A God Who Welcomes Sinners – Who Would Have Thought?

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

Luke 15:1-10  +  Micah 7:18-20  +  1 Peter 5:6-11

God and good people go together – don’t they?  We normally picture God surrounded by saints and angels, with people who are, at least mostly honest, decent, hard-working, charitable, moral people – and with good reason.  The Bible spells out for us in Psalm 15 who may dwell in the Lord’s presence: LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.

It’s no wonder, then, that people figure that God and sinners just don’t mix.  A couple of times in the last month people have said to me, “Pastor, it’s a wonder the church didn’t burn down when so-and-so came to church.” Or, “Pastor, if I show up at your church, I’m gonna burst into flames as soon as I walk through the door.” Why? Because God and sinners are like fire and gasoline. Everybody knows that.

Of course, if that’s true, then what are you doing here?  Not a one of you is blameless.  Not a one of you would be measured as a good person if God took out the measuring stick of his law, and neither would I.  Oh, no. God’s law calls you a damned sinner – you in the front row and you in the back and everyone in between.  Like fire and gasoline – that’s what an encounter would be like between any of you and the holy and righteous God.

So what is this in our Gospel?  What is this where the worst sinners in society were gathering around the Son of God – gathering around him to listen to him?  And they don’t burn up, and Jesus doesn’t send them away. Instead, he receives them, spends time with them, sits down to dinner with them.  A God who welcomes sinners – who would have thought?

Certainly not the Pharisees and not the teachers of the law. They were mad when they saw Jesus associating with the dregs of society, precisely because he claimed to have been sent by God. And God, they knew, would burn up those thieving tax collectors and sinners if God showed up on the scene.  If God showed up on the scene, he would know how righteous and decent and moral these Pharisees and teachers of the law were.  He would come and stand next to them and tell them what a good job they were doing – even as the sinners burned in their presence.  But not Jesus.  Oh, no.  “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Humph!

Now, you can bet these Pharisees and teachers of the law knew their Old Testament Scriptures.  They knew Psalm 15 which I read to you a moment ago.  But they also knew some very different passages.  Like, when the people of Israel made a golden calf and began bowing down to it and worshiping it.  And God threatened to burn them up, but Moses interceded for them and God forgave them and stayed with them all the way to the Promised Land.  They knew of David’s adulteries and murders, but also of God’s forgiveness.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law also knew of this prophet named Jonah. You remember Jonah?  After the part about the storm at sea and the big fish that swallowed him, he preached repentance and destruction to the wicked sinners in Nineveh.  And God turned back his anger and had compassion on those sinners and didn’t destroy them.  But that made Jonah angry.  He complained to God, “This is why I fled from you in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

So God taught him a little lesson.  Jonah went to a place outside the city to sulk.  And it was blazing hot in that desert, but God made a vine grow up very quickly to cover Jonah and give him some shade.  That made Jonah happy.  But the next day God caused a worm to eat up the vine, and then he sent a scorching wind right into Jonah’s face, and he got angry again.

And God said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

You see, God did for Jonah exactly what Jesus did for the Pharisees and teachers of the law in the Gospel.  They were so angry that Jesus would welcome sinners. And so he showed them what it was all about.  He showed them from their own experience so that they would be ashamed of their anger and their sinful, disgusting pride.  He showed them so that they would know how far they themselves had fallen from grace, that they no longer even recognized what the love and compassion of God looked like.

“Which one of you, if he had a hundred sheep and lost one, wouldn’t leave the 99 in the desert to search for the one that was lost?  He’d search until he found it, and then he’d scoop it up in his arms, wrap it around his shoulders and head back home and celebrate.  ‘Look what I found!  My lost sheep!’”  If you would do that over a single sheep, Jesus taught them, shouldn’t God do it for the many sinners who have wandered away from his loving care?

“Or what woman, if she lost one coin out of ten, wouldn’t light a lamp and sweep the house until she found it, and the call her friends over to celebrate with her –  ‘Look what I found!  My lost coin!’”?  If a woman would get that excited over a single lost coin, Jesus taught them, shouldn’t God get that excited about finding a lost soul?

And the good news is, God does get that excited about finding sinners who have run away from him; he does search for them and he does find them and he does celebrate with all of heaven when he finds them and brings them home.  “Look what I found!”

And this is where all the world’s wisdom falls to pieces, and all the false saints are revealed for the hypocrites they are:  I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. You want to count yourself among the righteous persons who do not need to repent, like the Pharisees counted themselves among the righteous, righteous, decent, good, moral, fitting company for God, because you haven’t done too much bad stuff in your life, or because you’ve done at least your fair share of good?  Then woe to you, because Jesus will not help you. He will not welcome you or eat with you or invite you into his kingdom.  Do you want to see the sinners of the world burned up and given what’s coming to ‘em?  Do you want to keep them away from our nice, pretty church, or at least, not associate with them yourself if they do come?  Then woe to you!  You have no Savior.  You’re on your own.  The shepherd leaves the 99 “righteous” behind.  God is a God who welcomes and rejoices over sinners who repent; he has no time for anyone else.

