“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. (John 1:6-8)
John came to bear witness to the light. People came from all around to see him, they brought word back to their friends who again came out to see him. Many believed he might be the messiah, but he wasn’t. He came to bear witness about the light. He came to pave the way for the messiah. He came to point to Christ.
In reality he was the last of the O.T. Prophets. He had a stern word of law for the nation, as all the Old Testament Prophets had. He could preach the law but he could only point to the gospel. His baptism was of water, but there was one who would come after him…. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit. (BTW, that doesn’t mean that it was done without water, but that the Holy Spirit is given in the water with the word)
He could only point to the gospel, the gospel lacked a realness to it. It was a promise not yet quite realized. He could see it in Jesus, but he could not see how, or what. The people fixated on the law. Many of them did anyway. Some were like children in the market place neither moved by a dirge, nor moved to dance by the flute their friends played. And a few got the law, finally saw it for what it is, a relentless accuser whose job is to point to the light. Finally it wakes you up that it shouldn’t be this way. Fixing yourself is beyond your ability. Something needs to be done. And then the light comes into the world.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
Word
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)B
Hey! We made it through Luke!
Now on to John, the nonsynoptic Gospel. The synoptic gospels all follow the same basic outline, with additions and subtractions throughout them. But John follows a different line altogether. He attacks the subject of Christ’s life from a theological level. It’s a great book.
In the beginning was the word, Ho Logos, if you can abide my transliteration. The Word is the subject throughout the discourse. It dominates. The word is before God, the preposition there, Pros, doesn’t mean merely with, it has the connotation of being in front of, therefore before God, but with God. And the Logos, the word, is God. God is the word. This becomes the basis of Trinitarian thought in the New Testament and the Christian church. When the fathers like Athanasius are trying to solve the riddle of the trinity, how can Jesus be God, and still pray to God in the garden, they start finding their answers here.
And here also is what it means to be God, they made the world. They are in control over the world. John is quick to point this out, nothing is made without the word. “And God said, Let there be light.” God said it, he spoke it, he created with the mere use of his word. So the world exists at his word, and is destroyed at his word. But then more importantly it is redeemed at his word. But only he who has created this world can redeem it. And so John lets us know straight away what the program is. The Word is God, The Word created the world, The Word is light and life. Our life is in him.
Hey! We made it through Luke!
Now on to John, the nonsynoptic Gospel. The synoptic gospels all follow the same basic outline, with additions and subtractions throughout them. But John follows a different line altogether. He attacks the subject of Christ’s life from a theological level. It’s a great book.
In the beginning was the word, Ho Logos, if you can abide my transliteration. The Word is the subject throughout the discourse. It dominates. The word is before God, the preposition there, Pros, doesn’t mean merely with, it has the connotation of being in front of, therefore before God, but with God. And the Logos, the word, is God. God is the word. This becomes the basis of Trinitarian thought in the New Testament and the Christian church. When the fathers like Athanasius are trying to solve the riddle of the trinity, how can Jesus be God, and still pray to God in the garden, they start finding their answers here.
And here also is what it means to be God, they made the world. They are in control over the world. John is quick to point this out, nothing is made without the word. “And God said, Let there be light.” God said it, he spoke it, he created with the mere use of his word. So the world exists at his word, and is destroyed at his word. But then more importantly it is redeemed at his word. But only he who has created this world can redeem it. And so John lets us know straight away what the program is. The Word is God, The Word created the world, The Word is light and life. Our life is in him.
Friday, May 17, 2013
His Blessing
“Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.” (Luke 24:50-53)
Jesus parts company with the disciples and is carried into heaven while blessing them. This is the last they will see of him until they too are in heaven with him. But they will always know they have his blessing. They will be left with blessing as they return with great joy to the world. The same way we are left with blessing, no matter how terrible the sermon is, when the service is over.
I remember talking to an older lady on vicarage, she used to go to church as a child and didn’t understand German, but her parents taught her the benediction and told her that was all she needed. “You just go to hear that,” they told her. Sure is nice when you have the rest of it too, and in those days they were probably still doing quarterly communion so that wasn’t much of an issue. She got one thing out of the service, God’s blessing. It was enough to return to the world with joy.
Jesus never quit blessing his disciples or his church, he does it even today. He ascended to be with us. To be sure it is a different manner of being with us, but that is what it is. He is with us. Even as he is with the father advocating on our behalf, interceding for us, praying for us and blessing us.
The disciples worship at this point. They received his blessing, and then worshiped. It was the first time they had done this. Before he was with them, but now he was their heavenly Lord, to be worshiped in Spirit and truth.
Jesus parts company with the disciples and is carried into heaven while blessing them. This is the last they will see of him until they too are in heaven with him. But they will always know they have his blessing. They will be left with blessing as they return with great joy to the world. The same way we are left with blessing, no matter how terrible the sermon is, when the service is over.
I remember talking to an older lady on vicarage, she used to go to church as a child and didn’t understand German, but her parents taught her the benediction and told her that was all she needed. “You just go to hear that,” they told her. Sure is nice when you have the rest of it too, and in those days they were probably still doing quarterly communion so that wasn’t much of an issue. She got one thing out of the service, God’s blessing. It was enough to return to the world with joy.
Jesus never quit blessing his disciples or his church, he does it even today. He ascended to be with us. To be sure it is a different manner of being with us, but that is what it is. He is with us. Even as he is with the father advocating on our behalf, interceding for us, praying for us and blessing us.
The disciples worship at this point. They received his blessing, and then worshiped. It was the first time they had done this. Before he was with them, but now he was their heavenly Lord, to be worshiped in Spirit and truth.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Repentance and the Forgiveness of Sins
“Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:44-49)
Luke summarizes forty days worth of teaching here in one paragraph. We find this when we look at Acts chapter 1 when Luke tells us Jesus spent forty days with the disciples. Luke doesn’t talk about what they did for those forty days, just summarizes it here. You can spend a life time digging into these teachings, especially the first. Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures to understand that they were all written about him, the law of Moses, (the Pentateuch) the Prophets (including such books as Kings and Chronicles, being as these books contain the words of prophets) and the Psalms. The entire Old Testament is a compilation of predictions, types (pictures) and allusions to him. The entire Old Testament finds its fulfillment and meaning in Christ’s death and resurrection. The Old Testament becomes quite an awesome book when you read it with that in mind. It gets ignored too much today. People want the New Testament and they get stuck there, but that is like reading a commentary on a book, without reading the book. It leads to seriously skewed ideas of what the New Testament actually means.
But now that it finds fulfillment in the death and resurrection the disciples learn and realize that it is for the whole world, not just Israel. They will go to Samaria and to the ends of the earth preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins. This is a classic text for Lutherans in discussing the distinction between law and gospel, the law is to bring about repentance, prick your conscience etc. and then comes the forgiveness of sins which creates faith and sustains repentance. I say it sustains repentance, because repentance can’t be separated from faith anymore than the Gospel can be separated from the law. Finally there is no repentance where there is no faith. This is crucial in our day. We think repentance is giving up womanizing, drunkenness and adopting the habits of middle class America, or at least the ones they espouse. At best these are fruits of repentance. But they should not be confused with repentance, because they can actually occur without any repentance whatsoever. This all because people live lives of the middle class virtue without faith in God all the time, they are everywhere. I meet “good” people everywhere, really good people, who have no time for church. They tell me they can be “good” without it. They are faithful to their wives, they are diligent at work, honest and forthright neighbors who work for the civic good. Except for their car parked in the driveway on Sunday morning you can’t tell them apart from a Methodist or a Mormon, they will even lecture you on the glories of sobriety, and church ladies will look at them with admiration. Yet the whole schtick is a shield against repentance. “I can be good without church, without God.” I mean that is the lie of Satan right there. You aren’t good, and the chief indicator of that is you don’t have time for God and think you are good, you don’t think you need his forgiveness. This is as bad as those who think forgiveness is a onetime slate cleaner, giving you a second chance to show you can be good. No, repentance deals first and foremost with the first commandment, repentance is realizing that you are not good, and therefore can’t be good. Repentance is the realization that your “good works” are nothing but filthy rags without the forgiveness of Christ. Repentance is finally faith that Christ has done it for you on the cross, and the forgiveness of sins is the freedom to live life, the freedom to love life, your life and your neighbors.
That’s just it. Christ loves your life. He loves you. He died for your life, that he would save it. Yes your life, the life you at times hate. Without Christ we do. We hate life. We hate it even when we think we love it, but it isn’t so much a love for life as a lust for it. Frankly without Christ, we don’t even have life to love, all we can do is lust for it. We lust for life because death plagues us and we know it. It all seems futile because we end up in boot hill. Our attempts at being good are attempts to cheat the grave, and feeble at that, so is the lust for life ethic, the get all you can while the getting is good, “live fast, die young leave a good looking corpse.” This is who we are. Our old adam, the sin that dwells within us runs circles around us, and we do wrong by trying to do right. We go too fast, we go to slow. We let fear dominate, or we override fear with bravado. And we find it hard to live with ourselves, much less with others.
Love God? Love our neighbor as ourselves? These are commands that are impossible for sinners to follow, because sin is the opposite of love. We are incapable. All the manifistations of sin in our lives are manifistations of this. We hate ourselves, and so we hate our neighbor. Hate is a strong word they say. Yes it is. Sin is hate. When we sin against God, we show him our hate for him, and here is the kicker, when we sin against our neighbor, we sin against God. When we dishonor our parents, we sin against God, and show him our hate. When we murder, injure, or wish our enemies death, we show our hate. When we commit adultery, indulge in porn, get carried away in romance novels, lust after our neighbors, we show our hate. When we steal, and betray our neighbor, gossip and badmouth we show our hate. When we covet and scheme to attain our neighbors goods, (ever day dream about your inheritance?) we show our hate. Feeling guilty yet? I am. That was painful. I hate myself.
But how is that going to help? That isn’t repentance. I can hate myself all I want, and when I realize my sin, I have plenty to hate. And I have plenty of reason to believe God hates me. By all accounts he should. He is holy, and I am a sinner who even manages to sin in my best attempts to keep his commandments. And yet the essence of God’s holiness is this, he is love. His holiness can’t tolerate sin, but his love overrides. He loves. And he loves you. He loves your life. He loves this world corrupted by sin. He loved it, he loved you, he loved your life enough that he was willing to die for it, to redeem this world, to redeem you, to redeem your life. So he gives you life, he gives you forgiveness. He rose from the dead. He rose from the dead and now death has no power over you. He conquered it in your name. Now you have a life to love, because your life has been loved and is being loved. Now you are good, not because you say so, not because you try your best, but because God says so, and forgives your sins. Now we have something to bring to the world, the love of God. And the Spirit, the promise of the Father comes to clothe us with power from on high, that we sinners would have the strength to do it.
Luke summarizes forty days worth of teaching here in one paragraph. We find this when we look at Acts chapter 1 when Luke tells us Jesus spent forty days with the disciples. Luke doesn’t talk about what they did for those forty days, just summarizes it here. You can spend a life time digging into these teachings, especially the first. Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures to understand that they were all written about him, the law of Moses, (the Pentateuch) the Prophets (including such books as Kings and Chronicles, being as these books contain the words of prophets) and the Psalms. The entire Old Testament is a compilation of predictions, types (pictures) and allusions to him. The entire Old Testament finds its fulfillment and meaning in Christ’s death and resurrection. The Old Testament becomes quite an awesome book when you read it with that in mind. It gets ignored too much today. People want the New Testament and they get stuck there, but that is like reading a commentary on a book, without reading the book. It leads to seriously skewed ideas of what the New Testament actually means.
But now that it finds fulfillment in the death and resurrection the disciples learn and realize that it is for the whole world, not just Israel. They will go to Samaria and to the ends of the earth preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins. This is a classic text for Lutherans in discussing the distinction between law and gospel, the law is to bring about repentance, prick your conscience etc. and then comes the forgiveness of sins which creates faith and sustains repentance. I say it sustains repentance, because repentance can’t be separated from faith anymore than the Gospel can be separated from the law. Finally there is no repentance where there is no faith. This is crucial in our day. We think repentance is giving up womanizing, drunkenness and adopting the habits of middle class America, or at least the ones they espouse. At best these are fruits of repentance. But they should not be confused with repentance, because they can actually occur without any repentance whatsoever. This all because people live lives of the middle class virtue without faith in God all the time, they are everywhere. I meet “good” people everywhere, really good people, who have no time for church. They tell me they can be “good” without it. They are faithful to their wives, they are diligent at work, honest and forthright neighbors who work for the civic good. Except for their car parked in the driveway on Sunday morning you can’t tell them apart from a Methodist or a Mormon, they will even lecture you on the glories of sobriety, and church ladies will look at them with admiration. Yet the whole schtick is a shield against repentance. “I can be good without church, without God.” I mean that is the lie of Satan right there. You aren’t good, and the chief indicator of that is you don’t have time for God and think you are good, you don’t think you need his forgiveness. This is as bad as those who think forgiveness is a onetime slate cleaner, giving you a second chance to show you can be good. No, repentance deals first and foremost with the first commandment, repentance is realizing that you are not good, and therefore can’t be good. Repentance is the realization that your “good works” are nothing but filthy rags without the forgiveness of Christ. Repentance is finally faith that Christ has done it for you on the cross, and the forgiveness of sins is the freedom to live life, the freedom to love life, your life and your neighbors.
