Christ's Promising Word

Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2009
The Miracle of Christmas
Luke 1:39-45: “The Miracle of Christmas”

What is the Miracle of Christmas?

Christmas is a Miracle!

Christmas is a miracle—we all know that. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen every day.

How often do angels fill the skies and shower on the earth their “Glorias?”

When else have shepherds ever left their flocks behind and go with haste to see some great things which the Lord had made known to them?

In what other year on the calendar have wisemen from the East come following a star to find a child king and worship and adore him?

Christmas is a miracle. One of the greatest of them all.

But just what is the miracle of Christmas?

Luther’s Christmas Book

In the year 1521, Martin Luther spent an entire year hiding in Wartburg Castle. He had stirred up such a firestorm of controversy that both the pope and the emperor sought his life.

And so, his local prince, Frederick the Wise, put Luther on ice for a while and dressed him like a knight and hid him away in a safe place until things cooled down one year later.

And while at Wartburg Castle, Luther not only translated the entire New Testament into the language of the people so that folks like me and you could read it too, but that wise old bird Prince Frederick also had Luther write a series of sermons on every Sunday of the church year as a positive, non-polemical statement of his theology.

And so, Luther began with an outstanding series of sermons on Advent and on Christmas [Roland Bainton, ed., The Martin Luther Christmas Book]. And in my book, his sermon on the angel coming to Mary (the Annunciation, we call it) is the very best of these precious gems.

The Three Miracles of Christmas

There are three miracles in the Christmas story, Luther says. One is great, the second greater, and the third the greatest of them all.

Annunciation window, St Vincent de Paul, Albany NY

The first miracle is that a virgin should conceive and bear a son. That indeed is a great miracle. For it defies everything we know about obstetrics. When else have you ever heard of a child being conceived this way?

And yet, as far as Luther was concerned, that miracle was a snap for God. Any God worth his salt, any God who could create the heavens and the earth could certainly do a thing like that. Creating something out of nothing is exactly what a Creator God does.

No, by far an even greater miracle was that God himself should become flesh and become a human being like us in this little child.

The greater wonder in the birth of Jesus was that God, the heavenly ruler of the universe, should care enough about us sinners to actually take on our sinful flesh and share in our common woes…and that the Almighty Son of God should humble himself to lie in the feed box of a donkey and to hang upon the cross.

The incarnation that would lead to a crucifixion, that was by far a more difficult thing for God to do.

And yet, the greatest miracle of them all is that anyone believed it. The miracle of faith. That is the real miracle of Christmas.

Would You Believe It?

Would you believe it? Would you believe that this baby born in Bethlehem to a human man and woman is the Son of God, Emmanuel, God-with-us? What if the angel came to you rather than to Mary and to Joseph. Would you believe this was God in human flesh?

To tell you the truth, if an angel came to me today and said to me, “Paul, do not be afraid. Your wife will bear a son,” I would probably hop in a car and go see a shrink long before I would stop into a drug store for a home pregnancy test.

“No way!” I would say. “It defies all sense and logic.”

And yet, Mary did believe it. She believed that this child in her womb was the Son of God, the Savior of the World, the Forgiver of our Sin. She believed that she, and not some queen or princess, was chosen to be the mother of our Lord.

And Joseph believed. Joseph believed that this was the saving work of God and not the deceitful work of his wife-to-be fooling around with some other man. And do not kid yourself—that took no little faith.

And the Shepherds believed. The shepherds, when the angel came to them, dared to believe that the God of heaven and earth cared enough about them to let them in on the working of their salvation—even though the only sign they had was a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

“This is the hardest thing of all,” Luther says, “not so much to believe that Jesus is the son of a virgin or that Jesus is God himself, but to believe that this little child has come for you and for me.”

God starts with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds. And God ends with us. And the question all the time is simply this: “Do you believe?”

The Miracle of Faith

It defies all sense and logic that God should care so much for sinful folks like you and me.

But, that is what the angel said, “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” This child who is born, is a gift from God for you and for me.

This is the real miracle of Christmas: to believe that Jesus Christ has come for you. It is difficult, yes. It defies our human reason, yes. But, it is possible when we hear the angelic word and take it into our hearts.

That is the miracle of Christmas. The miracle of faith.

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster

Third Sunday in Advent
December 13, 2009
This is Good News?
Luke 3:7-13

The Shrill Shouts of John the Baptist

If this were Sesame Street, Elmo would be here in person to tell you that today’s Advent message are brought to you by the letter “S”—the strident, sibilant letter “S.” For what we hear on this Third Sunday of the are the shrill shouts of John the Baptist searing sinners and spouting Spirit.

