Pentecost XI (Proper 13 B) [John 6:24-35] (5-Aug-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.

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

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.

Over the next four weeks, our Gospel readings are taken from John chapter 6, where Jesus gives a sermon in Capernaum. This sermon of Jesus has a particular theme about “bread”—he calls himself the bread of life, and the living bread that came down from heaven. Last week, we read about how Jesus fed the 5000, and so this discussion that Jesus has with the people comes about in light of this event.

And so we read: So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

These people are quite confused, because after Jesus had fed the 5000, the disciples headed off across the lake without Jesus. But then, as we read last week, Jesus walked out on the lake on the water to come and join them. So when they realised that the disciples weren’t there, and Jesus also wasn’t there, they went across to the other side of the lake. When they found Jesus on the other side, they were confused. How did Jesus get here? So they ask Jesus: Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus however doesn’t pay much attention to their question, and he says to them: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

Jesus first of all says here: Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you at your fill of the loaves.

This is a saying of Jesus which really penetrates very deeply into our sinful condition. We know that Jesus is the creator of the world together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And Jesus teaches us to pray: Give us today our daily bread. Every single thing we need for our bodies and for our lives comes from God. All the food in the world, the drink in the world, the clothes, the shoes, the houses, the homes, all the land in the world, all the animals, all the money, all the stuff, all the things in the world – every single thing that we think of belongs to God. And so rarely do we ever think of asking him for these things, and we think that if we want them, it has to come only from our own achievement. But then, there are those of us who ask God constantly for these things, for each little thing that we need, even for a parking space when we go to the shops. And then when Jesus gives us these things, we so often don’t thank him. But then there is another temptation: we start to look to Jesus as the giver of stuff, but we’re not really interested in him. For example, when we go to Woolworths or Coles, or wherever, we’re not going there so that we can meet the manager, we’re going there to buy the stuff we need. And so Jesus says to us: Do you want me, because I am your God, your Saviour? Do you want to hear what I have to say to you? Do you want to learn about what it means to believe in me and follow me? Or, on the other hand, do you just want me to give you stuff?

And so, Jesus says: You are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. It was a wonderful miracle that Jesus fed these people, but then they come to Jesus, only because they think they might be able to get another free meal out of him. And so here’s a question for us: are we only happy to talk with Jesus and learn from him when he gives us what we want him to give us? It’s easy to come to church and to listen to Jesus when our piggy banks and our pantries and our stomachs are full, but what about when they’re not? What about when we have a drought, when we hit hard times, when we have to count our pennies, when we’re hungry? Do we still thank Jesus for the abundance that he has given us? Do we love Jesus because he is Jesus, or do we just love him because he gives us stuff? Do we just want the gifts, or do we want the Giver?

And so Jesus says: Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

Jesus says here: Do not work for food that spoils. Now, let’s be clear here. It is a good thing to work, and it is a gift of God to have a job or an occupation and to make a living and an income. It is our duty to work, just as Jesus says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength. We should work hard out of thankfulness to him for all that he has given us.

However, God is the one who gives success to our labour, who provides us our daily bread, who gives us what we need. There are so many things that could have gone wrong in our work that God does put right, so that we end up with food on our table. Psalm 127: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. We can build and work all we like, but God is against us, every piece of bread between our teeth is nothing but a curse.

We read in Matthew where Jesus says: He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So if things are going well for us, and we are enjoying a good life, we need to remember than anyone, whether they are Christian or not, could have a nice life. When Jesus fed the 5000, he spoke his blessing over that food—and yet even that food Jesus calls “food that spoils”. Having a good life could be a blessing, if we thank God for it. But if we think that having a good life is all there is, then all of our good life is a curse.

So Jesus says: Do not work for food that spoils. He doesn’t say: Do not work. Work is good. Just don’t work for food that spoils. Work because Jesus is your Saviour who has given you this gift of work, and he is your master. Don’t let money, food, even family be your master. You are allowed to have a home, and money and food, but you must be master over them. You cannot let them be master over you. They are not your master: Jesus is.

 And so, Jesus says: Do not work for food that spoils, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. Jesus is the wonderful food which endures to eternal life. He is the only one who can satisfy our hunger, and so we commend ourselves and all our weakness and all our work to him. He is the one who feeds us with heavenly food – with his Word, with his forgiveness, with his gospel, with eternal life, with Baptism, with the Lord’s Supper, with all kinds of Christian encouragement – and he will continue to feed us as he promises us: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. The whole of eternity will be a wonderful heavenly banquet.

Jesus speaks about himself as the Son of Man, who will give this eternal food to us and he says: For on him God the Father has set his seal. If God the Father has set his seal on Jesus then we can be absolutely confident in every word that he says. He will never let us down, he is completely reliable: his words are more powerful than heaven and earth, his words are completely true, and they are perfect love, love that we could never have imagined we even possible. On Jesus, God the Father has set his seal.

But also it is a wonderful thing that Jesus is actually the exact imprint of his Father. Jesus says: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Hebrews says: He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. We read at the beginning of the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus Christ is true God together with the Father, the exact imprint of his Father, and on Jesus God has set his seal.

And so, we read in our reading that the people ask Jesus a question. Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

It’s strange. When the people heard Jesus say: Work for the food that endures to eternal life, they thought that they had to earn it. They thought that they would have to so some work, and that God would then pay them at the end of the day for doing it. And so they ask: What must we do, to be doing the works of God? In other words: what do we have to do to please God and to earn his blessings? But they completely misunderstood it all. And so Jesus says: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

To believe in God is the work that pleases him. But in actual fact, believing in God isn’t actually our work at all. The work that pleases him isn’t our work! Believing in Jesus, believing in him whom God has sent, is actually God’s work. If you believe in Jesus, that faith didn’t come from you in any way shape of form whatsoever. That faith was created in you and was given to you by God the Father himself. It didn’t come about because of your choice, or your free-will, or your achievement, or your work, or your pious behaviour, or whatever. It was a free gift – it was God’s work, just as St Paul says in Ephesians: By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. And so if this grace and this faith was not your own doing, whose doing was it? If it was not a result of works, then where did it come from? It was God’s doing, it was his work, as Jesus says: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

Then the people say to Jesus: Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Here the people ask Jesus to prove himself. They say: What sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ The people are talking about that event in the time of Moses where the people of Israel were in the wilderness, after they had been led out of Egypt through the sea, and they found themselves in the wilderness. During that time, God had fed them with manna, a kind of heavenly bread.

And so Jesus says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” The people come to Jesus and say, “This is what Moses did for the people, so what are you going to do?” Are you going to feed us? But there’s a great difference between what happened at the time of Moses and the people who were with Jesus on that day. The people were fed with manna because they were wandering through the wilderness, and were completely lost. If God hadn’t fed them in this heavenly, supernatural way, they would have starved to death. However, when Jesus fed the 5000 people, there was no famine on, they were not in the middle of a wilderness. It was just that on that day, the people had found themselves a long way from home, and it was the end of the day. If Jesus had sent them away, some people might have fainted on their way home. So Jesus has compassion on them, and feeds them. They all did have homes to go to, though, and they would have been able to go back home and be fed eventually. And so these people weren’t quite in the desperate situation that the Israelites were when they were wandering through the desert. It’s a bit strange to ask of Jesus to provide for them something like manna in the wilderness, when they weren’t really in the same situation.

But actually, they were in a worse situation. In fact, we are all in a worse situation. Jesus acknowledges full well that they are in a wilderness, not physically, like the children of Israel in the days of Moses. When Jesus enters the world, we see that the whole world is convicted of sin, and that Jesus is the only Saviour of the world. The whole world is a wilderness, and Jesus is the only manna, the only bread from heaven.

St Paul writes in Romans 3: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He also quotes from the Psalms earlier where it says: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. We read also in Ephesians: You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lives in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Do we really believe this judgment that God has spoken over us? Do we really believe that we have all sinned and completely fallen short of God’s glory? Do we really believe that all our good works are completely worthless in earning anything from God? Do we really believe that because of sin, we are completely dead, and are children of wrath? Do we believe the conclusions of our own reason, our own sinful flesh, and think that deep down we’re OK, rather than the truth of God’s word, which says: Every intention of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually?

Yes, we are living in a complete and total spiritual wilderness. We are completely useless to save ourselves, and even our so-called “good works” are tainted and corrupted by sin. And so Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus says to them, My father was the one who fed the people in the wilderness. But you are in a greater wilderness, and you will be walking in this wilderness not just for 40 years until the people reached the river Jordan. You are walking in a wilderness that will last your entire lifetime, and the lifetimes of your children right up until the very last day of this sinful world. From now until that day, God the Father will feed the world with bread. But what bread? Jesus says: My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

Jesus is the true bread from heaven. The manna in the wilderness was only a little shadow by comparison. Jesus himself has come down from heaven, and he gives life to the world. And so, the people say: Sir, give us this bread always.

Jesus says: I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And so we receive Jesus as our Saviour, purely by faith alone, without anything that we have done or contributed. And when we believe in him, and the Holy Spirit works this living faith in us, we feed on Jesus, the bread of life. He is our life, our salvation—he gives us right now the complete and total forgiveness of everyone of our sins, he gives us the wonderful promise of eternal life, and all the way through this troubled life, through this sinful, deathly wilderness of a world, he will never let us down, and he will safely lead us through it. He is our Good Shepherd, and his sheep will never be in want.

Next week, we will continue to read through this chapter, but for now, we’ll leave it there. Today, of course, we will come to receive the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus will feed us with his own body and blood, this wonderful food which he supplies for us from heaven, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. He enters into our church and speaks his words of forgiveness to us and shows himself to us as our wonderful Saviour. Let’s thank him for these wonderful gifts, but let’s also thank him simply for who he is. He is the food that never spoils, he is the bread that has come down from heaven and gives life to the world, he is the bread of life. Amen.

Dear Jesus, give us this bread always. Let us always feed on you each day of our earthly pilgrimage through this wilderness. Create in us a living faith, that we may believe in you, our Saviour, whom God the Father has sent. Amen.

