Rev. Steven S. Billings
Palm Sunday
Sermon
April 5, 2009

A Poem for Palm Sunday

Rejoice, O Daughter of Zion! Your King comes to you,
Righteous and having salvation; He is your King, it's true.
He comes to you in splendor, perched on the foal of an ass,
He comes to you in triumph; He is your King at last.

These three long years He labored, healing your sick and blind,
He healed the lame, the deaf, the dumb, yes, sickness of every kind.
To those who were broken hearted He gave new hope and cheer,
Yes it seems, Jerusalem, your King is finally here.

And how do you receive Him? With palms and shouts of joy!
Your people throng to greet Him, every girl and every boy.
Yes, men and women, old and young, they shout to Him and sing,
They crowd into your narrow streets to see the coming of their King.

But what sort of King do they expect? What manner of Man is this?
"He is the Son of David! He is due the royal kiss.
He will free us from oppression; He will set the captive free!"
Ah, Yes, He will, Jerusalem, you need only wait and see.

For in the span of five short days, your attitude will change.
The One you gladly welcome now, you'll drag back here in chains.
You'll hunt Him down like a criminal and those who are His friends
Will hide like frightened children from your wicked angry men.

You'll pretend a legal trial and you will be the judge.
You'll demand that He deny Himself, but, strangely, He will not budge.
He won't say a single word, but will turn it back on you,
"Thou sayest it," Jerusalem, for you know it to be true.

You've seen His works, you've heard His words, you've felt His touch of love.
He could not be a man like you; He must be from above.
From all you've seen and heard and felt, for you there is no doubt,
But how He angered you in the temple when He drove the merchants out!

How offending was He when He said, "I am the Bread of life,
"Whoever eats of Me in faith will surely never die.
But whoever does not eat of Me will surely taste of death."
So offended are you, Jerusalem, that you want to still His breath.

So a pack of lying witnesses you parade before the court.
You try in vain to intimidate Him, but He is not that sort.
For He is God, and you know it well; His miracles testify
That who and what He says He is, He is, and does not lie.

Unlike you, who today will say, "Hosannah to the King!"
And in five days will assemble again to shout quite another thing.
"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" That will be your cry.
This One you call your King today, you will later ask to die.

But why the change? What went wrong? What caused you to turn on Him?
He did nothing evil, only good; He forgave you of your sin.
But is that why you changed your mind? Did you not want to hear
That you are truly sinful and that your death is near?

Oh, yes, I do suppose that you would gladly take the food
That He dispensed from a small boy's lunch; I'm sure that it was good.
And I'm sure you never noticed that only God could do
Such a feat as feeding thousands from what He had to use.

Nor did you deny Him the healings He performed.
You walked away, who crawled to Him, you ran on feet reformed,
You sang with voices stilled so long, you saw with eyes once dim,
But you looked upon the Son of God and never recognized Him.

He cried for you, Jerusalem, because you are so blind.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How My heart does pine
To hold in My loving arms like the chicks of a mother hen,
But, alas, you will not have Me; you will not be My friend."

But go ahead, Jerusalem, rejoice and have your day.
Sing with shouts and laughter; throw your coats along the way.
Welcome in your new-found King, with royal fanfare cheer.
It won't be long, Jerusalem; His victory is near.

Yes, I do say victory, though you may call it death.
That is what you have planned for Him, your welcome honored Guest.
You welcome Him with bogus praise, while in the coming week
You plan a royal sacrifice for the One of whom you speak.

For surely as He rides today through your noble gates,
You will find Him guilty of a sin against the state.
You will pressure Pontius Pilate to submit to your demands.
And though he finds no fault in Him, His blood is on his hands.

He'll wash those hands and wash them over and over again,
But the stains will never leave them, they're embedded in his brain.
But what of you, Jerusalem, do you feel no guilt?
It surely rests upon you; you are buried to the hilt.

For it was you, Jerusalem, who called for His death.
"Give us Barabbas, crucify Him!", you cried with all your breath.
"But He is your King," said Pilate, "you have said so yourself."
"We have no King but Caesar; there is no one else!"

Yes, yes, Jerusalem, this all waits for you.
In five short days your mood will change and these things you will do.
Your people will be madmen, like lions smelling blood.
They'll demand the release of a murderer, and call for the death of the Son of God.

And He will not deny you; He'll come forth willingly.
He'll bow His head in submission, He'll enter a "guilty" plea.
He will endure your insults, your mockery and shame,
He'll take the thirty-nine lashes even though they cause such pain.

He will let you beat Him with your fists across His face.
He will even let you spit on Him, but never once forget His place.
For you are right, Jerusalem, this Man is your King,
Though you do not recognize the kingdom that He brings.

"My kingdom is not of this world," He said again and again.
"I have come to serve, not be served; I've come to free you from your sin.
And this I do by dying, by taking up this cross
And carrying it to Calvary where I will save the lost."

"For there is where I'll pay the price for the sins of the world.
I'll let them drive the spikes in and pierce Me with the sword.
And above Me you will read the sign carrying the news,
'This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.'"

"But, why will I let you do this? What reason could there be?
I know you must be wondering, but it is plain to see,
Jerusalem, I love you, I love you with all My heart.
And I'm willing to do anything to keep us from being apart."

"This is something I must do, for without Me, you will die.
But now I will die for you, and you needn't wonder why.
For Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, I have come for you,
A meek and humble servant, though I am your King, it's true."

"And out of love I do this, a love you've never known.
All that I do, I do for you, to redeem you as My own.
Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, for you my heart does burn.
Perhaps one day, Jerusalem, you will love Me in return."

And thus He prays for you, dear friend, and I do pray as well,
That you, the new Jerusalem, will hear and mark it well,
The story of the old one, to whom He came that day,
Who laid the palms before Him and threw their coats along the way.

Yet, five days hence, they killed Him, for He did not fulfill
The expectations held for Him, for these were not His Will.
Let it not be true of you as was true of them,
Who would rather have an earthly king than the Savior of all men.

Rejoice, O Daughter of Zion, at the coming of your King,
But listen oh, so carefully to the message that He brings.
The message of undying love that causes us to see
The actions of the dying Son as done for you and me.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 5 Mid-Week
Sermon
4-1-2009

St. Luke 23:26-31

²⁶ And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. ²⁷ And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. ²⁸ But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ ³¹ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

On the day that Jesus died, there weren't too many sympathetic faces in the crowd. You could practically count them on one hand. But there was no shortage of haters, that's for sure!

So you might wonder why, when we're doing a series that focuses on Jesus' enemies, we would include some of the very few people who actually felt sorry for Him as He struggled with His cross to the place of the skull.

Well, of course we don't lump them in with Jesus' enemies! But we do count them among the many people who stood that day in need of the forgiveness Jesus was in the very process of earning for us. Their sorrow for Him was sweet and admirable, no doubt about it, especially compared with the shouts of the mob crying for His crucifixion. The angels themselves may have been weeping that day!

Yet it was this very man for whom they were crying such heartrending sobs who told them that they were weeping for the wrong reasons. Their sympathy for Jesus - heartfelt and genuine as it was - still missed the mark. There were other tears to be shed, tears that these good women had no idea they should be shedding. Can it happen that we, too, sometimes cry the wrong tears? I think so, and when it happens, we must pray: "Father, forgive our misplaced sorrow!"

The sentiment of the women was truly heartfelt. They felt genuine sorrow for Jesus as He struggled under the weight of that cross. And it wasn't a sudden jolt of pity like you might feel passing an accident on the highway. This was a deep sorrow. How deep? Luke tells us that they mourned and cried, which means they made gestures of woe common to people of the Middle East: beating their chests, throwing their hands up in despair, crying out in misery, loudly and pitifully, as Jesus passed them on the Way of Sorrows.

In spite of all that, Jesus told them: "Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves." In saying this, He was making it clear that what He wants from us is not mere sentimentality, but true repentance of the heart.

Why? Because He sees the bigger picture. He knew what was going to happen to the city that finally and irrevocably rejected its God. He spoke of the terror and despair that would overtake all the inhabitants of Jerusalem:

The time will come when you will say, "Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!" Then "they will say to the mountains, 'Fall on us!' and to the hills, 'Cover us!'" For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?

Jesus Himself was the green tree, the very picture of spiritual health and vigor, the one in whom God was well-pleased. Israel, on the other hand, was the dry tree, spiritually lifeless. Israel had proven to be a nation that was pretending to be religious, all the while denying the very God who alone gives life. And if Christ, who is perfect, had to suffer as He did in this dark world, what in the world could the sinful people of Jerusalem expect?

The sin of rejecting their Messiah would have horrible consequences for the people of Jerusalem. The earthly consequence included great suffering at the hands of Rome. Not 40 years in the future, the legions of the great general Titus would sack the city and burn the temple to the ground. An eyewitness account of that siege reads like a horror story. How much happier the people of Jerusalem would've been to be swallowed up by the hills!

Yet even worse than that would be the eternal consequences suffered by those who rejected their Messiah. They had every opportunity to repent and believe in Christ who had walked among them for three years preaching and teaching and performing signs and wonders. But they refused and in the end demanded His blood. On the day of judgment, when, as Scripture says, they have to look upon Him whom they have pierced as He comes in the clouds of heaven, what excuse can they offer? How can they escape the eternal flames, torments and regrets of hell?

You'd have to be made of stone, I think, if the image of Christ's suffering didn't bring out some sense of pity for the one who had to undergo such torment. If it didn't, we could hardly even call ourselves human. But, as we've seen, that's not the reaction Jesus is looking for. He wants a deeper sorrow, a godly sorrow over our sins. This doesn't mean you can't feel sympathy for your suffering Savior, but sympathy must never be all you have.

Our Lord would tell us, just like He told those women: He doesn't need our compassion; He wants our repentance. It was our sins, after all, that He was suffering for in the first place, right? If your sins hadn't been as scarlet, it wouldn't have taken the blood of Jesus to make you white as snow, you know what I mean? Do you give that fact the amount of thought it deserves? We're so permeated by sin that the only thing in all of creation that could keep us from an eternity in hell was the sacrifice of the Son of God.

So what God wants from us is a true and godly sorrow over our sins, a sorrow that confesses with the psalmist, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge" (Ps 51:4). My friends, when the Scriptures condemn all people as sinners against the commandments of God, we have to understand that that includes us. We too have done what is evil in God's sight, and we need to be moved by the suffering of Christ to admit that and repent of it.

But, as you may have discovered, repentance is a hard thing, and not many of us are very good at it. It's a sorrow that's often more than we want to deal with. We'd rather make it seem like our sins aren't all that serious. We'd rather compare them to the supposedly "greater" sins of others. We'd rather distract ourselves with worldly pleasures so that we don't have to think about our guilt. We'd rather try to convince ourselves that somehow we've done more good than bad, so things should balance out pretty well in the end.

But none of that is what our Lord calls for. "Weep for yourselves," he told the women of Jerusalem. And He says to us, "Repent of your sins. Don't hide them. Don't ignore them. Don't try to make them less serious than they are. But confess them, and then come to me for full and free forgiveness." That's the path He sets before us, and that's what we're asking for when we pray, "Father, make us truly repentant!"

The sight of Jesus on the cross should drive home to us the deadly nature of our sins so that we would come to terms with how serious they are before God. How could our guilt not be that big a deal when it cost so much to atone for it? And how could we think that Jesus' suffering wasn't that big a deal when the night before, He prayed almost desperately for His Father to find some other way?

Beloved, an unrepentant attitude is an insult to Christ. The cost of our salvation was greater than we can even begin to imagine. But Jesus selflessly paid that cost out of love for us. In return, the first thing we need to do is confess our sins, showing honor to Him who took all our sins onto His own back and paid for them with His innocent suffering and death. Don't try to excuse them or rationalize them away. Just confess that you too are one of the sinners for whom our Savior suffered and died.

But don't stop there. Confession is only the first part. Jesus is the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. He didn't offer up His life just to make us feel guilty; He did it to make us holy! "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him!" Forgiveness was the ultimate goal, and our forgiveness is guaranteed, as Paul tells us in Romans 8: "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Salvation is yours through faith in His promise. Through faith you lay hold of the forgiveness Jesus won for you. His Word has promised it to us, and we know His Word is true. And we honor Him when we place all our hope and confidence in His Word of promise.

"Do not weep for me," Jesus told the women of Jerusalem, "weep for yourselves." May we take these words to heart, but in the right way. Let's pray to our Father in heaven that He would fill our hearts with truly repentant sorrow over our sins so that we would then honor Christ's death all the more. Pray that you would trust in Him with all your heart. And pray that He would help you to live a life filled with the fruits of repentance that prove to everyone that His love is real and vibrant and living and makes a difference in the lives of those He loves. Let this be your prayer: "Lord, let this holy season of Lent bring the right kind of tears to my eyes, the tears that lead to eternal life in your Son. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen"

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 5
Sermon
3-29-2009

Jeremiah 31:31-34

³¹ “Behold, days are coming,” says Yahweh, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was husband to them,” says Yahweh. ³³ “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will pit my law within them and I will write it upon their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. ³⁴ “And no longer shall a man teach his neighbor and a man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” says Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

You will hear yet this morning the words of Jesus: “This is the new testament in my blood.” But listen to those words carefully: not a new testament, but the new testament. In order for Jesus to say that, the disciples must've known that the new testament was coming. Indeed, they did. Today’s reading from the prophet Jeremiah is one of the key passages that speak about it. This morning, I want to look at this text and see what it teaches us about the new testament Christ has established.

Jeremiah, in contrasting the new covenant with the old, first describes the new testament by saying what it isn't, and then goes on to say what it is.

One of the things the new testament is not is that it isn't a covenant made with Israel alone. The Old Covenant was made with the Children of Israel, and that included all Israelites, believers and unbelievers alike, everyone who was delivered out of the land of Egypt. It was comprised of laws - laws which governed the religious, political, social, and home life of every citizen. Acts fifteen describes this covenant as a yoke - a burden which neither their forefathers nor the Jews at the time were able to bear. In Galatians five Paul calls it a "yoke of bondage."

But the new covenant is not just made with the Israelites; it's a covenant with “the house of Israel and the house of Judah,” which means to say, all the people of the earth.

At the time, Israel and Judah were separated. Israel had been taken into captivity by Assyria to the north. Later, Judah would fall to the Babylonians, who, in the meantime had conquered Assyria. The result of this was that the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah were reunited in captivity, so that when they returned, they came back together. Listen to what Jeremiah had written earlier: “At that time Jerusalem shall be called The Throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem. No more shall they follow the dictates of their evil hearts. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given as an inheritance to your fathers.” “Out of the land of the north” refers to their eventual return from exile and bondage. Hosea adds: “It shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.’” So, Israel would return from the land of the gentiles, but not by themselves; their presence in Assyria and Babylon would lead the gentiles there to worship the one true God, so that those who at one time were not God’s people, would become God’s people through faith in the Holy One of Israel.

Another thing that the new testament is not is that it isn't a covenant that can be broken. The old covenant could be broken - and was! You see, the old covenant was law. It was a covenant in the usual sense of the term today: an agreement between two people. The old covenant was an agreement between God and Israel, and each agreed to do certain things - like a marriage. In fact, a marriage is a good description of what God did with this people. He loved them, loved them as a bridegroom loves his bride. And He cared for and provided for His people. But it was a covenant, and as a covenant, it needed both parties to keep it for it to be valid. Israel did not keep the covenant. She was unfaithful. She worshiped idols. She did not keep the law.

And this is where we need to make a distinction between covenant and testament. In a general sense they're very much the same, but not in a legal sense. Legally, a covenant is two-sided, but a testament is one-sided.

A testament is like a will. It's not a contract between two parties; it's a document issued by one party, stating what that one party wishes to do. In the case of a will, it lists what the person intends to be done with his belongings after his death. In the case of the new testament, it lists what God intends to do with that which is His, namely, His righteousness and justice. He intends to give it to us on account of His Son. Those to whom the belongings are given in any will or testament have the right of refusal, but they cannot change the will. I may not appreciate the gaudy lamp I inherit from rich old Aunt Gladys, but I can’t say: “Give me the Cadillac instead.”

The only time a will can successfully be challenged is when the testator is proven to have been mentally incompetent when issuing the will, and we can hardly say that of God, now can we. Barring that, the will has to be honored precisely as it's written, to the letter, which means that if rich Aunt Gladys is in her right mind and wants to leave a million dollars to her pet frog Myron, the money has to go to the frog, like it or not. All you can do is hope you're in the frog's will! Anyway . . . since we know God to be in sound mind, we know there's nothing that can break His testament. The Jews couldn't break it, we can't break it, no one will ever be able to break it.

Well, enough about what the new testament isn't. What about what it is? One of the things it is, is that it is a testament written on our hearts. And this is done for everyone who's part of the New Testament, not just a few. God is the God of every member of the New Testament, as Jeremiah goes on to say: "'And no longer shall a man teach his neighbor and a man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' says Yahweh."

Now, does this mean that we're no longer to teach one another? Of course not, but the essence of the teaching is different. Before, members of the old covenant needed to teach one another the basic fact of trust in the Lord. Not all of them were believers. But now, in the new testament, all members are believers, from the least to the greatest, from baptized infants to those standing at the threshold of eternal life. We don’t teach our children their need to know the Lord. Instead, we simply teach them about the Lord who has called them. We don’t say: “You need to know God. If you don’t, you’ll go to hell.” Instead, we say: “This is God. He’s the One who keeps you from going to hell.” See the difference?

There’s one final aspect of this new testament that really wraps it all up. The Old Covenant was Law; the New Testament is Gospel. The Lord says in our text: “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

So, maybe you’re wondering how you get to be a member of the New Testament. Herein lies the primary motivation behind the Reformation; it's what Luther struggled so to teach the world.

Contrary to what the Church had been teaching for years, to become a member of the New Testament requires no work on your part, no self-acquired holiness. The sacrifice of this New Testament in not one that needs to be repeated, but it's the sacrifice pointed to by all the prophecies of the Old Testament. All that's required for membership in the New Testament is the forgiveness found only in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that forgiveness is lavished on us when we hear God’s Word, when the water of God’s approval is poured out on us in Holy Baptism, and when the body and blood of our crucified and risen Savior are implanted within us through His Holy Supper. Through the means of grace God writes this New Testament on our hearts and we become His people.

The two testaments are quite different. The Sinai Covenant demanded perfect obedience. The New Testament offers eternal salvation. The Sinai Covenant was written on tablets of stone. The New Testament is written on our hearts. The Sinai Covenant was made with the descendants of Israel. The New Testament is made with all believers, Jews and Gentiles alike. The forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament was based on a hope in future events. The New Testament forgiveness is based on an accomplished reality.

Beloved, we can find no greater reality than the one Christ offers us again today. For here, the reality of God’s kingdom, indeed its very essence, is placed within our own flesh and blood as we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. Christ makes a New Testament with us, , a covenant, a promise - and we consume it, making His promise ours, and making us His. May your participation of the Lord’s Supper strengthen and preserve you steadfast in the one true faith to life everlasting. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 4 Mid-Week
Sermon
3-25-2009

St. Mark 15:16-20

¹⁶ And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. ¹⁷ And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. ¹⁸ And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” ¹⁹ And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. ²⁰ And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34). I wonder if the soldiers who crucified Jesus were taken aback at all to hear those words coming from a man on a cross. You can imagine that most guys nailed to a cross would usually have considerably less complimentary things to say about those who'd just hammered them there!

But I'm sure they thought: "Listen, buddy, we know exactly what we're doing! We're bringing Roman justice to a pretentious little pipsqueak who's been making all kinds of racket about being a king!" What were they supposed to do - tremble in fear before the "great descendant of David," some stupid Jewish folk-hero from way-back-when whose descendants lost their kingdom a long ago? Cry into their pillows at night for fear that the Jewish Messiah Bogeyman was going to get them? Shiver in their sandals over someone whose own people didn't want to have anything to do with him, whose own priests turned him over to the Romans because even they recognized that he was a monumental failure?

Oh, they knew what they were doing, alright - at least they thought they did. But how wrong they were! Now, how can they hope to escape the lowest pit of hell on the day of final judgment? They tortured the Son of God and made up the cruelest forms of mockery for him. They spit in his face, for heaven's sake!

