Praise God for Palm Sunday!

/in /by

Passage: Luke 19:28-40

Pastor Horton

Date: April 13, 2025-Palm Sunday

What a day!  Maybe you are wondering what I mean by that.  For you, the day is just beginning.  In fact, it is not even 8:30 in the morning.  But in my homeland on the other side of the world, the sun is about an hour away from setting over the Judean hillside.  The day is almost over for me, but it is a day that I will never forget.

This Sunday began like many others.  I woke up after the Sabbath with many things to do.  I had to take care of some business in the village.  I had to take care of my animals in the yard.  And like you with your holiday rush, I had to make final preparations for the Passover that was now only a few days away.

At least I had it easier than many of my countrymen.  Some God-fearing Jews had to travel over a hundred miles to reach Jerusalem in time for the Feast.  My house was only a few miles away.  And especially at this time of year it was common to see a steady stream of pilgrims passing by on their travel into the Holy City.      

But this particular day was different.  There was an excitement in the air, something I could sense but not explain, something I could feel but not fully understand.  Maybe it was because the crowds were larger than usual.  Maybe it was because the buzz was louder than usual.  I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but my life was about to change forever.  What I am about to share with you is everything that happened to me today, a day when the prophecies of the Old Testament came to life, a day when I saw the Messiah with my own eyes, a day that shares its name with the branches the people were waving in the air.  And at the end of the day, I want you to share in my joy.  I want you to be at peace.  I want you to raise your voices with me and…PRAISE GOD FOR PALM SUNDAY.

As the sun peaked over the horizon, I loaded up my donkey to go into the village.  There was a chance that I would be taking home more than what one pack animal could carry, so I brought along her colt just in case.  This foal was not ready to be ridden, at least not yet, but it was strong enough to carry a few things in its saddle bags.

After the short trip into town, I tied the animals to a post and left.  It was a good thing my business didn’t take long because when I came back I found two men untying them.  At first I thought they were trying to steal the animals, but these men were not acting like thieves.   They were working slowly and deliberately, as if they were the rightful owners.  As I approached, I didn’t really know what to do so I said: “Why are you untying the colt” (Lk 19:33)?  They weren’t startled.  They weren’t surprised.  It was as if they knew my question before I even asked it.  They simply replied: “The Lord needs them”, and they gave me their word that they would return the animals shortly (see Mk 11:3). 

Even though these men were complete strangers to me, even though I didn’t know where they had come from or where they were going, even though losing these animals would set me back quite a bit of money, I let them go.  But I decided to follow at a distance, partly to make sure that my animals were safe, partly because I wanted to catch a glimpse of this “Lord” who needed them.  The two men led the donkey and her colt to a larger group.  Some put their cloaks on the animals, and then one of them sat on the colt, the colt that had never been ridden before.  That was strange, I thought to myself.  He did it with such ease.  He sat on that colt like he was its own, like he was in charge of much more than this animal.  It reminded me of a Bible passage I had learned as a boy, taken from the great prophet Zechariah: “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” (9:9).  As the group made its way on the road leading to Jerusalem, I wondered out loud: “Is this some kind of great coincidence, or am I in the presence of the Messiah himself?”

Now, I had work to do back at home, especially with the Passover only a few days away, but I couldn’t let this man out of my sight.  I decided to keep following at a distance, not knowing exactly what to expect.  And because there were many others on the road heading in the same direction, I was able to blend right in.

That was until one of the travelers almost ran me over.  He grabbed onto me to keep me from falling and exclaimed: “Oh, it’s good to see you!”  Since I had never met this man before, I had no idea what he was talking about.  “My name is Bartimaeus,” he said as he brushed himself off.  “I am from the city of Jericho, and until just a few days ago I was blind – I was sitting by the roadside begging for money one day when I heard this noise.  I was told, “it’s Jesus (as he pointed to the guy who just went past on the donkey).  I had even heard that he had the power to perform miracles, and hey, I had nothing to lose, so I shouted at the top of my lungs: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’ (Mk 10:47).”  “Some people were embarrassed by me.  Others tried to silence me.  But Jesus listened to me.  I’ll never forget those precious words: ‘Go.  Your faith has healed you’ (Mk 10:52).  Immediately my eyes were opened, and I have been following Jesus ever since.”

The man then disappeared into the crowds as quickly as he had appeared.  I didn’t know if I should believe him, but I knew that I couldn’t turn back.  I needed to keep following this man, wherever he was going.  I needed to learn more, so I stopped to ask a woman standing on the side of the road: “Do you know this man, the one they call Jesus?”  And she said with a smile: “Well, yes, I actually do.”

Her name was Martha, and Jesus had been staying with her and her sister Mary in Bethany.  She told me that she also had a brother named Lazarus who had died.  I was beginning to express my sympathy for her loss when she stopped me.  And I could tell by the look in her eyes that there was more to this story.  Martha told me that Jesus reassured her that he was the Son of God, the “resurrection and the life.”  Even though Lazarus had been dead for four days,” Martha told me, “Jesus called: ‘Lazarus, come out’ (Jn 10:43)!  And he did, linen strips, burial cloth and all.  Lazarus walked out of the tomb alive.”  That helped to explain the absolute excitement of the people who had come from all over to celebrate the Passover.  They had heard other amazing stories about Jesus, but now they had proof.   Lazarus was a living, breathing illustration of this man’s power.  Jesus was different.  Jesus was special.  And he was on his way to Jerusalem.

My unplanned journey brought me to the edge of the Mount of Olives overlooking the Holy City.  As Jesus began his final descent into the valley, the crowds grew larger and louder.  They treated this man like a king.  They threw their cloaks on the road.  They waved palm branches in the air.  And they declared: “Hosanna to the Son of David (Mt 21:9)!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Mk 11:9)!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Lk 19:38)!  Maybe it was the power of the moment.  Maybe it was the testimony of Bartimaeus and Martha.  Maybe it was a combination of things, but before I knew it I was a part of this grand procession.  Once inside the gates of the city, the people were overjoyed.  Children were singing about him.  Pilgrims were praising him. 

But not everyone was happy.  The Pharisees were visibly upset.  They came up to Jesus and demanded: “Teacher, rebuke your disciples” (Lk 19:39).  Their anger caught me off guard.  I don’t know why they wanted the people to stop.  Personally, I didn’t want this day to ever come to an end.  And Jesus wasn’t ready to put an end to the celebration either.  He replied: “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Lk 19:40).

The stones didn’t have to jump into action that day but eventually the crowds dispersed and the people went home.  As I retraced the route I had walked only a few hours earlier, I was able to think about all the things I had seen and heard.  I knew that something special had happened.  About an hour later, I heard a knock at the door.  It was the two disciples returning the animals they had borrowed that morning.  I invited them in and immediately began to ask them questions.  “Who is the one you call ‘Lord’?  Who is this Jesus?  Why has he come?  What do today’s events mean?”

The disciples admitted that they didn’t have all the answers.  They had been with Jesus for three years, and they still had some questions of their own.  But one of them did share with me something Jesus had shared with them when they started out on their journey:  “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.  On the third day he will be raised to life” (Mt 20:18,19)!

I didn’t witness anything like that, but then again nothing on this day was exactly as it appeared.  Jesus was hailed as a king, yet he rode on a common beast of burden.  Jesus was treated like a conquering hero, but he led no army.  Jesus accepted the praises of the adoring crowds, but he knew that those praises would not last.  And there was something else I thought about, something I could not get out of my mind.  Jesus knew exactly where my donkey was.  Jesus knew exactly what I would say.  That means he knows the future.  That means he knows what is waiting for him in Jerusalem.  And if he knows about the betrayal, if he knows about the condemnation, if he knows about the mocking and flogging and crucifixion and death, then why did he come?

I think I know why.  He did it for me.  And He did it for you.  He did it for those times when we are not so willing to part with our possessions.  He did it for those times when we are not so quick to follow him.  He did it for those times when we are content to let the stones sing his praises instead.  Jesus knew that without Palm Sunday there could be no Easter Sunday.  And so knowingly, willingly, humbly, and lovingly Jesus entered Jerusalem to complete his Father’s saving work, to suffer and die and rise again to take away my sins and your sins in full.

This is my story, but it isn’t exclusive to me.  This is your story too.  Maybe you weren’t right here alongside Bartimaeus, Martha, and myself, but you have heard about Jesus and all that he had done for you through the Word.  What a blessing God has given to you and to me!  Today Christians all over the world wave their palm branches in the air.  Today we worship our King.  Today we sing, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  Today we proclaim, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” and realize that we are the ones who are truly blessed in Jesus.  He rode on to save us from our sins.  Praise God for Palm Sunday!  Amen.        

Forget it!

