Easter 3: Audio Sermon (14-Apr-2013)

Click title for link

Easter 3 [John 10:11-16] (14-Apr-2013)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (10am, lay reading), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (2pm) and St John's Lutheran Church, Sale (4pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (John 10:11-16)

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In the first chapter of the book of Revelation, St John writes: I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

John says at the beginning of his revelation that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. What John tells us about in Revelation was seen by him on a Sunday, the first day of the week. The Lord’s Day is a special day because it is the day when the Lord rose from the dead. The Lord’s Day is the day when Jesus appeared to his disciples, and then it is the day he appeared to Thomas. And the apostles continued also to gather together on the first day of the week—Sunday. So what John writes has to do very closely with the Divine Service—he either has heard or preached the word of God that day and received the Lord’s Supper, or else he would do these things later on that day. The Holy Spirit was sent to him in a special way that what he saw was given to him as a special vision, just like one of the Old Testament prophets, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or Daniel. And what does John see?

He writes: I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Do you understand what John sees? He sees Jesus. He sees Jesus in the flesh, standing in front of him, in all his majesty, glory and brilliance! Jesus is standing in front of him, and John, in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, sees him.

If there is one thing that people so often forget and miss in today’s church, it is the fact that Jesus is actually physically present in his church. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he did not leave the earth behind in such a way that he’s simply not here anymore. We always gather together as a church in the presence of our resurrected Lord Jesus.

Many Christians today think that Jesus is stuck up in heaven, and that we only have the Holy Spirit. It’s true: we do have the Holy Spirit. But we don’t have the Holy Spirit without Jesus being here to actually give him to us. Jesus is present in his flesh to breathe the Holy Spirit out through his own breath, and through his own words. John is in the Spirit, and he sees the risen Lord Jesus.

It’s true: Jesus has sat down at the right hand of God, but the right hand of God is not a geographical location on the other side of the clouds. God’s right hand is everywhere, and so also, Jesus in his human body can also be everywhere where he promises. So he says: Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them. He says: Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Jesus doesn’t say that the Holy Spirit will be with you always. It’s true – the Holy Spirit will be with you always – but that’s not what he says here. He says: I am with you always. This means that Jesus is always invisibly standing in the middle of his church gathered together, speaking his own words, giving his own people his own food—his own body and blood, baptising people himself to make them his own brothers and sisters. Jesus rules and reigns right down to earth in the middle of his church, and he is the one who pours out the Holy Spirit upon us right in our midst.

This point can’t be said often enough, because it always seems that we are forgetting this. Maybe it’s because it’s just too good to imagine! There are whole churches that don’t believe this and think that Jesus isn’t here at all, and that his kingdom will only come about sometime in the future. Jesus’ kingdom will be revealed before our eyes on the Last Day, but even now, invisibly, Jesus is walking along the road with us, just like he was with the disciples going to Emmaus. He is standing among us just as he did with his disciples behind the locked doors on Easter evening.

+++

It’s this teaching that is at the heart of our gospel reading today, where Jesus says: I am the good shepherd.

Today, many people don’t seem to like this image, at least, not like they used to in a time gone by. If people go up to a pastor and say, “How’s your flock going?”, they often mean it to mock the pastor and poke fun. People don’t like being compared to a cute little lamb in the arms of a shepherd. People don’t want to be compared to a “dumb sheep” wandering off in all directions. They don’t want to be thought of as so helpless.

But right at the heart of all this is the fact that people don’t want to submit themselves to Jesus’ authority. They don’t want to be obedient to their shepherd.

In fact, people don’t like authority in general. They don’t respect their politicians, the police, their school-teachers, their bosses at work, children don’t respect their parents. In fact, I’ve heard of some stories where parishioners have gone up to a pastor and said, “We’ll get you out of this parish in a couple of years”, or even a man who said to his pastor on his installation, “I’ve got my eye on you!” This is shocking unchristian behaviour!

And so, it’s no wonder – if people don’t want to submit to authorities that are visible and right before their eyes, they probably won’t want to submit to Jesus, who is our invisible shepherd.

If we could picture the glory and the majesty and the power and the authority of Jesus just as John saw him in Revelation, we would also fall down at Jesus’ feet just like John. We sing about this glory every Sunday when we sing: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace! Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! Heaven and earth are full of your glory!

But here Jesus speaks to us with all that same authority and declares himself to us as our king, our Lord, our ruler and our shepherd. And he says: I am the good shepherd.

And a shepherd cannot rule and guide his flock from a multi-storey office block. He rules and guides his flock by being with them, by watching out for them, by spending the night with them and staying awake for them. This is the sort of shepherd Jesus is for us. There is beautiful prayer to Jesus in Luke 24 where the disciples say: Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.

