Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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It was Passover week for Israel. For this particular Passover, Jesus chose to ride into Jerusalem rather than walk. Calling for a donkey and a colt, the foal of a donkey, He rode from the Mount of Olives into the city. Crowds of people applauded and cheered His arrival. They waived palm branches and laid their cloaks down on the road for His donkey to walk on.

When He reached the city, people there wanted to know what all the fuss was about. And those who had accompanied Him said, “this is the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee.” The Pharisees thought the whole thing was disgraceful and told Jesus to ’sush’ His disciples and correct them. Jesus replied, ‘would you prefer a rock band?’

Upon entering the city of Jerusalem, Jesus headed right for the Temple. Now the Temple is holy ground. It’s holy ground because it’s where God is present. Not symbolically present or figuratively present but really present. People came to the Temple to offer sacrifices for their sins to God, and they left with their sins forgiven by God, not just spiritually forgiven, or conceptually forgiven, but really forgiven all their sins. (more…)

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One day, a rich young man approached Jesus with a nagging question. “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” To help this see that gotten on the wrong train, Jesus replied, “If you would enter eternal life, keep the commandments.” The man asked, “which ones?” As though some were optional or 8 out of 10 would do it. Jesus lowered the ante to just 7 out of 10, just those commandments that deal with our relationship to our neighbor - the 2nd table of the Law. With a straight face, the man replied, “all these I have kept.” Jesus replied, “oh really? Go, sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” And at that, the rich, young man went away “very sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

The lesson for us all to learn here is another sermon for another day. This is not our assigned text. But leads up to it.

Peter and the disciples heard and saw all of this and they immediately put two and two together. They had done just what Jesus told the rich young man that he must do. Peter said to Jesus, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (more…)

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We begin this morning with a bit of trivia regarding the importing of silk fabrics from India to Europe. Silk fabric for the textile industry was shipped to European merchants who would purchase the material for resale to seamstresses and tailors. After inspecting and pricing the pieces of fabric, merchants would mark a flaw in the weave of the material by tying a small string at the bottom of it. This would alert the purchaser that this particular piece of material was defective. To this day, when a London tailor wants to purchase a few yards of flawless cloth, he will ask for cloth “with no strings attached.”

This idiom, ‘no strings attached,’ is commonly used today. So common, that if you do much texting on your cell phone, you know that ‘nsa’ is shorthand for ‘no strings attached.’ What we mean by this however has nothing to do with the quality of a piece of fabric. ‘No strings attached’ means, no obligations, no expectations, no commitments. We wonder if the gift we’ve been given comes with strings attached. We want to know if the super-duper deal of a lifetime comes with any strings attached. Men and women want to know if they can have a sexual relationship with each other with no strings attached. (more…)

An elderly gentleman was sitting on a park bench, when another elderly fellow sat down. They looked at each other for a moment but did not speak. Both men sat there, staring straight ahead. After a while, one of them heaved a big, heartfelt sigh. The other jumped up immediately and said, “If you’re going to talk politics, I’m leaving.” I think that we’ve all heard enough politics lately that if I were to begin talking politics from the pulpit, I wouldn’t blame you for getting up to leave. We certainly do not come to church to talk politics.

We come to church to lay our sins at the foot of the cross in exchange for the forgiveness for all of our sins. We come here with regrets and disappointments, frustrations and anxieties to hang them on the cross of Jesus Christ and take His burden upon us, which is light and easy. This is what Luther calls the “divine exchange.” We come here, to this divine swap-meet, where the Holy Spirit swaps our sins for Christ’s righteousness, our hopelessness for the hope of glory, our dysfunctional lives for the only real change that sets everything right again. And all of this, no matter what you politics happen to be. (more…)