4th Sunday in Lent; John 9: 1-7, 13-17, 34-39

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  

            A man, blind from birth, sitting at the side of the road, spending his life in utter suffering.  This is the first century, there was no safety net, the government didn’t provide him with a place to live and money to buy food.  He was completely dependent on the kindness of others, by that I mean he was a beggar.  If people didn’t throw a few alms his way, he didn’t eat.  And upon seeing this man (and as is so often the case) the disciples are quick to speak but slow to understand.  They ask Jesus what they think is an obvious question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

            In other words, “Jesus, things aren’t right with this guy, he’s suffered much in his life, so, who sinned so greatly as to kindle God’s wrath, this man or his parents?” 

            Well let’s get to the root of the question.  The real question here is this, “How are we to know that we’ve gained the favor of God.”  It’s obvious to the disciples that if things are going well in your life, God’s pleased with you.  But, if you’ve been struck with tragedy, with illness, like this man in our text, God must be angry with you.

            Children, today, are born with maladies and handicaps of all sorts.  We all know someone whose child was born with autism, down syndrome, physically impaired in some way.  And so, if we’re to view God the same way the disciples do, we may ask the same question, “Who sinned, the children or their parents?”  Has God shown His displeasure on these children that they have to go through life with their handicaps?  Does God show His displeasure with you when you’re lying in the hospital bed?  Does God show His displeasure with you when your knee, hip, shoulder, or ankle gives out?  Did you commit some horrible sin that God’s now angry with you? 

            You may not have been born blind or born with some physical handicap, but we all face physical ailments, injuries, and infirmities of all sorts.  Many would look at you, who are going through the challenges of life, dealing with the results of a fallen world; they would look at your pain and suffering and use that as the measure of God’s disposition toward you, a gauge on just how bad a sinner you are.  These are the people who would say with the disciples, “Oh boy, somebody really blew it this time!  What great and terrible iniquity did you do to offend God that He would smite you like this!?” 

            The truth is, God views our suffering much differently than we do, and especially the way the world does.  Are those who lost their lives in the mudslide in Washington state worse sinners than anyone else?  Was God showing His displeasure toward those who were on the Malaysian Airlines flight who many presume dead a sign God’s displeasure toward them?  No.  It’s a sign of that we live in a fallen world.  Children are born blind, children are born with down syndrome, children are born with heart conditions.  It’s not a sign that the child or their parents committed come horrible sin.  But as we live in a fallen world and see these things that go on, sicknesses, diseases, tsunamis and earthquakes, they’re signs that calls us to repentance.  Because of our sin, we deserve death too.  Not, that we have to search our past and attempt to interpret what particular sin we’ve committed, but because we’re a fallen people, who, without Christ are spiritually blind and helpless, who live in a fallen world full of sin; we do have need to repent. 

            But God views all of this differently.  When the disciples pose the question to Jesus, He says, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  Wow!  This guy was born blind so that Christ could display the power of God!  Jesus doesn’t view this man’s blindness as something that’s even “bad.”  And what are those works?  Well, look what Jesus did.  “Having said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva.  Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means sent).  So he went and washed and came back seeing.”  Nobody’s ever seen anything like it before.  Yet, Christ, the Light of the world, still isn’t done with Him.  What good is it to see if you don’t have faith?  So Jesus addresses that too.

            “…having found him [Jesus] said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”  Jesus said to him, “you have seen Him, and it is He who is speaking to you.”  He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped Him.” 

            There it is; the works of God on full display.  This is how God uses suffering.  Even through this man, who spent decades stumbling through the world blind as a bat, Christ drives him to faith.  Christ doesn’t only heal partially, He heals the whole person - body and soul.  Jesus not only gave this guy physical sight, but the eyes of faith. 

            This is how God uses our suffering.  Even through these physical impairments that we endure, God can and does make good come out of them, though the good may never be apparent to us.  They drive us back to Christ and His cross.  This is how we see Christ through suffering.  As we heard a couple of weeks ago in our epistle reading, Paul writes in Romans 5, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame…”  And that sure and certain hope we have is Christ.  That’s how we know God loves us, not by the circumstances in our life, but because He gave us His Son.  God’s loves comes from outside of us and our lives and is shown and given to us in Christ.

            For we have a Lord who know what it’s like to suffer.  He knows what it’s like to feel the pains of life, to have no place to rest His head.  We don’t gauge God’s love by the circumstances of life, but rather, through the cross.  The work of God is on display in its fullness for you in His Son, who suffered and died.  Who suffered and died so that your eyes, too, would be open to recognize Christ for who He is, the Savior who takes away your sins.  Who suffered and died by way of a cross so that we can bear our crosses with patients, knowing that the pains and trials of this life are temporary but life with Christ is forever.  Who suffered and died so that you would have that place in heaven where all tears are wiped from your eyes. 

            This promise is given to you in baptism.  Jesus didn’t spit on the ground and spread mud on you like make-up, rather, He poured on you water that was combined with His Word.  Water that bathes you in the blood of Christ.  So that now these promises are yours.  Promises that are sure and certain because God’s Word is sure and certain.  He didn’t smear mud on your eyes, but He places His body in your mouth and pours His blood down your throat. 

            So now, through Christ, our eyes have been open to see Him as our Savior.  We can now face the pains of life with the comfort that Christ has already walked down that road for you.  Pains, sicknesses, life-long handicaps, natural disasters will come, but through Christ, we have comfort. 

So if you ever wonder if God loves you, don’t look inside of yourself or to the things going “wrong” in your life.  Look to the cross for that’s how you know God loves you – He gave His Son for you.  God’s love comes from outside of you, flowing from the cross, where He has won for you salvation and eternal life.  This life is fallen, but the life to come is nothing but bliss as we spend an eternity with our Jesus.  Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Wednesday of Lent 3; Exodus 16:1-36

Grace, mercy, and peace, and mercy to you from God our Father and from Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

            Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We take our daily bread for granted, don’t we?  We tend to think about the things we have: the food on our table, the cars that are in garages, the house, the land as ours, as if we earned them.  But Scripture teaches something different; because of our sin, we deserve nothing from God.  We treat our daily bread, our stuff, as if we’ve earned it, as if it’s ours to do with what we please.  We fail to realize the grace and mercy that went into putting that loaf of bread on your table.  Isn’t it amazing that we, who are sinners who deserve nothing but death and hell, would approach the holy and righteous God and dare to ask him for even a drop of water? 

            God once fed Israel, who was wandering in the desert, with manna from heaven and with quail and still they grumbled against God and against Moses.  They longed to be back in Egypt, under the yoke of slavery, but at least they’re bellies would be full.  As God was trying to save them, lead them to the Promised Land, God dragged them kicking and screaming.  They received the manna from heaven but still, against God’s command, some horded it away as if they didn’t trust that God would provide for them tomorrow.  Like Israel, we’re often thankless when we receive our daily bread.  We have food on the table, but it’s not the kind we like the best.  We have a house but it’s not big enough.  We have clothing but it’s not the latest trend.  God sends rain and other weather but it’s never just what we want.  Like Israel we receive our daily bread with a ho-hum, grumbling about how it wasn’t good enough.  Imagine a Father giving his son a brand new red toy car for Christmas, only to have the child grumble and complain about how he wanted a blue one.  It would be an outrage; the child would be reprimanded and taught to receive gifts with thanksgiving.  Yet, we’re like a child sitting under a Christmas tree receiving gift after gift but it’s never exactly what we want.  Or we worry that God has, somehow, forgotten about us and will fail to provide.

But we offer our petitions to a loving Father who knows what we need even before we ask.  Earthly fathers know that their children need to eat and be nourished; they know that their children need a house and home, food and drink, clothing and shoes before they even begin to make that first babbling sound.  A baby never has to ask for anything, yet all she needs is provided without her asking.  Our heavenly Father also knows what we need, what is necessary for our lives, and He provides, even to those who don’t have faith, even to those who do evil, even to sinners, even to the grumblers, even to those who deserve nothing from the hand of God; people like you and me.

The word “content” seems to have fled our vocabulary because we haven’t realized what that daily bread cost God.  What does a gallon of milk cost, about $4.00 or so?  But for God that gallon of milk, that He most graciously gave you despite your sin, despite your rebelliousness, cost Him the blood of His own dear Son.

            Why does God give us what we need?  Because He loves us?  Because He’s long-suffering?  Certainly.  But how has He loved us?  Everything we are given, whether it be salvation, eternal life, redemption; whether it be food, house, home, cares, money, goods all flows from the cross.  The Father loves us through His Son, whom He sent to take upon Himself your sins and mine.  Apart from Jesus dying on the cross, reconciling us to the Father, we get nothing.  No salvation, no eternal life, no bread, no drink.  All we would get is death and hell.  All good things, all of God’s gifts flow from the cross, whether they’re things of salvation or daily bread.  We deserve nothing from God, yet He gives us these gifts for which we pray in the Fourth Petition on account of His Son who suffered and died for you.

            Our Father knows what we need even before we ask.  When we pray the Fourth Petition, we’re asking that God would lead us to realize this and receive all we have with thanksgiving; that we not take for granted the gifts of God, to not receive them as if the earthly wealth we have is somehow owed to us.  To realize that even this crust of bread, the sun that shines, the air we breathe all flows from the cross, where God has shown His love for you.

            A child of a loving father doesn’t worry about where if he’ll receive his daily bread, neither should we.  Our Father know that we need to support this body and life, in fact He gives us so much that we can go out and help our neighbor support his body and life.  He gives us so much that we can give some back to support the ongoing proclamation of the Gospel, which is really our first need.  Better to have a full spirit and an empty belly than the other way around. 

            Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Whether God has given you much or little, we receive it through Jesus’ cross and we can be thankful and content for what God gives. God knows what you need before you even think to ask.  He loves you.  He gave His Son for you.  And He’ll continue to care for your needs both soul and body.  Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

3rd Sunday in Lent - Baptism of Lincoln T - John 4:5-26

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

            In today’s Gospel text, Jesus goes to a place where His disciples wouldn’t in a million years have thought He would be seen.  Not only in Samaria, among a people despised by the Jews for their unfaithfulness to God, but at a well in Samaria.  The well, or the watering hole, was the ancient singles scene.  If you remember, Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, was found at the well where she fulfilled the sign that was asked of God and not only gave water to Abraham’s men but watered the camels as well.  Jacob also found his long for labored bride, Rachel, as he rolled the stone away from the well and watered the sheep that she was tending.  And of course, where did the Jungle Book’s Mogli find his bride?  At the watering hole.

 Jesus is in Samaria hanging out by the well.  It’s like Jesus has posted His profile at eHarmony and is looking for a bride that He couldn’t exactly take home to mom.  It’s like He’s going out of His way to find a bride who’s sure to be a woman from the wrong side of the tracks, one who’s sure to be less than faithful.

            Then she comes along; a woman with three strikes against her.  First, she’s a Samaritan, of a people who have strayed from God’s ways.  Second, she’s a sinner of the highest caliber, an offense to the community; she’s had a revolving door of men going through her home.  Third, she’s currently living with a guy who’s not her husband.  It appears that Jesus is trolling for a bride and He finds one that’s unfaithful, who’s sure go back on her pledge of fidelity, who, in return for His love, is sure to let her eyes wander.  Today’s Gospel text is a picture of the faithful Bridegroom coming to His unfaithful bride and meets her at the well.

            Not unlike us, is it?  Jesus doesn’t go looking for a bride who’ll be loyal and faithful.  He, rather, takes to Himself one who is unclean and unfaithful.  A bride that any other suitor wouldn’t give a second look.  He takes the Church as His bride, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 5, “This mystery [of marriage] is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.”  He takes the Church as His bride with all her warts and sins, with all her failings and transgressions.  He finds a bride at the baptismal well.  He finds you.

            He finds you like He finds this Samaritan woman - covered is sin and shame.  He finds you giving away your faithfulness without regard.  We have all gone astray, followed our own way, ignored God’s Word of Law that He has set down for our own good.  Like the Samaritan woman, we, the Holy Christian Church on earth, is an unworthy bride.  And our Bridegroom sees and knows every act of faithlessness we commit collectively and individually.  The Bridegroom watches every act of infidelity His bride commits.  He beholds every transgression that we do.  Every act of iniquity that we run into headlong.  We’ve lusted after other gods: money, possessions, even our own selves, and give away our hearts, our fear, love, and trust to these.  We have failed to submit to Christ as a faithful bride.  So, for all our faithlessness, for our sins, we must repent. 

We’re like the bride that God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry – the strumpet Gomer - whose utter faithlessness was a picture of how Israel had given up on their faithfulness to God for other gods.  And so it is for us, the Church, the New Israel.  Our fidelity is less than perfect and we deserve to be thrown out, divorced from Jesus’ love and mercy, to wallow alone in our guilt and shame.

