200304 Sermon on Genesis 37:12-36 (Midweek Lent 1) March, 4, 2020 Since we will be looking at the story of Joseph during these midweek services, I think we should start with some background information.Joseph’s father is Jacob. Jacob is the grandson of Abraham. Abraham was the man whom God chose as his own. God promised to bless him and his descendants. They would own the land of Canaan. They would be numerous. The world would be blessed through them. Abraham passed this inheritance down to his son Isaac. Isaac was tricked by his wife and by Jacob into giving it to Jacob instead of Jacob’s brother Esau. Because Esau was extremely angry at what Jacob had done, Jacob had to flee. He went to his mother’s home country and stayed with his uncle Laban.Right away, when Jacob came to Laban’s territory he met Laban’s daughter, Rachel, and loved her deeply. He arranged to marry Rachel, but had to work seven years for Laban in order to get her. However, when the time was up, Laban tricked Jacob, giving him his other daughter Leah instead. Jacob had to agree to work for Laban seven more years in order to compensate him for Rachel again. This is how Jacob came to have two wives—Leah and Rachel. Jacob loved Rachel, who was pretty, more than Leah.God had pity on Leah, since she was not as deeply loved as her sister. He caused her to be fruitful while her sister was not. Leah had four sons. Rachel had none. This made Rachel deeply unhappy and so she made an arrangement with Jacob. She told him to sleep with her maid, Bilhah, and that Rachel would claim the children produced by this union as being her own. Two sons were born to Rachel’s maid. Leah, though, only thought that it would be fair that she also have this opportunity to enlarge her number of offspring. She arranged it so that Jacob also had children through her maidservant, Zilpah. Two sons were also born to Leah’s maid.So, in case you have not been keeping track of the race, here are the standings up to this point. Eight sons have been born. Leah has four. Leah’s maid has two. That makes six for Leah’s side. Rachel has none. Her maid has two. The score is six to two. The rivalry between these sisters was intense. Leah had more children, but Rachel had Jacob’s love.It came about after this that Leah’s womb was opened once more. She had two more sons and a daughter. Leah now had six sons. That makes the score eight to two. Finally, God remembered Rachel and gave her a son of her own. This was Joseph, whom we will hear about during these weeks. I’d like to speak some more about Joseph, but before I do, I’d like to finish the story of Jacob’s sons. The twelfth son was also born to Rachel several years later. Unfortunately, Rachel died after giving birth. This son was Benjamin, who will enter our story towards the end of our midweek series.Let’s speak a little more about Joseph’s family situation. There was a wide spread in age between the brothers. The four oldest were Leah’s sons. They were probably at least 10-15 years older than Joseph. Joseph was the only son from Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. He also was the youngest son for several years until his little brother, Benjamin, was born.What we see here are the ingredients for jealousy and hatred. This is not unusual or surprising. Perhaps you’ve heard of what toddlers sometimes do when they get a new little brother or sister. The toddler used to have all their mother’s attention. Now with the baby, they have to share it. And so I’ve heard of little kids trying to push away their infant sibling, so that they get to be alone with mom instead of the baby hogging all her time and energy. You might think that we should outgrow stuff like that, but I’m not so sure. We might get better at hiding our hostility. We learn the social rules that we are supposed to follow. But there can be a lot of resentment from childhood that can plague families their whole lives.Since we are all born selfish, rivalry and resentment is almost normal. With Josep

200301 Sermon on God's punishment for sin (Lent 1) March 1, 2020 Last Thursday the late night talk show host, Stephen Colbert, made a joke at God’s expense. He was riffing on the continued spread of the coronavirus. Then he went off stage, got a bell, started ringing it, and this is what he said: “Plague! Plague! A righteous cleansing to punish man for his lust and vanity! Oh, swing your scythe O angry God. Repent! Repent! Repent!” The audience laughed. Then he said, “Where was I?” and continued on with his monologue.Jesus says that in the last days it will be like it was at the time of Noah and like it was at the time of Sodom and Gomorrah. At the time of Noah the people only grew more wicked continually. The people were very busy. They were padding their pockets. I believe that they reached a very high level of sophistication in their civilization. But they didn’t care about the God who had spoken to Adam and his descendants through Seth all the way down to Noah. This God had said that judgment was coming over the face of the whole earth. He was going to utterly smash and destroy all that he had made. He essentially said what Colbert joked about: “A righteous cleaning is coming to punish man for his lust and vanity. I’m going to swing my scythe because I am angry. Therefore, repent!” When the people heard about Noah’s God they thought Noah was coo-coo for believing in him. I bet you that there were jokes made about Noah.At the time of Sodom, the rich people of that fertile plain had become so delicate in their tastes that natural relations were no longer enticing enough for them. They had to search out exotic, disturbing experiences in order to satisfy their sexual appetites. They gave up natural relations and burned with lust for the people of their own sex. This sexual perversion is what happens when cultures get rich and old and decadent. It happened at Sodom. It happened to the Greeks. It happened to the Romans. It happened to the British. It has happened to us. Not only is there this sin, which is bad enough, but what is much worse is that it will not be recognized as such. It is defended with such ferocity that those who will not go with the flow are denounced as deplorable. Those who are evil are regarded as good, and those who are good are regarded as evil. Without even trying, Stephen Colbert sums up perfectly our horrible spiritual condition as a people and a nation. What he says is so true that it is basically a textbook, catechism answer. God punishes man for his lust and vanity. He swings his angry scythe. We should repent. But then he laughs. The audience laughs. There evidently is wide appreciation for this joke, because the way that I found about it was by watching the morning news on Friday. They replayed it as a kind of cute little joke to raise your spirits. What happens when hearts become hardened is that people laugh at God’s threats and roll their eyes at God’s promises. They do not feel bad about how they regard God’s Word. It’s just a matter of course for them. If they feel bad about anything it might be that there are people like us who are so deluded as to believe that what God says in his Word is actually true. They hope that eventually we can be educated out of our medieval backwardness.To be a Christian these days it takes a bit of a backbone. If you want to be liked by everyone, then I don’t recommend that you remain a Christian. If you want to be regarded as smart by everyone, then I don’t recommend that you remain a Christian. You must put aside the desire to be praised by men and strive after being praised by God instead. Only those who regard God as their friend, their mighty fortress can even begin to live in such a way where they seek God’s approval instead of being approved by our peers.The Psalms in the Bible are instructive in this regard. The Psalmists are always praying to God and praising him as their defender, their rock, their strength, their hope. Very often the Psalmists speak to

200226 Sermon on 2 Peter 1:2-11 (Ash Wednesday) February 26, 2020

200223 Sermon on Luke 18:31-43 (Quinquagesima) February 23, 2020 Our Gospel reading today takes place right before Palm Sunday. They are on their way, passing through the town of Jericho. At the beginning of our reading Jesus says to his disciples, “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem. Everything that was written about the Son of Man will come to pass. He will be handed over to the Gentiles, mocked, mistreated, spit upon, flogged, and they will kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” In a succinct way Jesus plainly tells them what was going to happen in about a week. This is not the first time that Jesus had told them that this would happen. On at least two other occasions Jesus told them that he would suffer, die, and be resurrected. You already know about one of those other times. It was soon after Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the promised Messiah, when Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was. Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus told Peter that this knowledge did not come from flesh and blood. It came from God. Peter’s confession would stand as a rock, against which the gates of hell would not be able to prevail. That is how Peter gets his name—Peter means rock. His given name was Simon.Right after this Jesus told the disciples what would happen to him as the Christ. He told them what we heard today—Jesus would be betrayed by his people, shamefully treated, killed, and rise on the third day. When Peter heard this he said, “Far be it from you, Lord, that such things should happen to you.” Jesus responds, “Get behind me Satan! You are not thinking the thoughts of God, but the thoughts of men.” Simon quickly went from being called “the rock” to being called “Satan.” The reason why there is the change is because of what he says about Christ’s cross. Peter had different ideas, manmade ideas, about how Jesus should go about being the Christ.Obviously, things didn’t change. I don’t know how Luke, the Gospel writer, could be more emphatic. He says, “They did not understand any of these things. What was said was hidden from them. They did not understand what had been said.” They didn’t get it. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get it. This would be proven by their actions, as well. They were content to be Jesus’s disciples when he rode into Jerusalem with everybody shouting, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.” They were content to be Jesus’s disciples when he was driving all the greedy people out of the temple. They were content to be his disciples when he was putting to shame all the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes who were trying to catch him in his words during Holy Week. They were not content to be his disciples when he allowed himself to be arrested without even putting up a fight. They were not content to be his disciples when he was mocked and shamefully treated, stripped naked and nailed to a cross. The game was up when Jesus cried out in agony, bowed his head, and breathed his last. There’s no point in being the disciple of a Christ who is dead. On Good Friday it was obvious to them that they had been mistaken. If Christ had not gone out to find his disciples after his resurrection, then they would have remained in their unbelief even though they had been told beforehand. Peter really speaks for all these disciples when he says, “Far be it from you, Lord, that such things should happen to you.” That is not how the disciples wanted the story to go. I think we could go even farther and say that Peter speaks for all of us as Christ’s disciples. The knowledge of Christ’s cross does not come naturally to anybody. There is an old complaint among a certain segment of Christianity about crucifixes. It is said that crucifixes are inappropriate because now Jesus is risen from the dead. Since he has arisen, we should no longer look at this disturbing, shameful episode when he was so weak and despised on the cross.I don’t think it is a coincidence that a

200216 Sermon on Luke 8:4-15 (Sexagesima) February 16, 2020 Harvest is a time of judgment. The amount of the harvest determines the judgment. If the harvest is bountiful, then the judgments will be positive. The farmer did a good job in planting and tending the crop. The weather was cooperative. When the harvest is scant, then the judgments will be negative. Something bad happened along the way. Perhaps the seed was planted too deeply or too shallowly. Perhaps there was too much rain or not enough. These are explanations that might be used when a farmer goes out into his field in the fall to see what is there.Because harvest is a time of judgment, it is used in several instances in the Bible to describe the final judgement—when all people will be judged. Those who are worthy of it, will be congregated into heaven. Those who are unworthy will be cast into the outer darkness, the unquenchable fire, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Who, then, is worthy? Nobody is worthy of eternal life. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us deserve to have hell as our eternal home rather than heaven. But because God loved us from eternity, he planned for our redemption and salvation. He sent his eternally begotten Son to be born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, died on the cross, and was buried. The third day he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father. In this way atonement was made for our sin. Jesus suffered and died and bore God’s wrath. It fell upon him so that it might not fall upon us.You are quite familiar with these wondrous facts. These are the things that have been done to work our forgiveness and the forgiveness of the whole world. But this is not the end of the story. As Christ sits at the right hand of the Father—the position of authority—he reigns and rules as King in a spiritual kingdom. This spiritual kingdom does not consist of weapons or courthouses. It consists of the preaching of the Gospel—the Good News of forgiveness, righteousness, and salvation in Jesus’s name. Jesus causes his Word to go out over all the earth. It is by faith in the word of promise that we receive what Jesus did on Good Friday and Easter to make us worthy of eternal life. Good Friday and Easter are followed by Pentecost. Pentecost is when the promise of salvation in Jesus Christ was made known. The Holy Spirit created faith in those who heard it. That is when their eternal life as the children of God began.Although the times and circumstances have been altered a bit, the same is true for you. Your eternal life began when you were given a promise from God that you would be saved. For most of you, this happened when you were baptized, for I believe that most of you were baptized as babies. This Word from God to you did what it said by the power that is in that Word. When you were baptized, you received adoption as God’s child by being baptized into Jesus, God’s Son. To use the language of Jesus’s parable—the seed was sown.What has happened to that seed? Into what kind of soil was that seed sown? Will that seed come to maturity so that it produces a bountiful harvest? It might seem as though Jesus’s parable is designed to lead us into uncertainty. Who, after all, has been able to withstand all the tests that have been made to one’s faith? Who has not had their energy sapped for making money and keeping money—trying to make our earthly life as pleasant as possible? The yield, therefore, has suffered, just as surely as a hailstorm takes its toll on a soybean field. Jesus’s parable can sound as though we should wonder about ourselves—whether there will be anything left come harvest time.Understanding Jesus’s parable this way is not totally wrong, but it is mostly wrong. We seem to have a perception about faith, deeply planted within us, where we think that doubting and struggle is good. We think that a tortured faith is commendable. Therefore, among Ch