I'm willing to bet not one of us wants to be standing anywhere near those soldiers on the Last Day. That's why we need to beware of even the slightest drift in their direction. What? You don't think you ever join in their mocking and disrespect? Oh, but you do; we all do. We do it when we don't even know we're doing it. And when it finally comes to our attention, we must catch ourselves quickly and pray: Father, forgive us for despising our Savior's claim!

Have you ever wondered why the soldiers were especially cruel to this man? I mean, what had he ever done to them? But think for a minute about the times they were living in and the ruthlessness of the empire they served. It was Roman policy to humiliate and torture those who were condemned. That scourging Jesus went through? It was known as "the little death." It was not uncommon and the pain and agony it delivered wouldn't let up until the subject died. Many never even made it to the cross; the scourging was enough to do them in. And beyond that, those condemned to death were put on public display, nearly - and sometimes fully - naked, nailed up where all the world could watch them bleeding, gasping and dying.

But with Jesus, there was more. His case seemed to bring out an extra dose of cruelty. None of the others crucified with him had crowns of thorns on their heads; there's no mention of them being spit on or punched in the face. But with Jesus, the Romans seemed determined to treat him as the greatest of fools.

You see, the thing with Jesus was, they didn't take anything about him seriously. Everyone knew about his triumphant entry into Jerusalem back at the beginning of the week. The Romans knew how all the Jews in town for the great Passover festival, had hailed Jesus and shouted that he was the Son of David, the great Messiah, the King of the Jews.

"Some king!" the soldiers must've thought. Where were his armies? Where was his glorious crown, his royal robe of state? Where was his scepter? Was this fool the best Judea could come up with? In so mocking him, they mocked his entire nation. They let every Jew see what the legions of Rome thought about their lofty pretensions of being the chosen people of God with a Messiah-King to lead them to everlasting glory. It was all a joke!

But why such a cynical attitude? As conquerors they despised anything that wasn't Roman. Who, after all, had ever stood against them in battle? Rome was the superpower of the day, and its soldiers were the greatest warriors the world had ever seen.

To such men everything about Jesus was laughable. "King of the Jews" sounded ridiculous to them because there was no king but Caesar. Judea was a conquered territory. As for all the fuss the Jews made about this man and their God? The Romans couldn't care less about the loser religion of a loser nation. To them all the grand, religious debate surrounding Jesus was just plain silly and deserving of the greatest contempt.

So that's what the crown of thorns was all about, and the scepter, and a rough cloak thrown over his torn and bloody back. That's why "they began to call out to him, 'Hail, king of the Jews!'" and why "again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him," and all the other things.

My friends, does it shock you to think that the same attitude is rampant in the world today? That Jesus' claims are despised pretty much everywhere? Surely you must know that there are those who mock the very core concepts of our Faith. You know who I mean: those who think they're just way too intellectual for religion, who think we're so stupid because we believe the Bible. We're enemies of everything they hold dear - the freedom to sin as much as they want to, in any way they want to. "Who are you to say we shouldn't have sex before we're married? Who are you to say same-sex relationships are wrong? Who are you to say I can't kill my unborn child? Who are you to say we shouldn't grow babies to use as spare parts for other people?" Don't you see? We stand in the way of their twisted utopia, and that terrifies them, so they feel the need to de-humanize the objects of their fear, to de-humanize us. They've become so jaded that they hold in contempt anyone who, like you and me, think there's a deeper meaning to life. For them, this is all there is, so the desires of the flesh outweigh any other considerations.

The result of this cynicism is ubiquitous; it's everywhere. On more than a few college campuses, there are professors who believe it's their duty to cajole, argue, and ridicule the Christianity out of any believing student who happens to enroll in their class. I know of one who actually boasts about it. And look at what the popular media is doing to our faith! Christian teachings and those who follow them are made to look like complete idiots. It's like the whole world is telling us Christians to shut up and keep our religion to ourselves.

And how about us? Aren't there times when life would seem a whole lot easier without the albatross of a two-thousand-year-old religion hanging around our necks? Sometimes you just don't want to be made fun of for your beliefs. Sometimes the Christian Faith demands things we don't really want to do or condemns things we really like to do. It's at times like these that the siren call of the cynics seems the strongest. It's then, especially, that we suffer the temptation not to take all this religion stuff so seriously, but to "grow up" and join the "21st century" like "everyone else."

But before we let ourselves get too close to the cynical legionnaires of ancient Jerusalem, let's fervently pray, "Father, let Jesus be the foundation of our lives."

The trouble with those soldiers was that they based their lives on something less than what God holds out for us. Remember how Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount, talking about building your house on the rock or the sand? The soldiers couldn't tell the difference. Everything God wanted for them, even the place he prepared for them to stand forever - none of it had any appeal for them. "Repent and believe in Jesus Christ!" That's the solid ground. But to those foolish men, it seemed more like quicksand.

Repentance never entered their minds because they didn't think they'd done anything wrong. Even when they tortured their victims, they felt perfectly justified. Why bother with guilt? That's no way for anyone to live, especially a soldier in the Roman army. These guys didn't have any room for the Ten Commandments. What use were silly Jewish fairy tales to the masters of the world?

Thank God we know better, right? We know our place. On the one hand, we are merely creatures put here by a God who has every right to demand our obedience to his laws. We don't get to choose which laws apply to us. We don't get to decide that this or that commandment doesn't really fit into our life right now. God's code is forever. That means we owe his laws the greatest awe and respect and trust - trust that He knows better than we do how we ought to live our lives.

On the other hand, we are the redeemed children of God through faith in Christ. The reason Jesus was in the hands of sadistic mockers was to save us from our sins. Through his suffering and death he wiped away our guilt and made us sons and daughters of the Almighty. "The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin" (1 Jn 1:7).

This means we understand how great a claim he has on us as our Savior, our God, and our King. How could we deny that we belong to him who paid so great a price to make us his own?

Indeed, we no longer look at ourselves the way the world looks at itself, but see the greatness of the claim Jesus Christ has on us. We now belong to him, not to ourselves. We are his people on earth, put here to do his will as He clearly recorded in his Word.

Christ and his Word, then, are the very basis and foundation of our entire lives. But don't think of this as some kind of terrible burden or unwelcome imposition. Rather, rejoice and be glad - honored, even! - to be servants of this great King. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me," Jesus said, "for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Mt 11:29). Knowing this, how could you build your life on any foundation other than Jesus Christ and his Word?

To this day He is denied and mocked by many, but we pray that he will always be honored and acknowledged by us. The Roman soldiers had no time for his claim to be the King of the Jews, and they made that clear in the shameful way they treated him. But we bend our knees before him who shed his blood to save us from hell and to make us his own. We gladly confess him as King and pray for strength to obey his Word. Let all the world deride him. But we pray: Heavenly Father, make us ever more truly his subjects in his wonderful kingdom of grace. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 4
Sermon
3-22-2009

Numbers 21:4-9

⁴ Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. ⁵ And the people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food." ⁶ And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. ⁷ So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people. ⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live." ⁹ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

"Ring around the rosies, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down." During the 17th century in Europe, plagues decimated the population. In 1665, 60,000 died in just six months. Out of these plagues came more than just a nursery rhyme. Edward Jenner, an English physician, promoted the idea of infecting people with a mild strain of the deadly virus. The idea seemed suicidal. To prick a healthy person with a needle crawling with the plague?? Jenner won little initial support for his idea. Today, however, the procedure known as inoculation is largely responsible for making sure our children never need to know the horror behind such words as: "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."

In this morning's Old Testament, the people of Israel were dropping like flies. After leaving Mt. Sinai, where God had made a covenant with them - and they vowed to keep His commands! - the people started to grumble. Things weren't happening as fast as they'd like. They were tired of wandering around in the desert, they didn't like the food, and they were ready for some leadership that would get them acceptable results pronto!

Now, this little outburst didn't sit well with God. So, the Lord sent venomous (the Hebrew says: "fiery") snakes among them, whose bite burned hot with poison. They bit the people, and many Israelites died. So devastating was this plague of serpents that the people stopped complaining and started confessing. They said to Moses: "We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us." And Moses, faithful pastor and leader that he was, prayed on behalf of the people.

"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," could've easily been sung by the people of God when the Lord sent snakes to punish them for their evil. And the cure God provided was no less amazing than Jenner's little bit of puss on a needle. Indeed, God's antidote to the sin of His people was none other than "the hair o' the dog that bit 'em," or in this case, the "serpent." "Make a snake and put it on a pole," God said to Moses; "anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake (the Hebrew reads: "a fiery one"), and when anyone was bitten, they merely gazed upon the serpent made of bronze, and lived!

What a strange antidote! You might think it was suicidal. "Surely, Moses, the cure ought to be more radical than staring at a serpent made of bronze! If you could feel the fiery poison crawling up my leg, you'd know exactly what I mean. If you saw the way my flesh is swelling up, or felt the fever burning in my veins, you'd offer me something more substantial. What about some medicine or some herbs? Bring a knife! Bleed the wound! Amputate a limb! But don't just offer me more of what we've got already!"

There's no way of knowing, of course, how many of them refused to look at the bronze serpent, but would you be surprised if they had? That a snake might be the vaccination for a plague of snakes!? That's as crazy as injecting someone with the plague, don't you think? But it also happens to be the wisdom of God's salvation!

Oh, how little things have changed! Israel's sin is your sin. Their complaining is your complaining. They're dying is your dying. Right now, you're wandering around the wilderness of life, and wondering: "Where is God leading? Why doesn't He hurry up? How much more do I have to put up with?" And around your feet are the fangs of serpents, ready to strike, and promising to fill your flesh with illness, death, and despair. You're not so resilient as children who can sing a nursery rhyme while thousands drop around them. The stench of life's futility has got you worried. The heaping up of corpses has you panicked. Is there any hope? Will you be next? "Dear Lord, we've got a cure for everything! But we can't find a cure for death!"

Beloved, don't be afraid. Your God has erected a cure for you, an antidote, so to speak, a medicine to drink in with your eyes, your heart, your mouth and your ears. He's raised up His Son for you on the cross, and in His flesh, He has crucified the serpent - Satan, sin, and even death. Everything that has you troubled has been nailed to Jesus' cross, so that just as Satan overcame our first parents by a tree, by the tree of Jesus' crucifixion that old serpent would finally be overcome. Believe me when I tell you that he is! And believe me when I tell you that there is nothing now for you to do but look to what God raises up before you in Christ Jesus. Oh, you might cower at first, for anyone who sees how the Father treats the Son trembles at the punishment that we deserve. If Christ doesn't escape God's wrath but falls beneath His judgment, why should we escape the fiery fangs of serpents at our heels?

Because of what the cross represents, many won't look at it. They want to forget the snakes, the sin, the pain, the death, and so refuse to be reminded of them in Jesus' crucifixion. Instead, they look for remedies in other things - in some of the things that you've looked at on occasion - to ease the pain of living. But, before long, the fiery fangs of harsh reality strike again, and every vain attempt to vaccinate yourself against the plague of sin fails, adding one more condemned soul on the funeral pyre of hell. Please don't hesitate to look at Jesus, for just like getting an inoculation lets you pass through a milder version of the plague or flu, so also going to Christ lets you pass through a milder strain - one that actually lets you live by virtue of your Savior's death.

You see, on the cross Jesus exposed Himself to your disease, and now that He's risen, He soaks you in it through Holy Baptism, pours it over your ears and heart in Holy Absolution, and gives it to you to eat and drink in Holy Communion. The antigens He provides are His own death and resurrection. The hands with which He swabs your brow still bear the scars of His death. Please don't hesitate to look on Him, but look, gaze, stare, like those Israelites in our text, for they did more than just gawk at a bronze serpent; they believed Moses' words that whoever looked at it would live.

You, too - look now on your Savior, raised before your very eyes today in Word and Sacrament. Look on Him, believing that even now those things that plague you have been put to death, defeated, and crushed. And through Him, like someone looking up through a fever when it breaks, see the smiling face of God your Father who delights to administer His healing. It's His voice that declares you whole again. He's the One who calls you to be His own and live forever in His Kingdom. "Because of His great love for you, God, who is rich in mercy, made you alive with Christ even when you were dead in your transgressions and sins. It is by His grace that you are saved. And God has raised you up with Christ and seated you with Him in the heavenly realms, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed to you in Jesus Christ" (Eph. 2:4-7).

This is what it looks like to rise up from your death bed by the healing power of God in Jesus Christ. "You are God's workmanship," dear Christian, and you were "created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do." You've felt the fiery bite of sin, and you have smelled the stinking stench of death. But as nursery rhymes rose up from ashes, and as the technology of vaccination rose out of the plagues of Europe, so out of death God raises up a people for Himself; out of the blood of Jesus, God establishes a holy nation and a royal priesthood; out of the body of our Lord, God brings a people well-equipped to shake the stinging fangs that still penetrate our skin, and empowers us to look away from those things that produce death, and look instead to Christ - and live! In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 3 Mid-Week
Sermon
3-18-2009

St. John 18:33-38

³³ So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴ Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” ³⁵ Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶ Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” ³⁷ Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” ³⁸ Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him."

The Romans prided themselves on their eloquence. They considered themselves the greatest speakers, the greatest orators the world had ever seen. Any man among them who hoped for success and fame studied the art of rhetoric and public speaking with single-minded passion. The proper turning of a phrase, the astute laying out of an argument, the flourish with which a speech was brought to a rousing conclusion - the Romans of old reveled in such things.

How ironic then that in the long ages since, the most famous thing ever said by any Roman is only three words long! The orations of Cicero and Caesar are long forgotten, but the words of Pontius Pilate live on: "What is truth?"

On the surface, it's kind-of a silly remark, isn't it? I mean, truth is what's true, what's real. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west; that's truth. Two plus two equals four; that's truth. Truth is just plain objective fact. You can accept it or not, but that's not going to change it. Two plus two is never going to equal five and the sun isn't going to change direction. You can ignore if you want to - like Pilate did - but that won't make it go away.

We Christians like to think of ourselves as being on the side of truth. We want to be counted as those who stand up for the truth of God's Word. The trouble comes in when we realize that there's an awful lot of truths in the Book that aren't always that easy to stand up for. Now, you might hear those words of Pilate and shake your head disapprovingly, but how often do we, even without thinking about it, begin to adopt his philosophy? And when we do, that's the time to pray: "Father, forgive us when we abandon Your truth!"

There are times when people just feel that the things God has to say don't really fit into their lives. Pontius Pilate found himself in that kind of a situation on that Friday so long ago. Think about how things looked from His perspective. He didn't have the time to get mixed up in some religious debate. There were so many debates as it was. The Pharisees disagreed with the Sadducees; the Herodians disagreed with the Essenes; this rabbi disagreed with that rabbi. Every moment of every day could've been spent mediating all the different theological opinions in the religion-saturated land of Israel.

Pilate's job was too important to waste time and energy on Jewish religious disputes. He had to govern this rebellious province. The Jews were the unhappiest members of the Roman Empire, and they let every Roman within earshot know about it. In the past, governing them had been extremely difficult and more than a few times Pilate's superiors in Rome had raked him over the coals for allowing things to get out of hand. Mistakes had been made, and Pilate's resumé wasn't looking all that healthy. The empire wanted order, and any procurator who couldn't guarantee that didn't last long.

And then one morning Jesus of Nazareth is dragged into the mix. They said He claimed to be the King of the Jews. Well, if that were true Pilate would have to deal with it, of course. But a short interrogation proved that there was no political rebellion in this man's mind. So, He was of no real concern, and Pilate felt free to dismiss Him as another blathering prophet in a land overrun with blatherers.

"My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said. "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." But Pilate wasn't in a position to side with anyone's "truth." He had his own truth, and that was that there were a great many truly important matters he had to attend to, and this situation with Jesus was distracting him from them. Truth! Who had time for that? "What is truth?" he asked, and as far as he was concerned, the discussion was over. There was no time for something as inconvenient as truth.

Isn't that often true with us? We find it inconvenient to try to fit God's Truth into our lives. After all, our lives are filled with all kinds of important stuff, aren't they? We have our job to do, or our school work to do, or housekeeping to do. How are we going to get it all done? That's the "truth" of our daily lives, isn't it?

And aren't there times when such things as "eternal truths" just have no meaning for us, no purpose for our day-to-day lives? It's nearly impossible to make time for family devotions every day when everyone in the family seems to be going in 20 different directions all the time. How can you set aside time for Bible reading when you have to rush around from place to place with hardly even two minutes to stop and catch your breath?

And what about those times when - like with Pilate - God's Truth gets in the way of what we feel is important. His commandments are often like that, aren't they? Forbidding the things we feel we need to do or want to do, and commanding things we don't feel we have time for or just don't want to get involved in? Even the truth of the gospel can get in the way when the needs of our souls don't seem all that important compared to what we need right this moment, right? Forgiveness of sins, salvation of our souls, why, even heaven itself, can seem like a pie-in-the-sky proposition when the bills are piling up or the homework is piling up or you're out of work and can't find a job.

Oh, we may not use the words of Pilate, but his thoughts are there. What's the use of "truth" when I need help today? Eternal Truth is all good and fine, but what does it have to do with the price of beans, as they say? After awhile, even coming to church seems like a waste of time because it doesn't seem to accomplish anything. Truth? What is truth?

Do you know what you have when you find yourself thinking this way? Tunnel vision. Pilate had it bad. Your focus gets so narrow that you can't even see that there are other important things that you ought to be tending to. And some of them are way more important than whatever else it is you have at the top of your list. Pilate couldn't see past the business of being governor, and look at the trouble it bought him. Beloved, we have to learn to see beyond the scope of right here and now. We have to be concerned now about our eternity, or you know what? We're not going to like what we end up with, and there will be no way to change it then. "Oh, Dear Lord, open our eyes to Your eternal Truth."

Pilate had no idea what he was dealing with. There, in his courtroom, was being played out the drama of the ages, the culmination of the centuries-old battle between the seething hatred of the devil and the passionate, saving love of God. And the very Son of the living God, the Savior of the world, was standing there in front of him, inviting him to come over to the side truth, to rise above the petty affairs of the world around him and see the salvation of the Lord. Think how close Pilate was to it. God was right there, reaching out to him, and he casually brushed it aside and went on with the business of the day.

Do you know how close God is to you right now? Are you going to brush Him aside and get on with life "as usual" ? Does anyone here actually believe that your daily concerns are more important than God's eternal ones? Remember what Jesus said: "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" (Mt 16:26). You know, you could spend all your time and energy on the things of this world and gain great success. But on the day you die, what good will it be? You'll get a big funeral, maybe, and your survivors will probably be able to afford a really nice gravestone for you. But what good is that if you've missed out on the joys of heaven?

The rich fool was really focused on his business. After a particularly bountiful harvest, he had to make plans on what to do with all the grain. He was going to tear down his old barns and build bigger ones. He'd be set for life. Remember what God said to him? "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" (Lk 12:20).

My friends, don't get so focused on today that you forget about tomorrow. Don't forget that the wages of sin is death for us, but that the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

The truth is: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16).

The truth is: He died to redeem you from sin and from what St. Peter called "the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers" (1 Pe 1:18). Friends, our life is not just the few meager decades we spend in this world. Our in this world is a journey and our true destination is the one that Jesus gave His life to win for us.

The truth is: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Co 5:17). Things are different for us now. Our life is now "hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:3). All of this teaches us that we're a part of something greater than this life. We've been saved from our sins by the life, death, and resurrection of God's own Son. This is the eternal truth, and we pray God to mold our lives to fit it.

Our treasures are not stored up on earth but in heaven. Yes, we still have to with the things of this world, but everything we do here - whether we eat or drink or whatever it is we do - we do it for the glory of God and His truth. We're to present ourselves as living sacrifices to Him, doing all we can to spread the glorious name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, especially to those who don't know Him.

In the light of that saving truth, pray that God would make the importance of His truth the very foundation on which you build your life. Pray that you'll never allow yourself the foolish notion that the truth of God's Word doesn't apply to you. Pray that you'll never think that the truth of His saving gospel is anything but the most important thing in all the world. Pray that you'll value His truth as your greatest treasure. Pray that He'll help you to do all you can to make it the greatest treasure of others as well.

"What is truth?" Pilate asked. And then he didn't stick around for an answer. Turning his back on the words that could have saved his soul, Pilate got on with the "more important" work of the day - that of condemning the Son of God to death.

