Pastor Ron Jansen

God of Glory, God of Love

Pentecost 6, 2009, Pinckneyville/Conant, Ephesians 1:3-14

In 1995 Becky and I were at chapel of Christ the King for the baccalaureate service at Valparaiso University. While we were singing the processional hymn, “Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of Glory, Lord of Love,” I noticed people climbing up onto the pews, cameras in hand. Here we had a chance to sing our joy to God and people were trying to get a photo of their graduate as he or she rushed up one of three aisles with no more than a face showing between the mortar board hat and their graduation gowns.

Then I noticed people in our row moving back. Here came the proverbial little grandmother. By now I was fed up. If she wanted a photo she would have to go through me first. Without as much as an “excuse me” she put an elbow in my solar plexus. I stumbled back as she stepped across in front of me, snapped her photo and was on the way back to her place in the congregation. “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,” indeed.

Today we consider our epistle lesson from Ephesians, under the theme, “God of Glory, God of Love.“ One commentary calls this three stanza hymn, “Paul’s rhapsody in Christ.”

Praise to God’s glorious grace begins with blessing God whose nature is to bless us. In Christ, God has given us all the spiritual blessings available in the heavenly places. Will we ever be able to bless God with the same richness with which He has blessed us? No, on two accounts. Firstly, our sinful self distracts us from our praise; like our afternoon plans, an aching back, that argument not quite settled or did we really need more rain?

I may determine along with the Psalmist, “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying; for you speak peace to your faithful people.” Will I really listen? The Lord calls us to repentance and so we begin our service with confession of sins. I can’t even get through confessing my sin of not listening as I ought without my mind going off somewhere else. We prayed earlier, “Give us pure hearts and minds to follow Your son faithfully even into suffering and death.” Into suffering and death? I can’t even faithfully follow Jesus when I’m following a slow driver on 154, let alone when people are standing on pews or jabbing an elbow in my solar plexus.

Secondly, God is forever, and we can take that literally, giving us reasons to bless him for house and work and government and so forth day after day, in addition to all the eternal blessings in the heavenly places. He answers our prayer for daily bread and daily grace before we even pray for them, just as he gave us salvation an d eternal life in Jesus Christ without our asking.

Furthermore, he chose us. He chose us in the endless eternity, before there were atoms and DNA, before there was light and darkness., before the morning stars sang and God told the waters of the sea, “this far and no farther.” God chose us when there was only God and no “us’ at all. He chose us for a purpose, to live so that whether are at work or play, at home or away, with friends or strangers our lives would be a worthy offering of daily devotion and praise to God. However, its one thing for God to choose us for the purpose of serving him, it’s quite another for us to absolutely and unfailingly fulfill our purpose.

Way ahead of our time, before there was time, he destined us to be adopted as his children. Think of the love of a mother and father for their child. That love precedes birth. Now think of a baby born with a defective heart. The parents had anticipated the birth of a healthy baby. Now they sit with heads bowed in sadness as the doctor tells them the news; yet they say, “We will do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, we will do.” How much more will God in his gracious nature and purpose also do whatever it takes through his Son Jesus Christ to purify our defective spiritual hearts that we might once more be His children? All of this according to the plan and purpose of His will in His beloved Son.

The second stanza of Paul’s hymn tells us what God planned in eternity he has accomplished in Christ in the world’s history. It’s into this world of sin that the dear Christ entered in. Sin means to miss the mark. Theologian Marva Dawn tells of an archery class in high school. One of her fellow students got her bow so cockeyed that her arrow missed the target, flew over the track straight into a passing dog’s bushy tail. The dog wasn’t hurt. However, in its confusion it sprinted all over the field with the arrow imbedded in its tail. This became a graphic image of the fact that our wrongdoing doesn’t merely miss the mark, it often hits someone else.

Now God’s universal plan had a price. God had just the budget for it without placing any burden on us. Christ himself was the price God paid to deliver us from our plight. One time a congregation was going to sing “Jesus Priceless Treasure.” However, a typo showed up in the bulletin listing the hymn as “Jesus, Priceless Treasurer.” That’s not quite correct. God is the treasurer. Jesus is the priceless treasure God paid to wipe out our debt of sin. Thus in God’s accounting, the book is balanced by Christ’s precious blood.

In Christ, God has lavished the rich treasure of his grace on us. Thus the mystery of God’s plan, hidden for ages, is revealed in Jesus Christ. Consider this in the light of Holy Communion. To an unbeliever watching us take the Sacrament of the Altar it might seem as nonsense. What could such a little bit of bread and a sip of wine do for anyone? It’s not even much of a mid-morning snack. But for us it’s the very body and blood of Christ. It’s his death we are receiving. It’s his resurrection we are given. A hymn admits, “The mys’try of your presence, Lord, no mortal tongue can tell: whom all the world cannot contain comes in our heart to dwell.” He comes in a bit of bread and a sip of wine.

Finally, we come to stanza three of Paul’s hymn and to the third person of the Trinity. Having heard the word of truth, the good news of our salvation, and having believed in Christ we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment guaranteeing our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. At our baptism we received the seal of the Holy Spirit marking us as God’s possession in Christ. As his sons and daughters we have an inheritance of eternal life. Marked with the sign of the cross upon our heart and upon our forehead we received adoption as children of God with a guaranteed eternal inheritance set aside for us from before the creation of the universe. For such a great blessing from God we can only say along with St. Paul, “To the praise of his glory.” Indeed, “Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of Love.”

I Am with You

Pentecost 509, Otto, Mo. 2 Samuel 5:10

            I was sitting on my backyard patio in the cool of the day enjoying my bit of the Garden of Eden recreated, when I imagined what it would be like to hear the gate open, look over and see God coming to join me there.  God used to practice that kind of presence with our ancient parents, Adam and Eve.  But of course the whole thing got botched up when said parents snacked on the forbidden fruit.    Something died within them and God evicted them. He sentenced them to one day return to the dust from which they were taken.  In a way God also evicted himself, because he went with them.  Ever since, life on this earth, our relationships with one another and with God has never been quite as simple as God walking with us in the cool of the day. 

            Our theme for today, “God with us,” is based on the last verse of our Old Testament lesson, “and David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of the heavenly armies, was with him.”

