Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

Tonight (Today) begins the season of Lent, a 40 day period of time culminates with Holy Week’s, Maundy Thursday the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the upper room, Good Friday, the crucifixion of our Lord on Golgatha and the Easter vigil of Holy Saturday, the night of waiting in anticipation of the victory of life over death of Easter morning. In the counting of the 40 days of Lent, Sundays don’t count. Sundays belong to the season of Easter all year long and every Sunday is the celebration of Easter.

I guess what I’m trying to say here, is that the season of Lent has a lot to do with counting time and how time is to be counted. The Bible tells us that time is not eternal. It too had its beginning in the beginning just like everything else. All wrapped up in the creation of light and sky, sea and dry land, plants and vegetation, birds and fish, animals and humans, God created time - “And there was evening and there was morning the 1st day.” Before the beginning, there was no such thing as time. There was only God. By the time God rested on the 7th day, the world’s first week’s worth of time had passed. (more…)

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The congregation gathered around Jesus is a small one today. Smaller than last Sunday for sure. No Baptism, snow in the forecast and hike up to a mountain top will always cut into worship attendance. So today, instead of a full house there are only five who are gathered around Jesus.

Peter, James and John are regulars. They never miss. And today we have two visitors who haven’t attended the Church on earth in centuries. Neither Peter, James nor John had ever met these men before. Yet even without the customary, “let’s take a moment to stand and greet one another,” they know their names. “And there appeared with them Moses and Elijah.” We can’t remember the names of those who are regular members here. They knew the names of these two men whom they had never met. Impressive. (more…)

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Today’s gospel reading is all about Jesus. It’s really not so much about a leper or leprosy as we might think. If it were about lepers, we could all tune the rest of this sermon out right here, because there aren’t any lepers among us this morning, at least not that I’m aware of. And even if there were, there’s nothing here that tells us what we should do. We can’t shift the focus onto ourselves and say that we should imitate Jesus. ‘Jesus healed lepers, so, be like Jesus. Heal some lepers.’ That can’t be right. This is not about us or what we should do. It’s all about what Jesus does.

A man with leprosy came to Jesus. “If you will you can make me clean.” Now, where did he get an idea like that? That’s an easy one. Just before this, Mark told us that after Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law of her fever, “the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he helped many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons…” (Mark 1:32-34).

Sometimes we’re just not sure why someone isn’t in the congregation when it gathers around Jesus. Maybe its because they’re too sick to make it in. Maybe they feel that they’re not sick, no demons bothering them at the moment, no real need for Jesus. Or maybe it’s simply that there are other things to do. Who knows? But we do know why this man wasn’t in the congregation. He was a leper. And lepers were excluded from the congregation. (more…)

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As we flew from our Old Testament reading to our Gospel reading this morning, you may have experienced a sudden drop in cabin pressure. Isaiah and the Psalmist had us flying pretty high. And then Mark brought us back down to earth. Isaiah had us in the stratosphere looking down on the planets and stars. Mark had us Peter and Andrew’s house, looking down on Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed.

That’s a pretty dramatic change in altitude in a matter of no more than the 3 or 4 minutes it took us to read those texts. That kind of sudden drop is enough to clog your ears and make you want to swallow hard to get them to pop. Actually, it might be best to relaunch into orbit with Isaiah again and this time, make a more gradual reentry with Mark.

Lord your God is “the most high God.” Isaiah wants us to see just how high “the most high God” really is. He says, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth.” God looks down on the equator that divides the northern and southern hemispheres. And from His high and lofty position, He sees all 360 degrees of the circle at once.

Even before airplanes and space shuttles, Isaiah somehow knew about the strange phenomenon that the higher you go, the smaller the things below appear. “And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” Some prophets take an even higher view of God than Isaiah does. Looking down on the earth from God’s place above the earth, they say that the inhabitants are like dust. (more…)

It was a dark and stormy night. A man was driving to a costume party dressed as a devil complete with red suit, tail and pitchfork. The man drove off the side of the road and into a ditch. It would require the assistance of a tow truck to pull his car out. He got out of his car and looked for a place from which he might make the call for help. Seeing a small church across the street, he went over to it.

Just so happened the church was in the middle of a worship service in which the preacher was delivering an impassioned sermon on the reality of evil spirits. As the pastor’s voice thundered and as the wind howled and the rain came down, suddenly the back doors of the sanctuary opened and there stood this man who wanted to use the phone - dressed as he was.

Immediately there were screams and everyone running out of the sanctuary through whatever exit they could find. All except for one elderly woman who stood her ground in the middle of the aisle and addressed the devil in the doorway saying, “Now Mr. Devil, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Even though I’m a member of this church - I want you to know I’ve been on your side all along.” (more…)

Her obituary read, ‘Sylvia M. Amon (Langer), 73, passed away on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009, at Maine Medical Center in Portland following cardiac surgery.’

Sylvia died of a troubled heart. Stints, bypasses, leaky valves are all indications that she had a troubled heart. But Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He was, of course, talking about a different kind of heart trouble than kind that Sylvia had.

When Jesus said, “let not your hearts be troubled,” He was in an upper room with His disciples and they were worried. (more…)