tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82618140120538699432024-03-12T23:51:10.054-06:00Expository LutheranFormerly "Utah Lutheran"Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.comBlogger2279125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-69468280146380264472019-03-29T19:11:00.002-06:002019-03-29T19:11:32.176-06:00Life in the Spirit<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Merriweather; font-size: 18px; hyphens: manual !important; letter-spacing: 0.36px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
The following is an excerpt from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Romans-Devotional-Commentary-Bo-Giertz/dp/1945978686/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2ES5HOX49ZHLN&keywords=bo+giertz&qid=1552684690&s=gateway&sprefix=bo+gier%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-2" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(202, 0, 3, 0.3); color: #ca0003; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; text-decoration-line: none; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-out 0s;" target="_blank"><em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Romans: A Devotional Commentary</em></a><em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"> </em>written by Bo Giertz and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2018).</div>
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<strong style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://1517.org/1517blog/brorerickson-lifeinthespirit">1–11, Life in the Spirit</a></strong></div>
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Paul concludes, “There is, therefore no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This condemnation that hung over us is suspended and will never manage to fall upon us. This is completely and wholly because of what Christ has done. We may believe and receive. To believe means to come to Christ and be united with him. Then one is “in Christ Jesus,” and then “the law of sin and death” has expired. It is this law that says, “He who sins shall die.” It has been suspended by “the law of the Spirit of life.” This is the new order: we do not need to die because the Spirit “gives life” (<a class="rtBibleRef" data-purpose="bible-reference" data-reference="2 Cor. 3.6" data-version="esv" href="https://biblia.com/bible/esv/2%20Cor.%203.6" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(202, 0, 3, 0.3); color: #ca0003; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; text-decoration-line: none; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-out 0s;" target="_blank">2 Cor. 3:6</a>). He creates faith in Christ. His Word says, He who believes in the Son shall not perish (<a class="rtBibleRef" data-purpose="bible-reference" data-reference="John 3.16" data-version="esv" href="https://biblia.com/bible/esv/John%203.16" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(202, 0, 3, 0.3); color: #ca0003; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; text-decoration-line: none; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-out 0s;" target="_blank">John 3:16</a>). </div>
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So the impossible has become possible. The law could not make us into children of God. It stood powerless before our depraved nature, our “flesh,” which could never be changed and freed of sin. For this reason, God intervened. He sent his Son in human form, like us, exposed to the same temptations, the same suffering and death, but without sin... To read more <a href="https://1517.org/1517blog/brorerickson-lifeinthespirit">click here.</a></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-69806189036552226732018-03-09T12:14:00.001-07:002018-03-09T12:14:07.302-07:00Just a Hallmark Holiday <div class="MsoNormal">
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Eph. 6:4<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Just a Hallmark Holiday”<o:p></o:p></div>
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That is the initial response, and that is the problem. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me explain. I’m fairly involved with my church body and district. I’m not much the political type, at least I’ve never seen myself that way. But shortly after I was ordained as a pastor and much due to the influence of Bo Giertz in my ministry, I determined to do what I could to help promote the cause of the Lutheran faith where and when I could. If that meant volunteering to serve in otherwise undesirable jobs, so be it. I’ve been a pastor now for fourteen years. I have been a circuit visitor for nine or ten of those fourteen years. It’s a rather thankless job in which you get involved with mediating conflicts between pastors, and pastors and their congregations. They don’t even pay mileage at the business rate. It ends up costing you money to serve. But then, I rather enjoy being able to do it anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Doing what I can to promote the Lutheran faith also means attending conventions when possible. We have them every three years. People pass resolutions to try fix problems and chart the future efforts of the church to get the gospel out to people who need to hear it. Most of the time I think the resolutions are badly worded, and full of misspent energy. Three days of monotonous drudgery interspersed with tense discussions and arguments on the floor. Perhaps a few beers in the evening with friends. Still, I care about my church and so I like to go. Also, I generally like the pastors I serve with and seeing the elders from other congregations. Most years I don’t write resolutions and somewhat resent most of them I see. This year I wrote three and I’m up for a few elected offices. But I’m not attending the district convention in which these resolutions will be debated, and where I may or may not be elected. The reason? It’s over Father’s Day weekend, the Hallmark Holiday. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Actually, that is one of my resolutions. I resolve that we never make that scheduling blunder again. Let me explain. First off, my issue is much more acute then it is for most of my brothers, but then it also highlights a societal problem. I’m divorced. My son lives with his mother in another state. I don’t get to see him often. I can’t much afford it most of the time. I’m drowning in debt brought on by court fees, child support and my efforts to see him when the court says I can see him. I fought hard for that time with my son. I paid through the nose for a good lawyer. I work like crazy trying to find ways to make the ends meet. I write. I translate. I speak. Despite having a great lawyer, I still lost last time I went to court because having not moved to California meant that somehow I had moved away from California. I say I lost, but my son is the one who really feels he lost. I’ll spare you the details. I now get to see my son about three times a year. Sometimes for not much more than a day and a half. However, Father’s Day weekend was one weekend the court said I could have my son. It normally starts my summer with him. I look forward to that weekend. So I was to say the least, a little incensed that this weekend was the weekend they decided to have the convention this year. I guess because the original date conflicted with the dates for a Lutheran Women’s Missionary League rally. I see irony in that, somehow. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So I wrote three resolutions. One was purely administrative. My current circuit is split between two political regions within the district. It needs to be consolidated into one. The second has to do with actually paying mileage so that our circuit visitors are compensated properly for their work. The third is regarding Father’s Day. And that is the most frustrating. I have come to see that the issue is actually much bigger than me and my particular case. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am actually disheartened by it. Every time I discuss this resolution with fellow pastors they initially laugh. And this in a synod and church body in which one of the social hot buttons is that so many children these days are deprived of fathers. Supposedly, school shootings happen because there are no fathers in the lives of children. Yet when I discuss this resolution concerning Father’s day I get: It’s just a Hallmark holiday, and the convention isn’t even on Father’s Day. It quits at noon the day before. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, it quits at noon the day before Father’s Day, so that at least half of the participants can make it home in time to work on Father’s Day. A good many of them have to drive or fly for the better part of that day to make it home in time to do that. So they cannot very well be expected to celebrate Father’s Day on Father’s Day. Perhaps a fishing trip should be out of the question for everyone on any Sunday. Perhaps a father’s greatest joy should be to have their family in church on Sunday. I know I cherish the Sundays I see my boy in church sitting with his stepmom. But now they cannot very well take their family fishing the day before either, can they? I could care less about fishing, but fill in your own favorite family outing if you like. Then imagine that this convention was planned for Mother’s Day weekend. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Add to that this. I mean, how do I say this? Ever wonder why PKs are notorious? I do not. I was a notorious pastor’s kid. I know full well the resentment a pastor’s kid easily develops because family takes a back seat to pastoral work. When Billy Graham died a few days ago, I read with a turning in my gut stories of Billy Graham not recognizing his children when they came to see him on the road. This is not a problem isolated to famous pastors. This happens to pastors in small towns. This happens to pastors in large congregations. It’s pretty easy for a pastor’s kid to get the feeling everyone is more important to their dad than his own kids. Pastors rarely get a weekend off to begin with. Mondays tend to be the days that pastors take off. Maybe a Friday, or a Thursday. Some take Tuesdays. Saturdays they have Bible Studies, LWML rallies, Funerals and weddings. A good half our congregations have Saturday evening services, which means dad is at the church about four o’clock getting ready, while his son is playing the last soccer game of the day for that weekend tournament. Or, the son is told he cannot play on that league because their games are on the weekend. The pastor rarely considers taking his children out of school to spend time with them on the day they take off. School is important, don’t you know. They might miss a test or mess up their perfect attendance and not get into Princeton or some other college the kid could care less about attending. The pastor is rarely even aware that this is what is happening. They have a job to do and they do it. The congregation is unaware of it too. After all, there are so many family-oriented events going on at the church. Of course, the pastor’s family just sees this as one more dog and pony show they have to endure. Maybe this time they will light the hoop on fire before the kid is asked to jump through it. You can imagine how long it takes for this to start sowing seeds of conflict between a PK and the fourth commandment. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The sad fact is that this sort of dilemma is not confined to pastors. I think it is pretty common for Fathers to wrap their identity up in work etc. I mean most of the male population knows the song “Cats in the Cradle” by heart, and usually begin to hold back tears about the second verse. It’s epidemic. Pastors and their kids are not the only victims. Perhaps that is why we, especially as pastors, should stop considering Father’s Day to be a Hallmark holiday, and start respecting it a bit more. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I mean, it is not too often that our society does something like honoring mothers and fathers, which actually celebrates anything enshrined in the Ten Commandments. However, on this day society asks children to honor their fathers, to do something special for them for the mere fact that they are fathers. Buy them a tie, and a cheesy card. On this day, society asks fathers to remember that they are in fact fathers to take their kids fishing or paint their daughter’s toenails. And that same father says, “It’s just a Hallmark Holiday.” Laughs at the tie and goes in to work. This is the same society in which it is commonly known the father has no chance of winning custody of children in court, and fathers are told they are being selfish and foolish for even trying. This is the same society that often laughs and mocks men as being deranged if they point out a correlation between the lack of fathers in homes and the rate of incarceration of those same fatherless children. This is the same society in which abortion on demand is popular because being a teenage parent is regarded as worse than suicide. Is it any wonder that this is the attitude of society when the one day that that society sets aside to honor fathers is the day that fathers even in the church where the fourth commandment is supposedly honored, is a day that is laughed at and marginalized as “just a Hallmark holiday?” Just another day in which the fathers are asked to go in to work. A request to which they obediently comply because that resolution about contemporary Christian music at the youth events is more important than the pastor’s family, yet again. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Father’s Day. It is still a few months off. I honestly do not know what I’ll be doing. I’ll probably have to give my son $20 so he can go buy a tie I will never find occasion to wear. One thing I do know. I will not be recovering from a convention. Somehow, I just think Our Father has other business for me to be about that weekend, a different house he has given me to tend to. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-23960780944052300602018-01-14T04:31:00.002-07:002018-01-14T04:31:44.320-07:00Follow Me<div class="MsoNormal">
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, zin whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “follow me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is how Jesus normally went about calling his disciples during his earthly ministry. With the simple words of follow me. It is what a disciple did. They followed their master, their teacher, their rabbi. Philip drops everything to follow the one whom he has heard John the Baptist call, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He only finds his friend Nathanael and asks him to come along. “We have found the Messiah!” He says. When Nathanael finds it dubious that the Messiah could come from such a small backwater as Nazareth, Philip only answers, come and see. These are the words, follow me, and come and see, that Jesus himself has uttered to us in baptism when he called us to be his disciples. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It was a great honor to be called to be the disciple of a rabbi. Paul, even later as a Christian could boast about having been the disciple of Gamaliel. He counted it as worth nothing in comparison with the gift of grace and salvation in Christ, but it often meant something yet to those he was trying to reach with the gospel. It would often be that there was something of a waiting list to become a disciple of such a prestigious teacher. Or perhaps we should say a trial period. It was never a matter of mere money and who could afford the lessons. If students were bright enough the Rabbi’s would find a way to take them on. But would be disciples would often hang about a rabbi, try to impress him as opportunity came along. Show up when he was preaching in various synagogues, and ask the right questions, repeat the right buzzwords. Only after the would-be disciple had proved himself would the Rabbi then select him to be his disciple with the words “come follow me.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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With Jesus the matter is quite different. No one needs to prove themselves to him. I often cringe at this way this word discipleship is used today in Christian circles. I tend to blame Bonhoefer’s book, “The Cost of Discipleship.” Bonhoefer did and wrote some great things, but that his most popular work, was not one of them. It was that book that coined the phrase cheap grace. Used in such a way as to imply you are supposed to purchase grace with your life and works, or at least somehow increase the value of grace in your life by such things. Grace cost Christ his life, worth far more than gold or silver, or anything we might offer him in return. We can’t add value to the blood of Christ. So many pastors and others use “discipleship” as a tool to load people up with a burden. Asking baptized Christians if they are being real or true disciples. Offering to train them in Christian discipleship, which is usually a lot about you and very little about Christ. There is and always will be room and need for improvement in our lives, as long as our feet are planted on the green side of the sod. Philip and Nathaneal would learn that. Philip, here he is so confident that he has seen the messiah and encountered the Messiah, and at the end of the story as John tells it Jesus is asking him, “have I been with you so long? And you still don’t know me?” I mean it is crazy isn’t it? It’s almost the complete opposite of everything we would expect. <o:p></o:p></div>
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You know what is crazier? Jesus. Philip may have spent three years with Christ and known less about Christ at the end of his earthly ministry than he thought he knew at the beginning, but Jesus knew this about Philip from the very beginning and still said: “Follow me.” He didn’t care that Philip was a hard headed and confused dolt that was slow on the uptake, he loved Philip and called him to be his disciple any way. He knew what was in Philip’s heart, he knew what Philip’s capabilities and incapabilities were. He knew that Philip would be one of those who would run for the hills when the soldiers came into the Garden of Gethsemane. Just as he knew it about Peter and John, and Nathanael too. He knew they would prove to be faulty disciples. He knew their hearts. He knew they would prove to be unfaithful, but he was more concerned to be faithful to them. If Philip was confused at the end of Christ’s ministry as to who Jesus was, then he would eat those words he spoke to Nathanael. Come and See: and he would see the heavens opened and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. He would see the bowls of the earth burst with Life as Jesus rolled away the stone to say, “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.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So it is for us as his disciples. We too have our ups and downs on this road of faith, in our journey of discipleship. But it isn’t about us, near as much as it is about Christ. He is faithful even when we are not. And we want to be faithful, right? We strive to be good Christians, but so often we find our spirit willing and our flesh is weak. Perhaps, we thought we were doing real well, and then find we were merely blind to the depth of sin in our lives. Though we were doing the right thing and it all blows up in our face, when we finally realize we have been standing in judgment of others for doing the very things we ourselves were guilty of. Yet we are still his disciples. Jesus knew all this about us when he called us in the waters of baptism with which he makes disciples of all nations. Then it is that we learn what a great honor above all honors it is to be disciples of the Messiah himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. What an honor it is to have Jesus as our rabbi, who even after, especially after we have proven to be such shoddy disciples, looks at us with his faithful eyes and says “take eat, this is my body given for you. Take drink, this cup is the New Testament in my blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-40418734682581230672017-10-15T05:24:00.002-06:002017-10-15T05:24:18.984-06:00Keep Your Clothes On! <div class="MsoNormal">
And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.<o:p></o:p></div>
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11 “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“For as many of you who have been baptized have put on Christ.” Gal. 3:27 Or maybe we can go with the great Zinzendorf hymn, “Jesus they blood and righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress, midst flaming worlds with these arrayed with joy shall I lift up my head. The righteousness of Christ is our wedding garment. So don’t take it off. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, this parable is delivered again in the temple before Jesus is arrested. And it is spoken to those who will murder him. The king had sent his invitations, little save the date memos. The wedding would be a joyous occasion. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But when the time came, everyone thought they had better things to do. I mean, we know these people. God offers them the greatest gift imaginable, the forgiveness of sins. He offers it in baptism, he distributes it in the Lord’s Supper, the great wedding feast, the foretaste of the feast to come. He gives it in the absolution and through the sermon. And they are indifferent to it. They have way too many other things to keep themselves occupied. They don’t think they have anything to worry about. They reject the invitation. Of course, rejecting a king’s invitation is to insult the king. It isn’t the right thing to do. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some, are downright hostile to the invitation. Of course, here we have the Chief Priests and Elders, the leaders of Israel for generation after generation, the kings and politicians who would beat the prophets and stone those who were sent to them. It’s a tradition that continues in this world wherever the church is persecuted with violence and oppression. God will not let that go unanswered. On the last day, legion upon legion of angels will descend upon the earth and mop up that situation rather quickly. Right now he holds them in check out of mercy, to show grace, to bring about the repentance he seeks. But the time comes. Their cities will be burned. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But it is then, when the guests reject the invitation that God sends his messengers out to invite whoever they might find to the wedding feast. Those he had invited have shown themselves to be unworthy, so he decides to invite everyone anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But then comes the tricky part. He gave everyone festive clothes to wear. The clothes he wants them to wear. He’s rich. He doesn’t want people coming into his party wearing street clothes, work clothes, ratty rags worn and tattered. He gives them the clothes he wants them to wear. And most of the guests are quite happy to shed the oil stained clothes they have. Not only do they get invited to a wedding but they get the nicest robe they have ever seen handed to them. I mean, it’s fun isn’t it? Who doesn’t like to dress up from time to time. Put on a nice evening gown like the one you wore to prom. Or a tuxedo, even a fine suit. Not the kind a guy wears to go sell insurance, but a nice one that makes you stand out and look good. I keep thinking I need to buy a couple of those again. Somehow, I outgrew all the ones I used to have. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But now one of the guests is a little too proud of his own suit. It wasn’t what he was asked to wear, but he paid good money for it so it has to be acceptable, right? Of course, it doesn’t quite work out that way. He sticks out like a sore thumb. Everyone wearing white, and he is in black. He ruins the aesthetics of the whole event. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So it is with this picture of the church. Jesus is our wedding garment. His blood, his righteousness they are our glorious dress. He is given to us in baptism. There are some out there who don’t think they need Christ. They can do just fine with their own righteousness. Some of these are people who actually refuse to ever be baptized. They come to church. But just don’t see the need to repent. They think they are righteous enough on their own. Others, well they put on Christ. They were baptized. They had put on Christ, but then they didn’t think that righteousness was good enough. Maybe they were duped into believing that that just got them to the starting point, but they couldn’t rely on it. Instead of receiving forgiveness where forgiveness is given and when forgiveness is given, that by which the faith in Christ, lives, that by which the robe of Christ is ever kept free of the stain of sin, they begin to think they are righteous in and of themselves because of their work rather than Christ’s work. And so they shed the righteousness of Christ and put on their own righteousness which is no righteousness at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Don’t take your clothes off. Don’t change your clothes. Wear the righteousness Christ gave you. Wear your wedding garment. It’s kept clean by the forgiveness of sins received in absolution, received in the body and the blood shed for you in Christ Jesus. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-60716046028968665502017-10-08T06:10:00.002-06:002017-10-08T06:10:23.470-06:00The Stone the Builders Rejected<div class="MsoNormal">
33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“‘The stone that the builders rejected<o:p></o:p></div>
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has become the cornerstone;<o:p></o:p></div>
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this was the Lord's doing,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and it is marvelous in our eyes’?<o:p></o:p></div>
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43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Thus the leaders of Israel, the chief priests and the elders, answer Jesus. Jesus pulled a Nathan. Nathan was the prophet who spoke to David. Nathan convicted David of adultery by telling a parable similar to this in that it asked a question by which those answering condemn themselves. It’s the whole judge not lest ye be judged bit. It is the meaning of Romans chapter 2 when Paul shows that when we condemn others we condemn ourselves because we are guilty of breaking the same law. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesus tells a parable. The chief priests should have been smart enough to know Jesus was laying a trap for them. They should have heard the echoes of Isaiah chapter 5. They should have known that the vineyard was Israel, that the tenants would end up being them. But if they knew this they pretended not to. They think maybe Jesus is just asking a question concerning law. They answer it as such. Then Jesus lets the hammer drop. He lets them know he speaks about them. They are the tenants. They are the ones who beat those who call for repentance and murder them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The prophets, men like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Elisha the list could go on. God had told them how to judge prophets In the 13<sup>th</sup> chapter of Deuteronomy and the 18<sup>th</sup> chapter, If they entice you after other gods, they shall die. If they speak the in the name of God but what they say does not come to pass they shall be put to death. So prophets would have to be able to show they were prophets by something immediate that the people could see and they would have to be faithful to the word of God. But it was the ones that were faithful to the word of God that were beaten and abused, ignored and marginalized, imprisoned and stoned. The people would not hear the word of God. It was the false prophets the kings listened to. The ones who told people what they wanted to hear. It didn’t matter if it continually failed to be true. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I often wonder if we are any different today. Not that pastors are prophets in the sense of the Old Testament. But then us Christians in general who have had the Spirit poured out on us in baptism, who can point people to that which the prophets of the Old Testament could point to. Who like John the Baptist point to Christ and say behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Isn’t that just too harsh a pill to swallow? Sinners need forgiveness. I’m not a sinner. This is what our hearts want to say. We would rather listen to the man who tells us if we pray in this manner we will receive this. If we behave in this manner we will avoid that pitfall in life. We want to believe we are the masters of our own destiny. Churches that speak of Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins remain empty. Churches that reveal that this world only has tribulation to give to the followers of Christ but that our hope is in the resurrection? Those churches are maligned even by other so-called Christians. Churches that give you rehashed self-help lessons in the place of “Jesus Christ and him crucified”, the only thing that Paul would know among those to whom he preached? Well those churches overflow. They have a good youth group, you know. Yes, they do, because the parents don’t know the word of God, or don’t care about the word of God beyond what it can do for their children in this world. They may teach the commandments, but they don’t teach the gospel. They want to move beyond the gospel, by which they mean they turn away from the cross, and look at themselves and what they should do instead. They reject Jesus. They reject the cornerstone. And so it crushes them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is what Jesus lets he priests and elders know. The vineyard will be taken from them and given to others. So it is that many on the last day will say “Lord, Lord!” and will not enter the kingdom of heaven. They will say that they did many great things in his name, but the Lord will say he did not know them. So it will be for those that read scriptures like the Pharisees thinking that in them they have eternal life, and not realizing that they speak not of they need to do for themselves to earn eternal life, looking for rule after rule and becoming ever stricter in their own walk. But these scriptures speak of Jesus Christ, the stone the builders rejected, the stone the Chief priests and elders, the stone you and I crucified with our sins, but who in that crucifixion became the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and broke the bonds of death with his resurrection that we would be raised anew with him to walk in the newness of life even now serving him in everlasting innocence, righteousness and blessedness. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the Peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-87437605540674334482017-10-01T05:24:00.000-06:002017-10-01T05:24:03.021-06:00That Your Heart would Be a House of Prayer<div class="MsoNormal">
23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was ga prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.<o:p></o:p></div>
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By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? <o:p></o:p></div>
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The people asking this of Jesus represented the highest authority the land knew next to God. The Chief priests and the Elders made up the Sanhedrin, the great council. And they had not given Jesus the authority to do these things. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course we only have a little section here. What are these things that the Chief priests are asking about? Well, he drove out the money changers and those selling the sacrificial animals. That hurt. He healed the sick, the lame and the blind, and he allowed the toddlers and infants to praise him as the Son of David. At these things Matthew tells us they were indignant. <o:p></o:p></div>
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No one intervened when Jesus ran the money changers out, which is incredible enough. The Chief priests knew how unpopular they were, so they remained quiet and let it happen. They were afraid of the people. Perhaps, they thought that his authority came from popular support alone. If that was the truth then the trap they laid with their question might have worked. One could understand them asking about that, who gave him the authority to forbid what the highest authority in the land allowed, indeed what the highest authority gained their income from. They made a prophet charging rent for the space, a percentage on the exchange rate, a percentage on the animals sold. That hurt their pocket books. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But it is strange what makes them indignant. He heals people. By what authority do you give the blind sight? One wouldn’t think a person should even have to answer for that! You allow the lame to walk? How dare you! And this wasn’t a matter of anything occurring on a Sabbath when it was forbidden to work. It was the sheer audacity that he was able to do it at all. And the infants crying out that Jesus was the Son of David? Jesus answered them with a Psalm hinting that he was the Messiah. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is what they are after. If Jesus would say out right that he was the Messiah, they would catch him in a trap. Instead they find themselves caught in the trap. Jesus asks them about the baptism of John. The Chief Priests don’t want to answer. They had rejected John, but the people knew he was a prophet. John had told them that the Messiah was coming, that the Kingdom was near. They had all gone to repent and hear him, and then wait for the Messiah to come. But this sort of answer couldn’t be used in a trial. Jesus had evaded the question. The Priest’s couldn’t answer him. The people knew John was a prophet. If they said he operated by man’s authority they would be stoned to death for blasphemy. But they had not gone to repent. They had not received John’s baptism of repentance. So they could not affirm that he was a prophet, it would be to condemn themselves and their own unrepentance. Because they had not recognized John they had not recognized the Messiah. Because they refused to bow before the Law as John preached it, they could not see the gospel that stood before them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a strange thing that the priests did not bow before the law. This wasn’t just a matter of them being liberals, cultured or educated. The Pharisees were conservative cultured and educated and they didn’t receive John’s baptism either. This was something deeper. This had to do with a whole different understanding of the law. Some believe the law is something that can be kept by sinful man if he tries hard enough. Some had understood that they had not kept the law, they were broken before it. For some it was the law, the creation, and not the law giver, the creator that had become their god. It is what they had put their trust in, and they were blind to the many ways they had broken the law, the many ways in which the law had betrayed their sinful flesh. Why should they submit to a baptism of repentance? They were not publicans. They were not harlots. They were not those who had been raised without the law like the soldiers that John also baptized. To join in a baptism with them would be to make themselves equal with the likes of these sinners who needed repentance. They thought they had managed to keep it, they were above it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, that was the stinging accusation behind all he overturned tables and spilled coinage in the temple square. These men who profited off the piety of the poor, who turned the temple from a house of prayer into a den of thieves. These men who stood before the altar to sacrifice what they sold, were as unclean as the publicans and the girls they employed on a Saturday night. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s the same today. There are those who think the law can be kept with just a bit more effort. There are those who have allowed the law to become their idol. They trust in it. They think it will set them free. They stake their lives on it. Perhaps they needed forgiveness once or twice. But now they are better, now they are obedient. Some think therefore they are too good for church. They don’t need it to be good. Some go to church as a matter of keeping the law. And by keeping the law, they keep God at bay. They have no need of forgiveness. They do not recognize the authority of Jesus to do these things, and the things that he does they think are blasphemous, they think they have become our idols they can’t believe that we should think our salvation, the forgiveness of sins can be given in such things. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But we have a priest whose authority is higher than that of the chief priests. We have a priest by the order of Melchizedek. He was not above the law, but subjected himself to it. First when he was eight days old and the knife cut into the most tender flesh. Then when he fulfilled all righteousness and was baptized with publicans and harlots, though he had no sin. It was love that compelled him. Love is the highest of the laws. It was the law that the priests, the rabbis, the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees could not fulfill. It was the law that the publicans broke, and the harlots sold. It is what makes sinful flesh incapable of fulfilling the law. But it is what compelled Christ to finally die on the cross for you. His love. His love for you fulfilled the law with his blood that we could be saved by grace through his word, that the righteousness of John’s baptism would be fulfilled by his love. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So he baptizes us, not with John’s baptism but with his own death and resurrection, a circumcision not made with hands, but which puts off the sinful flesh, and restores us to love through his love. So he feeds us with his love in a feast of forgiveness, and receiving his forgiveness, by kneeling here at this altar and receiving the benefit of the sacrifice our priest made in his house of prayer, here we, here we acknowledge our sin and bow before the law, even the law that John preached that we may recognize a greater presence, even our Lord Jesus Christ who flips over the money changing tables in our hearts, who drives out all the beasts the law requires for sacrifice to say I and I alone am needed, and then he purifies your heart that you would be his temple, no longer a den of thieves, but once again a house of prayer filled with love. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-4655947680741057302017-09-10T05:56:00.000-06:002017-09-10T05:56:05.415-06:00Becoming Children<div class="MsoNormal">
18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.<o:p></o:p></div>
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5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.<o:p></o:p></div>
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7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the fhell3 of fire.<o:p></o:p></div>
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10 “See that you do not despise gone of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So lit is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.<o:p></o:p></div>
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15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed6 in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:1-20)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesus loved little children. Let me rephrase that Jesus loves little children. Jesus died for little children. It’s why he wants them to be baptized. It’s why he wants them to be raised up in the faith they are given in baptism. It’s why the church always has such concern for little children, because we are the body of Christ, here to do his work in this place, at this time. So we have Sunday school started today. We love it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But I think we idealize children from time to time, and we let that get in the way of understanding what Christ has to say here. Children are not innocent. Most parents can tell you this of their own children, but they lose sight of this when it comes to the concept of children. Children need to be instructed in the faith because children are just as much prone to sin, to selfishness, to guile and so forth as adults. There probably isn’t a one of us in here who can’t tell of the embarrassment they caused their parents at the grocery store when mom told us we couldn’t have the candy bar, so we just stuck it in our pockets and walked out, only to be brought back in by our mom’s and having to return it to the grocer who let us off the hook because as children our good looks could let us get away with anything. But we knew it was wrong, that’s why we were so secretive about it. So it is that Jesus is not pointing to any virtue in children when he says we must become like one if we are to enter into the kingdom of heaven. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Children, there was no difference between a child and slave, except that if the child wasn’t sold as a slave the child would eventually be free. Children were told to do things that no one else wanted to do, and they took orders from everyone. They didn’t have time to think about being great, greater or greatest. That was the point. Children weren’t great. Jesus is telling the disciples to stop their stupid game. They aren’t serving God, they aren’t making themselves great in the kingdom of God. They are making themselves great in the kingdom of men, and in their own eyes. They become haughty. And God humble the haughty. He despises the haughty, the self-righteous. But he loves the humble. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The game is still played. This game that the disciples played. The who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The real problem with it is it is self-defeating. It shows who the person really being loved is, and it is not your neighbor. That’s the hard thing with this game, trying to earn rewards in the kingdom of heaven, to be better than the person next to us and be recognized for it, by our neighbors or by God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This isn’t to say that we should shun any recognition for good works. Life is full of paradoxes, and one of them is sometimes the humble have to receive thanks for the good they do. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The question is, what’s the motive? Good works done for selfish reasons are not good in anyone’s eyes. Now thankfully for us, motives can’t be seen by us. They can be suspected from time to time, but they cannot be seen. They can be seen by God. And so we have this conundrum. How do we do them? How do we do good works? How do we serve God in a God pleasing way? Well, we become like little children, and stop worrying about ourselves. We recognize ourselves to be unworthy servants who have never gone above and beyond what God has demanded us with his law of love. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Love is not selfish, arrogant or rude. Love is selfless. Love is not concerned about itself, but about the person it loves. So love does not take care of the poor in hopes for reward either temporal or eternal. <o:p></o:p></div>
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See this was a thing in medieval society before the reformation. The poor were needed and the needed to remain poor, so that the rich would have a way of earning their salvation! So you did just enough to help them stay poor so you could have some way of getting yourself out of your jam. You weren’t helping them, but yourself. This is one of those things that got Luther to see the whole hypocrisy surrounding the Medieval Catholic system of salvation. He began to see that good works done in such a manner were not good. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So it is that when people are told that they increase their sanctification by works, or that they receive extra rewards in heaven for their works the motivations appealed to ruin the chances for good works. Their sanctification isn’t increased by such efforts, it is decreased! Christians taught such things are actually robbed of their good works by the very people admonishing them to do good works. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So it is that out of his selfless love, Jesus Christ makes us all into children, children of the heavenly Father. He purchases us out of the kingdom of the law, the kingdom of death, the kingdom of the devil that promises rewards and punishments, offers us the carrot and beats us with the stick. He does this by dying for us on the cross. He purchases us not with gold or silver but with his holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death. He pays the price for all out sins. He washes us clean and makes us white as snow. And he does it so that there is nothing left for us to worry about. And I mean nothing! He totally levels it for us. And this is how we become children in his kingdom. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This isn’t to say that while we live in this world he won’t discipline us from time to time, and reward us from time to time. The law is still at work in this world and in our lives. But death can no longer claim us, and we are freed from worry, from anxiety, from having to wonder if we have done enough, or playing some game with other about who is doing what, who is better than who. We live in his grace. We live in his love. We love in his love. And from that love and for that love we love others that they might know the love of Christ, who with no hope of reward, who with no care for glory suffered and died even for those who despise him, who reject him, and who still find themselves playing games to see who is greatest in the kingdom of God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-1679912066129770972017-09-03T05:52:00.002-06:002017-09-03T05:52:41.012-06:00Just Live<div class="MsoNormal">
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance6to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life7 will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then Jesus told his Disiciples, “if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Deny himself, pick up his cross, follow me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the gospel, Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the son of the Living God. Then Jesus begins to tell them what that actually means. He will god to Jerusalem. He will suffer. The elders, the Chief Priests and Scribes will kill him. On the third day he will rise again. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It wasn’t the concept Peter had of the Messiah, the Christ. It wasn’t what anyone thought of the Messiah. It is one of the reasons that Christ was hesitant to identify himself as the Messiah while he worked in Galilee. He would silence the demons that would identify him as such. He would ask people not to speak about what he had done. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But now the disciples have identified him as the Messiah, so he has to let them know what this means. And Peter isn’t having it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The disciples have understood the Messiah in terms of earthly glory. He was supposed to become king. And it was all of this that Jesus continually rejected. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He would rather deny himself. He would go to Jerusalem. He would suffer and die. And only then would the disciples see his glory, and come to understand the true nature of the Christ and his Kingdom in the resurrection. In losing his life, he would give us opportunity to find ours. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So what is this? What does it mean to deny one’s self? To pick up your cross? To follow him? How do we try to save our lives? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course behind all of this is the cross. There is the willingness to accept martyrdom if that be your plight, and accept life if you be inflicted with it. To live with persecution humbly, and accepting your crosses when they come. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Crosses when they come. There are those who go looking for crosses to carry, and hills to die on. They chase martyrdom. Most often they turn Christianity into some sort of political movement or Cultural Revolution. They go about with a look at me Christianity, that loses its focus on Christ and forgiveness. Look at what a strong Christian I am! And Paul warns not to be to proud lest you fall. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There will come time enough when a stand will have to be taken. Martyrdom isn’t Martyrdom if you chase it. It’s just suicide. Martyrdom, the word means witness. It is supposed to be something we do that makes a confession of Christ. And yet it is something that Jesus tells us to avoid if we can. “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Avoid if we can. But if we can’t? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Because it would be so easy to avoid it if we simply didn’t confess him. It would be so easy to avoid him, if we simply didn’t let his life, his death and his resurrection have its way with us and makes its stamp upon our own life. But he rose from the dead! And with that he offers so much more than this world could ever offer with all its glory, or the fame of martyrdom! He didn’t come to reform this world as so many wanted him to do. He didn’t come to set up a better government, or give a better set of laws. He came to put this world to death by dying to it. Think about it! The author of life he is called. God. The Son of the Living God. The creator of the world. He died, and with him so did his creation. It’s dead. It has nothing to offer now. Not this world. But then he rose, the first fruits of the new creation. Now we who die with him. We who lose our life for his sake? Where? In Baptism. That’s our martyrdom, this is where we die for his sake. He puts his seal upon us. He stamps our life. And there we rise again to walk in the newness of life, rejoicing in the forgiveness of sins as if we were dancing in the midst of a Spring shower. Now we simply get to just live. Just live.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And the world can’t let us do that, because the world is dead. The world is darkness that refuses to know the light. But you, you can just live, because the Creator, the Author of Life who died for your sins, he lives and you have lost your life for his sake. He took it, that you might find it in him because outside of him, outside of the forgiveness of sins there is no life. So now he offers you his life in the bread and the wine through which we proclaim his death until he comes. It is the only living thing you will eat, because he is not dead but is alive. He is not dead but lives. And now, so do you. <o:p></o:p></div>
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You don’t have to chase glory. You don’t have to chase earthly riches. You don’t have to justify your existence to the world, or God. You can simply enjoy the life you are given. Because when you live this life here, when you suffer the crosses that come your way in the sure hope that Jesus rose from the dead, when you enjoy the joys that are left in this world as gifts from a God who loves you? Well, then you live the life that God has given you. Unlike the world. You get to just live. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-27846959913762548502017-07-09T06:00:00.000-06:002017-07-09T06:00:49.938-06:00Jesus Loves the Little Children <div class="MsoNormal">
25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. [7] 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:25-30 (ESV)</div>
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Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.</div>
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This is how Jesus describes the little children to him the Father in heaven has revealed the kingdom. They are those who labor and are heavy laden.</div>
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The wise and understanding, these are the people who think they have it figured out. In Jesus day these were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The learned, the upper crust of society. Today you find these types in every stratum of society. They are people who find God immoral. They know better than him.</div>
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That one is always sort of strange to me. The Ten Commandments have had quite the impact on our society. Jesus Christ has had quite the impact on society. Here we have a man who died for the sins of the world. He shed his blood for people of every stripe. Jesus died for the cultured and the uncultured. He died for the rich and the poor. He died for blue collar and white collar. For the healthy and the sick. The Albert Einsteins of the world, and for those suffering every form of mental illness, or downs syndrome. “Red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight,” I remember singing those words as a four-year-old in Ft. McMurray and simple understandings like that have transformed society’s notions of right and wrong, of justice and of mercy. Oh, it hasn’t put an end to racism and try as I may to understand another person’s culture and concepts of polite, I can still find it awkward, or rude. But when people think that Christianity is the problem, I find most often they are not aware of just how much Christianity is responsible for even what is left of their morals, even shaping the problem. Sure the Bible didn’t outlaw slavery. It can be hard for us today to read what the Bible has to say about such things. But I will tell you this, we wouldn’t have any qualms with slavery if it wasn’t for the Bible, if it wasn’t for the fact that Jesus died for the sins of the world. We would care less about racism if it wasn’t for the fact that we could teach our kids to sing “Red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”</div>
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The little children of the world, to whom the Father has revealed these things. This was a phrase Jesus would use for his disciples. Little children, oh how society has changed in that department. In the first century, little children were synonymous with heavy laden, this was before child labor laws. My parents knew of no such legislation. I remember being excited when I first learned my mom and dad were buying lake property until we pulled up to the three acres of thick woods bordering the swamp and learned that my brother and I would be helping my dad clear it. I thought fire made sense and would probably be the best way until I learned you actually had to control the burn. Ten or eleven, those five-gallon buckets were about half my size but they were the only way to get water to the property line, two at a time. I was lucky, I mean it wasn’t the way I really wanted to spend my weekends, but at least my dad was too busy during the week to make us work like that on a Monday. Though my dad did know how to farm me out to old timers in need of firewood. Kids in the first century were pretty much slaves. They say it takes a village to raise a child. It sounds so nice. But the truth is anyone in the village could lord it over the children of the village, make them watch the cows in the noonday heat, fetch the falling figs in the midst of a rainstorm, and in general do anything an adult sees needs to be done, but doesn’t care to do himself. And the kid would be paid in room and board if he or she was lucky.</div>
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Oh, Jesus really and literally meant that the kingdom, the mystery of Jesus Christ, was revealed to little children. The little children that were brought to him to bless, when the disciples were enraged. But he also meant it figuratively to mean the simple in the land who simply saw who Jesus was. They weren’t so invested in their theories as to who God should be, or what God should do to miss seeing what it was God was doing. These were the type of people who most often didn’t have time except perhaps on the Sabbath to study God’s word. The Pharisees, the Scribes, the Sadducees represented a lifestyle of leisure. They had money, they wore fine robes and looked down on the rags other people wore. They could sit around and study God’s word and pay someone else to plow their fields and make them breakfast. I mean when I think about this I think about waitresses at restaurants, the single mom who can’t hardly afford not to work on a Sunday morning when all the people like to go get breakfast after church. And then the good majority of those same people complain that a person shouldn’t work on the Sabbath, but aren’t you glad they do, if at no other time than when you are on vacation and there isn’t any other option? It was that kind of relationship these people had with one another. You couldn’t be a Pharisee if you were poor. But it was to the little children, the overworked and heavy laden to whom the Father revealed the kingdom in Jesus Christ. They were the one’s who flocked to see John the Baptist at the Jordan. They were the ones who gathered to hear the Beatitudes when Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount. They humbled themselves like little children before their Father in heaven, and then they saw what the Father was doing, then they found the rest they were looking for.</div>
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So it is that the kingdom is one of rest. No not the kind of rest the Pharisees had from physical labor, but rest for the souls of those who have tried their hardest to live up to God’s law and have failed. This was the chief difference between the little children and the wise and understanding. The “wise and understanding” used here with a bit of tongue and cheek, had thought they accomplished God’s law. The little children could not afford such luxurious delusions. They knew their sins, and the Pharisees piled on more. The yoke of the law can be heavy if you are going to try to earn God’s favor by pulling it. But the yoke that Jesus has is light. It isn’t a matter of earning God’s favor, but experiencing his love, his grace, his mercy, that which he poured out upon you as little children at the baptismal font. It is there that he assures you of his favor so that you no longer have to worry about it. Then we live in his love and living in his love we learn to love as he loves, even as he loves all the little children of the world.</div>
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Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-5062906383366083012017-06-25T06:01:00.001-06:002017-06-25T06:01:53.710-06:00Persecuted for Righteousness Sake<div class="MsoNormal">
Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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24 “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant [4] above his master. 25 It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign [5] those of his household.<o:p></o:p></div>
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26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. [6] 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? [7] And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:21-33 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake but the one who endures to the end will be saved.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesus gives his disciples a pep talk. He is sending his twelve out to preach in his name. He was hated by the world. He is hated in this world. He exposes our sin. He destroys our delusions of grandeur. Even in his day, he was hated. He warns the disciples. “It isn’t going to be any easier for you.” “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is why Christians can find a certain amount of comfort amidst the persecution. If no one hated us, would we really be Christian? Of course, today we live in a culture that is still greatly influenced by Christianity. Much more so than one would think. Sometimes the influence is a little twisted and confused, but it is still there. Things people take for granted today are developments that would not have happened in any other society. Freedom of Religion is one of those things. We take it for granted. We know that no one can be forced to believe the gospel. So we don’t try to force it. We preach it. We shout it from the rooftops as it were. When this was being written the rooftops were often used as pulpits in small villages where perhaps there was no synagogue. Somewhat the same way the pope will often address crowds gathered at the Vatican from a window on the second floor. Jesus taught the disciples in the dark. He preached to the crowds, and then he explained what he had said to them as they walked. He instructed them concerning the gospel as they walked, as they gathered around campfires, as they sat by the roadsides. He instructed them in the way that fathers were commanded to teach their children in Deut. 6. And he regarded them as his children, as he does all his disciples including you. What they had been taught on a personal level they were now to proclaim to the world, but just as their teacher was hated, so they would be hated. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But it can be an odd thing to take comfort in your persecution. A person has to be on guard against a persecution complex, like Jehova Witnesses who think they are doubly blessed by the stranger slamming the door in their face. Peter says it: “But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” (1 Peter 4:15-17 (ESV) I had a professor for missions once, Dr. Douglass Rutt. He once said it to the class like this. “You will be hated for the gospel’s sake. But make sure it is for the gospel that you are hated and not because you are just a jerk.” That’s probably a paraphrase, but it hit home. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We can often just be jerks even when it comes to the gospel. It comes about when we have no patience with others who may not understand the faith the same way we do. Or perhaps in overzealous enthusiasm, we rush out to get into a fight or a debate about some particular article of faith. Perhaps we argue Creationism vs. Evolution with little to know understanding of the church’s own historical teaching concerning the nature of creation, and even less concerning current scientific research. It’s not anything new, Augustine in the fourth century complained about Christians doing that very same thing. Maybe it is that we try to force other people to live in the manner we think we should be living, even though we ourselves fall way short of that goal. Of course, we can’t help that people will judge us based on their past experience with Christians either. But there was a time when Christians were actually persecuted because they believed in the forgiveness of sins. Now, this is something it seems only garners persecution from other so-called Christians. The world hardly knows that Christians believe in such a thing because about all they experience from Christians is judgment. And they know there is something a bit off about this when Jesus is known for having said don’t judge. That you will be judged by the same measuring stick with which you judge others. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But let it be known, the world will still persecute you for believing in the forgiveness of sins. You don’t have to be a jerk to be persecuted for Christ’s sake. It will come. It will come from those who refuse to understand how a sinner like you can go to church on Sunday. They don’t believe you should judge others, but they will call you a snob for having sinned all week long, perhaps absentmindedly snubbing them at work, or losing your temper, maybe you gossiped and slandered them, and you still have the gall to get up on Sunday morning and act as if your toilet smells of roses. When in fact, the reason you come is the complete opposite, or at least it should be, it isn’t because you think you have been perfect, but because you know you have fallen short of the glory of God in life, you haven’t reflected the love of Christ for sinners in your life, at least not as perfectly as you would have liked. And you know there is only one answer to that, to confess your sin to God, and receive the forgiveness of sins from Jesus, that you may grow in faith and love having been nourished by his word, and being strengthened in the faith and the forgiveness of sins, would even be able to forgive those who persecute you for the sake of righteousness, praying with Jesus himself from the cross, “forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” And then it is because you are the body of Christ, the disciple of Jesus, that they persecute you as they persecuted him. But hold fast for in him alone is their salvation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-70780484068692253312017-06-18T06:02:00.002-06:002017-06-18T06:13:18.831-06:00Laborers for the Kingdom<div class="MsoNormal">
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Matthew 9:35-10:8</div>
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35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”</div>
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10:1 And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. 2 The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; [1] 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, [2] cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. (Matthew 9:35-10:8 (ESV)</div>
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“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”</div>
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It’s at this time of year, when the school year is finished. The leases on the apartments in Ft. Wayne and St. Louise are up for renewal that the Lord sends laborers into his harvest. He does it at other times and in other places too. But I imagine that the reason this text comes up here today is that in our church body, in our Synod this is one of the more common times for the harvest to receive new laborers. It will be good to remember them in our prayers as we pray “thy kingdom come.” His kingdom that “comes when he gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe his holy word and live godly lives here in time and there in eternity.” It is this kingdom that Jesus Christ refers his apostles to, telling them to go to the Lost Sheep of Israel and proclaim that “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It is through this proclamation that the Lord gathers his sheep into the fold. The people who are now like sheep without shepherds, that is they are lost, without hope, without peace, harassed and helpless.</div>
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Perhaps we even feel that way from time to time. Today there are many who believe they can live just fine without the gospel, without the forgiveness of sins, without God. There are many more who don’t even know that this is what they long for. It’s often easy for us Christians to be critical of the culture we live in, to look around in horror at what society looks at as normal, to cringe at the things they laugh at. I’m always left with this thought; “false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice,” “lead us not into temptation.” These are the things encompassed by temptation, false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. And it is this temptation we are spared when from the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit proceeds, enters our lives, causes us to believe his holy word, his gospel the forgiveness of sins, peace with God and good will toward men, that we are led to repentance a true repentance that is faith in God who has led us into his kingdom of forgiveness and love, and out of our spiritual Egypts, out of our slavery to sin death and the devil. A slavery that kept us ignorant of our Creator, our Savior, our Sanctifier, ignorant of the love of our Father which far surpasses that of any earthly father who knows how to avoid buying scorpions and serpents for their children. A slavery that kept us bound in false belief that led to despair and then caused us to perform so many shameful acts like circus monkeys for the evil trio of sin, death and the devil in their three-ring show. This is what we see in so many sectors of society today. These are the temptations that plague our own children. And even when we have the gospel, even when we know the love of the Father for us children, even when we believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins, we have a hard time avoiding the temptations and traps of the devil, to avoid taking center stage for his amusement. We know the law, so does everyone around us. They know right from wrong. Listen to them. Most of the time it is with the law that they accuse Christians relentlessly with the accusation that we are hypocrites, and not without reason. I’ll leave the disputed things out, like why there aren’t more Christian environmentalists as Louis C.K. chastises us for. I mean he’d be right about what our actions should be if in fact, the claims of the green movement were entirely true. But then he doesn’t quite seem to get the nature of sin.</div>
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See that is the problem for most of us. We tend to think of sin as something we can overcome. Sure we might be able to avoid this or that particular sin. We can avoid being rapists, murderers, we can perhaps avoid reviling our parents, at least on Mother’s day and Father’s day, or can we? “The good that I would that I do not, the evil I would not that I do.” The apostle Paul wrote that. He was aware of his own hypocrisy. And when we think of sins of society that we cringe at? Do we even contemplate the fourth commandment? Honor your Father and your Mother? Does that even make sense in a society whose gospel, whose path to contentment for your soul and everything you wrestle with is little more than “blame your parents.”</div>
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Jesus has another way. He didn’t blame. He obeyed. He obeyed his Father even to death on the cross. He chose to love God even more than Mary and Joseph. He followed the will of our Heavenly Father, from whom he was begotten before all worlds. But it was there on the cross that he won forgiveness for the world. And it was there on the cross that he showed what this forgiveness was like when it came to parents. He forgave his mother and entrusted her care to one of his Apostles. He didn’t shun her for thinking he was crazy early in his career, for showing up with a delegation of brothers to take him home. He forgave her. Even as he forgives you, that you might be able to do the same with your parents, and with your children. They are human like you, sinners in need of forgiveness. They don’t do everything right, and they have a hard time forgiving one another too. But these are all tricks of the devil by which he harasses helpless sheep who have no shepherd. We have a shepherd, the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep and even now cares for them by sending in laborers for the harvest that they might know forgiveness, peace and the love of their heavenly Father.</div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.our Lord. Amen. </div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-43850646356052689842017-06-11T06:32:00.002-06:002017-06-11T06:32:55.199-06:00Trinity Sunday <div class="MsoNormal">
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in [2] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s Trinity Sunday. The whole Sunday revolves around a doctrine. It is the only Sunday in the church year to celebrate a doctrine rather than an event that teaches a doctrine. But the Trinity is important enough to merit this because without it there is no salvation for mankind. It is essential that Jesus be both God and man if there is to be forgiveness of sins, life and salvation found in his blood. Thus it was the great controversy of the early church as it debated with the Jews over the divinity of Jesus, over and against the gnostics and other concerning his humanity, and with each other as to just how it was possible for both the Father and the Son to be God, and what about the Holy Spirit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Careful reading of the Scriptures show that all three of these persons are to be regarded as God. Perhaps the biggest clue is a careful look at Christ’s words, go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To understand this you have to understand the meaning of the name of God in Scripture. It was more than a moniker or a label. It was he himself. The temple was built as a place for His name to dwell. So the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, all three mentioned by name here share one name into which we are baptized. This is the divine essence and being of God. And it is because Jesus Christ shares this divine essence and being that all authority on heaven and earth can be given to him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He has it now. He had given it up to take on our flesh, to bear responsibility for our sins. Yes, he was certainly still able to do the miraculous, and show that he was God in the flesh, but he did not make full use of his divine powers. He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but took on the form of a servant to be obedient to the Father even onto death. Well that is the other place you start finding the Trinitarian formula and its relation to Christ and our salvation hammered out. Philippians chapter 2. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He was equal to the Father, but he gave it up for our salvation. It is the exact opposite of our sin. In our sin we want to be equal to the Father. This is the sin with which the devil tempted Eve, you will be like God and know good from evil. That is you would be able to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong, and not only in the moral realm. The problem, the greatest problem man has with the Trinity, the idea that Jesus could be God, is we think we are too smart for that. It doesn’t jive with all the other things we think we know about God, his omnipotence, his omniscience, his omnipresence. How could God take the form of a man? Take the form of a servant. It runs counter to everything. It is a repudiation of everything we think we know. We think the greatest good is to have power and authority, to rule the world and make others our servants. We dream about this in childhood fantasies, or perhaps as we walk to the store to buy lotter tickets trying to imagine what it would be like to have 484 million dollars! And that is just earthly riches. It doesn’t compare to what Jesus gave up to save man. But this he did. For you for me. And then he as God, and as man died. This is really at the root of the trinity, the deep divine mystery that the God who created this world, and made you and I would be able to die. God died. It’s absolutely incredible. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But now Jesus who won salvation for us. He resumes his divinity, receives all authority in heaven and on earth, that he as God and Man could continue his work of salvation among us. That he who won salvation for us, would keep winning us for salvation. That he would be able to continue making us disciples by baptizing us into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Resumes all authority in heaven and on earth that he could continue to be God with us, in and through or baptism, guiding and directing our ways to life everlasting, now and forever, Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that Surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-54629416769735005682017-06-04T06:17:00.000-06:002017-06-04T06:17:23.889-06:00River's of Living Water<div class="MsoNormal">
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37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as [6] the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39 (ESV)</div>
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As the scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)</div>
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Generally, water that is moving and thus the waters flowing in a river are considered to be living. The waters of the numerous creeks and mountain brooks feeding the Sea of Galilee in the mountainous area of Galilee where Jesus grew up. In the spring you could see them bubbling up, and feeding the lush mountain meadows where the sheep would graze in the mountains of Bashan and Gilead. It was living water because it brought life.</div>
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We don’t know exactly which verse Jesus was speaking of when he said that out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Perhaps paraphrasing this one from Jeremiah, or perhaps summarizing the Biblical concept that that God is the source of life and salvation shall flow from his own being.”</div>
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“If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink.” He says here at the feast of booths. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” This was really the point of this last day of the feast, in which gathering water from the pool of Siloam they would dance around the altar in the temple and pour the water out upon it, singing the words of Isaiah, “With Joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Jesus has the audacity to claim that the whole feast is about him. The wells of salvation are in him. He is the source of living water, the Holy Spirit that proceeds from the Father and the Son.</div>
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“He had said this about the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”</div>
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Jesus was not yet glorified. He had not yet been crucified to shed his blood on the cross for the sins of the world. He had not yet been raised from the dead, for our Justification. He had not yet ascended to the Father. But it was 50 days ago that he rose from the dead. It was 10 days ago that he ascended to the Father. And now he sends the Holy Spirit, the living waters of salvation, and the Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, and in just that day 3,000 are saved. This is what we celebrate today. And without a baptism, we rejoice as two young men of this congregation affirm the faith that was given to them in Holy Baptism. Can we know a greater joy than this, to see brothers and sisters in the faith drinking from the wells of salvation, Jesus himself, and the word of God through which he sends to us the Holy Spirit? To see the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of the young and old alike?</div>
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I’ll tell you it is easy to forsake the well of living water, God and his word through which the Holy Spirit comes. It’s easy to do this as an individual when you think you don’t need God, and life gets to busy and frantic. Church seems to be one more source of stress in life. Just another thing you are supposed to do, but can’t seem to find the time for. Something to feel guilty about. It’s easy to do this as a congregation when we are looking for “results” and are blinded to the work that is being done. We want to see three thousand baptized! We want tongues of fire dancing on our foreheads! We associate the Spirit all too often with feelings that come and go. There was a day after Pentecost. The new disciples gathered to worship in the temple, and then they broke bread in their homes. Or as it says in Acts 2:42 they devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles, to prayer and the breaking of the bread, a euphemism for the Lord’s Supper they shared together. Why? Because they knew that here was the source of Living Water. Here was God himself. Here was Jesus the source of their salvation. He was among them when they came together in his name to drink and receive their righteousness. Here they received the work of the Holy Spirit the forgiveness of sins, and it sustained them in their faith as they met the hardships and tribulations of this world, and life together in the church.</div>
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It wasn’t really any easier for them than it is for you. They didn’t see explosive growth either. Not everyday anyway. 3,000 on the day of Pentecost was spectacular. It was nothing compared to the tens of thousands that would have been pouring into the city that day for the Jewish holiday known as Pentecost. And the next day? Well there isn’t any record of how many were or weren’t converted. But the people had joy in that they saw the Spirit at work anyway, when Joe who couldn’t make it yesterday, came back today.</div>
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Do we see the Spirit at work today? Yes. If you have eyes to see. I see it in the nursing homes when in the midst of agony and the face of death, the only thing wanted is for me to read another psalm, sing another hymn, and pray another prayer. I see it when a mother, who perhaps hasn’t been in church for a while, brings a new born child forth to receive the Spirit in Holy Baptism. I see it in the old familiar faces who wouldn’t know what to do with their Sunday morning if there wasn’t church for them to go to. I see it in a congregation that just continues, when the world around them looks and compares them to this and that church over there, and says why do they bother? Why? Because the Spirit is at work? Don’t believe it? Just attend confirmation class with these kids. Oh, we have our moments when the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Perhaps I’m tired and worn out, and they more so. But then I can’t tell you what a joy it is when I look back over the three years I’ve had these kids in class with me. When out of nowhere they have the right answer! Or better yet, they have the right question and just want to hear what God has to say. Today they will make a confession before us. That is the work of the Holy Spirit apart from whom no one can say that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”</div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep Your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.</div>
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Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-25912903121707633772017-05-28T06:16:00.002-06:002017-05-28T06:16:20.962-06:00Jesus Glorifies the Father <div class="MsoNormal">
17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one. (John 17:1-11 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may Glorify you” So Jesus begins his pray in John 17. The High Priestly prayer. He prays this with the disciples just after telling them that the world will you tribulation, but take heart I have overcome the world. He prays this in front of the disciples before crossing over the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane. It is to prepare the disciples for this time, when we remain in the world as the body of Christ, even as he returns to the Father to take up the glory he once had had with the Father before the world existed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” The rest of this High Priestly Prayer will deal with what that means, in just what a way the Son will be glorified, and how in turn this will glorify God. The High Priestly Prayer. It’s an awkward sounding name for the 17<sup>th</sup> Chapter of John. Sometimes I try to come up with a better name for it, one that still captures the essence of the prayer but doesn’t call it High Priestly. The idea of it is that here Jesus shows his work as our High Priest. This is one of three offices attributed to Jesus, one of three offices in which people of the Old Testament would be anointed into with oil, and one of the three offices Jesus was anointed to with the Holy Spirit who fell upon him in the form of a dove when he was baptized. These are the offices of Prophet, Priest and King. But the emphasis of this prayer is his office as High Priest in that here he does what a priest does. Prays and consecrates a sacrifice. He prays first and foremost for his disciples, the apostles that must remain in this world, and then for us that we too would be comforted by his word. Then he consecrates himself as a sacrifice for them and for us, that our sins would be atoned for before the Father, and that we would be given eternal life. And this is eternal life: “that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom your have sent.” Jesus refers to himself in the third person, or John modifies the speech of Jesus to make it clearer for us. Either way, to know God is to know Jesus, because it is Jesus who glorifies the Father, by sacrificing himself for us on the cross that we may have eternal life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is why Jesus came to glorify the Father. It doesn’t look glorious. It looks like death, pain and suffering. Jesus speaks of it as if it already happened, but it is still yet to take place. He knows the outcome already. He knows he has already overcome the world. He overcame it precisely in this that he has determined to let the world take him, to crucify him, to sacrifice him that his blood might sanctify you and me. It will be in this that we come to know the Father, through the Son, who is the way the truth and the life, apart from whom know one comes to the Father. This isn’t head knowledge. This is to fear, love and trust in God, to let his will take over our lives, to rejoice in him even as the Son feared, loved and trusted in the Father above all things that he was even willing to die for the Father that you and I might be given eternal life. To know the Father, the only True God and Jesus Christ whom he sent is to know God as only a forgiven child of God can know the Father. To be restored to a right relationship with Him. To trust in him and his promises. It is for this reason Jesus came. And it is this reason that his death is a great glorification of the Father. Because in his death we are given eternal life, we are given to Know the Father, and in his death a glorious kingdom is born full of praise and joy, even joy that lives in the midst of suffering. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-67856249372172661442017-05-21T05:52:00.001-06:002017-05-21T06:24:11.748-06:00The Spirit of Truth<div class="MsoNormal">
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, [6] to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:15-21 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“If you love me, you will keep my commandments and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a strange thing that Jesus switches from a present tense, he dwells with you, to a future will be in you, as he speaks about the relationship of the disciples to the Holy Spirit. It’s one of those strange things. We celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, the day he appeared like a rushing wind and lit flames of fire on the heads of the disciples. Yet, we know that the Holy Spirit was already with the disciples before then. When Jesus visited them in the upper room he breathed on them and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. And already here he says that the Holy Spirit dwells with them. But when Jesus leaves, the Holy Spirit will come to them with a new task and purpose, and new gifts to help them in achieving that mission. So it is even today that the Holy Spirit is with us, and yet still comes to us ever anew through the word and sacraments to give us what we need in this life to accomplish the will of Jesus our Lord and savior. It isn’t always a fantastical thing, but then again always a miraculous thing. The Holy Spirit is given to us in Baptism, he takes up residence within us at that time. And yet throughout our Christian life, the Holy Spirit will continue to come to us through the work of the church in the word and in the sacraments to keep us in the one true faith, to constantly forgive our failings, and sustain our faith, to give us the gifts we need to continue the work of Christ in this world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love is the fulfillment of the commandments. The greatest two of them being to love the Father with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. But here the commandments of Jesus are so much more than all that. But to keep his commandments is to hold fast to his word even despite our failures. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s an odd thing today. Many interpret having the spirit as reason to ignore the words of Jesus and his disciples. “The Spirit is leading us” they say. I’m not sure what Spirit it is they are talking about. But it would not be the Spirit of Truth which Jesus speaks of here, the Spirit of Truth that dwells in the words of Christ because his word is Truth. And Truth is Truth. What is true is true for me and true for you. It is objective and not subject to change. God’s word is truth. And the Spirit is not in conflict with God’s Word. The World however is, and the World is in conflict with the Spirit of Truth whom they cannot receive. So it ought to give us pause when we hear fellow Christians saying that the Spirit is leading them in what seems to be justifying a change to accommodate the world and the world’s viewpoint, to follow along with the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the day. Say for instance that without biblical warrant and despite biblical testimony, that which we have received as the word of truth, the Spirit is invoked to justify women’s ordination, or to condone the homosexual agenda and lifestyle, indeed to even bless it. Or perhaps on an individual basis, the Spirit is invoked to justify any sort of sin we might be tempted to. There is a world of difference between condoning and forgiving, by the way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It should be noted that all too often that just as the Spirit can be invoked and the word of God ignored to justify all sorts of libertine behavior, there is also a danger that we ignore the Spirit and play loose with God’s word to justify purely legalistic matters. Our church body in the past has been subject to rather faulty Biblical interpretation following legalistic patterns popular in the day, the zeitgeist of that period. For instance, 40 years ago, the women of this church would have been invited to cook for our potluck, but asked to remain silent during the voters meeting. I have skimmed through old Walther league journals and have seen condemnations written concerning dancing and playing cards, and sort of like the Mormon Church and Pepsi, we were at one time not allowed to buy life insurance until we decided to have the AAL. This is why we must keep the commandments of Jesus, to hold fast to his word. We must always be searching his word and making sure we are interpreting and applying it correctly in our lives. We must always be ready to repent as individuals and as the church when we are lead astray into legalism or libertinism. It is in the word that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. When we lose sight of his word, then we lose touch with the Holy Spirit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We dare not confuse the Holy Spirit with our conscience or feelings, nor especially feelings of guilt. This is a danger I see all too often today. “I felt the Spirit.” Feelings of calm, feelings or ecstasy, burning bosoms, liver shivers, being at peace. These things are not necessarily the work of the Spirit, and there is really no way of discerning the Spirit based on feelings, at least not feelings alone. It should be noted here that Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter, the Helper, the Paraclete. Thus he is not a fear monger, and when fear is guiding our lives we ought to take a moment to reassess. When we are reading so-called Christian material and it is causing us to despair, we might question which Spirit it is we are listening to. There are other spirits at play in the world, and they love to torture a Christian’s soul, even with the word of God. But the Holy Spirit, he points to Christ. We call him the Holy Spirit because he makes us holy, and he does that by washing away our sins and constantly forgiving them that we might grow in the Love of Christ and keep his commandments, hold fast to his word.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Spirit allows us to do this, it is the Spirit’s work in our lives. To show us the word of God, the commandments of Jesus and to bring us to repentance when we stray. And this we can do in bold, confidence realizing that with him there is forgiveness, so to admit guilt is to banish guilt and receive forgiveness. And to walk in forgiveness the newness of life being guided by the Spirit in the word, is to walk in repentance, and in the love of Jesus who is the truth, the way and the life who asks the Father to send us the Spirit that we would walk in Truth. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus Our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-91345174900850707992017-05-14T05:12:00.001-06:002017-05-14T06:52:33.405-06:00Jesus, The Way, The Truth and the Life<div class="MsoNormal">
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14:1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; [1] believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [2] 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” [3] 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. [4] From now on you do know him and have seen him.”8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me [5] anything in my name, I will do it.(John 14:1-14 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know he way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So Jesus answers Thomas, who did not comprehend what Jesus was talking about or know the way of which Jesus spoke. We know Thomas as doubting Thomas, but he was no hardened skeptic. He was just a simple man who did not always grasp metaphor, or a larger picture. He was a man who was willing to ask the simple questions that many of us are too afraid to ask. “Where is it again, this place that you are going?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It could be that it was too hard of a pill for Thomas to swallow, the reality of it behind Christ’s words. Jesus was leaving. He was going to prepare a place for them. He would come again and bring them there, but in the meantime, you know how to get there. Wait, what? Just to be certain Lord, clear this up for us, where are you going, and how do we get there? <o:p></o:p></div>
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One could perceive Jesus was talking about heaven when he starts talking about going to his Father’s house and many mansions and all that. Jesus might know the way to get there, but we often do not. There is a lot of uncertainty out in the world as to how to get to heaven and who makes it there. Most of us are pretty certain no one makes it there without dying. Then again, if we don’t live the right life here on earth, maybe we don’t get there? Maybe we go to that other place? That place so horrendous we teach our kids not to say it so that often they are afraid to even repeat the Apostles Creed in which we confess that Christ himself went to Hell. And he did, and not the city in Michigan that freezes over every winter. Jesus went there on a detour to his Father, he wanted to preach to the souls there, declare his victory, rub it in Satan’s face a little. And why not? It belongs to him, he created hell, not for man but for the devil and his angels. Hell is not the dominion of Satan any more than this world is. Hell is Christ’s dominion and he created it as a torture chamber for the demons, who are more afraid of the Abyss than we humans are smart enough to be. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesus is going to heaven, and he is going there not for himself, but for us. He is going there that we may be there also, to prepare a place for us. He prepares the place for us by dying. Yes, that is how we do get there, by dying, but by dying in Christ. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And that is what it means to believe in the Father and to believe in Jesus also, to die in Christ. To trust him and his death and resurrection for the salvation of your soul. It isn’t what we expect. When Thomas asks for Christ to clarify the way, we are given to think of directions, a list of rules to live by. Jesus doesn’t give them. “Trust in me,” he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. The law can’t get you to the Father, only I can, only my atonement.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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It can be a rather difficult thing to do though. It seems simple enough. Just let go. No, it isn’t letting Jesus take the wheel. He has the wheel, already. It’s trusting him. Maybe a bit like trusting the cab driver in Italy last Tuesday night. What a ride! He had the wheel, and I hadn’t had a ride like that in twenty some years. It was a bit exhilarating, as he pulled out into oncoming traffic to ride the center line and push the guy he was passing and the cars coming on onto the shoulder. All the sudden Laura begins to realize why I drive the way I do…. It was where I learned to drive. No one thinks anything of it. But after twenty years, it brought back a rush. I knew he was in control. Life can be a bit like that when we let Christ have the wheel though. Things are thrown at us, and we think we could do better if we were in control. Right. Not a chance. We grab on to the law thinking it is the wheel, but in doing so we drive ourselves into the ditch. We think we can get ourselves to the destination perhaps on our own steam. We can just live the righteous life and avoid death altogether. Jesus knows there is no avoiding death and plunges headlong into it. Then he plunges you into it because he knows you wouldn’t do it either. Plunges you headlong into death in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, buries you into his death, and raises you up again to the newness of life that you can walk with joy in the sun. Now it is no longer you and the law, but Christ who lived the law perfectly in you. Now it is no longer you living by the law, but in the love of Christ doing the law, not for yourself, you already died, but for your neighbor because Christ is the way the truth and the life, he died for you, that you might live in him and he in and through you. And so he gets you to the final destination and you can laugh at the ride. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all Understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-1257080202753845192017-04-30T06:22:00.003-06:002017-04-30T06:22:47.842-06:00They Recognized Him in the Breaking of Bread<div class="MsoNormal">
13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles [1] from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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28 So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:13-35 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures and they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and they found the eleven and those who were gathered together saying “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how we was known to them in the breaking of the bread.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”1 Corinthians 11:26 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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An enigmatic passage from Paul. You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. It is something we perhaps don’t always like to see. Our natural man flees in horror at the sight of death, it is to be avoided at all costs. Oh we talk about how it was time, they had a long life. They were suffering they are better now. It may be true if the person was a Christian and died in the faith. Scriptures speak of another reality, the reality for which Christ died, the reality from which we are saved by his death, when we are buried into it in baptism that we may be raised to walk in the newness of life, the road upon which Christ makes our hearts burn as he explains his victory, speaking to us his gospel from the scriptures, all of which speak of him, our savior. It is upon the road of faith we walk in the newness of life, that the Lord sustains our faith in the Lord’s Supper where we proclaim his death that we might recognize him in the breaking of the bread and all our suffering, all our worries and anxieties may be turned to joy as we realize the victory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Walking the road of faith in the newness of life. We are on the road, pilgrims to the Promised Land, walking together with one another as we make our way home to heaven. But we aren’t there yet. We still live in this world, and the journey isn’t always an easy one. It is plagued by sin, death and the devil, the prowling lion who seeks to devour us and our faith. We often find ourselves discouraged like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. If Christ is our savior, then things should not be going so badly for us, right? The student is not above the master. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He suffered, but his suffering had purpose and gained meaning in victory, in resurrection. So to now his death becomes a source of joy for us. I knew nothing among you but Christ and him Crucified, Paul says to the Corinthians. It is the very gospel itself. That God died for our sins, Christ was crucified for you. It is why the depiction brings such joy for so many Christians and is displayed in so much art. But of course if Christ had not risen from the dead then the pain would have been meaningless. Perhaps the same way defeat has the power to bring on such depression. Was it all meaningless? I think of races which we try hard to win, we train and train, no pain no gain we tell ourselves. But when it was all for not… Cancer patients can find solace and comfort in the midst of their pain if they know it is working, the chemo, the radiation. The good news from the doctor that they are in remission, it makes it all worth it. So it is for the Christian, for we suffer here, not for ourselves but for Christ who is our life, who works in and through all we do, and even all we suffer to accomplish his purpose in and through us here in this world. His purpose is our salvation, but not only our salvation. If that were the case, he might actually drown us in baptism that we die not only the spiritual death of the old Adam, but the physical death that is brought about by the cessation of our hearts. If he were only worried about our salvation we might become nothing more than a death cult bent on a grand suicide mission, all taking a cocktail or purple Kool-Aid, before meeting Hailey’s commit in the sky. I mean what is this world to us if heaven is our home? This world is Christ’s world, the world in which he toiled and suffered and died for our salvation that we might live in him and him in us. This world and all who are in it, our children who give us fits, our parents who drive us insane, our coworkers who seem as inept as we are at getting it all together, our friends who suffer without knowing their hope, with no burning in their hearts, without recognizing Christ in the breaking of the bread. We suffer this world for them, because Christ suffered this world for their salvation, and so he still suffers in and through us for them. Our suffering is his suffering. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But we are not alone on this road. It sometimes feels a lonely way. The disciples on the road to Emmaus had each other but felt alone. Alone is how you feel in despair, when you suffer without hope. It often doesn’t matter who is with you or not in the hospital, if you have no hope. We’ve all suffered that melancholia, have we not? So many friends, we go through motions, faking it until we make it. Perhaps they provide a diversion from our worries, and that is a wonderful thing to do for a friend in need. Luther recommends it over and over again. It is part and parcel of what he means when he talks about the mutual consolation of the saints in his letters. That you grab your friends and celebrate life with them in the midst of depression, but then give them something to celebrate, give them Christ! Proclaim his death until he comes. Because he is with us in this journey, and it is he who comes to us through or Christian friends speaking encouragement and hope in the life eternal the resurrection of the body, in the salvation of our souls through the forgiveness of sins for which he died. He it is who comes to us in scripture, and the spoken word, the glad tidings of comfort and joy amidst a dark and dreary winter night, that he might make himself known to us in the breaking of bread. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Christ makes himself known to us in the breaking of bread, because it is there that he gives us the forgiveness of sins that he won for us in the death we proclaim until he comes, and then it is with joy having all sins of body and soul forgiven. The disciples, their hearts began to burn as Christ talked to them, but there was uncertainty. Who was this man? What was he speaking about? Yes, the scriptures did speak this way about the suffering servant. But was it really true? Then Christ broke the bread and they recognized their salvation, their Lord, the forgiveness was for them. Jesus is for them. Jesus is for you. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Here is his body given for you. Here is his blood of the New Testament, the Testament in which he makes you coheirs of salvation and victory with him, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here is the certainty of salvation, that he reaches out his hand to you and says: take eat, take drink. Here you receive the benefits of his death, here you receive the forgiveness of sins and share in his victory that you might return to the road in the midst of night running for joy as you walk in the newness of life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-68124716835519648872017-04-23T05:32:00.004-06:002017-04-23T05:32:57.879-06:00Unlocking Doors Locked by Fear <div class="MsoNormal">
Second Sunday in Easter<o:p></o:p></div>
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19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, [3] was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:19-31 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Peace be with you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is with these words that Jesus breaks open the locked doors. The Disciples are afraid of the Jews, and so the doors are locked. It would not have stopped an actual raid with soldiers, but it at least kept them safe from random mischief. So they shut and locked the doors in such a way that they would have to open them if anyone wanted to come in from the outside. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And then there is Jesus. Standing in their midst. Saying peace be with you. Sending them out to do the same to forgive sins, to give the Holy Spirit and burst open doors. This is what he continues to do to this day through his church, through you the body of Christ. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This morning we baptized Ryker and we see this work happening again. Jesus Christ giving peace. Jesus Christ giving the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ breaking down the doors of unbelief even as he rolled away the stone of death the sealed his tomb, and put aside the condemnation of the law of Moses written in stone that you and I may have peace, that you and I could receive the Holy Spirit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It's fear that locks doors. But it is Jesus who does away with fear. Peace be with you. This is what he comes to give. Probably a translation of the common Jewish greeting shalom. But with Jesus there is power in the words. It is much more than a peaceful feeling that he comes to give. He comes to give the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. He comes to declare peace the cessation of hostilities between God and man in the forgiveness of sins. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Unbelief is often nothing more than an expression of fear for that which people know to be true. The demons know that God is one and they tremble. We can’t do anything for them. But for man? We can give them Jesus. People know that they are sinners. Fear often keeps them from acknowledging it though. It’s irrational, fear. Sometimes I look at how it has worked in my life and the life of others. I remember overhearing a conversation my dad had with mom once about grandpa. He was afraid to go to the doctor because he thought he might have cancer. I thought that was the stupidest thing in the world. But in my early twenties I put off going to the doctor for three months out of the same fear. The idea is if we don’t acknowledge it then it won’t be true. People know they are sinners, and therefore know there is a God and they are afraid, because they are naked and exposed before God. They run and they hide. They put their head in a hole. If I don’t see the lion, maybe the lion won’t see me. Irrational. It locks the doors to faith. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But this is why Jesus came to the disciples. And this is why he comes to you. To dispel fear and to give us peace. That we would unlock the doors and go out to forgive the sins of others even as Jesus sent the disciples with the Holy Spirit that his church would be built and be built up through the forgiveness of sins, upon the confession Thomas shares with Peter. My Lord and my God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesu our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-30866556382721787032017-04-16T05:58:00.002-06:002017-04-16T05:58:31.275-06:00Do Not Be Afraid, He is Risen<div class="MsoNormal">
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28:1 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he [1] lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” (Matthew 28:1-10 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesus had told the disciples earlier that they should meet him in Galilee. I don’t think they were expecting to meet him there any longer. The women certainly were not. That morning they expected to find a cold and stiff body lying on hard rock, dead in a tomb. But they found, just as the angel had told them, that he was not there. He has risen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Instead Jesus meets them on the road as they go back to the disciples to tell them what had happened. When the women do see Jesus the grab hold of him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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They grabbed hold of him. He was real. He had a body that could be touched, hugged, and kissed. This is the hope of the resurrection. Just as Jesus was risen from the dead, so too will you be raised. Not a phantom, not a ghost, but you with your body. Oh it will be changed. Jesus’s body was changed and yet it was the same. It will be glorified and changed so that we are not vexed even by the little things that are so annoying to us here on earth. But we will have bodies with which to hug and kiss our loved ones, with which to sit down at the feast of victory of the Lamb and eat and drink and make merry and rejoice for he has risen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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They worshiped him. Oh this is where he is to be found today. Rather this is where he finds you when you listen to the words he has entrusted to his messengers. Here it was the matter of angels. The women, perhaps they still were not certain of what was going on. The different gospel accounts are filled with the confusion you would expect surrounding such an unexpected event. But they do what the angel tells them, and on the way Jesus meets them to confirm them in the faith that he might meet them and grant them peace, give them courage to continue to believe, to continue with the faith. <o:p></o:p></div>
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They worshiped him, as we do today. It was not something that happened before the resurrection as he wandered about the countryside doing good and making people well. But now something had happened. The resurrection says something about Jesus and who he is. Not was, but is. For he is risen. And that he is risen means that he is God and worthy of worship. This is the decisive thing upon which the whole of Christianity stands or falls. His resurrection. Paul tells us in the 15<sup>th</sup> chapter of Corinthians that if he had not risen we would be most of all to be pitied. We would have made God out to be a liar. If Jesus had not risen, we should continue to worship and trust in the law as our only hope. But it would be a hope that was guaranteed to disappoint. The law will leave you in the grave. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But Jesus is risen, so we have no reason to be afraid, no reason to fear. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Alright. I’m not going to act as if I never have any fears. I have a family, and all the cares and worries that come with this world. I have a sinful heart that does not want to trust these fears to Jesus who cares for me more than I care for myself, even as he loves you even more than you know to love yourselves. And he has risen from the dead. Now you have eternal life. And when this world passes away with all its cares and worries, then we will all see just how foolish our fears were. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But Jesus did not come to give us a spirit of fear. Do not be afraid he tells he women who have worshiped him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Afraid of what? The context here indicates that perhaps the women were afraid the disciples would not believe them. Fear threatened to silence them. This is why Jesus came, to encourage them and to take their fear away. And not just their fear of not being believed. But their fear in general. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Death rules through fear, the law rules through fear. And those two rule together. The Law bringing to death. But Jesus has overcome the law, fulfilled it for us. He conquered death and rose from the grave and tells you that you too will also rise from the grave. We have nothing to fear. Not anymore. And what of it if others don’t believe us? What of it if they laugh at us? Let them laugh. For our Lord has risen and the last laugh is his.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-70783491347559820582017-03-19T06:17:00.002-06:002017-03-19T06:17:55.104-06:00Baptism, the Living Water that Wells Up To Eternal Life <div class="MsoNormal">
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. [1] 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. [2] The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”(John 4:5-26 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” And the woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Samaritan woman does not get what Jesus is talking about, or is purposely trying to avoid the matter at hand. Jesus is offering her forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life that comes with faith in him. He talks about it in terms of water, living water. This is what our baptism is, living water the wells up to eternal life. This is what Jesus is talking about with the woman in an enigmatic way. It is what he just finished talking to Nicodemus about. He had just left the Judean country side where he was baptizing, well not him, but his disciples. And now John wants to talk about what this baptism means at the beginning of his gospel, so that everyone will understand its importance for the Christian life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s peculiar to John’s gospel. The Synoptics have Jesus being baptized and then the temptations and then his ministry in Galilee and a person gets the impression that there was nothing else. But John lets us understand that Jesus worked for a time with John the Baptist and was baptizing, well not Jesus but his disciples. So we learn something even from that little throw away line of John, when the disciples do the work of pouring water, or dunking or otherwise applying the water and saying the words, it is not the disciples that are baptizing but Jesus. He is greater than the disciples. They do this at his command. He gets the credit then. It is his baptism. But here it wasn’t quite the same thing as the baptism that Christ would institute after his death and resurrection, but a precursor to it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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John is an odd gospel, he wants to leave a gospel that will clarify things for people to come, fill in the gaps the gnostics of the time were exploiting, the gaps in the life of Jesus that had thus far been written, Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Synoptics. But he isn’t really concerned with chronology. And he is called John the Theologian because his gospel blends his interpretation with the events of Christ’s life. Sometimes it is hard to understand where the words of Jesus have stopped and where the words of John explaining what Jesus meant start and vice versa. He doesn’t merely record events as they happen in order, but pieces the life together to give a presentation of the Christian gospel, the good news the forgiveness of sins, and all that it means. So there is mystery that remains. A person can blend the Synoptics and John’s gospel as to the course of events, but there is always a bit of mystery to doing this. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So when John remembers this discourse with the Samaritan woman, as with Nicodemus, he is realizes that Jesus was talking about this baptism that would come. He does the same thing with the Lord’s Supper from time to time. Though the Lord’s Supper has not yet been instituted, John lets events like the feeding of the five thousand stand in as opportunity to then talk about what the Lord’s Supper is. So Jesus has not yet instituted Christian baptism, and yet there are parallels between what John was doing in the desert, what Christ was doing with him, and what would become of it. Jesus is training his disciples for a ministry to come that will have at its heart, baptism the birth from above that comes with the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, a well that doesn’t run dry, grace that overflows, living water that wells up to eternal life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And here he is offering it to everyone as if it did not matter a bit who they were or what a mess they had made of their lives. And this woman certainly didn’t have it all together, her life was almost as messed up as your pastor’s, and she knows it. Here it is the seventh hour, that would be noon our time. They started counting the hours with the rise of the sun, more or less. The sun is high, and no one is at the well. Women went to the well in the morning, and in the evening to get water. Generally, that was there job. That is when they would all gossip about the goings on in town. Probably, about which one of their husbands was hooking up with this woman now. She seems to have made her way around the village. One can only speculate as to why. We don’t really know the backstory, but she’s been kicked to the curb enough that she doesn’t really care to hear what the other women have to say about her. Feeling used and abused, she comes at noon to avoid the stares, the cold shoulders, the tongue lashings. She’s alone with no one to love her. There’s a man in her life, but he refuses to be her husband. Probably a pay to play sort of scenario, but a woman’s got to eat. It isn’t like there were girl Friday positions open at the local office pool, or employment agency. Women like her without a husband were vulnerable, and men took advantage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Then there is Jesus, true man born of a virgin, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. He stands here before her with nothing but love, love that would win for her the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. He knows who he is talking to. But unlike the other men in her life, he isn’t there to take advantage of her. She doesn’t even know what to do with it. She’s shocked that he is even talking to her. Jews didn’t normally talk to women they didn’t know, and they didn’t talk to Samaritans either. She was both. And then, a man of God? She was used to the Pharisees. These were the men of God. Heads held high they looked down their noses at women like her. But here was a true prophet, who could tell her her whole life. And he talked to her as if she was a human, someone to be loved, someone to be cared for, someone worthy of eternal life. This is the true humanity of Jesus, the humanity that was created in the image of God, to share his love, his knowledge and his grace. It was a humanity so true that the rest of humanity could not abide with it but had to kill it out of jealousy, out of hate, out of evil that inhabits our hearts, sin that can’t see past our own wants and desires. Jesus was a true man, whose manliness would not be measured by the things of this world, those things with which the men of the world even men of God like the Pharisees measure a man’s manliness. It wasn’t in his beard, or his physical fitness, it wasn’t in his ability for sexual conquest, but in his love for humanity that would put all his own selfish desires aside for sinners who knew their sin, and desired forgiveness. To them he gives the living water that wells to eternal life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all Understanding Keep your Hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-82086864884174761082017-03-12T06:05:00.002-06:002017-03-12T06:05:51.816-06:00The Unfathomable Love of God <div class="MsoNormal">
3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus [1] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again [2] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. [3] 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You [4] must be born again.’ 8 The wind [5] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you [6] do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. [7] 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, [9] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:1-17 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In order that the world might be saved through him, his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. This is the unfathomable love of God. That he actually loves this world. Oh, we love it too, don’t we? Except for when we don’t. Our love is so conditional. I loved yesterday. Sunshine, greeting good friends at Bible Study, an afternoon listening to the hum of a chainsaw, and well it was the day after pay day, so the living was easy. Somehow I managed to spend a whole day without the news. It was glorious. Of course it’s when we turn on the news that we begin to see the other side of the world. The side we don’t love. Would be axe murderers in Germany, terrorists all over the place, invasive pat downs at the airports which we suspect don’t do anything for our safety no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel. Rapists, Child abusers, pornography, and protesters looking for something to picket. Yes, it is being confronted with that world, that one begins to wonder how it is God can love this world. Or maybe it is when we start searching our own souls. There is a world of hell packed away down in there, isn’t there? Sins of the past just screaming. I mean this honestly, there are times I search my soul and I hate myself. I can’t imagine how it is God could love such a person. Oh, not the person I present to the world. That selfish person inside of me that can remember two million times where I broke some social rule, blew missed opportunities, flew into unwarranted fits of anger, conned others into degrading acts of depravity all in the name of a good time, broke taboos before I even really understood why they were a taboo. I think of the pain that I must have caused others, second guess parenting decisions, wonder if I have ever made a right decision in my life. Then I begin to wonder. That’s the unfathomable love of God, that he so loved this world, this fallen sinful world full of hate, sin, and ungodly people, that he sent his only begotten son, that the world might be saved through him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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His only begotten Son. As a kid I memorized it that way. Newer translations figure not only do you not know what begotten means, you have also lost your dictionaries. I mean sometimes, it is in the contemplation of Bible translation that I have the hardest time fathoming, comprehending the love of God for this world, and people who are so flippant with his word, and so condescending towards his people that they try to dumb his word down to make it more comprehensible. God himself is beyond comprehension, it stands to reason that perhaps his word should require study. The word they translated only is monogeneis, mono meaning only as in monotone, and geneis being the same word from which we get Genesis, often translated the beginning, but also generate, and generation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Only begotten is an important distinction in my estimation. It specifies in which way Jesus is God’s only Son. This is important because there is another way in which you are his children, his sons, his daughters, and in that manner of speaking Jesus is not God’s only Son, but we might say that Jesus is God’s only natural born son, if there was anything natural about God begetting God from all eternity, outside of time and place, and encompassing all of time and place. There is mystery there beyond all comprehension, but it does have comparison. It is comparison that fathers comprehend when they look at their children. Incredible love, and it does not come close to the love of God the Father for God the Son, and it does not even come close to the love of God for you. God is perfect, holy and without sin. Our love is always tainted with a degree of selfishness. We see this in even the best father/child relationships. It is what causes strain and estrangement in this sinful world. The sins of the fathers are visited to the third and fourth generation of those who hate God. And in our sinful nature that is what we do, we hate God. Every sin ever committed is an act of hate for God. Hate breeds hate, generates hate, begets hate. But love begets love, and God is love so he begot a son who is love. And love overcomes hate, conquers hate, swallows up hate, and begets love within the haters. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So love comes to save, the only begotten Son of God, that he might save the world through him. The perfect love of God taking upon himself all the sin of the world. He most certainly did not come to condemn the world. There isn’t a person who has ever lived in this world that hasn’t understood that it is condemned, that it is broken, that it is not as it should be. It insults even the shadow of divine justice that lives within us. But it was precisely this world and everyone in it that the Father wanted to save when he sent his only begotten son to die for you, that you would believe in him, and believing would not perish but have eternal life. And so that you could believe in him, this is why Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit to baptize us, the whole dialogue that precedes this deals with baptism, being born again, being born from above in water and the Spirit. To believe in Jesus Christ is to be baptized, because it is in baptism that we are buried into Christ’s death and raised again to walk in the newness of life, life that is further sustained, eternal life that is sustained even today in the forgiveness of sins that we receive as the fruit of the cross, the body and blood of the Son of Man raised up for us, that we would live in the love of God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-48474056297644870502017-02-19T06:17:00.000-07:002017-02-19T06:17:08.797-07:00Your Father in Heaven Who is Perfect<div class="MsoNormal">
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, [7] let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Love Your Enemies<o:p></o:p></div>
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43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, [8] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:38-48 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” Jesus started this section saying that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes. Then he talked about what that would look like. It would mean to be like Jesus who in his love for you fulfills the law. It would mean to turn you other cheek when someone strikes you. It would mean to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, as when Jesus cries out from the cross and says “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” It was his prayer for you that in his forgiveness you would be made perfect.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It’s present tense. People think that Jesus is giving them a goal to work towards here. No, he is giving a command that is beyond your ability to fulfil. It’s present tense. Right now you must be perfect. And that’s the thing. If you aren’t perfect you are not going to become perfect. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It echoes our Old Testament lesson about being holy as your Father in heaven is holy. There God speaks about what it means that God is holy, how God’s holiness is shown in this world, and therefore how that holiness is reflected in the life of those he has made holy. In Leviticus he talks about the sojourner and leaving food in the field for them to eat. Caring for those less fortunate than you. It most often did not happen. A person can hear it here in the words of Jesus. You have heard it said, “Love your neighbor but hate your enemies.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, they had heard this said. They had never heard that read, not from scripture. It was the reaction that we men have. We hear God tell us to love our neighbor and we think we are doing pretty good when we do love our neighbor. But we are like my confirmands who think this extends as far as the front steps on the house across the street where your neighbor lives. <o:p></o:p></div>
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People tell me love comes naturally. Jesus talks about this love. We love those who love us. We greet our brothers in the market place. Who doesn’t do that? Sure, there is a shadow of love there, but it isn’t the love of God who causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust, who makes it to rain on the evil and the good. Well, really he just causes the sun to shine, and rain to fall on the unrighteous. From his perspective there is not much difference between any of us, we are all imperfect. None of us reflect the holiness of God. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And Yet, God still loves you. Not because you are perfect, not because you are making so much progress in becoming perfect. No God loves you for the same reason he loves your neighbor, for the same reason he causes the sun to shine on your enemy. Not because they are perfect, or better than you, or any other such thing. No, God loves you, and God loves them for one reason and one reason only. He loves you because he is perfect, because he is holy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So it is that his holiness is reflected not in righteous anger striking out against sin. It does that. God holiness has little tolerance for sin, it is burned in his presence. But that is because sin kills those he loves. Sin kills you. Sin is hate. Hate is sin. This is true even of the hate you have for your enemies those who persecute you. But God’s holiness is shown in love. So it is that while you were still enemies of God, he died for you, to justify the ungodly, that is he died for those who were not perfect, who were not holy, that you would be given life, love and forgiveness in his perfect son who prayed for you from the cross, saying “forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-10850615521709202702017-02-12T05:53:00.003-07:002017-02-12T05:53:57.559-07:00Do not Swear an Oath <div class="MsoNormal">
33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:33-37 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But I say to you.” Jesus peppers this portion of the Sermon on the Mount with this seemingly innocuous phrase, “But I say to you.” It’s not as innocent as it seems. Jesus is making a claim here. He’s commenting on the Law of Moses given by God himself. Only one greater than Moses, that is, only God himself has the right to take the Law of Moses and make it more intense. His listeners would have understood this if we don’t. God’s law, we aren’t to add or subtract. It’s his law, it is perfect. Don’t touch it, it will kill you if you do. But touch it? That’s what we do. We take complete liberty with it in our efforts to come out smelling like roses. Only God has the right to do with his law what we do, and here he comes not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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How often do we do that? I swear to Jerusalem! Ok, that isn’t one of the oaths a person hears all that often. We are more likely to say “I swear to God,” or perhaps, “I swear on my mother’s grave.” And we don’t really think much of it. Perhaps we make a pinky promise. Jews would never swear to God. And if they did they wouldn’t take it near as lightly as people do today. We ascribe more weight to the bodily functions of the bed and bathroom than we do to the name of the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. It’s a societal neurosis that we consider those things to be more sacred, so sacred that their true Saxon names can’t be used in company of the polite. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Jews of Jesus’ day used the word Lord in the place of the name of God given to Moses through the burning bush. That ground was sacred, holy ground, Moses had to remove his sandals before he approached. It was sacred because God was there, and he was in the presence of God. That which God touches is made sacred by his touch, and cleansed by his fire. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But now Jesus seems to go even further than the Law of Moses. Don’t swear by anything that is sacred, not even your own head for it too is sacred and you have no control over it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesus seems to go even further, but what he really does is point up the problem for us. Here the laws upon which Jesus works are the civil codes of Israel. These laws were about limiting and controlling evil within society. Jesus isn’t recommending laws for society. But he is showing us that knowing right from wrong isn’t enough. He is showing that following the law as it is prescribed for society is all well and good if you want to stay out of jail, but really what is wrong with your heart that the law needs to be there in the first place? <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m often told that we are born with love, but we have to learn to hate. It is said in different ways by this world that has a vastly different view of our hearts than that of Jesus who believes all forms of evil come out of the heart. That the evil is naturally there, and at its root is selfishness. I don’t know my experience has been one completely different. It’s not an easy thing to admit. But when I compare my life to the life of love that Christ lived I see a fundamental difference between the love with which he died on the cross for the sins of the world, and sacrificed his life even for those who hated and hate him, and the love for which I might buy roses for Laura on Valentine’s Day, or even the love with which I try to improve the lot of people in my community. Not that there is anything wrong with those sorts of things. But I often find that whatever love I may have for my fellow man it is often rather deficient when it comes to practice. I know I shouldn’t be angry, but I find myself quashing anger in my heart and working overtime to do so when things aren’t going my way. Sound familiar? I find myself thinking if not calling people outright things much worse than fool, it would have been raka in the Aramaic and meant Godless, because only the fool says in his hear there is no God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet not even the atheist is godless. Oh they may not care to recognize God, but they have a God. Their God is your God. Their God is the God who says do not swear by anything sacred whether Jerusalem or your head. Yes, that’s right, your head is sacred, your head is holy, So God considers it and so it is. It is sacred because when you, like the atheist were still enemies of God, still loveless, still selfish and only loving where your own best was concerned, well then this God showed selfless love and died for you, and died for the whole world that no one would be raka, no one a fool but that all would be sanctified by his blood, and no one godless. And in that God let his yes be yes and his no be no, and the oath he swore to Abraham was fulfilled entirely. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-11386558226063162252017-02-05T05:56:00.002-07:002017-02-05T05:56:35.687-07:00That's How He'll Always Be<div class="MsoNormal">
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14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.<o:p></o:p></div>
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17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:13-20 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thankfully for you, your righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. His righteousness exceeds, it far surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. His righteousness does not relax the commandments not does it teach anyone to do the same. Rather his righteousness fulfills the law and the prophets as only the love of God can do. His righteousness fulfills the law with his atoning death for our sins on the cross. It is this love he shares, it is this righteousness he gives in the forgiveness of sins that imparts its saltiness to us. Indeed it is this love that salts us for sacrifice and makes our entire lives a pleasing aroma to the Father in heaven. Lives that are no longer lived for us, but for him because as Christians we live everyday knowing that to live is Christ and to die is gain. So it is that in Christ you are the salt of the earth, and the kingdom of heaven permeates everything you do. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.” It perhaps jars our ears a bit to hear this. The scribes and the Pharisees were such bitter enemies of Jesus Christ it is hard for us to imagine them as righteous, or to see them as so many did in the first century. They were men zealous for the law, careful to make sure that they upheld the law. They fell into every trap known to man, but traps that still catch so many who try to make their righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. They prayed constantly, three times a day at a minimum. They fasted every week. They kept the Sabbath in strict fashion. They never touched anything unclean. They never ate a thing that wasn’t kosher. When Jesus said their righteousness had to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees the poor farming and fishing folk in hearing must have died inside. Oh, they knew the faults of the Pharisees better than anyone. But they also knew their accomplishments. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Most of the people in hearing would have been those that quietly gave up on the pursuit of righteousness and felt they had all they could do to try put food on the table and raise their children to be passably decent human beings and not get sideways of the law, end up crucified outside of town. They were the kind of people described in Tim McGraw’s song “How I’ll always be,” Talking about taking the backseat on Sunday morning after a Saturday having a couple beers with his friends. The kind of people we colloquially call the salt of the earth. It’s just a nice thing to say about someone. They struggled with their temper, When Jesus launches into the rest of the sermon and talks about hating one’s brother, lusting after their neighbor’s wife, not making oaths and loving your enemies. Then they began to understand how far they fell short of the mark, and perhaps even how far short of the mark the Pharisees and Scribes fell short. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The biggest problem is love. How many of us find that lacking? How many of us wonder that if perhaps we had just had a little more we wouldn’t have an ex to cut us to the core? How often do we wish we could actually love our enemies and perhaps even imagine we do as we pray for the conversion of Afghanistan but feel as if our heart has been stabbed with an icicle when that testy customer comes through the door, or the coworker we can’t stand decides to nuke pink salmon in the lunchroom again? Perhaps that Pharisee that is always trying to give you unwanted advice for how to live your life? <o:p></o:p></div>
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See this was the problem of Scribes and Pharisees. I mean it’s a little problematic to throw up your hands and say “that’s how I’ll always be” even if it is more or less true. Though always is a long time, and the Holy Spirit is on your side. It’s even more problematic to go the route of the Pharisees, to think that perhaps you can cut here, fudge there and emphasize this and that. Don’t erase the jot and tittle, just move them around a bit to suit yourself and think you have accomplished God’s law. Then pass by on the other side when life has bludgeoned your neighbor and left him crying for water on the side of the road. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Then perhaps we realize how lucky we are to have Christ whose righteousness far exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. He didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets. He didn’t remove a jot or a tittle from the Old Testament, but he fulfilled it all in love. In love he came and died for you who were enemies of God. In love he saved you from the law whose jot and tittles were enough to kill and shut you out of the kingdom of God like so many foolish virgins pounding at the door. And even now it is with this love he salts you in baptism. It is with this love he never tires of sharing the forgiveness of sins because that is how he’ll always be. And with that love he lives for you and in you and through you in everything you do, the salt of the earth just trying to get by. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the Peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8261814012053869943.post-28260604652460903002017-01-22T15:07:00.002-07:002017-01-22T15:07:18.342-07:00Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom <div class="MsoNormal">
12 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: <o:p></o:p></div>
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15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,<o:p></o:p></div>
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the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—<o:p></o:p></div>
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16 the people dwelling in darkness<o:p></o:p></div>
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have seen a great light,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,<o:p></o:p></div>
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on them a light has dawned.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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18 While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. 23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Matthew 4:12-25 (ESV)<o:p></o:p></div>
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And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What Matthew is doing here in this last little bit of Matthew chapter four is summarizing all that is about to follow. It’s a rather common thing to do in storytelling. What will follow in this gospel are records of how Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom, say for instance in the Sermon on the Mount that follows immediately in chapter five, and stories of how he healed various sick and possessed people, like the leper or the centurions servant in chapter 8. The gospel of the kingdom and the healing of the sick went together. It was for these reasons he came and it was for these reason that he chose disciples to follow and learn from him, so that through them he could continue to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom through his church. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The gospel of the kingdom, It translates the good news of the kingdom. And the good news of the kingdom was the news that the kingdom was at hand. It was joyous news. People had waited for this kingdom to come and now it was here, but where? The people couldn’t quite see it, even though it was right in front of their eyes. They often missed it, even as we often miss it. For sure in manifested itself in the healing of the sick, the lame the possessed and the insane. But somehow that wasn’t quite what they were expecting of the kingdom. So no matter how nice they might have thought it was to have their loved one’s healed they still wanted to see the kingdom. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The kingdom was embodied, the kingdom is embodied in her king, Jesus Christ our Lord. His kingdom is found wherever he is found. Where he is found he reigns, and where he reigns his subjects live in freedom from sin death and the devil, because he does not reign through the law but in love that fulfills the law, and in the forgiveness of sins the gospel itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He reigns in love. He doesn’t care to cajole, harangue or threaten his subjects. He knows who they are. He knows their infirmities, and he knows their weakness. He knows the only cure is the forgiveness of sins, and so his love for us leads him to the cross that our sins can be forgiven and we can receive his love, and live in his love that living in his love we would love him our king and love those whom he loves those for whom he died. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And this has a healing effect. This is true throughout the history of the church that has always had a special relation with those who cure and heal the sick. It is not coincidence that Luke, the evangelist and disciple of Paul was a physician. That the church is responsible for the development of hospitals and universities where the medial arts have continued to be studied and advanced. <o:p></o:p></div>
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No, it’s not a mere hope for the glories to come but a manifestation of his love in this world, in this world where Jesus Christ came to show his love in his death and bring hope with his resurrection. It’s this love of Jesus that creates his church, this love of Jesus overcomes our weakness and washes it away in Holy Baptism. It is this love he shares with you when he gives you his body and his blood in the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of sins. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bror Ericksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06913133289813136695noreply@blogger.com0