Look to Jesus!

[These are thoughts shared with residents of the Carlin House assisted living facility in Logan, Ohio, earlier today. I didn't write this message in advance, but this is, basically, what I hoped I said.]

The main reason that the first Christians, who were all Jews, began worshiping together on Sundays rather than on the Jewish Sabbath, was because the first Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, happened on a Sunday.

And truly, no matter what the season of the Church Year, every Sunday is a little Easter for Christians. Jesus can never be stuffed back into His tomb. He is risen!

But one of the things I particularly love about being a Lutheran--and this is something we share with many other Christian traditions--is that we don't just especially celebrate Easter on one Sunday a year. On our church calendar, Easter Sunday is just the first Sunday of Easter. Yesterday, for example, was the third Sunday of Easter for us. We just keep celebrating Easter for six weeks. It's great!

So, I'm still celebrating Easter and because of that, I want to share two passages of Scripture with you this morning.

The first is Philippians 4:4-9. A preacher named Paul wrote a letter to the first century church in Philippi and these verses are taken from that letter. The thing to keep in mind is that when he composed this letter, Paul was imprisoned. Yet the entire letter is shot through with joy. Here's what Paul wrote:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ⁸Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. 

Then, I want to share part of the Gospel of John's narrative of what happened the day that Jesus went to Bethany to see his friends, Martha and Mary, after the death of their brother, Lazarus. The scene, by the way, would have been bedlam. Family and friends would have been there crying, of course. But in those days, there were also "professional mourners," people who would led the wailing. It must have been a scene of craziness! John writes:

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, ¹⁹and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. ²¹Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²²But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” ²³Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” 

There's a story told of a mother and a father who were deeply concerned about their eight year old twin boys. One was an optimist, the other a pessimist. The parents knew that neither condition was healthy or realistic. So, they asked a psychiatrist to help each boy to move toward greater realism.

The psychiatrist hit on a strategy for each boy. As part of his treatment, he promised a gift for each one of them.

Then, he led the pessimist into a room filled with toys, games, sports equipment, and classic books--things bound to make any eight year old boy happy beyond measure. But this kid didn't do any thing. The psychiatrist asked, "What's the matter? Don't you like all this stuff?" "Yeah," the kid replied evenly. But then, hanging his head in sorrow, he said, "But eventually, they'll all wear out or break."

Shaken, but still intent on seeing his treatment regimen through, the psychiatrist took the optimistic kid to another room, this one piled high with horse manure. The kid's face grew bright with excitement and he flung himself into the middle of the pile. The psychiatrist, once more, was baffled. "How can you be so excited?" he asked. The kid laughed. "Because," he said, "with all this manure, there's bound to be a pony for me somewhere!"

I think that you'd have to say that neither boys' attitudes were realistic. Pessimism and optimism without some real foundations, always spawn despair.

Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, tells the fictional but true to life story of Willy Loman. Willy was an optimist. He always thought he was going to make that next big sale, experience that next big triumph. But he never did. And that led to his tragic death. Hope, optimism, without a certain object on which to base it will only end in disappointment and death.

But pessimism doesn't work well either. Back in my factory-working days, there was a guy with whom I worked who always spouted this little ray of sunshine: "Live in hope; die in despair." He said it all the time. "Live in hope; die in despair." I don't know if that man ever had hope. But I know that he lived and died in despair. And there is no more reason for living life pessimistically than there is for living it with unfounded optimism!

What we need is a real and certain hope, a hope that defeats pessimism, a hope beyond puny human optimism.

Jesus is that hope!

That day in Bethany, when He called Lazarus back to life, Jesus demonstrated His capacity to shatter the powers of sin and death and futile living.

Jesus showed that we need not, as my old coworker always insisted, live in hope but die in despair.

He showed that we waste our time looking for the next big personal triumph.

Triumph and victory...life and hope...forgiveness and reconciliation with God...purpose, even when we find ourselves needing assistance with the living of our daily lives...eternity which cannot be taken from us...all these blessings and more belong this very moment to all who dare to believe in Jesus Christ.

And when we face challenges and adversities, we would do well to look at the words of that prisoner for Christian faith, Paul. Even when facing the worst that life can bring, we can see something more honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, and excellent than anything that has ever happened in this dying world. We see unsurpassed passionate love and an infinite will to give life to us when we look to Jesus Christ crucified and Jesus Christ risen.

Don't settle for the trophies of this world that wear out and break.

Don't settle for the ponies that might be lurking in the world's piles.

