Transfiguration (Year A) [Matthew 17:1-8] (23-Feb-2020)

This sermon was preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Semaphore, 8.45am, and Good News Lutheran Church, Albert Park, 10.30am.

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

He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

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 we are celebrating the event of Jesus’ transfiguration. This is the wonderful event in the life of Jesus where he took Peter, James and John up a mountain, and his clothes and face began to shine with bright heavenly light. We are also told that Moses and Elijah appeared next to Jesus, talking with him about his departure, his journey to Jerusalem to die as the Lamb of God for the sin of the world. We are also told that when Peter, who was completely amazed by this appearance and had no idea what to do, was suggesting that he make three tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, a cloud came and covered over everything. And God the Father spoke from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

This is such a wonderful event, and yet many Christians don’t often think about it too much. We have a custom in our church of remembering this event, and celebrating it on the last Sunday of the Epiphany season. The Epiphany season is that time of the year after Christmas, which begins by remembering the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus, and the Baptism of Jesus. The word Epiphany means to “show”, or “manifest”, or “display”. We see God making a wonderful “showing” when he sent the wise men a star to lead them to the country of Israel, and also when he “showed” himself as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the Baptism of Jesus: The Father spoke from heaven, the Son was being baptised in the water, and the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove. Today, as we celebrate the Transfiguration, we remember the wonderful way in which God showed to us the power and the divinity of his Son, Jesus Christ—he shows us that he is truly the powerful Son of God himself—by speaking his voice from the cloud, as wonderful light radiates and beams forth and shines from Jesus face, and body and clothes.

Actually, the two events of the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration form a kind of pair of bookends to the Epiphany season: we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus at the beginning of the Epiphany Season at the beginning of January, and we celebrate the Transfiguration at the end of the Epiphany season. And both of these events have something in common. On both occasions, God the Father actually speaks his voice in the hearing of all the people who were present at these events. In fact, at both events, he says the same thing: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. However, at the Transfiguration, he says something extra: Listen to Him! It’s this command of God to listen to Jesus that I’m going to focus on today, and I think that these words of God the Father actually give us a wonderful interpretation of everything that goes on. In fact, these words are the centre and the focus of this event at the Transfiguration – Listen to Him!

 So firstly, today, I’d like to take us back to the Old Testament, to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18. Now, the book of Deuteronomy is a particularly special book in the Old Testament, which contains—if you like—a long sermon or speech from Moses, just as all the people are about to cross the River Jordan and enter into the promised land of Canaan.

Now, during the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gives the people all kinds of warnings to the people about what they should do and not do when they enter the Promised Land. Particularly, they must remain faithful to God, and not start worshipping the false gods of the people in the land. But not only that, but the people were not allowed to copy to worship practices of the people who worshipped other gods, and use these practises to worship the true God. For example, you might remember in the book of Exodus, when the people worshipped the Golden Calf. Not only did they worship this statue, but Aaron said that the calf was in fact God himself, and that through worshipping this statue of the calf, they were worshipping God himself. Do you see? Aaron made it look like they weren’t worshipping some other god, but that they were actually worshipping the God of Israel. But the people weren’t allowed to do this—they weren’t allowed to use idols, and such like, in such a way that they could gain access through them to God. The way to meet God was not to worship a calf statue made out of gold.

So, in Deuteronomy 18, this is what Moses preaches to the people. He says: When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.

Let me read to you this last verse again. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. Moses is saying that God will raise up a prophet like himself, from his brothers, from the Jewish people. Now, there are a number of places in the New Testament, where this verse is taken to be talking about Jesus. After Pentecost, Peter uses this passage to speak about Jesus in one of his first sermons, after he heals a man sitting outside the temple. Stephen, the first person to be killed for the Christian faith, uses this passage from Deuteronomy to refer to Jesus. It’s as if to say, that since the people entered the Promised Land all those hundreds and hundreds of years ago, after Moses had died, they have been waiting for a prophet. And Christians say, that this prophet that the Jewish people had been waiting for centuries, is in fact, Jesus.

Let me read the prophecy again. Moses says: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. Now, let’s have a look at the Transfiguration, and see how this prophecy is actually fulfilled in our reading.

First of all, Moses calls Jesus a “prophet like me”. Actually, at the transfiguration, Moses is there. In fact, we’re not entirely sure whether this is Moses in his spirit, or in his body, because at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, it says that nobody knew what happened to Moses body. Mysteriously, here is Moses, talking to Jesus. And after Moses had received the law, we read that his face began to shine with bright light, such that he even had to put a veil, a cloth, over his head, because the people just couldn’t cope with and withstand this wonderful light. In the same way, Jesus’ face shines, but not only that, but his whole body shines, and even his clothes. But Jesus doesn’t normally appear like this, but he is always the Son of God, he is always God of God, Light of Light, but most of the time when people saw Jesus, this light was not hidden by a cloth or a veil, like Moses, but is was hidden simply by his human flesh. So Jesus is like Moses, in that his face also shone like Moses’ face.

Also, Jesus was like Moses, in that both of them performed miracles. But they performed very different types of miracles. Moses performed miracles that were frightening and scary for people. They were miracles that revealed God’s anger and his judgement and his wrath. For example, Moses put his hand in his coat, and it was full of leprosy. He put his staff on the ground, and it became a snake. He poured water on the ground, and it turned to blood. He brought about many plagues in Egypt—flies, frogs, darkness, death—you name it!

Now, when Jesus came, he also performed miracles, but miracles that were comforting and encouraging and which strengthened people. For example, he turned water not into blood, but into wine, for people’s enjoyment. He didn’t bring about leprosy, but he healed lepers. He healed many people, he cast out demons, he gave sight to the blind, and allowed the deaf to hear, and raised the dead. So Jesus’ miracles were of a different character to Moses’ miracles. But the fact that they both performed miracles like this, means that Jesus is very much like Moses.

But also, Jesus was a prophet like Moses, in the way that he spoke. Moses brought the 10 Commandments to the people. But then Jesus applies and comments on the commandments in a way that had never been done before.  He says: You have heard that it was said, “You shall not murder”. (Jesus quotes the 10 Commandments). But then he says: But I say to you, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. So Jesus is also like Moses in the way that he speaks. Moses spoke the thunder of God’s law, and brought the people in a limited way into God’s presence through all the laws and details about worship, about the tabernacle, and the priests, and the food regulations, and all that kind of stuff. But Jesus also speaks the thunder of God’s law, but he does so in order to lay them bare and to bring them the forgiveness of sins, which he won for them through his suffering, his blood, and his death on the cross. That was something that Moses didn’t bring, but Jesus did bring. So in this way, Jesus is very much like Moses, and he is a wonderful teacher of both the law and the Gospel, but especially the Gospel. We read in John’s Gospel: The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Now, if we look back through the bible, we read that there were many great prophets, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And if we were to name the greatest of these prophets, we would probably say, Elijah. Elijah was an amazing prophet, and he spoke God’s word clearly and boldly at a time when very few people wanted to hear it. However, we believe that Elijah was not this prophet that Moses spoke about, but that Jesus is this prophet.

And we realise this at the Transfiguration, because not only is Moses standing there with Jesus but also Elijah. And together Moses and Elijah testify by their presence, that the prophet that the Jewish people are looking for is not Elijah, but Jesus Christ. Can you see this wonderful way in which Moses and Elijah point to Jesus here? And together they show that Jesus is the fulfilment of these words from Deuteronomy: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brothers—it is to him that you shall listen.

But there are two more things in the Transfiguration that relate to this prophecy. First, it says that Jesus will come from among you, from your brothers. Moses means that Jesus will come from the Jewish people, not from some other people. And so, we see Jesus here, just like an ordinary Jewish man, amongst his three friends, Peter, James and John. He takes them up the mountain, these three fishermen, who grew up similarly to him, and to whom Jesus talks to as an ordinary person to ordinary people. Jesus came from among them, from among the Jewish people. But then, when they arrive at the place, a separation occurs—Peter, James and John are over there, and Jesus is over there. Jesus is shining with brilliant light, with all the light of his divine nature, brighter than the light from heaven itself, and Peter, James and John are completely dazzled by it. Because Jesus is not just a normal Jewish man, but he is also the Son of God, and in fact, true God of true God. At the end of the reading, when the cloud has gone, and everything is back to normal, Jesus touches his disciples, like a brother, like a friend, and he says: Rise, and have no fear. Don’t be afraid, it’s me, let’s go, let’s walk together. And so, Jesus comes from among his people, from the Jewish people, from their brothers.

But secondly, God the Father wants to make it especially clear that these words from Deuteronomy apply to Jesus. Moses says: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brothers—it is to him that you shall listen. At the Transfiguration, God the Father himself hides his voice in a cloud, and speaks his voice to all who are there: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him! Moses said: It is to him that you shall listen. And now God the Father says: Listen to him! It’s as if God the Father is coming with his own finger, and pointing to his only Son, and saying to Peter and James and John: This is the one that you’ve all been waiting for, this is the one you should listen to. In fact, every Sunday, this is what we Christians actually come here to do. We come to listen to Jesus. We don’t come to listen simply to a pastor, or to listen to each other over morning tea. We come to listen to Jesus, as he speaks his own words to his people, through the absolution and the forgiveness of sins, whenever someone is baptised through the words that are spoken, in the Lord’s Supper when we hear that this bread and wine is in actual fact his body and blood, and in the sermon, when the word of God and the words of salvation are proclaimed and spoken to you. So listen to God the Father’s voice, when he says to you: Listen to him! Listen to Jesus!

Now, there’s another aspect to the Transfiguration that we haven’t really spoken about yet. What happens here is an amazing vision. And Jesus himself calls it a vision, but it’s not like the disciples were dreaming or day-dreaming, and what they saw wasn’t actually real. It was real, it happened. They saw it, and they saw it as something that was happening right there in front of them, they didn’t imagine it, and it didn’t happen in their heads.

But also, there’s something very mysterious in the way that Moses and Elijah appeared. Because in one sense, they were dead—but also, there was something very strange about the deaths of both these men. With Moses, nobody knew where he was buried. In the book of Jude, it says that there was some kind of dispute between the archangel Michael and the devil about the body of Moses. We don’t really know much about it, but it’s a strange thing that nobody knew where Moses’ body was, and yet, here at the Transfiguration, here is Moses. Also, Elijah was taken into heaven on a chariot—he didn’t die a normal death, and he also didn’t have a grave site. And yet, at the Transfiguration, here is Elijah. All this is very mysterious, and strange, and is a holy mystery that we leave in the hands of God. We don’t want to delve into it too much, because if we do, it can even become dangerous to us. When Peter starts to ask about these things, God brings down a cloud. It’s as if he puts all these things off limits. Sometimes Christians are deceived into thinking that they need to penetrate through this cloud of unknowing to discover God in the darkness there. No—the cloud comes down, the mysterious things are off-limits, and God the Father points us to Jesus.

Now, there are actually many people in our country and in our society who are interested in spiritual things. In the 60s, many hippies went to India to find spiritual enlightenment. Many people still go to wellness clinics in Asia to find spiritual health. Many people want to receive visions, and they want to contact the dead, and cross over into other dimensions, and they start to wonder about all these things. People even today, just like superstitious people in ancient times, look up at the stars, and practice astrology, and try to derive meaning from them, as if the stars and the zodiac are telling us messages about our lives.

Well, Moses spoke about these things in Deuteronomy: Earlier, I read where Moses said to beware of the practices of the nations when they entered into the Promised Land. Moses says: The nations, which you are about to possess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this. Moses makes a long list of these strange practices of the nations: fortune-telling, sacrificing children, practicing divination—which is, let’s say, “trying to get a message from something that doesn’t give messages”—, interpreting omens (like reading stars, or tea-leaves, or bird-calls, or whatever, to get some warning), sorcery (which is witchcraft, or occult), charming (which is attaching some spiritual power to something that doesn’t have that power—like saying, “this magic rock will protect you”). Moses also mentions, “mediums” (who are people who claim to give messages from the dead), or “necromancy” (which is talking to dead)… all these things, Moses says, the nations listen to these people. But the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. Instead, who should you listen to? Moses says, “It is to him you shall listen!” To the prophet like me! God says: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!

What Moses describes with all these strange practices things, is basically the traditional religions which are found all across the world. If you go to India, you’ll find talking to the dead, reading omens, fortune-telling in Hinduism. If you go to Africa, you’ll find it there with the witch-doctors. If you go to South America, you’ll find it there with the shamans, or whoever. And this stuff is making a strange come-back in Australia. If you start take notice, you’ll see this stuff everywhere, and realise just what a pagan country Australia.

What you need to know, and what Moses teaches, and what God the Father teaches at the Transfiguration, is that, if you hear a message from any of these people, who practice this stuff, it is not Jesus. It is not the voice of Jesus. The Word of God does not come through these people, and these practices. It is mutually exclusive to listen to the fortune-tellers, and to listen to him!

So we don’t become distracted by the wonderful spiritual vision at the Transfiguration, and go off trying to chase our own personal spiritual vision, through whatever means. We don’t become distracted by the presence of Moses and Elijah who are there, and start trying to build tents for dead people, and try to talk to them, and get messages from them. King Saul wanted to talk to dead Samuel, and he was rejected by God.

And so, at the Transfiguration, there are so many comforts for us. We don’t need to embroil ourselves in all this complicated, mystical stuff. We are simply told to listen to Jesus, to hold fast to his Word, and never let it go. When we have the Words of Jesus, we have everything we need. We have everything we could ever possibly want, and we will never be disappointed. He is our true Saviour, our true God, our true Light, who has won the true forgiveness of our sins, and promises us eternal life with Moses and Elijah, and all his saints, in wonderful glory, just like we see in the Transfiguration. Our bodies will be transformed to be like his. The forgiveness of sins which receive even today through the absolution and the Lord’s Supper is the beginning of that wonderful Transfiguration that will happen to us on the last day so that all our sins will be completely erased and we will shine like Jesus. So let’s listen to him, and take tremendous comfort in this event! Amen.

Pentecost X (Proper 12 B) [John 6:1-21] (29-Jul-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, Biggenden Lutheran Preaching Place, St John's Anglican Church, Biggenden, 2pm, and Woodgate Lutheran Preaching Place, Woodgate Community Hall, Woodgate, 5pm.

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

There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?

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 sermon, we’re reading from John chapter 6, which we’re going to be reading from for the next few weeks. At the beginning of this chapter, we have our reading for today, where we read about Jesus feeding the 5000, and walking on the water, and then for the rest of the chapter, we read about where Jesus goes to Capernaum and teaches the people there that he is the bread of life.

