Making Room

Mark 1:21-28

(Other Readings Appointed: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13)

In 1971, a novel by the author William Peter Blatty was published titled The Exorcist.  Although a work of fiction, and also which was in 1973 turned into a feature film, the events portrayed were stated to be “based on real events.”  And those who know the “legend and lore” of our own Mount Rainier community, also know that these real events are reported to have begun not too far from us, and as some have said, involved the first Pastor of our congregation.  Both accounts, real and fictional, dealt with the demonic possession of a young person who was finally released from that possession through the prayers and rituals of exorcism conducted by Roman Catholic Priests.

Nowadays, mention the word “exorcism”, and many will let their minds drift to the images that they may have seen in The Exorcist or in many of the other recent films which have made exorcism a main part of their plot.  Because of these films, exorcism has been seen more as “the stuff of horror movies” than something real.  Even if one still believes in the existence of evil, and maybe even of “evil beings”, the idea of demonic possession is still something that seems to be more easily doubtable, mainly because there are just many more “logical explanations” to these “strange occurrences”, especially thanks to the explanations given to us by science.

So, when we hear in today’s Gospel of an exorcism performed by our Blessed Lord, the same sort of questioning comes up.  Sure, we believe in evil, but could people really be possessed by Satan?  Could these people just be sort of “mental”?  Maybe they didn’t need Jesus; they needed a psychiatrist.

Well, in response to this, we have to start with remembering something very important.  The Scriptures were written for our learning, and so we should rightly be able to take and learn from the Scriptures that which will be useful for us in our own day and time.  But, what we cannot do is apply what we know through our own “modern knowledge” and apply it to the time of the Scriptures.  There were no “psychiatric couches” in first century Galilee.  If people said, “You have a demon”, they believed it.  So, a healer was needed; someone who could get the demon to leave through the power of God’s Word and prayer—what we call exorcism.  And until such time that the possessed person could be “cured”, they lived outside of their communities basically as “spiritual lepers”, cut off from family and other human contact.

Imagine then the surprise of the people of Capernaum when all of a sudden a man possessed by an unclean spirit begins to speak with Jesus as He was teaching in the synagogue.  Shock, horror, and fear probably struck them all as the demon cried at Jesus through the mouth of this possessed man: “What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have You come to destroy us?  I know who You are—the Holy One of God.”  And before this demon could say another word, Jesus rebuked it: “Be silent and come out of him!”  And so it was.  And all who saw it could only marvel at what they had seen: “What is this?  A new teaching with authority!  He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

Now, fast forward to our moment here and now.  We hear this account and we, with all that we know about science and medicine, we listen to these words and we pretty much are only left with the thought, “Well, that’s nice that Jesus did that, but it probably wasn’t something real.”  And this brings us to what I believe is a problem that we have in our day—the unbelief we have in evil.  Sure, we know that there is evil in the world and that there are people that we have no problem with labeling as being evil, but evil is seen more and more as just some “impersonal force”, something that just moves some people to do “really bad things”.

Yet, what the Scriptures wish to lead us to see is that not only is evil something which exists and is real, there is also someone who is behind it all—this someone which Scripture names as Satan, the devil, the evil one, the father of lies, and the list goes on.  And this evil one is not some cartoonish character on whom we simply place the blame on for the wrong things we do by saying, “The devil made me do it”.  No, this evil one is a powerful being who in his own rebellion against God desires that all humanity should also join him in rebelling against their Creator.

And when Satan leads people away from God, leading them to lives of disobedience against God’s commandments, he thinks himself to be the “true” prince of this world.  The devil thinks that the world is his for the taking, believing that God’s creatures will follow him and receive from him all of the pleasures of the flesh that he says “his world” has to offer.  And to those who heed Satan’s word and believe that what he says is true, they follow him and their own sinful flesh gladly and willingly.  Satan rejoices in this and succeeds greatly until something happens: the Son of God shows up.

You see, Satan has one problem.  The father of lies can reign supreme over anyone or anything that will believe his lies as the truth.  But when the One who is the Truth arrives, Satan must retreat because his lies are seen for what they are: lies.  This is why that demon trembled in that Capernaum synagogue that day.  The demon recognized who Jesus was and knew that not only that he had to leave the presence of the Holy One of God, but that also his own destruction was near.  No longer could this demon have a “home” within this person who was created not to be the devil’s own, but to be God’s own.

When God comes on to the scene of a person whose life is bound and captive to Satan’s lies, He comes really to repossess the life of the possessed.  This can be seen in the exorcism that is a part of our Rite of Holy Baptism.  Yes, you heard right, even Lutherans “do exorcisms”.  Maybe you remember these words which were once spoken over you or over others you have seen whose lives were claimed for God: “Depart, O unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.  Receive the sign of the Holy Cross both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ, the Crucified.”  With these words, and more importantly with the Word of God in the water of Holy Baptism, God powerfully claims the life of those whom He calls to be His own, telling Satan quite literally, “Get the hell out of here”, and a life is cleansed and renewed to live for God both now and forever.

In all of this, as God claims people soul by precious soul, God is in the world making room for His kingdom.  With every dearly loved child of His creating made to be the cleansed child of His redeeming, Satan’s hold on not only the people of the world, but also on the world itself, is broken.  Satan and his lies are seen for what they are, and God is once more seen for what He is: the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Satan is dethroned from his own self-created grandeur, and God is enthroned as the Lord of all.  And as people worship, honor, adore, and serve the One who alone is the true King of the world, even Satan himself must acknowledge the One to whom even he must submit and who he knows will ultimately be his undoing and destruction.

What we see our Lord Jesus doing in the Gospel as He shows His power over the forces of evil is given to us so that we might see that evil is indeed real and exists personally.  And we learn that because of Jesus and His victory over these powers through His death and resurrection the world can be set free from Satan’s bondage and be given the new and abundant life that God wishes and grants to all those who trust and turn to Him in faith.  Even now, God is on the move, driving the evil one and his forces further and further out of this world as He continues to win His children back soul by soul.  As the freeing message of the Good News of Jesus is proclaimed, as the cleansing waters of Baptism are poured onto reclaimed souls, as the words of forgiveness and absolution are spoken to wounded souls, as the Body and Blood of Christ feeds faithful souls, and as the body of Christ—the Church—moves out into the world, God is making room, forcing the powers of the evil one to retreat until that day when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever”.  As we wait for that day, we work with our God, making room for His kingdom, throwing our prayers and our witness against the darkness, shattering it by shining the bright light of Christ into the world, claiming everyone and everything for the One in and through whom we “live, move, and have our being”—our Creating, Redeeming, and Sanctifying God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen!

A Fish Story

Jonah 3:1-5, 10 and Mark 1:14-20

(Other Reading Appointed: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31)

I believe many of us know of or have heard “Fisherman’s Tales”.  And there quite possibly have been a few people who have even told some themselves.  But we all know what these stories are all about.  We hear of “the one that got away”.  Or, there’s the ever popular one where a 10 ounce perch miraculously becomes a 10 pound bass without any pictures or witnesses to corroborate the story.  Such tales seem to be popular, and are possibly only rivaled by tales of sighting Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.

The Old Testament account of Jonah is sometimes seen in a similar light as many “Fisherman’s Tales”.  The story sounds, if you pardon the pun, “too fishy”.  “Fish catches man” sounds every bit as crazy of a story as “man bites dog”, doesn’t it?  So, to many in their minds, this just can’t or couldn’t of happened.  So, it’s all just easy to dismiss as being “just another ‘tall tale’”.  Yet, before one simply dismisses this account, simply chalking it all up to someone’s creative imagination, one needs to do something else: try to listen to what this Word wants us to learn about God and what He is doing for and with the people He created and loves.

Two words can best summarize what God wants us to come to know about Him and His relationship with us through the story of Jonah: repentance and grace.  Repentance is seen clearly in God’s treatment of Jonah: sending the great fish to “convince” Jonah of his error in running away, leading Jonah to repent and to go about doing the work that God had called him to do.  And grace is seen clearly in God’s mercy to the people of Nineveh who believe the message of Jonah and turn from their sins by turning to the Lord in repentance.

What we find in the account of Jonah is the very heart of the message that God has always sent to the people He desires to call to be His very own.  And this is the same message that meets us as we see Jesus begin His public ministry.  In today’s Gospel, we hear the content of Jesus’ preaching: “The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe the Gospel.”  These words announce what has always been God’s message to His people, once spoken by the prophets, but now directly from God through the Son of God.  It is the very same call made to people to come and receive the grace and mercy of a loving God who desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they turn from their sin and live.

Throughout the Scriptures, we see clearly that the main theme is God’s constant seeking out the people He calls His own.  From the first call of “Adam, where are you?”, to the calls of the prophets to the people of Israel, and finally in the appearance of God’s own Son, God has always been “fishing”: casting the net of His love into the sea of the peoples of the world, looking to catch those who would believe in Him and receive the message of His great love for them displayed beautifully in the power of His grace, mercy, and love.

All of this is wonderfully true, and we thank our God that it is true.  But, where do we fit into all of this?  We know that the message of repentance and grace spoken by the prophets and our Blessed Lord Himself is also a message that we too have heard and believed through the proclamation of God’s Word to us in our own day.  We have believed in and on this message and hold to it as our life and our hope.  But is there more?  Is God looking for more from us because of this message?

To answer this, we need to look no farther than the lives of the people we meet in today’s Scriptures.  Jonah was called by God to be a part of His people Israel and then called to be a prophet to the people God chose to send him to.  But Jonah ran away because he did not want to do as the Lord asked, so God had to catch Jonah once more, bring him into seeing things God’s way, and then putting him to work for the purposes that God intended.

As Jesus began His ministry, He sought out people who would help Him in delivering that message and helping it spread.  So, going down to the lakeshore, He calls out to a group of fishermen: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”.  And they dropped their nets, their work, and their livelihood to follow this Galilean Preacher.  In many ways, we really don’t know why they did this.  We don’t know if somehow these four men had heard about Jesus or maybe had a chance to listen to His preaching.  We don’t know if they were somehow just simply drawn to the charisma of this Man who called to them to follow Him.  But somehow, these men were caught by this One who they saw speaking to them and they followed.

And this then is the lesson that we learn about what God seeks to do through the people He calls His own.  God goes out fishing for the people whom He created and who He seeks to save.  And having been caught in the net of His great grace and love, each of us who believes in Him know of the wonderful life that we are able to live in because of the forgiveness of sins that we have been given through our turning to Him by faith in His Son, Jesus.  We are able to rejoice daily in the knowledge that we are God’s own forever and that, even now, we enjoy the great gift of life in and with our Father, looking forward to the day when we will live with Him in His very presence for all eternity.

So, having been caught by God and His love, our God releases us to go out into the world and to be the messengers of His love and grace to those whom He still desires to catch as well.  God catches people so that He can use them to catch other people, and so the kingdom of God grows.  God could still send prophets to go out and proclaim a message similar to Jonah’s, telling them that the time is short so repent.  It could work.  Yet, what God chooses to do through you and me is this.  We get to have the wonderful privilege to live out our lives day by day, showing to people in the living of our lives Who it is we belong to.  And, when we have the chance, we can also speak the Word of Life to them, bringing that same message which saved us and changed our lives.  Through this, God plants a seed which hopefully will, amazingly and quietly, bring another soul into the net of His love.

As we look at the great love story of God’s continual seeking out of His people seen in the Scriptures and in the stories of our own lives, we come to see it as one big “fish story”—the tale of how God has caught each one of us and will not let us get away, and then of how God turns around and uses us to catch even more and more people so that they too cannot escape the wide net of His love.  But, this is no tale.  This is all real because we know that God is the One who has been and is at work in it, and because we know that God has caused us to be a part of this story.  Thanking God for catching us in the great grasp of His grace and love is only one part of our lives lived in Him.  May we also ask God to grant us the strength to be faithful and true witnesses to the world of that grace which found and caught us so that many more might come to know that same grace and love of God as well.  People of God, having already been caught, let’s go fishing.  God grant it!  Amen!

Just Listen

1 Samuel 3:1-10 & John 1:43-51

(Other Reading Appointed: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20)

There are some people who seem to believe that listening is a lost art.  Now, one might argue that such a statement isn’t true.  We all do a lot of listening.  Hopefully it can be said that many of you are listening right now.  Yet, the statement made which states that listening is a lost art is really trying to make a point.  You see, what many of us call listening should really be called “just hearing”.  And so, one might ask, what’s the difference?  Aren’t we just somehow “splitting hairs” about this?

But stop and think about it a bit.  Yes, listening is hearing.  Yet, not all hearing is listening.  Hearing that is not listening is something like the adult voices in the Peanuts cartoons.  We know that something is being said, because we hear the “waa waa waa waa”, but we have no real idea of what was being said.

And how often do we find ourselves in our day to day living hearing a lot of things, but not really listening to anything?  Yes, we hear a lot of voices and a lot of noise coming at us from every direction, clamoring for our attention.  But what do we listen to?  Sometimes it’s really hard to do that, so many of us simply tune out everything, wishing that we could just find a place to be quiet and not have to deal with it all.  And if we do this, then what we have done is to have stopped listening.

When we don’t listen, we shut ourselves out from the world around us and from everyone around us.  We might still hear things, but we fail to understand them because we take ourselves out of the dialogue that life and living provides us.  Sometimes in order for us to truly understand ourselves, we must first understand others, and this only happens when we take the time to listen to those around us.

Just as it is for our lives in the “real world”, so it is as well in our lives of faith in and with our Loving God.  God also wants us to learn to not only hear Him, but also to listen to Him.  In todays’ Old Testament Reading, we hear the account of God’s call to Samuel to become a Prophet.  Looking at the boy Samuel, we come to see the difference between hearing and listening.  Three times, Samuel heard a voice calling to him, and Samuel did what he would normally do when he heard someone call—he went and sought out Eli who would have normally been the one who would ask for him.  And Eli had to tell Samuel that he was not the one who called for him, until after that third time when Eli realized that it was the Lord who was seeking to speak with the boy.  So Eli wisely tells Samuel, “The next time you hear the voice, don’t just jump up and think about doing what you would ordinarily do.  Instead, hear the voice, and say ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.’”

Samuel needed to learn to listen to the voice of God.  And it’s the same way with us.  In this world filled with competing voices all vying for our attention, it’s really hard to listen to and hear that “still, small voice” of God.  The correction to this problem is rather simple—we just have to listen to His voice.  But, how is this simple?  How do we know His voice?  How do we know the right voice to hear and to listen to?

We know what to do when we recognize where God’s voice is to be heard.  In Samuel’s day, we hear that “the Word of the Lord was rare in those days”.  Thank God that this is not true in our day, for God has given us His Word which still speaks loudly and clearly each time it is read and proclaimed.  Go to the Word of God and there you will find the living and clear voice of God.  His voice still rings out, speaking to us words of love, grace, and life.  And we are able to hear that voice.  So what do we do then?

Well, we must not only hear this voice, but we must also listen to it.  You see, we can hear God speak to us, yet what marks our listening is if we are able to understand what is said to us, take it to heart, and put it into practice in our life and living with God.  If we only hear the voice of God and not truly listen to His voice, we allow ourselves only to hear what we want to hear, believe what we want to believe, and simply ignore all the rest as just being nonsense.  And that is not what listening to God is all about.

An example of this is in today’s Gospel.  Philip hears and listens to Jesus and is so moved by it that he believes what Jesus is teaching.  He is so moved that he also wants others to know of Jesus as well, so Philip goes and finds Nathaniel and lets him know that he has found the One promised by God.  Nathaniel hears this message, but is not willing to listen to it.  He scoffs at Philip for being so dense to believe that a prophet could come from that no good little town of Nazareth.  Yet, through an amazing conversation that he has with this Teacher from Nazareth, Nathaniel changes his mind, ready not only to hear, but also to listen, to what this Man has to say.

What we learn from this is then that it is God Himself who helps us to go from just hearing Him to actually and really listening to Him.  When God opens our ears, our minds, and our hearts to hear Him, it is then that He aids us in listening.  It is God alone who helps us to believe in Him and His Word, for without Him, all that He has to say makes no sense to us.  When God helps us to hear, we are able to truly listen—hearing every word and being led by that Word to believe and trust in the One who speaks that Word and to believe that every promise made to us in this Word is sure, certain, and true.  And having heard and listened to this Word, we open our lives up to the One who speaks to us, letting His Word have its way with us as we live for the One who has spoken to us.

Our God is speaking.  So, what must we do?  Simple—just listen.  Like Samuel, may we be able to say, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears,” and as we hear the voice of God speak to us in and through His Word, we may truly listen to it, taking it to heart for what it truly is: the Words of eternal life.  And so we pray:

Grant, O Lord, that what we hear with our ears, we may say with our lips, believe in our hearts, and practice in our lives; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen!

The Great Reveal

Matthew 2:1-12 and Mark 1:4-11

I was surprised to learn that later this week, the program Extreme Makeover-Home Edition will air its 200^th episode as its final weekly installment.  Now, I must confess that I did not watch this program often.  But when I did, I was always impressed by the wonderful work that was done for the deserving families they built these new homes for.

Those who watched this program know the climax of each episode was the moment that the family returned to see their new home.  With the gathered crowd chanting, “Move that bus!”, the crew’s travel bus was moved to allow the family its first view of their newly built house.  And with shouts, screams, and squeals of joy, this “great reveal” gave each family a glimpse into the new life that awaited them through this gift of new place to live.

Today, as we bring our Christmas celebrations to a close, we celebrate the Epiphany—the manifestation, the making known, the great revealing—of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And in today’s liturgy, because of this year’s calendar, we actually recall the events of two great Epiphanies of our Lord: His Epiphany seen in the visit and adoration of the Magi and His Epiphany seen in His Baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  Both of these important events in the life of our Blessed Redeemer are “Great Reveals” done by God to show all people the new life that God has in store for all who call on His Name and on the Name of His Son as God opens His everlasting kingdom to all believers.

In the coming of the Magi to worship Jesus, we might think from what we hear in the text, and from some of the things that tradition has put into the text, that this revealing wasn’t really all that great.  It doesn’t seem all that grand, for who really saw it?  Tradition thinks that this revelation only came to “three wise men”, so that doesn’t seem much.  If we wanted to include Herod and his advisors to whom the Magi reported their “Star Trek”, that doesn’t widen the revelation circle any wider, especially seeing that Herod didn’t believe a Savior had come, but instead he saw a threat to his power and throne.  So what do we make of this event?  How does it become the great reveal that God seems to make of it?

Yes, from human perceptions and appearances, what happened when the Magi came to the house where they found the Child and His mother seems rather small and insignificant.  But, look at it a little differently—from God’s eternal perspective—and we make an amazing discovery.  The Magi are just the beginning of this great reveal.  God uses the Magi as a sign to the world of who it is exactly that He calls to become His people.  The Magi are used by God to represent all of us—all people whom He seeks to draw to Himself by this great and marvelous Sign: His only Son.  God drew the Magi to come and see the great thing He was doing by setting that star in the sky, and God is still inviting people to come and see and discover their great salvation by beholding His Son as He is still found by “wise” men, women, and children who come by faith to see and learn and believe in Jesus the Christ.

And when we come to see this same Jesus “all grown up”, standing on the shore of the Jordan River, this scene too seems less than remarkable.  Now sure, the voice of God booming out on to the scene, making the great declaration: “This is My beloved Son”, seems to be a “nice touch”.  But who really saw this?  Who took it to heart and saw it as the great revelation that God meant it to be?  At that time, maybe not all that many.  We don’t even really know how many people might have been with John for baptisms that day.  Yet, once again, the great reveal has more to do with God’s perspective on things, and not our desire for some sort of show-stopping grand production that just screams: “Hey, over here, you really got to come and see this!”

No, what we see here is the quiet way that God makes another great reveal, making the important statement of who God sends to His people and also why and to whom this One is sent.  Sometimes we read this text, and we fail to do something important—we fail to see ourselves there.  Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism helps us to do this.  Notice, Jesus is there, and yes, He is still the center of attention, especially after He is baptized and God the Father makes His “grand announcement” concerning His Son.  But notice what is happening before Jesus is Baptized and where Jesus finds Himself.  Jesus is really just “one in the crowd”.  He too comes to the Jordan, just like everyone else, to hear John and to be baptized by him.  Now, yes, Jesus does not need this baptism for the same reason that everyone else has.  Since Jesus had no sin, He did not need a “baptism of repentance”.  Yet, Jesus, by being there, makes a very bold statement—that He came for sinners and that He stands right alongside sinners and identifies with these sinners for whom He came to save.

And this is exactly where we see ourselves in this picture.  Our Lord Jesus, who came to save sinners, stands right here with us, for we too are the sinners He came to save.  Just as He stood in the waters of the Jordan and was baptized to identify with sinners, so also He still stands in the waters of Holy Baptism today, claiming through the power of the Water and the Word the sinners for whom He lived, died, and rose again, causing us to share in His very life, death and resurrection, and opening the very gates of heaven to us who faithfully believe in His saving work.  And at those waters of our Baptism, we too hear a joyous announcement as well: “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter; with you I am well pleased.”  Hearing those words, we also leave those blessed waters to go and to live out our lives, serving the One who has forever claimed us and our lives as His own.

In these great Epiphanies, God, in a powerful way, reveals the extent of His love for the children He created and for whom He sent His only Son to redeem.  And so, we too find ourselves there with the Magi, worshipping this One whom we too have been drawn to, beholding His Light which forever banishes the dark night of sin and death and the devil’s power.  And we find ourselves dripping wet in the waters of the Jordan, marked as God’s beloved children, forever loved and forever claimed by our God.  For the great revelation of God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord, we give God our thanks and praise, for He has made Himself known even to us.  Thanks be to Christ!  Amen!

Claim the Name

Readings Appointed

(Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 2:21)

With New Year’s Day falling on a Sunday this year, our Trinity family is given the opportunity to celebrate not only the beginning of the new civil calendar year but also the Eighth Day of Christmas which is kept as the Feast of the Circumcision and the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  I remember years ago being asked by a member why it’s so important that we remember Jesus’ bris?  Well, as several hymns and prayers for this day remind us, this event in our Lord’s just begun life in the flesh was all about the beginning of His fulfilling of the Law of God on our behalf, submitting Himself to its requirements, even to the point of shedding His infant blood to do so.  And through this act of submission to the Law, Jesus begins the work of living up to the Name that He was also given on this day to bear for us—Jesus: the Lord saves.

What happened to Jesus on that day was a sign of the great work that He was beginning to accomplish, even as a newborn infant, for us and for our salvation.  And this is what makes this day important for us.  Jesus’ circumcision was the moment where He was welcomed into the family of the People of Israel and given a name to claim His place among the ranks of this people.  And what this means for us is that God is here to do a great work for us and for all who believe in Him—that we too have been given a name and a place among the people He claims to be His own forever.

Like Jesus, none of us really had much choice in the name we were given when we were born and brought into the families that our God blessed us with.  Some of us were given names with great meanings or with long family stories and traditions attached to them.  Others of us may have been given names that simply fit into the times and trends we were born into.  And still others may have just gotten a name that simply filled in the blank on our birth certificate.  But, no matter how we got our name, we have just had to live up to it so that we might be able to claim it and make it our own.

Yet, as we apply what happened to our Blessed Redeemer on this day to ourselves and to our lives that we live with our God by faith, we come to an interesting discovery.  When our God calls each of us to be His own, it is He who lays claim on us by claiming each of us by name with His Name.  This is what we understand when we heard God giving the great Aaronic Benediction to Moses to pass on to the priests who would serve the People of Israel.  As the priests blessed the people, they did so using the Lord’s own Divine Name so that through this blessing God Himself “would put His Name on them”, thus showing them to be His very own, marked with His Holy Name.

Our God’s Divine Name still is placed on the people He calls to be His own.  Each time our God blesses us, sending us out from this place into the world, He marks us with His Name, assuring us that we are indeed His own.  Yet, our God has also done so much more.  In the waters of Holy Baptism, our God not only marked us with His Divine Name, but He also made each of us to share in His very life, causing His life to become our life and making us His very own forever.  His Name laid claim on us as He forgave us our sins and gave us the blessings of eternal life and everlasting salvation that belong to those who are His children and heirs of His kingdom.

Because our God has claimed us with His Name, this means that He claims us to live up to that Name.  Marked with His own Name, God looks to us to live that Name in our lives.  Our Lord Jesus lived up to the Name He was given as He lived, died, and rose again for us and our salvation.  As we bear God’s Name given in the waters of Baptism, and as we bear Christ’s Name as our profession of faith in the world as Christians, we are called to show the world why we bear those Names.  Our lives should be witnesses to the world of the One whose Name we bear and of the One who lives in each of us by faith.

Unfortunately, we all know how often we fail to live out in our lives what it means to be a child of God who has been claimed by His Name.  Yet, there is still good news.  Each time we fall short of living out the glorious privilege of showing ourselves as God’s children by doing those things that displease our Heavenly Father, sully the Name of His Son, and fail to let the Holy Spirit shine through our thoughts, words, and deeds, we have the right still to lay hold of that Blessed Name which claimed us as the Lord’s own.  We reach out and claim that “only Name given under heaven by which we must be saved” and hold on to it as what it truly is: our Hope, our Life, and our Salvation before our God.  Claiming that Name of Jesus, God looks on us and covers us with the righteousness His Son won for us.  And through God’s righteousness and forgiveness, we are free to live as God’s own, just as He created us to be.

As we enter into this New Year under God’s grace, we are reminded that we are a people who have been claimed by God’s Name and who claim God’s Name as the very source of our life, our peace, and our hope.  In the days to come, may we all live in and by the Name of our Salvation, trusting in the life that we have received from our Savior and living the life that He, by His grace, empowers us to live.  Thanks be to Christ!  Amen!

Blessed Waiting

Isaiah 30:8-18

(Other Readings Appointed: Romans 8:31b-39; Luke 12:35-40)

The text of the hymn we just sang this evening has become a personal favorite of mine in recent years, especially in light of what it was written as. (nb. “By Gracious Powers, see previous post for text.)  These words were written as a poetic prayer for the New Year by Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He composed them in the final days of 1944 as he sat in the infamous Gestapo run Tegel Prison in Berlin, following his arrest on spy charges.  After it was discovered that he had been a part of a failed plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was moved to the Flossenburg Concentration Camp, where on April 9, 1945, he was executed by hanging along with other condemned resistance workers, just two weeks before the Allies liberated the camp.

Knowing the background of this poem, one begins to understand the poignant nature of the words.  They are words of a man who had no idea what the future held for him.  The days ahead were ones of uncertainty, over which he had no control.  And yet, in these prayerful words, he still holds on to the One thing he is certain and sure of—the never-failing love of God for him.  He commits himself—all his days and all that he is and has—totally to the hands of the God whom he knows will care for him, trusting completely in the Lord’s compassion and care.

As we gather together in the Lord’s House on this New Year’s Eve, Pastor Bonhoeffer’s words probably strike a similar familiar chord with many of us as well.  Many of us are looking back on this year now almost past and see many scenes of our lives replayed for us.  We look back and see the good times, the bad times, the ordinary moments, and all of the other moments that make up the days of our lives.  And as we look at all of these times, we look to see where God was and how He was a part of it all.

In tonight’s reading from Isaiah, we hear a prophesy where God speaks to the people of Israel concerning their relationship with Him.  God speaks to them, telling them of all of their disobedience and running away from Him and His love for them.  He promises them that punishment awaits them, and that they will be broken and smashed to pieces.  And yet, through all of this, God does not promise that He will abandon them.  Instead, God does the opposite.  He pledges that He will remain there for them so that they might return to Him and to His loving care and protection.

God declares that He is a merciful God.  Yet, all too often we see that mercy hidden behind what seems to us to be nothing but wrath.  It is quite easy for us to think that God somehow hides His merciful face from us when things are going bad for us.  We find ourselves easily forgetting the “good days” lived in God’s grace and love, maybe even thinking that those were the “abnormal” moments—that somehow God was just toying with us, and that “bad days” are all that we really deserve.

Yet, this is what God has to say to us: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. … Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.”

You see, our God seeks to always be merciful to us.  His compassion and love for us is something which is daily, richly, and abundantly given to us, even in those moments when we do not realize it.  God’s justice is shown through His merciful love, for it is His love for us which calls us to return to Him when we stray.  It is when we return to our loving and merciful God that we discover true rest and peace in Him, and then we find what it means to be fully and truly blessed by God.

And this is why we are called to lives of “blessed waiting”, not only as we watch the years change, but each and every day of our lives.  We are called upon to look at every moment of our lives as a moment where our God is present, acting always with and for us to bring about the good He desires and wills for us.  And God wishes to give us the sight of faith which comes to see that in every moment of life—good and bad—He is there with His blessing.  In the bad times, God is there to give us the strength we need to endure.  In the moments of trial, He is there to build us up with the power of His forgiving love.  In the good times, God is there to give us thankful hearts.  And in every moment, God is there to assure us of His presence that we might always know that He is at work, providing us with what we need and believing that all our times are in His gracious and loving hands.

Because we wait for our God and His blessing on our lives, we know that God will always come through for us, providing us with what we truly need—His loving and abiding presence.  Knowing that He is with us, we commend all of our days—past, present, and future—into His care as we pray:

By gracious powers so faithfully protected,
So quietly, so wonderfully near,
We live each day in hope, with You beside us,
And go with You through every coming year.

Amen!

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
Still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
Oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation,
For which, O Lord, You taught us to prepare.

And when this cup You give is filled to brimming
With bitter suffering, hard to understand,
We take it thankfully and without trembling
Out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world You give us
The joy we had, the brightness of Your sun,
We shall remember all the days we lived through
And our whole life shall then be Yours alone.

By gracious powers so faithfully protected,
So quietly, so wonderfully near,
We live each day in hope, with You beside us,
And go with You through every coming year.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
Translation: Fred Pratt Green (1903-2000)

God Speaks

Hebrews 1:1-4

(Readings Appointed: Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-18)

Ever since I can remember thinking about such things, I have always found the Gospel for Christmas Day to be one of the most fascinating readings in the entire Church Year.  And I think what made me think this is that it really isn’t what you expect to hear at Christmas.  Usually, one thinks just about hearing once more those familiar words of the “Christmas Story”, just as we heard them at last night’s Candlelight Eucharist.  No, instead we come today and we hear this “high and lofty” language and thought about what John calls “the Word”.

Talking about words should be something easy to do.  We use them.  We can string them together and come up with some thoughts, both profound and mundane.  We know that they have meaning and power.  Yet, all too often we probably don’t really think too much about words.  And then, John the Evangelist comes to us this Christmas Day and asks us to think about this One who is come and born in our world today as the Word.  As we are confronted by this Word, what are we to think of Him?  And most of all, what does He mean to us?

Today’s Epistle can help us sort out our thinking as we reflect on the coming of our Lord Jesus into the flesh, becoming this great Word that God has sent to us.  We do not know who wrote this Letter to the Hebrews, yet he had much to say about this Jesus that came to be the Savior of the world.  Listen again to the opening words of his letter:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.  He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.  After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the Name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

If we listen carefully, the Writer to the Hebrews is virtually saying the same thing as the Apostle John does in opening his Gospel.  And the connection between both of these statements is that they are both talking about words, and especially about the Word, Jesus Christ.  You see, in our text, we are told about how our God has spoken to His people.  If God is speaking, then He is using words.  But what makes things different in how God spoke to “His people of old” and how He speaks to us now “in these last days?”

Again, the answer is to be found in the Word, Jesus Christ.  God’s message to His people has never changed.  He has always used His Word to speak to His people a message of repentance and of returning to Him and to discover His love, grace, and mercy.  This was the message of all the Prophets throughout the days of the Old Testament right up to the appearing of John the Baptist in the Judean Wilderness.  The Prophets proclaimed a message of warning, of judgment, of preparation for something greater that was yet to come.  It was a message that could only point towards that which was yet in the distance, waiting for the moment when God would indeed fulfill His promises and bring to pass all that had been foretold.

And that happened on that great and glorious day when God caused “the Word to be made flesh and to dwell among us, full of grace and truth.”  When our Lord Jesus appeared on earth, the way in which God’s speaking to His people changed in that no longer did God choose to use an intermediary to get His word to people.  Moses and the prophets brought words of law—words of “You shall” and “You shall not”, setting limits and boundaries of how close one could be in relationship to God.  But now with the coming of Jesus, God comes Himself to His people, speaking words of grace and truth, calling all to come near to the God who created all people to be His own and to live with Him in a relationship of love, knowing Him perfectly and as He is.

