C, The First Sunday after Christmas - Luke 2:41-52 "A Lost Child"

Mary and Joseph are in great distress as they search for Jesus.  After three days they feared the worst but expected the best.  Anyone who has lost a child knows the feeling that washes over oneself when a child goes missing.

The story of the twelve-year-old Jesus missing as the family returns from the Passover feast, could be the original script for the Christmas movie franchise, Home Alone.  The extended family leaves to go on holidays with much chaos and confusion only to leave the youngest child behind.  The mother only realises when they have taken off and are high in the sky.

But it’s not little Kevin who’s been left behind, but Jesus.  And he’s not the youngest, but the oldest, Mary’s first-born son.   Yet every parent knows the feeling when the realisation hits home when a minor is missing.

Separation anxiety is bad enough when parent and child are split up on the first day of school, moving out of home, or marrying and making their own way in the world.  We’ve heard about Hannah making a linen robe for her little boy, Samuel, seeing him only once a year as he serves with Eli in the temple.  Imagine that, seeing your little child once a year!

But that would  be a blessing for those who don’t know their child’s location.  How much worse is it when a child’s whereabouts is not known?  The mind races!  Have they been taken?  Are they alive? Where are they?  One fears the worst!

And then there’s the relief when one sets eyes on the child safe and sound.  Along with the joy of the lost being found, there’s also chastisement, especially if the child has wandered off of their own accord.  Measures are put in  place to protect the minor from going missing again.

Then there are those who have lost children in death.  December twenty-eight is the remembrance for the Holy Innocents, the children martyred by Herod in his rage to rid himself of the rival Christ-child King.  Unimaginable is the grief of those who’ve lost a child, seemingly before their time!  Children are expected to bury their parents, not the other way around.  This would have to be one of the worst things a parent has to confront.

But there is relief for Mary and Joseph.  When Jesus is found he says, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 ESV)  Here Jesus mentions his Father, but it’s not Joseph.  In fact, Mary is the only parent mentioned by name.  Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus said to them.  Yet Mary remembered and pondered Jesus words, passing them onto Luke at some stage in the future for him to record it in his gospel account.

We know Jesus was not the natural born son of Joseph.  He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit when Gabriel, the archangel spoke to Mary.  Not naming Joseph can be viewed as a deliberate exclusion by Luke, the gospel’s author.  The boy Jesus, naming God as his Father and not his earthly father, Joseph, is a lesson for all fathers to ween their children from their fatherhood.  To teach and instruct their children about their adoption by the Heavenly Father in baptism.  God does not have grandchildren, just sons and daughters!  So, it’s mum’s and dad’s responsibility to hand their children onto their God and Father — Jesus’ Father who is in heaven.  In a similar way Elkanah and Hannah did this with Samuel.

One can imagine Samuel not understanding what was going on when he was young and sent to the temple to live with Eli.  Mary and Joseph also didn’t understand Jesus, having to be in his Father’s house. When we teach of God’s adoption in baptism, children may not understand, and as parents we might sinfully seek to have our children glorify us over God.  But through enduring teaching of our children, they will believe they are sons and daughters of the Father, long before they understand, if ever!

Losing a child is traumatic, no matter if it’s permanent, in death, or even, just for a time!  In a picture similar to Hannah and Elkanah, God the Father, gave up his one and only Son, to be born to human parents, Mary and Joseph.  However, Samuel’s ministry before the Lord differed greatly from Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus’ ministry was a baptism into death.  From the moment Jesus was conceived, he became the child, who was to be lost in death so humanity could be found by the Father, with life in Christ!  

Three days lost was too much for his parents to bear and understand, how much more his death on the cross, descent into the grave and hell, and resurrection on the third day?

How difficult it is for us to understand God the Father turning his back on his one and only Son to allow him to be the Son of Man, to be the Holy Innocent One for us, serving us salvation and innocence in exchange for our guilt and sin.  Serving you salvation to save you from your humanity!

The generations of children growing up today face a myriad of challenges that see too many realise their corruption only to give up and commit suicide.  Some take a longer road to death by giving themselves over to their desires that don’t deliver the perceived pleasures they thought they were going to get.  Like a throwaway Christmas present, over time they realise they’re on the garbage heap of life.

From the moment a child learns to say “no”, every human has always sought to make the pleasure, “all mine”!  These desires and pleasures become sexual in adolescence and adult life.   Then somewhere in there, we add the fixation of amassing goods; wealth and possessions that really aren’t all that good.  And when, and if, these temptations die down, honour and glory become more important as we seek to leave a legacy of our desires that ultimately, lead us to death.

How difficult it is for us children to turn our backs on the addictions that cause death.  So much so, the hopelessness realised in these days is accelerated in parallel with the ease and quickness of the ability to get, and be failed by, our desires and pleasures.

