​Martin Hill
St. Paul, Int’l Falls MN
Church of the Lutheran Hour, Ft. Frances ON
Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
August 26, 2018
 
Our Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ
 
Luke 10:23-37 ESV
 
The Good Samaritan parable is perhaps the best-known parable of Jesus. We know that it means you have to be nice to other people, especially when they’re lying half dead by the side of the road. This parable asks us to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of mercy, and that’s difficult and a little uncomfortable. But this parable doesn’t just teach us to choose the difficult and right path, it teaches us that Jesus chose the difficult and right path too: we have a Good Samaritan in Jesus Christ.
            “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead” (Luke 10:30). The parable has only just begun and we already have a man who is half dead. As our man lays there, beaten and bleeding, the thought comes upon him that soon he will die, alone in a ditch. Maybe someone will find his body after and maybe someone will recognize him and give him a decent burial; maybe not. As he fades in and out of consciousness, his hazy mind hears the sound of footsteps approaching.
“Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31-32). Jesus doesn’t just pick some average Joes to pass by our man; he picks some of the most religious and holy people of Jerusalem: a priest and a Levite. They are both from the tribe of Levi which God specially chose to serve him in his holy temple; perhaps the priest is even just coming back from the temple in Jerusalem. The point is, these men are around God’s house and God’s law, and they know what God expects of them. They know that God has said “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). They know that God has shown Israel great mercy, because after their captivity, the fact that Israel even exists is a mercy. Surely they will help our man.
And yet when they come upon this dying man, they don’t reflect any of God’s mercy. They cross over the road and pass by on the other side. You could call them thoughtless, but they aren’t; they thought about it, and they intentionally moved so they wouldn’t have to do something about the dying man. It’s really their attempt to excuse themselves, they can tell themselves that they were on the other side, that they didn’t just step over the man’s body. But it would have been more honest for them to just step over the man’s body. This act of crossing over shows that they knew what they had to do, but didn’t do it. Knowing what you should do doesn’t mean you will do it.
Contrast this with the Good Samaritan who knows what he should do, and he simply does it. He comes walking along the same road as the priest and Levite, but instead of crossing over to the other side, he walks up to the dying man. He knows that he must do something or the man dies. And though the Good Samaritan does the right thing, it’s not the easy thing. The Samaritan has to stop his journey and be late for dinner wherever he was going; he pulls out his own wine and oil to dress the man’s wounds; he puts the man on his own animal while he walks; he brings the dying man to an inn and pays the innkeeper out of his pocket; he even takes the time to come back the next day to check up on him.
So you’ve heard this parable enough to know that you’re supposed to be the Good Samaritan. But as we said, knowing isn’t the same as doing. How do we do as the Good Samaritan did? Because our natural inclination is to be the priest and the Levite, to go the easy path, turning a blind eye to things that bother us, things we know we should do. The Bible asks us to do hard things, and if we’re honest, it’s much easier to cross over to the other side of the road and pass by those hard things. Jesus tells us this story because he knows that we don’t want the inconvenient words of the Bible to push us to actually do something.
You all have already acted like the Good Samaritan by caring for your neighbors in Haiti, Sudan, and throughout the world, and that generosity for missions is truly something to be proud of. These far-off strangers are certainly your neighbors, but so are the family and friends closest to us. Many need physical help, but many more need spiritual help. Both those near and far need to hear about Jesus Christ, and not only hear about him, but to come to church and receive his gifts. Many of our family and friends are that man lying half-dead by the road. They need a Good Samaritan who will bring them to that spiritual hospital, the inn of the church, to give the oil of Baptism and the wine of Communion for their wounds. Think about that inn of the church as a hospital; because we’re all here in the hospital. You are simply a sick person telling other sick people where to find the medicine. You aren’t a doctor, I’m not a doctor. We can only point to the doctor, the one who will freely give the medicine of faith in his Word and his Sacraments.
Because Jesus tells this story not only to tell you what you should do, but to tell you what he has done. He is the Good Samaritan who came upon you while you were lying by the side of the road, as Paul says, “dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1), having been robbed and beaten by Satan. Jesus felt that gut-wrenching compassion and his heart cried out within him as he looked upon the world thrown down into the dust by the side of the road. And like the Good Samaritan, he knew he had to do something, and he did it. He crossed over, not to the opposite side of the road like the priest and Levite, but came running to our side of the road: he crossed over from heaven to earth. He gave us the oil of Baptism and the wine of Communion for our wounds. He took on the load of this world’s sin and let us ride easy. While he took us in to the inn of the Church, where we could rest and be at peace, he went off and ascended the hill of Calvary to die on the cross. He did all this for you, because he is the Good Samaritan who has love and mercy, who is Love and Mercy. Even when you feel broken by your sin, you can rest in this love and mercy that covers all sins. Even though you experience disappointment in your child’s rebellion or a friend’s rejection of the Gospel, you can rest in God’s steadfast love that waits to carry you to his kingdom and give you eternal rest.
Dear friends, the Good Samaritan lives within you, because you live in him. I have seen the Good Samaritan at work in you, both in the love and mercy you show toward each other, and the love and mercy you have shown toward me. This is my last Sunday here at St. Paul, and I want to thank you all for your kindness and generosity. It has been an absolute pleasure to be with you, to walk and talk with you for a time, even as our time together comes to an end. May you continue to cling to the cross of your Good Samaritan, and to show forth his love and mercy, now and always. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). Amen.
 
 
 
 
 
 
             

​Martin Hill
St. Paul, Int’l Falls MN
Church of the Lutheran Hour, Ft. Frances ON
Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
August 19, 2018
 
Be Opened
 
Mark 7:31-37 ESV
You probably know what it’s like to be excluded from someone’s life. When you think back on all the relationships you’ve made, odds are, there’s one that sticks out in your mind, one in which either you removed someone from your life, or they removed you from theirs. Maybe you said that one cruel thing to a close friend, and there was a dramatic fight, and you never saw each other after that day. Maybe the split wasn’t with a friend, but a family member. Or perhaps there wasn’t even a dramatic fight, and you simply moved out of town and left behind a group of solid friends. However it happened, and whoever it was, you know that getting closed off is a painful experience. It hurts to be shut out from a certain community and denied access to where you feel you most deserve it.
The Bible talks a lot about people like this, people who are closed off: you can think about Cain from Pastor Quast’s sermon last Sunday, Cain who chose to exclude himself from humanity by murdering his brother Abel; or Joseph who was rejected by his brothers and sold into slavery; or Judas, who betrayed Jesus and excluded himself from the company of the disciples. It’s easy to find examples of exclusion within human relationships. But it’s not just other people we exclude, we went as far as to exclude even God from our life. With that first sin in the garden, we closed our ears, stopped our tongues, and hardened our hearts. Yet even when we were deaf and mute in sin and death, Jesus came and opened up the world that was closed.
When we speak about people being closed off, it’s hard to think about a man more closed than the one in today’s Gospel reading. This man was both deaf and had a severe speech impediment. So, he’s deaf. Many of you are probably already familiar with hearing trouble. You enter a group of people, and much of the chatter goes over your head. Not being able to hear and engage in conversation, you remove yourself from the group until someone addresses you directly and starts asking questions, and you try to guess what they’re saying. How much more removed is the deaf man, where all of the speaking goes over his head, where he always has to guess what others are saying? The deaf man is excluded from the give and take of social interactions simply because he can’t hear; he is in the middle of a crowd, and yet he’s alone.
But it gets worse: this man in our Gospel reading is not only deaf, he also has a severe speech impediment. Like deafness, the speech impediment adds to push the man out of society: the man has thoughts swirling in his mind, thoughts that he’d like to share, and yet the moment he tries to voice them, they come out jumbled. A speech impediment is a scary thing for the person speaking: you can’t say what you want. And the frustration builds when everyone starts guessing what you mean, and guessing wrong; emphatic gestures and louder sounds don’t even work to get your point across. It’s like forever being stuck in a foreign country where you can’t speak any of the language. That impediment pushes the man further and further away into his own corner of isolation and loneliness.
