Why Worship?

Jesu Juva

Hebrews 12:18-24                                          

August 24, 2025

Proper 16C                          

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        It’s another Lord’s Day in the Lord’s house.  For Christians, this first day of the week is normally a day dedicated to worship.  Why do you come to worship?  What do you expect from worship?  Worship means different things to different people.  For some it’s inspiration or instruction, edification or encouragement—a chance to pray, praise, and give thanks perhaps.  But what about you?  Why have you come to worship?  And what do you expect to find?

        The writer of the book of Hebrews tackles the worship question in today’s epistle.  Hebrews is probably a sermon put down into written form.  The main problem addressed by this sermon is that people were falling away from worship.  People were forsaking the Word and the Sacraments; and some were even leaving the church for the synagogue and the temple.

        Things weren’t going well for those first century Christians.  It was easier to be Jewish and return to the temple.  Jews weren’t being persecuted; but Christians were.  Many Christians were filled with doubts about their faith, doubts about Jesus.  They got discouraged.  They stopped gathering together for worship.

        But let’s not be too hard on those Hebrews.  What would you do if Christianity became illegal?  What if it was perfectly permissible to discriminate against Christians—such that you could be fired from your job and no one would hire you?  What if you lost your house and your bank accounts?  What if someone were standing outside the church to interrogate you on your way in—demanding to know what you were up to and the names and addresses of all your relatives?

        The sermon to the Hebrews was written in that kind of climate.  Those Christians could catch a big break by pledging their allegiance to the Laws of Moses, scurrying back to the synagogue—forsaking the sacrifice of Mount Calvary in favor of the strict statutes of Mount Sinai.  This is why the book of Hebrews goes to such lengths to show how Jesus is superior to Moses in every way—that if you forsake Jesus for Moses, you are going from the greater to the lesser—literally going downhill and in the wrong direction—missing the narrow door of salvation entirely.

        The author of Hebrews shows how Christian worship is utterly unique and supreme in the world of religion.  In every other religion, you reach up to your god and offer your discipline and works to that god so that you will be saved.  But in Christian worship, God comes to you in Christ.  Eternity and time intersect, heaven and earth join together, and the Father through the Son in the Spirit blesses us with His love.  That’s the worship we have.  That’s the worship we want—and need.  That’s the worship of this very hour in this very place.

        Today’s Hebrews homily tells us about this wonderful worship—tells us things we might not otherwise know about what’s going on here and now.  It speaks of things unseen. Oh, and it all gets expressed in one glorious sentence.  This sentence begins with three little words:  You have come.  The tense of the verb indicates a completed action—a done deal.  It’s not wishful thinking, but fact.  You have come to worship; but that’s not all:  You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.  Beloved in the Lord, at this moment you have slipped the surly bonds of Whitefish Bay, Milwaukee County, and the state of Wisconsin.  You are now standing on holy, heavenly ground.  In worship you have come to God’s city where you yourself are a citizen set free from sin and death by God’s own Son—who loved you and gave Himself for you.  This is heaven—on earth.  Or, if you prefer, an embassy of heaven on Milwaukee’s north shore.

        You thought you were just “going to church” this morning.  Turns out you’ve been transported—you have come—to sacred space and holy ground.  Our text says you have come to innumerable angels in festal gathering.  If this is heaven on earth, then there must be angels among us—innumerable angels.  Even the best usher team can’t count up all the angels in attendance.  These angels worship

with us.  They sing with us.  You can’t hear them; but they can hear you.  (One day you will hear them.)  These angels are “in festal gathering,” which simply means they’re having a party.  We acknowledge their party every time we say:  with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

        You can’t see the angels in worship; but you can see the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.  That’s just a delightful way of describing your fellow believers in Christ—the elect whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.  And your name is among them—sinners with robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb.  But this assembly of believers is much more sizeable that what you see between these four walls—bigger even than our district or our synod.  In worship, you have come to the body of Christ—which includes believers in Belize and in Germany and the Dominican Republic and Asia and Africa.  Our voices unite with theirs.  Here and now we stand shoulder to shoulder with all those sisters and brothers.

        Our Hebrews homily on worship continues:  You have come to . . . God, the judge of all.  To come to worship and hear the Word of God is to be judged—to hear the words, “Will the defendant please rise?”  The Word of God’s Law declares that you are guilty and God is justified in punishing you eternally.  But God has judged His Son in your place.  He made Jesus to be your sin and damned Him in your place.  He declares you innocent for Jesus’s sake.  He judges you completely righteous.  He bangs the gavel, excuses the jury, adjourns the court.  You are acquitted and free.  Why come to worship?  To be declared not guilty by God, the judge of all, whose verdicts are never overturned.

        But wait . . . there’s more.  Our text tells us that we have also come to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.  These are those you know who have already departed this life in peace, trusting in Christ.  They now rest from their labors.  They are with the Lord.  And yet, they are also here with us in worship.  How?  I don’t know.  They are with Christ; and Christ is here among us in worship.  Some people go to the graveside to be near those they love who have died.  Some gaze at old photos.  But we can come no closer to that great cloud of witnesses than we do right here—in worship.

        In worship you have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.  Angels and saints are nice, but everything hinges on Jesus and His new covenant.  That New Covenant was instituted by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  In this covenant God forgives and forgets.  He remembers our sin no more.  We have an Advocate—a Mediator—with the Father; Jesus is the propitiation for our sin.

        This Hebrews homily can’t conclude without a word about blood:  You have come . . . to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.  Blood is life.  Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.  Best of all, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.  That blood gets sprinkled on you right here in worship.  You can’t touch it or see it; you can only believe it.  In the water of baptism, in the words of absolution, in the cup of the Lord’s Supper, the life-giving blood of Jesus is applied to you.  You weren’t there on Good Friday when Jesus shed His blood on the cross.  But the blood He shed is here . . . today . . . for you . . . in worship.

        That blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.  Abel was murdered by his brother, you recall.  His blood pleaded for justice—for vengeance—for retribution.  It testified against his brother.  But the blood of Jesus testifies for you, not against you.  It pleads to heaven for your forgiveness.  It cries out for mercy, pardon, and peace.

        You have come to all this!!  You have come to worship.  And here in worship there is always more than meets the eye:  the city of God, innumerable angels, the blood of forgiveness, and our Savior Himself.  Knowing that, you never need to search for reasons to worship.  You already have them.

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

 

Let's Run

 Jesu Juva

Hebrews 12:1-3                                              

August 17, 2025

Proper 15C                                            

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Let’s run.  If you take the entire book of Hebrews—all thirteen chapters—and distill it down to its fundamental message—and refine it into one ripe phrase that pays and inspires and encourages the faithful—what you get is:  Let’s run!  Or, less succinctly:

 . . . Let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

        It’s a beautiful metaphor for the Christian life.  This is what the baptized do:  They run.  They run with endurance the race that is set before them with their eyes fixed on Jesus—stripping off the sin, hurdling every hellacious hazard, making their way to a heavenly finish line, cheered on by a great cloud of witnesses. 

        My longtime listeners will recall how I often take this text and connect it with my own personal running experiences:  races I’ve run, routes I’ve run, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  But today I stand before you as someone who has not run for weeks.  I have nothing running-related to pour into this sermon except excuses.  All I have are some very good excuses for not running.

        Have you been running?  Have you been running the race of faith with endurance—with your eyes fixed and focused on Jesus?  Or, do you have a lot of good excuses for not running—like me? 

        The author of Hebrews was very familiar with the races and marathons of the first Century.  We don’t know who the author of Hebrews is for sure; but I can guarantee you, that guy was a runner.  One significant difference between races then and now is that runners back then always ran naked.  It was men only.  But you should know that little factoid to fully understand what today’s text means where it says, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely.”  You don’t show up to run a marathon while sporting the ecclesiastical vestments I’ve got on right now, for obvious reasons.  Today’s athletes often wear skin-tight lycra-spandex clothing for the same reason that those first-century guys ran naked:  aerodynamics, wind resistance, nothing to slow you down or trip you up.

        But down through the centuries, one thing that hasn’t changed in racing is the cheering crowd.  As you neared the finish line and your legs turned to jelly, the thing that kept you going was the crowd:  parents, friends, teammates, coaches all lined up cheering and shouting, “You can do it.  You’re almost there.  Give it all you’ve got.”

        The author of Hebrews wants you to view your life in Christ in those terms—like a race—like a marathon.  But as you run this race he also wants you to take notice of the crowd—the “cloud of witnesses” he calls them.  These are the faithful saints of God who have run the race before you—patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, ordinary men and women who kept the faith and crossed the finish line to be with Jesus.  We feebly struggle; they in glory shine. 

        Most of these witnesses you don’t know personally.  There’s a long list of them in Hebrews chapter 11:  Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samson, David, and unnamed saints who were tortured, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, and killed by the sword.  The world was not worthy of them.  But they are cheering you on.  They know how grueling the race is, because they’ve run it before you.

        There at the finish line is Jesus.  It’s all by His grace and His strength that your victory is guaranteed.  You see, He’s already crossed the finish line as your sacred substitute.  He willingly endured the cross and its shame.  He did it “for the joy that was set before Him,” for the joy of winning your salvation, for the joy of freeing you from sin and death, for the joy of giving you His perfect, sinless track record of righteousness.  You were the joy before His eyes, which led Him to endure the misery of that Roman tool of torture.  On that dark afternoon He hung naked; but it wasn’t the proud nakedness of first-century athletes.  His nakedness reflected the shame of our sin—the same nakedness that prompted our first parents to get dressed up in fig leaves after the Fall.

        Beloved in the Lord, as you run this race, look at Jesus.  Fix your eyes on the Christ.  Don’t fix your eyes on yourself—on how well or how poorly you are running the race.  Too many of us are far too concerned with nailing a perfect performance in every arena of life.  Don’t be a perfectionist; but do look to the perfecter of your faith—for in Jesus you are already perfect.  Don’t fix your eyes on other people, hoping and longing for praise and approval and love from them.  But do set your sights on our Savior—in whom you are fully approved and deeply loved. 

        Don’t look back at your past with its sin and shame and guilt.  Runners who look back over their shoulders are prone to stumble.  Look forward.  The past is redeemed, reconciled, and forgiven in Jesus.  Confess your sin.  Repent of it.  And look ahead to the finish line—to the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.

        Beloved in the Lord, let’s run.  But know this:  The race of faith is not a little 5k fun run.  It’s a daily marathon—a grinding, challenging run that involves endurance, perseverance, and prayer.  It’s not the easy life—or the life of the spectator.  This is why the author of Hebrews warns his readers about suffering and discipline and hardship just a little later in chapter 12.  This is why Jesus warned His hearers in today’s holy gospel about division and distress even between members of the same family.

        Run this race with confidence, but never with complacency.  Throw off whatever hinders, whatever entangles, whatever slows you down in the race that the Lord has set before you.  Think spandex.  Tear off your immorality, your lust, your laziness.  Set aside your love for wealth, for power, for control.  Lay aside your anger and bitterness.  No more excuses!  For when you try to run the race of faith saddled with sin, you might as well have a fifty-pound weight tied around your neck.  Instead, run your race clothed in Christ, wrapped in Him, wearing your baptism like a spandex suit of salvation.

        And when you begin to think that you can’t do it—that you can’t possibly take even one more step, remember those who’ve gone before—that great cloud of witnesses.  Think of the martyrs who were beheaded, or fed to the lions, or burned alive—men and women who could have avoided death just by denying Christ with a whisper.  But they didn’t.  They kept running in faith to the finish line.  They fixed their eyes on Jesus.

        Beloved in the Lord, with them in mind, let’s run.  And don’t say, “I can’t do it,” because it really isn’t you who does it.  You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3).  It’s Jesus who lives in you (Gal. 2) and empowers you to put one foot in front of the other in this lifelong marathon.  When we say, “I can’t do it,” what we’re really saying is, “Christ can’t do it.”  But if Christ can walk on the water, calm the storm, heal the sick, and rise from the dead—He can do anything He wants.  And what He wants is to see you at the finish line.

        He wants you to run the race and receive the victory He’s already won for you.  Fix your eyes on Him, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 

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