Tag Archives: Jesus God the Son

Running the race in faith in God’s standards, not ours. First St Johns Lutheran Church, York, Pa. February 8, 2015

[The picture is of Pheidippides accouncing the victory of the Greek forces over the Persians to the Athenians Luc-Olivier Merson, 1869 ]

(For a audio version of this sermon, click on the above link or copy and paste it into your browser)

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who run the race of faith in Christ said … AMEN!

I have done a marathon, I have done a century. A marathon is a 26.1 mile race, I did it in Falmouth, Ma. A century is a bike ride/race of 100 miles, I did that at the seminary. I’ve done 56 triathlons. Paul could have been talking about running a Marathon. The Battle of Marathon occurred in 490 BC and the Greeks may have included the marathon as a competition in their Olympics which would have made the marathon known to the entire Roman world, Israel and Paul included.

Paul is telling us that we have to do life, like these physical tests, with endurance. The problem is we have pasted over these with our own expectations. As Lutherans, too often, we think we don’t have to do anything. We’re saved by grace, we don’t have to do that. But let’s say you should do that. I still think you have to because I honestly believe God still pushes us to stretch in life. We are saved by grace, but that does not mean that we get to sit and just vegetate, especially when it comes to our relationship with Jesus. He gave His best, why on earth should we think that we don’t have to give our best.

Another issue that always seems to be, at least to me, an excuse with Lutherans and too many other people. “If we can’t run the race, if we can’t ride the bike, if we can’t entertain, or maintain or serve or witness … well then we just shouldn’t do it.” Heck, if that’s the issue what am I doing here? I’m sure not, no Billy Graham, or Dale Meyer, or Matt Harrison, or Jon Diefenthaler. If I’m really not that great as a pastor, as a preacher, the one charged with worship, what am I really doing here?

What I am doing, what you are doing is being led by what God wants us to do in our lives. No where in the Bible does it say, “well you have to do everything and anything with excellence, otherwise, just don’t bother doing it!” It doesn’t say that anywhere, no one demands it or expects it. None of us is perfect, none of us is going to do anything perfectly. We should strive to do our best, to serve as perfectly as possible, but it’s not going to happen all the time, we’re just not going to make it. Sometimes it does look perfect and that’s a great thing, and we should salute excellence, but we should never expect perfection, from ourselves or anyone else.

Recently, studies have shown that perfectionism is really just a form of procrastination. We seem to have always celebrated the “perfectionist”. This is the person who, “well I just won’t put this out into the world until it’s absolutely perfect”. We all think how marvelous that is, this kind of integrity. I’m certainly not saying be sloppy, but I’m also not saying that you use every little thing for an excuse to avoid doing the things that you need to do.

We are called to be disciples. That is a race, that is an endurance effort that makes the Hawaii Ironman look like a walk in the park. Are we called to be excellent disciples? No. Does it mean that we can throw God any old little effort that we want to whenever we want to? No! He doesn’t do that to use. God gives us His best everyday. He’s given us His best in Jesus. God’s not sitting up there grading us, not even on the curve, “well poor Jim, I know about him, I’ll cut him some slack”. It’s not about how great or how bad. It is about do we serve Father, Son, Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters in Jesus and the world to the best of our ability? Not in a one shot, here it is take it or leave it. We serve in the sense of the long-haul, making constant effort. We are always looking for the opportunities, always looking for where God leads us. We do it with the understanding that, Yes, we grow through this process. We also serve others through this process. Service isn’t often a one-shot deal, it’s a matter of endurance. Of continuous service.

I have no doubt in my mind that Paul was probably one crispy-critter by the time he got to Rome. Think of all that he had done, all that he endured, all that he sought to maintain and build. It’s staggering! I doubt that in what was maybe a ten-year period, no other person in Christian history did as much to spread Christianity as Paul. We have to remember that he really had no basis. Sure he had the local synagogues, but often they became as hostile as the pagan world, if not more so. So there’s a great excuse right there; “sorry, we can’t have worship because we can’t use the synagogue on Sunday, they kicked us out”. You know as well as I do that would be a ready made excuse for many people today. Paul could say I don’t have the right clothes, I can’t preach like this! No, he did what he could do with what he had. He could have said; “well, we just haven’t worked out the proper teaching, the proper doctrine here, so as soon as I get all that down perfectly I will get back to you.” Heck if I did that I’d never preach, I sincerely hope you don’t think that I am the fount of all Christian knowledge. But did that keep Paul from preaching and teaching? Would that keep me from preaching and teaching?

I’m not saying don’t prepare to the best of your ability. But I think one thing that military training, even athletics has taught me. At some point there is going to be a case, a mission. Probably the biggest case I had, a really bad situation that was my Damascus Road experience. Someone asked the boat coxswain afterwards and he replied, “I’ve never done that before, I was scared to death, I can’t believe I got through that”. He was as prepared as he could be for that storm, he showed up and people needed help and he got to where people needed him. He didn’t wait until he was perfect, he didn’t have that luxury. He had trained to the best of his ability and likewise the rest of us in the crew, and when the call came we responded to the best of our ability. Despite very difficult circumstances, we got the best possible outcome and all of us that were involved in that case, got an education that we could never have paid for, never arranged, have never gotten under any circumstances other then we were there, we were called, we went out and put on our best effort and, the outcome was as good as it could have been expected.

As I said, yes I ran a marathon, yes I have done a century, yes I have done 53 triathlons. Having said that, I wouldn’t be too impressed if I were you. I did the marathon in 4 hours and 57 minutes. Most people finish under 4 hours and the winning times are almost under three hours. I finished the century in about 8 hours. I did finish before two other people, but otherwise the rest of my group had finished anywhere between 3 and 4 hours earlier than me. So does that mean I should just hang my head in shame, “oh how embarrassing, I’d never tell anyone that I did a marathon or century”… uhmmm no! I can tell anyone that I have finished either one, it’s called bragging rights. I did it and I’m entitled to put a little plate on my Road ID to say I did it. I may not camp on the fact that I took almost 2 to 4 hours longer than most, but I can say that I did it.

Yes I might be able to brag, a little, about what I’ve done and I have no doubt that everyone of you out there has done something that the average mortal never really does and you are entitled to bragging rights. Go ahead, yea Christian humility and we should be humble, but hey, in these cases be a little obnoxious. But when it comes to running and ultimately finishing the Christian race, we do that with humility. Why? Did we really run it in our strength? No! I have no doubt in my mind that my thirty years as a Christian and where the Holy Spirit has put me, that it was entirely through the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit, not mine. How can I take credit for something that someone does through me? But does that make me any less saved? No! I am perfectly saved and if I faithfully follow that leading and do the things that I’m lead to do, in the time I’m lead to do them, then I am a faithful servant. I have been put into plenty of situations by the Holy Spirit, where I knew that a lot more preparation would have been good. I assure you and anyone at Concordia Seminary would agree, that new pastors have a lot to work out when they get to a parish. Frankly some more than others. But is that a valid excuse to avoid what you’re supposed to do and not run the race? No! Sometimes the trial is the teaching moment, the growth moment. That the Father knows that you will only grow through doing versus sitting around talking about it or reading about it. We should continually strive to be the best possible disciples we can be, our Savior is the best and most perfect and He gave us all that we have or ever will need. But we should be ready to run that race at any moment. Not when we decide that we are ready, but when the Holy Spirit hits that alarm and tells us we need to jump up and run out that door. Sometimes we may never even know to what we are running, but we run anyway instead of waiting until we’re perfect because the Father has given us the faith to trust in Him, not in our abilities.

I didn’t run/ride the races perfectly, but I did do them. We aren’t called to run/ride/fight the faith perfectly, we are called to serve the Lord in obedience. God says I am more interested in your obedience then your sacrifice. When we faithfully obey, even we don’t do it the best we can, we are doing God’s will and will be rewarded on that basis. Not on the basis of what we think is acceptable, what is up to our standards, but what we did when we responded to God’s call in faith.

May God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit bless and preserve you to all eternity. Shalom and Amin.

Do you go to Nineveh or blow off God? Really? Jonah First Saint Johns January 25, 2015

Leave a reply

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who follow God’s lead, even to their own Nineveh said … AMEN!

The Ninevites were bad people, to quote Charles Dickens you must remember that or nothing good will come from what I tell you, they were very bad people. Jonah had every reason in the world to avoid going to Nineveh. Side note, up until the 1800’s scholars chocked the entire Jonah story up to fable, one reason being that they felt that Nineveh was a myth, that it had never existed. Well surprise, archeologists found it and it does exist. In fact it was a very important city, to deny it existed, as many skeptics today try to deny many aspects of the Bible, would be to deny a great deal of antiquity.

Nineveh was a great city for it’s time. The writer of Jonah says: “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.” It’s estimated that it had a population of 120,000 people. By today’s standards, that’s really a small city, York has a population of about 50,000, Boston has about 600,000, New York City over 8 million. But for a time when most people farmed or raised livestock, most people didn’t live in a city, it was pretty huge. We have to remember that cities really didn’t become so massive until the industrial revolution and even then not until the early 1900s, when people went to cities to work in factories. Are there difficulties with the Jonah account? Yes. There are really no whales in the Mediterranean and it’s hard to reconcile what kind of “fish” would have swallowed Jonah. There are accounts of men, in the whaling ship days, who were swallowed by a whale and recovered, but can’t really make that case with Jonah. But when we are talking about God, who made all and sustains all of creation, I think it’s a small thing that He created a fish to turn Jonah around.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and as I said, they were, straight out, bad people. A Wikipedia article quoting King Sennacherib about a recent military victory: “ “Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city.” The Wikipedia article also refers to stone carvings of “many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib’s men parading the spoils of war before him.”¹ These were not nice people. Jonah had every reason in the world not to go there, chief among those reasons was, that he may not come out alive. That was a very real concern. But, as the Chronological Study Bible points out; “Two features stand out in the book’s theology. One is the universal love and compassion of God for all nations. Another is the sovereignty of God.”²

A case could be made that Jonah was written about 700 BC. As I said the Assyrians were widely hated. The Chronological Study Bible states: “Few armies were as hated as the Assyrian army. Even in a time and culture that was not known for respecting human life, Assyrian tactics and policies toward their enemies were notoriously brutal.”³

So when we wonder what the point of this story is about, it certainly has to do with faithfulness and obedience. When God calls us to do something, many times He sets up the circumstances to make sure that His something gets done. If it takes an extraordinary story of a man being thrown into the ocean, swallowed by a big fish, delivered up to the destination that He wants Jonah delivered to, to drive home the point that God’s will is to be done and He can put us where He wants us, then so be it. Even if it’s to a people who are widely hated. You also have to remember that at this point in history, the people of Israel saw God as the universal God, as the creator of all, but still, somehow, thought of Yahweh as their God, exclusively in favor of Israel. Nineveh was the center of worship for the goddess Ishtar, who the Ninevites worshiped. Odd contrast, the Ninevites considered her the goddess of fertility, love, war and sex. I suppose you could reconcile some of those together, but for pagan “gods”, that seems to be a rather wide portfolio. Obviously war, among other things was a priority for the Ninevites/Assyrians. Going to a pagan people to tell them about the real God must have struck Jonah as plain crazy.

Rev Stephen Gaulke writes in Concordia Pulpit: A Sunday school teacher asked her class, ‘What can we learn from Jonah?’ One girl blurted out, ‘When whales swallow people, they get real sick?’”

“I was with a group of pastors when I heard that silly Sunday School story. One pastor told the punch line, ‘People make whales really sick.’ Another pastor joked, ‘That’s funny, I always thought the point of Jonah’s story is you can’t keep a good man down!’

Jonah went to Nineveh not because he thought, ‘I’m a good guy.’ He painfully knew, ‘ I was the bad guy, running from God?’ And Jonah joyfully believed, ‘God loves me anyway. The Lord forgives me, gives me new life. He’s the God of second chances!’

What do you think? ‘I’m better than the person God wants me to help? No. The only difference between us and them is that we know who gives life, who forgives!’”⁴ And I might add that in gratitude, if the Father wants to use me or you, anyone, to see God’s forgiveness and salvation, can I really in good conscience refuse to do what God is guiding me to do? No!

Jonah by his actions said to God; “Forget it, I’m not going to Nineveh. Those people are evil! Go ahead and destroy them! They deserve it! They don’t deserve grace, they deserve to be nuked and I’m not going!” I really can’t say that Jonah was wrong. I can’t say that if God put me on a boat to North Korea or some place in the Middle East, I would certainly have mixed emotions, if not outright rejection of the idea. But God does push on us, if we are a disciple of Christ, if we have received grace and forgiveness from our baptism and from Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, if God sustains us and His Son saves us, shouldn’t we follow where He leads us?

Our Gospel reading today is Jesus calling Simon, Andrew, James and John saying: “Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.” Certainly Jonah’s story is a graphic illustration. As it says in your call to worship: “We hear of God’s call to Jonah in the Old Testament and how, after trying to run away, he was given a second chance. Before he became a ‘fisher of men’, he literally became fish bait! God calls us both to salvation for ourselves and to be fellow [fishermen and women] speaking God’s grace to others.” Those ‘others’ may be people who are different, they may be people we think could be violent or hurt us, they could be people that we just don’t personally like. But all people are God’s creation and in His sovereignty He chooses those who will be saved. He may use you or me, in order to save those people. Jesus was tortured and crucified in order to be the sacrifice for all the sins of the world. Jesus’ sacrifice restored our relationship with God, this gives us hope and the promise of eternal, resurrected life. So the question is, if Jesus did all that for us, if we are His, if we are His disciples, do we really have the right to blow Him off and refuse to go to our Nineveh? Jonah did go to Nineveh, he preached what God told him to preach, the Ninevites did repent of their sin and God did not destroy them. Jonah was faithful and used by God to save many people.

