I’ve never really found belief in God to be that big of a problem. A materialist philosophy is so obviously full of holes it requires more faith than any of the world religions. But a base belief is God doesn’t really buy you much. It answers a bunch of questions that ultimately don’t mean much to you personally. It just moves you onto the questions of the character of this god. Is he a Loki trickster? Is he a god that requires child sacrifice? Is he the Calvinist God who would condemn billions on hell without a chance to demonstrate his grace? Or is he the God the prophets proclaimed – slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love?
The Gospel lesson is Jesus in prophet mode. “You are worth much more than birds.” He’s proclaiming the steadfast love of God for his creation. Which still brings on the question, how do we know? We know: 1) because the life of Christ fully reveals the love of the Father. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. 2) because we have faith and that faith endures and hopes and is not put to shame. If you put that faith in the things of this world, it never returns anything. If you put that faith in god, he gives you the kingdom.
There are some biblical lines that stick out. They seem like throwaway lines. Extra epitaphs added at the end of the story. Like at the end of Moses’ life. “His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. (Deut. 34:7).” Or when Isaac finally finds a place to pitch his tents, “And there Isaac’s servants dug a well (Genesis 26:25).” Or the introduction to Isaiah’s call, “In the year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1).” They seem innocuous enough, until you stop to think about them and realize how deep they can actually be. Moses’ sight might be his physical sight, but it is also what allows him to see the Promised land from afar. He will not enter it, but God allowed him to see it. Moses was always clearsighted in the ways of God. But what exactly did he see up on that mountain? Isaac was a digger of wells. Maybe if as a kid you had been strapped down to an altar, you would find something else with which to praise God. And the water, the living water which bubbles up to eternal life, which is not simple water only, is a deep and eternal well. I’ll leave the puzzling over Uzziah to you.
Our Epistle lesson for the day has a bunch of those phrases, but the one I want to call out is applied to Abraham. “And he went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).” Normally taking off on a journey not knowing where you are going would be frowned upon. Failure to plan is planning to fail and all that. But then Abraham is the man and model of faith. And a journey is a metaphor for life. When we “go out” do any of us know where we are going? Oh, we might have an idea, a goal, an aim. But knowledge? The younger we are – like elementary kids – we just go out the door each day and whatever we meet that day, there we are. Only a few 8 year olds have plans for the day. Yet most seem to be right where they belong. Trusting that those around them have arranged things just so. Abraham would occasionally try and help God out, but largely he wandered around like an 8 year old. Whatever the day brought, the day brought.
He may have not known where he was going when he set out, but by the end he seemed to have a better idea. “For He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder was God (Hebrews 11:10).” Abraham’s journey of not knowing took him out of Ur, the original Babylon. It took him all the way down to Egypt. He dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah and the Philistines. In all his journeys in life Abraham had seen every city that man might build. And he knew that none of them were where he was going. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had faith that God would build the city. I imagine Moses’ keen eyes were seeing the same city as Abraham.
At the core of any man of faith is an interesting tension. There is a contentment with where one is for God has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today. He has provided me everything I need to support this body and life. And yet…and yet there is a longing for a better country. One that we know we cannot see perfectly. One that is not possible in the land we have set out from. And if we want to settle into contentment here in this land, we probably could. But the faith keeps our eyes looking at the horizon, our ears desiring a clear trumpet. For any sign of The City, a heavenly one.
The text is Jesus sending out the 72. It is a text unique to Luke. Other gospels have the sending of the 12; only Luke has the follow on larger sending. And I tend to think it is the perfect text to talk about what exactly the ordained ministry is. Within Lutheranism that is discussing Article 5 of the Augsburg Confession. And I think compared to all the other churches of the various schisms – discussed in the sermon – we get it right. Many fall in a ditch to the right ascribing something called ontological change to the one ordained. This puts sacramental magic on the ordination and relegates the call to nothing. Others fall in the ditch on the left. They reduce the ministry to the priesthood of all believers. Everything rests on the call, and we all have a call in that priesthood. And they ignore the entire biblical history of those set apart – like Jesus sets apart these 72 – sent to the towns and villages of Israel. The Augsburg Confession I believe presents is rightly. The ministry exists for one reason, to continue to proclaim the gospel – “Peace be to this house.” Because this is how faith is created, but the proclamation that comes from outside of us. Christ came from outside of our world to proclaim the nearer Kingdom of God. And he sent folks to proclaim that. And he continues to send folks into the fields to proclaim that. In one sense the tools are completely inappropriate for the task. The sermon elaborates. But the Word creates exactly what it intends – faith.