God’s law calls each of you a damned sinner.  But rather than deny it or run away from it, embrace it, because that means you are the one for whom Jesus has come looking.  He calls you to repentance – to see and to mourn over your sin and to trust in him for the forgiveness of sins, not a forgiveness that he pulls out of thin air, but a forgiveness that he purchased for you with his own blood when, on the cross, Jesus became a sinner like you. More than that, it was your sins that he bore and that he paid for with his suffering and death.  That’s where God and The Sinner met to settle accounts once and for all.  Fire and gasoline came together, and the Sinner was incinerated.

That’s how God can welcome sinners, not because sin is acceptable to him, but because sin has already been dealt with. That’s how Jesus could welcome sinners, because he threw in his lot with them – not committing their sins, but bearing their sins on the cross and burying their sins in the tomb.  Through his Word he now calls sinners to repentance and covers sinners with baptismal clothing and comforts sinners with his Absolution and feeds sinners with his body and blood.

So, you see, the picture of the shepherd finding his lost sheep and the woman finding her lost coin isn’t a picture of a one-time event in your life when Jesus first called you to repentance and then rejoiced over you – and then moved on to other people.  I’m afraid that’s how too many people misunderstand these verses of our Gospel, as if believing Christians were the 99 sheep whom Jesus is always leaving to go after other people. But no, the 99 righteous persons who do not need repentance – that’s not you.  You sin every day. Even your best works are still accompanied by sin.  Every day the devil still prowls around, looking for someone to devour, someone like you.

No, as the first of Luther’s famous 95 Theses says, “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent!’, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”  When Jesus first came to you with his Gospel and you believed and were baptized, you might say that’s when Jesus found you, and justified you, and began turning you into the saint that his Gospel already declares you to be.  But he isn’t done bringing you home yet. He hasn’t tossed you into his big flock of sheep to move on to other more needy people.  He hasn’t finished rejoicing over you yet.  The whole life of a believer is a riding on the shoulders of the shepherd as he brings you home to his heavenly Father and to the holy angels.  That’s when the heavenly celebration will really get going, when God welcomes sinners – forgiven sinners – into his kingdom of glory.

A God who welcomes sinners – who would have thought?  We join with the prophet Micah in marveling at God’s amazing grace, “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”  Let this be known in all the world, and let it be known to all the people you know.  They will not burst into flames if they visit our church. On the contrary, this is where the flames are put out. Our God is a God who loves sinners, who seeks sinners, who gave his Son for sinners, and who welcomes into his presence every sinner who believes in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.  For his sake.  Amen.

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The banquet is here! The banquet is now!

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity

Proverbs 9:1-10  +  Ephesians 2:13-22  +  Luke 14:15-24

Are you looking forward to heaven?  Or are you more “here and now” minded?  Are you anxiously awaiting that banquet that God has prepared for those who love him, that marriage feast of the Lamb?  Or are you more caught up in what’s for lunch? As God’s people, you have every reason to look forward, into the future, to the day of Christ’s return to earth to make everything new, to remove all the things that cause people to sin and to suffer, especially as you realize more and more how destructive and deceptive sin is, especially as your suffering here on earth increases.  Now is not the time when suffering is taken away.  That will happen when Christ returns.  Here is not the place where sin and death cease to torment us.  That will take place in the new creation and at the banquet God is preparing for us there.  It’s only fitting that we should long for that feast.

But for those of you who are more here and now minded, God doesn’t disappoint.  The banquet Jesus is referring to in our Gospel today with his parable of the great banquet is NOT the future heavenly banquet.  Instead, it’s a banquet that’s already begun here on earth, and you’ll miss out on that future banquet in heaven if you decline his invitation to the banquet on earth.  You have to understand: The banquet is here!  The banquet is now!

The setting for Jesus’ parable is the home of a Pharisee where Jesus had been invited to attend a little banquet. He was invited, it says, so that all the Pharisees there could keep an eye on him and maybe trap him in something he said or did.  As usual, Jesus warned the Pharisees about their pride and self-centeredness, which showed itself in how they all went after the most important seat at the banquet. One of them who heard Jesus’ warnings decided to change the subject and preach his own little sermon, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” That sounds nice, doesn’t it?  But the man was missing the point.  He was already missing the feast in the kingdom of God, because he had Jesus right there in front of him, and still didn’t want him for a Savior.

So Jesus told another banquet parable, of a certain man who was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.  That “certain man” stands for God.  The invited guests were the Jews, the children of Abraham.  And the banquet is the kingdom of God, the banquet with God that is here and now.  The banquet is God’s salvation itself, redemption, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, adoption as God’s sons, a place in God’s family, even a throne next to God’s throne.

That banquet began when Christ came.  Jews and Gentiles alike were completely lost in their sin. But God had finally fulfilled his ancient promise to step into human history, to send his Son as the Substitute for sinful man, as the sacrifice that allows sinners back into the good graces of a holy God. The coming of Christ ushered in this great banquet, thekingdomofGoditself, because in Christ God was reconciled to sinners.  The banquet is here!  The banquet is now!