200209 Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16 (Septuagesima) February 9, 2020 The parable we are considering today is difficult. It stands in sharp conflict with the way that we normally operate. It is similar in this way to another of Jesus’s parables—the parable of the unjust steward. In that parable there is a manager of his master’s business who was accused of mismanaging funds. The boss tells him that he is done. He needs to turn in the books. But before he turns in the books he writes down the debts that are owed to his master so that he can become friends with these debtors. Then when he is put out by his master, he has a shot at being taken in by the debtors whom he helped out. This, frankly, is fraud. He should go to prison for it. But his master does not call the police. He praises his manager for being shrewd. This is an extremely odd way of doing business.We have a very odd way of doing business in our parable today too. The owner of the vineyard goes out to hire workers at 6:00 in the morning. He tells them that he will pay them a fair day’s wage—a denarius. This must have been fair enough, for the workers willingly come to work. Then he goes out at about 9:00. He sees others who have nothing to do. He tells them to go to his vineyard and he will pay them what is right. He goes out at noon and at 3:00 and does the same thing. Then, at 5:00 in the afternoon, one hour before quitting time, he goes out again and finds more people who have nothing to do. He sends them into the vineyard as well.When it’s quitting time the owner tells his foreman to pay the workers beginning with the last and up to the first. Those hired at 5:00 got a denarius. So does everybody else. It doesn’t matter if they worked 1, 3, 6, 9, or 12 hours. They are all paid the same. They all get what the workers agreed to at 6:00 in the morning. What gives?Jesus’s parable will not work very well as a business model. What do you suppose would happen at the marketplace the next day? I don’t think the owner of the vineyard would find very many workers at 6:00 in the morning. I bet there’d be a whole bunch of people one hour before quitting time. If a man can get paid the same for doing one hour of work versus 12 hours of work, then which do you think he would pick?Self-interest—the looking out for one’s self—is baked into the way that we naturally and normally think. This way of thinking is frustrated by these two parables. The boss of the unjust steward should look out for himself and therefore call the police rather than giving compliments. The owner of the vineyard should look out for himself and pay his workers with as little wages as he is able to get away with. His generosity irritates the workers who worked all day long, sweating in the heat. Their looking out for themselves tells them that they should have the stuff that was given to those who did not work as much as they did.So what is the alternative to looking out for one’s self? The alternative is to be free. What does it mean to be free? Being free means that whether you are compensated or recognized or rewarded is not important. It is neither here nor there. You are not working for the reward, but for the sake of the work itself—whether there is a reward or not.Let’s apply this to the parable at hand. A worker who is free would be satisfied with the work that he was doing in the vineyard without regard to how he was being compensated. The worker works because the work is good. End of story. Being rewarded or compensated is good and enjoyable, but this worker is willing to forgo that pleasure. That means that the worker is free. The worker who is not free is going to count out every penny and will not be satisfied with anything that is not according to his standards. The one worker is free. He is not looking out for himself. The other is not free. He is a slave to his own advancement. The worker who is free from the need of promoting himself is able to look on with happiness at the goodness of the owner

