January 7, 2024 Text:  Genesis 1:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

What causes chaos?  In Bloomington-Normal it is when the stoplights stop working at a busy intersection.  We almost got hit two years ago and one of our members did get hit last year.  The driver didn’t know that a blinking red meant stop.  Maybe chaos for you is when the computer won’t work or the kids are both sick or the hot water heater starts leaking.  Life at times can be chaotic.

Nobody likes chaos and the worries and demands that come with it.  In those instances, we would just like life to stop.  Like a non-working stoplight on Veterans Parkway life can’t exist in chaos.

In the Book of Genesis today, Moses takes us back to the beginning and even before.  We get a peek into moments of prehistory – before sin, before the treadmill of the world, before phones that won’t grab a signal.  Genesis moves our thoughts toward the Garden of Eden and perfection, peace, tranquility.  Before that, when there was just God and only God – we find chaos.  Life cannot take place in the void of nothingness.  There is a void. Chaos reigns.  What is going to be done?  Let’s see what is on the horizon . . . ah . . .

“CHAOS BROKEN”

This stage of precreation can best be described as “formless, shapeless, orderless”. The point is made.  Life cannot exist here.  For life to take place, chaos must be subdued and defeated.

Life cannot go on if chaos reigns.  God creates the world by the power of His Word, but chaos comes slithering in with a wily serpent and a bite of fruit for the ages.  Since then you and I are in a battle with chaos, we are in a world tearing itself apart.

The sweat and toil of work, pain in childbirth – chaos.  Then the biggie – death.  With the plans and the weather my mom’s death was chaos.  I’ve lived it.  You’ve lived it.  

Chaos continues to stalk us.  We feel the void when the job is lost, or the bills can’t be paid.  The black hole wants to swallow us up at the hospital and funeral home.  Chaos reigns with addiction and depression.  Chaos confronts us as ungodly agendas are forced down our cultural throats.  Name your poison and they all take us to the edge of the abyss.  The void.  The chaos.  Separated from God and corrupted in His perfect creation.  

For our life to exist, we need an intervention, someone to stand up and say, “I have got this.”  Someone who will break sin and Satan and death.  Someone with strength beyond ours.

We look at chaos and say, “let me out of here!”  God, our Yahweh, hovers over the void and says, “Let there be.”  With His powerful Word, chaos is broken.  God saw what He made, and it was good.  The formless void was shaped into life.  God our Father created life out of nothing.  Chaos is broken, we live.  With the Word of God there is life, life, and more life.

This is God’s world – it is all in His name down at the eternal courthouse.  From the cattle on a thousand hills to the people from a thousand nations.  He made it.  He will sustain it.  He will redeem it.

So, when the chaos of everyday things threatens His children and His creation and his Church, it is His living Word that will bring order, peace, salvation.  His Word created the world and His Word made flesh and blood in Jesus Christ recreated you and me to save us from sin, death, and the devil.  This incarnate Word came in a Bethlehem manger and today stands in the Jordan with John.  The mighty is baptized like he was a lowly sinner.  He is in our place.  My sins and your sins were poured on His head as Jesus undergoes a sinner’s Baptism.  The Father who called the light good now praises the Light of the world, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  Thanks Dad!

God the Son recreated us with humility and service, cross and nails.  Jesus rescues us hell-bent sinners by dying our death.  When the baptized Son of God declared, “It is finished,” the effects of chaos were broken.  Our relationship with God is restored.  We have perfection where there was a formless void.  We have paradise where there was a black hole.  

Chaos does not reign in your life, even as it tries to sneak in under the door.  The Spirit of God hovered over the waters at the moment of creation.  The Spirit of God descended upon Jesus at the Jordan River.  The Spirit of God washed you and re-created you at your baptism.  All glory this day to God because our baptized, crucified, and resurrected Lord Jesus has broken the power of chaos.

Amen.   

December 31, 2023 – New Year’s Eve Evening                                              Text:  James 1:16-17

Dear Friends in Christ,

            As you gaze into the future that will be the year 2024 what do you anticipate?  Do you have a milestone anniversary or birthday?  How about something big to do with your kids?  Some of us at Good Shepherd are looking forward to Germany, the Luther sites, and nine hours on a plane.  Oh my!  Mostly we look forward to uplifting, positive things.  But the opposite could be true.  Maybe you have a surgery scheduled or an appointment with a doctor that has you concerned.  Your job could be hanging by a thread, or you would rather bury your head than to listen to the political candidates before us.  Oh my!

            There is a lot of “Oh my!” in our future.  That is why our text for tonight is so important, it is that little nudge we need that tells no matter what “oh my” comes our way there is a Lord with His “oh yes, I am here for you.”  We put a bow on our Advent/Christmas themed sermons around gifts with this . . .

“THE GIFT OF NEXT YEAR”

            We begin the text, “do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.”  Deception comes from the world, which has rejected God.  We live in a world of people deceiving.  They can steal your bank account, they can pilfer your savings, they can pretend they are you as they send out phishing e-mails.  One of the worst things is someone can actually be you when your identity gets stolen.  Will this stop in 2024?  Come on now, with a presidential election on the horizon.  Who and what will you believe?  Is the voting machine rigged?  Who did it the Chinese?  A tribe in Papua New Guinea?  A guy named Larry from his basement in Merrillville, Indiana?  See what I mean, don’t be deceived by the world’s sleight of hand that wants you to question everything.  Some things are still true.

            Let’s blow a little truth your way, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is a from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  I think I am going to be saying this a lot in 2024, so here it is:  God is in charge.  God provides everything that we need including wisdom so that we are not deceived.  The “Father of Lights” is God our Creator.  He will not be deceived.  Though the heavenly bodies change and move, God and His Word remain constant and sure.  We can trust his promises.

            He promised a Savior and He delivered.  We worship this greatest gift every day.  Herod’s deception that we heard about this morning couldn’t stop the plan that the Father put in place.  Jesus and his family escaped to Egypt.  They came back to Nazareth.  He grew and became a man.  He started his ministry, called 12 apostles, performed miracles, preached great sermons, healed and helped those around Him.  He was showing the world that their deceptions mean nothing.  He was seen and adored by thousands.  And even though some would turn their back on Him and take Him to a cross, it was a blessing for every man, woman, and child.  A new, forgiven life in Christ Jesus.  A plan of salvation that has us leaving this deceiving world and going to a place prepared for us.  Solid, unmovable, forever.  Oh my!  Oh my!

            That is why 2024, like every preceding year you have been given breath, is a gift.  I pray you see it that way, because you are God’s greatest gift.  With Him there is no variation or change.  You can count on Him.  I’ll say it again:  God is in charge.  He loves you.  Let Him be Him in 2024 and beyond.

                                    Amen.

December 31, 2023                                                                                    Text:  Matthew 2:13-18

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Christmas can seem like a nice break from reality.  We revel in tradition and leave our diet plan.  Then it is over and back to the real world.  The stress of work or school or family rears its ugly head.

            We thank God this day that we don’t put our confidence in nostalgia or family gatherings where so often things go unsaid for the sake of harmony.  Christmas is our comfort in the midst of all this.  This week after Christmas on Dec. 26, 27, and 28 the church commemorates three martyrs who suffered and even died for the faith.  It doesn’t ruin the holiday it just grounds us in reality.  Tinsel and “Silver Bells” don’t take us away from suffering and death.  It does remind us that Christmas joy comes in the One who conquered death:  Jesus, our Emmanuel. 

            If Christmas is such a joyful time, why does the Church commemorate deaths of the faithful in December?  Good question.  Life is not all candy canes and being jolly.  It is a reminder that . . .

“CHRISTMAS CAN BE BRUTAL”

            The first of these martyrs is Stephen, remembered on Dec. 26.  Stephen was chosen by the apostles to distribute food.  It wasn’t his acts of mercy that enraged the church’s enemies.  It was the fact that he confessed Jesus as Lord.  He was charged with blasphemy, but he didn’t remain silent.  He boldly gave a witness about the Righteous One and how Israel had rejected Him.  A mob stoned him around A.D. 35.  Stephen’s dying breath echoed Christ’s words on the cross:  “Receive my spirit…Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

            Stephen was the first martyr after Christ’s ascension.  Like Stephen today’s enemies of the Church aren’t bothered by the Church’s acts of mercy.  Confess Jesus as the only truth and Savior of all and then see them squirm.  Like Stephen we see heaven open.  Jesus was not just a baby for us.  He is a man standing for us at God’s right hand.  He still cares for the Church and the saints.  No raging foe can stop Him.

            Dec. 27 is for St. John the Apostle.  He was an eyewitness to the life and death of Jesus.  He wrote a Gospel, three Epistles and the Book of Revelation.  This witnessing didn’t bring death but isolation.  He was exiled to the island of Patmos and died an old man in Ephesus around A.D. 100.  John suffered for the faith.

            John fits nicely with Christmas:  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (Jn. 1:14). His epistle proclaims Jesus, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands.” (1 John 1:1)  He reminds us Christmas is about love.  Not love of traditions or love tarnished by broken promises, absent loved ones or dysfunctional family gatherings.   God loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, and the blood of this Son cleanses us from all sin.

            The last remembrance is a group and our text for today – we call them The Holy Innocents.  They are the baby boys two years and under in Bethlehem who were killed on the orders of Herod.  What senseless violence.  Yet, it is as nonsensical as God becoming man or the King born in a stable, as tragic as creatures who kill their Creator and Savior.  In our world, violence and evil continue, even during holidays.  The killing of children unborn and born continues and it should give us pause.  We once dwelt in a crib and a womb.  That could have been us.  Christ sanctified all life by His conception and birth.  It could have been Him:  in fact, that was the whole idea.

            These babies died for the One who came to die for them.  Their deaths show how cruel man can be and the lengths the world will go to stop Christ and the Christian faith.  This is the world we find ourselves in.  Peace on earth is found only in Jesus’ blood.  His death was the true martyrdom, bearing witness that our salvation is accomplished.

            Christmas for all its joy, can be brutal.  The days following can be even harder.  We thank God this day that Christ is the center of our Christmas.  God in the flesh who redeemed us by His blood.  If not for that, how could we stand up to the real world?  We have such a Savior and because of that we don’t fear dark days, in-laws or even a martyr’s death.

                                                                                                                        Amen.