Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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We come now to the 3rd Sunday in the season of Lent. Just 18 days ago on Ash Wednesday, we received the ashes on our forehead as the sign of our repentance and heard the prophet Joel cry out to us, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” (Joel 2:12-13)

Just 18 days ago, we heard the apostle Paul plead with us, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:20).

By now, the ashes have long since been washed away and the words that we heard on that night have been forgotten. Which explains tells us why Lent can never be just a one-night-stand. The Church has always insisted on a prolonged period time for the call to repent to be sounded. 40 days and 40 nights is not too long a period of time either.

For the truth of the matter is, we being who we are, are never finished with repenting. Repentance is not something you do once and then get on with your life now that you’ve got that messy little business taken care of. Turning from the death of our sins and idolatry and being raised up to new life by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ is a continual process for the Christian. It only stops if you stop following Christ or when you die in Christ. In the meantime, we always need to hear the call to repent and turn from our sin and to the steadfast love of God in Jesus Christ. (more…)

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I. Review of Scene 1 / 2

A. Scene 1 - “God Calls Jonah” 1. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and speak against it because it’s evil had come before God.

1. Jonah fled to Tarshish by way of a ship out of Joppa in order to “flee from the presence of the Lord.” Repeated 2 times.

B. Scene 2 - “Onboard Ship” 1. Onboard ship at sea, Jonah realizes that he cannot hide from God. God causes a fierce storm and the ship threatens to break up. God Word comes to him through the pagan ship captain and sailors. The sailors try to appease the angry god by throwing the cargo into the sea. When that doesn’t appease him, Jonah says that he’s the reason that the LORD (Yahweh) is angry. The only way He’ll be appeased is if they throw him overboard. Which they do.

1. As Jonah goes overboard, he doesn’t know what we know. He doesn’t know about a great fish or being saved from downing. He sees only death by drowning at sea. (more…)

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Not to put too fine a point on things, but the job of the pastor is essentially this, he is ‘to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ We pastors need to be reminded of that from time to time because we are prone to lose sight of what we’re supposed to be doing. It’s much more snazzy and rewarding to be ‘Motivator in chief,’ ‘program coordinator,’ ‘business manager,’ and ‘visionary leader’ than preacher of law and gospel.

Of the two essential tasks of the pastoral office, I prefer “comforting the afflicted.” I like to preach sermons that are predominately gospel, if not entirely. It makes people feel good about themselves. Whenever anyone asks if they may meet to talk about a problem afflicting them, I’m always ready to be of service. Granted, sometimes the comfort that I have to offer isn’t the kind of comfort someone is looking for. But usually, folks know what to expect from a pastor, unless of course the pastor is confused about what it means to be a pastor and thinks he’s a psychiatrist or social worker or fix-it man. (more…)

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I. Scene 2: Onboard the ship. - vss. 4-5b

A. “But…”

1. The curtain opened on this incredible story of God and His prophet last Wednesday. Scene 1 was entitled: “God Calls Jonah,” and it read as follows: Read 1:1-3.

2. God called His prophet to go to Nineveh which was to the north and east. Jonah headed for Tarshish which was to the south and west.

3. Jonah’s purpose was to flee from the presence of the Lord - 2x.

4. Scene 2 takes place onboard the ship that Jonah chartered to take him as far from the presence of the Lord as possible. We’re not told how far the ship sails westward across the Mediterranean Sea. All we’re told is that the voyage is suddenly interrupted with a big, loud “But…”

5. That’s the sound of God saying, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.’ And ‘My will be done,’ even if it is contrary to your will. (more…)

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The most important thing to understand about the temptation of Jesus is contained in just five little words that we tend to skip right over without even hearing them. “Jesus returned from the Jordan.” It’s even easier to miss this if you read from Matthew and Mark’s account of the temptation. They just say, “then.”

It’s what happened at the Jordan that’s makes what happened in the wilderness so significant. Jesus was baptized by John at the Jordan River. Three things happened at the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan that we need to understand if we’re going to understand the significance of what takes place in the wilderness. And all three are very closely connected to each other. (more…)

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On three, separate occasions, the Pharisees, Scribes and the crowds asked Jesus to give them a sign to convince them of who He is and what He’s up to. On all three occasions, Jesus answers the same way. “No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.” In other words, knowing the story of Jonah is important to knowing the story of Jesus Christ. So our mission this Lenten season is to get to know the story of Jonah. The story unfolds in six different scenes and we’re going to look at each scene in succession over the six Wednesdays and Thursdays during Lent.

