Christ’s Promising Word

Third Sunday of Easter April 26, 2009 See what Love 1 John 3:1-7

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

See Children of God

The word for today is “Look.” Look at what we are. Look at what Easter did to us. Look at what we have become because of the death and resurrection of Jesus

“See what love the Father has given us—that we should be called the children of God.”

It is just as Saint John said at the start of his great Gospel. “And the word became flesh and dwell among us full of grace and truth.” “And to all who receive him, who believe in his name he gave power. Power to become the children of God.” Born not of blood and flesh. But rather born of God.

Power-filled, spirit-led, grace-full, believing, trusting children of God. That is what we became because of Jesus and his death and resurrection. That’s what we are because of Easter. “Just look and see,” John says, “Just look and see.”

Whoa! Where Did That Come From?

But do we always look like it? Do we always look like the children of God? Do we always appear to the world like Jesus did—God’s true child?

Tell me if I am wrong, but I think there are days when every parent looks at their children in utter astonishment and amazement and says, “Whoa! Wait a minute. Where did that come from? I didn’t teach you that word. I didn’t model for you that behavior.”

And does God ever think that way about us. Does God ever look at us as though we are his wayward children? Does God ever say to us: “I didn’t teach you that word; I didn’t model for you that behavior”?

In his first letter, John is very kind to us…and gives us kids a bit of a pass. He says, “the reason that the world doesn’t recognize us as God’s children is because the world didn’t know Jesus as God’s son.” And certainly that is true.

But let’s be honest now. There are times when we don’t act like the children of God either or talk like them. And that is true, too.

We act like kids, yes, but whiney kids whose hearts and minds are persistently self-focused. Our wants. Our comforts. Our hopes. Our needs.

We don’t want what God demands:  sacrificial giving, justice for the poor, creating a hospitable welcome to the stranger. We are not fully yet what God created us to be.

God See Us Through the Savior

That is precisely why we need a Savior. On the cross we see him. The love of God made flesh…dwelling among us…giving us the power and grace to become the children of God.

I love what our children did for us last week. And if you missed the children’s sermon last week, you missed a good one.

On one side of their hand we put a red mark to remind us of the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet and side. And on the other side we put a heart to say that those wounds came out of the Father’s love for us. Two sides of the same hand: the wounds…the love. Reaching out to us to make us children too.

When God looks at us without Jesus all God sees is just a bunch of whiny kids. Spoiled brats. Rebellious children. God sees in us a whole host of things that God did not put there.

But, when God looks at through Jesus, it is completely different. First God looks at Jesus on the cross. And all that God sees is his obedient son saying, “Not my will, but thine be done” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

And then God looks at those who cling to the coattails of Christ’s saving act in faith. Those receive him and believe in his name. And now all that God sees are children of his grace. Kids who look like Jesus, too.

Their sins stand in the way no longer. For God sees them as ones who have been marked and stamped with his son’s cross.

That’s why we Lutheran love infant baptism. We love it. We absolutely love it. Because there is nothing like an infant baptism to show that it all belongs to God and not to us.

It happens by God’s grace and not by our behavior and good works. See what love…see what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God.

There is nothing like an infant baptism to show that that love does not depend on any work of ours. It all belongs to God. And get ready for infant baptism. We have bunch coming in the next two weeks.

We Know that We Are Sinners

Sometimes I hear people say, “I don’t believe in Christianity because those Christians are such hypocrites.” In fact I heard someone say that on TV last week.

But let me tell that there is no bigger hypocrite than that smug, self-righteous, sanctimonious person who stands apart from Jesus pointing at Christian hypocrites.

We Christians know that we are sinners. We know it. We don’t need somebody on TV to tell us that. In fact one of the first things we do every Sunday is to confess our sins. We confess that we are sinners.

And we say the very thing that Saint John said last week. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Those are hardly the words of a hypocrite, now are they? But we also know and say this, too: that “God is faithful and just. And if we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Forgiven Sinners Do Effective Ministry

And if we only take one long look at those forgiven sinners, we will see Christians doing some of the most effective social ministry on this planet.

Food shipments to the poorest of the poor in Africa. Health services world wide and a Free Clinic in Lorain. Adoption services. Campus ministries. Hospital chaplaincy. Disaster relief. Camping ministries. Criminal reentry. The list goes on and on. These are ministries that we are involved and support through our mission dollars.

In fact this summer at our churchwide assembly in Minneapolis, ELCA Lutherans will have an opportunity to be part of an initiative to help wipe malaria off the face of the planet.

The largest foundation in the world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, sought us ELCA Lutherans out to be their agents in delivering medical services in Africa. They sought us out because two church bodies have a reputation for delivering the goods where they are need. Us and the Methodists.

God’s Work. Our Hands

The point is this. The loving work of God is made visible through our hands. “Gods work. Our hands.” We become children of God who make the love of God visible just like Jesus did on the cross.

Maybe that might cost us some wounds. It did for Jesus. And we might get some scars and make many mistakes along the way. But through those wounds and efforts God’s love is made real and concrete.

Just look and see.“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God…and indeed that is what we are.”

Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster

Second Sunday of Easter
April 19, 2009
Eye & Ear Witnesses
1 John 1:1-2:2

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Surprise!

Here we go again with an old familiar part of the Easter story. It is the part that children like to hear because of its great surprise and happy ending—the way in which the Risen Lord appears to his disciples on Easter Day. Through doors locked tight with bolts of fear emerges the resurrected Christ.

And if we take this dramatic entrance and play with it a bit with childlike imagination, I can almost picture Jesus jumping out from behind the stone of death with a big grin upon his face shouting, “Surprise!” And surprised they were. Too surprised to believe this was their Lord.

And so, Jesus had to eat a little fish to prove he was no ghost. And he had them touch his hands and feet. And he opened up their ears to understand the Scriptures that it is written “that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise…and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” And that they are witnesses of these things.”

Which simply is to say that this great surprise really should have been no surprise at all. God always had it in his heart to do these things all along.

The Father Enters With Jesus Too

They saw him. They touched him. And they heard him. They were eye-witnesses and ear-witness and finger-witnesses to the Risen Lord. And because they were there, we can be there and be in this happy ending, too. We can hear what they heard. And see what they saw. And feel what they touched. Just like we were there, too, that first Easter day.

And what they saw and heard and touched was the resurrected Jesus. They saw Jesus. But through the eyes and ears and lips of John, the telling of this story takes on one additional twist.

There is one other person in the room, who is really present there with Jesus, for the disciples to see and hear and feel. There is not one but two who walked into that room that first Easter day.

And we could go as far to say that if in fact that other person had not been there with Jesus, then his death and resurrection would have no purpose in it. Do you see him? Do you feel him there with Jesus.

“What was from the beginning, what we heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands,” this John says, “we declare also to you.”

And what was it that John heard and saw and felt? It was the Father. It was God the Father and the Life the Father had given that entered that locked-up room with Jesus.

Our Drapes Are Closed

I doubt if John saw it at the time. I bet he was too surprised, too scared, too amazed just like all the rest of them, to see God the Father working in and through Jesus. The drapes were still closed before his eyes and the light bulb in his brain was off. The circuit still was broken.

Only when Saint John had time to think about it and reflect on the resurrection of Jesus did he see so clearly how God the Father, too, was there. The dad of Jesus was present there in his son.

At first all they noticed was that Jesus had come back alive. But, as the days went on, they discovered something more had happened. They had come alive in a new life with the Father which was as different from the old life as night is from day.

And I doubt whether we see it all the time, either. Often our heads are closed up in dark little rooms with dark and heavy shades over our eyes and darkness in our brain. And the presence of a fatherly God goes totally unnoticed.

God is the Author of our life and its Provider. God gives us a place to live and the where-with-all to live it. God takes an active interest in everything we do and gives us both freedom and direction.

God is always as close as a single word of prayer away. Just the word “Abba” connects us with him right away. Instantly. Immediately.

The Sin of Brushing God Aside

And yet, we brush God right aside and act as if he were not there. As fallen children we make a tyrant out of “Dad” and we rebel against his rule. Our Father doesn’t help us build our lives, but ruins it with his prehistoric ways of thinking and weird ideas of what we are to do.

If only he would come out of the dark ages into the light he might be an okay guy. But for now Dad is the enemy. And would we do best to keep our distance from him.

And yet, if God our Father seems far and distance, it is not because of God. It is because of us. Our distance and our sin. And if ever it seems that God is far away in outer space, unapproachable and unknowable, it is because we have put him there in our attempt to run our lives alone.

And so, John, an original eye-witness puts it to us this way: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [But] if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” BECAUSE… “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the entire world.”

A Great New Beginning—Another Genesis

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not so much a “happy ending, as it is a Great Beginning, another Genesis, that puts us back on track again on good terms with our Father.

