Lent 4 Sermon: "Divine Love"

+ Lent 4 – March 15^th, 2015 +

Redeemer Lutheran, HB

Series B: Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

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

The players line up. Snap. Kick. The football splits the uprights. It’s good. And then the camera zooms in on a celebrating fan hoisting a neon construction paper sign, and on it, only a name and a few numbers…John 3:16.

We’ve probably all seen some variation of this: sky writing, bottom of the In N Out cup, or at a sports game. Next to Psalm 23, John 3:16 is probably one of the most well-known Bible verses. And for good reason. Like the season of Lent, Jesus’ words point our eyes and our ears to Jesus Crucified for you. The closer we get to Holy Week, to Good Friday, the more Jesus points our eyes and ears to his death for you.

John 3:16 is the Gospel in a nut-shell. It’s as comforting as it is memorable. You can carry it with you to your neighbor or anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is within you. But what does this verse mean?

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Here’s where our English language gets in the way of understanding this verse. We hear the word “so” and think “so much”. Like a little girl stretching out her arms and saying, “Daddy, Do you love me this much?”

True, God’s love for us is unfathomable. We could travel across time and space in a police box or a DeLorean and never reach the end or limit of God’s love. For as high as the heavens, so great is his steadfast love towards you (Psalm 103:11). It’s true, God loves you in Christ Crucified to infinity and beyond. But there’s more to this verse than the magnitude of his love.

And speaking of love, we use the word love for anything: I love Tillamook Cheese. I love Oregon microbrews. I love rain. I love lamp. Misuse a word long enough and we lose the meaning of the word.

We typically think of love as magical wistful like Princess Anna in Frozen, who got engaged to a guy the same night she met him at a party (btw, he turned out to be a villain), or tragic love like Romeo and Juliet, Gus and Hazel, or Edward and Bella. Eventually, love becomes all about our contentment, our peace, our happiness. This romanticized view of love is what drives the debate over same-sex marriage. “I can love whomever I want”, we hear. Or, “We love each other and that’s all that matters.”

Problem is, we think of love primarily with our emotions. Love is how we feel about something or someone. Or rather, how someone or something makes us feel. Do you see the problem? Inevitably, our love leads us right back to our greatest love of all…ourselves. We take God’s gift of love and twist it into an idol. Love is all about my contentment. My happiness. Or whatever makes me feel good. And haven’t we all thought that? Repent. For this is selfish, self-love of the highest order.

For who of use can say that our love is long suffering, patient, or kind? That we do not envy others or boast in ourselves? That we’re not rude, arrogant in constantly insisting on our own way? Not a one of us. For in truth, we delight in doing wrong.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

In sin, that’s what we love: the darkness. For apart from Christ all our loves - the people, places, and gifts in God’s creation that are good and lovely – are idols.

But while our love looks inward, God’s love looks outward. Where our love desires only our own interests and well-being, God’s love desires and seeks the well-being of others. Though our love is selfish, God’s love is selfless, self-giving, self-sacrificing – for you.

Jesus isn’t sitting in heaven writing schmaltzy Hallmark cards or country ballads. God’s love isn’t about warm fuzzies or Jesus-is-my-girlfriend songs. In John 3, Jesus is teaching Nicodemus, and us, how God loves the world.

Now…try reading John 3:16 again like this: God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 3:16 isn’t about emotional or self-serving love, but divine love. God loves the world in this way: the Father gave his Son into death as a ransom for rebels who hated him and killed him and only love themselves. God’s love is gift-love.

Jesus’ death on the cross is how God loves the world. Jesus dying for you is how he loves you and makes you his again.

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:9-10

As great as our love for ourselves is, Jesus’ love for you on the cross is greater. Where our love is all about taking for ourselves, God’s love for you is all about giving himself to save you. Love is what God does for you. Love is who he is.

The Father gives.  “The Father gives all he is and has to the Son. The Son gives Himself back to the Father, and gives Himself to the world, and for the world to the Father, and thus gives the world (in Himself) back to the Father too” (Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 7).

The Father does not withhold from us His Son, His only Son. Jesus stretches out his arms on the cross for you to show you how and how much he loves you. He loves you to death. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jesus’s death atones for all of our love – the good, the bad, the ugly. Jesus covers our selfish love with his sacrificial love.