For this week’s assignment, read the whole book of Jonah. Get a real feel for how Jonah felt about his calling. Are there things that God calls you to do that you think are unreasonable? They may be unreasonable to you, but if this is in God’s will, the only unreasonable thing is your refusal to follow God’s leading. He will supply you with what you need to follow Him. He will give you the faith to trust that what He’s asking is according to His will. Are you really going to run off to Tarshish and refuse Him?

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineveh

2Chronological Study Bible pp 576-577

3Ibid p 576

4Stephen E Gaulke Concordia Pulpit Volume 25 Part 1 pp 14-15

In the Fullness of Time Galatians 4: 4-7 First St Johns December 28, 2014

Leave a reply

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who know the perfect timing of God said … AMEN

Under the heading: “There is no such thing as “coincidences” where God is concerned, for that matter anything, since God is concerned with everything about our lives, we read Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Galatian’s four short verses are loaded with teaching. Paul’s quote in Galatians 4 is particularly interesting: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son … to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons … you are no longer a slave, but a son,…”(Gal 4: 4-7)

The part that of find of interest right here is “…the fullness of time…” Some think that had something to do with Mary coming to term in her pregnancy, or something that was dictated by Joseph and Mary’s situation. But most see Paul’s short expression as an appreciation and understanding of how God does things in His time and dictates the course of events and history according to His will. The Father didn’t turn to the Son one day and for just any old reason say, “yeah, think it’s about time we do the incarnation thing.” This had been the plan since the beginning, He chooses to reveal that plan to us, first, in Genesis 3:15, at the very beginning and then just before He throws the switch to make it happen, the Father reaffirms His plan, in an even plainer way in Isaiah 9:6. The Genesis passage, the proto-Evangelium, where God promises Satan that there would be a Savior, that the Messiah, anointed One of God, would come into the world to crush Satan’s head. God the Son would crush Satan’s head and by doing so, would save us from the curse of Hell. That sounds harsh, necessary, but in your face. However the Father’s promise to Isaiah is the one that is His majestic promise that He made when Judah is about to be crushed by Assyria and to disappear as a nation, most of her people killed or enslaved. Certainly a great crisis where Yahweh promises them; “A Child is born, A Son is given, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” The Israelites knew that they were about to take a harsh and long-lasting beating and they needed this promise. Isaiah could have said the same thing Paul writes: “But when the fullness of time had come…”, because Israel had pushed too far for Yahweh and He was now about to let His people know what happens when they ignore Him and get too caught up in their own plans and expectations. The fullness of time had come and Israel, at least for a few generations, would cease to exist.

Paul on the other hand tells us that the “…fullness of time…” had just occurred for the Father to fulfill His promises to Adam and Eve, and to the people of Israel by Isaiah and it happened at this intersection of time. Although Paul didn’t know it, although Jesus prophesied it, this was the perfect time for God. While they were strolling away from the temple and the disciples were admiring the view of the buildings of the temple, Jesus took them to task and said “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” Don’t become to fascinated by the things man, in this case King Herod, build, because there is going to be another turning point in Israel’s history and this temple that you find so fascinating will be completely destroyed in just a few years. In about 40 years Israel, as you know it now, will cease to exist along with the temple. The Judaism of Israel would no longer be focused on the temple and would be scattered again. A new world would begin and the Christians in Israel would be forced to leave and take Christianity into the world.

This time, that Jesus had been born into, was the perfect time for Him to come into the world and conduct His incarnational ministry. It was a time of peace in Israel, Jesus did not have to contend with wars or any kind of famine or drought. He could get everyone’s full attention on His ministry and drive it deep into their awareness so that they could readily understand their new relationship with the Father. They had time to absorb the Gospel and begin to live it before they had to go into the world to spread the Gospel. They had to unlearn the legalism of Judaism and the debauchery of paganism and to come to understand that they were saved solely and completely by grace. They couldn’t earn their way to Christ in this world or to eternity, they could only be brought to salvation in Him and through His actions, what Jesus does to save us.

The conditions were exactly right for the disciples to absorb Jesus’ teaching and take those teachings into the world. Not only was there peace, the conditions surrounding them enabled them to bring Jesus to the world. As Lee Strobel points out: “The time period when Jesus lived was ideally suited for the spread of Christianity. The vast reach of the Roman Empire primed the known world for the gospel. Roman roads allowed relative ease of travel and greatly increased the area to which the gospel spread. Roman authority also helped protect travelers from robbers and attackers. Throughout the Roman Empire, Greek was the common language, and allowed communication of the gospel between groups who lived hundreds or thousands of miles from each other.”¹

The Pax Romana, that is the peace of Rome, which united the entire world, enabled Jesus’ disciples to teach and preach without the distraction of wars or other disruptions to those they preached to. Jesus’ disciples could travel and teach without being abused because the Roman Empire tolerated many belief systems. Any earlier or later, and the disciples would be persecuted before Christianity could take root. At this time Christians could worship and evangelize unmolested. God created the conditions through man, mostly the Romans, so that He could send His Son into the world to preach God’s Word and Will and so that His church would grow. The church of Jesus Christ might otherwise have been steamrolled or isolated to small parts of the world. Jesus’ appearance met other promises of prophecy. Strobel writes: “God fulfilled his prophesied time frame. Daniel predicted that the Anointed One would come and would be ‘cut off’ (killed) before the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple (Daniel 9: 24-26).”

From Paul’s writing we can see the sovereignty of God, that is God controls and is Lord of all that He has created. He planned and controlled human history so that at just the perfect time in that history His Son would appear and become the focus of the entire world. The world had never been brought together as it had under the Roman Empire and in a couple of hundred years it would be shattered and different peoples would be separated from each other, unable even to communicate. God controls the events of the world, which He does, although He permits man, because of His sin, to spread war and sickness and famine throughout the world. Then clearly God controls those who He has chosen to be Lord of their lives. For myself there is no doubt that God chose the perfect time for me to know Jesus as my Savior. Because you are here, baptized, listening to His Word, about to take His Body and Blood, He has chosen you at just the right time to be saved in Jesus.

Strobel writes: “ God had an appointed day when he would intersect human history with the promised redemption. The moment in history when Jesus arrived was tailored for the rapid spread of the Gospel. All human history is balanced on the fulcrum of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.”² God gives us the understanding we need in order to know Him as our Father and Jesus as our Savior, and when we see it in human history, we can better understand how He works in our own personal lives. Take some time over the next week and think about how “..in the fullness of time…” God the Father, Abba, has made us His own sons and daughters that Paul writes about in this passage.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

1Lee Strobel The Case for Christ Study Bible p 1634

2Ibid p 1634

What Christmas Means to Me

Leave a reply

What Christmas Means to Me.

The above link is from Russel and Pascal, an atheist and a Christian, respectively. I really appreciate the following from Pascal:

“Christmas is the story of God’s spirit completely entering mortal body and soul in Jesus Christ. God’s spirit navigated the humanity he created. God’s spirit was willingly and intentionally contained in the frailty of a human body with human mind, will and emotions. God’s spirit did what we do – – suffer. Christmas is the story of compassion, literally suffering with. The Buddha did not suffer with me, he taught me how to avoid it by divorcing attachment. The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not suffer with me. He taught me how to submit to God and how to conquer. The pantheon of Hinduism did not suffer with me. They taught of creation, destruction, and the fire that synthesizes the two in daily life. Jesus suffered.”

No other faith truly shares the human condition in the way that Christianity does, and Christianity does it in a way that we call all related to in terms of the suffering and the humbleness of normal life. All other beliefs try to tell us there is a way to avoid the human condition. God the Son was born in the flesh lived a humble life and as God suffered and died for us. Not what we do, which is the theme of all other religions, Christianity is what God has done for us. Freedom from the sin and oppression of this world only comes to those who are in Christ in the resurrection. The resurrection, the eternal life that we live the way God intended us to live, in peace, comfort and perfection. Life and life more abundant.

The faithful telling of the Bible

Leave a reply

It seems to be easy lately to think that the there is just a remnant of Christians, only a few that are left to raise up God Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But then a long comes an event or a message that demonstrates that Christians are very much alive, faithful and active.

Case in point the production of the television series The Bible produced by husband and wife Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. I will qualify this upfront by saying that I really did appreciate The Bible that it really was a faithful portrayal of the Bible. It always amuses me when people call the Bible ‘boring’. That is biblical illiteracy. If I can be a little tacky, the Bible has it all violence, intrigue, sex, infidelity, charity, faithfulness, sacrifice, integrity, pride and strength. The Bible has good, bad, somewhere in the middle, ordinary people confronting extraordinary circumstances. The last thing I would describe the Bible as is boring. One of the things that always annoyed me was the way different people/beings of the Bible have been portrayed in movies and media. Jesus always seems to be sort of soft and prissy, and that just could not have been the case. He was probably a carpenter, He spent so much of His earthly ministry outside, traveling around, even out on the boats with some of His disciples. There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus was very much a manly man and nothing in the Bible contradicts that. Another is this idea that angels are sort of beautiful, poofy women. Again that is not biblical. Any description of angels in the Bible depicts them as male. The depiction in the television series of angels as more like ninjas would be a lot more faithful to the biblical narrative.

Does kind of create an interesting contrast with Ms Downey’s portrayal of an angel in the television series Touched by an Angel

Forbes Magazine did a feature on the couple and their production of The Bible and future productions based on the Bible. Their success, that I would consider a lot more biblicaly based, then most contemporary productions (yea, just ask me about Noah ugh), anyway “The Bible made its debut in 2013, and even on a relatively esoteric cable channel was able to outdraw the networks; at one point Burnett had the No. 1 show in America five nights out of the week. And viewers couldn’t get enough: The Bible has sold over 1 million copies via DVD and Blu-ray….the movie spinoff, which Burnett and Downey spent an estimated $1 million to bankroll, has done $68 million worldwide…” (Zack O’Malley Greenburg, Dorothy Pomerantz Forbes Magazine July 21, 2014 pp 55 – 60)

Clearly a faithful rendering of the Bible, not too pious, not too imaginary (yea like Noah) are greatly in demand. God’s story is the most compelling ever: “There are not a lot of books being read these days’, says Paul Telegdy, NBC’s president of late-night and alternative programming. ‘But there is one that’s being read and reread, and that’s the Bible.”

Burnett points out that a lot of contemporary television and movies are biblically based: “…he says take their dominant influence from the world’s most popular book: Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Matrix.” The Matrix??? I guess he’d know better than me. Point being is that too much media has either dumbed down the Bible, or made it too sugar coated or made it to ham handed, none of which are faithful renderings. Straightforward, human portrayal of the Bible is what God inspired the writers of the Bible to write and that has what guided the faithful for 2,000 years. There is plenty of hunger in the world for the real Bible. Let’s faithfully teach, preach and relate the Bible. The Holy Spirit will use that to lead and inspire others, we don’t need to embellish what was perfectly inspired by God.

A Decree Went Out From the Father, His Son our Lord Jesus Luke 2 First St Johns December 24, 2014

Leave a reply

A BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who “have seen a great light”, our Savior Jesus, said … AMEN

Almost 700 years before He was born, some of the greatest words of Jesus were said by the prophet Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;…” Who are the people who have walked in darkness? … Yes, we are. Sure the sun in the sky may be out and shining, but so often we feel that we are in darkness. We all know what darkness is like, especially this time of year. When I worked in Boston, I would have to take the train and it would come pretty much around dawn this time of year, I would get into the city and the trip would mostly be in the dark and when I left at or later than 5pm, it would always be dark and get darker on my way home. The cold of walking to the train station through city streets, often walking through snow and wind, that would just take your breath away and cut you down. My only hope was to make it to the dim light and less cold of the train station to get on a train, that would at least, get me out of the weather and give me enough light to read a newspaper.

Even in the brightest summer day we really walk in darkness, especially if we don’t know Jesus as Lord. We all live in the same world, the world is dark and evil. I really hate winter weather, even when the weather is relatively mild, I never refer to it as “warm” just “less cold”. In the same way, yes we have light, but it’s really only “less dark”, the real light is in Jesus and that’s what He brought into the world in the dark night in Bethlehem. No one who was there would say that it was any “lighter”, whether it was at the beginning of winter or early spring, there really is never any light in a dark and evil world. A baby changes everything, in this case the Baby Jesus. The dark and the evil of the world is why Jesus came into it, He brings His eternal and more than sufficient light into the world, He brought it with Him to Bethlehem. But for all those people out there, right at this very moment, maybe even scurrying around for that one last Christmas item, present, decoration, card, food for the feast, they scurry in the dark.

No matter how hard they try to “understand” God, unless they are guided by the Holy Spirit, they cannot understand; God’s wisdom, His Will, His light, His Word and frankly they just don’t want to. It has to be about God and His way or it’s not at all. Only those who are in Jesus will understand God’s will for the world. For each one who has been baptized, hears the preached Word and takes the Body and Blood of our Lord. I hesitate to say “understand”, because I doubt that any of us would say we “understand” God even as His born again children, even though we do accept what He does and understand when He does it. Only to His children in Jesus, will God’s will, word, His Light, and Warmth be accepted. John 1:9 describes it as the “true light, which enlightens everyone”. But John 3:9 acknowledges that people really don’t love the light; “…the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.”

Faith Hill’s song “A Baby changes everything”, she’s talking about Mary and how her life goes from being, probably, a teenage girl, getting ready to be married, a huge step for anyone, how anyone of us has a boatload of expectations for marriage and then Mary is told that she will be the mother of Messiah. Her life has now been changed extraordinarily, she knows that this is of God and that she has been honored above all women, but her life is taking a course that she could never have expected. This baby has certainly changed everything for her, a life beyond her expectations, she has only an inkling of how this Baby has changed everything for man. Before this Baby our sin separated us from a completely just, completely holy God we were in a state of hostility with God. Now this Baby has changed everything and we are at peace with God. Before we were brought to eternal death, now we are saved eternally because we are at peace with God, we are His children. When we are “born again” through our baptism in Jesus and our nature is changed from the world and flesh to a nature that is in Jesus, a divine nature. We are still sinful beings, but in Christ, in that “Baby” who has changed everything, we are saved as eternal beings, we will be resurrected in the flesh. But no longer will that flesh be corrupted, it will be perfect in a perfect, physical world, that we were always intended by God to live in.

