Yet a little while [Easter 4]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 40:25-31

• I Peter 2:11-20

• St. John 16:16-23a

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
In the Name…
To you all, my true children in the common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
 
Who speaks to you today, saying:

“So they were saying, ‘What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.’”

 
These days we hear conservatives cry out more and more for the Lord’s return. It may be coincidental that their “party” is not in “power” at the same time and maybe you have been paying attention to the past and know that these false teachers have been preaching this same sermon forever.
 
But if what they say is true, that we are living in the last of the last days, then it doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, I have a life, freedom for the most part, friends, family, a job, food, water, air. Everything looks fine. Maybe God was just being dramatic when He was talking about the Last Days?
 
So go our thoughts when we think about this “little while when we won’t see Jesus”. Because in these intermittent days, it appears as if we don’t see Jesus and suspect that fact as being an indication of the little while until the Last Day.
 
However, there are a few lies associated with the proclamation of this “little while. One of them being “life is short” or “only a little while” so live it up for yourself. This is shown to us in Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the rich man and his barns. He was so focused on his prosperity and, knowing his earthly life was short, decided to forsake all else.
 
Jesus offers the lesson at the end, to be rich towards God, instead. Which of course is up to God to give or not. this first lie, we will call false scarcity. That you don’t have enough time to be a decent person.
 
The second lie we’ll talk about today is also a lie about time being short. In this case, we use the short time as an excuse to judge our neighbor. In our hubris, we deem others as going to hell, as we see fit, and yet pride ourselves in going to heaven, as if it’s our doing. 
 
“Don’t you know God’s coming back soon?” “If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?” These sorts of statements betray our lack of trust in God and our overabundant trust in our own spirituality. St. Paul preaches against this in 1 Cor. 10:12 saying, “…let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
 
In lording ourselves over others, we commit the sin of false security.
 
The third lie of time being short, is what we allow done to us without rebuke. That is the lie of allowing oppression “for a short while”. The devilishness of this lie is that it’s done over a long period of time. “Just two weeks to flatten the curve”, “Just a little longer and everything will be as it was”, or “I promise to return it all back to you at the right time”.
 
Repent. Yes the time is short. Yes Jesus is returning soon. However, the time is short enough that Jesus could return today. What I mean by that, is that today it is bad enough here for it to be the Last Day. 
 
You would say, but its not that bad yet, is it? It is. What is so bad? First off, we must not look at outward appearances, as man does, but on the heart. And when we look at the heart, we find that it is the seat of all corruption and evil. Such, that your tiny, private sins are enough to condemn yourself and the world, as happened to Adam.
 
Now what do these three lies have to do with the “little while” that Christ is talking about? It is this: we strain at a gnat, but swallow a camel (Mt. 23:24). We hear Jesus say one thing “a little while” and miss Him talk about joy. 
 
Not just any joy, but joy that a man has been born into this world, the God-man Jesus Christ. This God-man would then go about for a little while, bringing the fruits of salvation to all. He would, for a little while, be handed over, suffer, and die for sinners. 
 
Herein is the real joy of this world. Herein is the sum total of all subjects an objects that should occupy all of our senses. That is, not the little amount of time we are given on earth, but the tiny amount of time it took, and takes, for God to reconcile us to Himself.
 
In a little while, you will be sorrowful because your sins will overtake you. You will be cast from your high seat, removed from your freedom, and told that you only have a short time to make it right. In a little while, the Lord will shake the heavens and the earth and use your sin and you will feel His judgement against you.
 
Yet again a little while and you will rejoice. You will rejoice because you see His Son. Yes, you will see Him on the Last Day, but you do see Him today, in Word and Sacrament, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
 
The time is short, but the Lord and His Church have all the time in the world. Salvation comes swiftly, as a gift, to you and you have it today, right now, on account of Christ. St. Peter preaches:
 
“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:8-9).
 
So we have this “little while”, but we have it with our Lord Who loves us so, that He gave Himself up for us, as a sacrifice. His sacrifice upon the cross made it so that our little while is not spent in agony or anxiety, but in certainty, in confidence, in peace that only His Absolution can give. 
 
Our sin is the “one day” that St. Peter talks about. It is the one day of this whole lifetime that we have, where we feel the guilt and condemnation of our sin and immanent death. The “Thousand days” is the eternity spent with God on account of the forgiveness of sins. 
 