The death which separated us from God. The sin that made us strangers. The darkness of our mistaken understandings. The lies we tell ourselves to shift the blame. All these no longer stand between us and God to keep us apart from our Father in a little room closed tight with locks of our own making.

Christ has broken through. Jesus has been on both sides now. With one hand he reaches out for his Father and with the other hand he reaches out for us. And first through death then resurrection he pulls the two together.

Jesus did not appear in that Upper Room to dazzle us with another miracle or to make a theatrical entrance with a dramatic flair. He did it to open up a new way of life. A life with dad.

The resurrection of Jesus a happy ending? Oh, no. It is not a happy ending. It is a Great Beginning! Our Life with the Father.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster

Resurrection Day
April 12, 2009
Now That’s a First!
1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

The First Time in Human History

Now there’s a first for you. I hand on to you as of first importance what I myself in turn have received: that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures. That he was dead and buried. And that he was raised and he appeared to Peter and the rest.

This is the first time in history that such a thing has ever happened. A man completely dead has come alive again not just in fiction but in fact.

Death has been defeated. The stone cold judgment of the grave has rolled away by Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings on earth.

And so now this gospel of God’s grace becomes a matter of the “first importance.” The first item on the list of any Christian. The cornerstone of our faith. The pivot point, the fulcrum, on which our future hinges. It is “Job One” that directs our ways…and orders our priorities.

First Things First

Many, many years ago, Charles Schwab (not the financial guru but rather the “original Charles Schwab,” the president of Bethlehem Steel the early 1900’s) hired a consultant to get him through a crisis.

“Show me and my boys how to make the best use of our time,” he said, “and I will pay you any price within reason.”

And the expert said, “It’s very simple. Just make a list of all the things you need to do in order of their priority. And then start with #1. Stay with #1 until it’s finished. And then #2 will become #1 and the cycle is repeated.

Do this for three months and then send me a check for whatever you think this advice is worth,” the expert said.

Three months later the expert received a check for $25,000 (an enormous sum in those days), and this one piece of advice helped Charles Schwab build the largest independent steel company in the world.

Paul Had His Priories Straight

Saint Paul had his priorities straight. Paul knew what was “Job One.” He knew what was of “the first importance.” He did it everywhere he went. The core message. He did it to build the church of Jesus Christ.

I pass on to you as “of first importance” what I myself in turn received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. That he was dead and buried. And that he was raised again. And that he appeared to a whole host of folks—including, would you believe it—he appeared also to me.

Paul did not deserve it. Nor, do we. Paul was not one of the original twelve disciples. He was a persecutor of the church. He tried to stop this vital message. He was part of the problem, not of the solution, like we so often are.

But the grace of God made him what he was and that grace was not in vain. Jesus appeared to him, too—to stop Paul in his tracks and claim him as his own.

And Paul got the point. If there is no Easter…if Jesus is not raised…then all of life is useless. There is no hope. And we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised, the first fruits of those who have died. That is the fact we celebrate today.

We Have Seen Him, too, Risen & Alive

And we have seen him too risen and alive in our life and in the lives of many who are near and dear to us.

We are not original disciples either. We were not there when the mighty hand of God first rolled the stone of death away.

But we do stand in that long line of apostolic witness. The angel told Mary. And Mary told Peter. And Jesus appeared to two disciples on their way to Emmaus. And then to the twelve. And then to more than 500 brothers and sisters, most of whom were still living in Paul’s time.

And Jesus appears to us today through the bread and wine and that long line of apostolic witness.

Job One

And what is there for us to do, except to do what Paul did and to receive it, believe it and pass it on.

We become part of that chain, that food chain of Gospel witness. We become another link in that long line of the apostolic message.

This become Job One for us. A matter of the first importance. The most vital mission and the most vital message in the world.

There are many things that clamor for our time and our attention:  our kids, our spouse, our family, our jobs, our friends, our personal desires and interests. We are constantly bombarded with pressures and demands.

But this comes first. This must always come first. That Jesus died for our sins according to God’s plan…and that he was raised again from the dead…and that he appears in many moments in our life to say that this gospel of God’s grace is specific meant for you and for me. And it is now our job to pass it on.

This is the first of many firsts, for without this “good news” everything else we do in done in vain. The death and resurrection of Jesus is a first. An awesome first. Which makes of it a matter of the “first importance.” “Job One” for any Christian.

Saint Paul certainly had his priorities right. Do you?

Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster