Jesus

There are 136 posts tagged Jesus (this is page 41 of 46).

Easter Festival Service 2011 – Mark 16:1-8; Job 19:23-27; Psalm 118

24. April 2011
Easter Sunrise Festival Service
Mark 16:1-8; Job 19:23-27; Psalm 118

In the garden there are two trees. One brings life and the others brings death. One bears the fruit of life eternal. The other bears fruit giving knowledge of good and evil. Both are from God but both are not for man.

Mankind was never meant to know evil. We were created in God’s image, possessing God’s goodness, bearing fruit in keeping with our Father and creator. We were to live in the garden forever, walking with God in righteousness and holiness. We would bask in his glorious radiance, day in and day out. Our lives were to be full of feasting and joy, the bliss of God’s own family in God’s own home.

But one man, Adam, did not love God with his whole heart. He stood by idly while the woman, whom God gave him, blissfully listened to the tempting Serpent. The serpent lies were truthful sounding. They were the truth laced with that poison of doubt, “did God really say?”

“Did God really say not to eat of the tree that would make you like him?” Actually, yes. But we don’t much care for God’s Word, at least not the “thou shalt nots.” We’re like infant children. We love what our parents give us. We love their care and nurture, their love and affection. We love our mother’s milk and our father’s deep voice. But when either parent says “no,” our smile fades, our brow furrows, and we let out a howl like bloody murder.

We’re too quick to judge Adam for his sin. Surely, he knew better than to go against God’s holy command. Surely he should have left that tree and its fruit alone. I’m sure there was a bit of trepidation before Eve took the first bite and handed the delicious and deadly fruit to Adam.

That one sin had fatal consequences. God’s anger was kindled against man and against the tempting snake. The sweat of the brown and the pain raising godly children was their burden. Animals were slaughtered and their hides given for clothing for ashamed man.

God cursed man to live outside the garden, away from him. Their God and Lord banished them from his kingdom. Angels with flaming swords permanently bar the entrance, threatening to slice and dice even the littlest intruder.

Since then mankind is doomed to wander in the wilderness of exile. Our sustenance comes only with by ripping it from the soil or its blood spilt. Our homes and families are tended to with great sorrow, grief, and exhaustion. Even the the forces of nature have turned against us, flooding and tornados, earthquake and tsunami.

That’s what life is without God. Without God, we are parched and barren, devastated and doomed. Our life has become the living hell. Its not God’s fault. Our forefather, his children, and even all of us have followed thereafter in rejecting God and his injunctions, “thou shall not.”

Into this fallen creation, this ugly reality, Jesus is born. The son of a pious Jew named Mary. The illegitimate but adopted son of Joseph. He is like us in most every respect. His life began as the tiny fertilized egg in the womb of Mary. He grew into the zygote, the embryo, and whatever other names science has given to children growing in wombs. His heart beats, his limbs, his senses, and his mind grows. In the safety of a woman’s womb he grows until the day he leaves to shine his radiance upon the earth.

But he isn’t like us in every respect. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Through a miraculous word of God, spoke by his angel Gabriel, God the Father beget his Son. Son of Mary, to be sure, but Son of the only and almighty Father. Born of woman but born without sin.

This Christmas miracle is as brilliant then as it is today. For what was once the case is now the case again. God’s image bearer was to conceive and give birth to children who would be God’s own likeness again. Perfect creatures of the perfect God. Yet before the good gift of children was given to our first parents, they entered into corruption. We never saw what life as the family of God have been like in the garden.

Yet, the Father begets a savior to those whom he had cast out to wander. The Father gives the redeemer of the world to the world who has forgotten, neglected, or even hates him. This is the way of salvation. One man brought us to corruption. Now one man returns us to God.

We have heard again how our Lord was baptized with our sin. In the river Jordan he took our trespasses into himself. We have heard how he revealed himself through miracles of healing, over nature, and exorcism. We have heard how he fasted for our sake, showing us true obedience.

Unlike our ancestor Adam, he resisted Satan’s lies. Three times the great Deceiver tried to lead him astray and he resisted.

Then, he travelled from Israel and Judah, to the Decapolis and to Samaria to gather the scattered children of Adam. They gathered about him, pressing on him from every side. They know he is different. They know that he is in this world but most definitely not of this world.

Everything that had gone so terribly wrong by Adam is restored by the new Adam. Seas are calmed, bleeding is stopped, demons are cast into the ocean deep to drown, and food never runs out.  The faithful remnant gathers about him, listening with anxious breath.

