Pentecost XXI (Proper 23 B) [Mark 10:17-31] (14-Oct-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.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

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.

Today in our reading, we have a young man, a ruler, who comes up to Jesus to ask him a question. We read: And as Jesus was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

This is a very interesting question. In the bible, we know that everything can be divided up into two main teachings—the Law and the Gospel. We often talk about this in the Lutheran Church, and the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a very important distinction. The Law teaches us what we should and shouldn’t do, and it also shows us that we don’t do what we should and we do do what we shouldn’t. The Law teaches us that God punishes wrong and rewards right, but we are all doing wrong all the time. However, the Gospel teaches people who realise their sin that they are saved, not because they have earned it, but because of what Jesus has done for them. The Gospel teaches us what Jesus has done for us, and gives to us his wonderful promises.

When the thief on the cross was about to die, and was receiving the normal punishment that the Romans would give to people who had committed crimes like he had committed, he asked Jesus to remember him. And Jesus spoke to him a wonderful promise of the Gospel: Today, you will be with me in Paradise. There is nothing that this man can do anymore to inherit eternal life. There is nothing that he could ever have done. Even if he weren’t a criminal, all of his righteous deeds would still have been filthy rags. Even if he weren’t on a cross, he would still be worthy of death. Even if he had never hurt a fly, it still would have been true what it says in Genesis: Every intention of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually.

And yet, it is precisely for a man like him that Jesus speaks a wonderful word of the Gospel. Today, you will be with me in Paradise. Jesus receives him completely and totally freely, without any merit or worthiness in this man whatsoever. The thief did nothing, but Jesus did everything. Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the way, the truth and the life.

And so, what a strange question it is that this rich young man asks of Jesus: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

In the Book of Acts, we read about another event, where someone asks a very similar question. Paul and Silas are in prison, and they are singing hymns, and at midnight there is an earthquake, and the prison doors are opened, and the chains of the prisoners become undone. Now in those days, in ancient Roman times, if a prison guard was on duty and the prisoners escaped, he would have been killed. And so, when he sees the prison doors opened, he thinks to kill himself, but Paul and Silas stop him. Then the jailer says to Paul and Silas: Sirs, what must I do to be saved? This is almost the same question that the young ruler asks Jesus in our reading today: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? But what do Paul and Silas say to the jailer? They say: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your whole household. And then the man and his family were baptised. So in this situation, the man is told: You don’t have to do anything—just believe in Jesus. Jesus has done everything for you—there is nothing that you need to do. And so the man believes and is baptised—all the blessings of Jesus are given to him in baptism and he believes in him. The man and his family are saved completely freely, by grace, without any works, without needing to do anything, except to receive Jesus and his gifts.

Now, in our reading today, the man asks almost the same question, but Jesus responds to him in a completely different way. The man says: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and your mother. So here’s a question: why is it that when the jailer asks this question, the apostles offer him salvation for free, but when this man asks Jesus this question, Jesus starts reciting the Ten Commandments and telling him a list of rules?

This has to do with the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. And one of the ways in which Law and Gospel are distinct is which people either the Law or the Gospel should be spoken to. You see, not everyone should hear the preaching of the Gospel, and not everyone should hear the preaching of the Law. If a person is troubled and worried about their sins and is anxious about their salvation or about going to hell or being bothered by the devil, then we shouldn’t speak the law to them at all. These people already feel God’s judgment upon them, they are already bitten by the knowledge of their sin, they are already crushed by the law. And so they need to hear the Gospel—that Jesus has died for them, that he has risen from the dead, that he forgives them, that he promises them eternal life, that he is their Good Shepherd that will never let them be snatched out of his hand.

But on the other hand, if a person is not worried or troubled by anything, and they think that everything’s fine, that they haven’t done anything wrong, that they’re quite happy living as they are, that they don’t care much for changing their life for the better, that they don’t give a brass razoo what the bible says, then the Gospel shouldn’t be spoken to them. Instead, they need to hear the Law. They need to be told to wake up from their sleep, to be called to repent, to change their life, to abandon their evil ways. You can’t preach forgiveness of sins to someone who doesn’t acknowledge their sin. If they don’t recognise their sin, they can’t hear the Gospel – it’s no use to them. So instead, they need to be shown their sin, and have it exposed to them.

