Monday, June 23, 2014

Patience of the Saints: A Meditation on James 5




As the Church of Christ enters the season of Pentecost, she enters a time of work and trial.  Jesus sends His people out forgiven and free, but He sends them to work in His Name, and according to His Word.  Such work is arduous in a world that is often actively rejecting Him, a world marked by sin and death.  But it is a broken and dying world our Lord came to heal and to save.  It is this broken and dying world for which He gave His body to be broken, and His life to ransome.  It is this broken and dying world into which He sends His redeemed people, to bear witness of His great love and redemption for all mankind.

And it is a hard labor.  Not only are the saints themselves wrestling with the sin and death present in their own bodies, but they wrestle with the sin and death running rampant throughout the world—and against principalities and powers of evil, that use sin and death to enslave mankind.  The work of the saints is a labor surpassing human endurance and capacity, a work of being poured out in martyrdom as a witness to the love of Christ for all.  The saints of Christ battle every day against the sin which wars within them, and the sin which rages without.  And whether that war continues for but a few years, or many decades, its only culmination is by death.  Every saint of Christ will be called to bear the cross of martyrdom in this world, as they live and die in the grace of their Crucified and Risen Savior.

Such labor would seem insurmountable from a human perspective.  Who can look within himself, and see the resources necessary to remain patient and dutiful, when their own body begins to fail?  Who can imagine themselves equal to the task of martyrdom, when even the synapses of the mind begin to degrade, and the bright light of intellect begins to fade toward darkness?  Who can stand alone, like Jeremiah before an apostate nation, and be faithful in his witness when all the world derides, condemns, and persecutes the Word of God?  In fact, none of us can do this.  None of us is up to this great work.  None of us can stand against the evils within and without, and be victorious.  We are broken, and we are dying.

But thanks be to God, that our salvation does not rest on the labors of our hands.  God has seen the frailty of our frame, of our bodies, our minds, our communities.  And into the death and dying of our very selves, He pours the redemptive grace of His Son, by the power of His Holy Spirit.  For the Son of God has born the full labors necessary for us; He has fought the good fight; He has conquered sin, death, the devil and hell.  Where we could not stand, He has stood fast.  Where we could not reason, He has been all wisdom.  Where we could not endure public contempt, He has presented Himself as our Sacrifice.  This is the comfort of the saints—that they do not work their own works, but enlivened by their Victorious Lord Jesus Christ, they are raised up to a newness of life that by His power, bears witness of Him.  The labors of the saints are too much for any of them to accomplish—but they are not too hard for Him, who has called us out of darkness, and into His marvelous light.  We are not equal to the tasks set before us, but we are made more than conquerors through Christ who lives and reigns through us.  The darkness of the world, and the darkness within ourselves, is passing away—but we who live by grace through faith in the Son of God shall abide forever, by the work and witness of Jesus Christ.

This is the patience St. James calls for at the end of his epistle.  Are there struggles within and without?  Most surely.  Will nations rise and fall?  Indeed.  Shall the lives of the saints come and go upon this world, as some are born and others die?  Yes, they shall.  But the Word of the Lord endures forever, and His life, His witness, to and through the saints shall never depart from us.  To we struggling and suffering saints, St. James still speaks the Word of our Lord:

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of
the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious
fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he
receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient;
stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth
nigh.

Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest
ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the
door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have
spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering
affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them
happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job,
and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very
pitiful, and of tender mercy.  But above all things,
my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the
earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and
[your] nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let
him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call
for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him,
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And
the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall
raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be
forgiven him.

Confess [your] faults one to another,
and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are,
and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained
not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and
the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of
you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let
him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the
error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide
a multitude of sins.

