The Thrill of Victory

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Do you know how hard it is to score 10 in an Olympic gymnastics event or break a long jump world record in track and field?

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No you don't.

Nadia Comaneci was the first person to ever earn a "perfect 10" during the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but a new scoring system makes no more "perfect 10s" possible.

In 1935, Jesse Owens set a long jump world record that stood for 25 years. Bob Beamon in the "perfect jump" in Mexico City exceeded the world record by almost two feet launching books written about this super-human feat. But in 1991, Mike Powell outlasted Carl Lewis, also setting a new world record which has now stood another 20 years.

We have no idea how hard that is.

Self-discipline is the most difficult undertaking. And reaching perfection? Impossible.

Listen, I even have to discipline myself to do nothing!

For me even getting to sleep is a chore. If you are getting older and feel lucky to get just four or five hours sleep, you have to discipline yourself just to get rest. Handling worries, responsibilities, and obligations are like the miniscule fine-tunings for which gymnasts or sprinters adjusts just to eek out one extra centimeter or add one one hundredths of a point.

It takes work.

St. Paul used the imagery of athletic games to speak about the discipline of faith.

What makes competition at world class levels like the Olympics so difficult is the focus one needs. All other considerations and distractions jeopardize reaching the goal.

Not only is intense focus necessary, the training is relentless. No one gets past the trials if training isn't 1000%.

In our Christian faith the prize of heaven and eternal life make a gold medal look like something from a Cracker Jack box. We have the aim of finishing our run here not perched on a box but standing at the very gates of paradise! Can any super-human focus, exercise, or effort accomplish that?

When world records are eventually broken, medals have tarnished and even famous athletes go around on brittle knees and in the long run are eventually carried to their final resting places, can the impossible occur that you and I qualify to enter heaven!

If even specimens of great human achievement, beautiful athletic bodies, and heralded champions fade, how can you and I expect a battle-scared, weary, obscure and undistinguished Christian to come through as victor?

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Not through any super-human effort.

Rather, a very human one.

It was one very human man, one man made of the same flesh and blood as you and I, not a superman or a hero or some earthly title holder who won the day. It wasn't someone acclaimed by the press or showered with accolades as he stepped forward to bear the "agony of defeat." Indeed, it was a man conquered by the cross.

His body was bloodied. His limbs were overcome with exhaustion. He wasn't even praised at the finish. He was mocked.

But Jesus Christ never lost his focus on the goal--which was to win for you eternal life. He tirelessly schooled himself in God's Word, set his face and body toward an exertion no sinful man could withstand and reached His goal for you.

He was the only person who maintained the flawless focus, unblemished self-discipline, and spiritual wholesomeness which are the mark of true human achievement.

Do you know how hard that is?

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No you don't.

But you do know Him! You know the man Jesus Christ who is God and Savior. He didn't come from Mt. Olympus. He comes to us from Mt. Calvary.

St. Paul knew Jesus. Trusting Him, as Christians ever since have done, we run this race of life, like Paul--- as those who receive the prize. Christ has not made us "also-rans." He has declared us recipients of all the honors he won for us. He has pronounced us heirs of glory and recipients of imperishable wreaths of beauty. He has qualified us for the heavenly prize of eternal life and made us the promise it will never tarnish. His record will never be broken.

In this consummate victory of our Lord we live and stretch and run ourselves--and win. Through Jesus' running and outlasting death itself to rise in triumph, you and I can run this race, not aimlessly or with fear of disqualification, but with wings on our feet, the thrill of the Gospel in our ears, and the shouts of saints and angels cheering us on.

Let's Get Personal

Matthew 11:16-20

"But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,

"'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at Him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds." Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.

"He's Out!"

Considering it a blown call, the manager tears out of the dugout. He rushes up to the first base umpire, goes within an inch of his face and lets loose with a barrage of complaint.

The man doesn't move. He doesn't even lean backward.

The manager throws his cap on the ground, kicks dirt on the bag. He waves his arms. He rallies the crowd.

It goes on for a minute or two.

You know for certain that if he touches the ump, he'll be thrown out of the game. And you wonder what he finally actually said that after two minutes of rant and rave caused the umpire to dramatically pitch his finger toward the showers and toss that manager for good.

You can bet it was something personal.

Referees and umpires are accustomed to objections to their calls. In a fast moving game someone will invariably disagree with one ruling or another

But you cannot invade a man's personal space.

Touch him with as much as one finger, say something that attacks his person rather than his decision, and out you go.

So, the advice to all ball players, to all men, all employees, all voters, all people-

Don't get personal! It's the quickest way to get yourself booted.

Is that the way it should also be in the church? Teach the rules. Play by the rules. Take the consequences like a grown-up.

But don't get personal?

Don't invade my personal space. Don't speak to me beyond generalities or get inside my personal life. Should it be that even God should come just so far, but have it unacceptable if He (or His people, like a pastor or elders, or other Christians) start to go beneath the surface and get personal?

Is it all fine and dandy to instruct the catechism, lay out beliefs and doctrines, recite the formalities but come no closer? A pastor can say all he wants, hold all sorts of views, but I have a personal space that must remain untouchable.

That's was the Obama presumption. His pastor said all sorts of whacky and outrageous things, but that doesn't mean the parishioners believed them or they applied to one's person. I hold my private views.

It's only as soon as he begins to get personal: that is, as soon as what he says begins to unsettle me myself, that is, have a critical effect on my private space, my personal life, my ambitions and aspirations, my personal ethics - then it’s “Adios”!

But have you thought about just how personal it got with Jesus?

Again and again he faced ad hominem attacks ("argument against the man").

They attacked His character rather than address the substance of His claims. They abused Him personally to discredit God's Word.

It got very, very personal.

They called Him a glutton and a drunkard. They insulted Him by calling Him "a friend of sinners!"

But here is where the true nature and temperament of our Lord is revealed.

Does He stand there unmoved, with His arms folded, cool and distant? Is He impassive and untouched? Is He a judge or umpire who can stand the heat just longer than most but is ready to throw that sucker out on his ear?

Or does Jesus take it all very personally?

Does He take our slights and injuries personally? Does He feel the hurt, agonize over us, and cry inside? When you and I object or complain to being unfairly treated— when someone chooses to snub worship for recreation— when His own people want to castigate a wrong-doer rather than forgive him— when someone turns their back on another rather than speak lovingly, does Christ take this personally?

Without question He does.

We cannot fathom the emotion and passion which coursed through our Lord as He struggled with the burden of our sins every day. All His life must have been like one uninterrupted mule-kicking.

Yet Jesus has always considered it personal with you. He absolutely takes your life personally by having bound himself and all He has to you in Holy Baptism. His thoughts are always-always-always with you.

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." (Isaiah 49)

His personal investment took Jesus to the cross. His personal care is like the Good Samaritan, to kneel over us, bind our wounds, carry us to safety, provide for every need, and promise to pay every cost.

The only thing that can ruin a man is his own refusal, to reject the person of Christ, and hold jealously his own private space and the protection of his own privacy. Jesus denounced the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, not simply as an umpire's duty but because they did not repent. Their doors were closed; their hearts were closed. They effectively told Jesus, "This far but no more."

Christ took no satisfaction in censuring them because He had come to redeem them as He has done for us.

Only when someone refuses to repent must God call them as He sees them.

But it will always be personal with our Lord.

To this very day He gives His very person to you, His personal word of forgiveness, His personal assurance to be with you always. Even His private heart He opens to you in grace.

We have a personal Savior. This is something only Christians know personally. How truly wonderful He is.

We've Crossed the Rubicon

Romans 6:1-11

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The baptism of a Christian brings life where there was only death before. Baptism is resurrection. Baptism is Easter. Baptism is our entrance into the very kingdom of heaven.

There are many wonderful days in our lives. But there is no greater day than the day of our Baptism, and it will never be excelled. Our very best days, even if they could all be combined into one could not together touch the excellence of our baptism day which surpasses what nothing else can begin to touch.

Holy Baptism unites us with Christ in His death and resurrection. To be baptized with water in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is to be unshackled from the slavery to sin and witness the drowning of our own death.

God through His Son makes people His new, mint-condition creation. In baptism God breathes His Spirit into us. He washes our soiled nature clean and creates life in us as miraculous as the handiwork of Eden where God formed Adam into a living being.