And so the Gospel went out in Israel, preached by Jesus, but also by John the Baptist and by Jesus’ disciples, “Come and celebrate at the banquet of God.  Jesus is the Christ, your Savior from sin, death and hell! Repent of your sin and trust in him as your Savior!  God is a gracious Father to all who believe in his Son.”  God the Father was so happy to give his Son, and he dearly wanted to celebrate this gift with the Jews, his Old Testament people that he had put up with and even carried on eagle’s wings for two thousand years.  At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

But they, for the most part, said, “No, thank you. We have better things to do.”  They all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

That describes how most of the Jews received the Gospel of Christ.  Most of them weren’t murderers or adulterers or outwardly wicked people.  They just had better things to do than to listen to Jesus and his Gospel.  They had their own work to do for God rather than be fed by the banquet of Jesus’ work and Jesus’ righteousness.  They had their own way of trying to be saved rather than trusting in Jesus.  They had their own human relationships to keep them satisfied. So they turned down Jesus’ Gospel; they stayed home from God’s banquet.

Now that made God angry – to hear the Gospel invitation to believe in Christ and live under him in his kingdom, and then to say, “Sorry, I’m busy”?  No, that God will not put up with.

But notice what he does in his anger at those invited guests who turned down his gracious invitation.  He doesn’t call off the banquet.  He doesn’t take his Son back into heaven and call off his plan of salvation. Oh, no.  He just extends the invitation to others.  The owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’  See how God shamed the proud and the wise and the self-righteous!  He extended his banquet invitation to the poor and the lame, to tax collectors (thieves) and prostitutes and sinners, to little children, to the foolish things of this world. Those are the ones who heard Jesus’ Gospel invitation to come to him and find rest, to come to him and feast at the banquet in the kingdom of God – and they did! Such is the wisdom of God.

‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ Well, that’s not acceptable to the master of the banquet.  He wants his house filled.  He wants the salvation that his Son accomplished to be received and celebrated to the ends of the earth. Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. These are the Gentiles – people from all nations who would hear the Gospel invitation and believe.

Paul talked about it in the Second Lesson today, didn’t he?  You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household. It’s the same truth: The banquet is here! The banquet is now!  The banquet in God’s household is for all people of all nations! The banquet is Christ and his kingdom: forgiveness, life and salvation, and the Gospel is God’s gracious and sincere invitation to the world to come to the banquet, to believe in Christ and be saved.

Those who believe receive all of that here and now.  They already feast with God at this holy banquet, and are guaranteed a place at the banquet in heaven.  Those who don’t believe but instead decline God’s invitation to the banquet in Christ will lose out, not only on the banquet here and now, but also on the banquet to come.  Jesus’ words to the Pharisee who rejected him were very harsh. “I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”

This Gospel is rich in comfort for us, here and now.  The Father’s will is clear: that his house should be filled – not with the rich and mighty, but with the poor and the lowly, from every tribe and nation.  You and I are the ones along the roads and country lanes who have been made to come in to the banquet of Christ, called by the Holy Spirit through this Gospel to repentance and faith, and through faith, we are even now feasting on the love of God for us in Christ Jesus – every day, all the time.  His forgiveness is ours now – his peace, his providence, his grace, his mercy, all of it wrapped up in Christ.  We are, here and now, sitting at the banquet around Jesus’ Word.  We are, here and now, about to feast with bread and wine at the banquet of his own body and blood, the food of immortality. And that banquet will accompany you home today, too, as you live your life in Christ’s kingdom, keeping his name holy in all that you do and all that you say, serving him as Lord and King with all that you are and all that you have.

But there is also a warning for us in this Gospel.  We are no better than the Jews.  We deserve to sit at God’s banquet no more than they did, and the day we become too busy or too bored to feast at the banquet of Christ is the day we join the unbelieving Jews outside the banquet hall.  Does that mean you’re obligated under duress to be here in church at every service and at every Bible class?  No.  But consider this:  Christ does not say to hear his Word every so often and be content with that.  He says through the Apostle, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another.”  And he says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.  But let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

The Sacrament, too, is part of the banquet and is offered weekly here for the same purpose, so that all who hunger for the comfort of Christ’s pledge of forgiveness might receive it.  Now, does that mean you are obligated to come to communion every single time it’s offered?  No.  But Jesus’ gracious invitation says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” not, “despise this,” or, “leave this entirely undone.”  As Luther rightly says in the Catechism, those who intentionally, with nothing hindering them, go a long time without communing at this banquet of forgiveness that Christ graciously sets before us cannot be considered Christians.  To be a Christian and to yearn for the Word and the Sacraments of Christ go hand in hand.

