The Road of Hope

Luke 24:13-35 13Now, on that same day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14They were talking with each other about all of these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing this, Jesus himself approached and began to walk along with them. 16But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk along?” Saddened, they stopped.

18One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19“What things?” he asked them.

They replied, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. 20The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be condemned to death. And they crucified him. 21But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel. Not only that, but besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22Also some women of our group amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. 23When they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24Some of those who were with us went to the tomb. They found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”

25He said to them, “How foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?” 27Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28As they approached the village where they were going, he acted as if he were going to travel farther. 29But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, since it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.”

So he went in to stay with them. 30When he reclined at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and began giving it to them. 31Suddenly their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. Then he vanished from their sight. 32They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us along the road and while he was explaining the Scriptures to us?” 33They got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and those who were with them assembled together. 34They were saying, “The Lord really has been raised! He has appeared to Simon.” 35They themselves described what had happened along the road, and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.

You were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:18, 19) Amen.

Ms. Jones was a teacher who was working in the children’s hospital. One day, she was asked to visit a boy named Charlie who was in a burn unit. Charlie’s school teacher told her, “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now. I’d be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn’t fall too far behind the others.”

Ms. Jones went to the Charlie’s room in the hospital. He was in a clean room. He was wrapped in bandages and in incredible pain. As gently as she could, Ms. Jones introduced herself and the purpose of her visit this way: “I’m the hospital teacher. Your teacher at school asked me to help you with your nouns and adverbs.”

The next day a nurse asked Ms. Jones, “What did you do to Charlie?” Ms. Jones had no idea what she was talking about. The nurse continued, “We were worried about Charlie. But ever since you visited him yesterday, his entire outlook has changed. For the first time since he came here, he’s fighting. He’s responding. He’s got a new lease on life.”

What had happened? Charlie eventually admitted to his parents that he had given up. He felt hopeless and helpless. But when he thought about the teacher who had come to see him, he realized the school wouldn’t waste its time and money by sending someone to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy.

Pretty perceptive, don’t you think?

Two disciples are walking down the dusty road to the village of Emmaus, a 7-mile journey from Jerusalem. Their talk concerns the crucified Jesus. They have a dirge-like pace to their feet. Their attitude is like they’ve just come from a funeral – and in essence, they have – Jesus’ funeral.

They walk as if they’ve lost all hope.

The disciples had staked their lives on this Jesus from Nazareth. Everything they had. They thought he was the One. A prophet powerful in word and deed. He made blind men see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the demon-possessed to be dispossessed. He even raised the dead. They hoped he was the Messiah, the promised One who would redeem Israel. And then in one weekend their hopes and their world came crashing down around them. Jesus was dead, buried, and now nowhere to be seen. The rumor by the women of a resurrection didn’t provide any comfort. The words of Peter and John about the empty tomb were too confusing.

It all seemed so hopeless.

These two disciples were hoping for a golden throne. Jesus gave them a bloody cross. They were hoping for honor. Jesus bowed his thorn-crowned head in humility. They were hoping for glorious triumph. Jesus gave them a dark tomb. They were hoping for the answers to all their prayers. But they were praying for the wrong results. They were praying for their kingdom to come, but Jesus suffered, died, and was laid in the grave so his Kingdom would come.

How foolish they were, and how slow of heart to believe.

Their walk is slow, but their questions come quickly. “How could Judas do that?” “Why wasn’t Peter stronger?” “Why did the high priest hate Jesus so much?” “Why couldn’t Pontius Pilate have been more forceful?” “How could Jesus let this happen to himself?” “What do we do now?”

Just then a stranger comes up from behind and says, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing you. Who are you discussing?” They stop and turn. Other travelers make their way around them as the three stand in silence. Finally, the one named Cleopas asks, “Where have you been the last few days? Haven’t you heard about Jesus of Nazareth?” And he continues to tell what happened.

This is a fascinating scene – two sincere disciples telling how the last nail was driven into Israel’s coffin. God, in disguise, listens patiently, his wounded hands buried deeply in his robe. He must have been touched by the faithfulness of this pair of disciples. Yet he must also have been a bit hurt. He had just gone to hell and back to give heaven to earth, and these two were worried about the political situation in Israel.

“But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”

But we had hoped. … How often have you heard a phrase like that?

“We’re hoping to get pregnant soon.”

“I was hoping I’d feel better by now.”

“I’m hoping to get back to work.”

“I hope he asks me to the prom.”

“We had hoped the chemo would get all of the tumor.”

“We were hoping to go on vacation, but we can’t afford it now.”

“We were hoping Mom would come home from the hospital, but God had other plans.”

Words painted gray with disappointment. What we wanted didn’t come. What came, we didn’t want. The result? Shattered hope. Disappointment. Despair. The foundation of our world trembles. When hopes are crushed, the pilot light goes out in our eyes. There is no more deadening feeling than to feel hopeless.

We trudge down the long road to Emmaus dragging our sandals in the dust, heads down, shoulders stooped in defeat. We’re wondering what we did to deserve such a plight. “What kind of God would let me down like this? I had hoped it would be better than this.” Our eyes are so tear-filled and our perspective so limited that God could be the fellow walking next to us and we wouldn’t know it.

You see, the problem with our two heavy-hearted friends was not a lack of faith, but a lack of vision. It wasn’t a lack of hope, but a hope in the wrong destination.

Those two disciples, walking to Emmaus that Easter night, had one thing on their minds – the cross. They looked at what happened and compared that to what they had been hoping for, and they came to this conclusion – the cross ruined everything! If it hadn’t been for the cross, things would have been great.

We’re not much different than those weak and heavy-laden travelers, are we? We do things out of order and wonder why we struggle in our marriage. We piously ask for God’s will to be done and then have the audacity to pout when things go according to God’s will and not ours. We take all week off from God and then wonder why our faith is so weak. We cut ourselves off from God’s Word and Sacrament, and then we wonder why our children misbehave and disbelieve the way they do.

We want to be followers of Christ, but without the cross. We want to be faithful to Christ, as long as we don’t have to suffer. We want the glory, without the humility. We want the blessings without the burdens. Everything would be great … if God would just remove those bothersome crosses.

But God won’t do that. He simply loves you too much to pamper your sin, indulge your idolatry, and raise spoiled children. And so, Jesus came to those two doubting and disappointed disciples and showed them how the cross was not a surprise and was not life spinning out of control – but that the cross was necessary. His death was necessary. Not for ruin, but for good. Not to shatter hope, but to give hope. The cross was not the defeat that it appeared but was part of God’s plan of victory over sin, death, and the devil. The plan revealed from the very beginning. The plan that he had been speaking of and accomplishing all through the Old Testament. The plan taught about often to his disciples and was rebuked by Peter for it. The plan and victory sealed and accomplished in his resurrection that very morning.

They listened. Their hearts were burning within them. But they didn’t quite get it. They were thick-headed and slow-hearted, just like we often are. Because when you’re on that road without hope, when you’re in the thick of the struggle, it’s easy to hear the words, but hard to believe.

Our problem is not so much that God doesn’t give us what we hope for as it is that we don’t know the right thing for which to hope. (It’s good to hear that sentence again.)

Hope is not what you expect. Hope is not what you would ever dream. Hope is not a Disney princess movie ending. It is Jesus unpacking the Word of God for you, like he did for those disciples, so your heart may burn within you, warming you up, melting your cold heart, putting you on fire for the Lord.

You find this improbable, unbelievable hope when you dig through Scripture and find the centennial Abraham sitting with his infant son on his lap; Moses standing between two walls of Red Sea water; Joshua walking over the ruined walls of Jericho; David rocking the giant Goliath to sleep; Samson bringing the house down on the Philistines; Daniel petting a pride of purring lions; four men walking in a fiery furnace; and a teenage virgin pregnant with the Son of God.

Hope is the two Emmaus-bound pilgrims reaching out to take a piece of bread only to see candlelight shining through the holes in the stranger’s hands.

“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.” And even though he vanished, they were not sad. For they now knew Jesus was not gone. Their faith was no longer in glory, but in the cross. Their faith was no longer downcast because of the corpse in the grave, but it was now joyful because of the empty tomb. They had found Jesus’ promises in his Word. So, they rushed to Jerusalem. No longer confused, but certain. No longer sad, but joyful. No longer struggling, but on the firm foundation. No longer hopeless, but burning with hope.

And we are, too. For the Good Shepherd has come and found each of us lost and wandering sheep, and has invited us here, to his house, a refuge for weary pilgrims. And he stays with us. He is here, opening the Scriptures, so we may hear and believe. Inviting us to his altar where he is both the priest and the sacrifice. Inviting us to stay and eat at his Table, where he is both host and food. Giving you bread that is his body and wine that is his blood. Opening your eyes to see your sin, but even greater that your eyes see your Savior from sin.

So, we come to this place weary, and we leave refreshed. We come scared and depressed, and we leave with our hearts burning with faith. We come without hope, questioning if God really cares and we leave with the hope and assurance that our God is unfettered by time and space, so he comes to sit, dine, teach, and care for us. 

The road to Emmaus is a fascinating story. It’s a road of hope. Jesus wouldn’t waste his time walking with us along this road if there was no hope. We now have a new lease on life. Pretty perceptive, don’t you think? Amen.

Through [Christ] you are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:21) Amen.

Easter Shows up Every Sunday

Josh Koelpin

Sermon based on John 20:19-31 Preached at Water of Life Lutheran Church, Caledonia WI on 4.23.23

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe x that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

In the name of Jesus, Peace be with you!

Many of the Easter decorations are packed away already, some of the flowers are fading, the church might not be as full as it was a week ago. The choir isn’t singing a special anthem. The cries of “he is risen, he is risen indeed” are a little quieter than they were. Extended families have gone back to their homes. We continue with our lives and daily routines. The ham dinner is gone. The weeks after Easter is just not, well, Easter. I’m sure I could continue with this somewhat sad list, and I’d probably make you say, “Wow Josh is such a downer this week,” but that is not my point. In fact, my point is the opposite. I actually come to you with good news this morning. News that makes us sing our “Alleluias” with all the joy of a week ago. That news is this: Easter shows up every Sunday. We will focus on that, and what it means for us as Christians to live with the reality of the resurrected Lord Jesus and what He has done for us on our minds. Not just today, but every day.

How do you think the disciples felt as they sat behind those locked doors the first Easter evening? Well, John tells us that they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. They were together, at least 10 of them (Judas and Thomas were not there), behind locked doors. Yes, it is true, the women had told them about what they had seen at the empty tomb. Yes, Peter and John raced to the tomb and the body was no longer there. Yes, the disciples from Emmaus had come and told them that they talked with him on the way, and he opened the Scriptures to them, and they knew it was the Lord. But there the disciples sat. Afraid. And I think if we think about it, it makes sense. It wasn’t just Peter who had denied Jesus, all of them had also denied Jesus and run away from Him. They saw their teacher die at the hands of Roman soldiers. It wasn’t just any death, but death on a cross. A brutal and public execution. And to add to it, now they didn’t know where His body was. They felt like they had no real purpose, and as I mentioned earlier, they were afraid of the leaders of Judaism. It is at this moment that Jesus comes through the locked doors and said to them words of tremendous comfort. “Peace be with you.” As Jesus showed them his hands and side those words must’ve been ringing in their ears. This Jesus they had run away from, came to them, and didn’t come at them with words of rebuke and condemnation as we might expect, but gave them the peace that they desperately craved.

A small point, but perhaps worthy of note. The text says that the disciples were overjoyed. What is the difference between joy and overjoyed? Well, joy is to be filled with happiness, whereas overjoyed is to be filled with so much happiness that it overflows. When someone feels overjoyed, they can’t help but tell people about the joy they are feeling.

And perhaps that feeling of being overjoyed prepared them for what Jesus was going to share with them next. Jesus hit them with information that admittedly was also probably quite terrifying. Jesus told them that he was going to be sending them into the world, just like He had been sent by the Father. Wait what? They may have thought. Now we must go out to the world that hated you and tell them the message about you? They are going to hate us, too. Are you crazy, Jesus? Jesus told them, though, that they wouldn’t be alone. He would send them with the Holy Spirit, and his peace. The peace of the resurrection would be theirs as well. As they would go out and proclaim the forgiveness of sins, the joys of Easter would be with them every step of the way. They would not need to fear. Not even death. Because Jesus, their Savior had risen from the dead and defeated death.

Pretty much the same story you just heard was going to happen the very next Sunday. The disciples were gathered again (in a locked room out of fear again, by the way), and Jesus would do the same thing with Thomas. Thomas doubted that Jesus’ resurrection happened. He said he would not believe it unless he saw it with his own eyes. Jesus came to him, too. Jesus took on his doubt and his fear, too. He came to Thomas and even told him to put his hands into the spots the nail marks had been and to plunge is hand into his side where the spear had been. And he spoke the same words that he spoke to the disciples the week before, “Peace be with you.” The text doesn’t tell us this explicitly, but we can guess that Jesus also told Thomas that he would also be part of the mission to tell people about the forgiveness of sins. Finally, this is the mission of the Christian church. The mission of the Christian church is to go and tell people about what Jesus has done for them and to announce to them the forgiveness of their sins.

This account of Easter eve and the week after Easter, puts a “human face” on Easter. Yes, there is joy, but I must ask a couple of questions: Have you ever felt like the disciples or like Thomas? Do you identify more with them than anyone else in the Easter story? Have you ever felt scared of what being a witness of the Gospel might bring into your life, or even doubted that the resurrection is for you altogether? When we were singing and praising God together on Easter in the church building it seemed easy to proclaim the Risen Savior. But after you left did you huddle behind closed-locked doors like the disciples did on that first Easter eve? What types of security systems have you set up in your life so that you don’t have to talk about the resurrected Savior with others?

·         Perhaps we have a fear of what other people are going to think about us if we share the message of Jesus. And so, we convince ourselves it is better not to at all.

·         Maybe we are afraid that we are going to lose friends because of our confession of faith or cause a disagreement at the lunch table. And we tell ourselves that Jesus would rather have us preserve the peace than say something. So, we don’t say anything at all.

·         Possibly our security system is to say, “I don’t have the talent.” God can’t use me.

·         Maybe our security system is to doubt, like Thomas did.

But the thing about all these security systems that we set up is that they are not secure at all. While they may preserve our self-image from a worldly standpoint, they ultimately fail. More than that they are sinful. And if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that these things don’t make us leave the situations we are in in our lives feeling very good at all. Our sinfulness and the barriers of self-interest that we have established in the end make us feel like Peter and the disciples who denied Jesus.

Perhaps the barriers we put up look a little more like this: you feel like you’ve majorly messed everything up since Easter Sunday a week ago, and your sins sins of this week are weighing you down. Those sins are making you say, “I can’t be a witness of the resurrected Lord.”

Whatever the case may be, Jesus comes to us in the midst our barriers of self-interest and self-preservation, knocks them down, and says, “Peace be with you.” He shows us his hands and his side and says look at my hands and my side I went to the cross and suffered for the forgiveness of your sins. He appears to us resurrected and says look, I am really risen, and I have defeated death so that you will live, too. Share in the joy of my resurrection Jesus says. And he also comes and tells us what that means for us. He tells us that he is sending us. He is sending you and is sending me into the world to forgive sins. He isn’t sending us alone, though. He is sending us with the Holy Spirit to proclaim a message of his peace.

Jesus used the disciples, who were just as human and sinful as we are to spread the message about Him, and to forgive people of their sins. Jesus uses us, too. So go out today joyfully proclaiming Easter. Tell people about the victory Jesus has won for our sins and for their sins. And forgive people. When someone has wronged you, forgive them. You may even use it as a chance to tell them about what Jesus has done for them on the cross. That is something you can do every day.

Easter shows up each Sunday. But for us, living as Christians, we should say, Easter shows up every day. Easter shows up and fills our hearts with faith as we read God’s word, Easter shows up every week as we confess our sins and receive the forgiveness of sins, Easter shows up as we go and be witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, and Easter shows up when we hear Jesus say to us, “Peace be with you.” Amen.

May this peace of God which surpasses all our human wisdom and understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Sermon 4-16-2023

Sermon OSLC                                                                              John 20:19-20                                                                               04-08-2012

Intro:   The Power of Christ's Resurrection Bursts through Obstacles.   Some question the power of Christ's resurrection:  A minister was in Italy, and there he saw the grave of a man who had died centuries before who was an unbeliever and completely against Christianity, but a little afraid of it too. So the man had a huge stone slab put over his grave so he would not have to be raised from the dead in case there is a resurrection from the dead. He had insignias put all over the slab saying, "I do not want to be raised from the dead. I don't believe in it." Evidently, when he was buried, an acorn must have fallen into the grave. So a hundred years later the acorn had grown up through the grave and split that slab. It was now a tall, towering oak tree. The minister looked at it and asked, "If an acorn, which has the power of biological life in it, can split a slab of that magnitude, what can the acorn of God's resurrection power do in a person's life?"

Think of the things you see as immovable slabs in your life—your bitterness, your insecurity, your fears, your self-doubts. Those things can be split and rolled off through the power which was planted in his tomb. When Jesus comes to you as Savior and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It's the power of the resurrection—the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead …. Think of the things you see as immovable slabs in your life—your bitterness, your insecurity, your fears, your self-doubts. Those things can be split and rolled off. The more you know him, the more you grow into the power of the resurrection. Because Jesus lives, everything has changed. We look at the cross in a different light. “I know that my redeemer lives,” we sing. “What comfort this sweet sentence gives!” We find comfort, joy, peace, and hope in his empty tomb.

Peace and Life Burst forth from the Grave!

1.  His Wounds Inspire Peace. 

                1.1  The disciples in fear and confusion had abandoned him.  The disciples on the evening of that first Easter did not know Easter joy or peace. They had seen Jesus crucified. With his death, they assumed all their hopes and expectations had also died. When Jesus was first arrested in the garden, they had fled into the night, confused and frightened. As the events unfolded, they watched in shock. Peter, who had boasted so quickly that he would die with Jesus rather than deny him, had in fact denied Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. Peter and the rest saw the One they spent three years with abused by the soldiers and then led out of Jerusalem, too weak to carry his own cross.

It’s no wonder that they were afraid. First, they were afraid that all they had believed about Jesus was a lie. They had confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. They had signed on to Peter’s confession and agreed. They had been there when the crowds shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” What excitement they must have felt! But they also heard the crowd rant, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” What did all this mean for the promises he had made to Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died? Then Jesus had said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25). But he was dead. Were those just empty words and vain hope in the face of the death of a dear friend?

1.2  Jesus crossed over their doubts. They were also afraid that Jesus could not care for them any longer. If the Jewish leaders had killed Jesus, his disciples were next, they thought. Jesus had protected them even in the garden. When they were all surrounded by the mob, Jesus asked the mob to let his disciples go if all they wanted was him. Now he could not protect them by his words or even by his power. Jesus was gone, and the miracles they had witnessed were also past and gone. Could Jesus still exercise such power to protect them? They were afraid that he did not have the power to protect them from the Jewish leaders, so they were behind locked doors. They were also afraid of the future. What would happen to them? They had left businesses and families behind to follow Jesus, only to see the reason they had gone brutally killed.

Of course, they had heard the reports of his resurrection. The angels had appeared to the women. But the disciples did not believe the women. Even when some of the women said that they had seen Jesus, the disciples dismissed their reports as hysterical hallucinations. When Peter and John went to the tomb that morning, John believed, but fear still was stronger than comfort and hope for Peter and the others. They were confused about what it all meant. Even though they had seen Lazarus come out of his grave, witnessed the youth of Nain sit up as his body was carried toward burial, and heard how the daughter of Jairus had returned to life; the resurrection of Jesus was just too much to believe.

Then Jesus suddenly stood among them. In spite of the locked doors, he was there with them. Jesus left no doubt about who he was. He showed them his hands and side. They saw and touched the wounds Jesus had suffered only three days earlier. But he was alive. Jesus encouraged them to see the cross differently than they had on Good Friday.

Jesus brought peace to them in that locked room. His presence among them was a confirmation that all he had taught them was true. When he had told Mary and Martha that he was the resurrection and the life, it wasn’t just words to make them feel better. Those words were absolutely true! He was the Anointed One, the Christ whom they had come to trust. His message was true and reliable. And he had the power to care for them. They need not fear. He was not dead. His power had not been removed. In fact, it was even greater because he himself had arisen from the dead—no one had ever done that.

1.3  He arrives again this morning with his peace.   The peace he brought was tied to the wounds he had received on the cross. He had suffered for the disciples. He paid for their sins with his suffering and death. He accomplished forgiveness for them and all the world. They were at peace with God because of those wounds. As their hesitant fingers traced the wounds of the nails in his hands, they began to understand that the punishment Jesus had endured brought peace. His suffering was now over. His hands, side, and feet were no longer attached to the cross. He was no longer suffering. It was done, finished, over. “Peace be with you!” he said.

That peace is yours too. His wounds were not just for this select group of people in Palestine long ago. His wounds announce to all that he has completed his mission. We have forgiveness—full and free. Because of what Jesus suffered, once and for all, as the writer to the Hebrews announces, we are declared innocent of sin—justified before God. We have peace with God, the peace promised by the angels at Jesus’ birth and now fully assured by the living hands of Jesus, still marked by the suffering he endured to achieve that peace. Since Jesus was now alive, he could also protect his disciples. Not only were his words true and his mission successfully completed, but Jesus also was there to assure them that he would continue to be with them no matter what the future held.

App:  The Savior’s glorified body still begs the question, “What does Jesus want?”  He wants what no one else can – your sins, the burdens you bear.  His hands and feet prove he already has lifted them away from you. "Jerome, an early church father, had a dream one night in which Jesus visited him.  In the dream, Jerome collected all his money and offered it to Jesus as a gift.  Jesus said, "I don't want your money."  So, Jerome rounded up all his possessions and tried to give them to Jesus.  Jesus responded, "I don't want your possessions."  Jerome then turned to Christ and asked, "What can I give you?  What do you want?"  Jesus simply replied, "Give me your sins.  That's what I came for; I came to take away your sins."  

Who else would make such a request?  Who would want our sins?  Mohammed?  Buddha?  No other religious leader ever made such a request.  Everyone else wants the best of what we have to offer. Only Jesus asks for the worst.  Only Jesus asks us for our sins?  Only Jesus came into the world for this purpose.  As John the Baptist declared in John 1:29, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"  Have you given Jesus what He wants?

2.   His Wounds Incite Life.   

2.1  His coming caused them to “zoom out” and see death as an empty threat.   His wounds brought another blessing for his fearful disciples. Of course, death was a part of their fear. They had come to Jerusalem with Jesus imagining the worst. Thomas had said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (Jn 11:16). When they thought Jesus was dead for good, perhaps they became resigned to their fate—to die like Jesus. They had no hope. The Jewish leaders who it appeared were intent on killing Jesus, obliterating his teachings, would therefore attack the disciples of Jesus too. Even if they escaped the wrath of the Jewish leaders at this point, what hope would they have when death finally caught up to them? Joy/hope were in short supply in that locked room before Jesus came.

Zoom Out! The next time life seems confusing and you feel that you've lost your bearings, ZOOM OUT! That's what I did on Google Maps the other day and it worked like a charm. There I was, staring at a location on the map, a mite confused. So I clicked on "zoom out" and the broader perspective made all the difference. Understanding where you are in relationship to other key landmarks will do that for you. But he did come to them! If they imagined that he was only a phantom or an illusion created by their own wishful thinking, Jesus dispelled that thought. He not only asked them to touch his wounds, he also ate some food that first night with them. Just as they had begun to see the cross in the light of the payment for their sins completed, Jesus asked them to see the cross in the light of everlasting life.

So, the next time you find yourself a bit disoriented in your circumstances, step back and drink in a broader view. Resist the temptation to focus on where you're stuck. Remember the broader context of your life. Think of how God raised his Son on Easter morning.  And realize that in Christ you have been granted an even greater capacity to zoom out. In light of God's promises, you have been given the ability to zoom out until eternity itself comes into view. From this vantage point your earthly concerns are finally placed in their proper perspective. When eternity is your point of reference, your earthly problems become pretty small. From here it becomes easy to see that God has provided you with more for which to be thankful than to regret, more you don't know about than you do, and more to come than has ever been.

2.2  Easter proclaims victory over death in the promise of new life.   His body was the same as it had been at the crucifixion. The wounds were still there. But it was also different. It was glorified. He appeared among them without knocking on the door and waiting for them to open it. He was just there! No one had unlocked the door. Jesus invited them to see his cross and then life and death itself in a different way. Jesus had said, “Because I live you too will live.” Just as he died but then rose again, so would his disciples. Jesus had been dead, but now he was alive. That is what would happen to them too. It was as Jesus had said early in his ministry: “Whoever believes [will] have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). What comfort and peace they had because he was alive! They could face all of life’s challenges, knowing they would live forever. They would be brought back to life with glorified bodies like his and live with him forever in the mansions he prepared for them.

App.    As the disciples were reunited with their Lord and Master, they embraced the deeper, wider life that lay ahead of them.  We too learn to entrust our future to him who holds our life in his hand.  That comfort and peace are yours too. The cross is empty. Jesus endured the pain, suffering, and death, but he did not stay dead. He is the same Jesus who paid the debt your sins deserved. Look at his hands. They move. Look at his feet. He stands among the disciples and walks among them. His hands and feet are not still, quiet, and lifeless. They belong to a risen and glorified Lord. You too will live.

Conclusion:   We shall awake on the resurrection morning, not isolated, but in the company of our dear ones; not like one flower blooming in a lonely Spring, but a myriad of flowers bursting into each other's sight upon a bank together.  The women had helped with the burial of Jesus. Then his hands had been still and lifeless. But no longer. There will come a time for all of us when our bodies lie still and lifeless in a casket and later in a grave. As Jesus moved among the disciples and they touched his living hands, they found the hope of their own resurrection and eternal life. We find it too. Our hands may be still in death, but they will move again. Jesus will call you and me out of our graves. Then our hands will move again. Jesus will call us from our graves and give us glorified bodies like his.

That hope is based on the living Lord. This Easter hope gives us the courage to face each challenge, each tragedy, and each misery of life. We know we will rise from the dead as he did. Only he has the power to offer such hope. When we face the loss of a beloved believer—a child, a spouse, a parent—we turn to the promises of Jesus for comfort. We'll Meet Again! Easter not only proclaims victory over death, it also predicts union after death. Which of these thoughts is the greater I dare not say; but they need not be discriminated between for they both belong to the Christian. We shall awake on the resurrection morning, not isolated, but in the company of our dear ones; not like one flower blooming in a lonely Spring, but a myriad of flowers bursting into each other's sight upon a bank together. Dr. J. R. Miller relates this incident. A father and son had been ship­wrecked. Together they clung to the rigging until the son was washed off. The father was rescued in the morning in an unconscious state. Several hours later he awoke in a fisherman's hut, where he was lying in a soft, warm bed. In agony, he remembered his boy. But as he turned his head he saw his son lying beside him. 

One by one we are being swept away with the billows of time. Some storm will carry the last and stoutest heart of us away. But when we awake beyond the raging of the sea we shall be together again. When our eyes open in the Heavenly morning, nearby us, in the bowers of Paradise, we shall see those "whom we have loved long since, and lost awhile."

His First Steps Led Away from The Tomb- Easter

His first steps led away from the tomb

John 20:1-18 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2So she left and ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she told them, “and we don’t know where they put him!”

3So Peter and the other disciple went out, heading for the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb first. 5Bending over, he saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in.

6Then Simon Peter, who was following him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there. 7The cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who arrived at the tomb first, also entered. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead.)

10Then the disciples went back to their homes.

11But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, weeping. As she wept, she bent over, looking into the tomb. 12She saw two angels in white clothes sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and one at the feet. 13They asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She told them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

14After she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus.

15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”

Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you carried him off, tell me where you laid him, and I will get him.”

16Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned and replied in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means, “Teacher”).

17Jesus told her, “Do not continue to cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father—to my God and your God.’”

18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” She also told them the things he said to her.

Surely God is my salvation. I will trust him and will not be afraid, because the Lord, yes the Lord, is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation (Isaiah 12:2). Amen.

Everything was fine when Joshua came to Racine for a visit. Since he was a popular lecturer, he scheduled some speaking engagements at local churches and schools. While he was visiting, he gathered his friends together for a celebration meal at a local restaurant on Thursday evening.

Everything stopped being fine very early Friday morning. Joshua was taken to Ascension Hospital. Everything hurt. His hands. His feet. His head and back. He had trouble breathing. He didn’t eat anything. He could barely drink anything.

The women in Joshua’s life did what women are gifted by God to do. They were there at the foot of his bed. His mother was there. So was his good friend Mary.

It was scary how quickly Joshua’s condition worsened. After only six hours, he was dead.

Joshua’ mother was poor. She couldn’t afford any of the services provided by the funeral home. There was no embalming or funeral. Joshua’s friend, Joe volunteered that Joshua could be laid to rest in his burial plot. So, Joshua’s body was buried late Friday at Graceland Cemetery, only a short walk from Ascension Hospital.

Everything had happened so quickly that Mary did not have any closure. Her grief was overwhelming. So, early Sunday morning, as the sun was coming up, she walked the slow, difficult steps of mourning to Joshua’s grave.

Everything was fine when Jesus came to Jerusalem for a visit. Since he was a popular rabbi, he taught in the temple courtyard on Monday and Tuesday. He gathered his disciples together for a celebratory Passover Meal in the Upper Room on Thursday.

Everything stopped being fine very early Friday morning. Jesus was taken to Golgotha’s hill and crucified on a Roman cross. Everything hurt. His hands. His feet. His head and back. He had trouble breathing. He didn’t eat anything. He could barely drink anything.

The women in Jesus’ life did what women are gifted by God to do. They were there at the foot of the cross. His mother was there. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons were there (Matthew 27:56).

It was scary how quickly Jesus died. Crucifixions can last for days. But after only six hours, Jesus was dead.

Jesus’ mother was poor. She didn’t have money for a family burial plot. So, Jesus’ covert disciple, Joseph of Arimathea, volunteered his grave. There was no time for a proper preparation of the body before burial because of the Sabbath. So, Jesus’ body was quickly wrapped in cloths and laid in Joseph’s tomb late Friday afternoon – only a short walk from Golgotha.

Everything had happened so quickly that Mary Magdalene didn’t have closure. So early Sunday morning, as the sun was coming up, she walked the slow, difficult steps of mourning to Jesus’ grave.

You know how both Mary’s felt – both present day Mary and Mary Magdalene. You’ve been with your sick child at Children’s Hospital. You’ve visited your grandmother at the nursing home. You’ve said goodbye to your father in the hospice home. You’ve held your spouse’s hand when he or she took their last breath.

You know the slow steps you take to go to the room of your dying loved one. You know the heavy, plodding steps you take after your loved one has died. They are steps filled with grief, sadness, dread, fear, and loneliness. No wonder they are so heavy. They are carrying a lot of emotions.

Your loved one may have been taken away from you after a long battle with cancer or a long bout with an illness. Or your loved one could have been ripped from your life by an accident or a sudden attack. Death has removed your loved one from your life. Your family has been torn apart. Your emotions are raw. Your fear of the future is real.

We stand weeping at the closed grave of our loved one. We are looking for something to calm our fears, another hug, one more day. This is why the annual trip to the tomb with Mary Magdalene and the other women every Easter morning is so important for us as Christians.

After his third day resurrection, Jesus took his first steps that led away from the tomb. He marched down to hell and preached to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19). There he made a public spectacle of them (Colossians 2:15), announcing that he was victorious over the devil, the demons, and death itself.

Jesus’ next steps from hell took him back to outside his briefly borrowed tomb. There the angels told the women: “Do not be afraid” (Matthew 28:5). Later, Jesus himself told the women who were hurrying away from the tomb: “Do not be afraid” (Matthew 28:10). Easter evening, Jesus told his fearful disciples: “Peace be with you” (John 20:21). And it is fitting that Jesus reminds us repeatedly: “Do not be afraid.” “Peace be with you.”

Whether it’s Mary Magdalene, the women, the disciples, or us, we are often filled with a mixture of fear, powerlessness, and hopelessness. But suddenly we all learn together that our dear Lord is no longer dead. Death held no power over the Son of God, just as he had promised. In his saving power, none of us have any reason to live in hopelessness and fear. 

