Sermon for Epiphany 1C, January 10, 2016

Text: Luke 3:15-22

            Beloved in Christ, about a month ago we heard about John baptizing in the wilderness and calling people to repentance. He did so because He was trying to renew God’s people, especially since Christ was coming. But what John was doing was something that has been going on since the dawn of time and continues to this very day: he was calling God’s people to renewal because they had gone astray.

            You see, all humanity is by nature sinful. We have all rebelled against God. We all have at least part of us that would like to continue to do so. The heathen may have nothing but disgust for God or may disregard Him altogether, but even God’s people—people who have been taught about Him and have been called to faith in Him—still struggle with a side of their nature that wants to defy and disobey Him. To make matters worse, we have our ups and downs. Sometimes we are enthusiastic about God and all that He has done for us. Other times we are downright slovenly in our prayers, cold in our love, and sluggish in our works. This is one reason that we have several different seasons in the church year that call us out of our spiritual slumber and invite us to renew our faith.

            But sometimes there is a bigger cycle at work than merely having the spiritual blahs for a month or two. Sometimes God’s people backslide so much that they are indistinguishable from the heathen who do not fear God at all. If you read Old Testament history, you see that God’s people may start off being fervent for the Lord, but then they begin to neglect Him more and more until finally a generation arises that is nominally called God’s people but doesn’t really know Him. That is a disastrous situation. When the heathen believe and behave like heathen, it doesn’t blaspheme God’s name, but when Christians believe and behave like heathen, it dishonors Him and distorts Christian witness. The heathen then have no reason to reconsider the Christian faith, but remain in their hardened unbelief and unrepentance.

            That is why God has sent chosen individuals to call His people to be renewed in their faith. He sent the judges early on in Israel’s history every time that the Israelites lapsed into idolatry and then suffered as a consequence. Later he sent prophets. And then going into the New Testament age (our age) there have always been pastors who have seen the church languishing in ignorance and wickedness and called people to know the Lord once again. But not every person who has called the church to renewal has done so in a God-pleasing manner. Even some of the judges in the biblical days were not entirely faithful to God and did as much damage as they did good. And if you look at the history of the Christian church after the time of the apostles you will see that there were many would-be reformers who actually hurt the church’s renewal rather than helped it.

            John the Baptist, however, was not such an individual. And it might help us to consider why he was the greatest individual ever used by God to renew His people. That is all the more remarkable because there were plenty of people in his day who saw that the children of Israel were languishing and needed to be brought back to God. But none of their efforts made a difference.

            There were the Sadducees, who were mainly priests in the temple. They thought that by returning to the purest rituals they would ensure that Israel would be holy. Now it is true that we should pay attention to how we worship. God is holy, and He must be worshipped “in the splendor of holiness.” Worship should not be haphazard or based on what pleases us. But the Sadducees had no living faith in the LORD God. They rejected most of the Old Testament and denied the resurrection of the dead and other basic tenets. Now there is nothing better than when worship is done reverently and attentively because the pastor and people alike long to hear God’s Word and believe every last syllable of it. But there is nothing worse than when worship is done reverently, but merely covers the rank unbelief in the hearts of worshippers. So, liturgical renewal without a renewal in hearing God’s Word is pointless and even harmful.

            Then there were the Pharisees, who stressed ethical reform. They worked hard on getting the average person to hew closely to all the regulations found in Moses’s law, as well as in the traditions they had come up with over time. Similarly, we today have moral reformers, who believe that the best thing Christians can do is to change society or at least to get the church to obey their rules. Now it is true that when people delight in the Lord God again, they will be eager to do good works that please Him. But first comes the renewal and then the good works. Furthermore, these are not self-important good works, actions that we choose, but are rather the good works that are solidly based on God’s command.

            There were still others calling for renewal in John’s day. The Zealots stirred up revolution against the Roman Empire. They thought that violence was the only way by which God’s kingdom would come. And there were the Essenes who turned their backs on everyone and retreated to the wilderness where they didn’t have to interact with anyone. John didn’t choose any of those ways of calling people to renewal, either.

            So what did he do? He pointed people to Christ. He baptized because Christ was around the corner. He called people to come back to God because God had already come back to His people by taking on our flesh and blood and being one of us. He baptized because forgiveness of sins could truly be offered since the sacrifice for our sins would soon be made. But when people got excited about John’s ministry, he told them not to. It wasn’t about him, but about the Christ who would come soon.

            God’s people are renewed when they are pointed not back to themselves and their spiritual efforts nor to the preachers who call for renewal but to the LORD God, especially to Jesus Christ, God in human flesh. You see, we human being cannot renew ourselves but God has to do it for us. And that is why our eyes have to be turned to Him. In the New Testament era genuine renewal has always been connected with Christian baptism. When the church has been renewed, those who long despised baptism are brought to its waters, where they find the full and free salvation that God placed there. Meanwhile, those who had been baptized long ago embrace fully the gift that God had planted in their baptism. They take seriously as never before how baptism has connected them with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

            You see, one of the most spiritual acts that ever occurred in human history was when Christ was baptized, as is described in today’s Gospel. Sure, He had previously united His divine nature with ours when He was conceived by the Virgin Mary and born in Bethlehem. That indicated the direction He was likely to go. But lest there be any doubt, He submitted Himself to baptism so that He could take on mankind’s sin and free humanity from its just condemnation. You see, He could have merely chosen to live His own righteous life as a perfect human being, showing mankind from a distance how it ought to be done. But instead He chose to get close to us sinners. He entered the baptismal waters made filthy by all our sins and He claimed those sins as His own, even though He would never do anything like them throughout His entire life.

            It is Christ’s baptism that gives power to ours. We could have every drop of the swollen Mississippi pass over us, and it would do nothing to make us holy. But even a few ounces of water can bring us eternal life and salvation if they are grounded in Christ Jesus and combined with His Word. Baptism renews us because Christ put that power in baptism. And it continues to renew us, for God does not stop the work He has begun.

            We also see that our Lord prayed as He was baptized. Now we know that we ought to pray too, but we never seem to pray as much as we ought. Our life would be changed if we talked as much to God about our troubles and hopes and outlook on life as we do with other people—and if we were willing to listen to His words on those subjects. But we should be encouraged to know that Christ prays for us more fervently and more often than we do. When I bring a particular problem before God, I should know that Christ has been praying about it for a lot longer than I have and that He understands dimensions of that problem that I cannot even see. I say this not to excuse our laziness in prayer or to tell you to forget about praying, but rather to encourage you all the more to renew your fervency in prayer, for you see that Christ is already doing the hardest work in prayer.

            Finally, we see in our Lord’s baptism that the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and the Father proclaimed that He was pleased with Jesus and acknowledged Him as His Son. Christ wasn’t setting out on a venture all on His own without the knowledge or approval of His Father. Instead, the Father fully approved His Son taking on the task of redeeming us. By extension, therefore, when He approved of His Son’s baptism, He was approving of the sort of people that He was hanging out with—namely, you and me.

            Now when we understand that God is the one at work bringing us back to Him, true renewal takes place. We no longer just go through the motions of piety. We no longer let legalism take the place of a living faith. Instead, we acknowledge that we are sinners and that we have only one hope, our Savior Jesus Christ. We cling to Him and to His teachings. And that brings about a real change inside of us, and that in turn leads others to consider Christianity even though they had sworn it off for good. May God grant that His church would be renewed in this way and that the heathen would also come to faith! In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Memorial Day Weekend, May 23, 2015 (Given at Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois)

Readings: Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Matthew12:38-41

            Beloved in Christ, at the dawn of creation, the world was a lifeless place. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.” All that one could see—if one could cut through the darkness—was the deep, or more accurately, its surface. What was churning in its lifeless waters, no one knew. But already at this point we are given hope, for we are told that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” We are not surprised to see this untamed world give way to God’s good order, as He calls out light from darkness, the heavens from the world below, and dry ground from the midst of the sea. Far from being a lifeless place, the sea becomes a home for “the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm.” And as with the rest of His creation, “God saw” it, “and behold, it was very good.”

            But it is difficult to believe in the goodness of creation, for we live after the fall into sin. Everything has been tainted with sin. The good world is now designed for futility and marred with destruction. And so for the rest of the Scriptures the sea is almost always not a good place to be. Its waves drown sailors and sink boats. Its creatures—leviathan and behemoth—frighten landlubbers. It is wild, unpredictable, and stormy. In the Revelation it is a sea that separates the Apostle John from God, and it is out of the sea that the beast with ten horns and seven heads arises.

            One of my predecessors would have understood that imagery quite well. You know me as the pastor at First Bethlehem Lutheran Church, but for eighteen years I also served as vacancy pastor at Grace Lutheran Church at 28^th and Karlov in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. In July of 1915 my predecessor there, Pastor H. Boester, conducted funerals for twenty-six of his parishioners, many of them buried in this cemetery. They were all employees of Western Electric or their family members, and they had all boarded the Eastland on the fateful day of July 24, 1915. The Chicago River was not a rough body of water, but it was sufficient to drown over 1,000 people that day.

            But the Eastland pales in comparison to the greatest maritime disaster of all ages, the Flood. For it is in the Flood that we first see just how dire a verdict stands against humanity. Yes, before then we had been exiled from Eden and the ground had been cursed. We had been told that we are mortal, that we are dust and to dust we shall return. But how we laughed. What were a few weeds amid a still fertile earth? What was death when we could count on living to 800 or 900 years? And so we grew more insolent. Brother murdered brother, and then each generation grew more violent, more itching for a fight. Even the godly were drawn by worldly pleasures and turned away from God. Noah warned us for over a century, but we could not—we would not—hear. At last, God sent a disaster like none other before or afterwards. He unleashed a wave of death and destruction. For once humanity saw what it deserved, as millions of people died, drowned in the waters. Ever since then we’ve taken death more seriously. We may still deny it. We may still pretend that it won’t come for us. But the Flood taught us to fear death and take it seriously. More than that, it taught us to take God and His wrath against sin seriously.

            The torrents of death will sweep over us one day, for we have sinned against God. We can struggle against the tide and perhaps succeed for a while, but eventually we will be inundated by the flood called death. God’s judgment still stands, and it crashes upon each successive generation of humanity like wave after wave falling on the breakers. Death is wild and savage and hostile to mankind—as untamed as the raging sea. And that is appropriate, for our sin is wild and savage—as untamed as the raging sea.

            But as our Scripture readings today remind us, God intends to calm the raging sea. It began as soon as the Flood was over. Now that humanity had had its first taste of raw death and all the elements of the universe arrayed against mankind, God brokered a peace. He established a covenant between Himself and all creatures, including us. It wasn’t that humanity had all of a sudden gotten religion and had started shaping up. Humanity would soon turn back to its old vices of getting drunk, tyrannically oppressing others, and building towers to drag God out of the heavens. No, it wasn’t that humanity had improved, but rather that God wanted to show mercy. And so He promised that He would no longer deal with mankind through the strict judgment of the Flood. He would no longer use the raging sea to all but wipe out humanity. Instead, He placed a rainbow in the sky so that we would understand that His wrath would end.

            But how? We turn to Peter, who explains. Christ entered the torrents of death that should have engulfed us. He was drowned with the guilt of our sins as He bore them on the cross. But He emerged from the waters of death victorious and unscathed. First, He proclaimed His victory to those who had resisted Noah. He upbraided them for their unbelief, for their refusal to trust in the one proclaimed by Noah and to repent and to receive the forgiveness of sins. And then He rose gloriously from the dead, so that He could give forgiveness and eternal life to all who hear His Word and believe it.

            But how do we receive this salvation? Through the waters of baptism. God saved Noah from the wicked generation that surrounded him by placing Noah in an ark that was buffeted by water from all directions. But God kept Noah and his family alive in that ark, while the world of unbelief drowned and died. In the same way God has placed us in the waters of holy baptism where water comes upon us from all directions. Yet God keeps us alive—indeed, makes us fully alive for the first time—while our old sinful self drowns and dies.

            We see that, both in Noah’s case and in ours, the very same flood that should overwhelm us and drown us instead saves us and brings us life. That is because both Noah and we are connected with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Because He has overcome death, death no longer has mastery over us.

Christ Walks on the Water
Norwegian Sailors' Mission, San Francisco, CA
The inscription reads, "Be of good courage. It is I. Fear not."

            And so we look at death from a new perspective, as our Lord teaches us to do in our reading from Matthew. Our Lord calls to mind what had happened to Jonah. Jonah had disobeyed God. He had run from God by going west over the sea, when he should have gone east over dry ground. In the end, though, he found himself surrounded by death as well as bringing death upon the sailors and his fellow passengers. No one wanted to die. They bailed water. They dumped cargo. But in the end it was no use. Jonah threw himself overboard into certain death and the sea became calm. He was swallowed by a great fish and thus prevented from dying. For three days he was in the belly of the fish, until he was spit up on dry land.

            So it was with our Lord. Unlike Jonah, He was completely obedient to His Father, but it still landed Him surrounded by death. In fact, His obedience drove Him into death. Indeed, death threated all the people of the world, for we were His fellow passengers and sailors. None of us wanted to die. We took our vitamins. We exercised. We saw the doctor. But in the end it was no use. And so our Lord threw Himself overboard into certain death—and the raging sea of death became calm. Our Lord was in the belly of the grave for three days, until at last He rose from the dead.

            The sea of death still rages, but its days are numbered, now that Christ has calmed it by His own death and resurrection. We still must pass through many waters, but Christ’s love is fiercer than death. When we die, we discover that death no longer rages, but we are instead kept safe in the arms of Christ, more secure than Jonah was when he was in the belly of the great fish. And then one day we will rise. We will see the new heavens and the new earth. And we will look around for the sea that raged throughout our lifetime, but we will not find it. Gone will be the sea that separated the Apostle John (and us) from God. Gone will be the sea that had produced the great beast opposed to God. Instead there will only be the gentle “river of the water of life.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord, January 11, 2015

            Romans 6:1-11: What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

            For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

            Beloved in Christ, everyone is looking for fifteen minutes of fame. We’ve been promised as much. We’ve been told that it is our only hope and consolation in a world crowded with billions of people: the chance of someone seeing us on TV and being recognized as someone special while for the rest of the time we live anonymous, forgettable lives. And yet we know that we may not get fifteen minutes. It may be more like fifteen seconds. We fear that those fifteen seconds will show us clad in our pajamas and with disheveled hair as we scratch our stomach and say to the camera, “Well, I told the officer that I saw someone running through the alley who matched the description.”

            How awful it is to live and die without our lives ever mattering! And so we turn to all sorts of things to prove that we really do matter and that we have value. Think of how much we identify with a particular job or sports team or TV show or author or video game. We want to be known as the number one Doctor Who fan or the person who can rattle off all the statistics for our football team. Or we try to be the wittiest person on Facebook. We try to have some quirk that makes us special and unique. But we soon discover that someone else is quirkier than we are. You’ve collected all the baseball cards of every player for the Cubs or White Sox for the past fifty years, but you discover that someone else has done that and collected all the player’s autographs as well.

            We want to be someone special, but it is not easy. And that is why so often we turn to sin. Every temptation tells us, “Here is a way to make yourself feel loved and special.” Temptation says, “Use God’s name to curse; it will make you feel more important than the chumps who believe in keeping it holy. Or mouth off to people in authority, for that will make you feel all grown up and in control. Or have that little fling because that will make you feel loved for a while. Lie, steal, and cheat your way to the top, because success is the only thing that counts and it doesn’t matter how you come by it.” Now temptation never delivers on its promises, which makes us feel worse than before. We have lost our dignity or broken our heart or alienated others by our behavior. And so sin doesn’t give us the happiness it has promised, but leaves us more miserable than before.

            But how can our lives matter? What if we were part of something so much greater than ourselves? Think of all the people who lived through the Great Depression and served in World War II. They were called “the Greatest Generation” and are held in awe by us who followed. We honor even the lowliest grunt in the army or navy because they were part of something awesome. But, of course, we do not live in such times. (Thank God we don’t have to risk life and limb the way they did!) But it would have been nice to have been part of a momentous event in world history, so as to say, “I was there. I participated in it.”

            Well, we can say that. You see, we have been united with Christ and His baptism, death, burial, and resurrection. We have taken part in the most pivotal events of world history. We are no mere bystanders, but by virtue of our baptism and Christ’s baptism we have died, been buried, and been raised by God along with Christ. You don’t have to become the number one fan of one thing or another to matter. You have been united with the Lord of the universe, the almighty Son of God. The death He died to sin we died too. The resurrection He experienced we experienced too.

            It all began because Christ was baptized. Yes, there had been plenty of people baptized before our Lord was. But they were all baptized so that God could work repentance in them and forgive their sins. John’s baptism was all in anticipation of what Christ would do. John’s baptism meant nothing in itself. Only because Christ would come with the power of the Holy Spirit would any baptism have any meaning.

            And Christ showed that He was the one for whom John was looking. As He left the water, the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove, showing that He had been anointed by Almighty God. And then God the Father spoke, “You are my beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.” Together the testimony of the Father and the Holy Spirit showed that Jesus was not being baptized for the same reason other people were. No, Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus entirely pleased His Father. There were no sins for which He needed forgiveness. Instead He had a holy mission now from His Father.

            Everyone previously had been baptized in the hope that someone like Jesus would come. And everyone baptized thereafter has been baptized because He has come. But if Christ was holy, why did He bother getting baptized? Everybody else in world history who has been baptized has done so in the hopes of receiving the forgiveness of sins. But why should a sinless Savior be baptized? The answer is that Christ was marking Himself as our Savior. We are baptized because we need a Savior. Christ was baptized because He is our Savior and wants to take on our burden. In baptism we wash our sins into the water. Our Lord then steps into the waters made filthy by our sin and takes that sludge upon Himself. And then Christ pours forth His righteousness into the waters, making them a holy washing. And we enter the waters of baptism and find His holiness washing onto us.

            But Christ’s baptism was not just a simple action with no greater consequences. The moment He stepped into the Jordan River He was marked for death. Up until that point He had been true God and true Man and He had lived a righteous life. All of that was good, but it didn’t benefit us in any way. He was living as a good God ought to do, but it doesn’t help us that God is righteous if we are not. If anything, it drives home all the more how guilty and culpable we are before Him. There is an unbridgeable chasm between the righteous God and us horrible sinners. But in baptism Christ identified with us. In effect He said that He was signing up for man’s responsibility, even if it meant death.

            Thus, Christ’s baptism guaranteed His death and the glorious resurrection that followed. But here is a twist. Because our baptism is connected with Christ’s baptism, it also means death to us followed by a resurrection. That is the point that Paul makes in today’s epistle. Some people think that we are baptized, forgiven, and that’s that. We can go back to living like utter pigs. But Paul says that that is impossible. We have been baptized. We have died to sin, just as Christ died bearing the guilt of our sin. We have come alive to righteousness, just as Christ rose from the dead to experience a glorious return to life. We cannot live in the old ways or refuse to live in the new ones. Otherwise we would be denying the most important thing that happened to us—our fifteen seconds that actually turned into a lifetime of meaning.

            Let me be careful here. I do not want to give a false impression. There are two errors we can make when we discuss life after baptism. One error is to say that it changes nothing. That is the error that Paul is refuting here. But another error is to say that it changes us so drastically that we can never sin again but instead live completely perfect lives. If that were the case, there would have been no reason for Paul to admonish the Romans not to yield their bodies to sin. Paul understands that sin is a real live possibility for us Christians, even after our baptism. In fact, temptation may start to work overtime. But, of course, Paul is talking here more to people who don’t even try to avoid sin. He reminds them that there is something substantial that has taken place. We have undergone a death-and-life experience and are never the same. Yes, we will reach perfection only when we die and are raised on the Last Day. But still we have begun to live a new life because we have died with Christ and risen with Him.

            It is interesting that both these errors encourage people to live their lives on autopilot. Those who say baptism changes nothing say that there is nothing that needs to change. Those who say baptism changes them into perfect people say that there is no need to take the call of the Christian life seriously since they believe that they’re already doing it automatically. And that is why Christians have to hear the Law of God again and again. We have to be reminded of what is right and what is wrong because we are prone to get lazy and forget such things over time. Yes, we even have to be rebuked by the Law because we are just as apt to choose evil as good. And so we dare not think that we have reached perfection or soon will.

            At the same time, though, we need to take the gospel promises of baptism even more seriously. Here is real forgiveness and new life. Here we have been united with Christ so much so that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” We will fail many times in many ways as we try to follow Christ, but God will forgive us our sins, for we have been baptized into Christ and given His forgiveness.

            But what does this mean for our daily lives? First, we can face life boldly, for we are in Christ. We are not haunted by our failures or our sins. We are righteous before God. What confidence and joy that thought gives! Moreover, we are part of history, indeed the biggest event of history. That means we have more than just fifteen seconds or fifteen minutes or even fifteen years allotted to us that really count. No, our whole being counts, for we have been united with Christ. Our life-story is part of the greatest story ever told, the heart of world history. And so my prayer, beloved in Christ, is that you will enjoy this gift of salvation that imparts meaning to your life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.