The Letter Today is "S"

Have you ever noticed that most hissssing and sssswearing and sssssnapping and ssssshouting happens with the letter “S?” “Don’t get snippy,” Al Gore once said to George Bush in a debate.

Well, John the Baptist is snippy.

“You brood of vipers!” “You bunch of slithering snakes!” John the Baptist says to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” he snickers and he sneers. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; “for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

“Even now the ax is being sharpened and every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down short and thrown to sizzle in the fire. And that is not even to say yet what God will do to sinners with his sharp sickle.”

This is Good News?

This is Good News?

The Bible must be joking when at the very end, Saint Luke writes, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news  to the people.”

This is Good News? This is the Gospel?

And this is what John says to his friends! This is what John says to the people who came out to him and were responsive—those who desired to be baptized. What in the world would he ever say to those who didn’t come?!!!

The shrill shouts of John the Baptist is not what we expect to hear this close to Christmas. Just try it on your Christmas cards.

As you compose your annual Christmas letter, try this little experiment. Write down as your opening line “Dear friends, You brood of vipers! You scummy bunch of slithering snakes. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

And then wait to see how many of your friends include you on their Christmas list next year. Hissssing at people is not the way to win friends and influence people.

What We Need To Hear

And yet, John the Baptist and the Gospel writer Luke and the Holy Spirit who moved the Church to assign this Bible passage to this particular Sunday—they all assert this precisely what we need to hear so close to Christmas.

You Brood of Vipers

For when you get right down to it we are all a bunch of slithering sinners who got suckered by a snake. You and me. And we will do anything we can to wiggle out of our predicament by denying the deadly seriousness of our sin.

Oh, sure we are a little sick, we will admit. Oh, sure we have our faults and failings. “Nobody’s perfect,” we say as if that were an excuse and not an accusation. We are sick. We are sinful.

But that is something minor. It’s just a case of sniffles or the flu. But basically, we see ourselves as very decent people. We do not see ourselves terminally ill. We do not see ourselves as suffering, as Saint Paul would say, from “a sickness unto death.”

And so we treat our Christian baptism like a shot the doctor gives us in the office to inoculate us from the flu. Once done, we are protected and we need do nothing more.

We do not treat Baptism like a beginning of a total change of life style. The total change of life-style. The kind of thing that happens when you have a heart attack and suddenly you realize that—”Boy,  if I don’t make some major changes in my life, I am going die.”

Shock Therapy

And so, John the Baptist deliberately chooses to use some “shock therapy” to startle and to scare us (much like a heart doctor would) to capture our attention.

John is a serious soaker who does not confuse the superficial with the substantial. He does not invite the crowds to adopt his desert way of life, but rather calls upon them to make a permanent change in their behavior in their own homes to be more conducive to the Lord’s soon coming.

Repentance. John calls it. Repentance.

But be careful with that word. For it is the most misunderstood word in all of Scripture.

Repentance does not mean a “pity party.” Repentance does not mean beating yourself up by hitting yourself with the awareness of your faults and failings. Nor, does repentance mean trying to impress God with pious acts of penitence.

A Change in Our Behavior: Stewardship & Social Sensitivity

It’s much like parenting. In her younger years, I had a daughter who didn’t always do what I ask her to do, even though I asked time and time again.

And there came a point in our relationship when she kept saying to me, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry.” And I said to her, “Stop. I don’t want to hear, ‘I’m sorry.’ I don’t care about ‘sorry.’ I want to see a change in your behavior.”

We Need a Savior

A change in our behavior—that’s what God wants to see. A change in our behavior. Or, as John the Baptist puts it: “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”

And what fruit is that? What is the behavior that is “worthy” of repentance? It is sharing. It is caring. “Whoever has two coats must share with those who have none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”

And suddenly John is talking stewardship. And John is talking about social sensitivity to the poor and needy.

John is talking about standing in our station and doing honestly and fairly the job that God has given us to do…and to be satisfied with what we have.

We Need a Savior — The Stronger One Who Spouts with Spirit

We cannot do it on our own. We are too weak for that, as even John admits for himself. We can only do it when we surrender to the Stronger One who is coming, Jesus Christ, and submit to his gift of the Holy Spirit.

We need the Savior and the Spirit that he gives and brings by baptizing us into his own death and resurrection. Salvation we call it. The greatest “S” of them all.

We are saved by the Savior who comes and soaks us with his own Spirit so that we might become his sons and daughters and share in the inheritance of his salvation. No wonder Saint Luke calls it what it is. Good news. The Gospel. Good news to all the people.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus, come.

