Sermons

What is preaching? St. Paul writes in Romans: “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14-15)

Therefore our Lutheran Confessions state: “It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain forever. This is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.” (Augsburg Confession VII:1-3)

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Triumph in Jesus – Advent Midweek 3 – Luke 24:13-33

19. December 2012
Advent Midweek 3
Luke 24:13-33

We don’t always recognize the need for Christ’s presence. Sometimes it’s the daytime and things are “sunny.” In the artificial light of this world, the need for Christ can be ignored. Yet in the evening, in the darkness, in sickness, and in death… the statement “abide with me” resonates with us. In those times we need the abiding light of Christ. We need His gracious presence.

God’s presence and His grace are bound together. Grace is gift, taking us to bask in the light of the cross. Grace faces down the evil one, the tempter. The glorious grace of Christ crucified defeats the devil. Even when the sun shines and things are peachy, we still yearn for this grace, this light. There is still darkness within us and without in the world. Only Christ can banish that darkness.

The cross is God’s gracious, brilliant defeat of all our enemies. This life’s journey is full of stumbling blocks. Our heart is full of temptations to sin. We walk in danger of slipping all the way. Only the One who goes into the well-fought fight can end the warfare. He is our captain. He leads us through the darkness. He fights on our behalf. The only defeat of Satan is by Christ. He is the victor because he has already won at the cross. We who abide with Him already have the victory in Him.

The beauty of being in Christ is the receiving of His gifts. Every day with Christ is Christmas. We need to be with Him, to be in communion with Him. He gives us Himself. We share in His sufferings that we would also share in His glory. Sharing is giving. This is why we constantly go to church, to hear His word, and receive His body and blood. He is out in front of us in the battle. We know we will stumble and fall. We know we will lose the way. We are haunted by our sins, especially at night and near death. In His service, Christ gives precious treasures. We receive forgiveness. He heals us. He cleanses us. He takes us into Himself. He abides with us.

Jesus is the changeless one and thus His gifts abide. His light shines forever. The brightness of His mercy, forgiveness, blood shed, and what He does banishes the darkness. Not only does this light shine now but it has been shining since before the foundation of the world. The incarnation of Christ, a light shining in darkness, was always the plan of God for you. We are broken people dwelling in the blackness. Christ is the eternal light, brightening even the worst of life’s moments. The child born of Mary breaks through the darkness with everlasting light.

“Abide with Me” is a hymn about death and seeing the light that comes in Christ. It is in death where Christ abides with us. Christians have the capacity to see the sorrow of death and to mourn. There is a loss. Death is not the way God created it to be. Christ has transformed death by His death. It is no longer the end but the beginning. It is the entrance into the eternal reality.

Think of Pastor Henry Lyte and singing “Abide with Me” on the day of his farewell. He never made it to Italy for recuperation. He must have known he was dying. No doubt he suffered pains, tears, bitterness from TB. Even in his weakness, He sees Christ’s triumph. In his suffering, He sees the triumph of the cross. Even in death, he sees triumph. This the heart of the Gospel. The Christ must suffer then enter into His glory. Death has no sting. Grave has no victory. Pr. Lyte had the triumph of Christ even as he lay dying. So also for every saint of God. Death gives way to resurrection and eternal life.

Baptism is when we’re joined to the eternal one. We’re no longer living in a body that simply decays and dies. Our bodies are remade by the waters into what God intended us to be in the beginning. Our bodies are made like Christ’s body. We get death over with in Holy Baptism. That’s why we make the sign of cross upon the dying to remind them they already died at Baptism.

Baptism is when our life becomes part of the life of Christ. This is when Christ began to abide with us. Despite sin sticking to us, the reality is Christ is joined to us. He suffered for the sin we now commit. He forgives by the blood He shed at the cross.

The cross is the moment the heavens opened and light into the gloom. At Christ’s resurrection we see the dawn break and our eternal dwelling open up to us. First at the baptism of Jesus, then transfiguration, and finally at the resurrection this is revealed. Heaven is now on earth in the person of Jesus. The ultimate and final yearning of everyone is to commune with God. To be baptized into Christ. To abide with Him.

Our lives testify to everything but eternity. This hymn captures our emotions and feelings, those of reality. Fast falls the eventide. Other helpers fail and comforts flee. Change and decay all around I see. We long for the presence of Christ bodily. We hope in the friend of sinners, the helper of the helpless. Christ abides with you. In life. In death.

As Christmas approaches, we ask: why did Jesus become man? Why did he take on flesh? The answer?  He would experience everything we experience. For those who are baptized in Christ, we know that everything we suffer He suffered. Every melancholy we have He had. His sadness is shared by us and ours with Him. He was lonely on the cross—why, my God, have you forsaken me? He experienced what it means to be human and yet without sin. Thus sinners who have no idea what it means to be whole and perfect learn as we abide in Him. He conquered loneliness, melancholy, and suffering by His life, suffering, and death. He gives us friendship, joy, patience, hope, and life.

To abide in Christ is to be fully human, to know what it’s like to be holy, to know what it means to be as God created us to be. To be joined to Christ in Holy Baptism is to share with Christ everything including suffering, darkness, evening sadness just as He shares with us every good gift. Jesus is in us and we in Him. In life and in death, it is Christ who abides with us. He is our deepest longing. He is our greatest hope. We have Him now in Baptism and in the Supper and we will have Him finally in the company of heaven.

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

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana

Image courtesy of http://bearhollowcreations.blogspot.com/2010/04/road-to-emmaus.html

Comfort, Comfort? – Gaudete 2012 – Isaiah 40:1-8

16. December 2012
Gaudete (Advent 3)
Isaiah 40:1-8

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” In the darkness of Friday’s tragic death of twenty children and seven adults in Newtown, CT where was God? Where is His comfort? We trust He will deliver us from evil and then He lets us down. We have hope for a future and then for twenty-seven it is cut short. Face the facts. Sometimes we feel like we have an impotent God. Is our God powerful to save or not? Does He keep His promises for rescue or not?

Solomon felt the same way: “I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.” (Ecc. 4:1) Solomon’s lament resonates with us. Who will comfort the mourners? It feels like we are powerless to escape the oppressor.

In some ways its worse for those who survive than those who are dead. They no longer suffer. They don’t grieve but will soon be laid in the grave. So goes the lament: “I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” (Ecc. 4:2-3) Better to die or even never be born than witness the carnage at the hands of man.

This is life for the heirs of Adam. Imagine the cry of lament from Adam after his son Cain murdered brother Abel. Adam’s voice mixed with Abel’s cry of blood from the ground. Rachel mourns for her children and refuses to be comforted. Now the parents and families voice mix with Adam, Abel, Rachel, and all the lamenters. Such loud crying is not comforting. It helps and terrifies. It acknowledges reality but leaves us in darkness.

The worst way to grieve is shut one’s ears. The silence is oppressive. And sometimes people refuse to speak to suffering. They avoid it. They are told to get over it. Time to move on. This too shall pass. This never answers the hard question. Where is God? Does He save or not? Will He rescue or not? We need answers and they must be spoken.

God sends to you messengers like Isaiah, St. John the Baptizer, holy Evangelists, and even pastors to speak two words. These men are to speak to tragedy and death.They also speak tenderly to Jerusalem (that’s you!) They must speak while we still dwell in the darkness and the shadow of death. They speak, cry, say, call. They come with voices, mouths, and Word. They evangelize/gospel you with God’s very Word.

Two words. God’s Word afflicts and He comforts. This has always been the truth. Even in the Lord’s exile of Adam from the garden—an affliction—Adam is given the promise of the Seed who will crush the Serpent and restore Adam and his children to God. Even in the midst of the exile of the people to Egypt, Assyria, or Babylon, God grants a promised return.

Suffering is from God. It is the just punishment for our many sins. What I’m about to say may bother you. It’s not pleasant but its true. Some would say those children who died in Connecticut were innocent. Certainly before the world and their murderer. They had done nothing deserving death by that man’s hand. The hard truth is that all children of Adam are born deserving death at God’s hand.

But the fact that any of us are living is a testimony to God’s mercy not justice. The just thing would have been to destroy the earth after Adam’s fall or to finish it all with the Flood. The fair thing would have been to leave us in bondage to sin and death.

The reason many cannot fathom this tragedy or any other is that we haven’t listened to what God has said. He has spoken by His messengers. Their voices cry out. The truth is said. Isaiah spoke today about the frailty of our condition. “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are like grass.” It is the breath of God that brings the grass, the flower and even you to an end.

Why does anyone die? Because they must. The flesh is infected with mortality. It must be brought to an end in God’s wrath. The truth is not in us if we think anyone escapes death. Children die under the weight of sin. Sometimes this comes by the hand of disease. Other times by accident. Sometimes they make it to old age. And sometimes they die by an act of great evil.

We shudder at the thought. Death is never pleasant. When young ones die, it is especially horrifying. To believe God allows the Devil and his tools of violence and death to claim twenty-seven lives is even more difficult. Every day lives are brought to an end either tragically or “naturally.” Death is never natural. The truth that God ends the life He has created is always a discomfort. We grieve those many deaths. We lament the suffering. We are terrified at the horror of this world.  And by God we know it is not outside His hand.

