Easter V [Acts 8:25-40] (29-April-2018)

This sermon was preached at the Parish Picnic at the Lions' Park in Biggenden, 10am, and Woodgate Community Hall, Woodgate, 5pm. 

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

Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

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

Today in our sermon, we’re going to take a little break from our normal focus on the Gospels, and focus on our first reading from the book of Acts, which tells about the ministry of the evangelist Philip and the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch. It’s a very interesting and rich passage, and it’s very helpful for us today, as many Christians like us would like to see many more people convert to the Christian faith, possibly like this man in our reading.

Now we read today about Philip. The book of Acts tells us what happened in the church after Jesus ascended into heaven, and we read about many key events as the church began to grow. In Acts 6, we read about seven men who were chosen to help the apostles and share their work, so that the apostles could dedicate themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Philip was one of these men, and so was Stephen. Stephen was stoned to death, and after this time, there was a great persecution of Christians, and many people were forced out of Jerusalem. Philip was caught up in all of this, and ended up going to Samaria, and then we come to our reading today.

So we read: An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza”. And it says: This is a desert place. Humanly speaking, it doesn’t seem like Philip is about to embark on a very fruitful mission trip. Why would the angel send Philip out into the middle of nowhere? Often people think about mission in a wrong way. They think we need to plant a church in an area where there is a new booming housing development, or something like that. They think of the church like a secular business. Philip does not go to an area which is “financially clever”. Instead, he simply goes where God wants him to go.

We read: And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. We read that he was an Ethiopian…a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. Candace was the title of the queens in an area of ancient Ethiopia, on the river Nile, called Meroë. This area today would be in the northern part of Sudan. The ruins of ancient Meroë are still there. It also says he was a eunuch. A eunuch usually refers to a man who has been castrated, and in many ancient cultures, this was done to court officials and soldiers. And because of this, the man himself probably had a high-pitched voice, like a boy, which is why it was probably obvious that he was a eunuch.

So Philip comes across this strange, wealthy man from a far-away country. In Acts chapter 1, Jesus says to his apostles: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. In the book of Acts, we see this start to happen. The gospel is first preached in Jerusalem, and then when the persecution happens, the Gospel moves out to Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. At the end of Acts, Paul preaches the gospel in Rome. Here the Gospel was probably spread through this man back to Ethiopia. You can see the Gospel moving to the ends of the earth.

But also, in the book of Genesis, we read that Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth, and from these three sons the entire human race would have descended. The Jews were descended from Shem. But the Ethiopians, or the people from the kingdom of Cush, were descended from Ham. So as the Gospel moves from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, we also see the Gospel moving from the Jews, the descendants of Shem, to the descendants of Ham and Japheth. The Gospel is moving from the Jews to the whole human race.

So we read: The Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Today it’s common for people when we’re reading the bible, not to ask, “What does it mean?” but “What does it mean to you?” Now this can be dangerous, because people think that they can twist the bible to make it say anything. But St Peter writes: No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

St Paul also says that all Scripture is inspired by God. This means that all of the bible was written by people, by human beings, but those people were all inspired by God, and lead along by the Holy Spirit. Here the Ethiopian man is reading Isaiah. Isaiah wrote this book, and it has Isaiah’s personality all over it, and it’s different from reading other prophets like Daniel or Jeremiah. And yet, the Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah and Daniel and Jeremiah, and all the other biblical authors, so that their word is not just a human word, but it is the word of God. St Paul says in 1 Thessalonians: When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

So for every book of the bible, we have two authors: we have the human author, in this case, the prophet Isaiah, and God himself, the Holy Spirit. Now, if someone writes something in the newspaper or a book, and we don’t understand what they mean, technically we could write to them or ring them, and simply ask what they meant. When a writer dies, we can’t do this anymore. So here, the prophet Isaiah is dead, but the other author of the book is the Holy Spirit, and he is still alive. And so we can still “ring up” the Holy Spirit if you like, and ask him to help us understand the Scriptures. Also, many times the Holy Spirit blesses particular people with a special gift of interpretation, and this is what happens here. Philip is an experienced interpreter of the Scripture, and the Ethiopian recognises this, and invites him to help him understand what he is reading.

We read: Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. Here we see how the Holy Spirit opens the door and gives Philip a wonderful opportunity to talk to him about Jesus, and from this text.

We see here how Philip carries out what Jesus had said: teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Philip teaches the man. The passage from Isaiah speaks about Jesus like a sheep led to the slaughter, not opening his mouth. Jesus is our sacrificial lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who makes atonement and full payment for all of our sins. When he was on trial, he remained silent, even though with one little word, he could have brought the whole thing to an end. We see how on the cross, his life is taken away from the earth. Jesus stretched out his hands on the cross, and breathed his last breath.

One of the most amazing things about the bible is the way in which we see such wonderful clear prophecies about the life of Jesus in the Old Testament. Two passages especially are Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, which the Ethiopian man was reading. You can’t help but read these two chapters and see how Jesus’ suffering and death is described in explicit detail. And yet, Psalm 22 was written around 1000 years before Jesus, and Isaiah 53 was written around 800 years before Jesus.

Psalm 22 says: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus prays these words himself on the cross. It says: All who see me mock me: “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him!” These are the exact words that people said when they mocked Jesus on the cross. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongues sticks to my jaws. Jesus’ mouth is parched when he says: I thirst. They divide my garments among them, and for clothing they cast lots. The Roman soldiers really did cast lots for Jesus clothes. But then if we go to Isaiah 53, it says: He had no form or majesty that we should look at him. Jesus face and appearance were disfigured through the torture he endured. He was a man of sorrows. We see Jesus deeply sorrowful in the Garden of Gethsemane. It says: He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, with his wounds we are healed. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. I could read so much more of this chapter, but we can see how clearly this chapter speaks of Jesus 800 years in advance.

Philip had many opportunities to speak about Jesus from this chapter that the eunuch was reading. But then as they were travelling along, it says: they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What presents me from being baptised?” There is something very special about this Ethiopian man. He doesn’t go away to think about it, he doesn’t weigh up his world-view or philosophy. He simply believes what Philip says to him, and he wants to be baptised immediately. It’s just like when Jesus says to Matthew, Follow me, and he immediately rose and followed him. When the eunuch hears Philip speak about Jesus, he is hearing Jesus himself, just as Jesus promised: I am with you always to the end of the age. Whoever receives you, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives the one who sent me.

Today, there are many churches that just don’t care about baptism very much. And sometimes we meet Christians who have gone to church for years, and were never baptised. In the New Testament, this just doesn’t happen. The eunuch here understands that being a Christian means being baptised, and being baptised means being a Christian. Period.

Sometimes someone might ask you: When did you become a Christian? Most Lutherans would say: When I was baptised. This eunuch would have said the same thing too. Maybe he was actually converted a few minutes before, but it doesn’t matter. The problem today is that many people put all the emphasis on their personal conversion in their heart. Now it is important that we are all converted, and that we are not just simply hypocritical Christians who go through the motions. However, it is common to hear Christians say that they became a Christian when they made a decision to follow Jesus.

Now the problem with this is that our decisions always have our sinful motives all mixed up with them. A young person might go to a youth camp and drinks far too much lemonade, and then later on that night, they give their heart to Jesus. Then later, they think: was I being genuine, or was it the lemonade talking? When people look to the heart, they start to doubt. But baptism is a solid rock, because it’s not your work; it’s God’s work. If you want to become a citizen of America or Indonesia, or whatever country, you can’t just decide to become one. You have to be received by those countries as a citizen. And so in conversion, we don’t simply choose to follow Jesus, because even our choices are corrupt. The Holy Spirit has to convert our will and our choices too. In baptism, Jesus receives us into his kingdom as a full citizen, and then we know that we belong to his heavenly country. The eunuch is our passage is a citizen of his own home country, Ethiopia, and works for a wealthy queen, but then after listening to Philip, he asks to become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, with Jesus the Son of God as his king. This baptism is the solid rock then on which he builds his faith. His faith may waver and sway in strength from day to day, but Jesus and his baptism will never move.

Also, even though the eunuch was reading the Scripture, his heart was still closed to it. It was an angel who sent Philip. The Holy Spirit urged and prompted Philip to go and meet this Ethiopian eunuch. God was the one who took the action in converting this man, and without that action of God, nothing could be done. You remember Lazarus was dead in the tomb for four days. He didn’t choose to rise from the dead. It was Jesus who chose to go there, and to raise him up. The dead man didn’t exert himself at all—he was dead! So also, Philip meets this man, with a dead mind, who couldn’t understand the Scripture without the Holy Spirit’s help. And he teaches him, he baptises him, and the man is raised from the dead.

Ethiopia today, by the way, has one of the largest populations of Christians in the world. It has 40 million members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and there are even 9 million Lutherans in that country, making it the largest Lutheran church body in the world. It is often said that this Ethiopian eunuch was the first then to bring the Gospel back to his own country. A man who was physically made a slave to his queen, by being castrated, and couldn’t have a family of his own, now through the Gospel goes home and becomes the spiritual father of a large nation. The man is given a new birth in holy baptism, and is given a new identity and a new calling, a new vocation, and a new task. So it says: He commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him.

There’s a wonderful way that this reading ends. It says: And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. It must have been quite some powerful teaching that Philip gave that man! As soon as the man was taught by Philip and then is baptised, Philip is immediately taken out of the situation. The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. I would think that Philip and the eunuch would like to have stayed friends and carried on the friendship long into their old age. But that wasn’t to be. Philip was there for one minute and then he was gone.

Sometimes when we as Christians want to talk to people about the Christian faith, we often make a big emphasis on building relationships with people. Now this is good, but sometimes we start to think that people’s conversion depends upon our relationships with people. But it doesn’t. Sometimes we meet someone for a few minutes, and we can say something that completely changes a person’s life, sometimes when we didn’t even realise it. The Holy Spirit might send us somewhere for a very brief time, and then as soon as we have been of whatever use God wanted us to be, we are removed from the situation, never to see the person again. This is what happens here too. But the Ethiopian is not sad that Philip has been taken away, but it says: he went on his way rejoicing. He has something even more wonderful that his friend Philip, he has Jesus with him. He has his Saviour, his Lord, his Redeemer, his King, with him, and if he has Jesus, then of course, he can go on his way rejoicing.

And so let’s give thanks to God for the wonderful way in which he has taught us through his Holy Spirit, brought us to holy baptism, given Jesus to us as our Saviour, who sacrificed himself for us on the cross, and made us part of his eternal kingdom. And we also pray that the Holy Spirit would use us and send us into whatever little corner of the world he chooses, however insignificant it may seem. Let’s commend ourselves to him for service in his kingdom! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful way in which you called this Ethiopian man to yourself, and sent out your Gospel to the ends of the earth. We are gathered here today also at the ends of the earth, far from the city Jerusalem, and we pray that the Gospel would still go further and further and bring light and forgiveness to the hearts of many more people. Amen.

Lent I B [Mark 1:12-13] (18-Feb-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and angels were ministering to him.

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

Today we are celebrating the First Sunday of Lent. And for many centuries, it has always been a custom of the church to read about Jesus’ fasting and temptation in the wilderness. Our Gospel reading today is from the Gospel of Mark. Mark actually doesn’t tell us very much about Jesus’ temptation. He simply says: The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and angels were ministering to him. That’s it. In the Gospel of Matthew and Luke we find much more detail of the exact conversations that Satan and Jesus, and what the specific temptations were. So in our sermon today we’re also going to look into those passages in Matthew and Luke.

Jesus temptation happened immediately after his baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. Even though Jesus was true God and always lived in unity with the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit now comes upon Jesus for a special purpose: to show that Jesus is the true Son of God, and to anoint Jesus for his work of preaching, healing, comforting, suffering and dying. We read that this same Holy Spirit then immediately drives Jesus out into the wilderness. John says in his first letter that the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. As soon as Jesus is baptised, he is driven by the Holy Spirit to confront the devil, and destroy him, and to show us for all time how he is defeated.

In Hebrews 4 we read that Jesus has been tempted as we are in every respect, yet without sin. Today we see Jesus being tempted, and tempted just as we are. However, Jesus does not fall into sin, but fights off the temptation, and overcomes it. Jesus has a real fight with Satan—the temptations were real and sharp and cruel. And yet there is no doubt who is going to win. Sometimes, people think that if Jesus were a real human, it must have been possible for him to fall. But that’s not true, because Jesus is not just a human being like us, but also true God. And yet, the temptation was real. The devil can only fight battles that he is going to lose, and yet he fights them anyway.

Now during these 40 days, Jesus fasted and ate nothing. During the season of Lent, Christians have often fasted too: maybe they eat less, or give up some favourite food, or some habit. But the fasting of Jesus is a miracle. When the bible speaks about fasting for us, we don’t need to copy Jesus here! Jesus performs a special miracle in his fasting, and shows us his power as true God. Moses and Elijah also fasted for 40 days, being strengthened by God’s special supernatural power. However, after Jesus shows his divine power and fasted for 40 days, then we read he was hungry. He is true God, but also wants to sympathise with us. He has a special task, and he shows us that he feels the same kinds of normal pains as us.

The amazing thing about this is that Jesus didn’t have to suffer, or feel weakness, or hunger, or experience temptation, if he didn’t want to. When he was arrested Jesus said to Peter: Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? Jesus also said: No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. And so, even though Jesus is true God, he experiences hunger, feels pain and endures temptation because he wants to encourage us and sympathise with us. He wants us to trust him, not just as our God above us, but as our brother alongside us.

And so, this reading teaches us something very confronting: you are not immune to Satan’s attacks. The devil didn’t hold back from seducing Adam and Eve, even though they were sinless, and we are not. After the last Supper, Jesus said to Peter that Satan wanted to have him to sift him like wheat. The apostles weren’t immune to Satan, and he destroyed Judas. Even at Jesus himself—who is both man and God—the devil didn’t hold back from firing his darts. And so, this reading today is very important, because if want to get the devil off our back and win, we can’t do it by ourselves. We need to have Jesus our army General on our side, and we need his weapons. Then we can win, because we are saved by the winner.

So let’s now read about the first temptation of Jesus, and how Jesus fights this temptation off.

I.                   The first temptation.

So we read: [Jesus] was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Satan wants Jesus to prove himself. But Jesus doesn’t need to prove himself to him! And you too never have to prove to Satan that you are true Christian. The devil wants to sow doubt: If you are the Son of God. If you are really God’s Son, then do what I tell you. Jesus is hungry, and Satan tempts him to eat. But instead of Jesus just going home and eating some bread, Satan wants him to use magic powers, to change many stones into a banquet of bread, so that Jesus will not just eat, but pig out and make a proper fool of himself.

Now here’s what’s amazing: Jesus doesn’t silence the devil with supernatural power. He fights him off with something that all of us have access to: the clear word of God, a simple little bible verse. He says: It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3. And one little bible verse like this skewers the devil in his tracks. You see, God’s word has power. It has divine authority, and the bible requires the same obedience as we would give to God himself, because this is God’s word. Jesus says: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And so Jesus shows us that all the power against Satan is contained in God’s Word.

Jesus says: It is written. Jesus shows us here just how highly He views the Scripture, the bible, God’s Word. Even though Deuteronomy was written by Moses long before this event, it was not simply Moses that Jesus was quoting, but the Holy Spirit himself, because the Holy Spirit inspired Moses. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: All Scripture is inspired by God. It could also be translated: breathed out by God, or breathed out by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus also said once that the Scripture cannot be broken. When Jesus was praying to his Father, he prayed for his disciples and said: Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. And so, because the Scripture has all this power behind it, Jesus doesn’t need to use supernatural power against Satan—all he needs is the Word.

Now it has always been a practice in the church until recently for Christians to learn bible quotes from memory. In Deuteronomy 6, it says: These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You can see from our reading today how useful it is for us to learn bible verses and to commit them to memory, not just to be intellectual, but to be equipped and armed and to have weapons against the devil in our hearts and minds. Jesus doesn’t have a theological argument with Satan; he just quotes the Scripture. He says: It is written.

Jesus quotes the words: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This passage from Deuteronomy talks about when God sent manna—heavenly bread—to the Israelites in the desert. God wanted to teach them that their daily bread comes from him. But God also provides us with bakers, and with flour, and wheat, and so on. But when those means are taken away, and there is no one to make bread, then we can start to think: God has abandoned me! Now I need to use the devil’s tricks—and lie and cheat—to get bread and money and stuff. No—God provides for us, his word says it, and we can ask him for what we need. He is faithful and will provide everything.

Now, let’s come to the second temptation, and how Jesus fights off this one.

II.                 The second temptation.

We read: Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. Sometimes we look back on something that happened to us and we think that the devil must have orchestrated the whole thing. Notice here in our reading that the devil takes Jesus up on the top of the temple. The devil seems to have even physical power over people’s bodies. But we learn also from the book of Job that Satan only causes mischief as God allows it, and if God allows it, then it is not for evil, but for good. At the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph says to his brothers: You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. In the same way, Satan takes Jesus up on top of the temple for evil, but God allows it for good, to win a victory over Satan.

Now also it says that the devil set him on the pinnacle of the temple. The temple was the holy place which God had told his people to build so that they could have access into his sacred presence. But Satan doesn’t take him inside where the holy ceremonies and sacrifices are going on, but puts him on top. The temple may as well be a big-top or a circus tent, and devil turns this holy building and this holy place into a play-thing, into a jungle-gym, into a trapeze-show. This is a temptation that the devil often sends: to get people to despise and profane holy things from God, and treat them like they are nothing.

Now what does Satan say to Jesus? He says: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “’He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “’On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Satan wants Jesus to give up his mission to save the world from sin by dying on the cross and to go “splat” on the pavement below. Then everyone would say, not “Behold, the Lamb of God”, but, “Tsk, tsk. What a tragic, silly early death of a promising young life!” Or Satan wants Jesus to prove just how powerful his prayers have been, so that when he jumps, the angels will catch him and provide a safety net. If Jesus is the Son of God, then surely the angels must come.

Now to add to the temptation, Satan quotes the bible. Just like Jesus before, Satan says: It is written. And he quotes from Psalm 91: He will command his angels concerning you. Actually, this is a misquote. Satan leaves out some words. The psalm says: He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Now, Jesus has been anointed by the Holy Spirit to be our Saviour. That is the way he is to follow. And as long as he continues in that path, God will send his mighty armies of angels for his protection. And the same for us: God doesn’t promise angelic protection whatever we do, but he does promise to send the angels to guard us in all our ways, as we walk with God.

Sometimes people think the bible isn’t reliable, because even “Satan can quote the bible”. The devil only twists the bible, and turns thing around to make it says what it doesn’t say. Jesus doesn’t argue with the devil, but just quotes the Scripture: Again it is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” God gave Jesus a calling: to be the Saviour of the world. And God has called you to follow Jesus wherever you are in life: to be a faithful spouse, or a parent or grandparent, or a child, or a citizen, or whatever. God sends angels to protect you daily as you trust and follow him wherever he has called you. He won’t prove that he looks after you by you jumping off buildings; He has promised it.

Now, let’s come to

III.              The third temptation.

We read: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.” Now the devil pulls out a particularly nasty trick. He pretends to be God, he pretends to be an angel of light. St Paul says that Satan even manifests himself as an angel of light. He shows Jesus a beautiful view, the wonder of God’s creation, great forests and lakes, great cities and beautiful things. And Satan makes himself into an inspirational speaker. He says: All these I will give you. Do you like it? You can have it! You can have it all: riches, fame, glory. Ask what you want and it’s yours.

But there’s always a catch with old Nick… He says: All these I will give you, if… He’s like one of those slick salesmen who says: “Absolutely free!” But then in the footnote there’s this fee, and that fee, and every other fee. When the devil gives something to someone it always comes at the expense of their soul. He says: All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me. Every false God demands a sacrifice. Jesus says: What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? And even in the church, the devil always tries to make falling away from the faith into the most holy Christian work. He makes apostacy and denying Christ into a beautiful work of Christian piety and worship.

And so Jesus once again quotes the Scripture. He says: Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Here the devil comes straight out, and tempts Jesus to worship him. But Jesus also shows us here that worship belongs to God and to him alone. Many people won’t go all out and worship Satan, and become Satanists. But then they’ll pray to angels or people who have died or even saints or their ancestors. And because they’re not worshipping the devil, they think it’s OK. But behind anything that is not the worship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the devil is hiding. And so Jesus calls us all back to the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. 

Now Jesus also says: Begone, Satan! Somewhere else Jesus also says: Get behind me, Satan! You don’t argue with the devil. Sometimes we can sit around for hours, days, weeks, months, being harassed by Satan. We didn’t need to argue with him, we didn’t need to reason with him, we didn’t need to think everything through. All we needed was to tell him to rack off! (Or whatever colourful language you prefer!) Jesus says: Be gone, Satan! Clear out, get out of my face, hit the road! This is a very important thing in what we call “spiritual warfare”. James says: Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Here Jesus takes the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, like a fly-swat, and smacks him. The job is done. That’s all it takes.

At the end of our reading, it says that Jesus was…being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. In Luke it says: When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. This opportune time was when Satan put it into the minds of different people to work to have Jesus crucified. But Jesus’ death was not Satan’s victory, but Jesus’ victory over Satan. And so Jesus was out in the wilderness there with wild animals. Since the devil had been silenced, the wild animals couldn’t be used by the devil to attack Jesus. So they were silenced too. Even a den of lions couldn’t harm the prophet Daniel, and Jesus could quietly sit with any wild animal that came along.

Also, it says: And the angels were ministering to him. There are only two places where the angels come and help or assist Jesus: here, and when Jesus sweat blood during his bitter prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane. It seems as though the devil’s attacks “took it out of” Jesus, and took its toll. Sometimes the devil attacks us as Christians, and through Jesus and his word, we are able to win the victory. But it can leave us exhausted. And so we see in our reading that even Jesus was assisted by the angels. Likewise, when we are feeling weak and exhausted and beaten about by the evil one, we can rest in the wonderful truth that Jesus has won the victory, and he surrounds us with the mighty protection of the heavenly hosts.

So let’s thank Jesus for that victory, and sing to him: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest! Amen.

Dear Jesus, the old prince may still scowl fierce as he will. He can harm us none; he’s judged forever undone. One little word can fell him. Amen.

Transfiguration B [Mark 9:2-9] (11-Feb-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

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

Today we are celebrating an event recorded in the Gospels which we call the Transfiguration. In this reading we read about how Jesus appeared to Peter, James and John in a particularly amazing way, where his face and clothes became to shine with bright white light. We also read about how Peter, James and John also saw Moses and Elijah, two well-known figures from the Old Testament who have lived long ago, talking with Jesus. And then, we also read about how a cloud covered them, and God the Father spoke, declaring Jesus to be his Son, and giving the command that we should listen to him. And so, we’re going to look at these three things in our sermon:

I.                Firstly, the amazing light that came across Jesus and changed his appearance.

II.                 Secondly, the fact that Moses and Elijah appeared, and

III.              Thirdly, the words that God the Father spoke from the cloud.

So let’s come to the first part of our reading, where we read about

I.                   The amazing light that came across Jesus and changed his appearance.

We read in our Gospel reading today: Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and let them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. This is how the evangelist Mark describes it in his gospel which we read today. He makes a particular emphasis about Jesus and his clothes. Matthew also tells us that his face shone like the sun. And also Luke, says that Jesus was praying, and that the appearance of his face was altered.

This is an amazing thing that happened. John also makes mention of this event, when he says the well-known words at the beginning of his gospel: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory… Here in our reading today, we get a little picture of that glory that John saw, together with Peter and James. Peter, who was also there on this occasion, wrote about this event in his second letter, where is says: We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honour and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. Do you see what kind of an impression this event made on John and Peter? You can almost sense that their amazement hadn’t worn off even by the time they wrote it.

This event in our reading teaches us something wonderful about Jesus. It teaches us that Jesus is a human being whom we can see and touch, but that also he is true God. He is the light of the world, who existed right from the beginning of time together with his Father. The Book of Hebrews calls Jesus the radiance of the glory of God. Jesus is 100% man and 100% God 100% of the time, but he most of the time, he hides his glory and his majesty and his brightness under the humble form of a human being like us. It’s almost like a burning coal, or a hot piece of iron that a blacksmith uses. Jesus is true God, and this divinity of Jesus shines out through his human body, just like fire and heat make a charcoal or a piece of iron glow red hot.

But the miracle of the Transfiguration is not this happened to Jesus. The miracle is that the disciples were allowed to see it. Everything that Jesus did or said glows and radiates and shines with all of his wonderful divine power and energy. Here in our reading, Jesus makes it clear to the disciples exactly who he is. Like a true man, made in the image of God, he prays, he has a face, a body, clothes. But as true God, shining with brilliant light, he glows and shines and sends out his rays. When Jesus asked Peter who the Son of Man is, Peter replied: You are the Son of the living God. The Son of Man is the Son of God—this is who Jesus is. When Thomas after Easter saw Jesus standing in front of him, with the wounds in his hands and his side, what did he say? He said: You are my Lord and my God.

We learn here just who this Jesus is that we worship. He came down from heaven to live a life among us. This is the Jesus who lives with us each day, who baptised you personally, and who gives you the Lord’s Supper each Sunday. You are his bride, and he is your bridegroom. And all of this wonderful glory and power he shares with you, he uses this power to die and cancel your sin, he unites himself with you, and he shows you a little taste of what he will be like when you see him in heaven. But we might think: but I am so ordinary, so sinful. I carry a lifetime of burdens, and shame, and sadness, and worries and guilt. Does this Jesus with all of that brilliant heavenly light want to enter into my life? Yes—he has died for you, he has shed his blood for you, that body shining with light was nailed and pierced and whipped and crucified for you, and now he is risen from the dead. He gives you his forgiveness and his promise of eternal life and his victory as a wonderful robe and clothing of righteousness and holiness, so that you can stand before God, and wrap yourself up completely in that robe. You can stand before God the Father, not because you are so holy and perfect. Far from it—you are not holy and perfect. But this Jesus is—and let’s you wrap yourself up in his robe of righteousness, that righteousness, that holiness, that purity, that brilliance and radiance that belongs to him.

But also, we get a little taste of what our bodies will be like when Jesus raises us from the dead. In the Apostles’ Creed it says: I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Sometime after we have died and gone to be with Jesus in heaven, he will gather up all of the dust and ashes of our bodies and transform them and glorify them. Paul says in Philippians: Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. Just think about that for a moment—the wonderful glory that we see in our reading today of Christ’s body, he won’t only keep to himself, but he will share that glory with you, and transform your body at the end of the world.

The other thing that happens in our reading today is that it’s not just Jesus’ face that shines with brilliant light, it’s not just his body, but it’s also his clothes. Our reading today says: His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. Now the wonderful thing about Jesus is that, now that he has ascended into heaven, he still wants to meet us and speak to us and be with us even now, here in this lifetime, on this side of the grave. And so he clothes himself. He hides himself here on earth, in such a way that you would only know he were there if he told you. Do you know what these things are, where Jesus clothes himself? First of all, he clothes himself in the words of the bible, the Holy Scripture—not just in the printed words on paper, but also when we read it aloud, and preach it, and sing it, and pray it, and think about it. Jesus clothes himself in the words of the Scripture, and these clothes of his shine with all the brilliance of his divine light. We read: Your word is a lamp—a bright, shining lamp!—to my feet, and a light—a brilliant light!—to my feet.

Also, he clothes himself in the words and the water of Holy Baptism. To us, it looks like just a bit of water in a bowl. But this water and the words of Jesus that we speak—I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—this baptism is full of wonderful divine light and energy and power, because your baptism gave to you the forgiveness of sins, rescued you from death and the devil, and gave you eternal life. You can put your trust in this solid rock, because Jesus himself has promised that he will clothe himself there, and hide himself there. Also, on Sundays, we hear those wonderful words of absolution spoken by the pastor: I forgive you all your sins. Jesus had said to his apostles: Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness, they are withheld. And so, Jesus has promised to hide and clothe himself in these words of forgiveness, so that when we hear them we know that this is not the words of a mere man standing on earth, but the words of the Lord of heaven and earth himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. And if he has clothed himself with these things, we know that his clothes shine with brilliant divine light.

But then also, he has promised to give us his body and blood to eat and to drink. He clothes himself in this bread and wine, and this bread and wine shines and glows in such a way that they are connected and united to the body and blood of Christ himself, so that when we eat this bread, we are eating Christ’s true transformed, glorified and life-giving body and when we drink this wine, we are drinking Christ’s true, transformed, glorified, and life-giving blood. And Jesus knows that if we came on our own, we would die and be completely overwhelmed by his holiness. Jesus knows our sin and our weakness, so he says to us not just, This is my body, but that it is given for you. He says not just, This is my blood, but that it is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And so we can trust him and his words and joyfully receive the wonderful gifts that he gives to us.

So there are so many wonderful things that we learn in our reading today from the fact that Jesus was transfigured, that his face shone like the sun, and that even his clothes become radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

Let’s come to the second part of our reading where we read about where

II.                 Moses and Elijah appear.

Moses and Elijah were two historical figures which we read about in the Old Testament. Moses lived about 1500 or 1600 years before this event, and led the Jewish people out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Elijah was a prophet who lived many years later about 800 or 900 years before this event, during the years of one of the worst kings in Israel’s history, King Ahab. And in our reading today, they show up, and they are standing there on the mountain with Jesus.

One of the very strange things about Moses and Elijah is that nobody knew where Moses was buried. His bones were never found. Also, Elijah didn’t die in the normal way, but was carried into heaven with chariots and horses of fire. We also read about another figure in the Old Testament, Enoch, who also didn’t die in the normal way. It simply says: Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.

In our reading today, we get a little glimpse of two saints of the Old Testament, who enjoy being in the presence of Jesus and talking with him. This gives us also a little picture of the way in which we who believe in Jesus will one day enjoy being in the presence of Jesus and talk with him.

Peter at this point, just goes a bit crazy for a while. He is completely overwhelmed and dithers around and doesn’t know what he’s doing. He says to Jesus: Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. Mark also tells us: For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Of course, they were terrified! Here was Moses and Elijah! Did Peter, James and John think that maybe they were even entering into heaven itself?

But there is one thing that Peter’s ramblings teach us. Peter recognised Moses and Elijah—he had never met them before, but when they were there, he recognised them. And this is a wonderful comfort to us about when we enter heaven is that we will recognise people: we will recognise all those people we loved who died with Jesus and that we now miss, and we will recognise all the saints and all the apostles and the martyrs and the prophets, and everyone. It will be a wonderful family reunion, where we won’t need to wear nametags!

But also there is something else that is special about Moses and Elijah. Moses is the person who wrote down God’s law in the Old Testament. Elijah is considered to be one of the most important prophets. And often we read about the Law and the Prophets. In Romans 3, Paul says that Law and the Prophets bear witness to the righteousness of faith in Jesus Christ. Here we see Moses (who represents the law) and Elijah (who represents the prophets) pointing to Jesus. After Jesus rose from the dead, we read in Luke: Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. What this shows us is that the whole of human history, and all of God’s people, were all looking forward to this moment, and this person, Jesus Christ. And even today, he is our wonderful Saviour, our King, our Lord, our Mediator, our Advocate, and our Redeemer. When we look to Jesus and point to him, we even have Elijah and Moses on our side.

But let’s come to the last part of our reading, about where:

III.              God the Father speaks from the cloud.

We read: And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

Here is God the Father’s voice: and he points to his Son, and tells us not simply to look at him, or to touch him, but to listen to him. All the power is in Jesus’ words. John calls Jesus the Word of God. He says: The word became flesh. But Jesus is not the word of God who keeps his mouth shut. He is the word of God who continually opens his mouth. He was speaking even through Moses, and Elijah, and throughout the Old Testament. And when he rose from the dead, he sent out his apostles to give an eyewitness of him. He says: He who hears you hears me. And this Jesus calls takes every that Moses said and everything that Elijah said, all of God’s law and all the cries of the prophets, and preaches it right into the very centre of our hearts, and calls us to repent, to completely change our lives, and our whole way of thinking. But God the Father also points to his Son, and says: Listen to him, because of a new word that will be spoken. This word is the Gospel, and this word shows us Jesus as our Saviour, as the one who has fulfilled the whole law for us, and now gives forgiveness and eternal life as a gift completely and totally freely to everyone who believes in him.

And so, when God spoke to Moses, he gave him the Ten Commandments. The First Commandment says: You shall have no other Gods before me. And now the same God who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai now speaks from the cloud and says: Listen to him. If you want to have me as your God, you must listen to my Son. You will get to me and come to me in no other way! This is my beloved Son. Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. Peter said: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

And so, the disciples look up and see Jesus by himself, alone. They see his kind face, and a gentle hand on their shoulder of a friend. But more importantly, they have a word from the Father: Listen to him. And Jesus says: Rise, and have no fear. Have no fear, for I will suffer and die for you, I will rise for you, and I will forgive you, and lead you, and strengthen you, and bless you, and be with you always to the end of the age. This is Jesus, our wonderful Saviour! Amen.

Dear Jesus, how good it is to be here with you today, together with all the angels and saints of heaven, in your glorious presence. Speak to us in your word, and fill us with your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Epiphany III B [Mark 1:14-20] (21-Jan-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

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

There’s a place in John’s Gospel where we read that John the Baptist has been baptising, and some of John’s disciples come up to him and tell him that many people have stopped following him and now they are following Jesus instead. It’s almost like they think that John would be annoyed by it—John has been pointing to Jesus and preaching about him, and now people are following Jesus and not listening to John anymore. But John is not upset by this, and he tells them that he is only the friend of the bridegroom, but Jesus is the bridegroom himself. And he says: He must increase, but I must decrease.

It’s as if we were at a wedding reception, and everyone is waiting for the bride and groom to arrive, and in the meantime the MC—the Master of Ceremonies—is talking, and then all of sudden, they arrive. And the MC tells everyone to stand up and welcome the wedding party and the bride and groom. The MC is not the important person anymore, the bride and groom are. When we remember back on our life, and think about all the weddings we might have been to, we eventually forget who the MCs were at the weddings, we might even forget who the best man was and the matron of honour. But we don’t forget who is was that actually got married! And so John the Baptist uses the same picture. He says to them that he is only the bridegroom’s friend, like the MC or the best man. But Jesus himself is the bridegroom.

And so in our reading today we read that Jesus begins his ministry of preaching the Gospel. Jesus has been baptised, and straight after that he went out into the wilderness and was tempted by Satan. But now he comes back, and he begins his ministry. But the reading says: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God. It says that John was arrested. John had had a very fruitful ministry, and he got into trouble for it, and so he was arrested. And it’s at this time, when John was arrested, that Jesus begins his ministry. John has done his job in the whole scheme of things, and now Jesus takes over. In fact, John the Baptist is completely taken out of the picture.

And so Jesus says: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Jesus says: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. It’s as if he’s telling people that everything has now happened in the right order, and everything that has taken place has taken place. John has prepared the way of the Lord, he has been a voice crying in the wilderness, but now his ministry is finished. Now the time is right, and your Messiah is here. It’s also as if Jesus also says: There won’t be another Messiah, or another Saviour, sometime later in history. If you miss me, you won’t get another one. Here I am, now is the right time, and the God’s kingdom is right here with you because I am with you. So listen to me, and pay attention to what I have to say.

And so what does Jesus say? He says: Repent and believe the Gospel. These words that Jesus says here give a little summary of everything that Jesus says, and also a kind of summary of everything in the bible. Jesus speaks to us two words, two messages that go together. He tells people to repent. And also he tells them to believe. And he doesn’t simply tell them to believe anything, or simply to believe in him, but to believe a particular word that he is speaking to them. He calls them to believe the Gospel.

What Jesus is doing here is preaching the Law of God, and the Gospel of God. God’s law is God’s holy word and the Gospel is God’s holy word. The law of God is good, and the Gospel is also good. When Jesus says: Repent, this is a great and wonderful thing. When he says: Believe the gospel, this is also a great and wonderful thing.

But the law and the Gospel do completely different things, and they have a completely different effect on us. The Law of God is God’s perfect will, and it teaches us what God expects of us, and what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. We could summarise God’s law with the 10 Commandments. God’s law tells us to love God with all our heart and all our mind and strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. It’s a wonderful message and a powerful message.

But we human beings fell into sin, and we read that each of us are sinners and we are conceived and born in sin. What this means is that when we hear the preaching of the law, we realise that we have already broken it. Even though God’s law is a wonderful message which shows us how we should lead our lives and how the world and society should work, we realise that it condemns us. When the law is preached, it kills us and leads us to despair.

And so Jesus says: Repent. “Repent” means to turn around or change our mind. It’s as if Jesus comes to us and whatever stage of life we are at, whether we are young or old, and he says to us: Whatever life you have been leading until this point is simply not good enough. You must live your life at a higher standard that what you have been living previously. What you have done before has been bad, and you must now do good. If you think you have done good, you must do better. Whatever a kind of life you live now, you need to know that you must change, and you must become a completely different person to what you are now, and you must act completely differently, you must speak differently, you must think differently. Everything must change. This is what Jesus says when he says: Repent.

God says in Jeremiah: Is not my word like a fire and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? When Jesus goes out and preaches repentance, he is pouring fire out on the people’s hearts, he is smashing their stony hearts. Because what God’s law expects of us is not the same thing as what we might expect of ourselves, or our parents expected of us. God’s law is completely above and beyond our tiniest ability or capacity to fulfil, because it is so perfect, and we are not even the slightest bit close to perfect. Even our individual thoughts are all completely corrupted by sin, and before we have even tried to fulfil God’s word, we have already failed, and we have already done less what than what God’s expects of us.

And so we might say the same thing that Isaiah said when he saw his wonderful vision of the Son of God sitting on the throne and the angels singing all around. He said: Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the LORD of hosts! And so we say to God: I was wrong, and you are right.

But now, Jesus has a completely different message to speak. It is so different to the law, that if we never heard the Gospel, we would never have imagined that such a thing were possible. Every religion has laws and rules and commandments, and basically tells people what they should do or not do. Jesus all tells people what they should do or not do, but he sharpens the standard in such a way that we can’t escape, and we can’t excuse ourselves, we can’t rely on scholars or good lawyers to get ourselves out of trouble. We must completely despair of ourselves of any hope to save ourselves. And so this is where the second thing comes in: and this is called the Gospel. Jesus says: Repent, and believe the Gospel.

The Gospel does not show us what we should do or not do, but it shows us our Saviour who has done everything for us. Jesus, the Son of God, has entered into the world, he has taken on human flesh, he has lived a human life like us. And now, Jesus will suffer and die for the sin of the world, he will make an atonement and a payment with his own blood for every single sin that has ever been imagined, so that when we simply look at him and believe in him, all our failures in keeping the law are completely washed over, our bill has been paid in full, the victory has been won over Satan so that he can’t accuse us anymore, we are completely free from the chains of failure and despair and disappointment, because we have a Saviour who has entered the world, a Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who has died for us, risen for us, and loves us.

This is the Gospel, and this is the message that is completely different from the first message that Jesus preaches. When Jesus preaches repentance, or when he preaches God’s law, it is like a laser beam which searches us out and finds us. The Law doesn’t make us sinners, but it finds sinners, and when it does, it kills us. But then he says: Believe the Gospel. This is a completely different message, because it creates something completely new. The Gospel doesn’t find any saints, but it makes and creates people into holy people, not because they have earned it, or deserved it, but because Jesus has done everything for them, and now they slate has been completely wiped clean. They are completely pure and holy, not because they are pure and holy because of what they have done, but because of what Jesus has done for them. When God looks at us, all of sudden there is Jesus standing with us, with his hand around our shoulder and he says: It’s OK. This person is with me. Jesus’ blood and his righteousness and his holiness completely cover us over, and it covers over all our sin and shame and failure. This is good news! And that’s what the word “gospel” means: it means good news.

Now, these words of Jesus, Repent and believe in the Gospel, are so incredibly helpful, because the whole bible could be divided up into these two things. When Jesus went out preaching, there’s a sense in which Mark is saying that Jesus was preaching all kinds of things, and speaking about all kinds of things from Moses and the prophets before him. But he was dividing up everything in a very sharp way, and focussing everything, so that things very intensely clear. And so when we read the bible, we should ask ourselves the question: Is this passage law or Gospel? If it is law, then where is this passage calling me to repent? Where is it calling me to acknowledge what I have done wrong? How is this passage calling me to change my life? But then there is another message in the bible: the gospel. So we should then ask: Does this passage show me my Saviour? What is this passage calling me as a lost sinner to believe?

You see, when Jesus calls us to faith, just as he does in our reading today, that faith is always a faith in God’s word. Some people might say: but it’s not faith in God’s word that saves us, but faith in Jesus that saves us. But that’s only half true. Sure, Jesus is our Saviour, and he is the one who has done everything for us in history to save us from sin, from hell and from the devil, and to bring us to eternal life with him. But how do we know this? And how would we know it if Jesus hadn’t said anything? Jesus is not a Saviour who keeps his mouth shut. He is a Saviour who speaks, who calls, who invites, who preaches, who blesses. And so in our reading, our Saviour speaks. And as our Saviour he gives us a wonderful gift: he gives us the gift of the Gospel, the completely free forgiveness of every single on our sins. But the way in which he gives it to us is by speaking it to us, and when we believe this word, we receive this gift from him completely and totally freely, without anything that we have done or anything that can contribute. He calls us to trust in his word, and particularly to believe in the Gospel.

Now, we might also say: When Jesus tells us to believe, isn’t he also expecting something of us again? Isn’t he telling us to do something? Isn’t he telling us to use our own efforts to believe in him and to trust in him? Not at all. That would be like as if someone gave someone else a Christmas present, and they were about to open it and they said: Hang on—you can only have this present on one condition… that you take it and open it! Of course, the person would take it and open it! What’s the point of having a present, if you can’t take it? But then it would be like the person going to their friend and says: Thanks for the present, and also I’d like to thank myself for making the effort of taking it from you and opening it. The person giving the present would think their friend was mad!

But also, remember Jesus went to a deaf person and said: Be opened! And they were opened! The deaf person made no effort, but as soon as Jesus spoke this word to them, they could hear! Jesus went to Lazarus when he was dead in the tomb for four days. And Jesus said to him: Lazarus, come out! The word of Jesus was powerful to raise him from the dead. Lazarus didn’t make any contribution! He was dead.

So you can see, when Jesus says: Repent, he knows us flat, his word lays us in the dust of death. But then Jesus has another word, just for dead people, and only for dead people. He says: Believe the gospel. And this word has all the power in it to make us alive. Nothing depends on us, everything depends on him.

Now in the second part of our reading. We read that Jesus goes and calls some fishermen. He calls Simon and Andrew who were brothers. And then he also calls James and John, who were also brothers. And we read that they immediately left their nets in the boats, and followed Jesus. And Jesus says to them: Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.

It’s an amazing thing that Jesus calls a group of fishermen. He doesn’t go first of all to a university and choose his first disciples from the greatest and brightest minds of the day. By the way, that doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t value intelligent and learned people: after all, he also called Paul to be an apostle, who was a highly educated man. He calls different people for different purposes. But when Paul was called to be an apostle, who were his fellow workers? A bunch of fishermen. And Jesus calls a group of simple hard-working fishermen to show us that the power of God belongs to him, and to the Holy Spirit. The Gospel is for all people, and it is a simple message. And Jesus is happy to have a simple group of fishermen as his preachers, because he wants to show the world that the power of the Gospel is not in human beings, and in grand and lofty talk, but the power of the Gospel comes from the Holy Spirit. So that when one of these fishermen talks, like Peter or John or James or Andrew, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they can lay flat all the wisdom of the world. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul says: Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

And so how were these fishermen going to become fishers of men? What did they do that would enable them to catch people? They would do it in exactly the same way that Jesus caught them, by preaching law and Gospel, by preaching repentance and faith, exactly as we were talking about before. And this is exactly what we read about at the end of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus had risen from the dead, and he meets with his disciples, and we read: Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. So what was the thing they had to preach? Jesus said: Repentance, and the forgiveness of sins. This is exactly what Jesus was saying earlier in our reading when he said: Repent and believe in the Gospel. And so here is the net, here’s the means by which people are caught, and drawn out of the wide-open sea, and brought into the kingdom of Jesus. These words are the fishing tools which catch people.

And so it’s a wonderful gift for us that we have been caught. And Jesus continually calls us to repent, and believe the Gospel. And it is also a wonderful thing to be equipped with Jesus’ own tools, so that we as a congregation, and I as a pastor, and all of us as individual Christians living wherever God has placed us in the world, know how it is that Jesus catches people, so that we can also join those fishermen in drawing others to Jesus not by own power, but with Jesus’ words, and with his power and the power of the Holy Spirit. So let’s thank our Saviour, Jesus, for the wonderful gift of the gospel which he has given to us, and which he still speaks to us today, the message of his death and resurrection, and the words which give to us the free forgiveness of every single one of our sins, and promise us the wonderful gift of eternal life with him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for calling us to repent and to believe the Gospel. Continue to work a wonderful change in our lives, but also keep our eyes fixed on what you have done for us, and in your word of promise. Amen.

Advent II B [Mark 1:1-8] (10-Dec-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.

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

Our reading today speaks about John the Baptist and his ministry. And this comes to us from the very first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Mark writes: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The word “gospel” means “good news”. And particularly in ancient times, when there were various wars going on, the people of a particular city would have been waiting for some kind of messenger to come galloping on his horse down the road to the city gates to tell the people some news: either good news, or bad news. Bad news would be: “the enemy is coming”, “the king is dead”. But good news would be: “they did it!” “We won!” And all the people would shout, “Hooray!” And then they would prepare to get ready for a wonderful celebration for when their king and the army would return, and have music and dancing and food and celebrating!

In our world today, we are faced with a lot of bad news. There are tremendous things happening around the world: wars, famines, refugees. All these things are bad news. Our parliament this week has approved the marriage of two people of the same sex. This is bad news. Sex and gender are things which God has created in each one of us and are his gift, and taking the distinction of gender out of marriage is a serious thing. People in our country in the last year have wanted even to stop children giving Christian cards at Christmas, shops are discouraged from having nativity scenes, Christian Christmas carols are heard less and less on the radio and TV and in shops. This is bad news. But if we go and look back in the days of the Old Testament, we will see there many generations of kings, where God’s own people worshipped idols, golden calves, burned their own children as offerings to evil spirits, conjured up the dead, performed witchcraft, and all kinds of other crazy things. At one time things were so dark that Elijah the prophet despaired, thinking he was the only believer left in the world. Many Christians are feeling like that more and more today.

There are so many passages in the prophets—whether it be Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—where everything looks like all is lost. But God promises to remain faithful—he will always keep a faithful church on earth that holds to his word. You see, when all around us is nothing but sin and shame, we need to realise that the only people who will be part of the church are sinners. God will convert people just as he did to you, and change their hearts, and turn them back to himself. In Isaiah chapter 9 we read that it is not the people who already walk in light that see the great light, but the prophet says: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. And later the prophet says: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. We must remember as we prepare for Christmas that it is precisely to a sinful world with no hope from itself that Jesus our Saviour and our King comes. He comes to no other world than a sinful one, he shines his light on no other world than a dark one, and he brings his joy to no other world than a sad one. And so the angel came at Christmas and said: Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

And so also in our reading today, we read about the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So how did this gospel begin? How did the good news begin?

Mark begins by quoting from two of the prophets. The first quote comes from Malachi: Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The second quote comes from Isaiah: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ Mark applies these two passages to John the Baptist, so that we understand very clearly that the messenger that God sends is John, and the voice of one crying in the wilderness is also John. John is like the messenger who comes into the city after the battle on horseback, and says: “We’ve won! We did it!” He prepares the way for the king to come in so that the people will celebrate when he arrives. He’s like the MC at a wedding, who gets everyone to stand up, charge their glasses, and prepares them to welcome to bridal couple.

So John is a messenger, and a voice. It is so important for pastors when they preach to believe that it is not their ministry, or their word that they are to speak, but that it is God’s ministry, the ministry of Jesus, and it is his word that they speak. Jesus says to his disciples when he sent them out: The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. And so John the Baptist is the voice of one crying the wilderness. John is the simply the voice, but it is not him who crying in the wilderness, but God who cries out in the wilderness using John’s voice.

Both of the prophets, Malachi and Isaiah, say that this messenger, this voice— John—is sent to do one thing: Malachi says that he will prepare your way. Isaiah says: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Do you hear this word “prepare”? Can you imagine if an army had won a battle, and the war was ended, but nobody knew about it in advance? Can you imagine if at the end of World War II if all the Australian troops simply came home and marched through the streets without anyone knowing about it? There would be no ticket parade, no celebration, nothing! They needed a man on the radio—a voice!—who says: “The war has ended!” And so he “prepares the way” for the troops!

And so, John also prepares the way for Jesus, so that when he comes, people are expecting him and they recognise him. And so, let’s read about what John was actually doing to prepare people. We read: John appeared, baptising in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptised by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

Some of you have told me about your travels out to Queensland’s “wild west”, and some of you might have visited the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service out at Longreach. Earlier this year, I visited the Royal Flying Doctor’s museum in Dubbo. And we watched a video there about all these “bushwackers” in the outback, and how they looked after their health. One man had cut a skin cancer off his own arm with a knife! The interviewer said: “Aren’t there germs on that?” And the man replied, “No, not at all! I once saw a couple of germs on my knife, but not anymore!”

Now, in some sense, this is the kind of person that John the Baptist is. He’s like one of those bushwackers from the outback! There is John, dressed in camel’s hair, a belt made out of home-made leather, and what was his food? Locusts and wild honey. When we think of locusts, we normally think of them as a pest. I’ve never been in a locust plague, but in the book of Exodus, we read that locusts were one of the plagues that God sent over Egypt. The crops would have been completely destroyed. A man once visited me in Victoria, a week after he had been driving through a locust plague. You can imagine the front of this car was just full of splatter!

And yet, in the book of Leviticus, God gave certain foods to the Jewish people as clean, and forbade them from eating certain other foods. You might know that Jewish people even today don’t eat pork. When it came to insects, there were also some that God forbade, and some that God allowed. In Leviticus 11, it says: You may eat… the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind. But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. Honey was also made by bugs, by bees! And so you can see how John survived in the desert right at the bottom of the food-chain, wonderfully trusting in God’s own hand to provide for him, relying on locusts for food, and bees for honey.

Now, what’s amazing about John is that God sends him (of all people!)—not a respectable, educated man from the city, but a bushwacker from the outback, the kind that has to cut his own skin cancers off with a knife! And so, we learn a powerful message here: When God sends a man to preach, we should take no notice of the man, but of the Word he preaches. Because it is God’s word that saves us, not the preacher. If the preacher offends us because of something about him we don’t like, then we need to be careful that we’re not cutting off from ourselves God’s word.

And so, what was John doing? First of all, he was baptising. But he wasn’t doing it without explaining it, and he wasn’t doing it in silence. The same goes for us in the church: when we baptise a person, it never happens in silence. But it always happens together with God’s word. So when we actually baptise a person, the pastor says: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We use God’s word, and the exact words that Jesus told us to use. But also, we teach people about what baptism does and what it means for us, that baptism works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. Jesus said: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them, but not only baptising, but also teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And so this is also what John was doing. He was preaching the word of God. It says, he was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And we see that a wonderful series of mass conversions comes about because of this. Now, today people often think that the Holy Spirit can be manipulated and almost fooled into having revivals and mass conversions. And in our country, mass conversions like this rarely happen. In Africa, or in Asia, we might read about many stories of mass conversions. At the time of Luther, we read about how many, many people turned from the superstitious practices of the middle ages and started listening to the bible and heard the Gospel. One thing though that those people had that many people in our country don’t have is a conviction that the bible is God’s word. John the Baptist could have preached anything from the whole Old Testament Scriptures, because it says that he was preaching repentance for forgiveness of sins. The whole bible can be broken down into these two teachings: repentance and forgiveness, law and Gospel. And so it’s so important for us today to confess clearly that, as St Paul says: All Scripture is God-breathed, or inspired by God. That the writers of the bible were moved by the Holy Spirit, that the Word of God is truth, that the Scripture cannot be broken, as Jesus says. Proverbs 30 says: Every word of God proves true. Our congregation’s constitution says: We believe and accept without reservation the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as a whole and in all their parts, as the divinely inspired, written and inerrant word of God, and as the only infallible source and norm for all matters of faith, doctrine, and life. The reason why it’s so important to hold to this is because when we hear or read something that we don’t agree with, and that shows us our sin, if we don’t believe that this is God’s pure, clear word, then we will always harden our stubborn hearts, and we won’t change our minds and repent when God calls us to, because God’s Word is the only way that he calls us to repentance. There is never a time at any stage of our life when God does not say to us: You need to change, your life is not as it should be, it must be different from what it is now! Until our last breath, we will never be free from sin. And so, this is how John prepares the way for the Lord: he preaches God’s law, and his strict judgment against sin. We don’t prepare ourselves for the Lord through our own works, but the Holy Spirit himself prepares us by convicting us of our sin through his Word. Hebrews 4 says: The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…and no creature is hidden from its sight. And if we don’t believe that the Scripture is God’s perfect word, we will never know our sin, we can never be prepared, and never be ready for Jesus. Who needs a Saviour, when we don’t know what we are being saved from?

But also, when we’re crushed and burdened by the conviction of our sin, even more in those times we need to trust that the bible is God’s word, because the Word of God is the only means by which God applies to us his forgiveness. There is not one single sin that Jesus has not atoned for and died for and sacrificed himself for you for. Jesus is our Lord and our God, our perfect and faithful and trustworthy Saviour.

And so we read how the people went to John the Baptist confessing their sins. It is a daily task of us Christians to confess our sins to Jesus, just as he teaches us to pray: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

But also, John’s baptism is not just to call people to repentance, but it is for the forgiveness of sins. This is the same as our baptism. And why can John say that it is for forgiveness? Because he points to Jesus, and he says: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John himself does not give forgiveness, but he points to Jesus who gives forgiveness. He says: After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.

And so, the same goes for us. Pastors baptise people with water, but because of God’s powerful and inspired word, we trust that Jesus is also here baptising people not just with water, but also with the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, Peter said: Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for what?... for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive what?... you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here we can see that the baptism which is performed with water and the word by human hands in the church is the means by which Jesus the Lord of heaven and earth sends us his Holy Spirit. And so, what a wonderful privilege and a gift it is to continually hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in the word of God, through the preaching of repentance and forgiveness, through law and Gospel, to strengthen and ground us in faith until our dying breath.

Jesus is mightier than John, because John is nothing but a voice. John is the messenger, but Jesus is the king who has won the battle and the victory belongs to him! And so Jesus, our Lord and our God, comes into our city and shares with us the spoils of war: he has won the forgiveness of sins, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and he is the one who sends and baptises [you] with the Holy Spirit. And that is good news, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the best news that could ever be spoken. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful gift of your Word, the knowledge of our sin, your word of forgiveness, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.