So, what if a Christian finds that he no longer yearns for the Sacrament?  Well, Luther’s advice is just as appropriate today as it was 500 years ago.  First, put your hand in your shirt and feel to see if you still have flesh and blood. If so, then you’d better believe what the Scriptures say about your flesh, that it’s incorrigibly wicked.  Second, look around to see if you’re still in the world (and if you don’t know, ask your neighbor about it).  If you are, then you’ll have no end of temptation and misery before you. Besides that, you always have the devil around you, and if Christ himself suffered at the devil’s temptations, don’t think you’ll have an easier time with him.  Wake up from your boredom and your busyness.  Wake up from your coldness and your indifference, and hear your Savior’s invitation.  “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Come, dine with me in my Father’s house.  You don’t have to wait till you die.  Dine with me now, and you will never die.  The banquet is here!  The banquet is now! Come, for everything is now ready! Amen.

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The Spirit Fire Is Burning

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Pentecost Sunday

Genesis 11:1-9  +  Acts 2:1-21  +  John 14:23-31

Fires are sweeping across the West.  The Murphy Fire: 68,000 acres burned, and counting.  The Miller Fire: 89,000 acres burned, and counting.  The Horseshoe Two Fire: 135,000 acres burned, and counting.  The Wallow Fire: 430,000 acres burned, and counting.  See the damage fire can do!

John the Baptist once said, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I…he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”  Today we celebrate that baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire that took place on the day of Pentecost in the city of Jerusalem when the risen and ascended Lord Jesus poured out his Holy Spirit like fire on his disciples, and it’s been burning ever since.  This fire, kindled on the earth by God himself on the Day of Pentecost, is the Spirit Fire. The Spirit Fire Is Burning. 1) It blazes from the tongues of men, 2) It sweeps across every nation, 3) It saves mankind from the flames.

IT BLAZES FROM THE TONGUES OF MEN

On Pentecost Sunday – seven weeks after Easter, when all Jesus’ disciples were gathered together, a sound filled the house where they were, the sound like the blowing of a violent wind, like the kind of wind that drives a wildfire over the forests and makes it uncontainable and unstoppable. And then the fire came. Fire rained down from heaven, visible only for a few moments.  But like the burning bush from which God spoke to Moses so long ago, this fire didn’t burn anything up. Like the fiery furnace in the days of Daniel, this fire didn’t harm God’s people.  It took the form of tongues, like the tongues of men, and it came to rest on the heads of Jesus’ disciples – whether it was just the Eleven apostles or all 120 believers in that first Christian church, we don’t know.  But for some reason, God chose fire in the shape of tongues to announce the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell with those believers.

The reason is not a secret.  They all began to speak in other tongues, other languages.  They spoke, not just any words, but only words that the Holy Spirit gave them to speak.  And so now it’s clear:  The Spirit Fire Burns. But where?  Where does it burn?  Where should we look to find the Spirit Fire?  Should we look around for miracles?  Should we check and see how we feel?  Do you feel saved today? Do you feel the Spirit moving you, burning inside you for God?  Should we listen inside our hearts to figure out what the Holy Spirit’s will is for us?  Should we look around for signs of his presence and for proof of which church is really being led by the Spirit?  No, no, no.  The Spirit himself has shown us on the Day of Pentecost where we should seek his fire.  The Spirit Fire Burns: It blazes from the tongues of men.

God had said long ago through his prophet Jeremiah, “Is not my Word like fire?”  God’s Spirit has bound himself to words, to speech, and not just any speech, but to the words that he himself inspired in the Old Testament prophets and in the New Testament apostles, and also to the words of Gospel preachers today who preach in accord with those Biblical words.  That is the Spirit Fire.  That is the method he has chosen to burn his way into the hearts of men, to convict of sin, to create and strengthen faith.  Jesus said in the Gospel, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my Word.”  And what would the Counselor do when he came?  He would remind Jesus’ disciples of all the things Jesus said to them.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians, This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The Spirit is never without the Word, and the Word is never without the Spirit.  The Spirit Fire Burns.  It blazes on the tongues of men.

IT SWEEPS ACROSS EVERY NATION

The fires in Arizona and now New Mexico seem unstoppable.  They just keep spreading and spreading and ravaging the forests.  But they will eventually be extinguished – either by rain or by firefighters or when their fuel supply is cut off.  But the Spirit Fire will never be put out.  It will keep burning and spreading until it sweeps across every nation, every continent.

That was God’s purpose in choosing the Day of Pentecost for the outpouring of his Holy Spirit, and in choosing the sign of speaking in different languages in order to draw people to the Spirit Fire.  Like smoking billowing up from a house, that sign got the attention of the whole city.  Since it was the Jewish feast of Pentecost, there were Jews and Gentile converts to the Jewish religion visiting Jerusalem from all over the world.  And when they heard the sound of this loud wind and all these people making loud proclamations in many different tongues at once, the crowds drew closer to see what all the ruckus was about, and as they did, all these people from other countries heard their own languages being spoken by people from Galilee, who were not known for being well-educated. And what they heard amazed them even more:  they heard these people declaring the wonders of God – the great acts of rescue and deliverance that God has done for his people.

Back at the Tower of Babel, God’s Spirit confused the languages of mankind and forced them to divide up and spread out.  He did that for our own good, because the sinful nature that infects all people is like a destructive fire.  And the more people come together in their rebellion against God, the hotter that fire gets until humanity simply burns itself up and self-destructs, just like it did before the Great Flood, just like it was starting to do all over again at the Tower of Babel. So God divided people up into different languages and different nations.

