Month: February 2012

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Now I Know You Fear God

Text: Genesis 22:1-18
Date: Lent I + 2/26/12

“Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’”

God knew, of course—knew that Abraham had the faith and fear of God to do according to God’s word and command, even though he may not have fully understood it. So this test was certainly not for God as to discover anything in Abraham, nor even only for the reassurance of Abraham’s faith. It was to proclaim the Gospel—to proclaim it to Abraham and to his son Isaac, and to the countless generations of believers of both the Old and New Covenants who read of it, to include you and me today. And the Gospel is this: that God so loved the world, that He sent His one and only Son; sent Him to be the sacrifice for all sin, so that whoever looks to Him, believes in Him will have everlasting life. Continue reading “Now I Know You Fear God”

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Walking with God

Text: 2 Kings 2:1-12
Date: Transfiguration + 2/19/12

“After six days,” six days since our Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples of His coming crucifixion, death and resurrection, He was transfigured, privately, before the inner group of Peter, James and John. Today, as every year, we celebrate on the last Sunday of the Epiphany season The Transfiguration of Our Lord, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the penitential season of Lent, the exclamation point of the entire Epiphany season which has announced the Light that has come into the world, ushered in by the star of Bethlehem, shown forth in the preaching and healing ministry of Jesus, but now to be dimmed and even doused in the darkness of His greatest work, His innocent suffering and blessed death on the cross. It is a sort of reassurance for us, that is, for faith to endure through the scandal and offense of our Lord’s bitter suffering and cruel death. As the Lord’s Supper is said to be for faith “a foretaste of the feast to come,” so the Transfiguration of Our Lord is for faith a glimpse, an earnest of our own resurrection on the last day and the sinless purity God sees in us through the blood of Jesus shed for us. Continue reading “Walking with God”

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Wash and Be Clean

Text: 2 Kings 5:1-14
Date: Epiphany VI + 2/12/12

A man sick with leprosy came to Jesus, “and he was made clean.” A great man named Naaman sick with leprosy came to the prophet Elisha, “and he was clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the man when He healed him. Elisha didn’t even “wave his hand” but told Naaman to go wash himself seven times in the Jordan River. The theme of Jesus’ healing ministry continues today. Bodily healing by God is not done for its own sake but for the sake of proclaiming that God’s salvation is for the whole person, body and soul, the greatest healing, the last laugh against sin and death we could say, “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” Continue reading “Wash and Be Clean”

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Not Faint, Not Weary

Text: Isaiah 40:21-31
Date: Epiphany V + 2/5/12

According to Saint Mark, when our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ appeared, the first thing that strikes us is His ministry of healing. His power to heal extends from the most dramatic casting out of demons to what appears to us to be the relatively minor condition of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law lying ill with a fever. Physical healing of the body is one aspect of the gospel of salvation, for, after this life, we do not turn into angels or disembodied spirits. The greatest Christ-ian hope of healing is the promised resurrection of the body, the promise of new bodies for old. We remain human beings of God’s own creation and design forever. The underlying cause of all sickness and disease is not just a medical con-dition but the spiritual condition called “sin.” “You sin, you experience separations of all kinds, you get sick, you die” says the Bible. You don’t sin, you don’t get sick, you don’t die. All have sinned. Therefore all die. Continue reading “Not Faint, Not Weary”