So our man is closed off, isolated, deaf, and dumb. “And they brought to [Jesus] a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him” (v. 32). They brought this closed man to the Galilean miracleworker to see if he could fix the man’s ears and tongue, and bring him back into normal society. They wanted this miracleworker to open up a closed man. So the miracleworker takes the man off to one side, sticks his fingers in his ear, and touches his tongue with spit. This miracleworker, Jesus, looks up into heaven, sighs, and says one word: Ephphatha. Be opened. “And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly” (v. 35). You can almost hear the shouts of happiness coming from the healed man. He begins to speak clearly for the first time, and out pour his words, babbling like a child who has just learned to speak. Like Zechariah singing the Benedictus after his tongue was loosened, it is praise that flows out, praise for speaking and singing, praise for the one who has loosened the tongue for praise. God didn’t simply destroy the man, and make a new one, did he? Forget about this one, we’ll make a new one? No he healed the broken man, he opened up the closed man. Jesus came to take the closed and open them. 
The key to this passage is that there is not only an opening of the mouth and of the ears, even though that’s certainly the most obvious opening; there is also an opening of the eyes and of the heart. The man receives faith. Because of the miracle, he is opened to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah, because these are things that the promised Messiah will do: heal and open people. We read this time and time again in the gospels, that those who are healed by Jesus believe in him. And how could this miracle not produce faith in the man, this man who has waited his life in isolation, waiting for the one who would set him free? And so there is a physical healing and a spiritual healing, but the spiritual healing is the greater of the two, because it creates faith in Jesus, faith which leads to salvation.
If this man teaches us that there are two types of healing, then there are also two types of deafness: physical deafness, not being able to physically hear, and spiritual deafness, unbelief. In the very beginning of this world, we were not spiritually deaf, our hearts and ears worked perfectly. We lived in perfect harmony with ourselves and our creator. Then came the first sin of Adam and Eve, and like a severe accident, that sin crippled the world, stole its tongue, stopped its ears, hardened its heart, and threw it into thick darkness and death. The world that had used its tongue to converse with God and its ears to listen to God, now fell as silent and unhearing as the grave. Like the man in our Gospel reading, our world lived closed off in its deafness… until Jesus the Galilean miracleworker came along. The miracleworker stuck his fingers in the ears of the world, and touched its tongue with spit. As he hung upon the cross, he looked up into heaven, and cried out one word: Ephphatha. Be opened. That dying cry of Jesus on the cross is our Ephphatha. It is finished: be opened.
And with the crowd of the Gospel reading we say, “He has done all things well.” He has lived well, and may his life of perfect obedience be an example for us. He has died well, and his death is sufficient to cover all the sins of the world, to open up all the closed off hearts. He has risen well, and his rising from the dead is enough to bring all believers with him into heaven.
The Ephphatha on the cross rings in these newly opened ears of ours. Let that Ephphatha ring to remind you that your ears have been opened to hear God speak. Keep your ears open to his Word, not just on Sunday when you come here to church, but throughout the week as you read your Bible at home, with each other, with your family, or by yourself. Meditate on the great miracle, the cross, by which your ears and heart have been opened, and your tongue loosed to sing his praises. The hymn that you sang just before the sermon captured it perfectly:
Word that caused blind eyes to see,
speak and heal our mortal blindness;
deaf we are: our healer be;
loose our tongues to tell Your kindness.
Be our Word in pity spoken,
Heal the world, by sin now broken (LSB #545).
                                  
 
 

​Vicar Martin Hill
St. Paul, Int’l Falls MN
Church of the Lutheran Hour, Ft. Frances ON
Tenth Sunday after Trinity
August 5, 2018
 
 
Waiting for a Visit
 
 
Luke 19:41-48 ESV
 
Summer is the perfect time for having your family over for a visit. The timing is as good as it gets: kids and grandkids are out of school for the summer, you can use those weeks of vacation and bring them over to your house, maybe a weekend out at the cabin, or an afternoon on the lake. Whatever you do, you know that hosting visitors always takes preparation. You’ve got to clean up the house, wash the sheets and towels, go grocery shopping, plan the huge feasts, buy gas for the boat, the list goes on and on. You know that preparation is necessary to make a visit enjoyable and smooth. You are either prepared, and everyone is fed and happy; or you aren’t prepared and everyone’s grumpy and grouchy. Either way, the family’s coming to visit, ready or not.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus talks about being prepared for visits. Except it’s not the grandkids visiting, it’s God. But it’s the same too with God: either you are prepared, and you receive God’s peace; or you aren’t prepared, and you receive God’s wrath. You will be visited, either in peace or wrath.
In the Gospel today, we hear the promise that Jerusalem will be visited in wrath: they weren’t prepared. When we hear of the way that God will visit Jerusalem in wrath, “not one stone left upon another,” it’s easy to think that God didn’t care about Israel and Jerusalem all along; that the visit was going to be wrath no matter what they’d done, that God strung them along only to smash them. But when we read through the Old Testament we read that God truly did love Israel. He called Israel his beloved bride. He delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh and his mighty army. He brought Israel through the desert, led them with pillars of fire and smoke, God lived with Israel, he dwelt in the tabernacle, and later, in the Temple at Jerusalem. God did love Israel, but the beloved people of God left God behind. They turned away from his face, away from his commandments and Law, choosing to worship other gods, new gods, golden gods, false gods.
Yet even when Israel turned away, God, in his desperate love, continued to visit Israel through messengers; he sent prophets, prophets who spoke his true Word to the lost and wandering people. Read the Old Testament, and you’ll constantly hear God calling his people back to him through the mouth of the prophets, saying “Repent, and receive my peace, not my wrath.” You see, God isn’t waiting for people to misstep so he can duke out his wrath; he wants people to repent and receive his peace.
But what do the prophets report of the people? In our Old Testament reading for today, Jeremiah the prophet reports that “no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle” (Jer 8:6). The prophets plead with the people of Israel, and yet Israel carries on stubbornly with hardened heart and closed ears, plunging wildly like a runaway horse. Jeremiah mourns, “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.” Listen closely to the last part of this verse: “Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord” (Jer 8:12)
“Therefore, they shall fall.” As we said, God will visit his people, either in peace or in wrath. Israel rejected God’s prophets and God’s message, and thus chose not peace, but wrath. So, the wrath of God is poured out on disobedient Israel, and Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the temple, and the people are led far off into exile. God mourns, the prophets mourn, the people mourn.
So we shouldn’t be surprised when we fast forward to the New Testament and read that Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem is once again being visited by God; not through just any prophet, but through the prophet, the promised Messiah. Jesus weeps because Jerusalem will reject him as they did the prophets before him; Jesus weeps because Jerusalem will kill him as they did the prophets before him; Jesus weeps because Israel has once again chosen the visitation of wrath. “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” (Lk 19:41-42).
All the prophets had spoken of Jesus’ coming, all the Scriptures had pointed to him, all the faithful had waited with bated breath, and yet when he did finally come, Israel did not recognize him. It’s not as if he just passed through the crowd unnoticed: no, Israel killed the Son of God, that’s how little they recognized him. Their bloodthirsty voices cried out “His blood be on us and our children” (Matt 27:25). Little did they know that his blood would be on them and their children.
And so Jesus, in the midst of his tears, prophesies the manner of God’s wrath: “For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Lk 19:43-44). And his prophecy comes true. In 70 A.D., the Romans surrounded beloved Jerusalem and laid siege to it, eventually breaking in and setting fire to the city and to the holy Temple, killing 1.1 million Jews, and leading thousands more into captivity, as Josephus the historian reports.
If the old Jerusalem was destroyed for its unfaithfulness, we are saved in God’s faithfulness, because God has faithfully visited us in his Son. We recognize that the man dying on the cross isn’t just a rabble-rousing prophet who got unlucky; we recognize that the man dying on the cross is none other than the Son of God, who came to visit his people by becoming one of them. His visitation was more than just a prophet’s preaching too; he came with a purpose, an unalterable mission to save the world by his death on the cross. This visitation isn’t a pleasant visit with the grandkids, eating cookies and hearing about their friends at school. No, this visitation is ugly and violent, with blood and death, cries of agony, and cries of forgiveness.
The visit of Christ on the cross creates a new Jerusalem: his Church. Jesus does not weep at the sight of his Church, like he did with the old Jerusalem, but he rejoices at the sight of his redeemed bride. God visits us in his Word, as he did with the old Jerusalem, but we hear it gladly, read it, know it, obey it. We repent of our sinful ways, unlike the old Jerusalem. God visits us in his Sacraments; quite literally, he is present in the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper. It’s as true a visit as the incarnation.
Yet there is one last visitation we wait for. When Christ’s final visitation comes in judgment at the end of time, will we get mostly peace and mercy but a couple of harsh words for the bad things we did? No, we get full peace and mercy. As the old Jerusalem received complete wrath, and as today’s unbelievers will receive complete wrath, we will receive complete peace and mercy. Because Jesus himself will have prepared us for his final visitation; do not be afraid. He is preparing us now, through our time of trial in this world, our time of persecution, our time of darkness. Our Lord will lead us through the darkness, usher us into that complete peace that only he can give. And there will be no such thing anymore as God’s “visitation,” because we will be in the presence of God forevermore. Amen.
 
