Tag Archives: Lent

Sermon From Fourth Sunday in Lent

Ephesians 5:8-144 Lent A Ephesians 5:8-14

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Word of God for our meditiaion this morning is the Epsitle Lesson, from Ephesians chapter 5:

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light  (Ephesians 5:8 ESV)

Let us all pray:

“Love caused Your incarnation; Love brought you down to me. Your thirst for my salvation Procured my liberty. Oh, love beyond all telling, That led you to embrace  In love, all love excelling, Our lost and fallen race.” (O Lord, How shall I Meet You? Lutheran Service Book 334)

Dear fellow Pilgrims journeying to the Paschal Feast:

I don’t know if you have visited anyof the web sites on the internet that show a satellite view of the earth below at night. It is rather fascinating to see where the great cities lie and where people live –just by their light. The ocean coasts are outlined distinctly with millions of dots of light. Places like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston can easily be found –as well as many other great cities of the world.

It has also been pointed out that there is a dramatic difference between the developed nations and the third world.  Botswana, in southern Africa, has very little light.  My missionary friend Daniel tells me about being able to see other parts of our galaxy at night, as they gazed up into the sky at the Milky Way.

From a light and dark perspective, the contrast is strong between capitalist South Korea and communist North Korea. North Korea is eerily in perpetual darkness.

The light and darkness picked up by a satellite’s complex camera is not the same as the light and darkness spoken of in our text.  We know that that light is the light of Christ that comes from within us, that shines on sin and reflects God’s love. Yet we do not always appear as children of light: reflecting Christ’s light: showing Christ’s light.

Maybe our sins too often get in the way.  Perhaps we think we are not qualified to reflect Christ’s light.  “Not so!” says the Apostle Paul.  We are all children of light and as such we are sent by Christ to shine to those who remain in darkness!  Our text begins:

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light  (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),  and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Eph. 5:8-10)

When I was a pastor in Southern Indiana I had a member who stilled lived with out light. He and his brother and two sister had never married and while on their farm they did not have electricity or running water. The first Sunday I visited before my installation as pastor I happened to sit next to him. He told me after the service: “you’re the new pastor!” I asked how he knew. He said, “You’re the only one here I don’t know.”

At the time I became George’s pastor he was 94. Once in a while George would mix his German and English.

George lived alone in town and after a while he couldn’t make it to church.  I went to see him late one afternoon and as the day went on it was getting darker and darker in the house.  There was an old –what they called an “Aladdin” lamp–the oil kind–on the parlor table. I wondered when he would light it.

With that George jumped up and said, “Pastor it’s getting dark! Let me make some hell!”  Good thing I knew enough German to know that the German word for light is hell!

But isn’t it that way with us so often?  As God’s children we are no longer children of darkness.  We are not hell bound – but heaven bound.  We’re not to “raise Cain” as my mother used to call it.  Yet we often times act that way.  We let our old nature get the best of us and we forget who we are!  The Christian we expected makes a little hell! And sometimes a lot!

The Apostle Paul warns us,

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.  (Eph. 5: 11–12)

Now those of you born and raised here at Frankentrost; who were batized, confirmed and lived here all your lives; you might protest and say, “we never were children of darkness” –but the evidence speaks against us.  If we search our hearts there are things that come from us that at times even surprise ourselves.  Jesus says,

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matthew 15:19)

If you trace back our ancestors back far enough and where they came from, you will find a time when they did not know of the love of Christ and were people of dark deeds. 

I’ve said to my boys that on my mother’s side they have Iroquois Indian in them. –just a drop: but it’s enough.  Greater and more potent however, are the drops of Jesus blood that He shed for us to make us His people.  The Apostle John expresses the same thought as our text when he says,

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

 Since coming to Michigan over seven years ago, I have tried to find some interests unique to this  part of the country.  I have become fascinated with lighthouses and have visited several.  I’ve even been on a boat tour in the Mackinac Straights (some friends took us a couple of summers ago) and have seen lighthouses that are almost inaccessible otherwise. Lighthouses are a significant feature on the great lakes. More than tourist attractions: they shine out and save lives.

This has led to me collecting miniature light houses and with any collectible, there are all kinds in all price ranges.  I have a few rules for my collection: 1. I must have seen the lighthouse, 2. I want an authentic reproduction, and 3. No one disturbs Dad’s lighthouses.

I have only one lighthouse that lights up. It is of the lighthouse at White Fish Point. When the boys and I are in the man-cave and it is dark we light it up and its powerful LED bulb flashes. Compared to the others, it is the real lighthouse –the others do us and all our imaginary ships at sea no good not shining in the dark.

Paul concludes in our text,

But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,  for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Eph. 5:13–14)

We are made visible to all by Christ who has redeemed us on the cross.  The light of the love of God has shown on each of us and we have the light in our Baptism which has awakened us from the dead of our sins.  Having been thus lulled from our sleep we are to go as God’s people and share the light of His grace.  We do so when we live lives in keeping with His Word. We do so when we forgive and help each other. We do so when we extend the ministry of His Word by supporting it. Otherwise we’re just lighthouse statues with no lights!

May God continue to keep us in the light of His grace, that we may continue to walk in His light –showing others the light of Jesus. Amen.

Sermon From First Sunday in Lent A March 13, 2011

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1 Lent A Matthew 4:1-10

Earthquake Destruction in Japan March 2011

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and     him only shall you serve.’”  Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to  him. (Matthew 4:10-11 ESV)

Let us all pray. “Love caused Your incarnation; Love brought you down to me. Your thirst for my salvation Procured my liberty. Oh, love beyond all telling, That led you to embrace In love, all love excelling, Our lost and fallen race.” (O Lord, How shall I Meet You? Lutheran Service Book 334)

Dear fellow Pilgrims journeying to the Paschal Feast:

For almost three days now we have been shown the terrible destruction caused upon the country of Japan and its people by Friday’s earthquake.  It is possibly the worst Japan has ever suffered. Certainly it is the worst in recently recorded history.

It was followed by tsunamis and now failure at nuclear power stations.  The earthquake brought down buildings. The tsunamis brought in tidal waves and further devastation and flooding.  The inability to cool nuclear reactors have meant melt downs.  And what we are shown looks like a Hollywood disaster movie –or possibly even the end of the world.

When such events come we Christians can’t help but think of the end of the world.  The rest of the world might scoff, and the scientists might objectively tell us that the earth shifted and all of Japan moved eight feet –but we also remember the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 24,

For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. (Matthew 24:5-8)

Not long ago we took our kids out to eat.  That was a treat for them, since it was in the middle of the week.  When we sat down –and after we had ordered –we told them we had something we wanted to talk about with them.  Anna said, “Oh, no!” and Andrew, thinking he had already been left out asked, “what? what?”  Anna said, “Andrew –I remember a time when Mom and Dad took us out eat and said they had something to tell us…and we ended up finding out we’re were going to have a brother!”

Mindy and I sat there taking it all in with amazement.  All we wanted to do was talk about spring break this year.  That’s the idea about the signs of the end times.  Christians don’t know when the end will come.  But we know the signs.  We may very well not know the hour, but we can say that the end is near.  No wonder thoughts of the end of the world pop into our heads when we see such death and destruction!

But if you are still skeptical–remember the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 13:11,

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

So, why do such terrible things have to happen in the world?  Why doesn’t God prevent them? And where does evil come from?  The answers to these questions are found in our Lessons for this first Sunday in Lent (Genesis 3:1-21).

Sin is the reason for earthquakes and every other natural and man made disaster.  Adam and Eve were given a beautiful earth and a beautiful garden to live in our.  Our first parents chose to listen instead to the devil and rebel against God. They brought a curse down upon us all.

The Apostle Paul explains in today’s Epistle Lesson,

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned – (Romans 5:12)

God did not make evil or sin.  The devil did. God does not tempt us, the devil does.  We have lost the image of God with which we were created.  We walked and talked with God.  We were meant to be friends with God, and as his creatures to love and serve him in holiness and righteousness.  In that world we were made to be happy.

The Apostle Paul also tells us elsewhere about the devastating effects of sin upon the whole creation.  Just as people suffered in the earthquake, so did the planet.  The ocean left its limits.  The earth shifted and left huge cracks.  Plants and animals too, were washed away or buried in mud and debris by the tsunamis.  Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8,

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:19-22)

We might even be tempted to think that since the Japanese are a godless people as a whole and that Christianity makes up a very small number of the people–perhaps one or two percent–that they are suffering because of their sins.  People thought that way when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf region.  They said that God was judging those people for the way they carry one–especially just before Lent at Mardi Gras; that the drunkenness and prostitution and everything else that goes on brought God’s wrath upon those people at that time.

But good people suffered along with the evil ones who do those things.  Our St. Paul’s Missouri Synod Lutheran Church in downtown New Orleans suffered a great deal of damage then, too.

In Luke 13:1-5 we read about Jesus answer to the idea that all suffering is direct punishment because of particular sins.

There were some present at that very time who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

I remember this text as the assigned Gospel Lesson for the Sunday following 9/11!  I also remember one of my former seminary professors telling me later that he lost a nephew in one of the towers.

Jesus says, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

In our Gospel Lesson Jesus contends with the devil.  He takes up the battle with Satan where Adam and Eve left off.  God told our first Parents the first Gospel:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspringand her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

We have now entered the Time of Easter and the Season of Lent.  Lent is a penitential season.  We ponder the holy Passion of our Savior, Jesus.  The devil did go after Jesus heel and bruised it.  He struck him terribly in the foot and hands and side.  Our Savior’s brow bled.  His beard was ripped out.  His face was struck multiple times.  He was beaten to a pulp.  He was psychologically mistreated.  Spat upon.  Abused.  Murdered.

But that was just a heel wound in comparison to what our Savior did to Satan.  You see, Jesus struck the devil down.  He stomped on him.  He crushed his head.  Jesus fought with Satan and He won.  And our Gospel Lesson shows that all the temptations and ways that Satan comes to us and would try to harm us –it is undone by this one word: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

As we see the world get worse around us.  As we see the effects of sin upon our bodies.  As we wonder what might be happing to us and our loved ones as each disease and hardship threatens us, we keep in our minds these words and promises of God.  That He sent Jesus into the world to suffer and die for us –to save us from the sin of Adam, and from all of our sins.  That He is victorious over Satan.  That He will come again some day to take us to be with Him forever.  And that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Amen.