How difficult it is for us to understand that from the moment the Son of God was conceived within  Mary, he was saying “yes” to the will of our Father in heaven.  That when Jesus lay in a manger as a weak human baby, the Son of God was willingly putting aside his divinity to be in an environment of desire, disease, and death.  To serve and save humanity as the Son of Man! 

When he was a toddler and the holy innocents were being murdered by Herod’s men, he understood his mission as the Son of Man, and the Son of God, was to be innocently crucified on the cross, to save us from our desires, diseases, and death. 

Even now as he is at the right hand of God the Father, in all his risen glory, he continues to carry us in prayer before our Father. 

Our Father, together with his Son, send the Holy Spirit to serve us in a way that leads us from our evil, temptation to furnish our kingdoms of destruction and unwillingness to forgive.  To forgive!  To know and welcome God’s will is being done.  To hope in God’s kingdom coming in power and glory!  And to know and believe we are holy, because Jesus is our holy bread, despite the unholiness that leads every person to death.

What we consume and hang onto in this world is death.  We call it life and living, but it’s not!  However, a deposit of life has been placed within your shell of deathly existence.  When Jesus lay in the manger and when the children of Bethlehem were being murdered, he saw you!  When Jesus was asking questions of the teachers in his Father’s house in Jerusalem, when he wept over Lazarus’ death, and when he wept over Jerusalem, he was learning your death and weeping over you.  When he was nailed to the cross, when our sin nailed him there, he said of you, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34 ESV)

And because you do what God does not want you to do, he and Jesus constantly send you the Holy Spirit!  So, you too, do not like what you do, but allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in your destruction of death, and resurrection to life eternal, even now in this earthly existence. 

The Father of Lies, the devil, and society in all its good and evil, rages against the destruction of death.  So too does the Old Adam within and it seeks a resurrection of its own that seeks to reestablish the savagery and death from which you’ve been rescued.

But our Lord and Father wins the battle over the devil, sin, and death, through his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

See the almighty heavenly joy, when you, the lost child, are brought by the Holy Spirit into the Father’s house.  See also the heavenly choir sing, “Glory to God in the highest”, when our Father is glorified in his Son Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, at your resurrection and return to be with your Heavenly Father, face to face forever. Amen.

Let us pray. Father welcomes all his children to his family through his Son, Father giving his salvation, life for ever has been one.  Lord God Holy Spirit, let us daily die to sin, let us daily die with him.  Holy Spirit, walk us in the love of Christ our Lord, so we live in the peace of God, our Father.  Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 26 Proper 28 - Mark 13 "Final Day Failure to See Failure"

On January sixteen, two thousand and three, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in the United States of America, launched space shuttle Columbia into a sixteen-day orbit around the earth for an extensive scientific mission.  It never touched down!  In the sixteenth minute before it was due to land, mission control lost contact with the orbiter as it broke up on re-entry over Texas and Louisiana. 

The greatest fears were confirmed as video from the media was broadcast to the US nation, unbeknown to mission control in Houston, who were still trying to reestablish contact with Columbia.

A chunk of foam, not unlike the expander foam you can buy at a hardware store, just twenty-one to twenty-seven inches long by twelve to eighteen inches wide, that’s about half to three-quarters of a metre by thirty to forty-five centimetres.  It broke off the large propellant tank strapped under the shuttle, just eighty or so seconds after launch, smashing into the reinforced carbon-carbon covering the left wing of the orbiter.

There were concerns over the incident by some at NASA, but it was dismissed because it was unbelievable that foam could damage, let alone, destroy reinforced carbon-carbon on the wing of the Columbia.

The scientific mission of Columbia was ended, ironically,  by a scientific impossibility, as some believed.  However, in the aftermath of the disaster, it was shown through experiment that foam could destroy reinforced carbon-carbon, when it’s travelling at high speed.

The fracturing of foam was known to NASA.  Yet people at NASA control still kept sending astronauts into orbit knowing brittle bits of foam were being dislodged.  Some of which earlier had caused damage to one of the Atlantis shuttle’s solid fuel rockets without catastrophe, since these are ejected after launch, not needed for re-entry. 

However, the damage to the Columbia space shuttle orbiter proved fatal on re-entry, due to catastrophic destruction of the left wing’s protection from the foam collision on take-off.  Therefore, without this protection, the super heating that occurs on re-entry, opened the vehicle for destruction, and the crew was lost.

The great pleasure in NASA,  and the accomplishment of a successful mission dissolved into NASA’s and the United States’ realisation of their greatest fears. What they had marvelled over as their greatest achievement brought about their greatest fears, destruction and death!

The disciples marvelled at the stones and the buildings of the Jerusalem temple, to which Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2 ESV)

This was not the first temple but the second.  Solomon’s temple had long been sacked, and in its wake, Herod set about to construct the second temple.  Last week we heard in Solomon’s Psalm one hundred and twenty-seven, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.” (Psalm 127:1–2a ESV)

However, the Jews didn’t take heed of God’s Word, nor the four hundred years of events that led to Jesus’ coming.  Rather, they vainly trusted in themselves and their deeds, forgetting what led to Israel’s and Judah’s destruction and desolation.  Hear the unbelief of the people when God sought to call their vanity to account through Jeremiah…

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 7:3-4, 8–11 ESV)

From Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus prophesy the reality of Jerusalem and its temple in the end times.  After the destruction and desolation, that saw their forefathers exiled to Babylon and beyond, having not remained under the warnings from God in his Word, they continued refusing to listen to Jesus, the Son of God, and sought their own desires causing desolation and destruction.  

In these last days, in which we have been since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the church continues to test God with its opposition to his Word, and fails to heed its warnings, as it seeks to place its trust in culture and the authority of the mob.

Our General Pastors’ Conference and General Convention of Synod, like NASA, like the Jews, has not listened to God and his Word, nor the advice of previous synods, nor two thousand years of Christ sustaining his church from desolation and destruction. 

At best, what is done has occurred through apathy, as a deception of the “abomination of desolation standing where here ought not be” (Mark 13:14)  That is, evil in the place of Christ, masked as an angel of light, working through mischief to lead the apathetic into a unity of ignorance that’s false and leads to destruction.

At worst, like those who lead others into deception, some are acting with deliberate disobedience before God and his Word, by placing themselves over the Word of God in seeking to conform the church to the catastrophic cultural corruption all around us.   

So, like NASA and the pressure upon it to be popular and positive, the church is led into negatives that lead to the worst.  Without addressing the issue that was the worst, the worst occurred at NASA.  Nothing was learnt from the “sins of the past”.  Nothing was done about the foam breakage issues, until it was too late.

The greatest fear in front of us in God’s church, is that we become lost to our baptismal salvation, like the crew and vehicle of Columbia.  In ignorance, we trust in the word of others, rather than God’s Word, and tempt finding ourselves on the wrong side of God’s judgement.  

We can lose control and burn up so close to salvation, through apathy and deception, or active wilful disobedience.

Don’t let what others say, “is a harmless little piece of foam”, when it can destroy your baptismal faith!  Don’t allow your faith to become a piece of foam that destroys you.  Don’t let that which is meant to protect you become dislodged so that it destroys you!  If you think this can’t happen to you, I invite you to open God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to show you that it can, and has, to God’s chosen people, who had “the temple of the Lord”, that ultimately, he allowed to be destroyed in 70AD.

Speaking of NASA and the disaster, a shuttle chief engineer said, “I feel ashamed!  So, who’s guilty? I’m not just going to say the program managers are. We’re all guilty. If you don’t speak up for your own system and you’re victims of this environment, we’re guilty too!” (Rodney Rocha – NASA Shuttle Chief Engineer, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

How do we galvanise ourselves against our greatest fear, eternal death and destruction?  On judgement day it’s no good saying to God, “I believed in Pastor Heath!  I believed in the bishops!  I believed in the LCANZ!  I believed in what I felt, in what “I” thought about God.  We have to believe “the Word of God”!  To open it!  Read it!  Pray for understanding, worked in you by the Holy Spirit, so you stand in submission under Jesus Christ and his Word!  God calls you to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

Jesus says to you who desire to fear and love God, who fear eternal death over earthly death, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:5–6 ESV)

The seemingly harmless pleasures, “the pieces of foam”, within each of us, within our congregation, parish, district, and synod, can destroy us and bring eternal desolation.  Therefore, be strengthened in the Word of God to be on guard against your sinful self; the evil within.  Be strengthened against the cultures of chaos working through others; the evil from without!   Be strengthened against the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not be; that is, the devil, the evil one, inside and outside the church!

Since Christ ascended into heaven, the commonwealth of God’s holy church has always been tempted into becoming common by losing the holiness of its wealth.  Two thousand years into the end times, some have lost sight of what makes us holy, that sets us apart from the world, as God’s children, as his commonwealth. 

This commonwealth community of God is a republic of repentance.  Our eternal wealth is built on the knowledge of our failures having been forgiven.  The Holy Spirit leads us as a republic of repentant sinners constantly being forgiven in Jesus Christ.  The fragility that fractures this faith, is your human spirited apathy or wilful disobedience to participate in the Holy Spirit’s republic of repentance. We’re being made one as the Holy Spirit works common repentance, reviving us as God’s renewed public property, a holy commonwealth in Christ.