Now that the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, now dwells among us, we hear the very voice of God speaking plainly and clearly to us, assuring us of the most important message that every human heart needs to hear: that in this Jesus, and through His birth, life, death, and resurrection, all sin is forgiven, heaven is opened, and full and abundant life is ours for both now and eternity.  And we still hear that voice of God speaking His Word as we hear it read and proclaimed to us, as we feel it applied on us in the waters of Baptism, as the word of God’s forgiveness is declared, and as we receive Christ’s Body and Blood from His Table.  In all of these things, God’s presence is made real among us, and we know the great and glorious love of God for all of us.

Our God in Christ comes to us to speak directly to us that we may know the truth about Him and, most importantly, to know the grace and love that He extends to us.  As we celebrate our Savior’s birth today, let us rejoice in the God who speaks to us in love through His Son, the Word made flesh.  Thanks be to Christ!  Amen!

The Life-Bringing Light

Isaiah 9:2-7

(Other Readings Appointed: Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20)

For ages, two of the most powerful symbols known to humankind have been found in the interplay between darkness and light.  And although cultures have sometimes interpreted these symbols differently, in general the idea brought forward in these symbols has tended toward the impression that darkness represented the forces of disorder, chaos, evil, sin, and death, while light represented the exact opposite—order, peace, good, holiness, and life.  For us as people of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, we see all of this in the opening words of Holy Writ as God hovers over the vast empty dark void into which He will call all things into existence by speaking His first great command of creation, saying: “Let there be light!”

And so, these great symbols of darkness and light come into play in these, the darkest days of the year for us, as we gather together to celebrate the great event which changed time forever: the coming of God into human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Child of Mary.  This Child whose birth we celebrate tonight is the One for whom many ages before Him waited in hope and for whom for many generations since have trusted in for their life and salvation.  This Jesus is the promised Light of the World and it is His light which shines in the darkness of this world and brings to all life, hope, and peace.

To those who looked forward to the coming of this Great Promised One, the words spoken by the Prophet Isaiah were filled them with hope: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness; on them has light shined.”  The darkness that these people Isaiah addressed were feeling was the darkness of despair, lost hope, and shattered dreams.  Other nations had sent armies who overran their land, destroyed everything important to their lives and to the practice of their faith, and who finally carried them off into exile to live in a land not their own.  These people had lost everything they held dear, and felt that even God had abandoned them.

Into this dark time for the people of Israel, God speaks a word of hope: that He has sent a new and glorious light to shine on them.  This light reveals that God has heard them and their cries and brought a reversal of their fortunes.  Their enemies are now the broken and defeated ones.  The time of war is brought to an end and peace is caused to reign among them and in their land which brings to the people the greatest and most lasting joy.  New life is brought to the people as they find themselves restored by the God who has not abandoned them but who has remained constantly present for and with them, always working for their good and their blessing.

And the great sign of this presence is the arrival of the Promised One: Emmanuel—God with us.  In this wonderful Child sent by God to His people, those who believe and trust in the Lord are assured that God has not abandoned them, but instead chooses to dwell with them, living among them in the midst of their hurts, pains, sufferings, and fears that they might know the healing and restoring power of His very presence.  And knowing this, the people rejoice in the coming of this Child: “For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given”.  They know that this Promised One has come for them and come to them so they might know the joy and peace of life that is lived in liberty and freedom found under His gracious will, ruling over them as their “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.”

Down through the centuries, this great song of praise for God’s presence arriving among His people has been one which has inspired many, first to hope, and then to believe that God has come to be one with us and to dwell among us.  On this Christmas Eve, we especially realize and know how these great words of Isaiah were fulfilled completely in the little Child who lies in the manger of that Bethlehem stable.  As we too rejoice and celebrate these words of prophesy fulfilled, we might well wonder: If these words have already been fulfilled and come to pass, what do they really mean to us now?  What is our part in this story?  Where do we fit in?

Ultimately, the words spoken by the prophets to the people of Israel was to point them to the promise that was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.  Yet, these words also speak to us in our here and now as well.  The same life, hope, joy, and peace that God was sending to His people of old is the same thing He desires to give to those whom He calls to be His own in the here and now that we find ourselves in today.  Our God is still coming to bring light into our dark world—into a world that is still filled with fears, with hopes that long to be fulfilled, with broken hearts and broken lives, with wars and lack of peace, and the list goes on.

And to and for this world that we find ourselves living in still “For us a Child is born, to us a Son is given”.  Whatever darkness each of us finds ourselves in tonight, God sends His Son to us as the Light to break that darkness, to bring us peace, and to restore us and our lives by giving us His very life.  God sends us the Wonderful Counselor to lead us into His way of truth so that we may find peace in Him.  God sends us the One who is our Mighty God who is strong and powerful to save us from all that binds us in the darkness of sin and death.  God sends us the One who reveals to us our Everlasting Father who holds each of us always in His arms of love.  And we gladly greet our Prince of Peace who assures us that even in the midst of a world that so lacks peace, we can rest safe and confident in God’s peace which never ends.

Tonight, a great Light shines on the world.  Rising out of that Bethlehem stable, God’s Son brings a light which reveals to one and all that our God reigns and that He brings true light and true life which gives hope and peace to us and to our whole world.  May we receive this Light tonight, live in the life He gives, trust in the hope He brings, and have joy in the peace of believing that in this Son given to us that we have all we need both now and forever.  Thanks be to Christ!  Amen!

Let It Be

Luke 1:26-38

(Other Readings Appointed: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Romans 16:25-27)

In the town of Nazareth stands the Church of the Annunciation which was built over what tradition states is the family home of Mary of Nazareth.  And in a grotto below the main altar of this church stands another altar under which is a marble disk bearing a Jerusalem Cross and above this disk is carved the inscription: Verbum Caro Hic Factum Est—“Here the Word Was Made Flesh”.  At what was probably seen at one time as the most unlikely and insignificant places, God chose to enter our world of time and space and to bring about the salvation of the world from the power of sin and death by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to become our Savior.

Saint Luke in today’s Gospel recounts for us the events which began the Incarnation of our Blessed Redeemer, whose birth we look forward to celebrating in just a few days.  In many respects, the account of the Annunciation is just as wonderful and awe-inspiring as the account of Jesus’ Birth.  And what is most amazing in it all is not what one might think.  Sure, there’s the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel and the wonderful message that this young virgin woman would be the one to bear the Son of God.  Yet, what is most amazing when one stops to really think about it is the great response made by Mary: “Let it be to me according to your word”.

With those words, the Blessed Virgin Mary said “yes” to what God was asking her to do—to be the Mother of God coming in human flesh.  And that’s precisely what is so amazing.  Mary said yes to something she probably didn’t completely understand, which probably mystified her, and which, if she told anyone about, would seem the most unbelievable tale.  Yet, she still said yes, “Let it be”.

Mary’s response here is one of perfect and loving obedience to God and His will.  Her “yes” to God has often been seen as the reversal of Eve’s “no” spoken to God through the fall into sin.  And even beyond Mary’s own uncertainties of how this great miracle would actually come to pass, she believed the angel’s word: “Nothing is impossible with God”, and so she said yes, “Let it be”.

As this account is given to us, there is probably only one question that we would have about it all: “Could we do the same?  Could we say ‘yes’ like Mary did?”  And our answer really depends on how we answer another question: How much do we trust God?

And that’s really what the whole account of the Annunciation is about.  Mary believed the message that Gabriel brought to her.  She trusted God would and could do what He said, even beyond her own doubts and lack of total understanding.  Mary said “yes”, believing that God wanted her to be about the service He planned for her and that the work was completely up to Him.  Her “yes” was simply what we so often pray: “Thy will be done”.

But when we look at ourselves, when we try to put ourselves into Mary’s sandals, and wonder if we could ever so unquestionably say “yes” to God in what He asks us to do and to be, how many times do we have to say: “no”?  Perhaps our hang up is all about our not being willing to surrender any control of ourselves and our lives to anyone else, even if that someone happens to be God.  For some reason or another, we want to be able to say that we are the ones in control, that we call all of the shots.

And this is precisely what brought our world and humankind to the place that the Annunciation had to happen.  It is because of our stubbornness to insist on our own way—to do things the way we want to do them as we please, and to believe that we are indeed the masters of our own destinies—that brought about the horrible fall into sin.  Since that awful day of humankind’s saying “no” to God, we have needed God to bring about His “yes” to the world—the “yes” that proves to a broken and rebellious human race that His love for us overcomes our sinful rebellion by sending One to be like us and to free us from sin and death so that we might live with Him and for Him forever.

What Mary’s “yes” did was to allow God to do His work.  Now sure, we could conjecture about what would have happened if Mary said “no” to God, but that’s not the point.  The point is that God was going to do this great new thing, using Mary as the tool by which He would set His plan to save the world into motion.  Mary accepted her mission to become the Mother of the Redeemer, and because she said yes, our world has never been the same since because the world has a Savior who came to set us free that we might live for our God who is now not only our Creator but also our Redeemer as well.

So what does this all mean to and for us?  First, it means that through the One who was born the Son of Mary as the Son of God, we have a Savior from sin and death, forever freeing us and our world from the transgression of our first parents.  Then we see in Mary’s example a willingness to trust God and to take Him at His word, knowing for certain that what God promises will indeed come to pass.  And we also come to see what God is looking for from those whom He calls to be His own and to be in His service—hearts, minds, and lives that are open to Him and to His will, ready to do for the Lord whatever it is He has as His purpose for us.

And a part of that purpose that God has for us is made clear when we look at the example given to us through Mary’s willingness to be a part of God’s plan of salvation.  Through Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection, the work of the world’s salvation is already complete.  Yet, there are still some in the world who have yet to know of what God in love has done to save all people.  So, our God who has claimed us and redeemed us to be His very own also calls us to say yes to being the ones to take this blessed freeing message of salvation out into the world we live in.  He is looking to us to say yes to being a part of His plan.  And remember, God is not calling us to save the world, for He has already done that.  Yet, He does look to us to be His messengers to spread His freeing and life-giving message of the Good News of His love, mercy, and grace to all so that we all may live in His presence forever.

The Blessed Virgin Mary said “yes” to God when He came calling to her to be a part of His great plan for the world’s salvation.  And we indeed thank God that she did say “yes”, because from her we and the whole world received a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Now, as we live out our lives by faith in the Son of God who is also Mary’s Son, are we too willing and able to live out our lives with God—loving and believing and trusting Him—and also living for God—being about the work He calls us to do in proclaiming His great salvation in Christ to the world around us.  The God who has called us to faith in His Son has plans for us.  Will we say “yes” to Him?  May He give us strength and grace that we too, like Mary, can say: “Yes, let it be to me according to Your Word.”  God grant it!  Amen!