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster

Second Sunday of Advent
December 6, 2009
Luke 3:1-6
A Wild Word for a Whirling World

Pattern of our Life: A Dizzy Spin

Life is a dizzy spin

This past summer, Laurie & I had an amusing experience. We attended a Canaries’ game. A South Dakota baseball team. And between the innings, some MC was doing wild stunts down on the field to entertain the crowd.

And for one of them, three men from the stands were invited down to the field to engage in a little competition, for which they would get a prize. All they had to do was to plant a baseball bat vertically on the ground. Put their forehead on the end of it. And run around it as quickly as they could in a tight circle. And then, they had to run as straight as they could from one line to another.

It was a hoot! Try it yourself sometime. They all looked like drunken sailors. One man was so dizzy that he couldn’t even stand. But kept on falling down for the next five minutes and had to be assisted off the field. The other two make it, but their path was crooked and the going rough.

It’s funny when you see it at a game. It is not so funny when that is the pattern of our daily life. A life without Jesus. A life without God.

Important People Whirling: Lording Over Others

These are important people that we hear of today. People in charge. People with authority. They controlled empires, kingdoms, temples and regions. Tiberius himself—the big dog. Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee. His brother Philip. Lysanias. Annas and Caiaphas.

It's a Dog-eat-Dog World

These were important people, whirling around in a wild world. Dog eat dog…as they pushed for more power and authority. Everybody lording it over someone else. Each wanting their cut, their piece of the pie. With the big dog on top getting the biggest slices and the puppies on the bottom getting crumbs.

Luke catalogs them by name and place in their proper order, starting at the top and moving to the bottom. And one could work the list down to us and to that little piece of turf that we control and manage. Our corner in the dog-pound. Most of us whirl around in little circles too, like those men with heads on baseball bats.

The Word of the Lord Came to John: Judgment & Grace

But what about that man at the end of the list? After tracing out for us the typical pattern of a chain of command, Saint Luke throws us for a loop. Then it was, in times like these, that the Word of the Lord came to John the son of Zechariah. And he is given a wild word for a whirling world in the wilderness of all places.

First of all it was a word of judgment. The entire world had become a wilderness. A place of emptiness. A place of death. A place of God-forsakenness. And the people of God stumble around in crazy, silly circles, like drunken sailors who simply want to get their pay, their share, their cut. And then tuck it in their socks and then go down to the bar to blow it on dames and booze.

Our way of running the world is nothing like the way that God intended. Or, the way that God requires. It is crooked to the core. Rough, stony, dirty and dry. Hostile and corrupt.

The world ordered by Tiberius (and all who branch off  his tree) is a graceless, power-hungry, money-grabbing world. Where people get used by those in power. And pay dearly for their mistakes. Get dumped on and not bailed out. “It’s a dog-eat-dog wilderness out there,” I heard one man say to me this week.

And need we say that anybody who wanders and opposes God like this is in a sinking ship?

A Stronger Who: Who Lifts in His Lording

And yet, in this place of death, a wild wilderness, there is a word of life. John not only has a word of judgment. He has a word of grace. A mighty wonder. The Lord was coming. The One. The One. The Man. The very Savior promised by the prophets—for whom we all are waiting—was finally drawing near.

John the Baptist by Titan

And there is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins that makes us “straight” and “right” and “ready” to receive him. And this baptism gets its power from “his baptism.” His baptism into a death and resurrection.

Jesus came with power and great authority. He was the Strong One of God. “He is the one stronger than me,” John says in another gospel, “whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

And yet, Jesus did not come like a Tiberius to lord it over us. Rather he used his power and authority to die for us. To pay himself the price for all our wild antics of distrust and misbehavior. And he straightens out our relationship with God. And lifts us up in the midst of a crazy world. Gets us out of its dizzy spin. And gives us his way. His path, his footsteps to follow.

A New Way of Behaving for Those Who Believe

And those who believe and trust in this good news of the kingdom of God find themselves graciously caught up in it. With our drowning in the waters of baptism (our death to our old self), there is a rising. And our hearts and hopes are changed.

Jesus is the Way

In Jesus Christ himself, we see a new way of behaving, living, walking, loving. And a change of heart causes a change of mind and a change in our behavior. No longer are things going to stay the same way they were before. People whirling around in dizzy circles for someone else’s entertainment and amusement.

Faithful people tired of the politics-as-usual see a wonderful revolution. There is a path, a “Way,” that heads us all in the right direction aligned with God. There is a whole new world order. His way. Christ’s way.

Not a lording over others, with bosses and workers, politicians and peons, who push and shove, reach and grab. But rather there are helpers, friends, angels and saints. People who lift other people up. And make sacrifices for them. And help them with compassion and concern. It’s God work through our hands.