            Now if we were to consider only today’s lesson and those in the previous Sundays, God’s presence would be easily understood.  Samuel anointed Jesse’s eighth son, David, king in waiting.  And “the Spirit rushed upon David from that day forward.”  The Lord who delivered him from the paw of the lion and the bear delivered him from the fore skinned Philistine, Goliath, who was defying the armies of the living God.    Last week we saw that David lamented a lament over the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan the glory of Judah fallen on the field of battle.

            However, skimming through David’s rise to royalty in such a manner would be like only viewing the events leading up to July 4^th 1776, as if everyone in Philadelphia were waiting for Thomas Jefferson to finish up the Declaration of Independence so that the delegates could sign their John Hancock.  Then the Liberty bell would ring out the news of 13 colonies had declared themselves to be a new nation, independent and free from King George.  What would be omitted is the lengthy wrangling among the delegates in the hall.  We would ignore John Adams unflattering characterizations of the character of some of his fellow delegates as the debates droned on.  We like to think that God has blessed this nation, which He has, and has used us to be an influence upon the world, which is also true.  Still, we have much of which we are not proud and wonder how is it that God is with us in those less than stellar moments.

            The same is true upon a closer reading of David’s rise to the throne.

Several years ago I was leading the Sunday school staff in covering the lessons for the week. We were studying Old Testament history.  At one point I asked, have you noticed that we can go for chapters with one thing after another occurring and find that God is not mentioned at all?  Then suddenly God pops up from out of nowhere.  We would be reminded, oh yes; God is involved and somehow is working out his will to bring about the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ even in the midst of the ungodly actions of humanity.

            So when the tribes of Israel came to David and spoke of their kinship with him, his heroism in battle on their behalf and recalled that promise that the Lord had chosen David to be “shepherd of my people Israel and prince over Israel,” they came because they had no where else to go.  Saul’s son Ishbosheth had been put on the throne.  However, two brothers, Rechab and Baanah, came to Ishbosheth’s house killed the doorkeeper and then while the king was taking a nap they killed and beheaded him.  They brought the head to David as proof that they had gotten rid of the opposition.  However, instead of being appreciative, David, was incensed.  He ordered his men to execute Rechab and Baanah.  Yet, we read in our text, “the God of hosts was with him.”  His victory over Goliath had earned him the prize of Saul’s daughter as his wife.  However, he had difficulty collecting his reward.  Finally, after Saul’s death he demanded his prize.  However, Michel was already married, so she had to be pulled away from her husband, who ran after his wife weeping.  One just has to know that that marriage is not going to work out, and it didn’t.  How is God present in all this?  How is God Immanuel, God with us, in such circumstances? No wonder someone has written a book about this era called, “Men behaving badly.”  Yet our text tells us that god was with David.

The short sentence “I am with you” is at the heart of the good news in the bible.  God chooses to be with us with good news in the midst of all the mundane matters of day to day life, and in the untidy and disappointing actions of our world. 

When God called Moses to lead His people out of slavery to freedom, Moses thought up fives excuses about his lack of qualifications for the job.  Then God said, “I will be with you,” or “I will be with your mouth” when Moses came up with the lame excuse that he did not know how to talk.  Jeremiah had argued that he was only a teenager and therefore could not be a prophet.  God countered, “Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you.”  In Matthew’s presentation of Jesus birth, he drew on the old word in Isaiah, “They shall name him Emmanuel, meaning, “God with us.” All of those previous promises in the Old Testament of God’s presence were precursors to God with us in His son, Jesus Christ.   Jesus was God with us when his own people rejected him, when his arrest and trial, and when he died on the cross.  From the cross he called out, “Father, forgive them.”  God, in Jesus bowed the heavens and came to be with you not only when things are going good for you, but also in the worst of times when life is falling apart.

Jesus last words in Matthew’s gospel are: “And remember, I am with you to the end of the age.”  However, sinful and however lacking we might be, God is not ashamed to hang around with David, Bathsheba, or us.  The simple statement, “I am with you,” carries with it the forgiveness of our sins.

“I am with you,” is a word of encouragement.  It gives us the ability to trust that in our day to day life, as we carry out our vocation as man or woman, husband or wife, father or mother, or child, we are never alone.  When we face the challenges of life, including our own mortality, God’s “I am with you” means that we have the promise of strength and encouragement to do what we have to do.

It all starts with our baptism.  When the pastor said, “Ronald, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” I was marked with the cross of Christ forever.  So were you in your baptism.

             Christ’s real presence in the Supper says to us in ways that we can taste, touch and smell, “I am with you.”  God is with us in the assurance of Christian brothers and sisters, in their words of encouragement and forgiveness and by their witness.

There was great excitement when David was anointed king replacing Saul.  It’s an excitement we feel at our first job, or first love or each new day.  It’s the excitement of a pastor being installed in a congregation as shepherd of God’s people.  It is the excitement in each new day or new venture that God is with us, even after the excitement wears off.

            So when I sit in my bit of backyard Eden, I don’t have to wait for God to come through the gate and be with me.  He is already there when I arrive.      

Night of Mourning; Morning of Dancing

Pentecost 4, 2009, Otto, 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

“After the death of Saul…David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan.”

There was much of death this past week. Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s side kick, age 86. Farrah Fawcett, actress, age 62, Michael Jackson, entertainer, age 50. Ed Thomas, Parkersburg, Iowa football coach. The Iranian music student Neda Agha Soltan.

But what sticks in my mind is what Delores Gilhausen said a week ago Saturday. My daughter and I were at a reception for a grade school friend of hers who was finishing her surgical rotations at Wash. U. Some people had come down from Marshfield, Wis. where I had been pastor in the 1980’s. Among them were Delores and her daughter Lynn. It wasn’t long into our conversation when Delores said, “Yes, Roy has been gone for 6 years.” She paused and then said, “It’s always with you.” What happened was that early one early winter morning before the sun had come up; Roy had taken the trash out to the curb. When Stan Backaus, another member of the church, came by he found Roy dead of a heart attack.

Notice how Delores put it. She did not say, “He’s always with me.” No, rather “it” meaning death, his death, is always with me. What a difference from much of our society that tries to find comfort in diminishing death. We find this especially true in the various versions of the poem, “Don’t weep for me. “ That contains the lines, “I’m not here. I’m everywhere.” The person who has died tells the mourner that he or she is in the trees, the birds, the wind, the blossoms and the bees. Somehow comfort is to come in an eternity of oneness with creation. Another version promises that the deceased will now serve as a guide for the one still alive. Here the dead person takes the place of the Holy Spirit.