Mary exclaimed to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” That is our exclamation, too, this Easter. We have no reason to be afraid. With the eyes of faith, we, too, have seen our resurrected Lord! Easter proclaims that there is nothing in ancient times, current times or future times that can rightfully make us afraid – not plagues or pandemics or World Wars or anything else that brings death.

Fear that leads you away from faith in the Lord is one of the most treasured tools in Satan’s toolbelt. But you have no reason to be afraid. God will keep you safe until the day he has set from eternity for you to die. You will not die one moment sooner than that. God did not create you to live in fear.

Jesus promises, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last—the Living One. I was dead and, see, I am alive forever and ever! I also hold the keys of death and hell” (Revelation 1:17, 18).

Dust and ashes mortals like us like to hide our fears. Honestly acknowledge your own fears, but also rely upon the Easter hope that answers your fears. This Easter message, after all, had its first proclamation in a graveyard that suddenly became a place of hope rather than fear. 

Our lives have never truly been in our own hands. Our lives rest in the nail-marked hands of the crucified and risen Christ. And even though fears still want to spook our hearts until heaven, yet we regularly walk to the open tomb to silence those fears.

Fear is often the result of hopelessness. As Christians, though, hope overcomes fear. Our hope is not in ourselves. Our hope is not in mankind. Our hope is not in the media, medical experts, or government authorities. Our hope is not in family genetics, healthy eating, or plenty of exercise. Our hope is in the God who wondrously created us and still more wondrously restored us to himself in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. Our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His resurrection is the firstfruits of all those who fall asleep in him (1 Corinthians 15:20).

Even in a fallen world where Death rides its pale horse to haunt us and hunt us down, Jesus still patiently reassures us: “Do not be afraid.” Death's back is broken. Satan has been stomped. The gates of Hades have been ripped off their hinges. Christ rides victorious on his white horse (Revelation 6:2). He has conquered and he continues to conquer. “Death is the last enemy to be done away with” (1 Corinthians 15:26), If Death is done, nothing else can win. If Death has been destroyed, then there is nothing else to fear.

Death lies broken and defeated. And now you get to decide whether the rest of your troubles, the worst of your fears, and the greatest of your anxieties are worth your worries. Can the terrors of troubles outweigh trusting in the Almighty God? Can the worries about war overshadow the Lord of Armies? Can the dread of demons live up to their demands? Can the panic of pandemics be greater than Christ walking victoriously out of his grave? Can the anxiety over ailments, the cares over cancer, or the despair over dementia be stronger than the almighty Son of God who slammed shut the prison doors of hell and threw wide open the gates of heaven?

We must all admit that fear often leads us to the dark side – to the devil’s side. That’s why we need to be reminded that we Christians alone have an answer to human fear. That answer is found in a graveyard. It is found at an empty tomb. It is found in a message that calms our fears while simultaneously making us messengers to the fearful hearts of others. “Surely God is my salvation. I will trust him and will not be afraid,” says the prophet Isaiah, “because the Lord, yes the Lord, is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2). “Do not be afraid,” says the angel. “Do not be afraid,” says the risen Lord. “Do not be afraid,” say you and me. “I have seen the Lord” says Mary and all Christians who are witness to Christ’s third day resurrection.

Because Jesus took his first steps from his grave, now we are assured that on the Last Day, Jesus will call out to us to take our first steps away from our grave. If Jesus calls us, be assured that he will also be calling your Christian loved ones out of their graves, too. Then there will be a blessed reunion, just like there was with Mary and Jesus.

“Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! You have no reason to ever be afraid again. All because Jesus’ first steps led away from the tomb. Amen.

Give thanks to the Lord! Proclaim his name. Declare among the peoples what he has done. Sing to the Lord, for he has done amazing things! Let this be known in all the earth (Isaiah 12:4, 5). Amen.

Easter Sermon

Easter Sermon                                                                      John 20:11-18                                                      Caledonia 04-09-2023

He is risen! He is risen indeed! If you’ve ever watched the movie The Passion of the Christ, you’ll understand why I say that it’s

almost too much for me. It leaves me feeling like a washcloth that’s gone through the ringer. By the time I finish watching that entire movie, I can’t really grab hold of the power and the comfort of the very last scene in the film. But that’s where YouTube comes in handy. I can search online for “Passion of Christ closing scene,” and in 0.59 seconds I can find a clip that is 1 minute and 24 seconds long. When I last checked, it had been uploaded 14,097 times. I’ll make sure I share the URL for that clip via social media later today. I’d urge you to watch it.

The scene is dramatic, purposefully understated compared to everything we’ve endured in the film up to that point. The camera places us within Christ’s black tomb and slowly pans toward the massive stone that closes the entrance. That stone is grinding its way up and back in its channel. You see a finger of the bright sun of that first Easter morning piercing the blackness of the tomb. All the while, the camera continues its slow pan, and the grinding of the massive stone continues until our gaze is focused on the slab where our Savior’s lifeless body had been laid. But the body is gone! The linen wrappings slowly collapse! Captivating music is now building. The camera pans a bit further. And then we see his face—no longer bloodied and bruised and battered but whole again! New and fresh again. Jesus, the risen Lord!

He sits for a moment, his eyes closed as if drinking in the warmth of the sun he once set in the sky. Then he opens his eyes and closes them again—as if pondering for a moment everything that had been accomplished. The music builds. The beat of drums is added. Voices—as if from a choir of angels—are laid over the top of the music score. Then our Lord stands, and we see the gaping hole left by a crude Roman spike in our Savior’s hand. He takes one step forward, and the movie comes to a close. Powerful! Memorable! But the record of Scripture is even better. Jesus’ work to save us was done, but now was the time to announce his victory by appearing to those who still thought him to be dead. So his first steps led . . .

His First Steps Led Beyond His Tomb

1. To Mary, who didn’t seem to notice two angels.

If merely watching the movie The Passion of the Christ is enough to leave you and me feeling exhausted and emotionally drained, imagine what it was like for Jesus’ first disciples who actually lived through the nightmare of Good Friday! Was that day even more horrific for the women, like Mary Magdalene, who followed Jesus? After all, the gospel writer John makes sure we know that “Jesus’

mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene were standing near the cross” (John 19:25). What was that like? A nightmare unfolding? If anything could cause a post-traumatic stress disorder, I’m thinking that might do it!

These women who loved their Lord so much were also the first to visit his tomb on Easter morning. They carried “the spices they had prepared” (Luke 24:1). They came to pay their final respects to their dead teacher. As they drew closer to the tomb, they worried about how they would move that massive stone out of the way. But there were also other concerns, weren’t there? How were they going to talk their way past the Roman guards and break the seal Pilate had placed on the tomb? I don’t know.

They didn’t know! They were still in shock! And that certainly included Mary Magdalene, who went to the tomb at the crack of dawn. The first time Mary arrived there, she saw “that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she left and ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,’ she told them, ‘and we don’t know where they put him!’ ” (John 20:1,2). After sharing this report, Mary followed Peter and John back to the tomb. Once those two arrived, they went inside and checked everything out. Yes, the tomb was empty. Yes, Jesus’ body was gone. So back home they went. Why stay?

There was nothing else to do there. John even adds this unflattering editorial comment to his record: “(They still did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead)” (John 20:9). At times, can we also be a little slow in grasping the height, depth, length, power, and certainty of all our Savior’s promises? Perhaps especially at a challenging time like now? “But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, weeping. As she wept, she bent over, looking into the tomb. She saw two angels in white clothes sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and one at the feet. They asked her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ ” (John 20:11-13). Because her heart was broken! Because she was in shock! She couldn’t see what was right in front of her: “two angels in white clothes.” Were there halos around their heads? Were there harps playing in the background? Who knows? Mary wouldn’t have noticed! All she could think of was this: “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him” (John 20:13b). She was stuck in the nightmare of Good Friday. Christ’s body hanging on the center cross, Christ’s lifeless body later laying in the new tomb Joseph of Arimathea had cut into the rock—those were the images seared into her heart and mind

(Matthew 27:55,56,61)!

That’s why she was weeping, sobbing. The kind of grief that wells up from deep inside you and comes crashing out like breaker waves, and you can’t hold it back. As far as Mary knew, her master was dead. And along with him died all those promises, all those hopes, and all those dreams she had tucked away in her heart from all those times she had heard him “preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God” as she and some other women followed Jesus “traveling from one town and village to another” (Luke 8:1).

Any of us who has experienced trauma may understand at least a little of what Mary was going through that first Easter morning. It’s why she seemed oblivious to the angels, frozen to the spot, struggling to think through her next move. But our Savior is a caring Savior who understands each one of us better than we ourselves do! He knew exactly what Mary needed. That’s why his first steps led outside his tomb.

2. To Mary, who thought Jesus was a gardener.

The apostle John’s account is poignant and personal. It’s amazing the little details that he includes here, amazing because John penned this record close to 60 years after Jesus’ resurrection, somewhere around a.d. 90. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. How could John, the “Elder” (2 John 1), remember? Because the Holy Spirit, by inspiration, made every detail sharp and clear in John’s mind, heart, and soul.

“After she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?’ Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, ‘Sir, if you carried him off, tell me where you laid him, and I will get him’ ” (John 20:14,15).

At this point, theologians, who sometimes act as if they have way too much time on their hands, come up with all kinds of reasons why Mary didn’t recognize Jesus: (1) Our Savior kept her from recognizing him at first. Could be; he’s God. He can do whatever he wants. (2) Mary’s eyes were blurred, so she didn’t recognize Jesus. Well, duh! She was weeping, sobbing. This was gut-wrenching sorrow; of course her eyes were blurred! (3) Jesus may have looked different than he did before his resurrection. That one might have some merit. On Easter Sunday afternoon, Cleopas and his companion, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, didn’t recognize Jesus when he joined them and walked along the road with them. Of course, there’s this too: Jesus would also be the very last person they’d expect to see because of the nightmare of Good Friday.

So I guess if seeing “two angels in white clothes sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying” (John 20:12) doesn’t make you stop and go, “Say what?” then you aren’t going to recognize Jesus, who rescued you from the hell on earth of being possessed by seven demons (Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9)! You won’t recognize the soothing voice of the teacher whom you followed for three years (Luke 8:2,3). You won’t recognize the Lord who only a few weeks earlier had told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish” (John 11:25,26). You won’t recognize the Lord of life who stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and “shouted with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The man who had died came out with his feet and his hands bound with strips of linen and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus told them, ‘Loose him and let him go’ ” (John 11:43,44).

How can you recognize the living Lord when all you can remember are the horrors you witnessed on Golgotha’s hill, when you stood beside “Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, [and] Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25)? You can’t! Not when you’re doubled over weeping, not when you are stuck in Good Friday.

Do you and I ever get stuck in the hopelessness of Good Friday? Stuck grieving over the spouse, parent, or child the Lord took home and maybe we still feel it was far too soon? Stuck worrying about how we’re going to pay our bills now that we’re out of a job because our company downsized? And what are we going to do if we get the coronavirus? And what about our retirement savings? And what’s going to happen to our business? How will our congregation and our ministry move forward during these uncertain times?

There are so many concerns and so many fears that threaten to keep you and me mired in the bleakness of Good Friday! But there is only one way to roll back our massive stones of fear, sorrow, worry, and weeping! Only Easter can do that! The risen Savior, who knew exactly what Mary needed that first Easter Sunday, knows exactly what we need this Easter Sunday! We need to rivet our attention on Jesus. We need to see how his first steps led outside his tomb!

3. To Mary, who witnessed to us all, “I have seen the Lord!”

Just one word was all it took for Jesus to lift the fog, the fear, and the darkness from Mary’s heart and mind. Just one word to free her feet that had been frozen to the ground just outside our Savior’s tomb. “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and replied in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means, ‘Teacher’). Jesus told her, ‘Do not continue to cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father—to my God and your God.” ’ Mary

Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord!’ She also told them the things he said to her” (John 20:16-18). The King of kings and the Lord of lords who had finished his work to pay in full for the sins of the human race; the one who had chained Satan and his minions in the dungeons of hell and had already descended there to declare his eternal triumph (Colossians 2:15); the one whom the Father would exalt and give “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee

will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11); that risen and glorious Christ who is our Good Shepherd. He cares about us. And he knows all of his sheep, every last one of us, by name (John 10:14).

So Jesus simply said, “Mary.” And the darkness of Good Friday began to be pierced by the sun that is Easter. “Rabboni!” (Teacher!) Mary replied. I suspect her tears continued—that’s the way human emotions work; you can’t just turn them off like a faucet—but now they became tears of surprise. Of wonder! Of relief that began to sweep through Mary in waves. So she hugged her Lord! She held him tight! This was clinging. She didn’t want to ever let him go again!

But that wouldn’t work. Jesus had other places to go, other people to see, more names, like Thomas, for example, to speak. For our Savior intended to have hundreds of witnesses ready to swear to us in the pages of Scripture (1 Corinthians 15:1-8), “I have seen the Lord!” His first steps led outside his tomb, and Jesus made sure he met Mary, because he knew she needed him. Then our Lord sent Mary to his “brothers” to share the Easter news with them, because he knew they needed him. And through the pages of Scripture, Mary and so many others stand together, shoulder to shoulder, shouting to us as one: “We have seen the Lord!”

There’s Peter with his hand in the Bible: “To be sure, we were not following cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the powerful appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). There’s John, an old man who could never forget: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life—the life appeared, and we have seen it. We testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:1-3).

Together the witnesses shout to us, “Easter is real! The Lord’s gracious forgiveness of sins is real!” Jesus made that crystal clear when he sent Mary with a message for his “brothers.” Even that greeting was pure grace for those who had scattered like scared rabbits into the night outside Gethsemane only days before. There is the same pure grace for us too who sometimes get stuck in our Good Friday nightmares. Because, you see, the writer to the Hebrews assures us that the risen Lord is not ashamed to call us his “brothers” either (Hebrews 2:10-15).

That is why he came. That’s why he took every one of his final steps to the center cross on Calvary. And that’s why his first steps led outside his tomb! Amen.

 Dan Wilkens… story? Resurrection will take away the hurt, it already does, but tomorrow (or then) it will be gone forever. That’s Jesus and his loving plan for us is worth knowing and holding sacred every single day.

His Final Steps Led to Jerusalem (Michael Zarling)

Matthew 21:1-11 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2telling them, “Go to the village ahead of you. Immediately you will find a donkey tied there along with her colt. Untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”

4This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 5Tell the daughter of Zion: Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

6The disciples went and did just as Jesus commanded them. 7They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their outer clothing on them, and he sat on it. 8A very large crowd spread their outer clothing on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them out on the road. 9The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed kept shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!

10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, asking, “Who is this?” 11And the crowds were saying, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Rejoice greatly, Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! Look! Your King is coming to you. He is righteous and brings salvation. He is humble and is riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9). Amen.

Katherine Koonce took her final steps on Monday morning. As she rushed down the hallway, she probably realized they could be her last steps.

Katherine was the headmaster at The Covenant School in Nashville. She was on a Zoom call in her office when she heard the first shot. She immediately ended the call, got up, and headed straight for the shooter.

As headmaster, her preparation with her staff on active shooter protocol saved numerous lives that day as the children and classrooms were locked down. Katherine also personally saved lives as she did what parents, principals, and headmaster do – she protected the children in her care.

Jesus took his final steps toward his death by heading into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Jesus taking his final steps to Jerusalem while riding on a donkey was fulfillment of prophecy. That’s exactly what Matthew tells us in his Gospel. “This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: Tell the daughter of Zion: Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

It appears that Matthew is giving us a two-for-one prophecy fulfillment special with his careful observation. He hints at Isaiah’s prophecy 700 years before Jesus rode into Jerusalem: “Tell the daughter of Zion: ‘Look, your salvation is coming’” (Isaiah 62:11). Then he adds the second prophecy by Zechariah 500 years before Christ would ride the foal of a donkey into God’s holy city: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! Look! Your King is coming to you. He is righteous and brings salvation. He is humble and is riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

Jesus rode into Jerusalem like a king who had been victorious in battle with a crowd shouting his praise. Jesus clearly intended to send a message with his chosen and prophesied mode of transportation. In the Ancient Middle East, kings rode horses into war. But those same leaders would ride donkeys in times of peace. The donkey visually announced that every enemy had been defeated and every threat put down. A war horse was no longer needed because there was now peace.

Consider Absalom’s conspiracy to make himself king: “After this, Absalom acquired for himself a chariot, horses, and fifty men to run in front of him” (2 Samuel 15:1) Compare that with David’s appointment of Solomon as king: “The king said to [Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada], “Take your lord’s servants with you. Have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and bring him down to the Gihon Spring” (1 Kings 1:32).

Zechariah prophecies this peace: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow will be taken away, and he will proclaim peace to the nations. His kingdom will extend from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth” Zechariah 9:10).

“See your king comes to you …” Notice you don’t come to your King. You won’t come. You are unworthy. You know your sins have separated you from your God. You are afraid. You know your sins deserve punishment now and forever. You are filled with pride. You know you’re wrong but are too stubborn to admit it. You are unwilling. You know how much damage your sins are doing to you but you enjoy them too much to part from them.

You won’t come. But you also can’t come. You are dead in your sins. Corpses don’t come on their own. You are enemy of God by nature. You don’t want anything to do with God.

So your King comes to you. He is righteous and brings salvation. You don’t make yourself righteous. You don’t make Jesus your Savior. He does those things without any help from you. You don’t make Jesus your Lord. He is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Yet, he humbles himself to ride into his holy city on a beast of burden. Five days later he will take on his final steps out of the city to bear the burden of the world’s sins. The world that ran away from him in unbelief, that scorned his love, that persecuted his prophets, that created false gods to worship and serve. Still, Jesus will bear the burden of the world’s sins because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

The great King comes to his city. He could have come with almighty power and awesome glory as the Son of God. He could have ridden a fiery chariot escorted by legions of angels in the Palm Sunday procession. But look how he comes. He comes as the Son of Man. Not in a fiery chariot but a lowly donkey. He comes not accompanied by the heavenly host by disciples with a spotty record of faith. He comes not with the praise of creation but the praise of the Jerusalem Passover pilgrims.

Why does he come so humbly? St. Paul tells us, “He emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When he was born in human likeness, and his appearance was like that of any other man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7, 8). Jesus comes not to rule us but to save us. He comes not to command us but to invite us. He comes not to demand anything from us but to give everything to us. He comes to us because we cannot and would not come to him. He comes in the name of the Lord to save us.

Jesus also takes his final steps to Jerusalem to receive praise. We like to praise people. In a few weeks, we will have our WLS Grandparents’ Day. The grandparents will enjoy praising their grandchildren for their achievements in school. We praise the Brewers for being in first place after they won their opening day ballgame. But we also praise our little T-ball players, too.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, we witness an enthusiastic crowd whose voices were filled with praise. They aimed their adoration in the right direction. It ascended to God and his Son. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

They praised the King with their cut palms, removed coats, and loud voices. Matthew reports, “A very large crowd spread their outer clothing on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them out on the road. The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed kept shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

“Hosanna” is a Hebrew word which means “save us now.” Hosanna was a word that should rightly have been on their lips. They needed a fervent plea as sinners to admit they had no way to save themselves.

What about you? What is your praise of the King like? Is your praise a dirge instead of a shout? Are you excited to follow your Savior through the long, difficult Holy Week? Or is worship on Sunday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then again on Easter Sunday just too much to ask?

Is your praise silent? Are you afraid of talking about Jesus in public because of the vile, vitriol, and violence you will face as an outspoken Christian?

Is your praise absent? Are you infrequent in worship, at the Lord’s Table, in God’s house?

Hosannas should daily and weekly be on our lips. We need to cry out, “Hosanna! Lord, save us!” Save us from our dirge-like praises. Save us from our silence. Save us from our absent worship.

Katherine Koonce, the headmaster at The Covenant School, was a hero. Evelyn Dieckhaus, a nine-year-old girl who was killed as she desperately tried pulling the fire alarm to stop the massacre was a hero. Nashville police officers, Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo who both ran into the school to take down the mass shooter were heroes. They all deserve praise for their heroism.

Jesus came as a conquering hero. He came to secure a victory not over any earthly prince, king, or government. His battle was against Satan, the prince of this world. His battle was against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

Jesus took his final steps to Jerusalem so he could go to war with the devil and crush his serpent head under his bloody heel. He took his final steps to Jerusalem so he could go to war against sin by taking his Father’s wrath over sin upon his holy back. He took his final steps to Jerusalem so he could go to war against death by dying at the Place of the Skull, being buried in a borrowed tomb, … and then taking his first steps away from that tomb.

Jesus came as a hero to take down the mass murderer of the devil. He walked headlong into Herod’s hatred, the devil’s desert temptations, Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial, the Pharisees’ mockery, Pilate’s cowardice, and humanity’s crimes. He fought off every one of our hellish enemies that desired our eternal destruction. Jesus wrestled the victory away from the devil. He took the sting of sin upon himself. He turned death into nothing more than a nap for his saints.

Jesus deserves a hero’s welcome for what he accomplished. A hero’s welcome that Palm Sunday, this Palm Sunday, every Sunday in God’s house, and every day in your house. He deserves your Hosannas, Alleluias, and Amens.

This week we follow Jesus these last few final steps. These final steps that led him into Jerusalem. These final steps will end at the Place of the Skull. Then Jesus will walk once again with his first steps away from the tomb. Amen.

At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10, 11). Amen.

Pick Up Your Son Caledonia Campus

2 Kings 4:17-37 17But the woman conceived, and she gave birth to a son at that same time of year, just as Elisha said to her.

18The boy grew up, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. 19Then he said to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20So he picked him up and carried him to his mother, and the boy sat on her lap until noon. Then he died.

