Have You Learned the Secret?

Jesu Juva

Philippians 4:6-13                                                        

November 25, 2021

Thanksgiving Day          

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          It is shaping up to be a fantastic Thanksgiving!  After last year’s lockdowns and quarantines, it will be great to gather with family and good friends to give thanks.  There’s a touch of winter in the air.  It’s a good day to use the fireplace. 

The college students are home.  And I’ve got a Thanksgiving feast awaiting me later today which could be featured in Better Homes and Gardens.

          There’s only one, tiny problem on this Thanksgiving Day:  I’m not very thankful—certainly not as thankful as I should be.  It’s a terrible thing to admit (especially for a pastor).  But the truth of the matter is most days, most of the time, including today, I’m not very thankful.  Day by day, hour by hour, true thankfulness is lacking.  I have no problem accepting thanks; but giving thanks—it doesn’t come naturally.  Moments of genuine thankfulness are fleeting, at best.  Moments of thankfulness are just that—moments—moments that come and go all too quickly.

          In America it’s great to be grateful—to be thankful—to say “thank God,” even for the little things.  But this cultural attitude of gratitude is mostly a sham.  In fact, it’s mostly irreverent blasphemy.  If you don’t believe me, just type the words “Thank God” into a Google images search, and see what comes up.  (Think beer, bacon, and bourbon.)  At best, that’s an irreverent mockery of what God gives, and of who we are, and of what we deserve. 

          The other extreme is when our gratitude is grounded in shallow sentimentality—as in, I’m thankful for snowflakes, for rainbows and puppies.  That’s fine.  But Christianity is not a sentimental religion.  Christianity is the religion of God providing only His Son as a cold-blooded sacrifice to save sinners who didn’t even want to be saved—sinners who aren’t even very thankful much of the time.

          Where thanksgiving is lacking, it’s a sure bet that contentment is lacking too. How can I be thankful for what God gives if I’m not content—if I’m not satisfied—with what God gives?  Maybe that’s why my ears perked up this morning when I heard Paul’s words to the Philippians—when he said, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. . . . In any and every circumstance,” he wrote, “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” 

Have you learned this secret—the secret to being content?  Contentment is the opposite of coveting.  Contentment means that you’re at peace—you’re satisfied—with the people, the things, the vocations God has given you.  Regardless of circumstances—regardless of how you might feel on a given day—regardless of whatever good or bad may transpire—knowing the secret of contentment transforms your whole outlook.  Instead of feeling empty over all the things you don’t have, you feel full (which is appropriate for Thanksgiving).  You are filled with the overwhelming awareness of how good God is to you.

Oh, and by the way, don’t confuse contentment with complacency.  They’re totally different.  Being complacent is just going with the flow, like riding an inner-tube down a long winding river.  You get where you’re going while basically doing nothing.  But contentment—contentment is doing something—doing exactly the things that God has given you to do—even though it sometimes feels like you’re getting nowhere.  Be content, but not complacent.

          Have you learned the secret of contentment?  Whatever reasons you may have to be discontent, St. Paul had more.  Paul had been flogged and beaten and threatened with death over and over again.  Once he was nearly stoned to death.  Three times he had been shipwrecked.  He lived like a refugee.  He had been afflicted with a particularly nasty malady—what he called his “thorn” in the flesh—which the Lord refused to take away.  False teachers were always one step behind him, trying to uproot the Gospel seeds he was planting.  And as he wrote the words of today’s text, he was under arrest, locked up.  And yet, Paul knew the secret.  Beneath all his burdens bubbled up contentment and thankfulness.  “I can do all things,” he wrote, “through [Christ] who strengthens me.”

          What about you?  Can you make Paul’s confession your own?  Is your mantra, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” or, is your mantra, “I never get what I want?”  Paul had an advantage over us:  The Lord had called him directly.  Do you remember?  God struck him blind on the road to Damascus—spelled out for Paul with unmistakable clarity that he would suffer and serve as an apostle to the Gentiles until the day he died.  Paul knew what to expect.

