Lenten Midweek II
“Mountain to
Mountain: Mount Moriah to Mount Zion”[1]
February 28, 2018
Text: Gen. 22:1-18; John 3:16
One
cannot begin to imagine the heartache with which Abraham received the command
from God: “Take your son, your only son
Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a
burnt offering” (Gen. 22:2; ESV).
Your son. Your only son. Whom
you love. Of course, Isaac is not
Abraham’s only son. There is
Ishmael. But Isaac is the only son of
the Promise. He is the one from God, the
son of Sarah, the son from whom would come the salvation of the world. From Isaac would come the Promised Seed of
the Woman who would crush the serpent’s head and lead the people, all of us sons
and daughters of Adam, from the exile of sin and death to righteousness and
life in the Kingdom of God. But Abraham
is to take him and offer him up. This is
what is at stake in this test of faith: Not just Abraham’s beloved son, but the
very Promise of God and the salvation of the world. So note this very carefully, for this is
often missed in this account. For
Abraham to follow through with this command means that he believes God, trusts
God, to carry out his Promise in spite of the death of his son. For Abraham to follow through with this
command means that Abraham believes God will raise his son from the dead.
What
did he tell the boy, what did he tell Sarah, as they loaded up provisions for
the journey? He told them a part of
God’s command, that he and the boy were to go and worship. But he did not tell the whole story. Three days they travel, to the place where
the LORD has commanded. And now, don’t
let the language be lost on you. We get
a hint here of what is to happen. “On the third
day Abraham lifted up his eyes
and saw the place from afar” (v. 4; emphasis added). On the third
day! What kind of language is
that? And “lifted up!” That is a
resurrection word! The Holy Ghost is a
brilliant Author. He’s throwing us a
little literary treat here. He’s letting
us in on the little secret we already know because we’ve heard this story since
we were little children in Sunday School.
And here, again, Abraham’s faith: He tells his servants to stay put with
the donkey while he and the boy go over there and worship, and he makes this
promise: We will “come again to you”
(v. 5). Somehow, some way, the boy will
return to us.
Now,
don’t think this makes it any easier for Abraham to do what he needs to
do. He doesn’t know how the LORD will do it.
Will He raise Isaac up immediately?
Will He raise him only spiritually? Will Isaac still be my son? Will I come back with a risen and living son,
or the dead body of my precious boy? No,
this is no easy task. And Abraham, by
now a mature Christian, knows, as you know, that often God lays suffering upon
His children, for their good. This is no
theology of glory. This is the theology
of the cross. Complete with Isaac
bearing the wood of the sacrifice. Why
not bring the donkey with them up the hill?
Isaac bears the very wood upon which he will be bound to the place of
sacrifice. And Abraham, the heartbroken
father, bears the instruments of death and immolation, the fire and the knife.
“My father… Behold, the fire and the wood,
but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (v. 7). Oh, how the question must have burned to the
tortured father’s soul. The boy is
catching on, that there is something strange about this sacrifice. “God
will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (v.
8). Isaac, incidentally, is no babe in arms
at this point. He’s old enough and
strong enough to carry enough wood up the mountain to burn a human body. And Abraham is no spring chicken. Keep that in mind as you think about what
happens next.
Abraham
builds the altar and arranges the wood.
And then the old man binds the
young man in the strength of his youth to the wood. This is a phenomenal detail. This is the only case in all of the Old
Testament where the sacrifice is bound
to the altar. The usual order is, you
kill the sacrifice, then you burn it on the altar. Well, for obvious reasons, Abraham had to
bind his son before killing him. But this detail is important. We sang in the Psalm at the beginning of the
service, “Bind the festal sacrifice with
cords, up to the horns of the altar” (Ps. 118:27). Again, you don’t have to bind bulls, goats, or lambs that are already dead. But there is a Sacrifice in the New Testament
that is bound. It is our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lamb of God, who is bound to the wood of the cross, the horns of
His altar, to die for the sins of the whole world. Our Lord bears the wood of His sacrifice to
Mount Calvary. His flesh is nailed to
it. He burns with the fires of hell
there on the cross for our sins. And His
Father puts Him to death, His Son, His only Son, whom He loves. For us.
For you.
As it
turns out, Isaac is not the sacrifice.
Thanks be to God, Isaac is not to die today! Abraham raises the knife in the greatest
moment of dramatic tension, perhaps, in all of literature. And just as he is about to deliver the fatal
stroke, the Angel of the LORD appears to stay his hand. And you know who that is. It’s Jesus!
It’s the pre-incarnate Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity,
God the Son! And He is doing what He
always does: Saving from death. “Abraham, Abraham! … Do not lay your hand on
the boy” (Gen. 22:11-12). Our Lord
does precisely what Abraham told Isaac He would do. He provides a lamb. There is a ram caught in the thicket. Abraham unbinds his son, his only son, whom
he loves, from the altar. It is a
resurrection from the dead of sorts, as our Epistle points out (Heb. 11:19). And together, they sacrifice the ram instead.