Easter VI B [John 15:9-17] (6-May-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.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

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 our Gospel reading comes from John chapter 15, and this particular chapter is part of a sermon that Jesus gives to his disciples on Maundy Thursday evening, on the night when Jesus was betrayed. Maundy Thursday is a very special day in the church calendar, and it is the day before Jesus died, which is Good Friday. So Jesus had had the Lord’s Supper with his disciples, he had washed his disciples feet, and then in chapters 14, 15 and 16 of John, we read where Jesus gives a powerful sermon, a farewell speech, before he goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane. Also he gives this sermon to his disciples after Judas had left the room to go to the high priests to organise Jesus’ arrest later that night. This message was not for Judas, but for the other eleven disciples.

So at the beginning of chapter 13 of John we read about where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, and he prophesies and predicts that Judas is going to betray him, and Judas leaves. We also read where Jesus says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. This is a very well-known verse. Jesus also foretells that Peter will deny him three times. And then in chapters 14, 15 and 16 we read this sermon of Jesus, where he says: In my Father’s house are many rooms… I am the way, the truth and the life…Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you… There are so many memorable verses in this sermon. Also in chapter 17, Jesus prays a wonderful prayer, often called the “High Priestly Prayer.”

Our reading from today comes from chapter 15, in the middle of this Maundy Thursday sermon. Jesus says: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. We see God the Father here cutting off and removing the dead wood on the vine, but also he prunes the good branches so that they bear more fruit. But also we see that Jesus is the vine. All the members of Christ’s church, his family, his bride, are so intimately connected to him that the same juices that flow through him flow through his disciples. And sometimes as Christians we suffer tremendously, and we ask God why this is happening. But God is not cutting us off, but pruning us.

Jesus says: Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Here Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the way that he will be with them, and dwell with them and in them, and will be so intimately connected with them in everything that they do. It is not just Jesus’ teaching or his doctrine or his power that is with them, but himself! He says: Apart from me you can do nothing. Jesus will be with them all the way.

Then Jesus says: If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Everything that turns away from this vine is thrown away. Everything comes from remaining in Christ and his word. Jesus says: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you. Jesus and his words go together. When we have Christ and his word, then our prayers are wonderfully answered. Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. But none of this is for our glory, but for the Father’s glory. Jesus says: By this my Father is glorified.

Now we come to our reading for today, which says: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. Jesus speaks here about Christian love. This wonderful love reaches from the Father to the Son, and from the Son to us. And Jesus says: Abide in my love. Jesus has been talking about how we are connected to him like branches on a vine. Love is a fruit of faith. St Paul even calls love a fruit of the Spirit, in fact, he lists it as the first of many fruits. So when we saved by faith, and this faith then looks to Christ and our neighbours, faith produces the fruit of love, friendship, and fellowship.

Now if love is produced from faith, it’s also very important that faith is right. When we speak about faith, we don’t put our trust in ourselves or in the things in our sinful human hearts; we put our trust in the pure, clear word of God. Faith clings to the word, just as Jesus says: If you abide in me and my words abide in you… So when we turn our backs on the truth of God’s word, love also dries up, and we end up with tremendous fighting in the church. St Paul wrote a wonderful chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13, where it says: Love is patient and kind, and all that kind of thing. We often read this passage at weddings. But in the middle of that chapter it says: Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Also, there’s another wonderful passage about love in 1 John 4, where it says: God is love. Perfect love casts our fear. But at the beginning of the chapter it says: Test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Do you see how John here talks about truth and then he goes on to talk about love? Also St Paul says in Ephesians, not simply to speak with love, but to speak the truth in love. I mention these things because today often when we talk about love, people often say that speaking the truth even when people don’t want to hear it is loveless. No—it’s not loveless at all! As Christians we should strive to believe the same thing, live the same way, and help each other in doing this—all on the basis of God’s word. We see all throughout the New Testament about how the apostles stood very firmly together, in unity and peace, being of one mind and one heart, speaking the truth with the very voice of the Holy Spirit. It is the same oneness and unity of mind and heart around the word of Christ that we should also strive together for, which draws us together in love.

And so we read in our reading how Jesus says: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. By faith we are grafted on and united to Christ, like branches on a vine. And branches bear fruit. Each day we learn what it means to love. Jesus tells us to keep his commandments, and to do good works, not because the good works save us, but because this is simply what branches on a vine do. A wheel doesn’t spin so that it can become round. The fact that it is round is the reason why it spins. So we don’t love in order to be grafted into the vine, but because we are grafted in, we then start to bear the fruit of love.

Jesus then says: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Jesus is the bringer of joy. Now many people in the world seem happy enough, and don’t look to Jesus at all for joy. Sometimes these people are even happier than most Christians. But it is short-lived. Something happens in their life that they don’t expect, and everything is wrecked, and they don’t understand why. Jesus was sometimes very sorrowful and sad, especially when he went to the cross. But he had sadness first and joy later. So like Jesus, we have sadness and suffering first, and then eternal joy which Jesus promises us comes afterwards. Jesus shares with his people not just any joy, but his own joy: that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

So Jesus says: This is my commandment, that you love another as I have loved you. Jesus has loved us, by dying on the cross, and saving us completely freely, without any contribution from us. And we see here that Jesus commandment to love one another comes from the wonderful way in which he has loved us. He loves us even though we don’t deserve it and we have really treated him terribly, and so also even when we hurt each other and treat each other badly, Jesus calls us to love one another, to model and picture that love which he has shown us. Sometimes this love is very difficult for us, but it is this kind of love that Jesus shows to us all the time, and which is continually pumped into us because we are his branches connected to him, the vine.

