Sermon for Epiphany 4: "The Weakness of God"

 + 4^th Sunday after the Epiphany – February 1^st, 2026 +

Series A: Micah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12

Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

When our kids were younger we’d make an occasional trip to the Build-A-Bear workshop at the mall. It was a buffet for the imagination. Pick your stuffed animal of choice. Stuff it. Give it a heart. And don’t forget all the accessories. Harry Potter scarves and Star Wars Jedi robes. You get to create your own little cuddly critter just the way you want it.

 

It’s a great, fun idea for a toy store. But a terrible idea when it comes to the holy gifts and holy name of God.

 

And yet, that’s how our Old Adam thinks when we open up God’s Word. Our Old Adam waltzes into the storehouse of Scripture like a kid at Build-A-Bear. Here’s my toyshop. My playground. My build-a-god workshop. I can mix and match and stuffs my build-a-god creation with all my favorite things.

 

A mighty, rippling-muscled Messiah. A deity who flexes his divine power at my every whim and fancy. A tame god who obeys my every command and does what I say. When I say. How I say. A superhero savior who can leap Jerusalem’s walls with a single bound. A rockstar redeemer promising fame and fortune. 

 

A little pet-god of my own creation. Just the way I want him to be. Mark Twain was right. “In the beginning God created man in his own image…and ever since then we’ve been trying to repay the favor.”

 

Thankfully, God has a different way. A better way. His way. The way of the cross. The way where everything he does is so opposite of what we would do or think or expect that salvation and rescue can only come by His grace. 

 

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

 

This way of Christ is power, but power made perfect in weakness. Jesus wraps his might in mercy. He hides his glory in the blood and sweat and agonizing gasps for air of the crucified. Jesus cloaks his divine wisdom with the folly of a lowly criminal’s death on the tree. Jesus hides his holiness in utter humility for you.

 

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 

 

And this is nothing new. This is how God has always worked. When God revealed his promise to Adam and Eve to send a savior from sin and death and the serpent’s tyranny, he foretold his coming in the flesh. an infant redeemer. A swaddled savior. Born of a woman. Born under the law to redeem us who are under the law. 

 

When God chose the man through whom he would make his everlasting covenant and bless all nations of the earth through his Offspring, he chose a pagan from the land of Ur named Abram.

 

When God blessed one of Jacob’s sons through Jacob’s hands and words, he did not choose the first, or even the second or third born son, but the fourth son. Judah, from whom would come the Seed, the Offspring, the unexpected Deliverer, Jesus.

 

When God led his people Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he called Moses a murderer and a man too afraid to speak in public to be his servant and to lead his holy people in the exodus.

 

When God defeated Israel’s enemies in the days of the Judges, He did not conscript Israel’s best bowman or their elite warriors. Instead, God paid a visit to Gideon – his mighty man of valor – who was threshing wheat hidden in a winepress for fear of the Midianites. And yet YHWH brought victory through seeming weakness. Not 30,000. Not 10,000. But 300 men. No weapons. No shields. Just torches. Trumpets. And the sword of God’s word. 

 

When God placed a king on the throne and promised him that one of his Offspring would sit on the throne forever and his kingdom would have no end, God anointed the covetous, murderer, liar, and adulterer, David. 

 

Not surprisingly, when God takes on human flesh he continues to confound us by turning page after page of his gracious playbook to our marvel and wonder and awe.

 

The Holy One of Israel is born a humble infant. The Mighty Fortress is made man. The Blessed One bleeds for you. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob reveals his greatest glory in unimaginable suffering. The Son of God becomes the Son of Mary to save sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. The Anointed One – the Christ – chooses to be spat upon, mocked, betrayed, scourged, and ridiculed. The Faithful and True One chooses to become the fool and the faithless and the sinner for you. The Author and Giver of life chooses death by spikes and thorns and wood and spear to deliver you.

 

Indeed… the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

So, God being God. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Paul does not mince words. He offers no spoonful of sugar. He tells it like it is. We are sinners in need of a savior. Debtors in need of redemption. Lost. Lowly. Little. Last. Least. And in need of rescue. The diagnoses is in and the disease is terminal. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

 

And like the good physician’s assistant and preacher that he is, Paul gives you the cure; he delivers with God’s word, the one consolation and antidote. We preach Jesus Christ and him crucified.

 

For the word of the cross – foolish as it is and looks – is your salvation. Jesus crucified is the power of God for you who are being saved. You will not find this salvation in your pride, power, prestige, or pet-gods, but in the passion and pardon and promise of Jesus.

 

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. For you.For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

 

Therefore, let the one who boasts, boast in the crucified Lord Jesus.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Funeral Sermon for Mike Schliebe: "The Road and the Redeemer"

 + In Memoriam: Michael Schliebe – January 29^th , 1955 – December 7, 2025 +

January 31^st, 2026

Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church

Milton, WA

Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, 17-20; Luke 24:13-35

 

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior + Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

There’s an old Johnny Cash song that came to mind this week as I thought about our brother in Christ, Mike Schliebe. You might remember the chorus:

 

I've been everywhere, man
Crossed the desert's bare, man
I've breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I've a-had my share, man
I've been everywhere

 

Mike was a traveler who embraced the words of another more recent country song. Life is a highway.