But
the ram is not the ultimate lamb the LORD provides on Mount Moriah, a name that
means “The LORD, YHWH, provides.” The
Israelites would build Jerusalem in this place, and build the Temple on this
very spot, the place where the LORD provides and where YHWH Himself dwells with
His people. This is the place of
sacrifice. Israel would rename it Mount
Zion. And here our Lord Jesus would
enter His Temple as a babe in arms, to offer the sacrifices of redemption and cleansing,
as a twelve year old to sit at the feet of the great teachers and teach them a
thing or two, to teach His disciples, to confront the Pharisees and
Sadducees. Yes, here the LORD provides
His Lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is led from Mount Moriah, Mount Zion, to
another mount outside the city, Mount Calvary, and there He is crucified. For God so loved the world… God loved the
world, loved you, in this manner…
that He gave His only-begotten Son, gave Him into the death of the cross, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish.
You’re saved from death, like Isaac.
And you have eternal life.
Jesus
dies for your sins and for the sins of the world. But!
But, after three days… you
know what will happen. He will rise from
the dead. Not just spiritually. Not just in our hearts. Bodily!
And as He is risen, beloved, He will raise you. You shall not die, but live. As much as Isaac is a type of Christ, he is a
type of you, O son of Abraham. The knife
of God’s Law is raised over you in your sins.
But Christ stays its hand. You
will not die today. Not ever. Not even when you physically die. Christ takes your place. You already died in Christ in your
Baptism. And you’re already risen with
Him. All that remains now is for that to
become apparent in your body on the Last Day.
So come to the Feast, beloved, and rejoice. God has given His only Son for you, to make
you His son in Jesus. Come now to the
altar, where God provides the Lamb. In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] The theme and structure of
this sermon are from Jeffery Pulse, Return
from Exile: A Lenten Journey (St. Louis: Concordia, 2017).
Third Sunday in Lent
(B)
March 4, 2018
Text: John 2:13-22
We
get an angry Jesus this morning.
Violent, even. The real Jesus, as
opposed to the Jesus we construct in our imaginations, is more than a little
rough around the edges. He does not
conform to our expectations about who He should and shouldn’t be and what He
should and shouldn’t do. Here He is in
the Temple, in Church, driving out merchants and money changers with a whip,
overturning tables, money all over the floor, animals running all over the
place. “Take these things away,” He commands; “do not make my Father’s house a house of trade” (John 2:16; ESV). Well, I guess we know how He feels about bake
sales and bazaars in the Church!
Actually, He’s not against those things in principle. The Jews had the whole city of Jerusalem to
transact their business. But they were
transacting it in the Temple, in the place of worship. The sellers and money-changers were not there
to aid the people in their devotion.
They were there to make a buck.
And it was chaos, a cacophony of animals and wheelers and dealers. Don’t think of this like having a bake sale in
the fellowship hall. Think of it like we
were having the bake sale and the bazaar and a livestock auctioneer in the
sanctuary while we’re trying to have services!
(This sounds like a reoccurring nightmare that plagues me from time to
time… To be honest, if you do this, I might turn a few tables over myself.)
Needless
to say, divine commandments were being broken, and Jesus is mad. Sin justly angers God. He doesn’t just wink at our sin and sweep it
under the rug. He doesn’t just pretend
it didn’t happen. Ignoring a problem is
not just! We get angry at human judges
who let the guilty off the hook, and rightly so. As the Son of the Father, and the Heir of
this House, Jesus is within His rights to kick out the rabble and clean things
up. Helpfully, we heard the holy Ten
Commands again this morning in our Old Testament reading. Which Commandments are at play in our Holy
Gospel? Probably a number of them. But at least there is the Third Commandment:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not
despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn
it.”[1] The merchants and money-changers are not here
out of fear and love for God. They have
made preaching and God’s Word big business.
How are we prone to do that? Of
course, we can point at the megachurches with their mega-personality preachers,
and we’d be right. The televangelists,
or even big corporate denominations may be easy targets. But the Law is not meant for us to harness
and point fingers at others. The Law
accuses me! The Law condemns me! And so you.
When we get all flustered about saving the lost, by which we really mean
posteriors in pews and bucks in the plate, have we not done the same thing? Beloved, repent. This is God’s Church, not a business. God will do what He will do here, and we are
called to simply be faithful with this gift that He’s given us. So also, in whatever ways we are at Church
for other reasons than our love for Jesus and His Word, and our desire to
receive what He has to give us here, we break this Commandment. We want to be seen by God, doing our duty,
here in Church. We want to be seen by others,
present, serving, giving our contribution.
We want this to be our righteousness, our coming here. We want points with God and with our
neighbor, and really, with ourselves. It
makes me feel better about me. Beloved,
repent. Church does not give us points
before God. You don’t get out of
purgatory by attending the Mass. There
is no purgatory, and the Mass, the Divine Service, is not your work for
God. It is God’s work for you. He is giving you Christ and forgiving your
sins! You do all the work here of a
beggar who says thank you… maybe!... to the rich man who has set a Feast before
him and given him His house and his Kingdom.
