Where to Turn in the Crisis

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 12:49-56
During the recent Lutheran Week in Indianapolis, I tried to eat a sandwich made with the kind of crumbly, disintegrating bread that used to give gluten-free a bad name. After lunch, Wayne asked me about the diet I had to keep in light of Celiac Disease and a heart attack I had nine years ago. As we rode down an escalator, I told him, “You know, some days I can’t wait to be with Jesus in eternity, partly because I’ll be able to eat whole wheat bread and run and play baseball again.” 

Some people near us on the escalator giggled when they heard me say that. And it is funny. I chuckled too. But don’t all Christians sometimes fantasize about the things we’ll do in eternity with Jesus once we’re free of the constraints of sin, death, and darkness that pervade this life?

But there’s a danger to our lives as Christians in focusing too much on eternity: It may cause us to ignore what Jesus calls the crisis of living each day in this world, in this life, as followers of Jesus Christ. 

We can get so accustomed to thinking that Jesus is on our sides, taking Him and the free gift of eternal life with God He gives to all who believe in Him, for granted, and thus, feeling free to do, say, and live any way we decide to. 

Listen: Jesus has not set us free from sin and death so that we can ignore His will. 

He has not set us free from sin and death so that we can ignore the needs of our neighbors or the injustice, bigotry, or hatred with which the world treats them. 

Jesus has not set us free from sin and death so that we can view our church membership as a get-out-of-hell pass while ignoring the need our neighbors have for Jesus’ salvation, ignoring that about a quarter or more of our neighbors have zero religious belief.

This means that every day a Christian lives on this earth faces a crisis. I’m using that word as Jesus does in John 12:31, where He says, “Now is the time for judgment on this world,” which is more literally translated from the Greek in which all the New Testament writers originally composed their books: “Now is the crisis [κρίσις] of this world.” 

Here, Jesus is saying that, in this life, in each moment of this life, you and I deal with a decision point, a moment when we must make a judgment. And the judgment we must make is this: 

Will we turn to Jesus or will we turn away from Him?  

Will we turn to the world, to what’s easy, to what’s socially acceptable, to what’s safe, to what’s advantageous to us if heedless of the needs of my neighbor, to go along to get along or will we turn in repentance and faith to Jesus?

Our gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 12:49-56, finds Jesus turning abruptly from answering questions about the end of earth’s days after which all who have trusted in Him will live in His fully perfected kingdom, to the crisis the confronts us each day: the judgment you and I must make as to whether in this moment--at work, in our relationships, at home, in the world--we will turn to Jesus and live or walk away from Jesus and experience death.

Take a look at our lesson, please. Jesus begins: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” 

These words don’t fit with the world’s usual image of Jesus, the Jesus of the sentimentalists who think Jesus was a wonderful guy, but not someone they have to answer to. 

Fire, an image that Jesus and the early Church used in talking about the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of judgment and of cleansing. 

Jesus, to be sure, has come into the world to bring salvation and peace with God to all who believe in Him. 

But He has also come to singe us in the purifying flames of God’s judgment, to burn away all that’s evil, unwholesome, and unloving, in order to refine us like precious metals, separating us from sin and death. 

To truly trust in Jesus begins with truly understanding, daily, that we are sinners who need to confess our sin, divesting ourselves of our addiction to sin. Then, purged of death and darkness, we can rise to newness of life. 

This is what happens to us in Holy Baptism: first, our old selves are drowned, then our new selves, God’s brand new creatures, rise. 

Because the old self still lurks until the days of our physical deaths and resurrections, the Christian life is composed of returning each day to the Lord of the baptismal font for this same death and resurrection to happen again and again. 

Romans 6:4 reminds us, “We were therefore buried with [Jesus Christ] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” This new life is what God wants to give to all people through faith in Jesus every single day!

Then Jesus says: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” 

Jesus wants to bring each person who hears His name to the crisis point to which we all need to come in order to receive Him and the life that only He can give to us. 

But before that could happen, Jesus had to undergo the baptism of death on a cross. 

His mission on earth would only be fulfilled when He did this and could say, “It is finished.” 

On the cross, Jesus shares the death that belongs to every human being from the moment we are born: the death of separation from the One Who gives life. It was from this place of separation that Jesus cried from the cross, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me.” 

But because God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, in the waters of Baptism, we share in Jesus’ death so that the Father too, can raise those who trust themselves and their whole lives to Jesus. It was to accomplish this for you and me that Jesus couldn’t wait--He felt constrained to go to the cross, set His face for Jerusalem--that Jesus went to the cross.

Jesus then says: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

In this life, anyone who dares to follow Jesus, who daily turns to Jesus to seek the death of their old selves and the creation of their new selves, who live in what we Lutherans call “daily repentance and renewal” can expect that even members of our own families will turn against us. 

