View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. You're driving on your way to church. That's great. This is the Sunday drive to church podcast for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost. I'm gonna get it right now that I have the bulletins in hand. The year of our Lord 2024. Oh, yeah. June 30, the year of our Lord 2024. In the midst of so much chaos. Wow, what a chaotic week, especially in our world. In the midst of that, the Lord gathers us together to give his peace and his spirit and the wisdom and his wisdom from his word. And boy, do we have a lot of things to learn and meditate on today. Let me pray the collect, and then we'll start looking at the texts especially. Oh, boy, there's, these scriptures are just gems. There's a couple of these that you want to just tattoo on your heart, make memory verses cards out of. So. But first, the collect for the Sunday. Let us pray.
[00:00:55] Heavenly Father, during his earthly ministry, your son Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead by the healing medicine of the word and sacraments. Pour into our heart such love toward you that we may live eternally through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. We're pushing our way through the gospel of Mark, and that's really the cornerstone of today's service. Mark, chapter five, verse 21 to 43. This very curious, embedded double miracle. Jesus has been called by Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, to go and heal his daughter. And on his way, he's interrupted by the woman who has a flow of blood, and he heals her. And then by time that delay, the girl has died. But Jesus goes, and we get one of the four times that we hear the original Arabic of Jesus words, talitha kumi. And that's the Arabic for little girl, I say to you, arise. That's the gospel. The Old Testament is somewhat connected, but a little less connected. It's lamentations. Chapter three, the last eleven verses of chapter three, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. We continue reading through the epistle, lesson two, corinthians eight, where Paul is.
[00:02:18] There's a beautiful verse right in the middle of that. Paul's talking about how they're going to take a collection from the Corinthians and add it to the collection that they're taking from the Philippians and use it to support the starving church in Jerusalem. There was a famine in Jerusalem, and so Paul, one of the reasons he was going on this missionary journey was to raise support, to try to support the church. So that comes up there. But first I want to think about psalm 30. And, in fact, before we get into these other things, I also want to think about the hymn of the day, if thou but trust in God to guide thee. I would commend to you, if you're there a little bit early.
[00:02:51] And you know how we have this prayer five minutes before the service starts and the music starts playing, and we're doing that to covertly get everybody to be quiet.
[00:03:01] It's not that we don't. The elders and the pastors don't love how much you all love each other, but you just love each other a little loud five minutes before the service. So, you know, that's our trick. So if you're looking for something to read or think about in that five minutes before the service, I would really commend you both. Psalm 30 and the hymn, if thou but trust in God to guide thee. It's a beautiful hymn of trust. It's from, I don't know, the guy who wrote it died in 1681, so probably we're looking at 1650 or so. If thou but trust in God to guide thee and hope in him through all thy ways, he'll give thee strength whate'er betide thee and bear thee through the evil days. Who trusts in God's unchanging love? Builds on the rock that not can move. It's in the hope and comfort section of the hymnal LSB, which used to be the cross and comfort section in the old TLH. You know, there's a lot of things I like about TLH, and this is one of them, that they used to call these hymns about how we suffer so much affliction with patience and endurance, trusting God to keep us all the way through it, and rejoicing that he, in fact, gives it to us.
[00:04:15] Cross and comfort. That's what it is. Hope and comfort. Cross and comfort. These should be the same. God knows. This is stanza four. God knows full well when times of gladness shall be the needful thing for thee. When he's tried thy soul with sadness, and from all guile is found thee free. He comes to thee all unawares and makes thee his own, and makes thee own his love and care.
[00:04:38] In other words, the Lord knows when you need some relief, and he will not give you more trouble than you can handle. How about this verse? Stanza five. Nor think amid the fiery trial that God hath cast thee off unheard, that he whose hopes meet no denial must surely be of God preferred.
[00:04:56] Time passes and much change doth bring and sets a bound to everything.
[00:05:01] Sing, pray the last. Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving. Perform thy duties faithfully and trust his word. Though undeserving, thou yet shall find it true for thee. God never forsook in need the soul that trusted him. Indeed.
[00:05:18] This is so fantastic. How about I'm going to go back to stanza three. This is probably the heart of the whole hymn. Be patient and await his leisure in cheerful hope, with heart content to take whate'er thy father's pleasure and his discerning love has sent nor doubt. Our inmost wants are known to him who chose us for his own. This is this understanding that each one of us is in the Lord's school and he's dishing out his lessons. And sometimes the lessons are lessons of joy and abundance. Sometimes the lessons are lessons of affliction and trouble. And the Lord knows what we need and when we need it, and so we trust him. And there's a joy in the midst of that, that all the troubles that you're going through are from the hands of your heavenly Father. Now, it's not only that, though. There's something else here, because we normally, when we think about joy in the midst of suffering, we oftentimes think of it at an individual level.
[00:06:20] It's also at a church level and even at a cultural, societal level that we can think of these things. In other words, the Lord is leading our own country through a time of trouble.
