Pentecost 20 - Philippians 2:1-18

“You are the light of the world.” Jesus says so. He would compare you to a city on a hill or a lamp that has been set up on a stand and placed as high as possible to give light to the house so that everyone inside can see. You are to shine bright and true with the light of faith that Christ has put inside you. This is your God given Christian duty – you are to shine like a star in the night sky, like a candle in the darkness that shows the way and that reveals the truth.
Sometimes it feels like you light is burning a bit dim. Like you are not quite as bright as you once were. The brightness of a lamp is measured in candle power – at times it feels like you are a few candles short. I know there are times that I feel that way.
But God has called us lights. Lights is a world that need the Light because the world is dark. The world is pitch dark in fact, dark as night, dark as death. The world of sin is so dark that it can’t see its nose in front of its face. It can’t see to find its way. It is like blindness. Eyes that don’t work, eyes that can’t see even when the light is shined on them.
God has given that light to you. This summer we were treated to the spectacle of the Summer Olympics. A traditional part of the Olympic ceremony is the running of the Olympic torch. Different athletes are given the opportunity to carry that torch through the cities and towns of the host country. In a similar way God has made his Christians to be his torch bearers who are to run through their own cities and towns, into the country side with the light of his truth. We are to share that light and show that light that he has given inside of us.
In our text, Paul tells us how to do that.
“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, [2] complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. [3] Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. [4] Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
He outlines the things that we are to be doing.
Christians are to be of the same mind. Like minded. Together. One. Unified. Sometimes we mistake that unity to mean that everyone gets along. We talk about the things we agree on and never discuss the things we don’t agree on. That doesn’t cut it. As believers in Christ we need to know what we believe, we believe Christ but also what we do not believe. Christ calls us to obey all things that he has commanded. If we set aside some of those things in the interest of unity, we have not obeyed Christ. Christ calls us to be one, to be single minded – not to have everyone one of us make up our own minds, but to have every one of us conform to the mind of Christ – to hear His Word, to Cling to His Word, to believe His word.
We are to have the same love. In the way that Christ has loved us we are to love one another. He loved with compassion, with care for the needs of others. Jesus was always and continually motivated by compassion. Deep, heartfelt compassion. He saw the extreme human need of those he came to serve.
We can have that same love and compassion for each other in our own day and time. In fact, there are countless opportunities for such compassion. This summer we have seen devastation in the world from natural disasters – floods and hurricanes – that put a stress and a strain on families. We have seen cultural trends that stem from the sinfulness of our generation – sexual sins, teen pregnancy, divorce. We have seen personal tragedies within our own congregation. Often these things are out of sight out of mind. We feel badly when we first hear about it, but then soon forget. We ought to reach out in love, understanding the great hardship that these things cause in the lives of people whom Christ has called us to love.
Paul says in humility we are to see others as better than ourselves. Consider how quick we are to judge others for their situations and their difficulties. How often do we pretend that we are immune from such misfortune because we have had the insight to make better plans. We tell ourselves we wouldn’t have the same problems because we are not as foolish. This is pride. This is not the humility that Paul calls us to. Perhaps the pregnant teenager has sinned. We are called upon to forgive the sin, reach out and help. Perhaps the aids victim has sinned. We are called to forgive the sin and help. Perhaps the divorcée has sinned. We are called to forgive the sin and help.
All of this is aimed at blamelessness and innocence. All of this is aimed as sinlessness. All sin is born from self regard. All sin is motivated by a consideration of myself, what I want, what I need, what will preserve my own skin. Christ would not have us to live our lives with regard to ourselves. We are to live our lives in obedience to God and with regard to each other, we are to be servants.
While this is our call from God and while this is our aim and our goal, the fact remains that we live in a dark world. We live in a sin-filled world. We are called to be lights. We are called to be a torch, a shining star, a lamp on a stand, a city on a hill. But we live in a dark world.
And so often what happens as we live in this world of darkness and sin is that the darkness has a way of getting on us, staining us and tainting us.
There is a condition of the eyes known as macular degeneration. With this condition, the field of vision slowly becomes interrupted. Distortions and dark spots begin to occur in the field of vision and eventually you can barely see, and perhaps you even become totally blind.
In the life of a Christian, sin interrupts our “field of vision” known as faith. Through faith we see God and we know God. Sin creates dark spots or distortions so that we don’t see God clearly, and if the sin continues to grow, so that we don’t see God at all. We return to darkness, we return to unbelief. The clarity of faith becomes stained with sin.
But God has given to us an antidote for that blindness. He has given to us a cure for that sin.
All of these things that Paul calls us to be doing, here in our text – Jesus has done them all. Jesus knew and understood the word of God. His entire life was centered on and cirled around God’s Holy Word and therefore God’s holy Will. Jesus never compromised from that word.
Jesus counted us as better than himself. Jesus never overlooked sin, when he saw it he identified it but not because he wanted to condemn the sinner. He wanted to forgive the sinner. He wanted to restore the sinner. Therefore he didn’t simply make judgments, instead He counted himself as lower than the low, as the servant of the servants. And Jesus was God!
If ever there was one who could judge, who could condemn, it was Jesus. He after all was perfect, he was without sin and he was God. He was almighty and all powerful. He was the prince of heaven, yet it was not in his mind to hold on to this power at all costs. He set that aside and he became one of us. He set aside his power and his glory. He set aside his immunity to sin and temptation. He set aside his power over sin and Satan. He set aside his immunity to pain and to death so that he could come for us.
Not only did Jesus make himself nothing, not only did he set aside his power and consider himself to be lower than you and me. Jesus made himself our servant and our slave. He made himself lower than us so that he could die for our sin. He was obedient even to the point of his obedience costing him his life.
But now he has been raised from death. The one who made himself the servant of servants and the lowest of the low has been raised from death to life and He has been given all power in heaven and on earth. He has been given life so that his name is above every name and so that every knee will bow down to him and every mouth will confess that He is Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Each one of us has been living our lives out in that world that is sick with sin, that is filled with darkness, that is blindly careening toward hell. It is evil and twisted and it is crooked and perverse. And that evil has stained us and strained us and stressed us and we are suffering under its weight.
Jesus has brought us here to remove that weight. He has brought us here to give us relief from that stress and strain. He has brought us here to forgive that sin and to wash away that stain. He has called us here to absorb the darkness and to restore the light.
The call that we have receive from God is a wonderful call. We do our best to answer that call and fulfill that vocation. But we fail. We break down and give out. But He restores us. He refreshes us. He remakes us and strengthens us sends us out to do it all over again.
May you be refreshed this day by the light of Christ.

Holy Cross Day - 1Corinthians 1:18-25

It was more than 100 years ago (116 to be exact), the people of God living in the south end of Union County Ohio came up with a plan to build a school. Through hard work, dedication, commitment and follow through they established St Paul Lutheran School, which was dedicated on May 29, 1892. One year later, St Paul Lutheran Church was chartered into existence as a member congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Over the years the school has seen its share of changes, and certainly many students have passed through the doors to receive their education, yet through it all St Paul’s has existed as it has been established, a place for the education of our children that is founded upon the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, St Paul’s is today as it was over 100 years ago, a school and a church that exists for the sake of lifting high the cross.

How appropriate then, that as the school year begins and as we officially commission our teachers for their work in our school for yet another year, that we do so on Holy Cross Day. Holy Cross Day is simply a day that the church remembers what Christ did for us on the cross: that it was on the cross that he died for us to pay for our sin as our perfect sacrifice so that we could be saved. This is why our school exists. The teachers at St Paul Lutheran School teach all of the academic subjects of math, science, reading & writing, social studies and the like. But all of these subjects are taught alongside the wonderful truth of the cross. This is a place that lifts high the cross of Jesus Christ to proclaim to our children, to teach them what Christ did for them as he paid for their sin on the cross. St Paul School is a place where we lift high the cross of Jesus Christ.

The need to proclaim the cross

Our epistle lesson for Holy Cross Day is taken from St Paul the apostle’s first letter to the Christian church in Corinth. He was writing his letter to a church that was largely affected by influences from outside the church.

The city of Corinth was a very cosmopolitan city with a great deal of power and wealth from the many merchants who lived in this important hub along ancient trade routes. It was also a very religious city, with some influence of Judaism, but Corinth was especially infamous for its idolatry worshipping Venus, the Roman goddess of love and fertility.

With all of the wealth and power that many Corinthians were accustomed to, not to mention the influence of idol worship and the sins of adultery and prostitution that were common with such idol worship, there were many challenges to the Christian church in Corinth. They struggled with these many temptations and sins. The letter of 1 Corinthians reflects these struggles, addressing sins of disunity, prostitution, sexual sins within the congregation, what to do about food that had been sacrificed to idols, and the rejection of the resurrection. It seems that any problem a Christian congregation could have, the Corinthians were struggling with it.

So Paul wrote to teach them. He wrote his letter to confront their sins, to instruct them in worship and in Christian living, and to encourage their appropriate use and understanding of the Word of God. Writing to Christians living in a pagan and unbelieving world there is a fundamental difference in the approach and understanding. In our text Paul points out the very kernel of that difference. The thing that sets the Christian apart from every other person of every other belief, the thing that makes Christian worship the one and only worship of the true God is the cross – Jesus Christ, the Son of God who has been crucified for sinners!

If the Corinthians lived in the midst of sin and temptation and struggled with the many sinful and evil influences that existed in their own culture, you and I have that same struggle in our own day and time. The Corinthians struggled with division and disunity in the ranks. Division is caused by false doctrine; someone in the church begins teaching something other than the pure message of the cross of Christ. People follow this new wind of teaching and suddenly the church is divided. With as many different churches today as there are pages in the phonebook, the church today struggles with false doctrine. The Corinthians struggled with pagan worship and idolatry. Our own world continues to reject any Christian teaching of the true God and the cross and instead is interested to acknowledge the false gods of Buddhism, eastern mysticism, not to mention Islam. The Corinthians struggled as they lived their daily lives in their pagan city, but they could go home and shut the door on this sin. For you and I, the temptations continue to abound – every false doctrine, every false god and every temptation known to man is but a click of the remote or a click of the mouse away. The sins that lived in Corinth are alive and well today.

There has never been a time in the history of the world when the proper education of our children has been of greater importance. With so many evil and sinful influences present in the world, our children need education, but they need the proper worldview that can only come from an education built on the foundation of the wisdom of God revealed in the death of His Son on the cross. They need a worldview that helps them to understand themselves as sinners.

This past week in the news we were all afraid that we were going to be sucked into a black hole when the scientists switched on the super hadron particle collider that was just built in Geneva Switzerland. They turned it on and we are all still here. The whole reason for building this expensive and technical piece of equipment is because scientists believe that they can recreate the circumstances that led to the big bang – the foundational theory behind the theory of evolution. If you and I are and every piece of matter in the universe are all no more than particles, than there is no such thing as sin and there is no need for salvation and there is no need for the cross.

Our children need to know the difference. They need to who they are as sinners under the cross. They need to be taught the essential educational building blocks of education, but they also need to learn to think. They need to learn how to stain out the truth from the lie. They need to know the Word of God. They need to know what it says and what it does not say. They need to have a firm hold on the truth so that when they are confronted with the lie they will not be deceived. They need to be immersed in the Word of God so that when the temptations to sin come to confront them they will have the strength to stand against them.

These days the truth is so fractured. It is so broken up into small parts. The truth of God’s word is not taken as one single unified body of doctrine and teaching, instead it is a smorgasbord of individual small little truths all strung together. The effect is that people feel like they can pick and choose. I heard this week that there is a woman who has made her fortune in the porn industry who has claimed to be a devout catholic. This is what happens. We believe that we can come to the altar of Christ on Sunday and claim to believe what the bible says there but then leave to live whatever life we choose and it doesn’t matter that the two don’t match. We break our lives into pieces, compartments that we think we can seal off from one another. It is almost like trying to take 1000 different pieces from 1000 different puzzles and trying to put them all together. The pieces don’t fit and even when we mash them all together the picture that we have created doesn’t make sense.

Paul says that the cross of Jesus Christ is power of God for the salvation of all who believe. There has never been a day, there has never been a time that the cross of Christ has been more important. With all of the many things that could, that would pull us away from the truth we need to hold ever so tightly to cross of Jesus Christ. We need to cling to the cross.

We need to see in the cross the wisdom of God. Our world is absolutely filled with men and women trained in the wisdom of the world. They sound Oh so smart and Oh so convincing. It is so easy to listen to the sages and the scribes and the debaters of our own age and to be led astray. Their words so often sound like the very things that we find ourselves thinking. We need the cross. We need Christ’s wisdom. We need to read and to study the bible.

As much as a Christian education can help students along as they study the Word of God and as they memorize portions of scripture, there is no failsafe. There is no foolproof method for bringing your children up to know the wisdom of God and to throw away the wisdom of man. As much as we want that for our children, we don’t even possess it for ourselves. You and I are so easily deceived and mislead and before you know it we hear thoughts in our head and words from our mouth that sound just like the sages and scribes and debaters that we have tried so hard to refute. If all we had to rely on was our own wisdom and our own strength we would most definitely be lost forever.

But God has not left us to ourselves. Yes God gives to us a school and teachers and religions classes and the catechism. All of these things will help us and will keep us going the right direction, but when we step away from that direction, which every one of us does every single day, we need the cross – not just for its wisdom, not just because it will help us to win debates and find the right answer to the question of our origins. We need the cross because it is in the cross that our sins are washed away and forgiven. It is in the cross that our sinful nature is crucified so that we die to be raised again to a brand new life.

As we raise our children to live their adult lives in a sinful, deranged and dangerous world more than anything they need to know where they can go to be cleaned. They need to know where they can go so that God will wash away the sins that have latched on to them as they went on their way through the world.

It happens every day. We wake up with the determination to do better than we did yesterday. We try our hardest and do our best but before you know our sinful nature has gotten the better of us and we find that we have fallen again. The sins that we hoped to leave behind us are once again at the forefront of our thought and activity. The muck and the slime of this sinful world has gotten splashed up on us again and we are corrupted and dirty. We need the cross.

The blood of Jesus is the soap that gets us clean. It washes off those sins. It penetrates to deepest reaches of our souls and lifts the stain of sin from our hearts so that once again we are clean. Your children and my children need to know Jesus. They need to know the cross. They need to know that Jesus died on that cross for them so that when they have fallen into sin and temptation they can be clean.

If all our children needed was an education they could receive that any number of places. We could send them to any number of schools that would give them the same skills of reading, writing and arithmetic that we provide for them here. What we give them here, however is something that is not permitted and often not tolerated in other educational institutions. We give them the cross of Christ. We give them the soap that washes off the scum of sin. We give them the blood of Jesus shed for them on the cross.

For over 100 years students have been coming to St Paul Chuckery and most of you sitting here today are the beneficiary of that education. But what has been of greatest benefit to you, isn’t the fact that you can read, it isn’t the fact that you can balance your checkbook, It is the blood of Jesus Christ that has washed you clean under the cross.

Pentecost 17 - Matthew 18:1-20

At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to himself a little child he put him in front of them and said “Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like this little child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
This is our Text.

Who is the greatest in the kingdom? Sounds an awful lot like the conversations we have been listening to in our own national political process lately. We are now about 57 days out from November 4, from Election Day and every time you turn on the television there are advertisements for the presidential candidates, and all the other offices that are up for election. Each one is arguing, is trying to convince you that he or she is the greatest in the kingdom and therefore is deserving of your vote.

We are used to that in our political process here. The speeches, the attack adds, the fierce competition; they are all a part of “politics as usual” here in our United States. It is the way things are.

But that is not the way it works in the kingdom of heaven. Greatness in the kingdom of heaven isn’t won with campaign slogans, super acts of Christian service, having the greatest and best attitude, or even being the most obedient. No, that doesn’t do it at all. God doesn’t look at performance, he doesn’t grade on achievements, he doesn’t vote based on who is the most fit to reign. Your place in heaven isn’t determined by you at all. Your place in heaven is determined by Jesus, by a God who is gracious, who is generous, who is merciful.

This whole question was brought about by the disciples. They were arguing among themselves as to who would be the greatest in Kingdom of Heaven. They were banking on Jesus the Son of David to ascend to the throne, and they were each secretly hoping that when He came into his kingdom they would have a seat of honor right next to him. And so they asked him “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

And couldn’t you just hear the debate? Couldn’t you hear Peter talking about his record as a fisherman – how he successfully managed his fishing operation and finished each year with a surplus. Or perhaps Simon the former Zealot could appeal to his military expertise as the expert on national security who knows, maybe he even spent time in a Roman prison and endured countless beatings without wavering on his convictions. Maybe John could appeal to his youthfulness as the impetus for change. Maybe Matthew the tax collector or Judas who kept the money could debate the economy. Each one wanted the position of honor, each one wanted to be the greatest.

In answer to their question, Jesus set about teaching them (and teaching us) that the kingdom of heaven is not like the kingdoms of the earth. God doesn’t make his selection based on our performance or upon our (perceived) worthiness for the position. Jesus responded to their silly and foolish question by doing something that surprised them all. Jesus found a child, brought the child right into the middle of the group, sat the child in front of them and he said. “Unless you all turn from your silly debates and one-up-manship and become like this little child you won’t even enter the kingdom.”

In our day and age, we love children. We idolilze children We see them as the epitome of innocence and virtue. We see them in their youth as unspoiled and full of potential . We wish we could be like children. There is a four year old girl on the talent variety show “America’s God Talent”, when she comes out to perform, even the mean judge melts and treats her with kindness and respect.

That was not Jesus’ point. He was not valuing childhood for the sake of childhood. When Jesus commanded that they be “humble like children” he was not referring to character of children. He was referring to their value, their worth, their position in society. Children had no power. They had no authority. They had no usefulness. Their innocence was seen as ignorance. Their playfulness was seen as wastefulness. Jesus was commanding the disciples to see themselves not as the greatest among the great but the least among the lowly. Not the worthiest among the worthy, but the least worthy among the unworthy. Not the strongest of the strong but the weakest of the weak. There is no place in the kingdom of heaven for powerbrokers and the power-hungry. There is room only for the lowly and weak, the servants and the sinners; the unfit and the ineligible; the losers and the lost.

What we so often fail to understand, is that while we can ascend to greatness in the kingdoms of the earth, while we can earn accolades and awards through our performance here on earth, those awards carry no weight in heaven. God is not impressed with our resumes and our listing of earthly accomplishments. Those count for nothing. In fact, the Apostle Paul refers to his own accomplishments as loss, as things that counted against him in the Kingdom of Heaven. We wear them as badges of pride and honor, we see them as indicators of our worth and worthiness, we think they are accomplishments. All those things have done is that they have distracted us from our sin and unworthiness.

The strong and mighty of this world only fool themselves when they believe that they have earned any thing before God. The only thing our deeds earn us before God is punishment. God sees beneath the outward actions to the most basic level of the human heart. He sees our motivations. He sees the reasons why we do what we do. He sees the pride, the resentfulness, the greed, the desire to simply promote ourselves over our neighbor. He sees the utter wickedness and sin. While we can cover these things up with a nice haircut, a shower, and nice clothes we can never hide them from God.

God has seen that sin. And that is exactly why he has come. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a kingdom for the worthy, it is a kingdom for the unworthy. It is a kingdom for sinners. It is a kingdom made for you and me. God takes the weak, the unworthy, the unfit and the foolish and he makes us worthy. He becomes our strength. He washes away all of our foolishness and all of our sin and he counts for us to our credit the good works and worthiness of Jesus. Our own works count against us. The works of Jesus count for us. We are made citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven only by the grace and mercy of God. We become great in the kingdom of heaven, not by earning that spot with our own righteousness – we are lowly and humble are given greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven only by the graciosness and generosity of Jesus.

We ought not be spending our time furthering our own careers and seeking the highest and best spots of heaven, Jesus gives us a different job to do. Ironically, what Jesus commands is the exact opposite of the thing that the disciples were doing, the exact opposite of what we often find ourselves doing. Instead of working to ensure their own place in heaven they were to be working to ensure the place of others in heaven.

Jesus begins with a warning. “It is necessary for stumbling blocks to come. But woe to that one through whom the stumbling blocks come. It would be better for that one if a millstone were to be tied around his neck and thrown into the sea.”

Our translation says that it is necessary for temptations to come – certainly the devils lures into sin are included in what Jesus has in mind. But at times the things that draw us away from faith go beyond an appeal to our sinful desires. There are times when the thing that proves to be an obstacle to faith is our own challenges or suffering or perhaps we become disillusioned and jaded due to the poor example of others. We see it in politics all the time – a formerly respected politician is outed for corruption or sin and his hypocrisy suddenly become evident to all. It is for that reason that so many people approach politics and politicians with such skepticism. The same things happens when there is scandal in the church. These things can cause Christians to stumble in their faith, to doubt and to question. Great damage can be done in the hearts and consciences of the weak when we secretly live the life of sin that we are so outspoken against. Jesus’ message to his disciples and to us is that we not be that stumbling block. The self-centered power hungry question that the disciples were debating as to who was the greatest was exactly the kind of thing that would lead to such scandals arising – faith that is self centered.

Instead of this self centered focus, Christ calls us to be his servants and to be servants of one another. Instead of weakening our brothers and sisters in Christ with self centered words and actions, we are to busy ourselves concerned for each other. We are to search out the weak search out the sinners, find them, bring them back, restore them. We are to live our own lives for the sake of each other, for our neighbor. Because that is what Jesus has done for us.

Every word that Jesus spoke, he spoke for us. Every action of Jesus was done for us. Every breath taken by Jesus was taken for us. Never once did Jesus put off or put away those who so desperately needed him. Never once did Jesus tell himself that he earned a break, a little time away. Never once did Jesus take advantage of the perks that we associate with leadership and power and position. Instead, Jesus used his power and his authority as the very thing that would save us from our sin.

In our own political process our candidates are given the opportunity to speak so that we can judge them by their words to determine their worthiness to rule. It is their trial by fire.. When it came time for Jesus’ trial he didn’t pull out his most polished rhetoric to refute his enemies, and he didn’t go on the attack. In fact, he didn’t say a thing. Instead he stood before them silent, taking their accusations and refusing to answer them.

When it came time for Jesus to be dressed for his coronation, he was not sent to see a tailor who fitted him for fine robes, no stately looking dark colored suit and tie, instead Jesus was sent to soldiers who were hungry for blood . Jesus was stripped of his garments and the only thing covering his naked body was his own blood.

When it came time for him to ascend to his throne, it was not gilded and gold. It was not a highbacked leather chair in the oval office with hisown presidential seal in the carpet. The throne of Jesus was a cross made of wood. Rough hewn.
Jesus did not sit on his throne, he was held there with nails.

As Jesus reigned from his throne as the King of heaven and earth he did not lash out against his enemies. He did not wage war or condemn his enemies. Instead, as he sat there on his cross shaped throne, robed in his own blood, he spoke words of pardon – “Father forgive them.”
To those who would rule in heaven, to those who were concerned about their place in heaven, when they had turned to become low and humble like a child, when they stopped seeking their own glory and instead turned their attention to seeking and saving the lost, he then gave to them the authority to do that very thing that he does.

" Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed 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."

When Christ gives authority on earth, it is authority to forgive, the authority to restore. Jesus has earned the power and the authority to forgive sinners. He wants that to be done, regularly. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if the president signed an order that any American could walk up into any prison and could set free any criminal that had committed a crime against them. Our streets would be filled with lawbreakers. But that is exactly what Jesus has done. He has given that executive authority to pardon sinners to his church. The kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of grace of forgiveness and of pardon.

In this sinful and power hungry world, when men seek office and authority to rule and to reign it is always to exercise strength, to make laws, to set direction. To overcome enemies by a show of force. But in the kingdom of heaven, Christ rules with love and forgiveness. He rules by washing away sin, by forgiving sinners and by strengthening and restoring the weak.

Amen.

Pentecost 13 - Job 38:4-18

Have you ever gone outside late at night, glanced up at the heavens and stopped in your tracks as you noticed the beauty and the majesty of the night sky? On more than one occasion, since we have moved to Chuckery (where there is not so much interference from the city lights and the smog) I have happened to step outside, looked up and been amazed at the clarity of the night sky. It is beautiful, to say the least.
But even here, we are still only 20 minutes away from the lights and smog of Columbus. While up in Michigan a week or so ago, we were more than an hour away from any major city. One night, we happened to be out on a clear night, looked up at the sky, and we were amazed at the sight. Usually (because of all the competition from civilization) only the brightest of stars can be seen, but on that night the sky was literally bright with millions and billions of stars. The stars you can normally see were that much brighter, the stars that are normally hidden filled in the gaps between. It was amazing. Looking out in the vastness of space, comprehending that it goes on forever and realizing that each one of those tiny little specs of light represents stars, and solar systems, and even entire galaxies, seeing it in greater clarity and witnessing it in its greater majesty you couldn't help but feel small. You couldn't help but get a tinge of what Job must have been realizing as he heard God speaking to him the words of the text that we have before us.
God and Job were having a conversation. Most of the time when we talk to God he doesn't talk back, at least not so we can hear him. But Job had suffered a tragedy. He thought he didn't deserve it. And he let God hear about it. He called God out on the mat to have it out with him. Job talked tough to his friends about God, claiming that God had no right to make him suffer the way he did, claiming that he was innocent and that God was unjust, that God had done him wrong. And then, much to Job's surprise, God showed up.
Okay Job, you want to have it out. You want to challenge God. Put 'em up and get ready to fight like a man.
Job quickly found out that he was unmatched with God.
Job suffered from a severe misunderstanding. A great distortion of the nature of God. Job is not at all alone in this misunderstanding – it is one that all of us struggle with probably every day. Job thought he could determine what God thought of him according to how things were going in his life. When things are going the way we want them to, we thank and praise God and at times will even assume God has blessed us because of our great work ethic, or our faith or our understanding. But then when things don't go the way we would like them to, we assume that God is displeased with us. We wonder what we did wrong to make God angry. At the very heart of this is a theology, an understanding of faith that believes that we can earn God's favor by what we do. We call that works righteousness.
Job did not suffer because he had committed some sin. Job did not suffer because God was vindictive or seeking revenge. In fact, God never really tells Job why he suffered. Job wanted to know why, but God didn't owe it to Job to explain why. Job didn't need to know the reason. He didn't need any explanation. But that didn't change the fact that Job wanted one. It didn't change the fact that he actually thought he deserved one.
The same is true for us. We always want to know why. God, why did you do this to me? Why did you make me this way? Why did you put me in this situation? Why did you put me with these people? What are you doing in my life?
We want to know what God is doing and why He is doing it. We regularly make the exact same mistake and commit the same sin as Job. In our pride and arrogance, we think God should tell us. We don't need to know. We already know how the story will end, God is bringing us to salvation. God will deliver us from sin from death and from Satan when it is all said and done. It's like we have read the last page of the book – we know the ending. No matter what happens on the pages between, the story will end the same. God will bring us to heaven. All we need to do is nothing – God is God. He will take care of us. We don't need to know what he is doing and why he is doing it. All we need to do is trust Him and believe that He will do what he said he will do.
Essentially, that is the point of this text.
God took the time to remind Job that he was God. Our text begins...
“Where we you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurement – surely you know! Who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk or who laid its cornerstone when the morning star sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
I am sure that you have all had the experience of gazing out into the stars and realizing this creation is much greater and grander than what we so often even realize. This world, that we stare out into and marvel at, that causes us to step back and be amazed, for God it is like a construction project. He measured it all out, set its boundary lines in place, manufactured the necessary materials and put it all together.
Imagine that. There are entire libraries, people who devote their lives to understanding and deciphering the many mysteries of the universe. God has drawn it up and put it together. God drew the blueprints, manufactured the raw materials, and assembled it all, all on his own. No help from anyone else. No building committee, no consulting firm, no site surveyors, not even a work crew. Just God.
We marvel and are amazed when Ty Pennington and his design team, not to mention the crew of hundreds of workers from Extreme Home Makeover can create a house from scratch in a week's time. For God, that is child's play. In six days God made this entire universe – with all its beauty and complexity, in all of it magnificence and majesty.
God goes on...
“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth from the womb?”
We have all seen the shots taken during a hurricane of the waves that come crashing up onto shorelines and swamp the man made embankments in a spray of ocean water. We have all seen the photos and videos that were shot during the Tsunami a few years ago that killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed untold amounts of property. Imagine running from the force and power of a huge wall of water thousands of miles wide and 30 feet high! Have you ever asked yourself “What stops that from happening every day?” Why is it that the ocean waves know to come up only so far onto the land and then stop? Why doesn't the ocean flood the entire earth, or randomly sneak out and destroy people and property. Because that's how God made it. God created the sea and put it in its place. Like an animal trainer who commands the lion to sit down and stay put, God has placed His limits on the mighty ocean and will allow it to go no further. We call it gravity. Gravity is simply the hand of God
Or the heavens, the stars in the sky, the moon, the planets, the sun that goes down and night and comes up again the next morning. Yes we know that the sun rises and sets because of the rotation of the earth. But why does it do that? Why is it that the earth has a regular rotation on its axis? Why is it that the earth has a regular rotation around the sun that creates seasons? For us it is a marvel and a mystery. Scientists use telescopes, and satellites and computers to help them just help them figure out how it all works. For God, it is like a gigantic sheet that he could grab at both ends and shake it out, like you might do as you are folding your laundry.
Even the deepest and darkest places of the world, places we have never been and could never go. Even to the gates of death itself, these places are not hidden from God. They are within his hand, under his influence and respond to his beckoning. God is God! He stands over this entire world. He has every piece of this world and this universe in his hands. He knows and understands everything.
And to think that we would complain about a few little minute details that don't quite go our way. To think that we would challenge Him and doubt him? To think that we would wonder at his intentions and his purpose.
Do you want to know the intentions of God? Do you want to know His ultimate purpose? Do you want to know why you suffer? Or why God does or allows things to occur in your life?
Look at our gospel text!
Jesus. The Son of God, and the Son of Mary came to his disciples who were out on the lake in a boat. He didn't come on a surf board. Or by jet ski. He wasn't lowered down by a helicopter. He walked through the wind and the waves along the surface of the water.
Those of your who have studied physics and natural sciences know about buoyancy and surface tension and understand that there are mathematical laws to explain these phenomenon and understand how they work. People don't walk on water, we sink. But Jesus did. He did because He is God. He wrote these laws that govern how water behaves. He put those in place for us and for our benefit. And he suspended them at the appropriate times again for our benefit.
He walked out on the water. He got into the boat and he caused the wind and the waves to cease.
If Jesus can suspend natural laws of the universe. If he can walk on water and then command the wind and the waves, then He is and must be God, the God who created these things.
And if he has the power to stop a storm, to calm the wind and the waves surely he had the power to calm the crowds who were crying out for him to die. Surely he had the power to influence the minds and the actions of the chief priests, of Pontius Pilate. Certainly he could have stopped all of these things from occurring He could have preserved himself from suffering and dying on the cross. But he did not. According to his own will and desire, He went to the cross, suffered and died so that he could save us from our sin.
That has been done – finished. Complete. Your salvation is already yours. It's a done deal. There is no taking it away.
If salvation is been done, then is there any need to worry? Is there any cause for concern about your life? Your family? Your children? Your occupation? Your bills?
What about your health? What about your children? What about school? What about the economy? What about the election? What about our society? Our culture? What about television? The internet? Child predators?
God says, “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the world? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know.”
We don't know. Not even something as fundamental and elementary as creation. How will we ever understand the complexity of a world that damaged and destroyed with Sin. But God does. In his foresight he sees everything that has happened and will happen. He sees even the smallest details of what is in our hearts. He knows what we will do before we do it. And so in His wisdom he He guides every action in the entire universe. We may not know what will happen today, what will happen tomorrow, but one thing we do know. The God who made all of this and controls and guides and gives all things is a God who loves us and cares for us and who has sacrificed himself so that we could have life forever in heaven. That is a done deal.

Pentecost 10 - Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

I am a horrible gardener. I suppose my problem is not so much that I can't take care of plants as much as it is that I don't. If you have ever seen the plants that were living in my office you would know what I mean – there is a cactus in there that is just barely hanging on. It usually only gets watered when I am looking to get rid of some stale coffee.
This spring, the Schlueter family decided to try its hand at gardening. Being all too aware of my own limitations I was skeptical about the undertaking, but it was argued that the kids would enjoy watching the plants grow and they could help take care of it so I consented and now we have a small patch in the back of the house with a few vegetables growing in it, along with half a dozen sun flowers or so.
Up until a few days ago, if you would have taken a walk back to my garden and taken a look at it, other than the sunflowers that stand up tall above the rest you might have thought that I was cultivating a weed patch. The small plot was entirely overgrown with all kinds things that we certainly did not intend to be growing there. You might have wondered if there was any plan or intentional planting there at all. It mostly looked like a breeding ground for thistles and crab grass and the like. I finally got out and began pulling away some of those weeds – but there is still more work to be done...
In my garden, the reason for all the weeds is my own negligence. As I said, I am a terrible gardener. I don't take the necessary time to care for the things that I am supposed to be cultivating. I let them go and so it is not surprise when I look out in the back and it is overgrown. Jesus also has weeds in his garden – there is a world that is filled with unbelievers and certainly he could pull these weeds out and throw them away. But he does not! And the reason for that is he doesn't is not because he is a bad gardener (as I am) No. Jesus allows the weeds to remain. And the reason he allows them to remain is precisely the opposite – he is a good gardener. He loves every living thing that is growing in that garden and he is patient.
All this talk of gardens comes from our text. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus told a a parable in which He compared himself to a gardener who went out to sow seed in his garden. The seeds he sowed were to plant Christians – those who believe in the one true God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And after Jesus had finished planting his seed, His enemy the Devil came along and planted some weeds. Unbelievers. Non Christians. Worthless plants that have been sown by Jesus' enemy the Devil. Those who are doomed to be thrown into the fire and destroyed.
As much as weeds are unsightly and inconvenient in my little garden, for those of you who are farmers, weeds are a much bigger problem. After you have gone out and spent the money to buy the seed, gone to the trouble and expense of planting the seed, you hope to get some return on your investments. Weeds take away from your bottom line. They keep your crop from its maximum yield. So you do what you have to do to spray the weeds to get rid of them.
You would think that it would be the same in God's garden. You would think that God would be in a hurry to get rid of the weeds and be done with them. But he allows them to remain. In the parable, even when the harvesters, the angels came to ask the farmer if he wanted them to pull the weeds he said no. He commanded the angels to let the weeds remain. To us, that simply does not make sense.
Again, the answer to the conundrum is God's patience and his forbearance. God the Divine Farmer is merciful and He is good. He has patience with those things that are growing in his fields. He does not pull them out so quickly but allows them to remain.
A nuance in Jesus' parable that is not immediately seen is the type of weeds that have been sown in the field. Jesus calls them in Greek, Zizania. These days, zizania is a type of wild rice. In ancient times, zizania was a weed that looked very much like wheat. It's stalks and heads were similar in shape and appearance, but the grains were black. The weeds and wheat on the outside looked very much the same.
This is not to say that God's angels cannot tell the difference. The angels do God's bidding. If he wanted them to pull the weeds to get rid of them, they would pull only those God commanded them to pull. When the farmer in the parable commanded the workers to leave the weeds it was not that he was concerned that they couldn't tell the difference.
But for you and I that is a different story. When we look around at those who are planted beside us, we can't tell the difference. We can't see inside to someone's heart to know for certain if they are among the sons of God or among the sons of the devil. To us they all look the same. We are easily deceived.
On the outside you can't tell the difference between a believer and an unbeliever. They look the same. Side by side there is not much difference. But what is inside, the condition of the heart is where the difference lies. The heart of the unbeliever is black with sin. The heart of the believer has been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.
That truth is important for us to keep in mind. Often we want to determine our value in the kingdom of heaven, as Sons of God based upon how we look on the outside. Most of the tallest and healthiest plants in my little garden were weeds. And just a few days ago I pulled them out and threw them away. Some of the strongest, most successful, most well adjusted and selfactualized people on the planet are also weeds – sons of the devil. They look great on the outside. But on the inside their hearts are filled with sin. Some of the weakest, most frail, most conflicted people on the planet are believers like you and me who feel like we are going to fall over break apart with the next breeze that comes along. It is not a matter of outside appearances, it is a matter of what you have done or how well you are doing. It is a matter of what Jesus has done for you.
Jesus didn't want the weeds to be uprooted and thrown away and burned because he is patient. Again, it is hard for us to understand what his patience is all about . Weeds are weeds and they need to be gotten rid of. There is no sense in letting them hang around. The longer they remain the more problems they will cause for your crop.
But Jesus is a farmer unlike any other farmer. He does not share our same limitation. You and I would not love weeds, we hate them and get rid of them. Jesus loves them. In fact he loves them so much that he has died for them. When it came time for the weeds to be thrown into the furnace Jesus said – no leave them in their place, take me instead. Jesus the farmer gave up his life for the weeds, for you and me.
That doesn't make sense. I wouldn't give up my life or the life of my child to save the weeds growing in my garden. But God did that for us, for you and for me. Jesus died in our place on the cross to save us from the destruction that we deserve. We were those weeds doomed to be burned in the fire but He saved us when he sacrificed himself for us.
But that is not all.
Our farmer is a miracle worker. What if there was something that you could spray on the weeds to, instead of killing them, actually change them. Imagine if you could turn thistles into corn. Imagine if you could turn goldenrod into soybeans. You be a millionaire no doubt.
This is what God does with us. We were weeds in his garden but he changed us. He turned us from weeds destined for the fire into a crop guaranteed for the harvest. We were sons of Satan we are now sons of God. God is patient because he knows that there are weeds in his garden that he still intends to change, to turn, to reclaim. He plans to steal those seeds away from the devil and rescue them for his harvest. He is patient because he does not want to loose them. He does not want them to be destroyed.
If God were a farmer like me, we would all be destined for hell, there would be no hope for any one of us. But he is not. He is loving, he is gracious. He is merciful. He is kind. He cares for those things that grow in his garden. He sacrifices and surrenders himself. He works miracles to change us from what we are into what he wants us to be and then he brings us in to his harvest.
Truly our god has given to us more than what we could ever ask for or deserve. We were worthless yet because of his love and unheard of mercy we are his own and we will be called in at his great harvest.

Pentecost 9 - Isaiah 55:10-13

The other night, the Schlueter family was confessing the Apostle's Creed as a part of our evening prayers. After we were through, Will in the sincere honesty of childhood looked up at me and asked, “daddy, why does Pilate punch us?” . (He was probably wondering if Pilate had it in mind to punch him, and if so that was certainly a legitimate question) We straightened out the misunderstanding – Pontius is simply a Roman name, a form of the Latin word pons – the word for bridge.
The important thing about Potius Pilate, however, is not his name or the origin of his name. It is not who we call him or how we know him. The important thing about Pilate is the part that he played in the salvation of the entire human race. Pilate was the man who held the fate of Jesus in his hands – he was the judge who represented every man from every age and from every corner of the earth who pronounced the order for the death of the innocent Jesus. Knowing him to be innocent Pilate sent him to die the death that he himself deserved, indeed the death that even you and I deserve. Pilate gave that order and so therefore in our creed, we mention his name, I believe in Jesus Christ... suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified died and was buried. And so pontius became a topic of discussion at the Schlueter house.
In addition to being a good example of the cute things that kids say, it also happens to be a good illustration for the sermon this morning. Will's question born in childlike innocence, provided a wonderful opportunity for his parents to teach him the Christian faith, to teach him something that relates to the history of his salvation and the salvation of the entire humans race. That is the job of parents. God gave to us parents because it is his desire, it is his design that parents – especially fathers – teach their children the one true faith.
Our text this morning is about how that faith comes to be – how it is formed and where it comes from. Elsewhere, in Romans 10 Paul tells us that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.“ God puts faith in your ears. Your ears are like a laundry shoot that God opens up, He dumps in his Word, his Word slides down your ears, through your brain and into your heart where it settles in and becomes faith. God gives his word into you and once he has put it there it does exactly what he wants it to do. It fills you up, it grows, it nourishes and strengthens you and then it produces a harvest.
That is essentially what was happening the other night in our living room following the confessing of the creed. We were teaching our children the Christian faith. We were teaching them what to believe. Namely that God, the god they are to trust in and have faith in, the god who saves them and cares for them and protects them is the god of the Apostles Creed. The one true god, the only god is the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Occasionally parents will say that they are not raising their child to believe any particular religion. They plan to let them grow to the age where they can decide for themselves. Their reasoning is that they do not want to force their children to believe – they do not want to turn them off to Christianity by making it an obligation. Underneath all of this is the hope that their children eventually grow up to be believers in the one true God. But it is a naïve hope.
Children are sinful. If they are left to themselves they will do what every sinner does – they will worship themselves. They will make themselves into god, either in choosing the god that works for them, that fits their lifestyle and their preferences, the god who lets them be who they want to be, or they will deny god all together.
Children need to be taught. Because of their inborn sinfulness, they need to be taught the Christian faith, they need to be taught to attend church and Sunday School or Bible Study. They need to be taught to read and study the bible.
Teaching this is not as hard as we sometimes assume. I like the game of soccer. My kids know that I like to watch soccer on TV. I like to go watch the Crew play in Columbus. I am in a soccer league and I look forward to being able to play on Sunday afternoons. When we signed the kids up to play soccer in the spring, kids, being great imitators were excited to follow in their daddies footsteps and to actually have the opportunity to do the thing that they saw their daddy loved.
Dads, shouldn't we love to attend God's house where He comes for us in His Word and in His Supper to forgive us for all of our sins and to be with us – shouldn't we love coming here at least as much, and even more, than we love soccer... than we love football... than we love golf... than we love auto racing... Wouldn't our kids be that much more excited and willing to attend church if they saw a positive example from their parents?
Certainly they would.
But part of the problem is that we as parents often don't really want to go to church. We know we should go. We know that it is good for us to go. We know that God blesses us if we go and when we go. We know that we have a better week after we have gone to church. But still we don't want to go. Our sinful flesh wants to stay home, sleep in, go somewhere else, do something else, do anything else. Its not fun when we have to confess that we are poor miserable sinners. It's not fun to acknowledge and admit our unworthiness and our sinfulness. Our sinful flesh resists going to church!
We often become like those different types of soil that Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew: The well worn path – the hard hearted sinner who refuses to let the word of God penetrate his soul so that the host of devils that is always lurking around can easily steal the seeds of the the Gospel away. Or the rocky soil, that initially receives the Word of God with joy, yet when the Holy Spirit seeks to enter in to the private recesses of our hearts – we suddenly become hardened and attempt to keep him out so that when trials come we easily doubt and our faith is plucked out like recently sprouted seedling. Or the soil that is overgrown with weeds, that is - with the many distractions of worldly wealth and power so that the seed of the Gospel that has been sown suffers under the competition and is eventually choked out.
Yet God sends out the workers into the field – God sends out His pastors and preachers who proclaim his saving gospel of Jesus who died on the cross to save sinners. God sends out His people into the world who speak the gospel they have received so that every sinner receives the seed. The seed is thrown out recklessly and without reservation. We might think it wasteful to sow seeds on the highway or among the rocks, yet the Heavenly Master wants the seeds of faith, the seeds of the Gospel, the seeds of the Word of God to be thrown out, risking that they be wasted, because he knows where the cracks in pavement are. He directs those seed into those cracks where he waters them and makes them to grow. We always marvel when we see trees that grow up in the most unlikely of places, that somehow find nourishment on rocky cliffs and old parking lots and we wonder how they survive. Even more miraculous is the hardened sinner whose heart is changed so that it receives the Word of God in faith, so that it believes the Gospel, so that its roots are sent down into the deepest places of that sinner's heart to create a believer, to create a Christian.
God has done that very thing with you. As the rain and snow comes down from heaven and does not return without watering the earth, making it to grow and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so is the Word that goes out from the mouth of God. IT does not return to Him empty. It has gone where He has directed it. It has gone to your heart, it has created faith in your heart. It has caused you to believe.
At times this parable of Jesus can cause us some stress – what soil am I? I at times resist the Holy Spirit. I often refuse to allow Him access to my heart. I am easily distracted by the cares of this world. I think I will loose my faith. Your master gardener will not let you go so easily. He will water you. He will till you. He will fertilize you. He will produce a harvest from within you. So keep returning to the well. Keep placing yourself here where you will be watered. Keep coming back to the place where God offers his gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation and you will bear fruit for salvation. Not because of your work, but because of the work that Jesus has done in you.

Pentecost 6 - Romans 6:15-23

A number of years ago there was a film by Clint Eastwood entitled “the Unforgiven”. Eastwood played the role of a gunslinger who was trying to put behind him the life of violence that he lived in his younger years and live his life as a family man. Yet his past caught up with him. Because of his history as a gunfighter, he was asked to travel to a town and right a wrong that had been done and then swept under the rug. The film was ultimately about a man who had done bad things trying to come to terms with those things, hoping to find some goodness and worth in the life of violence he had lived in his younger days.

While not all of us have been wild west gun slingers and lived a life that skirted the edges of the law, we have all done things that we are not proud of. We have all done things that we know are wrong. Every one of us has skeletons hidden in our closet that we would like to keep locked up tight and put away where we don’t have to see them or hear from them or deal with them. All of us carry around guilt from our former actions and would like to find some sort of redemption from those past sins.

Our Epistle text from Romans 6 speaks to this very topic. In our text Paul talks about our past, about who we were as compared to who we now are. It is about those skeletons that we have in our closets, it is about our previous way of life as compared to the life that we now live, the life that we have now been given, the life that is a life of holiness and sanctification, a life that is lived in the service and slavery of God and leaves behind slavery to our sinful impulses.

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. [21] But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. [22] But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

And, what is most wonderful is that all of this takes place within the context of a discussion of baptism. Romans chapter 6 is the place where Paul offers a theological treatment of this wonderful doctrine so that he might teach us just how complete a job God has done to set us free from our sin.

This discussion is also quite timely, seeing as today was the baptism of my own daughter, wich is the second of 3 baptisms this month with more scheduled for the next. We have had a good number of baptisms here at St Paul, we have an awful lot of babies.

Romans 6 begins with these words, “What shall we say then, shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer! For don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

Our text, that talks about our new life of holiness and sanctification – who we were and who we now are is built on of the foundation laid down in the opening verses of chapter 6 that all have to do with baptism. You who were baptized, your old sinful self was crucified. The skeletons that you have in your closet are dead and washed away. Christ has made you clean. Christ has set you free from sin. Christ has made you holy!

You wanna talk about skeletons? You wanna talk about sin and living a life that is ruled by sin? You wanna talk about past mistakes and baggage and a closet filled to the top with skeletons? (This is the place to do it). According to Paul, you who were baptized died to these sins. He says don’t keep doing them, don’t live in them, don’t live with them. Kill them, crucify them, confess them to Christ and kill them on the cross and don’t live in them any longer. Yes, but oddly enough, if baptism is about cleaning out your closet and doing away with your past sins, then why do we baptize babies? As I said, today I baptized my daughter. We have had a run on baptisms lately and will have a few more in the coming weeks.

Ever since Tori was born I have been a very proud father and I wanted to show off my new baby girl. I printed off a picture of her that I taped to the office window so that anyone who was interested could see our new addition to our family. At least in my opinion it’s a pretty good picture. We managed to snap the photo while she was sleeping (obviously then taken during the daylight hours – if we would have taken it at night she would have been wide awake). But she looks so peaceful! She looks beautiful, perfect, one of the best looking, most beautiful babies I have ever seen – definitely in the top 3, anyway. (I might be a little biased) What skeletons can she have? She is barely old enough to have a closet, let alone skeletons to put in the closet! What sins does she have to die for?

You and I might not be able to see them in the photograph, but they are there! When I am slightly delayed in preparing her bottle and hear her impatient cries, I can hear that sinful heart,(that old sinful flesh, the dead works and dead thoughts and dead flesh of her sinful members that Paul talks about here in our text) ringing in her voice. But even that is not the most convincing evidence. The best and most convincing evidence of Tori’s sinful heart, of my sinful heart, your sinful heart, the heart of the goodest goody two shoes is that we all die. Paul says in our text that the wages of sin is death. If Tori was perfect, if you were perfect, if I was perfect then we wouldn’t die. We would live forever, we wouldn’t have wages to be compensated for. As such we sin, we are sinners, the just compensation for that sin is death. People of all ages, races, religions, and persuasions die every day – it doesn’t matter who you are. We are all sinners, we all die, we all deserve to die and as such we all have skeletons in our closets, we all have sins hidden away in our heart, we all are guilty and all deserve the worst of what Christ our righteous judge would give. Even the perfect little baby in the peaceful and serene photograph pasted to the window of the church office is a hardened sinner who deserves from God nothing but death.

And were it not for Jesus that death would be forever. Were it not for Jesus that death, that people die would be an eternal death, a punishment that would last forever. That would be a never ending suffering and separation from God. But because of the promise of salvation, because of Christ’s sacrifice for us and for our sin when he died on the cross our death is not an eternal death, it is not a death that occurs under the full wrath of the law, it is a death that occurs under the gift and thus we are rescued from this death and given the hope of life that we will live forever and ever without end.

Jesus died for us, in our place on the cross. Jesus suffered that separation from God that we have earned because of our sin when he cried out to the heavenly father who had forsaken him. We were slaves of sin – our bodies of walking death were trapped in that death, the way all dead things are.

If you are dead you are dead and there is nothing you can do about it until someone comes along to revive you. When Jesus suffered our death, he earned the right to be the one who revives us. He can take our death away from us because he has already suffered our death for us. And so he does, in baptism we die with Christ, his death becomes our death so that he can then give his life as our life. The life we live we live to Christ!

The beauty of this biblical truth is that you and I who have a closet so filled up with skeletons we can barely keep the door closed – it bursting at the scenes like in one of those old cartoons – someone goes to open a door and as soon as they do they are buried with all of the stuff that was crammed into it – our closets are so filled with our sins that we want to keep the door shut, we know the risk of opening it up and revisiting everything that we have stuffed in there. But then Jesus comes along, opens the door, is buried underneath the pile of sins that spill out and picks them all up, not to stuff them back in but to carry them out to the cross so that he can suffer the penalty for them.

Lately every time you turn on the television there is a report of the devastation that has occurred because of the flooding in the Midwest. The massive rains have flooded farm lands, have swept away homes and businesses. The waters have picked up roads, they have broken levies, taken out bridges and left in their wake a mass of destruction. The power of the water has wiped out and washed away so much of the livelihood and infrastructure of so many people.

Water is certainly powerful, powerful enough to wipeout and wash away. But that is water in mass quantities. One drop can’t do much – unless it is combined with the life giving and life saving word of God. When that water is poured over the head and the heart of every sinner who comes for baptism that sinner, that man woman or child who is brought here to the font is swamped, is overcome, is drowned in a river of God’s forgiveness and grace. Water, together with the detergent of God Word creates a flood that no sin can stand in the way of. Some sins seem so big, they seem like mountains of immovable granite and we feel that there is no getting around them. Some sins seem so small that they cling to us so tightly that we feel that even those can’t be cleaned. But Every sin, no matter how big or how small gets washed away in the raging flood waters of your baptism. You are inundated and overcome, you are swamped with the floodwaters and everything gets swept away.

And this flood is one that never crests and never recedes. The bible calls it a spring welling up to eternal life. It is a flood that keeps rushing, that keeps raging, that keeps washing and cleansing so that every time your sins try to pass the current they are swept away.

As Paul writes our text, he is writing to address the feelings of some that Paul is encouraging sin or excusing sin, that once you are baptized you can go ahead and sin as much as you want because there is enough forgiveness to go around. If you try hard enough you can build an island in the floodwaters, you can pile up enough sins to anchor yourself in your unrighteousness. But why would you want to? Those sins, those ways of unrighteousness only lead to death. The flood waters that would sweep you away lead to righteousness, to holiness and to eternal life.

Today God has swept away the skeletons in Tori’s little closet. In your life Christ has done the same for you. In your baptism, you have been filled up and flooded out with God’s forgiveness and love. Let’s not build islands of sin, lets resist the temptation to weigh anchor hold on to our old ways that lead to death, lets ride the wave, be overcome in God’s forgiveness and be overcome in living in his righteousness that leads to eternal life.

Amen.