 
 
 
 
 

​v.19b              For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
 
            Dear friends in Christ, our freedom means a lot to us.  Just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the births of our two nations and thanked God for the freedoms we enjoy while living in these lands.  Freedoms that were hard fought and won with much blood, sweat, and tears.  Because slavery was an ugly part of our history, we cringe at the thought of people being slaves—particularly ourselves!
            Which is why we may balk at the way in which St. Paul speaks to the church in the latter half of chapter 6 of his epistle to the Romans.  He says, in effect, "Don't be slaves to impurity/lawlessness (i.e. sin), but rather be slaves to righteousness."  Now the interesting thing here is that there is no non-slavery option being presented.  You are either a slave to sin and in rebellion against God, or you are a slave to righteousness (God)  and in rebellion against sin.  One or the other.  No in between.  No middle or neutral ground.  But make no mistake.  You are a slave.
            So then, why is St. Paul speaking in this way?  Well, he is actually answering a question that he asked earlier in v.15, "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?  By no means!"  That is, "because we live under the grace and forgiveness of God in Jesus, why not just go and sin all the time?"   Earlier in chapter 6, which we heard expounded last week by Vicar Martin, we learned of the incredible riches and grace given to us in our Baptism into Christ Jesus.  That His death and resurrection have now become ours.  We have been set free from the dominion of sin, death, and the devil—all by virtue of our Baptism!  The danger for us Christians, then, is to think that we are now free to sin however we choose, because we are baptized and so God forgives us on account of Christ.  We are in His grace.  But this is wrong thinking.  For those who have been baptized into Christ have now died to sin and can no longer live in it.
            As unbelievers, apart from God's grace through faith in Christ, we presented our "members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness."  Even as baptized and redeemed children of God, our sinful flesh looks for opportunities to do this—to indulge our passions/desires/lusts, no matter if they are contrary to God's Word or not.  "I am free!  I live under grace!" we think to ourselves.  "So I can do what I wish, when I wish, with whomever I wish." 
            Beloved, this simply is not so.  Those who live and act that way are not living lives of faith in the Gospel of Christ, but rather lives of unbelief and impenitence, which leads only to death.  This is why I have been so disturbed by the recent Borderland Pride Week, which culminated in a cross-border parade yesterday, and a Pride Week church service being held today at Zion Lutheran Church in Fort Frances.  Make no mistake, beloved, we are ALL sinners in need of Christ's love and forgiveness.  But we as Christians are not to walk in sin—embrace it—present our bodies in its service—for that is slavery leading only to death and damnation.  Rather, we are to present our members—our bodies—as slaves to righteousness—following God's Word and will for our lives, no matter how difficult that may be.  For, being slaves of God, we receive "the fruit that leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life."
