Rev. Michael Holmen's Sermons noreply@blogger.com (.)

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? Maybe some of you remember a commercial for the powerball lottery. In the commercial different people catch the powerball, which had lightning coming from it if I remember correctly. With that powerball in hand they could point to their regular looking house, and they’d have a mansion. They could point to their regular looking car, and they’d have a Ferrari. If you won the lottery, then you could buy a lot of stuff you can’t afford now. Would that get you what you want? Winning the lottery, however, is not very likely. That commercial was a bit fanciful. In “real life” you have to keep your goals reasonable. Since we are so used to living “real life,” it is easy to manage our expectations too thoroughly so that we don’t even begin to grasp the meaning of Christ’s ascension. We get so used thinking we can’t have everything we want—that’s fairy tale stuff—that we don’t believe in what the ascension means. The ascension means that Jesus is Lord. All rule and authority and power and dominion have been put under his feet. The inheritance we will receive from God because of Jesus is beyond our imagination. Paul says, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the imagination of the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Although we can’t fully grasp what God has prepared for us, it is important to try. If we don’t try, then we won’t get it. At best our imaginations will be limited to those powerball kinds of wishes, and those powerball kinds of wishes are not high enough. Eben the highest kind of wishes that you might have with the lottery aren’t high enough. Suppose there would be some kind of lottery that would enable you to suck up every last cent and every last piece of property on this earth. All other human beings become your slaves. Nothing happens without your say-so. Even after winning this lottery so that you are some kind of god on this earth—that would not be good enough. To try to grasp our inheritance we must think higher. We must think about God. There are many things we could think about with God, and they would all be good, but tonight I’ll limit myself to just a couple things: life and love. We’ll begin by talking about life. Life comes from God. God is the creator. From the smallest thing to the largest thing—all things come from him. We might wonder at the power of the sun, the vastness of the universe—these things come from God. On a more personal level, we all have a craving for life, because whenever we have tasted it we have so thoroughly enjoyed it. Another word for enjoying life is fun. Fun comes in different shapes and forms that vary with each person. One has fun with his or her mind. Another has fun with his or her heart. Another has fun with his or her accomplishments. Romance, friends, laughter, fear, pity, weeping—these are all interesting facets of life. People want to live rather than die because life is good. Life comes from God. Love, also, comes from God. John in his epistle even goes so far as to say that “God is love.” Love draws people together so that they are one. Giving love is reaching out to bring in the other. Receiving love is when you have been accepted and brought in. We all know by experience how good this is. We also know by experience how bad the opposite of this is. We have all experienced rejection: “No, you aren’t one with us.” Think of how this happens with children. Second, third, fourth grade—all of a sudden there are in-groups and out-groups. The in group is to be loved and admired. The out group is lesser and are given to know this by being shunned or mocked. The kids get shuffled and sorted, usually on the basis of things that they have no control over. Kids are just like us. They want to be recognized and admired. To be reviled and humiliated is painful. What can be done about t

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: [Jesus said,] “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” There was once a man who I thought might be interested in joining the congregation. He had attended services. He had family who were members. So I was talking to him about how a person could join the congregation. The first step is learning what we believe as a congregation, so I told him about the class I do with the Small Catechism. I went on for some time about that until I ultimately asked him what he thought. I will always remember his response. He said, “What’s in it for me?” I guess that was a good question, because I didn’t have a good answer. I don’t remember what I said. All that I remember is that I wasn’t very satisfied with my answer. “What’s in it for me?” is a thought that is deeply seated in our human nature. Nobody has to teach us to look out for ourselves. From the day we were born we have a very keen sense for our own advantage. A good idea is an idea that’s good for me. A good deal is a deal that’s good for me. If we are only looking for our own advantage, then church membership can be a pretty tough sale. To become a member we start off with maybe 12-15 hours of instruction. Perhaps the most important part of being a member is that you come to church for about an hour a week. A lot of people find that hour to be boring. All the while you should pay for these opportunities with your offerings. And then, if you prove yourself to be a faithful member by doing all these things, and if you have the right gifts and talents, then you might be asked to serve on a board or committee. That’s more time, more effort. If you’re lucky, you might even get to be involved in some dispute or controversy with all the stress and trouble that goes along with that. Sound like a good deal? I could answer these downsides of membership in several ways. You’ve probably already thought