The other side of our popular attitude toward death is to wallow in it, as we see going on right now in the case of Michael Jackson. And all of it is unhooked from God let alone being discussed in the contest of Jesus death and resurrection. In any case, death, as death is not taken seriously.

Scripture takes death and mourning seriously; along with promises of deliverance from the Lord. Psalm 30 tells us that, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Again, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.” The Lord gives the celebration of life in the morning, but not without the night of lamenting.

The author of Ecclesiastes writes, “It is better to go to the house of mourning; than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.” The New Testament book of Hebrews connects the problem of sin with an appointment with death that each person must keep. Only because Jesus Christ kept his appointment with death can our sin and the resulting death be overcome.

When David lamented his lament for Saul and Jonathan, he cried out three times, “How the mighty have fallen!” Whether we are mighty, powerful, famous or infamous or just plain ordinary people, death comes to us all. Death is called the great leveler.

In Adam we all die. And who, but God himself brought the pronouncement of death upon Adam and thus upon you and me? Theologian William Stringfellow writes of death. “Death is so great, so aggressive, so pervasive and so militant a power that the only fitting way to speak of death is similar to the way one speaks of God. Death is the living power and presence in this world which pretends to be God.” Death has established its rule over all life and day after day after day shows its power over life.

Thus man and God found that death was the greatest enemy. Death stinks, literally, and figuratively. David says of Jonathan, “I am distressed for you, my brother; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary.” David’s grief is not alien to us. We become David, lamenting a lament over the death of someone we respected or the dying of a close personal friend.

Let our children become ill and we become Jairus in the gospel lesson, the desperate parent rushing out to fall at Jesus feet, pleading, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she might be made well.”

Death includes losing not only our physical life, but our social life and well-being also. Along the way back to Jairus’ house Jesus is interrupted by a woman who has been suffering for twelve years. Her discharge of blood has led her to be declared continuously unclean and thus to be shunned, even by her husband and family. This affliction was taking away life both physically, spiritually and socially. If we have had some chronic problem we know in what desperation she reached out to touch Jesus clothing.

Now the news came that Jairus’ daughter was dead. But Jesus insists that he put away his fear and continue to believe that Jesus can do something. As they arrive at the home, all the friends and relatives are standing around wondering what to do. After my friend Don Golde’s funeral in Minnesota in May, his widow invited me over to the house. She said they had been given so much food. Every time the doorbell rang there was someone with food. I said, “and how many times did you do the same thing when a person in the congregation died?’” “Yes, I know,” she said. We don’t know what to do.

But now Jesus does something astounding. He contradicts everything I have been saying about taking death seriously. He has already taken the first steps. He has gone with Jairus to his home. Now he says, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” this is worse than telling the spouse or parents, “Well, God needed him more than you do.” No wonder they laugh at him.

Jesus shoos everybody away and takes the little girls parents and three disciples into the room where the dead girl lay. He takes her hand and says, “Little girl, I say to you, arise. And she gets up and starts walking around. Everyone is amazed.

Then Jesus says something else that is incredible. He tells them not to tell anyone what he has done. He tells them this because he has a greater battle to wage against the power of death. The little girl will grow up and have a family of her own and then die again. The son of the widow at Nain will live out his life and die. Martha and Mary will have their mourning turned into dancing with Lazarus resurrection, but they too will one day die. So it will be for the woman he healed that day on the way to Jairus’ home

Jesus will one day die himself after his great suffering on the cross. He will be buried. And he will rise again. But in his death and resurrection is the difference. Whereas, before death had been swallowing up life, now in Jesus, life swallows up death. Therefore, Paul writes, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Just as Jesus went with Jairus to the house of the dead, so he goes with us. Just as we have to go through the night of mourning, so in Christ we will emerge in the day of rejoicing. For he goes with us through death and into life.

And we have a preview of that life once again this morning. Jesus told Jairus and his wife to give their daughter something to eat. So this morning Jesus tells us to have something to eat. “The table is set. Come and eat and live.”

Begone You Giants

3^rd Sunday in Pentecost, St. Paul’s Otto, I Samuel 17

            The three hags in the fourth act of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth stand around their boiling pot, chanting, “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

Today we come upon a bubbling cauldron which is the Valley of Elah where the army of Judah is encamped, just twelve miles west of Bethlehem.  The Philistines are occupying Judean territory.   Eugene Peterson describes the scene in his book Leap over the Wall, “The air is heavy with hostility.  There isn’t a man on either side of the valley who isn’t hefting a spear, sharpening a sword, getting ready to kill.  The Valley of Elah is a cauldron in which fear and hate and arrogance have been stirred and cooked for weeks into what’s now a volatile and lethal brew.”

                For forty straight days, as the morning sun heated the valley floor the Judean and Philistine forces lined up on either side of the canyon, a dry river bed bisected a sort of no man’s land.  The roar of battle cry echoed off the canyon walls.  Then, a champion would step out from the Philistine line into the no man’s land and shout, “Why have you come out to draw up for battle?  Am I not a Philistine…?  I defy the ranks of Israel this day.  Give me a man, that we may fight together.”  However, when Saul and all Israel heard these words…”they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”  No Israelite man stepped into that no man’s land to fight the giant. 

Indeed, Goliath was a giant.  His 9 feet 9 inch frame was covered from head to foot with 125 pounds of the latest in heavy metal armor.  His weapons were technologically advanced.   The head of his spear was made of iron, weighing about 25 lbs, which he twirled with the careless ease of a cheerleader twirling her baton.  Goliath’s weapons of destruction and words of defiance, filled the forces of Saul with dismal dread at the prospect of fighting such a formidable foe  He stood at the center of their world teasing and taunting them.

            Then at the end of the day, as the army of Israel retreated to their encampment, Goliath stepped out into no man’s land again and with the sun setting behind him, repeated his insults and challenges to the backs of the Israelites.  In the face of the giant, Israel did not remember that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

            Martin Luther based his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God, on that verse from Psalm 46.  One translation of his second stanza promises that in the face of formidable foes, “But now a champion comes to fight, whom God himself elected.  Ask who this may be; Lord of hosts is he! Christ Jesus our Lord, God’s only Son, adored.  He holds the field victorious.”  We sing that hymn with conviction.  Would that we showed such conviction when we face our own Goliaths that taunt us morning and the evening.

