B, Palm/Passion Sunday - Philippians 2:5-11 "Seven Days of Holy Week"

On Palm Sunday Jesus was glorified by the crowd but just five days later they screamed for his crucifixion.  What happened in this week changed the course of humanity forever. 

On the surface it looks like chaos and a complete miscarriage of justice, but those who received the Holy Spirit and believed the resurrection testify to the crowd,

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—  this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.  God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:22–24 ESV)

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart. (Acts 2:36–37a ESV)

Now we who have been baptised and received the Holy Spirit submit to God’s Word, dwelling on it as we carry our crosses on the road to eternity with Jesus.  But what can we take away from this Lenten season, from this Palm Passion Sunday and our Saviour’s death on Good Friday?

Yes we know the eighth day is coming! The day of Jesus’ resurrection!  And we know in trusting God and his word we will be raised too.  But how can we reflect on these seven days of Holy Week, and every seven day week in which we live until our final week here is replaced and we’re resurrected into the eternal eighth day of God’s heavenly reality?

It is very easy for us to hear of the events of Jesus’ passion and ponder that we are people like the Palm Sunday crowd, and that maybe so!  But what was the motive of the crowd on Palm Sunday, especially after Jesus enters the temple and upturns the tables when they hoped for him to overturn the Roman government and throw them out of Jerusalem.  Had Jesus wronged them? 

Maybe Jesus is not living up to your expectations!  Perhaps he is not giving you what you want, seemingly wronging you, letting you suffer like a slave rather than letting you kickback like a king.

Saint Paul tells us, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11ESV)

Here we are told we’re given the gift of this mind amongst ourselves from Jesus himself.  Jesus did not see himself as God.  He emptied himself!  He became a servant!  A slave! He was truly they Son of Man, the servant of man!  Even though Jesus is not only the Messiah, the Anointed King, he is the Son of God.  But he humbled himself to be the Servant Son or Slave of Man.  In short he became nothing.

But in the horror of being made nothing he has made us something.  He has made us someone before God!  Unfortunately, more often than not, we take this someone to be something other than the humble creature servant kings and children of God, and once again take our being liked by God, recreated in the likeness of God, and seek to usurp him by being like God.

Jesus knew we would continue to struggle in this old creation of seven days.  This is why he lay down his life for us, and why he sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in his Word through this life until he ends the old seven day creation once and for all and carries us into the eighth day of his eternal kingdom at our resurrection.

So Jesus gave us a prayer in which the Holy Spirit helps us to pray and we can use its petitions this week to reflect on our sinful condition and why Jesus had to die for me, you and all people.  This prayer is the Lord’s Prayer and it can help those who believe to look deeply into the loving heart of God and our hearts that need this steadfast, constant, merciful and generous love.

In fact this pray and its seven petitions is a perfect mirror of reflection on the seven days of Holy Week, and for that matter any seven day week made holy for those who believe as they wait for the kingdom, power and glory to be made manifest for them at their resurrection.  Ironically, each petition reflects the actions of the crowd as they descend from Palm Sunday’s “Hosanna” to “Crucify him” on Good Friday.

In Luther’s explanation of the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven”, he writes, “Here God encourages us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are his children”.  In other words, this prayer is a recognisation of our restored creatureliness in the presence of God.  We receive the gift of Jesus’ kingship and it’s a kingship of servanthood.  We live in a relationship with God similar to that of God and Adam before the fall, but now after the fall we live it in the reality of sin, death, and evil.  We pray to our Father in heaven, in the hope of our restoration through the perfect creaturely New Adam, Jesus Christ.

Let’s now look at the seven days of Holy Week and see how they sit with the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

Sunday’s petition, Hallowed by your name.  It appears the crowd were hallowing God’s name with shouts of Hosanna!  But were they hallowing it to glorify God or were they worshipping what they wanted Jesus to be for them.  Here we can reflect on our motivation and confess that we so often seek to use God for our own benefit.  This is using God to justify our own godliness.  A godliness that is not sacrificial like Jesus. A godliness that sits in judgement over God and his Word rather than one that sits in submission and servanthood!  

Monday, Your kingdom come.  As we go off and pick up the regular beat of the week, have you taken God with you?  In other words, are you still the creaturely servant God has called you to be?  Or have you put God back in his Sunday box and picked up pursuing your kingdom?  Are you 100% for God as Jesus was?  Are you carrying your cross or are you tempted to put off the cross to keep face with the world?  God’s kingdom comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to turn over the tables of our human spirit so we believe that God’s kingdom has come in baptism, is coming despite the crosses we bear, and will come at the resurrection.  Let us confess Jesus in the kingdom of this world through our confession of sin and Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins.

Tuesday, Your will be done on earth as in heaven.  What is God’s will for you?  Firstly, it is his will to forgive us our sins, for we know not what we do.  He doesn’t just forgive us for what we do, he forgives us for who we are.  In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39 ESV)  God’s will is to forgive sin.  This is the steadfast love of God for we who struggle with a steadfast natures of sin. 

