Peace Lutheran Church
Posts Tagged "Lent 2024"
Fourth Sunday in Lent Midweek
March 14, 2024
We walk with Him to Calvary.
He prays to God to set Him free.
But as we wait, we are too week
And cannot help but fall asleep.
O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
Good night! I am going to bed. How important is a good night’s rest? A good night’s rest is very important. We all need a good night’s rest. Appropriate sleep is needed for mental focus and memory, managing stress, maintaining proper body weight, boosting the immune system, and a host of other wellness needs. Some studies suggest sleep can help to prevent illness, such as diabetes or obesity. Adults aged 18 to 60 years should get at least seven hours of sleep each night in order to achieve the benefits of sleep. If not, you run the risk of becoming sleep-deprived.
We are not made to pull all nighters, to stay awake all night, not even to finish up late night projects or papers in High School or College. It would hurt and harm our bodies and health. Many times we are like the disciples who fall asleep while Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane for an hour. They fall asleep for sorrow when they should have stayed awake. If they had, they would have witnessed Jesus is awake in agonizing prayer to the Father. He prays for His freedom. He prays, if possible, the cup be taken from Him, yet not His will but the Father’s be done. To the point that an angel comes and strengthens Him. What is this cup?
In the Old Testament we can see that this “cup” is the pouring out of God’s wrath. Isaiah 51:17, “Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.” Again in Psalm 75:8, “In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs. This is the same figure of speech that is used in Revelation of the pouring out the seven bowls of God’s wrath.
What is this cup that is causing Jesus to stagger? It is none other than the wrath of God poured out against the sinfulness of mankind.
This is why he is in so much agony, to the point that He is sweating blood. Jesus’ full humanity is on display in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is not the physical assault which he is dreading so much. It is this cup. And he knows that his hour is approaching, so he goes to the Garden to plead with the Father to remove the cup—as well as to be strengthened by the Father.
The Son is strengthened so that the will of the Father is accomplished. What is the will of the Father? That the Son go to Calvary, go to the Place of the Skull to drink fully of the cup of wrath.
“Christ was going to be cast into a dreadful furnace of wrath, and it was not proper that he should plunge himself into it blindfold, as not knowing how dreadful the furnace was. Therefore that he might not do so, God first brought him and set him at the mouth of the furnace, that he might look in, and stand and view its fierce and raging flames, and might see where he was going, and might voluntarily enter into it and bear it for sinners, as knowing what it was. This view Christ had in his agony. Then God brought the cup that he was to drink, and set it down before him, that he might have a full view of it, and see what it was before he took it and drank it.”
Jesus as He is praying in the Garden is viewing the sin of all humanity, including yours and mine. Again, words are going to escape us. As one commentator put it, “the agony that Jesus endured was multifaceted. The blows that encompassed His soul came from every corner. His suffering was not simple but complex. We can only begin to understand this suffering by noting that He had to suffer the penalty that sin deserved for millions and millions of people. Hence it is part of His calling to [recoil] in anguish before our God…. One would need to have been in hell for some time in order to understand what it is that is tearing Jesus apart in the garden.”
His anxiety about the cross was connected to what the cross means. It means that “he made him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf.” Jesus’ humanity is fully seen here in the Garden. We see Jesus in his, dare I say, weakest moment. He remains sinless, yet he is now experiencing the fullness of what it truly means to be human. It is here that he will experience our grief. It is here that he will experience stronger temptation than any of us, so that it is fitting to say that He was tempted in every way. And it is the view into the cup that causes Christ to pray, “if it is possible take this cup from me.” Can you hear Jesus’ prayer? Papa, you can do anything. Can you take this cup from me? Is it possible that we can redeem sinners and yet me not suffer estrangement from you? Is it possible to redeem them in any way other than me being the sin-bearer?
He appeals. Silence. He appeals a second time. Silence. He appeals a third time. Silence. Why silence? Because there is no other way.
Now certainly, it would have been possible for God to have not poured out the cup of His wrath on Jesus. He would not have contradicted his nature had he chosen not to send his Son and left sinners to their just reward. But because God had purposed before the foundation of the world to save sinners, this then was not possible. God’s purpose of love was to save sinners, and to save them righteously; but this would be impossible without the sin-bearing death of the Savior.
