Greetings in the name of Christ our Lord! I had a great visit with JoAnna and Steven this weekend. I am so glad they were able to come up and visit. We did a little antique shopping, pawn shop shopping, and afternoon drinking at the craft brewery in town on Saturday. It was a great day.
Sunday was a little bit of a sad day as we had our farewell dinner for the LSF. I can't believe after this weekend, only two students will still be around Brookings. I am definitely going to miss them. We also put out 750 white wooden crosses on the church lawn on Sunday. The trailer says 597, because that was the number of abortions in South Dakota in 2011, but we assumed that number has gone up and there were extra crosses in the trailer so we put out 750. It is a sad but neat sight to see.
Here is my sermon from yesterday. Things around here should begin to slow down slightly, not a lot, but slightly. So I will try to post a few more smaller posts on here.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Our text for this morning is from the Gospel reading of Luke 24, looking specifically at verses 19 to 27: “And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
This text for this morning is good news. In fact it is great news. We see in this text that Christ our Lord is alive, He is not only alive, but He appears to two disciples. Now these are not any two of the main 11 disciples, but most likely 2 of the 72 disciples that He sent out earlier in His ministry. Either way we know that these are men who have followed Christ, disciples who have believed in Him as the Messiah. Luke tells us that Christ appears to these disciples. The tomb is empty as reported and this is Good News. This is Good News because we are not wondering where Christ is, why the tomb is empty, we know exactly why it is empty; we know exactly where Christ is because Luke tells us. He is alive, He is out walking around appearing to these disciples. This has been the theme since Easter morning, that He is alive, but I mean can we ever really say it enough, “Christ is Risen… He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!”Amen. He is alive indeed. Last week we heard about how He appeared to the disciples in the locked room and tells them, “Peace be with you.” He appears to Thomas and gives Him physical evidence of the fact that He is alive. Here again, even though these two disciples do not get it right away, we see Him again appearing to His disciples giving them physical evidence that He is indeed alive. We continue to celebrate the Easter season, the Easter rejoicing by once again being reminded that He is alive, the tomb is empty and this is Good, this is Great News!
However, these disciples do not have the same insight we do. They have been kept from recognizing that this is Jesus Christ, the living Lord. They do not know who it truly is, instead they believe He is some clueless stranger. I mean He is oblivious to everything that has happened. They ask Him, “Are you the ONLY one in all of Jerusalem that doesn’t know what has happened here the past few days?” And then when He asks, “What happened?” they give Him a play by play list of everything that has happened. Except in their answer as they are catching Him up to speed, they not only give Him the events and facts, we also get a glimpse into what these disciples are feeling, what they are thinking about all of these events. They are doubtful and frustrated.
They are doubtful because they were followers, disciples of Jesus and followed Him throughout His ministry. They heard His teachings, saw His miracles, and witnessed His ministry. They thought this one, this Jesus of Nazareth was the real deal. They thought He was the true Messiah, and the redeemer of Israel. But He died, and seeing Him die ended all of those hopes. The messiah, the one who was supposed to come and redeem them was not supposed to die. He was not suppose to abandon them after He taught them, trained them, and sent them out. He was supposed to be with them, supporting them, leading them, reassuring them that their efforts and labor were worth it. But He died and their hope in Him is completely gone. We see that they say in their dialogue, “We had hoped”, past tense, showing that their hope in this Jesus is gone. I think amidst all of these men’s doubts, the news of the empty tomb was bad news, not good news. It was bad news because they had put all their trust in this Jesus and been let down once. They trusted in Him as the redeemer and got those hopes and trusts crushed when He died and abandoned them. So now even though the women have reported the tomb being empty and even seeing angels who have told them He is alive, even though the other disciples affirmed that the tomb was empty, these two disciples will not believe it. They put all their hope and trust in Jesus once, and those hopes were crushed when He died. They have been let down and disappointed once, they are not about to risk feeling that same way again. They have decided to not get their hopes up again by this rumor. Just as Thomas said, “I will never believe unless I see the nail holes in His hands and put my hand in His side,” these disciples are saying that unless they actually see Him alive they are not going to get their hopes up and risk being let down again. They doubt the rumors of the tomb being empty and they doubt that He was ever the Messiah at all.
They are not only doubtful, but frustrated. Again, these men put all of their hope and trust in this one man. They dedicated their lives to Him, gave up their livelihood to follow Him, they were so sure He was the Messiah. Then He died and now they have made up their minds that He was not the Messiah, that they were wrong the whole time. Now some stranger who didn’t even know what was going on in Jerusalem until you filled Him in, is trying to teach you that all of these things that made you doubt your believes were NECESSARY?! They were SO SURE He was the Messiah, then they were SURE He was not, and this stranger is trying to get them to believe that He still is the Messiah by showing that His death was necessary. They aren’t sure what to be sure of anymore, they aren’t sure they can be sure anything is actually right anymore, and this is the frustrating part. They are frustrated with trying to figure out what is actually worth believing.
For me, I think this is more of the reality you and I face in the weakness of our faith. As good Christians who know the whole story, who have the great gift of the New Testament as assurance that Christ is alive, I do not believe very many of us doubt the truth that Christ is risen. Every time Pastor or I say, “Christ is Risen,” you all immediately respond with, “Christ is Risen Indeed, Alleluia”. I have no doubt you believe Christ is alive, I know you all believe the empty tomb is good news. We have this very reading from Luke telling us that Christ is not only alive, He is the very one standing in front of these disciples walking with them, talking with them, teaching them.
I think the struggle of the disciples that we can more directly relate to is the frustration. Even having all of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, I think it is pretty easy for us to be frustrated with the way God works at times. We can’t fully grasp why God would send His Son…. to die! We can’t fully understand why God acts the way He does, and does the things He does. We can’t even fully grasp the concept of the Trinity. I mean other than to quote the Athanasian Creed there is no easy way to explain the Trinity to someone. If we can’t fully grasp the concept of the Trinity, who are God is, how are we supposed to be able to fully understand how He works and why He works the way He does? Us humans, sinful humans let me remind you, we want to know everything, be able to understand everything, or else we aren’t sure we can trust it. This is frustrating to us! If God would just give us all the answers, if He would just make everything black and white clear and take out all the grey area of life, we would be so much less frustrated. But because we cannot wrap our minds around all of these things, we get frustrated. We get angry and upset with God. We go as far as to question God or even blame Him. We try to make up what God should be or how He should work in our own minds. “If God were truly a loving God, He would not let that baby die; If God were truly a loving God He would save all people and there would be no such thing as Hell; if God were truly all-powerful, He would never let natural disasters happen; if He was really a merciful God, He would not let us continue to suffer in this sinful world, He would end our struggles and suffering and take us all to Heaven or the New Heaven and New Earth right now.” We make up in our minds what God should be, and when the actions of God do not line us with what we have made up in our minds, we get frustrated with Him.
But notice two things form our text. First of all, Jesus, even though the disciples don’t yet recognize it is Him, He teaches them that God has given them everything they need to know. He did not just send His Son to die without fair warning; He did not just act His plan of salvation without any teachings or promises. Christ teaches these two men that all of the Scriptures of the Old Testament pointed to Christ, that God made His plan of salvation very clear in the words of Moses and the prophets. It was told as necessary for the Son of Man to come and die to pay for the sin of mankind long before it now actually happened. He has given them what they need to know.
Also, notice once they recognize that this stranger who taught them all of these things is Jesus, all of that frustration and doubt go way. They no longer have doubts about the empty tomb being Good news, they no longer have frustration of God working good through the death of Jesus. They are filled with joy and excitement as they race the seven miles back to tell the others the news that one, the tomb is empty and two this is good news, because Jesus is alive! They are no longer doubtful about what to believe and they are no longer frustrated with how God works, they are simply in awe of their living Lord being there in front of them.
So what about us? Well first of all we know Christ is alive, we do not doubt this. We know He is living, we know His death and resurrection is not a thing to cause us doubt, but actually the root of all our salvation. We know that it is only because of what Christ did on the cross and through the empty tomb that we have any hope and goodness in our lives at all. We know this is not only good news, but it truly is the best of news. We know this how we have forgiveness of all our sin, and how we have our salvation and eternal life in Christ’s name. It truly is GREAT NEWS.
It also reminds us that God does indeed have a plan. He is not simply working however He feels that day and is moved back and forth, shifting in the wind. He has had one plan from the very beginning and He has always been faithful to that plan. He works in a certain way, but He has revealed to us what we need to know about how He works in His Word. No, He does not give us every answer we would ever like to know, but He has given us every answer we ever need to know in His Word. And what His Word directly leads us to is always His Son, Jesus Christ out savior. Christ is the answer, because Christ is the one whom all Scriptures points to. When we have Christ, our living Lord right there in front of us, all doubt and all frustration goes away.
So if you find yourself doubting or frustrated, go to what He has given us. Go back to His Word and SEE your living Lord, Jesus Christ right there in front of you. When you find yourself doubting or frustrated come to the communion rail and SEE your living Lord right there in front of you. Just as the disciples, when He broke the bread and their eyes were opened, saw Jesus right there in front of them and all their frustration and doubts were gone, see your living Lord right there in front of you and let all doubts and frustrations be removed. Because Christ is Risen… He is Risen indeed, Alleluia! And this is the GREATEST NEWS we have ever heard!
In the name of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. HHHHH
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