May 29, 2022                                    Text:  Acts 1:12-26

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Concordia Publishing House is the publishing arm of our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  A few years ago, they greenlighted a book entitled, Gory Deaths.  Why would they publish such a book?  Well, the subtitle may help a bit:  Not-So-Nice Bible Stories.  The book is written by Rev. Jonathan Schkade and proven to be quite popular.  Yes, they are gory stories, but they are also Bible stories and we do believe that Scripture is God-breathed, right?

    This morning let’s focus on two of the gory stories in the book.  One is in our text for this morning from Acts 1.  The other is not explicitly in the text but relates to every other story in the Bible.  You will see…be patient as we view . . . 

“THE GLORY IN GORY”

    Let’s get to the first gory story.  It starts out calm enough.  Jesus has ascended to heaven as the disciples are without their leader.  Kind of like getting dropped off at college.  OK, now what, I am on my own.  The disciples have each other but they are down a man.  If I recall one of them did a dastardly deed and now we are getting to the gory story.

    The Apostle Peter does the honors.  “Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.” (v. 18).   How do you handle those words?  Do you picture the scene?  Block it out?  Many of us grew up in the era of Freddy Krueger, Jason and others in horror movies.  It could be frightening unless you suspended belief and knew it was just Hollywood trickery.  Judas’ death was no prop.  It had to be horrible to see and witness.  How far this disciple had fallen.

    Humankind has always had horrible, bloodthirsty enemies.  Satan, the one behind the actions of Judas.  He too was once a follower of Jesus, but he rebelled against God and now he works on the hearts of men and women to turn them from Jesus.  It all started with his deception of Adam and Eve.

    Sin.  1 John 3:8 says, “The devil has been sinning from the beginning.”  He brought sin into the world.  He continues to wreak destruction against God’s creatures and creation.

    Death.  It didn’t take long for gory death to make an appearance in the Bible in the person of #’s 3 and 4 – better known as Cain and Abel.  It was a slaughter over nothing more than jealousy and anger.  Gory stories abound in Scripture – the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, military slaughters.  Death can be graphic just like the death of Judas.

    Hell.  Judas not only suffered physical death, but he had the most horrific fate:  eternal death.  It is important we continue to talk about hell in the church.  Many today want to deny its existence for their own, selfish reasons.

    This death of Judas reminds us of the horrors in this life.  In my profession I have seen some pretty awful things.  Many of you have as well.  The shootings the last few weeks again remind us in horrible, horrible ways of the depravity of man.  The devil is a roaring lion who wants to devour us.  Help!

    We have it.  The glory in gory.  The death of Jesus appears as a chapter in the book Gory Deaths.  It is not unthinkable or heretical to compare the two.  They have a few things in common and many things different.  

    Judas and Jesus both died on a tree.  Judas by hanging himself.  Jesus nailed to the tree by others.  Judas’ tree was just that.  The tree of Jesus is actually a glorious tree for all who believe.  It was a bad Friday when Jesus suffered and died but we now celebrate it as Good Friday.  We hang crosses in our churches.  We wear them around our necks.  We place them on the walls of our homes.  We celebrate this so-called instrument of death because it is actually an instrument of life.  

    Judas and Jesus died gory, bloody deaths.  Judas place of death was called “Field of Blood.”  We turn away from his gory death.  The blood of Jesus on the other hand, “cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Jn. 1:7). We fix our eyes on the cross we don’t turn away.  We also rejoice to partake of this body and blood in, with, and under bread and wine for our life and salvation.

    Both Judas and Jesus were abandoned in death.  Judas’ “camp became desolate.”  He died alone as he faced separation from God.  Jesus was forsaken by his disciples and His Father.  But this provides us comfort.  He had to be forsaken to die in place.  He was our sin-bearer.  The promise now is that God will not leave us or forsake us.

    The gory yet glorious death of Jesus assures us that all our bloodthirsty enemies have been vanquished forever.  The gory death of Jesus allows us to taunt death, hell, sin, and Satan:  “’Death is swallowed up in victory.’  ‘O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?’  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:54-57)

                                        Amen.     

May 26, 2022 – Ascension                        Text:  Ephesians 1:15-23

Dear Friends in Christ,

    No intelligent preacher would ever start a sermon with a four-letter word.  Well, this one is going to.  Hold on to your pew.  That word is h-o-p-e.  Hope.  Do you think that doesn’t count?   Sure it does as hope has four letters.  When I said four-letter word, you were thinking something else.  My family was confident it wouldn’t be one of those four-letter words because I have never used one in my marriage.  In our world to talk about hope is like burping in public.  Everything seems so bad; can we really have hope?  Can we talk about hope when our world is depressed and hateful and spiteful and worn down and sees no end to their troubles?  Is it possible to have lives based in hope?

“WHERE IS THE HOPE?”

    We need hope.  Hope is not the same word as optimism.  It is tied to action, not attitude.  The late British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book Celebrating Life, pointed out that optimism is passive while hope is active.  Optimism is having a gym membership.  Hope is going jogging every morning.

    Despair would be the opposite of hope.  It leads to laziness and guilt and fear.  Despair wants to stay in bed all day.  Why face the day if I have no hope?  Luther wrote this in his Small Catechism on the meaning of the 6th petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “lead us not into temptation.”  We are asking that the Lord would “guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.”

    When we have hope it is easier to move through the day, look to the future.  Without hope, everything just grinds to a halt.  Where to find true hope?

    False hope is no hope.  Think of the religious cults who lied to their people about the world ending.  They sold all their goods got ready and…life continued.  If people have false hope, in say a miracle cure, and it doesn’t work it can lead to bitterness, disillusionment.  People may even rebel against God.  False hope leads to despair.

    The Apostle Paul ties real hope to Jesus, specifically His ascension.  Because God has raised Jesus “from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” (v. 20)  That right there gives us real hope for our future.

    Jesus is not gone.  He has been promoted and we get to go along.  Christ is the Head, we are the members of his body, the Church.  If all things are under his feet, it means they are under ours as well.

    Christ has called us.  He has given us “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” (v. 18). Because of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension our sins are forgiven, and we inherit a portion of his riches by grace.  

    Because of Christ’s ascension He is with all of us.  We can live lives of hope of being in His presence forever.  It would be easy to despair.  The world likes to do that to people.  “There will be no more gas or electricity!”  “How many more years before the North or South Pole flood your living room?”  “Covid may be controlled but what’s next?”  Should you even leave your house?  The market for hope is one big open area.

    Don’t buy the false hope some are selling.  You and I know the only answer is found in Jesus.  God cared enough about you to send His Son to redeem you.  You know that the Son was crucified, died, rose, and has now ascended to the right hand of God the Father.  You know that He rules over all things, and He has promised to be with you always.  He is not gone.  He is here in his Word.  He is here in His Sacraments.  He is here among His people.  That gives you and I hope for the days ahead.

    The Church has many great festival days that we love.  Christmas and Easter and Pentecost and All Saints.  Ascension is unique and not just because we celebrate it on a Thursday.  The central message is the hope message.  It centers our faith, strengthens us for what lies ahead, and give us the promise of a better future.

    Christ ascended to ensure us of our eternal place with Him.  That is our hope.

                                                Amen.