As the obedient Son, Jesus drinks the cup of the wrath of God fully, all of it, down to the very last drop. Not a single drop remains that you or I must drink. Jesus has fully satisfied all of the wrath of God for us. He was betrayed with a kiss, suffered, bled, and died, that every single one of our sins is forgiven, fully by the grace and mercy of God.
Stay awake, watch with your Lord as He drinks fully of the wrath of God, bears all of your pain and sorrow on your behalf fully and completely to reconcile you to God forever.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Third Sunday in Lent
February 29, 2024
Text: Exodus 20:1-17
Outline
I. Covenant
II. Expectations
III. Freedom
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament Lesson of Exodus chapter twenty verses one through seventeen.
Introduction: Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Are you wondering why I have two chairs up here with me today? Well, they help to illustrate what God is talking about in our Old Testament lesson today. Think you can jump from one chair to another. Yep, that seems easy. Move chairs far apart what about now? Now, it seems impossible. There is no way that you could make that jump. What if you had help? Help one of them make the jump, yep that was easier was it not? Because you had me helping you make the jump. How does Jesus help us when it comes to the Law of God? Ponder that question as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
I. Covenant
Often we as Christians take the Ten Commandments out of their original context. This is very easy to do because we so often encounter the Commandments as excerpted material in our church bulletins or on a plaque on the wall. While the Ten Commandments are representative of the timeless standards of God’s moral law, we nevertheless increase the risk of misinterpreting them when we strip them from their covenantal and redemptive-historical context.
The Law was shared with Moses and Israel at a time when they were fatigued from their wilderness wanderings. They were between the great victory of the Red Sea and the borders of the land of promise. They wanted to enter the land that God had promised them, but they were not ready. God had not finished his preparatory work. The people of Israel needed to understand what it meant to live in covenant with the God who had brought them out of Egypt. They needed to understand God’s love and his expectations. This is the context in which the law was given. It was given to immature believers who had to learn how to respond to God’s grace and to live a life pleasing to him.
This is what we see in Exodus 20, God was making his covenant with the people whom he had freed from slavery in Egypt. He had claimed them, giving them this gift apart from anything they had done to earn this freedom. With God’s gift came His expectations. These expectations were also a good gift, a plan for enjoying their identity as his creatures and his children. They show the relationship between God as the One who has redeemed them from slavery in Egypt, and them as His people. They show how God’s people are to act within the relationship that they have with Him. God expected that the Israelites were going to live different from the people around them. Thus, the Ten Commandments are given as their guide, curb, and mirror. Not as a means of earning redemption by their works, but rather as a means of expressing gratitude for that redemption.
II. Expectations
We have a similar covenant. A covenant made and signed in blood. We have been freed from our slavery, not a physical slavery but a spiritual one. We have been freed from the dark slavery of our sins. All of the times we have broken the law of God, when we try to make the perfect jump ourselves. What happens? We fall flat on our faces. God has rescued us through Christ’s sin-abolishing death and his righteousness-bestowing resurrection (Rom 4:25). It is important for us to remember that our redemption was secured not only through Jesus’ death on the cross, but also through the righteous life that he lived upon this earth. Jesus lived for our salvation as much as he died for it. Without the life and death of Jesus, the law that came through Moses could only bring condemnation and death to us. But by Jesus’ perfect obedience imputed to us and by his perfect sacrificial death on our behalf, Jesus accomplished what the law never could—he made his people righteous and holy: Through His perfect life, death, and resurrection from the dead Jesus picks us up and makes the jump on our behalf. He clears the distance by the forgiveness of our sins between sinful humanity and a just and righteous God.
We have been given new birth without any conditions fulfilled on our part. We have received the gift of identity as God’s children through the waters of Holy Baptism where He calls us His very own as He seals us with the sign of the holy cross both upon our foreheads and hearts, as He places His very name upon us. As parents who give life to a child have expectations for the child’s performance, so God has expectations for us. Our fulfilling them does not determine whether we are his children but does reflect our faith in his word that gives us our new identity. It guides us as Christians, it shows that because we are God’s people, we live different than those around us. We do our best, living in the forgiveness that Christ gives to us, to obey His commands.