Let us pray: Lord God, heavenly Father, forgive us when we fall into Pilate's error. Help us to seek the truth in Your Holy Word, and to subordinate everything in our lives to it. As Your dear Son prayed for us, so now we pray for ourselves: "Sanctify us in the truth; Your Word is truth." In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 3
Sermon
3-15-2009

Exodus 20:1-17

¹ Then God spoke all these words, saying, ² "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ³ "You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴ "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵ "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶ but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷ "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. ⁸ "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹ "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. ¹² "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. ¹³ "You shall not murder. ¹⁴ "You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ "You shall not steal. ¹⁶ "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷ "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

As the Reformation was getting under way in the 16th Century, and more and more people were looking to Martin Luther for leadership and guidance - especially for instruction in the Faith - he made it very clear that he had no interest whatsoever in beginning a new church fashioned in his image. In 1522, he wrote in his Sincere Admonition to All Christians:

"I ask that men make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone. Saint Paul, in First Corinthians, would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine, but Christian. How then should I - poor stinking maggot-fodder that I am - come to have men call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christians, after Him Whose teaching we hold."

You can see how well we took his advice in that! We have Dr. Maggot-fodder's name plastered all over our churches! Why? Because we recognize and give thanks to God for the legacy of faithful confession delivered by the Lord to His Church through this great servant of Jesus Christ.

Of all the things Luther did - his proclamation of the Cross, his bold confession of Christ, his powerful hymns - one of his most enduring contributions to the Church is the Small Catechism. Many of us grew up with this marvelous treasure of the Gospel expressed in such profound simplicity, and perhaps the greatest single factor in the strength and unity of the Lutheran Church for the past 470 some years has been the constant use of this little book.

The first Chief Part of the Small Catechism - as you may recall - is the section on the Ten Commandments. Luther emphasized that the entire Word of God is summarized for us here, which implies that we shouldn't just hear the Law - which is clearly predominant - but also the Gospel - the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Ten Commandments are the first chief part precisely because they summarize the Law of God - His holy and perfect Will for His creation, including His Will for you and me.

The same Law summarized in the Ten Commandments is also written into the very fabric of our hearts, so that only the most hardened and calloused consciences can ignore it completely. We've been taught to think of the Law as a "curb," by which the Lord restrains the rebellion of sin, guarding and protecting human life and property - forbidding both murder and theft - just like He upholds and supports marriage and parenthood.

The Law also functions as a "rule" or "guide" for those recreated by Christ and His Spirit in the waters of Holy Baptism, giving us a clear description of truly "good works" that are pleasing to God and beneficial to our neighbor. And, certainly, as Christians we're delighted to follow this holy and precious guide.

But the most important function of the Law is that of a "mirror" to show us our sin. For when we examine ourselves according to the Ten Commandments, we find out pretty quickly how much and how often we've failed to live as our Lord expects us to.

So, above all else, we learn from the Ten Commandments how desperately we need a Savior.

And that's all we hear in the Ten Commandments apart from faith - nothing but Law; we can't even begin to look at them as a picture of the Gospel. I mean, it's hardly obvious, and without faith we're simply incapable of seeing the Commandments as a beautiful description of Christ and His salvation.

But of course, in faith we do understand and confess that Jesus is the very fulfillment of the Law of God. He's the One the Ten Commandments were pointing to in the first place, for He's the only One who's ever kept the Law perfectly and lived the Will of God completely - and He did this for us - in our place.

What amazing love our Savior demonstrates in doing this for us! Not only does He keep the Law, but He fulfills it on our behalf.

Think about it: He doesn't murder. In fact, He's the Giver and Preserver of all life. As the heavenly Bridegroom, He's faithful in all things to His Bride, the Church, in other words, to you and to me. He doesn't steal from us, but daily and richly provides for all that we need to support our body and life. Instead of bearing false witness against us, He actually pleads for us with His own blood and defends us with His very life as our great Advocate to the Father in heaven. He never covets what we have, but though He was rich in all things, for our sakes He became poor, that through His poverty we might become rich, participating in His divine life.

In the end, the Ten Commandments find their real meaning and fulfillment in Christ. He alone has lived the good and gracious Will of God in every way - and He has done so for us. As we look at the Ten Commandments as a mirror, we find nothing in ourselves but sin and death . . . and if that were the end of it, we'd have no hope.

But that's not the end, for we see there also the life of Christ for us . . . that He's forgiven our sins, given us His Holy Spirit, and made us children of His Father.

The God we are commanded to fear, love and trust above all things is the Holy Triune God - Who has loved us with Himself from the very depths of His being . . . all the way to the Cross. The Name we're commanded to hallow is the very Name that is now ours through the gracious waters of Holy Baptism. And when keep the Lord's Day holy, as He's commanded us to do, we find that He assembles us together as His people that He might serve us; that He might strengthen our faith and keep us steadfast in His Word, until He calls us from this veil of tears to Himself in heaven; that He might feed us with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation, the Body and Blood of Jesus our Lord, by Whom we are blessed to life everlasting.

As He lives in us, and we in Him, we find that the "mirror" of the Ten Commandments shows not only our sin, but now also our New Life in Christ. As Paul wrote: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). From beginning to end, it's Jesus - forgiving our sins and granting us His life by grace. To Him alone be all honor & glory and praise. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Rev. Steven S. Billings
Lent 2 Mid-Week
Sermon
3-11-2009

St. Matthew 27:15-26

¹⁵ Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. ¹⁶ And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. ¹⁷ So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” ¹⁸ For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. ¹⁹ Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” ²⁰ Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. ²¹ The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” ²² Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” ²³ And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” ²⁴ So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” ²⁵ And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” ²⁶ Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

"Let his blood be on us and on our children!" How could the Jews have said such a thing? How could they have called down everlasting bloodguilt upon themselves? The answer is simple: They didn't believe they were. They were convinced the guilt belonged to the Nazarene carpenter, who dared pretend to be their Messiah. When they saw Him there, "His appearance . . . so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness" (Isa 52:14), wearing a crown of thorns in Roman mockery of all their Palm Sunday hopes, they believed they'd been taken in by a wicked fraud who deserved everything the Romans could dish out. They felt Jesus had betrayed them so crucifixion was too good for Him!

I wonder: Have we ever been tempted to drift close to the edges of that unholy crowd? Are we ever tempted to demand something from God He never promised or to reject what His Son died to offer? If so, then we must pray: Father, forgive us when we despise Your great salvation!

"Let his blood be on us and on our children!" How could they shout such a thing? How could they demand the most horrible death for the man they'd hailed as the Son of David and the promised King of Israel?

To find the answer, we have to look at the world the way they did. All their lives they'd been waiting for the Messiah. From their mothers' knees their imaginations were filled with him. How their hearts would soar at Sabbath worship when one of the prophecies of the Messiah was read! From Moses to Malachi the Holy Scriptures set forth the promises again and again. They told where He would be born. They foretold the wonders He would perform. They spoke of triumph after suffering, of an eternal crown that would adorn the Heir of great King David.