And God’s will for us on earth is to be the new Adams and the new Eves as fulfilled in Jesus.  As kings and servants in the kingdom of God on earth we forgive as God has forgiven us.

Wednesday, Give us this day our daily bread.  Hear God gives us a petition of prayer showing us the reality of our need.  As creatures we ask for all we need.  The going is tough so we are reminded to turn to God just as Jesus did.  We pray, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let this food to us be blessed.”  But there is a second more important part that points us to Maundy Thursday which the church can pray, “blessed be God who is our bread may the world be clothed and fed!” 

Thursday, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  The first three petitions encourage us to look to God in his holiness and love, now after the fourth, we can reflect on why he has to be gracious with us. 

Our creatureliness is fallen but our sin is covered by Jesus’ body and blood, given and she for forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  If we change this petition to first person it reads, “forgive me my sin as I forgive those who sin against me.”  This is the only active part of the Lord’s Prayer attributed to us, to me, all other actions are attributed to God. 

Our lives in Christ are a calling to forgive others as Jesus forgives us.  But notice how the petition is worded in reverse. We ask God to forgive us the same way we forgive others.  How do you forgive others?  If you are anything like me you will be made humble by just how gracious God is despite our ongoing struggle to forgive others.  The cross we bear in forgiving others requires the death of our pride and all that our human nature and spirit trusts other than God.

Friday, Lead us not into temptation.  Good Friday is the day of the great exchange.  Crucify him, Crucify him. God crucifies your kingdom and gives you his when you were baptised into his death and resurrection.  When you are tempted to not believe God’s work in your baptism, see that God did not send his only Son to his cross for nothing.  His blood covers you sin, don’t be tempted you are now no longer in need of forgiveness as if you now no longer need his crucifixion. 

Our temptation is also to crucify others with our accusations. This is a temptation back into the kingdom of darkness.  We now live in the kingdom of light and it’s a kingdom of forgiveness. Do not be tempted to toss away and crucify God’s eternal kingdom.

Saturday, But deliver us from evil.  This is the final and seventh petition.  On Holy Saturday Jesus showed his sinlessness to those in hell.  Now that Jesus has been crucified his death crucifies all unholiness. You are delivered from evil into holiness. 

But just as Jesus remembered the Sabbath and made it holy with his perfect sinless rest in the grave and descent into hell we are called to ponder the holiness we have received in baptism. No longer are we commanded "be holy for the Lord is holy" as a work with which to busy ourselves. Rather our being is holy because the Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. 

We can now do the work of bringing our evil into the light through confession of sin, which might seem to be the wrong thing to do but it pleases God because it shows trust in the good work Jesus did at the cross and the good work the Holy Spirit continues us to do by bring us to Jesus every day in repentance.

As you go from here into this week walk the Holy Week with Jesus. Walk with Jesus to the cross and in carrying your cross know it is Jesus who truly bears your load of sin and death, and it is he who carries you through to the resurrection.

Our Father in heaven, the kingdom, and the power and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen. 

B, Lent 4 - John3:16 "No Cliché"

John 3:16 is possibly the most well known and quoted verse of scripture in the bible and therefore has become a cliché.  And because it’s so overused it has become commonplace and boring to most who use it.  They say familiarity breeds contempt, and human nature does the same with God’s Word.

But let’s change the stakes and turn the tables on our comfortable realities a little so we might get a proper understanding on what is actually going on, first with ourselves, and, then with God.

We can do this with asking ourselves the question scripture itself asks in Psalm 116:12, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” What can I give back to the Lord for all his goodness to me?  What do I owe God?  What payment can I give?

Now let’s turn up the intensity.  Picture yourself on judgement day.  You are standing before God and God says to you, “What have you done? Give me an account of yourself!”  Before God you will answer truthfully.  There will be no fast talking to convince him you have done what is necessary.  There will be no Garden of Eden talk, Adam blaming Eve or Eve blaming the serpent.  God will open you up like a book and judge your life, for eternity with him or eternity without him.

There is really only one answer to give.  And it’s the answer we struggle to give every day of our lives.  As individuals we try to avoid giving it.  Even the church throughout history is mislead in its resistance to answer the question and it still does today as it seeks to be popular in a world of political correctness that is far from God’s truth about us.

The only answer we can give to God for all his benefits to us is no different than the Israelites in the wilderness dying from their sin as a result of being bitten by fiery serpents.  They said to Moses, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” (Number 21:7 ESV)

We have sinned.  We are sinners.  We needed to be saved from our sins. Not only do we need to confess this. We actually need to believe it.  Like the Israelites we need realisation of this truth in the inward being.  And as God teaches us in Psalm 51 it is what delights God when we confess this truth from the inward being.