of some. But I’d like to take on the main idea itself. We naturally believe that a good deal is a deal that’s good for me, but who said that that has to be the definition of a good deal? I know that there are many authorities who teach that everyone must look out for their own interests. I know that big businesses follow this rule. I know that even our common sense teaches this. It’s as simple as asking the question, “What do you want?” Do you want more or do you want less? The answer seems obvious. However, what is left out from all these thought is that God is the giver of our daily bread. Whatever any of us has or doesn’t have is from God. There are people who have worked their fingers to the bone, and they have very little. There are lazy people and foolish people who have hit the jackpot, so to speak. By the seeming accidents of circumstances or heredity they have much more money than any of you will ever have. It is not enough to believe in yourself. It is not enough to ruthlessly follow your own interests. I know that we are taught that over and over, but that doesn’t make it true. If God doesn’t crown your efforts with success, then you won’t succeed. But let’s suppose I’ve failed to convince you. You still believe that you can bless yourself with your smarts and your hard work. In this supposition I’ll even grant you the best of successes. You live a charmed life from the time you are 5 until you are 85—80 years of brilliant success! What then? Psalm 49 says: “Even the wise die; the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others.” Psalm 49 is a remarkable psalm. It is kind of the opposite of what is so often promoted as wisdom among us. Among us it is almost like people believe that they won’t ever die. They think they can grab as much as they can forever. Psalm 49 says, “No.” Man is an animal. He lives for a while, then he dies. The psalm brings up the death of sheep. Maybe you’ve seen livestock that has died and has begun to de

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Talking about God can be difficult. I’ve seen how talking about God can cause tenseness and awkwardness. People’s defenses go up. What is this person going to require of me? What is this person going to accuse me of? Am I supposed to be converted? People usually don’t like it. Because people don’t like it, most won’t do it. Why should they? It doesn’t seem to benefit them. It makes the situation weird. The prospects of something good coming from such an awkward situation seem low. Let the pastors talk about God. You should hold your peace. If this life is all there is, then such a course of action makes sense. If the purpose of life is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain you should not talk about God. It won’t make you richer. It might make you poorer. It won’t make you more popular. You might, instead, be shunned. Common sense tells you to keep your mouth shut. But if the Gospel is true, then being silent is strange. The Gospel teaches that all things are in the process of changing. Things are changing because Jesus is Lord and King. The old ways of how power and oppression are the most important and the most impactful are passing away. The new ways of faithfulness, humility, and love are how we receive blessing. Evil is in the process of being brought to nothing. Righteousness and life are on their way. Jesus says, “Behold, I make all things new.” This is good news for everyone. Jesus being Lord and King is good because he is good. The only way that this good news is ineffectual for anyone is through unbelief. Unbelief, indeed, can be powerful. When Jesus teaches about the coming of the Holy Spirit in John chapter 16 he says that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict the world concerning sin because they have not believed in Jesus. Among all the sins that could possibly be listed, Jesus singles out this one: Sin is not believing in Jesus. Why is this sin singled out? It’s because it’s the sin against the Gospel. Without Jesus’s work as Lord and King things don’t change. Lying, cheating, meanness, trickery, manipulation, abuse, anger, and so on continue to be the best ways to get ahead. The strong will get stronger. The weak will get weaker. The first will be first and the last will be last. And the one who sits atop this slag heap of lovelessness is the devil himself, whom Paul calls “the prince of this world.” Unbelief in Jesus is the desire—whether that desire be conscious or unconscious—unbelief in Jesus is the desire to have the devil rule with all his works and with all his ways. That’s why unbelief in Jesus is singled out as the sin. It is the profoundest rejection of God. On the other hand, faith in Jesus is everything. Faith in Jesus means that you accept God’s will that his Son should reign and rule instead of the devil. Jesus should reign and rule instead of any other gods or any other powers or principalities. Faith in Jesus means that you believe that you will be blessed by him instead of being blessed in any other way. Our Gospel reading lays these things out nicely. Our Gospel reading describes Jesus meeting his disciples after he had risen from the dead. Jesus told them how all of what had happened and all of what will happen is God’s will as it was foretold in the Old Testament. The Old Testament spoke about how the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. When God made his promises to Abraham he told him that he would be the father of kings, and that all the world would be blessed through his seed. God promised King David that his kingdom would endure forever. God made his promises through the prophets. Isaiah speaks about how this king would suffer and die, but that he would be a blessing. Jeremiah speaks about the new hearts that the king would bring. Ezekiel speaks about this king leading his people to good grazing land. Daniel speaks about how this king would be greater than all the greatest kingdoms of t

