In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the + Holy
Spirit. Amen.
Let us pray. Eternal God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, grant us Your Holy Spirit, who writes the preached Word into our hearts
so that we may receive and believe it, and be gladdened and comforted by it in
eternity. Glorify Your Word in our hearts. Make it so bright and warm that we
may find pleasure in it, and through Your inspiration think what is right. By
Your power fulfill the Word, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
A reading from 2 Corinthians 4:
It is not ourselves that we are preaching, but Christ Jesus
as the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. It is the same God
that said, “Let there be light shining out of darkness,” who has shone in our
minds to radiate the light of the knowledge of God’s glory, the glory on the
face of Christ.
We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to
make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us.
We are in difficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we see no answer to
our problems, but never despair; we have been persecuted, but never deserted;
knocked down, but never killed; always, wherever we may be, we carry with us in
our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may always be seen
in our body. Indeed, while we are still alive, we are consigned to death every
day, for the sake of Jesus, so that in our mortal flesh the life of Jesus too
may be shown. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
This is the Word of the Lord. R.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
The Bible is a hard book, no two ways about it. On my daily
commute, I’ve been listening on Audible to the Scriptures, and I’m up to 2
Chronicles now. As I listen I keep making mental notes along the way: “I need
to check this out, and that, and the other.” The list so far will probably take
me the rest of my life. And did I mention I’m only up to 2 Chronicles? Sigh. Yes,
the Bible is a hard book.
But the conviction of St. Paul in today’s reading is that
the God we meet in the pages of the Old Testament, the God who right there at
the start spoke “Let there be light” is the God we meet in Jesus. You see, when
Paul says we proclaim Jesus as Lord, you have to hear that like a Jew. He’s not
talking what evangelicals refer to as Lordship theology, as in "He’s your Savior,
but have you made Him your Lord." No, he is saying something far more radical.
We proclaim Jesus as Lord means we proclaim Mary’s Son, this man who walked the
earth, as Yahweh, as the Great I Am, as the very God we do meet in the
perplexing pages of the Old Testament.
And that’s actually very helpful. Jesus is the light then
that shines in the darkness, even in the darkness of our understanding, our
minds, in the darkness of the darkest pages of Holy Scripture! He’s the light
that illumines them. And isn’t there something quite symmetrical about the
perplexing story of salvation that is enshrined in the Scriptures and the
perplexing way He works in our lives? Luther once captured it: By putting to
death, He makes alive. To bring you to heaven, He sends you to hell. Through
death into life.
On Thy Strong Word, we just wrapped up Genesis and had
plenty of perplexing moments, but what an ending! When God decides to save that
wretched bunch of sinners known as the children of Jacob, He lets them betray
their brother Joseph, sell him as slave, and then in Egypt, falsely accused of
attempted rape, tossed into the prison, and then forgotten. And Joseph must
have been right there with St. Paul wondering what on earth God was up to? Was
this how He would fulfill the great promises He had made? Turns out the answer
was yes, as you remember. Joseph exalted, made Pharaoh’s right hand man. And
instead of getting even with his brothers, he forgives them. You meant it for
evil, but God meant it for good, for the saving of many lives alive!
And then we take the Gospel and hold it up to that story and
we go: Wow! Jesus’s cross. His horrible suffering and death. His cry of
abandonment from Psalm 2: Eli, eli lama sabachthani? And yet through the
darkness, the suffering, the death, the perplexity, God was busy doing His
life-giving job for the very ones who caused the suffering. Even for you and
me!
Paul sees this wild way God has of working to be the literal
pattern of our life in Christ. It’s not just how He worked in Joseph’s life.
Not just how He wrought our salvation in Christ. It’s how He still chooses to
work in us. Listen again:
We are in difficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we
see no answer to our problems, but never despair; we have been persecuted, but
never deserted; knocked down, but never killed; always, wherever we may be, we
carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too,
may always be seen in our body. Indeed, while we are still alive, we are
consigned to death every day, for the sake of Jesus, so that in our mortal
flesh the life of Jesus too may be shown. So death is at work in us, but life
in you.
Yes, there’s a lot of perplexing things in Scripture, and a
lot of perplexing things in how God governs your life. You who hold the
treasure of Jesus in your earthenware jars, baptized into His name, see the
Scriptures and your very life illumined by the light of the glory of God in the
face of Christ: God puts to death in order to make alive. Under the bright
light of the hope of the resurrection, you receive the hardships of your lives
just like St. Paul received the hardships of the apostolic ministry. Even when
there are no answers to your problems, you do not despair. You know the end of
His work in you will be glorious! To our ever-living and reigning Lord Jesus,
be all the glory, now and forever. Amen.
Hymn 538 “Praise Be to Christ”
Responsive Prayer I, p. 282
No comments:
Post a Comment