 

From his years with the LA Sheriff Dept., to his years of retirement; from Southern CA to the Pacific NW; from his labors to his leisure time, if Mike wasn’t on a journey of one kind or another, you can bet he was plotting his course for the next one.

 

Mike also knew what Adam discovered long ago before his journey out of Eden. That on the road of life it’s not good for man to be alone. So our Lord gave Cyndy to Mike and Mike to Cyndy. Husband and wife. Fellow road warriors and companions. Bound together by Christ. And in Christ. 

 

They traveled near and far the way God intended man and woman to be: together. Whether it was cruising the Antarctic, walking the golf course, curling on Fridays or simply cozy on the couch next to Cyndy, Mike was a traveler.

 

And anyone who’s walked through the years of life as Mike did will tell you the trip doesn’t always go as planned. The road takes twists and turns, detours and ditches, There’s the potholes and pits and grit of sin. But sometimes you find yourself in a place you never thought you’d be. Battling obstacles you never saw coming your way. A pain in the throat. A difficulty to swallow. And then appointments and tests and diagnosis. Cancer. And then more trips…only this time for treatment and doctors and hospitals. 

 

And yet through it all, Mike was never alone. In all his travels, even in the hardest leg of the journey, these past few months, Mike didn’t travel solo. He was accompanied by a man who had traveled the way of death and disease ahead of him and before him. He was shepherded along by one who had already walked through the valley of the shadow of death and promised to be there when Mike did too. Mike was on the road we all walk, but with Job’s Redeemer and ours carrying him all the way home.

 

Life was the road which Christ the Redeemer carried Mike along in his arms of mercy.

 

It’s tempting for us to think of death as the end of the road. The terminus of the journey. The final destination. But it’s not.

For alongside all of Mike’s journeys there and back again there was another greater pilgrimage taking place. 

 

Mike’s greatest journey is the one that our Lord set him out upon back at First Lutheran Church in Long Beach, CA, where Christ paved a holy highway to himself made entirely out of his Word, water, and the Holy Spirit. It’s a road that leads straight through Jesus’ death and the grave and out again in his resurrection. It’s the trail where sin and sorrow and suffering meet their death and where Mike, and all who are baptized are washed and cleansed and robed in Jesus and greeted with a holy homecoming: 

 

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
    I have called you by name, you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
    and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
    and the flame shall not consume you.
³ For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

 

Throughout all his years and trips and travels, through milestones at work and married life with Cyndy, Mike was never alone. Just as Job was never alone in his life – even when he suffered, as Mike did, in unimaginable ways. Christ, the King of the Road, Christ our Redeemer, promised to be there with him and for him. Which is why Mike confessed to anyone he talked to the same faith in Christ that Job did even while walking through suffering and sorrows and sickness:

 

I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.^[b]
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in^[c] my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ whom I shall see for myself,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!

 

You see, Mike knew and believed and trusted this good news. That our Lord Jesus is also a rambling man, a Redeemer who meets us on the road. Scoops us up in his arms. Hauls away all our sin, death, and disease and heaps it up onto his own back and step by step makes his way to the cross for Mike, for you. For us all.

 

For us, our Redeemer hit the road. First with a swaddle and then a crawl and then a walk and then a steady, determined trek up the hill outside the city walls. A place they called the place of the skull. Not exactly a destination recommended by the chamber of commerce or something you’d see in travel brochure. But that’s where our Lord journeyed for Mike and for you. Up on the cross. He breathed his last. He was laid in the grave. 

 

And, again, we think that’s it. The end of the road for Jesus. Death wins. The grave conquers all. 

 

His Emmaus disciples certainly did. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

 

But it’s not over. Not by a long shot. Death doesn’t win the day. Death is destroyed by Jesus’ dying and rising. The grave is conquered by the Lord of Life. The road through the grave is paved by the blood of Jesus shed for you and Mike and for us all. 

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Our Lord is right. It was necessary for him to suffer everything a sinful, broken world could throw at him. This was his journey to save and rescue and deliver Mike and you and us all. And all of God’s word – each and every person, place, or event – is one great sign post after another, announcing the good news of great joy that is for all people: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

And the great news about this journey is that where Jesus goes, you go.

Jesus died. You have died already in Christ.

Jesus rose from the grave. You have already risen again in Christ. Now by faith, but one day in the flesh where we will stand with Job and Mike and all the faithful in the flesh once again. Raised from the dead. Standing on the road that leads out of our graves and into the holy city where Christ the Lamb and our Redeemer and King – him who is the way, the truth, and the life – will welcome us home at last.

 

For Mike and for you, the journey is not over. Far from it. It’s just beginning.

 

For… in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 

 

And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ + Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.