Sin, suffering and death are unnatural. The affliction God brings is always His alien work. Suffering is given by God but foreign to Him. It comes by the lesser of the two Words. We are brought to an end under His just Law. This is never an end unto itself. No, the Law puts to death in order to make alive eternally by the Gospel. He only crucifies the passions and desires of the flesh so He may properly comfort with the gift of Christ. Our God is not a God of death and suffering. Chiefly He is one of life—mercy, grace, and comfort—in Jesus.

You see, comfort is not primarily a feeling. You may feel comforted but only after your comfort is declared to you. God must speak the Word of comfort. He declares the truth so that we may be comforted in the midst of affliction. Our God is not silent but speaks. He cries out: “Jesus!” The key to comfort in this present darkness is to look to the cross of Christ. We who are in Christ share in Christ’s affliction and comfort.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” There is good news to those who are in any affliction. In Christ Jesus there is comfort. The message of Christ crucified for your salvation is a sweet, consoling, and joyful message. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.” In Jesus, the battle is done. In Jesus’ blood, your iniquity is forgive. In Jesus, the good news always overwhelms your sins double.

What’s been lost in much of the discussion of tragic death is the reality that baptized Christians have already gotten death over with. Yes, many died at the hands of the gunman. The Christians had already died with Christ in Holy Baptism. For those who believe on Christ Jesus’ name death no longer has its sting or victory. Our warfare against the works of the flesh—against evil, rulers, and terror—is already over. For the Word incarnate has fought that battle already. Christ took the battlefield at the cross rendering complete satisfaction for us.

Do not fight any longer. Your warfare is finished and ended through Christ, the Redeemer. Seek righteousness in the kingdom of Christ and of mercy, where sins are forgiven as a gift. The world outside of the Father’s grace in Christ is a crooked road. When we look for answers or hope in this world we are  walking on broken and rough ways. There is only one way that is straight and true. There is only one path that doesn’t meander and curve but leads directly to heaven, resurrection, and life everlasting

Christ is leading this Adventide on a new Exodus. We are being led through this age of evil where children are gunned down and teachers slain unto the promised land where there will be no more mourning or crying. Jesus is taking us from this world we cannot understand with horrors, terror, and death to a new Eden where the fullness of the Father’s glory will be revealed. The way is being made ready again, leveling, lifting, making low, and plain.

Soon we will remember again the fulfillment of Isaiah’s Word: “The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Soon, we will rejoice in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas. The son of God takes on human flesh to reveal to you the glory of God. Christ Jesus, the incarnate One, is the crucified “Lord of glory.” (1 Cor 2:8)

You see that all flesh has seen the glory of God. Even now God has revealed Himself to you in glory. He comes in His crucified flesh and blood to comfort you. You may not feel comforted but He says “Comfort, comfort my people!” The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. (Titus 2:11) You have been pardoned. Your warfare is over. Taste and see double for all your sins.

Your God has saved you. He has kept His promise to rescue you. He died for all flesh that all flesh who are in Him would live. Our life is fragile. Our flesh is being brought to an end. For some it was tragic this week. We mourn the loss of the children and adults slain. But we also cry, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever!” 

What is that Word of God? This Word of the Gospel: you were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ, the lamb without blemish of spot. Through Him you are believers in God in whom is your faith and hope. Through Holy Baptism you were “born again not of perishable seed but imperishable, the living and abiding Word of God. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:17-25)

He comforts you with the forgiveness of sins under bread and wine. These Words overcome twofold any terror or horror of this world for they are good and eternal. There are hurting people in our world, our country, and our community. They desperately need the comfort that only Christ can bring.  Speak to them as God has spoken to you. Speak the Word of your comfort in all affliction, that God has kept His promise to give you life. (cf. Ps. 119:50,89)

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

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana

Image from http://www.edvard-munch.com/gallery/love/comfort.htm

“Are We There Yet?” – Advent 2 Midweek 2012 – Psalm 63

12. December 2012
Advent 2 Midweek
Psalm 63

The superscription to Psalm 63 reads: “A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.” The wilderness is barren, devoid of life. It is a place of danger, from wild beasts, hunger, and thirst. There is little shelter from wind or storm. Travel is difficult at best.

