READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Deuteronomy 18:15-19
Philippians 4:4-7
St. John 1:19-28
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)
Jesus speaks to us today, through His Gospel and says,
“These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.”
As is ever the case, we find the people of God causing trouble and affliction wherever they go, similar to the Gospel we heard. For it is at the place of John’s baptism that many centuries beforehand, Israel crossed that same river, led by Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus btw), to oust the people populating Israel at that time, causing them no end of grief.
There is ever action, both Good and Bad, wherever the Lord is. It is peace in the world that you should be afraid of, not affliction in the Lord’s House. It is not because the Lord cannot handle His house properly that there is affliction, it is because He must carry out His work of salvation while being burdened with all of us.
This is why Bethany means “house of affliction” and this is why John is proclaiming the Messiah and baptizing there. Because Jesus will come to be baptized at this afflicted spot and in doing so, will remove all affliction in His righteousness.
It is right that we more and more imitate our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Not just in love and peace, but in affliction. For He Whom we are commanded to conform to is He Who is wounded, He Who is afflicted, He Who suffers. When these things approach us in our lives, we count it as all honor and blessing and glory to be like our Master in all ways, not just the nice ones.
It is in this way, that the House of Affliction has been passed down to us. At least, we whine about it in that way. We find this affliction most prominently in the place we call “church”. Orthodoxy, is the word I’m going to use. Orthodoxy, remaining on the straight and narrow path, is what is practiced here and because it doesn’t change, it gets old to you.
With this reasoning, everything gets old. How you eat doesn’t change. How you dress doesn’t change. How you interact with the world, sight, smell, hear, touch, taste, doesn’t change. Your entire life is boring, a chore, a house of affliction.
In this sin, you drag these thoughts and feelings into your worship and prayers, longing for change and excitement, but realizing it is only your own feelings of staleness that you have brought yourself.
Yes, herein lies the true problems you face. You may change preferences, or tastes, or locations, but you bring your demons with you. Your demons that scream and kick at anything that smells of God and yet will constantly lead you around from one fad to the next, draining you and demanding everything from you.
Repent. You believe that if you put in the effort and invest in something that you will get out of it exactly what you put in, earning that reward. But that is not how sin works. What you put into it does not come back. Anything that goes into that house of affliction, does not return.
It is this point that God provides you with a demarcation. John the Baptist stands at the border between the wilderness and the Promised Land. The wilderness that takes everything from its inhabitants until their death and the Promised Land which promises every good until its inhabitants live forever.
So if you are in a place that demands emotions from you and does not satisfy until you have given your all, you are not in Church. But if you find yourself in a place where God is serving, regardless of your emotional state or energy level, then you just may be in Church.
Is John the Baptist unworthy of untying God’s sandal? Are you? In the hopes of finding your own affliction to appease God, you may dare to say so, but that’s the wrong question. The right question is, “Why has God come to untie my sandal?”
Once again, our sin turns us in on ourselves and we miss Christ completely. Our eyes are down on our own feet, but Jesus is lifted up on the cross. Our soul is downcast, but Jesus has risen from the dead. Our humility is manufactured, but God’s humiliation saves us all. In humbling Himself to the point of needing sandals, to the point of death, even death on a cross, Jesus afflicts sin for us.
Dear Christians, your God is not a tame God. He does not dress in the soft clothing of king’s houses, pandering to preferences while His people sit in sackcloth. He goes with them saying, “Lo I am with you always” and proves it by wrapping Himself in sackcloth and ashes: swaddling clothes and human flesh.
The Lord is not a reed shaken by the wind neither does He hide Himself when the tempest overtakes His people. Though “terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind…distress and anguish come upon you” (Pro 1:27), know that Nahum 1:3 says, “His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”
Therefore, Isaiah 28:2, “Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand.” Jesus being made man.
All these struggles and afflictions do happen in the world around us, but the Bible is clear. These events happen where the Lord goes. Deuteronomy 7:21, “..the LORD thy God [is] among you, a mighty God and terrible.”
And notice Psalm 68:35, “O God, [thou art] terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel [is] he that giveth strength and power unto [his] people. Blessed [be] God.”
Life is hard, but Jesus does not refuse the hardest couch. His Way is the obstacle. That obstacle being sin, death, and the devil plaguing His creation to death. That obstacle being our inability to face and meet those obstacles.
And where He is, is among us, Immanuel. Where He is, is in death and resurrection. Where He is is where He has trod and where He promises to be today in Word and Sacrament. He stares down nail and spear which pierce Him through. He does not flinch in the face of affliction, for you.
Yes, dear child of God. The Lord is terrible, but His terribleness is filtered through His Son. He is our sun and shield by which we may approach God and not be in fear of our lives. Because He only speaks to us through His Son, through His pastor, in Word and Sacrament.
The fiery wrath that burns all sin and corruption to oblivion is quenched in the waters of baptism. For Jesus is the one Who has come, baptizing with water and Spirit to life everlasting. He is the Christ Who speaks Himself, not through His prophet’s lips only. He is Elijah’s master and creator Who comes to untie your sandal of sin.
All this He does without any merit or worthiness in you, in His House. Yes, we may call it a house of affliction, for it is full of sinners. But in Christ, it is also Bethlehem, the House of Bread. The House of the Promised Land.
For it is here, in the wilderness beyond the Jordan which we call the USA, that Christ has built His House of Promise. This House is His own Body and Blood, built by Himself which not even death or the gates of hell can roll over. It is this House of Christ that we are baptized into, yes facing affliction because of our remaining sin, but receiving more than a thousand mercies because of His sacrifice.
No comments:
Post a Comment