            Yet we see this same story played out time and time again, don't we?  People embracing sin outright as a good thing, either because they are pagans and don't believe in God or His Word anyway.  Or, more dreadfully, we see it within the façade of the church—wherein lawlessness masquerades as virtue—supposedly clinging to God's grace in Christ, while outright rejecting Christ's own Word.  But you cannot have both.  You cannot "have your cake and eat it too."  You are either a slave to sin:  your own passions/lusts/desires and that of the world and the devil, OR you are God's own baptized child and a slave to righteousness—doing the right thing because God demands/expects it—whether or not anyone else is watching.  We follow God's Word not because it is easy, but because it is true and right.  We Christians, people who have been bought with the blood of Jesus, cannot embrace our sin and hold it up before ourselves and others with pride and joy—and teach others to do the same with their sin—for this is against the clear Law of God.  And God's Law cannot be undone by our whims or the political correctness of the society around us.
            The truly sad thing about such situations is that people think they are free!  They believe they are doing the right thing and being faithful to God, even while they are blatantly denying and disavowing His clear Word!  And this applies not only to sins of a sexual nature, but of any kind whatsoever.  The lazy worker convinces himself that his conduct is not actually theft from his employer; the person speeding in the car is convinced that she is not sinning by breaking the speed laws, because she is a "good driver," therefore making it acceptable.  Beloved, NO!  We are to repent of these things and turn away from them, not being tied to them as slaves bound with chains, but rather be united to Christ with chains of love and mercy.
            In your Baptism, the old, sinful self was crucified and died along with Christ, and now you are fixed to Him with cords that cannot be broken, cords that have been forged with His own body and blood given into death on the cross for the forgiveness of all of your sins.   Now that "You have been set free from sin have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life."  Do you hear that, beloved?  You are free!  Free to keep God's Word—free to live holy and pleasing lives to God by the power of the Spirit working in you.  Free to love your neighbor selflessly and wholly, for you yourself have been loved wholly and completely by God in Christ Jesus.  His blood sanctifies you—makes you holy and clean and acceptable in the sight of the Father.  His blood washes over you and sets you free from the darkness and death that your sin ought to bring to you—all as a gift.  You work for sin, which leads only to death, but you are given life in Christ as a perfectly free gift.
            For Christ Jesus has borne your punishment, taken your death, received the just end of your sin.  All those secret sins of which you are ashamed—the ones you don't think anyone knows about—but which, of course, God is fully aware—the sins that keep you awake at night and cause you to cringe in fear at the wrath of God—those sins—every last one—have been completely paid for by the blood of Jesus poured out upon the cross—for you. 
            Now I know that our sin is often addicting.  And we run back to them as a dog runs back to its own vomit.  These are not easily thrown off.  Indeed, any addict will tell you that there is no freedom, but only slavery.  The alcoholic drinks not because he WANTS to, but because he HAS to.  Same with any addict.  Yet, this is no longer so for you sinners who are in Christ Jesus.  The bonds of sin have been loosed—forever broken by the power of Jesus' own death and resurrection.  Yes, "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  He has died your death and now given you His everlasting life, which has set you free to be His slave—His righteous slave—acting in humble love and service to your neighbor—worshiping the Lord in Spirit and in truth.  Having been baptized into Christ, THIS IS WHO YOU ARE!  Will you still struggle with your addiction to sin and the slavery that brings this side of heaven?  To be sure.  But now, as a baptized child of God, full of the Holy Spirit and the faith that He gives, you are now a slave to righteousness—and more free than you have ever been.  Now, and forevermore.  Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus.  Amen.
           