The “little while” is just that: a little while. The “rejoicing hearts at seeing Jesus again” is the revelation that He rose from the dead and sends His Spirit to us in Word and Sacrament. Time well spent, long or short, is time at the Lord’s Table eating and drinking with Him, so that, whether we have a little while or a long while; whether we are anxious or content; whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s and He is ours.
 
Because in the little while that we saw Jesus, He purchased and won us on the cross, buying us back from sin, death, and the power of the devil. In the little while that we don’t see Jesus, He is praying for us at the right hand of the Father, sending His spirit in Word and Sacrament. 
 
Finally, in a little while, He will return. But at that time there will be no more “little whiles” and no one will take your joy from you. For you will be alive forever, seated at the Right Hand of the Father, with your good and patient Shepherd.
 
 

Sheepish Value [Easter 3]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 34:11-16

• I Peter 2:21-25

• St. John 10:11-16

To you all, my true children in the common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

 

Who speaks to you today, saying:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”

If there’s one disappointment to be had on Good Shepherd Sunday its that instead of God, we must face a man as our shepherd on earth, our pastor. Our Good Shepherd sees fit to send men in His place when shepherding, or pastoring, His Flock. Thus, if we want to interact with God and His gifts, we must go through our shepherd we can see.

So it is that we hear the judgement against the shepherds today, from our Old Testament. Because the job of preaching the Gospel in its purity and administering the Sacraments according to it is crucial and must be done God’s way with the pastor or shepherd not getting in the way of Jesus at all.

The pitfalls and temptations of this office, Ezekiel tells us about today. We hear of how the shepherds eat up the Lord’s sheep as if they were bread. They scatter and mislead, leaving those in need to suffer. Truly, the Lord deems these shepherds as hired hands, in it only for the paycheck, for to them that is all that the sheep are worth. They are there as a means to an end. “If I take care of these, then my inheritance from God is secure”: they may say.

But can you really blame these shepherds? Really of what value are these sheep anyway? In verses 17-21 of Ezekiel 34, the Lord is going to also judge the sheep, not just the shepherds. He will judge them because He has visited them and found them lacking (Dan 5:27). They trample out and muddy the gifts that God gives; those of the green pastures and still waters of Word and Sacrament.

They push and shove and stamp, not loving their neighbor, not giving honor to their shepherd, and not fearing God only. Truly, what is so good about the sheep?

In St. John’s gospel, Jesus is rather favorable to sheep, for they are the one’s He has promised to go after. However, St. Matthew is not so kind. There are false prophets that somehow or another got a hold of sheep clothing (7:15). The sheep get lost (10:6), they fall into pits (12:11), they go astray (18:12), and they scatter at the drop of a hat (26:31). 

At these descriptions, you begin to side with the hired hand and the Lord and want to judge these sheep that do nothing but the wrong things. 

Repent. The value of the sheep is not found in the sheep, as the hired hand and false shepherds teach us today. We can look and look and look, but we will never be able to determine any worth. Sheep go astray.

While it may be true that the value of the sheep is not intrinsic, self-evident, or self-determined, it is in plunder. Yes, we are plunder, only able to sit and be dead in our sins as the strong man fights to defend us and the stronger man conquers him (Lk 11:22). So the Lord asks us, “Can plunder be taken from a mighty man? Can captives be rescued from a tyrant?” (Isa 49:24).

The Lord answers His own question in the next verse: “The captives of warriors will be released, and the plunder of tyrants will be retrieved. For I will fight those who fight you, and I will save your children.”

“shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (1 Pet 5:2) Why? Because the value of the sheep is found in God and given by God alone. The value of the sheep is only found in the Shepherd Who becomes a sheep. Not only a sheep, but the Lamb Who was slain and takes away the sin of the world. “Worthy is the lamb who’s blood sets us free to be children of God” we will sing. 

Before the Gospel reading, we sang what’s known as the Victimae Paschali, or the Passover Victim, which declared that the Lamb has ransomed the sheep and that Lamb is Christ, Who only is sinless.

In Christ, instead of false sheep or goats, the Lord makes true sheep that follow His voice. As Isaiah 60:17 says, “Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver;

instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. I will make your [shepherds] peace.”

Dear Christians, there is no getting around our sinfulness, but in a move one hundred times better than a pat on the head, a pen of safety, and defense against wild beasts, God becomes a sheep and in doing so, gives eternal value to all His creation. 

The Good Shepherd Who will shepherd the sheep, make them lie down to rest, seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak, is cast out, given no place to rest His head, injured, and weak in His Incarnation and on the cross.

Jesus even repeats Himself in our Gospel reading, saying that “the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” in v. 11, 15. As in, the Good Shepherd “…will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day” (Mt 20:18-19) all in order to seek His sheep and lead them to everlasting life with Him.

The Good Shepherd is recognized in His suffering as a sheep. He suffers because His sheep are in distress. He will suffer because He will become the food for consumption instead of His sheep. He will suffer because He must leave His home in order to seek the sheep throughout the realm. He will suffer as His gifts are trampled and cast aside. He will suffer in satisfying the wild beasts that they no longer be enslaved.

The Good Shepherd leaves His heavenly home to seek us in His own sheeply Body, taking on our flesh to gather us as one of us. The Good Shepherd satisfies sin, death, and the devil with His holy, innocent, and precious Body and Blood upon the cross. And with that same Body and Blood becomes the meal that is consumed instead of His Sheep, in His Supper.

Our Savior is at once the Shepherd and the sheep. In being made a sheep, being made man, He gives the sheep their value. Our value is imputed to us such that not only are we God’s creation, but God’s recreation in His Son. In this sense, all people have value, because their Lord looks like them. 

Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep (Jn 21:16-17), for these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14). These are they who have not listened to thieves and robbers (Jn 10:8), attempting to usurp the Word and the Sacraments, but they hear the voice of the Lamb Who was slain call them out by name and follow (Jn 10:27). They follow to the Feast and they follow to the wedding hall, forever blest, thus saith the Lord.

In order to find our value, then, we look to the infinite value of our Savior Who credits us His value in Baptism. Our value is found in the forgiveness of sins, which we flee to, when we feel the guilt and condemnation of God’s judgment. For the voice of the True Shepherd calls out and repeats over and over again, “I forgive you all your sins.”

 

Physical touch [Easter 2]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 37:1-14

• 1 John 5:4-10

• St. John 20:19-31

 

To you all, my true children in the common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)

 

Who speaks to you today, saying:

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’”

 

You may be wondering why the baptismal font is front and center along with the Paschal Candle. They are there because I want you to run into them. I want you to trip over them and spill the water upon yourself. I want them to be in your view and in your way to remind you of how you got into your pew in the first place.

 

So I’d like to keep them there, at least for Easter, because if you ever pleaded to God to touch your life, there is where your answer from Him lies. For, in baptism God laid His hands on you and made you His and you should be reminded of this when you are at church, when you are not at church, and every other time. The font was your entrance into the faith, into the Church, and into the Body of Christ. Heaven touches earth, here.

 

On that note, you may be wondering why we have a church building at all with all this other churchy stuff around. I’ll tell you that its for the same reason St. Thomas wanted Jesus’s hands and side displayed in front of his face. Both Jesus and St. Thomas knew that physical contact is not only extremely important, but necessary for faith and life.

 

In fact, one of the blessings of coronu-19 is this newfound appreciation for and thankfulness to God for His blessing of physical touch. We need physical contact, especially with those we love. It is necessary to live, to be human. Isolation is an abomination, hence its use in prisons. Ask any child. Worse than that, every animal shelter or place where animals are raised in captivity never allow infant animals to be without contact. We take better care of animals than our own people.

 

So it is that the Resurrected Jesus comes into physical contact with St. Thomas, because touch has always been a part of Salvation.

 

From the beginning, even the Serpent and Eve knew that touch was important, when Eve misquoted God by telling the serpent don’t eat of the tree or “touch” it (Gen 3:3). Of course God never gave the command to not touch, but it is implied. Why would you want to touch something that is death if eaten?

 

Similarly, when God brought Israel out of Egypt and presented Himself to them upon mount Sinai, He warned them, “Touch the mountain and you die” (Ex. 19:12). When God presents Himself in front of people, there is the real possibility of dying. Again, in Numbers 17:13, touching the Tabernacle would cause death. Even Job had to suffer under the devil’s touch, when God allowed him to bring calamity upon Job (1:11).

 

So it is, that God, in His majesty, is untouchable solely because of sin. In sin, Eve made the declaration about not touching the tree, but it came true anyway. Sin had separated her from the Lord’s touch and that means death.

 

Now, returning to our Gospel reading today, we are in a quandary. Probably the same scenario was running through the mind of St. Thomas. Do I touch Jesus and die or do I remain separated and die? Do I touch this Man, Who is obviously God, raised from the dead and die from touching Him, or do I double-down on my unbelief and be condemned to hell, to die forever?

 

Repent. Is God’s blessing of physical contact to you so little that you cast it aside? Is it something so beneath you that you do not seek the same contact with God as you do with others? Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary God also? (Isa 7:13)

 

Hear, then O House of Israel. God Himself shall give you a sign and He shall make it as deep as Sheol and as high as heaven. And this shall be the sign, not when you finally touch God, but when He touches you in His own body and His own soul. When He touches you and you rise from your graves. When He breathes on you and gives you His Spirit that you may live, says our OT reading (Ez. 37:13-14), then you will know He is God.

 

Reaching out to God to touch Him was never the plan. Doing so, in sin, results in everlasting death, as we heard today. You reaching out is not the plan. God reaching out, is.

 

God reaching out from heaven to touch earth is the plan. Not to make the mountains smoke (Ps. 144:5), but to water the earth and make it spring forth a Savior, the God-man, Jesus Christ (Isa 61:11). In a step beyond forming man from the dust of the ground and breathing life into him (Gen 2:7), the Lord takes dust upon Himself and breath for Himself, that He might save all humanity by coming into contact with us, Himself.

 

Yes, in prophesies and lessons taught alongside those of “not touching” are those of “touching”, but in these cases its God touching man. Though touching the mountain and Tabernacle was forbidden, touching the things God already made holy in the Tabernacle gave holiness. Touch God’s Altar and its holiness was transferred to you by touch (Ex. 29:37).

 

Touch the other holy things in the holy place and they also transmit God’s holiness (Ex 30:29), which included the Bread and the wine in there. Which should have been obvious to all of Israel, for that bread was called the Bread of the Presence (Ex 35:13), as in God is present to commune with and to physically contact His people. Eat it and be made holy (Lev. 10:12).

 

All this is because God made it this way. God said this is the way we are to come into contact with Him and not any other way. Not through the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not through His majesty, and not through a deep-thinking, penetrating mind. It will be touch by His own hands, saith the Lord.

 

“Touch Me” Jesus says to St. Thomas. Not just in your metaphors, but touch my hands with your hands. Touch my side with your side. Breath my air with your breathing. Eat what I offer you, touch it with your lips, and you will be saved, just as happened to Isaiah and Jeremiah in 6:7 and 1:9 of their books, respectively.

 

In Christ, the touch of God is eternally necessary, for it is His crucified hands that must baptize you, comfort you, and feed you His forgiveness. It is His crucified body that must make payment for all your sins, and it is His touch that brings St. Thomas and you back from the brink of death in your sins.

 

Now that you are touched by God by His Word and Sacraments, the evil one can not touch you, says St. John in his first letter (5:18). We may go through hardships as Job did, but we will no longer be touched with eternal death. We will live with the Lord and God will hand out vengeance to those who touch His people.

 

For the new command is to “touch not”. As in: “Touch not my [Christians], do my prophets no harm”, says Psalm 105:15, if you do, “…[if] all my evil neighbors…touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit: ‘Behold, I will pluck them up from their land, …I will utterly pluck [them]up and destroy [them]” (Jer 12:14).

 

Those who are touched by the crucified and risen Body and Blood of Jesus are defended from all danger and guarded and protected from all evil, such that even if they die they will live.

 

Just as Jesus came to the 3 young men in the burning, fiery furnace such that the flames couldn’t touch them, so does He come today to touch you on your forehead, on your heart, and on your lips. “For you have not come to what may be touched:”, says Hebrews 12, “a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them” (v.18). 

 

No you have been brought to what can be touched, and it is something to be touched for your eternal salvation. You have been brought to the Spirit, the water, and the blood that may be touched and handled. You have been brought to the one true God Who hides Himself in sacraments that you may live in front of Him forever.

 

You have been brought to a merciful Savior Who takes on flesh and blood in order to touch you, breathe on you, and give you His clean Spirit that you might believe that Jesus is the Crucified Christ, the only Son of God, and have life in His Name having been touched by His true Body and true Blood.

 

So we keep these physical reminders in front of us, the Font, the Supper, the Gospel, the Fire in order to never forget where exactly God intervenes in this world and intervenes in our life. All this in order that with all 5 of our senses we may interact with God and, in front of Jesus’s Body and Blood, fall down on our knees with St. Thomas and declare: “My Lord and my God!”

