Sunday, January 22, 2012

God's Way Must Have Its Day

Jonah was not happy. In fact, Jonah was most displeased, disillusioned, and determined not to be an instrument of the Lord’s mercy to the horrible human inhabitants of Nineveh, who unquestionably deserved to get what was otherwise coming to them. So Jonah packed his bags and looked for the first opportunity to get as far away from the presence and the purposes of the Lord as he possibly could.
Pick someone who really deserves to get what’s coming to him (or her), a poor excuse for a human being who really makes your skin crawl, who causes good people to rightly recoil in horror. Fill an ancient metropolis with one hundred and twenty thousand people who make your skin crawl, and what you have is a shamelessly idolatrous Nineveh—reveling and rejoicing in its depravity. What you have is Nineveh. But look who ends up later being hurled into the depths. It’s not the Ninevites. It’s the prophet of Almighty God, Jonah.
Sometimes God’s love for the loveless, for those who don’t deserve it, seems ever so adorable. Good for God! What a good God He is! Isn’t the God of the forlorn wonderful? Sometimes God seem unfailingly endearing, but sometimes He and His ways are just plain unnerving and unsettling. Sometimes God’s love for the loveless is nothing short of shocking. You mean He loves them all? You mean He actually earnestly longs to extend his love and forgiveness to all? Even the ugliest of the ugly, the most reprehensible of them all? All of them? Really?
So Jonah “rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” because He could not fathom, could in no way embrace, that kind of God. So he rose to flee, he rose to refuse and abandon it all, and in doing so, he joined those that he loathed—those who deserve God’s punishment. So Jonah was hurled into the depths, so that he might know, so that he might first be rescued, so that he might repent and believe, so that he might come to his senses, or, at least, so that he might come to see that God’s way must have its day.
And the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land, and the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “OK, one more time, Arise and go to Nineveh.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord, not because he especially wanted to, not because he now possessed the heart of his God for the Ninevites. Have you noticed how often the will of God takes us in directions that we would have never chosen for ourselves? Have you noticed? Jonah noticed, and he goes—as you and I must sometimes go—not because he understands why, not because he knows the best way to go, not even because in his heart of hearts he sympathizes, but because God’s way must have its day.
So Jonah “called out…and the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. And when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”
That’s right. He did not do it. In this we see the lengths to which our God is willing to go for the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly. The Lord our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. If his love is for some, his love is for all. The attractive and the appalling and all points in between. Thanks be to God, it doesn’t matter who the sinner is, God’s way must have its day.
Now so far, we’ve been painting the story of Jonah in fairly broad strokes, so let’s add some detail. It’s easy to sit back and talk about Jonah’s reluctance to carry out God’s will. What’s not so easy—and at the same time is absolutely necessary—is for you to use Jonah as a kind of mirror—to see in his reflection your own reluctance to let God’s way have its day in you. In other words, we each have our own way in which we’re running off to Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh.
You know that God has claimed you as His own child, BUT you don’t want to stick out, you don’t want to be different, you don’t want to be labeled as a goody-two shoes Bible thumper.
You know that God has called you to be the best husband or wife you can be, BUT really, it’s your own needs and desires that matter to you most. And that’s not just for husbands and wives, but sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, you name it. Friends, acquaintances. God says, “Go to the Nineveh of loving me above all else and love your neighbor as yourself.” We flee to the Tarshish of “I love myself first, and everyone else needs to wait in line.”
You know that God wants His people to extend radical forgiveness to those who wrong us, BUT the mercy that’s so easy for you to accept for yourself seems so hard to release to others.
You strongly suspect that God wants to use you to serve His creation, BUT it’s just easier and more comfortable—not to mention more fun—to build my life around me. Is this striking a chord? God says, “Go to Nineveh,” so what do we do? We pull out our GPS and look for somewhere in the opposite direction. It’s what we do as sinners. And the result was, for Jonah at least, being tossed overboard into the depths of the sea. That’s where it’s always heading when you run off to Tarshish instead of heading for Nineveh. You sink. And here’s something to chew on: God is not above using a big fish incident to get your attention, and to get you back on track. He’ll do it if He has to.

Is there any solution to this? There is—one. Another prophet was thrown into the depths, but this prophet had no sin or shame to speak of. He had no reluctance to carry out God’s way. In fact, He was totally obedient to His Father. That’s how he ended up in the depths, On the cross of Golgotha, Jesus drowned in sin, totally abandoned and alone. Our refusal to speak for God, our refusal to love others more than self, our refusal to forgive, our refusal to go to Nineveh, and a whole host of other refusals put Jesus there, under an ocean of selfishness. For three days, Jesus stayed in the belly of the earth, swallowed up by death. This is what you and I had coming to us, but He jumped in it instead. It counts for you. And then on Easter Sunday, Jesus’ physical resurrection demonstrates that He conquered death. He changed it forever. Life is Jesus’ gift to give, a risen, victorious confident life in the face of the primal fear of death. Life is Jesus’ gift to give, a new and re-directed life; an actual renovation and rebirth that changes what’s important to us.
What does that mean? It means this. If you believe Jesus died for you and rose again for you and still lives for you, you will gladly and willingly want to do hard things to serve God. You will actually find yourself wanting to go to Nineveh, crazy as it sounds. All those refusals will start to reverse themselves, not because we fear punishment, but because we love Jesus; we love what He did for us; we love how He reveals our Father’s heart. We come to believe that God’s way must have its day, but not just that. We come to trust, in the very core of our being, that God’s way is best, and that He deserves our allegiance and love and thanks.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

A Simple Invitation

I was never much of a Lord of the Rings fan. I was more of a Star Wars guy. When Peter Jackson’s “Fellowship of the Ring” came out in 2001, it made a pop culture splash, but I didn’t go see the film, and didn’t feel as if I was missing anything.
In 2002, the next installment, called “The Two Towers” was released to theaters. Again, I didn’t really care much one way or the other. But some friends of mine who were really into the Ring stories invited me to a midnight showing, and I agreed to go. Keep in mind I had a pretty sketchy idea of the plot, and I was walking into part two without any real idea of what part one was about. It didn’t matter. All it took was the spectacular opening scene and I was hooked. I’m glad I went, because it introduced me to an imaginative world that I had never explored before, and I was pleased to learn that the story dealt with some worthwhile themes. Point is, I had to come and see for myself what all the fuss was about. Once I did, I got it, and I’m thankful for the enjoyment it’s given me.
I’m pretty certain that we share that characteristic. As human beings, we like to see for ourselves. Sometimes we’ll take the word of others at face value, but most of the time, we like to check things out for ourselves. We want to test things by our own criteria. We want to gauge our reaction to something, whether it’s a movie or a book or a sport or a game or even a church. We want to see for ourselves. It’s just the way we’re built.
A man named Philip understood this very well. Philip had come face to face with Jesus of Nazareth. This Jesus had approached Philip with a life-changing invitation. “Follow me.” Something about this experience led Philip to the conclusion that Jesus was the one about whom Moses and the Law and the prophets had written. Jesus was the Prophet with a capital P. Jesus was the one who would take the throne of his ancestor David. Jesus was the Messiah. The time of God’s deliverance had come.
What do you do with that kind of news? You’ve got to share it with someone. You feel like you’ll burst if you don’t. So Philip thought of Nathanael and goes to find him. Did you notice all the finding going on in this passage? Jesus found Philip. Then Philip finds Nathanael in order to say, “We found the person the Scripture points to: it’s Jesus of Nazareth!”
Have you ever had someone just totally take the wind out of your sails with their less-than-enthused reaction? You’re dying to share some good news with someone, and they just shut you down with a sarcastic, negative comment? I wonder if that’s how Philip felt. We’ve located the Messiah…we know who he is...and Nathanael’s response is a classic bubble-burster: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Come on Philip, you’ve got to be kidding.
And here is where Philip teaches us an incredible lesson. There were a number of different ways he could’ve reacted to Nathanael’s dissing of his discovery. He could’ve gotten angry and walked away. He could’ve said, “Forget it.” He could’ve engaged Nathanel in a theological debate, going point by point through the Scriptures, giving a clinching argument for Jesus’ identity. He could’ve done any of those things and more. But he didn’t. Instead, he just drops this on Nathanael: “Come and see.” Just a simple invitation: ‘Come and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.’
There is a lesson here about witnessing that I don’t want you to miss. So often I think we have the impression that witnessing only means “talking someone into believing.” That makes us stop before we start. We don’t know what to say or how to say it. We don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. Or it might just be the opposite—you love the truth so much that you’re willing to just drop the hammer on anyone who disagrees with you. You’ve got answers and you know how to use them. Both extremes can learn a better way from Philip and his simple invitation: “Come and see.”
Now it must be said that this invitation was a bit more concrete on Philip’s part. He could invite Nathanael to come see a flesh and blood person and listen to what that person had to say. But our invitation to come and see is really not that much different. Our invitation is this: Come and see Jesus in the place he has promised to be: in His Church.
We can expect the Nathanael question to that too. Lots of folks including some of our own family members, friends, and neighbors might say, “The Christian Church? Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church? Can any good come out of there? I’m not into organized religion. The church is full of hypocrites. They’re always asking for your money. I don’t have to go to church to be a good person. All the Christians I know are more judgmental and less forgiving than the non-Christians. Can any good come from the Church?’ How do you handle this Nathanael question?
Again, we could be offended, especially if there is some painful truth to what is being said. We could debate and try to win the argument and prove ourselves right—which might make us feel good, but also might hurt more than help. We can give up and withdraw and not say anything to the unbeliever and take the stance that they know where we are if they need us. Or we can hold out our hands in hospitality with the invitation: “Come and see.” Come and see for yourself. Come and see if the stereotypes you have hold true. Come and see if the Christian message is what you think it is. Just come and see.
Making this invitation requires confidence. Philip had it in Jesus. He reasoned that if he could just get Nathanael and Jesus together, then the right things would happen. In this case, they did, and then some. Jesus exceeded Nathanael’s expectations—so much so that the man who accepted the invitation to come and see ends up confessing Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel!
If we believe that Jesus is really with us in His Word; If we believe that Jesus is really with us in baptism and in the Lord’s Supper; if we believe that Jesus has made a home in us, then we can make the same invitation with confidence, too. But it’s that last possibility that trips us up. We can get in the way of Jesus. We can, unfortunately, present a negative image to people of what Christianity is all about. I saw a book or an article title once that said: “I Don’t Have a Problem with Jesus; It’s His Followers I Can’t Stand.” Ouch! That hurts! But, could the person who wrote those words have a point?
If so, then we need to know that the invitation applies to us too. Come and see our sins in light of God’s Law. Come and see the punishment they deserve. Come and see the Son of God stoop down to pick up the heavy load of our sins—our sins, not his—and stagger under their weight up to the cross. Come and see Him die your death and take your shame and guilt and see Him bury them all in his grave. Come and see Him break out of His tomb, fully alive, to make you fully alive. Come and see Jesus. And once you’ve seen, bring others to see. Invite them to the places where Jesus awaits. Invite them to the places where the Holy Spirit is active and probing and working to create faith. Invite them and help them to meet a God who knows what we need, and gives us so much more. Let’s become imitators of Philip, making this simple invitation to all who will listen: “Come and see.”

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Unexpected Discoveries



It was around 1945 that George deMestral, a mountain-hiking botanist stopped to pull some burrs off his socks. Intrigued at their sticking power, he looked at the burrs under his microscope, and thought up Velcro. Looking for one thing and finding something better.

A family was wrapping all their Christmas presents. Julie, the man's 4½ year old daughter wanted to do something, too. When her father took the cover off a box and laid it off to the side, Julie took it. When a piece of silvered wrapping paper was discarded, she took that, too. Eventually she had enough of these cast-off scraps to go to her room, and with great concentration, wrapped a special gift for her daddy. The package didn't have the neatly folded corners of the other presents. Indeed, the box looked pretty strange and, I think, pretty special.

On Christmas morning, the family had gathered to distribute the plunder and rip open the wrappings. All the presents had been distributed, opened and ooohhhed over; all of them except that of the little girl, Julie. As sort of the supreme climax to the festivities, she scrambled behind the tree where she had hidden her present, and proudly presented it. "Daddy," she explained, "this is for you." Dad shook it. "Julie," daddy commented, "it's mighty light." Dad made some appropriate guesses about the gift: "Is it a Volkswagen? Is it a St. Bernard? Is it a bowling ball?" No, it was none of those things. Finally, with considerable care he opened it. Looking inside and finding nothing, he commented, "Julie the box is empty. I love what you did, but I'm confused, this is an empty box." "But Daddy, it's not empty. Before I wrapped your present, I blew the box full of kisses, and put into it all my love." The father had been looking for one thing, and wound up finding another; something quite finer than anything he might have imagined.



In a way, it is that sense of discovering the unexpected that makes Epiphany so interesting. Epiphany is a celebration which recalls how some time after Jesus was born, wise men, magi following a new heaven-sent star, showed up in Jerusalem to pay their respects to the next leader of the Jewish nation. Before we go any farther we might want to ask, who were these men? Some say they were Zoroastrian priests from Persia, which is now Iran. Some say they were magi from Babylon, which corresponds to modern-day Iraq. Either way, these people were great students of astronomy, medicine, religion. Either way, it would have taken them a fair amount of time and dedication and money to get to Jerusalem. That's where we find these wise men, in Jerusalem.

Being wise men, you might think that they would make good choices. Well, these wise men weren't quite wise enough. Wisdom had told them it was only natural that they should come to Jerusalem and check in at King Herod's palace. Where else, other than a palace, would you expect to find a newborn king? It was very logical. It was very sensible. It was also wrong. There was no newborn child in the palace. "So if He's not here, where should we look?" the wondering wise men wanted to know. That's when scholars were summoned, and the Scriptures were consulted.

After picking up some directions from God's inspired Word, the wise men set out again following the star, and found themselves standing before a small, unassuming home in Bethlehem, which was currently occupied by a Galilean carpenter, his wife Mary, and yes, a Baby Boy by the name of Jesus. Have you ever started a search for one thing and wound up with something else, something better? That's the story of the wise men! Have you ever started looking for the earthly and been led to the heavenly? That was the epiphany of these wise men. They were brought to something better, more beautiful, more unbelievable than they could have imagined. Whoever the wise men had come to see; they found the Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords.



These magi might surprise us a little; they were not disappointed with what they found. Scripture tells us, these wise men rejoiced, and did not hesitate to fall down in humble adoration before the infant Jesus. These men who had seen so much of life, who had dedicated their lives to the accumulation of wisdom, did not consider themselves too grand, too elite, too self-sufficient to bow down and worship the Christ Child. These wise men considered it right to present their gifts, gifts which would become the precedent for all future Christmas presents.


We look for one thing, God supplies another. He does it all the time. The childless priest Zechariah set out to burn incense and ended up with a promise that his son would be the forerunner of the Savior. A Samaritan woman went to a well to draw water and found the Savior Who gave her forgiveness and a new path to walk. The tax collector Matthew, went to his booth to levy tolls upon travelers and was called to follow the Savior. The widow of Nain started a walk that would end with the burial of her only son; she met Jesus and received not just a living son, but a Savior who cared. The apostle Peter set out to catch some fish and he ended up fishing for souls. Paul had gone on a hunt for Christians and was called by the Christ to spend his days proclaiming Him . Mary Magdalene sat before an open tomb and started a search to find her Teacher's dead body; and most amazing of all, she saw her living, death-defeating Savior.

Time and again people search for one thing, and in Jesus find something, Someone, far better. Over the centuries, many people have been led to see the Savior. In the late 1970s a professional journalist for the Chicago Tribune, who was also an atheist, did an in-depth investigation of the life of Jesus, and to his surprise, emerged from his experience a believer in Christ. His name is Lee Strobel, and he has done much to advance the cause of Christ, writing such books as The Case for Christ.

No matter what our search, God wants to give us something better. Through his word, written in the Bible, God wishes to call us from our sins to the crucified and risen Christ. Whatever you’re looking for from God; he wants to give you the greatest gift of life lived in communion with him forever. He wants you to have the confidence of knowing that he has forgotten all your sins thanks to Jesus.

Today, no matter what you have been looking for, no matter where you are looking, the Holy Spirit wants you to see Jesus. Don't let the Babe of Bethlehem slip through your world unnoticed. Today, this day, let your eyes be lifted from the unimportant and see this great thing that the Lord has done for you; see the One Who has saved you, your soul, from the fires of eternal agony and anguish. As He did with the wise men, let the Lord lift your eyes from that which seems important and show you something better. Hear God say, as did little Julie, "The present is not empty. Christ's cradle is not empty. Look closely, wrapped in swaddling clothes is your Present. God has put in Him all His love."

Sunday, January 1, 2012

It's All in the Name

Having the right name is very important. In some ways, it’s everything.

When the 1960s ended, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. They had children and got married, too, but they didn't name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing Frisbee with little Time Warp or Spring Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school.

That's when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye and send them off to school on the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The teachers thought the boy's name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it.

"Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?" they offered. And later, "Fruit Stand, how about a snack?" He accepted hesitantly. By the end of the day, his name didn't seem much stranger than Heather's or Sun Ray's.

At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. "Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?"

He didn't answer. That wasn't odd. He hadn't answered them all day. Lots of children are shy on the first day of school. It didn't matter. The teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children's bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word "Anthony."

Yes, having the right name is very important. In some ways, it’s everything. Knowing that to be true, we are here this morning to begin the year 2012 in the name of Jesus.

Eight days after Jesus was born, he was circumcised, fulfilling the Law given under Moses. Count off eight days from December 25th, and you arrive at January 1st. So while the world celebrates a flip of the calendar, the Christian Church remembers that Jesus was circumcised, and when a son of Israel was circumcised, he was given his name. In this way our Lord was given His name. But it was no ordinary name. His name had literally been given from heaven, announced by an angel to both May and Joseph at the time of his conception: “You are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

And so this tiny bundle of humanity was given the strong name Jesus, which means, “The Lord saves.”And he grew up to totally fulfill his name. Everything that God’s holy Law said that you and I must do, Jesus did perfectly and completely. All the misery and punishment that you and I by our sins deserved, this Jesus suffered patiently and thoroughly. God the Father laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and it killed him. He experienced the cross and grave for you. He was also raised from the dead. No wonder the apostle Paul proclaimed, “God exalted [Jesus] to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2: 9—11)

The apostles preached that Name, and when hauled into court for it, they confessed, “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4: 12)

We begin the Year of our Lord 2012 with mixed emotions. Excitement, fear, anticipation, dread, all jockey for position within us. Where will our leaders take our nation? Will this be the year the Middle East explodes? And on a personal level, what about my job? What about my family, my health, my security? What about the anxiety and turmoil that seems to crop up more and more. How will I handle that? How can I handle that?

We handle it with the name of Jesus. That’s how. There is nothing magical about the name of Jesus. Rather, the power of the name of Jesus is the power and authority of Jesus himself. Here’s the way it works:

When we pray in the name of Jesus, the Father hears our prayer as Jesus’ prayer. When God’s Word is preached in the name of Jesus, it’s the authority of Jesus himself that stands behind that Word. When we receive the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name, our sins are forgiven by the authority and power of God’s own Son.

When a Christian does anything to help someone else—the Bible memorably calls that giving someone a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus—it is Jesus himself who provides for the physical needs of that person.

When we pray in the name of Jesus over the food set before us, it is Jesus himself who blesses that food to our benefit.

In the name of Jesus we come to be forgiven and renewed this morning. We began this service in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—the name that was applied to you in Holy Baptism. Whether your name is Steve or Sally, Anthony or Fruit Stand, when you have the name of Jesus attached to you, you have total access to Him in every area of your life. Having his name on you is everything. His name does what it says. The Lord saves you. This is where to begin a new year—in Jesus’ name.