Ceasar Augustus issued a decree and all the people of the Roman Empire picked up and moved in order to be counted by the Roman government. That was for a time, and those people who were counted soon died. God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the Godhead, issued a decree, that there would be a great light that would come into a world of darkness. That decree was originally issued through Isaiah who promised that great light would shine on all men and it would result in great rejoicing.

A Baby changes everything, Caesar Augustus issued a decree for a time. God the Father, through His Son, born a Baby issued a decree for eternity and His Son was the messenger. St Augustine writes: “Christ was called the Angel [Greek for messenger] of Great Counsel because he brought the message of the kingdom of heaven and the will of the Father.”¹ That because of His incarnation, His birth as a baby that everything would be changed between us and the Father, we would have peace with the Father and be saved because that Baby would grow to be a man who would be the sacrifice, the payment for our sins.

I like to use a story that Paul Harvey would tell on Christmas to illustrate how the Father came down to us so that we would understand who He is and His will for us:

“The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window. Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

He put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safety, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.” At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.”²

“Foil Satan and hell, sin and death—foil them with the joy only Christ Jesus gives. Let Him comfort and defend you. Let Him feed and strengthen you. For He who once was born of Mary, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and placed in a manger, is here for you in His Holy Word and soon will be wrapped in bread and wine and placed on a plate and in a cup for Your salvation!

Yes, we’re surrounded by troubles and heartbreaks, and Satan, sin and selfishness relentlessly attack, but don’t just sit there—sing for joy! Your Savior is born! There is peace on earth for you, come for all, to set us free.”³ A Baby does change everything.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

1Augustine quoted by Steven McKinion Ancient Christian Commentary Old Testament X p 69

2[1]Keiki Hendrix, Everyday Christian, Christmas Classics: The Man And The Birds By Paul Harvey (December23,2012, http://www.everydaychristian.com/blogs/post/christmas_classics_the_man_and_the_birds_by_paul_harvey).

3God’s Love at Christmas CPH sermon

Angels came to shepherds? Why?

Leave a reply

I took the “featured image” of the place that according to tradition is where the shepherds were when they saw the angels who directed them to the new born baby Jesus.

Ya, I know, not much to look at. When I took the picture I wasn’t sure what I was trying to do, or get. But now I realize that is the point. Everything in Israel having to do with important sites particularly dealing with Christianity are all kind of over the top. They are kind of a little too much. Not disrespectful too much, but more in the sense of “all and anything we can do” in order to properly commemorate a site of meaning and importance to a Christian. Yea, ok, but….

The crucifixion site is probably the most “over the top”, just all kinds of stuff. Sure, it’s important, it’s as important as it gets and surely it’s tough to decide how much or how little you really want to mark a site.

Here and Capernaum are still essentially the same, and no question the Sea of Galilee was my favorite site in Israel. Both very much as Jesus would have seen them, or the shepherds. Bethlehem was important in that time, but only in terms of King David being born there and Micah’s prophecy that the Messiah would be born there, Micah 5:2. In Jesus’ time, 1,000 years after David, Bethlehem was a backwater, at best a notable cross roads. Why would the King of all Creation, the Lord of all, Savior of all, Messiah, why would the Son of God, King of Kings be born in this otherwise unremarkable place? And what happened to those shepherds in that unremarkable place?

They’re probably lying on the rocky soil in Israel, just trying to get some sleep. Shepherds were the lowest caste in Israel, just one small rung up from those who were criminals. They were ceremonially unclean so they couldn’t go to temple and worship. They were also not allowed to testify in courts, participate in any civic activity. They spent all their time in the fields with sheep, so you know they didn’t get a lot of invitations to visit for dinner.

But there these unremarkable people are, in this unremarkable place and the very remarkable happens! The sky lights up like nothing they could imagine. Legions of angels are standing over them. the “host of heaven”, that is the army of heaven. Angels aren’t the fluffy nice lady figures we imagine, angels in the Bible were very much portrayed as military, host means “army”. These shepherds must have been scared out of their minds by this. But the angel leader says “fear not”, we’re not here to overwhelm you. We’re here to tell you this amazing news, to you who aren’t amazing! This child is born, the Messiah, the promised One and you are invited to be His first visitors.

These bedraggled men, get up from their sleep from this unremarkable place, schlep through the darkness (there weren’t many roads and no street lights in Bethlehem in 1 AD), they find their way to this barn. They might have heard a baby cry from the barn. A baby in a barn, this time of night? And there they found the Savior of mankind, His mother Mary, no doubt still recovering. And the man God chose to give earthly guardianship to, Joseph, watching over the mother and child.

It really does stagger the imagination that God chose for His Son to be born in a remarkable way and yet to unremarkable people in an unremarkable place. He does not regard man, you could be king of the world, but God, having created that world, would not be impressed. With all that, yet His Son is born in such an ordinary place and the first people outside of His family to see Him are shepherds.

Jesus was born to save all people, He was born so that all could know Him as Savior. Not some all- powerful being, but the very close and knowable Son of God.

God’s minister or the people’s minister?

Leave a reply

Yes, for the second day in a row I am ripping off Dr Dale Meyer, but for good reason, because it brought up an issue that is important regarding worship. Dr Meyer’s commentary is first and then my slant on the reasons why I preach from the pulpit.

Meyer Minute for November 21

Here’s a question I’m often asked. “Does the Seminary teach students to preach in or out of the pulpit?” This ranks right up there with the other great questions of the universe. Why does God hide Himself from us? Why does God permit suffering? How can Christianity claim to be the only true religion and only way to heaven? Catch my sarcasm?

We have chapel services on campus every weekday. Most chapel sermons are delivered from the pulpit but it’s not unusual for the preacher to stand in the center of the chancel or even down in the aisle. I teach preaching and always get the question, “What about preaching out of the pulpit?” There are, I answer, logistical considerations. For example, if you’re standing in the aisle, can the people on the flanks or in the balcony see you? There are deeper considerations. What is the congregation used to? If they’re used to one way or the other, is this an issue worthy of controversy? Ask the elders, I tell them. But going farther, my sarcasm getting the better of me, why do you ask? I’ve learned that they imagine that standing out of the pulpit somehow means being relevant. I also hear lay people say, “We love our pastor. He preaches out of the pulpit.” Huh? The real issue is what he’s preaching! A compelling sermon from God’s Word will be compelling wherever it’s delivered from. A sermon of theological jargon that doesn’t speak to life will be irrelevant wherever it comes from.

In my mind it comes down to this. To congregation members: Are we so at home with one worship style that we get upset by something different? Aren’t we driven to come to church by this question, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) To students: Don’t make the pulpit the hill you’ll die on, or off. Instead, make God’s Word so applicable to people’s lives that they’ll listen intently wherever you are. In or out? Sounds like a belly-button question, naval gazing. I’m desperate to know more God, wherever the preacher stands.

My thoughts on why I preach a certain way – Pastor Jim Driskell

I certainly get Dr Meyer’s point, well I kind of have to, he’s the one that taught my Homiletics II course, I passed. Fits with my philosophy of life “Semper Gumby”, always flexible. You do have to factor in the situation, the hearers, survey all the considerations. All things being equal, I do prefer the pulpit. It’s not due to some ego need, but I also have to remember what I’m doing there. Richard Foster asked the rather germaine question; “Am I a minister of the people or of Christ.” I’m called “minister” because I represent Jesus to His church, His people. Yea, sometimes you do have to come down and get right in the middle of people. But as I’ve been discussing for awhile, it’s not our “comfort” that it’s about, it’s how we glorify the Lord and pick a part of His earthly ministry and you can see that He was terribly concerned about our “comfort” He was concerned that we are growing, that we are becoming mature in Jesus. How does that apply here? I feel it’s my duty in as many ways as possible to remind people of the Lordship of Jesus. Not that He’s aloof, or separated from us, He’s not, as baptized children who eat Jesus’ Body and drink His blood, we could not be closer or more apart of anyone. But we also let ourselves get way to buddy-buddy with Jesus and we forget what He’s done, continues to do and what He will do. He told us that when He returns He will return in His glory, we know that He rules in glory from heaven. If He chooses to treat us as His friends, and He told us He did, that’s His call and I would certainly welcome it. But as His minister, as one who has been chosen to represent Him and bring Him due honor in front of His people, that’s what my aim is. That when we are in worship together we all know that it’s Jesus who is with us, who is using me to preach. I may not be that great as I conduct worship and I may not be worthy of that tremendous privilege and duty, but I strive to do it to the best of my ability and I want people coming in and thinking about our Great King and I intend to honor Him that way and leave it to Him if He chooses some other way. So Dr Meyer’s point is well taken, if you are in worship, be there for the right reasons. It does none of us any good to get hung up on whether I’m in a pulpit, wandering around, yada, yada. Be focused on what God’s doing, that, hopefully, He is using me to preach His word and I’m doing it well enough and you are getting a message that will lift you and encourage you, know that our great and powerful God is in control and watching over you and to bring Jesus to all you know. In the meantime I will faithfully do what I can to honor Him.

The saints of Jesus, those who live with authenticity First Saint Johns, November 2, 2014

Leave a reply

Traducción española sigue el texto Inglés

Click on the above link or copy and paste into your browser to hear the audio version of this sermon.

We make our beginning in the name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and inthe Name of God the Holy Spirit. I’m going to say good morning saints of York and you’re going to say good morning Saint Jim, Good morning saints of York…

And all God’s people said AMEN! We celebrate All Saints Day today, which is also the same day as Reformation Day which we will observe in this afternoon’s worship, the day that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses.
Halloween, which was observed on Friday, has its roots in a Gaelic pagan holiday called Samhain [pronounced sawin] which is when it was thought that spirits and fairies could more easily move into the physical world. The souls of the dead would visit the places where they lived. Halloween is the second most observed celebration after Christmas. For those in the secular world who love to think of how pragmatic and reality driven they are, one writer observed that “Halloween is he ultimate holiday of pretending… we dress up and ‘pretend’ to be someone or something other than ourselves…” In other words it simply emphasizes the phoniness of the world that we live in. A world that denies the reality of a loving, Creator God and tries to make itself into something much better that it’s not. The world loves to concern its self with the phoney aspect of “spirituality” which many people today readily buy into and deny the true spirituality that is Jesus Christ. I keep searching, but I can find no where that explains what people really think that kind of spirituality will do, except that it gives them the feeling of being in control, but never really how that control is realized. How it works in terms of eternity? No one seems to be the least bit interested. The world talks a good game about being “genuine”, of authenticity, but you rarely see it, it’s only in terms of their deluded perception of a world without God and then they wonder why they always feel lost, frightened and alone. There is only one source of authenticity and that is in Jesus. When we are a saint in Jesus are we truly authentic, part of which is being humble, that is when we trust the Lord to live the life that He has saved us for. To be sure being a Christian is much more than the Beatitudes, our reading today, but we certainly model authenticity when we do our best to live that life through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Beatitudes are not our works, they are the fruit of the Holy Spirit who is working through us. We still sin, the world thinks that we should live in perfection. No, the saints will always be fallible people, the old man lives in each of the saints, but the Holy Spirit moves us again and again to live up to the Beatitudes. The world tries to live its own virtues, but it is very clear that those virtues are only to enhance their own life and the fruit of their own spirit, the spirit of the world and not of the Holy Spirit. Roy Lloyd tells the following: “…a man who arrived in 1953 at the Chicago railroad station to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. As he stepped off the train… as the cameras flashed and city officials approached … he thanked them politely. Then he asked to be excused for a moment. He walked through the crowd to the side of an elderly black woman struggling with two large suitcases. He picked them up, smiled and escorted her to the bus, helped her get on and wished her a safe journey. Then Albert Schweitzer turned to the crowd and apologized for keeping them waiting. It is reported that one member of the reception committee told a reporter, ‘That’s the first time I ever saw a sermon walking.’” Schweitzer was a German theologian, a Lutheran, an organist who studied Bach, a physician, a medical missionary to Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of “Reverence for Life”, evidenced in his founding of a hospital in Gabon around the turn of the twentieth century. It is interesting how a saint of Christ who produced so much fruit as a Christian disciple, so accomplished and yet in a huge crowd, was the only one who noticed an elderly lady who needed help, then and there, to make her next connection for her trip. A simple act from a man who served our Lord in such magnificent ways, a great saint of Christ.
David Kinneman was the speaker at the conference in North Carolina I attended. One thing he returned to over and over in his presentation was that today’s younger generations and, I submit most people in the world, are looking for, is authenticty, genuinness. They know and we who are in Christ know that the world is not genuine. All the institutions of the world fail repeatedly and yet try to convince of their authority and authenticity even while they impose on our society and repeatedly fail. All of us can relate to how we can see through the thin veil of hypocrisy around us. The church is often accused of hypocrisy and often for good reason. We try to convince the world that we are perfect saints in Jesus and yet our attempt is shattered when we look at the true saints. Paul called himself the chief of all sinners. He didn’t say that in an attempt to appear to be pious, he knew of the sins he had committed against Jesus and His church and he acknowledged them and continued to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Not as some kind of way to atone for His sins. Why? His sins had been paid for at the Cross, Paul knew there was nothing he could add to Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Jesus paid for our sins through His suffering and sacrifice. We, as His saints, are saved in His sacrifice, but as His saints we faithfully follow the leading, encouragement, promise and hope of the Holy Spirit which is the only way we can live out the Beatitudes. We acknowledge our failings, our sin. When we try to convince the world that we are perfect and above all the evil of the world, the world can see right through us. But when we acknowledge that the only way that we are perfect is through Jesus and only through His grace and forgiveness, that we still struggle and still fail in sin, then the world may know salvation through Jesus.
We are valuable, we are His creation and are saved by Him through Christ. We have to remember how valuable we are to God. John writes: “See what kind of love [that is the agape love} the Father has given to us: that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him… but we know that when he appears we shall be like him,..” We shall be His saints and we will be perfect, not in ourselves, but in Him who died for us, and because of that we are valuable to the Father and He loves His children with the highest expression of love.
Dr Luther wrote: ‘Tomorrow I have to lecture on the drunkenness of Noah [Gen 9: 20-27]; so I should drink enough this evening to be able to talk about that wickedness as one who knows by experience.” Luther was authentic, I’m not telling you to imitate authenticity to that degree, but it is to acknowledge that we are tempted and occasionally fail.
Since the elders, the saints in Christ will be gathered around the throne of God in heaven as we read in Revelation 7:12, the saints praising God and worshiping Him, let’s pull out the lyrics inserted in your bulletin and let’s praise Him here and now: I love you Lord, lyrics by Petra…
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

Hacemos nuestro comienzo en el nombre de Dios Padre y en el nombre de Dios el Hijo y en el Nombre de Dios el Espíritu Santo. Yo voy a decir buenas santos de la mañana de York y vas a dar los buenos días en Saint Jim, buenos santos de la mañana de York …
Y todo el pueblo de Dios dijo AMEN! Celebramos hoy el Día de Todos los Santos, que es también el mismo día como Día de la Reforma que observaremos en el culto de esta tarde, el día en que Martín Lutero clavó sus 95 tesis.
Halloween, que se observó el viernes, tiene sus raíces en un día de fiesta pagano gaélico llamado Samhain [Sawin pronunciado], que es cuando se pensaba que los espíritus y hadas podían moverse con mayor facilidad en el mundo físico. Las almas de los muertos visitaban los lugares donde vivían. Halloween es la segunda fiesta más observado después de la Navidad. Para aquellos en el mundo secular que les gusta pensar en cómo pragmático y la realidad que son impulsados, un escritor señaló que “Halloween es él último día de fiesta de fingir … nos vestimos y ‘pretender’ ser alguien o algo distinto de nosotros mismos. .. “En otras palabras, simplemente pone de relieve la falsedad del mundo en que vivimos. un mundo que niega la realidad de un cariño, Dios Creador y trata de hacer en algo mucho mejor que no lo es. El mundo ama a preocuparse de su auto con el aspecto falso de “espiritualidad” que muchas personas hoy en día comprar fácilmente en y negar la verdadera espiritualidad que es Jesucristo. Sigo buscando, pero no encuentro donde explica que lo que la gente realmente piensa que tipo de espiritualidad va a hacer, excepto que les da la sensación de estar en control, pero nunca realmente cómo se realiza ese control. ¿Cómo funciona en términos de la eternidad? Nadie parece ser el más mínimo interés. El mundo habla un buen juego de ser “auténtico”, de autenticidad, pero que rara vez se ve, es sólo en términos de su percepción ilusoria de un mundo sin Dios y luego se preguntan por qué siempre se siente perdida, asustada y sola. Sólo hay una fuente de autenticidad y que está en Jesús. Cuando estamos a un santo en Jesús son verdaderamente auténtico, parte de la cual está siendo humilde, que es cuando confiamos en el Señor para vivir la vida que Él nos ha salvado para. Para estar seguro de ser cristiano es mucho más que las Bienaventuranzas, nuestra lectura de hoy, pero sin duda modelar autenticidad cuando hacemos nuestro mejor esfuerzo para vivir esa vida a través del poder del Espíritu Santo. Las Bienaventuranzas no son nuestras obras, que son el fruto del Espíritu Santo que está trabajando a través de nosotros. Todavía el pecado, el mundo piensa que debemos vivir en la perfección. No, los santos siempre serán personas falibles, el anciano vive en cada uno de los santos, pero el Espíritu Santo nos mueve una y otra vez a la altura de las Bienaventuranzas. El mundo trata de vivir sus propias virtudes, pero es muy claro que esas virtudes son sólo para mejorar su propia vida y el fruto de su propio espíritu, el espíritu del mundo y no del Espíritu Santo. Roy Lloyd dice lo siguiente: “… un hombre que llegó en 1953 en la estación de ferrocarril de Chicago para recibir el Premio Nobel de la Paz. Como él bajó del tren … como las cámaras destellaron y funcionarios de la ciudad se acercaron … él les dio las gracias cortésmente. Entonces él pidió ser excusado por un momento. Caminó a través de la multitud hacia el lado de una mujer de negro anciano que lucha con dos grandes maletas. Él los recogió, sonrió y la escoltó hasta el autobús, la ayudó a subir y le deseó un buen viaje. Luego Albert Schweitzer se volvió hacia la multitud y se disculpó por mantenerlos esperando. Se ha informado de que un miembro del comité de recepción le dijo a un reportero, “Esa es la primera vez que vi un pie sermón. ‘” Schweitzer fue un teólogo alemán, luterano, un organista que estudió Bach, un médico, un médico misionero a África. Fue galardonado con el Premio Nobel de la Paz por su filosofía de “Reverencia por la Vida”, se evidencia en su fundación de un hospital en Gabón alrededor de la vuelta del siglo XX. Es interesante cómo un santo de Cristo, que produce tanta fruta como un discípulo cristiano, por lo realizado y aún en una gran multitud, era el único que se dio cuenta de una anciana que necesitaba ayuda, entonces y allí, para hacer su próxima conexión para su viaje. Un simple acto de un hombre que sirvió a nuestro Señor de una manera tan magníficas, un gran santo de Cristo.
David Kinneman fue el orador en la conferencia en Carolina del Norte que asistí. Una cosa que él regresó a una y otra vez en su presentación fue que las generaciones más jóvenes de hoy en día y, a mi juicio la mayoría de la gente en el mundo, están buscando, es authenticty, genuinness. Ellos saben y nosotros, los que están en Cristo saben que el mundo no es genuino. Todas las instituciones del mundo fallan en repetidas ocasiones y, sin embargo tratar de convencer de su autoridad y autenticidad, incluso mientras ellos imponen en nuestra sociedad y en repetidas ocasiones fallan. Todos nosotros podemos relacionar con la forma en que podemos ver a través del fino velo de la hipocresía que nos rodea. La iglesia es a menudo acusado de hipocresía y, a menudo por una buena razón. Tratamos de convencer al mundo de que somos santos perfectos en Jesús y sin embargo nuestro intento se hizo añicos cuando nos fijamos en los santos verdaderos. Pablo llamó a sí mismo el jefe de todos los pecadores. Él no dijo que en un intento de que parecen ser piadoso, él sabía de los pecados que había cometido en contra de Jesús y su iglesia y él los reconoció y continuó a producir el fruto del Espíritu Santo. No es como una especie de forma de expiar sus pecados. ¿Por qué? Sus pecados han sido pagados a la Cruz, Pablo sabía que no había nada que pudiera añadir a sacrificio de Jesús por nosotros. Jesús pagó por nuestros pecados a través de Su sufrimiento y sacrificio. Nosotros, como sus santos, somos salvos en Su sacrificio, sino como sus santos que fielmente seguimos el liderazgo, ánimo, esperanza y promesa del Espíritu Santo, que es la única manera en que podemos vivir las Bienaventuranzas. Reconocemos nuestras faltas, nuestros pecados. Cuando tratamos de convencer al mundo de que somos perfectos, y sobre todo el mal del mundo, el mundo puede ver a través de nosotros. Pero cuando reconocemos que la única manera de que somos perfectos es a través de Jesús y sólo a través de su gracia y el perdón, que todavía luchamos y todavía fallamos en el pecado, entonces el mundo conozca la salvación a través de Jesús.
Estamos valioso, nosotros somos su creación y somos salvos por Él a través de Cristo. Tenemos que recordar lo valioso que somos para Dios. Juan escribe: “ver qué tipo de amor [que es el amor ágape} el Padre nos ha dado: que seamos llamados hijos de Dios; y así estamos. La razón por la cual el mundo no sabe de nosotros es que no lo conocía … pero sabemos que cuando él se manifieste, seremos semejantes a él, .. “Vamos a ser sus santos y vamos a ser perfecto, no en nosotros mismos, sino en Aquel que murió por nosotros, y debido a que somos valiosos para el Padre y Él ama a sus hijos con la expresión más alta del amor.
Dr. Lutero escribió: “Mañana tengo que dar una conferencia sobre la embriaguez de Noé [Génesis 9: 20-27]; así que deben beber suficiente esta noche para poder hablar de que la maldad como alguien que sabe por experiencia. “Lutero era auténtica, no te estoy diciendo que imitar autenticidad a ese grado, pero es reconocer que somos tentados y ocasionalmente fallar.
Dado que los ancianos, los santos en Cristo se reunieron alrededor del trono de Dios en el cielo, como leemos en Apocalipsis 07:12, los santos alabando a Dios y lo adoran, vamos a tirar hacia fuera las letras insertadas en su boletín y Alabemosle aquí y ahora: Te amo Señor, letra de Petra …
La paz de Dios que sobrepasa todo entendimiento, guardará vuestros corazones y vuestros pensamientos en Cristo Jesús. Shalom y Amin.