You want a sure and certain hope, a strong foundation.

Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus alone!

Jesus alone is can bear the full weight of all our hopes and dreams. He alone can raise us up to new life.

Look to Jesus!

Hope for the Living

[This was shared during the funeral for Dale, a member of the congregation I serve as pastor, earlier today.]

Psalm 23
Romans 8:31-39
John 11:17-27

Over the past three-and-a-half years, as his pastor, I’ve gotten to know Dale a bit. Because Dale, who was never a talkative man from what I have gleaned, was increasingly silenced by illness in this period, some of what I’ve learned about him has come from others.

One day, for example, while visiting Dee at her house, she showed me a beautiful piece of furniture that Dale made for her dining room. He was a tremendous carpenter!

But his talents weren’t confined to carpentry, of course. Luke used to tell me about how knowledgeable Dale was when it came to anything mechanical or, as Luke would put it, “handy.” (High praise from Luke!)

From everyone—from Dale himself—I also learned how much Dale loved the outdoors. He loved to boat and hike. Were it up to him, I think, Dale really would have kept a “home, home on the range.” (A song he loved to sing.)

In later years, unable to hike or travel, he enjoyed, when the weather allowed, sitting on the deck amid the trees and the chatter of the birds. (I know he appreciated the gift of the “birdie cam” he recently received.)

Dale’s love of nature was also reflected in the home he built on that hill near Lake Logan back in the 1970s. This dwelling did not always meet with Elaine’s approval. As some of you will remember, the first time I visited Dale and Elaine, she commented on their house, “Dale says it’s secluded; I say it’s isolated.”

From that, I learned something else about Dale (and Elaine): whatever differences in their personalities, these two who grew up as classmates in a rural Michigan one-room schoolhouse, were a team. Dale smiled when Elaine said things like that to me. It was the smile of recognition of a “discussion” they had rehearsed countless times before.

Sometimes, Dale’s smiles would turn into laughter that I loved to hear: the breathy, hearty laugh of someone truly tickled.

I came to know Dale also as a man of great intelligence.

And I also experienced Dale as a caring person. When someone was in the hospital, he wanted to know how she or he was doing. He relished telling me how things were going with Sandy’s and Perry’s lives and work and with his grandchildren. He enjoyed it when neighbor Butch brought his own granddaughter Isabelle, a young ball of energy, along for visits. After I had a heart attack last summer, I mentioned that the church council was after me to take it easier; Dale fixed me with a stare and asked bluntly, “Are you doing it?”

On top of all this, Dale was a man of quiet faith. He was always anxious to receive Holy Communion during our visits. Even when it had become a struggle for him to move his hand to his lips, he determinedly ate the bread and drank the wine that are Christ’s body and blood. And no one ever more sincerely thanked me for bringing the Sacrament to him.

Dale was truly grateful for the grace and love of God, whether he saw it in the meticulously engineered beauty of the created world or in the gift of Jesus on a cross, Whose death and resurrection brings eternal life to all who turn from sin and believe in Him.

And it is to this I want to point all of you who grieve Dale’s passing today. At one level, Dale’s death brings a story to a close. With that, there will be, understandably, some sense of relief. Dale had suffered from multiple maladies over an extended period of time. His suffering is ended. But his death is a sad ending for all of you, too: A father, a grandfather, a friend, a strong presence, is gone.

But you can take heart. You can have hope. Dale’s passing is also a beginning. The Gospel lesson from John which I read a few moments ago tells the story of what happened one day when Jesus went to Bethany, the hometown of friends: two sisters and a brother named Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

The sisters and the whole town are grieving when Jesus arrives. Lazarus was dead. At first, Martha seems to lash out at Jesus. "Lord,” she says, “if You had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

But to Martha in her grief and her confusion, Jesus says, “Your brother will rise again” and “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” He then asks Martha to trust those assertions. Jesus asks her to believe them, to believe in Him.

Jesus asks the same thing of you this morning. You see, if the promise that Jesus makes to share His Easter victory over sin and death isn’t true today, it isn’t true. It is precisely for moments like these that Jesus makes His promise to be the resurrection and the life!

And our faith in Jesus’ resurrection promise isn’t just a hope whispered against the grim realities of life. After telling Martha that all who believe in Him will live with God forever, Jesus gave a sign of His capacity to make good on His promises. He stood at the place where Lazarus' body had been placed some four days before and commanded his friend’s dead bones to come back to life on this side of eternity. The voice of Jesus, God in the flesh, spoke with the same voice as the One Who called the heavens and the earth to life in the first place. In response to the command from that voice, Lazarus stepped out of his tomb, back into the embrace of his family.