A divided humanity will also burn itself up and self-destruct; it just takes longer. And God had a plan that required time – time for one nation – Israel – to grow up and receive God’s teaching, to hear God’s Word and to preserve it until the time for the promised offspring of the woman to be born, until the time for the Christ to come and rescue mankind from sin, from death and from the devil.

Now that Christ had come and lived and died and risen again and ascended into heaven, now, as of the Day of Pentecost, God no longer intends to zoom in on just one nation or one area, as he showed by unleashing his Spirit Fire in many languages.  He doesn’t favor any race above another, or even any individual above another.  The sacrifice of Christ was for mankind, not just for Israel, and the Spirit Fire that brings the Gospel of Christ has now been kindled on the earth to do battle against the fire of our sinful, corrupt nature – one fire waging war against another. The Spirit Fire must burn and spread and sweep across every continent, to people of every nation and every language.

IT SAVES MANKIND FROM THE FLAMES

Sometimes, in order to prevent wildfires from destroying huge chunks of land, forest managers will execute what’s called a “controlled burn.”  They use fire to protect people from fire.  In his Pentecost sermon, the Apostle Peter mentions a truly destructive fire that is coming – the fire of God’s final judgment.  The Spirit Fire has been unleashed on the earth, not to destroy mankind, but to save mankind from the judgment fire that is coming.  The Spirit Fire burns to save mankind from the flames.

Peter explains the strange events of Pentecost to the curious crowd.  This Spirit-enabled proclamation is the fulfillment of what God said through the prophet Joel: “ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Then, Joel and Peter jump straight from there to the day of judgment. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

So, you see, the “last days” began on that Day of Pentecost.  The kindling of the Spirit Fire on the tongues of God’s people marked the beginning of the end of this earth.  The fire of God’s Word will spread, or as Jesus put it, “This Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all nations, and then the end will come.”  Then the fire of God’s judgment will be unleashed against the earth.  And all sin will be destroyed. And all sinners will be burned up.  Nothing will escape those flames.

Nothing, except for sinners who are found relying on the blood of Christ for forgiveness and salvation.  The one who was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem, who was raised from the dead and now sits at the right hand of the Father – he is the only refuge for sinners on that great and glorious day of the Lord.  All who are found trusting in him – everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus in faith – will be saved.

But no one can trust in him.  No one ever would trust in him.  The fire of our sinful nature rages against God and hates him and would rather spend eternity in the flames of hell than share heaven with the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.  The fire of our sinful nature has cut off the power lines that would supply any of us with the power to believe in Jesus and rely on him.

“But the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith, in the same way he calls, gathers enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”  The Spirit Fire, blazing on the tongues of men, sweeping across the nations, is that which restores the power lines to our hearts, so that when you hear the apostle’s word to “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins,” that which you have no power to believe, you just believe, and you, too, are safe from condemnation.  The Spirit Fire, burning in the Gospel, is the flame that saves you from the flames of hell on the Last Day.

The Spirit Fire ignited on the Day of Pentecost.  It burned through the stubborn hearts of the people of Jerusalem and it lit the flame of faith in their hearts.  3,000 people were baptized on that day.  3,000 souls, and counting.  What is the count up to now? Millions? Billions?  See how the Spirit Fire has swept across the world! It’s traveled all the way to Las Cruces and has burned its way you’re your hearts, too.  Stay close to this fire. Hear and preaching of the Gospel, blazing from the tongue of Christ’s call servant.  Be warmed and forgiven and strengthened often with the Sacraments.  Live by the light of this fire, that your works may burn with the love of Christ.  And never stop alerting the people in your life to this fire.  “Here, here in my church there is a saving fire sent from God.  Come and see!  Come and hear!”  May your life and your lips, may our church and our congregation always burn brightly with this Fire.  Amen.

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Our only hope, our only help – The Holy Spirit of God

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Easter 7 – Exaudi

“Hear, O LORD!”

Ezekiel 36:22-28  +  1 Peter 4:7-14  +  John 15:26 – 16:4

The Paschal Candle is no longer lit.  It was lit for forty days, since the Vigil of Easter, but extinguished this last Thursday evening at our Ascension service. As if we needed a reminder!  The risen Lord Jesus no longer walks among us in the same way as he did with his disciples during those forty days between Easter Sunday and Ascension Thursday.  Jesus has ascended on high, but we are left here below. And that spells trouble – big trouble for the Church of Jesus that remains here below, on earth.

While Jesus was on the earth, he was the devil’s target.  Now that Jesus has ascended far above the heavens and out of the devil’s reach, guess who receives the devil’s full attention?  In our Gospel today Jesus warns his disciples and tells them just how bad it will get for them and for the whole Church on earth after his ascension, so bad that it would be downright impossible for any of us to survive with our faith and eternal life intact, except for one thing: Our only hope, our only help is the divine Help that Jesus promises to send back to us here below after he has ascended on high.  Our only hope, our only help is the Holy Spirit of God.

