Unfinished Business

 

Jesu Juva

Deuteronomy 34:1-12                                                     

February 27, 2022

Transfiguration C                             

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Today’s Old Testament reading is about the death of Moses.  And although everybody has to die sometime, I think it’s safe to say that nobody died quite like Moses died.  For starters, Moses knew the time and the place of his death.  The place was Mount Nebo, just east of the Jordan River, across from Jericho.  The Lord had directed Moses to climb to the top, to take a good look at the Promised Land off in the distance, and then to “die on the mountain” (Deut. 32:50).

          Now, the top of a mountain doesn’t particularly sound like a bad place to die, especially if you’re 120 years old, like Moses was; but here’s the back story—the rest of the story as old Paul Harvey used to say.  Forty years had gone by since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, through the Red Sea waters.  Forty years of mumbling and grumbling in the desert, forty years of trials and tribulations, forty years of manna and quail were almost over.  The Promised Land—a land flowing with milk and honey—was just across the Jordan River.  They were almost there.  But Moses would never set foot there.  God’s promise would not be fulfilled—Israel would not set foot in the Promised Land—until Moses was dead and gone.

          So, join me on the mountain with Moses, for just a moment.  Take a look around.  Thanks to modern technology you really can see what Moses saw from that mountain.  Later today do a google image search for “Mount Nebo,” and you’ll see what Moses saw:  All the Promised Land, north to south, east to west, as far as the [Mediterranean] sea.  To put this in context for you Wisconsinites, the view from Mount Nebo is even better than the view from the observation tower up in Peninsula State Park in Door County—minus the lush, green forest and the deep, blue Bay.

          You’ll need a computer to see what Moses saw; but you don’t need a computer to feel what Moses felt.  Of course, we aren’t told exactly how Moses felt, but it must have been bittersweet.  For there was a reason why Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land.  To put it simply, Moses had screwed up.  Moses had sinned.  It was because of his own sin against the Lord that he could only look at—but not enter—the Promised Land.

          What, exactly, did Moses do?  Well, that’s a good question.  To our way of thinking it was really a rather minor infraction that got Moses banned from the land of promise.  It started as a familiar scenario:  Moses and the Israelites were in the wilderness.  There was no water.  The people were whining.  So the Lord told Moses to bring forth water from a rock.  Moses was to “tell the rock” to yield its water.  But rather than “tell” the rock, Moses struck the rock two times with his staff (Num. 20:10-13).  It doesn’t seem like the crime of the century to us.  But God, who sees deep into the heart, saw that Moses did not believe Him—that Moses did not honor Him—that it was a lack of faith that prompted Moses to improvise upon the Lord’s command.

          That shameful episode must have been running through Moses’ mind as he stood atop Mount Nebo.  His sin, his failure, his regret, his remorse, his “if onlys,” his shame.  He had 120 years of life to get it right, but even Moses fell short.  Moses would die with unfinished business on his plate.

          You don’t have to live as long as Moses to feel what Moses felt—to recognize in your own life all of your own sins of omission—all of the things you should have done, but didn’t.  For God who saw deep into the heart of Moses also sees deeply into your heart.  And what He sees there is that you—like Moses—have not believed, have not trusted God’s Word, that you have not honored the Lord and have faithlessly refused to follow His commands.  Where God’s Word is concerned, you’ve edited and improvised, you’ve tweaked and twisted—all to make things easier for you.

          We need to join Moses on Mount Nebo and repent.  We need to survey our own sins of omission—all the things that we’ve left undone:  our lack of love for those who matter the most to us (and our indifference to the least and the lowly).  We have not obeyed God’s commands and we have not trusted His promises.  We haven’t forgiven others as God has forgiven us.  We haven’t set good examples for our children.  We haven’t been good stewards of the treasures God gives.  We haven’t used our bodies to glorify God or believed that these bodies are temples of His Holy Spirit.  So much good left undone.  So much unfinished and incomplete—too much to ever be able to make things right again.

