strength to escape all these things. The signs of the end of the world are enough to make those without faith faint for fear. But you, when you see fearful signs, Watch yourselves and pray for strength.

Second, remember His promises. When worries and fears come at you, stay awake. Trust God. Trust his promises. He says he loves you, cares for you. His biggest promise of all was in sending His son into this world so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.

Third, remember your vocation in this life. Keep doing what the Lord has called you to do. Love your neighbor. Be patient with your neighbor. Anxiety and distress make a person impatient with those around you. When you start thinking, “I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to listen to them. I don’t have time to go out of my way for them.” Stay awake. God give you your time, your moments and your days. What better do you have to do than to care for the people whom God has sent your way.

You can do that with the hope that is in you. So then we conclude with the blessing given in the Epistle reading of the day, Romans 14: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Amen.

Sermon for October 23

 

The Center of our Faith..

Matthew 9:2

 

And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2)

 

This is the center of our faith: Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Everything else in religion and doctrine, life and death, in heaven and hell, has to take a less significant place than this one point: "Your sins are forgiven."

 

You are to believe that, and remember that, because often there will be other things that seem more important to you at the moment -- more pressing. It’s easy to think too little of forgiveness of sins. It becomes something we just assume. We think, “Yes, we confessed our sins at the start of the service. We’ll mention it again the next time we’re in church. But let’s get on with things. There’s so much else we want to think about. There’s so much else we want from God.

 

Of course, you expect many and great things from God.  But consider this, why would you expect blessings from God like healing of your ailments and maladies or other miracles if your sins are not forgiven? How can you expect heaven to be open to you and the angels coming down and up to help and minister to you, without first and foremost having your sins forgiven?

 

At the center of the Lord’s Prayer is this petition, “forgive us our trespasses.” We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins, or deny our prayer because of them. We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.

 

It would be foolish to assume good things from God before the forgiveness of your sins. You’d be denying your condition as a descendant of Adam and Eve. You’d be arrogant claiming your sins aren’t a problem.

 

This is the center of our faith: Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” This gets to the center of God’s heart, his favorable stance toward us his children. God is love. For the righteous and holy God of heaven to love us sinners, he must forgive us. So from the foundation of the world he had his heart set on forgiving us sinners by sending his only Son, Jesus Christ to take our sins away.

 

In this gospel reading today, some scribes were very critical of Jesus, his words and his actions. Scribes were the religious scholars of the day, experts on the Bible, which at the time of Jesus was just the Old Testament. They seemed to expect God would be stingy with forgiveness. They knew all about his judgement and his retribution for sin. But they knew little about his forgiveness. It’s like they preferred his judgement and wrath and hoped his forgiveness would be rare and difficult to come by. So when Jesus so freely announces to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven.” They object. Jesus was interfering with God’s work. God is against sin, don’t you know. For Jesus to say otherwise was blasphemy.

 

Jesus miraculously healed a paralyzed man in our Gospel reading today. He did so as a lesson to anyone who would hesitate to believe him when he says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Jesus says, “what’s easier, to say, “Your sins are forgive,” or to say, “Rise and walk?” Then he shows that both are easy, for Jesus. It’s easy for him to fix problems of the body and physical life. It’s easy for him to fix our problems of the soul and spiritual life.

 

People like the Scribes will say, “no, it can’t be that easy.” Especially when we see the sin in someone else’s life, it’s mean of us to say, “that stuff is not going to be easy to forgive.” That attitude is mean and misguided. It shows a false understanding who Jesus is. The Scribes didn’t believe that Jesus could forgive sins, because they didn’t believe that Jesus was God come down from heaven and made man. So also, when we hesitate to forgive those who sin against us, when we say something like, “No way! That sin is too big, too evil, it can’t be forgiven.” We show that we are not believing Jesus, not believing who He is and what He says. For Jesus sake, put aside grudges. Get over the hard feelings. Forgive as Jesus forgives. When he says, “Your sins are forgiven,” It’s that easy.

 

Now, here’s another problem we might have. The thinking can go like this: “Well if forgiveness is so easy, it must not be that important. If forgiveness is free, it must not be that valuable.” Remember, it’s free to you. But it was costly to Jesus Christ. He paid all for it. You who have truly received that forgiveness free and easy, know how precious that forgiveness is. That’s why it remains at the center of our faith.

 

Let’s never think that forgiveness is cheap. Let’s never take it for granted. We go back again and again to the forgiveness of our sins. It is our practice to recite it regularly, weekly in our church, daily in our prayers. There is a great value to the faith to belong to a church that keeps the forgiveness of sins at the center. Some have let it fall to the side. Some have replaced forgiveness with other ideas like acceptance and tolerance. Many churches nowadays are trying to baptize worldly, liberal ideas, trying to make them seem religious. There are Churches preaching a message of acceptance and tolerance for those who take pride in deviant behavior and immoral lifestyles.  Let’s be clear: forgiveness is not the same as tolerance.

I think of someone who’s family member has been murdered. In Christian faith, the survivor will strive to find forgiveness. But they would never want to show acceptance or tolerance. Forgiving sin, does not mean accepting sin, nor tolerating sin.

 

When sin is accepted and tolerated, the result is no repentance, no faith, no hope. God calls sinners to repent of sin and go forward in faith, as Ephesians 4 says,   22Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

 

Amen.

 

 

Service on October 16

 Our Sunday Divine Service was livestreamed here:

https://fb.watch/geGCiRSeq_/