[00:06:37] I mean, just I think about, especially this month, having a pride month, you know, that our culture says, hey, you know, this is what we want to celebrate all month, this month. That is an affliction for the Lord's people who want to rejoice in God's gift of marriage and who want to fight against any sort of abuse or trouble of marriage. This is a troublesome month, but we are called to have even joy in the midst of these cultural moments of despair.
[00:07:08] So that hymn is just perfect. And then I'd also come into you. Psalm 30. There's a handful of beautiful things to think about in psalm 30. It's exactly average psalm length, twelve verses. We'll sing the whole thing. I will extol you, o Lord, for you have drawn me up, especially in the late service. We're going to have two baptisms in the late service, Sophia and Jeremiah, one baby, one adult. And to think about them coming up out of the water, being drawn up by the Lord and remembering that all of us start in the pit. It's not like we're standing there and the Lord pushes us into the pit. No, we start in the pit. Lord is the one who draws us out. He's the one who rescues us. He's the one who pulls us to safety. Stanza verse five. For his anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. That just perfect fit with a hymn that times of sorrow, then times of joy, then times of sorrow. And it's a moment. And then I favor for a lifetime. How about this? Verse ten here. O Lord, be merciful to me. O lord, my helper. That's that word, Ebenezer. It's the word that the Lord speaks of Eve. I'll make a helper fit for him. The Lord is our helper. He, the Lord loves to give that title to himself and we should claim it. Oh lord, you are our helper. Help us here. Now we need help for this. O lord, be my helper.
[00:08:42] That's psalm 30 ten. O lord, be merciful to me. O Lord, be my helper. That is a verse to put on your memory list. Okay, now to the other text we have, by the way, the liturgy. We're still in divine service. Oh, it doesn't even tell me in the bulletin, does it? Divine service 103 four, probably. Yeah, divine service setting four. Kind of a simple spoken, nice summer liturgy. So we have that. We have lamentations three.
[00:09:14] I don't think I'm going to say too much because. So I have to tell you guys, I'm torn in half about if I'm going to be preaching on lamentations and mark. I mean, because I'm recording this on Saturday, you're listening on Sunday morning. I won't be torn in half anymore. I'm going to know by time you're listening to this. But anyhow, right now I'm basically writing two sermons because both of these texts are so magnificent. But I'm leaning towards lamentations now. Remember, lamentations is this little poem by Jeremiah the prophet.
[00:09:48] Who is preaching this? Who is writing this lament over the destruction of Jerusalem? 586, 587, Nebuchadnezzar and his babylonian armies come and completely overrun Jerusalem and destroy it and destroy the temple.
[00:10:06] The people are crying out and wrestling with it theologically because there were so many promises that the Lord gave that were bound up to Jerusalem. And now Jerusalem is on fire and its rubble and they are asking, how can this be? How can the Lord be faithful and Jerusalem be burned. And they are wrestling through all of the horrors of it. I mean, it was an ugly, ugly event. I mean, the siege beforehand and all the terrible things that happen in the midst of the siege and lamentations covers a bunch of that stuff. But in the middle of that horror, we have these beautiful verses.
[00:10:47] Verse 22. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
[00:10:54] His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
[00:11:02] The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence while it is laid on him. Let him put his mouth to the dust. There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes. Let him be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever. But though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. And here's the zinger, the very last line, verse 33. For he, the Lord does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.
[00:11:52] The Lord does afflict and grieve, but it is not his will. This is not his heart. It is what Isaiah calls the alien work of God.
[00:12:01] To discipline, to rebuke, to grieve, to chastise, to afflict. This is God's alien work, all serving his glorious purpose, the purpose of his chesed, his steadfast love, his faithfulness, which never comes to an end. This is so important for understanding suffering and understanding how we receive suffering from the Lord, and also understanding the Lord himself, because he does kill before he makes alive, but that killing is to serve the making alive.
[00:12:34] He does rebuke before he comforts, but that rebuking is to serve the comfort. He does speak the law, and especially this, the law which shows our sin and condemns us and exposes his wrath to our consciences. He speaks the law so that he might speak the gospel and the comfort and forgiveness of sins.
[00:12:53] This is how the Lord deals with us. It's really, really important text.
[00:12:58] Okay. I mentioned our, oh, we should. The gradual is shifted up last week. It's now from romans eleven. This doxological statement from. I think it changed that last week. Or maybe it's this week. Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments. How inscrutable this ways? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. That's the great doxology at the end of Romans chapter eleven, which is a doxological end to Paul's discussion of the doctrine of election, Romans 910 eleven. And really, it's a doxological end to Paul's whole doctrinal section, Romans one to eleven. Beautiful. And then he's going to switch to some more practical and vocational stuff in chapter twelve. So that's another great one to memorize. I think that's the epistle for Trinity Sunday every year.
