The Apocrypha including texts like the Book of Sirach is not considered part of the Protestant cannon of scripture, but Martin Luther did suggest the Apocrypha was “profitable and good to read.” The Apocrypha is a collection of works primarily in Greek, and they can help provide historical context for the period between what is identified as Jewish scriptures and the Christian scriptures. They also can help us better understand God and our world.
As they contain teachings that some traditions find unbiblical, they can be challenged. Jewish people of Luther’s time and today have consistently found that they are not the level of scripture. That said, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox world both consider the Apocryphal texts scripture, but they do recognize some different texts as part of those works. So, there’s no fully ecumenical or interfaith consensus. Our Lutheran bibles often include them with explanation (and we do study them in seminary), but I’ve read some Protestant editions began to drop them over time after the Reformation to help make the Bible more affordable. So, they aren’t always well known.
And still, some Evangelicals and others – like Pat Robertson who I saw once denounce them as dangerous – have had no use for them. It’s a minority voice among worldwide Christianity, and I have suggested that if such people don’t want you to risk reading the Apocryphal texts, then perhaps they should offer the same counsel about their own writings available for purchase. For, those aren’t scripture either.
I stand with Luther. There’s no consensus among Jewish traditions nor Christian ones regarding them. That gives me pause to consider them scripture. Yet, they are profitable and good to read, for historical insights or wisdom including this saying by Sirach about friends (Sirach 6:14-17):
14 A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: he that has found one has found a treasure. 15 There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend, and no scales can measure his excellence. 16 A faithful friend is an elixir of life; and those who fear the Lord will find him. 17 Whoever fears the Lord directs his friendship aright, for as he is, so is his neighbor also.
Through chapter 6, he argues, “True friends are discerned not by prosperity (v. 11), but through the trials of adversity: distress, quarrels (v. 9), sorrow (v. 10) and misfortune (v. 12) (USCCB Daily Readings, 2025).
The Book of Sirach which was written in Hebrew remains the oldest example of such wisdom literature. It is absolutely applicable to modern times as it addresses friendship. Similar to Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, it offers helpful sayings about ethics written by Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira (Ben Sira), a Hellenistic Jewish scribe of the Second Temple period, yet it also can inspire or encourage.
Friends prove a treasure as other scriptural texts and my own life suggest. Friends helped me reconnect to the Church and lift me up after traumas in my past. Friends helped identify my call as a pastor, and they have concretely and through prayer supported my work. Friends helped me as I grieved the death of loved ones, faced cancer, or experienced past jobless periods in my life. In many ways, I discover Gospel truth and holy wisdom through them, not of the level of scripture but true nonetheless.
Friends, new and old, I covet your prayers always, and give thanks for you as I pray. Peace+ and love be with you this day and always. Yet if you ever find yourself doubting or afraid, if you ever feel like giving up, remember your trusted friends. For Christ is waiting in their hearts ready to help and embrace you.
The following is a sermon preached at Christ Lutheran on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, April 3, 2022. You can listen to the audio of the text here (recorded at the 9 am worship service) or watch the video from the 11 am worship service posted below. Photo credit: Pascal Meier on Unsplash; licensed under CC0 as found at WorkingPreacher.org.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When we think about this passage…if I were to ask you as I did our weekly Bible study group what stands out to you…it is likely that two answers would emerge: 1) the selfishness of Judas; and 2) the lavish generosity of Mary. In the same room…facing the same future possibilities…there’s a clear tension here between Judas who is false and Mary who is true. And within that tension, we have a scene also pointing us forward. Mary’s washing of Jesus’ feet foreshadows the time when Jesus will wash his disciples’ feet in loving service. Judas’ desire for money prefigures the time when he will betray his friend for thirty pieces of silver. And in this situation, we are also reminded of our own.
Yes, John shares this scene with us…not just to report history…but to help us wrestle with our present and future. We are in that very room in a sense to stare down death with Jesus. In the face of current or upcoming hardship, struggle, or loss – and in life we experience all these things for we cannot avoid them – will we choose the extravagance, pleasure, effusiveness, and exuberance of Mary’s choice, as one pastor[i] calls it, or will we be overly concerned with self-preservation, practicality, and getting what we think we deserve? Will we echo Mary’s loving actions in our life, or will we choose Judas’ path? What will be our legacy? Each and every day, if not moment, we must choose between death and life…selfishness and generosity…isolation (with its me first attitudes) or community (loving God and neighbor as oneself).
