Sermon for 4/18/14--Good Friday (midweek series)

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Signed, Sealed, Delivered

John 19:30/Seventh Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Good Friday we delve into the darkest hour of human history. A fearful fight is going on between God and Satan. Obviously, the climax is close at hand. Finally, the air of suspense is pierced with the cry of the Victor: “It is finished!” Satan is overcome; his reign of terror is done. We Christians treasure the victory of Christ on the cross; it lies at the very heart and center of our faith. But it’s so easy to overlook the fact that our salvation did not come easily. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was waging war for us. Satan was the fearful foe. He had done everything possible to turn the whole world against Jesus. But he lost! Jesus won! And He won for us. And this is why we can pray with complete confidence this last petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father…deliver us from evil.” “Father, let evil be ended, the devil be done” in our lives also!

    

Evil is ended; the devil is done! How we need to hear this over and over. Satan’s power and dominion has been crushed. And yet, our Lord permits him to prowl about this earth, as Peter said, “…like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We have the freedom to choose his wiles and his ways. But thanks to Christ’s victory, we need never do that! The name “Satan” is derived from the Hebrew verb that means “to lie in wait, to oppose.” The word “devil” comes from the Greek word meaning “one who slanders.” These two names make his character and his role quite clear. He opposes everything good, because everything that is truly good comes from God. This he has done from the beginning, from the moment God finished His creation and called it “very good.”

    

From the beginning, Satan opposed the Father in heaven. At some point, the idea was born in Satan’s mind to oppose God openly, to fight it out with Him, and he managed to take some of the other angels with him into his evil plot. God has not chosen to reveal to us what happened, but we know that Satan lost. He and his horder were banished from heaven. His opposition to God had failed miserably and completely. He then opposed God’s creatures, the man and woman God had created. Though He could not get at God directly, perhaps He could do so indirectly by getting at God’s creatures. This time, Satan won the battle, and God was forced to curse those fallen creatures with death—one of Satan’s favorite words! At the same time, God promised Adam and Eve that One who would be born of a woman would crush Satan’s head. Centuries passed, and no doubt Satan felt that he was the winner. Men were born and died; hatred ran rampant on the earth; century after century was filled with hopeless futility. But then God sent His Son into the fray; the third and decisive battle was about to begin.

    

Satan stirred up King Herod to try and kill Him as an infant, but could not succeed. Later, as a full-grown Man, people flocked to hear Jesus speak about the Kingdom of God, and that He was the only way by which one could enter that kingdom. Finally, Satan found a usable tool in one of Jesus’ own disciples, a man named Judas, into whom he entered and whom he persuaded to betray his Master to the enemy. But that plan backfired, as well. Jesus, untouched by sin, refused to yield to Satan’s will. Jesus proclaimed the greatest victory the world has ever known, when He said, “It is finished!” And it was finished. Satan was finished. The problem of sin was settled. Death was doomed. Jesus took the initiative away from Satan by allowing all of this to happen. And even while the devil was nursing his wounds, Jesus descended into hell to proclaim His victory. And then He rose triumphantly from the grave. No longer would Satan have power over human life and death. Evil is ended; the devil is done!

What a cozy way to end the Lord’s Prayer and even our contemplation of Good Friday. But there is a danger here, too. We can become unconcerned about evil. Sin lies in wait at our doorstep, and we stumble over it again and again. Occasionally we spring to our feet, alert to the danger. Suddenly, out of the depths, we cry out “O Lord, deliver us from this evil!” Was it this our Savior had in mind when He taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil”? Was it for these isolated instances that our Savior cried out, “It is finished”? Surely we know better than that.

We must rise from our knees and face a few realities. Evil is still very much with us; the devil still stalks his prey. And so, while thanks to our Savior’s victory, evil is ended and the devil is done, we still have a fight on our hands. As we come near the conclusion of this great prayer our Lord has taught us, we join with each other, and with our Savior Himself, to make this fervent plea, that our heavenly Father would deliver us from evil and from the devil who continues to attack our lives. Thanks to Jesus, our lives do not have to be controlled by evil and Satan. These mighty words, “deliver us from evil,” will topple Satan and His kingdom. And then, knowing that Jesus has won the victory, knowing that our Father has heard our prayer, with confidence we can pray, “Amen. It shall be so.” In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 4/17/14--Maundy Thursday (midweek series)

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Get Thee Behind Me!