Your fear of failure needs you to understand your weakness and ability to fail!  If you don’t, you will place your faith in yourself; the very thing that causes your failure.  Failure to repent, to know you need to repent, is catastrophic!  

An accident investigator of the Columbia tragedy said, “This was a known failure. But I think failure to imagine being wrong, the failure to imagine the consequences of failure, are catastrophic.  And I think it’s this whole notion of the failure, to imagine failure.” (Patrick Goodman – Accident Investigator, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

Like NASA, the Jews failed to recognise their failure to follow God’s Law and their failure by trusting in the temple the Lord gave them, rather than his Word.  When we fail to recognise our failure and the forgiveness offered because of our failure, and place faith in what fails us, we become like those who believe in the temple, rather than God who gave the temple.  And like those who believed a cheap piece of foam couldn’t harm reinforced carbon-carbon.

The only safe ship that will deliver you through the atmosphere of failure and death into eternity, is the eternally enduring coverings of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh!  Amen.

B, Easter 3 - Acts 3:14-16, 1 John 3:2-3, Luke 24:45-49 "The Author of Life"

Acts 3:14–16 (ESV)  But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,  and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.  And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

1 John 3:2–3 (ESV)  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Luke 24:45–49 (ESV)  Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,  and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,  and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

*******

The Author of life is raised by God from death.  The Author of life opens the minds of those who are gathered before him.  And he calls those gathered to wait;  to wait to be clothed with power from on high.

The power with which the church is clothed is the power of life!  This life-power is the authority of Jesus’ resurrection.  The promise of God is this: we are made his children.  Life is authored within us by the resurrected Author of life, Jesus Christ, the Son of God!

God has placed us in a holding pattern of life.  Although we experience the corruption of dying and death in our daily existence, we are called to expect the revelation of being like Jesus.  But this will only be realised when we see him as he is, at his return, at our eternal resurrection.   Until then, we are dying in this existence!  But we’re dying to live! 

The holding pattern is revealed within us as faith, having been clothed with power from on high.  Faith is not a feeling, although faith can make us feel good at times, for which we are thankful!  But faith gives each of us an expectation of being made like Jesus, despite what our experiences and feelings tell us in this world.

As we age, we experience, the effects of sin on our bodies.  Some of the things we suffer might have come as a result of sinful deeds.  From the sinful things we’ve done!  But the reality is, even if we did nothing wrong, if we did not sin, we would still suffer from our human being, being human, that in its very nature is sinful.

The nature of our being; its feelings, its thoughts, its works, the mechanics of our physical bodies, our senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing, exist and fail in the deconstruction that’s death.  Therefore, we all suffer!   

Jesus came into his own dying creation to reinject it with life, lost when humanity was separated from the tree of life.  For Jesus to fix his creation, he suffered in his creation, suffering that led to death.  The Creator died in his very own creation, so life could be recreated within a creation existing in death.

After Jesus was raised and ascended into heaven, and was hidden from our sight, it may have seemed that all returned to what it was before.  After all, death still exists!  People are still given to following the deadliness of their human nature and hide their sin.  But the reality of true life is now a reality of faith, that exposes the truth about us and the truth about Jesus Christ!

Peter and John are in the temple after the first Pentecost.  The apostles’ minds had been opened by Jesus as he appeared amongst them after the resurrection.  They no longer cowered and hid from the Jews.  In fact, at Pentecost they proclaimed the risen Lord to the Jews, and many became believers.

A man, lame from birth, begging at the temple, walks as a result of Peter’s  proclamation.   They who had their minds opened by Jesus, now open the minds of others.  This was not an act of Peter or John, but rather an act of the Holy Spirit, working with and through the apostles, and within the man who having been healed, “entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” (Acts 3:8 ESV)

The irony of this first healing event should not ever be lost on us!  Here the man whose sinful nature prevented him from entering the temple, now enters the temple.  His inability to enter was not from any sin that he had done, but rather it was the consequences of the nature he received at birth. 

Like him we are lame in every way before God and have no earthly way of entering into his presence.  But now like the lame man who walked and leapt his way into the temple, praising God, we can praise God in his presence too!

But the temple curtain has been torn, and God is no longer found at his mercy seat in the Holy of Holies.  Where is God if he is not in the temple sanctuary? 

Well, God is in his sanctuary!  However, the sanctuary has changed!  God now lives within his children.  He tabernacles within!  God now enters the Jerusalem temple, as Peter and John enter the temple, as the dancing praising healed man enters, and also enters in those who had received the Holy Spirit, as a result of that first Pentecost.

We know that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in seventy AD.  From Good Friday, God no longer sits on his mercy seat in the Jerusalem temple.  In mercy he now rests in the hearts of those who believe.  God now covers the sinful nature of believers, despite the sin that still comes from believers.   By 70 AD, the believers had long been dispersed by persecution from the Jerusalem temple.  God’s mercy now sat in the hearts of the dispersed, and the temple was sacked.   It no longer had a purpose in God’s plan of salvation!