If life were a dinner party, it certainly would be like the room we enter through this story today. You see, the stench of death is in the air of that room, just as it lingers and taunts us in our lives. Remember, Jesus has announced he would be entering Jerusalem even though he knows he will die. Much as Thomas verbalizes elsewhere, Jesus followers expect to perhaps die with him. At the best, they know whatever comes will likely hurt. Lazarus, who was only recently raised from the dead was there eating with them. His presence is a consistent reminder of death. Judas is a prime mover in today’s passage. For the early Christians who heard this passage just as we have, they know what he will soon do. He is a betrayer and false friend. His actions no matter how one might rationalize them or try to understand them helps lead to only one outcome…Jesus’ crucifixion…and perhaps Judas might remind us of people who have been false to us…or how we have been false to others. And the smell of that perfume – oh, that perfume – one used commonly for preparing the one you love for burial…it lingers thickly, perhaps suffocatingly, in the air. Some dinner party! If you have ever said a final goodbye to someone you love, you know a bit of what it was like to be in that room.
Now, I know I likely have a different intimacy with death than some of you. (And, I don’t share this to shock you, but it helps explain my point of view.) I first encountered death in kindergarten. Death was part of the daily reality of my military and police service – potential death and actual death as when a police colleague of mine was violently slain – and in total, in and out of police work, I have had four people – four people – I know and love who have been murdered. I later served as a hospital and hospice chaplain accompanying people as they died. In doing so, they have become part of me, because I came to love them. In my missionary work among Native youth, I had children die…children die…long before what should have been their time. Yet, despite all this experience with death, I do nit and will not claim any comfort with death. (It is always uncomfortable and painful, no matter how hard we might try to hide it.) I don’t claim to understand all about it. (No one can.) Still, I do seek to accept a Lenten, hopeful, realism about it. (Yes, it can be hopeful.) “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
With that in mind, let me explain further. I recall an older friend who was immensely popular in his region; loved and respected for his work, generosity, and loyalty. He was a steadfast friend and loving person, so as people were sick or entered the hospital, he would surely go visit and offer support. And if they were to die, he would be there to grieve, but also to honor the love shared with his friend by seeking to extend that love to the friend’s family and other mourners assembled. Yet as he aged, and more and more friends died – and he had so many – he felt like he was always going to funerals. It was rightly depressing. And one day he asked me about it. It seemed sort of unfair…hard to escape. Why does God allow so much pain in the world? Why does the smell of death linger so?
I don’t know in detail the answer to his question, but I did point to Jesus. He humbled himself to share in our life and our death. He suffered for our sake, so that we could live eternally. He chose to love in the face of misunderstanding, rejection, and outright hatred for our sake. Whatever the cost, even death, Jesus chose to love everyone. And in accepting his death on the cross, he knew that it could only lead toward more light and love than we could ever dare hope for.
Somehow, mysteriously, God has a plan to restore us from our fallen, sinful, selfish nature, into the children of God. Part of that plan is for us to follow Jesus in faith…into and through death…accepting our own sacrificial crosses on the way…and in the manner we choose to love God and others…in the way we pray and live…“Father, not my will, but your will be done.”
No, we aren’t ever to accept death any more than Jesus does. We don’t seek to accommodate it. And we certainly don’t ignore it…Death is in the room…but as Christians, we choose to resist and fight death. Now, we don’t do so by clinging to life (selfishly, desperately holding on). Instead, we choose to surrender our lives. We offer our lives – our body, mind and soul and all that we have – because death has absolutely no real and lasting power over us. We can always choose to love. There is a grief author (Megan Devine) that observes: “When we choose to love, we chose to face death and grief and loss, again and again and again. Just as much as we welcome the friendlier parts of love, it’s all there, present and contained in everything.”
Yes, Jesus says there will always be poor with us, but we are to choose to share what we have with them anyway. There will always be war until Jesus comes again, but we are asked to seek and nurture peace instead. There will always be disease, but we are charged by Jesus to comfort the sick and dying. We are to do so because even with the smell of death persistent in our nostrils…death is not the only thing in the room. Jesus is there too…the one who has conquered sin and death through his resurrection and who will not rest until sin and death is utterly destroyed…trampled underoot…gone from our lives forever.
As the disciples gathered, they had every right to be sad. Jesus had made it clear that they were about to face some very difficult days ahead…just like us. (We cannot avoid this condition, try as we may.) Thus, let us find courage as we remember that in the face of death, God has chosen to gift us with life. We bathe in the grace of baptism where it is God – not the pastor – who baptizes us and claims us forever. We eat of it at the Lord’s Supper, where again we truly encounter the very real body and blood of Jesus along with forgiveness of sin and promise of eternal love and life. We meet and interact with Jesus as we gather as one body…in the best of times and worst of times, never alone…for Jesus promises to be with us whenever two or three gather in his name. More than that, he promises to be always with us with his ever-present Spirit finding a home in our hearts.
Graciously, we walk wet through the power of our baptism[ii] – claimed, empowered, and loved by God – throughout our life and beyond our death. For as Luther wrote, baptism is that “which delivers us from the jaws of the devil and makes us God’s own, suppresses and takes away sin, and then daily strengthens” us. Baptism remains always efficacious to us, for even if we were to fall away, Jesus loves those entrusted to his care. He will constantly seek us out. Baptism empowers us to love in the face of death, because it along with the Lord’s Supper gives us the grace which we need to help us daily choose to love as God loves us. These Sacraments change us and our experience with death. For nothing, not even death has the power to separate us from a love like Jesus has for us. In Jesus, God remains extravagantly, lavishly, effusively generous to us.
Yes, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Yes, the stench of death is in the room, and it seeks to accost our sensibilities and frighten us. Lent reminds us of this. And yet, that is not everything we are to remember…We are to remember Jesus…I think Professor Powery of Messiah College summarizes this passage and the daily choice before us well. “John 12 is a reminder that death will not have the final word. Lazarus is a reminder of that promise, even though his human body will die again. The ointment is a reminder of that promise. The people who gathered for another meal are a reminder of that promise. The prepared, anointed body of Jesus, of course, is the ultimate reminder of that promise. Death will not have the final word. During the season of Lent, we remember that death will not have the final word.”[iii] Amen.
The recorded 11 am worship service can be found below. The service starts at about the 7:30 minute mark…
Many thanks to Professor Powery for his splendid essay on Working Preacher which very much served to inspire this sermon and me. Death is truly in the air, but it does not have the final word.
Many thanks to Professor Powery for his splendid essay on Working Preacher which very much served to inspire this sermon and me. Death is truly in the air, but it does not have the final word.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations for this post are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,or show no compassion for the child of her womb?Even these may forget,yet I will not forget you” (Is 49:15). Image: Mother and child, from Clipartkey. Used by permission.
The following sermon was offered at Christ Lutheran Church on February 13, 2022, the 6th Sunday after Epiphany. Due to the positive feedback and discussion, that followed, I am posting the text here. I have also embeded the worship service below.Primary text: Luke 6:17-26, the Beatitudes.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, settle in. This is a critically important discussion today, and it is one I know will be difficult for me, and likely for some of you – hopefully touching our hearts deeply. So, I will try to do my best. With St. Valentine’s Day upon us, it is a happy coincidence that our assigned lectionary readings lead us to reexamine the Beatitudes. The early Church consider them formative values that should shape our life together in the world. Yet I clearly recall as a youth forced to memorize them for confirmation, I really didn’t get them. I looked at them as maxims or even law like – a pronouncement from some distant God up high and far away. Perhaps that’s partly because the Beatitudes aren’t really meant to be memorized. They are meant to be integrated into one’s heart and soul, and that might take a mature faith born of suffering.
At their simplest, you can understand the Beatitudes as sayings of Jesus. Some of you might know or recall that our Jewish siblings often call what we know as the Ten Commandments the “Sayings of God.” Yes, they are at some level laws on how the community of faith should get along with one another and the world, but recall what Jesus and prophets said before him. The fullness of the law is love – in particular loving God and others as oneself.
And so, if you read Martin Luther’s Large Catechism or Rabbinical interpretations, they don’t always sound like stark law or mandates. They are a way of love…a means of walking through life with more joy and peace…literally walking humbly in the way of and with our God. The sayings – not numbered in the Bible but by people after the fact – are sometimes numbered differently, yet they are not legal codes. They are unique because through them God speaks love to those he has chosen, so that that they might…just might…become a blessing of love at work in the world. You can find moral and ethical dimensions to be sure, but they are all wrapped up in love.
With such a gift, it can be such a shame that we lack the understanding, the spiritual maturity, that they are meant to be so much more than Law. There’s Gospel infused into them too, because God spoke them and gave them to Moses for the people of God as a gift. God wanted the Israelites…and now through faith us…to become the Holy People of God…עם האלהים, a phrase in the Hebrew scriptures mentioned exhaustively and one I thus lift up to you often. We are a people set apart, made holy by God, called to live in holy ways, but not for our own sake. We are charged with a loving purpose in a fallen world.
Well, as scripture reveals to us, and our own more recent history makes plain, we cannot do this on our own. Scripture is a help. Thou “shalts and shalt nots” might inform, guide and challenge us to do better, but perhaps you have noticed that we live in a challenging world. Everything isn’t cherubs and boxes of chocolate. (My apologies to Forest Gump!) Love can be hard, and even when we try our best, we can fall, fail or suffer.
And so, out of love for us, Jesus offers us new sayings, blessings. (That’s really what beatitude means anyway – blessing.) These blessing will serve to draw us closer, more intimately toward God and one another. Yet unlike Moses’ experience, they are not sayings given directly to a prophet and by extension to the People of God. No, Jesus is God incarnate, and so these sayings are beyond special. They are not mediated but given directly to us. In a fallen world, these blessings recognize our suffering, but they tell us…promise us…God’s love is with us! Always with us! More than that, these sayings remind us that nothing can separate us from such a love.