For God’s love in Christ Crucified is patient and kind. God’s Son is not arrogant or rude; He does not insist on his own way. God’s love for you in Christ Crucified never fails.

This is why Christians often make the sign of the cross. Or why we display a crucifix or cross in our church and homes. The cross tells us who Jesus is and what he does. The crucifix shows us the clearest picture of God’s love. It’s a sermon all by itself.

But Jesus’ love doesn’t stop at the cross. God continues to love you in this way: You are baptized. God drenches you in his saving love by water and word. God proclaims his unconditional love for you in absolution: You are forgiven all your sins. God loves you in this way: He pours the blood of Christ into your mouths so that you will not perish but have eternal life.

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

Lego Bricks and Apologetics: Imagination, Art, and Sub-Creation, Part 2

In the previous segment, we concluded with the imagination and its use in declaring and defending the Christian faith. As we will see in Tolkien’s writings, it is his adept ability at combining imagination with Sub-Creation to give his fictional world of Middle-Earth that ‘inner consistence of reality’ reality’ which points to the truth of the Gospel, the greatest story ever told. But before we can learn the benefit of and positive use of the imagination in Christian apologetics we must first ask a very important question. What do we mean by imagination?

I've always appreciated Tolkien’s definition of imagination in his essay On Fairy Stories.

The mental power of image-making is one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength: but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in kind. The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) the ‘inner consistency of reality’, is indeed another thing, or aspect, needing another name: Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, Sub-Creation.[1]

According to Tolkien, we work with the tools and resources that are found in the Primary World. The writer uses words and images. The musician uses instruments and notation. The Sculptor uses clay or another medium. The painter uses brushes and various paints. And so on. As a Sub-Creator, Tolkien was able to capture and captivate both the imagination and art within the particular genre he is most noted for, that of fantasy. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that Tolkien was a philologist who lived up to the title. He aptly fit his own description of a Sub-Creator. “Fantasy is made out of the Primary World, but a good craftsman loves his material, and has a knowledge and feeling for clay, stone and wood which only the art of making can give.”[2] So, then, Sub-Creation, captures and releases both the imagination and art.

For Tolkien, image and imagination were two essential ingredients in a well-told fairy story, or fantasy, genres he uses interchangeably at times in his writing. The process for Tolkien went like this: Imagination leads to Art; Art leads to Sub-Creation; Sub-Creation reflect or points to the Primary World, or Primary Art. It has, that ‘inner consistence of reality’. Imagination, then, forms the images that later become words and develop into a full-fledged story. And it is within the context of the story telling where the imagination can point us toward the Christian faith.

One of the primary reasons Lewis’s and Tolkien’s writing was, and continues to be, so magnetic was their sublime ability for making enchanting, magical, and mythical (in the best sense of the word) secondary worlds reflect the Primary World. They were able to write fantasy which accurately and evocatively depicted reality. This was intentional. Tolkien wanted his stories to be told in a land and geography where ‘miles are miles’. Good fantasy, Tolkien says, is based upon reality and points back to it.

For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it…If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen.[3]

In a similar vein, Lewis repeatedly said that fantasy does not teach us to escape reality, but rather it sheds light upon reality. We see the world better having read good literature. Storytelling awakens us to the beauty of ordinary life around us, and opens our eyes to the enchantment of the everyday world we live in. Rather than dull the senses, it accentuates them.

It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach, and far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.[4]

In the final segment we’ll take all the pieces we’ve unpackaged and put them together in our ongoing discussion of imagination, art, and sub-creation in service of apologetics.

---

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001. p. 47.

[2]  J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001. p.61.

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001. p.55.

[4] C.S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children, in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc. p. 29-31.

[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001. p.71-73.

[6] C.S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children, in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc. p. 25

Lenten Midweek Sermon: "The Cross in Holy Baptism"

Once again Redeemer Lutheran has been blessed to participate in a Lenten pulpit exchange with a number of local LCMS congregations. The focus is always on the Scriptures and Small Catechism. This year's theme is the preaching of the cross in the catechism. I was given the topic of "The Cross in Holy Baptism". A blessed Lent to you all.

2015 Lent Pulpit Exchange

Midweek Lenten Sermon

Romans 6:1-14

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

Water kills. Water gives life.

We see reflections of this in some of our most beloved books and films: Dorothy hurls water on the Wicked Witch and as she melts, Scarecrow is saved from the fire.