Because of water baptism, consider yourself permanently delivered from the clawing reach of the evil one. Sin's quick sand has no hold on you. You are free to live without fretting or phobia. Baptismal water irrigates lives made new in Christ so that we flourish.

The flood tide of baptism has carried away the flotsam wreckage of our sin. The ocean of baptism has drowned Pharaoh's army. The breakers of baptism have carried us to the promised land.

St. Paul makes the point that baptism is a point of no return. It is unthinkable that being delivered from sin and death a Christian should contemplate returning to it. By no means! Paul says.

How absurd for a prisoner set free from his cell and pardoned from the scaffold's hangman would wish to return to it. Do you not know what your Savior has done for you?

Christ died- and He took YOU with Him.

He rose from death, and YOU were given his victory in baptism.

Death which has no dominion over Him cannot therefore conquer you. In baptism you have passed from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from doubt to certainty, from loss to gain, from bereavement to joy, from hell to heaven, and from sin to righteousness. All this was given you in a baptism that can never be taken away because your baptism is into Christ.

For you, Jesus Christ "crossed the Rubicon," the baptism of his suffering and death (Mark 10:38) There was no turning back. Crossing the Rubicon is an expression that comes from the history of ancient Rome. Julius Caesar committed an irrevocable act, led his army across the Rubicon River, and became guilty of breaking the law. It was his point of no return.

Caesar was a mortal man whose greatness and worldly victories could not defeat sin or death even with an army at his back.

The conquest of sin and death required a different man, a perfect man, the man who is God who would pass a point of no return carrying a cross, a man righteous in Himself, who would be charged with guilt for doing so- a man without an army, without worldly greatness, and without cover. This man was Jesus. He assumed our flesh, took the responsibility for our fallen sin, and invaded the territory of our corruption. He crossed his Rubicon from life to death, from righteousness to iniquity, from freedom to slavery, from decency to degradation, from blessedness to anguish. And never looked back.

In infancy Jesus was taken to Egypt, to the land of plagues and slavery, of bondage and death. In his maturity he went to Golgatha and the tree of the cross, the place of disgrace and death.

But it could not hold him. Not Egypt. Not Herod. Not perils or betrayals. Not Pilate. Not Calvary. Not even the tomb.

And now in the resurrection of His body there is again no turning back.

The death he died he died to sin, once for all. It's done! Neither He nor we will ever die again.

The valley of the shadow of death has been traversed, and in Him we have come to the green pastures and still waters where goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. There is no going back. We walk in the newness of life.

In baptism we have crossed the Rubicon, crossed the Red Sea and traversed the Jordan. Death has forever lost its dominion. We have been given pure and unending life. We who have died to sin can no longer live in it. We are the baptized; the people of the resurrection, dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The day of our baptism is the greatest because it is the new day that will never end.

To Bring To Your Remembrance

John 14:25-27

"These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

1 Cor. 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The Hazen Brigade Monument on the battlefield of Stones River, at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is the oldest Civil War monument in the nation.

Resting close to the Manson Pike, a two-lane road that passes through the battlefield, the commemorative stone was the very first formal expression of Civil War memorial, erected even before the war ended.

The Battle of Stones River was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863. It was one of the most costly engagements of the war in human lives.

Today, this earliest memorial is threatened by "urban sprawl."

Murfreesboro has grown and prospered. There are plans to construct a highway interchange on the core battlefield and private developers want to carve up valuable properties.

The memorial is old stuff to some today, not worth preserving.

But unforgettable to soldiers who felt a need for a monument to honor the thousands of brave soldiers who died, was the sacrifice they gave. Black troops of the 111th USCT (United States Colored Troops) did the hard, horrible work of removing the dead.

What resulted was a space that bound whites and blacks, Unionists with African American veterans together.

In fact, once Memorial Day was established, rail trains from Nashville would bring festive crowds to the new national cemetery. Even then there was friction over the value of the memorial. Many blacks objected to the lack of restraint by those who came for the fun rather than to pay respects.

A controversy already existed because Confederates were banned from the burial ground. But over the years that softened as the Stones River Battlefield Park was the first to include both Union and Confederate veterans as members erasing borderlines of North and South.

How easy to forget.

How simple to make a memorial simply an historical asterisk with no solemnity or remembrance of the costs paid for our liberties.