200202 Sermon on Exodus 3:1-14 Matthew 17:1-9 (Transfiguration) February 2, 2020 I’d like to begin today by speaking about the word, “mundane.” We don’t use this word a great deal, but I’m sure you’ve heard it. The way that it is used today is to describe something that is ordinary, dull, and boring. Taking out the garbage is mundane. Doing the dishes is mundane. Bunge jumping or sky diving are not mundane. Those activities are thrilling. So the way that we use the word “mundane” is as a synonym for “boring.” But there is more to this word than just “boring.” “Mundane” comes from the Latin word “mundus” which means “world.” “Mundane” means “world-like,” as in “that’s the way things go in this world.” The opposite of “mundane” would be “other-worldly.” Here you can perhaps think of aliens or spirits or gods or out-of-body experiences. Such things are not mundane. They are very much out of the ordinary.Ever since we were knee high to a grasshopper we have all been taught that mundane things are the only things that exist. Anything that is other-worldly is myth and fairy tale. The most powerful institutions in our society insist on this point of view as being the only acceptable one. Our whole education apparatus teaches that only what is physical and material and natural is true. The entertainment industry also takes this for granted. Other-worldly ideas might be used for plotlines, but everybody knows that that is just for fun. Spirits and superheroesand all kinds of mythical creatures do not actually exist.The things that we are surrounded by can’t help but leave their effect on us. When our culture says that the only things that exist are the things that we can touch and test and see, then this gets into our bloodstream. This has its effect on the way that we understand the Scriptures as well. A lot of Christians for a long time have wondered what is happening to our Christian churches. They are all shrinking. And they wonder what we should do about it. It’s not just the music that is keeping people away. There is something much deeper. People don’t believe that the things that are talked about in the Scriptures are actually possible. They believe that reality is mundane. They don’t believe that God interacts with his creation the way that the Bible describes him interacting with it. According to them, believing in this stuff is like believing in aliens or mythical creatures.Lots of dreams have been dreamed about how we might fix this problem for the Christian Church. It’s not something that can be fixed by any earthly means. There is no curriculum or program that can make anybody believe. The only way anybody is going to believe is by the grace of the almighty Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit making us believe, we inevitably will believe that mundane reality is where we have our hope, rather than in God. It is part and parcel of our idolatrous hearts that we should look to the things of creation for our wisdom, help, and blessing, rather than to our Creator. Unbelief is not unusual or impressive. It’s the darkness that all people are stuck in, unless God, in his grace, should shine his light on us.What is this light? We have a couple of impressive lightenings in our Old Testament and Gospel readings today. In the Old Testament God spoke to Moses from the midst of a burning fire, surrounding a bush, but the bush itself was not consumed from the flames. He said, “Moses! Moses!” Moses said, “I’m here.” God said, “Humble yourself. You are standing in the midst of holiness. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your forefathers.” This was God’s invitation to Moses to believe in him. He announced himself as God to Moses so that Moses might know him, listen to him, and follow him. The bush being on fire and yet not being consumed is something impressive, but it is nothing compared to the enlightenment that took place within Moses’s heart. The darkness of unbelief, doubt, and despair was replaced with the light of God.In o

200126 Sermon on 2 Kings 5:1-15 Mat. 8:1-13 (read by elders) (Epiphany 3) January 26, 2020 Something we can learn about with our readings today is faith. In the Old Testament reading we hear about a foreign general named Naaman. He did not believe at first. Eventually he came around to trying out the word of the prophet Elisha. He was healed of his disease. In the Gospel readings we hear about the faith of the leper and then of the Centurion. Both believed in Jesus. Both received healing—the leper, for himself; the Centurion, for his servant. Today we will learn more about faith.First of all, faith is not something that is limited to Christians, or even to religious people, but all people employ faith everyday as they go about their business. Let’s use a car as an example. When we get into our cars and turn the key, we have faith that the ignition will engage and the engine will start. If we didn’t believe that, then we would not even turn the key. When we back the car out into the street we believe that the car will work properly. The brakes will stop us, the wheel will turn us. If we did not have faith in these things we would not dare to go out on the streets. Not all cars are worthy of our faith. Perhaps if the car is old, then we will not take it on long trips. We stay close to home just in case the car turns out to be unreliable. A car that has our faith is something that we use and rely upon in order to get us around so that we can live our lives. A car that does not have our faith is something we do not rely upon. We are aware of the possibility of being disappointed if we trust in it. So it goes. We have hopes and expectations in all sorts of things that make up our daily life. We trust in cars, in people, in institutions, and also in God.Faith in God is something that is just as specific as the faith in our car. We believe that a trustworthy car will bring us good by operating properly. It is the same with our faith in God. Faith in God means that we believe he will do what he has said to us. Believers believe that God will do good to them. This is the faith that you see in the different stories that we have in our readings for today. Naaman, the leper whom Jesus met and cured, the Centurion whose servant was healed—all of them believed God would do good to them. Just as we trust in the various parts of our car working, so also these men believed that turning to God would help them in their troubles. We see in all three cases that their faith was proved true. They all got what they hoped for—the goodness of God. But also in all three of these examples, their faith in the goodness of God was tested in various ways. Their faith is remarkable, because it prevailed against this testing as they held on to the promise of goodness in God.In our Old Testament lesson there is the example of Naaman. He was a Syrian who heard that the God of the Israelites was good. A captured Israelite girl told him. She said that the God of Israel was with the prophet Elisha. If Naaman would go to him, then he could be cured of his disease of leprosy. It was by faith that Naaman sent a letter to the king of Israel, telling him that he was going to come. It was by faith that Naaman went to the prophet Elisha. But his hopes and expectations were put to the test by the unexpected way Elisha acted. Naaman was expecting Elisha to come out and wave his hand over him, and examine him, and then figure out what to do. Elisha did no such thing. He didn’t come out to see him. He sent a message through a servant. This was very offensive to Naaman. It appeared that Elisha didn’t care about him, and Naaman was an important man.Furthermore, the instructions that were given were offensive. He was supposed to go wash in the Jordan. The Jordan isn’t that impressive compared to the mountain streams that Naaman knew from his homeland. It would be a bit like you being told to wash in some drainage ditch. If there were any waters that could cure him, then surely i

200119 Sermon on 6th Commandment (John 2) (Epiphany 2) January 19, 2020 About 2,000 years ago there was some husband and wife whose wedding was greatly honored. Their wedding was the occasion for Jesus’s first miracle. He gave them a present that is almost ridiculous in its proportions. He gave them somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of the best wine they had ever tasted. Think of a 50 gallon barrel. They got about 3 of these. Jesus wanted this couple and all their guests to be merry and joyful. Obviously the marriage of a man and a woman is something that God approves of and is joyful over.But we don’t need to rely on this text alone to show us that. This is abundantly clear elsewhere in the Scriptures. In the image of God, God created man. Male and female he created them. When he first spoke to Adam and Eve he told them that they should come together. They should be fruitful and multiply. They should have children. Man and woman, marriage, sex, children, family—these are beautiful things intimately tied up with God and his will towards us. In fact, Paul says in Ephesians 5, that the coming together of a husband with his wife is like the coming together of Christ, the groom, with the Church, his bride. As a husband loves and takes delight in his wife, so God loves his chosen people.One of the ways that you can tell what is important for us and for our salvation is when the devil and the demons rage against something. I don’t think there is anything that is fought against so strongly as an honorable marriage, where husband and wife have clean consciences, and are eagerly in love with one another so as to make a family together. Instead, I dare say we have all been corrupted. Snickering among children, children telling each other new and exotic tales, pornography and sexually suggestive television, movies, and music, masturbation, the social expectation for dating and the sexual experimentation that is supposed to go along with it—these temptations hit every one of us like a tidal wave (particularly when we are young)—and it seems nobody comes out unscathed. What all these things teach with an almost irresistible force is that sexual activity is entertainment. It is utterly disconnected from a husband or wife and the children God gives as a fruit of this union.The alternative to this frenzied promotion of sex as entertainment is something that is truly romantic. It is the single-minded affection of a husband for his wife and a wife for her husband. They seek and win one another’s affection. I once heard someone use a good analogy that has stuck in my head ever since. He compared romance to the playing of a game. When you play a game you agree to certain rules. It is always possible to cheat. It is vastly easier to win when you cheat. But the thrill of victory for a cheater is altogether different than the thrill of victory for someone who plays according to the rules. So also, love and affection within marriage is harder than satisfying your cravings in other ways, but it is higher and better. It is tied up with our very human nature—the way that we were created to be. It even has something to do with our salvation and the relationship that exists between Christ and his bride, the Church. Being chaste and unadulterated, and yet at the same time, having a burning desire for your beloved, is so good that it cannot be gotten across by words. It is truly ideal.In confirmation class, while the students and I are studying the 10 Commandments together, we sing Martin Luther’s hymn, “These Are the Holy Ten Commands.” After talking about each of the commandments in turn there are two verses at the end that speak about the Ten Commandments all together. Verse 11 says, “We have this Law to see therein / That we have not been free from sin, / But also that we clearly see / how pure towards God life should be. / Have mercy Lord!” Two things go together here. The Law shows us what is good. Today, the Law shows us what is good when it come

200112 Sermon on Matthew 3:13-17 (Baptism of our Lord) January 12, 2020 A couple weeks ago I spoke about how there is a long period of time during Jesus’s earthly life where we do not know much about him. From the age of about 2 until about 30 the Gospels only record one incident, when he was about 12. He went to Jerusalem with his family and accidently got left behind. Today we are considering the Baptism of our Lord. This is the next thing we hear about after Jesus’s childhood. Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus and his baptism. John’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist testifying about Jesus’s baptism. Matthew and Luke both deal with Jesus’s nativity in the first couple chapters, then they speak about Jesus’s baptism. Jesus’s childhood is not unimportant, but all four of the Gospels begin more thoroughly to relate the events of Jesus’s life after his baptism in the Jordan River.Asking the question, “why?” when the Bible doesn’t explicitly give you the answer, can be treacherous. The Bible doesn’t tell us explicitly why Jesus’s baptism is so important and why, in a sense, his baptism is the beginning of the Gospel. But I think this is a worthwhile thing to think about in order to better understand the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. So that is what we are going to look at today.Let’s begin by talking about the word “Christ.” We so often hear and so often speak about “Jesus Christ” that it is almost like Jesus is his first name and Christ is his last name. But that is not why we speak of “Jesus Christ.” Christ is from a Greek word that means “anointed.” Anointed means to have a liquid poured on top. The New Testament is written in the Greek language. The word “Christ” got carried over into English without translating it. If you wanted to translate it you could say, “Jesus the anointed,” rather than, “Jesus Christ.” The New Testament is written in Greek, the Old Testament is written in the Hebrew language. The word for “anointed” in Hebrew is “Messiah.” I’m sure you’ve heard that word a time or two, although we do not use it nearly so often as the Greek “Christ.” But it means the same thing as Christ: “Jesus the anointed.”Aside from the way that we baptize people who desire to be Christians, we do not anoint very much in our times. This puts us at a bit of a disadvantage, because we don’t see the connections that Old Testament people would immediately associate with being anointed. The way that people were put into office in the Old Testament was by anointing. You could almost say, by being baptized. The kings of Israel and Judah were anointed with oil when they were given the right and responsibility to rule. The priests, who served in the tabernacle and temple before the presence of God, were anointed. The way that we put people into office today is a bit different. We might have them put their hand on a Bible and make solemn pledges to defend the constitution and so on. Something of this solemnity and dignity and importance is tied up with Jesus being anointed, or baptized, in the Jordan River. It is not just a matter of having water poured on his head.But of course Jesus was not anointed just with water; he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. Matthew says that when Jesus came out of the water he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and landing on him. John records John the Baptist’s testimony that he also saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus. That was how John the Baptist knew that Jesus was the Christ. And so Jesus is not anointed just with water or with oil—like the kings and priests were. The third person of the Trinity descends upon him. The first person of the Trinity speaks from heaven. He says, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” And so at the baptism of Jesus we have a tremendous revelation—we see something that we otherwise wouldn’t see so well. The Trinity is there—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And for what occasion? That this man Jesus should be anointed—that he should be put in offi