Pentecost XV (Proper 17 B) [Mark 7:1-23] (2-Sep-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.

This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

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

In our Gospel reading today, we read particularly about a discussion that Jesus has with the Pharisees. In fact, he accuses the Pharisees right at the centre of the reading with the words, and says: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

So why does Jesus say this to them? We read in our reading: Now when the Pharisees gathered to [Jesus], with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. Now, it’s not an unusual thing for people to wash their hands before they eat – we might even think that this is a sensible thing. We might say that it is hygienic. Some countries around the world are particularly fussy about this, especially if they are people who don’t normally eat with cutlery, like knives and forks or chopsticks, and have to eat with their hands. But you see, the Pharisees did not say that the disciples simply had unwashed hands, but that their hands were “defiled”. They were saying that washing your hands made your hands holy for the meal, and not washing your hands made your hands “unholy”. Do you see? This was not simply a matter of hygiene, but it was a matter of holiness. This hand-washing was a special ritual that they would perform before the meal.

In the Old Testament, there was no law that people had to do this. But when the priests entered the temple, there were various instructions to them about washing. For example, in the book of Leviticus, we read about how before Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons to be priests, they had to be washed. They also had to wash their clothes and bathe their bodies in water before performing sacrifices and various things. So the Pharisees wanted to apply these kinds of things to everyday life. So it became their tradition that they should perform a special ceremony or ritual of washing their hands before they would eat. It’s not a bad thing necessarily, but they saw it as a matter of holiness. They thought that washing your hands made you holy, and that not washing your hands made you unholy. This is not taught in God’s law, and so they were inventing laws about holiness that were not from God.

We read: The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

So when they ask Jesus why his disciples did not hold to these traditions, Jesus says: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

This is a very important passage, and there are many things here for us to learn from that apply to us today. First of all, Jesus calls them hypocrites. We often think of a hypocrite as someone who doesn’t practice what they preach. They say one thing, but do something else. But it’s probably best to see this word as being like an “actor”. A hypocrite is someone who wears a mask—they put on a good front, but behind the mask there’s nothing there. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus describes this a bit further. He says: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

When we watch the TV or movie, and see an actor playing a part, we can almost start to imagine that the actor is actually the person they are playing. But they are not. So also, people might act holy and righteous, but that doesn’t make them holy and righteous. What makes a person holy and righteous is not how they act in public and what kind of a front they put on, but God’s word.

One thing that can be a real cancer in the church is when people are always worried about what the church looks like, whether we’re talking about the church building, or the people themselves. Sometimes we think of the church like a business, and we think of things in terms of marketing, and say: “We have to do things like this, or like that, otherwise what will people think?” Sometimes if we don’t know some hymn or some song, we might need to practice it before church. But some people might say, “We can’t do that. What will visitors think if we’re all messing around, looking like we don’t know our stuff?” It’s OK – sometimes we need to do things like this. We don’t know everything, and sometimes we need to learn things, and that’s OK. It doesn’t matter what they think.

Now, at the same time, it’s a good thing that things in the church are well-ordered, well-structured, that the church building is clean and well cared for. This is all good. But the most important thing about the church and its people, is not how things look like, but how things really are. Do you understand that? The most important thing is not how thing look, but how they really are.

And so Jesus in calling the Pharisees hypocrites is saying to them that they think they look holy and righteous, but in actual fact, they are not. How they appear is not the same as how they really are. So Jesus says: This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They look like their honouring good, from the outside, but inside, they are not honouring God at all.

What Jesus says here we should also direct to ourselves. Do we simply care about what people think of us from looking at the outside, or do we care about what God thinks about us?  Are we just trying to put on a show, or do we really desire to hear God’s word and to receive his forgiveness? When we come to church, do we just go through the motions, and then think we’ve done our bit for the week? Or do we really take notice of what we’re saying, and take everything very seriously? Do we just honour God with our lips, but meanwhile our hearts are a million miles away?

We are all hypocrites, but Jesus is no hypocrite. With Jesus, things are exactly as they are in reality. He is a real Saviour, who died on a real cross, and really rose from the grave. And so he doesn’t offer pretend forgiveness to pretend sinners, he gives real forgiveness to real sinners. And so we might look at the church, and find it full of sinners. But we have a pure word from God, that speaks the wonderful forgiveness of sins over us, so that things are not simply how they look, but they are how God sees them and how he himself says that they are. He looks at his church, and he doesn’t simply see a bunch of sinners, but he sees the blood of his own Son covering over all that sin, and he speaks to us from heaven that that blood applies to us and that he has forgiven us personally. This is the real thing in the church—we learn this from God’s word, not from simply how things look.

Now, this also brings us to another thing, which is tradition. The Pharisees had many traditions. Now tradition is an important thing, and many times it is a good thing. We have many traditions not just in the church, but in our everyday life and in our homes. For example, when it is someone’s birthday, we often have very strict traditions about how things are done. We make or buy a cake, and put candles on it, and then we all sing “happy birthday”. Even the song from a musical point of view isn’t the best song ever, but it’s tradition, and nobody can change it without messing a whole lot things up. But then there are local traditions: different families have their own versions of things. Some people clap their hands for the number of years, or they have an extra song, like “Why was she born so beautiful”, or “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, or something like that. Now, when we have a birthday, we all know what’s going on, and we can all join in.

In the church, we also have various traditions too, and many of these things are good things, and give good order to things so that everyone knows what to do and how things are going to happen, and we can all join in.

There are some traditions that God actually commanded us to do, for example. Take preaching or the Lord’s Supper. Jesus actually commanded pastors to preach. Also, with the Lord’s Supper, he said: Do this in remembrance of me. It’s something that we do every week, and it’s a tradition, we might say. Our forefathers did it, and we now pass it on to our children. But it comes from Jesus himself.

There are all kinds of things that we do in the church, which are not specifically commanded by Jesus too, that we do simply because they are good things. For example, the Creeds are not specifically written in the bible, but they are good, because they summarise the bible. There is no specific example of a baby being baptised in the bible, but we baptise babies because Jesus told us to baptise all nations, and the promise is for our children, so we baptise them. I could go on and on.

The problem is when we put human traditions, things that were not specifically commanded by God, and we turn them into laws, that if we do them it makes us holy or righteous or saved, and if we don’t do them we are not holy or righteous or even saved. This then becomes idolatry, because we can take God’s law and replace it with human rules. We are in danger of replacing even God with ourselves.

And so Jesus gives an example in our reading of how the Pharisees were taking God’s law, and replacing it with their own laws. He says: In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Now this is one of the reasons why it is so important for us Christians to hear God’s law in the church. Now, there are two things in the bible—two doctrines or teachings which summarise everything. We have God’s law, which shows us our sin, and finds sinners and exposes them. And we have the Gospel, which shows to sinners their Saviour, and makes them new. The Gospel is the wonderful message of the free forgiveness of our sin, because of what Jesus has done for us in his death and resurrection, and we receive this gift without any contribution from ourselves, or because of anything that we have done.

But it’s also important for us to learn God’s law, for a number of reasons, even though the law doesn’t actually save us. First of all, the law of God provides good order to the world. It is good and it is holy. But secondly, we need to hear God’s law, because it shows us our need for Jesus. The law condemns us, and accuses us, and so we need to hear it, so that we despair of ourselves completely and look to Jesus alone to save us. But then, as Christians, we are also called to do good works, not in order to be saved by them, but out of thankfulness to what God has done for us. In Ephesians, St Paul writes: For you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Now, we know, for example, that Jesus often teaches his disciples that they should love other people, that they should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. However, what sometimes happens is that when people want us to do something that is wrong or bad or evil, they actually dress it up and make it look like something good when in actual fact it’s not. The devil is a wolf, but he is always putting on sheep’s clothing. So he often makes something evil look like it’s a good thing by making it a beautiful tradition, or something like that. He knows that something is bad, but he calls it love. Now I’ll give a very concrete example of this: take the issue of euthanasia, which is being promoted in our country at the moment. The whole push to bring in euthanasia is basically the politics of making something evil into something good. 20 years ago, there was an Australian doctor who was suggesting all kinds of terrible ways in which euthanasia could take place, and people called him “Dr Death”. But now, people call it “dying with dignity”, or showing love to someone by putting them out of their misery. The issue is much more complex than that, but what you end up with is vulnerable people who have no family simply being killed off, because they have no one to protect them. Instead of having doctors as people who try to bring healing and treatment to people illnesses, we turn them into agents of death. God actually does say in his law: You shall not murder. Now there are all kinds of issues where something is really not right, but people put nice clothes on it and try to make it into something good when it’s not. Anyway, I could make all kinds of other examples like this. What I’m trying to say here is that it’s important for us to learn what God’s law actually is, not because it saves us, but because Jesus has commanded us to do works of love, and it’s important to know what love really is in God’s eyes. We have to learn not just to love, but what love really is. There are many people in our towns and have so little love shown to them—and yet, sometimes when you try to love them, they don’t want it. They think you are showing them hate, or judging them. It can be very confusing for us to really know what we should do for people, and what we shouldn’t do for them. God is the one who teaches these things, not people. Now when we preach the law like this, we’re exposing something and bringing it into the light. Often this means that people will accuse us of being hateful, or bigots, or unloving, when it isn’t true. If we only learn what love is from the people around us, then we end up replacing God’s law with human commandments, as Jesus says: In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

In the last part of our reading, Jesus says: Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. Then he says: For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

We come back now to the Pharisees, and their rules about washing their hands. But Jesus also teaches them that it is not external things, like eating food, that make a person unclean or unholy. Food simply passes through out stomachs and out the other end. Now, we might choose to eat certain food, we might like to eat healthy food, or we might have a particular diet. Some Christians even choose to be vegetarians. And this is not a bad thing, but it can become a bad thing when they look down on other Christians or other people, because they are not doing the same thing that they are doing. Sometimes all kinds of people can be incredibly legalistic when it comes to eating food. What we eat or drink doesn’t make us unholy, but our uncleanness is already inside of us. It is already contained in our sinful hearts. Jesus gives a long list of various sins there. He says: For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things comes from within, and they defile a person.

And so what makes us clean? Nothing that comes from inside of us. Nothing that comes from any our actions, or any of our own works. In fact, nothing that we even can possibly think of, not a single one of our bright ideas, can save us. Only the ideas and thoughts and words that come from the mouth of God can do that. Only the pure forgiveness of sins can do that. Our ideas about washing hands can’t do a thing—but God’s wonderful idea of connecting his pure word to water and washing us in holy baptism is powerful to save us. Our ideas about eating and drinking can’t do a thing—but God’s wonderful idea of giving us the body and blood of his own Son for us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of our sins is a powerful thing to encourage us in our Christian life, and to give us the strength for the road ahead. Genesis 6:5 teaches that every intention of the thoughts of [our] heart [is] only evil continually. But in Proverbs 30, we read: Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

All of our thoughts condemn us, and all our ideas and plans are useless. But God’s word endures forever, and his word has all the power to save us. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and for making things clear for us. Our minds are often so unclear, and we start to make things up, and we try to save ourselves. But even though you know our hearts, you have still sent your Son to die for us, and you still forgiveness, and so we thank you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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.

Holy Trinity [Isaiah 6:1-8] (27-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.

Text (Isaiah 6:1-13):

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

Prayer: Heavenly Father, send to us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well and to all of us that we may hear well; in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Today we’re celebrating the festival of the Holy Trinity, where we remember the particular teaching about God, that he is one true God, in perfect unity, but also reveals himself to us as three persons, or three individuals, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Today, for our sermon we’re going to meditate on the words from the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 6. And there’s a number of things that happen in this chapter:

I.                   Isaiah sees a wonderful vision of God.

II.                 He recognises his sin, and he receives forgiveness.

III.              Isaiah is called to be a prophet, and is given a word from God to speak.

So first, what did Isaiah actually see? First, Isaiah gives the time: he says that all this happened in the year that King Uzziah died. We learn here that kings comes and go; rulers die, leaders perish – but God does not. He is the living God.

And Isaiah says he saw him. And actually, Isaiah says very little about what he saw—he could have said much more, but he says just enough for us. He says: I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Can you imagine? The Lord is so far above our comprehension that the edge, the hem of his robe filled the temple. Imagine – Isaiah saw the Lord, and yet he says nothing about what he looked like, only that he was sitting on a throne and the hem of his robe filled the temple. What you think Isaiah is trying to tell us about God?

But then, Isaiah tells us about the living creatures, the holy angels, the seraphim who were there. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew.

Throughout the bible, we read about all kinds of angels and heavenly creatures that God has created. Right in the beginning of the book of Genesis, we read about when Adam and Eve fell into sin, that God appointed angels called cherubim to guard the entrance to the Garden of Eden, with a flaming sword flashing back and forth. –We read later about Jacob and his dream where he saw angels going up and down a ladder to heaven. – Ezekiel saw some wonderful living creatures of God.

Here Isaiah calls the angels he saw: seraphim. And we Christians sometimes talk about cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels. There is not just one kind of angel, but all different kinds. “Seraphim” means a spirit of fire, an angel of burning fire. In Psalm 104, it says that God’s ministers are a flaming fire. This is what we’re talking about here, who are standing in the presence of someone so wonderful, so magnificent, so glorious, so holy that with two wings they cover their faces and feet in reverence to him.

And we read that there is no silence in this vision. Not only does Isaiah see something wonderful, he also hears what this wonderful thing is. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

You probably recognise these words from when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, when we sing these words: Holy, holy, holy, together with these wonderful living creatures. Notice also there that there are three holies: holy, holy, holy, just as we say in the blessing: the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lordmake his face shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord look upon you with favour and give you peace. The LORD, the LORD, the LORD – holy, holy, holy – just as in baptism we say in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And so then we read: And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. Can you imagine if the words of the angel causes the foundations to shake, how much more the voice of God himself? These things are so holy that a cloud of smoke protects Isaiah from seeing anything further.

So what’s going on here? In the Gospel of John, chapter 12, we read a little explanation of what Isaiah saw. John says that it was Jesus whom Isaiah saw. And yet this same Jesus who had existed together with the Father and the Holy Spirit right from the beginning of the world is so holy that the angels can’t even look at him, and Isaiah says that the hem of his robe filled the temple.

And yet, this wonderful Jesus has descended from heaven and become a true human being just like us, a real man with real flesh and blood. Angels knew how wonderful this was that at his birth, they came tearing out of heaven to sing with the shepherds in the fields: Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased.

And now, this same Jesus has died. His blood has been shed, and his hands, feet and side have been pierced. As we read later in Isaiah: This Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. By his stripes we are healed. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And this Jesus that Isaiah saw has now risen from the dead and has ascended into heaven. This same Jesus that Isaiah saw has descended and has sat back down on his throne, but now with a difference: sitting there with real human flesh and real human blood.

And yet, can you imagine—this same Jesus whose robe just barely scraped the temple, had people come up to him during his life and touch the hem of his robe. We read about a woman with a bleeding problem who said to herself: If I only touch his garment, I will be made well. Here today Jesus lets us touch the hem of his garment as he descends in all his majesty to baptise a child. What about when we hear the absolution? Jesus lets us touch his garment, by giving us his word and speaking his gospel – his free forgiveness of all our sins. And we touch this garment, his word, and like the lady, we are made well. What about the Lord’s Supper? He clothes himself in bread and wine—we touch these things and eat and drink them, and power goes out from them through the living and active words: This is my body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

But then here in the church, we are gathered with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven. Jesus is the LORD of hosts, the king of the heavenly armies. Remember “O come, all ye faithful” at Christmas time when we sing, “Come and behold him, born the king of angels.”

And these wonderful angels are singing the praises still of this same Jesus, the Lamb of God who was slain to take away the sin of the world. They sing the words: Holy is the Father of this Jesus, Holy is this Jesus himself, and Holy is the Spirit that is breathed out of the mouth of Jesus.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.

But then remember that Isaiah said that when the voice called out, the thresholds shook. Do you realise that we would know nothing about Jesus at all if it weren’t for the word? It is the voice, the speaking, the word that makes the threshold, the foundations shake.

A church without the word of God is no church.

A sermon without the word of God is no sermon.

Baptism without the word of God is no baptism.

The Lord’s Supper without the word of God is a supper, a very light supper, but it not the Lord’s.

God had willed that his word be spoken here on the earth and it is this word that makes the threshold shake.

But then if we are going to hear God’s word here and enter into the presence of Jesus, how are we going to do it? What should we say? How would we be prepared?

Isaiah tells us: I said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!

Woe is me! This is the word of a man who knows his sin, and that he is totally unworthy to be in the presence of God. What about you? Can you say, “Woe is me” – or would you rather say, “Yay for me!” Be careful what you say—when you stand before God, you must know which one of you is the holy God and which one of you is the sinner. Isaiah knows who he is. And he says: I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips. Has God lost his way, or have you? Is God unclean, or are you? – Know who you are. If you are not lost, your Good Shepehrd cannot find you. If you are not unclean, then the blood of the Lamb cannot cleanse you. As St John says: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

But there is something else, something new that God also wants to speak to us. We read: Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

What a wonderful gift the angel gives to Isaiah! Isaiah says: Woe is me! and yet the angel gives God’s blessing, his forgives, his atonement. His guilt is taken away, and his sin atoned for. Isaiah says: I am lost, and yet the angel finds him. Isaiah says: I am a man of unclean lips, and yet those same lips are prepared and purified by the burning coal.

Jesus is very much like this burning coal. Here is a coal but it is also red hot with fire. Jesus is a true man, and yet he glows red hot with his divine nature. He is true man and true God in one person, just like this burning coal is both coal and fire together. And it is this Jesus who finds you, whose angels present him to you, who touches your lips. And he sets this water of baptism on fire with his word so that this baptism saves you. And the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper he sets on fire with his true body and blood. Why? Purely so that when these things touch your lips, that your guilt will be taken away and your sin atoned for. This is also the whole reason why we have preaching, and sermons, and readings, and pastors, and a church at all – so that the wonderful forgiveness of sins in all of its simplicity and in all of its richness can come to you. What a wonderful loving Saviour we have who still comes to forgive us even today, even now through his words and his own promises!

There’s something I’d like to mention just before we finish. God actually calls Isaiah after this to be a prophet. He says: Here I am, send me! And then God sends him, but with a frightening message, and this is a message very much for our church today. God says: Go and say to this people: Keep hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive; make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their hears and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

There are so many wonderful things that Isaiah has seen and heard, and yet many people will not hear, and yet he must preach, he must speak what God has told him to speak.

Many people are looking for a quick fix in the church today to all kinds of problems, especially in mission! What’s the one thing that could let the floodgates open up so that people could come flowing into the church again?

If only we realise what a wonderful Saviour we meet every Sunday when we sing his praises! If only we knew what a precious gift we have in the word of God and the sacraments! If only we knew that when we have the forgiveness of sins, we have everything and when we don’t have forgiveness we have nothing. And yet Jesus promises forgiveness to you and his word never lies.

But there will be many people who will simply be uninterested in this living Jesus, in the holy Triune God, in the holy Trinity. And yet, whether they believe or not, it is not us who converts them, but the Holy Spirit. We must stick to the word, and speak it in truth and hold to it with all our strength.

It is a great sorrow to many pastors of our church when people are just too lazy to read the bible, too uninterested in God’s word, bored with forgiveness—and yet God’s word is still powerful and his Spirit is living and active.

Many people have given up on God’s word and many pastors don’t preach it, because nobody expects God to call. God calls Isaiah here – and he calls him to speak a specific word. God has called me to be a pastor – and if it is him who calls, then his word is the only thing I can preach. God has baptised you, and if it is him who has called you as his own, then it is his word and nothing less and nothing more than his word that you are called to hear, to believe, and to help bring to the nations however and wherever God uses you.

Of course, when we have given up on God’s call, then the only thing we have left is dodgy church politics, we just intimidate others with the devil’s own power and use people to build up our own personal kingdom.

No—it is God who calls. And if it is He who calls, then it is His word which must be spoken, and no matter how many of how few people will hear it, Christ crucified must be preached, because it is this living Jesus and this living Jesus alone who finds our sinful lips and who speaks the living voice of His Holy Spirit into your ears to forgive each and every single one of your sins! Jesus says: Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.

Holy, holy, holy, LORD God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! Amen.

Dear Jesus, open our ears so that they hear, and our eyes so that they see. Give understanding to our hearts so that we may turn and be healed by your holy and powerful word, Lamb of God, Good Shepherd, thank you for taking away our guilt, and atoning for our sin. Take us, and use us, and send us as you will. 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.

Funeral for Brenda Avis [1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a] (5-Feb-2018)

This sermon was preached at the Maryborough Crematorium, 1pm.

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

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

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

At a Christian funeral, we come together to hear about two things. The first thing is that we come to remember the life of a person who has died. Today we have heard the life-story of Brenda, who was a wife, a mother, a grand-mother and friend to all of us who have gathered here today. She lived a particular life that no-one else has lived.

But also there’s a second thing that we also come to hear about at a Christian funeral, and that is that we come to remember the life of Jesus Christ, who also died, but three days later, rose again from the dead. Jesus also lived a particular life that no-one else has lived, and because he has risen from the dead, he is still living, he is still alive, and is the Saviour of the world.

And we might think: what has Jesus got to do with a funeral? We’re not having a funeral for Jesus. However, when we come to a funeral, the death of our loved one, the death of Brenda, is sad news. But the death of Jesus and the fact that he rose again from the dead is good news. The fact that Brenda has died is the reason we have come together today in our grief. But the fact that Jesus has died and rose again is the reason why we have comfort.

When we sit and write a eulogy or an obituary for a person, we like to give a picture of that person, and we have been given a bit of a picture today of who Brenda was and the impact that she had on us. Also, there are certain facts about her life: her mum gave birth to her in Kingaroy, she was baptised there—here’s the beginning of her life. But also in the last few days, her earthly life has come to an end.

And also, we read in the bible about the life of Jesus Christ. He was born at a certain time, not in Queensland, or in Australia, but in Israel, in a small town near Jerusalem, called Bethlehem. He was born of a human mother, but didn’t have a human father. God the Father was his Father, and his mother was a virgin. And just as many people today are born in very humble circumstances, Jesus also was born in a stable, and put in the feeding trough that the animals would eat out of. Christians believe then that Jesus was both a true man, and a true human being like each of us, and also that he was true God, at the same time. He is both a true man and true God in one person. Everything that Jesus did was God’s work. When he touched someone or spoke to someone, it wasn’t just a man touching or speaking to someone, but this was God. He had God the Father as his Father, and also a real human woman as his mum.

Now, all of us are not God. We have two human parents—and we all know that all of our parents have their faults. And right from childhood, no-one ever needs to teach a kid to be naughty, they do it completely by themselves. So when we were born, we were born as sinners. Sin is not just doing wrong things, but includes wrong words, wrong thoughts, and also sin is the way in which our whole thinking and our minds and our hearts are turned away from God from the very start. Just as we inherit all kinds of good things from our parents, we also inherit a family debt, which is passed on from generation to generation. We are all part of the human race, and even though God created us, and was pleased with human beings, the human race fell into sin. So when we come to the funeral of a person who has died, we have many things to be thankful for which we received from their unique life. But also, as Christians, we don’t pretend that the person was sinless, or perfect.

Now, when we look to Jesus, the exact opposite is the case. Because Jesus was not just a man but also true God, he had no sin at all. There was nothing wrong in anything that he thought, that he said, or that he did, and his whole mind and heart and thinking was completely in harmony with God the Father in every single thing that he did. The book of Hebrews in the bible says that Jesus in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. So with us, we were created and made with a body and a soul at a particular time in our mother’s womb. So was Jesus in his mother’s womb, but unlike us, he also existed right from before the beginning of time, because he was God, and so when he was conceived in his mother’s womb, he entered into the world and he took on a human body and human flesh.

Now, even though Jesus was not a sinner like us, he took on himself all the sin of the world. You see, a crime needs to be punished. If we find ourselves in a situation where someone has committed a terrible crime against us, and they do not serve their time in prison for it, we think that justice wasn’t done. And we might look at our life and have some really serious regrets for the things that we did or didn’t do. And then we start to think, “Now I have to live with it.” “I did the crime, now I have to do the time.” Or we think, “God’s already done with me. There’s no hope for me. There’s no turning me back. I’m getting my come-uppance. I deserve this.” And then we start to think, “I have to carry all of this by myself, because no-one can pay off someone else’s wrongs. I have to do the time for my own crimes.”

But here’s where Jesus comes in. All of that come-uppance, all of that payment, all of those loads that we all carry around, all the time for the crimes, all of that, Jesus took upon his shoulders. And what did he do with it? He made a payment. He was crucified, he was nailed to a cross. Getting yourself nailed a cross was the punishment that the Romans gave to rebels. If Ned Kelly or someone like that lived in Roman times he would have been crucified too. Jesus wasn’t a rebel, but he died the death of a rebel, and died for all the rebels in the world like you. We’ve all rebelled against God. And all that rebellion against God is on Jesus’ shoulders.

Now with Brenda, she was sick for a long time and struggled with bad health, and when she died, she died a very quiet and peaceful death at home in bed.

Jesus died quite a different death. He was whipped, beaten, flogged with whips, stripped of his clothes, made to carry his wooden cross, and then they nailed him to it. And in enduring all of this, Jesus suffered and died for the sin of the whole world. He made a perfect sacrifice for you. All your debt, everything in your life that you’ve ever completely stuffed up, every single second of the time for your crimes, all your come-uppance was put on him and came down on him. When someone says to you that you’re getting your come-uppance, you can say that what has “come up” on me “came down” on Jesus. That’s what the little verse means that I read at the beginning of the sermon: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

But here’s the next thing: After Jesus died he was buried. And he didn’t stay buried for long, but he rose again three days later on Easter Sunday. He’s not a ghost, he’s not an angel, he’s not a disembodied spirit… but his body and soul came back to life, he walked out of the tomb, and he will never die again. And he goes to his Father with all of our accounts, with all of the debts of our sins and crimes, and all of our rebellion, and he presents it to his Father, with a red stamp on it. This is the red stamp made with his blood which he shed for you. And the stamp says: Paid in full. Nothing owing. You were bought with a price. You belong to me.

And sometimes, we might think: Yeah… maybe Jesus died only for the good people, but not for me. That’s not what the bible says. It says: God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. It doesn’t say: God so loved the good people. It says: God so loved the world. Also John says: He is the propitiation for our sins—propitiation means atonement, or sacrifice, or payment—and then he says: and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And if it says: the whole world, it means, that your sins have been paid for too.

You are not your own, but you were bought with a price.

And so, here we see how when we come to grieve a loved one, like Brenda today, because God created her, we see a life full of blessings that we have received, and we also see because of sin a life with debts still owing and payment still to be made.

But all of our debts and payments that all of us have, were never going to be paid by any of us individually, because that would be completely impossible. And so at a Christian funeral, we also remember the life of Jesus Christ, because he is our Saviour, and he is not just a true man, a human being like you and me, but also true God. And because he is God, we know that there is going to be nothing owing, nothing still to be paid, nothing wanting, but everything paid in full, everything dealt with, everything stamped and sealed with his holy and precious blood.

You are not your own, but you were bought with a price.

And that same Jesus says to us today: Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we commend our hearts and our minds, our bodies and souls, into your hands. Strengthen us in the comfort of your word in our time of grief, and send to each one of us your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Funeral of Elaine Hansen [Luke 23:39-43] (8-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at the Maryborough Crematorium, Maryborough, 1.30pm.

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

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

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

Today as we come here for Elaine’s funeral, we have the wonderful privilege of entering into God’s presence, and receiving our comfort from him. Every time we gather together to hear God’s word, there is always something new to learn from him. God’s own comfort is not something that is natural to us, because we are human and he is God, and so it always must be taught. Especially today when we gather for a funeral in the face of death, it is a wonderful privilege and joy to receive our strength and comfort from God himself.

And so today we come together to thank God for Elaine’s life, to remember the good things that God has given to us through her, and to commend her to God and his mercy and grace.

Today for our funeral text, I’ve chosen a passage from the Gospel of Luke, from the part where he tells about the events of when Jesus was on the cross. Often when we see the cross depicted in a painting, or something, there are three crosses. The reason for this is because Jesus was crucified between two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And our reading tells of a discussion that occurs between the two criminals and Jesus while they are there.

But let’s just leave this passage for a moment, and come back to Elaine. On the 18 March 1928, at the Nitschinsk family home, Elaine was baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The reason why this was because we Christians believe that Jesus died for the sin of the world on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday he rose from the dead. After he rose from the dead, he sent his twelve apostles out on a special mission and to them: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

And so when the pastor, all those years ago baptised Elaine at her family’s home, he didn’t baptise her in his own name, and by his own authority. Instead he baptised her in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus promised the apostles: I am with you always to the end of the age. So it’s not simply a pastor, or a human being, who baptises people, it is Jesus who does it. He is the one who works invisibly alongside and behind the pastor doing it.

So who is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Well, let’s go back to the very beginning of the bible, where it says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It also says that he made people in his own image, male and female he created them, and God blessed them. We also read where it says: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Later in the psalms, the poetry written by King David, it says: You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

We learn here from these passages that God is our creator and maker. God has made each person on this earth in his own image, but also makes each person unique. And it’s not as if God simply wound the world up like a clock, and then went on holiday ever since. He still provides for people and for the world. And so, when Elaine was a child, God provided her with a mother and father and a home. When she was older, God provided her with a husband, and children, and a home of her own. God provided her to you, however you came about to know her. And so all of this is part of God’s way of ordering the world, and providing for us and looking after us.

We also learn from the Scripture, that the world fell into sin. Adam and Eve, the first people, disobeyed God’s commandment to them, and they came under God’s judgment. They once could enjoy God’s presence in a perfect and wonderful way, but then after they had brought sin into their lives by their own doing, they could no longer live in the same way together with God anymore. With sin, came also suffering and death into the world. What this means for us today is that on one hand, all of us have been created in a wonderful way by God. And from our parents, we have inherited all kinds of good things. But also, because of sin, we also inherit the family debt. With all the good things that are passed down from generation to generation, sin is also passed down. We know that you don’t have to teach a child to do wrong—they do it all by themselves, because it’s already there, and it doesn’t need to be taught! St Paul says: There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And later he says: The wages of sin is death.

But this brings us back to words that were spoken to Elaine on the day of her baptism: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We have spoken about God the Father, our wonderful Creator, but also about the terrible way in which sin has come into the world. God the Father also sent his Son into the world, Jesus Christ. Jesus is both a true man, a real human being in every way, but also was true God at the same time. This is because Jesus had a human mother—the Virgin Mary—but had God the Father as his Father. And so, Jesus also lead a life that was completely and totally sinless.

Now, at Christmas time, we remember the event where Jesus was born. We remember the wonderful event where the Son of God who had existed from all eternity, who had been there with his Father at the creation of the world, now took on human flesh, and was born as a baby, just like you and I were. Christmas is the event where we remember who Jesus is—both true God and true man in one person. And then at Easter time, we remember the event what Jesus did, how he died on the cross, and rose again from the dead.

And this passage that I read before about the two criminals shows to us why Jesus died. And these two criminals in some sense give a picture of the whole human race. Everyone is a sinner without exception. And so the first criminal, we read, railed at Jesus—we might say, he mocked him, heckled him. And said: Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us! What he meant to say was: If you really are the Son of God, why don’t you just get down off the cross? You don’t have to go through this!

And in some sense, he’s right. Jesus didn’t have to go through it, but he chose to. Jesus had once said: No-one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. So why doesn’t Jesus just get off the cross, if he has the power and the authority being the Son of God to do so? He doesn’t get off the cross, because he is doing something very important, in fact, he is doing the most important thing that has ever been done in the whole history of the world. He is making an atonement for sin, he is paying the price for our wrongs with his own life and with his own blood. And without him doing this, not one single one of us would have any hope at all.

And so this is where the other criminal comes in. We read: The other [criminal] rebuked him, meaning, he told him off, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

He says: What’s wrong with you? We’re being crucified because we committed a crime. The Romans used to crucify people who were rebels. And so these rebels knew that they were rebels, and they knew what the punishment was if they were caught. And now they had been caught. And the criminal says: we deserve what we are getting. But Jesus hasn’t done anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve crucifixion, but he is doing it for you. He has done nothing wrong, and he makes a payment for you, who have done plenty wrong. And so, Jesus takes all of your sin and dies for it, and he gives you all of his innocence and perfection and he gives it to you, completely freely. St Paul says: The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. For Jesus eternal life costs him his life, but because of this, he offers and gives it to you for free.

And so the criminal then says to Jesus: Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom. And [Jesus] said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus does not require anything from this criminal. The criminal commends himself to Jesus and his mercy. And Jesus promises him the gift of eternal life.

There’s a wonderful text in the book of Romans, where St Paul says: God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. What this means is that the only person God has mercy on is a sinner. The only people that Jesus died for are sinners. This is what the thief on the cross came to recognise. He knew he was guilty, and that Jesus was innocent, and Jesus takes him with him, just as if the thief were innocent. The reason Jesus did this is because Jesus had taken the thief’s guilt on himself, and died for it himself.

And so, in the same way, we thank God for giving Elaine to us, and for blessing us with her. Let’s thank God for creating her, and thank Jesus for the wonderful way in which he died on the cross, and made an atonement for the sin of the whole world. And so, as we remember all the many blessings we have received from God through Elaine, let’s commend her to God’s mercy and grace.

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

And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.