Today, God gathers us as church in Jesus’ resurrection victory.  He gathers us by the power of the Holy Spirit and will continue to do so as he has promised!  The promise we have is that we are God’s children now, called together in power from on high.  Faith in the name of Jesus has made you strong.  Jesus sees and knows you!  The faith that’s received from Jesus, by the Spirit, gives you the perfection of Jesus, for life eternal as we die. 

So, God authors holy life in you now, through his holy word and holy sacraments.  Repentance and forgiveness of sin, confessed, received, believed, and seen only through faith, enlivens and enlightens you, despite the corruption you see working within.

As God opens your mind in his word, he shows you two things, which matures faith within. 

First, he enlightens us with an ever-increasing sight of the sinful nature and its deadliness.  This would drive us to despair and eternal death if he did not graciously and mercifully reveal it to us in a timely manner.  God does not expose us to more than we can bear.

The second thing he does after revealing an ever-increasing sight of our sin is an ever-increasing sight of his merciful presence in his word and sacrament.  This occurs when we are gathered, being forgiven, and fed, so he might continue to tabernacle within us as church.  We then disperse, taking the mercy of God out into the dispersion where others have an opportunity to see Jesus working within us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to confess him and to confess his forgiveness of our sin.

The maturing of faith allows you to witness what Jesus Christ works within your being, despite being sinful.  You clearly see your sin and inability to work your way out of it.  But through knowledge of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and the acts of the Holy Spirit, mature faith finds it’s completion in hope. 

Therefore, everyone who hopes in Jesus Christ is purified as he is pure.  The Holy Spirit works this deposit of the pure holy of holies within you, where the Father sits enthroned on his mercy seat.  Jesus is the mercy seat of God, the Author of life within. 

So, as forgiven and covered sinners, we trust less and less in ourselves, and wait more and more, for the Author of life and his eternal lifegiving goodness. 

Amen. 

B, Lent 3 - Psalm 19:14 John 2:13-22 "Acceptable Fellowship"

Psalm 19:14 (ESV) Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.  Amen.

The words of Jesus’ mouth and the meditation of Jesus’ heart, as he drove the traders and their stock out of the temple, destroyed the fellowship of both, those changing money, and those selling animals for Passover sacrifices.  It seems Jesus was angry as he bound cords, made a whip, and drove them out of the temple!  What type of fellowship was Jesus dispersing?

Jesus’ disciples remembered words from the first half of Psalm sixty-nine verse nine, “For zeal for your house has consumed me.”  (Psalm 69:9 ESV)  Also, we can consider Psalm one hundred and nineteen, verse one hundred and thirty-nine, as Jesus rouses the temple traders and their wares, “My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words.”  (Psalm 119:139 ESV)

Rather than anger, Jesus was jealous for his Father’s house!  His words were solely concerned with our Father’s word!  If we consider this jealousy as anger, his anger was restoring fellowship rather than wrecking it.

However, anger does destroy fellowship!  We all know when we become angry, or someone becomes angry with us, we lose connection with the other party.  This is the sin of presumptuousness; when one seethes and becomes high-handed.  Fellowship and peace fly out the window when our feelings and the musings of the heart, become words unacceptable in God’s sight.

Instead of God being our rock and redeemer, in our anger, through our fear and lack of trust in God, we presume from our internal reckonings, we are good and righteous, they are bad and wrong.    Therefore, we presume, “they” need correction. 

However, our presumptions are assumptions with little to no evidence. God is put out of the picture and is replace with our assumed divinity!   What  is good for us is not necessarily good for God who knows what is truly good and evil, the true reality of our way, our truth, and our life!

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life of God the Father.  His way in all things, including his way in the temple, is begotten of the Father.  Jesus’ word is “the truth” and is begotten of our Father in Heaven.  The life Jesus lives, being led to the cross by the proceedings of the Holy Spirit, is also begotten by God our Father.

What appears to be anger on Jesus’ part is far from the divisive anger you or I perpetuate.   Even the most righteous human anger kills fellowship.  Whereas Jesus’ jealous word, works to restore our fellowship with God and our fellow human beings.

