Sermon for Holy Thursday

33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Jeremiah 33:33

Remember this line from the Gospel reading for Palm Sunday? We heard this, that the “disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him” (John 12:16). Jesus teaches his disciples, including us, of course, explaining to us why he did what he did. As we, tonight, meditate on that ho ly supper that Jesus instituted on the night he was betrayed, we learn from him “these things that had been written about him and had been done to him.” Receiving the body and blood of Jesus, who has since been glorified is the best way for us to gain understanding and faith in what our Lord did for us on the Cross.

He had promised, back in Jeremiah’s day, that He would make a new covenant with his beloved people. “I will make a new covenant”, he said. Not like the old one the Israel broke in their disobedience and idolatry.

Throughout the Bible, God made covenants with people. He made a covenant with Noah and made the rainbow, promising to keep the world going now, not destroying in it again in that way. God made a covenant with Abraham, telling him to leave your home country and go to a new land I am giving you and I will bless you there and like the stars of the skies, so many shall your offspring be, and all nations of the earth will be blessed by one particular Offspring.

Covenants are sometimes made, man to man. Maybe as a business agreement, or a friendship, an alliance. The marriage of a husband and a wife is a covenant between them, sealed when they make their vows and promises to each other. A covenant from God is like that, but different in some very significant ways.   First of all, it is very one sided with God. In this covenant he is cutting with us, he is the one doing it all. He doesn’t work out an agreement with us as though he needs our contribution or our attention. There is nothing we have that he lacks. He makes a covenant with us simply because he wants to be our God and he wants us to be his people. What’s more, With God, it is an everlasting covenant. We need not fear that he will break it or change it. Even the old Covenant, it wasn’t he that broke it. But Israel, his people did. So he says, “I’ll make a new one.” So just like Israel had 12 tribes, from the 12 sons of Jacob, whom God called Israel, So now Jesus takes 12 apostles and makes a new covenant with the new Israel.

We who believe, are brought into that new covenant and it makes us new. Here’s what God does to us with this new covenant: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” The law of the Lord is, simply put, love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. On the night our Lord instituted the Holy Supper, he told his disciples, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another” (John 13:34). That’s why this is called Maundy Thursday, because of that commandment or mandate, all related words.

An essential result of the New Covenant, written on the heart, is a new love for God and a new love for others.

With his death on the cross, our Lord Jesus did what it took, to pay for all the sins of all the world. By his death on the cross, he redeemed all the world. Now, because of that he is ready and able to make a new covenant with you. On the cross it’s for all. In the cup, it’s for you. He says, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Jesus serves you his body to eat and his blood to drink, because he wants to make this new covenant with you. He wants to assure you that He is your God, and you are His people.

Amen. 

Sermon for Palm Sunday & Confirmation

 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”  (John 12:19)

 Jesus says, “Follow me.” He says that to you Trice, and Grace, and Miyah, and Kendall. Follow Jesus.

 Confirmation is about a lot of things: The fulfillment of your midweek Bible lessons and catechism instruction, your joining this congregation as a confirmed and communicant member, it is a rite of passage, a sign that you’ve grown up. But most importantly, it is the public confession that you are following Jesus. Your are his disciple. He is your Lord and Savior. This is confirming what’s been true since your baptism, You are a follower of Jesus Christ. So consider now, what all that means.

 First, you are a follower of Jesus, and that means you are not a follower of other things that are against the Lord. We teach from our catechism that there are especially three enemies of the Lord and his ways, that hinder his will and don’t want his Kingdom to come: the devil, the world and our sinful nature.

 You are a follower of Jesus, so obviously you are not a follower of the devil. Now, what that will mean is you’ve been brought into an arena where the devil is fighting. He  has to work harder on you, than he does on someone who doesn’t care. He will work harder to tempt you, to lead you astray, to give you what seem like good reasons to give up and not bother with the religion and the faith of the Lord and his church. But you just have to say, nope, I follow Jesus.

 Likewise, You are a follower of Jesus, so you are not a follower of the world and its ways. You are making a public statement today, that is completely different from what the world around us says. You’re saying that the Lord God has created you. And He redeemed you from sin and death. And he sanctified you and gave you a new birth and new life of faith. The world says that nothing created you, you just came to be by chance and chaotic randomness and that’s all there is to look forward to in the future. So the world says you’ve got to take care of things yourself, and you hear what kind of things the world says, without any acknowledgement of the Lord and his law: the world says, Choose for yourself what kind of person you will be, what gender you will be, what you will think and feel, choose for yourself without a thought or care about the people around you or the God above you. To which you are saying, in your confirmation vows this morning, I follow Jesus Christ. Him alone I serve. Him alone, I trust.

 The third spiritual enemy working against you when you follow Jesus is your own sinful nature. All of us who are born of flesh and blood are by nature selfish. So we always bent on putting ourselves first, reluctant to put others first, even including the Lord Jesus Christ. To make the vows of confirmation, means you have to repent of your sins, repent of your sinful nature, repent of your self-first attitude.

 Think about what Jesus was doing as he was riding that donkey on the Palm strewn street. You know where he was riding to? He was riding into Jerusalem. And we know what was waiting for him there. There were a lot of people crazy angry toward him. These Pharisees that are watching on, were filled with anger and hatred. “We’ve got to stop him. They said. We’ve got to put an end to this or the whole world will go after him.

 Jesus was riding right into the middle of that hatred and anger. He was riding to his arrest and trial filled with false witnesses. He was going forward toward a beating, thorns, pierced hands and feet. He is riding on to his death. You’d think he wouldn’t want to do that. But he rode on, for your faith and your salvation.

 Jesus says, “Follow me.” So that means you will probably have to go where you don’t want to go, for Jesus’ sake. Here’s what I mean: Jesus will say, “Follow me; repent of your sins and your selfish sinful nature.” And that’s not the favorite place to go. It’s not the easiest, most pleasurable thing to do. The sinner in all of us wants to say, “No, I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to admit that I was wrong. I don’t want to let on that I’m not right.” Jesus says follow me, even if it’s not where you want to go. Follow me, He says, “I’m going to the cross. Repent of your sins and believe what I say. There at my death on the cross, you are forgiven and redeemed.”

 It's good to follow Jesus, despite what your human nature makes you feel about it. It’s good to follow Jesus, despite what the world says. It’s good to follow Jesus despite what the devil would try to trick into believing otherwise.

 It’s good to follow Jesus to his cross. You do that when you pray your prayers of repentance and ask for him to forgive you your trespasses. You follow Jesus to his cross as you continue to hear what he says in his word. You haven’t learned it all yet. He has more to teach you. Keep reading, hearing, learning, and believing. You follow Jesus when you come with faith and joy to the altar and receive his body and blood with his promise, this is for you, for the forgiveness of sins and where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation.

 And when your last hour comes, follow Jesus. He’ll take you home. None of us knows when that day will be, how it will be, what it will be like. Because it’s unknown, it’s kinda scary. And we might want to say, Lord I don’t want to go where you are leading me. When we who follow Jesus reach that point, we can close our eyes in death and have peace. We can be like the Daughters of Zion who rejoice and say, "Behold, your king is coming to your righteous and having salvation is he, Hosana! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

 Amen.

 

Sermon on February 27

 1 Samuel 16:7 For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Don’t judge a book by its cover. You know that old saying. Well, know this: God does not judge by outward appearances. He judges by what’s in your heart.

Saul was the first king of Israel, but it didn’t go well. He was evil – evil to the heart. And his worst evil was that he didn’t listen and didn’t obey the Word of God.

In the verse just previous to the Old Testament reading today, it says this:  “And Samuel (Samuel served as prophet at the same time that Saul served as king) did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35).

So God speaks to Samuel here in Chapter 16 and says, “Let’s not grieve over Saul any longer. Go and Anoint a new king. Go down to Bethlehem and I will show you who I want to be my king.”

Now Bethlehem was not a very important town at that time, but we know it would become so. And already here God is preparing for the great event to take place in Bethlehem, by choosing a new king and a new line of kings from Jesse’s family.

So God sends Samuel to Jesse’s house in Bethlehem. And Jesse introduces his sons to Samuel. Everyone would expect that the oldest, the first born would be the choice. Eliab was by all appearances the excellent candidate. He was well-built, tall, strong.  “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7.

Seven sons of Jesse, each in turn, are brought before Samuel. None are chosen. So Samuel says, “Have you got anyone else?”

And Jesse says, “Just the little one, David. He’s out tending the sheep.”

“Go get him.” Says Samuel.

David is brought in and he’s the one! And he is anointed, the King of Israel, the best King ever.

We know David yet today. We know something of his heart. We know his faith. The Holy Spirit of God was on him and led him to write Psalms that are sung and prayed by believers for 3000 years now, Psalms like the 23^rd, where the former shepherd boy, now King, David, praises “The Lord is my Shepherd.” And another, Psalm 51, which will be a prayer included in our service Ash Wednesday. It’s the Psalm that says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

You see, David wasn’t without flaws. He sinned. In fact, he was guilty of some big sins. To the guilty, the notion that God sees in the heart is shocking. It incites fear, regret and shame. It’s from the heart where all sin starts. Evil thoughts and desires fill the hearts of sinful human beings.

The sinner can’t say, I’m going to change my heart. I’m going to fix it. NO, as David teaches us, the only way to pray is to ask God to create a new heart within me.

Lent is our times to prepare our hearts for Easter. How? Not by outward appearances. It’s not about outward things (like eating more fish and seafood, although that’s ok to do if you enjoy it). It’s about the inward work of God, the Creator, creating something new within us. And He does that by the Word of Christ. When we hear and believe that Jesus lived, died and rose again to save us, God creates in us new, reborn hearts.

We hear in the Gospel reading today, what great things Jesus can do. A blind beggar cries out to Jesus, “Son of David! Have mercy on me.” The beggar recognizes that Jesus is in the kingly line of David. Jesus is the King greater than his ancestor.

Jesus says to the beggar “, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well”  (Luke 18:42). How would Jesus know this man has faith? He was just a beggar along the road, annoying people who walked by. Jesus, the Lord, looks at the heart. He sees this man’s faith.

Also in the Gospel reading we hear Jesus predict his death in Jerusalem (Luke 18:31-34). Evil men would judge Jesus and find that he deserved crucifixion and death, even though he had done nothing wrong, nor was there any evil in Jesus’ heart. The hear of Jesus was pure and innocent, righteous and holy. But sinners back then. . . well, all sinners of the world, you and me, made that pure heart of Jesus stop beating.

On the third day it beat anew. In heaven it beats now for you. The Lord loves you from the heart.  He forgives your sins from His heart. He keeps you in his heart. Which is why I can now say to you: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Amen.

Sermon for February 13, 2022

 The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the twentieth chapter.

1[Jesus said:] “The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first last.”

 This is the Gospel of the Lord.

All of us need to learn. All of us need to be taught by our Lord – whether young or old, whether you’ve learned lessons from books or from life, or if you’re just starting out -- we all need to hear from our Lord, learn from him and believe him. And many of his lessons, we need to learn again and again, like this one he’s teaching today, about our work for him and the wages we expect. We need to learn from him because our sinful human nature always gets things wrong when it comes to good works and faith.

In this parable that Jesus told, some of those workers in the vineyard made a fuss about the pay they were getting. It wasn’t fair. Those of us with a human nature, can sympathize with them. It hurts our pride when we see someone else get more than we did, and we, by our own reckoning, deserve more than they. It’s human nature to expect to get credit. We share in the grumbling of the vineyard workers when we don’t get the credit we think we should.

The boss had to chide these workers. A denarius was a fair day’s wage. It was agreed upon beforehand. It was awarded appropriately. The boss was faithful and just to the workers. It was his choice, and his business alone, to be generous toward those who came late and worked little.

By means of this story, the Lord teaches us about our human nature. We are slow to be thankful for what God has given us. We don’t count our blessings as we should. It’s only when they are diminished or gone, that we seem to notice the blessings. And then we gripe and complain. We sinful, self-centered human beings tend to think we deserve only good from God. “We’ve got it coming”, so we assume. Thinking this way we take credit in our own abilities and strength and goodness. We fail to give God the credit for our blessings and for our life. We’d rather trust ourselves than trust God.

Faith and Good Works

Faith –believing in God and what God has done for you. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. It is He who has saved us from our sinful condition by sending His Son to die for us on the cross. It is He who has given us faith, and is bringing us into eternal life. Salvation unto us has come by God’s free grace and favor; Good works cannot avert our doom. They help and save us never. The sinful human nature within us gets this wrong.