Matthew 26:41/Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

What a strange way to pray about temptation: “Our Father…lead us not into temptation.” Couldn’t Jesus have done a better job of wording this? Perhaps we might improve the prayer by saying something like this: “Father, keep temptation from our doorstep,” or “Don’t let temptation ever touch us.” But this is not what Jesus said. In the Garden He did not warn His disciples, “Watch and pray so that temptation doesn’t come near you.” No, what He said was this: “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.” Again, we observe a very clear connection between the Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Passion. On this Maundy Thursday we want to take at look at ourselves in the light of the Passion of our Lord, so we can understand that we, too, are faced with temptation on all sides. We hear our Lord’s warning to His disciples, and we hear His command to pray about temptation in the prayer He has given us. All of this leads us to cry out, “Father, do not forsake us in Temptation.”

Temptations are inevitable. If Christ’ disciples were tempted and fell, and if our Lord Himself was tempted, who do we think we are to walk around with the attitude that it could never happen to us? We know about temptation. We know how Moses, and David, and Solomon succumbed to temptation. But when temptations converge on us, we sometimes fail to recognize that they have hit us, even when we fall to them! We can never hope to be exempt from temptation. In fact, Jesus prayed on the very night He was betrayed by one who was tempted and fell.

When our Lord Jesus Christ brought us to faith in Himself, He did not remove us from all the grit and grime of this life. Instead He set us right back in the middle of it. He did not demand that we give up our emotions and passions and loves and concerns of life. We were not puppets or robots. He has not commanded that we be confined in a kind of pietistic, sanctimonious isolation from life. No. We are to be “lights” shining brightly in a world full of temptations. Of course we must not walk into them deliberately. But neither do we have the right to pray, “Lord, keep all temptation from us.” The truth is, because we are children of the heavenly Father, we will be subjected to temptation all the more. After all, unlike unbelievers, we recognize them and want to overcome them. We want to say with Jesus, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

Actually, temptation has a certain value for us. James put it this way: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience…Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” If our faith was never put to the test, we would either lose it completely, or it would become horribly weak. Of what value is a faith that has never been tested? And then, too, we must know the source of temptation. Luther described this as “the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh.” These sources of temptation attack us in different ways and at different times in life. Flesh and blood are no match for Satan. There is but one defense, and that is Jesus Christ.

Our Father in heaven knows us well. He knows our helplessness in facing and overcoming temptation on our own. Lovingly and willingly He offered His Son to become our flesh and blood Substitute. As we read in Hebrews: “We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Satan tried everything to get Jesus to succumb to temptation. He even moved men to nail Him to the cross. There the temptation was terrific. At the ninth hour of the day, Jesus experienced what it meant to be separated from the Father by a wall of sin. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Had Satan won after all? Was Jesus weakening in His resolve to finish the Father’s work of redemption for us? The next moment He cries out again in great relief and triumph, “It is finished.” Once and for all, the work of salvation is complete, and by His victory we are set free from the sin we fall into when we give in to temptation. We pray, “Forgive us our trespasses,” and we know that in Him they are certainly forgiven. Now He bids us pray as well, “Lead us not into temptation.”