At the sermon on the mount Jesus equates our anger with murder.  Murder kills fellowship!  Yes, literally for the one murdered.  But it kills fellowship with God, for the one who has lifted his hand in murder.  Even an insult of “you fool” cost the name caller their fellowship.  Jesus tells us, “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”  (Matthew 5:22 ESV)

Jesus takes our words of anger and stretches them, so neither you, nor I, are free of God’s judgement in the Ten Commandments.  God knows all active aggression hidden behind closed doors!  God knows all passive aggression hidden behind a polite smile!  He knows the disobedience of your human heart.  Anger in all humanity’s activities.  Anger in the buzz of business.  Anger within cultures and between countries.  Anger over lack of other’s discernment.  Anger instead of empathy.  Anger born out of frustration.  Anger between generations, and anger even between the sexes!  God sees all unacceptable fellowship played out between people today, as sin.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

Paul tells Timothy what to expect as a result of the fellowship breakdown of humanity before Christ  returns.

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,  treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.  For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,  always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”  (2 Timothy 3:1–7 ESV)

Today as God is being killed in our society, it’s as if humanity is a hive of bees busy buzzing away in  human activity.  Yet, when the beekeeper comes to check on the hive, his workers become increasingly agitated, for being disturbed, and attack he who has given them their hive as their home.

Before Jesus came,  temple Judaism had become like a hive of bees devouring themselves!  Their hive was empty of honey, God’s word was used presumptuously, against each other, therefore, against God.  Fellowship had failed.  Paul reminds us in his letter to Timothy that in the last days this will happen too.  God and his fellowship will not only be killed in society, but bold presumptuous attempts to kill him will occur inside the church before Christ comes again.  This is because we in the church busy ourselves with the same love of self, as those outside.

Yet Jesus says to the Jews of the temple, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19 ESV)

Begotten by God, Jesus was raised by God the Father, and by the Holy Spirit who proceeded from the Father to raise Jesus from the dead!  Like a seed planted in the ground, the life of God contained in the perfect husk of Jesus’ human flesh, sprouted back to life.

The temple was destroyed, and the Son of God, raised up the temple of his church.  You and I are seeds of the Son, grafted into fellowship in Christ.

But what of the fellowship Jesus dispersed with a whip of cords?

We return to Psalm sixty-nine to the words of God the Son, written down by King David…

“Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord GOD of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonour through me, O God of Israel.  For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonour has covered my face.  I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.  For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.” (Psalm 69:6–9 ESV)

”Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.“ (Psalm 69:16 ESV)

“You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonour; my foes are all known to you.  Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.  I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.  They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”  (Psalm 69:19–21 ESV)

Jesus’ zeal consumed him!  He cleansed the temple!  Yet he became the reproach!  He allowed his fellowship with our Father to be severed, so God might temple within us, and reseed in us fellowship with the father.

No longer do we need to fear the world, or what the world is doing within the church.  After all, it is God’s church, and those who resist God’s correction, God’s call to confess and receive forgiveness, will not be blameless and innocent of great transgression.

But for those who willingly receive God’s word, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring them to confession so that they not only glorify God for the gospel of salvation, but even love the Law of God despite its condemnation of their sin.

God’s Word in the church is sweet like honey.  In Psalm nineteen we hear, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;  the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;  the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.  Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”  (Psalm 19:7–11 ESV)

When we hear and busy ourselves under God’s word, God’s church is a harmonious hive.  May we like the Psalmist, be kept from presumptuous sins, so they do not have dominion over us, nor separate us from the forgiveness of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Rock and Redeemer.  Let us pray.

Lord God Holy Spirit may the words of our mouths be Jesus’ Word of forgiveness and fellowship, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in the eternal sight of our Father in heaven.  Amen.

C, Christmas 1 - Luke 2:41-52 "In the Father's House"

Luke 2:41–52 (ESV) Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.  And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom.  And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it,  but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances,  and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him.  After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.  And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.”  And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.  And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man.

Losing a child would have to be one of the scariest things a parent could experience.  Even if a child is lost for a short length of time, it can make a parent fear the worst.  Imagine losing a child for a number of days and how the mind would race over all the evil possibilities.  Think of families who have lost children mysteriously, never to see them again.  And to the relief of those who take their child back into their arms after being missing and feared dead.

Picture Mary and Joseph racing around in confusion after realising they had lost Jesus.  And after returning to Jerusalem, looking for three days before they found him.  They, like any parent, would have been fearing the worst while Jesus was missing.

But Jesus was not missing, and he adds to his parents’ confusion when they find him sitting amongst the teachers in the temple.   For three days they were taunted and tortured, churning in a wish wash of emotions, then they find him completely at peace.  Mary and Joseph were beside themselves in distress and astonishment. 

How would you react having lost your child only to find them completely unconcerned by the three-day separation?

We might try to attribute blame to Mary and Joseph for not providing a safe place for Jesus. Especially, since they had gone a day’s journey and not noticed he was missing.  Despite not knowing exactly what had occurred, it was custom for travellers to move in a group, and somehow Jesus was overlooked amongst their family and friends.  Nevertheless, Jesus was in the safest of places, in his Heavenly Father’s presence. 

Rewind back to the Garden of Eden, where God is walking in the cool of the evening, looking for Adam and Eve.  This is a very different picture; God is neither confused nor distressed.  However, Adam and Eve, unlike Jesus were distressed and afraid and hid themselves from God.

Two very different images; one, of a boy happily at rest in God’s presence, and the other, a couple guiltily hiding and covering themselves in shame.  One, parents frantically looking for a son, and the other, the Father of Creation walking in the cool of the evening looking for his first-created son and daughter.

Jesus Christ is the new Adam, born into humanity as the son of man and as the Son of God.  There was no guilt in him when he was found.  He responds to Mary’s distress and rebuke, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 ESV)

Literally, Jesus says, why were you seeking me?  Why were you worshipping me with worry?  I was in the things of my Father!  Unlike Adam and Eve acting like two guilty kids caught in the act, Jesus was not into mischief with his Father’s things.  He was not hiding from them, nor was he turning his back on his Father, as did Adam and Eve when tempted by the devil, and left cowering in naked shame when God came looking for them.   

There are two different outcomes from these two events.  Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden and lived under the curse of sin in the productivity of their environment and humanity’s reproduction.  But Jesus went back to the destitute village of Nazareth in full submission to his parents.

We hear, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52 ESV)

As Jesus grew up, he increased in wisdom and in favour as the Son of God and as the son of man.  He not only grew in favour with God, but he also grew in favour as the Son of God.  Here we can picture Jesus’ submission in a whole different light than that of our human submission.  

We best get an understanding of his submission when we consider how we react when we are treated without respect or if we are treated like children or as inferior.  When we perceive we are being treated with contempt, we want to snap back at the condescender, to regain our position.  Jesus too would have been sinned against as a youth and as a young man by his family and friends.

But, as Jesus grew in wisdom, of humanity’s sin and his divinity, his wisdom grew in levels of generosity and steadfast love towards both God the Father, and compassion and steadfast love towards the sinfulness of his Father Joseph and his family.  And indeed, all of his brothers and sisters in the family of Adam.

This is the man from Nazareth who returned to Jerusalem in full submission to God and man as Son of God and Son of Man.  Jesus’ wisdom and favour seemed to be dashed at Jerusalem when on returning on Palm Sunday in victory riding on a donkey, within the week was cursed by the crowd and hung on the cross.

For Jesus’ wisdom we can be truly thankful.  As God’s children we are called into the wisdom and stature of Jesus Christ.  As we grow, we are called to a deeper understanding of our sin and our need for forgiveness and the need to forgive others.

We are called to be like the growing Jesus of Nazareth as we learn of our Sonship though our adoption as God’s children.  Because Jesus grew in wisdom, we are free to grow in his holy chosen and beloved character. 

Because we are saved sinner we can put on love, that is; put on Christ Jesus.  We are free to put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Just as Jesus was all these things in wisdom as he carried your sin to the cross with the sin of the world.

When you struggle to put on Jesus, pray for the Holy Spirit to clothe you in Jesus Christ.  Pray for deliverance into holiness, being led from temptation into God’s Kingdom, and the will to forgive as God has forgiven you.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to give you Jesus as your daily bread, giving you the hunger to worship in your Father’s house.

We no longer have to hide in fear of God, like Adam and Eve.  Nor, like Joseph and Mary, do we have to go searching for him in great distress.  As forgiven sinners, God now temples in us, now we are free to clothe ourselves in him.  Amen.

Come Lord Jesus and be our guest, you are our holy bread, and we pray that through your Word and your church, the world may be clothed and fed.  Amen.  

B, 2nd Last Sunday of Church Year, Proper 28 - Mark 13:1-2, Hebrews 10:11-28 "The Temple Body"

Mark 13:1-2 (ESV) And as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”  And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. 

The temple in Jerusalem no longer exists.  In 70 AD the Romans levelled the place, due to a revolt by the Jews that began in 66 AD.

When Jesus was crucified, the curtain in the temple separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was torn in two (Mark 15:38).  Christians recognise this as the time when the Old Covenant ceased to function along with the sacrificial requirements of the Law.  And along with the end of the sacrificial requirements was Jesus Christ’s one time victory over death and the devil; sin and Satan.

As we are told in the book of Hebrews, “‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’  Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” (Hebrews 10:17-18 ESV)

What the disciples didn’t know, Jesus was the new temple, replacing the temple at which they marvelled.  These mega stones and structures would be wrecked and razed in a mega-destruction.

So, here we have a picture of Jesus turning the attention of the disciples, from the temple, to him and his word of promise.

But it is interesting that this happens, since Jesus had overturned tables of trade in the temple (Mark 11:15-19). Through the parable of the Tenants, he revealed he was the stone the builders rejected (Mark 12:1-12)

He told the Pharisees and Herodians to render to Caesar what bears the image of Caesar and to God what bears the image of God (Mark 12:13-17). 

