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Stolen Images: DaVinci’s and Something More Hideous…
Thoughts which drag me back to Jesus, and to the Cross…
“Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom can I send? Who will go for us?” So I said, “Here I am. Send me!” Then the Lord said, “Go and tell this to the people: ‘You will listen and listen, but you will not understand. You will look and look, but you will not learn.’ Make the minds of these people dumb. Shut their ears. Cover their eyes. Otherwise, they might really understand what they see with their eyes and hear with their ears. They might really understand in their minds and come back to me and be healed.”” (Isaiah 6:8–10, NCV)
If, in view of something apparently more important, we push God to one side in order to give precedence above all else to the happiness of the human person, we do not thereby become more free to establish right order in the world, but rather lose the standard and eventually come to despise mankind. Only one who regards humanity from God’s perspective is capable of loving mankind. Only one who knows God can love mankind—even the most wretched, the weakest, the defenseless, the battered, the unborn, the inept. That is why the “Hear, O Israel” stands irremovably at the beginning of all our ways.
Now, this is Christ. I see him hanging on the cross, not beautiful, nor greatly honored; but I see him hanging in disgrace, like a murderer and malefactor; thus, reason must say that he is cursed before God. The Jews believed this to be true and they could only consider him the most cursed of all men before God and the world.
Moses had to set up a serpent of brass, which looked like the fiery serpents, but did not bite, nor harm any one; it rather saved the people. Thus, Christ also has the form and the appearance of a sinner, but has become my salvation; his death is my life; he atones for my sins and takes away from me the wrath of the Father. If man believes that the death of Christ has taken away his sin, he becomes a new man. The carnal, natural man cannot believe that God will gratuitously take away and forgive us all our sins. Reason argues: You have sinned, you must also atone for your sin. The gospel of Christ says: You have sinned, another must atone for you. Our works are nothing; but faith in Christ does it all
I have see Social Media blow up over the opening of the Olympic Games in France. I have seen a lot of fear, a lot of hatred, a of condemnation. Because they took license (in both meanings of the words) with a man’s depiction of the Last Supper.
But what should the church expect from people who do not know God? What should we expect from that part of humanity that is “wretched, weak, defenseless (against evil and temptation) battered by sin, etc. I think the fact the church has a different expectation of the world is sadder than the world’s attempt to mock the church.
But the world needs to learn a lesson about how to mock, how to completely pervert something, for it can only take what is good, and try to make it look evil. It has no power to take what seems evil and make it good. That’s why Isaiah says they have no clue, as they refuse to listen to God. For if they had, they would flip things from bad to good….as Jesus does.
Consider Luther’s point about the serpent – the one who delivers the judgment for rebellion against God. God mocks Saan there, by using the image of the serpent that causes such pain and death- to bring healing and life. The difference is God’s serpent didn’t bite us, it bit death.
The same with Christ on the cross. A hideous form of torture, an unbelievable amount of pain, as one hangs on the tree – accursed because of sin.. not his own, like other criminals and rebels, but ours. And so the church mocks sin, Satan death, and the world by preaching Christ crucified – earing crosses and crucifixes–parading them before the entire world… shattering the world and perverting the world sense of justice, by punishing the Innocent One in a humiliating, ugly, and traumatic way.
The irony of the Cross is its brutality, its horror, it injustice leads to perfection, to holiness. The irony of the cross is His death leads to eternal life. Its irony is that what sought to permanently divide us from God, eternally united us to God.
And those who think they mocked the church, those that think they were deliberate profane, we pray that they understand the irony, and find the hope in Christ Jesus, and in His sacraments.
Ratzinger, Joseph. 1992. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Edited by Irene Grassl. Translated by Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
Luther, Martin, and John Sander. 1915. Devotional Readings from Luther’s Works for Every Day of the Year. Rock Island, IL: Augustana Book Concern.
Really God? You Have to Remind Me of this today?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
It’s better to go to a funeral than to attend a feast; funerals remind us that we all must die. Ecc. 7:2 CEV
Blessed is he who keeps the moment of death ever before his eyes and prepares for it every day.
I guess God likes a sense of irony.
Tomorrow I go under the knife.
Just cataract surgery, but still, it is surgery.
Read through the Bible in a year, and the reading I come to the day before surgery deals with death! So did the book report I had to deal ith last night, chapter after chapter of dying to self that as awesome, but also passages that told us to desire death
Not what I want to think about, at least that is my first reaction.
But why not?
We need to think about death for a number of reasons, that are practical, and spiritual.
1. So we learn to value the life we have.
To often we take life for granted, we don’t think about making the most of it, we just let it slide by. Especially in these days of isolation. We can see God at work in every day of our lives, working in relationships good and bad
2. So we leave things somewhat in order, as a blessing to others.
It can be things as simple as your favorite songs for your funeral. Or where money is stashed and other issues of that note. (Of course, now I have to think of all this stuff) Wills, testaments, advanced directives, all that messy stuff. But it is even messier if you don’t do it.
3. Not taking even for granted, or the gifts that assure us of our eternity.
Living life fearing deaeth is no fun… I spent nearly half my life living in fear of dying. THat’s what happens when you have Marfans and you think about it. Working as a hospice chaplain, and seeing many people pass away has led to the point where I am not as afraid of dying.
But what I am talking about is being excited about seeing God face to face. NOt just the benefits of less back pain, and less trauma, and no more dang surgeries. But see God, who loves us so much, and being welcomed into His presence, and sharing in the glory and love of God, Father, son and Holy Spirit. That is more than exciting, that should leave us in awe,
Kempis’s thought is that we should think about heaven, so that we behave better in this life. Not quite fear driven, but somewhere between fear and reward driven behavior modification. That might work, but works better is to live life, thinking about the glory and love of God. Of letting the thought of that love, that care fill your life. That will change you far deeper than mere intellect. It will change your soul, and you will desire to see others find that place of rest, that place of pace.
So making me think of death… it’s not that bad. Actually, it is a huge blessing.
Now, thinking of them slicing my eye open, to replace the lens… ugh!
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1996), 46.
Matters of the Heart: A sermon on Mark 7 from the Concordia Lutheran Church!
(if you would rather see the service, and hear the sermon, it is posted on my FB page and at Concordia.org_
Matters of the Heart
Mark 7:14-23
† Jesus, Son, Savior †
May this grace, the love and mercy of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, show you how He is transforming your heart so that you can love Him and your neighbor! AMEN!
The Gospel? Really? ( O wait = there it is …Bacon is fine!)
Passages like the gospel always bring out my sense of irony.
I mean, we read these nine verses, talking about how our vile hearts defile us, and then I get to say, “This is the gospel of the Lord!”
Using less religious language, “This is the good news that Jesus has for you!”Yeah! Good news! You are defiled because your heart is vile! Not really a balance there between Law and Gospel…this passage is 100% law. Well, Bob found some good news in it, in our deacons and pastor study Monday night. There down within the parenthesis you see it, “Every kind of food is acceptable in God’s sight!” Which means bacon and shrimp and lobster are as acceptable as broccoli or kale or that horrid pumpkin spice stuff that is invading our stores! But how do we take a passage so focused on our failure, our sin, our being defiled, and find good news there? Where is the gospel in this gospel reading?Or put another way, while this passage tells us we really need help, how do we find it? Or are we always going to be defiled by our vile hearts?
We are defiled/vulgar (but that isn’t what you think it means_
Inigo Montoya, the famous swordsman in Princess Bride, uttered these works. “You keep using that word (inconceivable). I do not think it means what you think it means!”We’ve got a couple of those words in today’s reading. The first is the word defile. It sounds like it means rotten, disgusting, horrid, sickening, to use an old word, gross.
It isn’t actually bad as bad as it sounds, though, in reality, it is worse.
It is the opposite of holy, it means common. Which was the original definition of vulgar.
Using last week’s illustration about holiness, to be set apart for a special purpose, I said Missy’s guitar was meant to play music with, not to be used as a stepping stool to change a light bulb. You defile something when you take something that has a special purpose and use it for something… far less. Say instead of using it for playing beautiful music, Missy used her guitar to move fertilizer around her parent’s backyard. That would be defiling is, making it something used for something in common.
Or imagine you are going into surgery, and you see the surgeon opening his latest package from Amazon with the same scalpel.
Our hearts’ purpose had never been to be the place of origin for sin. We were meant to be set apart, our purpose to be the people, the children of God. We were set apart to dwell in His love, and love the family of God. Sin simply wrecks that, destroying our heart and soul, making us no better than any other biological creature, controlled by physical needs and desire for pleasure.
Sin changes us, from being the children of God, and that sin comes from a heart that doesn’t recognize God. And that sin finds its origin, not in the world, but in our hearts. That is what Jesus keeps coming back too…
It is not what is us that is wrong, it’s not the bacon, it is the heart that is a glutton that causes the desire to overeat. It’s not the beauty that causes the sin, it is the uncontrolled desire for pleasure.
It is what is within us, what controls our heart, and our will that causes us to engage in sin.
The gospel – a heart transplant The OT Promise
If this is true, then what hope exists for us, in this world so oppressed by the sin which has ensnared us? What hope is there for our friends, of children, our grandchildren? If all there is to life is living without a special purpose, without reason,
We find the law in the Gospel today, so let’s look back at the Old Testament to find the gospel. If sin originates in our hearts, then what is underlined in this passage is the only way to deal with it. Let’s read it together
26 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.
There is our answer, a cardiac transplant. To allow God to change our heart, from the one in which sin, passed down from Adam, and which dominates our heart. Changing our heart like he did with David, making us men and women after God’s own heart, men, and women who share His desire.
This is the promise made sure in us, as it was for Ethan last week, as God pours water on us, and cleanses us from all sin, and He makes us His people.
This new heart changes us… and enables us to do things that please God, it allows us to walk with Him, and relate to Him. For as He changes our heart, as He puts His Spirit in us, we return to being holy, a people are special to Him, for we are His children!
What does this mean?
How can we believe this, I mean, we still sin, don’t we?
How can sin still come from a heart that has been changed? From a heart that is supposed to beat in rhythm with God’s own heart? The simple answer is, that sin is the old us, and as we walk closer to God, depending on Him more and more, others may see the change in us, while we never do.
I think that’s so we never stop depending on God, so we learn to run to Him when we are tempted, so we learn to run to Him, assured of His mercy and forgiveness, so that we learn to run to the God who has poured water on us, cleansed us of sin, given us a new heart, put His Spirit within us…
and who promises this as well
6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6 (NLT2) Amen!