Of course, the flesh is weak. We confess that fact every time we pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” But as we pray, we can be absolutely certain that our Father will not allow us to enter into any temptation or trial that He will not also enable us to bear. As St. Paul said: “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” We will find such strength in Word, in prayer, and in that wondrous blessing of the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, given and shed for the remission of our sins. He who endured the great temptation to give us these gifts, He will not forsake us in temptation. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 4/9/13--Midweek Lent V (midweek series)

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Forgiven, We Forgive

Luke 23:33-34/Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

What if Jesus had cursed His enemies from the cross, rather than seek their forgiveness by the Father? Jesus had every right to curse His captors, for they had dared to crucify the Son of God. What if Jesus had taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses,” and then advised us, “but do not ‘go soft’ and forgive those who deliberately trespass against You?” And yet, is that not the way we sometimes pray this prayer? We have been willing, even anxious, to have the Father’s forgiveness, but not nearly as willing or anxious to forgive those who have hurt us. Instead, Jesus startled His enemies and the whole world as, on the cross, His first words were words of absolution: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” As always, Jesus practiced what He preached. He prayed as He had taught. And so He taught us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Once again, we see the Lord’s Prayer active in our Lord’s Passion; we see our redemption in action and in application. We learn and pray that, having been forgiven, we will forgive.

We need forgiveness as much and as frequently as we need our daily bread. Every man who needs to pray for daily bread needs also to pray for daily forgiveness, because that great mountain of our sins bearing down upon us is as suffocating to our lives as hunger is damaging to our bodies. That is precisely what our Lord meant when He answered Satan, in the midst of His own temptation: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” These two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are inseparably bound together by the little word “and”: “Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We need forgiveness because of what we owe God. Call them trespasses; call them debts, as some translations do. They are really the same thing. The point is, they all cry out for payment, satisfaction, and forgiveness before God.

If we were to list all the sins for which we need forgiveness, there would literally be no end to them. But comparing the Lord’s Prayer to the Lord’s Passion helps to focus our attention on sin as an individual thing. It is of absolute necessity for us to know that the accusing finger of God points to each of us, one at a time, scratching away the veneer we build around our lives, and saying to us, as Nathan the prophet said to David, “Thou art the man!” Our sins stand like a huge wall between God and us. As Isaiah said: “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” It is like the husband and wife who have had a serious “falling out” with each other. Reconciliation can never take place until there has been forgiveness borne of love. We need that kind of forgiveness from God.

And that is the very forgiveness He offers us. The essence of God’s nature is love. And His love has taken concrete form in Jesus Christ and all He has done to save us. “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” Isaiah said. In the same manner, St. Paul said: “He made (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In Christ, the wall of separation is broken down; the path to God is straightened out; the debt of our guilt is paid in full. Our heavenly Father has accepted His own Son’s perfect life and sacrificial death in place of our imperfect life, and has spared us from the horrors of eternal death. The cross of Jesus has been laid across the yawning chasm that separates us from God. As we pray for forgiveness, it is this that guarantees our plea will be heard and answered favorably.

But our Savior taught us also to add these words, “…as we forgive those who trespass against us.” As the forgiven children of God it is simply a matter of course that we will, in turn, forgive others. When we pray this petition in the fullness of its meaning, we are not only seeking forgiveness for ourselves but also the grace and power to forgive those who have sinned against us. This petition places a profound responsibility on our shoulders; we should not seek God’s forgiveness for ourselves unless we are prepared to forgive others.

And yet, that is about the hardest thing in the world to do. Our Lord knew that we would go on sinning and being sinned against. And we know that often we would much rather curse than forgive someone who has sinned against us. It is much more enjoyable to nurse a grudge, to keep score over against a husband’s or wife’s faults, to rub it in, to be a little spiteful, to find ways to get even. Our Lord Jesus Christ not only died for these spiteful characteristics of our sinful nature. He even prayed for the forgiveness of His worst enemies: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And this is the way we can pray this prayer: Instead of magnifying our neighbor’s sins against us and condemning him for them, we can forgive Him through Christ.

You may shake your head and say: “But I just cannot find it in me to overlook the terrible hurt someone has brought on me. I just can’t find it in me to forgive that easily.” Of course you can’t! But Christ within you can. By redeeming you and forgiving you, He has made a new creature of you. In Holy Baptism, He has made you able to see things as He sees them. Now, you can pray: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Forgiven children will forgive; this is His message to us. And as He forgives and cleanses us by the power of His Word and Sacraments, He gives us the same power to be forgiving.