So let’s read the beginning of our reading where it says: After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

Last week, we were reading the account from the Gospel of Mark, where we read that Jesus took his apostles on a little retreat, after they had been very busy going about in pairs, preaching all over the place, preaching repentance, casting out demons and anointing the sick. At the same time, we also read that John the Baptist had been beheaded, and so Jesus and his apostles received some very sad news, which had an emotional effect on Jesus. Also, in John’s Gospel, we read that this event happened not long after Jesus had been preaching to the Jews, who were trying to kill him. What he had said to them would have angered them more.

And so, as all these events come together, Jesus calls his apostles to come across the lake with him so that they can have a rest, and recuperate, and prepare themselves for the next part of their work and ministry.

However, once Jesus and his apostles had crossed the lake, they didn’t seem to have a moment’s rest, because the crowd had followed them there. Jesus spends many hours there, healing the sick and teaching them many things.

And so we read: Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”

We see here how Jesus says to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip is an apostle that isn’t often mentioned, but he is mentioned quite a lot in the Gospel of John. We read at the beginning of the Gospel of John, that Philip brought Nathanael to come and meet Jesus. We read also that some Greeks came up to Philip later and said to him: Sir, we want to see Jesus. And then, later on, on Maundy Thursday, on the night when Jesus was betrayed, Philip says to Jesus: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. We read: Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? This is a very significant conversation that Jesus has with Philip here, where Jesus gently reprimands Philip for not recognising that Jesus and his Father were one. In our reading today, Jesus manifests his divine power by feeding these 5000 people, and walking on the water. And the fact that Philip is mentioned here is important, because he should have learnt from this event that Jesus was true God, together with the Father.

So we read that Jesus says to Philip: Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat? It’s funny here—Jesus is almost playing a little game with Philip. Jesus lifted up his eyes and saw the crowd. And now, Jesus wants Philip to have a look around and examine the situation. Where are we to buy bread, so that these people eat? Have a look, Philip, and tell me just how much bread there is around here! Not much! Have a look, Philip, and tell me just how close the shops are! They’re a long way away! Have a look, Philip, and tell me just how many people there are! There are thousands of people here!

This passage is a wonderful encouragement for us, especially when we find ourselves in a time of life where everything is at a crossroads—and Jesus has this wonderful way of pushing you to notice just how desperate you are at a particular time in your life. And it’s strange that when Jesus is about to work an amazing and wonderful comfort, he first sends us off to count our own provisions, and shows us just how few resources we really have. We might look at our world or our country and wonder where it’s heading—and we look at our own resources, and we see just how little we have, and we realise just how powerless we seem to be. We might look at how things are going in our own town. We might look at how things are going in our own family, or our church, or whatever. We might look at our bank account, and we wonder if we’re going to be able to survive financially if this or that happens. And it seems very much, sometimes as if Jesus says to us, “What are you going to do?” “How are you going to feed your family?” “How are you going to pay your mortgage?” “How are you going to make ends meet?” “How are you going to keep up with the cost of living?” Many young people are particularly worried about these kinds of questions today, as they begin to realise that after going to school, and getting good grades, and going to TAFE or trade school or university, or whatever they do, they are guaranteed absolutely nothing. But it’s not just money matters where people are like this—wealthy people also find themselves in desperate situations, situations which money just can’t solve. Sometimes we find ourselves in a very desperate time of our lives, where we just don’t know how things are going to work out. But Jesus has brought this information to our attention, just as he said to Philip and said: Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat? And nevertheless, as Philip starts to panic and to worry and to become anxious, trying to answer in his head the questions, “What on earth are we going to do? How are we going to fix this insurmountable problem?”—it’s almost as if there is a little smile on Jesus’ face, as John tells us, [Jesus] said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. The same goes for us, whenever we find ourselves in a particularly desperate situation in our life—Jesus knows what he will do.

Something that we often forget when we read the feeding of the 5000, is that in the Old Testament, a very similar miracle was performed by the prophet Elisha, but it was on a much smaller scale. Elisha fed 100 men with 20 barley loaves. Now Philip looks out and starts to count the number of people, and he says: Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little. A denarius was the amount that a labourer would get paid in a day. So if you can imagine that Philip is talking something in the realm of two-thirds of a labourer’s yearly income. In Australian money today, that’s somewhere around $30,000. Philip is basically saying that $30,000 worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to eat a little. Now, we are told that there are 5000 men there, and that’s not counting the women and the children. So let’s say that every man who was there has a wife and at an average of 2 children: that makes at least 20,000 people, if not more, which means that each person would have less than $1.50 worth of food. We all know that $1.50 in Australia today doesn’t buy much food! A person would hardly get half a sandwich for that price.

But then along comes Andrew, and he presents the reality of the situation. Philip has tried to work out the sums, but then of course, nobody has a spare 200 denarii lying around! Philip’s arithmetic doesn’t solve the problem at all. Andrew says: There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?

There are two things that strike me about these five barley loaves and the two fish. The first is this question that Andrew says: But what are they for so many? Andrew recognises just how insignificant these things are. They are just a drop in the ocean, and from a human point of view, it just looks useless. But the second thing is that these loaves and fishes belonged to a little boy. It was not mayor, or some important person, a prominent figure, who had this food. It was just a little boy. Maybe his mum had sent him off at the beginning of the day with a packed lunch, or maybe the little boy had caught the fish himself.

But in all of this, Jesus doesn’t just show to Philip and Andrew and the disciples how little they all have, but he also shows them the great weakness of their faith. Sure, there’s thousands of people here—sure, it would take over 200 denarii to feed them all—sure, we only have 5 loaves and 2 fish, which is a meagre amount of food to feed so many people… but, there’s something they haven’t mentioned: Jesus is there. And he makes all the difference.

We read: Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much greass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

In the Gospel here, it mentions that there were 5000 men. Now, sometimes of course, when we use the word “man” it can mean either a member of the human race (like when we say, “mankind”) or a member of the male sex. Here, the evangelist is speaking of 5000 men, as in members of the male sex. In Matthew’s Gospel, he says: And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Now, I’ve often thought it to be a little bit odd that the evangelists should record it like this. Why does the evangelist count 5000 men? Why not say, 20,000 or 30,000 people, and count all the men, women and children together? Well, there are a couple of clues to this in our reading. One is that is says that there was much green grass in the place. There was green grass because it was springtime. How do we know that? Because a few verses beforehand, it said that it was the time of the Passover, which was held in springtime, around March or April in the Northern Hemisphere.

Now, there’s a connection between this event and the Passover, because in the book of Exodus, when the people of Israel were about the leave Egypt, God says that every man must go out and get a lamb for his household. Each man has to do this, for each household, for each family. And so, in the same way, when the evangelists count the men, it is simply an old-fashioned way of counting the households, or the families. So just as at the time of the Exodus, each Jewish family in Egypt had a lamb roast dinner with bread and herbs, and painted the lamb’s blood on their doorpost, here in the reading, Jesus himself is feeding 5000 families who have come to meet him at Passover time. He is their Passover lamb, and one day he will be killed on Good Friday, at Passover time. So what we learn from all this, is that Jesus doesn’t just provide here for 5000 people, but for 5000 families. Jesus shares not just our individual concerns for ourselves, but he also shares our concerns for our families who we might worry about. In 1 Peter 5, we read that we should cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Here in our reading, we read that we should cast on him not just our anxieties about ourselves, but the anxieties that we have about our families, because he cares for us, not just individually, but also for our families and loved ones.

You might also remember that the first temptation that Satan attacked Jesus was to turn stones into bread. Here, Jesus does something similar—he doesn’t turn stones into bread, but he multiplies the bread and the fish so that there everyone who is there is fed sufficiently. He performs this amazing miracle, not because he wants to feed himself or because the devil asked him to show off, but because he wants to have compassion on this crowd. He shows to us his great love and care not just for us as individual people, but also for us as part of families and crowds, when we share our sufferings and our problems with other people. Jesus is able to help us altogether, just as he is able to help us individually.

Then we read: When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Here we see the great power of Jesus, but also the great weakness of sinful people again. Isn’t it strange? Jesus had performed many, many miracles. Sometimes they had accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath, and all sorts. But now, when he performs a miracle which effects a large crowd of people, and a miracle where he feeds them and makes them nice and full and fat with food, then all of a sudden they are greatly impressed, and say: This is indeed the Prophet! And they want to come and take him by force.

You might remember in the Old Testament when Pharaoh appoints Joseph to be second-in-charge over Egypt, because Joseph interprets the Pharaoh’s dreams and comes up with a plan to save up grain so that there will be plenty in the coming time of famine. But what would have happened if Joseph had performed a miracle like the one Jesus performs here? Jesus did not propose to the people a plan to save up for the famine, but he showed to them his great power to overcome famine, and so they thought that if Jesus were their king, they would always have plenty. But then this is not why Jesus came. He did not come to this earth simply to make our bellies fat, and to give us an easy life here on this earth with no troubles. And so he escapes, and goes to a mountain by himself.

And so we must also remember this: when we find ourselves in a difficult time in life, and what we have looks so insignificant, we should commend the little we do have to Jesus, and trust in him to provide for us and for those in our care. But also, we should remember that Jesus will provide for us only as it serves to benefit his kingdom and our souls. He wants to encourage us, but he is not an earthly king. He is not simply the person we turn to for our earthly needs, when all the other earthly means let us down. He is our God: he is a Passover lamb, and then he shows us in our reading too, that he is the Lord of heaven earth, who is even able to walk across to sea to meet us in our needs. But as soon as we want to snatch him, and just have him as our earthly king, who just gives us stuff and food and things that we want so that we can be comfortable in this life, he will run away and hide, and let us fend for ourselves for a while. We are not the gods that he worships, but it is the other way around. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and he even plants his footsteps on the sea. He is our Good Shepherd, who leads his sheep, and provides for their every need, who has died on the cross, and laid down his life. And he has risen from the dead, and gives the forgiveness of sins, and promises the wonderful gift of eternal life. And so we commend ourselves to him, and all the little that we have, and all the great needs that seem to be in front of us that we just don’t know how to solve by ourselves.

But this is Jesus—and he knows exactly what he will do. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for providing us with all the daily bread that we need, and you have never let us be in want. We commend our worries and our anxieties to you, knowing that you care for us, and our loved ones, and we ask that you would encourage us and lead us along the path to our heavenly home with you. Amen.

Pentecost [Acts 2] (20-May-2018)

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

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

Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, breathe out upon us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

Today we’re celebrating the Day of Pentecost. So what happened on this day? We read about these wonderful miracles that happened: first of all, we read about something that everyone could hear—the sound of a mighty rushing wind that filled the place where they were sitting. And we read that this sound came from heaven. Secondly, we read about something that that everyone could see—divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And then we read about something that everyone could both see and hear—They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now on this particular occasion, we also have described for us exactly what this speaking in other tongues means. It says: There were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

Can you imagine this? Here are a group of people who happen to be there in Jerusalem, and they all come from different countries, and they all speak different languages, but when they listen to Jesus’ disciples, they can hear them speaking in their own languages. And we might think: What an amazing thing! Is this really what happened?

Just to make sure that you fully understand that, yes, this is exactly what happened, we are also given some of the conversations that people were having on that day. We read: And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia,(these people were from the area that is now Iraq and Iran), Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia (except for Judea which is in modern-day Israel, all these places are in modern-day Turkey), Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, (we still have the countries of Egypt and Libya today in North Africa), and visitors from Rome, (all the way from Italy), Jews and proselytes (this means not just people who were born as Jews, but also people who were converting and preparing to become Jews), Cretans and Arabians (Cretans were from the Greek Island of Crete, and the Arabians were from the area anywhere on the Arabian peninsula, where today we find countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen)—you can see there are so many different people from all kinds of areas who in those days had travelled very long distances to be in Jerusalem. We read that they said: We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.

So what’s actually going on? What’s the point of all of this? Well, before Jesus had ascended into heaven, he already promised that this would happen. In the beginning of the book of Acts, we read that Jesus while staying with them ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” And at the end of the Gospel of Luke we read: 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. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

Can you see? Jesus promises to baptise them with the Holy Spirit, and to clothe them with power from on high. But why?

Because Jesus wants them to be witnesses, and to tell the nations that Jesus had died and risen from the dead, and they had seen these things with their own eyes. Jesus says: You are witnesses of these things. In Acts we read where Jesus says: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

And so, between this time, we read about only one thing happening, that the eleven apostles elected one more person to replace Judas, who had betrayed Jesus. And we read that they put forward two men, one called Joseph or Barsabbas, who also called Justus, and another man called Matthias. And read that the disciples cast lots, and prayed that God would choose one of them, and the lot fell on Matthias.

So now, on the day of Pentecost, we read that there is a full number twelve again. And then we read about these wonderful miracles that happen: the wind, the fire and the speaking in the different languages.

But why does all this happen? Firstly, God simply wanted to send the Holy Spirit to the new Christians, and to demonstrate this publicly. But also, because God wants to demonstrate that these apostles are the ones that are sent by Jesus, and now there is a new era of history, where all people everywhere are commanded to listen to these twelve apostles. And what do they have to say? They saw the risen Lord Jesus with their own eyes, and they have come to preach forgiveness of sins in the name of the risen Lord Jesus.

Now, so what does this mean for us today?

It means that these words that the apostles have to speak to us are powerful words, and that these words come with all the power of the Holy Spirit. We see on the day of Pentecost, that as soon as all of these wonderful miracles happen, the people ask questions about what is going on. And so Peter gets up and he preaches the first Christian sermon. And from there, Peter, James and John and all the other apostles were gradually sent out to preach in all kinds of different places. The part of the bible which we call the New Testament is actually the collected writings of the apostles that were also there on that day. Later in the history of the church, Christians understood very clearly that if they want to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit they have to learn and study and listen and preach what the apostles themselves said about Jesus, because Jesus had sent them out with the living power of the Holy Spirit.

So what this means for us today is that whenever we preach and learn and study the words of these apostles we are hearing the living voice of the Holy Spirit, with all the power of God. Here we come together week after week here in our little church, in our little corner of the world. And we listen to the word of God, read out loud, and preached. And when we hear these words that the apostles testify about Jesus, then we know that these words are the living voice of the Holy Spirit and have all the power and might of the Holy Spirit.

You can see what happens today on the day of Pentecost all happens because of the word of God. And we might think, is it really about God’s word? Is that really it? Isn’t it about something more than that?