But we need ask ourselves, “Why is it so difficult to confess our sin? Why is it easier for us from childhood to tell a lie?  Why is it easier for the denominations of the Christian Church to forge the line of popularity over against the confession of sin? Why is it easier for our own denomination and its leaders to ignore twenty odd years of God speaking through the synodical process, or worse, sitting in judgement over the Word of God rather than sitting in submission to it?  We do better to acknowledge our assault on his sovereignty as the broken creatures that we are. Broken, because the creature has sought to usurp its Creator!

The Israelites shame us in this text.  They turn and seek salvation. They confess and seek an answer from the Lord.  Our shame is not only written in the Old Testament.  The New Testament shows each of us our guilt. 

From James 5:16 we hear, “...confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Take to heart what the Lord also tells us earlier in chapter 5,

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.  Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.  Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.  You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1–3, 5 ESV)

And before you excuse yourselves as not being rich, remember you are standing before God as an open book, with all the things, feelings and people you hold in value over God.

Its right about at this time we begin to realise we are condemned and we only further destine ourselves for destruction by appealing to any work or presumptuous attitude we might hold to justify ourselves.  And it is here we need to take a second look at the gospel pericope today to see exactly what Jesus is saying to you and me.

First, let’s take the cliché verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.”  Perhaps the truth of what God is saying here might connect more clearly if this verse is paraphrased this way, “God saw that you and I were so habitually self-interested, turned in on the self, proud, pretentious, presumptuous and willing to lie about our helplessness that he had to let his Son die for you and me. 

In short, even when we make ourselves God our love shows us not to be God and we fall far short of the steadfast love which we need for life.  When we live life back-to-front it not only spells evil, it is evil. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Second, just as Jesus gives power to Nicodemus, he empowers all people by giving us life through death.   As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, the Son of Man is lifted up.  The sin we find so easy to hide and lie about is made the centrepiece in a move only God could do or would think of doing.   The snake that bites becomes the snake that saves.  Similarly Jesus becomes the sinner lifted us that saves the sinner who believes he or she is a sinner. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Third, God loved this broken world and lifted up his Son as a sinner that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  The truth of God is that we need to believe the reality of our brokenness is so bad, personally and collectively, it needed a loving sacrifice, so steadfast, so selfless, so generous that he let Jesus die on the cross. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Fourth, the reality of our sin that kills God’s Son is such that if left to our own devices we could not believe this was for our good.  So Jesus himself confesses that it is not for the world’s condemnation but for its salvation.  How often do we see the sin of others on our televisions and in our neighbourhoods and join in the condemnation and the accusation of the world.  Here we need reminding that Satan is the accuser and when we accuse we are not working in the kingdom of God but rather following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Fifth, “whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”  The little word “in” from the Greek is “en” and it means in, by and with.  So this work is completed in God, by God, and with God.  God works his work of salvation in us, for us, and because of us.  Now the Holy Spirit battles with your human spirit (the old Adam) to forgive others as God has forgiven us. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

And God, in his love, continues to put a reality checkers in place for us here too.  He calls us not to reject his grace and therefore sin against the Holy Spirit by refusing to repent and believe.  When we do we stop the work of the Holy Spirit by not exposing our sin in the light of God lifted up on the cross. 

Judge for yourselves!  Is it better to expose your sin now and live in the light or to hide it and have it exposed on the day of judgement?  If you don’t want God as the centrepiece of your life now why would you want it on judgement day?  Further more why would God want you as a part of his kingdom then?  There is only on response to God here. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Saint Paul writes to the church in Ephesus to encourage them not to be deceived. He says, faith is not a feeling, faith is not a commitment derived within one’s self, nor is faith a good work.  He says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)

Another cliché appears here, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.”  But what does this mean for us?  In short this is the work of God.  For by grace (that is Jesus’ death and resurrection) you have been saved (that is judged guilty but given the sentence of eternal life) by faith (that is the work of the Holy Spirit enabling you to believe despite your sinful nature).

Then Paul says these wonderful words, “For we are his workmanship” What is this workmanship?  It is that we are restored creatures of the Creator, re-created in Christ Jesus for good works.  And what are the good works of God?  Surely they are the works that glorify God and show his justification for sending his Son to the cross!  Jesus tells us that we will do even greater works when he goes to the Father.  He says in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”

And again, …they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28–29 ESV)

So do what is true in the eyes of God.  We “come out” into to the light.  Don’t “come out” as the children of disobedience do who parade their sin as some sort of justification but “come out” in confession.  Confess your sins to each other and to God, remembering that we are called to forgive one another as God has forgiven us. When we lift up our sin in confession, it allows us to die. The old self dies, the human spirit suffers, but the new creature in Christ is raised in eternal life.

Judgement day is no cliché. It is coming, it will come, but it has already come to those who glorify God and his work in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Confess you are a sinner but believe you are a saint, baptised into Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we are sinners, but we have been forgiven, we are being forgiven, and we will be forgiven forever, truly truly, Amen and Amen.