/in /by

Passage: Isaiah 43:16-21

Date: April 6, 2025

Pastor: Pastor Horton

If I were to ask you to name the top ten miracles God performed in the Old Testament in order to save his people…what sort of miracles come to mind?  I dropped the question into chat gpt just to see how AI might rank such a list.  What were the first miracles that came to your mind?  What were God’s great acts done to save in the Old Testament?  Maybe you thought about the individuals who saw great deeds done for them from a God who knew them and loved them and spared them for his good purposes: David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, Jonah saved in the great fish, and the three men in the fiery furnace all made the list.  Also, according to AI, there were acts done to save the people in the sense of sustaining them with manna in the desert.  Also on the list was delivering an enemy into their hands such as the miracle of the walls of Jericho that came tumbling down.  Topping the list was, and certainly as far as magnificent-miracles go, I found Noah and the life-saving ark during the flood.  But right after that (#2) was a miracle recalled in our reading from the prophet Isaiah. 

Listen again to the opening words: “This is what the Lord says, who makes a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters, who brings out the chariot and the horses, the army and the strong warrior.  They will all lie down together.  They will not get up.  They are extinguished.  Like a wick they go out.”  Can you guess the second overall pick by AI for God’s greatest Old Testament saving miracle?  It is the miracle of crossing the Red Sea.  Do you remember that one?  Do you remember God leading his people out of Egypt and their oppression only to find themselves with their backs to the ocean?  Do you remember how the Angel of God moved the pillar of cloud behind them to defend them from the aggressive Egyptians?  And how God had Moses raise his staff and hand as God sent wind to separate the water into walls and allow his people to be saved passing through on dry ground?  Do you remember how those heroic and fierce warriors of Egypt along with pharaoh barreled into the passageway in hot pursuit?  And how they didn’t dabble when it came to going on the attack but they all went in and none came out?  How were told that “the Lord threw the Egyptians into the middle of the sea.”  Every one of them extinguished like a wick in an instant. 

The Israelites certainly remembered God’s saving act.  They remembered the exodus by celebrating the passover each and every year.  It was a big deal before the Babylonian captivity and a big deal to bring it back upon their return to the Promised Land.  It served as a hallmark moment of God’s ability and willingness to save.

Do you remember?  Because God says today in our reading, that along with all those other miracles, “forget it.”  Wait what?  Verse 18, “Do not remember the former things.  Do not keep thinking about ancient things.”  Why would Israel and why would we forget it?  What is God talking about?  We don’t forget his great and miraculous acts to save!  But those events aren’t the best part of his grand plan of our salvation.  We are being told to not dwell on the past, because God had something even better coming in the future.  Something not even worth comparing to God’s gracious glories of the past.  Something great has been planned.  And that involves a promise fulfilled of a Savior in Christ the Lord.

“Forget it!  Forget the past!”  Those were also comforting words for the Israelites because not all of their history with God was good or glorious.  Their diary of events in the Old Testament was often downright putrid.  Like the former time when Israel stood in blatant rebellion against Moses and therefore also against God and many of them were swallowed alive when the earth opened up.  Or the former time when they grew impatient with God’s plan and they grumbled and poisonous snakes were sent into the camp as punishment?  Or the former time when God was up on Mt. Sinai yet the people’s hearts were down below honoring a golden calf?  Those former things?  Those former sins?!  “Forget it” declares God.  “Those former sins are now gone in the righteous blood of my Anointed One, the Christ.”  Through these words God is declaring reconciliation and peace for his people.

“Forget it!  Forget the past!”  We need God to say those things to each of us as well, don’t we?  It’s not all that hard and doesn’t take all that long to begin to think back to the former things that we have done that have been sinful.  We know.  We’re embarrassed by our sin.  We think back to those moments when we have done absolutely destructive damage to someone’s reputation with our words when we couldn’t control the firestorm of hurt we ignited.  There are those former thoughts that ran unchecked through our minds – thoughts not in line with God’s will.  And there are those former actions that cause great regret – a regret that can consume us as we dare not look up to a holy God in heaven.  Maybe you know all too well what I’m taking about.  Maybe you have scars, figurative but maybe even literally of your former things – our former sins.  The devil loves to have our past sin linger.  “Forget it!” declares God.  “Forget the past!”

This Lent, we traipse around in the desolate desert of our sin’s reality.  Just like Israel had done as they traipsed around while wandering in the wilderness, or as they traipsed off into Babylonian captivity, and then traipsed back home some 70 years later.  Their sin and God’s miracles were both before their eyes.  Like them, left to ourselves, our sin would only result in us traipsing into death – death now and forever.  Like them, we needed God to forgive, forget, make our loutlook new, and put the spring back into our spiritual step.

And has he ever done that!  Our reading continues as God proclaims, “Watch, I am about to do a new thing.  Now it will spring up.  Don’t you know about it?  Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness.  In the wasteland I will make rivers.  The wild animals, the jackals and ostriches, will honor me, because I am providing water in the wilderness, rivers in a parched wasteland, water for my chosen people to drink.  This people that I formed for myself will declare my praise.”

Now, we have a new reality.  For the Israelites, God would move monarchs to create a path back home for his people.  Now God alone would act to again save and to deliver.  Just as God alone has acted to save us from sin and death and hell.  God sent his son, whom he loves, into this world.  And even though, as we were reminded in today’s gospel, the world rejected him – still Christ Jesus bore all of our sins at his cross.  God would act to give us a path home to heaven through Jesus, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Where only desolation and death existed for us, a new change in Jesus is welcome!  It is God who gives us a faith to believe him and God who formed for himself a people who know him and trust in him by that faith.  In a spiritual landscape where desolation, despair, and death once reigned, now God has made the life-giving water burst forth and change our reality.  Now we have a clear purpose and destination in service to our Lord.  Now we have forgiveness and a new day of grace in Jesus.  Now, through Christ, our parched souls are quenched and our lives have a newness, relief, and restoration.  Paul rejoices in writing to the Philippians: “Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Israel of old could forget their past because God had forgotten and forgiven their past.  Even with all the great miracles, God had an even better future mapped out for them.  One to bring them home.  Deliverance was theirs.  And so it is with you, dear believer!  Deliverance is yours as well!  God has done some pretty amazing miracles in your life, bringing you to faith and keeping you in the palm of his hand.  Forget the former sins of your past.  For they are forgotten in the cross of Christ.  Appreciate who you are and what you are and where you are because of Jesus today – as you have new opportunity to live and serve him.  And look forward to God’s great and gracious miracle of bringing us home to heaven.  That is where our journey is headed in Jesus.  And may we never forget that!  Amen.

It is Hidden in the Savior’s Rejection by the World

/in /by

Passage: John 18:33-19:21

Date: March 12, 2025

Pastor: Pastor Horton

Up and under.  Up to Jesus’ cross.  And under our own.  As we continue the Lenten journey, we consider the cross bearing that we share with Christ and that he shares with us: The cross always brings rejection, and to our astonishment, that rejection has glory hidden in it.  And tonight we find rejection from the world.  The world does not understand the cross and does not want to.  Listen to a portion of Jesus’ trial before the world in the court of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate: “‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.  Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’  ‘What is truth?’” Pilate asked.”

Could there be a sharper contrast?  On the one side is Jesus.  He testifies that he is a king and  that all who are on the side of truth listen to him.  Yes, listen to him in the sense of hearing and holding to his Word, in the sense of believing him, trusting him, and following after him. 

But on the other side, what does the world see?  A pathetic sight!  Ridiculous claim!  This Jesus a king?  Handed over by his own people who scream for his death?  Jesus’ kingdom consists of those who love the truth—and yet there is not one person who defends him, or speaks out for him, or is willing to come forward and declare himself a follower of this King?  Not one?  The world even prefers option B for Barabbas, a rebel and a murderer.  After all, how is it that this king is captive to a petty Roman official?  Beaten and spat upon by his own people.  Soon about to endure far worse at the hands of Pilate’s soldiers.  “Some king!”  The world says.  “Some kingdom!  Some truth!”

And there stands Pilate, vocal representative for the world.  He views and judges this Jesus through his eyes of human reason.  Will he uphold justice?  He listens to Jesus.  But no, justice would lose out to his love of his position and convenience.  His reason rules, and it finds the whole message to be nothing but foolishness, and a nuisance, and bother, and inconvenient, and sparking a troublesome mob.  Pilate sees no criminal in Jesus and yet punishes him anyways with flogging, a gruesome and painful torture that often killed its victims, and then the execution of this king. 

Why such hostility?  Such anger?  Such violence against someone that on the outside seems so weak and frail, even foolish?  It all hinges on that one little word that Jesus spoke to Pilate, the word “truth.”  Jesus said that he was the King of truth, who had come into the world to bear witness to the truth!  Pilate, however, wanted no truth from this Jesus.  He had already made up his mind.  He was not going to hear this guy preach about truth.  He reasoned, “there is only me; there is only the moment.  My truth is that I already have my needs, my wants, my will, my goals, my ambition, my pleasure, my power.  And we understand Pilate, because by nature we want what he does.  Any other truth is bound to get in the way of those things.  Something else?  Something more?  Such a truth would challenge me to give up my single-minded devotion to me. 

If Pilate would have listened, would things have turned out different?  No.  For the message of Jesus and his cross always provokes hatred and hostility from the world.  The truth of the law calling out my devotion to myself was there in fallen Eden and every day since.  This truth is that even in our best works and on our best days, we still offend the holiness and justice of God.  That truth is irritating.  We recoil at it.  Because we want divine truth to be about me in the moment.  This is evident over the pages of history, evident when I look into the honest mirror of God’s law, and evident from the mouth of Jesus.  And I still don’t want to hear it.  You and I declare with Pilate: “Away with this truth and the King who proclaims it!” 

But wait!  Thankfully there is more to the message from the King of truth than the guilty verdict over all of us and all our works.  He comes chiefly and primarily with this greatest truth of all: that he himself is the solution to the problem of our sin.  He is our only solution.

And how will he solve the problem of sin?  Will he give us a new law to keep?  Will he tell us that our sin doesn’t matter after all?  Will he bid us to just do the best we can and God will be satisfied and overlook the rest?  Is that the great truth that he brings?  No!  If that were the truth that Jesus brought, the people would not have flogged and crucified him.  But the King declares himself to be the only solution to the problem of sin, of death and hell that all deserve.  Christ alone will embrace all the sin and guilt of the world as our substitute.  The solution is that salvation will be a free gift, won by the crucified, secured for us by the crucified, and given in the message of the crucified.  But, tragically, the truth of the gospel that saves is even more despised than the truth of the law that condemns.

So here is the great mystery and the profound truth: So depraved is mankind that by nature we hate to be told the truth that we are depraved; and so great is our corruption that by nature we hate still more the truth that the only solution to the punishment we deserve is Jesus, the King of truth. You would think that people would stampede to this Jesus who delivers from death and hell.  Not so.  Now if we offered them free gas or free health care or free money, we would be trampled in the stampede.  But free salvation?  Free heaven?  Free rescue from hell?  No, not that!  “Away with him!  Crucify him!  Give us Barabbas!”

Jesus’ cross alone saves.  Up we go to follow.  Yet those who follow to the cross must also follow under the cross.  That is the mark of the Christian, the sign of the cross.  For wherever the King of truth appears with the message of truth, there will be hostility, opposition, and at times even violence.  

As a cross has two beams, so the hostility to the cross has two beams as well.  The first beam is the one that we carry from our own nature.  Our own flesh, along with Pilate, dismissed Jesus’ truth.  By nature we don’t want an answer outside of ourselves.  “Right and wrong that come from God?  I already have me” we reason.  “I’m going to value this today and that tomorrow.”  People shouldn’t commit adultery; but if my children or my friends live together before marriage.  “But I’ll just look the other way.”  People shouldn’t hold grudges or gossip.  “But, God, you don’t know what was done to me!”  People shouldn’t steal or cheat.  “But the prices are too high and people have stolen from and cheated me!”  People shouldn’t be arrogant and self-righteous, “but let’s face it, we really are better than most, aren’t we?”

Then comes the confession in the liturgy: “I, a poor miserable sinner.” “No, no,” objects our flesh, “I don’t want to hear about that.  It’s so depressing!.”  Then comes the message of forgiveness: “In the cross of Christ you have all you need.  You are forgiven.  Your sin washed away.  You are redeemed by Jesus and restored as a dear child of God!’”  But the inborn flesh likes that news even less!  “Well, yea but I work hard.  I deserve what I get.  God is at least a little bit lucky that I’m on his side, and be at least a little flattered that I believe in him at all, given the world we live in today.  And if he doesn’t treat me right, I’ll show him and walk away from him, his church, and his truth.”

So the first beam of the cross that we Christians carry is the beam of our own sinful nature that hates the truth of the law and despises the truth of the gospel.  The second beam is the hostility of the world, who simply can’t stand the message of truth about Jesus.  Our world wallows in vice and wears corruption as if it were a badge of honor.  Perversions demand honor and respect in the world.  And woe to anyone who says, “But the Bible shares truth.”  And woe to anyone who says, “Jesus is the only solution and the only way to heaven.”  “No, no!  Away with such a one,” the world declares.  “Away with such a one from the earth!” 

So we see Jesus today in our reading.  The King.  The one who brings truth, the only truth.  His glory and the glory of the truth that saves is hidden under the cross.  The world wants no part of him.  And still, watch his reaction!  You might expect a lightning bolt from heaven to strike the crowd or earthquake under Pilate’s to make the world listen to the truth that Jesus has come to proclaim.  He endures it!  He takes it!  

Truth from the King is enough.  The time will come for his awe and wonder – for his exaltation and for judgment.  But that is all in his hands and not ours.  We journey under the cross as we go up to the cross.  We share the weakness and the humiliation until the Last Day.  And why is that?  Because our glory too is hidden under the cross of rejection.  Jesus works his Word  quietly in hearts creating faith when and where the Spirit wills it.  It is a miracle brought on by the gospel message, not by our theatrics, cleverness, might, or merit.  

The whole world may want to get rid of the cross and its truth – and the world has tried for almost two thousand years.  Yet gospel truth remains in the world, creating faith as God wills.  The truth still creates saints who lay their whole lives of sin and shame at the foot of Jesus’ cross.  Thousands still rise up while under the cross, to sing the praises of the Lamb that was slain and has redeemed us by his blood.  They rejoice in Christ.  They do not depend on a poll or public opinion or the views of human intellect.  No, their certainty rests on the Word of God and the work of God, even under the cross of hostility and persecution.  Heaven and earth may pass away.  But what Jesus gives will last forever!  Oh, may we always remain in the blessed number of those who know that glory hidden under the cross. Amen.

“It is Hidden in the Savior’s Solitude”

/in /by

Passage: Luke 18:31-34

Date: March 5, 2025, Ash Wednesday

Pastor: Pastor Horton

Our Lenten journey this year begins with the Lenten journey of Jesus and his disciples as it was so many years ago.  We hear Jesus’ call to go with him up to Jerusalem and to the cross  in Luke 18:31-34:  “He took the Twelve aside and said to them, “‘Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.  Indeed, he will be handed over to the Gentiles.  They will mock him, mistreat him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him.  On the third day, he will rise again.’  They did not understand any of these things.  What he said was hidden from them, and they did not understand what was said.”

Jesus’ call to them and to us on this Ash Wednesday, gives us a bloodcurdling preview of what we are about to see in

this great drama of Lent.  It is horrible in the extreme.  It is shocking.  The Creator of the universe will be mocked and insulted?  How can that be?  The one who gave us breath at birth will be beaten within an inch of his life?  Is that possible?  He who is the author of every good and perfect gift that we have ever had since we were born, will be cruelly tormented and then shamefully executed?  His glory is hidden – hidden completely in the cross.

Do you ever wish that you could have been there?  Does the thought ever spring to mind: “Ah, Lord Jesus, if only you could have taken me along!  Maybe I could have helped you.  Maybe I could have wiped your face with a cool towel.  Maybe I could have yelled to the crowds that all that you were doing was for our salvation.  Maybe I could have been at least one witness on your behalf at your trials.  Maybe I could have done something, just some little thing, to lighten your burden, to show my love and gratitude for what you were doing for me.”  Don’t you sometimes want to say that to him as he begins his journey again to the cross?

Jesus takes us aside with the Twelve and announces, “We are going up to Jerusalem.”  And by faith we follow after him but we cannot help him.  The Twelve could not help him either.  Take note of the glory hidden in the coming cross.  Jesus makes it clear that “We are going up to Jerusalem.”  And after that one little word, “we,” the subject of the sentence changes.  He does not say, “We are 

going up, and we will suffer.”  No.  We are going up.  But it is Jesus alone who will suffer.  The Son of Man alone will fulfill the Scriptures.  The Son of Man alone will be mocked, insulted, spit upon, flogged, and killed.  All who follow him to the cross, his first disciples and we along with them, can therefore only be spectators at this great drama that is about to unfold.  He will not go there to show off his glory.  His glory is that he alone is the Savior.  His glory is hidden in the horrible solitude of all he suffered that our salvation should be entirely the gift that comes through his cross and his alone.

This is the way it must be, Jesus would tell us.  For he is going with purpose.  He is going to fulfill the Scriptures, to fulfill all that was written about him in the Old Testament.  Nothing will soften the blows.  Nothing will relieve the pain.  No one will help him.  Not his mother, not the Twelve, not the church or the state; no one helped him. To be sure, the angels served him for a moment in Gethsemane.  But during his trial and execution, even the angels are nowhere to be told.  Oh, what sadness that we cannot help him whom we love and adore!

The truth is that we would prefer to have the shame of his passion hidden and the glory of his resurrection on display.  But Jesus will have none of that.  All will see his shame.  No one will view the glory of the resurrection.  That will be hidden and made known only by his Word and the testimony of the few who saw him after that incredible event.  

But there is still more to it than all that.  Not only do we not help him in his agony – we caused it all in the first place.  From beginning to end, all that he has said that he will do on this journey he is doing in our place, in our stead, and on our behalf.  Was he despised and rejected?  We should have been.  Was he left alone with no help in the hour of pain and sorrow?  We should be.  Did even his Father abandon him at the crucial moment on the cross so that in the midst of life he was suffering the torments of the condemned in hell?  That was our lot.  We were conceived and born deserving that.  We have turned aside from his Word and sinned every day so that we deserve his suffering for all time and for all eternity.  

And truth be told, we didn’t even care that our sins would bring him to such suffering, such abuse, such a death.  How many times in a day do we turn aside from him without even thinking and refuse even to go up with him to Jerusalem?  We have better things to do.  We have our minds and hearts fixed not on him but on our own pleasure and convenience.  It is easier to watch television or scroll on our phones than to pray.  It is more convenient to love gossip or the lusts of the flesh than his cross.  For family bickering, there is always time.  For his Word and a family devotion, well, perhaps later.  It is time now, we often think, for the sports highlights, not for highlights in his words of salvation.

And it gets worse still.  We imagine in our total wickedness and depravity that we are not totally wicked and depraved.  We yawn or maybe even get irritated when someone points it out, especially during Lent.  We vainly assume that somehow or other there is at least a scrap of merit in us for which we should not have to suffer and for which he should therefore not have had to suffer either.  To put it another way, we imagine there is some good in us that does not require his journey to the cross.  We don’t like to recognize, much less confess the sin of our arrogance. It is the sin of thinking that at least a little bit in us needs no forgiveness and, yes, is even deserving of some eternal reward.

Where’s Jesus?  Going up to Jerusalem to suffer for everything that we are and have been when we did not perfectly love God and serve him with all of our hearts, all of our minds, all of our strength.  And when was that?  Every moment of our lives!

For we go up to Jerusalem, up to the cross with him in Lent.  But don’t follow too closely, as if you were going to somehow be of help to him.  We can do nothing to help him.  All that we have done only adds to his sorrow, his pain, his suffering, his death.  We are the cause even on our best days.  We are his curse. 

And so we go up there with him, following him at a distance, as he carries his cross all alone.  It is Jesus who must suffer and die.  He, and he alone, must do it all, or we are doomed.  Just think of it!  If he had required our help in 

order to accomplish our redemption –  we only would have ruined it.  We are sinners.  We cannot do anything at all that does not carry the stench of sin, the smell of death, the sulfur of hell on it.  We go up with him.  But he must do it all, or we are lost.  That is the glory hidden in the solitude of the cross, the solitude that Jesus must do it alone or we must perish.

And yet take heart!  As we follow Jesus up to Jerusalem as he invited, we see in him: our deliverance!  Lent holds both sorrow and great joy.  He is our peace, our life, our salvation.  Listen to him as you go up with him to Jerusalem.  There is not one word of complaint that falls from his lips.  There is not the least trace of bitterness or 

anger in his tone.  He does not accuse us as we deserve.  He does not shame us as we might expect.  No, none of that.  He alone will suffer, and he will suffer alone.  

And that is exactly the way he wants it to be.  His march to Jerusalem is a march of doom for him but of triumph for us.  It is defeat and death for him but a victory parade for us.  His face is set with determination to do all that needs to be done to fulfill the Scriptures for us.  His will is like iron and cannot be bent to turn him away from his purpose of paying the price of our wickedness and our total depravity.  So full, so perfect, so complete is his love for us.  So full, so perfect, so complete is his yearning for our salvation.  He wants to do it!  He not only does not need our help; he does not want our help either!  Every fiber of his being strains and stretches on the way to the cross for our salvation.  Without our aid, he made us.  Without our aid, he redeems us.

Now let us go up to Jerusalem with him!  Let us follow him starting this Ash Wednesday, but not too closely as though we would help him.  Let us go up with him and follow to the cross.  Let us be filled with sorrow for our sin that caused it all.  But then let us be filled with joy beyond all sorrow, that he did it all and he did it alone in great love.  For that is the glory hidden on the cross, the glory that he wanted, the glory of redeeming us by his work there.  Let us watch and keep watching until we hear the victory cry: HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!  Amen.

One Shining Moment

/in /by

Passage: Exodus 34:29-35

Date: March 2, 2025

Pastor: Pastor Horton

Are you familiar with this song?  “The ball is tipped…And there you are…You’re running for your life…You’re a shooting star…”  Any guesses?  What if I continue: “In one shining moment, it’s all on the line…One shining moment, there frozen in time.” It’s a song, recorded by a few artists now called “One Shining Moment.”  It’s played at the end of the final March Madness college basketball tournament when the Big Dance wraps up and a musical montage recaps all the great and memorable moments in the tournament.  And yes, I did my research and rewatched the “One Shining Moment” montage from 2015 when the Badgers made that great run to the championship game beating undefeated Kentucky, making them 38-1 (done) with Sam Dekker, Frank Kaminski, and Bronson Koenig.  And no, I don’t want to talk about the last 10 minutes of the championship game.  It was a memorable basketball run.  One Shining Moment.  Who knows, maybe this weekend here in our Eastside gymnasium, one of the teams or players here today may have their one shining moment as well.

Moses did.  Literally.  His face shone so brightly he needed a veil to cover it.  Why?  Because of the moments he had before God witnessing some of the glory of God.     

Do you remember Moses?  The disciples did.  He lived at one of those major moments in Israel’s history.  God used him to lead the Israelites out of their Egyptian slavery.  It was a shining moment for them, because it marked their birth, no longer as a family or tribe of people, but as a nation.  And when they came out of Egypt, instead of God leading the Israelites directly northeast to the Promised Land, he led them south.  God wanted them to see something out in the desert, at a mountain called Sinai.  They camped at the foot of the mountain.  You may remember how it was covered with black clouds and lightning.  Out of the thunder God called Moses up the mountain.  Many days later Moses came down and proclaimed God’s laws to Israel.  And here is how the Israelites knew Moses had one shining moment with the great I AM – we’re told: “Moses did not realize that the skin of his face was shining because he had been speaking with the LORD.” (Exodus 34:29).  He was shining with God’s glory.  He spoke God’s Words, and when he was done speaking God’s Word, the glory was covered with a veil.

One might reason that it should be the other way around.  You might think that when his face was glowing, that then the veil should be on, and then when his face stopped glowing, that then one could take the veil off.  But God always does things his way, always with his reasons.  Instead, when Moses was proclaiming the words straight from God, the people had to look at his shining, unveiled face.  Then, when Moses was done speaking, the shining glory began to fade away – it was then that he covered his face.  They never saw the plain old Moses.  Their only impression of him would be that of, well, “One Shining Moses”.  Why?

You know how it is with us.  What is amazing on Sunday is the new normal on Monday and thrown in the trash on Tuesday.  God didn’t want that to happen with his words of truth.  And so the veil that covered “One Shining Moses” was a reminder that Moses had spoken God’s word.  And even though he was just a regular guy, he was still God’s spokesman.  So, the veil wasn’t to hide the glory of God, but to hide the un-glory of the imperfect man Moses.  In addition, the veil served as a reminder that the laws given through Moses were temporary.  So, the man Moses was not able to save.  And the law given by the man Moses was unable to save, but they all pointed forward to a better reality.

We would do well to stop and think about how this applies to us today.  Because the truth is we want shining moments before God.  And much like a basketball player hitting a game winning three pointer, we often think that we can create such moments through the law.  We want to shine before God when it comes to our own deeds and accomplishments.  We want to hang our hat of salvation, not upon Moses’ name but upon ourselves. 

But humans are not able to save themselves.  For God tells us that the law demands perfection.  And it probably doesn’t take very long for each of us to recognize that we have lost some of the sparkle and razzle dazzle we had hoped to find within ourselves.  Take a quick look at your life as I do mine and we and realize that we have fallen far short of what the law demands.  Our hymnals even lead us through a series of questions we can use to examine our hearts before God and help us to recognize our great need to receive forgiveness at the Lord’s Supper.  Have we always made the most of our moments in ways that honor God?  Or have we wasted some of our time of grace on mindless pursuits, pastimes, and handheld devices?  Have we been the best employer, employee, and spouse, child, parent, or friend we could be?  Or have we had some not so shining moments of pettiness, selfishness, and stubbornness?  Have we been great encouragers and prayerful in light of God’s grace?  Or have we been mean and vindictive?   Have we always loved God above all things and loved hearing from his Word?  Or have we thought at times that we’re good enough law-keepers all on our own?  Should I keep going?  Because I could – I could keep calling you and me out.  Far from perfect people, we find in ourselves a darkness of sin – something we are born with and something we need help from God to be rid of.  And God helps us look away from ourselves and towards his solution in his Son.  We need shining moments with Jesus.

God opens up his glowing gospel for us today.  The true glory of God is only seen in Christ Jesus.  Here is perfection.  In his life, in his innocent death, in accomplishing our salvation, by swiping away every last one of our sins at the cross and declaring total triumph for you over death at his now empty tomb – which now radiates victory.  Jesus blocked  – he stuffed – the devils best work to destroy us.  Jesus himself says in John 12:46, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”  God’s plan to fulfill the law in Jesus was a complete success.  And now we, who have been made right before God in Jesus, we can joyfully live for him, not living in the shadow of what we have done but living for the light before us.  You know what really causes rejoicing in basketball – it’s when a player throws down a giant dunk.  The crowd gets on their feet and erupts in celebration.  We have more to rejoice over in our Savior Jesus!

And what’s more is that God gives us shining moments with Jesus, and helps our faith grow in him.  Our epistle reading tells us, “But all of us who reflect the Lord’s glory with an unveiled face are bring transformed into his own image.”  What a difference this shining moment makes for you and me!  When Moses came down the mountain after talking with God – the Israelites were afraid of him.  The law brings fear.  But the gospel of Jesus gives to us a peace that the world cannot and a peace that we cannot give to ourselves even through all our self-saving efforts to follow the law.  Jesus removes fear and helps us grow in life and in love.  Jesus changes hearts and renews souls.  That’s why today we look beyond the “one shining Moses,” we find the glory of God’s one and only Son.  

No matter if our basketball teams have the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat this weekend – we have these moments in the gospel right now with Jesus.  We see his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration.  We see it veiled at times though Lent but there shining bright again in Holy Week!  And we get to have our “one shining moments” here at church with Jesus.  We see his coming to us as our needed Savior through his same powerful message.  We hear his gospel of peace.  We have his body and blood with the bread and wine in the Supper and we get forgiveness through him as he promises you!  We know that these moments are faith-building moments because God has promised to be present and at work through such means for our salvation.

And we can rejoice.  Because one day we will get to see the glory of God with our own eyes – better than what Moses did and longer than what the disciples had.  One might say, that all thanks to Jesus, our future song may not be “one shining moment,” but something more to the tune of “Forever with the Lord…Amen so let it be” .  Thank you, Jesus.  Amen.

Forgiven Forgive

/in /by

Date: February 23, 2025

Passage: Genesis 45:3–15
Pastor: Pastor Horton

A 17-year-old author named Pliny the Younger watched, as a firsthand witness, as Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burying the city of Pompei.  He wrote about the event and said that a dense cloud shot up like a pine tree and the ash of eruption spread out in the air like the branches of a tree.  He watched as large walls of fire spewed from the mountainside.  Darkness covered over those who lived in the shadow of the volcano, and many perished.  I imagine as an eyewitness to this, you had to have been awestruck, overwhelmed, and paralyzed by fear.

We aren’t often in such situations thankfully.  But I imagine such an emotion had to have swept over the eleven men in the Old Testament reading for this morning.  Awestruck, overwhelmed, and paralyzed by fear.  Not because of what they had seen but because they had just heard.  Can you picture them with their eyes fixed on the man standing in front of them?  Their adrenaline pumping, their flight or flight response perhaps kicking in, maybe they were even pale in appearance as blood rushed to their muscles and brain.  They were scared to death all because of what he just said. 

“I am Joseph.”  And you could hear a pin drop.  In an unexpected plot twist, the Egyptian leader who stood before them was their brother.  And you might expect this to be some sort of a happy family reunion – after all, it had been a whopping 20 years of separation from one another – but it wasn’t.  More likely, is that those years had weighed heavy with the brothers’ guilty conscience. 

We do know that they were haunted by the memory of selling Joseph off into slavery.  They confessed their guilt to each other in a previous chapter saying, “we saw the misery of his soul when he begged us, but we would not listen.”  The last time they had seen their brother, he was pleading to them for his life.  What were they laughing at him?  Mocking him?  Were they distracted from his impassioned begging as their eyes looked over the clanging coins handed to them by slave traders?  These human traffickers would get rid of their goody-two-shoes brother once and for all!  Even if it meant keeping a secret from their loving father.  But as the years went by, the memories remain.  As they grew up, and got married, and had their own families, what they did to their flesh-and-blood brother was guilt they couldn’t shake.  And that must have made them miserable!

But now Joseph, through incredible turns of events directed by God’s merciful hand, had been raised up and stood him before his brothers.  This was far more than family members bumping into each other at the local McDonalds.  They were in a palace, and it was Joseph’s palace.  Maybe you have met a famous person or even a powerful politician, but probably not one with the authority of Joseph.  He was now the right-hand man to the king of Egypt, a senior statesman in this world superpower, and overseer to feeding the western world as the living God personally aided him in planning for the famine.  This power is that kind of power you find in regimes or dictatorships.  What Joseph says goes.  And if he wants you gone – it is so.  Object to his decision, and you will soon disappear as well.  As they looked up to Joseph, they knew that the full vengeance backed by the might of Egypt could rightly come crashing down upon them worse than a wall of fire from Mt. Vesuvius.  It’s no wonder the Bible tells us that “His brothers could not answer him, because they were terrified by his presence.”

But then Joseph did the unbelievable, he forgave them.  Again, cue the pin drop.  He forgave them.  And he promised to take care of them.  And he promised to give them land in Egypt so that they could be safe and close to him.  And this promise of providence extended to their families and to their grandchildren.  What is happening?  They stood speechless.  But maybe some of the color slowly returned to their faces as Joseph repeats his message of forgiveness and blessings.  And twenty years of guilt slowly begin to melt away.  Forgiven forgive!

This is what God wants for you.  In fact, this is what God has given to you in Christ Jesus.  Forgiveness.  It should amaze us every single night that we have been forgiven in Jesus.  Why?  Because every single day we sin against God.  Maybe it’s using his name in vain, or neglected time with his word, or reacted with petty thoughts towards someone else’s blessings, or you name it – and we have sinned it.  Especially when it comes to the relationships we have with one another.  Sometimes we have the biggest issues with those closest to us in life and have a hard time forgiving. 

How could Joseph do it?  How could he forgive his family who did him so very wrong?  His relationship with God impacted his relationship with others.  He knew where he stood with the Almighty God, and that he had been treated far better than his sins deserved.  As we approach the cross of Christ, we underserving believers see, appreciate, and reflect the love of God found there in our relationship with other, fellow, undeserving individuals.

Real forgiveness is hard.  It’s more than being nice to someone.  It’s more than getting along with a difficult person.  It involves being wronged – being sinned against – and letting our right to be mad melt away so that soothing and healing might take place.  That’s hard because we want that self-seeking right to be mad.  We sinful humans want our anger to burn red hot and we want to extract volcanic vengeance for years – maybe even for a lifetime.  It is hard to forgive and to be at peace with whatever issue may be.  It involves resisting the temptation to go and pull it back out of the dumpster at a later date.  Forgiveness from Jesus is full and free.  With him our wrongs are gone forever.  “Help me Lord Jesus,” could be our nightly prayer, “to fully and freely forgive ________ (you fill in the blank) as you have first forgiven me.”  Forgiven, forgive.

 Was it easy for Joseph?  After all he was now the one with power and authority.  It may not have been easy.  There may have been trauma from all those years of being unfairly treated.  There may have been moments of doubt, certainly questions of God while unfairly suffering during those prime-of-life years.  Was there some temptation to extract some degree of payback for his brothers?

What we do have is the example he gives us.  Jospeh speaks nothing but gracious words to his brothers.  We find Jesus’ instruction from our gospel lesson on display in this account: “I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Another example is the simple trust in God’s control over his life.  Forgiveness understands and believes God’s promise that “all things work together for the good of those who love God.”  Joseph believed that.  Three times he said this about his slavery and prison term: “God sent me ahead of you.”  Those lost years were not his brother’s doing, but God’s doing.  Forgiveness becomes easier when we trust God to use our lives – the good and the bad – to ultimately serve his bigger plans. 

One more lesson, we find in this reading that forgiveness is loving and also honest.  Not all the deaths caused by Mt. Vesuvius were from giant boulders falling on people.  Some deaths were from lots of little soot, ash, and pebbles building up on roofs until they collapsed.  When there is sin committed, forgiveness does not sweep it under the rug, but addresses it.  Joseph did that.  He doesn’t say let’s not speak of this ever again, but tells his brothers “do not be upset or angry with yourselves for selling me to this place.”   Naming the sin, even as lots of little ones build up upon an issue, helps the forgiveness process address and remove the issue, and allows both sides to move on in peace.

Often after a disaster there is some calm.  For the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, it would take time to clean up and rebuild in the region.  Sometimes forgiveness takes time as well.  Sometimes that time is at the end of a loved one’s life when a family is able to talk honestly and lovingly – forgiving and lifting guilt off of hearts.  Joseph and his brothers would take time and patience to rebuild the trust in their relationship.  Why not start today for us?  Let’s return to the cross of Jesus to find forgiveness for us.  And with God’s help, may we Forgiven, Forgive.  Amen. 

“Chosen!”

/in /by

Author: Pastor Horton

Passage: Jeremiah 1:4-10

Date: February 2, 2025

There was a commercial a few years ago which took place in a baseball dugout.  The team, made up of community adults were watching their at-bat play out.  The coach says, “we need a clutch hit”, and looks down the row of men on the bench and calls out a name: “Derek.”  And an average athlete with an unkept appearance jumps up  – albeit surprised that he is one called upon in this moment.  The coach clarifies, and pointing behind the man says, “Derek….Jeter.”  And the Hall of Fame Yankee shortstop, hero to some, with 14 All Star Games and 5 World Series Rings stands up behind him ready to score the needed run…and does.  Whoops.  That’s the one the coached wanted – that’s the chosen one.

It’s a short commercial but one we can relate to because we have maybe been that child on the playground wanting to get picked – or have wanted to be the one chosen for special academic recognition – or chosen for an artistic award.  And simply as social human beings we long for acceptance and want to be chosen as one of the team with equal respect among our friends, our family, and our peers.  But what about when it comes to being chosen by God? 

We may know some of the Bible stories with “chosen ones,” those heroes of faith.  We hold them in high regard, and rightly so.  The things they endured.  The crosses they carried – both figuratively and literally.  The times and places in which they served.  And, over and above all that, the confidence with which they stood . . . firm and unmoved.  Rightly, they hold the title: “hero.” 

But remember also what some of them endured as “chosen” ones of God.  Hebrews 11:36-38 tells us that, “Still others experienced mocking and lashes, in addition to chains and imprisonment.  They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were tempted; they were killed with the sword; they went around in sheepskins and goatskins, needy, afflicted, and mistreated.  The world was not worthy of them as they wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.”  And yikes!  Who would want to be chosen for any of that!?!

Even though his name doesn’t appear in that chapter, Jeremiah is for us, a deserving “hero of faith.”  His steady proclamation of God’s Word and warning took place over the reign of a number of kings who drifted with the people away from God and away from repentance before God.  For his steadfastness, Jeremiah would be threatened, imprisoned, and call a national traitor.  And this morning, our lesson takes us all the way back to his calling.  We see him as the Derek-Jeter hero type, but he may have initially been feeling like more of the bum on the bench.  How could Jeremiah serve as he did?  Where did Jeremiah’s confidence come from?  And like him, we also have been chosen by the same Lord God to speak for him and to represent him in this world.  We find an answer in this account of Jeremiah, for our confidence comes from what the LORD did, what He does, and what He will do.  Our reading highlights this.  It beings:

“The word of the Lord came to me.  Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I set you apart.  I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”  Perhaps the first thing we need to note is that, in grace, the LORD came to Jeremiah – that’s important.  This prophet wouldn’t be chosen by his own selection.  He didn’t discover the word of the Lord by meditation and breathing exercises.  He didn’t suddenly find himself learning gospel promises while out on a walk one day in nature’s cathedral.  Nor did he empower himself to be this hero – taking a stand before the kingdom and its rulers.  Rather a quick glance and we find Jeremiah to be somewhat of an outcast at work during the Babylonian Captivity, Judah’s low-point, and, most likely, was an eye-witness to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

And yet, in the midst of national turmoil and tyrants, the LORD taps an unlikely hero on the shoulder through his Word and says, “I know you.  Jeremiah, I have set you apart and I am going to use you for my purpose to accomplish my will.  Jeremiah, your confidence cannot be in yourself; but it has to be in what I’ve already done.”  God knew his past – all of it.  God knew him even as a cute little baby.  But God knew him even before that. 

What a great reminder!  You are not a cosmic accident.  You are not subject to the random events of the world and the universe.  You are not living as one adrift upon the blustery winds of life.  God knew you, like he knew Jeremiah, from well before your birth.  God cared dearly for you even back then.  God formed you as one uniquely and wonderfully made.  And God placed you into this time and place, he gave you the precious gospel of salvation, and he gives you purpose within his good will for you.  No matter your age or your issues or your hesitations: That is incredible!  And that is special!  And that is gracious!

But while we’re speaking about our hesitations about being chosen by God, hero-of-faith Jeremaih’s response: “But I said, “Ah, Lord God!  I really do not know how to speak!  I am only a child!”  (And yes, there really is a Hebrew word for the interjection “ah-hah”).  Jeremiah may have been born into a priestly line but calls himself “a child” – a word used for one young enough to not yet have a profession or fully know yet what direction they would go in life.  And now, God would give him this life at this time and in this place to these people?  “Ah-hah.”  Sounds like the response of other prophets God chose like Moses in Exodus 3 and Gideon in Judges 6.  Jeremiah’s self-concern is familiar, “I’m not quite ready for this yet.”

And perhaps, this seems to be where our similarity to Jeremiah is amplified.  As sinners, we tend to make excuses to what our God commands.  And, often times, our excuses shift the focus from His Words to our feelings.  He says to each of us, “Go and make disciples.”  We say, “well, I kind of feel like someone else is probably more qualified.”  He says, “make disciples of all nations.”  We say, “but that might make me feel pretty uncomfortable.”  He says, “baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  We think, “maybe there’s an easier way to attract new members other than by using the Means of Grace.”  He says, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  And we say, “I mean, everything?  I don’t know if I’m ready or willing to be chosen by God for this!”  Wow.  How embarrassing!  In sin, we turn inward and make it about ourselves and hide behind our feelings; and at times want to cut the rope ourselves and be adrift from the challenges which come with of God and his Word.

But look at how our God responds to our feelings of inadequacy and doubt.  “The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’  You must go to everyone to whom I send you and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, because I am with you, and I will rescue you, declares the Lord.”  God says, “It is I, the great the ‘I Am’ who makes you chosen!”  The LORD redirects Jeremiah’s focus from what the prophet can’t do to what God continues to do!  Because it is he who gives the word of salvation to us and there remain people who still need to know about Jesus.  People in Jeremiah’s day and in ours still need to understand that sin separates, sin kills, and sin condemns.  People then and now who need to know what the God of free and faithful love did and still does!

And what does he do with you and me?  He calls us off the bench and to get into the game – into this life and these times with purpose.  He says, “My child, you have nothing to fear!  I am with you.”  And then he sets your heart on the cross as proof.  For God knew you – and he knew how to save you through Christ Jesus.  He is one who wiped every sin away there at the cross.  He is the one who rules and reigns and promises to go with you and to help you.  His promises are certain in an uncertain world.  And that’s your confidence. 

Even if, as it was for those other heroes of faith, things get unpleasant or downright dangerous.  Our final verses tell us, “Then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth.  The Lord said to me: There!  I have now placed my words in your mouth.  Look, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”  We fear not for we, for like Jeremiah, have been chosen to be equipped with God’s words.  And when God wields his word, it is powerful and effective – greater than the strongest of nations.  And that powerful Word he gives to you, even if we are simply unsure of ourselves. 

And since we have his words of salvation in Christ, and we therefore have life with God.  Life through the forgiveness of sins.  Life through the new creation that we are in Christ.  And life with our Lord in heaven one day.  Dear fellow heroes of faith, through his Word God has made you an all-star on his team.  You have his precious gospel to live and to share and to rejoice over – come what may.   For you have been chosen by God.  And his gospel will win more chosen souls still.  Go with God confidently every step of life’s way.  Amen.

God’s Motto of Mercy

/in /by

Author: Pastor Horton

Date: January 26, 2025

Passage: Luke 4:16-30

“Forward!” that is the motto here for the State of Wisconsin.  And it’s a good one.  Cities have mottos.  Where I first served in rural Minnesota there were some unique ones out there, like “Home of the Rollie Bollies.”  And “The smallest polka town in America.”  And where I served, in Morton, MN, it was known as “The Oldest Story in North America.”  A bold claim, but one evolution made as rainbow granite deposits supposedly were some of the older rocks.  We know they all dated back to creation.  States have mottos.  Alaska’s is “North to the Future.”  New York’s “Ever Upward.”  And Virginia?  Perhaps said in Latin by John Wilkes Booth after assassinating Abraham Lincoln, jumping onto the stage at Ford’s Theater, and injuring his leg “Thus Always to Tyrants.”  History has viewed his opinion differently regarding Lincoln.

Did you know that today in our reading Jesus shares with us God’s Motto of Mercy?  It was a motto he first shared with his hometown city of Nazareth.  There before the watching eyes of the synagogue worshipers he proclaimed: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

To better understand the scene, it might help to review the setting taking place in the synagogue.  You might not remember these worship houses from the Old Testament accounts, but they seem to be everywhere in the New Testaments.  There’s a reason for that.  You may remember that back in the days of Moses, the children of Israel were to have one focal point of worship, that is the Tabernacle.  It was a specific tented areas that could be taken down and reassembled as Israel moved through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.  It housed, among other things, the Ark of the Covenant with the Ten Commandments inside.  And it was where God spoke to his people.  It was used for some 400 years until Solomon built the Temple, a permanent house of worship in Jerusalem. 

Based off the Tabernacle design, the Temple was then to be the sole location for Israel to make their sacrifices to the Lord as it stood at the heart of the nation’s worship.  There the people would pilgrimage up to Jerusalem for the big festivals throughout the year.  There the morning and evening sacrifices were made.  There blood was shed for sin each and every day.  But now make another 400-year jump forward…

And the Babylonian captivity had begun.  The children of Israel had been sinfully defiant towards God and despite plenty of warning, God allowed for his people to be conquered, uprooted, and in some cases killed or scattered.  The Temple was pillaged and destroyed, and the once vibrant worship life there grew silent.  But not all was lost, for the people repented.  They realized the prized possession they had when it came to the Word of God and wanted to be in the Word and wanted their families to gather together in the Word.  And so they began to meet, as we are this morning, in a local building set aside specifically for worship.  Wherever the Jews went on planet earth, they build synagogues for this purpose.  It is why when we heard of Jesus’ life and times, and also the missionary work of Paul in Acts, there seemed to be a synagogue in every town.

That basic structure from Tabernacle to Temple to synagogue has carried over into Christianity as well.  The apostles used the worship forms in the early Christian church that were familiar to the people.  We still today have tent-like churches, and an elevated altar area which focuses our attention on the Word of God (and in our case a large cross where the ultimate sacrifice once for all took place).  Even portions of the service, the readings, message, and music have some similarities.  But we don’t come to worship today for the architecture, or for the traditions, or even exclusively for the community, but we come to be connected to Jesus and hear from him as he proclaims a Motto of God’s Mercy. 

That’s what he did that day in the synagogue in Nazareth.  “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Did you notice in our reading?  Where do followers of Jesus follow him?  To his Father’s house!  To church!  According to our reading “as was his custom!”  His sheep want to hear their Good Shepherd’s voice.  We want to be fed by him who is the Word made flesh and a fulfillment of God’s gospel promises. 

And how would this be received in Nazareth?  We’re told in this intense scene, “He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.  The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.”  The worship practice then involved seven scheduled readings (we have three), the first to be read by a priest (if you had one there) then by a Levite (if you had one there) and then by five reputable men of the town who were at least 30 years old.  They would then allow for discussion from the congregational floor so that not just anyone could say anything.  Jesus, a hometown boy, now of proper age to read, carried with him growing excitement over his words and his miracles.  He is asked to participate.  He reads from Isaiah, sits down, and begins to speak.  The Jews read God’s Word standing up to show respect and then would comment from a chair to show humility – that their commentary wasn’t on par with God’s message. 

What would Jesus say?  He would proclaim fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in himself.  As true God it was why he was here on earth – to live under the law for us as a substitute.  It was where he was going, resolutely to suffer, to die, to rise and to save.  All of Scripture was built upon him, and as true God he could perfectly fulfill it.

Nazareth’s reaction?  Stunned.  Impressed.  The listeners spoke well of him…at first.  But then something changed causing that great-gospel-motto to ring hollow in their hearts.  Human reasoning invaded and corrupted God’s truth.  “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  They had known Jesus through the years.  Maybe he played with their children or was hanging around his father’s shop in his youth.  Him?  Isaiah the inspired prophet was talking about him?  Countless Jews through thousands of years were waiting for…Joey’s kid in this po-dunk hill town?  A young man we know?  How could that possibly be?  And then… things got complicated.

Knowing their hearts and the troubling condition they were in spiritually, Jesus addresses it.  “Do you need to see the same miracles in Capernaum in order to believe it?”  If Nazareth was a state, it might be Missouri, the “Show Me State.”  A slogan that supposedly came from a no-nonsense politician who didn’t want to hear someone talk the talk but walk the walk.  Or, Nazareth’s town motto might be the very quote Jesus speaks in our reading: “’Physician, heal yourself,’ and then, once you are proven, we may choose to believe you.”

What a mess!  It’s no wonder Jesus gives examples and holds up God’s great acts of mercy shown to non-Jews outside of the nation of Isarael.  To “a widow in Zarephath in Sidon.”  And to “Na’aman the Syrian.”  They had nothing special they offered God.  They didn’t choose faith in God.  And yet out of pure mercy and grace Jesus highlights the heart of God.  It is he who gives truth.  He who gives faith.  It is he who saves apart from ourselves.

This remains a good and necessary reminder for you and me today, worshipping in God’s house just like those folks from Nazareth.  Seeing can get in the way of believing.  Doubts and questions and ultimately fears can creep into our minds and hearts of faith.  Virgin birth?  Six day creation?  Jesus as God?  Great acts in lowly sacramental elements?  These are big truths we are asked to simply hear and believe.  They challenge our human reasoning.  As one pastor put it, “What if faith is simply faith and does not require proof?”  God does not need to answer to our intellect how and why he acts to save.  But rejoice because he graciously and mercifully saves us through Jesus. Rejoice that this message of forgiveness is for all.  Rejoice that he wants you and your family and hometown in heaven with him. 

Listen to Jesus who says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” “Blessed are you…for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”  Thanks be to God for his Motto of Mercy proclaimed by Jesus today!  Lord keep us in your word.  Keep our faith and our connection to you living and active and growing.  Keep us from all doubt and unbelief.  Keep us humble.  Keep us believing.  Keep us looking for opportunities to share this message with others.  And keep this motto in our ears, in our hearts, and in our lives until home in heaven with you.  Amen.

Look What God is Able to Do!

/in /by

d

Author: Professor Noah Headrick

Passage: Ephesians 3:14-21

Date: January 19, 2025

To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

        Really? God can do immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine? It doesn’t look like that.

                I had that Powerball ticket in my hand. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before. None of my numbers matched! No money. I didn’t even win my two dollars back. What gives? If God isn’t able to give me a billion-dollar Powerball payout, which I can totally ask and imagine, how is he able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine (3:20)?

                Well, let’s look closer at what God actually says in all these verses. Look what God is able to do! God’s power and ability are limitless, but sometimes God chooses to limit what he gives us based on his love. And that’s where Paul starts – God’s love.

                For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (3:14-17).

                Paul is praying for Jesus to dwell in the hearts of the Ephesians – to permanently reside in them so he can influence every choice they make, every word they speak, and every thought they think. In other words, he’s praying for their faith to be strong and mature.

                And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (3:17-19).

                What is Paul begging God for here? What is he hoping and praying his people grasp? The love of Christ. The enormous, humongous, gigantic love of Jesus Christ for us.

                And when you step back and take it all in, it is amazing. Think of what we were, what we are, and how much God loves us anyway. Earlier in Ephesians Paul wrote, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins; all of us gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts” (2:1, 3).

                All of us have been there. Some of you are still there. You do what you want. If you desire it, you pursue it. You don’t think much about what God wants because you’re too busy thinking about what you want. God’s will? God’s glory? That’s not even on your mind.

                And yet, even then, if you ask God, “How much do you love me?” he will show you. Look what God is able to do! God came to earth. God himself – Jesus Christ – wore our skin.

                Jesus took the burden of your sin into that skin. God nailed that skin, with your sin, to a tree. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Who could have asked for that?

                God’s perfect plan, to give us perfection through a perfect Substitute, was completed when he raised that perfect Substitute from the dead. Who could have imagined that?

                Look what God is able to do! He raised Jesus from the dead! Water to wine? Child’s play for Jesus. Jesus raises the dead! Give you everything you need for your body and your life? Of course. God raises the dead!

                Look what God is able to do! Nowhere is that more evident than in the wide and long and high and deep (3:18) love of Christ, who lived and died and rose for you!

                “Alright Pastor, I get it. Jesus’ love is big. But shouldn’t love give whatever is asked for?”

                Well, if you ask for a billion-dollar Powerball payout, is that what’s best for you? “Obviously!”  Maybe, but maybe God knows better than you do. Plenty of lottery winners have had their lives ruined by it.

                Conversely, plenty of people with cancer have said, “Getting cancer was one of the best things that happened to me, because it taught me to ‘rely on God, who raises the dead’ (2 Corinthians 1:9).”  Maybe God knows better than we do.

                Maybe that’s why Paul prays for spiritual maturity, because immaturity is a problem. Spiritual immaturity makes us pray for the wrong things or stop asking for good things.

                You give up praying for your children to turn around, because you’ve asked enough, and if God wanted it to happen, he would have done it. Or my sinful nature tells me, “I’ve talked to my new neighbor six times. Jesus has come up. He doesn’t seem interested. It’s not worth it. God can’t really do anything anyway.”

                Sometimes we live like sinful pessimists, and we don’t need to. Look what God is able to do: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (3:20).

                It’s hard to convey the power of God that this verse shows, immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). Our God is able to go above and beyond anything we could ever ask him for, anything we could ever dream up.

                Look what God is able to do in the big things, like taking away your sins. The miracles of water and Word washing away sin, bread and wine giving the body and blood of Christ? Above and beyond all you ask or imagine!

                Look what God is able to do in the little things, like the blessings you have just in being and breathing. Above and beyond all you ask or imagine!

                So keep on asking big! Keep on thinking big! Who could have bigger, more audacious goals than a Christian? Who could be a bigger optimist than someone who follows the Son of God who rose from the dead? Ask big! Think big! God’s love and power are such that you can never ask too much.

                All this he does according to his power that is at work within us (3:20). Hold on, wait a minute. The power that created the universe is working in you? The power that put your sins on your Savior, the power that raised him from the dead is working in you? Yes!

                And this is not just power for power’s sake; this power of God is working in you, energizing you. Look what God is able to do! God is keeping you in the faith. God is keeping stubborn sinful me close to Jesus. That power is working in you!

                With that kind of power on our side, power that is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20), we will want to ask for more. Don’t stop praying for your kids, even if they haven’t been to church in ten years. Look what God is able to do!

                Don’t stop thinking big! How many people will God bring to your congregation to hear the gospel in 2025? Think, ask, pray big! That’s connecting to God’s power. How many students will learn about the gospel in your school in 2025? Think, ask, pray big!

                Of course, we can’t say that God has to make our churches and schools bigger. Maybe he has other plans. But look what God is able to do, look what God has promised to do – immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). So pray for great things.

                Martin Luther described it like this: “What would you think, if the richest and mightiest king in the world summons a poor beggar, tells him to ask for whatever he wants, and is ready to give this guy great, kingly gifts, but the fool just asks him for a cup of soup? You’d think the guy was an idiot, who never should have been there in the first place, because he treated the promise of his king like a joke!

                “In the same way, it is a great shame and dishonor to God if we – to whom he promises immeasurable treasures – despise those treasures or don’t have the confidence to ask for them” (adapted from Large Catechism 3:57).

                God gives us some pretty energizing verses here. Don’t let them go to waste. Ask big. Think big. Pray big, trusting God’s power and recognizing that God gives what he knows is best for us, better than we know ourselves.

                Imagine if we all had this attitude, confidence that Godis able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). Look what God is able to do! What’s left for us to do? Think big, pray big, expect bigger. What’s left to say?

                To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (3:21).

T

“Baptism: It’s a Miracle!”

/in /by

Author: Pastor Horton

Date: January 12, 2025

Passage: Titus 3:4-7

            “Eleven seconds, you got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now.  Five seconds left in the game! Do you believe in miracles?  Yes!” exclaimed ABC sports commentator, Al Michaels.  And then the patriotic celebration ensued as the 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team staged the biggest upset in Olympic history beating the heavily favored Soviet team.  On February 22, 1980, over 1,100 athletes from 37 countries participated in the Winter Games, but the ones people most remember are a bunch of college kids (their average age 22) who beat the unbeatable Russians.  It was an unlikely miracle in sports history.  The Disney movie about it is simply called “Miracle.”

            This morning, we are reminded how unlikely miracles still happen.  The improbable takes place every time we witness a baptism.  Now a baptism may not seem like it packs the same punch as the human drama and emotion of a great sports upset, yet, it is none-the-less a mind-boggling event.  This miracle of God shows us is his love and mercy.  So today as we celebrate the baptism of our Lord, we can quote a phrase from Al Michaels, “Do you believe in miracles?  Yes!”  Because “Baptism!  It’s a Miracle!”

            In his letter to Titus, Paul was writing to a fellow pastor about the work that needed to be done on the island of Crete.  Paul reminded Titus that he needed to teach his congregation sound Bible teachings, and to encourage them, in light of Jesus’ love, to do what is good.  And in order to understand what they had become in Christ, the people first needed to know what they were without Christ: disobedient, foolish, and enslaved by their desire for pleasure.  At one time, it was unlikely, and downright improbable that they’d ever be one with God.  They were steeped in sin: which a holy God has no part of.  They needed saving.  They needed a restored relationship with God.  And they needed to know how this was accomplished for them.

            And this is a need all people have.  A need which wasn’t needed in the very beginning.  Can you imagine being created in the image of God?  Having righteousness and holiness?  Being able to enjoy a perfect relationship with your Creator?  It’s hard to imagine because we have fallen so far into sin.  That reality is so far above us we can’t even begin to picture that reality.  And now from generation to generation we are unable to pass down that status with God, but rather with sin we pass down the reality of death.  That broken relationship is your birthright.  The psalmist David tells us, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”  We had need.  Need for help.  Everyone of us.  Need for God to do something otherwise death and eternal death awaited.  It doesn’t matter our age….

            There is a story of a little girl who once noticed that her mother, with a full head of brunette hair, had several strands of rogue white hair sticking out.  “Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?” she asks.  Her mother replied with a motherly replied: “Well, every time you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.”  The little girl contemplated that for a few seconds and asked, “So how come ALL of Grandma’s hair is white?”  The painful truth is that we like to think we’re not that bad but our sins stand as a sign that say differently.  We sin against God and each other, and it shows.  We have not kept one commandment perfectly.  Our sin shows itself when our minds drift away during prayer, when we are not willing to sacrifice our living for God’s sake.  And our sin could even cause us to despair, thinking, “maybe I’m a hopeless case.” 

            But Paul tells us: “when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.”  And in baptism, that love of God for us unlovable people appeared.  Paul tells us how God restores our relationship, he writes: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”  Through this miracle of baptism, the Holy Spirit does the unthinkable.  In our baptism He enters dead hearts, these unclean temples, and he performs this most improbable miracle – he washes and renews.  In our baptism He cleans up our hearts steeped in sin and turns them into throne rooms of Jesus.  In our baptism the Holy Spirit comes to us and creates saving faith in our hearts.  In our baptism we are reborn into a new relationship with God.

            It is almost unthinkable!  Yet think of it like this, Peter did in his first epistle: In the flood, God destroyed all life on this earth with the exception of the occupants in the ark.  The whole world was totally submerged under water.  Everyone and everything was dead, rotting, and decaying.  And yet above, lifted not only by the water but also by the protective hand of God, the ark floated safely.  Above was life, but beneath the water the earth was a worldwide graveyard.  Can you imagine such a thing?  Then the waters receded after washing clean all that death completely away.  The earth was reborn in newness.  In the same way, our baptismal waters have washed away the decay of death and sin from us; returning us to that right relationship with God.  It’s a miracle!

            While reborn, our sinful nature is still lingering in us.  To keep us from losing what we have the Holy Spirit continually renews us.  With His help we are to daily we are to throw off our sinful nature.  No, not snuggle up to or cater to or carefully hide our sinful nature but throw it off and drown it in our baptism so that our new life in Christ can, with the Spirit’s help, be watered, grow, and bear new fruit.  That takes a miracle – for that takes God at personal work in us.

            Throughout history people have considered Holy Baptism to be unlikely.  Why?  Just like salvation, baptism defies human reasoning; and just like the Lord’s Supper the saving gospel is connected to something tangible in front of our eyes.  People have a hard time with it.  But Scripture explains how baptism gives us new live because it joins us to Jesus.  God’s plan of salvation was always focused in Jesus Christ.  Paul tells us, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus shed his innocent blood on the cross, sacrificing himself, as payment for our sin.  Our sin was transferred onto Jesus, the perfect sin offering, the Lamb of God, without defect or sin.  And, with no sin of His own, but to live under the law for us, Jesus even carried out his Father’s will by being baptized.  This agreed with the good will of our Father in heaven.  Luke writes for us, “And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”  

            However, a day would come when the Father would not seem so pleased.  That day was Good Friday.  On the cross, God was silent.  Jesus was undergoing our punishment.  Suffering our death for the sins we commit.  There was no voice from heaven, no cry of approval.  Only the words “My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me?” under the weight of your sins, my sins, and the sins of the whole world.  

            But the Father was pleased with the sacrifice!  So pleased he raised Jesus from the dead.  So pleased he declared the world no longer guilty for its sin.  Paul tells us in the last verse of our text, “that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”  Did you hear Paul?  We!  We have life in Jesus.  We are no longer dead in sin.  Because of what Jesus has done, we are free from sin, death, and the devil.  Paul tells us, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  In baptism our sinful flesh was buried with Jesus.  In baptism we rise to new life in Jesus. 

            What an incredible miracle found there in the water and the Word of baptism!  What a personal pledge of forgiveness given to you!  What a great reminder that we are no longer our own, but that our new lives are as God’s children!  God has done it all.  He saved us.  He cleansed us.  And He inspires us.  Death and hell have indeed lost their sting, because as Peter proclaims: “baptism now saves you!”  In baptism God has opened the doors of heaven to you.

            So, to once again quote the sportscaster, Al Michaels, “Do you believe in miracle?” We can answer in confidence with a resounding, “Yes!”  Baptism!  It’s a miracle!  Watch God do what seems impossible!  And live in your baptism grace! Amen.