Well, let’s have a look what actually happens on the Day of Pentecost. First of all, Peter gets up and he preaches the gospel. He preaches the facts about Jesus life, who he was and what he did. And he shows to the people that this was already prophesied by the same Holy Spirit long ago in the prophets. So Peter quotes three passages, one from Joel. In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. And then he preaches from Psalm 16, teaching them that it was impossible for Jesus to remain still dead in the grave. And then he preaches from Psalm 110 that Jesus has ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, and now he is pouring out the Holy Spirit, just as they can all see.

Can you see? Peter is preaching God’s word. It’s the first Christian sermon. Now today, we are not called to listen to any old sermon. We are called to listen to the preaching of Christ’s death and resurrection, and the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The twelve apostles were called in a special way, by God directly. But they weren’t called to do nothing—they were called to preach. They had a particular calling to speak God’s word and witness to Jesus. Also in the New Testament, we read about people who were called to preach, who weren’t called directly, but were called indirectly. They were trained to preach, and tested, and then hands were laid on them, and they were sent to preach somewhere. These people are called pastors. And so, even today, in the church, pastors are trained and tested, and then they are ordained and sent out. And this also is the work of the Holy Spirit. But we have to stick absolutely to the message that the apostles also taught. If we don’t stick to these words, we won’t be teaching the words of the Holy Spirit.

We pastors are only called to preach God’s word, because this is the only thing that pastors are called to preach. Do you see? God’s word and God’s call go together. And this is also what happens with the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Peter and the other apostles are called by God and this call is demonstrated by the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit, and they are called to preach and to speak what they have been given to speak. And they are called to preach the death and resurrection of Jesus from God’s word, and to call people to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

And so, what happens then after Peter finishes his sermon? It says: Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Here we can see another work of the Holy Spirit, where he cuts to the heart. The Holy Spirit comes to these people and shows them their sin and awakens them to their need for Jesus.

And then Peter says: Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

Isn’t this amazing? Here we have these miracles about the Day of Pentecost at the beginning of the chapter, but then, how does Peter say that they should receive the Holy Spirit? He says they should repent and be baptised for the forgiveness of sins.

And this shows us something that is highly offensive to our culture today. We can’t believe that the Holy Spirit would make such a fuss just so that a whole group of people should be baptised. Yes, yes, people say, we know we’re baptised. We know Jesus died for us. We know he rose from the dead. But we want something more… His word is not enough, people say.

And yet, it was enough for Peter. He simply got up and preached the word of God, showed the people their sin, and told them to come and be baptised. Even today in the church, we still preach God’s word, we still preach Christ crucified, we still preach the resurrection of Jesus, we still preach about sin and our need for Jesus, we still preach the forgiveness of sins, we still baptise people. And all this happens in the church today because it was done just like this on the Day of Pentecost, and when we continue these things today, we know that this comes with all the power of the Holy Spirit just like it did on the first Day of Pentecost, when the room was filled with wind and tongues of fire.

Later, we read: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Here we see the beginning of Christian worship—listening to the teaching of the apostles, and dedicating themselves to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. We still dedicate ourselves to these things in the church, because this is what happened on and after the Day of Pentecost. I would like us to think how we can dedicate ourselves to true Christian fellowship though – and I don’t mean just holding social events and such like, but how can we build each other up in Christian love and unity, in the true fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Notice there that there is also the prayers. The disciple dedicated themselves to prayers. And also the breaking of the bread. This is the Lord’s Supper. And the Lord’s Supper is that wonderful place where we come to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. And as we come to the Lord’s Supper, it’s almost like a bicycle wheel—as the spokes come to the middle, they all come closer to each other. Also, as we come to learn more about the Lord’s Supper, and we draw near to receive these wonderful gifts, we draw closer to each other. This is true Christian fellowship at work, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Now, the world still needs these things. We still need to hear God’s word, and forgiveness of sins that comes from Jesus and his death and resurrection. We still need baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This is what we read took place on the Day on Pentecost. And when we still hear God’s word, and we still hear the preaching of the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus, and we still come and receive Holy Baptism and we still come and receive the Lord’s Supper, we know that all these things come to us with all the power and might of the Holy Spirit.

But do you need them? If not, why not? Jesus says that you do. And if you reject these things you reject the only way in which Jesus is going to speak to you. Our problem so often is that we look for the Holy Spirit in the wrong places. We look for him in our emotional highs, we look for him in a crowd of sweaty human bodies as if the church is nothing more than attending a Christian football match, we look for him in our plans and visions for the future rather than words of Jesus, we look for him in personalities and cult figures, we look for him in glitz and glamour and novelty, when all the way along the Holy Spirit was always to be found in the word and in the sacraments, in baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

God is doing something in our world—we must simply recognise this. Just see what has been happening within Islam during the previous few years. On one hand, many Muslims are becoming militant and engaging in terrorist acts. On the other hand, many others are becoming increasingly embarrassed at the religion they held for generations and are beginning to question it. Now, it’s not just Muslims, but all kinds of people—even here in our local area—of rethinking things, and asking what they should do with their lives. And yet, we Christians in Australia will be no use to them or to anyone as long as we think that God’s word and the preaching of God’s word is boring. We will be no use to anyone if we teach our children that God’s word is boring and increase in them a hatred for listening, a hatred for forgiveness, and increase in them a love for whatever the latest fad happens to be. As long as we think baptism and the Lord’s Supper are useless, we are no use. As long as we think prayer is a waste of time, we are of no use. We so often want to fly off and chase whatever new fad comes along, chasing false miracles and false prophets, quick fixes and emotional rushes.

And yet, all the way along, the Holy Spirit has been quietly working through the preaching of God’s word, and in the wonderful miracle of Holy Baptism, and in the wonderful miracle of the Lord’s Supper. Don’t you know how wonderful these things are? Learn these things. Learn God’s word. Learn what it means to be a baptised child of God. Learn what it means to enter into the presence of Jesus and to eat his body and his blood. Come and drink deeply from the wells of the Holy Spirit.

And this word of God does two things: Peter preaches to the people: repent. He says: Save yourselves from this crooked generation. He cuts the people to the heart. But once he has cut them to the heart, then there is a word of healing, of peace, of forgiveness for them. Peter also preaches that Jesus has died and risen again, and has won the completely and totally free forgiveness of every single one of their sins. And that message doesn’t just apply to those people all the way back then, but that same forgiveness is for you even today. And with that forgiveness comes the joy of entering into God’s presence, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal life.

Let’s rejoice in the wonderful gifts that the Holy Spirit so generously pours out on us today—the gifts of his word, the gift of Jesus here in our midst today, the gift of the free forgiveness of all our sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit himself poured out on us and our children in Holy Baptism, and the gift of the body and blood of Christ given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. Come Holy Spirit! Amen.

Lord Jesus, we ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us today as you have promised, and that you would equip us with everything that we need to be useful in service to you. Forgive us for our many failings, and encourage us. Teach us to hear your word, and strengthen us in the calling of our baptism. Lead us and guide us, dear Jesus, wherever and however you will. Amen.

Epiphany V B [Mark 1:29-39] (4-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 form our Lord Jesus Christ.

That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door.

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.

In our reading today, we follow on from where we left off last week, where we read about Jesus preaching in a synagogue in Capernaum and then he cast out an unclean spirit from a man. And we read at the end of our reading from last week that as soon as he had this, at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. This sounds like this was something that might have happened over days or weeks, but we read later in our reading, that news must have spread among many people within only a few hours.

We read in our reading today about very specific times when things happened in the day which followed this event. We read at the beginning of our Gospel reading today: And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. After having gone to the synagogue, we read that Jesus went around to Peter’s house, probably for a meal. Then later in the reading we read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. So let’s say Jesus went to Peter’s house in the afternoon, now we read about what was happening in the evening, where Jesus was healing people. Then later again in the reading it says: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. So here we read about what Jesus was doing in the very early hours of the morning of the next day. And that really summarises what’s going on in our reading today. So we’re going to look at three things in our reading today:

I.                   What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.

II.                 What Jesus did on Saturday evening.

III.              What Jesus did on Sunday morning.

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

I.                   What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.

We read: Immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. And what does Jesus find at their house when they get there? Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay in bed with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.

Here we find a wonderful encouragement about how we should deal with our family and relatives as Christians. Many Australians have all kinds of troubles with their families. There are many families who have people who don’t speak to them. Sometimes people are easily offended, and they blame their parents for all kinds of problems. Sometimes people just don’t know how to solve their problems without yelling in each other’s faces. It’s a great thing if people are able simply to sit down and talk about difficult issues without being personal, without attacking, without yelling.

But families are a gift, and we have all kinds of people in our families, and people with all kinds of different opinions about religion and politics, and all kinds of things. But also, even though our families can be people who are quite different from us, we find ourselves connected to them in a particularly special way, even if there’s some kind of estrangement and people are not really talking to each other much anymore. In our reading, Peter’s mother-in-law is in trouble: she is particularly sick. She is laying ill with a fever. And what does he do? He and the other disciples with him simply tell Jesus about her.

This gives us such a wonderful example, because when our relatives, our parents, our children, our spouse, our parent-in-law, our grandparents, our grandchildren, our aunties and uncles and our cousins are in some kind of trouble, what should we do about it? First, simply tell Jesus about them. We often don’t have any power to help them, but Jesus does.

And so we read in our reading: And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. These words are so simply, it almost sounds like this was just so normal and natural for Jesus, the kind of thing he could easily do every day with no fuss or bother.

Now, we pastors often go around visiting people, and praying for people. And it’s very common if we ask people what they’d like us to pray for that they say to pray for good health. Now, good health is a good thing. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: Give us today our daily bread. And good health is part of what we need to do our daily tasks for each day. But sometimes we can make a bit of an idol out of health, and we can carry on as if it’s the most important thing in our life. It’s not. It’s a wonderful gift, but it’s not the most important thing. Even more important that the health of our body is the health of our soul. At the beginning of John’s third letter, he writes: Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.

And so what are the things that are good for our soul? Sometimes people say a good walk or a good cup of coffee is good for the soul. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the word of God. In order for our souls to survive, we need the word of God. The word of God is that thing that we put our trust in, that when we hear it and believe in the gospel, that we have a saving faith created in us, and God looks at us and sees not us and all our sins but he sees his Son Jesus and his righteousness completely covering us over. God sees our faith in the word of God—that word of God which never lies, and that word of God which shows us our Saviour—God see that faith and he counts it to us as righteousness. Even if our lives are completely full of sin, it is the word of God in the Scripture preached in its truth and purity that has all the power in it to create a new heart and a living faith in us, because this is the word from God’s own mouth himself.

And so we should pray for the Holy Spirit for ourselves that we would hear the word of God and understand it, we should pray for our pastors that they would also preach the truth in the power of the Holy Spirit, and we should also pray for the members of our church to receive the Holy Spirit and believe the word so that we may also be drawn together. We should also pray for unbelievers that their hearts would be converted by the power of that same word and the Holy Spirit.

All these things are more important than physical health, because even if we ever find ourselves in hospital, or having chemotherapy, or coughing up blood and phlegm, or hooked up to a dialysis machine, or generally be “as sick as a dog”, we can always continue this holy Christian work of bringing the needs of our friends and our fellow Christians and the world to Jesus.

However, even though the things of Christ’s kingdom are more important than physical health, it’s not as if physical health is not important. Christ healed many people, who would go on to die. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus died again someday. So what was the point?

But when Jesus heals people, he shows a wonderful truth and a wonderful reality. Our bodies are his creation. He formed us in our mother’s womb, and our bodies were shaped and formed with his hands. But then after we die and we go to be with Jesus in heaven, we also have the promise in the Scripture that at the end of the world there will be a resurrection of the dead. Just as Jesus takes this woman who is burning up with fever by the hand and cools her down, so also he will gather all the dust and ashes of our rotted and decayed bones and bodies and he will raise them up with the same effortlessness as he does with the woman with the fever in the reading. And it won’t be as if he simply resuscitates us, so that we’re still the same ugly mob that we were on earth, but we will be completely transformed to be like Jesus. In Philippians, St Paul writes that Jesus will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. In 1 Corinthians it says: Behold! I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

So when we die, we believe that our soul will go to be with Jesus. Jesus said to the thief on the cross: Today you will be with me in Paradise. And St Paul says: My desire is to depart and to be with Christ. But also, our bodies are not simply the leftover bits. Sometime later there will be a resurrection of the dead, and those who believe in Christ will experience a complete and total healing of our bodies and a glorification and transformation of our bodies so that we will be like Jesus. Our bodies were created by God, and he will also redeem them. How we will experience the timing of these things once we die, we have no idea, and the bible doesn’t tell us these things. We leave that up to God.

So let’s come back to our reading. It says: The fever left her, and she began to serve them. When we or someone we know is sick, we should pray for healing. Even in James, we are told that we should call the elders of the church, and let them pray over us, and even have them anoint us with oil, as a special marker for committing the sick person to God, in the name of the Lord, and pray for us. Also, in the church, pastors also speak God’s word and bring the Lord’s Supper to people in their times of sickness. Whatever happens, whether we are healed now or not, we know that there will always be a miracle. At least we know that on the last day Jesus will completely heal and transform our bodies, because he has died on the cross and risen from the dead and forgives us all of our sins. There will always be a miracle. But whether or not we experience a miracle of healing in this life, on this side of the grave, is not promised to us. We should ask for it, but if we don’t receive it, that’s OK. We will wait for a more glorious time in the next life. What we read in our reading is that Peter’s mother-in-law began to serve them. If we do receive a great miracle of healing, the purpose is so that we can serve, and particularly to serve Christ and his disciples, his church, in his kingdom. But if we remain sick, the question is still: how has Christ called me to serve his kingdom here in my condition? How is God’s name glorified through this, whether I am healthy or sick? That’s the wonderful thing we learn from this event so very simply told to us in our reading.

So let’s come to the second part of our reading today, about

II.                 What Jesus did on Saturday evening.

After Jesus had cast out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue, the news spread fast all around the place. We read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

Last week, I spoke in detail about unclean spirits, and demons, and what exactly they are and how Jesus went about casting one out from a man. I won’t say it all again, but I’d like to make a couple of comments about our reading here. Two things are mentioned: diseases and demons. Jesus heals people with diseases, and the demons he casts out. There are two categories here—not everyone who is sick is demonised, and not everyone who is demonised is sick. Jesus deals with both situations.

But the reading tells us something specific about the demons. It says: He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. The demons here have personalities, and they speak. And it’s a strange thing that at the same time as Jesus is revealed as the Holy One of God, and at the same time as Jesus begins his ministry, all these demons are revealed. All of a sudden there are all kinds of people with demons.

And the thing about demonic powers, and unclean spirits, is that because they are supernatural creatures and belong to the devil, they have some access to certain knowledge that normal people like us wouldn’t otherwise know. This is, for example, where psychic power comes from. And so, sometimes, the people with demons know something that people otherwise wouldn’t know, and sometimes these things are true. But in the reading, it says: [Jesus] would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. The demons knew him, but Jesus doesn’t allow them to share their secret, hidden knowledge. Even though they know the truth, they are not allowed to speak. The reason for this is that once the devil leads people along with something true, he starts to take the truth away by mixing in errors with it. The only thing that can silence the evil spirit is the word of God, which is the living words of Jesus. And we need to be so careful that we don’t mix in half-truths with God’s word. But this is what the devil does: he feeds on the word, and adds things in, but then ultimately he takes the truth away, and people are left with nothing but emptiness and lies. Proverbs 30 says: Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

So it’s a wonderful demonstration of Jesus’ love for us and his power that he comes into the world, and he deals with evil and silences it in its tracks.

Let’s come now to the third part of the reading about

III.              What Jesus was doing on Sunday morning.

We read: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you”. And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogue and casting out demons.

Jesus gives us a wonderful example here. He has had a busy day the day before, and he has a busy time ahead of him. And so in between, he spends some time alone and prays. He debriefs with God, and he prepares himself with God. When something wonderful happens in our life, we should remember to spend some time to tell God about it and commend it to him. When we are about to do some difficult work, we should also ask him for the strength to carry it out with his blessing and power.

Isn’t it funny how Jesus prays? He created the world together with his Father and the Holy Spirit. Why would he need to pray? Because he is a true man, a true human being like this, and this is what humans were created for: to talk to God and to live in fellowship with him.

But then also when Peter finds him, Jesus tells him that he’s eager to go and do some more preaching, and says: for that is why I came out. What does he mean by this? Where was he coming from? Jesus is talking about the fact that he came down from his eternal glory with his Father and entered into this world as a tiny baby born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus had existed right from before the beginning of time, in eternity with the Father. And he came forth into, he came out from heaven into the world, took human flesh, for what purpose, that he could go out and preach. And we see how the kingdom of Jesus goes from one town to the next town, with Jesus preaching his word all the way. And this Jesus came down from heaven just for this purpose, and he is true God. And as a true man, he prays to his Father, drawing all his strength from him. We see here the wonderful mystery of the fact that Jesus is both true man and true God in one person. He is the same Saviour who has suffered and died for us, and risen from the dead for us. And even today he comes to meet us, to preach his word to us, to come to our home in the afternoon, to help in all our troubles and to look after us in all our sicknesses, to spend the evening with us, and even before we have even woken up and thought about him, he has already gotten out of bed before us and has committed us and our day to the Father. What a faithful Saviour we have! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful way in which you look after us each day and at each part of the day. Teach us to bring our needs to you, and bless us so that we may serve you each day for your kingdom. Amen.

Pentecost XVII (Proper 21 A) [Matthew 21:23-32] (1-Oct-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.

The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, send us your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

Our Gospel reading today comes from Matthew 21, which is a very significant chapter. It begins with the history about Palm Sunday, where Jesus entered into Jerusalem on a donkey exactly one week before Easter Sunday. In the church year, we always celebrate Palm Sunday a week before Easter Sunday, because if you go through the gospels and work it all out, Jesus actually did ride into Jerusalem a week before he rose from the dead. So in the church, we have always referred to this week as Holy Week, because it is the week where our holy Lamb of God and made a holy sacrifice and atonement of his body and blood on the cross. So everything that happens in our reading today, happened in the week when Jesus died.

Our reading today, then, finds Jesus going to the temple to teach. It’s amazing that in this last week before Jesus dies, he does panic and fret, but calmly goes to the temple and teaches. And in teaching, Jesus demonstrates all of his power and glory and authority. And so, what happens is that the chief priests and the elders go to Jesus and they challenge his authority to teach. We read: When [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

The chief priests and the scribes understood something well, which all of God’s people always had understood, which Jesus understood, and which the whole Christian church has always understood, that no one is allowed to teach without a call from God. Actually, the Augsburg Confession, which was the first Lutheran confession of faith made in public in the year 1530, says this very clearly, and this is still our confession of faith today. It says: Our churches teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church, or administer the Sacraments, without a rightly ordered call.

So what’s the biblical basis for this teaching? Well, firstly, in Jeremiah 23:21, God says: I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. This passage is talking about prophets who ran out into the world, and went about prophesying, and yet God says that he didn’t send them. So it’s important that when someone claims to speak God’s word, that they also were sent by God to do it. Romans 10:15 says: How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? You see, it’s absolutely vital that when preachers preach, that they are also sent by God, and they did not simply push themselves forward. Hebrews 5:4 also says this: No one takes this honour for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. Preachers (or in this case, we are talking about high priests, who were also teachers and preachers) are not allowed to push themselves forward, but must be called by God, just like Aaron. I remember on my first day at seminary, one of our lecturers sat us all down, and said: Listen, you’re not called to be pastors yet. At the moment, you’re called to be students, and then after the church tests you and examines you, then it will approve you, and then you can serve as a pastor. But there was one student in the class, who immediately snapped back and said: “I don’t agree. I’m called to a pastor, and you’re here to make me one.” Funnily enough, that man was the only student in our class who never completed his studies, and he didn’t become a pastor.

Now there are two ways in which God calls people to the public ministry of teaching the word. The first way is where God simply comes straight to the person, gives them a vision or a dream, and calls them to preach. This is what is called a “call from God without means”. God simply calls the person straight from heaven. Examples of this are Moses, the prophets and the apostles. John the Baptist and even Jesus himself are also in this category.

The second way in which God calls a person is through means, or we might say, “through the church”. Examples of this are people like Timothy, Stephen the martyr, Titus, Sosthenes, and Silas. You can read about these men in the book of Acts, and they are mentioned in some of Paul’s letters. So they were approved by the church, and then they had a ceremony where they laid hands on them and prayed for a special blessing of the Holy Spirit (this is what we call “ordination”), and then they went out and preached. This is also how I came to be a pastor: I went to seminary, I studied theology, I was watched and observed to see if I was suitable, I did field work in local congregations and got to practice things like preaching and bible studies and visiting and teaching, and then I was approved by the church and I was given a call to a parish and ordained. Then you, the people in this parish, had call meetings, and then I was installed as your pastor. This is an example of how God calls pastors and preachers through means, through the church.

Now, if someone is called without means to preach, then God sends them out with miracles and signs. This is the way in which God wants to show to people that He called them. But also, more important than the miracles, is their teaching. Are they teaching God’s word in its truth and purity? In Deuteronomy 13, we read: If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

So when God sent Moses, He sent him with special miracles. These miracles were turning his stick into a snake, making his hand become diseased with leprosy, and pouring out the water from the Nile so that it became blood. Jesus also performed many miracles: The blind receive[d] their sight and the lame walk[ed], lepers [were] cleansed and the deaf [began to] hear, and the dead [were] raised up, and the list goes on. Do you see that Moses performed miracles that were frightening—involving snakes, leprosy, blood—but Jesus performed miracles that were comforting—healing, raising the dead, and so forth. Now not all miracles are from God—even though God gave miracles, they don’t necessarily prove that the person speaks from God, unless they speak God’s word truthfully and without errors. For example, in Exodus, we also read about the Egyptian magicians who also turned sticks into snakes using witchcraft, and so Pharaoh wasn’t convinced by Moses. But we also read that Moses’ snake gobbled up magicians’ snakes!

