Pesident Harrison's Lenten Greetings

Ash Wednesday; Joel 2:12-19

"Lent Is Good for Us"

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

            Tonight we begin the Lenten fast.  The season of sorrow and repentance for our sins.  The alleluias go silent.  The readings, sermons, and hymns take on a repentant tone.  The paraments that adorn the altar, pulpit, and lectern have been changed to violet, the color of repentance.  It’s Lent once again. 

Lent is good for us.  Though, the Old Adam- our sinful nature- hates it more than any other time of the church year.  The sinful nature hates to be shown its sins.  It hates to take a long gaze into God’s Law and behold just how ugly it really is.  It hates to hear that word “repent.”  It hates to focus on our Lord’s passion.  The sinful nature hates Lent, but that’s precisely why it’s good for us. 

            “Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?,’” writes the Prophet Joel.  They say “where is their God” because we have lived as if God doesn’t matter and as if we matter the most.  They say it because we’ve lived as if there was no God.  They say it because we have lived not in the fear of God, but in the fear of men.  They say it because we’ve worshiped ourselves.  We’ve been selfish, lustful, petty, mean, and proud.  We’ve gossiped, hated people, lived for ourselves, and lied.  We’ve thought ourselves more superior; better Christians, less sinners than others. 

            For all of this and so much more we consecrate a 40-day fast that we know as Lent.  Many this day have marked themselves with ashes, signifying their mortality and sinfulness.  This evening we, here, have confessed our sins, examined ourselves, and been absolved.  Our sinful nature hates Lent.  But Lent is good for us.  Because Lent is for sinners, among whom I am foremost. 

            “’Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.  Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.’” 

            We return to the Lord with our heads lowered and on our knees.  Repent.  For we’ve not lived as our Lord would have us live.  Repent.  And not just one Wednesday a year, but each day.

            But, beloved of the Lord, repent with faith that the Lord has been gracious and merciful to you.  He has heard your cries for mercy and has answered you.  We can’t save ourselves. The disease of sin runs too deep.  So, the Lord pours out His wrath on His Son, who carries your sin, and has pity on you.

            The sinful nature hates Lent, also, because the cross is clearly seen.  The sinful nature repulses at Jesus’ cross because it wants to do the work of salvation on its own.  He wants to be in charge if his own destiny. 

So, the Lord bids you to return.  Return to the Lord in repentance and trust that Christ has died for you.  Return to your baptism, for your foreheads still bear the mark of the cross.  Return to the Word ,for in the balm of His Gospel you are given peace and forgiveness.  Return to the altar, for the Lord meets you there with His forgiving body and blood. 

            Return to the Lord your God. He has come to you. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He will not pronounce a death sentence over your head, deserved though it would be. That Jesus has heard and taken upon Himself. You have a life sentence pronounced over you but a sentence that proclaims that you are forgiven, washed, justified, sanctified, holy. 

            Though the sinful nature hates it, Lent is good for us.  It exposes us for the people that we are and it ushers us to the cross where your sins have been answered for.  Though, the sinful nature hates being shown its sins and hates the cross of Jesus, the New Man can’t get enough of the cross of Christ where full atonement has been made.  The sacrifice of sacrifices has been offered on your behalf.   Our Lord is gracious and merciful to you as He gives you His Son for you.  Amen.

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

The Transfiguration of Our Lord; Luke 9:28-36

"Jesus' Exodus"

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

            Mountaintop experiences are those times when you want time itself to stop; those moments when you wish that would never end.  A fishing trip where the fish seem to jump right into the boat.  A conversation that you have with a loved one that’s so deep and meaningful that you wish time would suspend itself forever.  Sharing in the glory of a hard-fought victory with your teammates. 

            Mountaintop experiences, when they come, are hard to give up.  Who wants to leave a lake that’s full of fish and put the boat back in its trailer?  Who wants to end a meaningful conversation with those we love and go back into the world?  Who wants to depart from the field of victory and return to life with all its difficulties and pains? 

            That’s the situation in which Peter, James, and John find themselves.  The Lord they have followed takes them up to a mountaintop.  “No big deal,” they think, “He often goes to a desolate place in order to pray.”  So, as the disciples seem to do at some of the most important times, (the Garden of Gethsemane) they fall fast asleep. 

            But their slumbers are interrupted by something more dazzling than anything they could imagine.  The man they’d been following is leaking His divinity all over the place.  “…the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.”  Moreover, there are more people now than there were before they had fallen asleep.  “Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His departure, which he was about to accomplish.”  Jesus transfigured, revealing Himself as not only true man, but true God, Moses and Elijah are there speaking with Jesus.  If there were any doubts in their minds before, certainly this clears everything up about who Jesus is. 

            In his mountaintop euphoria, Peter, whose always quick to speak but slow to think, wants this to last.  Jesus, just a few verses before our text, tells His disciples, “He must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”  Eight days earlier, Peter makes his great confession that Jesus is the Christ of God.  But today, it’s “Forget all that killing stuff, Jesus.”  “’Master, it is good that we are here.  Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah’- not knowing what He said.” 

            Peter’s well intentioned.  We may know an inkling of how he feels.  He doesn’t want to leave the mountaintop.  No one ever does.  He would rather bask in the glory of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  Why leave the mountaintop to go back into a world where Jesus will be killed by the chief priests and scribes?  Why?  Because it’s necessary.  Absolutely necessary.

            Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are speaking of Jesus’ departure, or literally, exodus.  Jesus journeys through the wilderness of the world so that He can make His exodus on the cross.  For the world and for you.  Take Peter’s advice, stay on the mountain, avoid the thing that’s most necessary and no salvation, no forgiveness.  Jesus’ task is to set His face toward another mountain.  He has His own mountaintop experience to undergo.  Mount Calvary. 

            Though His glory is on full display at His Transfiguration, Jesus ignores Peter’s suggestions and hides His glory.  He goes to Jerusalem, is stripped of His clothes, beaten, mocked, abandoned, and nailed to a cross.  He dies and is buried in a tomb… For your salvation, for your forgiveness.  Doesn’t seem to us to be very glorious.  We like the Transfigured Jesus, with His glory just oozing out of Him for everyone to see.  But He has come to display His glory, not in power and might, but in the weakness of the cross. 

            No wonder the Father speaks from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, my Chosen One; listen to Him.”  Jesus has come to do the Father’s will, not Peter’s or ours.  Listen to Jesus!  He reveals His glory to you in His death and resurrection where He has answered for all your sins.  The sin you’ve committed.  The sins that have been committed against you.  The big.  The little.  Even the sins you can’t remember.  The sins you love, the sins you can’t stop doing, the sins you desperately want to stop. 

            Peter doesn’t want to give up His mountaintop experience.  We know what that’s like.  But the mountaintop experience of Jesus on Mount Calvary, where He wins for you the forgiveness of your sins is the necessary work of the Savior.  Jesus’ exodus means your entrance into the Promise Land.  Paradise’s door is open to you for the sake of Christ.  Thanks be to God He left the Mount of Transfiguration and journeyed to Mount Calvary for you.  Amen.

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

4th Sunday after the Epiphany; Luke 4:31-44

"When the Devil Attacks" or "Two Little Words"

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

            At this point in Jesus’ ministry nobody really knows who He is.  Remember last week, the congregation in Nazareth was about to throw Him over a cliff for claiming that He was the one of whom Isaiah prophesied?  His townspeople don’t get Him, His disciples don’t get Him, even His family thinks He’s nuts.  But there are those who know all about Jesus.  There are those who know exactly why Jesus is there, they know exactly what He’s going to do.  Whereas the people of Nazareth almost throw Jesus off the cliff for claiming to be the Anointed One, in our text for this morning, a confession is made; a true confession that comes from the lips of demons.  “And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Ha!  What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are- the Holy One of God.”  And after Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, “Demons came out of many, crying, ‘You are the Son of God!”   

            In our text for this morning, we see a distinction that, as Christians, we should note well; the confession of fact and the confession of faith. 

There is no better theologian that the devil.  He knows the Scriptures inside and out.  He knows who Jesus is and what He has come to do.  The demons in our text cry out, “You are the Son of God.  You are the Holy One.”  But their confession doesn’t flow from faith, but from their knowledge.

            Jesus says, in Matthew 7, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Thus the demons in the text.  They know God’s Word, they know who Jesus is, they know… But, dear friends in Christ, knowledge doesn’t equal trust.  The demons who make the correct confession about Jesus are still bound for hell because there are two little words in their confession that they didn’t say, that they can’t say, they're unable to say.  Two little words on which faith rises or falls,  “For me".... " For me” 

“Jesus is the Holy One of God for me.  He died on the cross for my sins, was raised again for my justification.  He did it all for me.”  That’s the child-like trust of which Jesus speaks when He says “whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child shall surly not enter it.”  A simple trust that Jesus is for you.

            The demons in the text could confess the Nicene Creed in and out.  They could go down the line that Jesus is very God of Very God, begotten, not made, one substance with the Father, was crucified and died.  They could say the entire Creed without hesitation, except for the first two words.  “I believe.”  When we say, “I believe,” we’re not just saying that I know these things are historically true, but that Jesus was begotten not made, when He was crucified and died, and rose again, He did it for me.  I believe, I trust.

            There are many who confess a historical Jesus.   No one who looks at the historical evidence can really deny that there was a many named Jesus.  But here’s the difference: like the demons, many of these people don’t trust that what Christ has done on the cross, He has done it for them.  A lot of people say nice things about Jesus: “He’s the Holy One,” “He’s the Son of God,” even, “He’s the Savior,” but not the Savior who dies on the cross for all of their sins, who bleeds to purchase them from sin, death, and the devil. 

            When the devil attacks, he attacks these two little words, “For me.”  He’ll do all he can to steal your faith, your belief, your trust in the crucified Christ, while maintaining in your mind some sort of head knowledge Jesus, like the demons confess in the text; or even a false Jesus.  Like Indiana Jones, who replaces the golden idol that sits on a weighted stand with a bag of dirt so not to set off the booby trap, what the devil steals he replaces with his lies.  He never leaves a void, but replaces the faith he takes with something false.

            But we’re given to trust.  A child may not know much about his father, where he came from, his background, his job, but he trusts that his father will provide, will be there… for him. 

             What about you?  Has the devil attacked you with his lies?  Has he sought to draw you away from Christ? Have you ever had the thought, “There’s no way Christ could forgive a sinner as big as myself.  Jesus is for someone else but not for me?”  Do the whispers of the devil remind you of your sins that you can have no rest? 

            Beloved in the Lord, fear not.  For Jesus, who by His authority, preaches good news to the poor also proclaims good news to you.  The lies that the devil has whispered in your ears are just that, lies.  This Jesus who casts out demons, who heals the sick, who lives, who dies, who rises again, He does it for you.  That the sins that weigh you down are lifted off of you and placed on Him.  For the times you question your faith, for the times the devil attacks, He comes with His balm of His Gospel and speaks tenderly to you, “Your sins I have covered, your faith I sustain by my Word.” 

            So, we’re given to not have faith in our faith, and speak of it as if it can be measured.  But we have a Lord who dies on the cross for you.  That’s where we center our gaze, on that cross.  And while beholding our Jesus on the cross of Calvary, while looking at the dead body of our Lord, who bears your sins, your griefs, your shame, your doubt, think of these words and hold fast to them always, “For me…He did if for me.”  All the lies of the devil, all his attacks can’t compare to these little words, “Christ died on the cross for me.” 

            We can boldly confess in the creed, “I believe,” that all that Christ lived, suffered, and died for, He did it for you.  We can boldly confess, “You are the Holy One who dies on the cross for me.”  “You are the Son of God who was rasied from the dead for me.” 

            And the more you learn of Christ, the more you’ll realize that we’re nothing and Christ is everything.  The more you hear His Word, the more you receive His gifts, you’ll rely all the more on His gifts of forgiveness that He gives to you through His Gospel that’s preached, distributed into your mouths and splashed over your heads.

            We confess the Jesus who, not only lived on the earth 2,000 years ago, but the Jesus who lives, dies, and continues to live at the right hand of the Father for the world and for you.  Our confession is not only one of fact and knowledge, but of faith and trust that all our Lord does, He does it for you.   Amen. 

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