Easter Sunday (31-Mar-2013)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (7am) and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am).

http://stephenvdh.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/easter-sunday-john-201-18-24-apr-11.html

Good Friday: Audio Sermon (29-Mar-2013)

Click title for link

Good Friday [Hebrews 10:19-20] (29-Mar-2013)

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

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

Text: (Hebrews 10:19-20)

We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.

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 Old Testament in Leviticus chapter 16, we read about the Day of Atonement. In Hebrew, the Jewish people even today call it “Yom Kippur.”

And on this Good Friday, I want you to picture in your minds the Jewish ritual of this occasion. In the second half of the book of Exodus, God commanded Moses to build a tabernacle. The tabernacle was a tent, which the people of Israel—the Jewish people—carried around with them from Mt Sinai and into the land of Canaan. The tabernacle was the place of worship for the people of Israel, and God commanded them to make all kinds of offerings and sacrifices there at different times. Later on, when King Solomon ruled Israel, the tabernacle was replaced by a temple. During the time of Jesus, this first temple had been destroyed and had been replaced by a second temple. The second temple was destroyed 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and to this day has never been rebuilt.

Now picture the tabernacle (the tent) in your mind: the whole thing is a rectangle shape. It is about 45 metres by 22.5 metres. If you draw an imaginary line through the middle of the rectangle you would have 2 squares, 22.5 metres by 22.5 metres. In Hebrew, they would have said 50 cubits by 50 cubits.

If you were to walk in the front, in the middle of the first square area, there was a large altar: the altar of burnt offering. This is the place where they burnt the various animals that had to be offered there.

In the other square area, there was the tabernacle itself, the tent of meeting. This was a small narrow rectangle tent. Inside it had two parts, the first part was called the Holy Place, where there was the Altar of Incense.

You might remember at Christmas time, when John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was on duty in the temple and saw the Angel Gabriel he was standing at the Altar of Incense. The Altar of Incense was inside the Holy Place.

But then, if you imagine walking into the tent, where the Holy Place is, at the back you would see a curtain, and behind this curtain was a place called the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place. Inside the Most Holy Place was the Ark of Covenant, which is the box that the Jewish people carried with them from the wilderness into the promised land. On top of the Ark of the Covenant there was carved cherubim—that is, angels with their wings outstretched and touching, one cherub on either side of the Ark of the Covenant. On top of the Ark of Covenant, between the two cherubim was the area which was called the mercy seat.

Can you picture all this? Let’s walk outside and come back in again. You come through the front of the tent, and in the middle of the open courtyard is the Altar of Burnt Offering. In front of you, is the Tabernacle itself. If you went through into the Tabernacle you would see the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place. Behind the Altar of Incense was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place. In the middle of the Most Holy Place was the Ark of the Covenant, which had the carved cherubim with their touching wings, and on top of the Ark of the Covenant was the mercy seat.

Of course, as any old Israelite, you would never have been allowed to have a pleasant stroll around the Tabernacle, a guided tour just as I’m trying to get you to imagine. Only the priests were allowed to enter the Holy Place.

But now I want to describe for you the Day of Atonement, or “Yom Kippur”, in Hebrew.

The Day of Atonement was a particularly special day and a particularly special Jewish festival. The High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place. This was the only day of the year, when anyone was allowed to enter the Most Holy Place, and the only person who was allowed to go in was the High Priest.

The first thing he would do would be to take two animals, a bull and a ram. Then he would have to put on special clothes, which he would only wear on this one day of the year. He would put on a linen robe, and linen underwear, with a linen sash, and linen turban on his head. He had to wash his body with water and put them on.

Now, after he had the bull and the ram, and put on the special clothes, he would also take two goats.

Now he was all prepared for the next part.

He would then bring forward the bull—it was going to be offered for himself and his family.  Then he would take the two goats and put them at the entrance of the tent. Now one goat would be chosen for the Lord, and one goat would be chosen for Azazel. Azazel means a demon, for the devil, for Satan.

Now, he would kill the bull as an offering for the sin of himself and his family. He would then have to take a pan full of hot coals from the altar and put incense on it and take them behind the curtain into the Most Holy Place. The Most Holy Place would be covered in thick smoke so that the Ark, the priest –and also God – was hidden from anyone’s sight. Then he had to take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on top of the mercy seat once, and then he would sprinkle it seven times with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the floor.

So after he had done this with the bull’s blood, he would then go and do the same thing with the goat that was set apart for the Lord. The goat was for the Israelites, and for their sins. The priest would kill the goat, and then take the blood and sprinkle it on top of the mercy seat and then in front of the mercy seat seven times. The reason for doing this was the cleanse the people from their sins.

Now, when the High Priest does all this, he would come out into the Holy Place to the Altar of Incense. Here he would put the bulls blood on the four horns (the four corners) of the altar, and seven times on the floor. Then he would do the same with the goats blood: on the four horns of the altar and seven times on the floor.

Now after this, the priest would then come out of the Holy Place and mix the bull’s blood and the goat’s blood together and put it on the horns of the Altar of Burnt Offering. Then he would also have to sprinkle the blood on it seven times. The reason for doing this was to clean the altar and make the altar clean from the sin of the people. So you can see that the priest goes into the Holy of Holies to make atonement, then he goes to the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place, and then he brings the blood out to clean the Altar of Burnt Offering. The holiness of God comes out and then makes everything clean.

Altogether there was 49 sprinklings of blood, which is very significant, because 49 is 7 times 7, which is a special number.

Then after this, he would take the live goat and he would put his hands on the goat’s head and he would confess all the sins of the people over it. The High Priest would confess the sins of the people as if their sins were his own sins, and he was place these sins on the goat. Then a man would take the goat away into a remote place in the wilderness somewhere.

Now, after the goat had been sent away, then the High Priest would have to go into the tent of meeting and take off his linen vestments and leave them there. Then he would have to wash his whole body with water somewhere in there and put on his regular vestments that he would normally wear. Then he would make the normal burnt offering on the altar of burnt offering and sacrifice the ram.

You see how the Altar had to be cleaned first through the blood, and then the High Priest would offer the burnt offering. Also, after this, the bodies of the bull and the goat which were killed for the atonement in the Holy of Holies had to be carried out and burnt outside the camp.

You can see how the atonement is made in the Holy of Holies, and then the priest goes out to the Holy Place, and then to the Altar of Burnt Offering and everything becomes clean. The altar is made clean through the blood, and the dead animals are taken outside to a faraway place outside the camp.

Now, it’s taken me a long time to describe all this, and you might be scratching your head wondering what all this has to do with Good Friday.

On the day that Jesus died, as soon as he had breathed out his last breath on the cross, we read that the curtain of the temple was torn in two. In the past, the High Priest could only enter into God’s presence once a year and with very strict conditions. Now the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, is presented before the Holy of Holies, and Jesus opens up the curtain for us to enter into God’s presence. You can see in our churches today, there is no curtain in front of the altar. We all come and enter into the sanctuary and receive Christ’s body and blood.

Jesus’ blood has been sprinkled on the mercy seat, not on earth in the temple, or in the tabernacle, but before God’s own throne in heaven. Jesus’ blood makes atonement for all our sins and gives us full access into God’s presence. We don’t come into God’s presence because we are pure, but we enter into God’s presence because of the blood of Jesus Christ, which he shed for us on Good Friday.

The High Priest only entered in once a year, but now we are all made priests through the blood of Christ, and we enter into God’s presence with the blood of Christ shed for our sins, and we offer our prayers to God. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he brought his holy and precious body and blood with him and stands there as the one perfect sacrifice for all sin. There is no need to atone for our sins once a year, but on Good Friday atonement was made for every day to come.

And just as Jesus goes into the Father’s presence, so he is always coming out of the Father’s presence to make everything clean, offering us his gifts of baptism, washing us pure from all condemnation, and giving us the gifts of his body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. And he gives these things and applies them to us.

Jesus death tore the curtain in two. His atonement, his death, his sacrifice, ripped through the curtain and cleanses us of all sin. Jesus is true God and true man. Because he is a man he has blood, and because he is true God that blood has divine power to make us clean not just outside but inside of us: our hearts, our minds, our souls, our consciences. And we go and we enter through a new and living way through the curtain. We enter into a new and living way into the Father’s presence through the holy and precious blood of Jesus.

All our sin and condemnation is laid on Jesus. Jesus absorbs it just like the goat. He went out into the wilderness with Satan, and he won the victory over the devil. All the sins of the world are placed on Jesus just as if they were his own sins and he dies for them. And just like the bull and the other goat, Jesus was carried out of the city and burnt on the cross. He endured all the fire of God’s anger against sin and all the fire of his love for the world, and was made a perfect burnt offering for us. And when he had done it all and when he had made his atonement, he said, “It is finished.”

So Good Friday brings an end to the Jewish Day of Atonement. We have been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus.

Hebrews 13 says: The bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

So on this Good Friday, let’s praise our Lord Jesus Christ for his perfect sacrifice made once and for all. Let’s praise him for the atonement for our sins which he made with his own blood. Let’s continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, because on this day, on this Good Friday, the perfect blood of Jesus—true God and true man—was shed for you, so that you can enter into the Holy Places of heaven, and walk into the heavenly Jerusalem with him. Just as he said to the thief next to him, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, we praise you for your sacrifice, for your offering, for your atonement which you made for us with your blood and with your own body and life. Forgive us and purify our hearts with this same blood, and give us the confidence to enter into the Holy Place of heaven. Send us your Holy Spirit from the Father’s throne, and make us holy together with you. Amen.

Maundy Thursday: Audio Sermon (28-Mar-2013)

Click title for link

Maundy Thursday [1 Corinthians 11:23-32] (28-Mar-2013)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum, Wed 27-Mar-13 (7pm), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (11am) and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (7pm).

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

Text: (1 Corinthians 11:23-32)

This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

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.

There is no such thing as a Lutheran doctrine. Either we confess the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures or we are wrong. And when we are wrong, then we need to repent.

Often people say, “Why does every church think that they are right?” Well, first of all, every church has to believe that what it teaches is right and what it teaches is the truth, otherwise that church has no right to exist. As Jesus says: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

And this is especially so when it comes to the Lord’s Supper. Either we confess the truth about the Lord’s Supper, or we confess a lie about the Lord’s Supper. There is no in-between.

So how do we know what the truth is? Well, first of all, we are given the Holy Scriptures. And we read in Psalm 119: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.” The Scripture does not need to be interpreted. It does not need someone to come and make it clear for us. The Scripture does not need so-called bible scholars to tell simple people what it really says, although sometimes we need to check the translations and consult the original languages. The Scripture does not need the authority of a pope to make it clear.

Pastors are not called to interpret the Scripture. They are simply called to proclaim it and confess it. As Luther says in the Small Catechism: “God’s name is hallowed when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity and we as the children of God live holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven!”

Our epistle reading tonight speaks about the Lord’s Supper. And in 1 Corinthians 11:20, a few verses before our reading begins, St Paul calls it the Lord’s Supper. It is the supper that belongs to our Lord. It doesn’t belong to us, it doesn’t belong to pastors, it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to Jesus Christ our Lord—he is the one who has invented it, he is the one who has come up with the idea, he is the one who comes each time Christians come together to prepare it for us, he is the one who consecrates it and sets it apart as a holy thing, he is the one who distributes it, and he is in fact the food itself. We should give a priority to the name “the Lord’s Supper” because this is what the bible actually calls it. It’s good for us to call the Lord’s Supper what the Scripture actually calls it.

+++

Our reading tonight has two parts. In the first part, St Paul describes the Lord’s Supper itself, with those familiar words which the pastor recites every Sunday. We call these words the “Words of Institution” or particularly when they are used in the Divine Service, we call them the “Words of Consecration.”

And in the second part of our reading, St Paul teaches about how we should receive the Lord’s Supper.

+++

The first part of our reading reads like this:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

This passage has a very interesting context. Just before these words, which are so familiar to us, St Paul criticises the Corinthians very harshly about the way in which they are practising the Lord’s Supper, and preaches against their sin.

This highlights something very significant to us. Many people are looking for the key to church renewal today. We see that there is declining church attendance all throughout our country and throughout the affluent western world. And we want people to come to our churches, and such like. And sometimes this desire to have an increase in numbers in the church has become such an idol, that it has become the most important thing. Of course, we want to evangelise and encourage people to come to church. But people sometimes think that one church is better than another simply because it has a lot of people coming to it. Some of the largest churches, like the mega-churches in the big cities, preach absolute lies to encourage people to give the church more money so that they can receive material benefits from God in return. “If you give so much of your income, God will give you a Mercedes-Benz!” This stuff has been preached for years by all the Pentecostal mega-churches. Their big numbers say nothing about whether they are “healthy”, “flourishing”, or a faithful church. We little flocks need to remember that today.

So St Paul shows to the Corinthians that even though there were plenty of people coming to church, St Paul says, I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.

On one hand, an unfaithful practice of the Lord’s Supper does damage to the church. And on the other hand, the renewal of the church goes hand-in-hand with a faithful practice of the Lord’s Supper. The Supper belongs to the Lord, and it needs to be practised faithfully, or it shouldn’t be practised at all.

First of all, St Paul speaks about disunity in the church. I hear that there are divisions among you, he says. There isn’t such thing as a church with factions. Either people are following the clear words of Jesus or they are not. And every issue which has to do with church unity comes together in the Lord’s Supper. Every false expression of church unity destroys and weakens our practice of the Lord’s Supper. This is the reason why in the history of the church only those who shared a particular church’s doctrine and confession of the faith ate and drank together in the one church fellowship. To be a member of a particular church means to share the Lord’s Supper together. The Book of Concord, the book of our Lutheran confessions of the faith—which is a wonderful book for people to read, by the way—and which is professed to be upheld in the constitution of every LCA congregation and also by every pastor at their ordination, says that no one should be admitted to the Lord’s Supper unless they have first been examined. I’ve sinned against this many times and not given people the proper pastoral care that they deserve and require.

The early Lutherans really cared about what people believed when they came to the Lord’s Supper. This was never meant to be a harsh, cold rejection of people from the Supper, but church fellowship and church unity is quite different from the unity we have with people when we share a donut and a cup of a coffee with them. Church fellowship and church unity has to do with entering into the real and living presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So sometimes if we bring a friend to church, they might not be ready to receive the Lord’s Supper yet, and this situation often happens. It’s not right to simply invite everyone who happens to be at church to come to the Lord’s Supper, because not everyone who is there necessarily knows what’s going on, and they need to be taught. And when we teach people the word of God in the church, we are caring for them with God’s means and we strengthen them.

But then of course, we don’t like it when people feel left out. Well, this is a really wonderful opportunity for us to show a genuine Christian hospitality. We should walk alongside them and encourage them. If you have a friend in church who has never attended the Lord’s Supper in a Lutheran church before, and you don’t want them feel left out, well, you can sit in the pew together with them and wait until next time. Explain to them, “Listen, we’re not wanting to leave you out, but the Lord’s Supper is a very important thing, and things should be done properly, and if you would like to receive the Lord’s Supper, you should talk to the pastor about it, so that you can learn about it.” You can even give them a catechism or something which can help them learn, and try your best to answer their questions.

So often today, pastors are the only ones who have a conscience about who receives or doesn’t receive the Lord’s Supper. St Paul calls pastors servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. He says: It is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But every one in the church should take this seriously, otherwise we end up with a situation where lay people want to twist the pastor’s arm or even emotionally blackmail the pastor into giving their friend the Lord’s Supper. This has often happened to me in this parish, and it shouldn’t be the case at all. Of course, we want everyone to receive the Lord’s Supper, but we also want everyone who receives the Lord’s Supper to share in our unity of faith. Otherwise, the words of St Paul will rebuke us: When you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together, I hear that there are divisions among you. And the worse division is when there is a division between the pastor and the people. As a pastor, I don’t withhold the Lord’s Supper from some people for fun, or because I’m a member of the Taliban, or because I have a big head and love power trips. The reason for this is for the genuine real pastoral care of souls, which sometimes people just don’t understand at first. We all have to work together to encourage each other in the faith and build each other up.

On the other hand, if you don’t share in the unity of faith of another church, you shouldn’t take communion there. If you don’t believe that the pope is infallible, or if you don’t believe that the Lord’s Supper is an atoning sacrifice on behalf of all the living and also those souls still in purgatory, or if you don’t believe that you should pray to Mary, then you shouldn’t take the Lord’s Supper in the Catholic Church. If you don’t believe that Christians can believe whatever they like so long as they have a bishop, then you shouldn’t take communion in the Anglican Church. And the same goes for other churches, if they deny the virgin birth, or the resurrection, or the true presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. Church unity comes through a shared faith, not a shared institution, or a shared nationality, or a shared sense of friendship. You might think I’m being a bit strict about this, but the Lord’s Supper is such a serious business: It is Jesus Christ’s own will for us, given to his disciples on the night on which he was betrayed, before he went to die for the sins of the whole world. It is so important that we commune with a good conscience and for the benefit of our conscience. And it’s precisely in these sometimes awkward contexts where our Lord Jesus Christ gives each of us the opportunity to give a faithful witness to the truth, and to let our light shine in the world.

Now St Paul goes on to speak about specific abuses of the Lord’s Supper in the church of Corinth, and how some would gorge themselves with food, and some would go hungry.

But this is the context that St Paul then speaks the Words of Institution.

He says: For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

You see from our text that our church has always taught the simple words of Jesus. When we come to the Lord’s Supper, what is placed into our hands and into our mouths is in fact the Lord’s own body through the bread. What is poured into our lips is in fact our Lord’s own blood through the wine. We don’t understand how this comes about, except that we trust that our Lord’s words are true and clear. This eating and drinking of our Lord’s body and blood is what we are called to do in remembrance of him.

You can be certain that the Lord’s Supper is not a memorial meal of only bread and wine, where Christ’s body and blood are absent. You can be certain that this is not the case, because Jesus himself on the night he was betrayed said, “This is”, and he did not say, “This represents” or “this symbolises.”

It is a great miracle that Jesus on the first Maundy Thursday, as he celebrated the Passover with his disciples, was able to say, “This is my body”, even though they could see him in his body sitting in front of them. That is no hindrance to Jesus, whose true human body is inseparably united to his divinity, in such a way that his human body can be present in different ways and in different places at the same time, just as Christians throughout the world on Sunday mornings can eat and drink the same body and blood of Christ in whichever church they are attending.

We don’t believe that we are chewing on Jesus’ fingernails or crushing up his bones. This is not what Jesus meant. We are not adding anything to Good Friday, and re-sacrificing Christ every week. The Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice; it is a gift of God, where Jesus Christ himself comes and visits us and brings all the benefits of his death and resurrection to us, by putting his body and blood into our hands and mouths, as often as we eat and drink these things.

Now how often should you come and receive the Lord’s Supper. Jesus simply says: As often as you drink it. There is no rule here. You should want to come as often as the opportunity presents itself, but as well there’s no rule if you can’t come for a while. The matter is completely free.

Then at the end of this first part of our reading, St Paul says: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

You see here how St Paul still speaks about the elements as bread and cup, even though they have been consecrated as the body and blood of Christ. This is because there is a very special union which occurs between the bread and the body of Christ, and the wine and the blood of Christ, in such a way that through the bread we receive the body of Christ, and through the wine we receive the blood of Christ. And when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death and look forward to the time when he comes again in glory.

+++

Now in the second part of the reading we read this:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

Notice here that St Paul does not talk about people being “unworthy” to receive the Lord’s Supper, but he talks about people receiving it “unworthily”. Now what’s the difference? No-one is worthy to receive the Lord’s Supper—we are all sinners, and fall short of the glory of God. None of us deserves to receive it, and no-one should think that they are worthy to receive it. There should be nothing that we have in our hand with which we claim to be worthy to receive the Lord’s Supper.

But St Paul says that a person can receive the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy way, or in an unworthy manner, or unworthily. A person who eats and drinks unworthily, he says, will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. (This passage also strengthens our belief in the true presence of Christ’s body and blood. How can a person be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord, if these things aren’t there?)

So St Paul says: Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. For if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

If the Lord’s Supper would give you a bad conscience, then stay away from it, and talk to your pastor. If the Lord’s Supper gives you a bad conscience, then it’s doing the opposite of what it should do. Also, it sometimes happens, that when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated, especially in large celebrations, that all sorts of factions in the church are appeased one way or another through the Lord’s Supper to the offense of someone else. Once again, the Lord’s Supper is for good conscience, not to create a bad conscience. So St Paul calls us to examine ourselves: first of all, to examine our conscience, with respect to our sin. If we don’t believe that we are sinners and don’t believe that we are completely unworthy of the supper, then we receive the supper unworthily. But if we believe that we are unworthy of it, then we do receive it worthily.

But also, St Paul says: For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. St Paul calls us to discern the body, to recognise that it is actually our Lord’s body that we come to receive, and nothing less than that. St Paul even says: That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. Many people today believe that the Lord’s Supper itself—especially the communion from a common chalice—will make them ill. But the Lord’s Supper is Jesus’ own invention—he knows what he’s doing, and he is present in the Supper himself, not to distribute evil and disease to us, but to distribute blessings and life and forgiveness and salvation to us. If people do become sick, St Paul says, it is not because there is anything wrong with the Supper, it is because a person has received the supper unworthily, not examined themselves, and not discerned the body. The Lord himself is there to administer his blessings to us, and also his judgment. But St Paul says: If we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. Even when we are disciplined, the Lord Jesus himself is giving us a wake up call, calling us to repentance.

And so, as we remember the night on which Jesus was betrayed, let us love one another as Christ has loved us, so that all people may know that we are his disciples.

Let us examine ourselves in heart and mind and come to partake of this most holy mystery—this wonderful supper, which the Lord Jesus comes and prepares and consecrates for us himself. He comes into the world not to condemn the world but so that the world may be saved through him. He comes to celebrate his supper with his disciples and he comes to love them to the very end. He comes to wash our feet and humbly to share our life with us.

This is the body of Christ which is given for you.

This is the new covenant in Christ’s blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Let us eat this bread and drink this cup and proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, what a wonderful and precious gift you have given us in your own holy supper—your flesh and blood which you have bequeathed into our hands and mouths as our precious inheritance. Strengthen us with this supper that our joy may be full. Amen.

Palm Sunday [John 12:12-19] (24-Mar-2013)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am, lay reading), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (10am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (2pm), St John's Lutheran Church, Sale (4pm) and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale, Tues 26-Mar-2013 (11am).
http://stephenvdh.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/palm-sunday-john-1212-19-17-apr-11.html

Lent 5: Audio Sermon (17-Mar-2013)

Click title for link

Sermon for Lent 5 on the Divine Name YHWH [John 8:46-59] (17-Mar-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 8:46-59)

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

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 our sermon today, I will not set out so much as to explain our whole Gospel reading, but I want to focus on the last couple of verses particularly.

Jesus says at the end of his discussion with the Jewish people: “Before Abraham was, I am.” And then we read they picked up stones and tried to throw them at him.

Now why did they react like this?

The answer to this question takes us all the way back to Exodus. In Exodus chapter 3, we read about where Moses sees the burning bush, where the bush was burning and yet it was not consumed. We read in Exodus that the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush.

Sometimes today, I have heard people say, “Why doesn’t God appear in burning bushes today?” They say this because they don’t believe in God, and the think that if they saw something like what Moses saw, they would believe. But here’s the thing: God didn’t appear to other people in burning bushes. And according to the bible, God didn’t appear to Moses ever again in a burning bush, and he never appeared to anyone in a burning bush ever again. It was a completely once-off occasion. In fact, at the beginning of the book of Hebrews it says: Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. So as Christians, we’re not looking for new revelations, and we’re not looking for new things for God to reveal to us, because Jesus has come, and he is the perfect teacher of all God’s knowledge and wisdom. He is our righteousness and he teaches us righteousness. He is our salvation and he teaches us salvation. And so in the church today, we simply read the living words of Jesus, and we preach on them. And when we do this, and week after week teach people a little bit more of everything that Jesus has commanded us, then we know that Jesus himself is present through his own words being spoken, as he says: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them…and teaching them everything I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always until the end of the age.

So you can see, this is the church’s task in the world today: to make disciples through baptising and teaching. But not just teaching anything: teaching the words of Jesus. And also, we don’t want to be selective and pick and choose which words of Jesus to teach, but we want to teach all the words of Jesus, and leave nothing out. As St Paul says: I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

Now, back to Exodus. Moses is given a unique experience that no-one else has ever experienced: God speaks to him from the midst of a burning bush. And on this particular occasion, God calls Moses to lead the Israelite people out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land of Canaan, and to worship him at Mt Sinai.

When God said this, Moses said: If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, “The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

To understand this passage properly, we need to learn a little bit of Hebrew. In English we have consonants and vowels. The vowels are the long sounds we make: A, E, I, O, U. The consonants are the sounds you make without using your vocal chords: like B, C, D, F, etc.

In Hebrew, all the letters of the alphabet are consonants. There are no letters in Hebrew that make vowel sounds. Instead, when they write vowels in Hebrew, they have some little dots and dashes that they put underneath the letters to tell you which vowel to use. Sometimes in Hebrew, they leave the vowels out—you’re just supposed to know what vowels to put in. So reading Hebrew is a bit like when you open up the phone book, like the White Pages or the Yellow Pages, and the names of streets and towns and suburbs are shortened, and you just have to know what the missing letters are. So if it says that someone lives at: Drnm, you just have to guess that it means Darnum. That’s a little bit like how Hebrew works.

So in Exodus here, God says to Moses: I AM WHO I AM. In Hebrew, this reads: ‘ehyeh asher ‘eyheh. Then God says: Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM (‘ehyeh) has sent me to you.’ So the word in Hebrew for I am is ‘ehyeh. In the English translation of the bible they also write these two expressions: I AM WHO I AM, and I AM (as in “I AM” has sent me to you) with capital letters, to show you that this is a special thing that God is speaking here.

Then we read in English: Say to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers… has sent me to you.’

In the English bible, we have the word LORD written in capital letters. And if you look in your bible at home all throughout the Old Testament, you will often find the word LORD written in capital letters. Now this is always used to translate the name that God speaks here, which in Hebrew is spelled, “YHWH”.

You can see here, that there are no vowels here, just four letters: YHWH. (This name is closely related to the word “I AM” (‘ehyeh).)

Now, what happened in Jewish history is that at one time before Jesus was born, at least about three hundred years before Jesus, the Jewish people stopped pronouncing this name YHWH. The reason for doing this was that they didn’t want to break the second commandment which says: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Or: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Instead, they used to say the Hebrew word: Adonai, which means Lord. And so right up until this day, we translate the word with the English: LORD, written with capital letters.

Now, some people think these Jewish people were being superstitious. What’s the point of God revealing his name, if they would never say it? But also, we notice that in Exodus, Moses doesn’t start addressing him with this name straight away, but uses the word, Lord (Adonai). God didn’t accuse Moses of showing him disrespect. Just because YHWH is a distinct name for God, doesn’t mean that it is the only way to address him. For example, my name is Stephen van der Hoek. But sometimes, people simply call me Stephen, Pastor, Mr van der Hoek or sir, or daddy according to the context. Some people from other countries may even call me Stefan (as in German) or Stefano (in Italian) or even Tapani (in Finnish), depending on where they are from.

This example does not correspond 100%. Still today, because the Jewish people stopped pronouncing this name, there is a dispute over exactly how it should be pronounced. In the mediaeval times, people thought that it should be pronounced, “Yehowah” or “Jehovah.” It’s unanimously agreed today that this is not correct. We still use this word Jehovah in a couple of old hymns, and also the Jehovah’s Witnesses use it in the name of their church. The most popular form of pronouncing YHWH today is Yahweh.

Even now, we sing in the church, “Hallelujah”, which means Praise the Lord, or praise YAH, which is a short form of YHWH.

There are some people around today, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Sacred Name Movement, and some other groups, insist that this whole business is a Jewish superstition or a Roman Catholic conspiracy, and that we should always use the divine name. (When there’s no other answer, blame it on all those secret things locked up in the Vatican vaults!) There have also been some bible translations that have replaced the traditional “LORD” with “Yahweh”, and such like.

So what did Jesus think about all of this?

Well, now we have to go back to the biblical languages again. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek. Greek wasn’t actually the language that Jesus spoke, but was the most widely spoken language of the time. Jesus himself spoke Aramaic.

Beware of people who want to tell you that the real version of the New Testament was written in Aramaic. There were some Aramaic translations of the New Testament done very early on, and there are still some people today in Syria who speak this. The language called Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic which is still used in Syrian churches. Every now and then, there is some Aramaic written out in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus is called “Rabbi” or “Rabboni”: meaning, my teacher. Jesus says to a man “Ephphatha” which means “be opened.” Jesus says to a little girl, “Talitha cumi” which means “Little girl, arise.” And on the cross, we read that Jesus prayed, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Before the time of Jesus, when they translated the Hebrew bible into Greek, instead of transliterating YHWH into Greek, they always wrote “Kyrios”, which means Lord, just as the Hebrew people were doing. The most common version of the Greek Old Testament is called to Septuagint and was translated over 100 years before Jesus. At the time, many Jews had spread into Greek speaking countries such as Greece, or Egypt, and so the Old Testament was translated into Greek.

We never read in the New Testament about Jesus going out of his way to teach people how to say YHWH again. He seems to have simply followed on the practice that was current in his day, and to say the word “Lord.” We read for example in Luke 4 where Jesus went to the synagogue and picked up the scroll and said “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me.” And then we read that the people were impressed by what he said. They weren’t upset. But if someone had pronounced the divine name in those days—as is still the case among Jews today—it would have been considered a great offence.

Jesus is much more accustomed to call God “Father”. This does cause offence!

But also, when we see the word “Lord” in the New Testament, we have to bear in mind what’s behind this word. So when it says, “Jesus Christ is Lord”, it means Jesus Christ is YHWH. Jesus Christ is same God who spoke to Moses in the burning bush. Just listen to how significant these passages are. St Paul says in Philippians 2: Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Also, St Paul says in 1 Corinthians: No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

Also, Thomas says to Jesus after the resurrection, My Lord and my God!

Now, in our Gospel reading today, Jesus says something, and then the Jewish people want to kill him. What does he say?

Jesus says: Before Abraham was, I am. Do you understand why they wanted to pick up stones and throw at him? Jesus was saying that he existed before Abraham. He even says, Abraham rejoiced to see his day. And instead of saying, “I was before Abraham” or “I existed before Abraham”, he says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And when he uses this phrase, “I am”, Jesus is saying that he is the same God who spoke to Moses in the burning bush. I AM WHO I AM. Say to the people, I AM has sent me to you.

Jesus is not just a human being, but he is also the bread of life who came down from heaven. He came down from heaven and took flesh from the Virgin Mary. He is born of the virgin, and also conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3: No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Also, later in John’s gospel, we read about when Jesus was arrested. Jesus says to the soldiers: Whom do you seek? And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And he said to them, “I am he.” (In Greek, it simply says, I am.) Now just so that you don’t miss how significant this is, John tells us, When Jesus said to them, “I am”, they drew back and fell to the ground.

This name is so powerful that it causes the soldiers to fall to their knees.

When Jesus was on trial, the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I AM, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

You can see how important it is for us to know the whole bible, so that we understand what Jesus is talking about when he says these things.

So as we prepare for Palm Sunday next week, Good Friday, and Easter again, let’s remember just who this Lord Jesus is. Let’s take it to heart just what it means to call Jesus Lord.

We read: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Let the world take offence at Jesus, and let them take offence at us Christians, his disciples calling him Lord, calling him I AM, calling him—Jesus—YHWH, the same God who spoke to Moses, and let Jesus hide himself from them, and let him come and hide himself with us. Let Jesus come and stay with us, and abide with us. Let him come and speak to us through his word, feed us with his sacrament, and reign among us as our Lord, who was, who is, and who is to come. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Come and rule over us as our Lord, come and rule your church through your word. Send your Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we may cry out “Abba Father” and pray together with you. Amen.

Funeral of Willy Hirsch: Audio Sermon (13-Mar-2013)

Click title for link

Funeral of Willy Hirsch [Isaiah 53:4-6] (13-Mar-2013)

This sermon was preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon, 2pm.

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

Text: (Isaiah 53:4-6)

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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.

When we come together for funeral such as this one today, we come face to face with a hard fact of life: that with every friendship that we have, we always know that one of us is going to die first. Which one’s it going to be?

It’s one thing for us to know this in our heads, but it’s another thing for us to experience it. When we experience this, grief comes upon us and sorrow comes upon us. Tears come to us in a way that they would never have come to us the day before.

And we might think that with someone like Willy that we’re kind of pleased that he went in such a way that he didn’t suffer too much, that things weren’t drawn out, and all that sort of thing. But it’s still a shock, that one day he’s here and next day he’s not.

In the Christian faith, we don’t believe that death and grief and sorrow were part of God’s original creation. If we don’t understand this, then people start to think that all this business—death, suffering, sadness—it’s all God’s fault. But this isn’t the case. We read in the beginning of the bible: God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good.

So where did all this stuff come from? Many people in western countries today, like Australia, Europe and America, don’t believe that the devil exists. And this is a very serious thing. The devil is not equal to God in any way. In fact, we believe that he is a creation of God—though God also didn’t create the devil evil. Satan fell into sin, and wanted to be like God. And so the devil wants to look at all the good things that God has created, and he wants to corrupt them. He wants to twist everything, to turn everything around, to make everything rotten.

He wants to look at the obedience of people, and he wants to corrupt them and twist them around into disobedience. He wants to turn love into hate, he wants to turn life into death, joy into sadness.

And so, here we are, living our everyday human existence on this earth. And we have days of sadness, and days of happiness. Our life is such a mixed bag, and a lot of the time we don’t know what one day will bring after another.

But there’s one thing that God can do that the devil cannot do. The devil can’t create anything, he only corrupts stuff and messes things up. But just as God can create things in the first place, he creates things again. He can bring about a new creation, and he can bring good things again out of the bad things. He can bring joy out of sorrow, life out of death. Just as in the beginning the world was such a wonderful, painless, happy place, so also at the end of the bible, St John writes: I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

So the bible teaches, and the Christian faith believes that death and sadness and sorrow and tears are not things that God built into the world. But they were added in later, through the devil’s corruption, and finally, in the end, they will be removed by God himself.

+++

In the passage we just read before it says: God himself will be with them as their God.

Even now, in this life, God himself comes to be with us as our God. The Christian faith believes in the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And each Christian is baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three gods but one God.

And when we are baptised, we go to be with God, and God comes to be with us. We are united with God, though it’s not seen.

But God also comes to be with us, in that God the Son, Jesus Christ, took human flesh and became a true human being, a real living and breathing man with flesh and blood, and came and lived among us. He died on the cross and rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at God’s right hand. He prays for us all the time. Even now, in his human flesh, he comes and he walks with us. He speaks to us through his Word in his church. He makes us part of his body in holy baptism, and feeds us with his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus is always with us as Christians, not simply in a spiritual way, but in his body, though we can’t see it. So every time we come together as Christians, we are coming together into the presence of the living, resurrected Jesus.

At Christmas time, the angel called Jesus, Immanuel, which is Hebrew for “God with us”. When Jesus had risen from the dead, Thomas called him: My Lord and my God. And before Jesus ascended into heaven, he said, I will be with you always to the end of the age. Do you see, that even now, Jesus is with us? He comes to be with his church and with his people in their time of need. He comes to be with you in your time of need.

In Isaiah chapter 53, our sermon text for today, it says: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This is the passage I read at the very beginning of our sermon today. And for many Christians it is a very well-known passage. It speaks very clearly about Jesus—there is no-one else who has ever lived whom it could be talking about—and yet it was written 700 years earlier. Jesus died around the year 30 AD and Isaiah lived around 700 BC.

And he writes: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Jesus is not so aloof that he doesn’t come and share our griefs and sorrows with us. In fact, he bears them, he carries them. Before Jesus was crucified, he prayed and cried in the garden. When his friend Lazarus had died, and he went to go and raise him up from the dead, we read in John’s gospel: Jesus wept. (This is the shortest verse in the bible, and perhaps the most profound.) At this time of sadness at our funeral today, he lets us share a little bit of his sadness with him, not to push us away from him, but to draw us nearer. Jesus comes to make a new creation out of our tears, and to bring us comfort in our sadness. And not only does he let us share his sorrow with him, but he comes and shares our sorrow with us. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Then Isaiah paints us a picture of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion: Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

And this is very appropriate for us at this time, as we come together for this funeral today only a couple of weeks before Good Friday and Easter. Everything that Jesus did he did for us and for our benefit. In the end, he did everything for our salvation, which we look forward to and which we even participate in now through holy baptism and the Word of God. But for our life now, everything Jesus did he did for our comfort here as we look forward to the next life with him. The chastisement, that means when he was flogged, brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

And finally, Isaiah says: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

We are coming together today to farewell our father, our grandfather, our husband, our good friend, Willy. We come as friends to farewell a friend! And we come as fellow battlers to farewell another battler. We even come as fellow sinners to farewell another sinner! The text says: We have turned—every one—to his own way. We don’t need to be afraid to call a dead person a sinner, as if that means that he’s not acceptable to God, and not worthy of heaven. No-one is. People are saved simply and purely by God’s grace, and because of his love and his forgiveness. Holy Baptism is God’s work on us, not our work for God. If all of us were so perfect and pure then Jesus’ death isn’t worth anything.

And so Isaiah says: The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. God the Father placed on Jesus the sin of not just some people, but us all, it says. And even now, he places upon the Lord Jesus who is risen from the dead all our cares, our worries, our griefs and our sorrows, and let’s Jesus share them with us. But also he comes and shares his forgiveness, his joy, his peace with us. This is what it means when it says: I will be with you always to the end of the age.

And so let’s finish this sermon and our meditation on God’s word today with the words of Jesus: I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, come and bear our griefs and carry our sorrows today. We thank you for this opportunity to give thanks to you for Willy, and we entrust him into your care, your love and your grace. Comfort us with your Word and with your Holy Spirit. Amen.