Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Lenten Midweek II/ Third Sunday in Lent


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.


[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986). 

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