Or that, at any rate, they won’t understand us. 

Likely, everyone here has taken shots for following Jesus from someone in their family: siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren. Or, they have experienced not being understood. I know that I have. It’s just part of following Jesus.

At this point in our lesson, Jesus addresses the end of this world when He will return to judge the living and the dead in light of how we address the crisis--the judgment points--we face every day. “He said to the crowd: ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, “It’s going to rain,” and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, “It’s going to be hot,” and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?'”

Where Jesus lived in the first century AD, if people saw clouds in the west, they knew that rain was coming in from the Mediterranean and if they felt hot winds coming from the Negev to the south, they knew were in for a heatwave. People knew how to read those meteorological signs. 

But here is Jesus, God the Son, standing right in front of these people, His identity as God and Savior repeatedly confirmed by miracles, signs, and wonders, by His words, by His compassion, by His sinlessness, yet they ignore all these signs. 

They don’t see that they need to turn to Jesus now and believe in Him. 

It’s as though they’re holding out for more proof, which will soon come in His death and resurrection, though most of the crowds who thronged to Jesus during His life on earth would never believe in Him even after He rose from the dead. 

It’s as though too, the crowd is waiting for a better offer. “Maybe,” they seem to think, “we can follow Jesus, but from a distance, getting just enough of Him to get the blessings He offers, but not close enough to actually have to give up the old sins we love so much, not close enough to actually hear Him call us to a life of love of God and love of neighbor, of worship and prayer, of witness to others for Jesus. Maybe we can have Jesus without being changed by Him, without being His disciple.” 

Folks, it doesn’t work like that. As you’ve heard me say before (and as I need to be constantly reminded myself): We will either have all of Jesus or we will have none of Jesus at all.

I’m guessing that the hesitation of the crowd surrounding Jesus that day is no different from the hesitation felt by most people in most churches in North America. They don’t perceive the crisis of each moment, the need to turn to Jesus for life and forgiveness right now in every right now of life because life in this world can end in the blink of an eye and then there will be no more opportunity to turn to Jesus and live. 

It’s because of this hesitation in the churches of the US, Canada, and Europe that, 

Today, there are nearly as many Lutherans in Ethiopia as there are in the U.S. There are now more Baptists in Nagaland (an eastern state in India) than there are in [all of] the southern states of the U.S. There [are] more Christians worshipping in China [on this] Sunday than there [are doing so] here in the U.S. or in all of Europe! 

Christians in America have largely lost their sense of urgency about being and making disciples--about turning to Jesus and inviting others, despite the possibility of rejection, to turn to Jesus too. 

We have forgotten the moment to moment crisis that is the permanent state of being in this fallen world.

But Jesus’ call is still urgent, folks. He says: “The time has come...The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” 

There isn’t a better moment to follow Jesus than right now, in this moment in which God allows you to live on this earth. 

There isn’t a better moment to share Jesus with others than right now on this earth. 

Because Jesus saves us by grace through faith in Christ alone, may this always be our prayer: 

Jesus, what do you want me to do or say, who do you want me to listen to, pray for, or serve right now?

And then may we do what He calls us to. 

We don’t have to wait for a perfect time to live in the freedom Jesus gives to His disciples.

In the crisis moments--the decision points--of each day, may we always turn to Jesus. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Perfect Though Imperfect?

Matthew 5:38-48
Jesus concludes His words for us in today’s Gospel lesson with these words: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Should my message for this morning then, be, “Just like God, go and be perfect. Amen”? Is that what Jesus is telling us?

As good Lutherans and students of God’s Word, the answers to those questions should be obvious! We know that we’re not perfect and while it’s true that God’s Holy Spirit is at work daily to perfect those who repent for sin and trust in the crucified and risen Jesus as their God, even the most mature disciples of Jesus must confess with the apostle Paul that for now “...we see only a reflection as in a mirror...” [1 Corinthians 13:12] That’s why, when we gather in God’s presence each week, we confess our sins, acknowledging that “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.”

So, what do we make of Jesus’ words?

First of all, when Jesus says, in verse 48 of our gospel lesson that we are to be perfect as God the Father is perfect, the word translated as perfect is, in the Greek in which Matthew wrote his gospel, τέλειοι. This is an adjective that can mean perfect, but which also can mean full-grown, complete, consummated.

Jesus uses a related verb, Τετέλεσται, “It is finished,” when He draws His last breath from the cross in John 19:30.

And Paul uses this same related verb when, in speaking of his ministry about to be ended by his own death, he says in 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have finished the race.”

