April 28, 2024 Text:  1 John 4:1-11

Dear Friends in Christ,

You are familiar with Catherine the Great and Alexander the Great, but do you know Abbas the Great or Cnut the Great, or even that Herod was called Great.  We have the Great Lakes and Great Wall of China.  In the last ten years someone came up with GOAT – Greatest of All Time.  We use this in sports.  Is Michael or the Lebron the greatest basketball player.  For football is the greatest a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver.  In baseball, pitcher or hitter.  The only sport where everyone agrees is in hockey, where Wayne Gretzky is known as “The Great One.”  This all means they are greater than others.

Our text identifies the one who is truly and eternally and universally greater than all others, and it assures that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (v. 4)

“GREATER THAN . . . “

The world has always been made up of competing belief systems and ideologies.  We might call them the “spirits of the age.”  They want to claim us as their own.

John warns his hearers, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit.”  Every belief system is not the same.  If you are not connected to the “vine” of Jesus Christ as heard in our Gospel, then some other ideology is controlling your mind.  

In our First reading today, we had Philip and the eunuch.  The eunuch lived in a culture not connected to Christ.  As Philip talked this man was changed and eventually baptized.  He had overcome the “spirit of the age.”

The aged John wrote this letter around AD 80. The prominent city in this Greco-Roman culture was Ephesus.  It was a diverse city by the sea.  Its temples and works of art attracted tourists.  Unbridled sexuality was expressed openly in the public theater and arts.  It prided itself on religious diversity.  Ephesus was internationally recognized as a “sanctuary city.”  All of this challenged the faith of John’s “little children.”  Therefore, he warned that these “spirits” could lead them astray.  They were to test these spirits.  Were they of Christ or apart from Christ.  He stayed connected with them as they engaged in this spiritual warfare.  Just like a parent today whose son or daughter leaves home to study or work in Chicago, New York, San Francisco.

“Do not believe every spirit.”  The spirit of compromise or the confession of Scripture?  The spirit of relativism or the “the way, the truth, and the life” as uttered by Jesus?  The spirit of immorality or making the God blessed choice?  The spirit of toleration or calling something wrong?  The spirit of intimidation wrought by political correctness or standing firm in the pages of the Bible?

Test all of this.  “We are from God.  Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.  By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (v. 6).   St. John says the “spirits” are discernable.   How?  “By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” (vs. 2-3)

It is and always will be about Jesus.  Jesus is greater than…the spirits of every age.  Jesus is greater than…the spirit that minimizes or denies human sinfulness.  Christ dies for it.  Jesus is greater than…the spirit of the antichrist working in the world.  Jesus is greater than…our sin of giving in to those spirits in thought, word, deed.  Jesus is greater…than our heart when it condemns us.  Jesus is greater than…the world working to overcome us.  Christ’s dying and rising overcomes.

As we confess Christ, God abides in us.  The Ethiopian eunuch received Christ through Baptism.  We too as we are baptized into Christ.  John spoke about the Word of life.  We see with our eyes and receive with our hands the crucified and risen body and blood in the Holy Supper.  This greater than meal sustains us.

As the “Spirit of truth” moves in us we love one another.  We bear Christ and confess Christ to one another and to the spirit of the age.   We dispense with fear.  We are not afraid of the world and who is in it.  Holden told me recently of a group of men sharing Christ in and around the bars of downtown Bloomington on a weekend evening.  Could you and I do that?  They can.  We should have it in us because we know this truth, “he who is in us is greater than . . . he who is in the world.”

Amen.      

April 21, 2024 Text:  John 10:11-18

Dear Friends in Christ,

Remember the game show Let’s Make A Deal?  Hosted by Monty Hall, the players had choices.  Many times, the choice would be between something they already had and what was behind door #1, door #2, or door #3.  Sometimes it was a better prize – a car or vacation – but at other times it would be a donkey or big stuffed animal or a car that wouldn’t run.  

In our text for today it is about Jesus being the Good Shepherd.  In fact, John 10:1-18, is all about this theme.  Preceding our text, in verses 7 & 9 Jesus calls Himself “the door.”  I like that.  A door has two sides.  There is a blessed thing about Jesus:  Jesus is both the Good Shepherd and a door.

John 10 gives us this good news that Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Door . . .

“PROTECTS HIS SHEEP”

Hello fellow sheep.  Do you need some protection?  Again, a door has two sides.  On one side Jesus is providing his grace and mercy.  He opens His gracious hand to provide us pasture and living water – food and drink.  On the other side He closes the door so that we receive protection from the thieves and wolves.  We need help so the false shepherds do not steal our soul.

In the First Reading from Acts, the leaders of Israel were annoyed because the disciples were teaching about the resurrection of Jesus.  After all that had happened, they still didn’t believe.  The wolves, the Sadducees and high priests, wanted to scatter the flock.  Peter, moved by the Holy Spirit made this wonderful witness, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Let’s go back to a famous door.  One day, on orders from the Almighty, Noah and his sons built an ark.  This ark had a door.  The rains started up and at some point, Noah and his family boarded the ark.  Then what did they do?  They closed the door.  When that happened, the rain fell for God’s judgment.  For the people who still had faith, this small group of eight, the door provided protection.  Eventually, the rain would subside and Noah was able to open the door and reveal God’s Blessing on the earth.  Judgment was also present.  The door was shut on those who did not believe.  It was the same door, but your eternal fate was determined on which side of the door you were on.

Like on Let’s Make A Deal, we enter doors all the time that reveal something new.  Someone’s home you have never been to, a new school you will be attending, a hotel room in a foreign city, a restaurant you have been excited to chow down at, a medical room awaiting a doctor’s diagnosis, a funeral home to pick out a casket.  Some doors you can’t wait for.  Some doors you would like to never face.

No matter what you find behind the door, the Good Shepherd is there.  You receive Jesus as your Lord and master.  Outside these doors, many are rejecting Jesus.  They are outside the ark we might say.  Judgment is raining down.  

But you are safe.  Just like Noah was safe from the wind and waves and flooding waters, you are safe from God’s judgment.  You are protected from the wrath of God.  Sheep are put into pens with doors closed to keep out the wolves.  In the same way, Jesus is watching over you and keeping you safe from the devil and his evil angels.  Inside these doors of our church, God feeds and nourishes you.  You hear His voice in the preaching and proclamation of God’s Word.  You drink from the living water that flows from the baptismal font.  You eat the food that he has prepared at his banquet table, bread and wine that is his body and blood that offers you forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

Don’t be afraid.  Let the Holy Spirit take your hand.  Reach out.  Turn the knob.  Open it.  Go ahead.  Heaven and all its glory, all the blessings of God Almighty given for you. Come, enter through the door that is Jesus and find your Good Shepherd waiting for you.

Amen.  

April 7, 2024 Text:  John 20:19-31

Dear Friends in Christ,

If you are a parent, there is one moment that stands out.  The first time you got to touch your baby boy or baby girl.  The skin, the warmth, your flesh and blood in your arms.  It’s emotional.  It’s life-changing.  You can’t forget that time.  I couldn’t stop kissing the boys.  That touch that started in Overland Park, Kansas and Normal, Illinois delivery rooms continues to this day.

Touch is so important.  The disciple Thomas was a toucher.  It was a moment in his life he won’t soon forget.  

“THE TOUCH OF THE LORD”

The research is clear, people, especially children need touch.  If children are not touched, they grow at a slower rate, they are sicker, they have more trouble socially and they display more angry and depressed emotions.

It doesn’t stop there.  When you meet that special someone, you want to hold hands, put your arms around each other, sit close.  Do you married couples have that secret touch between the two of you that says, “I love you.”

We need that kind of touch.  The one that says love, assurance, closeness, comfort, happiness.  Touch says the other person is there, alive, real – and so are you.

We get to Thomas.  He’s a doubter.  A little skeptical.  See, he wasn’t there when Jesus first appeared risen from the dead.  He would not believe unless he touched Jesus.  “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (v. 25)

It is over a week later that Jesus appears.  Jesus must know that Thomas is doubting because it is Jesus who says these words, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.  Do not disbelieve, but believe.” (v. 27)  Just the right touch.  He gets to touch the Lord and Thomas says, “My Lord and my God.” (v. 28)

In Jesus’ lifetime there was a lot of people who needed to see him.  There were people who needed to touch him and be touched by him.  When he blessed the children in Luke 18.  When he placed the mud on the eyes of the man born blind in John 9.  The woman who needed to touch his cloak in Luke 8.  The washing of the disciples’ feet in John 13.  Those are just a few of the many times that the touch of the Lord was important.

We need the touch of the Lord.  The sign of the cross on our forehead and hearts and then the water touching our head in Baptism.  Jesus is there.  At the baptismal font, we touch and have been touched by Jesus in just the right way.

As we come to the altar the touch of the Lord is here.  He has promised to be in that piece of bread and sip of wine.  His body.  His blood.  The living Jesus, right there.  Among us.  Touching us.  Jesus is close to us and saying, “I love you.”  He is giving assurance, comfort, and joy as he purifies us from all sin.  He is real, present, and alive – and so are we when we touch that bread and wine, that body and blood.

When we are touched by the Lord, we then extend that touch to others.  In ministry touch is so important.  The sick and the dying and the struggling want to know that someone is there.  As members of Christ, we give hugs to our fellow brothers and sisters.  We give mutual consolation to each other.  In a way, that’s Jesus touching us through his Church.

One day we will have the same joy and wonder of touching Jesus as Thomas did.  His resurrection says our hope is that touch and being touched will not end at the grave, but will be ours again on the Last Day and for all eternity.  The leper, the abandoned child, the brokenhearted, the grieving parents, the son who remembers – all need the touch of the Lord.  Jesus incredible gift to us is that we are, and we will be touched by the Lord.

Amen.