Our earthly life is a wilderness journey. We have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. We were baptized into Christ, passing though His Red Sea deliverance and sent towards the promised land. Between us and our heavenly Canaan is wilderness wandering. You have been freed from slavery to the evil and sent forward redeemed to dwell with God again in heaven. But…

“Are we there yet?” the anthem rings out from the backseat. Yes, it’s a long trip from baptism to eternal life. We’re prone to be anxious along the way. “Are we there yet? I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! I’m bored! I’m lonely!” Christian pilgrims are like little children who let our anxiety get the better of us.

The journey is difficult and the labor long. Suffering plagues us. Guilt burdens us. Shame haunts us. Death looms large. We can seek solace in the the things of this world. We try to answer our longing with creature comforts. We stuff our faces and yet are never satisfied. We drink until intoxicated and yet can’t forget our problems. We distract ourselves with entertainment and other excitements but never find the joy we seek. We find companionship in spouse or friends but something is still missing.

We need Jesus. We need Him to come. We get bored with life. We’re lonely in our meandering in this wilderness of sin and death. We get thirsty for righteousness. We need manna from heaven to feed us. And when He comes we need Him to abide with us.

The season of Advent is about walking to our Lord’s incarnation and to the cross and resurrection. It is the beginning of our yearly pilgrimage through Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and back to Pentecost. This festival half of the church year draws our attention to Christ and His redemption. “Come, Lord Jesus!” The chorus rings out from Christians. “Come, Lord Jesus!”

He has come, comes, and will come again. He came in the flesh to be our elder brother. He comes in the font, from the pulpit, and on the altar. He will come to judge all and take us finally into His eternal dwelling. He comes. As we wander on to heaven we ask Him to abide with us.

David was in the same wilderness. “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Whether in an actual wilderness or the wilderness wandering of the Christian, we need Christ’s abiding presence. Who but Christ can be our guide and stay? We thirst for Him as we are parched and weary in this journey.

Where do we look for our God? Where is He to be found? Where does Christ abide with us? Even when life is dark or our soul parched where has Christ always promised to be? “I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.” Christ comes to serve us although clothed in weakness and humility. In this sanctuary, Christ speaks but through humble and weak words of a mere pastor. We see simple water and yet it is a saving flood and a washing of rebirth by the Holy Spirit. We eat wafers of unleavened bread and drink wine and Christ says it is His body and His blood, given and shed from the cross into our very mouths for forgiveness, life, and salvation. In faith in this sanctuary we behold Our Lord’s power and glory, although it looks humble and meek.

There’s no need to be anxious though we suffer, though we are weak, and even though we die. Your Lord’s steadfast love is better than life. His love abides. Your soul is already satisfied as Christ fills it with rich food. Christ abides with you and gives you with Himself. This is all grace. It is all gift. Given without merit or worthiness. Given freely. Nothing to do but receive.

Pr. Lyte wrote “Abide with Me” as he suffered with tuberculousis and death approached. He either read or sang this hymn to his congregation the last Sunday he presided there. Surely it was a bittersweet time. As we consider his poetry we know that His hope was David’s hope. He feared no foe for the Lord was at hand to bless. The Lord’s right hand upheld him. Ills had no weight and tears no bitterness. The last enemy to be defeated already was. Where is death’s sting? Where, grace, thy victory? As he said in his farewell sermon: “O brethren, I stand here among you today, as alive from the dead, if I may hope to impress it upon you, and induce you to prepare for that solemn hour which must come to all, by a timely acquaintance with the death of Christ.”

Those who sought to destroy His life were already plunged with Christ into the depths of the earth. The sword of the Word has slayed every enemy. Sin is eaten up with forgiveness. Devil is forever wounded by Christ’s cross. Death is buried deep and only life persists for those in Christ.

What but God’s good gifts can foil the tempters power? Only the King of kings with kind and good healing, a friend of sinners. Only His cross shines through the gloom and points us toward heaven’s morning. In the brilliance of His death all vain shadows flee and only triumph remains. He gives us the sweet fruit of the cross and there abides with us.

Therefore our lips praise Jesus. In His name we lift up our hands in prayer. Our mouths are filled with His praise. We remember our Lord’s gracious giving when the darkness falls. He is the light of man. We meditate upon Jesus Christ through the watches of the night. We rejoice in Christ for He has been our help. In the shadow of His wings we sing for joy.

The darkness deepens. Fast falls the eventide. Life’s little day is swift to close. Earth’s joy’s grow dim. It’s vain glories pass away. But there is light in Christ. The glorious Easter day has dawned up on us. Heaven’s light shines forth and every shadow flees. “Are we there yet?” No bother. The destination is known and life in Christ assured. Lord, abide with us and keep us to the morning light.

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

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana