What do we followers of Christ do in a world which really doesn’t take us seriously anymore or even care about what we have to say?  Rather than lament a supposed past golden age, Professor Charles Arand outlines the future work of the church.  (Members of Holy Cross will remember him from the 1980’s.)

“It requires us to take stock of the current landscape of our culture…congregations now live in a culture that is shaped less and less b y the Christian faith, morals and hope.”  Rather than wringing our hands in worry.  “We equip students for service to our Lord,…not out of fear that we are losing ground or that we’ll lose the precious Gospel, but out of a confident hope born of a daring faith in the One who has joined Himself to us in His incarnation, dying a rejected man and being bodily raised to new life…to forgive sins, to grant new life-Jesus sent out His disciples into the larger Greco-Roman world…shaped by pagan philosophy and superstition-not by Christian thought.

Rather than withdrawing from that culture, the followers of Jesus plunged into society, making contact with people, engaging with them and translating the Gospel into the language and thought forms that confronted them with both God’s Law and the Good News of the gospel.”

Arand then quotes Martin Luther, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake life itself on it a thousand times.”

My own comment.  We won’t find our future hope by aligning ourselves with any political figures.  Our hope is in only one figure, who aligned himself with us – Jesus Christ, son of Mary and Son of God.

 

In the gospel lesson (Mark 8:27-38) Jesus sets Peter, his disciples and believers today straight on what it means to live mindfully.  Jesus said, “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”  Well, what are the “things of God?”  Jesus was just beginning to teach his disciples that he “must suffer many things…and be killed and after three days rise again.”  Peter said, “No way.  That’s not a God thing.”

Well, Peter rejection and death on the cross is exactly what Jesus came to do.  After that comes the resurrection.  The human thing is to try to avoid pain, suffering.  Deny death.

However, if we are going to follow Jesus, it means having a willingness to bear the cross.  It might mean that we will be rejected, and suffer and even die in following Christ, but that is the way to life.  Face it, Jesus tells us, if you want to live, you need to lose your life, put that life without me behind you, drown it in baptism.

That is mindful living.  As St. Paul writes, “Have this mind among yourselves which you have in Christ.”  It might mean not only bearing your own cross but the cross of some else also.  It might mean emulating Simon of Cyrene, a man from North Africa, “And they Laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus.”  That is the way to life.

When Jesus’ disciple Judas went down to the injurious sin of  betraying Jesus, he turned not to the tree on which Jesus was hanged, but to his own hanging tree. In his place Matthias was tapped to fill out the roster and bring the team of disciples up to full strength.

After Jesus’ ascension, about 120 of Jesus’ followers were gathered when Peter brought up the need to, “Let another take his (Judas) office.”

Peter set out the qualifications.  The new number 12, must have been with them from the time when John was baptizing. Two candidates were nominated; Joseph, nicknamed Barsabbas, and Matthias.  The disciples prayed that the Lord would show them which one He had chosen. The lot fell on Matthias.

We know little of Matthias beyond what we have in Acts 1.  Tradition places his missionary work in Ethiopia.  The LCMS follows the old tradition of remembering Matthias on February 24.  The Roman Catholic Church moved the day to May 14 so that it fell nearer the time of the Ascension and Pentecost.  Other church bodies have followed suit.

We, the church, might well see ourselves as the 13^th disciple, that through the impelling power of the Holy Spirit we move out of our Temples into world in need of witness to the resurrection.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been thinking about the phrase in last Sunday’s prayer of the day, “Guide the people of Your Church that following our Savior we may walk through the wilderness of this world…”

I briefly shared with the Bible Class this morning some aspects of the wilderness in which are currently walking.  The governor of Missouri is indicted for invasion of privacy when in the basement of his house he photographed the woman with whom he was having an affair tied up blindfolded and nearly nude.  He is also being investigated for receiving “dark money” into his campaign fund.  A former presidential advisor is indicted for multiple times when he used money in a less than upright way.  The latest school massacre has led to outrage and demonstrations by young people which may have a lasting effect on guns and connected violence.

One of the members of the class asked if we could talk about the issue of guns and violence.  This led to a lengthy discussion.  The discussion was an application of how we use the Word in the bible which we hear and study.  It was quite useful and appropriate.

Sunday’s prayer mentions God leading us through the wilderness “toward the glory of the world to come.”  At times that future glory seems a long way off from where we are as human beings, even as believing Christians trying live in the wilderness in which we find ourselves.  We know something is terribly wrong, but we seem lost and can’t see a way out.  But even in our confusion the prayer ends with hope, as we place our hope in “Jesus Christ, Your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

 

 

I find the story in Genesis 22:1-18 unsettling. God told Abraham to take his only son Isaac, for whom he had waited nearly a century, and offer him as a burned (holocaust) offering.  Three days they traveled before Abraham looked up and saw the place.  Abraham put the wood for burning on Isaac’s back while he carried the fire and knife.  “Where’s the lamb?” Isaac asked.  “God will provide,” his father answered.

On the mountain Abraham tied up Isaac, put him on wood on the hastily erected altar, and raised the knife to slaughter his son, as if he were no more than a lamb led to the slaughter.  Only at the last instant the Lord intervened.  Once again, Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a thicket. The Lord had provided.

I know all that.  I know the parallels drawn with God offering his own only Son on the cross for us and for our salvation.  I know Jesus is the lamb of God whose own head was caught in a thicket of thorns.  As a result, God has multiplied his blessings, grace upon grace.  Through Jesus all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because he obeyed his Father’s voice.

So, I will accept what God has done for me through his only begotten Son.  But I still find the story of Abraham and Isaac unsettling.  Maybe I should also be unsettled a bit about the story of our Heavenly Father and his own son, lest I take it for granted.

 

 

Spirit driven conjures images of flying high like the snowboarding and skiing aerialists in the Olympics.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is baptized and receives the Father’s affirmation, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased” However, the Spirit does not immediately lead Jesus to a ministry of greatness to the acclaim of thousands.  No, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness to starve and be tempted the entire forty days by Satan.  The Evil One did not give up his efforts to derail Jesus right up to the cross and death.

Our own post baptism lives follow Jesus pattern.  For our life following baptism with the Holy Spirit resting upon us and the Father’s affirmation as His beloved children, is also fraught with that fallen angel’s traps and temptations.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is like the wind, blowing where it will.  So, it is as we walk through the often-bewildering wilderness of what life brings us.  We too are Spirit driven into the challenges which we never imagined.  Like Jesus, our baptism leads to death.  But the Spirit brings us to faith in Christ so that even in the valley of death we know our Lord leads us through that shadowy valley into the light and life of Jesus’ resurrection.

 

Not Me, O Lord, Not Me

Not me, O Lord, no, not me.

No, it’s not guns, its society

No, it’s not Ak 15’s,

No, it’s the FBI’s fault,

No, it’s the schools where God is forbidden,

No, it’s that God is not in the homes,

No, it’s the mentally ill,

No, let’s not jump to conclusions,

No, it’s not the time to talk about it,

No, I will lose votes

No, we need stricter guns laws,

No, we need to enforce the laws we have,

No, it’s the gun lobbies and NRA,

No, it’s those who want to take away all my guns,

No, it’s a misinterpretation of the 2^nd amendment,

No, the government will do too much,

No, the government won’t do enough,

It’s Lent and lent tells me, it’s me, it’s me O Lord,

It’s me standing in the need of your grace,

It’s me standing in the need of your driving Spirit,

It’s me needing your strength to sacrifice,

As my Lord sacrificed his life, for me,

It’s me, O Lord, it’s me.

 

 

One of most stark photos of the massacre at the high school in Florida was of the mother who had a streak of ashes on her forehead.  She had received the ashes as she heard the words, “Remember, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The Old Testament lesson for Ash Wednesday, Joel 2:12-19, is a call to repentance with fasting, weeping, mourning, tearing open our hearts in honest turning from out ways and turning to God.  This is not just for some other people who I think need it.  No one is exempt.  All the people must participate.  The community leaders must put aside their important wrangling and solving of the world’s problems. Nor can parents leave their kids home, mothers nursing infants, no matter how inconvenient are bid to answer the call.  Even newly weds are to cut short their honeymoon.  The clergy, with weeping must cry out to the Lord that the people be spared.

If we can’t call all the people to repentance, then we followers of Christ should surely answer the call ourselves, to turn from violence and the acceptance of violence and casting of stones (aspersions) at those with whom we disagree and accepting simple answers to complex questions. If we were not at an Ash Wednesday, what were we doing that was so important, that we could not receive the mark of our sinful humanity, in the hope of a gracious and merciful God in Jesus Christ?

 

Ecclesiastes 2:24 there is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment, for these are from the hand of God.

Robert Farrar Capon writes:  O Lord, refresh our sensibilities.  Give us this day our daily taste.  Restore to us soups in which spoons will not sink…Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have blotting bread, and casseroles that put starch in our limp modernity.  Take away our fear of fat and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron’s beard.  Give us pasta with a hundred fillings and rice in a thousand variations.  Above all give us grace to live as true folk-to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand.  Drive far from us, O Most Bountiful, all creatures of air and darkness; cast out the demons that possess us, deliver us from our fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition; and set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve you as you have blessed us-with the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.

Phyllis McGinley adds at the end of a poem:

Tonight-tomorrow-the leaf will fade,

The waters tarnish, the dark begin.

But this is the day the Lord has made:

Let us be glad and rejoice therein.

 

“In one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God…, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.”  So, we confess in flowing poetic language.  But what does that mean?  How would you explain that to a 7^th or 8^th grader, or  Millenniums or anybody or even yourself?  Maybe Jesus Transfiguration gives us a way.

Jesus took three disciples up a mountain and “was transfigured before them and his clothes became radiant, intensely white.” A voice spoke, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”  That’s a picture of Jesus, very God of very God in all glory.

The creed continues, “Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven.”  Jesus came down the mountain for us and our salvation.  He came down to where we live in our everyday life.  What did he find?  He found arguing and failure and frustration and little faith.  He found a boy and his parents in desperate need of help.  Jesus took the boy by the hand and lifted him up.

That is where we can find Jesus, in our struggles, failures and frustrations and small faith.  Jesus is very God of very God with us, where we are.  The next mountain he would climb, was Mt. Calvary, where a cross awaited followed by death and burial and then the resurrection. So now, if we would see God’s glory, we look to the “face of Jesus Christ.”