In Luke’s telling, his witness, of the Gospel, there are some significant differences from the account in Matthew 5. (I’m not going to address those in detail today. I’ve tried to explain why such differences exist in detail on Facebook, my blog, Bible studies, and elsewhere recently.) Yet, consider who Luke was. He was a human just like you and me. He was of likely Greek descent, many think a Gentile, but some suggest perhaps that he was a Hellenized Jew. And in his life and time, he had the good fortune to become a doctor, meet Paul in his travels, and become a coworker with him. Luke inherited these stories, and so in the Gospel according to Luke, we hear his witness of Jesus. Much as if you or I were telling a story, the truth is transmitted through his lens (his context and experience), and he likely wanted it to relate to and be understood by his audience – those many Gentiles and Hellenized Jews we know surrounded him. (They are who he first wrote to.) In short, Jesus is a God of suffering. No, not causing suffering, but Jesus is willing to suffer for us and with us, and ultimately the answer to all suffering in the world.
Through Luke’s vocation (as doctor and servant of Christ with Paul), Luke knew the extreme suffering of his century. Luke would have been all too familiar with sickness, injustice, poverty, violence and death and the grief that always results. Thus, Luke recognizes the special nature of Jesus as God who has profoundly come to us as one of us. Jesus came to share in that suffering and reach out to the outsider (like gentiles and widows, immigrants, the lonely, the sick in body and spirit). Jesus was and remains God with us in our imperfection and suffering. At the same time, Jesus came as the answer to the Fall. Jesus came to heal and restore. This is exactly what Luke remembers and shares with us as Jesus prepares to share his most central of teachings. Luke points out to us in the opening verses, “Jesus heals! Jesus saves! Jesus loves those entrusted to his care amidst the evil and loss of our very real world!”
At this point in the story, people didn’t fully understand Jesus yet. (I’m not sure we really do today. I know I don’t!) Still, in hearing of his teaching and preaching, as well as the authentic love that he gifted to others, crowds came from all around the region often walking miles and miles and miles. Luke tells us that the people were desperate, so desperate for hope and healing, that they wrestled with one another reaching out to Jesus just in the hope of touching him, for “power came out from him and healed all of them.”
It is here that Jesus chose to share Good News with the crowd – and with those who might come afterward – to all those yearning to just touch the hem of his garment…to experience a little bit of hope if nothing else. Jesus knows not all of those in need could touch him in that sea of humanity any more than we might with him now ascended to heaven. Yet, Jesus wants us to listen and believe.
So, listen to what Jesus says. Reread it when you get home, and then over and over again. Treasure and ponder these words. In the beatitudes, Jesus is telling us that he already loves us amidst our suffering, and he invites us to love others as best as we are able. Whatever our sufferings are – big or small; transitory or seemingly permanent – he is God with us and already loves us. We can rejoice when our crops fail as the prophet Habakkuk announces. We can cast all our cares upon him for he cares for us, as Peter urges. We can recognize with Mary in her song, the Magnificat (also in Luke’s Gospel), that our soul magnifies the Lord, and we can rejoice in God our savior, as lowly as we might be. John says in Revelation, there will be a day when all our tears and suffering will be washed away, a future filled with hope Jeremiah called it, but John, too, acknowledges we aren’t quite there yet. All creation groans for redemption, as Paul tells us, so why are we surprised at suffering. Indeed, Jesus suffered for us. Yet suffering is not all that there is, for God is not only with us, God in Jesus is for us. We belong now to Jesus, and not one of his sheep will be lost.
What I am getting at is that all of scripture is filled with similar promises. The Beatitudes bring these promises into focus telling us that we should not trust our eyes or other senses. God is already blessing us with fortitude, hope, understanding and counsel and so much more. When we don’t have the words, we are promised the Holy Spirit lifts up our deepest needs and wounds to God. Life is hard…we might even at times rightly use more forceful, descriptive words than that…but don’t think for a moment that God’s love has abandoned us…abandoned you! Hope truly can be born of suffering.
At times, we might kid ourselves to think that we can just keep our chins up and make it through. We might internalize and deny our pain or the pain of the world. Yet we lie to ourselves when we share the old maxim, “God won’t give us anything more than we can handle,” for in the verse that inspires such hubris (1 Corinthians 10:13), we are instead told that our suffering is just part of our world…common at some level to one and all of us…but Paul actually writes, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, [but if you are] with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” Did you catch that? When we feel overwhelmed and cannot go on, when all hope seems lost, and we might feel like the biggest losers of victims in the world, dead inside, God will be there to bless us! Jesus plans our resurrection! It is God who will give us the way out and a way forward…always. It is God who will turn our suffering on its head and declare ultimate blessing. Even in suffering, more is going on than we can see or understand. God’s love for us overflows. Just hang on to the promise like a life preserver.