That’s just it. Christ loves your life. He loves you. He died for your life, that he would save it. Yes your life, the life you at times hate. Without Christ we do. We hate life. We hate it even when we think we love it, but it isn’t so much a love for life as a lust for it. Frankly without Christ, we don’t even have life to love, all we can do is lust for it. We lust for life because death plagues us and we know it. It all seems futile because we end up in boot hill. Our attempts at being good are attempts to cheat the grave, and feeble at that, so is the lust for life ethic, the get all you can while the getting is good, “live fast, die young leave a good looking corpse.” This is who we are. Our old adam, the sin that dwells within us runs circles around us, and we do wrong by trying to do right. We go too fast, we go to slow. We let fear dominate, or we override fear with bravado. And we find it hard to live with ourselves, much less with others.
Love God? Love our neighbor as ourselves? These are commands that are impossible for sinners to follow, because sin is the opposite of love. We are incapable. All the manifistations of sin in our lives are manifistations of this. We hate ourselves, and so we hate our neighbor. Hate is a strong word they say. Yes it is. Sin is hate. When we sin against God, we show him our hate for him, and here is the kicker, when we sin against our neighbor, we sin against God. When we dishonor our parents, we sin against God, and show him our hate. When we murder, injure, or wish our enemies death, we show our hate. When we commit adultery, indulge in porn, get carried away in romance novels, lust after our neighbors, we show our hate. When we steal, and betray our neighbor, gossip and badmouth we show our hate. When we covet and scheme to attain our neighbors goods, (ever day dream about your inheritance?) we show our hate. Feeling guilty yet? I am. That was painful. I hate myself.
But how is that going to help? That isn’t repentance. I can hate myself all I want, and when I realize my sin, I have plenty to hate. And I have plenty of reason to believe God hates me. By all accounts he should. He is holy, and I am a sinner who even manages to sin in my best attempts to keep his commandments. And yet the essence of God’s holiness is this, he is love. His holiness can’t tolerate sin, but his love overrides. He loves. And he loves you. He loves your life. He loves this world corrupted by sin. He loved it, he loved you, he loved your life enough that he was willing to die for it, to redeem this world, to redeem you, to redeem your life. So he gives you life, he gives you forgiveness. He rose from the dead. He rose from the dead and now death has no power over you. He conquered it in your name. Now you have a life to love, because your life has been loved and is being loved. Now you are good, not because you say so, not because you try your best, but because God says so, and forgives your sins. Now we have something to bring to the world, the love of God. And the Spirit, the promise of the Father comes to clothe us with power from on high, that we sinners would have the strength to do it.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
"The Weaker Brother"
The Weaker Brother
So I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple days, this weaker brother. I’m often confused as to who he might be. It is a concept that is brought about by scripture, but in my reading of these passages I do wonder if we aren’t a little confused in what that is all about. I mean in 1 Cor. 8 you have the concept applied to the eating of meat sacrificed to Idols, and the idea is that by doing it even though you are thereby not worshiping the idol, not sinning in that manner, you may unknowingly convincing a brother weak in the faith to abandon the faith and worship idols. The stumbling block isn’t that you have offended someone, but caused them to fall from the faith. That is a serious thing indeed. Unfortunately for us, the context is almost completely lost in our Western Society today.
Today, people are warned not to cuss, not to drink, not to smoke, and evidently not to enjoy anything that might cause another person to be offended, whatever that might be. And I am finding that can be a great array of things. But no one ever stops and wonders whether the anonymous “weaker brother” even has the right to be offended by these things. Or if in fact, it just might be that the person we are calling the weaker brother is the wrong person all together, and really we are placing a stumbling block in their way with made up laws and to use the tired cliché, legalism and pietism. This could happen on two accounts. One, everyone thinks the Old Adam is the source of temptation to indulge in fornication, drunkenness etc. So you often have people measuring their piety, their strength in the Christian faith by how well they abstain from doing these things, and often by how offended they can be at such things. And by never challenging their notions of piety and right and wrong you encourage them to continue in that sin, because it is the Old Adam himself that tempts us to judge others by our own standards, to judge ourselves and our Christian “walk” by how well we are abstaining from things neither forbidden nor commanded by Scripture.