We remember Jesus praying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And because He did, we can pray just as earnestly: “Father…forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And our prayer is answered for the sake of Jesus Christ. Forgiven, we will forgive. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 4/2/14--Midweek Lent IV (midweek series)

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Meat in Due Season

John 19:28-29/Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

From His cross, Jesus said, “I thirst.” The children of God frequently pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Our Lord wants us to pray in this way. But why does He, the Creator of all things, lower Himself to ask for something to drink? And why is the all-powerful God concerned about a simple thing like food when He has a whole universe to operate and control? How does it happen that we human beings have the right to ask for food to eat, and water to drink, and clothes to wear? Why should God allow us to trouble Him with these personal needs? These questions lead us to consider again the relationship between the Lord’s Prayer and our Lord’s Passion. He taught us to pray this fourth petition of His prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And He practiced what He preached. He prayed as He taught His disciples to pray. He, who took on flesh and blood to become one of us and to experience real flesh and blood needs, shows us in the very act of redeeming the world that material needs are important. Matter does matter, both to God and to us.

Most of us are prepared to grant that God is concerned about our spiritual needs. We know that Scripture teaches that it is God’s will that “all would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” But as flesh and blood ourselves, we would not be too surprised if this fifth word from the cross had pierced the air as the first word from the lips of the crucified Savior. Imagine yourself, as well as you are able, nailed hand and foot to a cross, with little or no support holding you suspended in mid-air. The heat of the noontime sun, the burning fever, the dehydration caused by the sun and the loss of blood – with nothing to drink – it would be next to unbearable. We would have cried out for water or any kind of physical relief from the outset. And isn’t that typical of human beings. Our needs are the subject of our most frequent and fervent and desperate prayers. If time permits we may strain ourselves to pray for others, or even for the glory of God.

We thank God for the crucifixion of Jesus. God the Father took His own Son, “laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” and allowed Him to be the cursed One hanging on the tree of the cross. Even here in desperate agony He perfectly fulfills the Father’s will for us. He prays first for His enemies and their salvation. He spends Himself in love for all people. Only then does He pray for His own needs.

There is a parallel between the place of this fifth word from the cross and the fourth petition of His prayer. The first words of both are addressed to the Father. He teaches us to pray for the glory of God’s name, then the eternal welfare of God’s people in His kingdom, and their willingness to do the will of God faithfully. Then He urges us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Prayer begins with a life that is set right with God, and then turns to those physical needs we all have. Our material needs do matter to God. We deceive ourselves if we get the idea that these needs are trivial; they are not at all, not to us nor to God. Besides, “daily bread” means much more than the neatly wrapped package we purchase at the grocery store. It means valuable work for us to do every day, and the ability to do it. It means all of those things that God gives us to support our bodies and lives. Recall the list Dr. Luther offers us in His explanation—“food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home…” to name just a few. God is very much interested in these things. He came, in Jesus Christ, to walk on this earth. He needed bread, and ate it with His disciples. He had need of a place to sleep. He knew the pain of a broken heart when a loved one died. And on the cross He needed something to drink to satisfy His tormenting thirst. Does God really care about these things as they concern us? Why else would Jesus bid us pray these words?

God the Father always supplied the needs of His Son. At the beginning of His ministry, when Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, the Father sustained Him and, when Satan had been overcome, sent His angels to minister to Jesus and to satisfy His physical needs. The same is true here; when the work was done, the Father satisfied His thirst. The same Father in heaven has made many wonderful promises to us. After teaching His disciples, and us, to pray His prayer, Jesus then said: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or about your body, what you shall put on…Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of them.” Our Lord wants us to have the faith of David, who could pray: “The eyes of all look to Thee, O Lord, and Thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest Thy hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.” Jesus, who experienced all our needs and received His Father’s rich supply, has invited us to bring our needs to the attention of our heavenly Father: “Our Father,…give us this day our daily bread.” He has made us sons of God. By His prayer and life, by His bitter suffering and death, He has redeemed us to God, and made Him our Father, and has earned for us the privilege of bringing all things to our Father in prayer.