Who could have known Jesus better than those eleven disciples who walked with him and talked with him and heard all the things he had to teach and saw all the miracles that he did?  Who could have known Jesus better?  And yet, the very first help the Holy Spirit would give would be to teach those disciples about Jesus.  “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.”

And what is his testimony about Jesus?  In a lifetime you won’t mine its depths, but it’s also a very simple story that the Holy Spirit tells.  He points to Jesus as the eternal Word of God through whom all things were made, including man.  He points to Jesus as the light of men and the life of men, who was first rejected by men in the Garden of Eden and has been rejected by men ever since, and so men die, because they have sinned against him who is the Life.  He points to Jesus as the goal of history, the miracle of miracles, that God should take on human flesh and make himself a servant, to take the place of servants, to live under God’s law for us, to become obedient unto death for us, even death on a cross.  He points to Jesus as the risen one, the living one who was dead but now is alive forever and ever.  He points to Jesus and says, “Repent of your sins – and of your sin that infects everything you do, believe, be baptized in the name of this one, Jesus, for the forgiveness of your sins.” He points to Jesus as the Man who ascended to the right hand of God who now rules over all things for the benefit of his Church, which he bought with his own blood and purified in baptismal waters.  He points to Jesus as the One who will come again in judgment against the world and in salvation for his Bride, the Church.

Well, there you have it.  Salvation’s story, the highlights of the life of Jesus.  Are we ready to move on now and talk about bigger and better things?  No, never.  The job of the apostles, the job of the Church is to never, ever move on from simply testifying about Jesus.  That’s what the Spirit does, and that’s what the Church is called to do.  “And you also must testify,” Jesus told his disciples, “for you have been with me from the beginning.”  Actually, there is no “must” in the Greek.  Not “you must testify‼‼,” but instead, “you also testify.”  You, too, bear witness about me, because you’ve been with me.

Well, you and I haven’t been with Jesus like the apostles were.  We’re second-hand witnesses.  But that’s just as good and just as necessary, because it’s the same Spirit who inspired the apostles to point to Jesus, and it’s the same Spirit who points us to Jesus – and the world through us – through their first-hand testimony.  It doesn’t depend on how well we preach or how eloquently we testify.  It doesn’t depend on finding just the right words or doing just the right thing. Our only hope, our only help is the Holy Spirit of God, who continues to work faith in us through the Means of Grace and who continues to create faith in the world as he testifies through our testimony.

Whew! That’s comforting, isn’t it?  That nothing depends on us, that all depends on the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit is constantly testifying to our spirit, as Paul says in Romans, that we are children of God, because of Christ.  The Spirit is always pointing to Christ.

That becomes especially important, urgently necessary because of what Jesus said next to his disciples in our Gospel.  “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.”

All this I told you – all this about my returning to the Father and the sending of the Holy Spirit – so that you will not go astray. Literally, so that you will not be caught in a trap, offended, so that you will not stumble and fall away from trusting in me.  Now, why would anyone ever be caught in a trap and fall away from Jesus?  Because life is going to get miserable for Jesus’ Church on earth.

The very synagogues – the gathering places, the churches of the Old Testament people of God where the disciples first learned about God and his promises of the Messiah, where the disciples had worshiped with fellow Jews for their entire lives – these places would excommunicate Jesus’ disciples because of their testimony about him.  And that was just the beginning.  They wouldn’t just be kindly shown the door.  They would be killed, not out of malice, not by psychotic murderers, but by churchgoers who sincerely thought they were worshiping the God of Israel by putting these Christians to death.

And that happened, didn’t it?  As tradition holds, ten out of these eleven disciples were murdered, some of them by the Jews, some of them by the Gentiles.  And it wasn’t a humane lethal injection they were given.  Most of these men were crucified, just like Jesus.  One – Bartholomew – was said to have been skinned alive for his testimony about Jesus.

Who could bear any of that?  Who could continue to testify about Jesus under those conditions, knowing that escaping death and keeping your old friends and your place in the synagogue would be as easy as just keeping your mouth shut – at least in public – about this Jesus?  You didn’t have to curse him or deny him openly.  All you had to do was keep your mouth shut.

It would be so easy to fall away, so tempting to be caught in that trap.  And then, maybe Jesus disciples would die at a ripe old age of natural causes.  But then – then they would know what it is to fall into the hands of the living God.  Then they would realize that by keeping their mouths shut to avoid persecution, they had given up Jesus, and losing him, they lost the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  Their only hope of remaining faithful until death, their only help in the face of such grave persecution, would be the Holy Spirit of God who relentlessly kept testifying to them about Jesus.  Remember Jesus!  Remember Jesus!  And they did, and they willingly gave their lives for his testimony.

You and I probably won’t be skinned alive or crucified for our testimony about Jesus.  That’s good, but in a way, it does make it harder for us.  It’s like, if you’re holding onto your wallet or your purse and someone tries to pull it out of your hands, you pull back, don’t know?  You hold on tighter and you fight for what you have.  It’s when the pick-pocket or the thief comes and distracts you that you’re most susceptible.