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: “And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Everybody inevitably learns that there are some things you can’t change. Things have been written into our DNA, for example. One is predisposed for this. Another is predisposed for that. It’s disappointing, but what can be done? There are so many things like that. Things are the way they are. There’s a little bit of comfort that comes from acknowledging things as they are. Perhaps you’ve heard of the five stages of grief. The last stage is acceptance. That is the stage that everyone is looking for because of that little bit of comfort that comes with it. There’s a bit of peace. Prior to acceptance there is all kinds of fighting: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Those are all ways of saying, “No!” Acceptance is that motherly voice that says, “Hush now. There there. Nothing can be done. In time you’ll come to accept it, then you’ll be at peace.” The reason why there is peace is because you finally acknowledge the superiority of the forces at work. They are much larger and stronger than you. If you can’t beat these forces, then you might as well quit fighting. It’s a relief to not have to fight anymore. Having settled down the choke chain can be taken off and a regular leash put on. The apostle Paul in several places in his letters talks about the superior and overwhelming powers and forces that exist in life. One of his favorite terms for this are the orderly pillars of this world, sometimes translated as the “principles of this world.” Paul says that we were enslaved to these things. That’s another way of saying that they are overwhelmingly superior to us. We have to accept things the way they are—we have no other choice—because there’s no changing them. But Paul proclaims something thrilling: God, in Christ, has set us free. We don’t have to resign ourselves to what is assumed to be inevitable. Not resigning yourself to what is deemed to be inevitable is one way to look at Jesus’s work. The blind person seems to be doomed to blindness—nothing can be done—and yet he sees. The deaf hears. The unrighteous persons—drug dealers, prostitutes, tax collectors, and such—need not be unrighteous forever. Even the dead person can have those seemingly unbreakable chains broken. Jesus preaches good news. Good news for those who are enslaved to overwhelming forces is the message: “You are free!” Think about Easter. Death is that ultimate force before whose superiority we grieve. Fight as you may, the best option seems to be acceptance. But, as Isaiah prophesied and as Jesus fulfilled, “Death is swallowed up forever.” The angel said, “You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He’s not here. He has risen.” Jesus was no longer enslaved to death. He became its master. If Jesus can break this seemingly unbreakable chain, what others might be broken? The answer is all of them! This is made clear with the festival we will celebrate 40 days from now, which is closely related to Easter. 40 days from now we will celebrate Jesus’s ascension into heaven. He was raised up to the right hand of God the Father. This is the position of superiority over absolutely everything except God the Father. Try to think of something that you deem to be absolute and unchangeable. How about the laws of thermo-dynamics? The physicists say that they are unbreakable. Jesus can break them. How about the space / time continuum discovered by Einstein? Jesus is Lord over it. But these concerns can seem rather remote. How about that seemingly unchangeable law about money—namely, that those who’ve got it are going to keep it and those who don’t aren’t going to get it? Jesus is Lord. He has spoken about this. He turns things on their head. He says, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation,” and, on the other hand: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: People want to be the greatest because being the greatest is a lot of fun. It is fun to be the best at a sport. It is fun to be the best at an activity. Jesus’s disciples, James and John, wanted to be the greatest. That is what they are driving at when they say to Jesus: “Let us sit in your glory. One of us can be on your left and the other can be on your right.” Jesus did not rebuke them. He gently says, “You do not know what you are asking.” James and John didn’t know what they were asking because glory in God’s kingdom is strange. It doesn’t operate by the same rules that make for greatness in this earthly life. The rules for greatness in this life are well known: Work hard, practice, prepare, set goals, and so on. If you follow these rules, and if you have been given the prerequisite genetics and talents, then you too might achieve greatness. Greatness in God’s kingdom operates by the rules that are seen especially in Jesus. Jesus asked James and John: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” The cup that Jesus speaks about is the cup of suffering. On the night when Jesus was betrayed he prayed to his Father three times that he be spared the cup of suffering that was coming upon him. The baptism with which Jesus was about to be baptized was the baptism of blood on the cross. Jesus would be smeared with it, dying like a criminal in disgrace. Greatness in God’s kingdom involves suffering and being regarded as the least. Why are suffering and being regarded as the least the rules, so to speak, for greatness in God’s Kingdom? Here, again, we must think about Jesus. Why did he suffer? Why was he regarded as the least? There are perhaps several reasons for that. I would like to offer three. The first reason why Jesus suffered was because of evil-doers who wanted to continue with their evil-doing. Jesus annoyed them because he would speak against them. They wanted everyone to think that they were fine, upstanding people. Jesus, however, knew the truth and spoke the truth. They weren’t fine upstanding people. They were liars, hypocrites, hungry for power, honors, and money. Like whitewashed tombs, they kept themselves looking respectable on the outside but inside they were full of death and uncleanness. Jesus could have kept his mouth shut. If he would have left them in peace, they would have left him in peace. In fact, things would have gone much differently for Jesus. They would have given him promotions and honors. They would have hailed him as a great preacher with a pastoral heart. But then Jesus would have become a snake just like them. He would no longer be a reliable guide, teaching people how they may attain eternal life. Which brings us to the second reason why it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and be regarded as the least: He believed. He believed in the power of the Word of God to change people’s hearts. He wasn’t a cynic. He didn’t assume that things are how they are and have to remain the same. If it was impossible for sinners to repent—to change their ways, to turn from evil to righteousness—then there certainly would be no point in the Son of God suffering and dying. If it were impossible for people to change, then people should be left to follow whichever course suits their fancy. The Word of God should die out, and perhaps be replaced by more modern methods of education and inspiration that help people achieve their earthly goals. But Jesus continued to believe that the Word of God would do what God wanted to achieve when he causes it to be spoken. The third and final reason I’d like to offer for why Jesus suffered is love. Jesus loves us. He’s a lover who goes after his beloved. Jesus pursues us. He says, “Don’t stay off on your own, doing your own thing. Be with me. I want to be with you, and I want you to be with me.” And the amazing thing, of course, is t

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Our Gospel reading proclaims well-known and well-loved promises: Whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life. John 3:16 is perhaps the most well-known verse in the Bible: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”These promises are nice. I’m not aware of anybody who gets upset at such promises. A person might think the promises are untrue, but nobody thinks that Jesus is being rude. The mood shifts, however, with what Jesus says next. He says, “Whoever believes in the Son of the God is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” The mood shifts because faith in Jesus can no longer be understood as being optional or inconsequential: If you believe in Jesus, then you are not condemned. If you do not believe in Jesus, you are condemned already. You can’t leave Jesus to the side. Either you are with him or you are condemned by God himself. Whereas John 3:16 is nice and wouldn’t upset anyone, John 3:18 makes people uncomfortable. I think the reason why this makes people uncomfortable is because this is not the way we do business, and business transactions are the main way that we understand how things get promoted. The salesman sells; he doesn’t threaten. We are used to being enticed and allured. Salesmen who condemned their customers probably wouldn’t be in business very long. Religion is often—or probably mainly—seen along these lines. There are lots of religions, denominations, and places of worship. They all promote their own versions. It is reasonable, then, to imagine that you should make your choice in the same way you make so many other choices. Take the religion for a test-drive, so to speak. How do you like it? Do you like what it says? With our Gospel reading this morning, for example, you might like what he says at 3:16, but 3:18? Not so much. And if Jesus fails to seal the deal, whose fault is that? Here, too, our way of doing business affects how we think. The customer is always right. So when it comes to what God is promoting, if a person is not convinced, then it is God’s fault, or maybe the preacher’s fault. Jesus, however, is not a salesman. He doesn’t share the salesman’s goal of maximizing sales, perhaps by hook or by crook. If you have any familiarity with the Bible whatsoever, then you know that Jesus does not flatter or seek to please his “potential customers.”  Jesus doesn’t try to please anyone except his Father. The good news about Jesus wanting to please his Father is that it is the Father’s will to save sinners by lifting up his Son on the cross. You heard that at the first part of the reading. But this is not some sales pitch. Either you are in the right, and, in fact, that rightness will save you, or you are in the wrong. That is what it means to be condemned. Being condemned is being on the wrong side. So we are not dealing with a sales situation here. A more analogous situation would be like you being stuck in a burning building. The situation is bad because you aren’t able to get out on your own. But, thank God, a rescuer shows up. Believe in that rescuer and you will be rescued. That is to say, let the rescuer do what the rescuer does, and you will be saved. But let’s say you’re a very silly person. Instead of being thankful that a rescuer has showed up, you immediately start judging the rescuer. His uniform isn’t ironed and he’s got bad breath. Or maybe this would be more to the point: The fireman speaks bluntly: “You can’t keep doing what you’re doing. If you stay in this burning building you’re wrong. You’re going to die!” What the rescuer says is just the truth, but you, being a silly person, would say, “I don’t like how you’re talking to me! I want to make up my own mind, and I don’t appreciate you telling me