Now, I know I have gone on longer than normal, and I am the only thing standing between you and your Super Bowl fair, but please bear with me. After all, this is among the most important passages of promise offered us in scripture. As Christians we need to consider where we can testify to the Good News, and that can often come from our own stories and experience. So, I want to share one difficult but profound experience of grace from my life.
If you have experienced the death of a child, or experienced such deep loss in any way, you might relate to the seemingly inconsolable pain that such an experience can create. My wife and I have no children, which is a kind of loss for us emotionally, but I have experienced the death of beloved children at very young ages that I have had deep relationships with – a cousin at 16, and children and youth that I cared for in mission and other vocations. I have also seen children and infants brutalized and sometimes die. And as a police, hospital, and hospice chaplain, I have walked alongside officers, and nurses and families that have shared in such tragedies and walk wounded afterward as a result…often brought to tears just at the memory. How can we speak love at such times? Well, we can try to because God is there…perhaps hidden…hard to see…but our God who is love is there. So, we are asked to press on, reach out, and watch and wait for Jesus.
As a young chaplain, I was called to the hospital from home. A newborn infant had just died, and the family was gathered. The family had already been presented a memory box with a hand and footprint, a lock of hair and other small mementos of an all too short life. I came into the room not knowing exactly what to expect. I didn’t know what I could say, as I’m pretty sure no human words are ever good enough. As I turned the corner, almost startling me from my thoughts…there was the mom, held by the dad, right in front of me. The mom in her turn was lovingly, ever so gently, cradling her baby’s body in her arms. (It is an image I will never forget.) They had been praying…praying so very hard…and yet their beloved child had been taken from them. It was brutal. It was unfair. It remains beyond understanding. “That God would take a child from its mother as she prayed” was appalling.[i] I think a little bit of me died in that room in that moment.
Then awkwardly, hopefully, the mom reached out to me. She asked me to hold the baby in my own arms and bless the gift that it was and remained to them. And in that sacred moment, and still today, I know that as hard as it was to see through their tears and now my own, God was with us. God was in that shared love found in family and community. God was in the mom’s eyes looking at me with love and hope. God was in the caregivers and volunteers who supported them and those like them. I discovered that God was even trying to break into the world through me and my own heart which was now being torn apart. It wasn’t being torn for the sake of suffering. No, in that suffering, my heart was being opened so that that I could better welcome and embrace those in need before me.
This was a difficult, horrific event, perhaps one of the worst of my life and certainly their own. Why did this happen? I had and have no answer. Yet with that small body cradled in my arms, I recognized (perhaps it was God speaking) that God was cradling us in our suffering. It wasn’t about me and my abilities as a chaplain or human at all. God was at work, and Jesus opened my eyes to it. And so, I found I was empowered to bear this moment and perhaps somehow serve as a sign of grace to try to bear them up too…perhaps simply by my presence then…and perhaps now in my testifying of this sacred moment to you…As I walk on from it, even as it wounded me, healing was and is still entering the world.
As a Christian singer who experienced the loss of her own baby wrote in a song I deeply love and appreciate: “This is what it means to be held; How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life; And you survive. This is what it is to be loved; And to know that the promise was; [that] When everything fell, we’d be held.”[ii] I wish I could speak a word, and all your pain and the pain of the world would be gone. And, I don’t pretend to know why God has allowed things to be this way with so much suffering and pain. Yet I do know this…“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
My beloved, God is with you and loves you. It is Jesus, after all, who said this, and proved it through his own suffering, death, and resurrection, so that we might experience life with him. These blessings are not about you, your strength of faith, or your perfection. They aren’t really about suffering either, even as they call us to be something (someone) more in the face of the suffering that is in the world. These blessings are about a new reality whether you believe it or not…God is active in our lives and our world – a God who is only love.
Go to Jesus as you can, not as you hope that you might. Reach out to him even when he seems too far away (if not hidden) from you, or when you think your suffering might be more or less than the crowd around you. For you and your struggles matter to Jesus, and he is already reaching out to you. Jesus is with you, always with you, and it is he who cradles you lovingly in his arms. Receive the blessing and believe. Amen.
Listen to this sermon on anchor.fm or Spotify LISTEN HERE
The following sermon was offered at Christ Lutheran Church on November 14, 2021, the 25th Sunday after Pentecost. Due to the positive feedback and discussion, that followed, I am posting the text here. I have also embeded the worship service below. In the video, the sermon starts at approximately the 10:50 minute mark. Primary text: Mark 13:1-8.
Image by Justin on Unsplash. Used by permission.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
As our church year comes toward an end, our lectionary circles back to some topics and stories that come from the end of Jesus’ life – things we would often here in Lent just before the victory of Easter. Today, Jesus has entered Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, and he knows it will be for the last time. He fully understands that he is there to die. As Mark’s account starts out, Jesus was tempted three times by Satan, and here the cosmic battle will be settled once and for all. Jesus will tramp the devil under his foot, not by being a king in the earthly sense, but through his suffering, death on the cross, and ultimate resurrection.
Yet in the face of this tension, he’s teaching his disciples about what is to come – at some level, what to expect – but also why to maintain our hope. Through Jesus, God reveals what one scholar calls “a future toward an end.”[i] It is a linear faith in a way. Thanks to the teachings of Jesus and the scriptures, we know the starting point (the Fall) and on the other extreme we know the ending point (full restoration as Jesus comes again). “God is shaping a future toward an end,” yet there are not many timeline details.[ii] As Luther noted, our peace during this time of temptation and tribulation comes from a God who seems often hidden. We “are going uphill and downhill and uphill again. One moment it is night, the next day, and then it is soon night again.”[iii] Martin Luther did not know of such things, but what he is basically describing is that this unfolding of history can seem like a terrifying roller coaster ride.
While it is true that I jumped out of planes in the US Army, and I’ve rappelled from great heights and faced dangerous circumstances at times in my previous vocations, I’m not a big fan of roller coaster rides. There’s just something about them that bothers me – not so much the height, nor the twist and turns, nor even any light show modern coasters might offer us…mostly, I hate the feeling of lost control. We must depend on the architects, engineers, and maintenance people to keep us safe. We are just along for the ride.
That said, I will go on one when someone like a niece or nephew begs me too, but I will tell you my survival secret. I just try to keep my sight on one direction or point before me and quiet the voices within me through prayer. I know the goal, and I trust that I will make it. That’s not too unlike life. As children of God, it is helpful to keep our eyes on Jesus and the victory before us, and when the voices of doubt and darkness spring into our head, we must try to shout them down with God’s promises. “Get back Satan! We are loved. We are saved even as we are being saved.” God ishelping us no matter what we can see with our eyes, and we are already victorious through our faith and baptism. No matter what happens, good, bad or indifferent, all is well, because God will give us “the power to win through to the end.”[iv]
If we judge our situation purely by reason or experience, we will always be wrong. Jesus teaches that faith is the key to true understanding. So, when Jesus’ disciples begin to marvel at the architecture and enormity of the Temple, they were not wrong. It was truly something with some of its stones weighing tons and individual stones proving a larger in size than some homes of the day. They were right to be amazed! King Herod the Great had expanded the Second Temple into his own work of art and glory. It was meant to be a testimony not simply of the supremacy of the Hebrew God, not only speaking of the place of the Jewish nation in the world…It also screamed of his greatness. The Jewish Temple existed as a centerpiece of Jewish identity and meaning – politically, culturally, and religiously. All sacrifices to God were meant to be made there and nowhere else. It was the place where their all-powerful God was meant to reside literally and figuratively at the center of God’s chosen people.
Yes, the Philistines had destroyed the previous Tent of Meeting and stolen the Ark of the Covenant when some priests had been unfaithful, but God gave it back. And when the people lost their way, had turned against God, the Babylonians did come in and destroy Solomon’s Temple, the First Temple that replaced the Tent of Meeting, and forced a 70-year exile of the Jewish people, but God had forgiven them. God brought them home after 70 years for a new Temple to be constructed and better days ahead. The idea of this third great Temple, the widely expanded and ornate Temple of Herod the Great, would ever be destroyed was unbelievable for most people. To destroy the Temple with its cultic and national significance, as a wonder of the world, seemed an utter impossibility. It would be an unbelievable threat to the truth of God’s promise that God would love and protect them forever.
And so, as the disciples cry out in wonder, “Look at that Temple!” Jesus deeply shocks them to their own foundations by saying, “It is not going to last. It will be destroyed.” Not only that, but he also uses this prophesy to open the door to a greater mystery yet. Jesus will die. In the eyes of the world, he will be destroyed, but he will rise again. His closest and oldest friends, his most intimate group of Apostles, have come far enough in faith not to doubt him even if this makes them fearful. When they have a chance to speak alone with him, Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask when this will be and what signs should they look for. They want to be ready. They hunger for some sense of control. In a sign of some mercy, Jesus tells them there are basically four signs: false messiahs; wars and rumors of wars; earthquakes and other disasters; and persecution.[v]
Notice, as with scripture itself, Jesus doesn’t provide details. It will all be revealed to his followers when the time is right, and as we are ready. Indeed, at some level, his prophesy came true by 70 AD. There were false prophets and calamities and persecution immediately following Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Church faced many growing pains and threats as did the Jewish people. And finally, the Roman Empire grew tired of the rebellious Jews in Judea, and the Romans destroyed everything. The great city of Jerusalem was sacked, the people scattered in an exile reaching into the twentieth Century after World War 2, and the Temple torn down. The riches that had been dedicated to our God of life and love would now be used to help build the famous Colosseum of Rome, a place of persecution, battle, and death. All that is really left of the Temple are some foundation stones, commonly called the Western Wall today.
As a result, many contemporaries, even Paul who died in about 67 AD, assumed Jesus would return and the dead would be resurrected soon and very soon. Still, time is relative when it comes to God. That day has not yet come to pass. Like the original believers, we are left to wait in hope…to hold on to our shared belief. God’s plan was and is yet unfolding, and nothing, not even death itself, will stop God’s love from coming to its full fruition.
This section of Mark’s Gospel is often called his “Little Apocalypse.” He briefly shares Christ’s teaching not just about the end of the Temple but seemingly also about the end of the world. The ending of the world is still going on all around us. We see those four signs! I think a theologian from Valparaiso University (a Lutheran school in Indiana) is correct when she asserts that we all experience our own “Little Apocalypses” throughout our life.[vi] We have days when we wonder, “How can I do this? What’s going to happen to me?” Or, as a pastoral care professor of mine used to remind us that we suffer a little bit of death every day.[vii]
“The Devil is in the details,” people say, and when it comes to the end of the world (or when and how our own life will play out), it is likely a blessing God doesn’t let us fully in on the details of what lies before us. It might distract us from the blessings of today or cause us unnecessary fear. Instead, Jesus provides us the key to it all in verse 7, “do not be alarmed; this must take place.” This must take place. We don’t fully know why. We cannot fully understand where and when or even how. Yet, we know this, we are and remain God’s beloved. This…God has promised us. We are only asked to trust the architect, builder, and maintainer of our lives.
I wish that I could tell you that we will experience no more suffering, loss, or failure ahead, but that would be a lie. It would be unbiblical. Even Jesus had to die, so why do we resist that we must too? All the powers of the world remain against him, and if we cling to him, they will resist us too. We are part of this cosmic battle being played out to its end,[viii] and we are gifted the power to choose whose side we want to be on. We can choose to trust Jesus or not.
Last week, I saw a man on television who claimed to be sent from Jesus while peddling his “miracle water.” Used appropriately, it was said to save you from poverty. Although claimed to be “free,” I discovered through research that it has somehow made him a very wealthy man. False prophets are among us still, and some people give them power over their lives. Of earthquakes, and famines and plagues, wars and rumors of war, oh, we have had our fill. Just watch or read the news if you dare. Yet, God isn’t done with us or the world yet. We don’t know why, but the end is still to come. With that end, a new heaven and earth will come too – a new beginning. More is in store than what we can see, understand, or even imagine.
A reading from The Word in Season (those little daily devotional guides available in our welcome area) gave me a lot to think about recently. On November 6, an entry really challenged me, as I faced the life and death struggle of yet another friend from COVID-19. The author pointed out that Jesus was indeed a master storyteller. As when he spoke about the lilies of the field, he was a great poet. “But when necessary, he was able to speak with simple directness, ‘Have faith in God.’” Have faith in God. There’s an urgency there and a call to utter dependence if not total surrender. Do we trust our God who is love or not? “‘Have faith in God,’ said Jesus, and live the love that can make the whole world whole.”[ix] That’s all we can ultimately do – trust while seeking to live in love. Other than that, strap in and hang on. With God in control, we are in for one awesome ride – one which can only end in joy and laughter over all we have been through together….all that God has gotten us through together. That is God’s promise to us. That is God’s plan, and we can trust it. Amen.
[i] Brobst-Renaud, A. (November 14, 2021). Working Preacher. Commentary on Mark 13:1-8.
[ii] Langknecht, H. (November 15, 2009). Working Preacher. Commentary on Mark 13:1-8.
[iii] Luther, M. Sermon on St. Peter and St. Paul’s Day,” EA6:294f.
[vii] His name was The Rev. Charles Brown, PhD, Union Theological Seminary.
[viii] We believe as Lutherans that the battle was won with Jesus’ cross and resurrection, but the powers of sin, death and the Devil fight on it their death throws until Jesus returns.
[ix]Word in Season (October, November, December 2021 edition). p. 39.
As noted above, our worship service can be found below. The sermon begins at about the 10:50 minute mark.