            But Jesus, the loving and faithful Bridegroom, won’t have that.   Knowing all of this, He meets us at the water, quenches our lips parched by sin at the baptismal well where the forgiving and cleansing water that flowed from His pierced side has been splashed onto your heads.  Where the water made alive by God’s Word cleansed you from all guilt and shame.  Where, the Bridegroom dresses His bride – that’s you - in His own holiness and righteousness. 

            There’s a reason why in the baptismal rite Lincoln, and all who have been baptized, receives a white garment.  We go to the baptismal well with the blackness of sin, but Jesus covers our sin in His white and pure holiness.  Today, Jesus has met Lincoln at the baptismal well, where He has been incorporated into the bride of Christ, the Christian Church, where Jesus has covered Lincoln in His very righteousness. 

            Apart from Jesus we’re unholy, unrighteous, and faithless in every way; a bride who is unworthy of her husband’s love.  But where we’re so often faithless, Christ is always faithful.  Faithful unto death as He lays down His life for you.  Like a faithful bridegroom, He suffers for His bride, for you, that all that troubles your soul, all the sins that plague your conscience, the sins that you’re not even aware of are forgiven, washed away in the tide of His blood. 

            Jesus meets us at the well.  Like the Samaritan woman, He sees us covered in our sin, in our shame and guilt but, by your baptism He has covered you in His holiness and righteousness, all flowing from the cross.  Ours is a faithful bridegroom, who has laid down His life for you, who calls us and receives us back after every act of infidelity.  Ours is a long-suffering bridegroom, who loves His bride the Church, who loves you, even unto death.

            Jesus meets us at the baptismal well, where we return each and every day in remembrance of our baptisms because this living water is the gift that keeps on giving even throughout our lives.

            We don’t know what ultimately happened to the Samaritan woman. Later tradition says that she was baptized and given the name Photini, which means, “enlightened one;” and is said to have been martyred in the year 66 AD under the tyrannical Emperor Nero.  This is a tradition, who knows if it’s true or not.  But we do know how the Church’s story culminates.  It culminates with the marriage feast of the Lamb in the New Jerusalem, where you, with all the saints, shall be presented to Christ with robes made white in the blood of the Lamb, as a bride adorned with her jewels.

            Despite all our sins and failings, iniquities and transgressions, the Bridegroom doesn’t divorce us, but shows love and kindness, grace and mercy that comes through the cross, where Jesus has laid down His life to sanctify – make holy – His Church where you have been made a part through the baptismal well.  Jesus loves you.  Jesus is faithful to you.  Jesus died for you.  Jesus gives you His pardon and peace.  What a Lord we have.  What a gift we’ve been given.  Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Wednesday of Lent 2; Matthew 26:26-46

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Jesus teaches to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  But this is a difficult petition to pray because we have a hard time trusting God with that kind of responsibility; we don’t quite trust that the will of God is good and wise.  So, we often pray this petition with our fingers tightly crossed behind our backs.  We’d much rather pray, “let my will be done,” that God’s will would conform to ours instead of the other way around. 

When we begin to talk about God’s will a myriad of questions come up.  My mother is sick.  Why won’t God heal her?  My father is sick.  Why won’t God heal him.  A young high school teacher is gravely ill and another dies.  Why did God allow the life of a woman who was in her prime to slip away?  A pastor’s son is suffering from brain lesions.  Why would God allow such a malady to fall upon one so young?  There are countless examples we could name and I’m sure you that you have many such scenarios swirling around in your head from your own life.  How could this be the will of a loving God?  How can He just stand by and watch?

There is no doubt that this is a fallen and sinful world, such that we must suffer things like pain, suffering, and death.  Not only is the world fallen, but so are we, our hands aren’t clean in any of it.  And where there is pain, suffering, and death the there’s the devil tempting you to anger and fear and distrust.  He tempts you to think, “Where is God in all of this?  Isn’t it obvious that He’s abandoned you?  He must hate you.” 

But even the Christian life is one that’s lived under the cross and anyone who tells you that when you become a Christian, your life will be turned around for the better, that all worldly problems will just disappear like snow on a 75-degree day, is uttering the lies of Satan himself.  We bear our crosses and crosses don’t just sting or bruise – they kill, but we have a loving Father who orders all things for good.

Why is God allowing your mom or dad to be sick without any improvement?  Why does a young woman to suffer cancer and another to die?  Why does God allow sickness and disease to befall even the young?  Why won’t God fix the things that race through your mind in your own life?  I don’t know.  I don’t know.  In these instances, God’s will has been hidden; the reasons tucked away in the mind of God.  Dear friends in Christ, God doesn’t always give us answers to every question we have, He doesn’t reveal His will in every instance.  God doesn’t always give us answers, but He delights in giving us promises.  

A couple of weeks ago I preached on the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father who art in heaven.  And I told you that the Father loves to hear your prayer for the sake of His Son who was crucified and raised for you and has not only promised to hear you but answer each petition that you offer. 

Sometimes when we drop on our knees and, like Jacob, wrestle with God until the sun peeks over the horizon we get an answer that’s so obvious that it hits us over the top of our thick skulls.  But sometimes, the answer isn’t so apparent.  We wait eagerly for God to act so that mom would be healed, the brain lesions to go away, or that the death we mourn would turn out to be just a bad dream.  God answers even these petitions and, in Christ, the answer is always, “Yes.”  Maybe not in this immediate moment, maybe not even until the Day of Resurrection.  Your mom and other loved ones who suffer now, but in the resurrection of the faithful, their bodies will be raised never to hurt again.  Those who your mourn who have died in the faith, God will raise them from their graves to life everlasting. 

And this gets to the heart of the matter.  We don’t always know the hidden will of God, we don’t always know the whys to every question.  But we do know, and can bank on, God’s will according to the promises that He makes in His holy Word. And the ultimate will of God, that He has revealed to us in His Word is that He desires most of all is that everyone hear the Gospel and believe that His Son, whom He sent, died and rose again for them. 

This is, truly, what we pray for when we offer the petition, “Thy will be done,” that the ultimate will of God be done; that He remove everything that the unholy trinity of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature would throw at us to take our eyes off of Jesus there on the cross for you.  That we remain firm in His Word and faith all throughout our lives until we draw that last breath.  Everything else that God wills to happen in this life drives us to the ultimate will - that you be kept firm in His Word and faith; that you would always behold the cross of Jesus and say, “For me.  He’s there for me.”

That’s Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will… My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”  Even Jesus doesn’t relish the idea of bearing His cross, but nonetheless prays that the Father’s will be done – that all God wouldn’t be separated from us sinful people.  It was the Father’s will that His Son be delivered over into the hands of sinful men; that He suffer and die in humiliation and disgrace on the cross, to accomplish salvation for you; even you who deserve nothing from God because of your sin, yet God gives you the inheritance of His Son through His Son.

Even in our sufferings, we have a God who bleeds, who knows what it is to hurt, to suffer, to die.  You don’t have a God who sits on a mountaintop looking the other way.  But you have a God who desires your salvation, that you not be left alone to suffer but has promised to suffer with you.  Your suffering doesn’t go unnoticed; our Father who art in heaven beholds your sufferings just as He beheld the sufferings of His Son.

The will of God that we pray for, that we can trust, is that you’re forgiven and redeemed but to accomplish His holy will, He requires blood; the holy and precious blood of Jesus that was shed for you.  So, if God doesn’t will that you not have every comfort this world has to offer, or that we suffer and hurt for a time, it’s less to do with our physical comfort and more to do with your eternal salvation.

But after Jesus was mocked, beaten, and crucified; after the pain, the suffering, and hurt; after the nails, cross, and death, comes the resurrection.  After the cross comes glory.  The Son rose and shined His light onto the day that was darkened.  And so it is for you.  After your pains, suffering, and death of comes the resurrection of the faithful, whose bodies will rise from the ground never to suffer pain, suffering, or death again.  So it is for all the faithfully departed. 

The Son shall shine on this earth in glory once again, when the will of God will come to its fulfillment.  The dead will be raised to life everlasting.  Sickness, pain, and hurt will be no more.  Today we suffer but on the Last Day, Resurrection Day, all worries, frets, and troubles will be no more. 

Jesus peaches to pray, “Thy will be done.”  We pray this knowing that God’s will is always good, no matter what happens in our lives, that though all the crosses and trials and pains we face, we would see Jesus all the more clearly.  For it’s at those times when the world seems to be crashing down around us that the Gospel sounds the sweetest to our ears - where Jesus and His sufferings and death come into sharp focus.  And while we suffer, we wait with hope and patience for Christ’s coming.  Take heart, have hope; the Day of Our Lord is closer than it once was.  Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all under standing, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.