On the other hand, I have often had the experience that many in the world are afraid to go to church. They are afraid they will be judged for their sins. They are afraid they can’t live up to the standards they perceive the church to be about maintaining. We put stumbling blocks in their way when we make up rules and replace God’s law with them, even if all we are trying to do is put a fence around them. And this, this is grave sin. God warns about this very sternly. When Moses repeats the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel, he leaves them with this: “You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess. (Deuteronomy 5: 32-33) And Jesus spends almost his entire ministry being badgered by those who turned to the right, if a little law is good more is better was the thought of the Pharisee. He says these men of the law would go to the ends of the earth to create one proselyte, and when they made him twice a child of hell. (Matt. 23:15) Today this has gotten so bad, a person can’t use language that is found in scripture without being accused of causing a stumbling block for the weaker brother, when all they have done is pissed off a few uptight schoolmarms and retired hall monitors. Seriously, you want to see or hear “course” language, read scripture, where it talks of whores, and paramours hung like horses with the issue of donkeys, and baking bread over a fire of dung, where God tells people he is going to make them eat their own dung and drink their own urine (Dung and urine, yeah that is what the original said, try shit and piss). (2 Kings 18:27)
But no, we have decided in our infinite wisdom that God’s law is not good enough for us. We are going to make new laws. And we are going to hold others accountable to them. You can go to hell with those laws. I mean that literally, that is where they lead. But the sad thing is, you take your weaker brother with you, because he is led to believe he isn’t a good Christian because he can’t live up, not to Christ’s law, but to yours. And when you finally do get him to church, he believes that what makes him a good Christian isn’t the forgiveness of sins, but his ability to bite his tongue, and feel offended by a girl’s sundress that might cause a weaker brother to have tinge of lust, you know because a woman’s body is evil, unless it is your wife’s, but then it isn’t you who are evil, it is your neighbor’s wife. Yeah, it gets ridiculous quick. We can’t go to the beach anymore, never mind Eusebius recording that John, the beloved disciple ran out of a bath house without any clothes on, wasn’t any nudity in there!
No, I run into weaker persons (as paul actually calls them) everyday. They tend not to be the ones offended by course language. They are people broken, who know that they have sinned. They are single moms, who have more to worry about then your ears. They are troubled teens that have a lot on their plate learning how to cope in this world. They are construction workers, and soldiers, who with good reason are quite suspicious of holiness games being played at the neighborhood church. And we Christians? We can’t even enjoy the metropolitan anymore because there might be nudity in a painting. Heaven forbid we actually try to act like Christ and eat and drink with sinners.
So I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple days, this weaker brother. I’m often confused as to who he might be. It is a concept that is brought about by scripture, but in my reading of these passages I do wonder if we aren’t a little confused in what that is all about. I mean in 1 Cor. 8 you have the concept applied to the eating of meat sacrificed to Idols, and the idea is that by doing it even though you are thereby not worshiping the idol, not sinning in that manner, you may unknowingly convincing a brother weak in the faith to abandon the faith and worship idols. The stumbling block isn’t that you have offended someone, but caused them to fall from the faith. That is a serious thing indeed. Unfortunately for us, the context is almost completely lost in our Western Society today.
Today, people are warned not to cuss, not to drink, not to smoke, and evidently not to enjoy anything that might cause another person to be offended, whatever that might be. And I am finding that can be a great array of things. But no one ever stops and wonders whether the anonymous “weaker brother” even has the right to be offended by these things. Or if in fact, it just might be that the person we are calling the weaker brother is the wrong person all together, and really we are placing a stumbling block in their way with made up laws and to use the tired cliché, legalism and pietism. This could happen on two accounts. One, everyone thinks the Old Adam is the source of temptation to indulge in fornication, drunkenness etc. So you often have people measuring their piety, their strength in the Christian faith by how well they abstain from doing these things, and often by how offended they can be at such things. And by never challenging their notions of piety and right and wrong you encourage them to continue in that sin, because it is the Old Adam himself that tempts us to judge others by our own standards, to judge ourselves and our Christian “walk” by how well we are abstaining from things neither forbidden nor commanded by Scripture.