Weddings are for worship and should not be a lot of money, period!

Leave a reply

This is based on an article in the Wall Street Journal dated Oct 5, 2014 (sorry cut off the page number). The average, AVERAGE wedding in America costs $29,858. That is more then I made when I started my first job at Chase Commercial Corp. ( one wedding in ten cost between $50,000 and $100,000! This is not a typo) I’m going to say it and I’m sure someone won’t like it, but that’s insane! Turns out that the article would tend to agree. The author Brett Arends quotes research done by Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon, two economics professor at Emory University in Atlanta (A Diamond is Forever and Other Fairy Tales: The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration). Their findings were, at least to the current culture of excess and overkill, that: “We find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony.” That is, the more you spend on the wedding/engagement, the more likely that you will not stay married.

The authors found that “women whose weddings had cost more than $20,000. ended up getting divorced 60% more often than those whose weddings were cheaper. And men who spent between $2,000 and $4,000 on their engagement ring got divorced 30% more often than those who spent between $500 and $2,000.” Mr Arends talks about the likelihood of an expensive wedding raising expectations, etc. He also writes about the very real possibility that the couple may feel trapped into the wedding after a lot of money has been spent and maybe now they’re having second thoughts.

The upshot is this: “The evidence suggests that the types of weddings associated with the lower likelihood of divorce are those that are relatively inexpensive but high in attendance,’ write Messrs. Francis and Mialon.” Didn’t see that coming didja? My translation; there is a lot more intimacy, a lot more feeling of being together with a modest cost wedding. You don’t start your married lives already trying to outdo people or impress people, creating problems right from the start. Instead you have a nice group of those you want at the wedding and you treat them nicely, but hey, who’s kidding who and trying to wow everyone? It’s just not the way to start a marriage.

Now I think I have a different perspective on this than most people and for that matter most clergy. I think even clergy have fallen into the trap of conceding the ceremony to other people and really just being a prop. I get it, most important day, want it to be perfect, everybody look at me, yada, yada. Feeding into the immaturity and narcissism that is so prevalent in today’s society. I think we all know a bride that felt the entire event was about her, center stage, look at me, with very little understanding of the fact that there was going to be a marriage after the wedding. The marriage is supposed to last for decades, not months.

I am a Lutheran pastor and I would probably be smitten if George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin came to me and asked me to perform their wedding. Nonetheless, it just is not going to be at their level, at least not for the ceremony. Yea, a couple is going to do what they want for a reception, but in the church I pastor, that ceremony is going to be about them coming before God and understanding that their marriage is all about living a Christian life, in all they do.

Ladies you aren’t going to like this, but a Lutheran wedding is about worship, the pastor is the center of attention, not you. You will get your moment, but the pastor’s responsibility to you and frankly to the rest of the people in attendance is to impress upon all, the seriousness of marriage and the commitment you are making before God. Isn’t that the way it should be, isn’t that the way you want your marriage to start? Versus a big show “it’s all about me”? The wedding ceremony isn’t especially long, but there is no mistaking the emphasis. You have come together before God and these witnesses to make a sacred commitment and take sacred vows. You better take them seriously from the start. It is a reminder of what marriage is about, and yes, between a man and a woman. It is entirely what God’s intention is for marriage, the union between two complementary persons, man and woman, how God created us and how we should live that union together, one flesh.

It is also worship for those attending, many of whom have probably not been in worship since, well let’s be upbeat and say since Easter or Christmas. It is a reminder to them that marriage is sacred, it is important, it’s about all the trials and tribulations of life and marriage. It’s not about giving up the first time things don’t go your way, it’s about living through all those things to God’s glory, not yours. Towards the end of the ceremony I close with this prayer and it is not just for the two who are now married, but for all the married couples in attendance: “O God, our dwelling place in all generations, look with favor upon the homes of our land. Embrace husbands and wives, parents and children, in the arms of Your love and grant that each, in reverence for Christ, fulfill the duties You have given. Bless our homes that they may ever be a shelter for the defenseless, a fortress for the tempted, a resting place for the weary and a foretaste of our eternal home with You; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.” (Lutheran Service Book Agenda p 70, Concordia House Publishing) And then the Lord’s prayer. So ya, this isn’t some Hollywood movie, this is about marriage that is for all the right reasons and things and that’s the way it should be. Sorry to my brother pastors, but if you have a couple whose purpose is something else, just shut it off then. I didn’t go into the ministry to be popular, I am a minister of Jesus Christ and I serve Him and am here to help and serve those that I come in contact with to know Him and His will. Not to be someone’s prop at a Hollywood wedding, so George and Amal, I’d have to respectfully decline if the wedding is anything other than that. The reception, hey, you’re on your own on that. And now I get to start wedding counseling with a couple tonight and that’s is so great and they know the drill. I can’t wait to help them start this exciting adventure to a wonderful life in Jesus and to the glory of God.