Andy Dufresne, in The Shawshank Redemption, crawls through the sewer to escape from prison and stands in the cleansing rain.

Eustace Scrubb, in Lewis’s Dawn Treader, is overcome by his selfish desires and turned into a dragon but later un-dragoned by Aslan in a pool of water.

Water kills. Water gives life. And not just in stories, but in reality.

The flood destroyed everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life, everything except Noah and his family. Eight souls in all, saved through water.

God drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea, yet He led His people Israel through the water on dry ground; they were baptized in the sea.

The prophet Jonah was thrown into the sea; the waters of the deep closed around him; weeds encircled his head; he was buried in a liquid grave. And yet the Lord raised him from the watery pit.

Water kills. Water gives life.

And in this, you have something in common with Noah, Moses, and Jonah. The Lord fixes his Word - which also kills and makes alive - to water in order to bury you in his death bless you in his resurrection.

The same Lord who opened the heavens and the wells of the deep, opens the font, drowns your sin, and saves you in a flood of forgiveness. Like Andy Dufresne, you are cleansed from the filth of your sin in Jesus’ redemption.

The same Lord who led the people Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground, leads you through Baptismal waters while Satan and all his hosts are swept away. Jesus hurls Word and water upon us. Ding-dong, the wicked serpent is dead, and you’re saved from the flames.

The same Lord who appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah was swallowed up by death, once for all. Like Jonah and the fish, the grave will spit you out through your Baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection. Like Eustace, Jesus un-dragons you in Baptism.

Noah was not alone in the ark. Moses and Israel were not alone at the Red Sea or in the wilderness. Jonah was not alone, even in the belly of the great fish. And you are not alone in the font. Jesus is with you in water and Word. Your Baptism is soaked with Christ’s promises. You are saturated in Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice for sin.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

In Holy Baptism you die and rise with Jesus because Jesus died and rose for you. Jesus’ cross is in your Baptism.

In Holy Baptism you go where Jesus goes. Jesus dies for you; you die with Jesus. Jesus rises for you; you rise with Jesus...in your Baptism, and in the resurrection of the dead. This is remarkable, miraculous!

Imagine there was a doctor somewhere who understood the art of saving people from death, or even though they died, could restore them quickly to life so that they would afterward live forever. Oh, how the world would pour in money like snow and rain. No one could find access to him because of the throng of the rich! But here in Baptism there is freely brought to everyone’s door such a treasure and medicine that it utterly destroys death and preserves all people alive. (Large Catechism IV.43)

 

Baptism gives you Jesus. Lent and Easter also give us Jesus’ dying and Jesus’ rising. In Baptism Jesus’ gives us his Lent and Easter. Jesus’ bitter suffering and death; Jesus’ agony and bloody sweat; Jesus’ cross and passion - it’s all yours in Baptism. Jesus’ victory over the grave; Jesus’ glorious resurrection and ascension - all yours in Baptism. Your Baptism - and every Baptism - is a little Lent and Easter, poured into the font and poured over us.

And so, every day is a little Lent and Easter. Let us never say, “I was baptized” but rather, “I am baptized into Christ.” Baptism is always present tense. Daily we die to sin. Daily we rise to new life in Christ.

What does this mean? To die to sin means to confess it. Confess that we who have died to sin still live in it. And not only that, but we love it. We are quick to slake our sinful thirsts above our neighbors’ needs and against God’s will. Confess and repent that our heart is an arid, loveless wasteland. Confess and repent that our lips gush with praise for ourselves while our prayer, praise, and thanks to God is dusty bone-dry. Confess and repent that our mouths are parched from our constant slander and gossip and hatred for others. Confess and repent that our love for our neighbor is a drought of mercy while our love for ourselves is a reservoir, full of greed and self-serving.

It is good, then, that Lent and Easter bring us Jesus’ death and resurrection. Water kills. Water makes alive. Baptism comes to irrigate the desert of our hearts. Baptism brings Jesus’ death and resurrection to you. You are washed by his blood. Cleansed by his sacrifice. Buried in his tomb. Risen with Christ. Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

What does this mean? Live in your Baptism. Remember who you are in Christ, a new creation. You belong to Jesus. And Jesus’ death and resurrection belong to you.

When you’re sharing the Gospel with your co-workers, friends, neighbors, and family – or even those you do not know, like Jonah did...remember, you have died and risen with Christ in Baptism. Your mouth is now an instrument of grace.