21Then she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. She shut the door behind her and went out. 22Then she called to her husband and said, “Send one of the servants to me with one of the donkeys, so that I can run to the man of God and come back.”

23He said, “Why are you going to him today? It’s not the new moon, and it’s not the Sabbath.”

But she said, “It’s all right.”

24Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead the way. Don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.”

25So she went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

When the man of God saw her from a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! That’s the woman from Shunem! 26Now run to meet her and say, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?’”

She answered, “We’re all right.”

27Then she came to the man of God at the mountain, and she grasped his feet. Gehazi stepped forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me. He has not told me.”

28Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t give me false hope’?”

29Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Hike up your garments for travel, and take my staff in your hand and go! If you meet someone, do not greet him, and if someone greets you, do not answer. Put my staff on the boy’s face.”

30But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her. 31Gehazi went ahead of them and put the staff on the boy’s face. But there was no sound, and there was no response. So he went back to Elisha and told him, “The boy did not wake up.”

32When Elisha came to the house, there the boy was―dead, lying on his bed. 33So he went in and he shut the door behind the two of them. Then he prayed to the Lord. 34He got up and lay down on top of the boy. He put his mouth to the boy’s mouth, his eyes to the boy’s eyes, his palms to the boy’s palms. Then he bent down over him, and the boy’s flesh became warm. 35He went back into the house and paced back and forth. Then he went up and bent down over him, and the boy sneezed seven times. Then the boy opened his eyes.

36Then Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Call the woman of Shunem!” So he called her, and she came in. He said, “Pick up your son.” 37So she came in and fell at Elisha’s feet and bowed down to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you. Amen (Romans 8:11).

Joel and Ruth were strong Christian people. They loved the Lord. They loved each other. They wanted to love lots of children. They both came from large families and desired having a large family of their own. But they had been married for 8 years and still did not have any children.

For whatever reason, they could not conceive a child. They prayed to God. They talked to doctors. They visited specialists.

Finally, God blessed Joe and Ruth with a pregnancy. They wanted to thank God for their child because they felt like they had found favor in God’s eyes, so they decided to name him Ken. They knew the Hebrew word for grace or favor is pronounced Chen. Everything was going well until their son was born. Then the nurses suddenly rushed Ken away from the scared couple.

Ken was born with all kinds of health complications … too numerous to recount here. Joe and Ruth were able to visit their son in the NICU, hold him, feed him, and change him. Their hearts were filled with love for their little son.

Then one day Ruth picked up her son and was holding him and he died in her arms. His little heart had given out. He just couldn’t fight anymore. Ken was only a month old, but it was a month of love, grace, and favor. It was followed by months of heartache, grief, and deep sadness.

Joe and Ruth are not real people. I created them to tell this story. Because it is a very real story. Sadly, many of us have lived a similar story. Or maybe we have heard this heartbreaking story from others we know and love.

Though I made up this particular story, it reminds us of a very real story. It’s the story the Holy Spirit relates to us in our Old Testament lesson.

Elisha was the kind of prophet who moved around a lot. He traveled quite a bit to visit and preach to the people of Israel. As Elisha was passing through Shunem in the Jezreel Valley between Galilee and Samaria, he was stopped by a Shunamite woman. We’ll call this woman Ruth. Ruth had a great faith in God and asked Elisha to stay with them whenever he passed through the area. We’ll call her husband Joel. Joel built a spare room for the prophet in their house.

Elisha asked Ruth if there was anything God could give her to show Elisha’s appreciation for her kindness. She wanted nothing. When Elisha learned from his servant Gehazi that Ruth had no children and Joel was old he said to her, “At this time next year you will be holding your son” (2 Kings 5:16). A year later, God gifted Ruth and Joel with a miracle son. We’ll call him Chen which is Hebrew for grace and favor.

All was well for several years. Elisha continued his visits and Chen continued to grow until he was old enough to be with his dad in the fields. Then one day he complained that his head hurt. Joel knew this was more than a headache and ordered a servant to take Chen to his mother. The young boy sat in his mother’s lap until his heart gave out and he died.

Ruth carried her son’s lifeless body to the house and laid him on the prophet’s bed in the spare room. Then she went to see Elisha. When she saw Elisha she said in her grief, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t give me false hope’?” Elisha didn’t know exactly what happened, but he knew something tragic had happened. He sent Gehazi with his prophet’s staff and told him to run the 20 miles to Ruth’s home.

But Ruth wouldn’t leave Elisha’s side. She said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So the grieving mother accompanied the man of God back to her home in Shunem.

When Elisha arrived at the home, he went upstairs to his private room and shut the door. Outside, Ruth waited. She wept. She prayed. And she waited.

Until finally the prophet called his servant. Then she was alone in her grief. Gehazi came to get Ruth and brought her into the room. Elisha said to the mom, “Pick up your son.” By the grace of God, her son was alive!

By the grace of God, I have been at the bedside of many of God’s saints as they were being called by God to be with him in heavenly glory. I’ve been there as their eyes closed, their breathing slowed, and their hearts stopped. I’ve been blessed to preach for the Christian funeral of many of God’s saints. From a pastor’s perspective, some deaths and funerals are easier to minister to and preach for than others.

The hardest death to minister to and most difficult funeral to preach for was an infant. The little boy had come home from the hospital, and everything seemed fine. But it wasn’t fine. I remember exactly where I was when I received the phone call from the dad telling me that his two-week old son had died. He died in his sleep.

When I went to visit the family, the mother was almost inconsolable. She went to the crib to pick up her son. … But he was dead.

Can you imagine the grief these new parents felt?!

Perhaps you don’t have to imagine. You know the grief firsthand.

The grief of a miscarriage.

The grief of an infant death.

The grief of a teenager killed in a car accident.

The grief of a daughter who died after a long bout with cancer.

The grief of a son killed in a war.

There is an old – but very true – saying that no parent should ever have to experience burying their child.

There is grief when we are called to pick up our dead son or daughter. There is heartache when we are holding our lifeless children – young or grown. There is loss knowing their death has robbed us of time, hugs, and laughter.

We must all walk through this dark valley of the shadow of death. We all feel this pain death brings. Our hearts are filled with questions.

“Why?”

“What good can come from this?”

“When will this pain end?”

We look to Scripture, and we see God raising people from the dead. Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, Dorcas, the Shunamite woman’s son. That’s miraculous! That’s marvelous! Those resurrections raise bodies … but they also raise questions. Questions like, “Why isn’t my child resurrected?” “Why did Jesus raise that one and not this one?”

We don’t have the answers. Death often leaves us with more questions than answers. It leaves us with more tears than smiles.

The tears remind us that even the Lord Jesus cried. When he was at the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus, he wept. Even though he knew he would soon be raising Lazarus from the grave in a fw moments, his heart still broke for what death did to those he loved.

But Jesus did more than cry. He did something about the pains that cause these tears of grief. He told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish. Do you believe this” (John 11:25)? Martha believed that Lazarus would rise on the Last Day. But Jesus meant that Lazarus would rise on that day! Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave that day, so he promises to call all of his saints out of their graves on the Last Day.

Jesus did more than sympathize with our pains. He did something about the pains that cause these tears of grief. He is the answer to all our questions. He knows that we grieve so he became the man who knew grief. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man who knew grief, who was well acquainted with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3).

Jesus endured suffering and shame for us. He took the punishment we deserved. He carried our guilt. He bled and died to pay our price. He was buried in the tomb for three days. Then he beat death at its own game with his glorious resurrection from the grave.

This means that whatever we suffer here now is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:19). God is not minimizing our griefs, sorrows or sufferings in saying this. He’s emphasizing the pain we feel. But he assures us that because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and out of the grave, now he has prepared mansions in heaven for us. When our bodies are resurrected from the graves on the Last Day and we are standing before God’s throne with all the other countless saints, we will have forgotten all these griefs, sorrows, and sufferings.

This is the comfort we have as grieving parents. Jesus does not promise us a resurrection of our children in this lifetime. But he does promise a resurrection in the life to come. Our deceased Christian children are not really dead, They live on. It’s a change of geography – from this earth to the heavenly realms. It’s a change of form – from sinful mortal to glorified saint. It’s a change of sight – no longer seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith, but now seeing Jesus with their very own eyes.

I cannot imagine how heartbreaking it is to pick up your son after he as died in the crib. But look to the glory that Jesus has prepared for you and your children. Look forward to the day when you die. There you will enter the gates of heaven. You will meet your glorified Savior. Then he will introduce you to your child and say, “Pick up your son.” “Pick up your daughter.”

What a glorious reunion that will be! Amen.

Now if we are children, we are also heirs―heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Amen (Romans 8:17).

Pick Up Your Son

2 Kings 4:17-37 17But the woman conceived, and she gave birth to a son at that same time of year, just as Elisha said to her.

18The boy grew up, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. 19Then he said to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20So he picked him up and carried him to his mother, and the boy sat on her lap until noon. Then he died.

21Then she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. She shut the door behind her and went out. 22Then she called to her husband and said, “Send one of the servants to me with one of the donkeys, so that I can run to the man of God and come back.”

23He said, “Why are you going to him today? It’s not the new moon, and it’s not the Sabbath.”

But she said, “It’s all right.”

24Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead the way. Don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.”

25So she went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

When the man of God saw her from a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! That’s the woman from Shunem! 26Now run to meet her and say, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?’”

She answered, “We’re all right.”

27Then she came to the man of God at the mountain, and she grasped his feet. Gehazi stepped forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me. He has not told me.”

28Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t give me false hope’?”

29Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Hike up your garments for travel, and take my staff in your hand and go! If you meet someone, do not greet him, and if someone greets you, do not answer. Put my staff on the boy’s face.”

30But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her. 31Gehazi went ahead of them and put the staff on the boy’s face. But there was no sound, and there was no response. So he went back to Elisha and told him, “The boy did not wake up.”

32When Elisha came to the house, there the boy was―dead, lying on his bed. 33So he went in and he shut the door behind the two of them. Then he prayed to the Lord. 34He got up and lay down on top of the boy. He put his mouth to the boy’s mouth, his eyes to the boy’s eyes, his palms to the boy’s palms. Then he bent down over him, and the boy’s flesh became warm. 35He went back into the house and paced back and forth. Then he went up and bent down over him, and the boy sneezed seven times. Then the boy opened his eyes.

36Then Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Call the woman of Shunem!” So he called her, and she came in. He said, “Pick up your son.” 37So she came in and fell at Elisha’s feet and bowed down to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you. Amen (Romans 8:11).

Joel and Ruth were strong Christian people. They loved the Lord. They loved each other. They wanted to love lots of children. They both came from large families and desired having a large family of their own. But they had been married for 8 years and still did not have any children.

For whatever reason, they could not conceive a child. They prayed to God. They talked to doctors. They visited specialists.

Finally, God blessed Joe and Ruth with a pregnancy. They wanted to thank God for their child because they felt like they had found favor in God’s eyes, so they decided to name him Ken. They knew the Hebrew word for grace or favor is pronounced Chen. Everything was going well until their son was born. Then the nurses suddenly rushed Ken away from the scared couple.

Ken was born with all kinds of health complications … too numerous to recount here. Joe and Ruth were able to visit their son in the NICU, hold him, feed him, and change him. Their hearts were filled with love for their little son.

Then one day Ruth picked up her son and was holding him and he died in her arms. His little heart had given out. He just couldn’t fight anymore. Ken was only a month old, but it was a month of love, grace, and favor. It was followed by months of heartache, grief, and deep sadness.

Joe and Ruth are not real people. I created them to tell this story. Because it is a very real story. Sadly, many of us have lived a similar story. Or maybe we have heard this heartbreaking story from others we know and love.

Though I made up this particular story, it reminds us of a very real story. It’s the story the Holy Spirit relates to us in our Old Testament lesson.

Elisha was the kind of prophet who moved around a lot. He traveled quite a bit to visit and preach to the people of Israel. As Elisha was passing through Shunem in the Jezreel Valley between Galilee and Samaria, he was stopped by a Shunamite woman. We’ll call this woman Ruth. Ruth had a great faith in God and asked Elisha to stay with them whenever he passed through the area. We’ll call her husband Joel. Joel built a spare room for the prophet in their house.

Elisha asked Ruth if there was anything God could give her to show Elisha’s appreciation for her kindness. She wanted nothing. When Elisha learned from his servant Gehazi that Ruth had no children and Joel was old he said to her, “At this time next year you will be holding your son” (2 Kings 5:16). A year later, God gifted Ruth and Joel with a miracle son. We’ll call him Chen which is Hebrew for grace and favor.

All was well for several years. Elisha continued his visits and Chen continued to grow until he was old enough to be with his dad in the fields. Then one day he complained that his head hurt. Joel knew this was more than a headache and ordered a servant to take Chen to his mother. The young boy sat in his mother’s lap until his heart gave out and he died.

Ruth carried her son’s lifeless body to the house and laid him on the prophet’s bed in the spare room. Then she went to see Elisha. When she saw Elisha she said in her grief, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t give me false hope’?” Elisha didn’t know exactly what happened, but he knew something tragic had happened. He sent Gehazi with his prophet’s staff and told him to run the 20 miles to Ruth’s home.

But Ruth wouldn’t leave Elisha’s side. She said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So the grieving mother accompanied the man of God back to her home in Shunem.

When Elisha arrived at the home, he went upstairs to his private room and shut the door. Outside, Ruth waited. She wept. She prayed. And she waited.

Until finally the prophet called his servant. Then she was alone in her grief. Gehazi came to get Ruth and brought her into the room. Elisha said to the mom, “Pick up your son.” By the grace of God, her son was alive!

By the grace of God, I have been at the bedside of many of God’s saints as they were being called by God to be with him in heavenly glory. I’ve been there as their eyes closed, their breathing slowed, and their hearts stopped. I’ve been blessed to preach for the Christian funeral of many of God’s saints. From a pastor’s perspective, some deaths and funerals are easier to minister to and preach for than others.

The hardest death to minister to and most difficult funeral to preach for was an infant. The little boy had come home from the hospital, and everything seemed fine. But it wasn’t fine. I remember exactly where I was when I received the phone call from the dad telling me that his two-week old son had died. He died in his sleep.

When I went to visit the family, the mother was almost inconsolable. She went to the crib to pick up her son. … But he was dead.

Can you imagine the grief these new parents felt?!

Perhaps you don’t have to imagine. You know the grief firsthand.

The grief of a miscarriage.

The grief of an infant death.

The grief of a teenager killed in a car accident.

The grief of a daughter who died after a long bout with cancer.

The grief of a son killed in a war.

There is an old – but very true – saying that no parent should ever have to experience burying their child.

There is grief when we are called to pick up our dead son or daughter. There is heartache when we are holding our lifeless children – young or grown. There is loss knowing their death has robbed us of time, hugs, and laughter.

We must all walk through this dark valley of the shadow of death. We all feel this pain death brings. Our hearts are filled with questions.

“Why?”

“What good can come from this?”

“When will this pain end?”

We look to Scripture, and we see God raising people from the dead. Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, Dorcas, the Shunamite woman’s son. That’s miraculous! That’s marvelous! Those resurrections raise bodies … but they also raise questions. Questions like, “Why isn’t my child resurrected?” “Why did Jesus raise that one and not this one?”

We don’t have the answers. Death often leaves us with more questions than answers. It leaves us with more tears than smiles.

The tears remind us that even the Lord Jesus cried. When he was at the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus, he wept. Even though he knew he would soon be raising Lazarus from the grave in a fw moments, his heart still broke for what death did to those he loved.

But Jesus did more than cry. He did something about the pains that cause these tears of grief. He told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish. Do you believe this” (John 11:25)? Martha believed that Lazarus would rise on the Last Day. But Jesus meant that Lazarus would rise on that day! Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave that day, so he promises to call all of his saints out of their graves on the Last Day.

Jesus did more than sympathize with our pains. He did something about the pains that cause these tears of grief. He is the answer to all our questions. He knows that we grieve so he became the man who knew grief. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man who knew grief, who was well acquainted with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3).

Jesus endured suffering and shame for us. He took the punishment we deserved. He carried our guilt. He bled and died to pay our price. He was buried in the tomb for three days. Then he beat death at its own game with his glorious resurrection from the grave.

This means that whatever we suffer here now is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:19). God is not minimizing our griefs, sorrows or sufferings in saying this. He’s emphasizing the pain we feel. But he assures us that because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and out of the grave, now he has prepared mansions in heaven for us. When our bodies are resurrected from the graves on the Last Day and we are standing before God’s throne with all the other countless saints, we will have forgotten all these griefs, sorrows, and sufferings.

This is the comfort we have as grieving parents. Jesus does not promise us a resurrection of our children in this lifetime. But he does promise a resurrection in the life to come. Our deceased Christian children are not really dead, They live on. It’s a change of geography – from this earth to the heavenly realms. It’s a change of form – from sinful mortal to glorified saint. It’s a change of sight – no longer seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith, but now seeing Jesus with their very own eyes.

I cannot imagine how heartbreaking it is to pick up your son after he as died in the crib. But look to the glory that Jesus has prepared for you and your children. Look forward to the day when you die. There you will enter the gates of heaven. You will meet your glorified Savior. Then he will introduce you to your child and say, “Pick up your son.” “Pick up your daughter.”

What a glorious reunion that will be! Amen.

Now if we are children, we are also heirs―heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Amen (Romans 8:17).

Sermon on Romans 5:1-11

TEXT:    Romans 5:1-11

5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Superhero movies have a real knack for this. A character, normally a character you love by this point in the movie, finds themselves caught in a bad situation. Their back is pushed up against a wall with nowhere to go. Or maybe they are clinging onto the ledge of a window for dear life and the villain is about to stomp on their fingers. You’re at the edge of your seat, you don’t know if they’ll make it or not. It seems as if all is lost for that character you love so much. But then, at just the right time, the superhero intervenes. The superhero sweeps down from the roof of the building and catches the person who is plummeting from the window. Or the character is in the middle of all their enemies and the superhero comes at just the right time and takes all the enemies down. You can probably think of other examples in your head. I think that is one of the reasons we are so willing to spend a few hours on Netflix or spend a few dollars at the theatre. Because we know that at just the right time the superhero is going to come in and save the day. It’s all going to work out perfectly in the end. But that’s just the movies, right? Or maybe it’s not. You see, that is your reality, too. At Just the right time God demonstrated his unconditional love. And because of that we can now live with amazing confidence.

In church we talk about grace or God’s unconditional love quite often (the two terms can be used interchangeably). Perhaps it has just become sort of a “church cliché.” It can be confusing to understand exactly what it is that we are talking about or what that means for our lives. In the reading we just read for today, Paul gives a clear illustration of what unconditional love looks like. I’m going to read verses 6-8 again and I want you to listen for the clear example of unconditional love or grace that Paul gives: “6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Every once and awhile in the news there is a story of someone who showed incredible sacrifice – a human-interest story if you will. It goes like this. A mother donates one of her kidneys to her son so he can live a healthy life. Or a soldier in the heat of battle jumps on a grenade, saving his band of brothers, but giving up his own life. Or a teacher shields her kids from a school shooting, literally taking a bullet for them. These stories all show great sacrifice. They make our hearts warm; tears fall from our faces. They “restore our hope in humanity.” But the unconditional love of Jesus even surpasses all these stories of sacrifice.

You see, we opposed Jesus, because of our sins we were hostile against him. We were his enemy. But even though we were all those things, he came, and he died for us. That kind of love is illogical. You see, those human-interest stories above, they all have something in common. There is a relationship between those people. But we had abandoned our relationship with God. True enough, someone might give up their life for their friend or someone they don’t know, but it’s very rare. It’s even more rare that someone would give up their life for an enemy. That is what Christ did for you. He died for you when you were completely lost. He gave up everything, even his life for you. We need this kind of love. Jesus’ death was the only thing that could rescue us from our path to hell. At just the right time, Christ came and rescued us.  And Jesus willingly did it for us. It changed our status 180 degrees. It turned us from death to life. And yet don’t we often take this kind of love for granted? We struggle to even speak nicely about our neighbor who we disagree with, or a family member. We clearly see and recognize that we need this illogical love, and yet we fail to show it to those around us. God’s love for us was unconditional…it’s illogical to our brains.

This unconditional, illogical love which Christ demonstrated for is the love that Christ showed us during his life.

That Christ come into the world and die for all people was the purpose God had from the beginning of the world. It’s interesting: in Galatians 4:4 Paul says that when the time had fully come God sent his son to redeem those under the law. And then in this reading we read that at just the right time, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God’s plan from eternity was to save you. That God, the same God from the very beginning, became man to die for you. To save you. This was his plan from the start of time…that’s how precious you are to him.

One way of talking about this saving is called justification. Paul talks about it in our text in verse one when he writes: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justification, or being made right with God, can be illustrated using a courtroom scene. Picture this. You are in a courtroom and the case against you is made. In your heart you realize that you are guilty on every account. Your heart sinks as they read the evidence. You think, guilty of that one, guilty of that one, guilty of that one. But the judge (who is God in this illustration), when he slams down the gavel, he does not say guilty. He says you’re acquitted; you are forgiven. He says as far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your guilt from you. This is your reality -- at just the right time God sent his son and demonstrated unconditional love to you. Your sins are gone and forgotten! He sent his Son that you can have life. Your life has been changed. You are no longer dead, but alive because of his unconditional love.

In the rest of our text Paul says that now you can live at peace because of the reality that you’re a redeemed child of God. Because of that you have confidence beyond what you can possibly believe. But, if you’re anything like me, it doesn’t always feel like that does it?

There is a question that sometimes shakes our foundation that we are God’s children, though. It’s a three-letter question, maybe you’ve already thought of it. The question is, “why?” Why do I have hardly enough money to make it through the week? Why was there a pandemic that robbed me of my plans? God, why is there suffering? The list could go on and on.

So, how are you going to answer the question of suffering? How are you going to answer the question of why? How are you going to explain to your neighbor why his mom has cancer? If I try to do this by my own human reason and by my own human logic, I must admit that I do not always have an answer. Sure, there are times when I can look back at a particular situation and a few years later understand exactly why that suffering took place in my life. But other times, it doesn’t make sense. That is because my mental capacity is not on the same level as God’s. In fact, he’s the author of time – the author of my life. I can’t think the same way that God does. And so, sometimes the answer to suffering is, “I don’t know why.” But how then can Paul say that we can boast in our sufferings? How can he say that suffering produces patient endurance and patient endurance produces character and character produces hope? How can he say that? Especially if I don’t know why these things happen.

He can say that because of what we heard earlier in the sermon. He can say that because you are justified by faith. Because you are a child of God. You have a different logic than the rest of the world. You have been declared righteous. So, what then is the answer to the why? Truthfully, our answer is that we don’t always know, but what we do know we know by faith. We know that we have a Savior who died for us at just the right time. A Savior that took away our sins and because of that we have confidence even in times of suffering. We may never know why we suffered for a period of time. God may never grant us that knowledge here on earth. But we do know what awaits us: eternal life in heaven! It doesn’t make sense to us…it may never make sense to us. But the faith that God has worked in your heart gives us confidence, incomparable confidence to walk by faith and not by sight.

Timing is everything in life. The movies have picked up on that. Sometimes it’s even laughable that we think the main character isn’t going to make it out alive. It just works out a little too perfectly. In your life, when struggles come your way remember that you have a God with perfect timing…at just the right time Christ came and died for you…remember who you are. Stand in that unconditional love. You are his child. Amen.

Who Sinned?

John 9:1-7,13-17,34-39 As Jesus was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

3Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that God’s works might be revealed in connection with him. 4I must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the World.”

6After saying this, Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and spread the mud on the man’s eyes. 7“Go,” Jesus told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.

13They brought this man who had been blind to the Pharisees. 14Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15So the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight.

“He put mud on my eyes,” the man told them. “I washed, and now I see.”

16Then some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.” Others were saying, “How can a sinful man work such miraculous signs?”

There was division among them, 17so they said to the blind man again, “What do you say about him, because he opened your eyes?”

The man replied, “He is a prophet.”

34They answered him, “You were entirely born in sinfulness! Yet you presume to teach us?” And they threw him out.

35Jesus heard that they had thrown him out. When he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of God?”

36“Who is he, sir,” the man replied, “that I may believe in him?”

37Jesus answered, “You have seen him, and he is the very one who is speaking with you.”

38Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” and he knelt down and worshipped him.

39Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, in order that those who do not see will see, and those who do see will become blind.”

Do you know what karma is? Karma is a core concept in Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Karma means “action.” It is the belief that each action a person takes will affect him or her at some time in the future. Karma is the belief that you get what’s coming to you. What goes around, comes around. If you do evil, you’ll receive evil. If you do good, you’ll receive good.

For example, this week in Florida, a motorcyclist was popping wheelies when he was confronted by the police. Instead of going quietly with the police, the motorcyclist decided to lead the police on a high speed chase. As he was going through an intersection, he decided to glance backwards at the pursuing police and flip them off. At that moment, he was T-boned by a truck. ... Thankfully and miraculously, the motorcyclist survived.

Some would say that’s karma.

Another example is a popular YouTuber who makes a lot of money on his videos. He’s using that money to pay for cataract surgeries so thousands of legally blind people are able to see again. He’s helping a lot of people and those people hope more good will come to him so he can continue to help others.

They would say that’s karma.

Karma is not correct. It’s not biblical. It’s not Christian. Yet many Christians today believe in this false theology of karma.

It’s a very old false theology. Job’s friends believed in karma. Job lost his family, his wealth, and then his health. Then for chapter upon chapter, Job’s so-called “friends” sat around giving him reasons why God was bringing all this suffering upon him. They accused him of committing some kind of sin so that God was bringing about divine retribution (Job 4:7-8; 8:20; 11:14-15).

The disciples of Jesus also succumb to this faulty conclusion when they come upon a man who was blind from birth. The disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

How many of you, when things go south in the life of someone close to you, wonder what that person did to make God angry? How many of you, when things go south in your own life, turn your eyes to heaven and ask God, “Why am I being punished?”

This is how people thought in Jesus’ day and in Job’s day. In our day, it is a conclusion that we often jump to very quickly, as well. If someone suffers a tragic accident or lingers in an illness, then we assume that God must be punishing them for some specific sin. Who sinned?

We jump to this kind of conclusion because we want to have an answer for suffering. We make up pat answers for suffering. “It’s for the best.” It’s all a part of God’s plan.” “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

Those answers may sound pious and theological, but they aren’t correct. That suffering might not be for the best. We don’t know God’s plan. God often gives us more than we can handle.

While we might join with the friends of Job and Jesus’ disciples to offer pat answers for human suffering, we won’t find such easy answers for suffering in Scripture. The Bible offers a multi-faceted, balanced, and remarkably nuanced view of suffering. Some suffering appears to be the direct result of God’s righteous anger over rebellious unbelief – like the Israelites being bitten by venomous snakes because of their complaining about food (Numbers 21:4-9). Some suffering appears to be corrective chastisement, as God changes the hearts and behavior of his people – like Jonah being swallowed by the great fish, in order to turn Jonah back toward his ministry in Ninevah (Jonah 1-2). Some suffering appears to come as a direct result of our connection to Jesus – like when Jesus assures us that we will be persecuted for our faith, just as Jesus was persecuted (John 15:18-20).

And, some suffering appears to come because we are sinful people, living in a sinful world – like with this blind man (John 9).

The disciples were somewhat correct in their diagnosis. The man was born blind because of sin. But it wasn’t his sin as an infant in the womb or a specific sin of his parents. Rather, blindness is one of the many different symptoms of the deadly condition of sin. Strokes, cancer, heart defects, old age, are all the symptoms of being sinners living in a sinful world. These are symptoms that infect everyone.

We often like to think of sin as something that we do. So, we do moral math. If sin is something that we do, and suffering is a result of our sin, then we figure we can fix the problem of our suffering just by sinning less or making up for our sin. But sin is much more pervasive than that. Sin is what we do wrong. Sin is what we fail to do right. Sin is who we are by nature. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Flesh gives birth to flesh.”

God doesn’t do this kind of moral math. He doesn’t add up our sins and subtract our righteous acts, and then dish out suffering based on the difference.

God doesn’t explain why bad things happen. The reason for suffering is largely and unknowably mysterious to us.

Although, we cannot know why suffering always occurs, God does reveal to us what he has done about it. He has sent his Son to suffer satanic temptation, divine wrath, and hellish punishment in our place. All the suffering we should be enduring now and for eternity, Jesus has already suffered with us and for us. The Bible says Jesus suffered with us: “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). The Bible also says Jesus suffered for us: “We see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Hebrews 2:9).

Jesus is the answer to all our suffering. He was the answer to this blind man’s suffering. Throughout his life, the Jewish rabbis taught him that he was damaged goods, because either he or his parents committed some horrible sin. Then, another Rabbi approached. He taught, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” A little while later, this Rabbi made some mud with his divine saliva and put it on the blind man’s eyes. Then he told the blind man to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam. Suddenly, the blind man could see.

Comedian Paul Reiser wrote once about mother’s spit: “I saw a kid who had some dried-up food on his face. His mother took out a tissue, spit on the tissue and rubbed it into the kid’s face. This goes on, in communities around our country, on a daily basis. It is disgusting, but it sure does work, doesn’t it? There’s something in Mother Saliva that cleans like nobody’s business. All women, once they give birth, their enzymes change, and saliva becomes Ajax. It’ll clean anything: a baby’s face, a countertop, a Buick – you get enough mothers, you could do a whole car in 30, 40 minutes.” (Paul Reiser, “Couplehood”)

Mother’s spit may be great for cleaning, but Jesus’ touch and spit is for something even greater – for healing! What had been broken, Jesus mends with the Creator’s touch. The Great Physician is at work. Notice the earthiness of it all. Fingers in the dirt. Mud on the eyes. God coming down to us, touching us, opening eyes, creating faith, and saving souls.

Jesus does what only the Creator can do - create and recreate humanity with mud. Adam was made by the hand of God and now the Master Potter himself takes a bit of mud and fixes the son of Adam’s broken eyes.

This week we were discussing suffering in the 7th grade Catechism class. As we were studying life issues with the 5th commandment, we talked about not ending suffering through euthanasia – mercy killing. We talked about all the different things we can learn through suffering. We imagined that Grandma is very ill and living with the 7th grader and the family.

Through her suffering, Grandma may learn patience. This patience can then lead to a strong Christian character. That strong Christian character leads to hope in Jesus Christ for her salvation. And her hope will never be put to shame (Romans 5:3-5).

The 7th grader watches Mom take care of Grandma. She feeds her, clothes her, bathes her, changes her. Mom has empathy and compassion. The 7th grader can learn to express that same Christian empathy and compassion.

We also talked about how Grandma’s illness keeps her from moving to Florida with other older people. Instead, she’s in the house with her grandchildren every day. We discussed how the 7th grader can sit and learn Grandma’s stories and they can share their stories with their grandmother. They can hold hands, give hugs, learn family history, and so many other things all through Grandma’s suffering.

God is not cursing us for sin when we are suffering. Rather, suffering can be used by God to lead us to see him more clearly. When the previously blind man was walking around trying out his new eyes, Jesus appears in front of him.

Being blind for decades, the man had probably never heard of Jesus. He certainly had never seen him. He doesn’t know who Jesus is when he is stopped and is asked, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” “Who is he, sir,” the man replied, “that I may believe in him?” Jesus answered, “You have seen him, and he is the very one who is speaking with you.” Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” and he knelt down and worshipped him.

Jesus allowed the decades of suffering with blindness so Jesus could give him sight. Jesus gave the man physical sight, but more than that, he gifted him with the spiritual sight of faith. He could now see his Savior standing right in front of him!

God often allows disabilities into our lives to help us understand that we are born full of sin and spiritually blind. The Holy Spirit can use this suffering to start us looking for a Savior. He gives us spiritual sight, not with mud and spit, but with the equally humble means of water, bread, wine, and Word. God sometimes uses suffering, followed by his gospel, to open the eyes of the spiritually blind, so they might see the Savior from all their eternal suffering.

Don’t ask, “Who sinned to cause my suffering?” That’s false theology. That’s karma. Rather ask, “How can my suffering lead me to patience, character, and hope?” “How can the burden of my suffering lead me to rely more on Christ who promises to ease my burdens and suffered for my sins?” “How can my suffering lead me to see Christ more clearly?”

Instead of asking, “Who sinned?”, thank God that Christ has removed your sin. Instead of believing in karma, believe in Christ. Amen.