The pestering multitude has heard of the resurrection of Lazarus. What a miracle, they think. They follow him close, hoping that they will be part of his kingdom when it comes.

Into Jerusalem they go. Now, they have their king, the Son of David, the Messiah. Waving palm branches and strewing their coats before him, they follow. They follow singing “Hosanna in the Highest!”

But Christ is not entering into a kingdom of this world. His kingdom is of God and from God. It is not of Caesar or Jerusalem. Nor does his kingdom come through fanfare and pomp. It comes when the lowly son rides forth to die.

While Adam saw the flaming swords of the cherubim barring his way, Christ saw the murderous swords and clubs of the mob. Roman and Jew alike burned hot for his blood. Both Roman and Jew condemn him to die. He will not escape this world except through the sharp nails, piercing sword, and the fires of hell.

But notice this, he is lifted high upon the wooden cross. They fastened for his death a tree, torturous and deadly. But upon the tree is not the end.

For this tree is not the knowledge of good and evil. This tree is the tree of life. From its boughs hang the fruit of Christ’s death. He is the all-atoning death and all-sufficient sacrifice. He is our Passover lamb, who has been sacrificed.

His blood now covers the door’s posts and lintel. The way that was barred is now open. Freedom from bondage is purchased in his blood. The life is in the blood and it is now poured out for you and the sins of the whole world.

Then they took his body and laid it in the new tomb. This tomb was in a garden. Its probably not as spectacular as the original. But the fruit of the tree, the cross of Christ, lay upon the stone, sealed until his kingdom comes.

That day is today. The garden of God, where we would dwell with him forever is once again opened. The flaming swords no longer swing. Through Christ, we have entrance into God’s own dwelling place, his holy of holies. Through the death of Christ, the bonds of sin are shattered, the way of heaven is opened, and we are led on the path of righteousness for his name sake.

We know that our Redeemer lives. For not even death could hold him. Its stranglehold has been loosed, its death grip broken. Death has no victory nor any sting. Having destroyed sin and crushed Satan with cross, this last enemy is no match for our Lord.

Those women had forgotten how he had said that Son of Man must be crucified and on the third day rise. They fled to the garden, with the tree of death still etched in their mind’s eye. And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back… And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

So it is with the cross. What looks like a tree of death is truly the tree of life. What looks like the sacrifice hated and cursed by God is the only sacrifice that takes away each and every one of our sins. What looks like a garden for the dead becomes a place of rest for those who sleep until the resurrection.

Make no mistake, that’s the point. Resurrection. What Adam destroyed, our Lord restores. The curse of death upon the living is reversed and life is given to the dying. The kingdom of God is opened to all believers. Even after our skin has been thus destroyed, we shall see God for ourself, and our eyes will behold and not another.

The time of death is over. The curse of man has end. Today is a new day, the day of resurrection. It is the day that Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Let us rejoice and receive the fruit of the tree. THe lamb that was sacrificed. The blood that is life. Let us eat and drink and never die.

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

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

 

Good Friday Chief Service 2011

22. April 2011
Good Friday Chief Service

Now we know why they call all this Christ’s Passion. God in the flesh, felt the nails, the thorns, the ripping and tearing and beating, felt the agonies of hell just as keenly as we would. God in the flesh is hanging on a cross. And He’s doing it for one reason: to save lost and condemned creatures from everlasting death.

Christ was that passionate for the lost, that passionate about your salvation. You can hear it in His voice, can’t you, when He says, “It is finished.” Christ’s Passion! He cared that much to be able to say the same to you, to have you with Him for eternity in heaven.

Or did He? Was Christ really so passionate for you? Was Christ’s Passion even really for you? Or was it just for some of the lost? Say what?!!

Many Christians believe that Christ’s Passion wasn’t really for everyone, or at least Christ wasn’t passionate in quite the same way for some as for others. Many of these are even neighbors to us, celebrating Good Friday but arguing that its only good for some. How’s that?

Everyone loves a good story—especially of a poor soul who is lost then found. Consider the widow and her lost coin. Or the shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep among the ninety-nine.  Those parables were enacted for real during our Lord’s passion. We certainly have that with the penitent thief on the cross. From the very edge of hell—forever and ever and ever—maybe only minutes away, suddenly our penitent thief has Paradise. Labored, no doubt, as each breath comes with great pain, but sweet, and with quiet conviction. Jesus is passionate to save this man.

But what about those souls who are never found, who remain forever lost? Like the guy on the other cross. Was Christ passionate about saving him? Did Christ’s Passion even count for him?

John Calvin, who lived about the time of Luther, and the Reformed branch of Christianity, from which Presbyterians and many like United Churches of Christ come, would say Christ’s Passion didn’t count for him. The idea is called “limited atonement,” that Christ’s death only atones for, only reconciles to God, those whom God predestines for salvation. Everyone else, everyone who doesn’t come to believe, Calvin said, was predestined for hell. That was that. You didn’t know exactly who that might be, but, of course, then, you couldn’t know for sure for whom Christ did die.

Lutherans certainly reject that idea. St. Paul writes that God “desires all people to be saved” (I Timothy 2:4). Christ’s Passion was for all, even for those lost who are lost forever.

Not that long after Calvin, there was a man named Arminius. Many Baptists and Methodists follow his position. He was horrified with Calvin’s idea that God would predestine some to hell, so he said the reason some are lost forever while others are saved is because there’s something in one person that’s different from another. Maybe one person is willing to let God save her, or maybe one person decides for Christ, while another won’t.

But think about what that would mean. It would mean it wasn’t just Christ’s passion to save the lost that saved them, it was something in them. Apparently Christ wasn’t passionate enough for the lost to do all the saving; He felt He had to leave something up to them. But Paul says again we were all “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). A dead person can’t help save herself.

A similar controversy came up with some Lutherans who took a position somewhat like Arminius,both in Germany after Luther’s death and resurfacing again in America. Those who held the position said that that God chose who would be saved by looking down the line from eternity and seeing who would eventually come to be saved. There’s a Latin phrase for it, intuitu fidei, or “in view of faith.” If God looked into the 21st century and saw you were going to believe in Jesus, OK, chose you for salvation.

Almost sounds like it makes sense but right-teaching Lutherans rejected it. Why? It’s another way of saying something in us has at least a little to do with how we’re saved. Another form, really, of being saved by works. Or to put it yet another way, Christ wasn’t passionate enough to save you to do all the saving.

Consider what that would mean for us. You could say, of course, “I believe, so it’s all fine.” But what about the day when you’re stressed, and you know you’ve really been sinful, and you start to wonder, “Do I still believe?” or “Did I ever really believe?” or “Is my faith what it takes to be real faith?”

If this were your understanding of salvation, you couldn’t say, “I know I’m saved! I was forgiven when I received Christ’s body and blood,” because maybe you’re not one of those for whom that works. Or, “I was saved when I was baptized or when Pastor told me I was forgiven. Maybe I’m not one of those God chose because my faith isn’t real faith.”

Scary stuff! Maybe Christ as He’s hanging on this cross isn’t really so passionate about me. Maybe I’ll actually suffer the kind of hell that he suffered!

But consider what Christ says in the passion according to St. Luke, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Jesus said that to those who were crucifying Him. Sounds pretty passionate, doesn’t it! Did they all believe? Not now. Did they all come to believe? No indication that they did—maybe some yes, maybe some no. Christ was still passionate for them—all of them—even the ones who would still be lost forever. Not only was Christ’s passion for all the lost, but Christ was passionate for all the lost, all the lost.

That means Christ is passionate enough to do all that’s necessary to save everyone. The penitent thief didn’t have something special in him, even if we’d like to think so. He was really wicked; in fact, you know, earlier this very day on the cross, he was blaspheming Jesus, too. It was Jesus’ passion for him—nothing else—that saved him.

That means He is passionate about me, passionate enough to let me be absolutely sure of my salvation. Yes, what you see here today, your Lord suffering the torments of hell on the cross, is for you! Yes, Christ’s Passion is sufficient to pay for all of your sins, enough to buy you Paradise! Yes, Jesus is passionate enough for your salvation not only to earn it for you on the cross, but to deliver it to you in His Word, in your baptism, in His true body and blood, in your pastor’s word of absolution. Yes, you here today—all of you—can be certain of your salvation! You were lost, but you are found.

That also means that Christ is passionate for everybody else out there. When Christ’s Passion is laid before us, when we see Christ on the cross today, and we hear this: In His passion for us Christ has given us eternal life, then, dear friends, Christ’s passion for the lost—all the lost—has just found you.

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

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

(This sermon is heavily indebted to Dr. Fickenscher. Soli Deo Gloria.)