And so, when we pray in faith, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are showing our confidence in His goodness and wisdom; it is an expression of humility and dependence. We ask only for bread, our basic needs, as God knows best how to give them. We seek only a daily share of His grace, knowing that He will again tomorrow open up His generous hands to supply our needs. In so praying, we also thank God for all the wondrous things He has done for us.

And as we pray this prayer we can hardly do so without thinking of Jesus Himself breaking bread with His disciples and telling them, “I am the Bread of Life.” Our Savior, who promised to be with us always, gathers at table with us. He supplies our needs. He also gives Himself, the very Bread of Life, to satisfy the hunger of our souls. He who has experienced our material needs firsthand and richly supplies them, knows all our needs… and then He supplies them completely as He gives us Himself. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 3/26/14--Midweek of Lent III (midweek series)

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Wanting What God Wants

Mark 14:32-36/Third Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.


How do you pray the Third Petition of the Lord’s Prayer? “God, I wanted things my way, but it’s obvious that they are not turning out that way. So I’ll turn them over to You, because Your will has more power than mine and will probably have its way anyhow.” Is it our Lord’s intention that you and I should come out of prayer to Him with a futile, fatalistic attitude? Is this what Jesus had in mind when He taught His disciples to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? Is that what it meant when Jesus bowed submissively before His Father and said, “Not My will, but Yours be done”?

 As we look in at this crucial moment of human history, we see eleven men waiting somewhat impatiently in the background. Only a stone’s throw away is Jesus, the Son of God. He has dropped to His knees; He falls on His face in prayer. He who taught His disciples to pray, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,” not only prayed exactly as He taught, but also carried out the will of His Father. And in doing so, He not only gained new life for us but also this same privilege of prayer.
Jesus prayed alone. He had invited His ablest and strongest disciples to pray with Him, but they could only sleep while the battle for the salvation of the world was being won. Alone, He prays, “Remove this cup from Me; yet, not what I will, but what You will.” Wave after wave, the agony of His inner torment swept over Him as He prayed those same words again and again. As St. Luke tells us: “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. And His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The Son of God was ready and willing to die, and yet He is afraid of death? How can this be?

As we look into that “cup” held to His lips a bit more closely, we see that it contains more than the bitterness of physical death. That cup is full of the world’s sins. It holds the sins of His sleeping disciples, the treachery of Judas, the mocking of the crowds. Look deeper into that cup and you will find also your sins and mine. You will see our lips that have denied and even cursed Him, our thankless hearts, and our hands and hearts tightly closed against His commands and the needs of others. Who would ever want to drink such a cup? Yet, in the face of all of this, Jesus prays that if it this is the only way by which the world can be redeemed, then He is ready to do so. And then, “…there appeared to Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him.” This was the father’s answer. Our Savior got to His feet, strengthened by that angel, ready now to do the Father’s will. The “cup” actually looked sweet now, because His will and the Father’s were blended in it. He was at peace. The Father’s will was unmistakable, and His strength was unfailing. Heaven’s will has come to be done on this earth. The perversion of that will, which was part of the first sin, has been answered and redeemed in Christ, who prays perfectly, “Father…Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

But, this is our prayer, too. How is it possible that we could presume to pray such a prayer? Recall how Luther described this in the Catechism, when he answered the question, How is this done? He said: “When God breaks and hinders every evil counsel and will which would not let us hallow God’s name nor let His kingdom come, such as the will of the devil, the world, and our flesh; but strengthens and preserves us steadfast in His Word and faith unto our end. This is His gracious and good will.” When you look at people, externally one really looks like another. They are all flesh and blood, and all are tormented by wills that want what they want, when they want it. But with the gift of saving faith comes also the ability to see beyond the desires of the flesh. And that is what makes a Christian altogether different; simply and only because Jesus has made them that way. As children of the heavenly Father we are no longer fighting a losing battle against the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh; Jesus has conquered these for us. And we know it. We need but ask, and the Father gives!

And so, when we pray, we are not just mumbling empty words, but words that can move mountains, because they are words that Jesus also prayed. When we pray, “Father, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” what we are really praying is this: “Father we really do want what You want; help us evermore to want it.” When our will has been blended in with the will of the Father, then we are living a life of obedience to the will of God. And we will not pray this prayer in defeat, nor with a whimper, but will announce it as a veritable declaration of war, asking the Father that every will that opposes God’s will on earth will be triumphantly defeated. To pray this petition, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…,” is truly wanting what God wants. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 3/19/14--Midweek of Lent II (midweek series)

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The Coming Kingdom

John 18:36-37/First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Don’t be alarmed if you have not understood everything you were praying for when you prayed, “Thy kingdom come.” Whole books have been written on the subject. Some authors have viewed the kingdom of God as the central theme of the Bible, tying everything together from Genesis to Revelation. This is a big prayer; our Lord tells us to ask for the kingdom of God! In fact, that has been true with much of what Scripture has taught us. A bit after Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, He told His disciples: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” There is much He would grant us in prayer, if we would but ask—even His kingdom! What is more, Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God has come, but then He tells us to continue praying, “Thy kingdom come…” It is enough to make us scratch our heads and ask, “What is the kingdom of God?” And the answer that comes back to us from God’s Word is an answer with three parts.

The first is this; the kingdom of God is the kingdom of His power. This is the kingdom of His entire creation. It is the rule of God, the Creator, over the infinity of His creation. We do not have to pray that we might enter this kingdom or remain part of it. When we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we ask God to help us acknowledge this kingdom and His rule over it. Not everyone does so. Pilate did not realize he was judging his divine King as Jesus stood before him. Most modern rulers are no better, as they have been known to rule and to manipulate as though they were gods of their own making. And yet, the Lord has told us, even as He said through St. Paul: “There is no authority except from God.” And, certainly, Satan does not acknowledge this absolute power and authority of God. To this day, the devil refuses to acknowledge the power and authority of God as he confronts and seeks to overcome the children of God.

Quite frankly, we are not much better. We scurry about, building our own little kingdoms of power and empires of influence. We try to order and arrange our lives, providing for the future so expertly that we pat ourselves on the back for having played god so cleverly. What ugly, presumptuous sins! How we need to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” Jesus did not hesitate to acknowledge His Father’s dominion. “All that the Father has is Mine,” He said. Before Pontius Pilate, He bore witness: “You would have no power over Me unless it had been given you from above.” There it is again: The Lord’s Prayer in the Lord’s Passion. Our Savior did not just tell us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” He prayed it perfectly for us, and makes our praying of it a blessing to smash our trust in ourselves.

The second thing is this: we seek that kingdom of grace our Savior came to establish. The people of Israel began looking for the Deliverer who was promised, but in ways, sadly, that caused them to miss Him when He did come. This deliverance became fixed in their minds as a political delivery,  the supremacy of the nation of Israel. In similar ways, lots of modern day people expect the rule of God to be just a matter of making material lives better, or the security of providing peace and good will. However, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate and said: “My kingdom is not of this world.” The kingdom of grace is not one of might and material, but of righteousness and peace with God— not established by force, but by love. He offered Himself to God in our place, as a sacrifice to remove sin, death, and the power of the devil, to hit at the heart of every human need. In Christ, God’s kingdom of grace is established among us, right where we are. He has come to save us, to hold that place of supremacy in our lives. Through faith in Jesus Christ, God gives us the very righteousness of Christ Himself, who lived and died for us that we might live at peace both with God and with our neighbor.

Still, our Lord bids us pray, “Thy kingdom come.” There is yet another sense in which we are to pray for His kingdom. God’s kingdom of power and glory is all around us. His kingdom of grace comes to us and blesses us wherever His Gospel is preached and His blessed Sacraments are offered and used according to His institution. We are now to pray, “Father, bring us to the final consummation of Your kingdom!” We look beyond the steeples of our churches to the towering heights of the kingdom of glory that awaits us, where His rule of love will forever be established unopposed; where we will be able to serve Him in His kingdom forever, together with all the saints and angels. We are to pray that He will make us ever ready for the coming of that kingdom, when our glorious Redeemer will reappear to gather us, body and soul, to Himself, to take us to our heavenly home. On that day His coming kingdom of glory will have come once and for all. Eternity will not be long enough to praise Him for having established His kingdom, and for leading us pray, “Our Father…Thy kingdom come.” In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 3/12/14--Midweek of Lent I (midweek series)

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Hallowing the Father’s Name

John 17:4, 6/First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Most of us are proud of the family name we bear. We try to uphold it and defend it. We promote it and hold it high and try to bring honor and glory to it. This is true also of that eternal family name we bear, the name of Christian, children of the heavenly Father. That our heavenly Father intends this to be the case is seen in that the first assignment He gives us in prayer is to pray, “Hallowed be Thy Name.” God’s holy children will hallow the Father’s holy name. This is something foreign to our self-centered, sinful human nature. Nonetheless, there it is; our Father’s first expectation of us. When we pray this prayer, we ask God to help us to go contrary to our nature. We admit to Him that we have not been successful at making His name holy, and that we need His help.

   

But do we even know what it means to hallow God’s name? God’s name is more than any individual term by which we may refer to Him. His name is actually the sum total of everything Scripture tells us about Him. It is that by which He makes Himself known to us. In that sense His Word is His complete name, and Jesus is at the very heart of that name. God’s name is not a mere sound. It is God Himself revealed to man. And to hallow God’s name means to set it above everything common and profane; to esteem and honor it. The name of God is among the greatest treasures we have!

   

And yet, have we not been more concerned about ourselves and our own names rather than God’s? Left to our own devices we pray like that Pharisee who was seeking approval. Have we been guilty of that kind of conduct? Or do we find that the names of certain people on earth mean more to us that God’s holy name: names in the news, star athletes, the latest movie sensation, good friends, or even our loved ones at home? Compared to them all, God’s name plays only a small part in our lives.

   

It's true that we use God’s name. We call on Him in desperation and panic when the bottom is falling out of our lives, when we do not quite know where to turn anymore; when all else fails. But do we think to use His name when all is well, and we have so much for which to be thankful? We use God’s name on Sundays, at worship, but are we determined to keep God’s name out of the rest of the week? Have we failed to speak to someone who needed to hear about the Savior, either in defense of Him when His name is misused, or in applying the healing comfort of His name to a searching soul crying out to be saved? As God’s children we are to hallow God’s name, and yet we know that we have failed to do so. And so we pray this petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be Thy Name,” as a cry of confession and repentance, without which we cannot pray at all.

   

While we confess that we have failed to make God’s name holy, Jesus, the God/Man, came to this earth to do that perfectly for us. Indeed, every word that came from His mouth hallowed God’s name. He who taught us to pray, “Hallowed be Thy name,” performed this prayer perfectly. Indeed, He was on His way to the cross to pay the final and full punishment for our sins, including our failure to pray this prayer faithfully, and to carry out its meaning in our own lives.

  

In doing this, Jesus makes us able to hallow our Father’s name. By His suffering and death we are made children of God, through faith in Him. He prays along with us when we say, “Our Father… Hallowed be Thy name.” Knowing full well that we never have nor ever can pray this prayer perfectly, He has already paid for our unrighteousness and has offered to the Father in heaven, in our place, His own perfect righteousness. And He assures us, as well, that our prayers will be heard and answered by our Father, who has forgiven us, and loves us, and wants us to pray, and is anxious to be a Father to us!