Of course, Jesus would, shortly after the events at Bethany, give an even more emphatic sign of His authority over life and death and sin. After bearing the weight of all the sin of human history—including your sin and my sin—on the cross, though Himself sinlessness, Jesus rose to life again. The Bible says of the crucified and risen Jesus: “God raised Him up, having freed Him from death, because it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”

Fortunately, God recognizes how hard it is for us to believe such good news, especially on days like these. That’s why He sends the Holy Spirit to any of us who want to believe. If we will pray to the God the Father in the Name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will help us to believe in the same Lord so welcomed by Dale every time he gratefully received the Lord’s Supper and listened to God's Word...the same Lord he so reverenced every time he joined the Saint Matthew family for worship over the radio on Sunday mornings.

In the days and years ahead, you will miss Dale, just as you have missed Elaine. Grief is natural and understandable when the love runs deep and the memories are piled high.

But those who follow the risen Jesus don’t grieve like others do. We have hope. We belong to a Savior Who rose on Easter.

Because of Jesus, Dale will rise too. So will all who believe in Jesus.

May God fill you with this hope and the peace that comes from it in the days ahead…and through all the days of your lives. Amen

Facing Life's Uncertainties (Inspired by Wilma, Who Knew How)

[This morning, the funeral and graveside committal services for a member of our Saint Matthew family, Wilma, took place. Wilma was 92 and except for the final two months of her life, was in great physical health. She had some memory loss, but beyond that remained remarkably healthy. 
[The funeral service today had three purposes: to celebrate Wilma's life, to commit her to the hands of God, and most importantly, to proclaim the hope that all who turn from sin and death and turn to Jesus Christ are assured of life forever with God, the good news.]

The Message
This morning, I want to share a few thoughts with you based on what may seem like a strange Biblical text for Wilma’s funeral. But somehow, it seems appropriate to me. It’s Luke 12:16-21, which is Jesus’ famous parable of the rich young fool.

[Jesus says:] “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Except for the past few months, when first, I had some health issues and then, Wilma became ill, I visited with Wilma every month in the past three years.

It took Wilma about a year for her to remember me from visit to visit. Once, she called the church office to say that the appointed time I was to be at her house conflicted with a doctor’s appointment and in talking with my secretary, she referred to me as “that guy.”

A couple of times, though she habitually wrote everything on her calendar, she was caught unaware when I arrived, sitting in her stocking feet, reading, and apologetic for her lack of preparation when I showed up to once more bring her Holy Communion.

Over time, she came to remember me and in fact, on one of our last visits, I was surprised and touched when she threw her arms around me to hug me.

I came to know Wilma as warm and friendly, with a great sense of humor. As I told my wife when I learned of Wilma’s passing, “I really liked her and I always looked forward to our appointments.”

I didn’t know Wilma when she was younger. But like anyone who knew her as an older person, in any given visit, I might have heard the same stories and comments about family and life experiences several times: about her two sons and where they lived; about her extended family in Elyria; about her growing up; about her niece Eloise, who looked after her and provided her with plenty to read; about the difficulty she had in finding people to mow her lawn; about planting her flower beds in the spring and cleaning them out in the fall; about her need to write everything down, including when to take her medicines.

Wilma, in fact, struck me as a disciplined person. I got the impression that even before her memory loss necessitated her taking extra care to keep her life organized, she was always organized. The neatness of her house and its lack of unnecessary furnishings and goo-gobs that most of us acquire in our lifetimes were testimony to this.

But something else struck me about her self-discipline. In Jesus’ parable of the rich young fool, a man thinks that if he disciplines his use of time and saves his money, he will get to a point when he’ll be in control, he will have conquered the world, and he can simply sit back and relax. In a way, this young man deludes himself into believing that he can be his own little god, self-sufficient and invulnerable. No obligations or responsibilities to anyone but himself. We have a term for people like this today: We call them control freaks.

Wilma was no control freak. She laboriously worked out her daily schedule because she didn’t want to be a burden to anyone!

“When I get to where I can’t take care of myself anymore, I’ll go to the Care Center,” she told me many times. And in the hospital little more than a month ago, she said, “I always said when I couldn’t take care of myself, I would go to the Care Center. They might as well send me there now.”