Are you a saint who has lost his patience with the labors of your cross?  Establish your heart in the labors of Jesus and His Cross.  Are you a saint grumbling and begrudging against another?  Surrender your grudge to the Lord, who has forgiven you all things which you have committed against Him.  Are you a saint who is afflicted?  Pray to the Lord who was afflicted for you.  Are you a saint who rejoices?  Sings songs of thanks to Him who is your joy.  Are you a saint who is ill?  Yield yourself to the pastors whom Christ has established, to pray over you, to anoint you, to forgive you your sins, and to heal you.  For the prayers of the saints shall avail much, always working the great miracle of the healing of the soul, and according to the will of the Father, the healing the body, as well.  But whether your body is healed today, or in the final resurrection of the dead, the Lord shall keep His Word to you.  For while the prayers of the faithful avail much, they are a small thing in comparison to the prayers of our faithful Lord Jesus Christ, who has prayed for you to remain always in His grace and mercy.  His prayer for you never fails—He will keep you forever by His Word, even though you die in this world as all men must, He shall raise you up again on the Last Day.  He has said it, and so it shall be.

Let not your heart be troubled, dear saint of God:  He who keeps you, keeps you forever.  Amen.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

God as Judge and Savior: A Meditation on Jeremiah 17-20



The Old Testament reading for this week focuses on a small section of Jeremiah 20, that is difficult to understand without the context that builds up to it.  Jeremiah is a prophet who has received a Word from God to speak to his nation, but it is not a message of peace or security.  Rather, he is sent to tell his own people, that because of their infidelity, God was bringing devastation and destruction upon them.  The Babylonians would come and destroy Jerusalem, killing many and enslaving the rest.  It was a Word Jeremiah had no pleasure in delivering, but it was the Word God gave him to speak.

And what was the response of his people to God’s most dire warning?  They imprisoned Jeremiah, insulted him, despised him, and looked for every opportunity to slay him.  The religious leaders and the political leaders joined their voices against Jeremiah, declaring him a false prophet.  They rested on the promises of God’s providence and mercy, while they embraced their sin without repentance.  In other words, the leaders of the nation and the church preached love and peace, while God was preaching to them destruction and death.

Sound familiar?  Our age has much the same problem.  Our church leaders and political leaders often want to use God’s promises and commands for love, peace, and tolerance, especially in the face of those who convict them of sin and evil.  From debauched and unnatural sexuality, to corporate greed and manipulation; from sex trafficking and pornography to drug abuse; from murder of the old to the murder of the young;  from political corruption and intrigue to the raping of the planet; those who confront evil in high places are often subject to scorn and ridicule, just like Jeremiah.  When those who are enslaved to their sins try to use God’s grace and mercy to protect their sinfulness, their crimes against God and neighbor reach the heights of hypocrisy.  Pitting God’s love of women against His prohibition to murder children, or God’s love of homosexuals against His condemnation of sodomy, or God’s gift of private property against His abhorrence of abusing the poor, is to mock God with unholy delight.  God is not one to be mocked, and His Word will be fulfilled, be it His Law or His Gospel.

It is here that we see what Jeremiah saw:  God is both Judge and Savior.  For those who cling to Him and His Word by faith, there is the Gospel of grace which saves all who put their trust in Him.  But to those who cling to their sins, refusing to repent, their repudiation of God and His Word brings forth the inexorable consequences of His Law:  for the wages of sin is death.  There is no saving faith that refuses to repent of evil.  There is no saving faith that refuses to hear God’s Word.  The faith that saves, is the faith that hears, repents, and lives by the grace poured out through Jesus Christ.  Only this faith receives grace.  All else is wicked unbelief, and receives the wages due, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  All are condemned under the Law, and rightly so.  But all are called to live by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, becoming slaves to righteousness rather than evil.

And so, dear sinner, what shall you do with the Word of the Lord as it comes to you?  Will you hear its shocking condemnation of your sin, particularly those of which you are most fond? Will you turn from your wickedness toward the light of Christ, surrendering yourself to Him, that your sentence of death might be washed away in the Blood of Jesus poured out for you?  Or will you push His Word of Law and Gospel away, lock it up, plug your ears, and tell yourself stories of self justification, cheap grace, and false salvation?  Will you hear the Word of the Lord and keep it, or will you reject the Word of the Lord and despise it?

There can be no greater question, and the consequences of each path could not be greater.  For the Word that declares your sin shall stand forever, and not even death can hide you from it.  If you refuse the Word of the Lord, it will find you none the less, filling your ears with the call to faith and repentance in this life, or burning your soul forever with its righteous sentence in the life to come.  But if you will hear the Word of the Lord Today, turning from your sin by the power of His Holy Spirit to a life of faith and repentance, then the light of Jesus’ love and mercy for you shall keep you in this life, and gather you into His blessed fellowship forever.  For God shall be the Judge of all, but to you who will repent and believe, He will be your Savior from the hell you have earned.  Because Jesus has taken your wrath and condemnation in your place, His Holy and Everlasting Gospel is forgiveness, life, mercy, and peace to all who will believe.

And so the Word of the Lord comes to you.  God is your righteous Judge.  Shall He be your Savior, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone?  It is His desire that all would be saved, for He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might live through Him.  Hear Him.  Believe, and live.  Amen.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Foundation of Creation: A Meditation on Genesis 1-2




While unbelief has been present in every generation, our time is marked as one of particular falling away. We haven't reached the point of degradation that marked Noah's day, or the heights of pagan Rome, but we are an age that reflects a fundamental disbelief in God. While Noah’s age before the Flood was marked by disbelief in the true God, and Rome’s age was marked by any number of false gods, our age is a growing and active rejection of any god at all.  Different from ages past, our time and place is marked by rising secular humanism that often rejects God—any god—out of hand, or creates a weak and useless god in our own likeness. As other ages began their fall into unbelief by rejecting some or all of God’s Word, our age's fall into unbelief began with a rejection of Genesis 1-2.

‎And what, fundamentally, do the early chapters of Genesis teach? God declares through Moses that the universe's beginning is God; that man's beginning is God; that man's image is from God; and that the order God established throughout creation and for every creature, reflects God. Creatures deviating from God, rebelling of their own free will against Him and His order, are the source and beginning of evil, destruction, and death. God, out of love, desiring all people and all creation to be saved, promises to rescue His creation from the hell they have chosen. All of this is fulfilled millennia later, in the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ.  What begins good at Creation, then falls into death, is restored in Jesus Christ through His Vicarious Atonement.

Our age, however, has rejected Genesis, and with it, all the teaching of Scripture, including the doctrine of Justification by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Preferring the vain and ignorant speculations of Darwin, a resurgent atheistic naturalism has infected the whole of western culture, and corrupted many churches into replacing God’s Word with the infinitely lesser words of wicked men. God as the good Creator, is replaced by blind evolutionary chance; God's good and stable order is replaced by the amoral brutality of tooth and claw, and each creature’s personal will to power; God’s beautiful and invaluable image in man is replaced with meaningless animal lust and pleasure;‎ God as the font of all good and man with the devil as the source of all evil, is replaced by an individual subjective relativism that can’t claim to know anything; God's Holy Gospel of redemption in Jesus Christ for everyone who will repent and believe, is replaced by social programs of self improvement and psychiatric medication.  The bedrock upon which all of western culture has been built, from the principles of human rights to the principles of good government, from the protection of families to the protection of the earth itself, have been blasted asunder by the insanity of evolutionary unbelief.  When all that remains in a society is animals with a will to power seeking their own passions, the devil will have perfected his totalitarian domination of hell on earth.  His work has always been to flee, corrupt, or extinguish the light that God spoke into this universe, as he was in fact a murderer from the beginning.  The devil is always at war with the Word of God, and always ultimately the one behind the world’s rejection of the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ—who he knows is the only hope for the world.

And what have we inherited, by teaching our children that they are self centered animals of chance, with nothing greater to aspire to than personal satisfaction before they die? We have children murdering children in the very schools where they were taught that they are merely animals with no good or evil.  We have rampant use of drugs among all ages, as the despair and depravity of a soulless humanity unhinges their minds.  We have politicians without scruples, who will do and say anything to gain or retain power.  We parents murdering their children, inside and outside the womb, for their own convenience or financial comfort.  We have rampant sexual abuse of adults and children, in the places they should be most safe—rape, molestation, pedophilia, fornication and adultery celebrated and imbibed through a million web portals every day, and acted out in our schools and communities with alarming regularity.  We have successfully dehumanized an entire generation, separated them from God by unbelief in His Word, ripped away from them both His Law and His Gospel, and as a result we are inheriting the whirlwind.  This horrific, hellish landscape is the one we built on the back of the Sexual Revolution, giving free reign to the voices of Secular Humanism and Atheism to destroy our country, our culture, our families, and our children.  We took God’s Word out of our age, and gave the devil our pulpits, lecture halls, court rooms, government, and schools.  We were given the choice between life and death, and we chose death—we should not be surprised by the sight of our bloated and decaying corpse, rotting in the desert sun.

But the continuing call to the dwindling, emaciated, eviscerated Church, is the same call that goes out to our decaying world as a whole:  it is the call to repent of unbelief, and return in faith to the Word of God. Through faith and repentance, God has promised to exchange our depravity, our despair, and our devolution, for grace, mercy, forgiveness, and life. He will take our selfish and demonic delusions, and replace them with salvation won by Jesus through His Cross.  He who spoke life and light into the universe, is able to speak life and light again into our dead and dying world.  His promise of grace is for all who will hear and believe, and His Word goes out to the entire world, seeking and saving the lost. 

Our Triune God who created and redeemed us, speaks to us by His Word, to draw us back to Himself in His Son. In Him is life and light to enliven and enlighten our death and darkness. He is our only hope, and the only hope for the whole world. He has defeated the tyrant that holds us under his boot, dragging us into the hell prepared for him and his evil angels.  Jesus has come to save you, to heal you, and raise you up from the dead lies that bind you.  Hear His Word; let go of your unbelief; believe, and live. Amen.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Graduation Address, MRLH, 2014



Who are you?  Thoughts upon a graduating class

Who are you?  Among all the questions that people ask themselves over the course of their lives, there may be none so significant as this brief phrase.  Once you come to terms with the idea that you actually exist—if you doubt it, bang yourself on the head once, and that should settle the matter—the next logical question is, “Who am I?” 

You are not alone in wondering the answer to this question.  Whole fields of Social Science, Psychology, Politics, and Theology, with innumerable books written over millennia, have wrestled with it.  Every person who has drawn breath upon this beautiful sphere has pondered it, and so will you.  For a while, you might think you can answer it with titles and trophies, but you’ll eventually realize that these are things you’ve done (or have been done to you,) and that you are more than your experiences.  You are now graduates of Mount Rainier Lutheran High School, and will have a certificate, a plaque, a transcript, perhaps a few awards, to prove it.  You’ll throw parties, have celebrations, and be congratulated.  But like your 8th grade graduation before this, and your Kindergarten graduation before that, you’ll move past this milestone… and that’s how you’ll know that you are something more than your experiences, your awards, and your accomplishments, and your failures.  All the things you do become stuck in the past like creatures frozen in amber, but you keep moving forward.  You are something unique, and you are not your trophy case or award wall.

And you are also not your neighbor, or anyone other than yourself.  If you doubt this, bonk your neighbor on the head, and I’m sure they will settle that matter for you, too.  You are an individual, and have many relationships with other people around you.  And though the parties will roar, and the pictures will be snapped, this graduation experience will pass behind you, as well.  Some of these neighbors you’ve known for years will strike off for places unknown, and some will stay nearby.  Some will marry, some will not.  Some will become absorbed by work or play, and others will not.  Some will live long, stay connected… and others will not.  Like the relationships you had in middle school and kindergarten, these relationships will change as you move past this milestone, too.  And yet, even as relationships and neighbors change, you will continue to be you.  In this you will discover, that you are not your friends, not your family, nor your enemies; you are not your relationships with other people.  Your relationships may be something you build or destroy, but they are not you.

And when you come to realize that you are not your trophies, your experiences, your relationships, or your neighbors, you will come to a very quiet and scary place.  Once you realize that your degrees and certifications, your friends and your adversaries, your money and your toys, your groups and your hobbies, your awful and excellent adventures, are not you… you will have to grapple with who you really are.  Not the masks, the make-up, and the scripts… but you.

All alone, without your masks and diversions, when you ask that question, you have only three ways to answer it.  The first is to look inside yourself.  Of course, asking yourself who you are is a bit of circular argumentation… unless you have a few extra personalities, which might be fun for a while, until they lock you in a little room with a comfy jacket.  In truth, your eyes can see that you are here, but they have no power to explain why and what you are.  All they can do is describe is what they see.  The same is true for your mind—it can explore itself, but only observe what it perceives.  You don’t really have the perspective to stand outside yourself, and explain both where you come from and where you’re going—let alone, who you really are.  Your eyes and mind, sharp as they may appear, are dull when examining themselves… often far weaker than we realize, and prone to conclude ridiculous things.  We are poor and ill equipped to answer this for ourselves.  And yet, so many people in the world spend their whole lives wrapped up in themselves, trying to answer this question from the inside, with futility, confusion, and despair the only end they can find.  No matter how deeply you peer into your bellybutton, the lint will not tell you who you are.

Another path the world will offer you to answer this question, is to let your neighbor answer it for you.  At first glance this seems better—at least your neighbor, or your family, or your community, has the external perspective to observe you better, right?  Of course, what usually results, is the old axiom of the “blind leading the blind,” with everyone getting lost.  If you don’t have the resources to know who you are, what makes you think you can really know who someone else is?  You can look at your neighbor next to you, and stripped of all their experiences, accolades, awards, triumphs and loses, you still can’t get behind their eyes.  You don’t have the resources to know yourself, and you certainly don’t have the resources to know your neighbor.  You can observe what they do and what they say, but you can’t really know who they are.  And if that’s true of you, why would you ever let your neighbor tell you who you are?  They don’t have any more resources or perspective than you do.  Oh, sure… you’ll find lots of people who want to tell you who you are, but it usually just serves their own purposes or ignorance.  The world will happily make you a slave to your manipulative and ignorant neighbor, be they few or many.  But in the end, they won’t really know who you are, and your question will be left unanswered.

Your last option, is to seek the answer to your question from One who actually knows you.  Of all the sinful, broken, and limited people you will meet in the world, none of them will really know you anymore than you will know yourself.  But there is One who comes to you, who actually does know you.  He knows you, because He made you, sustains you, and keeps your eternity in His infinite hands.  This One has come to you, to tell you who you are.  He knows you are broken by your own sin, able neither to understand nor save yourself.  He knows your neighbors are fallen and broken, too, unable to understand or save themselves or each other.  He knows where you came from, because He knew you before you were ever brought to be through your parents.  He knows where you’re going, because He knows your eternity before you enter it.  He has spoken to you, and to all people, through His Prophets and Apostles, leaving a written record for you—an account unique in all of human history, spanning millennia, and preserved for you today.  In these Holy Scriptures, He tells you precisely who you are, if you are willing to hear Him.

And what does He say to you?  He tells you that you are His creation.  You were made by Him in His very image, to live in His love and fellowship forever.  You are descended from your parents, and have inherited their Fall into sin, evil, and depravity, so that your heart has turned from your Creator toward the darkness of the evil one.  As a fallen creature, you deserve death and hell, together with all the twisted and evil spirits who have followed the evil one into perdition.  But you are not left in your Fall, abandoned to your just fate.  For God’s love for you knows no limits.  He has loved and pursued you from all eternity, that He might reclaim you, give you new life, and save you from the terrors of death and hell.  He has, for you, sent His only begotten Son to suffer, die, and rise again, that if you will hear and believe Him, you will live—for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, that you, might live through Him.

That is who you are.  You are a child of God, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, and given eternal life in the love and fellowship of your Savior.  Who are you?  You are beloved.  You are ransomed.  You are saved.  You are the inheritor of the Kingdom of God, by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.  You are destined for eternal glory, to shine forth in the New Creation with more brilliance than the noonday sun.  You are His, and His glory you will reflect. 

No matter where you go in this world, no matter how long or short your time in this world may be, always remember that you belong to the Truth who sets you free.  As one redeemed and loved in Christ, you are a witness to His love and mercy for the whole world.  You are a light, shining in the confused darkness of this world, living by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  And your life, every day, from the moment of your conception to the never ending reaches of eternity, is kept in the blessed fellowship and love of God your Savior, together with all who will hear, believe, and live. 

And to this God I commend you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Be fearless in life, in love, in faith, in hope.  You are His, and there is nothing that can snatch you from His hand.  You are a child of the Lord God Almighty, and there is nothing to fear.  You are born and kept in love forever, and your hope never fails, because Jesus Christ never fails.  Go forth, dear Children of God, and be blessed forever.  Amen.