How short-sighted the aims of those who would devour and divide real estate without remembering the blood shed on it.

The church of Christ also has its memorial.

Although it is far more than a simple remembrance or ordinary marker, Jesus left us an everlasting Memorial. It is his own shed blood and crucified risen body by which He has delivered to us the Christian's liberty and life.

It is often overrun by the sprawl of worldly interests and priorities. Too infrequently it can be visited. The Sacrament of the Altar is squeezed and marginalized by other things which take precedence. It's old stuff to those who would soon forget the cost in blood our Savior paid.

Jesus knows we need something tangible, something real, something accessible to anchor us to Calvary where death and life collided on that fatal battlefield. We need a memorial that interprets for us the passion and victory of Christ and brings to us the benefits He fought and died to earn for us.

It's not enough just to drive by.

The house of God doesn't conduct drive-through ministry.

The church celebrates the living memorial of Jesus' body and blood continually, because it is through Christ alone that people of all races are truly bound together with each other and with Him. It is in the Body of Christ where divisions cease, conflicts are buried, and borderlines disappear.

Just as protection of America's natural and historic heritage requires eternal vigilance on the part of U.S. citizens to resist the sprawl that would swallow up remembrance of blessings given, we too, in repentance and faith, must remain attentive to the Lord's means of grace which place Jesus first.

He Himself invites us to receive often this memorial—this reality of Himself.

In a reckless age of thoughtlessness, God remembers. He continues to raise the Memorial of His Son to our lips that we may remember too. It is never old stuff.

Unforgettable to us who are saved by Him are His sacred Words indelibly inscribed in this memorial and in our memory, "Take eat, take drink, this is my body and blood for you for the forgiveness of your sins."

I Only Want You to Know Christ

Ephesians 3:14-19

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

This text is all one sentence. It is as if, in one breath, Paul bears his heart.

Here is a pastor every true pastor ought to emulate. His first reverence is for God. "I bow my knees before the Father," Paul writes. He doesn't bow to anything or anyone other than to our gracious God and Father. His heart and confidence rests on the One from whom every believer, including himself, derives the name Christian.

He doesn't bob around, first to what's popular and then be bent by what's nerve-racking, never sure where to put his feet down or his knees down. He doesn't carom back and forth in ever shifting loyalties, first to this method, then to that style. He doesn't hop around from one belief to another without an inkling of what confession to adopt today or which new thing might catch his fancy tomorrow. Instead, he depends only on the Father for the Father's gifts.

He looks only to the glorious riches grounded in Christ and trusts only the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word to implant faith in the hearts of people and build up the ranks of the saints.

He considers only one thing essential for the church he loves, that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. He doesn't consider it essential that folks be comfortable. He doesn't regard it important that they be amused, successful, popular, or prosperous. He only wants them to receive Christ. That's why he prays. That's why he preaches the Gospel. That's why he distributes the fullness of God in the sacraments. That's why he confesses his own sins and counts how unworthy, like himself, is anyone to represent Christ.

He only wants these people to know the breadth, length, height and depth of the love of Christ. To have people comprehend, not with masterful knowledge but with faith in the Word, the love of Christ-- this is the cardinal hope and yearning of the apostle.

He wants these people to be filled with the fullness of God because he knows this was God's intent in sending us His Son and the continuing reason God delivers Christ to us in Word and Sacrament.

I have a long way to go to become such a pastor, and I know many of my colleagues in ministry feel the same. That is why we never want you to focus on us. We never want you to be persuaded by force of personality or the range of someone's talents. That's why we hope you will not ask us to be more effective or more believable. Pray simply that we will be faithful. The best pastors come with nothing but the mercies of Christ. The best pastors are invisible within the office of Word and Sacrament.

For it is Christ alone in whom you are rooted and grounded. The "riches" we receive come not from the flair or genius of men but hidden in water, bread, wine, and words from ordinary men. The riches are gifts centered in Christ and flow from Him. They are forgiveness, righteousness, providence, and paradise. They are Baptism and the Eucharist. They are the words which speak the life and peace of Christ into the ears and hearts of sinners reborn from the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit.

These are the jewels of our faith.

Not even someone like St. Paul belongs on a pedestal. And certainly, most certainly not I. I pray only that we gather at the foot of the cross, hear only the Word of Christ, and celebrate nothing else but the infinite breadth, length, height, and depth of God's goodness who gave His Son into death that we may live.

One Claim, One Cross

Galatians 6:14

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Since when has our human flesh - that is, our corrupt nature, imperfect judgment and our self-centeredness ever guided us well? How many score of times each day do we veer off the right way? The estimation we have of ourselves is skewed. Nobody on earth thinks as well of me as I do of myself. Nobody regards me as so important because they have their own advantages and benefits to consider.

I don't say a majority of people are crass braggarts. We are only more sophisticated in our boasting. Unconcealed showing off begins to pale with maturity, but not because we don't think we have neat things about ourselves worth mentioning. It's because blowing your own horn usually receives disapproval from those who find it objectionable to have themselves upstaged. We just get better at our self-pride (or worse as the case many be). Look in a mirror once and simply say, "You are so full of yourself!"

We are incredibly narcissistic. It is not just the cocky end-zone hot-dogger or the gyrating celebrity bimbo who thinks she's such hot stuff. It's not just the neighborhood wind-bag or the mother of whose children you are always hearing are so textbook perfect. No, its all who scorn them and consider their own conduct superior or admirable. Prim little old ladies can be exceedingly judgmental and vain. Well-dressed, well-educated, well-mannered and well-healed professionals can be remarkably arrogant.

No class, age, or situation can inoculate us against the sin of our own big head and big talk, even if we keep our opinion private. "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" [Romans 7:24]

Only one object is deserving of true honor. And it is alien to us.

The cross.

The cross displaces every conceit of our human flesh because flesh is crucified upon it. Whose flesh? Our human flesh in the man Jesus. The cross was ours. We built it. We earned it. We ought to have had our own smug, supercilious booties nailed there. Since when did we make the cross someone else's symbol? Distant from us upon a steeple or ambiguous in a politician's political ad?

The cross was taken from me. The cross was carried by another. The cross had impaled upon it my Substitute, my Savior. All that I deserved fell upon Him.

The cross is now the object of our one legitimate boast - not because we did anything there or can take personal pride in a decision to venerate the sacrifice offered on it - but because once and for all every part of those airs and gall and pretense I manufacture, and which is opposed to God, has been crucified. Because of what Jesus did and suffered all association between the world of conceit and selfishness and who I am as a child of God has ended. Self-pride is dead. Self-justification is defunct and useless.

The Christian may now see himself or herself in the flesh of Christ - and know that God honors us, not for anything by us or from us, but through the cross of his beloved Son. In the morning, when you get up, make the sign of the cross and say, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Don't just put a cross on a door plaque or on the wall or suspended under your rear view mirror. Proclaim it as the singular pride of your life in contrast to which everything else means nothing.

Christ Calls Death Sleep, and It is So

Mark 5:21-24, 35-43

And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live." And he went with him ….

While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?" But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, "Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, "Talitha cumi," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

I am a father of four daughters. I love each dearly. I see pictures of their childhood and treasure those times. I don't see them daily any more, but the desire for their wellbeing is no less.

The welfare of your children or dearest loved is no small thing either, is it? If the issue is one of life and death, parents would move heaven and earth, if they could, just to spare their child.

The Bible tells of a man named Jairus, a father whose young daughter was deathly ill. Helpless, he came to Jesus. Everything else was irrelevant. Here was a prominent man, a ruler of the synagogue whom we could suspect was normally very distinguished and not one to be down on all fours begging. But his dignity was immaterial.

In faith, he beseeched Jesus to touch his child so she might live. There is no room for pride when death threatens. All hope and credit rests in Jesus.

A great crowd also surrounded Jesus. But this too was no consideration to Jairus. Did the ruler of the synagogue not realize he was expecting a great deal to ask Jesus to come to his house, treat his daughter, and respond to his insistence when many others also were hurting? In the crowd were other folks in need. Didn't they count? Yes, he was asking a great deal. But that's why he came to Jesus!

In fact, right in the middle of this chapter the Bible suspends the story of Jairus and tells of a woman with a chronic hemorrhage who slipped through the crowd to touch Jesus and was healed. Everything about Jairus' little girl is postponed while Jesus inquires after this woman, finds her, and speaks comfortingly to her.

A few, it seems, were mindful of not asking too much of Jesus. In fact, when the report came that the little girl had died, some suggested Jesus not be troubled any further. Those who came with this report were not so much concerned for Jesus’ time and trouble as much as they now believed Jesus would be irrelevant in the face of death. If the child has died, then what's the point of bringing in Jesus? What's the point of counting on Jesus when his delay in ministering to someone else made him too late for little Talitha? What's the point of pleading for help if, in the long run, God is "a day late and a dollar short"?

One can only imagine Jairus' feelings as a father to have loved his daughter so much that he would leave her side just when she was so critically ill, prostrate himself before Jesus, plead for help, persist in spite of other people's needs, have his hopes raised only to face the holdup of a woman whose problem traced back twelve years. After twelve years, couldn't that wait a little bit longer when today minutes, even seconds, count?

All this only to be told the little girl had died.

What a severe test of faith this was. Jairus believed in Jesus though his faith was taxed. It would be strained further. A gauntlet of yowling mourners waited at the house, an uproar probably increased because it was a youngster who had died. How this must have shook Jairus especially when the bawling turned to derisive laughter when Jesus announced the child was only sleeping.

The Lord's Word cut past all the experts, all outward indications, all "reasonable" human conclusions, all experience, all scientific deductions, and all collective judgment. All such things are subordinate to the Word of Christ to which faith clings when all other intrusions, conclusions, and derision interfere.

Nothing but faith belongs in the death chamber. Jesus does not allow the doubter, the cynic, the agnostic, the pessimist, or the naysayer into the child's presence. He takes only those who hope in Him. Speculation or misgivings about the power of Christ are out of place. Contempt is incompatible with hope. Science cannot raise the dead.

But Jesus can - and does.

He calls death sleep, and it is so.

He calls you who have sinned, saved, and it is so.

He calls you who mourn, the comforted, and it is so.

He calls you who hunger for righteousness, the satisfied, and it is so.

He calls you who are insulted, persecuted, or falsely accused for his sake, the blessed, and it is so.

He calls to the little girl, "Talitha cumi," and immediately she rises because only Christ can make it so.

He takes those who believe in him, who know that Christ is the Lord of life, tested though they may be, right to where faith sees its validation - in the resurrection!

Jairus received even more than what he asked. He asked that his daughter be made well, yet Jesus did more than take away an illness. He conquered the death in her. Jesus raised her from death to life.

This is the Christ you and I know and trust. He gives us more than we could ask. He exceeds all our hopes. He pays double for all our sins. He answers before we ask and surpasses the best we can imagine.

Therefore when others recommend Jesus not be bothered; when others howl that death defeats us all; when others brazenly laugh that Jesus is "above his pay grade," you and I remember the empty tomb. You and I enter where the Christian bereaved have gathered and sing:

"Now all the vault of heaven resounds,

in praise of love that still abounds:

Christ has triumphed! He is living!

Now still He comes to give us life

And by His presence stills all strife.

Christ has triumphed. He is living.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

(LSB 465)

Surviving the Hindenburg

Philippians 3:17-21

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

We walk in danger all the way. The foes arrayed against Christ and His people are fearful. Not only is their rage real, the enemies of the cross do not use plastic bows and arrows or shoot pop-guns. Nor are they engaged just in war games where plans are set and strategies considered but only theoretically.

No, the threat is absolutely real, for "many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ." Satan boasts of his legions. (Mark 5:9)

Should we quake with anxiety and have hearts melt to think the enemy that loathes God also hates us? How dreadful that the single-minded aim of Satan is literally to destroy us, to entangle us with such love of earthly things that our eyes, hopes, and affections concentrate anywhere other than on Christ.

All this brought St. Paul to tears. He cried as he wrote his letter to the Philippians.

Yet his tears were not shed in despair for the church whose citizenship is in heaven, who’s Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, works bodily resurrection. Rather, he cried for the doom of our enemies.

In 1937, a WLS Chicago radio reporter named Herbert Morrison witnessed the tragic explosion of the Zeppelin Hindenburg which came down in a ball of fire above the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. His cry of grief captured on newsreels of the time echoed across the globe. "Oh, the humanity!" he cried.

This must have been much the same emotion of St. Paul as he sees raining down on people a hail of debris and crashing jetsam. The adversaries of Christ have brought to bear the full arsenal of horrible weapons: temptations, lusts, and even death against us. But they are caught in their own mesh.

The fire of devastation and ruin is not for us. Christ the Lord comes in his glorious resurrected body. He comes with power to save, not to bring down but to lift in splendor those who have walked by faith in Him. He comes in the divine power by which all things are subject to Him.

One survivor of the fateful Hindenburg catastrophe was a 14 year-old boy named Werner Franz, a cabin boy on the great air ship. Who would imagine his miraculous saving from the conflagration was through a shower of water. The flames had advanced upon him blocking any escape from the inferno. But then a water ballast burst open, and he was soaked. He is one of only two survivors still alive today.

You and I also have been soaked.

Drenched in the saving waters of Holy Baptism we are transformed from the shame of our sins into heirs of salvation. We have been drenched. Our disgrace is washed away and we are called to glory in Christ Jesus.

Satan and his dominions cannot prevail.

Jesus Christ has the power of life and resurrection. So, even though we walk in danger and the perils are real, we Christians are under no jeopardy. We have citizenship in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.

And that's not hypothetical.

Beyond My Words

Luke 5:17-26

On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

There is no way all the superlatives in the world don’t apply always, completely, and exclusively to Jesus. You just can't overstate how wonderful He is. All the praise of saints and angels, all the respects offered him, and all the recognition isn't ever enough to convey the matchless goodness of our Savior.

I wish I could love Him as much as He deserves to be loved. I wish I could thank Him somewhere in the neighborhood of how He’s blessed me. But at least He grants me the privilege of trying.

Think of a time when you have really tried your hardest to find words to express just how much the grace of God means to you and how precious Christ is. It’s like going on your tiptoes, like reaching up to a height of eloquence human words have yet to achieve. How do you say without fumbling that the forgiveness of sins is both the sweetest and the most magnificent gift you have ever received?

What stratosphere of poetry or loftiness of prayers can do Christ justice? It just can't be done. Even at my best, I’m like the paralytic in this beautiful story of Jesus. The man’s friends carry him up to a roof to get to Jesus. That’s like somebody lifting up my lame and palsied words a few feet in the air when the real tributes and homage made to Christ deserve to echo across the mountain tops and rebound between the stars. How can we accomplish openly enough or boldly enough the command, “What you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.” Let the Gospel of Jesus Christ soar to every corner of the universe. Yet, no pulpit is high enough and no spire tall enough to touch the glories of the Lord.

True it is: Christ is transcendent Lord and infinite God. By the communication of attributes, Jesus possesses all that can be ascribed to God. He is omniscient, immutable, perfectly benevolent, omnipotent, and endlessly more. As the Nicene Creed declares, He is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

But from my little perch on the house top, the divine magnificence is beyond both comprehension and reach.

But do you know the real wonder — I mean the really, astonishing wonder about this Jesus?

He’s down below us, sitting among people in the most ordinary of ways. The superlative words are not mine or yours. They’re His. The dearest words ever to fall on ears like ours are, “Your sins are forgiven you.” That’s what the paralytic was told. No pearl draped speech; no gilded tongue. Just wholesome, comforting, tender words.

Your sins are forgiven!

Oh, God, what a blessing to hear those priceless words from your dear Son.

God is not remote in the far-flung heavens. He is here in Christ for us. Here with us is this wonderful man, this rare and loving man who isn't just the superlatives but also the most normal of men. So authentically human.

We’re told that one of those days, “the power of the Lord was with him to heal.” Of course Jesus could heal any time, but as with us, there are just some days when God uses His children exceptionally. Jesus wasn't on parade being the “super-guy,” the “super-healer,” or the “super-image” of future Christians trying to be perfect.

He is simply teaching and serving, listening and answering, loving the lost and curing the lame.

Yes, I wish I could love Him as much as He deserves to be loved, but the fact is He loves me though I deserved it not at all. I wish I could thank Him in proportion to how He’s blessed me, but He’s chosen to beat me to it. He blesses me and all his children, including you, with grace beyond all thanks, with forgiveness beyond all bounds, and with peace beyond all endings.

Such goodness is beyond my words.