Wilma could be determined when she needed to be; she often talked about how she learned to drive after being widowed. But Wilma was also a realist. Though her willingness to go to the Care Center no doubt had something to do with losing one of her sons, Bob, exactly three months before she suffered a stroke, she also understood, unlike the rich young fool in Jesus’ parable, that we are not in control. We are vulnerable. Life does hit us with unexpected setbacks, even tragedies.

But that doesn’t mean that you stop living! Instead, like Wilma, you live the life that you have been given. You exercise appropriate self-discipline. You take care of the gifts God gives you—whether it’s your health or your house. You live in appreciation for the gifts of brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and extended family.

Rare people like Wilma, are ones who, I think, can only be described as ordinary people who, in quiet, unassuming ways, lead extraordinary lives.

That’s because Wilma had something that the rich young fool in Jesus’ parable didn’t have. I don’t mean to paint her as some stained glass saint. You all will know her faults more than I do. (Of course, we all have faults and if anyone thinks they don’t, that’s a big fault in itself!) But I got to know Wilma when life—and the God Who lovingly disciplines His children—had worn off her edges. Adversity has a way of showing the real person beneath the veneer. The masks come off the more vulnerable life renders us. And this is what I saw in Wilma: a person of humble faith in Jesus Christ.

She wasn’t the type to go around advertising her faith. (She wasn’t the type to go around advertising anything, as I experienced her.) But she was always anxious to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, always anxious to join in with the Order for Confession and Forgiveness, every word of which she knew by heart and recited with me during our visits. In the sense of vulnerability that I know Wilma felt each day, in spite of the physical vigor she enjoyed until the very end, she knew that she needed the God revealed to all in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. Not barns or baubles, just Jesus. She needed Jesus.

And so do you.

Wilma lived a long life. I think of one her life’s lessons is simple: There is nothing to a life like that of the rich young fool. Nothing in this world lasts. But there is everything to a life lived with Jesus Christ, Who has conquered sin and death and gives eternity with God to all who turn from their sin and entrust their lives to Him.

When you know Jesus Christ, you can face this life with all its uncertainties and unfair twists, you can look forward to the future Christ has secured for all who believe in Him, and you can do it all with a smile on your face, with hope in your heart, and with peace.

May you make knowing Jesus Christ the number one priority of your life so that the blessings of being part of Christ’s new creation can be yours here in this imperfect world and in the perfect world awaiting all who follow Jesus Christ. God bless you.
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The other Biblical texts shared at Wilma's funeral were: Proverbs 20:29; Isaiah 46:4; and John 11:17-27.
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This bit of doggerel, found among Wilma's papers, was read. The fact that she cut it out and kept it shows something of the humor and humility with which she approached life and fit in well with the Proverbs and Isaiah texts above, which in turn, remember the wisdom God grants to those with gray hair, who are attentive to life's lessons, and recall that God promises to save us even in our old age. The author is the ubiquitous, "Anonymous":

Thought I'd let my doctor check 'cause I didn't feel quite right,
All those aches and pains annoyed me, and I couldn't sleep at night.
He could find no real disorder, but he wouldn't let it rest,
What with Medicare and Blue Cross, it couldn't hurt to do some tests.
To the hospital he sent me, though I didn't feel that bad.
He arranged for them to give me every test that could be had.
I was flouroscoped and cystoscoped, my aging frame displayed,
Stripped upon an ice-cold table, while my gizzards were x-rayed.
I was checked for worms and parasites, for fungus and the crud,
While they pierced me with long needles, taking samples of my blood.
Doctors came to check me over, probed, and pushed, and poked around,
And to make sure that I was living, they wired me up for sound.
They have finally concluded (their results have filled a page),
What I have will some day kill me: My affliction is OLD AGE!

That's essentially what took Wilma's life in the end, old age, and we were blessed to have had her with us. As one of the prayers in our funeral liturgy puts it:

O God of grace and glory, we remember before You today, Wilma. We thank You for giving her to us to know and to love as a companion in our pilgrimage on earth. In Your boundless compassion, console those who mourn. Give them Your aid so that they may see in death the gate to eternal life, that they may continue in their course on earth in confidence until, by Your call, they are reunited with all who have gone before us trusting in Christ as God and Savior; through Your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Tough Faith in a Tough God

[This was shared during the funeral service for Irene, a member of our congregation.]

John 11:17-27
For me, there are two words that will always immediately spring to mind when I think of Irene. Those two words are humor and toughness.