Indigenous and ancient peoples have always given thanks. In the northeast where the Pilgrims first met the Wampanoag (near where I grew up), the arguable “first Thanksgiving” was certainly not a new idea. The practice was deeply engrained in both the European and Native cultures. In fact, much like the Europeans, the Native peoples of what was eventually renamed New England already held several thanksgiving events throughout their year – both scheduled seasonally and at special times of celebration. Although today you will often hear of protests from the Native peoples in Massachusetts regarding the myths, particularly the cultural misunderstandings and stereotypical images, of that historic event and the very real, terrible offenses that came afterward, they never protest the concept of giving thanks. Christian or not, Native peoples know it is good to give thanks just as their ancestors did and they still do. It is an ancient practice all cultures have in common at some level. Thanks can be offered even as we acknowledge great sadness in our lives – even amidst tears for those who went before us and sad if not horific events that cannot be undone. Giving thanks seems to build our resilience as individuals, families, and peoples. Indeed, some studies even suggest thankful people are healthier and live longer, more satisfied lives! I suspect that the First Nations have survived in the face of many evils partly because they understand and value the sacred nature of giving thanks for their ancestors and today.
When the Ark of the Covenant was first brought into Jerusalem, King David initiated ongoing cultic prayers by commanding, “O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wonderful works” (1 Chronicles 16:7-9). The Psalms and New Testament scriptures echo this sentiment in many places for the community and individual. Paul sounds much like King David when he urges all Christians, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Still, it remains true that it can be easier giving thanks when times are good. So, it can be helpful for us to intentionally live into our thanksgiving even if we don’t much feel like it. Yes, we should be honest about our pain. We can and should confess the sins of our past. We might like to even remember past hard times or hurt visited upon us. Yet, we can still consider the signs of blessing that are there to be found behind, around, and before each and every one of us. How have such hard times made us stronger or more empathetic? What have we learned, and how can our past curse become blessing for ourselves and others? Do the experiences of our ancestors or our own experiences reveal something sacred in and through the pain? We can reminisce about the photos and relics of our past that remind us of the love we have experienced as a gift. We can make lists of or talk about signs of hope in our darkness trusting all the while that Jesus has promised healing and hope lie before us. We can celebrate our ancestors strengths even as we acknowledge their frail, misguided humanity. Such practices help open our eyes and our hearts to the truth that even when seemingly hidden, God is at work. God is at work for us.
It has been a long couple of years. As with many of you, I will miss people I’ve lost at my table and in my life. Yet how much poorer would my life be if their loving witness hadn’t touched me? There are things to be afraid of, but Jesus says, “Fear not. I am with you.” I fall short in many ways, but I can trust as scripture promises that I am forgiven through trusting in what Christ has done. Therefore, I am enough. Whatever our circumstance, we can strive to give thanks just because we can trust what Jesus promised remains true – this seeking to trust being a sign of the Spirit’s active presence in our lives as well. We can rejoice, Jesus says, “for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” Whoever you are, whatever has been done to you or left undone, or wherever you have fallen short, I wish you and all those you love a blessed Thanksgiving filled with such a love. There remain reasons to give thanks even amidst any tears, for even the sadest parts of our lives have meaning. They help make us who we are.
Adapted from an original pastoral letter published in the November 2021 newsletter of Christ Lutheran Church, Fredericksburg, VA.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations for this post are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation.
CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL, Nun Kassiane at the HolyMonastery of the Annunciation, at Patmos island.
I want to thank the many people that reached out to me or prayed for me and my family at the time of my mother’s death. Her death was not expected, and as can often prove the case, it was a difficult experience on many different levels. As I write, the trees in my yard are about to burst forth with green. Flowers are poking through the ground. Holy Week and Easter lie before us. I cannot explain why God allows suffering and death, but I trust the signs of springtime around us are herald signs of what is yet to come. We know from scripture – and perhaps upon reflection about the grace active in our own lives – that God has the power to bring healing from sorrow and new life from death. God is only love, and Jesus promises that we who believe will share in his resurrection joy. With the losses in my life and in the lives of many around me, both large and small, we might be tempted to see only struggle. Yet, a resurrection day was to come for Jesus beyond his cross. He promises that a resurrection day will come for us all. It has already begun through faith. I sincerely wish you a hope-filled Easter. Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed. I pray we all see the joy and peace of Jesus – even if for a moment we must see through tears in our eyes.
Peace be with you, and thank you, for walking with me toward Resurrection Day.
Pastor Lou
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Originally published in the April newsletter of Christ Lutheran Church, Fredericksburg, VA.
Husband, Pastor, Law Enforcement Chaplain, and member of the Clerical Errors (aka "The Three Priests"), I'm sharing my two cents with anyone who cares...
You can also find me on social media as Loudluthrn (Lou-d-Luthrn or Lou the Lutheran). It is a moniker given me while attending a Presbyterian Seminary, but I'm a loud and proud Lutheran too (just not too loud and proud, mind you).
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