            Periodically, I meet a woman who lives near by walking her dog in the cemetery.  One day I was out earlier than usual.  She happened to come out at the same time, because as she explained, “I just had to get away from the news.  Every report was worse than the previous one.”  The world can seem like a gigantic cauldron of trouble from which there is no escape and which we have little hope of defeating.  A critic reviewing the movie, the Valley of Elah, which is named after the battle site of today’s text, wrote, “Similar to that battle, there are so many battles going on daily between countries, between governments and their people, between the people themselves, and within us as well.”  The giant in our lives may well be the turmoil within us that robs us of sleep at night and leaves us exhausted at the start of the day, or a conflict between people or a battle with the government or getting caught up in a war, whether its in Iraq or Afghanistan.  The giant before us or within us grows larger and larger and stronger and stronger and becomes the center of our world.

But back on the farm near Bethlehem, Jesse tells the kid, his eighth born son, David to take some provisions to his three older brothers who have enlisted in Saul’s army.  So it happens that on the forty first day of Goliath’s taunting the kid shows up.  Now here’s a hint of where we are going with this.  Sometime before, we have been told that the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul.  We also learn that when Samuel anointed David with a flask full of oil, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.”

The kid arrives just in time to hear the giant’s taunts and to see the men of Israel fleeing.  David asks, “Who is this fore skinned Philistine that he should insult the battle-ranks of the living God?”  Well there’s something new.  Those men scampering up the side of the canyon are the army of the living God.

Remember, last week, we learned that God doesn’t look on the appearance of man but on the attitude of the heart.  Now Eliab the oldest brother shows what is in his heart.  He belittles his kid brother, accusing him of abandoning the sheep and just wanting to come and gawk.  Never mind that Jesse their father had sent David to them with provisions and to check on their welfare.  Never mind that the army of the living God has been abandoning the field of battle for forty days and doing nothing other than gawking at the giant.

            Undaunted, David went to Saul and volunteered; “Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.”  “You can’t fight him,” Saul says, “You’re just a kid and he has been a man of war since he was a kid.”  David retorts, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this fore skinned Philistine who has defiled the armies of the living God.”  Then we have the comedy in which David is dressed in Saul’s armor.  It renders him immobile.   So he sheds the protective armor and Saul’s sword.

David goes to the creek, kneels down, picks up five smooth stone and approaches the Philistine.  Goliath scoffs, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?”  David calls out, “That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,” he runs toward the Philistine, takes a stone from his bag, puts it in the sling and with a couple of looping twirls and a perfect release point, sinks a stone in Goliath’s forehead.  After forty one days of shouting and insults it was all over in the blink of an eye.  The giant lay crumpled face down on the ground.

The God who won the victory over the giant, Goliath, is the same God who stood in a boat in our gospel lesson and said to the storm, “Peace! Be still.”  This is the same God, who in the person of a descendant of David, named Jesus delivered us from the threat of sin, death and devil with two crossed sticks.

Whatever giant may enter our life and stand in between ourselves and God, know that God, in Jesus Christ, has stood there too and has already defeated whatever giant looms before and robs us of our days and nights.  He it is who like David before him was sent by his Father to us today for provisions for our living.  Today we too have the word which by its speaking fells the devil, sin and death and provides us with forgiveness, life and salvation.  Next Sunday we will once again be bolstered in our life and faith through his Body and Blood.   But like David and like Jesus we too have been anointed with the Holy Spirit which contains the promise, though you have faith no larger than a mustard seed you can say, “Away with you giant, you’re blocking my view of the living God, and the giant must be gone.”   After all, the Psalmist writes, “You, O Lord, will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble.”   

 

 

  

 

New Beginnings; 24/8

Pentecost 2, 2009, Otto, I Samuel 16:1-13

The elders of Bethlehem were gathered at the McDonalds outside the city gate discussing the world‘s problems. One item on the table was the prophet Samuel berating of king Saul who, after defeating the Amalekites allowed the people to save the best of everything instead of destroying it. Their purported intent was to sacrifice the goods to the Lord. Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great a delight in …sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? “ Among those spared was King Agag. It was not lost on the elders at Bethlehem that Samuel had publicly hacked Agag to pieces.

Suddenly one of the elders said, “Talk about trouble. There it is.” Sure enough. There came that cranky old prophet heading directly for them.

“What have we done to bring old Samuel all the way to Bethlehem?” They asked as they went out to meet the crotchety prophet trembling.

Did you ever have such sense of guilt that brings on fear? I have. In 1989, only a few weeks after moving to Collinsville, I made a hospital call at Scott Air force Base. I knew I would be stopped at the entrance, since I still had Wisconsin plates on my car. They also had pulled over workman’s truck just in front of me. As we stood in the little office at the gate, I noticed that the truck driver was being handcuffed.

As fear and dread gripped me, I did a thorough self-examination of my past. I even conjured up a ticket I got for running a stop sign on Oakland Ave back in 1966. So it is with fear and guilt. Fear crowds in with faith. Guilt overshadows grace. Oh, to remember the prophet Isaiah at such times, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation.” Luther comments, “Whatever fear still assails us is either a temptation of Satan or a remnant of the old man, for in Christ there can be nothing but supreme assurance and joy.”

But fearsome Samuel had his own issues to deal with. God had regretted that He had made Saul King and rejected him. However, Samuel was still grieving over Saul as if he were dead. William Kent Krueger writes of such grief in his novel Copper River, “You live in a place your whole life. You know it. It’s as familiar as the mole on your left wrist…or the way your tongue rests in your mouth. You stop noticing. Then something happens, and it all changes. You step through some unexpected looking glass of tragedy (like a death) say, and although everything around you appears the same, nothing really is, not at all, not ever. You wait for a day that feels normal, when the sun is a reason to smile, when the sight of a couple holding hands doesn’t make you want to cry, when you walk without dragging a coffin behind you. You pray for even a moment of letting go. But it never comes.” That description is not only apt in time of personal loss, but churches often have trouble letting go of the past and meeting the challenge of the future that God has in mind. When I became familiar with Jefferson County again back in September, I was amazed at how much things had changed since I first met Becky forty five years ago. In the case of Samuel, things had dramatically changed too. God was about to begin again with a new king that he had provided for himself. We also might ask today what new beginning and new future has God chosen for St. Paul’s in the changed Jefferson County? What coffin are we dragging behind us?

Samuel also feared for his safety should Saul hear that he was going to Bethlehem which was outside his usual territory. Thus there was plenty of fear around both in Samuel and the elders who ask, “Do you come peaceably?” Samuel answered, “Peaceably, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.” The Lord had told him to take along a heifer so that if Saul’s men questioned him he could tell them he was going to make a sacrifice to the Lord. So he came with a heifer in tow, which was Gospel both for Samuel and for the elders of Bethlehem.