 

 For the point is not the hands and fingers of St. Thomas, but the hands, side, and Body of God, in Christ.

 

Welcome back [The Resurrection of our Lord]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Job 19:23-27

• 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

• St. Mark 16:1-8

To you all, my true children in the common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

 

Who speaks to you today, saying:

“But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you…”

Maybe you are not feeling as I am right now, and I ask you to indulge me for just a second. Normally I hate personal things in sermons, but well…

Last year, the heart of the church stopped beating. Rather, it had been stopped by an outside force. It was forcibly put into a coma, forcibly flat-lined, forcibly silenced. And the silence that ensued was deafening and heart breaking, for what followed was a devilish charge of demonic deployments.

As soon as the doors closed, satan licked his lips, rubbed his hands together, and sounded the trumpet to advance. For now that the sacraments had been locked up, there was no more fear. Since it appeared as if God’s sacramental connection to His Church was severed, what need was there for the devil’s armies to hold back?

And hold back he did not. The temptations were heard and believed far and wide: “Jesus shows up at your house, just as well as at church”, “You don’t need a mediator, you just need Jesus”, and “at least I still believe in my heart” are just some examples.

While, these are not new temptations, those who succumbed to them increased like false positive PCR numbers, and attendance, even a year later, has dropped. We did not need that push, that show of weakness, because we were already sliding that direction. 

Yes, Jesus shows up at your house, but He shows up to say why aren’t you at my Church (Mt 22:8)? 

Yes, you don’t need a mere mediator, but you forget that I AM is the Mediator between you and God (Heb 12:24) and God works through men (Lk 10:16). 

Yes, you can believe with your heart, but how can you believe if you don’t hear and how can you hear if someone isn’t preaching (Rom 10:14) and remember, your heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9), so why trust it now?

But thanks be to God that our glass and metal and wooden doors do not equate to the hidden Church’s doors. Though by faith we see them as the same when we come to church, our doors can be locked, and the gate of heaven remain unbarred. Our doors can be darkened, and the Light of the World shines on. Our doors can be shut or destroyed, and death continues to have no dominion over the Temple of God: Christ’s Body.

Thus this Easter for me holds even more joy and I am experiencing grace upon grace upon grace, even more so because you all are here with me, filling this place. But this is every Easter. Every Easter this placed is filled, regardless of what it looks like to the outside observer. Every day Service is offered, for that matter.

For every Sunday of the Church Year is a little Easter and every Easter is a reminder of the sin-filled, rebellious road we walked on to get to this day. And a reminder of our heavenly Father expectantly awaiting our return. For, God wants us removed from that shadow-filled, valley road, so He makes us walk it year after year, to remind us of our sin and to drive us to His true Church where we eat and drink forgiveness.

Because, guess what? You may not have been here last year, but the Lord was. You may not have held the risen Body and Blood of our Lord in your faithful hands then, but you get to today. And the same words and the same ceremony and the same hymns drive the point home as if you had never left. Thanks be to God.

This is the sting of sin and the comfort of the Gospel. First the sting: we are not needed. Others will hear and believe if we don’t want to. God’s Word will move on because it remains true, when we do not. Second the comfort: that the Word is true when we are not. He is faithful when we are not. He remains the same, so that when we return from our sin, we may find Him again.

The comfort and peace that the Divine Service gives us is that of having left home forever and returning to find it exactly as it was, full of grace and truth and my newly cleansed heart is full. 

In fact, Psalm 45 expresses Job’s faith saying, “My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.” The ready scribe of Job’s pen which writes with lead and iron, the words: “I know that my redeemer lives and in my flesh I will see Him.”

The kingdom and will of God certainly come without our prayers. The Church of God comes and stays without our prayers, but we do our utmost to make sure those doors are open so that we can say it comes among us also. And it always does and it always will.

Of Easter, St. John Chrysostom from the 4th century, preaches:

 

If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.

If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.

If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.

If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.

If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast.

If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.

If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing.

If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.

And he shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.

And he both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter you all into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first, and likewise the second.

You rich and poor together, hold high festival. You sober and you heedless, honor the day.

Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast.

The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

 

Let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free.

He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.

He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.

It was embittered, for it was mocked.

It was embittered, for it was slain.

It was embittered, for it was overthrown.

It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.

It took a body, and met God face to face.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown.

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen, and life reigns.

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.

For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

 

 

 

But if not [Easter Sunrise]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE. 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Daniel 3:1-30

• St. John 20:1-18

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

 

Jesus speaks to you today, saying:

“But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

 

I want you to note and memorize the words spoken by the 3 children thrown into the fiery furnace. They say, “But if not” in our English translation. And that’s in response to their own statement about how the Lord has the ability to rescue them, quite bodily, out of the hand of the evil king who wants to broil them. 

“But if not”, they confess. Even if God does not save them from the king’s hand, they will not give up the faith that has been so graciously bestowed upon them and the forgiveness of sins that has been completely purchased and won for them.

For as you heard in the reading from Daniel 3, king Nebuchadnezzar is posing as god, as all good political leaders do, and he is seeking to maintain his membership roles. He does this by purging them of any dissent. He does not care that people can fake worshipping his idols, because in the end the fakers comply and do exactly as he wanted in the first place.

I argue this morning, that Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t want a religion, in the truest sense of the word, he wants sheep to fleece. And the sheep comply in the face of a little threat of violence, because who wants to die? Nebuchadnezzar wants cash cows…er sheep. He wants his wallet to grow and his name and kingdom to be the greatest. You can’t murder everyone because what kind of cash-sheep system has no sheeple??

Conveniently enough, the culture group that he needs to make an example of, has already proven itself more exemplary than Nebuchadnezzar’s own culture. Daniel and the three young men have already been promoted to pretty high offices within the kingdom, after having been dragged from their homes into exile. But they are true believers and that part of the people are the problem for the king.

So Nebuchadnezzar must solve this problem, because for earthly kings, there is no “But if not”. The king cannot say “Bow down and worship or I will kill you” “But if not”, “but if you don’t”… because then there would be no teeth in the mandate and the kingdom would rebel against such ridiculous law-making.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s false religion, the religion of the world, if you apostatize, you are put to death. Death is the punishment for leaving. This is one of the ways to spot a false religion in general: if death is the penalty for leaving the “faith”. 

Now death is the penalty for leaving the Christian faith as well, because Jesus does say things like, “You will die in your sins” (Jn 8:24). But He never commands His followers to pull the trigger. Sin is rebellion, as in, sin causes you to leave the faith. If you love your sin, you can keep it, but you will die by those self-inflicted wounds, being seperated from Life Himself.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not believe Christianity is a false religion and put their lives on the line to prove it. They proclaim life after death. They proclaim that God rewards those who leave the worlds’ religions with life. “…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan 3:17-18).

The world’s religion promises death. The one, true religion promises life. The 3 young men were alive during the exile, they would be alive if the king rescinded, and they would be alive after death. That is what “But if not” means there.

For as we ponder this early morning at the tomb, it is the close and completion of that “But if not”. For Jesus is the one young man that stood before the king, defying mandate and order, and was sentenced to death by the burning fiery furnace of God’s wrath, crucified as a king. 

His words to Pilate and the priests were “But if not”. If you put me to death, you will see the Son of Man coming in glory, seating at the Right Hand of God. If you put me to death, my kingdom is not of this world and the Father will glorify Me.

“but if not”…but if the Cup does not pass from me, if my friends all betray me, if my world rejects me and puts me to death, even so, the will of God is always best. And just like the 3 young men, Jesus was rescued out of that furnace, but He was rescued in the best way. The way that puts an end to death and will allow all of us to be dumped into a furnace, die, and still come out alive.

God gives us “But if not” faith. God gives us the faith to stare down death, even when we don’t want to. The women that went to the tomb early this morning and did not have “but if not” faith, for they were looking for a dead man. But, you can be sure they left with it.

Because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we have faith to face death and say, “Even though you do your worst, all you do is put me out of your jurisdiction”. For Nebuchadnezzar’s authority only extends as far as he can reach and he cannot reach into the grave. 

And that is the point and object of faith. Men can only kill the body. The world can only kill your body. It can not destroy you. It cannot destroy what and whom you love. It cannot remove joy from your life without your say-so. And it cannot remove life from your grasp.

For your life is hidden in Christ and is found in His grasp. His grasp which did not let go of spear and nail until He had paid for your redemption completely. Now in Christ, you live and the furnace you are thrown into is but a font of water. The poison the world force-feeds you is but bread and wine to you. Christ is arisen, man and the world can do nothing to you.