It’s the same way with your spiritual life.  If Christians were put to death in this country for their Christian faith, I suppose Christians would rally to Christ. But today’s world doesn’t try to openly pry faith out of your heart by threatening you with death and imprisonment.  Today’s world subtly, slowly and methodically pounds away at your faith until it’s gone and you didn’t even notice.  There’s intellectual persecution that mercilessly ridicules Christians who still believe in the miracles of Jesus, including the miracle of creation and of the resurrection from the dead.  There’s social persecution that makes it nearly impossible not to give into the temptations that have become the norm in our society.  There’s persecution in the church (as in the synagogues) when the doctrine of Christ is taught a thousand different ways and it seems impossible to get it right, and then, if you dare to stand on the truth of Christ, even churches that bear the name Christian, or even Lutheran, may end up kicking you out.  Then there’s the cross that the devil presses down on you when you’re suffering in the hospital or suffering in your home. And he doesn’t shout at you to curse Jesus and die.  He just keeps whispering, every day, constantly, relentlessly, “What’s the point of believing in a God who allows this to go on so long?”

Our only hope, our only help is the Holy Spirit of God, who comes in the Word, who comes in the Sacrament, and testifies: “Remember Jesus!”  He bore your sins on the cross.  He suffered and died for you.  He lives. He reigns at the right hand of God and he told you ahead of time that his reign would include these hardships and persecutions.  But your sins are forgiven in him.  You have a gracious and loving Father in heaven because of him.  He will preserve you, even through this, and it will even serve for your good.

Who could ever believe such a thing?  No one, not even you.  Our only hope, our only help is the Holy Spirit of God.  Though the Paschal Candle is no longer lit, though Jesus does not come and stand by your side visibly as he did with his disciples, he has left for you all the hope and all the help you’ll ever need until you do get to see him face to face.  He’s left you, not the Spirit of somebody else, but his own Spirit, whom he has given you forever, the Spirit who calls you and keeps you in the faith through this Word, and through this Sacrament.  Come, Holy Spirit! Amen.

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We Pray in Jesus’ Name

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Sixth Sunday of Easter

Rogate – “Pray!”

Numbers 21:4-9  +  1 Timothy 2:1-6  +  John 16:23-30

In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  What does that mean – “in Jesus’ name”?  We often end our prayers that way, don’t we?  “In Jesus’ name we pray.”  Is that just a phrase you tag onto the end of your prayers by force of habit? Do you need to say those words in order for God to listen?  Today on “Prayer Sunday” – Rogate! – Pray! – Ask!, we receive in the Gospel this beautiful invitation of Jesus that we pray in his name, and he adds the remarkable promise that whatever we ask in his name will be given to us.  But what is it to pray in Jesus’ name?  To pray in Jesus’ name includes five things.

1) To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray at his command

Who has the right to walk into a movie theater, sit down and watch a movie?  You might say, “Well, anyone.”  But that’s not quite true, is it?  The only one who gets in to the movie theater, who gets past the ticket-taker is the one who presents a ticket.  With a ticket, you have free entry.  Without a ticket, you don’t get in.

Prayer in Jesus’ name is like that.  Not everyone has the right to stand before God and make requests of him.  You can’t just barge into his presence uninvited.  God is a Great and Holy King, and we have no business disturbing him or even pretending to stand in his presence.  In order to get an audience with him, you absolutely need to present a ticket, or in this case, an invitation.

The thing is, you have one! The invitation that gets you into God’s presence and gives you the right to ask things of him is Jesus’ command, right here in our Gospel, when he calls on his disciples to pray to the Father in heaven:  Ask!  Ask!  Jesus gives his disciples, his followers, those who have been baptized in his name, this call, this invitation, this command to pray.  That’s your ticket.  It’s sure; it’s certain. That’s the only reason we dare to make requests of the Great King.

To pray in Jesus’ name is to begin every prayer holding up to the Father this invitation of Jesus.  “Holy Father, here! Here is my invitation! This is why I am bold to pray to you, because Jesus, your Son, has commanded it.”

2) To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with faith in his promise

Jesus attaches an oath to his promise: I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  Ask and you will receive.  That is a firm promise of God and, therefore, it must not be doubted.  If Jesus says it, it must be true.  So to approach God in prayer with the thought, “Well, I may not get what I ask for, but it can’t hurt to try,” that’s an abomination.  To ask God for something on the chance that he might hear you is tremendously evil.  Those are not prayers of faith, but prayers of unbelief, prayers that assume that Jesus’ promise might be true or he just might be lying.

Now, that’s not to say that you go into or come out of every prayer with a smile on your face.  You may be struggling with terrible affliction and pain. You may wrestle with God in prayer for a time before you’re comforted.  That’s what Jacob did when he wrestled with God.  That’s what you find in so many of the Psalms – those Old Testament prayers.  Sometimes the Psalm writer is positive and sure of God’s help from start to finish.  But more often than not, those prayers start off down in the dumps – “My God, why have you forsaken me?  How long, O Lord, how long!  Will you forget me forever?”  They sound almost hopeless until, usually, at the very end, faith wins the wrestling match, “But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation.”

You and I have even more reason than the Psalm writers to trust God’s promises, because we’ve seen them fulfilled in the sending and the suffering of His Son.  Why should we believe that God will hear and grant our every request?  Only for one reason:  Because the Son of God has promised it.  So to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with faith in his promise – with faith that is solid as a rock because Jesus’ promise is solid as a rock.

3) To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with requests that reflect his requests

There’s a country song on the radio right now that really disturbs me (well, most of what’s on the radio or TV really disturbs me but…).  It’s called “Pray for You.”  It’s about a guy who is really angry at someone, but a preacher at church sets him straight and tells him it’s not right to hate others, that you should just pray for them.  So the guy prays, “I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill, I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to. I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls, I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls, I pray all your dreams never come true.”  Isn’t that horrible?  He’s trying to be funny, of course, but all he succeeds at is taking the Lord’s name in vain and twisting people’s idea of prayer.  That’s not prayer in Jesus’ name.

To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with requests that look like Jesus’ requests.  Imagine Jesus praying like that on the cross!  Imagine Jesus asking for a new car for himself, or to win the lottery, or mundane, foolish things like that!  Instead, we begin with the prayers that are found in the Scriptures themselves – those are the prayers of Jesus.  We pray for things we know God approves of because he’s told us in Scripture that he approves of them.

What have we prayed for so far just in this Divine Service today?  “I pray you of your boundless mercy, and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor sinful being.”  For peace from above, for unity, for divine comfort and help: “Lord, have mercy.”“God, the Giver of all that is good, grant that we may think those things that are right and by Your merciful guiding accomplish them.”

What will we be praying for shortly?  “Create in me a clean heart, O God…” In the Prayer of the Church, we’ll do as Paul wrote to Timothy in our Epistle today and offer up prayers for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” We’ll pray for God’s forgiveness in Holy Communion, all the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and for continued divine guidance and strength from the Holy Spirit.  These are the kinds of things Jesus prayed for in the Gospels. To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with requests that reflect his requests.

4) To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray through faith in him as our Mediator before the Father

When you come before the Father in Jesus’ name, it means you don’t come in your own name, because of who you are or things you have done.  Anyone who prays to God because of some self-worthiness will be turned away from God and rejected as surely as the Pharisee in the temple was turned away who prayed, “Lord, I thank you that I am not like other men. I am righteous, so no wonder you’ll hear my prayer.”

No, to pray in Jesus’ name means you claim nothing for yourself – only Christ!  It means that you trust in Christ for forgiveness, that you trust in Christ as your Mediator and the One who has removed your shame forever by his blood.  It means you know God as the gracious Father who adopted you into his family through Holy Baptism and covered you with His Son, so that as you stand before him, you stand there in the place of the Son of God, bearing the name of Christ on your head.  And since you stand in the place of Jesus before the Father, you know and are comforted with the full assurance of faith that he will hear and be pleased and grant your request, because you love and believe in His beloved Son Jesus.  That’s what it means to pray in Jesus’ name.

5) Finally, to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray that the Father’s will be done

Just a couple of hours after Jesus invited his disciples to pray to the Father and promised that their requests in his name would be granted, he himself was on his knees in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, in earnest and anguished prayer, with sweat like drops of blood.  You remember what he prayed?  “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”  But that cup wasn’t taken from him, was it?  Jesus had to drink it down to the dregs, that cup of suffering and death.  So was his request granted?  It was!  Because even the Son of God submitted his request to his Father’s will: “Yet not my will, but your will be done.”

When you pray, you can lay all the requests of your heart before God and you should trust that he will grant it, but you should never dictate to God the manner in which he ought to fulfill your prayer.  We shouldn’t try to tell God how or when or through whom he should work.  Instead, we must leave everything to his free will, to his Fatherly wisdom and love.  That’s how Jesus prayed.

And see!  God’s way of fulfilling prayer is always best.  Remember the Old Testament lesson today?  The Israelites complained to God, and he sent the poisonous snakes.  Then they begged Moses to pray for their salvation.  Who would have ever guessed how God would fulfill that prayer?  A bronze serpent on a pole, so that whoever looked to it would be saved from the serpent’s bite.  See how beautifully he foreshadowed the salvation of Christ, who was raised up on a tree so that whoever looks to him should not perish on account of our sin, but have eternal life.  God knows what he’s doing.  He knows the best way to answer prayer, in ways we could never guess or hope or imagine. To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray that the Father’s will be done, and to trust that no matter how he answers your prayer, you won’t be disappointed.

So, does that help you to grasp what it means to pray “in Jesus’ name”?  It’s to cling to Jesus’ command to pray, and to his promise of being heard, to offer petitions that look like Jesus’ petitions, to base your prayers on Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins – on Jesus as your Mediator with the Father, and to submit all your requests to your Father’s good and gracious will.  This is what distinguishes a truly Christian prayer from every other prayer in the world. This is the meaning that’s packed into that simple little phrase, “…we pray in Jesus’ name.”  Amen.

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