Forerunners of Jesus

And chief among our tasks is taking on the job of John himself. To be the baptized and the baptizers. To be a people who prepare the way for the coming of the Lord by a Gospel witness that reaches out the entire world. So that everyone, “all flesh,” may see the salvation of God.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Isn’t that a lot more fun than seeing silly men do silly things in South Dakota?

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster

Advent 1
November 29, 2009
Coming Soon
Luke 21:25-28

Name in Lights

I went to New York once. It is the city that never sleeps. And one of its most beautiful sights at night are all the neon signs that light the city up.

And many of them have the same theme: “Now Coming,” “Appearing Soon.” They announce some coming attraction. Some person or show that is soon to appear.

And, who knows, maybe one day one of our own kids will be there with their name in lights. “Rachel Cunningham now appearing.” Or, “Brian Sprague coming soon.” Wouldn’t that be something?

And should that day ever come, I’m going to buy a ticket and get on an airplane. I want to be there in a front row seat.

Frightening Cosmic Signs

There are signs of another kind that Jesus has on his mind this First Sunday of the Advent season. These are “cosmic” signs, not man-made ones. And Jesus warns they will be frightening.

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,” he says, “and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the seas and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heaven will be shaken.”

And hasn’t that always been the case? People afraid of the foreboding “cosmic” signs they see.

Certainly we are not afraid of solar and lunar ellipses like ancient people were. In fact, they are kind of fun to see now and then.

Nor, are we afraid of falling stars or roaring seas or earthquakes. We see them as part of natural phenomena and not as any kind of “message from God.” We are too scientific and sophisticated for that.

But we are afraid of the signs we see in the economy. And the mounting national debt. And of tinkering with the health care system. And the abuses to our environment.

A Day of Reckoning

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone around the Thanksgiving table this past week said, “I am scared of what is coming down the pike.” “I am afraid of the debt we are passing on to our children.” “Things are crazy now. And someday there will be a day of reckoning.”

Indeed, there will be one—a Day of Reckoning. Jesus himself agrees. And yet, the reckoning that Jesus has in mind is not just an economic one or a political one or a social one. It is a theological one.

God will come…. God will come with power and great glory. God will visibly come for all to see. And what kind of account will we give then? How will we justify what we have done with all the gifts God has given us? Gifts of life, intellect, time and money.

No wonder “people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.” For who, in the world, can ever stand up to God?

To God, don’t all of our shenanigans just look like one more scam and Ponzi scheme? And there is a price to be paid by those who scam God.

Stand up and Raise Your Heads

And yet, Jesus says to his disciples, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

We have every reason to “fear” the coming of God. To ignore it and deny it, like we do a lot of other things we fear.

We simply put it out of our mind and pass it down the line into the future, pretending it’s not going to come. Because there is a real power, a real nightmare, a real judgment in the coming of the Lord.

And yet, we have every reason to “welcome” the coming of God. To pray for it. Long for it. Hope for it. Live for it.

The God Who Comes Once Already Came

For the God who is still coming is the very same God who once already came.

And we already know how he came then. He came as the little baby born in Bethlehem. The Christ child. Who did not come to damn and condemn us, but who rather came to forgive and save us.

There is a price to be paid for our shenanigans. And the people of Jesus’ day thought they saw it when the Romans invaded and tore their temple down (It was their 9/11).

But that was not it. That was not the “ultimate” price. And life went on… much like it will for us when we get past the next impending crisis.

Price Paid by Jesus on the Cross

The price was paid by Christ on the cross. There it was that God dealt with all our sins and scams and Ponzi schemes. There it was that God showed and revealed the true and ultimate nature of his heart, which is not to condemn us but to save us. To pardon and forgive.

Indeed, there is a price to be paid for scamming God. But, not by us. It is paid for us by Christ. And that changes the way we look at everything, including the way we look at the coming Day of the Lord.

We Testify and Comfort

We do not fret and worry over the future. We do not panic at the scary signs we see. We do not faint with fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.

Rather, we do two things. First, we stand and raise our heads and testify. We preach the gospel and testify to the hope and faith that is in us. We say that Jesus is with us now and will come again for all to see.

And secondly, we comfort those who are terrified in times like these, knowing that God is near.

The terrifying signs of our time are simply “neon signs” that say, “Coming Soon! Now Appearing!” Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born of the dead, the ruler of the kings on earth. That one unique Son of God who is also the Son of Man. The Son of Us. One of us.

And we have no need to fear. For he is our redemption drawing near. He is ours. And we are his.

And you are already sufficiently prepared if you put your trust in him.

For the ticket to this show is “faith.” And it guarantees you a front row seat when God’s kingdom finally comes. Soon, we hope. So soon.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus. Come.

© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster