Sermon: "Where's Jesus?"
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
Maybe you remember a series of books and activities called Where's Waldo. Or maybe you've looked at one of those I Spy books where you are given a poem full of clues and you get to find all the objects in a very busy picture. Or you may have played "I Spy" with small children, letting them figure out that the green thing you see is their eyes. I think most of us have played hide and seek. The object is always to find something or someone. Sometimes it's something hidden. Sometimes not. But we aren't satisfied unless we find what we're looking for.
How about looking for Jesus? We need to ask ourselves where Jesus is. In our Gospel passage today Jesus went with his family to Jerusalem as he did every year. But this time while they were in Jerusalem they lost track of him. It took three days to find him again. Why did it take them so long? Was Jesus hiding? Was he moving around like the people in those old movies who pop in and out of doors in a house looking for but never finding each other? Not at all. Jesus was, in fact, in plain sight, in a public place, doing perfectly normal things. He was not being the least bit secretive. But his parents were looking for him in all the wrong places.
Where do we look for Jesus? What do we expect him to be doing? Are we looking for him in the right places? Do we miss seeing him because we don't expect him to be doing what he's doing?
We realize that Jesus is the ruler of all creation. Despite this lofty status he has promised to be present for us in Word and Sacraments. There are two very important words in that statement. Did you notice? "For us." A couple of weeks ago I talked briefly about the "Deus absconditus" and the "Deus revelatus" - the hidden God and the revealed God. The hidden God, Deus absconditus, is in a way plainly visible. Look at an insurance policy sometime. Do you see a mention of "acts of God" there? Odd, how acts of God are always bad things in insurance policies. They're always the acts of God revealing his power but not his personal love. They're always the acts of God who is moving but is not expressing his care for his people. You never get an insurance policy that talks about an act of God like a beautiful sunrise, a blooming flower, a good harvest, or good health. But since this isn't an insurance office and I'm no insurance agent, I can talk to you about the God who is there "for you." He has promised that he will be present for your good in Word and Sacraments.
Where we are gathered in his name for his forgiveness, Jesus has promised to be with us. Recall that in the upper room Jesus came to his disciples. What the Father gave to him, Jesus gave to the disciples. He breathed on them and told them to receive the Holy Spirit and to forgive sins. That's why we are told to confess our sins and pray for one another, so we may be forgiven. Jesus has promised that if his word abides in us then we are his disciples. We are intimately involved in that same life of forgiveness which he has given us. We hear the Word of God and we believe him. He is present for us.
For that matter, along with the promise that our Lord is with us in his Word, we see in Matthew 28 that he promises to abide in us to the end of the world as we go, baptizing people and teaching them. How are people baptized? In Greek it is strikingly clear. People are baptized "into" the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is something that theologians call "performative speech." We believe that the Lord has made certain promises and that when we speak and act in accordance with those promises he will in fact accomplish something. Our Lord transfers us from the kingdom of death into the kingdom of life when we receive baptism. We are washed, se are cleansed, we are placed into the divine kingdom. God's forgiveness, purchased on our behalf by Jesus on the cross, is applied to us in baptism. We are cleansed from sin, a cleansing which we receive by faith as we believe daily that we have been cleansed.
What about Jesus' presence in communion? As we are celebrating communion today it's a good time to remember specifically that Jesus promises to be with us. We confess a real presence of Christ. This doesn't mean he is only symbolically and spiritually here. Jesus, in fact, says very specifically, "this is my body." The New Testament is very clear throughout. The passages in the Greek text don't have the variant readings in manuscripts that you'd expect if people in the first few centuries thought Jesus was saying the bread and wine were to serve as symbols of his presence. The verb "is" doesn't vary. It's always "is," never "represents," never "seems like." Always "is." Paul tells the Corinthians that the bread is a "participation" in the body of Christ and the wine is a "participation" in the blood of Christ. He clearly believes that Jesus is very truly and physically present. This resurrected Christ, who ascended into heaven, who is sitting at the right hand of the Father, is still God. He's still omnipresent. Though we can't understand it, we confess it. That's why we say, "this is my body" and "this is my blood."
How does this compare with most of what we see in modern American Christianity? Almost uniformly believers try to explain the presence of Christ. Roman Catholic people explain that the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine but that they are now body and blood. Protestants by and large explain that the bread and wine are just bread and wine, symbolic of Jesus, but that Jesus is present only spiritually, or that believers' spirits are ushered into the presence of Jesus' spirit in heaven. It's pretty much only the Lutherans who don't flinch at Jesus' saying that he is here for us in communion. And I'm afraid many of us flinch as well.
I have good news for you. Jesus is in fact present. He's present, for you, right here, right now, giving you and giving me forgiveness, life, hope, salvation. He will continue working in and through us as we receive his provision by faith. He will continue working with us as we bring his grace and mercy to the world.
I first said that Jesus has promised to be present for us in Word and Sacraments. So we can find him right here, right now. But what about this afternoon? What about tomorrow? What about people who don't attend a church or who attend a church where the true Gospel is not preached? What hope do those people have?
There's much hope in every way. The Bible presents Jesus as the savior of the world. The Scripture says he gave his life as a ransom that all should be saved. We see over and over again in the Bible that God pours his mercy and grace out on people who are in need, all sorts of people, the righteous and the unrighteous alike.
There's a great little book I'd like to recommend. It's called God at Work by Dr. Gene Edward Veith. I don't have a copy of it to show you. Every time I get one I seem to give it away. This book lays out a picture of Christian vocation. Think about it. Everything you do, every situation you are in, every interaction with your friends, co-workers, neighbors, even strangers, everything you do is an opportunity to be used by our Lord and Savior to show his grace to this world. Notice I said "to show." I didn't say "to bring." Why is that? Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has already brought his grace to the world. But we are his means of showing the world what they have. Just like finding Waldo in the book, Jesus is right there in the world. People are waiting for God's provision. Some of them want to see him. And they are welcome to see Jesus in our good works. They can see Jesus as we are used by God to provide people with their daily bread. They see Jesus as we do the works that our neighbors need. We are God's hands reaching out to this world. We do God's work, loving and serving our neighbor, providing the neighbor with what he needs. In a very real way, Jesus loves the sick person through the hands of the doctor or nurse. Jesus feeds the hungry through the farm laborer, the person who transports food to the store, the person who puts it on the shelf, the person who runs the cash register. Jesus provides warmth for people on cold winter days through the person who maintains the electric lines, through the person who buys goods from that cold person's employer, allowing the employer to pay the staff, through the person who built the house years ago, through the person who made the insulation for the walls. You name it. Whatever you need, whatever you do, it is God working. In fact, your going to work tomorrow is an "act of God" even though it isn't something included in the insurance policy. We are all interconnected. What we do is God's work, showing his grace to this world.
With that said, let's pray together.
Our Lord, you have shown yourself to your people. You have shown us that you are present right here, right now, for us. We realize that we have done nothing to deserve your love or favor. Thank you for your mercy and grace. Use us, your people, to bring this news of your love to our world. We pray that you would use us in service to you. We pray for those we will come in contact with, that you will awaken in them a desire to hear where their hope comes from. We pray that you will draw our community to you in faith. We pray for those whom we will serve in the upcoming days and weeks, that they will see you as the one who has redeemed the world to yourself. We pray that you will give us a love for this lost and dying world that is like the love you expressed, coming and dying on our behalf. Grant us this, we pray, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogspot.com
1 comment:
Well done, Dave
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