The original idea for this sermon came from the strange day on the liturgical calendar – Easter 7. It is past Ascension Day, so Jesus is no longer with the disciples in the flesh. But it is not yet Pentecost where the Spirit comes and empowers the work. What do you do when one chapter has closed, but another has not yet opened? That is what this sermon is about reflecting on the passage in Acts in this time of transition.
Following the Apostles there are three things. The first is to close one chapter and prepare for the next. There are a bunch of things that travel under closing a chapter and the sermon meditates on those a bit. By preparing for the next it is largely the work of keeping the eyes open for things that will need to be done and people entering life. The second thing is to be constant in the Word. This is how we seek the face of God who will open that next chapter. The final thing might be the toughest, but the most necessary. Walk out in faith. You don’t get to live in the transition time, although we often try. You have to move in faith into what God has prepared.
I swear every year I’m going to do something, and every year Ascension Day sneaks up on me and zooms by. It was May 29th, last Thursday. I suppose I could always cheat and just make the nearest Sunday Ascension Day (Observed), but I always hate moving actual days like that. The Ascension is 40 days after easter. Pentecost is 50 days after. Compared to All Saints which is always November 1st, but there is nothing else that connects it to that date. So what I end up doing is reflecting it in the Hymns. The Ascension is Crowning Day – Crown Him with Many Crowns. It is the Day he was “seated at the right hand of the Father” so Christ the Eternal Lord.
A theologian I listen to made me think a little more this year about why I keep missing Ascension Day. Although I think her first take was a little off. There are three accounts of the Ascension in the Bible. The first two are both by Luke, one at the end of his gospel and the other at the start of Acts. If you think of Luke-Acts as volume 1 and volume 2 of a story, it makes sense to retell the ending. And in Luke’s telling Jesus just kinda drifts up. Hence you get icons and images of the ascension with nothing but Jesus’ feet showing. Which in this theologian’s telling is kinda silly. And I guess it is, but that type of thing has rarely bothered me. Superman Jesus is amusing, but really, how are you going to visually depict a spiritual event? As Ender knew, the enemy is always down, and heaven is always up. The third image of the Ascension is in the book of Revelation. It never calls it that, but I’m pretty sure that is what it is. All Heaven is in a sad state because nobody can ascend to the throne and read a scroll. But then the lamb, like one who was slain, appears and is seated and proceeds to open the scroll. (Revelation 5). Maybe a little like my theologian’s embarrassment at those feet, being a good American I don’t know what to do with an actual – as opposed to a metaphorical – enthronement. I’m fine with the imagery of crowns, but an actual crown? Americans of my generation can still sing along with Schoolhouse Rock “No More Kings”.
The second embarrassment of emphasizing “seated at the right hand of the Father” is that we think of Kings as having all authority. “Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever” all of heaven sings. But what happens when the enthroned lamb starts opening the scroll? All hell breaks loose – 4 horsemen, and saints asking “how long?” and earthquakes and blood and people calling for mountains to fall on them. When God is on his throne, all is supposed to be well. But it is not.
But where do I get that “all is supposed to be well” from? Where does my image of a King with all authority meaning peace come from? It certainly isn’t from the experience of Kings in this world. Even the Sun King of France had his problems. And the biblical picture of the newly enthroned Son King is of the damage Satan thrown out of Heaven is wreaking upon the earth. “All will be well” is the promise at the end of the story. As my favorite Christmas hymn tells it, “All idols then shall perish and Satan’s lying cease, and Christ shall raise his scepter, decreeing endless peace.” But today? Today the din of battle, the next the victor’s song.
What Ascension means is at long last the return of the King. The correct person is upon the throne. We probably all have experienced following the wrong person. The despair that can overcome. The rats seeking to flee the ship. The second guessing. And because Christ has chosen to work in this world through the Spirit and through the church we might have plenty of second guessing. But maybe that is because we are called to faith. Not necessarily faith that all will be well here and now, or that all leadership even is good. But faith that God is working all things for the good of his people. Faith that because Christ is ascended, what we attempt will not be doomed. That nothing done for Christ is ever lost.
The second Sunday of Easter, the end of the octave of Easter, is always the appearance to Thomas. And for most of my life this has been the Sunday to talk about doubt – doubting Thomas. Which I happen to think is a terrible reading of the text. Sure, Thomas doubts, but Jesus’ words to him are a gentle rebuke. Something like, “Thomas, stop being a fool, and believe. Do you really know these 10 so little that you think they’d lie to you about something like this?” If you want to talk Dark Nights of the Soul go read Job or Ecclesiastes or maybe even Paul on his fellow Jews. But Thomas is about mission. “As the Father sent me, I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit. Forgive Sins.” This is about the mission of the church in all times and places carried out through Word and Sacrament. And the first lesson of the day from Acts is a perfect example.
Happy Easter. Luke loves to juxtapose two groups, often male and female. And it is no different here at the Resurrection. Often it is for two ends of a spectrum. Sometimes it is to show different reactions to the same proclamation of the Word. Today the women and Peter are juxtaposed (with the apostles being an indeterminate group). The Word is the Resurrection. Both believe, but their starting place is much different. Their starting places just might be the extremes of the people showing up for Easter Services.
The great truths of any faith are always a mystery. What do I mean by that? What is a mystery? I’m not thinking of Scooby Doo and the mystery machine, nor Sherlock Holmes or your favorite writer. Those are all mysteries that can be solved. A fact is hidden that the investigator can reveal by the end of the book or episode. No, the mystery of a faith is something that is already completely revealed. It has been revealed before the face of all people. The mystery of a faith is something that can be intuitively understood. It makes complete sense, and yet is non-sense. Our minds can’t really process it. Even though we might see it.
The sacraments are such mysteries. Water, bread and wine do amazing things. And we can see what they do in the lives of the faithful. But do we really understand how the Spirit hovers in those waters? Can we really grasp how we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ? We recognize the body of Christ. Comprehend is a different matter.
The greatest of these mysteries is the resurrection. We all have an intuitive grasp that death is a horror, an enemy, not natural. As much as the materialists of our generation want to say that death is a natural part of life, it isn’t. It’s part of the life of sinners. It is part of life in a cracked world. But death is not a rightful inhabitant. But how do sinners combat their just penalty? “For in Adam we all die.” (1 Corinthians 15:21). God in his great mercy has sent us a champion. “In Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:21).
Staring directly at the mystery is tough. Mysteries are singularity events. We can’t really penetrate them in themselves. How exactly God and man together is one Christ is the mystery of the incarnation. You can meditate on Christmas forever and not understand it. But it speaks to our souls. You can stare at the empty tomb and not understand. But it breathes hope.
Isaiah captures that hope so well. The promise of the new heavens and the new earth (Isaiah 65:17). For that is what the resurrection is, the first fruits of the new creation. And in the new creation, “the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” It’s a common question about heaven “what about those who aren’t there?” Or, “what about fill in the blank of something that meant so much here?” They shall not come to mind. Why?
Isaiah’s answer I think is simply the reality of the resurrection shall turn this broken creation into Paul’s light momentary affliction. “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people.” If God is glad, can we be anything but? “No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” And Isaiah goes on to list things that are sadly too common – not mysteries at all in this world – that shall not happen in the new. “They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity (Isaiah 65:23).” The teacher of Ecclesiastes – all is vanity – shall be out of work. And the wolf and the lamb shall graze together.
We see the effects of the mystery. Even now we can see the mystery at work. Name another place outside the church that gathers together such different people. But what we see today is nothing compared to that day. The day that the last enemy is destroyed forever. Have a blessed Easter.
This is a meditation on how one’s belief – one’s confession – shapes who we are. Psalm 115:8 lets us know that you become like what you worship. Your belief forms you. But that belief is not an immediate change. Formation is not an overnight experience. Even the Apostle Paul was not as immediate as you think. The meditation then looks at Peter’s betrayal and Jesus’ confession.
Our Congregation this past week had a shock. Two wonderful members were killed in a car accident. One immediately and the other on the way to the hospital. It happened Wednesday morning and word started getting around by the evening and the following morning. The Pastor’s corner from this week, just below, directly mentions that. But I couldn’t ask for a better text for a sermon at such a time. We believe in the resurrection. Set everything else aside. This is the defining belief that Christians Hold Fast. Jesus is risen. And you will arise. Paul and all apostolic preachers proclaim that fact. The text also examines what would make that faith in vain.