Even today in the church, Jesus allows us to share his authority with him through his word and in prayer. When we pray with him, we rule and govern the world with him. When we pray together with Jesus, we are like his cabinet ministers, giving him our opinions and concerns. Jesus says: I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

But also, when we speak the word of God, whether it is as a pastor in the pulpit, or when we sing the word of God together, or read it at home, or speak about it and chew it over at home with our family or friends, Jesus promises to be there and to speak his word himself.

As a church today, we want to influence the world and we want to make an impact on our society. But Jesus doesn’t give us influence over people. Jesus didn’t give to his disciples influence over the unclean spirits. He gave them authority over the spirits.

We try to be friendly and do nice things for people, works of charity and all sorts, raise money for projects, because we think it will influence people. But Jesus doesn’t call us to influence the world, he lets us share in his authority over the world, and over the unclean spirits. His authority comes with his word, spoken in preaching, spoken in our prayers, spoken as we comfort and strengthen each other.  Sometimes we simply just can’t be as friendly and nice as we would like all the time—we are sinners and we don’t even live up to the standards that we set for ourselves, let alone God’s standards. But the church’s mission is not to influence people through our own gifts but to send out God’s call and bring people under the authority of Christ in holy baptism, out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light. This has to do with authority: the authority of our good shepherd.

Now, often when we think about authority, or submission to authority and obedience, we think of military dictators like the Taliban, Gaddafi, Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler. We think of people who have misused and abused their authority. But how does Jesus use his authority?

We read: The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

This is quite strange. Probably, if I were the shepherd, and a wolf came, and I thought the wolf was too strong for me, I would probably run away like the hired hand. It doesn’t make any sense to me to be killed for the sake of a few little sheep!

But Jesus talks in a very different way. He says: I lay down my life for the sheep. Why would he do this? What’s the use of a shepherd sacrificing his life for the sheep? What’s the use of the wolf devouring the shepherd instead? Once the wolf had killed and eaten the shepherd and then became hungry again, wouldn’t he then go and start eating the lambs? What’s the use of the shepherd laying down his life?

Jesus didn’t simply die just to show that he loved us. He loved us to the bitter end and drank the full cup of God’s wrath right down to the dregs. But what was the point?

The truth is this: Jesus was devoured by the wolf. Jesus was devoured by Satan, who is a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. And what would be a more tasty banquet than Jesus’ himself?

But the wolf can’t bear to keep him in! The wolf has to vomit the shepherd back up. In fact, the shepherd tears himself out of the wolf and reappears in a great and glorious victory! It’s just like Jonah and the whale. The whale must vomit Jonah back up onto the seashore! And so when Jesus lays down his life, he gives the old wolf a terrible belly-ache! And once Jesus has risen from the dead, he has destroyed the wolf. The wolf is no more a threat to the sheep.

This is why Jesus is a truly good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

But in the last verse of our reading, Jesus says: I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Jesus brings other sheep into his fold all the time. He brings Gentiles into the fold together with Jews. He brings in new sheep together with the old rams and old ewes. He brings them from the kingdom of darkness into his marvellous light. He brings them under his authority.

And so what? Now, the church comes together to listen to the voice of Jesus. Jesus says: I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. The church is not simply a community or club of like-minded people. We don’t just come because of the faith that we share, but we come together for the sake of our faith and to strengthen it and to renew it again and again. We come together to listen to the good shepherd’s voice. And when those words of Jesus are spoken in the church in their truth and purity, that is the way our unity is maintained, because we will be one flock with one shepherd.

The early Lutherans used to call the absolution—the forgiveness of sins spoken to us in the church by the pastor in public or in private—the living voice of God from heaven. And this is true, it is not the pastor’s voice—it is the living voice of our good shepherd.

Jesus is the good shepherd who has brought us into his flock through baptism.

Jesus is the good shepherd who calls us all by name. He forgives each of us our sins and writes each of our names in the book of life.

Jesus is the good shepherd who leads us to the green pastures and flowing waters, and feeds us richly and abundantly with his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus is the good shepherd who is with us, even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He is the one who comforts us with his rod and his staff.

Jesus is the good shepherd who has lain down his life for the sheep. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that you are our good shepherd. Lead us and guide us and feed us. Amen.

Easter 2: Audio Sermon (7-Apr-2013)

Click title for link

Easter 2 [John 20:19-31] (7-Apr-2013)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am) and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale (3pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (John 20:19-31)

Thomas answered Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

At the end of our Gospel reading today, we have one of the most profound statements in the whole of the New Testament. After Thomas has been heckling the other apostles and saying, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe,” then Jesus shows up a week after his resurrection and says to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” And Thomas says to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

My God, did you say, Thomas? My God – sorry did I hear you right, Thomas?

We read in the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods”. Also we read in Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.” Hannah says in her song in 1 Samuel: “There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you.”

And now, Thomas says to Jesus that he is his Lord and his God.

In the beginning of John’s gospel, Jesus is called the only God, who is in the bosom of the Father—the only God. Also, Martin Luther writes in his famous hymn, “A mighty fortress is our God” – “With might of ours can naught be done / Soon were our fall effected / But for us fights the valiant one / Whom God himself elected / Ask ye, Who is this? / Christ Jesus it is / of Sabaoth Lord / And there’s none other God / He holds the field for ever.”

And there’s no other god?

What about the Father? What about the Holy Spirit?

But you see, there’s only one God. We confess that there is one God, but three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God the Son, Jesus Christ, died for you and shed His blood for you on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. But the Father did not die for you, and the Holy Spirit didn’t die for you. The Father and the Holy Spirit did not take on flesh and were not born of the Virgin Mary. Only God the Son, Jesus Christ, did. Only the Son is true God and true man. Jesus Christ died for you and shed His blood for you.

But where do you think Thomas was looking when he was speaking these words, “My Lord and God?” Was he looking straight ahead at Jesus or was he looking up to the sky? The Jehovah’s Witnesses—who trap ignorant Christians with their lies—don’t believe that Jesus is true God. They believe that he is less than God. They believe that when Thomas said these words he wasn’t looking straight ahead, but he was looking up at the sky. This is rubbish, and we shouldn’t be afraid to call it such.

Of course, though, they would accuse Christians of breaking the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods”. They say, “So you shouldn’t go around worshipping Jesus as well as God.” And Islam teaches the same thing. They say, “There is no God but Allah. So you shouldn’t worship Jesus as well.”

So we need to go back to our text for today and ask the question, “Who was Thomas talking to? Was he looking up, or was he looking at Jesus?”

The text says: Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

In fact, in Greek, it says: And Thomas answered and said to him. There is no doubt that Thomas is talking to Jesus. Jesus told him to put his finger in his hands, and Thomas answered him. There is no doubt that Thomas was calling Jesus his God.

It is Jesus Christ who is his God. Now, Jesus is a true man: he has a true human body, with flesh and bones and blood. His hands and his feet were nailed through. His side was pierced with a spear. And this is the same Jesus: he still has these wounds to show to the apostles and to Thomas. In fact, to show them that he is the same person as the man they saw naked and bleeding on Good Friday, he we read that he showed them his hands and his side.

And Thomas also doesn’t want a different Jesus. If his friends are telling him they have seen Jesus, Thomas will not be satisfied with a ghost, a dream or some figment of their imagination. Thomas will not be satisfied with the apostles telling him, “Jesus’ spirit lives on”, “Jesus lives in my heart now,” or “there’s a little piece of Jesus that carries on in each of us.” I’m not standing for that sort of hocus-pocus, says Thomas. Either you saw Jesus, or you saw nothing. Either you saw Jesus, or you’re lying. Either I put my finger in his hands and my hand in his side or you’re all fools and tricksters. Either Jesus is risen from the dead or else the whole thing’s a joke.

As St Paul says, If Christ had not been raised, then my preaching is in vain and so is your faith.

As long as our faithless sinful world and a world full of unfaithful churches goes on ignoring Thomas’s words here, there is no church, there is no Christianity, and there is no hope. The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have Jesus—they have a clown. When Muslims talk about Jesus, they are not talking about Jesus, they are talking about a clown. And every fool who gets up in pulpit anywhere in the world telling his parishioners that Jesus lives on in spirit instead of telling people he is risen from the dead is talking about a clown Jesus, and they are not preaching the real Jesus. These preachers of doing nothing but stealing the offerings of God and padding their own mouths and bellies with it, and using God’s own church to seek worldly causes. They are not preaching the comfort of the living Jesus, but they are giving you Satan manifesting himself as an angel of light in Jesus’ place. As Satan said to Jesus, “All this I will give you if bow down and worship me.” They are setting up an abomination in God’s own temple—a golden calf of their own imaginations—and they are falling down and worshipping it.

This cannot be said strongly enough, and this point cannot be made sharply enough. If you do not believe that Jesus is your Lord and your God, then you are simply not a Christian. If you don’t believe with Thomas that Jesus Christ is your Lord and your God, then there is no hope for you, there is no forgiveness for you, there is no eternal life for you, but you are still in your sins, and the only thing for you is weeping and gnashing of teeth. You are not worshipping the true God in spirit and in truth.

But you see, the Church belongs to Jesus Christ himself and he will not allow the light burning in his sanctuary to go out. You see, even though Jesus is a true human being, with real flesh, real blood, real wounds, he is also able to breathe out the Holy Spirit. He sends out the apostles just as his Father send him. Even though Thomas didn’t think he was saying his words in the presence of Jesus, Jesus comes to him and repeats his words back to him. “I heard you,” Jesus says. “Put your finger in my hands, just as I heard you say.” He is able to pass through into a locked room with his human body, because he is truly God.

Jesus is true man and true God. As Luther says in the Small Catechism: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person.

And these two natures of Christ, his humanity and his divinity, are always inseparably united. You can’t have a divine Christ without him being the human Christ. You can’t have a human Christ without him also being the divine Christ. When Jesus touches a person with his human hand, it is God himself who touches them. It is the hand of God. When women come and kiss Jesus feet, it is God’s own feet that that the kiss and pour their ointment over.

They are God’s own feet, because Jesus is true God and true man, and his divinity is inseparably united to his humanity all the time.

So when Jesus says, “I am with you always until the end of the age”, he doesn’t just mean in spirit, but he means that he in his humanity and divinity will be with you always. He will united you through his Holy Spirit to his own flesh, through holy baptism, just like a branch is united to a vine.

The early church often used to describe this union of Christ’s divinity and humanity like a piece of iron that a blacksmith takes and puts in the fire so that it becomes red. The iron is glowing red hot, so that you can’t separate the iron from the fire. If the glowing iron touches something, it makes a print and it burns at the same time. If you touched it, you would be burnt by the iron, because you would have truly been touching fire. So also in the same way, Jesus human nature is like the iron and his divine nature is like the fire. They are always together. And so, even though Thomas asks to see the holes in Jesus’ own human hands, he also rightly calls him, “My Lord and my God!”

You see, without Jesus as your God, you wouldn’t even have God the Father. Jesus’ human blood is united to his divinity too so that St Paul in Acts 20 even calls it God’s blood. Jesus’ blood is not the blood of God because he brought blood from him from heaven. The only blood Jesus has is that which he took from the body of his mother Mary. But it is called God’s blood because that blood is united to Jesus’ divinity in such a way that it is inflamed with divine power, and whatever it touches is touched by God.

And so this is the blood that is presented to God the Father as the perfect atonement sacrifice for sin. This is the blood that you call down upon you to protect you every time you sin or are in trouble. And because it united to Christ’s divinity, it is able to come and splash over you and cover you and make you clean. Because Jesus is human he actually has blood—but because Jesus is true God that same blood is called precious and holy. St Peter says: You were ransomed… not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.

So if Jesus were not your God, then you wouldn’t even have God the Father, because he would not be a friendly father to you without this blood of Jesus. He would not be a father for you, if you weren’t able to call on him together with Jesus and say “Our Father in heaven”. Don’t you know that even when we are alone we don’t change the Lord’s Prayer to “my Father” because even when we are in our own rooms by ourselves, we are always praying together with Jesus our Lord and our God, to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God, since he is with us always to the end of the age? Without Jesus as our God, we would have no Father, because our Father is only our Father together with Jesus.

And without Jesus as our God we wouldn’t even have the Holy Spirit. See in our Gospel reading today that Jesus breathes out the Holy Spirit upon his disciples and sends them out to forgive the sins of those who repent. Jesus wants to use the apostles (and then all their successors, the pastors of the church) to preach and speak and pronounce the forgiveness of sins in such a way that we believe that when the pastor speaks these words of Jesus in accordance with his command, that this is actually Jesus himself who is speaking. In fact, the whole liturgy is not the words of a pastor—they are the words of Jesus. It is Jesus who comes to us and says, “I forgive you”. It is Jesus who comes to us and says, “The Lord be with you.” It is Jesus who says, “The peace of the Lord be with you always.” It is Jesus who says, “This is my body given for you”, and “The Lord bless you and keep you.” And all this comes about because he himself breathes the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and until he returns again in glory, Jesus wants to fill the holy ministry of his church with his Holy Spirit. So the ministry which the apostles carry out, and which the pastors of the church still today carry out, is a ministry of speaking God’s Word, and because pastors speak the word of God, and insofar as they speak the Word of God, their ministry is a ministry of the Holy Spirit, because it is the ministry of the words of Jesus himself.

And so, Thomas is right. Jesus really is our Lord and our God!

And he comes to pray with us today, just as he does at the right hand of the Father every day. And he comes to feed us with his own body and blood today, just as he does in every divine service where Christians are gathered together. Jesus gives us access to the Father, and he breathes upon us His Holy Spirit. And all this is possible because the words of Thomas are true: You Jesus are my Lord and my God!

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, let us never forget who you are: our Lord and our God. And let me not treat you simply as Lord or God, but may you be to me my Lord and my God. Amen.