When you’re lending a helping hand for your neighbor…remember, you have died and risen with Christ in Baptism. Your hands are now instruments of mercy.

When death stares you in the face and causes you despair…remember, you’ve already died and risen with Christ in Baptism. Death no longer has dominion over Jesus…or you.

When all you see is a world, like Noah did, full of wickedness…remember, you have died and risen with Christ in Baptism. In this world you will have trouble, but fear not, Christ has overcome the world and gives you his victory in your Baptism.

And when Satan waves your sin in your face like a dirty diaper, remember…you have died and risen with Christ in Baptism. All your sins belong to Jesus now. Take comfort in God’s promise: I am baptized into Christ. And if I am baptized, I am dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is your Greater Noah, who keeps you safe in the holy ark of the Christian Church. Jesus suffered the divine deluge of judgment in your place. Jesus is your Greater Moses, who leads you through the water into the Promised Land; Jesus conquered the Pharaoh of hell on the cross for you. Jesus is your Greater Jonah, whose head was encircled in thorns, who descended into the pit, and spent three days in the belly of the earth to raise you from the dead. Death could not hold Jesus; and neither will it hold you.

In Holy Baptism you die and rise with Jesus because Jesus died and rose for you. Jesus’ cross is in your Baptism.

And what does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

This is most certainly true.

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

Lent 3 Sermon: "Jesus is the Temple"

+ Lent 3 – March 8^th, 2015 +

Redeemer Lutheran, HB

Series B: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; John 2:13-22

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

Tables flipping. Coins rolling. Oxen grunting, sheep bleating; doves and feathers flying everywhere.

Sounds like quite the chaotic scene. Though not nearly as chaotic as the emporium of money-changers and livestock traders which resembled the OC fairgrounds more than the holy temple.

The problem wasn’t exchanging currency for the temple tax, or buying and selling animals for the sacrifice. Those were good things. The problem was where they were doing it, in the court of the Gentiles, the very place where God promised to be present for all people, for prayer, praise, and thanks. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:7). Imagine a herd of oxen or sheep trotting by as you’re trying to confess your sins and hear the absolution, or pigeons squawking as you try to listen to the Gospel reading or prayer of the church. The problem was, they were buying and selling in the place of God’s self-giving.

This isn’t Jesus staging a one-man occupy Jerusalem protest to fight the man. But neither is he like your grandma’s precious moments Jesus. He’s no girly-man, as the Governator used to say. Though we can forget all about making Jesus action figures with Kung Fu grip.

Psalm 69 tells us why Jesus cleansed the temple. Zeal for Your house has consumed me. Jesus is doing things the Messiah was prophesied to do.

Jesus cleanses the temple to show that he is the new temple for you.

The temple was the place of God’s presence. The dwelling place of God is with man. God provided a place for sacrifice for sins. Atonement was made there. Forgiveness and holiness were given there. Prayer and praise rose before the Lord as incense, filling the courts with the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

But over time, the temple became less about God serving man and more about man serving himself. Profits and margins replaced prayer and meditation. God’s holy house had become a den of thieves.

See how the devil has no new tricks in assaulting the Church. In Luther’s day the money-changers were selling indulgences. “When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.” Today the money-changers and livestock sellers offer new golden calves: business practices for ministry, pastors as hirelings or CEOs, entertainment and emotionalism instead of Divine Service.

Jesus saw what the temple had become. Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of trade!

The uncleanness of the temple had become a mirror image of the people’s hearts: impure, unclean, and self-serving.

Like the temple, we too need cleansing. Our spiritual stench is far worse than all the animals in the temple that day. All we like sheep have gone astray, each after our own way. For what has zeal consumed you? We need not search far, only look in the mirror. Consider your place in life according to the 10 commandments. Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything or done any harm? Do I fear God’s wrath and avoid every sin? Am I diligent in my prayers and study of God’s Word? Am I faithful in attending church’s worship and bible study faithfully or do I come sporadically because I prefer to be elsewhere?

Repent. For the 10 commandments reveal that we are unclean. Our sinful flesh is a den of thieves.

Sins demand sacrifice, sacrifice demands a temple. The commandments reveal our need for a temple.

Jesus cleanses the temple to show that he is the new temple for y0u.