III. Freedom
God’s law comes with the label “handle with care.” Our sinfulness has turned this good gift of God’s design for good human living into a killer that strangles the sinner. It says, “you must make the jump on your own no matter how large it is.” It turns that good gift that Christ has done everything on our behalf, that He has made that jump to reconcile us forever, into death. Seeking the guidance of the law for fulfilling our desire to be God’s faithful children can end up in shame or guilt when we focus on our sinfulness rather than recognize that Christ has claimed our sins for his tomb and placed us in his own kingdom, freed from defending ourselves with our sinful exploitation of others and our rebellious rejection of his love.
Conclusion: Thanks be to God that we do not have to keep the Law perfectly on our own. Christ has taken on our flesh, borne our sins in His holy flesh, lived a perfect live in our place and gives us His perfection through His suffering, death, and resurrection from the dead. May we always, with the help of the Holy Spirit, strive to keep the Commandments, not as a means of our salvation, but as a way of thanksgiving to God for everything He has done for us for our salvation.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
First Sunday in Lent Midweek
February 22, 2024
When Satan tempts us, Lord provide
Your sword and shield to help survive
That with your Word we can defend
Ourselves through life until the even.
O Lord may the Words of my Mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock, and our Redeemer.
In the movie 300, a spartan warrior by the name of Dienekes is informed that the Persians are so numerous that when they discharged their arrows they obscured the light of the sun by the multitude of the arrows. Dienekes was not dismayed by this, but making small account of the number of the Medes, he said that their guest brought them very good news, for if the Medes obscured the light of the sun, the battle against them would be in the shade and not in the sun.
At times, that is what the arrows hurled at us by Satan feel like. He attacks us relentlessly, in a wide variety of ways. He never relents. For some he uses guile, making it seem as though it is not really a large deal. ‘One little bit will not hurt.’ For some he uses persistence, attacking the same place again and again until it weakens. ‘Go ahead, what is the worst that can happen? You are a failure. You failed to live up to the Law or do this or that.’ For some, he attacks with deception, as with Adam and Eve, ‘Did God really say that? Surely, He did not mean it.’ The attacks are so many in number. Satan has numerous tools at his disposal, how can we ever hope to fend off even one of them? Indeed, Luther writes, “If you even knew one of the arrows that Satan flings at you, you would run to the Sacrament for refuge.” We do not know all the plots that Satan has arrayed against us. We do not know when and where he will attack. Thanks be to God, as if we did know, we might fall into abject despair and hopelessness! All we know is Satan’s end goal, to cause us to lose our faith and be condemned with him in Hell forever.
If it was not enough to have such a seemingly powerful enemy against us, we know well our own weakness of our sinful flesh. It is not on the side of God, but on the side of our deadly foe every single time. On our own we will fail again and again. We have no hope of victory under our own power.
Thanks be to God that He does not leave us to fight such a foe under our own power. Rather, He sends Jesus to fight on our behalf. Jesus is tempted just as we are, yet uses the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God to fight Satan off. Jesus bears all of your sins. Upon the cross He suffers, bleeds, and dies for you. By His death, He destroys the power of death. By bearing the punishment of your sins, Jesus destroys all the assaults of Satan. Of what can he accuse you that Jesus has not already borne the punishment for? Nothing.
Our heavenly Father gives us a constant shield against the attacks of Satan, found in Jesus Christ, and what He has done for us,. When Satan attacks us, we run to the Father’s mercy and grace, shown to us in Jesus, for help and support. We comfort ourselves with His holy Word that every single one of our sins has been covered by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The same as our Lord used His own holy Word to defeat the temptations of Satan, so too do we. We defend ourselves, steadfast in the faith He has given to us through His Holy Spirit, until that day when He calls us out of this vale of tears to His nearer presence to await the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting with Him.
Until that day, stand steadfast dear flock, Fight in the shade against all the temptations of Satan, knowing that Jesus has fully defeated all of your foes, Satan included, and He holds the field victorious forever on your behalf. Satan can do no harm to you, one little word can fell him.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.