There are other words that come to mind, too; words like cheerful, loving, strong-willed, and faithful. All of them are descriptive of Irene. But her humor and toughness, as a Christian, as a mother and a grandmother, and as a person, are what stand out to me.

She wore her good humor everywhere she went: in the greeting line after worship, in visits friends and family members had at her home, and even during her stays in the hospital. Irene could laugh even when things weren’t going well.

And she was tough! There were many weeks when I would call her, sometimes after she had gotten difficult news about her health or when she wasn't feeling particularly well, and she would tell me, “I’m planning on being in church on Sunday.” "OK, Irene," I would tell her, knowing that she would be as true as her word.

Irene wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of her being in worship on a Sunday morning! She knew that, as we gather to praise God and hear God’s Word in the company of other believers, God gives us the strength—you might even say, the toughness—to face all the good and the bad that life in this world brings.

She knew too that worship with our church family also recharges us with the hope that belongs to all with faith in Jesus Christ. This is one of the reasons God calls us to regular weekly worship and it’s why the Bible tells believers “not to [neglect meeting] together,” because in this habit we encourage one another.

Irene’s faith in Christ was evidenced in her humor and in her toughness and I, for one, was encouraged by her faith!

We meet another tough woman of faith in the Gospel lesson from John, chapter 11, which we read a few moments ago. Martha, along with her sister Mary and brother Lazarus, were friends of Jesus. As our lesson opens, Jesus arrives in His friends’ hometown of Bethany. Lazarus has died four days earlier. Many of the siblings’ other friends had come to comfort Martha and Mary, just as people have done for Irene’s family this morning.

Martha sees Jesus and calls out to Him. Martha’s words indicate anger and disappointment with Jesus. “Lord,” she says, “if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

There is an impulse when we grieve to feel that God has abandoned us, to question God and His promises. Some time after the events recorded in John 11, even Jesus, God in the flesh, would feel that God the Father had abandoned Him. From the cross, as He neared His own death, Jesus cried out, “Father, why have You forsaken Me?”

Such feelings are normal. Deep in our bones, we know that what the Bible teaches is true; we weren’t made for death, we were made to live! Several translations of an Old Testament passage, Ecclesiastes 3:11, tell us that God has set eternity in human hearts. We know that death is a foreign intruder that exists in this imperfect world, but should not exist in the Kingdom of God that Jesus died and rose to bring to all who believe in Him. Martha experienced the same feelings all people experience when a loved one dies.

Her feelings are made more poignant by the fact that she, her sister, and her brother all believe in Jesus. Even in her anger and disappointment, Martha calls Jesus, “Lord,” a title the use of which indicates that Martha believes that Jesus is more than a carpenter who does some teaching. She sees Jesus as the Master of the universe, as the One Who brings sight to the blind, healing to the paralytic, and new life to the dying.

In our lesson, Martha underscores that, even in the midst of a situation she can’t understand or explain—the death of her brother—she still believes in Jesus. “Even now,” she tells Jesus, “I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.”

Later, Jesus tells Martha that He is the resurrection and the life and that all who believe in Him, even if they die in this world, will rise to newness of life. Jesus asks Martha if she believes Him and, in the midst of her grief, with no idea that a few short moments later Jesus will raise Lazarus from the grave, Martha says, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One coming into the world.”

Folks, this is resilient faith. This is tough faith. It’s the kind of faith that I saw in Irene. It’s the kind of faith I am sure that she wants you to take hold of today.

It’s a faith that acknowledges the realities of this present, imperfect, sinful world in which we live. But it's a faith that trusts that Jesus, the resurrected Lord, is bigger than all our sorrows and that He gives eternity to all who turn from sin and believe in Him.

Today, in spite of sorrow, there is reason for us to be glad.

You see, God is tough too! He went all the way to a cross to bring you forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. It’s to you and me, as much as it was to the people who first heard Him in first-century Judea, that Jesus says, “Repent and believe in the good news.”

That good news is what, even in her sorrow, Martha believed and what, even in her trials and suffering, Irene believed: “God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Trust that God’s love is tough enough to love you wherever you are, whatever you’ve done, however weak and unworthy you may sometimes feel.

God endured the cross just because His love for you is resilient, tough, and uncompromising.

Let Him be your Lord today and in all the days of your life. He will give you the faith—and the humor and the toughness—you need to live each day.

And if you let Him, He will give you exactly what Irene is enjoying at this very moment: new life, life as it was meant to be, life forever in the presence of God! Amen