All the oxen and sheep and doves are driven out. Only one remains: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world for you. Create in me a clean heart, Oh God and renew a right spirit within me. Jesus is your temple and the sacrifice for your sins. I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God.

Don't skip over St. John’s time stamp: the Passover was at hand. Just as Israel of old was delivered from slavery by the exodus, Jesus rescues us from captivity to sin by the exodus of his death. Just as the angel of death passed over the homes with bloody doorposts, death passes over you who are covered in the blood of the Lamb. Just as Israel ate the Passover meal in expectation of their deliverance, Jesus feeds us with the true Passover of his own flesh and blood for our redemption.

As Jesus cleanses the temple he turns the tables on the religious system of Israel. God’s Lamb had come to His temple. The old has gone; the new has come.

Jesus cleanses the temple to show that he is the temple.

And in this temple of Jesus’ body you are cleansed. Everything that was true about the OT temple is true about Jesus, only greater. Where Jesus is present, God himself is present in our humanity. The dwelling place of God is with man. The Word became flesh. Emmanuel. God with us. Jesus is the sacrifice for our sin. Your sin is driven out. Atonement is made by his death on the cross for you. Jesus forgives you; His holiness is now yours. Prayer and praise rise before him as incense, our lives a living sacrifice. Jesus has taken the record of our offenses – all those 10 commandments we’ve failed, our uncleanness and sin – and nailed it to the tree.

Jesus became unclean to cleanse you. Jesus is defiled and blasphemed to purify and bless you. Jesus becomes the curse of our sin to free us from the curse. Jesus died on the cross surrounded by thieves to drive the thieves from our hearts. Jesus is pierced in hands, feet, head, and heart to cleanse our hearts, minds, hands and feet by his cleansing, purifying blood.

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

This is the point of Jesus’ cleansing the temple. The sign the Jews were demanding, the authority Jesus had – it’s all found in his dying and rising. Jesus is the temple. Jesus is the sacrifice. For you.

The temple of Christ’s body, the Church, is where God’s Word calls us to repentance and faith. This temple of Jesus’ body “is the place of God’s gracious presence, where the Holy Spirit is not bought or sold but instead comes by grace and promise. It is where God gives himself away and where people can come and be cleansed in order to pray and praise God (Peterson).”

You don’t need to go to the temple, in the Lord’s Supper the temple of Jesus’ body comes to you. Jesus locates his body and blood in a sanctuary of bread and wine. You don’t need to make a pilgrimage for Passover, in the Lord’s Supper God’s true Passover comes to you in the body and blood of the Lamb of God who takes away your sin. His atonement is here in his body and blood. God’s holiness is here, hidden in bread and wine. The dwelling place of God is still with man. Jesus gives us the temple of his body to feed and sustain you who are the temple of the Holy Spirit, whose courts ring out with prayer, praise and thanksgiving.

Jesus cleanses the temple to show that he is the temple. And also that by his sacrifice you are cleansed. You are made a temple of the Holy Spirit, members of Christ’s body, His Church. His temple. Holy Baptism washes, and cleanses us from sin. Holy Baptism removes our heart of thievery and sin and replaces it with a new and right spirit within us. Baptism makes us God’s house of living stones, built for his own habitation. 

That’s why the Church isn’t a building, but a gathering. Not four walls, but a living, breathing body, a spiritual temple fashioned out of reborn living stones, knit together by the Spirit in Holy Baptism.

It is zeal for his Father’s house, and zeal for this house – you, the church, Jesus’ own body – that consumes Jesus. And the zeal that consumes Jesus saves you.

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

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love You and worthily magnify Your holy name; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

Lent 2 Sermon: "The God Who Bears"

+ Lent 2 – March 1st, 2015 +

Redeemer Lutheran, HB

Series B: Genesis 17:1-16; Romans 5:1-11; Mark 8:27-38

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

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” So writes Lutheran pastor,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Cost of Discipleship, p. 89)

That pretty well sums up the entire season of Lent. The Father bids Jesus to come and die for you. And that sentence also sums up your entire life in Christ. To follow Jesus means to come and die with him. Die to sin. Die to yourself. Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Jesus bears the cross for us so that we will bear our cross and follow him.

Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest how closely Jesus joins his passion to his call to his disciples, past and present.

the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

All of God’s promises are contained in that little word “must”. Jesus must suffer. Jesus must be rejected. Scripture must be fulfilled. God will keep his promise to save you. This is the cost of Jesus’ discipleship to the Father, his costly gift of grace purchased and won for you. Jesus’ suffering and rejection are a divine necessity. “And every attempt to prevent it is the work of the devil, especially if it comes from one of his own disciples” (Bonhoeffer, 87). Anything or anyone that points us away from Christ Crucified is in league with the devil

The things of God are these: Jesus’ suffering and rejection on your behalf. Jesus bearing your sin and death on the cross. Jesus leading you with the cross as his disciples.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.”

The “must” of Jesus’ suffering and rejection applies to his disciples - then and now. A disciple is not above his master.

The cross is laid on every Christian.

The way of the Christian begins with death. In other words, to deny ourselves. Quite simply, to die. But we do not want to die. “It’s my life”, we demand. I’ll live it my way.” Like Peter we set our minds on the things of men: ourselves, our stuff, our reason and our strength. It’s all
about me.

And here we witness one of the great blessings of Lent. We’re called to repent, deny ourselves, and fast. Not because our repentance, self-denial, and cross-bearing is a stairway to heaven. But because by bearing the cross, God teaches us to look away from ourselves to Christ as Lord and giver of all things. Because if we’re honest with what Scripture says about us and our sin, our repentance, our self-denial, our fasting, our discipleship is always half-assed. The hope, comfort, and assurance of your salvation, of your life in Christ is not found in your repentance, or your self-denial, or your anything - but in Jesus’ bearing our cross and sin and death for us.

Like humility, self denial is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less (C.S. Lewis). To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before you on the road that is too hard for us to travel.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. God shows his
love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus bears the cross for us so that we will bear our cross and follow him.

There’s no need to go looking for your cross to bear, it will find you. The call of Christ in your Baptism, “sets you in the middle of the daily arena against sin and the devil” (Bonhoeffer, 90). Our crosses will come to us, like Peter and the 12 disciples, in our vocation, in the places where God calls us to serve: home, church, the world. In our daily life as husband or wife, as father or mother; with our friends at school or in sports; in the boards, activities, or ways we serve this congregation; in our health and bodily needs; in our life together with our neighbor, coworkers, or friends. We don’t always know when or how crosses come, but they will. Our Lord promises that.

But Christ also promises that he is with you. Jesus is with you by his holy Name and promise placed upon you in Baptism. Jesus is with you in the Holy Absolution as the Father welcomes us home like prodigal sons. Your sins are forgiven you. You are reconciled with God by the death of his Son. He is with you bearing the fruits of the cross he bore for you in His body and blood in the Supper.

God also places people in your life - your pastor, your brothers and sisters in Christ - to bear your burdens and suffering with you. “And as Christ bears our burdens, so ought we to bear the burdens of our fellow men” (Bonhoeffer, 90). Whatever cross you bear, it may be yours alone, but you are not alone.

Jesus is with you in whatever cross you bear, for he himself has borne it for you. God is the God who bears. Jesus bore our flesh. Jesus bore our cross. Jesus bore our sin, to make atonement for us. Jesus takes upon himself the whole suffering of the world - yours and mine too - and in doing so, proves victorious for you. The only path to victory is the cross. The only triumph over suffering is through Jesus’ suffering for you. Jesus bore our death. Jesus bore our suffering on Good Friday, and still does today. God is the God who bears you. It is a great reversal. In losing our old life we win a new life in Christ. In Christ’s suffering we triumph over our suffering.

This is why Paul writes: we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For above all, Jesus’ cross is laid upon on us Holy Baptism. Jesus unites you with his suffering and death in order to overcome yours. Jesus’ dying and rising is given to you in Baptism. 

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

In Baptism you were joined to Jesus’ death for us. Jesus was denied by the Father for all our denials of him. Jesus took up your cross for you, and you follow him through death into life. In Baptism you are given a new mind, the mind of Christ, set on the things of God – his water, word, body and blood. Your old mind and man, along with your sin is drowned. Baptism makes us disciples of Jesus.

Jesus leads us through our suffering by his suffering for us. Jesus leads us from the font to our daily life of repentance and forgiveness. Jesus leads us to hear the absolution that refreshes our soul. Jesus leads us to the altar to receive his body and blood with great joy. Jesus leads us from the altar in faith towards Christ and in fervent love for our neighbor, to help them bear whatever cross they have.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” And live through Jesus’ death, forever.

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