             

​Martin Hill
St. Paul, Int’l Falls MN
Church of the Lutheran Hour, Ft. Frances ON
Sixth Sunday after Trinity
July 8, 2018
 
Romans 6:1-11 ESV
Today I want you to think about death. We’re quick to think about our own physical death, of grief, separation and pain. But Paul speaks to us today of a different death, of a death that is not physical, but one that takes place inside of you. It’s like a physical death in that it’s a separation, filled with pain and difficulty. But we find life in this death. Truly, this death is the only way to life.
BECAUSE JESUS’ DEATH BRINGS LIFE, OUR DEATH IN BAPTISM BRINGS LIFE.
Baptism doesn’t really seem like a death at first glance: we think of cute babbling babies, little shells, warm candle flames, all the family gathered around this precious child who has the water sprinkled on his head and squirms a little. We don’t see any visible violence, no gasping breath, and most of the time, no cries of pain. It’s easy to see life in this tender moment, but where is the death? Yet Paul insists in his epistle to the Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death” (6:4). This death in Baptism is none other than the death of your old sinful self. When you look into the waters of Baptism, you look into the mouth of a tomb, a watery grave which drowned, choked, and killed your sin.
This death that takes place in Baptism is no less than a real death, because Jesus had no less than a real death. The death in Baptism connects us with and ties us into the death of Jesus. His death is our death; his crucifixion is our crucifixion; his burial is our burial. Paul asks, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (6:3). Our old self and our sin is taken up onto the cross and is crucified. The nails that are driven in to hold Jesus to the cross, hold your old Adam to the cross as well. It dies with Jesus. All this death and dying is brought to you in that simple and innocent washing in the Baptismal font. Jesus gives you his death.
Thank God the story doesn’t end there. Listen again to what Paul says: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (6:5). In the same way that his death was your death, his resurrection is your resurrection. Everything that is his is yours. The waters of Baptism may be a tomb, yet it is the empty tomb of Easter morning: you are not dead, you are risen! We die in the font, and we emerge from the waters into new life, all within the few seconds of Baptism.
In this new life, you are adopted by the Heavenly Father who signs the papers and promises to care for you: you receive the forgiveness of sins, and the inheritance of life forever with your father. Your genealogy is quite simple: you are a child of God and a brother of Christ. Whoever you were is dead and no more, who you are now is all that you need to know.
Baptism is a glorious short moment in which all of these gifts are given to us, all prospects are bright, that baptized baby has a new life and a new name. But that was so long ago for most of us. You probably don’t even remember the day you were baptized. We’re told that we’re made children of God in Baptism; but, you might think, I sin so quickly and easily, Baptism probably didn’t work on me. Dear friends, we’re in the middle of a journey, in between the Baptismal beginning and the end when we enter into blessed eternity. We’re not yet what we will be. At the beginning of a long summer vacation trip, you’ve got the tunes bumping, chatting away with your copilot, the kids are happily snacking on cheerios, you’re fresh and ready to drive for hours on end. But halfway into that journey, nobody’s excited anymore, everyone’s irritable and short-tempered, you forget that you’ve got a warm bed and a nice dinner waiting for you at the end of the trip. Are we there yet? is the perfect question to ask. In the same way, it’s easy for us to forget the path that we are on and the promises ahead of us. Not only do we forget God’s promises ahead of us, we forget who we are as baptized children of God.
This is why Pastor says at the beginning of the service, “I invite you to join with me in making the sign of the cross in remembrance of our Baptism.” Remember the death that took place in your Baptism. Remember who you are as a child of God. When you are tempted, you must ask yourself, is this something that a baptized child of God would do? Would a child of God lie to her husband? Would a child of God ignore a needy friend? Would a child of God refuse to forgive a neighbor? Because being a child of God is not a relationship that happens half of the time, when we want it to. If you were to meet my father, and I told you, “I was his son” you would wonder what happened. Is he your father or not? You see, my identity is his son, and that’s not something that happens half of the time. I say, “I am his son” not “I was his son.” In the same way, you are a child of your heavenly Father. You don’t say “I was baptized” but “I am baptized.”
Without condition, God always calls us his children; we should live like it. Because our identity as his children is something that is challenged and defied every day. Of course, it’s challenged by the world, but most often it is challenged by you! By that old self that still lurks within your sinful flesh. There is a deep and intense battle within you, you know this battle: between the old you and the new you, the sinful you and the sanctified you. Paul says that “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (6:6). Knowing that you died with Christ, you don’t have to obey your old sinful self, because sin is no longer your master: you look to Jesus for how to live. Under Jesus, you live in your ongoing Baptism, drowning your old self every day, again and again. And this is the painful part of being a Christian, dying every day, every moment when sin comes knocking. When Paul says we are dead to sin, think of yourself like a corpse when sin comes knocking: it pokes you, it pushes you, but you do not move; you do not even listen. Because you know that your hope and trust is no longer in sin, but in Jesus Christ. We will fail this battle from time to time, but when we do, we know we are children of a Father who constantly forgives us and welcomes us back home.
            Death is not always a pleasant thing to think about. But for us, death is a positive thing: it is only the entrance into life. Because for us, Christ’s death was the doorway for us to enter in, through Baptism, to eternal life. The hymn-writer captures this perfectly: 
Jesus lives! And now is death
But the gate of life immortal;
This shall calm my trembling breath
When I pass its gloomy portal.
Faith shall cry, as fails each sense:
Jesus is my confidence! (LSB 490)
Amen.
 