Then
there is the Seventh Commandment. “You
shall not steal. What does this mean? We
should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or
possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and
protect his possessions and income.” The
animal market has its purpose, I suppose.
All the pilgrims, many of them traveling great distances for the
Passover, don’t want to have to bring their own animals from home for the
sacrifice (although, that is the Commandment… the best of your own
flock!). So they bring money, instead,
and buy their Passover lamb here at the Temple.
But they can’t pay with the Roman money that works in the rest of the
world. Pagan money is no good in the
Temple of the one true God. So they have
to visit the money-changers, who, for a price, will exchange their Roman money
for Temple money. And then, if they have
Temple money left over when all is said and done, they have to exchange the Temple
money for Roman money. For a price. Because Temple money is worthless outside the
Temple. So the people are fleeced at
every turn by Big Religion. Now, I’m a
red-blooded American, free-market capitalist, and all of that. But it should bother us when the little guy
is skinned and scraped by big business.
Because he needs these things. He
can’t operate at the Temple without them.
It’s like Disneyland, or the Kibbie Dome. They charge more because they have you. It’s a monopoly. And it pits Jew against Jew, Christian
against Christian, child of God against child of God. One tries to make a buck off the back of a
brother or sister who needs that to get by, and in the Name of God, no less
(there’s the Second Commandment for you!).
We should help our neighbor in every need. We should be for him, not against him. This is not bleeding-heart liberalism, this
is Christianity. Be generous. Give.
Sacrificially. What you have is
not yours. It belongs to God. God has blessed you with it to be a blessing. Give to missions. Give to your Church. Give to the poor. Almsgiving is a traditional Lenten
discipline, and one, perhaps, that we ought to reclaim. Help those who need help. Overflow in generosity, because God overflows
in generosity to you. And He will not
fail to provide for you.
And
that exposes what this is, finally. This
is, above all, a First Commandment issue.
“You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God
above all things.” When we fail to love
God’s Word and gladly hear and learn it, we reject the God who gave it. When we steal or cheat, we make money and
comfort and pleasure into our gods. When
we break the Commandments of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we fashion ourselves
into our gods. Beloved, repent. We have sinned. And Jesus is mad. He cracks the whip of His Law and overturns
the tables. What right does He have to
be angry? What sign does He give to show
His authority in doing these things? Who
died and made Him King of the Jews?
Of
course, you know the answer. He died.
And there is the sign above His head: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the
Jews. And so He says to those who
question Him, “Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up” (v. 18).
Of course, the Jews think He is talking about the building, but you know
better. He is talking about His
body. The Temple is the dwelling place
of God with men. He once sat on the
mercy seat, between the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, housed in the Most
Holy Place in the Temple. But those days
have come to an end. Now the Temple is
Jesus. He is God. He is God in the flesh. Our flesh.
And they do destroy Him, on the cross.
We destroy Him. Our sins nail Him there. Talk about turning the tables, turning
everything upside down. The righteous
and holy God dies for you, O sinner. For
your sin. He cleans house, cleans you
up, drives away the beasts and the demons from your heart, drives away your
sins against the Third and Seventh Commandments, the First Commandment, and all
the Commandments. He covers your sins
with His blood. The true Temple of God
is destroyed, crucified, dead and buried… and in three days He raises it up! And that is the sign! That is His authority! He has the authority to give Himself into
death, for you, and raise Himself to life again, for you. That is the zeal that consumes Him, the zeal
He has for His house, by which He doesn’t mean just the Temple precincts, or
the sanctuary here, or the building. He
means His Church. He means you. He means all believers who are joined to Him
by Baptism and faith.
This
morning we get an angry Jesus, and now, think about this. Be glad you have a Jesus who gets angry, and
not the Jesus meek and mild you would fashion in your own heart. Be glad of that, because His anger is born of
love. Love for God and love for
you. He is angry that this is what has
become of us, that sin has separated us from Him, that we are enslaved to sin
and bound to die and spend eternity separated from Him. And we think we can buy and sell our way out
of that slavery in His very House! It
makes Him mad. So you bet He overturns
those tables. He’s that passionate about
redeeming you and having you for Himself.
He loves you to death; His death on the cross. It’s all backwards, turned upside down. Jesus dies.
The sinner lives. You live. You are free.
And
now, here we are, gathered in His Father’s House, not to buy and sell, or even
to sacrifice, but simply to receive. To
be reconciled, forgiven, restored… to be fed.
God gives the sacrifice, His
own Son, Jesus, our Passover Lamb. We
eat it with joy at His Table. We take
the cup of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord. Jesus is no longer angry. He is risen, and He is present, here and now,
for us. We belong to Him, and He gives
us a place. The Father’s House is our
Home. In the Name of the Father, and of
the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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