Jesus may then be saying, "Reflect the wholeness of God in how you live." God's grace has accomplished or finished its saving work by making you and me part of God's kingdom through Jesus  and our faith in Jesus.

Many scholars believe that when Jesus tells us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, He’s echoing words that appear repeatedly in the Old Testament: “...be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44-45).

To be holy is to be set apart, different from the rest of the world, weird even. The holy, those saved by God's grace, are to reflect the goodness of God in the way that we live.

Why is that?

Remember that earlier in the Sermon on the Mount from which today’s Gospel lesson is taken, Jesus tells us to be salt and light for the world.

This is what you and I as believers in Jesus Christ, people set free from sin and death by His cross and resurrection, are called to do each day: To let others see what God is like, to shine the light of the nations, Jesus, in all of our relationships.

Sounds great, does it? But there's a huge problem.

The fact is that if you set out to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” in your own power at noon today, you’ll fail before the clock hits 12:01.

Instead, if you and I are going to be God’s salt and light in the world, we must rely on the power and life that God unleashes in the lives of those who daily turn from sin and daily surrender to Christ.

Perfection, completeness, in Christ, is a byproduct of surrendered faith in Christ, not the result of our efforts.

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 3. The way it’s rendered in The Message paraphrase of the Bible is particularly helpful: “Nothing between us and God [through faith in Christ], our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” [2 Corinthians 3:18]

To be perfect in the eyes of God then, is to be surrendered to Jesus and so allow God’s perfection to be seen in us and experienced through us by others.

We become prisms through which Jesus, the light of the world, is poured onto the world.

In our gospel lesson today, through the use of exaggerated imagery, Jesus draws a picture of what those who are perfect as our Father is perfect look like. This is a picture of who we should aspire to be. This is who, through our faith relationship with Christ, the Holy Spirit is making us. So, let’s take a look at Jesus’ words for us this morning and learn better where Jesus is taking us.

Verse 38: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.”

The Old Testament law and other ancient ethical systems said that when someone does wrong to us, the gravity of our response shouldn’t exceed what the other person has done to us. So, if someone insults us, our response shouldn’t be to shoot them. But Jesus goes even further: Don’t seek revenge at all, ever, under any circumstance. In these words, we begin to see just how weird holiness is, just how weird the perfection of God looks in a disciple.

Jesus goes on: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” In the first century world in which Jesus first spoke these words, a backhanded slap across the right cheek of another person was less an act of violence than a way of saying, “You’re a nobody. You're a loser. You're beneath contempt.” Jesus says that if someone does anything that labels us as a nobody or a loser, we prove our assailants wrong by refusing to react to their dehumanizing words or actions.

Verse 40: “And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” In ancient Judea, most people only had two garments, a shirt and a tunic. Jesus says to be willing to give both of them up. And in Roman-occupied Judea, a Roman could force a bystander to carry, say a cross, for a mile. It was a hated practice. But Jesus says that His followers should offer to go the extra mile.

Verse 43: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” The only enemies you and I have as disciples of Jesus are those who hate us, since we’re to hate no one. Jesus says that when we love those who hate us and pray for them, we are God’s children. Jesus goes on to say that it’s no great accomplishment for us to love those who love us; even unbelievers and notorious sinners do that.

After reading these words of Jesus, I can think of lots of things for which I need to repent.

I sometimes fantasize about getting at people who have hurt me...or who I think have hurt me.

Sometimes, I say cutting things to get back at people who have said or done unkind things toward me.

And I’m less than keen on loving people who have mistreated me; I want to strike out at them in some way, rather than absorbing their indignities so that they can see the dignity, love, confidence, and hope that resides within me through Jesus Christ.

I can be wary of being generous for fear of having less for myself.

Deep down, I don’t want to offer help to those who treat me like a nobody.

I find it hard to love people who are hateful toward me.

If you can identify with any of these feelings, be glad.

It means that God’s Law is doing its work. It’s convicting you and driving you to Jesus, Who can bring us God’s forgiveness and fill us again with the power of the Holy Spirit to live lives that reflect God’s perfect holiness and love.

But in these words of Jesus today, you will also find the Gospel: the good news of new and everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Jesus.

You see, in the whole history of the world, only Jesus has lived a life of perfection like this. He lived that kind of life for us so that, in its sacrifice on the cross, He could save us from our imperfection, unholiness, and death!

Jesus isn’t telling us to travel a pathway that He hasn’t already blazed for us. Instead, He says, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” [Matthew 16:24] In essence, Jesus says, Own your need and trustingly follow the path I've blazed for you!

When Jesus was confronted by people who mocked Him, spat on Him, whipped Him, slapped Him, and crucified Him, He didn’t return evil for evil.

In the garden of Gethsemane, after one of His companions had pulled out a sword and struck a servant of the high priest, lopping off the servant’s ear, Jesus told the disciple: “Put your sword back in its place...for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” [Matthew 26:52]

In His life, Jesus did fight. He fought for the salvation of others; that’s what He did on the cross. But He never fought for Himself.

When you know that nothing can separate you from the love of God given in Christ, you’re freed to live for God and neighbors, you're freed to fight for the good of others, because you know that you’re taken care of for all eternity. [Romans 8:38-39] You can be a voice for the voiceless, strength for the weak. You can stand up for the despised, the ignored, the nobodies of the world.

We belong to the Savior Who always gave of Himself and always loved others. From the cross, He prayed improbably, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” [Luke 23:34]

Jesus isn’t just God in the flesh, you know. Jesus is also the human being like which every one of us should aspire to be. He is, in Paul’s phrasing, “the last Adam,” [1 Corinthians 15:45], the first man in God’s new, eternal creation of which you and I are a part when we are baptized and follow Christ.

We can’t resolve to be perfect like God.

But we can let the perfection of God enter our lives each day through Christ.

As we live with Christ more each day, our resistance to the law in Jesus’ words to us today gives way to surrender the gospel, the promise, in Jesus’ words and something amazing happens.

In Jesus’ famous judgment scene, Matthew 25:31-46, the “sheep,” Jesus’ disciples, ask the King: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?" [Matthew 25:37-39]

This is a perfect picture of what happens to disciples as they spend their lives in fellowship with Christ and His Church. Disciples are saved by grace, then God uses disciples as instruments of that grace to bring His salvation to others. As they live with God in daily quiet time, in corporate worship, in small groups that study God's Word together, in mission for Christ, they are transformed.

They have so surrendered to Jesus that Jesus reigns over their lives. They can’t even perceive their own faithfulness because their minds are no longer on themselves, but only on the God they love completely and the neighbor they love as they love themselves.

Folks, don’t worry that you don’t measure up to God’s perfect law. You don’t. And neither do I.

Christ has measured up for you!

Surrender to the Jesus Who has kept God’s law perfectly and is more than willing to cover you in His grace.

Watch out when you do though: You might find as you surrender to Him, Jesus will call you to do things and give of yourself in ways the world thinks crazy. You might end up going on a mission trip to Haiti or India or Cherokee country. You might devote some of your hard-earned money or use some of your leisure time to serve neighbors in places like Chevy Chase or the Saint Vincent's ministry to the homeless. You might commit yourself to the members of your small group, living together in mutual faith and accountability as you grow together as disciples.

Jesus’ love will so fill you though that you’ll hardly give crazy sacrifices like these a second thought.

When you follow the Lord Who has given His life for you, giving your life in return to Him doesn’t seem outrageous.

In gratitude for grace, you’ll willingly live and die for the Savior Who has already lived, and died, and risen for you.

It’s then that our Lord will look at your life and improbably, miraculously, and truthfully call it what it could never be if you were your own lord: perfect! Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was prepared for worship that happened yesterday.]

The Power of the Cross: A Word to Al Qaeda and ISIS

We're now seeing reports of online training videos from Al Qaeda's Arabian Peninisula terrorist group, one of which is called, "Courses for Destroying the Cross."

There are all sorts of thoughts this provokes in me. But two in particular stand out.

The first is this. Islamist terrorist groups operate under the misconception that the pluralistic West, including the United States, is entirely Christian. And like many non-Christians in this country, they also are under the misconception that some boisterous, political Christians speak on behalf of all Christians. Just as I do not assume that Isis or Al Qadea speak for all Muslims, people shouldn't assume that terrorists speak for all Muslims. It's dangerous and inappropriate to dump all Westerners or Christians in the same category. Shorthand stereotypes like this are almost always false.

The second thought is this. Whether it's to Islamist terrorists or most people in the post-modern West, the cross is always an object of derision.

The cross is seen by most as a place of defeat and many self-identified Christians shroud it in sentimentality or ignore it altogether.

Christians believe (and by faith, have experienced) that the cross on which Jesus Christ died is also the place where He achieved victory over sin, death, and darkness for all who turn from sin and trust in Christ. That's why we call the commemoration of Jesus' death on the cross "Good" Friday.

Jesus, revealed to be both God and human, led a perfect, sinless life, then offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. By that sacrifice, He won life for those who believe. Romans 6:23, in the New Testament, says: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Jesus says that we become heirs of His victory when we pick up our crosses--in other words, admit our own need of forgiveness and new life, submitting to the crucifixion of our old sinful selves--and follow Him--that is, trust our whole lives to Him and seek to live in faithful dependence on Him.

The good news or gospel is that, by faith, we can apprehend a share in Christ's destruction of our sin, by belief in Him. Jesus' resurrection affirmed Christ's victory on the cross. Death couldn't contain Him...and it can't contain those who trust in Him. This, in turn, frees us to love God, love our neighbor, seek justice, and boldly share Christ with others.

For many, the cross of Christ and the gospel of freedom from sin, death, and darkness that was unleashed from the cross seems foolish and implausible. But with the apostle Paul, Christians can say: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile." (Romans 1:16)

This past Sunday, in many Christians congregations around the world, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, was the appointed second lesson. We read and heard these verses at Living Water Lutheran Church as well. Paul addresses those who think that the power of the cross can be destroyed in the ways buildings can be or that it can be killed the way mortal human beings can be. This is what he writes:

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'”

So, a word to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a word also to ISIS: You will never destroy the cross or its power to change lives for good.

You will never conquer its life-giving power.

You will never erase the witness for Christ.

You will never stop the Church's Christ-mandated mission of making disciples.

The Word of God will have the last word.

And all who trust in the Lord Who gave Himself on the cross will keep on loving God and loving you, and living beyond the bounds of death, irrespective of your nihilism, your violence, your hatred, and your bombs.

From the cross, Christ said, "It is finished," or more literally, "It is completion." On the cross, Jesus has already defeated the sin, death, and darkness in which you truck. And you can do nothing to undo His victory or the victory He gives to all who believe in Him.

And one more word: Christ died on the cross for you too. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) Join the people of the cross in daily turning from sin and daily trusting in Christ. You too can live in the power of God's amazing grace given in Christ. You too can know the victory of the cross!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Comfort, Hope, Joy (Maundy Thursday, 2013)

[This was shared during worship Maundy Thursday worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church and our guests on March 28, 2013.]

John 13:1-17, 31b-35
On the first Maundy Thursday, in an upper room, Jesus enjoyed the last few uninterrupted moments He would have with the twelve apostles before His crucifixion. He had a message for them, something it was essential for Jesus to convey to them. Otherwise, everything about to take place--His arrest later that night, His trial before an illegal court, His death on a cross on Good Friday, and even His bodily resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday--would make no sense to them.

The twelve, along with the rest of Jesus’ hundreds of disciples, were about to be immersed in a chaos of events. Jesus wanted them to know, even when they experienced the first day, Good Friday, when He was executed; the second day, Holy Saturday, when His body lay in the tomb; and the third day, Easter Sunday, when Jesus, God in the flesh, rose from death, that He had been in control all along.

In the chaotic events of our lives, we need to know the same thing! Jesus is still in control.

Often, when Jesus wanted to make teaching points, He told parables. But here, in the upper room, Jesus acts out His message, as the Old Testament prophets sometimes did. We’re told by John, was in the upper room that night, that Jesus “got up from the table, took off His outer robe, and tied a towel around Himself. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.”

You’ve probably all heard enough Maundy Thursday sermons to know that washing the feet of dinner guests was the job of a household slave and not of a host.

You know that Jesus is demonstrating, as He said elsewhere, that He came into the world--God in flesh appearing--to serve.

You know about what Jesus says after He has finished washing the disciples’ feet: “You call me Teacher and Lord [that is, your master, maker, I AM, God Himself] and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Later on Jesus says that all of this points to a new commandment He gives gives to all who believe in Him, that just as He has loved us, we who are part of His body on earth are to love one another.

It’s this commandment that’s behind name of this day, Maundy Thursday. That word maundy comes to us from the French word, mandé, meaning something that has been commanded and goes back to the Latin translation of Jesus words in John 13:34. I don’t know Latin, but the words are, “Mandātum novum dō vōbīs,” or “I give to you a new commandment.”

That commandment to love our fellow believers is essential. We who belong to Jesus Christ are to love one another.

Love, of course, doesn’t mean approval. If, as a parent, your child is doing something that is dangerous to them, love will compel you to confront them or discipline them.

Christ has given the responsibility to proclaim the forgiveness of sin to the repentant and the condemnation for sin to the unrepentant. That’s called the Office of the Keys [see Matthew 16:19; John 20:19-23].

But love must always be the reason for exercising that responsibility.

Christ loves sinners and hates our sins, even yours and mine.

We are to love as we have been loved.

We are to humbly serve one another, just as the Lord of all creation has served us.

And we are, in the words of Ephesians, to speak God’s truth in love to one another, even when we would rather not. That’s part of love too.

But there is a deeper significance even than Jesus’ command to love one another in Jesus’ enacted lesson in the upper room.

Near the beginning of John's account of Maundy Thursday, there's a chilling passage. “Having loved His own who were in the world [the disciples], [Jesus] loved them to the end.” And then: “The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray [Jesus].”

Imagine this moment: Jesus loves everyone around that table. Jesus washes the feet of all around that table. Though John makes no mention of it, Jesus will also give Holy Communion to everyone at that table. But on Judas, all this service, all this love, all this grace, was of no avail. The devil had already entered Judas’ heart.

How does something like that happen?

Judas had spent time with Jesus as an intimate, an apostle. He had heard Jesus preach and teach. He saw Jesus turn water into wine, give sight to a blind man, feed the 5000, raise Lazarus from the dead. He had received the Word of God from the One Who, John says, is the Word of God, the creator of the universe. It seems that His heart should have been filled to overflowing with faith.

But, as Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse, who can understand it?”

The New Testament teaches that faith in Jesus Christ is a gift from God. And we know that, by God's grace, it is faith in Christ that saves us from sin and death.

And blessedly, we know too, that God doesn’t command that we have faith of a certain magnitude. Just faith.

One of my favorite prayers in the Bible is still that of the father who asked that Jesus would cast a demon from the boy, if Jesus were able to do it. His initial prayer to Jesus was, “If you are able.” Jesus responds with the man’s own words, “If you are able--All things can be done for the one who believes. Immediately the father cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

Once I heard a pastor recount how people, knowing that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone, would ask him, “How do I know I’m not going to hell?” His response: “The fact that you don’t want to go to hell is evidence of your faith.”

It’s similar to what I tell people when they confess that they’ve gotten mad at God, afraid that such emotions indicate no faith in God. I tell them: “If you didn’t believe in God, you wouldn’t get mad at Him. You only get mad at a God you believe is there!”

The problem with Judas was that His heart was closed to God. A heart closed to God is wide open to the devil.

That’s how, despite a constant exposure to the Word of God the Holy Spirit wanted to turn into faith, Judas turned down the gift. He turned down Christ. He wanted thirty pieces of silver more than he wanted Jesus.

He wasn’t the last person to choose the dying things of earth over the life that only Jesus Christ has to give.

But just as Jesus never gave up on offering faith to Judas, we in the Church must never give up on those in need of faith in Christ around us!

John says that Jesus, back in the upper room, confident that He and the Father were one and that He was returning to the Father, did this extraordinary thing. He took off His outer robe. Half naked, He wrapped a towel around Himself and did the work of a servant. No one made Jesus do this. It was a voluntary act. He chose to love His disciples in this way. He chose to lay aside His clothes and His dignity in a culture that regarded personal dignity as important. Later, after having done the work of a servant, Jesus put His outer garment back on and resumed His place at the head of the table, their Lord and Teacher.

Here’s what Jesus was telling the twelve. In a few short hours, temple police would arrest Him. Roman guards would strip Him of His clothing. They would mock Him, spit on Him, beat Him, whip Him, and then nail Him to a cross, naked to the elements, to die. Jewish and Gentile leaders, powers equivalent to the modern Church and State, and the opinions of the mass of humanity all would conspire against Jesus. And people would think, “He’s not such a big deal after all. We showed Him. He’s not God. We are. We’re the decision makers around here.”

In the rush of horrible events surrounding Good Friday, the disciples were in no shape emotionally, mentally, or spiritually to remember the lesson of Maundy Thursday. But later, they would remember Jesus saying of His life on earth, “I lay down my life in order to take up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.”

No one took Jesus’ life from Him. He gave it up willingly. And He died at the moment He decided it was time, for only God has the right to give and take life away. “It is finished,” Jesus said. And He breathed His last. On Easter Sunday morning, Jesus took His up life again and He did it, as a servant, for us, for our needs for forgiveness, new life, fellowship with God, and a purpose for living.

After Easter, the disciples must have looked back on the events of Maundy Thursday and thought, “Of course! Of course the Lord of creation laid down His life in service and love for all sinners, hoping even to reach those in whose hearts the devil had entered, so that they might embrace the gift of faith. Of course, it was in Jesus’ power to lay down His life and take it back up again. Hadn’t he told Martha that day in Bethany, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die’? And then they would remember that Jesus asked Martha, ‘Do you believe this?’”

Jesus asks the same question of you and me tonight: “Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that I am the only way and the only truth on whom a life can safely be built? Do you believe I am the only way to eternity?”

A few weeks ago, the pilot light on our furnace went out. We decided to put more blankets on the bed and call someone in the morning. When we hit the sack that night, the house was about 51-degrees. When we woke up the next morning, the thermometer was at 41-degrees. The absence of a tiny pilot light left a vacuum for the colder air to move in and take over where once there had been warmth.

Our faith may be small, like that pilot light. Our faith may only be our desire to have Jesus in our lives. I know that my faith goes small and dim sometimes. But then I think of Jesus laying down His dignity and His life, as He did symbolically on Maundy Thursday, and as He did really on Good Friday. I think of how Jesus took His authority and power back up when He went back to the head of the table on Maundy Thursday and how He took back power over the destiny of the whole cosmos when He rose from death on Easter Sunday. I’m amazed and overwhelmed when I think that He did that for me, a sinner who can sometimes be a Judas who betrays Jesus, a Peter who denies him, or a disciple who runs for cover when it comes time for me to stand up for Jesus and my faith in Him.

Maundy Thursday assures us that if we want Jesus and His Lordship over our lives, however dim our faith, He is glad to have us as His own.

In the chaos and the glad times of this life, may knowing and trusting that Jesus loves us enough to give the repentant freedom from sin and the believing eternal life, bring us comfort, hope, and joy. Amen

Aiming Toward, "MIssion Accomplished!"

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]


John 17:1-11
Please pull out the Celebrate insert from your bulletin and look at today’s Gospel lesson, John 17:1-11. Keep it handy.

In this lesson, Jesus does an extraordinary thing: He lets us listen in on His personal prayer to God the Father.

Now, I don't know about you, but there are things in my personal prayer time that I want to keep strictly between God and me. I don't want anybody listening in.

But Jesus has no secrets. The Word made flesh, is an open book.

The entire Bible, in fact, reveals that God has always been an open book. The New Testament book of Romans reminds us that, “…what can be known about God is plain…, because God has shown it…”

We see God's openness in other ways. The Bible affirms, for example, that God’s law—His will and His commands for humanity—has always been written on our hearts, giving all of us a strong hint, long before we even hear the Name of Jesus, that there is a God Who made and cares about us.

But more than that, God has taken the time and effort and sacrifice to live out His love for us and make it possible for all who turn from sin and believe in Him to live with Him eternally. God has lived His love for us out loud for everyone to see!

In the prologue to his account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, John the Evangelist says, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

John goes on to say of Jesus, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, Who is close to the Father’s heart, Who has made Him known.”

Jesus has no secrets. Jesus is in the disclosing business.

So, what exactly does He disclose to us in today’s Gospel lesson?

First: He discloses a heart filled with celebration.

One of my nephews, Andrew, is graduating from high school. There’s going to be a celebration later today. The unspoken theme will be: mission accomplished. That's the theme of all graduation parties!

(And sometimes, their theme is "Shwew!")

In His prayer in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus takes a victory lap. He exults in His accomplishment on earth even before He goes to the cross or is raised from the dead.

Jesus knows that He already is what He was sent into the world to be: “the way, and the truth, and the life,” the only way for human beings to know God and the only way to the life that the life-giving God of the universe gives to those who repent and trust in Christ.

Look at what Jesus says He has already accomplished at the moment He utters His prayer.

• In verse 6: “I have made Your Name known to those whom You gave me…” 
• In verse 7: “Now they know that everything You have given me is from You…” 
• In verse 8: “for the words that You gave to me I have given to them, and [they] know in truth that I came from you…”

Jesus’ earthly life had a mission. He came to make God known. All that he said and did was bent to that purpose.

In this prayer, Jesus rejoices in the strength that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit had given Him to accomplish it all and He prays, in essence, “Father, mission accomplished!”

As He prays, Jesus knows, of course, that He has one thing left to do on this earth, one more definitive act disclosing Who He is and Who God is.

He must die.

He must give His life for those given to Him by the Father.

This is the ultimate thing that Jesus discloses to all who are open to the truth. Martin Luther said that if we want to know what God is like, we only need to look to Jesus on the cross.

And that’s why with jubilation, Jesus, God on earth, intent on doing God’s would, on the Friday we call Good, having fully disclosed the heart, mind, and will of God, decide on the cross the moment at which He would breathe His last, call out to the Father, “It is finished,” (“My mission is accomplished.”)  and then give His life to God.

The Father wouldn’t let this be the end for Jesus, though. The sinless Savior Who offered His perfect life as the perfect sacrifice for our sin could not remain dead. He had to be raised up so that all people would know about their chance to turn to Him (turning away from their sin), entrust their lives to Him, and live with God eternally.

So, in this prayer, Jesus celebrates what He accomplishes for the glory of the Father and for our eternal good.

And then: Jesus discloses a request to the Father.

In verse 5, Jesus asks, “Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had in Your presence before the world existed…”

The glory of God was displayed in Jesus in many ways. It was seen when...

• He fed 5000 people with a few scraps of bread and some fish
• He turned water into wine
• He raised His dead friend Lazarus from the grave
• He gave sight to a blind man
• He empowered a paralyzed man to walk again.

The glory of God was seen in Jesus too, when at the waters of the Jordan River, where He was baptized, and on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Voice from heaven said, "This is My Son; listen to Him!"

And yet the glory of God disclosed in Jesus on all those occasions and others we might name, were mere hints, dim reflections, brief tastes of the glory Jesus once enjoyed as God the Son in the halls of heaven before the creation of this world!

Now, in this prayer, having accomplished all that He had set out to do in taking on human flesh, Jesus asks the Father to give that glory back to Him again.

The Father will do just that when He raises Jesus from the dead on the first Easter Sunday and so, makes the Name of Jesus the Name to which eventually, every knee will bow and every tongue confess, “that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.” 

(It turns out that even those who reject Jesus and will tragically, live with the consequence of their rejection of “the only Son of God” will also, in the end, acknowledge the glory of God seen in Jesus.)

If there is one thing more than any other that Christ’s Church needs today, it’s a renewed sense of the glory of God! 

I’ve mentioned before the woman who approached me after worship one Sunday in a former congregation. She was upset with the words of Psalm 111:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...” (The same words appear also in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10.)

She affected that voice that some people use when trying to show their piety and said, “I don’t think that we should be afraid of God.” Look, Jesus says that we are His friends when we keep or strive to honor His commandments. He promises to stick closer to us than a brother.

But Jesus, God in the flesh, is not our buddy, not our rabbit’s foot, nor our ATM, nor our good luck charm.

He will be there to judge us at the end of history.

Paraphrasing Bill Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable, Jesus brought us into this world and He can take us out.

He is God almighty.

He alone deserves all our allegiance, honor, loyalty, and thankfulness because, through His “amazing grace,” He saves all who trust in Him from sin and its consequence, death.

We must understand that the God disclosed in Jesus Christ is not a salesperson with whom we can negotiate a price, but the Lord of the universe and that to have Him and the eternity only He can give, we must bow, we must surrender to Him.

It's when we understand this that we’ll be on the road to the wisdom that leads to life.

In this prayer in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus, Who laid His glory by for His time on earth, is reclaiming that glory.

But here’s the really astounding thing.

It’s a theme of the New Testament that the life of Jesus is replicated, reenacted, in baptized believers in Him. All who are baptized and live in daily repentance and renewal can say with the New Testament, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me.” 

This is what Luther was getting at when he said that whenever the devil came knocking at his heart's door with temptations, announcing that he was looking for Martin Luther, Jesus went to the door in his place and said, "Martin Luther used to live here. But now I live here. Now, go away and don't come back any more!"

It was because of Christ living in him, that the first century preacher Paul, before his death, could write to the young pastor Timothy with the same sense of fulfillment and jubilation we see in Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel lesson on the brink of His death.

Listen closely to Paul's words (this is from The Message translation):

I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, [God is] an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for His coming.

In his wonderful book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Pastor David Platt talks about how many American Christians think that Jesus’ call and command for radical discipleship, including the call to love all the world and to carry the good news of Jesus to all the nations applies to other people, not us.

In taking this attitude, millions of Christians turn a deaf ear to the needs of 4.5 billion people who may die today without ever hearing the Good News of new life through faith in Jesus Christ.

And in thinking that Jesus’ call only applies to some spiritual elites, we also deny ourselves the very sense of fulfillment and the enjoyment of God’s glory that Jesus exults in in today’s Gospel lesson and that He wants us to have!

We, each of us, need to consider how we can restructure our personal lives to fulfill the mission Christ has given to each of us, so that we too can exult in the sense of fulfillment from a life spent in giving God glory.

We may not be able to go to foreign countries in pursuing God’s intentions for our lives.

But each of us is called to fulfill the whole mission of Christ’s Church in our own individual lives. Our sponsorship, through World Vision of three year old Toiba in Kenya, involvement with CHAP, the 30 Hour Famine, the PPSST Food Drive, the upcoming local mission trip, Friend Day in November, upcoming servanthood evangelism events, and above all, our personal willingness to share Christ with the spiritually disconnected, are all ways in which we can lead the life of purpose that gives God glory that Jesus Christ wants each of us to experience.

We need to encourage one another in living out our Christ-given mission to the whole world. It’s to help us fulfill this single mission that Jesus prays in verse 11: “Holy Father, protect them in Your Name that You have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

When I come to the end of this life, I want to be able to pray with the same sense of jubilation and fulfillment we see in Jesus in our Gospel lesson.

I want to be able to look back on a life in which I loved God, loved the world, and took my part in making some disciples of the world’s 4.5-billion unreached people.

I want to be able to say, “Mission accomplished.”

How about you?

If it’s your desire to fulfill God’s purposes for your life, ask Christ to live fully in you…and then go wherever He leads you. Amen