          But we can’t stop there.  We can’t stop with Moses at Mount Nebo; because Moses himself didn’t stop at Mount Nebo.  Oh sure, Moses died there.  And somewhere on that mountain the earthly remains of Moses were buried by the Lord Himself.  But that wasn’t the end of Moses.   For today we hear of how Moses makes an all-star appearance on another mountain—the Mountain of Transfiguration.  And on this mountain (more than a thousand years later) we see Moses alive and well with Jesus.  Moses and Elijah appear in glory, together with Jesus—Jesus who shines brighter and purer than all the angels in the sky.

          Note well this scene, my fellow sinners:  Moses, who died a bittersweet death, who left this world confronted by his own sin and failure, Moses who never got to finish (in Canaan) the job he started (in Egypt)—there on the mount of Transfiguration stands this same Moses together with Jesus—Son of God and Son of Man.  And there, in that spot, together with Jesus, you also will one day stand.  You will stand where Moses stood!  One day you too will take your place with Jesus in glory.

          How do I know?  Well, the Holy Spirit did a little eavesdropping on the conversation between Jesus and Moses and Elijah.  And that Transfiguration conversation holds the key to your future.  It seems that they were talking about Jesus’ “departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”  They weren’t admiring the view from that mountaintop.  They weren’t catching up on old times.  No, they were looking ahead to yet another mountain.  They were discussing Jesus’ cross—Jesus’ suffering—Jesus’ deathly departure on Mount Calvary.  For there the sins of Moses and Elijah—the sins of the whole world—would be paid for with the precious blood of Jesus.

          The view from Mount Calvary was horrific and dark.  It was a place of execution, where criminals were put to death on a tool of torture perfected by the Romans.  But there on that mountain we do need to see Jesus, your substitute.  For He hangs there in your place.  He bears your sins.  All your minor and major infractions, sins of omission and sins of commission, adultery and idolatry, murder and mayhem, Jesus bears it all away for you. 

          And right before Jesus dies, He declares the best of news for you:  It is finished.  Jesus’ saving work was finished; but that’s not all.  All the good in your life that remains unfinished and incomplete—all that good has been finished by Jesus.  What you have so miserably failed to do in your life, Jesus has perfectly completed for you.  It is finished.  Your incompletes are perfectly completed by Jesus’ holy sacrifice.  Through faith in Jesus, His perfect record of obedience counts for you.  Your guilt is taken away.  Your sin is atoned for.  And you are destined one day to stand with Jesus in resurrection glory.

          Today your life is still something of an unfinished symphony.  We know how things will turn out.  We glimpse that glory today with Jesus on the mountain peak.  But we don’t yet walk with Jesus on streets of gold.  Our days on this earth remain as a strange mixture of delights and dangers, bitter and sweet, joy and sorrow, sin and grace.  That’s why we’re here today.  Tis good, Lord, to be here.  Here Jesus shares His glory with you—hidden in the words of this sermon—hidden in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood—hidden in the cleansing words of absolution.  Your sins are forgiven.  Your unfinished business is all finished in Jesus.  That means you can live today with joy and contentment—with no regrets, no remorse, no if only’s, no shame.  For soon enough you too will see Jesus, just as Moses did:  face to face in the life of the world to come. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Be Merciful

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 6:27-38                                                             

February 20, 2022

Epiphany 7C                                               

 Dear Saints of Our Savior~

          Mercy is the main course on today’s menu.  In fact, today’s Holy Gospel can be simply summarized with a single sentence from the lips of our Lord:  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 

          All the imperatives—all the commands—spoken by the Savior today are really just different expressions of mercy—different ways of doing mercy:  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you wish others would do to you.  Judge not; condemn not; forgive all. It’s all mercy.  If you can muster the strength to show kindness and do good where it is least deserved, then you are on your way to mastering mercy.

          The liturgy teaches us our great need for mercy.  And the liturgy leads us to pray for mercy—as we do in the Kyrie—nearly every Sunday:  Lord, have mercy upon us.  Christ, have mercy upon us.  Lord, have mercy upon us.  That’s how we normally think about mercy—how much mercy we need to receive for ourselves.  But praying for mercy and receiving mercy is one thing.  Actually showing mercy—extending mercy to another person—that’s something altogether different.  Actually being merciful is a tall order indeed.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, to receive mercy is human; to be merciful is divine.

          Showing mercy to others is so difficult that it’s led some Bible scholars to water down these words of Jesus.  Loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you, praying for those who abuse you, turning the other cheek—it all sounds so utterly preposterous that some people have decided that Jesus was just exaggerating.  He didn’t really mean it!  Jesus was just using hyperbole—a rhetorical technique to make people sit up and pay attention.  Like when He said to cut off your hand if it causes you to sin.  But the Savior’s mandate for mercy is not optional.  You can’t opt out of this mandate.  He said it.  He meant it.  It applies to your life literally, not just figuratively:  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 

          Today’s Old Testament reading gives us a great illustration of mercy.  What does it mean to be merciful?  What does it look like?  To be merciful is to be like Joseph.  You remember Joseph, don’t you?—how he was hated by his older

brothers, how he was stripped of his colorful robe, cast into a pit, sold into slavery and, how because he refused to sleep with another man’s wife, ended up in a dank, dark, Egyptian dungeon?  Mercy is years later—now as the most powerful man in all of Egypt—to have these same brothers standing before you—able to do to them anything you want, to take any kind of revenge your heart desires—but then to forgive them, kiss them, shed tears of joy, and embrace them as your long-lost family.  That is mercy.

          If only Jesus had said, “Be merciful, just as Joseph was merciful.”  For then we could have something to shoot for—something to aspire to—a goal on which we could set our sights.  But what Jesus said was, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  To be merciful, then, is to be like God.  God shows mercy by sending His Son to gather up all His wayward children, only to have them reject His Son and spit in His face.  God shows mercy by sending His Son into the world—by opening His hands to sinners and offering them the treasures of heaven—only to have them pierce those hands with nails, crown His head with thorns, and watch with anticipation as blood and oxygen drain away into death.  That is the mercy of our heavenly Father.

          Be merciful, Jesus says, just as your Father is merciful.  But you won’t do it.  You refuse to do it.  Loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, turning the other cheek—none of this is hardwired into the content of your character.  What is hardwired into your DNA is a boundless love for yourself.  You can’t be merciful to others, ultimately, because you love yourself too much.  You think you have to defend your honor.  You think you have to protect your future.  You think it’s not fair for people to walk all over you like some doormat.  You think people will take advantage of you if you start showing mercy like some saint.  You think . . . well, you think primarily of yourself.  And that’s a problem.

          Who needs mercy from you?  It’s not those who love you and do good to you.  It’s your enemies who need your mercy.  It’s those who aim to make you miserable—those who, if given the chance, will drive you to despair and sometimes even to tears.  They work overtime to bring out the worst in you.  They cause you pain.  They cost you sleep.  They have used you and abused you.  They have taken advantage of you and would likely do so again.  And to them, Jesus says, be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.  Martin Luther, preaching on this text, said that “the mercy of Christians must . . . be complete and comprehensive, regarding friend and foe alike, just as our Father in heaven does.”  And then Luther spoke the Law in its full severity in one short sentence:  Where this mercy is absent, faith also is absent.

          All we can do is repent.  All we can do is confess that we cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition.  It’s true that we are far, far from showing mercy as our Father in heaven does.  But what is truer still is that your heavenly Father is still merciful to you.  His mercy endures forever!  On us—who are much more like Joseph’s brothers than Joseph—on us our gracious God lavishes forgiveness, pardon for sin, and embraces us with tears of joy as His own dear family. 

          Jesus is our brother indeed.  He’s the new and greater Joseph—who for us men and for our salvation was stripped of His robe by the soldiers and was cast into the pit of the tomb.  Your sin is no match for His mercy.  He was crucified for your transgressions.  No matter how hot the flames of your sin may burn, He has more than enough mercy to douse those flames.

          Luther said it this way:  If [God] should give to us according to our merit, He could give us nothing but hell fire and eternal condemnation.  Therefore, whatever good and honor He gives us, it is out of sheer mercy.  He sees that we are stuck in death, and He has mercy upon us and gives us life.  He sees that we are children of hell, and He has mercy upon us and gives us heaven (Day by Day, p.258).

          Jesus Christ has done it all for you.  Jesus is God’s mercy in human flesh.  What sounds impossible and preposterous to us was actually the beating heart of Jesus’ earthly ministry.  It was Jesus who turned the other cheek again and again—who wound up broken and bruised, beaten and bloody.  It was Jesus who gave the tunic off His back, to have that back stripped of skin by the soldiers, who forgave His enemies from the cross, who died in nakedness and shame.  It was Jesus who gave away all He had and all He was—who lived in such a recklessly generous way that He poured out His life unto death.  Jesus Christ was merciful to all the enemies of God—including you and me.

          All that would condemn us before God has been attached to the bloody wood of Jesus’ cross.  Our idolatries and infidelities, our greed and our sad love of self—they are forgiven.  Jesus is judged that you might be acquitted.  Jesus is condemned so that you might be justified.  His mercy comes down like gentle raindrops from heaven, falling into the font, and washing you clean in your baptism.  His mercy seasons your life as your lips receive His most precious body and blood.  In this meal His perfect mercy is made manifest in you.

          Finally, a question:  Who needs mercy from you?  Who has judged you and condemned you and cursed you?  Which ungrateful, unforgiving soul needs mercy from you?  You are perfectly positioned to show them the miracle of God’s mercy—to do the divine thing—to do unto others what Jesus Christ has done for you.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

The Pursuit of Happiness

 Jesu Juva

St. Luke 6:17-26                                                             

February 13, 2022

Epiphany 6C                                    

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          Today’s Holy Gospel reminds us that while Jesus often pleased the crowds, He was no crowd-pleaser.  He wasn’t very good at back-slapping and glad-handing. He doesn’t seem to know the proper techniques for winning friends and stroking egos.  Jesus probably wouldn’t have been a very appealing after-dinner speaker either.  Imagine it:  Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.  Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.  Jesus was certainly provocative, but He wasn’t very entertaining.  For there’s really nothing entertaining about the kingdom of God.  Satisfying?  Yes.  Life-giving?  Yes.  But entertaining?  No.  Jesus didn’t come to entertain us or make us feel good.  He did not come to make us happy.

          Are you happy?  And what does it mean to be happy?  As Americans, we take happiness very seriously.  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of . . . happiness.  We have the right to chase around after happiness; and no one can take that away from us.  Notice we have the right to pursue happiness, but not necessarily to be happy.

          People chase after happiness in lots of different ways—in buying and accumulating stuff, only to find there’s never enough to make us happy. Some people pursue happiness in their career, in achievement and accomplishment, in their school work.  I was one of those “A” students, but that was a long time ago.  Past accomplishment is no guarantee of future happiness.  Some people pursue happiness in relationships or hobbies or sports.  Others look for happiness in religion.  If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands, I used to sing in Sunday school.  But what if you’re not happy and you know it?  Can you still clap your hands and shout “amen?”

          Think about the amazing men of faith, like Martin Luther.  Do you think he was happy?  He’s certainly not depicted that way in books and movies, where he’s cursing the devil, slinging ink wells at him, and becoming ever more distressed over the condition of the church.  And then there was St. Paul.  I don’t think he was especially happy either.  Yes, he often writes about his joy; but that joy was always mixed with a lot of frustration and hardship. 

          In today’s epistle St. Paul makes an indirect point about happiness.  He wrote that if it’s only for this present life that we have hoped in Christ, then we are the most pitiful bunch of people on the face of the earth.  In other words, if the pursuit of happiness in this earthly life is as good as it gets—if this is all there is—then prepare to be pitied. 

          But the good news—the hard fact of history—is that Christ has been raised

from the dead; and He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  That word, firstfruits, means that Jesus’ resurrection is the first of many resurrections.  His rising foreshadows your rising.  Because He lives, you shall live also.  If by chance you aren’t “happy” now, you will be—thanks to Jesus.  Only this is a happiness you cannot pursue.  No, this is a happiness that pursues you, and finds you—a happiness that can only be received by you as a gift—that comes exclusively from Jesus—a happiness ultimately fulfilled in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

          Jesus was on a roll that day when He preached the words of this morning’s Holy Gospel.  He was healing the sick, casting out demons.  All kinds of good things were happening.  St. Luke reports that divine power was just pouring out of Jesus that day.  And you can be sure that there were lots of very happy people that day—people who found relief and recovery and hope and peace.  And Jesus could have used that opportunity to preach a Gospel of happiness—to announce Himself as the secret to happiness—the quick fix to all the trouble and turmoil you face.  That’s the kind of thing you often hear from TV preachers—who promise prosperity and success and happiness all around.

          But Jesus—He didn’t come to preach happiness.  Instead, He lifted up His eyes, locked them on His disciples, and said:  Blessed are you who are poor. . . . Blessed are you who are hungry—you who weep—you who are hated on account of the Son of Man.  Poverty?  Hunger?  Tears and hatred?  I don’t think that’s what the founding fathers had in mind when they risked their sacred honor and took up arms to defend the right to the pursuit of happiness.

          But listen carefully to Jesus.  Who are these blessed, happy people?  What is it about their poverty, their hunger, their tears and rejection that makes them so blessed?  Jesus tells them that what they don’t have now—what they lack now—they will have in abundance.  He tells the poor that the kingdom of God is already theirs!  He tells the hungry that they will be satisfied—tells those who are weeping that they will laugh out loud—tells those who are hated here on earth that they have a great reward awaiting them in heaven.

          All of this, of course, requires faith.  Faith is key.  Faith is the key to both blessedness and to happiness.  You are most blessed and most happy when you believe that Jesus is at work in, with, and under every circumstance in your life—good and bad, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, laughter and sorrow.  To have faith is to believe this:  Jesus Christ is not the way around suffering and sorrow.  But He is the only way through suffering and sorrow to eternal life and a great reward in heaven.  That is happiness, Jesus-style.  That’s happiness stamped with the cross of Christ.

          You may be poor today; but blessed are you because the kingdom of heaven is yours (present tense).  You may be hungry today; but blessed are you as one who is fed with the body and blood of Jesus in His Holy Supper—a foretaste of the heavenly feast where you will lack nothing.  You may be weeping today, mourning your sin and its wages; but blessed are you as one whose tears will turn to joy on the day when your Savior welcomes you to paradise.  Today you may be hated.  Tomorrow you may be labeled as a disinformation-spouting, extremist.  But Jesus?  He says:  Blessed are you—you poor, hungry, teary-eyed, despised disciples.

          But do you know who you look like?  You look like Jesus!  You look like Jesus who was rich, but who became poor for your sake, so that you might be rich in the grace of God.  You look like Jesus who hungered and fasted for forty days, so that you might be fed with the bread of life forever.  You look like Jesus who wept—a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.  He was despised.  He was beaten and rejected by the religious and the powerful.  He was crucified.  And this Jesus—the poor, hungry, weeping, despised man on the center cross—HE is your acceptance.  He is your justification—your righteousness—your salvation—your substitute—your brother.  Blessed are you.

          But we can’t ignore Jesus’ words of woe, either.  Woe to you who are rich and well-fed and who are living only for a good laugh.  Your riches can’t save you.  Food fills you temporarily; but you’ll be hungry again, soon enough.  Laughter is short-lived in this world.  But the real punch line will come on the Last Day, when Christ appears to judge the living and the dead—when the real laugh of genuine happiness is that your sins are forgiven and forgotten in His death—and that your death is undone in His resurrection.

          If today you happen to have riches or food and drink or laughter and popularity, be thankful.  But don’t forget, these are not the keys to pursuing and finding happiness and blessedness.  If we look for happiness in these things, then these things become our idols.  We will pursue them until we die, and never come close to realizing the happiness that Jesus has in store for those who trust in Him.

          Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord.  He is like a tree planted by water.  Happy is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  Happy is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit (Ps. 32).  Now that’s a happiness worth pursuing.  Of course, you can’t pursue this happiness.  It pursues you.  It tracks you down.  It finds you . . . through faith in Jesus, our Savior.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.