It’s a bit like going to the doctor. Two people can have the same symptoms—but if one person recognises their symptoms, they’ll go to the doctor to receive a treatment. But if someone lives in denial, and pretends like they haven’t got any symptoms, they won’t go to the doctor, and so they can’t get the help they need. It’s the same thing with the Law and the Gospel. People who know their sin will gladly receiver the message of forgiveness through Jesus. But people who don’t know their sin won’t care at all. And so, as Christians, it takes a lot of experience when we talk with people to work out what we should say to people. Is this person someone who needs comfort, or do they need a wake-up call?

And so, in the Book of Acts, we see a jailer, who realises that he has just had his life saved. And he was stopped just short of killing himself, and he realised just what a fool he was. And so, for him, all Paul and Silas needed to say to him was the Gospel: Believe in the Lord Jesus.

But in our reading from Mark, Jesus deals with this rich man differently. This man has the appearance of being someone important, someone respectable. He comes to Jesus and says: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Jesus wants to say to him: Listen, do you think that I’m just one of many good teachers? There are plenty of people who think that Jesus is a good teacher. They line him up with Buddha and the Dalai Lama and Confucius, or they line him up next to Mystic Meg, or Mystic Energy this or that, or the Angel Gabriel or the Angel Michael, or they line him up next to Pope John Paul or Mother Teresa, or even Martin Luther himself. No—Jesus is not just one of many good teachers. He says: No one is good except God alone. Jesus is not denying that he is a good teacher, by the way. He knows that he is a good teacher, but he is also humble and refuses to give the glory to himself. So he points back to God the Father. But we also know from other passages that Jesus is true God, just as Thomas said after the resurrection: My Lord and my God! Jesus and his Father are in perfect unity. Jesus said to Philip: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. And so also, whoever learns from Jesus as their teacher, learns from God the Father as their teacher. Jesus points the man to a higher reality: if you want a good teacher, then learn from God himself, not from people. And since I and the Father are one, since I am equal with God the Father, since I have equality with God, then you know that when I teach you, I am not teaching you some earthly teaching that you can just sample from anywhere, but I am teaching you directly out of heaven itself, from the other side of the grave, from eternity—I am shining pure light from heaven which makes everything on this earth, and every earthly teacher, complete and total darkness by comparison. So he says: Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Then Jesus says to him: You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and mother. Jesus preaches to this man the law. He recognises in this man a person who is not ready to hear the Gospel, who doesn’t really need Jesus. So he points him to the Law. And the man, like many a person who is self-righteous and doesn’t need Jesus, says: Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. There is no-one so far away from Jesus and his grace and his forgiveness who thinks that he has done everything that needs to be done. There is no-one so close to hell than a person who thinks he is perfect and sinless. As St John says in his first letter: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Jesus has tremendous compassion on this man, though. We read: And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When Jesus cuts this man’s heart with the law, he doesn’t do it because he hates him, but because he loves him. It says: Jesus, looking at him, loved him. But it’s as if Jesus says: OK. Let’s be serious now. Let me tell you what your problem is. Let me show you your false god. He says: You lack one thing: Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. And we read: Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Jesus doesn’t tell everyone to sell everything and give to the poor—just to this man. Jesus exposes that this man has a false god. He only wants Jesus as long as he can keep all his shiny things. And Jesus says: No—I won’t compete. I want you, and I want you completely. I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. I will not share you with some silly money, with your knick-knacks, with your great possessions.

And so, then we read: Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Money is not the problem here. It’s our human heart that is the problem. People often misquote the bible and say that money is the root of all evil. That’s not what the bible says. It says: The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is a gift of God. If you have money, thank God for it. People often make the mistake of saying that poor people go to heaven and rich people go to hell. After all, in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man goes to hell and the Lazarus, the poor man, goes to heaven. But Lazarus goes to meet Abraham. If all rich people go to hell, what was the rich man Abraham doing in heaven?

So we have to be careful what we say. It’s OK to have money, it’s a blessing of God to have money, but so long as you are the master of your money and your money is not master over you. Many poor people are much more money hungry than many rich people. How many people in this town buy scratchy tickets, for example? When you are ruled by your money, then your money becomes your master and your god. If you are ruled by your money, then you need to start giving some of it away, like Jesus says to this rich man.

When Jesus says how difficult it is for rich people to enter the kingdom of God, this is bad news for Australia. We are “the lucky country”, and we have everything we need. Once I met a Sudanese lady who was pregnant with her sixth child, and was told by her doctor to have an abortion because otherwise the child would starve. She said, “Starve? In Australia? I know what it’s like to live in a country where my children would starve. And I’d much rather live in a country where my children would starve, than in a country where nobody prays.” Yes, Australia is a lucky country, but a godless country. We are a rich country, we have everything, we are comfortable, and so we don’t need God, and we don’t pray like we should.

We read: And [the disciples] were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Here we are pointed back to the Gospel. The man walks away sorrowful—he doesn’t want to part with his possessions. But when Jesus starts to talk about camels and needles and the dangers of wealth, then the disciples start to despair. It’s almost like they want to fling their wallets straight to the ground before their weight drag them into hell. They think: We need to live on something, don’t we? They say: Then who can be saved? Now Jesus recognises: now I am talking to repentant hearts, now I am dealing with people who are face to face with the reality of their sin. Jesus says: With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. There is not one person who is able to save themselves, no matter how rich or how poor, no matter how much they keep the law. An honest person will realise just how easily their sinful hearts clings to the earth’s filth. We realise that it is impossible for us to save ourselves. God must do everything. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.

Here at the end, Peter says: See, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, house and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

The teachings of Jesus are incredible. They are so simple on paper, but then when we think it through, we might think: but if I went about saying that, my mum would completely freak out! I’d lose her—she’d never speak to me again. Or maybe, you think your husband or wife, or children would think you were mad. “Oh dear, old Grandpa’s become senile in his old age! He’s become a Christian!” Sometimes in the church, we can easily compromise the sharpness of the truth, because we worry what other people might think of us. And so, we end up with half-truths, or falsehoods.

But where Jesus calls us to sacrifice something, he always promises to repay. Our old friends and family who now reject us for our faith or our convictions, are repaid with new friends, new mothers, and fathers, or whatever. But when it comes to the truth of God’s word and the purity of the Gospel, we must sacrifice everything for it, because there is nothing in the world so precious. No sacrifice can be made in vain—because God’s church, the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, are priceless. If we give him everything, Jesus will repay everything. If we give too little, we are then in danger of losing everything, and being lost.

With us it is impossible. For us to save ourselves is like a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle. Jesus is the one who saves us completely. He has done it, he has accomplished it, he has paid the price and won the victory. And everything that we have ever needed, that we need today, and that we will ever need in the future belongs to him. As St Paul says in 2 Corinthians: He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for saving us. Search us, and continue to show us the idols of our hearts, so that we may abandon them, and follow only and wholeheartedly after you. Amen.

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.

Epiphany II B [John 1:43-51] (14-Jan-2018)

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

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

Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

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 talks about Jesus calling to himself two disciples: Philip and Nathanael. We read: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

There’s not much to this passage! We are told a few things about various places: Jesus was going to Galilee, and Philip, Andrew and Peter were all from Bethsaida. But all we are told about Philip’s conversion is simply that Jesus found him and said to him, “Follow me.” Already Andrew and Peter had followed Jesus. And now, in our reading today we read about two more: Philip and Nathanael.

Here we see a powerful word of God from Jesus himself, where he simply says to Philip: Follow me! This is almost the same thing that we read when Jesus called Matthew the tax collector. It says: Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. In the passage today about Philip, we don’t even read specifically that Philip rose and followed him. We do read that Philip went and spoke about Jesus to Nathanael, so it’s obvious that Philip did follow Jesus. But it’s almost not important that Philip obeyed Jesus, because that’s not the point. The point is that Jesus called him. And all the power of Philip’s conversion didn’t come from Philip, it came from the word of Jesus.

Sometimes we meet some Christians who want to tell everyone about their conversion. And it is a wonderful thing to convert to Christianity, and to come to Christ. But then for many Christians, they were raised in a Christian home by Christian parents, they were baptised as children, and each day has been a day of growth in the Christian faith, but they have had no massive turn-around in their lives. And so sometimes someone might say: “When did you become a Christian?” And we would say, “When I was baptised.” This answer often doesn’t satisfy these people, and so they say something like, “But when did you accept Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Saviour?” Now—here we see a problem. Yes, it’s a wonderful thing to have Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour. Without Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour, we can’t be saved. But they want to put all the focus on the question “when did you accept him?” Our accepting, and our receiving, and our conversion is a very shaky foundation to put our trust in, because our heart is still full of sin, and doubts, and all kinds of things. And so we might say, “How do I know that I really converted, that I am really, genuinely converted, and that it wasn’t all a show?”

Instead of putting your trust in your conversion, put your trust in Christ’s word to you: Follow me. And in each of our lives, there is a wonderful day when Christ said these words to us personally, and that was on the day of our baptism, when he said, I baptised you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When we were baptised, Jesus called us by name, just as he called Philip, he gave to us the forgiveness of sins which he won on the cross, he gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal life. All the power of our Christian life comes not from us, and from our response to all these things, but from Jesus, and his words, and his promises.

In the second part of our reading, we read: Now Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

Here we see Philip come to his friend Nathanael, and tell him that he has found Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Now we know that Jesus wasn’t actually the son of Joseph, but that he was only the Son of Mary and that his mother was a Virgin. And also we know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but Philip calls him Jesus of Nazareth, because that was the place where he grew up. But there’s something else that we learn from these words about Philip and Nathanael.  Philip says: We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote. What does this tell you? It tells you that Philip and Nathanael were people who read the bible. They must have studied the Scriptures carefully in the synagogue, and they were eager to learn God’s word. They had read or heard the law of Moses and the prophets. And Nathanael asks the question: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Now, it was well known by Jewish people that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem, and Jesus was in fact born in Bethlehem. The prophet Micah says very clearly that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem. Nathanael knew this too, and so when he heard from Philip that Jesus was from Nazareth, he asked the question: Can anything good come from Nazareth? And so Philip says to him: Come and see.

Nathanael is testing everything according to the Scripture. And when Nathanael comes to Jesus, Jesus says: Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit! Jesus praises Nathanael. Jesus knows that Nathanael is not being a smart-aleck, or being cynical, as if nothing of any worth can come from a small place like Nazareth! Many things of great worth can come from small places—small places even like Maryborough or Childers! No, Jesus knows that Nathanael is testing everything according to the Scripture, and Jesus praises and commends him for it. Jesus recognises that Nathanael is not being deceitful, but that he is honestly trying to work things out from the Scripture.

Now this is a very important thing, which we should stop and think about for a while. One of the greatest issues amongst Christians today is this one question: What is our attitude towards the Scripture? There are many things going on in the world, many things going on in the church, but they all seem to come back to one thing: Do we hold the Scripture, the bible, as the Word of God? Is the bible our authority? When we read something in the bible that doesn’t sit well with us, do we try to change the bible, or do we let the bible change us? Do we treat the bible as the word of men, or do we consider it the word of God?

In the last year, we have been celebrating the 500^th year of the Reformation. And one of the greatest achievements of Martin Luther was translating the bible into German, so that the people of Germany could understand it and believe it. Also, from that time, the bible has been translated into many different languages, and there are many different versions in English—probably far too many versions! In some parts of the world, especially in new mission fields, translating the bible is what gave the opportunity for people to write down their language for the first time. In some places, the only significant book that is published is the bible, which means that if people wanted to learn how to read, the only reason for doing that was so that they could read the bible.

So let me encourage you: we have been so incredibly blessed to be able to have great access to the bible, and the ability to read it. If you don’t have time to read it, remember that there are people in the world who are saving up every last cent they have just so that they can put their hands on one and read it every day. If you don’t feel as though you understand it all, don’t worry: just give it a go, and remember that there are a lot more people around the world who have a lot less education than you that try to read the bible constantly, even one word at a time.

I wonder whether one of the reasons why the Reformation was even able to happen 500 years ago is because people generally still believed that the bible was the word of God. Today in our country, there is no way that anything like that could happen so long as people say: That’s your opinion, I’ll have my opinion. When we realise just what it means to say: Thus says the Lord, then things are completely different, because everything we say comes with all the power and authority of God himself. We need leaders in the church today. We need a strong church. But we won’t have one, and we won’t have good leaders in the church if we don’t seek to learn the bible as best as we can. One of my seminary lecturers said to us students once that it is our duty as future pastors of the church to seek to be experts of the bible. But wouldn’t it be a great thing if not only our pastors would study the bible thoroughly, but also all the people in the church? What a church that would be! The Lutheran Church always used to be known as a church of the word. What about today?

Now, none of us are the people of the word that we should be. Jesus died for all our failures to learn his word too. And yet, that wonderful word teaches us and shows us our Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth, our Messiah, our Lord. The Scripture tells us of his wonderful work for us, his resurrection, our salvation.

And so we take notice of the wonderful example of Philip and Nathanael, as they study and learn the Scriptures, and seek to discern from the Scriptures whether Jesus is the Messiah. We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Now, we come to a part in our reading about the conversation between Jesus and Nathanael. We read: Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

Now, this is a very strange conversation. First of all, Jesus compliments him on his respect and regard from the Scripture. Jesus calls him an Israelite indeed, not an Israelite in name and nationality only, but an Israelite who respected and regarded the word of God. But also remember, that Jesus wasn’t there when Philip and Nathanael were talking about this. And so Nathanael is puzzled by this compliment from Jesus. He says to him: How do you know me? Jesus says to him: Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Now, this is amazing. Jesus first of all knew, before Philip or Nathanael had said anything to him, that Philip had encouraged Nathanael to come and meet him. Also, Jesus knew who Nathanael was before he knew him, when he was standing under a certain fig tree. Nathanael knew that Jesus wasn’t there when he had the conversation with Philip, he knew that Jesus wasn’t there when he was under the fig tree, and yet Jesus says: I saw you.

This is an amazing thing. Here we see Jesus having a conversation with Nathanael, just like they have been old friends for many years. Jesus is so friendly and gentle with Nathanael. And yet, Jesus tells Nathanael about the miraculous way in which he saw him, even when he wasn’t there. And so, Nathanael is completely overwhelmed, and from this little detail he makes a wonderful confession of faith: Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!

Now, how is it that Jesus was able to see Nathanael even when he wasn’t there? You see, Jesus wasn’t simply a man like any other man. He was both true man and true God at the same time. Earlier in the chapter we read: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And this man, Jesus, had a true human body and a true human soul, just like us in every way, except without sin. And at the same time, this man was also true God, so that his body and his soul were united inseparably with his divine nature. Sometimes in wonderful ways, we see Jesus’ human body transformed and glorified in such a way that it takes on particular powers above and beyond the normal laws of nature because he is also true God. And so, at the Transfiguration, Jesus’ face and clothes shone with the wonderful divine light that belonged to him. After his resurrection, he walked through closed doors to visit his disciples. We read that he walked on water, calmed the storm with his word, raised the dead, healed the sick, and so on. Even in the church today, Jesus’ lets his body and blood take on a supernatural ability to be present for us in the church in the Lord’s Supper so that we can eat and drink it. This all happens because Jesus is also true God, or as we say in the creed: God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. Here in our reading we see how Jesus’ eyes and soul and heart could look straight into the heart and mind of someone far away and knew everything that was going on with him, and could hear all of his personal conversations. Normally, this is not possible for us human beings. But it is possible with this man Jesus, because he is also true God.

Sometimes there are people who claim to be psychic who try to “read people”, and give them hidden messages about their personality, or their future. They often do this by using astrology, or star-signs. This is not the same thing, because these people have to make use of demonic power in order to do things like this. Remember that the devil said to Eve when he tempted her: you will be like God. Sometimes the devil tries to trick people into giving themselves over to him, and giving them some strange powers and insights. Some psychics are frauds too. But some psychics who strangely know things that other people don’t. But they only know certain things—they don’t know everything. We need to avoid this kind of thing like the plague, and not make use of people like this. There are a lot of people in our society today who are interested in these things, and who try to look for these things. (Only in the last week, I saw prominent advertisements on TV for a large psychic expo in Bundaberg.)

Jesus is not like this at all, and he is not a psychic. He is true God, and he has access to everything and knows everything. He is not a psychic man, but he is true man and true God in one person. And so what Jesus does here is not simply a special superhuman power which he received from somewhere, but all power belongs to him as God. John writes about Jesus: All things were made through him. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

And so Nathanael recognises Jesus’ insight and his power, and he says: Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel! Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus tells him that he is not just the King of Israel, but also the King of the world. And not only the King of the whole world and the whole earth, but the king of heaven as well. Jesus is the king of angels too. And we see so many times in Jesus life where the angels show up: at his conception, at his birth, when he was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, when he was suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the empty tomb, and when Jesus ascended into heaven. And also, in the book of Revelation, we see the angels praising God continually before Jesus, the Lamb that was slain, in heaven. We praise Jesus even in our church today with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. Jesus sends his angels to guard and defend you constantly day by day, because you have been saved by him and his blood, and the angels are ascending and descending on this Jesus, this Saviour, who has pledged and promised himself to you.

And so in our reading today, we have this wonderful simply call of two of Jesus’ disciples: Philip and Nathanael. We see his friendly conversations, one person to another. But we also have this amazing teaching about Jesus’ divinity, the divine insight into people’s hearts that he has, which Jesus uses not to condemn Nathanael, but to call him. Jesus knows our hearts too… he know the sin there, and the dirt, and the shame. But he is our Saviour who has died for us, and as true God he has the power to bring us with him to heaven, knowing that he has paid the price with his blood for us. He is the Son of God, the King of Israel, and the Lord of hosts, the King of the angels! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for calling us to be your people. Send your angels to watch over us and defend us, and keep us strong in your word and Holy Spirit. 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.

Pentecost XXII (Proper 27 A) [Matthew 25:1-13] (12-Nov-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.

But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

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

In our Gospel reading today, we read a very rich parable of Jesus, the Parable of the Ten Virgins. We read: Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. The scene that Jesus paints here is one of ten virgins who are bridesmaids waiting for the groom to arrive so that they can go into a wedding reception, or a wedding banquet. At weddings, it is always important that things run on time, and there are a lot of jokes about brides running late. If a bride arrives early, the car might drive around the block a few times so that they arrive at the church at the right time. But in our parable, it is a groom—a bridegroom—that everyone is waiting for, and he is so late that everyone falls asleep.

In our reading, we read that the ten virgins went to meet the bridegroom. And later we read: At midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ So who is the bridegroom in this reading? The bridegroom is Jesus himself. One of the first things we read about in the book of Genesis is the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with God himself as the match-maker and the celebrant. And then, right at the end of the bible, we read in the book of Revelation: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A couple of chapters earlier, we read where an angel says: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Right back in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah, we read about a faithful servant of God speaking of God like their husband: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. In Ephesians, Paul has a lot to say about this: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

And so you can see this wonderful reality described in the bible here of Christ as the bridegroom, and the church as his bride. St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:2: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. He is not speaking only to the Corinthians who were outwardly celibate and virgins, but to the whole church here. And in the church at Corinth, there were virgins and widows, married people, and also people who had converted to Christ from prostitution, who were adulterers and who had slept around, and also Paul even mentions people who had converted to Jesus after having committed incest. But when these people repented and turned to Christ, they became virgins again, not because of themselves and their own righteousness and purity, but because of Christ’s righteousness which covered them. As it says in Isaiah: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In our reading, we read about the ten virgins: Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

On one hand, in the bible, the church is always depicted as Christ’s bride. But in this reading the bride isn’t mentioned, only these virgins, these bridesmaids. And so, we learn from this that in this life, in the church on earth, the bride of Christ is hidden, veiled. The church is often not a glorious place at all. It often seems quite ordinary, even a bit uninteresting and boring and commonplace. Sometimes in the church, there are fights and disagreements. From the outside, the church seems to have a lot of hypocrites. Many people don’t want anything to do with the church, because they see a community of ordinary sinners, and if God were really in charge of the world, why would he bother wasting his time with that lot?

But in this life, we don’t see the bride in all her glory. We only see ten virgins, five of them are wise and five of them are foolish. On one hand, the church is found wherever Christ’s word and the Gospel is preached in its truth and purity and where his sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are carried out according to Christ’s command and institution. The Word and the Sacraments are the Holy Spirit’s means that he uses to create faith in people. But on the other hand, not everyone who hears the gospel believes it. But faith is not something that you produce in yourself, but it is something that the Holy Spirit works in your heart. You might even think: “I want to believe, but I can’t”. St Paul writes that God wills and works in us to his good pleasure. If you want to believe, it means that God is already working in you, and you didn’t even know it. Thank him for working in you—he will continue to work in you, and he has already produced faith in your heart.

Now, the Holy Spirit is not a toy. He is the living God himself, and the Spirit of the Living God, and the Spirit of the living Jesus, who has risen from the dead. The Holy Spirit will not be manipulated. And so he works whenever and wherever he pleases in those who hear the Gospel. In John we read: The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. What this means is that just as we might be sitting inside one day and can hear the wind outside, so also when we hear the Word of God, we are listening to God’s own wind, the Holy Spirit. But just as you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going, so also we can’t see the Holy Spirit coming, and we can’t see the Holy Spirit working in this person and that person. As Paul says: I preached, [someone else] watered, but God gave the growth.

And so, we see this happen on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples, but not everyone who sees this happening believes it or recognises it. We read: All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” Some were interested, but some mocked. When Paul preached in Athens, we read: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So what we learn here is that we never know how the Holy Spirit is going to work. We should never second-guess him and say: That person’s never going to listen. We simply speak the word and go home, but the Holy Spirit then continues to work and create faith in people.

So on one hand, the word of God and the Holy Spirit comes to us from outside of us. And all of us hear the word of God altogether. But God doesn’t speak his word in such a way that it hits you on the head like a rock and bounces off. He calls you to believe it. And so, even though all kinds of people might come to church and hear the word, God calls each individual to be saved personally. Later in our reading we read: As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

We learn a few things here. Firstly, we learn that Christ calls us to receive the gift of salvation personally. When the time comes, it will be too late for the individual virgins to share their oil with each other. We can’t rely on others. We can’t say: I’m saved, because I go to church with bla-bla-bla, and he’s a good guy. Or: I’m saved because my grandma is a Christian. Or: I’m saved, because my grandfather, or my son, is a pastor. Or: I’m saved because I go to the church Martin Luther started, and he knew what it was all about. Or: I’m saved because come from such-and-such a country. No: we can’t get our righteousness from each other. We can only receive our salvation from Jesus and him alone. Now, sometimes, when a person dies, we don’t about their salvation, and so we might commend them to God in prayer and to his mercy. But this does not mean that our good works or our prayers can earn salvation for someone else. Some of you might have a relative or a friend who is not saved and is an unbeliever. Of course, we should pray for them every day and not give up. But we don’t pray that we would be their saviour, but that Jesus would be their Saviour. So salvation is through Jesus and Jesus alone. Peter says in Acts: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So the oil cannot be shared between fellow virgins. It can only be received from Christ and the Holy Spirit, through the living and active word of God.

But secondly, there is a very important teaching here that not everyone will be saved. This is a very unpopular thing to say, but we must learn from the Scripture and not from our own ideas that there will be a judgment, and that each person will be judged by God. There are a number of parables where Jesus teaches this: one of them is the wheat and the weeds, where at the end, the wheat and weeds are separated into different piles. Another parable like this is about the drag net which pulls in all kinds of fish, and then they are sorted into the good and the bad. And here in the parable of the ten virgins, there are two types of virgins: the wise and the foolish. The wise virgins are ready and prepared and they go into the wedding feast, but then there are the foolish virgins who are not ready and it is too late for them, and then the door is shut. So you can see that there is a judgment.

Now today there are many people who don’t believe this. First of all, many people say that there is no distinction between God and his creation. They say that God is everything, God is the universe, or that God is in everything. The first verse of the bible contradicts this and says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator, and the heaven and the earth are his creation. Second, many people say that the Holy Spirit is in everyone. This is not true. Everyone is born with a conscience, everyone is born with a soul, but to be saved, Jesus says you must be born again, a second time, in Holy Baptism, and God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift. Instead of being united around Jesus and his word, many people today just want to be united in their feelings and experiences, and so there would be no difference between the Christian faith and any other faith. But Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If this isn’t true, then Jesus is a liar, and he’s not the true God. If the words of Jesus are not absolute truth, then nothing in this world is right or wrong, there is no good or bad, no heaven or hell, and of course, the church has no mission, and the missionary zeal of the church completely dries up.

Instead, the bible teaches us that God is the Creator, and he has made heaven and earth as his creation, which is distinct from him. Jesus is true God who entered into this creation and took on human flesh, and then died on the cross and made a payment and an atonement for sin. Through faith in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. In the end, we will be judged; but through Jesus, forgiveness and eternal life has been won for us, and is ours through faith. Jesus is our Mediator, our Advocate, our Defender. The Holy Spirit brings us the Gospel, and through the Gospel the Holy Spirit creates faith in us. The Holy Spirit is the oil in the lamps, and the light of the Gospel in our hearts is the light. And so while we have the light of the Gospel shining among us on this earth, we need to make good use of the time we have to fill up our flasks with God’s oil. If we leave it, and refuse to believe the Gospel, there may be a time, then, when it is too late for us.

And so, at the very end of our reading, Jesus says: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Jesus here is calling us to repent and to reconcile ourselves with God now, in this life, while we have the Gospel. Psalm 95 says: Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Isaiah says: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. St Paul says in Romans: The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. And in Galatians we read: As we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone. The time for acquiring faith, and believing in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit is now. It is not next year, not next month, not tomorrow. When we hear the Gospel, we can’t guarantee that it will be there for us when we need it. We might say: I’ll read the bible at home another day, but who knows if later you’ll go blind in your old age? People might say: I won’t listen in church all that carefully, but then later on they go deaf and it’s too late? They might say: I’d like to come to church, but then later they find themselves unable to come when they want to.

Or someone might say: I’m going to church at Easter. I haven’t gone to church for a long time. And then they go along, and the preacher tells everyone that Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead after all. It’s too late – the Gospel isn’t preached in that church any more, and the glory of God has departed from that place. They rejected God earlier, and when they sought him later, they couldn’t find him anymore. They might call for a pastor to come and see them on their deathbed, but then they can’t find anyone to come, because by that time, either no Christians live there anymore, or the Christians who do are too lazy and apathetic to come.

The time of grace is now. And while we have the Gospel, our Lord Jesus doesn’t call us to be apathetic, but to fill up, to stock up our vessels, and to keep our lamps burning. And when our lamps burn brightly, and when they burn with the wonderful light of God’s word and his Gospel, then the words will be fulfilled: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Others may see the light in the lamps, and will say: I want to go and fill up on the same oil as they. I want to fill my lamp with the same word of God, and the same Gospel, and the same Holy Spirit.

And so, let’s be ready and prepared. Let’s continually learn God’s word, receive the free forgiveness of sins, and to fill up our vessels continually, so that when the time comes we can wake from our sleep and hear the words: Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him’. And those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. Amen.

Dear Jesus, our loving bridegroom, keep us watchful and ready, and continually fill our lamps with your precious Word and your Holy Spirit. Wake us up from our sleep, forgive us all our sins, and lead us into the wedding banquet of eternal life. Amen.