Tonight, the curtain opens with scene 1, recorded in chapter 1, verses 1-3. “God calls Jonah.” It reads as follows, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.” (more…)

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How many of you have ever attended one of your high school class reunions of 20 years or more? Was it hard to recognize your old classmates? I’ve never attended one of my high school reunions, but I can imagine that it might be hard to recognize the old gang just because they’ve probably changed quite a bit.

One of you drew my attention to an old photo album of members of the congregation the other day and as I looked through it, I was struck by how much some of us have changed over the years. (Not me of course.)

Life happens. And life has its effect on our body. We may do our best to slow the process with makeup and some skin tucks here and there, but you can only do so much. Sooner of later, we start to show our age. If life has been hard and stress runs high, then the lines really start to show up and run deep. Take the face of an American President for example. In just four or eight years all of them look like they’ve aged 20 or 30 years. (more…)

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We get a sense of the kind of attention that Jesus was getting, from St. Luke’s report of “one occasion” when He was standing by the “lake of Gennesaret.” Luke reports, the “crowds were pressing in upon Him to hear the Word of God.”

They had it right. If you want to hear the Word of God, you’ve got to get close to Jesus. Not the stars or the psychics or the god of your choice. You hear the Word of God from Jesus. He is, after all, “the Word of God made flesh.” (John 1:1). “This is my Son, My chosen One. Listen to Him!” (Luke 9:36). The writer to the Hebrews puts it like this, “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and various ways. But now in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1).

So, “the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” That’s a pretty good picture of the Church right there.

It would have been nice to hear the sermon he preached on this “one occasion” but Luke doesn’t tell us. If what follows however is connected at all to what He had just said, then maybe He had spoken to the crowd about the way God rules over His creation, from all the birds in the air to all the fish in the sea. In the beginning, God gave Adam ‘dominion’ over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. But after he sinned, Adam had a hard time convincing the fish to swim into the net. But now, Jesus is about to present the 2nd Adam, Himself, who has dominion over creation, even the fish in the sea. God is making everything right again through Jesus Christ. (more…)

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If you’ve moved here from a big city like Boston or New York, you know that life is different here than in the big city. But even life in a small town like Waterville is much different than life in a village, like Cana. In Waterville, it’s not uncommon to see people you know at the grocery store or the post office. But in a village, everyone knows everyone and everyone’s life is connected to everyone else’s life. When a baby is born, the whole village celebrates. When someone dies, the whole village mourns. When there’s a wedding, the whole village attends.

A typical Middle Eastern village wedding would take place in the cool of the evening. The bride and groom would wear crowns on their heads. After the ceremony, the couple would be led through the streets of the village with a canopy held over their heads, torches blazing, music playing and lots of singing and dancing. The parade would wind through every street in the village to bear witness to the whole community that the bride had a new name and out of two families, one new family had been created. The whole village looked forward to a wedding because it was a time of great celebration and joy for everyone.

It might have been just such a village wedding that the prophet Isaiah had in mind in our Old Testament reading for this morning. “For Zion’s sake I WILL NOT KEEP SILENT, and for Jerusalem’s sake I WILL NOT BE QUITE, until her righteousness goes forth AS BRIGHTNESS, and her salvation as a BURNING TORCH. The nations shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory, and YOU SHALL BE CALLED BY A NEW NAME that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be A CROWN OF BEAUTY in the hand of the Lord, and a ROYAL DIADEM in the hand of your God.” It sure sounds like Isaiah is describing a typical village wedding where the Lord God is celebrating the joyous new life of a very special bride and groom. (more…)

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If I were to ask you to list the most significant events in the life of Jesus, you would probably list Christmas, Easter, Good Friday and His Ascension. You would probably not include His baptism on that list. But the Baptism of Jesus is an event in the life of Christ that deserves the same kind of attention and consideration as his birth, death, resurrection and ascension does. We really ought to celebrate Christ’s baptism more than we do. And here’s why.

On Christmas morning, when was born, He came into the world. On Good Friday, when He was crucified on the cross, He died for the sins of THE WORLD. On Easter Sunday, when He rose from the dead, He reconciled God to THE WORLD. Forty days after Easter, He ascended into heaven to intercede with the Father for the life of THE WORLD. You notice that in all of this, we haven’t once said, “FOR YOU.” It’s all very general and non-specific. And so we rightly wonder, ‘how does this apply TO ME?’ How does this connect TO ME? How is all that Jesus Christ has done, FOR ME? (more…)