Now I suspect that if Israel had been cattle country rather than sheep territory, John the Baptist might have cried out when he spotted Jesus coming for baptism, “Behold the black angus of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In any case, God comes to us peaceably. He comes to us with Jesus Christ, His Son and our Savior in tow. The author of Hebrews writes that the blood of goats, bulls and the ashes of a heifer have been replaced with the blood of Christ, who offered himself to God to purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Christ sacrificed himself, once, for all, to put away sin, once and for all … for all.

So having eased the fears and guilt of the elders, he called forth Jesse and his sons. For God has chosen one of his sons to be his next king. Samuel sees Eliab the oldest son and is sure that this is the anointed of the Lord. After all, he’s big and tall like Saul. But the Lord upbraids Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance, for I have rejected him.” Then comes one of those central passages in the bible, “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Samuel goes through all seven of Jesse’s sons gathered before him, but discovers that the Lord has rejected them all. Now what is he going to do? If seven is the perfect number, then Jesse’s seven sons fit the bill perfectly, except that none of them did fit the bill.

Samuel asked, “Are all your sons here?” “Well,” said Jesse, “There’s the kid out with the sheep.” Samuel said, “We aren’t sitting down to eat until he comes here.” When the kid arrived, the Lord, who saw what was inside the kid, said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” When Samuel dumped the horn of oil on him, “The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.” Finally, we discover who it is that the Lord has provided for himself. It’s David the eighth son, who under normal circumstances would inherit the pet dog and not much more.

However, if seven sons were the perfect number, then the eighth son was a new beginning. David was a new beginning for the people of Israel and for God. Thus the number eight came to mark God’s new beginning.

Jesus Christ was crucified, dead and buried on the seventh day under the old Sabbath. But Jesus arose the next day, establishing the eighth day as a new Sabbath. Not a Sabbath marked by sacrifice, but one that celebrated his resurrection. St. Paul writes that in Christ we are a new creation. The old creation took seven days; the new creation that accompanied Christ’s resurrection is the eighth day, the day of new beginnings. And all who live in this new creation are blessed with peace and mercy and not the judgment upon sin that befell the first seven day creation.

Furthermore, the Lord had allowed Israel to establish a kingdom under Saul, but now with David, God was reestablishing the Kingdom of Israel under the rule of the eighth son of Jesse, David. Jesus Christ, descendant of David, came to reign over God’s kingdom, which is not of this world. In our baptism, we were transferred from the kingdom of this world that will crumble and fall to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son that shall last from everlasting to everlasting.

So we will shortly pray that God’s kingdom will come and His will be done here in the kingdoms on earth even as it is done in the kingdom of heaven. As we go out into the kingdom of the world be assured that wherever we gather this week to discuss this world‘s problems, it remains a sure and certain thing that of Christ’s kingdom there will be no end. That is true 24/8.

The Day will Come

Pentecost 1982 Marshfield Jeremiah 31:7-9

Doubtfully, the young mother examined a toy in the children’s department of a large store. “Isn’t this toy rather complicated for a small child,” she asked. “Oh no,” replied the clerk. “you see, it is an educational toy. It is designed to adjust the child for living in the world today. No matter how the child puts the toy together, it always comes out wrong.”

For the people of Israel and the prophet Jeremiah nothing seemed to come out right. Jeremiah had been rejected by many of his own people. His own people despite their best efforts at defending themselves and negotiating alliances still succumbed to Babylon and were carried into exile.

After years of prophesying doom, Jeremiah issues a “little book of hope.” “For behold the days are coming,” says the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people…I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers.” 700 years after the exodus from Egypt which lay to the south God promises his people a new exodus from out of the north back to their homeland. This word of hope was for a people out of touch with their homeland and out of touch with God, they thought.

God had declared war on his own chosen people. “Behold the storm of the Lord!…the fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back.” They had sidled up to other gods. They had gained their wealth on the back of the poor. They had disregarded justice and mercy seeking profit and ever greater gain. Indeed they had lost touch with God; but God had not lost touch with them. God sent them into exile that the promised land might enjoy a 70 year Sabbath rest from the polluting sins of the people who refused to honor God on the Sabbath or any other day.

Nevertheless, hope was not lost after all. Hope would persevere. Hope would hang on tenaciously. While still in exile God calls the people to sing aloud with gladness. They were the chief of nations by God’s mercy and grace. They would again be rescued. “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from farthest parts of the earth.” Among the people to be gathered were those considered least likely to survive the long trek back to the homeland. Though they might hinder the rest of people on their way back home God would not abandon them. Such is the mercy of God that the blind and the lame, the mother with a small child and the woman in the pains of childbirth would not be left behind. God would lead his firstborn, the tattered, bruised, and poverty stricken people of Israel, back home as he had led their ancestors out of Egypt to the promised land.

Likely we have a difficult time seeing ourselves in Jeremiah’s text. We are living in our homeland. Where else would we really want to live? We live in a community with a strong Christian tradition. Ours is one of four congregations over 100 years old. Therein, I believe, lies our problem in dealing with this text. We are at home. We are comfortable. We have difficulty seeing our lostness, our blindness, our lameness, our hindrance to the work of Christ, and our adherence to other gods of our own making.

Henri Nouwen writes in this vein: “It is difficult for us to believe that salvation came from the remnant of Israel. It is difficult for us to believe that something very good came from an unknown place. It is difficult for us to believe that our God is a God whom came in the unspectacular form of a servant, who entered Jerusalem on an ass, and who was killed as a common criminal. And it is even more difficult to believe that a few unsophisticated fishermen brought God’s good news to the world.”

We can see the evidence of our own being out of touch with God in ourselves. When a misunderstanding arises between ourselves and another how easy is it to make the first move toward reconciliation? How difficult this business of repentance and forgiveness is for us. How easily we confuse the blessings God has given us out of his goodness and mercy with a reward for our hard work and industriousness. How easy it is for us to go about our work within the congregation regarding things we are doing as beneficial to the kingdom of Christ when in fact they may be detrimental. How difficult it is for us to examine our motives and actions in the light of God’s mercy and grace; instead, of in the light of how much we think we are doing for God. And shouldn’t God and the rest of the congregation be more appreciative of my efforts on their behalf?

We are also uncomfortable in the presence of those we consider losers. Remember blind Bartimaeus calling out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And he wouldn’t shut up. The people following Jesus thought, “How irritating that a person be?” But Jesus stopped and asked the man, “What do you want of me?” It is not always that way with us and the poor, the sick, the blind and the lame. Colman McCarthy wrote a story about a “John Doe” who died in Washington D.C. “if evil was at work in the death of ’John doe’ he was known to be a diseased drunker, about 55 or 60 years old, a danger to no one-it was the evil of looking away.” Although an invitation to the funeral had been issued by a group of people who cars for the poor, only about 30-mostly destitute-gathered to bury John Doe. The community group had hoped for a public outpouring on behalf of the outcasts of society and McCarthy said, “if only half those invited actually had come-from public officials to religious leaders-tens of thousands would have been Marching and mourning, crying out in anger that this waste of life be stopped.” This we know: Christ would have been there. Christ was there when they buried John Doe.

In our birth we are all John and Jane Does separated from the community of God living in the exile of the darkness of death’s realm. We are all handicapped in knowing and finding the way to god. This is wonderfully symbolized in the bringing of an infant for baptism. They are carried to the found for they are able to come on their own either physically or spiritually.

But the Lord calls us to “Sing aloud with gladness”…”and raise shouts…

proclaim, give praise, and say ‘The Lord has saved his people, the remnant.’” For we are the remnant saved. Furthermore, we are saved by a remnant of Israel. That remnants name is Jesus. Through Jesus exile into death on the cross and his exodus from the prison of death to the freedom of new life we are promised a return to our homeland, even the kingdom of God and eternal life. In him hope perseveres. In him hope hangs on tenaciously.

Sigurd Olson died at age 82 after devoting his whole life to protecting the wilderness and the serenity of nature. Died while snowshoeing in northern Minnesota. After the funeral, friends went to his wilderness cabin where he had written many of his books. In the typewriter was a sheet of paper that read: “A new adventure is coming up, and I’m sure it will be a great one.”

We are already well on our way in our great adventure as God leads us home from our exile from him. In the fullness of time he will gather us from the farthest parts of the earth to be with himself forever and ever. On that day and forever after we shall sing aloud with gladness and raise shouts of joy to the Lord who has saved us.

He Lifted Up His Hands

Ascension Sunday, Otto, 2009  Luke 24:50b

“He lifted up his hands.”

            Jesus must have lifted up his hands often during his earthly ministry.  However, the New Testament mentions him doing so only once, in his very last act before his ascension to the right hand of the heavenly Father. Thus  this morning we will seek to gain a message in the lifting up of hands.

            When Jesus lifted up his hands at his ascension the disciples would have clearly seen the scars left from the nails driven through his flesh.

            The nail marks served as a reminder of his recent crucifixion, 6 weeks previously.  In the gospel lesson for Ascension Day, Jesus, for the third time refers to the necessity of his suffering and resurrection on the third day.  The first reminder came from the two men who spoke with the women on Easter morning.  “Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”  Later that same day Jesus met up with two disciples on their way to Emmaus.  He told them, “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”  Now, as he is about to depart he once more opened the scriptures to them saying, “thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.”

            As they view him with his nail scarred hands lifted over head, Jesus gives the disciples sure verification that before them stands the victorious One who had indeed risen according to the promise of the scriptures.

            Those hands lifted up before them also dispensed something that every disciple needs and receives from the Lord.  From his lifted hands comes the forgiveness of our sin of lifting up our hands against God.  Sin began, when Adam and Ever lifted up their hand in rebellion to pick the fruit from the forbidden tree.  In this act, the onset of materialism, replacing God with other gods, with things, things to be possessed, devoured, used, broken, worn out, and discarded – the need for more things to fill our outstretched hands.

            Secondly, hands are lifted up against one another.  Adam pointing to Eve, “It’s your fault,” the failure to take responsibility, the shift in telling the story so that the blame is transferred to someone else.  It’s the story of Cain against Abel.  So it has gone and still goes.  Humanity lifting up its hands against one another, makes up much of the story of the world’s history.

            But we have also lifted up our hands toward God in recognition of our plight.  The Psalmist calls out to God ( 28:2) “ Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.”  Psalm 10:12 urges God to “Arise, O Lord! Lift up your hands, O God.  Do not forget the helpless.”  For the Psalmist, the pit into which he had fallen was too deep for him to reach up and pull himself out.  He was helpless.

            God hears our cry.  He did not sit on his hands, but sent his Son who had an earthly ministry of lifting up those in need.  He lifted his hand to touch a leper exchanging the man’s disease for his own power to heal.  He lifted his hand to forgive the sins of the paralytic, whose friends had ripped up the roof of the house in order to let their friend down to Jesus.  Jesus told the paralytic to “Lift up your mat and go home.’  He lifted up the hand of the dead 12 year old daughter of Jairus, saying,  “child arise.”  He lifted up hands in thanksgiving to his Father for the five loaves and two fish that had been given him.  Then he broke them and fed more than 5,000.  The Disciples picked up 12 baskets full of leftovers.

            Humanity who lifts its hands both against God and other humans eventually lifted It’s hands against Jesus who was both God and man.  Lifted hands slapped, whipped him, crowned him with thorns, nailed him and speared him.  Peter writing in his first letter tells us, “he himself bore our sin in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live to righteousness; by his wounds you are healed.”  Jesus said of his crucifixion, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”     

            Now 40 days after his resurrection Jesus gathers those whom he called to himself and lifts his hands in blessing.  As he was blessing them “he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.”   The last they saw of Jesus was him with uplifted hands placing upon them the promise of the powerful presence of God.  No wonder they went back to the temple in joy.  Jesus had opened their minds to how the scriptures were fulfilled in him.  They were living under the continuous and unbroken blessing of God.  They were going out into the world under the shadow of their Lord’s uplifted hand.

            Now in response to Jesus blessing they returned to Jerusalem and the temple where they lifted up their hands in blessing to God for the benefits He had given them.  There in the temple where Zechariah had lifted the sacrifice to God and then received the promise of the birth of a son whom he would name John.  It was in the temple where Simeon had lifted hands in thanksgiving for he had seen the light of the Gentiles. 

            The blessing of Jesus uplifted hands did not end that day of his Ascension.  Those blessings have come down to us and our time.  We receive the blessing of Jesus, our great high priest flowing from his hands into and through the hands of those who extend those blessings today.  In baptism, the pastor lifted his hands in placing the name of God upon each of us.  After confessing our sins we hear the words of forgiveness under the sign of the cross. At the end of each sermon the peace of the Lord which passes all understanding keeps our hearts and minds in Christ.  As we depart from the table of Holy Communion we do so, again under the sign of the cross and the blessing that the body and blood of our Lord strengthens and preserves us in faith unto everlasting life.  And at the end of the service we go in the enduring blessing of the words of Aaron, perhaps also pronounced by Jesus upon his small congregation at the Ascension.

            Today, according to the direction of the Psalmist (Ps. 134) we “lift up (our) hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!”   

            Anxiety, anger, loss, stress and living amid the things we can’t understand take its toll on our faith in the peace of God that passes all understanding.  Nevertheless, when we come to the point in life when we want to throw up0 our hands and quit, we do well to remember the uplifted hands of the Lord are still extended over us.

            Because he lifted his hands on the cross and has them uplifted still, we are able to follow Jesus encouragement in terms of the end of the world, “Now when these things begin to take place, look up raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  We are His witnesses to a world that needs to hear of the blessings of his death and resurrection.  As we act as his witnesses we can be assured, that His Ascension did not remove his presence, but through us now is able to extend throughout all ages, and all places and all distances.     

 

           

God Begins His Mission to the Gentiles

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Otto, 2009

Acts 10:1-48

            Psalm 98, the Psalm for the day, commands us, “Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!”  We use that psalm at Christmas on which the carol, Joy to the World, is based.  But why on this day in the middle of May do we sing a new song?  We agree that the marvelous thing the Lord has done is to accomplish our salvation through his right hand and his holy arm.  Furthermore, the right hand of the Lord and his holy arm are none other than Jesus Christ whose hands and holy arms were stretched out on the cross for us and for our salvation.  That, in itself, calls us and all the earth to “break forth in joyous song.” 

Here is what makes this day in the middle of May special.  If you are a Gentile, that is, a person who comes from a non Jewish background, this is the day, according to our first lesson from the Book of Acts, that “The Lord has made known his salvation” to you “in the sight of the nations.”

            Imagine yourself back in the first century in the eastern Mediterranean seaside city of Caesarea.  Rebuilt less than a hundred years before, with a newly constructed port, Caesarea was center of commerce, communication and served as the capital of Palestine, including Judah and Jerusalem, 50 miles southeast.

 A Roman military officer named Cornelius, commander of 100 archers of the Italian Cohort, was stationed at Caesarea.   Cornelius was attracted to the life of the Jewish people.  He himself, and his whole household and family, were devout, gave to the charitable needs of the people and participated in the Jewish hours of prayer.  He found among his neighbors and fellow citizens what our neighbors should find in us, people who set an example to be followed.

Three o’clock one afternoon, while he was at prayer, God surprised him.  An angel appeared in a vision. “Cornelius,” the messenger said.  Terror struck, Cornelius stared at the vision, “What is it Lord?”  The angel said, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.”  God had been at work in him and had taken notice of his worship and life.  The angel directed Cornelius  to send a delegation down to Joppa, 30 miles down the coast.  There, they would meet someone named Peter who was staying with a man who tanned hides for a living.  Cornelius, who knew how to give orders, knew how to follow orders.  He sent two servants and a devout soldier to Joppa, even though he didn’t quite know what this was all about.

The next day, as the delegation approached Joppa, Peter was praying, at noon, on the rooftop of the tanner’s house.   Peter was hungry and while waiting for dinner he had a vision of a large sheet, filled with all kinds of animals that the Jews regarded as unfit to eat, since at least the time of Moses.  A voice directed Peter to kill and eat.  Peter protested, “No, no, I’ve never eaten such things.”  However, what Peter hadn’t quite understood yet, was that in Jesus’ death and resurrection God had made all things clean.  The voice spoke again, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

While Peter was pondering God’s reversal of a policy that had been in place for well over a thousand years, Cornelius’ representatives arrived at the house.  As if he didn’t have enough on his plate already, now the Holy Spirit told Peter to go with the men from Caesarea, without any hesitation, “For I have sent them.”

            The emissaries from Cornelius told Peter what they knew; Peter welcomed them to stay overnight.  The next morning they all set out for Caesarea, including some of the brothers in Christ from Joppa.  Everyone knew something was afoot with God and the Gentile military office, but what could it be?

            Meanwhile, back in Caesarea, Cornelius gathered a group of relatives and friends and waited for those coming up from Joppa.  Upon arrival, Peter, after fending off Cornelius’ attempt to fall down and worship him, informs the group that it’s been unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.   Peter continued, “But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.  So, tell me, why have you sent for me?”  Peter seemed to be feeling out the situation.  Cornelius was in the dark too; except that here in the presence of God, he was to listen to what the Lord has commanded Peter to say. 

   Aha, now Peter knew why he was there in a Gentiles’ house.  God had chosen to begin his mission to people who were not Jews with Cornelius.  God had chosen Peter for that task.  “So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality.”  Peter continued to recall for his audience what they already knew concerning the word that God had sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ who is Lord of all.”  Then beginning with Jesus’ baptism and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon him giving him power to do good and heal those oppressed by the devil, Peter told of Jesus death on the tree of the cross.  He told how God had raised Jesus on the third day.  Peter shared that God had chosen certain people to be witnesses; individuals who had ate and drank with Jesus after he rose from the dead.  These he had commanded to preach and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to judge the living and the dead.  Whoever believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.

Now all of those Jewish converts to Christ were amazed as the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.    Now Gentiles, you and I, stand before God on same footing as the first believers in Jesus among his fellow Jews.  Peter concluded, “Well we can’t withhold baptism from these people, even if they are Gentiles.”

  Now not everyone was copacetic with letting these sorts of people into the fellowship of Christ.  After several days, Peter and the others went back to Jerusalem where they reported everything that had happened along the seacoast in Joppa and Caesarea.  And when the apostles and the brothers heard Peters report, “They fell silent.  And they glorified God, saying, ‘then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

            What’s so important about this day in the middle of May?  I refer you to Ben Weibrecht’s confirmation verse that we read earlier in the gospel lesson.  Jesus says to Ben and to each of us, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.”   When God chose to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with a Gentile named Cornelius in the seaside city of Caesarea that opened the way for the church to preach the good news of Jesus saving death and resurrection to all people, even to you and me.  And if we are puzzled what sort of fruit we are to bear for Christ, then we only need to look to our Gentile forbearer in the faith. Look to Cornelius, who was a devout man, who feared God, gave generously to the needs of others and prayed continually to God.  May our worship and life in Christ ascend to such heights that God cannot help but take notice of them in order that all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.  Ben, it doesn’t get any better than that.

 

 

Preached in Duquoin, Illinois

Since I'm taking May 10th off, I'm posting a sermon from 2005 when I was helping fill the vacancy at Duquoin, Il.

Psalm 23

Psalm 23 DuQuoin, Il

Its been 20 years since I saw a painting in my son’s high school textbook of a small flock of sheep at the edge of a cliff. A valley extended far below. Some of the sheep were trapped on a narrow ledge just below the cliff‘s edge. Others looked over the precipice while more of the flock crowded in from behind. There is no shepherd in sight.

In our gospel lesson Jesus looks upon a throng people of awaiting him as he disembarks from a boat. They had run along the shore to meet him. His gut reaction was one of deep compassion for they were like sheep without a shepherd. He, who elsewhere called himself the Good Shepherd, “began to teach them many things.”

Today on the basis of the 23^rd psalm we will consider that our Good Shepherd, leads me, as in each of us, to rest and refreshment. He teaches me that he is with me always and pursues me with his goodness and mercy.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.“ Of course I want. Our gospel lesson identifies a problem that Jesus’ disciples still contend with today. They had been so busy meeting the needs of people they encountered that they did not have time to even eat. More than a year after 9/11 I met one of the members of our congregation in Collinsville in the check out line of Schnucks grocery. He apologized for not being in church lately. He said that since 9/11 he had been working long hours without a day off in more than a year. Our case may not be that extreme, but we do find ourselves caught up in the busyness of life. The more time saving conveniences we have, such as the internet and the variety of cell phones features, the less time we have for leisure. We can do business even while driving.

Yes, I do want. We seek contentment through what we have. If only I could win the lottery. I’m jealous of the family in St. Genevieve, Mo. who have won twice and I don’t even buy lottery tickets. In a recent cartoon a creative young girl invented a festival of giving for August 1. “Why, would you want to do that?” Her father asks. “Because,” she answered, “There’s no holiday between Easter and Halloween where kids can get stuff.” We live in a society where our economy is largely based on our being dissatisfied with what we have. I want. I want. I want a plasma TV even if I don’t need it.

However, could I not say that with the Lord as my Shepherd what more could I want? In Christ, God has already blessed me with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Jesus brought peace between myself and God by shedding his blood on the cross. Therefore I am not a person who wanders around like a lost sheep without a flock. I am a member of God’s sheepfold, fellow citizen and saint with the Lord as my guide. As such I have a rest, indeed I have a rest that still remains to be revealed, an eternal rest. Through the peace of forgiveness in Christ God brings me that rest and refreshment daily. For through His Holy Spirit I am led to the quiet waters of baptism where I am refreshed with new life. Through his word I eat and drink of the depth of God’s lush compassion. Thus he quiets my mind when it is filled with anxiety. He restores my life. He leads me in the paths he would have me follow.

Augustine said it well that our souls are restless until they find their rest in God. When the prophet Nathan pointed to David and said, “You are the man” who committed adultery with Bathsheba and ordered the death of her husband, David was in agony. “My bones wasted away through my groaning all the long day,” he writes in Psalm 32. But when David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan answered, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” David, himself once a shepherd, learned again that the Lord was his shepherd. So he writes, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteous for his name sake.” For the sake of Jesus my savior he does the same for me as I follow him as a member of his flock.

The psalmist continues, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. For you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Here is the center of the psalm. The Lord is with me even as I go through the dark times of my life. Of course this psalm is closely related to the darkness of death. For I still have to contend with that final enemy until death is swallowed up in the victory of a new and eternal life in the resurrection.

Nevertheless, I encounter dark valleys throughout my life. The author of psalm 22 is so low that he considers himself to be a worm and not a man. He is scorned and despised by the people with whom he lives. Perhaps that is why we strive for acceptance and popularity and try so hard to fit in. We don’t want to be one who stands out; who stands alone as the subject of mockery and back stabbing. The author of Psalm 22 expresses the experience of being alone with no one to rescue him from his tormenters.

We read that psalm on Good Friday because Jesus experienced all my aloneness, even the absence of God. In my behalf he cried out from the cross “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” He could have continued, “Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning.” Jesus experienced the abandonment not only of the human race but also of God himself so that I could walk through the dark times in my life certain that God has not abandoned me. For Jesus is Immanuel. He is God with us, and, according to his promise, always will be.

A newspaper cartoon titled “Pearls before swine” often features a naïve, innocent very pink pig who is the butt of rat’s malicious jokes. Rat is a rat of a rat. Recently rat was standing under a column of rain pouring down on him; while pig stood in the sunshine dry and pink. “Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?” is rat’s plaintive cry. Then we see pig taking a step toward the rain column. “What are you doing that for?” rat cries. Pig responds as he joins rat, “That’s what friends are for.”

Because the Good Shepherd is with us even in the dark downpours of life the psalmist also sees that the Lord pursues him with his goodness and mercy. Our Lord is a host who does what the shepherd does for his sheep, he provides them food. More than that. In the most unlikely of circumstances the Lord provides a banquet in the presence of his pursuing enemies. The Lord is the perfect host caring for his guests care. He is not stingy with what he provides but fills their cup to overflowing. He does that for us in our daily life with we sit down to table at home. Again today we will come to the banquet of our Lord in Holy Communion. The psalmist confesses that though enemies pursue him God pursues him with goodness and mercy. In his house I, in the midst of my worship of him and my eating and drinking of his banquet am assured that I shall be satisfied. Even when I am bowed down to the dust of that dark valley of death the Lord’s continues to pursue me with goodness and mercy leading me to live forever with him.

So the Lord gives me rest and refreshment I need both for my daily life and for my life in Christ. The Lord leads me in the paths that are in accord with his will. He is with me always no matter where those paths may lead in this life for eventually he will lead me through to eternal life.

But after the disciples had taken their rest from the toil of the mission upon which Christ had sent them Jesus sends them back to work. Next week we will read how after Jesus taught things for the crowd’s spiritual life he proceeded to feed the 5,000 people using but two fish and five loaves of bread. And Jesus put the disciples to work making them first waiters and then busboys. After this our day of rest and spiritual feeding see what work he sets before you a sheep of his flock during the next week.