Sermon “Jesus the New Prophet” Deuteronomy 18
Lord, let us see you, the Master of all, Savior of the nations, the one who has come as the true revelation of God, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
I'd like us to take just a moment to think about the scariest thing we can imagine. Most of our minds will turn to something we dislike or something we had a bad experience with. Maybe it's something we are irrationally afraid of. For instance, there are few animals which scare me, but there is one of which I'm intensely afraid, though it is one which probably doesn't scare most of you. I know some people who are afraid of clowns. Some people are especially afraid of certain diseases. Some are afraid of drowning or choking. There are real and imagined terrors all around us.
But how terrifying is the presence of God? Often we think of God's presence as a very comforting thing, and God in his love for us through Jesus is our fortress, our strength, our confidence and hope. There's no doubt about it. For that matter, whenever I give a funeral address if possible it focuses on the fact that the departed is not really departed, but rather comforted in the arms of the Savior. There's great comfort in God with us. But what of the power and glory of God? Who can stand before the Lord and live? His presence is terrifying enough to kill us all. Even when his less powerful little servants, angels, appear to people, they always say “Don't be afraid.” What does that say about those angels? As they are sent by the Lord they reflect just a little of his majesty and glory, and they are able to terrify us!
When we think about the presence of God we can come up with a lot of adjectives to describe him. We might consider him as the holy one, the one who is entirely righteous, the one who is pure. These are attributes of God. And as our Lord influences his surroundings, there's this holy, righteous, pure environment around him. Nothing that is impure can dare to approach. This is why when Moses was called to approach God on Mount Sinai he was told a certain way to prepare. This is why not just everyone was allowed to go onto the mountain, and why those who went with Moses were to prepare themselves in a certain way. If they approached God in his holiness they could well be consumed by him, destroyed on the spot. Nothing impure can approach our Lord.
So how is it we will speak with God? How do we hear from God? He's too terrifying to imagine. What will we do? The response to that problem in the time of the Exodus was simple. Just two little words. SEND MOSES! But what do we do when Moses, God's servant, is gone? We need a revelation from God. We need to hear what our Lord says to us. And in Deuteronomy chapter 18 God gave Moses a promise. He said that he would raise up a prophet like Moses, one who would see him face to face and be able to bring God's word to the people. In these last days, God has revealed himself in the person and work of Jesus, the new prophet, the one who not only speaks from God but has fulfilled all the commands of God.
On this day of the Church year we celebrate the very real presence of Jesus, the new prophet. We see today, March 25, nine months before Christmas, that God's angel came to Mary and spoke to her of her future. He came and announced to her that she would bear a child, that new prophet, the one whom Israel had hoped for all those years. And this is the great good news which we get to proclaim. Jesus has come to redeem the world to God. Jesus has come to carry our sins away. Jesus has come to live a perfect life on our behalf, to die a perfect death on our behalf, and to show himself to be the God of resurrection. We celebrate the fact that even before he was born, Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, was living on our behalf. He was going through the same kind of trials that we face. He was living for us without sin. He was truly the child of promise we have heard about throughout the Scriptures.
Now there's a debate in Christianity that I'm afraid I have to bring up. And that's how we view the heart and center of the Christian life. It's one of those issues that separates Lutherans from much of the rest of Christianity, especially in this country. What is at the heart of the Christian faith? You know that I am a strong advocate for reading the Scripture. When I became a Christian that was literally the first thing I was taught. Because Christians believe in Jesus, the Son of God as revealed in the Bible, we need to learn what the Bible says. And there's no doubt about that. This is why Christians read the Bible, most of them trying to read several chapters daily, throughout their lives, learning more and more about what God has told them. The Scripture is very important. When we ignore what our Lord has told us through his servants who wrote his word we do so at our own peril. We need to know what God has said. And most of Protestantism would describe itself as “Bible-centered.” That's a good thing, at least as a start.
But let me ask you this. Can you know the Bible backwards and forwards and not know Jesus? Can you know what the Bible says and not see that Jesus is living his life for you? Can you learn all that the Bible says and still think it's just for other people? Yes, you can. And this is the failing of a “Bible-centered” Christianity. Don't get me wrong. We need to be reading the Bible. Yet Christianity is not about the Bible. It's about Jesus. This view of the Christian life being centered on the incarnation of Christ, God in the flesh, living, dying, and rising again for you and for me – that's where the Lutherans held firm when the more radical members of the Reformation went astray. We focus on the life and work of Jesus for you and for me, every day of our lives, forever and ever. The Bible isn't our master. Jesus is our master. The Bible points us to Jesus. The Bible informs us about Jesus. But the Bible will never save us. It will never deliver us from death. Only Jesus will do so. Jesus, the living word of God, the word “incarnate” - given to us in the flesh – he is the one by whose name we are saved. While much of American Christianity is diligent about being faithful to the Scripture, many groups never end up looking beyond what Jesus says to what Jesus is doing. Many of them never look beyond Jesus' promise to be with them to see that Jesus really is with them, bodily present in communion. Many of them look at baptism as a symbol of God's cleansing from sin but never see the reality that he is actually washing us when he baptizes us. Many in American Christianity just want to see the shadow of Jesus' work. We want to see Jesus, working in and through us. That's what we call “incarnational” ministry. We focus on Jesus, God with us, the one who came into the flesh when the Holy Spirit came to Mary.
We need that new prophet. We need him walking around with us. We need him talking with us. We need him to bring us to life. We need him to wash us from sin, to feed our faith with his real body and his real blood, we need him to die for us, to rise from the dead for us, and when we die to raise us to life from the dead. We need the new prophet. And thanks be to God, he has come.
Are you facing trials? Are you facing circumstances that may even be terrifying? We won't try to comfort you by throwing a book at you, telling you to read about how God is able to overcome those fears. No. Though it's all in there, we know that the time of trial is not the time to study God's providence. The time of trial is the time when we need that new prophet. The time of trial is when we look to Jesus. God has revealed himself in these last days in Jesus, and he is the one who is here to share our struggles, to hear our confession, to forgive us from sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, to make us walk in his paths, even the path he took through death into the resurrection. We may be in the time of Lent, a time of mourning. But the time of the resurrection is not far ahead of us. We will look to Jesus, the risen Lord, who is with us.
Now may the love of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, be perfected in you, casting out all fear, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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