   

And so, this prayer from the lips and hearts of God’s children is sure to bear fruit. Worship of the Lord becomes more meaningful. Praying, searching the Word of God, and receiving the blessed Sacraments will not be restricted merely to frantic moments of personal need. Since we bear the name of Christ in Holy Baptism, we will avoid doing and saying those things that would profane God’s name. We will use that name daily to pray, to praise, and to give thanks to God. We will commend ourselves, our spouses and children, those whom we work for and with, those who govern us, our friends, and even our enemies, to the careful and loving hands of God. In trouble, we will the more readily pray, “Have mercy, O God!” And in times of good fortune, we will more faithfully pray, “Praise be to You, O Lord.” In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 3/5/14--Ash Wednesday (midweek series)

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For Children Only

Mark 14:32-36/Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Prayer is not our idea; it is God’s. It is not left to our discretion whether or not we shall pray. God expects us to pray, and has reinforced this expectation with a number of non-debatable commands. Jesus told His disciples, “Pray like this…” and then promptly gave the Lord’s Prayer. After giving that prayer, he said: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Or what else can we possibly make of a directive such as this, from the Psalms: “Call upon Me in the day of trouble”? Prayer, then, is an act of Christian obedience; and that means work—hard work.

But prayer is also a privilege. Who would have ever thought of calling God Father, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer, if the Son of God had not told us to do so and shown us how? No believer in the Old Testament would dare address God with such bold familiarity. But Jesus did! And He has given us the privilege to do the same. Here we have the real connection between the Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Passion. It is at Gethsemane that we see the most unusual way of addressing God, as we watch the Son of God wrestling in prayer, in a cold and bloody sweat, saying, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to You.” The privilege of praying “Abba, Father” is for children only.

It was as normal and natural for Jesus, the Son of God, to address God as “Abba” as it is for a typical child today to address his father as “dad.” He is exactly what He claims, and as we confess Him to be “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity.” At both the Baptism and Transfiguration of Jesus, God the Father announced, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be: the true Son of God; and God is His heavenly Father. So when He prayed, He spoke with God as a child speaks with his father; simply, intimately, securely, childlike in manner. And enclosed in that word was Jesus’ claim also that He had been sent from the Father. He spoke that word with perfect, childlike confidence, as evidenced by His prayer in the garden, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you.”

Take a good, close look at the faith of Jesus in His Gethsemane prayer and His complete willingness to bow to His Father’s will. In great need, groaning under the burden of the sins of the world, He still believed with all His heart that the Father would deliver Him. In this time of His greatest temptation, He prays to be delivered, yet He trusts the Father’s judgment and submits to His father’s will. By comparison, we often shrink from doing the will of God. We wiggle and squirm and try to find a way out, though we know we cannot avoid it, no matter how hard we try. Jesus, the almighty Son of God, with all power at His command, could have easily escaped all this torture, but He would not, and did not. What He did, He did willingly for us. He perfectly fulfilled the will and Law of God for us. This prayer in the Garden is part of His willing obedience.

He had commanded His disciples, “Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven…” But we have not always heeded that direction to pray as we know we should. And so, as He prays in the Garden, Jesus takes upon Himself our indifference, pride, stubbornness, doubt, and failure. In the Garden, Jesus prayed in our place, and offered His perfect prayer to God for us. He became like a child in our stead, and in complete obedience and submission, called upon His Father. He made for us that great confession of complete faith and confidence, “Father, all things are possible with You.” He prayed that prayer for us, as He offered His life to God in our place, to atone for our sins, among them being the sin of not praying as we should.

And now prayer is our privilege; it is for us to use. Think of the honor that has been given us. Every time we say, “Our Father…” we are praying together with Jesus and with the rest of God’s family, the Church, from every time and every place. Even when we are praying alone, we are never praying in isolation. We and all believers in Christ pray with Him and with one another. We can pray with that same familiarity that Jesus used, with all boldness and confidence, asking just as He did, as dear children ask their dear Father, knowing that we share the Father’s love in Jesus Christ.

What a privilege we have as children of the heavenly Father! Calling upon the Father is a privilege only for children. Even if we proceed no further than those words that address our Father, even if we do nothing more than say in faith, from the bottom of our heart, “Dearest Father,” the most important thing has already happened. We are united with our Father in Jesus Christ, and all that He has is ours. Our prayer is heard and answered. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.