On the other hand, I have often had the experience that many in the world are afraid to go to church. They are afraid they will be judged for their sins. They are afraid they can’t live up to the standards they perceive the church to be about maintaining. We put stumbling blocks in their way when we make up rules and replace God’s law with them, even if all we are trying to do is put a fence around them. And this, this is grave sin. God warns about this very sternly. When Moses repeats the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel, he leaves them with this: “You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess. (Deuteronomy 5: 32-33) And Jesus spends almost his entire ministry being badgered by those who turned to the right, if a little law is good more is better was the thought of the Pharisee. He says these men of the law would go to the ends of the earth to create one proselyte, and when they made him twice a child of hell. (Matt. 23:15) Today this has gotten so bad, a person can’t use language that is found in scripture without being accused of causing a stumbling block for the weaker brother, when all they have done is pissed off a few uptight schoolmarms and retired hall monitors. Seriously, you want to see or hear “course” language, read scripture, where it talks of whores, and paramours hung like horses with the issue of donkeys, and baking bread over a fire of dung, where God tells people he is going to make them eat their own dung and drink their own urine (Dung and urine, yeah that is what the original said, try shit and piss). (2 Kings 18:27)
But no, we have decided in our infinite wisdom that God’s law is not good enough for us. We are going to make new laws. And we are going to hold others accountable to them. You can go to hell with those laws. I mean that literally, that is where they lead. But the sad thing is, you take your weaker brother with you, because he is led to believe he isn’t a good Christian because he can’t live up, not to Christ’s law, but to yours. And when you finally do get him to church, he believes that what makes him a good Christian isn’t the forgiveness of sins, but his ability to bite his tongue, and feel offended by a girl’s sundress that might cause a weaker brother to have tinge of lust, you know because a woman’s body is evil, unless it is your wife’s, but then it isn’t you who are evil, it is your neighbor’s wife. Yeah, it gets ridiculous quick. We can’t go to the beach anymore, never mind Eusebius recording that John, the beloved disciple ran out of a bath house without any clothes on, wasn’t any nudity in there!
No, I run into weaker persons (as paul actually calls them) everyday. They tend not to be the ones offended by course language. They are people broken, who know that they have sinned. They are single moms, who have more to worry about then your ears. They are troubled teens that have a lot on their plate learning how to cope in this world. They are construction workers, and soldiers, who with good reason are quite suspicious of holiness games being played at the neighborhood church. And we Christians? We can’t even enjoy the metropolitan anymore because there might be nudity in a painting. Heaven forbid we actually try to act like Christ and eat and drink with sinners.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Not a Ghost
“36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.” (Luke 24:36-43)
Jesus is resurrected. This isn’t just a matter of a ghost. This section of Luke seems to be included to drive home this point. Jesus lets the disciples touch them. Thomas did nothing that the other disciples did not themselves need. In fact when you read Luke’s account, you almost get the sense that Thomas wasn’t doubting so much as that he was jealous. In any case, Thomas seems to have not had any more doubts than the other disciples had. Jesus has to convince them all that he is flesh and blood. Might be hard to understand when a guy just appears in a room, and disappears at whim. So he eats fish. Ghost’s don’t eat. Humans do.
Eating and drinking are some of the highlights of life for man. It is hard to imagine life without eating. I don’t know what the life of an angel is like. I am not one. I gather it has its own joys. But God created man differently. He gave us bodies within which to enjoy life. And one of the ways we enjoy life is to eat. Good food just makes life better. Watch Babbette’s Feast for a visual of this. The old people live to eat the food she prepares for them. Poor food makes life unbearable for them. Jesus eats. In doing so he gives us not only proof that he is not a ghost, but insight into what our resurrected life will be like. It won’t be hanging out on a cloud strumming a harp all day. But it will be feasting at a banquet, eating fine food. There also will be work to do, but it will no longer be by the sweat of our brow that we eat.
Jesus is resurrected. This isn’t just a matter of a ghost. This section of Luke seems to be included to drive home this point. Jesus lets the disciples touch them. Thomas did nothing that the other disciples did not themselves need. In fact when you read Luke’s account, you almost get the sense that Thomas wasn’t doubting so much as that he was jealous. In any case, Thomas seems to have not had any more doubts than the other disciples had. Jesus has to convince them all that he is flesh and blood. Might be hard to understand when a guy just appears in a room, and disappears at whim. So he eats fish. Ghost’s don’t eat. Humans do.
Eating and drinking are some of the highlights of life for man. It is hard to imagine life without eating. I don’t know what the life of an angel is like. I am not one. I gather it has its own joys. But God created man differently. He gave us bodies within which to enjoy life. And one of the ways we enjoy life is to eat. Good food just makes life better. Watch Babbette’s Feast for a visual of this. The old people live to eat the food she prepares for them. Poor food makes life unbearable for them. Jesus eats. In doing so he gives us not only proof that he is not a ghost, but insight into what our resurrected life will be like. It won’t be hanging out on a cloud strumming a harp all day. But it will be feasting at a banquet, eating fine food. There also will be work to do, but it will no longer be by the sweat of our brow that we eat.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Exaudi 2013
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.16:1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. (John 15:26-4)
“But when the Helper comes… the Spirit of truth. He will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
Jesus promises the Holy Spirit for a third time. He calls him the Spirit of truth yet again. And then he says he will bear witness about me. The Spirit of truth bears witness about Jesus because Jesus is the truth. Jesus and the Father send him because God desires that all men come to the knowledge of truth and are saved. (1 Tim. 2:4) And this knowledge of truth, is knowledge of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, for your justification. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, your salvation, your sanctification, your knowledge of the truth.
Jesus promises the Spirit first and foremost to the disciples. They are the ones being addressed here. They have an impossible task before them. They are to build the church by bearing witness to Jesus. This cannot be accomplished if it is the work of men alone. Jesus tells them why he is telling them all of this, “So that they do not fall away.” He wants to strengthen their faith for what is to come. Jesus is about to be handed over, about to be crucified. He believes it a very real possibility that the disciples will fall away. So he promises the Holy Spirit, the helper, the Spirit of truth who alone can make us holy, who alone can bring us to faith, who alone can sanctify us in truth, and who alone can keep us with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. And he does it by pointing us to Christ.
Today the church floats treacherous waters. It is an odd thing because it is the Holy Spirit who guides us through the rapids, even if today the rapids are caused by false ideas about the Spirit. People expect to meet the Spirit and feel the spirit. Many are led to fall away from the faith, to leave the church, because they don’t “feel” the Spirit. This would be a valid argument if the Spirit was here to testify to himself. As it is, he bears witness to Jesus, not to himself. The Spirit sanctifies you by pointing you to the justification Jesus accomplished for you on the cross. But people are rarely satisfied with that. In fact they would never be satisfied with that if it wasn’t for the work of the Holy Spirit.
It is in its own way a persecution of the church that such doctrines are taught and used against believers. It is in its own way a persecution that believers are told they are inferior because they don’t speak in tongues, because they don’t feel elation, when they are told that the Spirit does such and such and he hasn’t so you don’t have him and are not a true believer, or a Christian in any real sense. The Spirit bears witness to Jesus Christ, who died for you, who suffered for you, who justified you and rose victorious over death from the grave for you, who promises you salvation, who promises you new life in baptism, who promises you forgiveness of sins, strength, rest and respite in the Holy Supper. And it is the Spirit who works in all of these things sent by the Father and the Son, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and so you have the Spirit, because the Father and the Son sent him to you in baptism. Believe and be baptized every one of you and you will receive the Holy Spirit, this promise is for you and for your children. (Acts 2:38-39)
This is why we baptize our children, because the Holy Spirit has been promised to them in baptism. This is a gift our Father in heaven desires to give them. Who would we be to disobey him and refuse to give them the gift he has given us to give to them? Yes, he has given us to give to them, for we are his church, we are his disciples having been baptized in his name, and God works through his church, whom he has sanctified in the washing of water with the word. He works through us. It isn’t the Spirit alone who works, but he works through us, through his church as he works through the means of grace entrusted to his church, His word, His baptism, his Holy Supper. Through these things given to his disciples, given to his church he works grace and salvation in all who believe bringing men to the knowledge of truth, to salvation because he desires all men to be saved. All men. There isn’t a one of you that God has forsaken. No men can forsake God, God does not forsake man, his son shed his blood for them, each and every person that has ever lived and ever will live. This means you. This means your children. This means your father, and your mother, your neighbors and coworkers, this means the mormons and the pagans, the immigrants and the bluebloods. And this means you.
It is for this reason that Jesus sends the Spirit from his Father, because he desires your sanctification, that is your faith that Jesus has done it all for you on the cross, regardless of what you feel or don’t feel, regardless of your success in life or unsuccess. No, this world wears us down. Kids get into trouble. Parents get angry. Bank accounts dry up. We don’t always have it together. We sin in thought word and deed. We find reason enough for guilt if we look for it. And it can be a good exercise to do, to read through the ten commandments, I recommend every morning, and to consider how it is you break these in your daily life. But just then when we feel guilt, just then when we begin to think we are worthless and hopeless. When I think of all the times I have botched bearing witness to Jesus, failed to tell a friend, or told him in a way that he could not understand, was to worried about proper protocol or not worried enough. And man are those memories depressing. But then the Holy Spirit, the helpe, the Spirit of truth points us to truth, he points us to Jesus and says: there is your salvation, there is your hope because he did not find you worthless but poured out his blood for you on the cross, now go, eat and drink and be forgiven, you are his.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“But when the Helper comes… the Spirit of truth. He will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
Jesus promises the Holy Spirit for a third time. He calls him the Spirit of truth yet again. And then he says he will bear witness about me. The Spirit of truth bears witness about Jesus because Jesus is the truth. Jesus and the Father send him because God desires that all men come to the knowledge of truth and are saved. (1 Tim. 2:4) And this knowledge of truth, is knowledge of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, for your justification. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, your salvation, your sanctification, your knowledge of the truth.
Jesus promises the Spirit first and foremost to the disciples. They are the ones being addressed here. They have an impossible task before them. They are to build the church by bearing witness to Jesus. This cannot be accomplished if it is the work of men alone. Jesus tells them why he is telling them all of this, “So that they do not fall away.” He wants to strengthen their faith for what is to come. Jesus is about to be handed over, about to be crucified. He believes it a very real possibility that the disciples will fall away. So he promises the Holy Spirit, the helper, the Spirit of truth who alone can make us holy, who alone can bring us to faith, who alone can sanctify us in truth, and who alone can keep us with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. And he does it by pointing us to Christ.
Today the church floats treacherous waters. It is an odd thing because it is the Holy Spirit who guides us through the rapids, even if today the rapids are caused by false ideas about the Spirit. People expect to meet the Spirit and feel the spirit. Many are led to fall away from the faith, to leave the church, because they don’t “feel” the Spirit. This would be a valid argument if the Spirit was here to testify to himself. As it is, he bears witness to Jesus, not to himself. The Spirit sanctifies you by pointing you to the justification Jesus accomplished for you on the cross. But people are rarely satisfied with that. In fact they would never be satisfied with that if it wasn’t for the work of the Holy Spirit.
It is in its own way a persecution of the church that such doctrines are taught and used against believers. It is in its own way a persecution that believers are told they are inferior because they don’t speak in tongues, because they don’t feel elation, when they are told that the Spirit does such and such and he hasn’t so you don’t have him and are not a true believer, or a Christian in any real sense. The Spirit bears witness to Jesus Christ, who died for you, who suffered for you, who justified you and rose victorious over death from the grave for you, who promises you salvation, who promises you new life in baptism, who promises you forgiveness of sins, strength, rest and respite in the Holy Supper. And it is the Spirit who works in all of these things sent by the Father and the Son, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and so you have the Spirit, because the Father and the Son sent him to you in baptism. Believe and be baptized every one of you and you will receive the Holy Spirit, this promise is for you and for your children. (Acts 2:38-39)
This is why we baptize our children, because the Holy Spirit has been promised to them in baptism. This is a gift our Father in heaven desires to give them. Who would we be to disobey him and refuse to give them the gift he has given us to give to them? Yes, he has given us to give to them, for we are his church, we are his disciples having been baptized in his name, and God works through his church, whom he has sanctified in the washing of water with the word. He works through us. It isn’t the Spirit alone who works, but he works through us, through his church as he works through the means of grace entrusted to his church, His word, His baptism, his Holy Supper. Through these things given to his disciples, given to his church he works grace and salvation in all who believe bringing men to the knowledge of truth, to salvation because he desires all men to be saved. All men. There isn’t a one of you that God has forsaken. No men can forsake God, God does not forsake man, his son shed his blood for them, each and every person that has ever lived and ever will live. This means you. This means your children. This means your father, and your mother, your neighbors and coworkers, this means the mormons and the pagans, the immigrants and the bluebloods. And this means you.
It is for this reason that Jesus sends the Spirit from his Father, because he desires your sanctification, that is your faith that Jesus has done it all for you on the cross, regardless of what you feel or don’t feel, regardless of your success in life or unsuccess. No, this world wears us down. Kids get into trouble. Parents get angry. Bank accounts dry up. We don’t always have it together. We sin in thought word and deed. We find reason enough for guilt if we look for it. And it can be a good exercise to do, to read through the ten commandments, I recommend every morning, and to consider how it is you break these in your daily life. But just then when we feel guilt, just then when we begin to think we are worthless and hopeless. When I think of all the times I have botched bearing witness to Jesus, failed to tell a friend, or told him in a way that he could not understand, was to worried about proper protocol or not worried enough. And man are those memories depressing. But then the Holy Spirit, the helpe, the Spirit of truth points us to truth, he points us to Jesus and says: there is your salvation, there is your hope because he did not find you worthless but poured out his blood for you on the cross, now go, eat and drink and be forgiven, you are his.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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