 
 
 

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v.18   For the Word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
 
          Dear friends in Christ, "You are all a bunch of fools!  Fools, I tell ya, fools!"  Such is the viewpoint of the unbelieving world.  They look at us Christians, with our beliefs regarding a simple Jewish carpenter from a remote part of a tiny province of the vast empire of ancient Rome, and they regard us as simpletons.  Dolts for believing that this Jesus was anything more than an ordinary man.  Idiots for thinking that He rose again after being crucified.  Crazy for believing that His death and supposed resurrection could possibly bring forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to all those who simply trust in Him and His Word.  Stupid for believing that this same forgiveness won on the cross is given to people today through Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord's Supper.  I mean, come on!  Really?!  That's utter foolishness!
          "It is folly to believe that God exists, period," they say," let alone that a God would work faith and salvation in tiny babies through simple water and words."  That's ridiculous!  People want to see hard proof.  They want evidence of power and glory (much like the Jews of Paul's day that he was talking about in this letter).  "Show me the signs—show me the money—the power—the health—the glory—that this supposed God gives to His people—then I'll believe."  The Jews sought signs—like a major battle won against the Romans that would drive them from Jerusalem.  Now a God who could pull that off—well He would be worth believing in. 
          At the same time the Gentiles sought to dissect all religious belief through rigorous intellectual investigation.  Through careful study and learning they sought to gain wisdom of the world around them, which would enlighten them to some sort of afterlife.  People today seek wisdom in the great god of "science."  "If science says so—then it must be true.  You can only believe in what science can prove.  If it can't be proven scientifically, then it can in no way be true"  (failing to recognize, of course, that some of the most important and real things are not verifiable via the scientific method, such as love, guilt, joy, peace, and even their own most deeply held beliefs like macro evolution and the big bang).  They think very highly of their reason and sensibility to understand the universe and everything in it—thinking that anyone who doesn't believe as they do, must be an utter fool.  Much like those silly Christians who pour water over babies' heads in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and think that anything more goes on than just wetting the child's head.  "Forgiveness of sins?  Eternal life?  Salvation from the devil?  Ha!  Ridiculous!  There's no such thing."
          Yet, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."  For God has declared, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."  God will not be dictated to on how to work salvation for His people.  To those who are perishing in unbelief, the message of salvation—the Word of the cross—is absolute folly.  It makes no sense.  "A Jewish carpenter-turned preacher from 2000 years ago, who was slaughtered by the Romans on a cross, is now risen from the dead?  And by His blood shed on that cross all of my sins—and the sins of the world—have been washed away and forgiven?  That's nuts!"  "But to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
          God's power is displayed in the perfect weakness of His Son hanging dead on the cross in your place and mine.  God's power is given through the humble means of simple water combined with His Word  of promise to wipe out the debt of sin and usher people (young and old) into His glorious kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ.  God's power is received via tiny portions of bread and wine wherein the body and blood of Jesus is really present in order to forgive sins in those who take it into their mouths with faith in Christ's Word of promise.  All of these signs connected to one particular cross upon which Jesus was crucified in a specific Jewish town on a particular afternoon in real history.
          To be sure, the "Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom" just as people today, but we, the church, continue to "preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."  For it is in the preaching of the cross of Christ that God works salvation in the hearts of all those who believe, St. Paul says.  It may seem utter foolishness to the unbelieving world around us, but we persist, for this is the manner in which God has promised to save people—through the seemingly foolish Word of Christ crucified for sinners.  But remember, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
          You, beloved, have been saved through such ridiculous preaching and action on God's part.  He has used sinful men such as myself and countless others, going all the way back to the apostles, to save those who believe.  We ought not be surprised that unbelievers act and believe like unbelievers.  Nor ought we look for gimmicks or tricks to entice people into the kingdom of heaven.  Rather, we are to trust in the sure and certain Word of God given to us in our ears, poured out in water upon our heads, and placed directly into our mouths.  This Word of God that gives us Jesus dead on the cross for the forgiveness of all of our sins.  This promise of life everlasting and salvation from the hand of the dreaded evil one.  Knowing that in Christ Jesus—through faith in Him—we are recipients of the wisdom and strength of God, which is far wiser and stronger than that of men.
          Dear friends, trust in Him.  Trust in the foolishness of God that gives you Jesus dead on the cross and risen to new life for the forgiveness of your sins.  For He is far wiser than any man and He has called you to faith and life through this weak, and seemingly foolish word.  Rejoice in your foolishness.  For it is God's greatest gift to you.  Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus.  Amen.