Arrogance

We are tempted to make too much of our own good works and inherent abilities. It is arrogant to take credit for what is not ours. The master of the vineyard was disappointed with the arrogance of those workers who thought they deserved more pay and more credit. So we are tempted to look around at what others are doing and say, “Well at least I’m not as bad as so and so. God and everybody else ought to recognize that.” No, there is no one righteous. No one good except God.

Ephesians 2 says, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Your good works don’t count up to your credit. Your good works give you nothing good for yourself and your standing, but they are for the good of your neighbor. It is arrogant to boast about your goodness and your good works. Arrogance is the exact opposite of faith. The arrogant need to repent.

Despair

Despair on the other hand comes with great frustration when you realize that no matter how hard you try, God doesn’t notice you or award you. In despair, the sinner says, “I can’t do this.” and so gives up, gives up on God, gives up on heaven. Despair is the exact opposite of faith in the other direction.

License

You can be tempted too think to much of good works. You can also be tempted to think too little of good works. When you get a license, you have the privilege to drive. Some think that the Gospel is a license to do whatever you want in this life. The thinking goes like this, if God forgives me all my sins, it doesn’t matter what I do.

Here’s the next verse in Ephesians 2, “¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

You can’t just skip good works and carelessly, lazily go through your day without even trying. Faith without works is dead. Those guys in the parable who were just standing around all day, weren’t even trying to help out with the vineyard. They showed by their lack of work that they didn’t care about the Master and didn’t expect him to care about them. In the same way, a person who does nothing good for God or neighbor is showing that he cares little about God and doesn’t expect God to care about him.

Believers want to do good works. But they don’t put the cart before the horse by saying that their good works are what make them good Christian people. No, It’s by grace you have been saved. Believers trust in their salvation from God and then love him and love their neighbors with words and actions that show their love for God.

What are good works?

There’s this mistaken idea that the best works are great and extravagant, like giving a sum of money to fund a hospital, giving years of your life to serve the church or the poor. As if certain super good works make one a super Christian. The master of the vineyard paid all the workers the same. The Lord above gives the same salvation to all who believe. The works God has for you to do are taught in the 10 commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

These are the good works God has prepared for you to do:

The 1st commandment, You shall have no other gods: Love the Lord God by believing in him.

The 2^nd Commandment, You shall not misuse the name of the Lord. This is God’s command to  call on his name and pray. By the way, Lent starts next month. I’m going to ask, to challenge each of you to keep up and improve your daily prayers through Lent. Your prayers are the good works God has for you.

As is coming to house to hear His word, the 3^rd commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.

The 4^th commandment, honor your father and mother and other authorities.

The 5^th commandment, You shall not murder. Good works are most often simple. Care about others, their health and life and well-being. 

The 6^th commandment You shall not commit adultery. But love your spouse, treat others decently.

The 7^th commandment You shall not steal. Be kind and considerate to others and care about what’s important to them.

The 8^th Commandment – You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor, but by speaking kind  words, be a good neighbor.

The 9^th Commandment – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. Be happy with others for their good fortune, mourn with others when they have loss.

The 10^th Commandment – You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, people or animals, be content with what you get from God and don’t get all arrogant and upset because he gives others good things.

What is faith?

The hymn says it well: “Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone and rests in Him unceasing; and by its fruits true faith is known with love and hope increasing. For faith alone can justify; Works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living” (LSB #555). Amen.

Sermon for Epiphany 4

 

January 30, 2022

4^th Sunday After Epiphany

Matthew 8 ²⁶ And Jesus said to his disciples, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. ²⁷ And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

Who is this? What sort of man is he. So wondered the disciples. That question is central to the Christian message, the Gospel. In fact, when the disciples come to sufficiently answer that question, for that matter, when you or I or anyone else on earth can know the answer to that question, “What sort of man is this?” then we and they can confidently put our trust in this sort of man.

He sleeps. It shows he is a man. He controls the elements of wind and wave. It shows he is God.

Who is Jesus? God and man. What sort of person is this? A person with 2 natures, a Divine nature and a human nature.

The Christian Church joins together in answering the question Who is Jesus? When we confess our creeds and sing our liturgy and pray our prayers. Lift up your hearts and rejoice when you  say the creed and together with the whole Christian church confess: one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,   begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven  and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man.

The Son of God, made man is our salvation and hope.

At his conception and birth, the Son of God became incarnate, that is, he became human. So we have Jesus, our God and Lord, a man, like one of us. Susceptible like us. Susceptible to the kinds of things we are susceptible to--the weaknesses of the human flesh.  In this Gospel reading today, we see that Jesus was susceptible to exhaustion. His ministry was really getting going. He was traveling around to different towns and villages in Galilee, healing many. Starting before dawn in prayer, preaching and healing and walking everywhere. Just prior to this Matthew records a conversation between Jesus and a Scribe who came to him and said, “I would like to follow you.” Jesus seems to warn him, it won’t be easy. He says, ““Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). You can sorta hear that our Savior is tired. Little wonder he falls asleep on the boat ride across the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus, the Son of God become Son of Man was susceptible to exhaustion. He was susceptible to pain. Vulnerable before his enemies. And eventually he shows he is susceptible to death, just like each of us. But notice, he must not have been susceptible to fear. The wind and waves that  stormy afternoon scared the living daylights out of the disciples, but for the Lord, the wind and waves rocked him to sleep. This is not to demean the disciples. They were hardened fishermen. They had the experience enough to determine when a situation was dangerous and upsetting. The waves were coming over the side and the bottom of the boat was filling up. This is how sea travelers get lost at sea. But Jesus teaches them and us by his example, we can pray like in Psalm 46: God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam,

I said at the start that when we can answer that question, “What sort of man is this Jesus?” then we can confidently put our trust in this sort of man. Here’s why, as the disciples witnessed, “Even the winds and sea obey him.” He can tell them what to do and they must listen. That which would harm or kill us, must listen to the Lord Jesus, who is at the same time, God and Man, at the same time our fellow Suffer and our Savior.

Romans 8:22 says “Creation groans,” as it awaits deliverance and redemption from God. Things aren’t right in the world. We groan about it, we notice creation groaning about it. Through many dangers, toils and snares we must go, longing for God’s amazing grace to lead us home. So we cry out with our little faith, Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”

Jesus lifts his voice. He rebukes the wind and the sea. And the elements of the earth obey him. The Greek word for obey that the disciples are using here has the root word /akou/, which means hear, like acoustics. The wind and sea obey Jesus. They hear him. They listen to him.

There is great comfort for fears and help for our troubles in Jesus and the powerful word that He speaks. You know who Jesus is: True God and True Man. So you hear what He says, and obey. True God, He speaks with the voice of the Creator. True Man, He speaks to us with words we can hear, understand and believe.

He speaks. All creation must listen.

He speaks. You listen. You believe. You obey.

He speaks and says, “Why are you afraid? You faith is little. Repent of your worries and fears and remember that I have all things in my control.” He says, “don’t be afraid of life or death.” “Trust in me each moment.”

The storm of sin within us each doesn’t want us to hear the Word the Lord speaks or to obey it. In sin and rebellion our first inclination is always to see the storm and expect that the Lord is just going to sleep right through the danger.

Out of the storms of life, your Lord and Savior speaks. He says turn from your sins. Turn from your doubts and fears. Turn to me, hear my word and believe. Amen.

Funeral Sermon for the Rev. Alvin Jeske

 In the name of Jesus. Amen.

God is good. God is good to Alvin Jeske. All his days, God is good. For 91 years, 8 months, and 26 days. God was good to Alvin giving him the new birth, to newness of life when he was baptized into Christ at Holy Ghost Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. The Holy Spirit of God was good to Al. He taught him and grew faith in him so on April 2, 1944, Al publicly confirmed his faith and this was his confirmation verse: Romans 1:16: I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. God was good to Al, by setting him apart to be a pastor and a preacher of that Gospel, the power of God for salvation.

            God was good to Pastor Al, giving him a blessed and peaceful death on October 11, 2021.

All along the way, God gave him good gifts. He gave him people. There’s a woman, who loves him. Four beautiful children. Then grandchildren and great grandchildren. God gave him congregations, hearers for his preaching, students of his teaching, sinners to be absolved with that gospel that he and they need never be ashamed of. I don’t know how to calculate how many men, women and children over the years have heard Pastor Al preach God’s Word. I count myself blessed as one who heard his last time preaching God’s Word, when on his death bed he recited Psalm 130 with strength and breath that one would think he should have been saving.  He spoke that Psalm, including this verb “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” And with those words he preached the gospel to his family, to me and to himself.

God has been good to Pastor Al. God gave him unique skills. Skills of the hand. Pastor Al made this bail for me. He bailed it from a bailer that he had made, one of the many machines that so many of us have marvelled at and been entertained to watch. I enjoy having this as a keepsake. And I suspect that Pastor Al had more joy in making it and giving it than I do from receiving it. 

But I'm getting off topic and Pastor Al didn’t want me to talk too much about how good he was, what he accomplished. That wasn't his point shouldn't be ours either today. Pastor Al would rather I talk to you today about His Savior, Jesus and the gospel of God.

Pastor Al planned ahead, for this day. It’s a good thing for a godly man or woman to do, to consider what will happen when your short time in this life is over. Prepare for your funeral. A couple of years ago, he gave me this outline of the sermon I'm supposed to be preaching.

 

(Read the outline)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So a truly wise man will understand himself and status before the Almighty with fear and reverence. It is wise of Pastor Al to confess his sins, weaknesses and failures. You who know him better than I, will perhaps know weaknesses and failures I didn’t witness. If there are any regrets today, any disappointments that he was everything you thought you needed in a father, a grandfather, a pastor, a colleague, a friend and neighbor. It’s because he was like you and me a sinner. Let’s please forgive him. God has. Like the dead body is covered with the beautiful garment, so weaknesses and failures are covered by the life, death and resurrection of his Savior, Jesus Christ. When Jesus suffered and died, the ugly cruel death on the cross, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. . . the Lord has laid on Jesus the sins of us all (Isaiah 53). My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

            That righteousness of Jesus is for us to have now. This is the righteousness that is revealed in the gospel of Al’s confirmation verse. “The righteous shall live by faith.”  That’s what we have to believe now. That the righteous live by faith. As we walk through the valley of death, as weakness overcomes our mortal body and the ages take their toll, we look beyond our earthly experience and hear the promise that the righteous live by faith. Those who believe the gospel, the power of God for salvation, who have departed from this earthly time, live. Pastor Al, who you can take at his word when he said what his hope was, he will not perish but has eternal life.

And we who are left will see him again, and share with him in the joy promised us. Believe that when you place his earthly remains in the earth, like we sang just now in the hymn:

And so to earth we now entrust
What came from dust and turns to dust
And from the dust shall rise that day
In glorious triumph o’er decay.

That will be the gospel at the cemetery, the gospel we are not ashamed of. Pastor Al wants you to hear that gospel. The power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. You got to believe this.

Pastor prayed for those who would hear his preaching. and he prayed regularly for his beloved parishioners and his beloved family, that they would believe. Now, none of us can see who believes.  No one can know except God. Pastor Al was gracious and charitable in thinking about those he was preaching to at church or at home that they took to heart what was said and taught. But I know it pained him, when those he loved demonstrated that they cared little about such a powerful thing as the gospel-- the gospel that is power to salvation. For those who believe.

“Do you believe this?” That’s what Jesus asked Martha at the time of her brother Lazarus’s death and burial. When Jesus or his preachers ask that, “Do you believe?” He’s not nagging, not manipulating, not guilting you into it. The Lord Jesus is inviting, giving the Gospel, the power of God, the Resurrection and the Life, namely Jesus Christ. With the Gospel, Jesus is giving Himself and His all to you. “Do you believe this?” He says, inviting you, calling you by the gospel, to put your trust in him through life, through death.

If you ever find yourself having trouble believing it, remember that it is a gift and an invitation the Savior has to give you. When you get an invitation, you put it on the phone stand or hang it on the refrigerator where you can see it again later, so you can hear it again if any of the details get fuzzy or forgotten. You read the invitation again, or play the voice mail again, and graciousness of the invitation is renewed.

In this way, keep hearing the invitation of Jesus. Keep listening to His preachers.

Hebrews 13 says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Those who have gone before us in this journey of life and faith, are examples to follow, teaching us how to live and how to die. Imitate their faith. Share their hope.

 

O brother Pastor Al.

O blessèd saints in bright array
Now safely home in endless day,
    Extol the Lord,
    Who with His Word
Sustained you on the way.
The steep and narrow path you trod;
You toiled and sowed the Word abroad;
    Rejoice and bring
    Your fruits and sing
Before the throne of God.
The myriad angels raise their song;
O saints, sing with that happy throng!
    Lift up one voice;
    Let heav’n rejoice
In our Redeemer’s song!

Amen.

Prayers, Readings and a Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Trinity