Now, Jesus goes on to show exactly what this kind of love looks like. He says: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Jesus’ love is not just a sentimental, emotional, soppy love, like from a love story on some kind of soap opera. Jesus is not a man of feelings and sentiments and warm fuzzies, but he is a man of action. He speaks the truth, and then he acts upon it. And what is this wonderful act of love that he has done for us? He laid down his life for us. Jesus says: The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Here he says: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Jesus sees what needs to be done for us, and he does it.

But Jesus doesn’t die for his friends, for people who already love him. St Paul says: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When Jesus dies, then he makes us his friends, even though we were his enemies. So he says: You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. In ancient times, a friend of a king was like a member of his cabinet, or inner circle. A servant is just told to do something without thinking. But Jesus tells his apostles everything, and the apostles then preached and wrote it out for our benefit.

Jesus’ friends are the people to whom he has told everything. All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. When the apostle Paul was preaching once, he said: I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Jesus didn’t shrink from telling everything to the apostles, and Paul and the other apostles didn’t shrink from passing everything on from Jesus. Even in the church, we continually pass everything on. Jesus says: teach them to observe everything I have commanded you. In the church, we pass on everything—the law and the gospel—the things we should do and not do, and the things we should believe. We are Jesus’ friends, and we learn his teaching and his doctrine, we grow in love, and we tell it to others. And this is how Christian friendship grows: we talk about everything there is to know in the Scriptures, just as Jesus told his disciples everything from God the Father’s own heart and mouth.

Jesus says: You are my friends if you do what I command you. We often hear this as meaning that we are only Jesus’ friends when we do good works. If our good works are not perfect as Jesus commands us, then we are not his friends. But Jesus has also commanded us to pray: Forgive us our sins. We also do his commandments not when we simply follow his laws, but also when in all of our failures we continually bring our sins to him and receive his forgiveness. Jesus also commands us to believe the good news, and we are his friends when in all our sinfulness, we believe these pure words of forgiveness which he speaks to us.

And so Jesus says: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. When we think about making friends, we often think about choosing friends. Some Christians often think that they became a Christian by choosing to follow Jesus. There’s even an old song: “I have decided to follow Jesus”! But it is not us who have chosen to follow Jesus, it is Jesus who chose us to follow him. Even with the apostles, we read about how Jesus went to them and said: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men! He chose them, and so also through his word and holy baptism, Jesus also chose you to be his disciple and to follow him.

As Jesus’ friends, we learn and talk about all his words in the Scripture—he has hidden no secrets from us. Jesus chose and appointed these disciples, and he has chosen and appointed you, not to accomplish nothing, but to bear fruit, and fruit that will last, that will remain, that will abide. As soon as you and I are taken out of the picture, the living words of Jesus and the Holy Spirit will continue. The Holy Spirit will continue to work long after we have died. We human beings won’t last, but the fruit that has been produced from Jesus the vine will continue to abide until the very last days of this world.

Jesus says: So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. As we learn Christ’s word and grow in Christian love, we also grow in prayer. Prayer is also a fruit of faith—when we in faith see our own need and look to God, then our faith produces the fruit of prayer. Jesus says: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. We might look at many prayers we have asked, and they seem to be unanswered, even some of those prayers that we have asked from such a state of desperation and helplessness and despair. God was our only help, and even then he didn’t seem to help.

But Jesus and the Father know what we need so much better than we do. Little children ask their parents for such ridiculous things like trains and aeroplanes and pet ponies. We are such little children when it comes to prayer. We stumble and stammer, and God knows what we need. And he will give us whatever we need to serve him in his kingdom. His ways are often above our ways, and we don’t understand why he gives someone something and doesn’t give someone something else. But we simply ask in Jesus’ name, and if it glorifies that holy name of Jesus, God will give it to us. He gives us so much that we so often don’t notice or even thank him for. The most wonderful thing he gives us is the precious gift of making us friends of his own son, and grafting us onto this vine, so that we may produce wonderful rich fruit.

And so let’s thank Jesus for this wonderful message that he gives us today. Let’s thank him for the wonderful words of forgiveness that he continually speaks to us, because of his death on the cross. We thank you for the way in which he comes and dwells with us and in us, and connects us so intimately to himself like branches on a vine. And we pray in his name that we may continually learn his word, learn his perfect sacrificial love, and ask him to use us in his kingdom in whatever way he sees fit. Jesus says: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Amen.

Dear Jesus, our true vine, use us, your branches, to bear fruit, and fruit that will abide. Let your Father be glorified in us, so that we may bear much fruit not to our glory, but to his glory. Into your hands, dear Jesus, we commend our bodies, our souls, our minds and our spirits. Amen.

Lent IV B [John 3:14-21] (11-Mar-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.                                                                                                          

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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 Gospel today is very well-known, and contains the most famous bible verse, John 3:16. Our reading speaks about faith, but then also it speaks why faith is actually needed. It says: Whoever believes in him should have eternal life. And also: Whoever believes in him is not condemned. We have here a positive thing: the gift of eternal life. But also, we are saved from eternal death, from condemnation, from judgment.

Our text today begins where Jesus says: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. In the book of Numbers, there are many different occasions where the people of Israel were grumbling against God and complained. On this occasion, God sent to them fiery serpents which bit them, and many people died. When the people repented, God told Moses: Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. All they needed for being healed was not to crawl up to the serpent, but simply to look at the serpent. Now Jesus compares himself to this bronze serpent: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The serpent was put up on a pole, and also Jesus was put up on a cross. The serpents were the people’s punishment, and a serpent just like the one that bit them was put on that pole. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, he took our punishment with him, so that when we think about Jesus on the cross, we should remember that it is both him and our punishment that was nailed there. In Colossians, it says that God set aside the whole record of our sin by nailing it to the cross.

Jesus says: Whoever believes in him may have eternal life. The Israelites only looked at the bronze serpent and they were healed. As long as they looked at their wounds, they would die. Now we have been bitten by Satan, who has led us into sin, and now our whole thinking has been corrupted and tainted by sin. When we are convicted by the Holy Spirit, we see that we have a mortal wound inside killing us from the inside out. But if we look to ourselves to be saved and our own wounds, we die. But when we look to Jesus, we live, trusting that he has borne our sins for us. The Israelites simply looked and were healed for this life. But when we hear God’s perfect word about his only Son Jesus, and trust that word, we are healed for the whole of eternity.

And so Jesus says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It’s an amazing thing that God not only created the world, but he also loves the world. And his love is not just a feeling, but he actually did something and acted upon that love: he actually gave his only Son. The human race had fallen into sin and separated itself from God. But God was not content to leave it like that, because he loved the world. It is so much a part of God’s character and being that he should love us, because as John writes, God is love.

Now we might imagine many ways that we might show love to the world. But we are not God, but God is. God knows the best way to show it: He gave his only Son. All of that wonderful, pure love of God is tied up in this one person: his only Son. If you want to find God’s love, you must find his only Son. St Paul even describes Jesus’ life as that time when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared. Now why only one Son? Because God doesn’t want to split up his love. He pours it all out in full into this one Jesus, and then offers him up as the one perfect sacrifice.

Now at the beginning of the bible, God said to Adam: You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. This doesn’t seem like a great moral issue, whether or not to eat a piece of fruit. But it’s important simply because God himself commanded it—that’s it! And in advance God said what would happen if they disobeyed it: you shall surely die. But they did disobey, so they did die. We have also broken God’s law, and so we are also worthy of death, and will die.

Paul says in Romans: The wages of sin is death. Death is the payment we get for our sin. Just as a worker gets his wages at the end of a day’s work, so also the wages at the end of a life full of sin is death. And we also read in Romans: We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But then, it says: but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are justified by his grace as a gift. Whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life. God’s gift is life that extends beyond this life and into his wonderful presence for ever.

And everything simply depends of faith. It says: Whoever believes in him. It doesn’t depend on your works at all, because none of your works are perfect. Even your good works are corrupt. It doesn’t depend on your choice. Choosing is still something that you do. Faith is simply receiving the gift that God gives you. Faith says: God’s word says that he so loved the world that he gave his only Son. This word is true, and God never lies. He said it, and that’s it. If he says he loves “the world”, then I know he loves me, because I am part of the world, and he gave his only Son for me, because he gave his only Son for sinners like me. That’s faith.

Now so far in our reading, Jesus teaches us about things in pairs: he teaches one thing over here, and one thing over there. He says: Whoever believes in him should not die, but have eternal life. He talks here about death, and then about eternal life. Now we come to the next part of our reading, where Jesus says: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order than the world might be saved through him. Here he talks about judgment or condemnation, but on the other hand salvation. God did not send his Son into the word to condemn the world (on one hand), but (on the other hand) that the world might be saved through him.

And so we read here that there is death (and eternal death) and there is also eternal life. God condemns and he saves. Later Jesus speaks about whoever believes in him and whoever does not believe. He talks about light and darkness. When Jesus talks about death, he is speaking about hell. When he speaks about eternal life, he is speaking about heaven and the resurrection. There is no half-half. There is no half-death, half-life. There’s no half-light, half-darkness. There’s no half-heaven, half-hell. There’s no purgatory or half-way place. There is only death or life, condemnation or salvation, believing or not believing, light or darkness, heaven or hell. Shakespeare wrote: To be or not to be, that is the question. Jesus says: To believe or not to believe, that is the question.

One thing that many Christians today talk about is whether everyone will be saved. If God so loved the world, why isn’t the whole world automatically saved? Why did God need to send his Son into the world? Why can’t he just forgive us without Jesus needing to die? These are important questions.

One of the things that God speaks to us is his law, or his commandments. He says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… and You shall love your neighbour as yourself. This is God’s standard, and on the basis of this standard he promises to reward those who obey that standard.

But God also threatens to punish those who break his law. We read in 2 Thessalonians: God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

However, in our culture, we have a lot of difficulty with this. Many people almost don’t really believe in justice. If a criminal commits a crime, he or she is often imprisoned not so as to punish them, but to rehabilitate them, and make them better people. Many people think that the purpose of prison is to fix people, not punish people. We even call it “correctional services”. However, “justice” means that a person is punished in proportion to their crime. A murderer gets a heavier punishment than someone who steals a loaf of bread. And God threatens punishment, because his law is holy and he cares about his law. James says: Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

So God is a strict judge, not because he is a mad tyrant, but because his law is a good and beautiful thing and it should be kept. The book of Exodus shows us what God’s justice is: a life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. But doesn’t Jesus say that we shouldn’t demand justice? Doesn’t he say turn the other cheek? Yes, and yes! But that’s because Jesus has now taken all of the justice against sin on himself, and when something isn’t done justly, we don’t need to sue people and demand justice. Jesus says: You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil.

So God is a strict, just judge, but he is also a loving Father. Our reading today teaches both: God so loved the world. And it also says: He gave his only Son. He gave his only Son, because of his love, and because he wants to show to us his justice which has been dealt with. On the cross, we see God enacting his justice: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We deserved curses, punishment, death. But God puts all of his righteous curse, his righteous punishment, and the righteous death penalty on his Son. And when Jesus took all of this, and was about to die, he said: It is finished.

And so we read: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. When we look at God’s law and we realise that we haven’t kept it, and that we deserve punishment and justice to be carried out on us, we can still go to our heavenly Father, knowing that he has loved us so much that he even sent to us his only Son. And the sentence that was carried out upon Jesus is completely sufficient to pay the price of all the sin in the world. All that is required of us is that we look up from our snake-bites to Jesus and all our wounds, our sin, our guilt is completely healed for all eternity.

So the reading says: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. We learn that God threatens to punish sin because he cares about his law. His good and perfect law matters. But also, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, because he cares about sinners. Sinful human beings like you and I matter to God and he wants to save us. But why does it matter whether or not we have faith?

We might think: If God so loved the world, and those who don’t believe in Jesus will be condemned, why does he condemn those who don’t believe in Jesus? Paul wrote to Timothy: God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Why doesn’t he just save everyone automatically? Because he cares about his Son, and his Son matters. God’s law matters, we sinners matter, and also Jesus matters. And so we read: And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world. (This is talking about Jesus! He is the light who has come into the world). And people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

We Christians know what a wonderful Saviour Jesus is! And if only everyone knew, and if only everyone believed. Our faith shouldn’t make us proud, but should fill us with compassion for those who don’t believe, and for a desire to pray for them and share the Gospel with them as we have the opportunity. But many people harden their hearts to God’s word, and to the Gospel. Jesus is the light of the world, but they prefer darkness instead. Because of our sinful nature, and our corrupt hearts, many people refuse to listen to Jesus and to bask in his light. They are afraid of being found out and exposed for who they really are.

But Jesus knows who we really are. He knows our sin, he knows our shame, and our corruption. And it is a shameful thing for someone to know our deepest, darkest secrets. Imagine if all your thoughts were projected for everyone to read on a screen! And yet, when we are with Jesus in his kingdom, he covers over everything. He has died for everything, he has rescued you from darkness and brought you into his light.

We read: But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. We might think: “but my works aren’t true! Many of them are evil! I’ve done no better than the next person!” And you’re right! But there is something that God has worked in you that is better. Jesus says: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom you have sent. God has revealed Jesus to you in his word. And when Jesus covers over all you sin and forgives it, as he has promised, then there is nothing to be afraid of when we come into the light. It will be revealed that God has sent you his Holy Spirit and worked his gift of faith in you.

And so we read: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God loves the world, and that he means he loves you. He shows you that your debt has been paid for and your account has been cancelled by giving his only Son. Jesus has died on the cross, and he has offered his life for you, and shed his blood for you. And this word is true, and God does not lie. Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. We are spared from death, judgment, and darkness and are given the free gift of eternal life, not because of any good thing that we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. He is our Saviour, and so we put our trust in him. Amen.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your great love, for the wonderful gift of your Son, and for your promise of eternal life. Amen.

Lent II B [Mark 8:31-38] (25-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.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

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 Gospel reading today is a particularly wonderful passage where Jesus teaches us what it means to be one of his disciples. The conversation in our reading today between Jesus and the disciples comes between two very important events, both of which we have read in church recently. Just before this reading, we have the passage where Jesus asks his disciples: Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And also he says: Who do you say that I am? And Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. We learn from this passage that Jesus, the Son of Man, is the Son of God. Jesus praises and commends Peter, and says to him that the church will be built on this rock, this confession of faith that he has made. He also says to Peter: Flesh and blood have not revealed this you but my Father who is in heaven. What Peter had said to Jesus was not something that was the product of his own thinking and his own heart, but was shaped and formed and inspired by God the Father himself.

Now immediately after our reading today comes the Transfiguration, where Jesus stood on the top of the mountain with Moses and Elijah, and his face and clothes shone with wonderful, brilliant light. So our reading today is sandwiched between these two amazing conversations: a conversation between Jesus and Peter about who Jesus is, and a conversation between Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the mountain.

Today’s reading begins where it says: [Jesus] began to teach [his disciples] that the Son of God must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. In an amazing way, Jesus shows us here that he is both true man and true God. Jesus demonstrates that he is a real human being, by telling his disciples how he will truly suffer, and truly be killed. Jesus will actually feel these things and endure them and go through it all. However, Jesus is also true God, and he knows exactly what is going to happen to him in advance, and that he will miraculously rise from the dead with all of his divine power.

So what is it that Jesus prophesies here and predicts and foretells is going to happen to him? He says: he will suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. This almost sounds like the Apostles’ Creed where we say that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he rose again from the dead. We recite these things and learn them and speak about them regularly in the creed because they are of the utmost importance. So Jesus predicts and prophesies his sacrifice, his atonement and payment for your sins, his death and resurrection for your salvation, and puts these things right at the front of his and his disciples’ minds. It is of the utmost importance, and this is why he came.

Jesus also prophesies which people will reject him:  the elders and the chief priests and the scribes. These three groups of people are significant: the elders are Jewish leaders, known and chosen for their wisdom. The priests were appointed to make sacrifices in the temple. The scribes were the scholars, the bible-experts. And yet, Jesus prophesies that despite all of their learning, righteousness and wisdom, they will not tolerate Jesus, but will reject him and kill him. You see, Jesus is our Wisdom, he is our sacrifice and our high priest, and he is the Word of God who speaks living words from God, and he brings all the wisdom of the elders, all the sacrifices of the priests and all the learning and scholarship of the scribes to nothing.

But then Peter jumps in and we read: Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. He says: Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you. Even Peter doesn’t understand. He thinks: If Jesus is the Son of God, he can’t be rejected! He can’t suffer, and be killed, and die, and be buried! It seems like a contradiction to him, and so he goes and tells Jesus off about it.

Now sometimes we carry on in much the same way. In our church, we believe that the Scripture doesn’t have any mistakes in it. In our congregation and our parish constitution, and at a pastor’s ordination, we confess that the bible is “inerrant”, meaning “without errors”.  If the church makes a faithful confession and follows the Scripture and confesses the truth, then the church also will teach no errors. Paul wrote to Titus that God never lies. It should be our primary goal and our greatest desire to learn the truth, because when we go against the truth of God’s Word, we go against God himself. Jesus said to his Father: Sanctify them in the truth, Lord; your word is truth. St Paul tells us to: speak the truth in love. And he also says: Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Now when we find something in the Scripture that we don’t like or understand or agree with, we often go to Jesus and tell him off. We say: Don’t be so silly, Jesus. Don’t talk such rubbish!

So when Peter tells Jesus off, what does Jesus say? Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Amazing! Peter thinks that if Jesus is the Son of God, he can’t suffer and die. But this is just empty human logic. Jesus had just commended Peter when he had spoke the truth and said: You are the Son of the living God. Now Jesus tells his disciples why he has come: to suffer and die for your sins, and to rise and destroy death. And Peter rejects this. Jesus says: Get behind me, Satan! Jesus says: Before when you spoke the truth, God spoke through you. Now you speak lies, and it is Satan who is speaking.

Sometimes Satan leads people into wrong. Satan knows that when Jesus suffers, dies and rises, Jesus will destroy all of Satan’s power. Not long before he was arrested, Jesus had said: Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And so Satan leads Peter into speaking error, and he doesn’t want Peter to understand the great power of what Jesus says. And yet, as soon as Peter says this, Jesus does him a great favour, and tells him exactly where his sinful, human thinking came from. It was from Satan. Satan has a friend and an ally in our sinful hearts, and can easily mislead us into error. Martin Luther said it very sharply: Every one of us by himself is a devil, but in Christ we are holy. Jesus speaks truth, Satan speaks lies.

Now sometimes people say that the devil made them do something. And it’s true that the devil does lead us into temptation. But sometimes people mean it in such a way that their sin wasn’t really their fault. Sometimes we laugh at Adam and Eve, and say that they didn’t take responsibility for their actions. “The woman made me do it!” “The snake made me do it!” But this is not what Adam and Eve said. Eve said: The serpent deceived me, and I ate. Satan did something, but also I did wrong, it was completely my fault. So, in Genesis chapter 3, when God deals with Adam and Eve, he kicks the devil first, and promises that his head will be crushed. Then he deals with Eve and with Adam.

And so, let’s remember here Jesus’ wonderful prayer for his disciples and also for us: Sanctify them in the truth, Lord; your word is truth. The truth actually makes us holy. Today many people will say that there’s no such thing as truth, and that it’s arrogant to say that what we speak is truth. People say: “What’s true for you isn’t true for me!” Remember what Pontius Pilate said to Jesus when he put him on trial. He scoffed and said, “What is truth?” It’s not arrogant, but it’s a precious and humble thing when you find the truth that you believe it! What if the merchant who found the pearl of great price would have looked at the pearls and said: “These pearls don’t exist!” Or if the someone found hidden treasure and said, “There’s no such thing as gold!” Truth exists, Jesus speaks it, it is a precious thing.

Jesus says: Sanctify them in the truth, Lord; your word is truth. Jesus says: I am the way, the truth, and the life; no-one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the truth, the words he speaks are truth, and he will make us holy and sanctify us with the truth. St Paul wrote to Timothy that the church is a pillar and buttress of the truth. A church with no truth is no church. A church that cares nothing for God’s word and for the truth, stands on sinking sand. And we need to be willing to fight for the truth, so that people who are looking for the truth can find it.

Now, we come to the next part of our reading: And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, [Jesus] said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  Jesus teaches us many wonderful things, especially the gospel, which is the good news that Jesus has won salvation for us. But before we can hear the Gospel, Jesus teaches God’s law, his commandments, his expectations, his standard, his word of judgment against sin. The bible teaches that people don’t just do bad things every now and then, but, we read in Genesis 6, that every intention of the thoughts of [our] heart [is] only evil continually. This means that sin taints everything completely. Only God can see the difference between you and your sin, and when you die, he will remove your sin from you. But before that, sin taints everything and we need the word of God for us even to recognise it.

And so, Jesus teaches us: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. Jesus teaches us to deny ourselves not because this denial earns our salvation. Jesus already won our salvation for us by denying himself. He prayed to his Father: If it be possible, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will, but your will be done.

However, the Christian life is marked by self-denial. The way to heaven is not through the wide gate, the easy way. Jesus says: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Jesus doesn’t teach us this to scare us off, but to warn us. Many times, we will read in the word and hear in the bible something that we then only learn later in our day to day life. And Jesus teaches us here, that “this obstacle along the way does not mean that you should run away from me, but it is an invitation for you to trust me”. And Jesus knows the way, and he will not let you go. As we learn Jesus’ word more and more, we learn to say like John the Baptist: He must increase, but I must decrease.

Jesus says: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Our Christian life is a life of self-sacrifice. Just as Jesus prophesied that he would suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again, so also Christians in this life many times will be called to suffer, and be rejected by people, even be killed. But then like Jesus, we will rise with him. We will not be abandoned. But Jesus doesn’t call us to carry his cross, but our own cross. The cross Jesus calls us to bear is just a little one in comparison. We are not dying for the sin of the world. We are just walking with Jesus, and learning from him the depth of the world’s sin and the even greater depth of his victory over it.

Many Christians today don’t like this kind of talk. Often we just want glitz and glamour. There are plenty of preachers and tele-evangelists who will tell you that your best life is now, and that God’s desire for you is to be healthy, wealthy, rich and influential. Some Christians tell sick people that if they’re not healthy, or if they’re about to die, it’s because their faith isn’t strong enough. Or sometimes people think that because Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus’ death doesn’t matter, and that it’s just nothing. They make Christianity into a little cabaret show, or a bit of light entertainment. All of this is just people doing everything they can to avoid denying themselves and taking up their cross. They think they’re following Jesus, but they delude themselves.

Instead, Jesus says: Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. The gospel, and everything that is true and good, must be protected and secured at all costs. Even if it costs us everything, the glory of the world is nothing by comparison. Better to have nothing and have Jesus, because when we have Jesus we have everything in heaven and earth. And we also learn here that whatever we give will not be in vain. Jesus will repay everything. If only we trusted him not to let us be lacking in anything. If we want to keep our life and compromise our faith, we will lose everything. Jesus will never let us down!

Jesus says in our reading: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? Jesus puts our soul on one side of the balance, and the world on the other. Jesus has bought you with the price of his blood. Your soul was purchased with such great a price, and it was purchased by such a faithful Saviour. St Paul writes: Jesus died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. He also teaches: Love does not insist on its own way. Why would we want our own way, if Jesus has given us his way?

In the last part of our reading, Jesus says: For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. On one hand, we have Jesus and his words. On the other hand, we have this adulterous and sinful generation. Where would you rather be? On which side of the fence do you want to stand? Would you tell Jesus off, to stop talking such things, just so that you can appear more palatable to people around you? Are you afraid of being rejected by people, even though you know that Jesus’ words are holy, and they are an adulterous and sinful generation?

And yet, on the other hand, we learn a wonderful, amazing thing from this passage. In the end, Jesus will return. Just as Peter and James and John saw Jesus on the top of the mountain with his face glowing with bright, white light, and his clothes shining through the night, Jesus will return one day, and bring this troubled world to an end. Jesus says: They shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and majesty and great glory. When Stephen the martyr was being stoned to death, we read that he looked into heaven and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He will come again, and rescue you, and save you, who in all your weakness and all your sin have clung to him and his word, the word that speaks to you a promise from heaven itself: Your sins are forgiven. Today you will be with me in Paradise. And he will repay you for every loss that you have suffered, every hardship you have endured, and every cross that you have had to carry. This is the wonderful thing that we have to look forward to.

We know that in this life, we are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing, but we have a Saviour, who is everything, who has everything, and can do everything. And no matter what valley of the shadow of death we walk through, no matter what cross we have to carry, Jesus will never let us down. He is our faithful Saviour: and just as he prophesied, he has suffered, he has been rejected by the elders, the priests and the scribes, he has been killed, and on the third day he rose again.

Amen.

Heavenly Father, sanctify us in the truth; your word is truth. Lead us by your Holy Spirit wherever you will, since we know that your Son Jesus is with us. In his name we pray. 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.