          We may not have that kind of clarity from God; but we do—all of us—have God-given callings in this life.  Contentment begins with believing that—that God has personally placed you at this particular point in time and space because He has work for you to do.  Your life isn’t a random collection of haphazard events.  You are where you are—you have what you have—you do what you do—by the divine design of God the Holy Trinity, who has named you and claimed you personally in the waters of your baptism.  The job you have, the spouse you have, the parents you have, the children you have, your status as student, citizen, neighbor and friend—you have it all from the good and gracious hand of God.  These people, these callings, these statuses—they are all yours by God’s divine design.  He has delegated all of this to you.  You have a holy assignment.  And that means that your labor and your life are precious and valuable to the God who gives you your work.  Now you know the secret.

          Contentment can be yours—whatever the circumstances—for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.  You can be content in life and, yes, even in death.  You can be content because your gracious God was not content.  God was not content that you should be separated from Him by your sin—not content that disappointment, pain, and suffering are all that you could ever have to look forward to.  Your God was not content simply to write you off as a lost cause.

          God the Father was not content—so much so that He sent His only Son—sent His Son to be executed on the cross as your sacred substitute—to buy you back as His own precious child.  It was a blessed exchange:  the sinless life of Jesus for your sin-filled life.  The holiness of Jesus in exchange for the blackness of your sin.  All His good for all your bad.  In this Jesus is contentment.  You can do all things—you can faithfully carry out every, single God-given vocation—through Christ who gives you (His) strength.  He takes your weakness and gives you His strength.  He takes your faithfulness and He Himself gets the results. 

          And all this He does with this promise on His lips:  “Be content with what you have because I will never leave you; never will I forsake you.” And He gives proof of that at this altar.  Whatever your kitchen will be serving up later today, it can’t begin to compare with the meal served here.  This meal matters more.    This meal gives contentment.  This meal gives forgiveness of sins.  In this meal, the body and blood of Jesus—the strength of the Savior—is imparted to you.  Now—now you know the secret.

          We aren’t traveling very far this Thanksgiving.  But do you remember those trips you took as a child, with mom or dad in the driver’s seat?  If it was a long trip, it wasn’t too hard to fall asleep there in the backseat.  Do you remember that feeling of safety and security, knowing that the people who loved you most were getting you where you needed to go?  (Over the river and through the woods?)  You could have been driving through blizzards, ice, or storms—but as a little child in the back seat, you weren’t worried.  You weren’t anxious about anything.  Dad was driving.  It never even crossed your mind that you might not get where you were going. 

          That’s how it can be for all of us on this Thanksgiving Day in the year of our Lord 2021.  You can rest secure.  You can be content and thankful in all circumstances because you know the secret:  you’re safe in the backseat.  And Someone else (someone who loves you to death) is steering you right here, to where you’re supposed to be.  He doesn’t guarantee trouble-free travel; but your safe arrival at His side is a certainty.

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

 

The Fugue of the Faith

 

Jesu Juva

Revelation1:4b-8                                                        

 November 21, 2021

Last Sunday B               

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Johann Sebastian Bach composed music in many different forms and styles.  And, of those forms and styles, my favorite is the fugue.  Bach’s fugues are not simple, but complex.  Every fugue is complex.  However, a fugue is all based on one, simple theme.  Typically, at the beginning of the fugue, that theme is sounded clearly by one voice.  But then other, additional voices are added, each voice sounding the theme in its own unique way.  That theme appears repeatedly throughout the fugue, in different voices, beginning on different notes and in different measures.  Sometimes the theme gets inverted or reversed, or perhaps it switches from a major key to a minor key, or vice versa.  To the untrained ear, the fugue can sound like organized chaos at times—at least, that is, until the end when it all gets distilled into a grand and glorious conclusion.

          Today happens to be the grand and glorious conclusion of another church year—the last Sunday of the church year.  And on this Sunday, from the last book of the Bible no less, the fugue of the faith sounds out with perfect clarity.  The faith we confess is much like a fugue.  It is all built around one, beautiful theme.  From cover to cover in the Bible, the theme of this fugue gets sounded out by different voices in different keys and in different times—major and minor, backwards and forwards.  The theme of this fugue rings out with clarity in the midst of chaos.  It is the truest tune of all.  It resonates in every Christian heart.  It is the supreme subject, the theme above every theme.  And today we hear it transposed into life-giving nouns and verbs by St. John, in Revelation chapter one:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

          This is the theme.  This is the theme on which the fugue of the faith is built.  This is the melody that sounds out from all 66 books of the Bible.  Amidst all the jumble from Genesis to Revelation, between the lines of plagues and parables, pointed-to by prose and poetry alike—this is the enduring melody of the faith—the theme of the fugue that is leading us onward and upward to a grand and glorious conclusion.

          Listen again to this theme—because it is your theme, the theme of your life:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory forever and ever.  Amen.  In the fugue of the faith, this theme tells us everything—all we need to know about God and about ourselves; about the past, present and future.  It tells us that in Jesus Christ, you are winning.  You are marching onward toward eternal victory.  In Christ, we live.  In Christ, we die.  In Christ, we rise.  In Christ, we are winning.

          In the fugue of the faith, this theme sings out God’s love for us—God’s love for sinners.  That’s how the theme begins:  To Him who loves us.  Jesus Christ loves us.  And please note how that verb is in the present tense which, in the original Greek, indicates ongoing, continual action.  Nothing can change the fact of His love for you.  Nothing can separate you from that love.  And God’s love is not a feeling, but a doing.  God’s love is always expressed in action.  He is for you, directing your decisions, shaping your outcomes, working all things for your eternal good.

          The fugue of the faith also rings out with freedom.  It’s not the freedom to do whatever you want—not the freedom to keep on sinning—but a far better freedom:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood.  Jesus has freed you from your sins.  And please note that this verb is past tense which, in the original Greek indicates completed action—a done deal, mission accomplished, once for all time.  It is finished.  Jesus has freed you from your sins.  As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 

          This is what happened at Calvary’s cross.  You and your sins were separated.  All that would weigh you down and pull you down to the depths of hell can drag you down no longer.  At Calvary, your sins became Jesus’ problem, Jesus’ burden, Jesus’ curse.  The shackles of your sin have been unlocked and removed.  Hell has no hold over you.  Your sin condemns you no longer because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was condemned and crucified for you.  Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  You are forgiven.  You are free. Can you hear it?  In the midst of life’s chaos this is the melody—this is the theme—that matters most.  The fugue of the faith will not let you forget:  You are loved by God, and He has freed you from your sins by His blood.

          You need to watch out for those who sing a different tune and who sound a different theme.  There is, I’m sad to say, a different refrain that gets repeated about you and me.  And if it is repeated often enough, you just might come to believe it.  Instead of the great fugue of the faith that you are loved by God and freed from your sins, there is a dissonant and deadly tune that sounds like this:  “You are not good enough.  You do not measure up.  You are a disappointment.  You are flawed—an unforgivable failure—worthless, hopeless, useless.”  Have you heard that tune before?  It can come from your own conscience.  It can come from someone who is supposed to love you.  But whoever would dare to say these things about you is just a mouthpiece for Satan. 

          Sadly, many Christians believe these lies and take up this tune about themselves.  They refuse to believe God’s love and they shackle themselves with sin and guilt—which inevitably leads to more sin and more guilt. 

          I once knew a man who grew up in an abusive household where an alcoholic father routinely trumpeted the tune that this boy was a worthless failure.  And the boy, like so many other Christians, was tempted believe it.  (After all, the words came from his own father.)  But the boy also spent time with his grandparents in the country.  And his grandparents were devout believers who knew the great fugue of the faith.  And knowing the boy’s difficult life at home, they taught their grandson to sing hymns—hymns that the boy would learn by heart—hymns that would sustain him during horrible times at home. 

          Decades later, when the little boy was an old man, he still held tightly to one particular hymn stanza which his grandparents had taught him.  The simple words of this hymn changed everything for him.  The hymn stanza began, “Lord Jesus, who dost love me, now spread your wings above me.”  Those words declared something almost too good to be true.  It was music to the boy’s ears:  Lord Jesus, who dost love ME.  Those words changed everything.  He wasn’t a flawed failure.  He wasn’t worthless.  He was loved—loved by the Lord Jesus.  Those words eventually led that boy to become a pastor.  Those words drew him into the great fugue of the faith—a fugue he now sings together with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

          To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  God loves you.  God has freed you from your sins.  We sing and confess this theme every time we gather here.  And we take it with us when we leave here.  For you have been made to be a kingdom.  You are not alone.  In your baptism you became a part of God’s kingdom.  Your citizenship is in heaven; and we eagerly await the return of our Savior from there, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. 

          In your baptism, you also became a priest.  That means that the work you do is holy work.  God has given you vocations—holy work—sacrificial work—marching orders for you to carry out in your family, in your church, in your neighborhood, at school and on the job.  You belong to the priesthood of the baptized.  Your work is holy work.  It can be hard and difficult work too.  God is using you and your life and your work so that the great fugue of the faith gets sung out and rung out until the Lord Jesus comes again.  God has a plan for your life.  God has a purpose for your life.  You can’t always see it.  You can’t always feel it.  It’s something we can only believe by faith.

          But God does give you gifts you can see and hear and taste and touch and smell.  God gives you a pastor to preach to you.  God gives you the splash of your baptism.  And God gives you the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.  The very blood that was shed to free you from your sins—that blood is given from this altar so that you might not doubt, but firmly believe, that you have a place of honor and privilege in God’s eternal kingdom.  For the fugue of the faith with its grand and glorious theme is still sounding.  God’s greatest composition still rings out loud and clear—until we all sing it anew in the life of the world to come:  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

Finishing Strong

Jesu Juva

Hebrews 10:19-25                                                        

November 14, 2021

Proper 28B                                                      

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          In the minutes before you start to run a race, you really don’t need people cheering you on.  When you’re lacing up your shoes and doing some stretching to get loose, you really don’t need people applauding for you.  Likewise, at the starting line, you’ve got enough adrenaline coursing through your system that you don’t need friends and family lining the first hundred yards of the race, holding signs and shouting, “You can do it!  Good job!  Keep it up!  Hang in there!”  There’s really no need for it at the beginning of the race.

          But toward the end of the race, it’s a different story.  After you’ve “hit the wall” and fatigue has begun to drain away every last ounce of energy—after you start to doubt whether you’ve even got what it takes to make it to the finish line—as cramps and nausea and pain rise up to take you down—it’s then!  It’s then that every runner needs support.  It’s then that every runner needs encouragement.  Every runner needs friends and family lining the home stretch and shouting, “You can do it!  Hang in there!  Finish strong!”

          Today’s reading from Hebrews is all about finishing strong.  In fact, all of the readings today serve as a reminder that the end is near.  The finish line approaches.  The end of the world as we know it is much, much closer than we imagine.  Or as we sang a few minutes ago:  The day is surely drawing near When Jesus, God’s anointed, In all His power shall appear As judge whom God appointed. 

          We Christians approach these last days unafraid.  We have the sure and certain confidence that Jesus has already run the course before us.  He has finished the race.  He is victorious.  He now stands at the finish line as the one who was crucified for our offenses and raised for our justification.  He was dead but is now alive forevermore.  He offered His own flesh and blood on the cross as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins.  And the resurrected Christ now sits at the Father’s right hand, as our great high priest, guiding this world toward its final days, but leading His Church onward to eternal victory in the life of the world to come.

          But we’re not there yet.  You’re in the final miles of a long race that began when you were baptized.  Faith, forgiveness, and eternal salvation were implanted in you through water and the Word.  But the Christian life is always a struggle, always a long slog—a marathon, to be sure.  And some days you probably feel like you’ve “hit the wall.”  Some days you’re ready to stop pressing on to receive the crown of life.  You’re ready to give up.  We see it all around us these days.  How many friends and family do you know who used to be active participants in the life of the church, but who now have wandered away from it?

          What we need is encouragement and exhortation.  What we need is someone to cheer us on in these gray and latter days.  Today’s reading from Hebrews has just what we need.  It’s full of end-time exhortations—encouragement for the home stretch—powerful words to propel you onward and upward so that you can finish strong.

          The first exhortation sounds like this:  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.  Draw near to Jesus.  Now, where on earth can you draw near to Jesus?  Right here in the Divine Service, where Jesus draws near to you.  And as you draw near to Jesus in this place, you need only bring with you one thing: a true heart.  A true heart is an honest heart—a heart that doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t—a heart that doesn’t pretend to be perfect.  A heart like that would be a hypocritical heart.  No, when we come here—when we draw near to Jesus—we carry with us a load of sin—all of our failures and shortcomings—all the ugly thoughts, words and deeds that weigh heavy on our hearts.  We tell the truth to God and to one another—about all that we have done to deserve God’s present and eternal punishment.   And the only thing Jesus can do with a true heart like that is cleanse it, wash away the sin by the blood that He shed on the cross.

          Here’s more encouragement: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. . .  In other words, stick to what you believe and have been taught in this place.  Christians don’t just go with the flow and follow the crowd.  We confess the faith once delivered to the saints—the faith that we read in the Scriptures and hear preached from the pulpit—and from that we do not deviate! 

          You know, once in a while in a race, a runner makes a wrong turn.  And if the runners behind him aren’t paying attention, they just might follow that misguided runner off into the wilderness.  They might just be disqualified.  That won’t happen to Christians who hold fast the confession of their hope—Christians who know what they believe and why they believe it.  And if you’re one of those people who has barely cracked open a Bible since the day of your confirmation, there’s no time like the present to start digging into the Word so that your confession of the faith can be strong and clear and persuasive—so that your faith can’t be detoured or disqualified or derailed.

          The next word of encouragement from the author of Hebrews is this:  Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.  You know, a lot of runners run races for a cause, for a charity, or in honor of someone they love.  As you and I run the race of faith, we’re not running for ourselves.   We’re running for the life of the world.  God doesn’t need your good works; but your neighbor certainly does.  So part of our life in the church is to encourage people toward love and good works. 

          When it comes to stirring people up to good works, what can you do?  Do you give to the United Way?  Then make sure your gift is designated for A Place of Refuge, helping mothers choose life.  Are you headed to the grocery store to stock up for Thanksgiving this week?  Then grab some non-perishable food for the poor who are served by the Bethany food pantry.  We have eighteen college students from this congregation scattered far and wide.  The elders sent them each a care package last week.  Would you consider reaching out with a note or card—reminding them that they have a place in this Christian family?  (Names and addresses are on the ledge.)  Come to the voters meeting to encourage our congregational leaders who labor for our common good.   What can you do?  How can you help?

          A fourth word of encouragement from Hebrews is that we not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some.  Sports and sleep, work and weariness, guilt and shame—there are no end of things that conspire to keep you from being here on Sunday morning.  The devil is always in those details.  And of course, it’s not just being here that matters.  It’s being here with an open heart—a true heart—with an eagerness to hear the Word—with an expectation that the Holy Spirit will do great things for you before you leave here.  This is where you draw near to Jesus as He draws near to you.  We need what Jesus gives here.  And it’s only as we meet together that we can encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.  We gather here not just because God commands it—not just so that we can receive God’s gifts—but also for the sake of those you see around you right now—so that we can encourage one another. 

          You know, Sunday morning isn’t just all about you and Jesus.  I’ve admitted to you before that I approach a lot of social gatherings with the goal of getting in and getting out as quickly as possible.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who sometimes operates with that strategy.  But not here.  Not with you.  Here we take time for one another.  We all know the power of a critical word to hurt and tear down.  But a well-placed word of encouragement builds up and strengthens the bond between brothers and sisters.  Here we take the time to reach out to the people in the pew behind us, to catch up over coffee, to take note of who here needs our prayers. 

          You know, when running in a race, the most powerful words of encouragement are not those shouted by spectators.  The words that mean the most are often those that come from fellow racers—the folks who are struggling and fatigued and sweaty—just like you.  They know exactly what you are going through.  Beloved in the Lord, this is the place where you find your fellow racers—with whom you share the same struggles against sin, and with whom you share the same holy gifts from Our Savior.  God places these people in your path (and in your pew) so that you might speak a word of encouragement, a word of forgiveness, or even a word of prayer.

          Why bother?  Because the finish line draws near.  The end is coming.  And if you want to finish strong—if you want to walk right through the valley of the shadow of death fearing no evil—then draw near to Jesus with a true heart.  Hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.  Stir one another up to love and good works.  Do not neglect to meet together.  And encourage one another as we enter the home stretch.  You’ve got this!  Hang in there!  Keep it up!  You’re almost there!  Finish strong in the strength of Jesus. 

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