So in our reading the chief priests and the scribes comes up to Jesus and question his authority to teach. They say: By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? Either Jesus should have been called through means, or “through the church” like these priests and elders were, or it needed to be clear that God had actually called him from heaven. Now, this had actually happened. At Jesus’ baptism, God had said: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove. You can’t get any clearer than that! And then Jesus went around and performed all kinds of wonderful miracles. And the most amazing miracle of all is that on the third day he rose from the dead!

But, when the chief priest and elders went to Jesus, they weren’t actually interested in Jesus’ answer. Let’s say, Jesus had simply answered them, “My authority is from man! My authority is nothing but human authority! I just decided that I want to preach!” Then the chief priests would have every right to throw him out of the temple. But if Jesus said to them, “I was sent by God!” then the priests would have said, “How dare you claim such a thing?” and they would have thrown him out anyway. The chief priests and the elders wanted to trap Jesus.

So Jesus exposes the trap. Jesus says: I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man? Jesus asks this question about John the Baptist to expose their motives.

Now, what happens? We read that the chief priests and the elders are not able to give Jesus a straight answer. We read: They discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The chief priests and the elders didn’t believe in John’s ministry, and they would like to have said that John’s ministry was just from man, but they didn’t want to say that, because they were afraid of the crowd. They weren’t prepared to give a straight answer, because they didn’t want to get in trouble. So they weaselled out of it, and said: We don’t know. This was a lie. What they really meant was: We don’t really want to say. They didn’t want to say, “from heaven”, and be convicted of their sin of rejecting John, but they also didn’t want to say “from man”, and offend the crowd and make them angry. So Jesus also gives them no answer, and he refuses to play their games, and to bow to their tricks.

Now, let’s go back to the chief priests and the elders for a minute, and let’s examine ourselves a bit, because this is a very important passage. We Christians today might know the bible well and come to church, but what if we had lived in those times, and this man John the Baptist came along? Here is a man who had old parents, had lived out in the wilderness, and he is dressed in camel’s hair and eats nothing but locusts and wild honey. In Aussie-talk, we would say he was a real “bushwacker”! Would you have listened to a preacher like this? Would you have gone to the river Jordan and been baptised by him?

The problem with the chief priests is that fear people rather than God. They were not prepared to listen to John and test his words, because of his appearances. Sometimes we have pastors in our church like that, who are a bit rough around the edges, and don’t quite fit the mould. We have to look past the crusty exterior and test their words! Also, the problem with the priests is that they are only prepared to believe what is easy. They want to go along with the spirit of the age, rather than to stake their lives on God’s truth.

This is a really important message for us in the church today. As Christians, we can’t fear the crowd like the chief priests. We need to stick with God and his word. It’s not for us to weasel our way out of God’s word, just because everyone around us thinks differently. For example, today many people think that there is no such thing as “gender”, as male and female. But in Genesis 1, it says: Male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”, and so on. In this month of October, we remember the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, and Luther understood this well, and engaged with the important issues of his day. St Paul went right into the Athens, and engaged with the people about their worship of idols. So when the world, and human ideas, and human philosophy, starts to “move the goalposts”, the church can’t move. It has to make a stand and give a faithful witness, otherwise it starts to stop being the church and becomes no different from the world. In 2015, when I visited Kenya, I remember seeing an old Catholic church on the side of road, way out in the middle of nowhere, built by Italian prisoners of war. And on the tower there was an inscription that said: The world goes around, but the cross stands still. As Jesus says in Luke 18:8: When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?

Now, in the last part of our reading today, Jesus gives a very simple parable about a father who sends both his sons to work in his vineyard. The first one says: I will not, but afterward he changed his mind and went. And the second son says: I go, sir, but did not go. Both these sons did something wrong, but only the first son did what his father asked him to do, even though he had to change his mind before going and doing it.

And Jesus compares these chief priests and elders from our reading today, these most respectable people, with the tax collectors and prostitutes of the world, the world’s least respectable people. The first son is like the tax-collectors and prostitutes. They are sinners, and at first refused to obey God their father, but then later changed their mind. There’s a sense in which tax-collectors and prostitutes threw all their principles down the sink in order to make a living. Tax-collectors were Jews that worked for the Romans, the invaders. Could you imagine during the Second World War, if a Jewish man decided to go and work for the Nazis? Or if an American and Australian went to work for the Japanese? Maybe they were desperate for cash, but principles are principles, aren’t they? And sure, a woman might be desperate for cash, and to make a living, but principles are principles, aren’t they? You wouldn’t go and sell your body to a bunch of unfaithful, lustful men? And yet, when John came preaching and was pointing to Jesus—and when Jesus came preaching—they knew that there was something that Jesus could give that no-one else in the world could give. All that anyone else could give them was judgment, condemnation. But Jesus gave them something else: He gave them forgiveness. They came to John to be baptised, confessing their sins, and they trusted in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Now, if we don’t come to Jesus like this, like a tax-collector or a prostitute in complete need for forgiveness, then we haven’t met Jesus yet. It’s like we don’t really know who He is yet.

The second son, who says, “Yes, I go”, but doesn’t go, is like the chief priests and elders. They give an appearance of being a good boy, but they reject their father and hate him and disobey him. The prophet Samuel said: Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart. Do you think you’re a good little boy, or a good little girl? Do you think that you have ticked all of God’s boxes, and put on a good show? Sorry—but if that’s the case, then you’re still in the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of appearances, the kingdom of show-and-tell. That’s the kingdom where the person in change says: You will not die, but you will be like God. But the kingdom of heaven has Jesus as its king, who says: You are a sinner, you are a tax-collector, you are a prostitute. You will die for your sins. But you have a Saviour. This Saviour is Jesus and he calls you by your name, just like he called Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday, just like he said to Matthew and the other disciples: Follow me!

Jesus says: John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. The Christian life, the baptised life, the life of the kingdom of Jesus, is the one that is described in this verse. Christians are the people who have seen who we are, who see who Jesus is, and who change our minds and believe the preaching of him. And every day, there is something new to learn in God’s word. Every day is a day of changing our minds. Changing our minds is repentance. When Luther wrote the 95 Theses 500 years ago this year, the first thing he wrote was: When our Lord Jesus said, Repent, he meant that the whole of our lives should be one of repentance. Repentance is when we acknowledge that God is right and we are wrong. We change our minds: we see that up till now we were dead, we had wrong opinions, we did wrong things, our whole minds and hearts are completely wrong. And we realise that there is no hope in us at all, but that there is eternal hope, eternal joy, eternal happiness only in Jesus, in Jesus alone! He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. He is our Saviour, our hope, our life, and our joy! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for calling us through the preaching of your word. Change our minds by your Holy Spirit, and enable and empower us to trust in you in every way possible as our Saviour, our Lord and our King. Amen.