But the Israelites wanted this not quite the same way the writers of the Old Testament meant it. They had the desire for salvation, but not the same salvation that was promised. The Israelites were under the thumb of an occupying power. They were a conquered people, in a backwater province of the Roman Empire, and that disturbed them. It was a blow to their national pride. It was a slap at their religious prestige as the chosen people of God. A Savior from sin and death could wait; the Israelites wanted a Savior from Rome!

So the popular imagination had woven together a grand fantasy about the coming of the messianic age. The King Messiah would appear in the skies over Jerusalem and slowly and majestically descend into the courts of the great temple. He would raise his voice, and armies would flock to his call. They would go out from the Holy City, rank upon rank, invincible in battle, to bring vengeance upon the Romans and upon all the enemies of the Jews. The King Messiah would rule all the known world. Jerusalem would become the greatest city in the world, and all people would finally acknowledge the greatness of Israel and of its glorious Messiah-King.

For awhile it seemed that Jesus of Nazareth truly fit the mold. Many echoed the sentiments of Nicodemus, uttered in the dark of night: "No one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him" (Jn 3:2). "When the Christ comes," some asked, "will he do more miraculous signs than this man?" (Jn 7:31).

When He fed the five thousand they wanted to force Him to become their king. They'd been so enthusiastic about it that Jesus had to send them away while He went into the hills to pray. The day after they searched and searched for Him, almost drooling at the thought that the days of the Messiah were at hand.

On the Sunday before the Passover, everyone was talking about the raising of a man over in Bethany. Then more and more stories of Jesus' power were passed around. And then they saw Him coming, just as the prophet had said:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zec 9:9)

Then the cloaks came off and were laid before His feet. Then the palms were cut and strewn in His path. Then the shouts called out: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Mt 21:9).

And then came Friday. Everyone assembled in the courtyard outside the Roman Praetorium. Then Pilate brought Jesus out and said, "Behold the man!" (Jn 19:5). And what did they see? A man beaten and bleeding. He hardly had the strength to stand. They'd wrapped Him in a red legionnaire's cloak as a royal robe and woven a crown of thorns to put on His head. The Romans were laughing at Him - and, through Him, at all of Israel. Here's your King! Here's your Messiah! Here's the man who was going to conquer Rome; by Rome He is conquered!

And the mob erupted in anger - at Jesus! In their eyes He'd betrayed His promise to them. He was no conquering king, no Messiah like they'd wanted their whole lives. He played up to their hopes and then left them in a lurch; that's what they thought. And they were so angry! Let Him die! Let Him die by the cruelest torture imaginable! Crucify Him!

Not that we would ever join in such shouts. No, indeed. Our sin of disloyalty doesn't end in a murderous rage. But it can be similar. We too can fall into the trap of thinking that, somehow, the Lord isn't living up to promises He never actually made.

Perhaps we won't so blatantly reject the salvation of our souls. We know our Bible stories; we know our catechisms and our creeds. We know what Lent is all about, and Good Friday.

But, sometimes, all of that seems to be stuck in a misty past while we have to face life as it is today. Salvation's important when you die but, for now, shouldn't you be able to expect more out of your Savior than just that? There's always been this notion among believers that once you become a Christian the Lord ought to smooth out your path through life. After all, we've hitched our wagons to the Son of God, haven't we? "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Mt 28:18) - isn't that what He said? Shouldn't He be using some of that power to give His followers better lives?

And sitting here in church we can see right through this temptation; we can remember the many Bible passages where we're reminded that the Lord disciplines those He loves and sometimes uses hardships to bring about good things for us. But we aren't always sitting in church, are we? And when things get rough for us and we pray and pray and things still don't seem to get better, and we look around and see unbelievers doing just fine - something in us begins to wonder. Something wakes in us that woke in old Job as he looked at his pious life on the one hand and his unimaginable sufferings on the other. Job came to the conclusion that God was reneging on His promises!

And we begin to ask: Why does He let us have all these money troubles? Why do we always have relationship issues? Why are we so depressed? Why can't we seem to get on top of things in life? Why can't God make life a little easier?

When we find ourselves asking such questions, a poison has attacked our faith. What the Lord came to bring us through His death suddenly doesn't seem as important as the list of things we wish He would do for us here and now. We feel betrayed by Him, as if He'd promised us smooth sailing then refused to deliver. If we listen closely, we can hear the far-off cries of anger and rejection from the wrathful mob as we get closer and closer to them. And we need to beg our Father in heaven: "Lord, fix our eyes on the needs of our souls!"

The mob couldn't have cared less about forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. They wanted freedom from oppression then and there, and Jesus wasn't going to deliver it. So they rejected Him, utterly and completely. And what good came of it? The messiah they demanded never showed up. Within 40 years of the day they shouted for Jesus' blood, their city and their temple were destroyed by the legions of Rome. Within another 70 years, the failed revolt of a would-be messiah named Simon Bar Kokhba resulted in the Jews being exiled from the Holy Land for 1800 years.

God never promised them a hero to save them from Rome. He promised His Son to save them from the devil. But they died in their sins and unbelief. They traded their souls for a dream that couldn't come true. Lord God, keep us from such soul-destroying foolishness!

Beloved, things in life aren't going to be lined with rose petals. But hasn't Jesus warned us about this? Haven't we read His prayer for us in the gospel of John? He asked His Father not to take us out of the world with all its troubles but to keep us safe in Him while we're in the world.

So, rather than moping about discontented, worried about the daily blessings we wish we had, and let's fix our eyes on that greatest of all blessings, the one clearly promised to us through the ages in God's Word: the salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa 53:6). "By His wounds we are healed" (Isa 53:5).

What benefit would there be for us if He gave us everything we wanted in this world but neglected our greatest need: the atoning sacrifice for our sins? Who could enjoy the greatest blessings of this world knowing that, in the end, there'd be a terrible price to pay for our sins? The fleeting pleasures of this life would be horribly and eternally outweighed by the terrors of the coming judgment.

But for us, the Lord has decreed the opposite. As the apostle says, our momentary troubles in this world are not worthy to be compared with the joys that await us, the joys bought for us by the blood of Jesus Christ. What a high price He paid to make you a child of God! That alone ought to make this gift more valuable than any other to you. Pray for the other blessings, sure. And be thankful when God decides you should enjoy them! But if, in His divine wisdom, He decides to withhold them for awhile, fix your eyes on the blessing that will never be taken away from you: your Savior Jesus Christ.

"Let his blood be on us and on our children!" Such a horrible and soul-destroying certainty on their parts, and such a tragedy that the people who had the Savior right in front of them rejected the salvation He came to bring! God keep us from a similar tragedy!

Let us pray: Father, let us never demand blessings You haven't promised and let us never feel mistreated when, in Your wisdom, You say "no" to our prayers, reserving for us greater blessings elsewhere. Fix our eyes upon Jesus, our Savior from sin, death, and the devil. May we honor His love and sacrifice by gratefully claiming Him as our Lord and God. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

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