He told one of the Scribes, “love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:28-34).  

He taught in the temple, that the Christ was the Lord of David, even though he was the son of David (Mark 12:35-37). 

And just prior to the disciples being impressed by the size of the temple, Jesus highlights the wealth of the poverty struck widow, who put all she owned into the temple treasury, against the perception of the scribes’ greatness and the greater condemnation they would receive (Mark 12:38-44).  

All along Jesus was painting a picture of himself as the temple but despite this, they didn’t get it.  When Jesus told the Scribe in the temple, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34), no one realised he was speaking about himself. He was not talking about the temple, nor an abstract understanding of the kingdom of God.

Jesus is the temple of God.  He is the Curtain of Creation through which we enter the presence of God, encouraged by the Holy Spirit to receive his blessing. 

“We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:19-23) 

Jesus paints this picture.  The disciples don’t get it. It is interesting but we shouldn’t be surprised!  Why?  Because we too struggle to see Jesus as the singular curtain through which we are led into eternal life!  And we have a much better understanding of this picture because Jesus has completed the picture. Jesus waits for our response, now that he has been raised and ascended into heaven; the Holy Spirit has been sent; and the temple now no longer stands in Jerusalem.

Yet we find the confession of our hope in the church is being sorely tested at the moment.  As a community of faith and as individuals, hope appears to be suffering. Because our hope suffers, confession of our hope is next to non-existent.  But where a confession of hope does exist, it’s a wavering hope, darkened with deadly doubt and blended beliefs.

Rather than a confidence in Jesus’ return and restoration, one hopelessly doubts saying, “I hope Jesus returns!” 

What is going on in the core of our being when this happens?

Like the disciples invested interest in the wonderful temple, we too have invested in many other temples.  Like the temple in Jerusalem all these other temples will end in decay and be devoted to destruction.  Although our temples of worship, unlike the temple in Jerusalem, have never served any function in the salvation of humanity.  Rather, they do quite the opposite, and erode faith, hope, and love, breeding self-righteousness and arrogance, hopelessness and despair, looseness and unappeasable desires.

Social media, advertising, individualism and the pursuit of pleasure have had a subtle effect on us all.  But there is nothing subtle about what our indoctrination in these things is doing to us as a society.  The temples are taking our time and they are taking our souls.  Such are the temple towns in which our hearts are deceptively drawn to in wonder, but end in disappointment, dissolution and destruction.

Unlike the temples that licence us for licentiousness, misery, and deathly desire, Jesus is the temple of truth, and he is faithful in his deliverance from death.

Unlike the temple in Jerusalem and the temples of our heart that end in death, he is the temple that begins in death and ends in life.  Where disfunction caused the death of the temple in Jerusalem and where the decay of our bodies will end in death, Jesus is the temple that begins in death that restores faith to live, hope to die, and love to forgive. 

One might ask why God would have Moses receive and institute the Law, with the temple  requirements, that would become dysfunctional?  All the Law seemed to do was breed works righteousness rather than love and faith in God who made the temple his footstool on earth!

And despite Jesus being the new temple that was destroyed and raised in three days (John 2:19), we still struggle with unbelief, despair, and our desires to be divine in our temples of goodness. And so one might also ask, “Has Christianity become just as dysfunctional as the temple at Jerusalem?”

What is God doing?

He is waiting!

When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,  waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.  For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:12-14 ESV)

Jesus is waiting for that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet!  In other words, he is teaching us and testing us.  Our Heavenly Father is teaching us, Jesus is the only Curtain through which we have access to him, and through testing us, his desire is that we learn from our weakness and failures and seek him, rather than rejecting his help and becoming his enemies.

Saint Paul puts it best, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,  if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.  For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (2 Corinthians 5:1–5 ESV)

It is God’s will that the temple of our body will be swallowed up by life, the temple of Jesus, where faith, hope and love dwell.

In addition to this we can marvel at the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit who comes to us in baptism and brings us into Jesus as a community, by planting Jesus in each of us individually at baptism. This is God’s guarantee!

John realised the greatness of this guarantee and records it in his Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 ESV)

His dwelling among us, is Jesus making us his temple community in which he tents or tabernacles. This is where our Immanuel indwells. Doesn’t Jesus say, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20 ESV)

So, since we have God’s promise, his faithfulness, the certainty of hope of life through death, and Jesus’ love from the cross through our baptism.  “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love (to forgive) and good works (confessing God’s good works of forgiveness and our good confession of sins),  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, by confessing your sins to one another, and praying for one another, that all of you may be healed, and all the more as all of you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24–25, James 5:16)

Amen.