[00:13:50] From, from him and through him and to him are all things. That's one that you can get the kids to draw a picture of from through to. So how can, how can everything be from God and to God? Well, it's a loop. It's from him for him and through him. It's really from God the Father through God the Son to God, or in God the Holy Spirit. And then backwards. The old theologians used to love to talk about our prayers this way. By the way, we pray in the spirit, through the son to the Father, and the gift of God's grace comes from the father through the Son in the spirit.
[00:14:27] Beautiful. Okay. Epistle, lesson two, corinthians eight. We see some practical stuff here. Paul says, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace that God has been given among the churches of Macedonia in a severe test of affliction. So remember, Macedonia is kind of the, that's this region that connects Greece with the majority rest of Europe. So it's northern Greece, and he's right into Corinth, which is southern Greece.
[00:14:53] It's on that little peninsula that connects the mainland of Greece to Acacia, the little almost island on the bottom side of Greece. So he's collecting support money for the christians in Jerusalem who were in a time of famine.
[00:15:12] And the Corinthians are also collecting money. It seems like their vigor for this project has waned a little bit. So Paul writes this letter for one of the reasons, is to encourage them to do well. But in the middle of it, he gives us the most important verse for understanding stewardship. It's two corinthians eight, nine. And this is another one that goes on our memory list for, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.
[00:15:55] That's such a great text. So that the Lord empties himself. He. He makes himself poor of no account. He lowers himself. He humbles himself. And he does that to give you the riches of heaven. I it's not earthly riches that you inherit when you're baptized. It's so much more than that. You inherit heaven and earth and God and the angels and eternal life and everything else.
[00:16:17] That's the gift that the Lord gives. And you gain that through his poverty. Whew. So this is why Paul can talk about this. He says God loves a cheerful giver, because our giving comes from that confidence that the Lord has already given everything for us and that we're not trying to earn it back or pay for it or whatever. That would be blasphemous, the idea. I heard someone preach this one time, oh, boy. More than once. And it almost makes me sick to my stomach, the preaching. And you might have heard it, too. It goes like this. Jesus gave up everything for you. Now what are you going to give up for him? As if the gospel is manipulation, as if the gospel has strings attached. As if the death of the Lord Jesus was to get you to do the right thing.
[00:17:02] It's just the worst confusion of law and gospel, that God's gifts come to us freely, absolutely freely. And if we think that we're going to earn it or pay it back or somehow make up for it, that is blasphemous.
[00:17:20] It's to put a value, as if we could earn the blood of God.
[00:17:26] No, this is not what. So God loves a cheerful giver because we recognize that the Lord has given all of this to us freely, and our gifts are the same way they're given freely.
[00:17:37] Beautiful. Okay, now that brings us to the last text. How we doing on time? Hopefully, we're still recording. Oh, good. 18 minutes in. I wonder where you are.
[00:17:48] I wonder if. I wonder how. You know, I shoot for like 22, 23 minutes because that's what I'm guessing the average is. But I've, I found a few of you hanging around the parking lot waiting for this to finish. You should just come on in. All right. Mark chapter five.
[00:18:09] Well, Jesus has come across the boat. They're up. Every time you see Jesus on a boat, it's the sea of Galilee. We do. There are a couple other seas around, right? Like mediterranean sea. That's where Jonah goes to Joppa. Mediterranean Sea, that's huge trade. Solomon is sending out boats. But when you read the gospel, it's not the Mediterranean Sea. We also have evidence, interestingly, that there were boats on the Dead Sea. It's hard for us to imagine that because now it's just this saltwatery thing. But apparently there was trade happening around the coast of the Dead Sea in the ancient world. They found this. Where is that? They found some sort of map, like a pilgrimage map made out of tile.
[00:18:55] It's in the ruins of some place in Jordan. Now I've seen it. Some castle, Madaba or some, I want to. Herod's castle. Anyway, the crusaders made a map of the holy land in mosaic and it has boats on the Dead Sea. Wow, it's kind of cool. But we don't hear about that in the gospels. Anytime you hear Jesus on a boat, it's the sea of Galilee, that's where they are. So he's up by the sea of Galilee, he crosses over and Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue comes over and falls down and says, my daughter's dying. She's at the point of death. Come healer.
[00:19:32] So Jesus goes with Jairus. This might have been capernaum. I think it is capernaum and that's where Peter lived. It's kind of headquarters for Jesus and the disciples up in Galilee. So he's going to Jairus house and as he's going, verse 25, there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years and had suffered much on her many physicians. She had spent everything she had. She was no better, in fact growing worse.
[00:20:03] She heard the reports about Jesus and came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. Now this is, she said, if I touch even his garment, I'll be made well.
[00:20:11] And so she sneaks up behind Jesus and reaches out and touches the hem of his garment. This might have to do with like the stole or the edge of the garment which was an indication of rabbinic authority or something like that. Or it could have just been, hey, I just know Jesus is so powerful that if I can just touch him, so she touches him. But here's the. And immediately the flow of blood dried up. She felt it in her body that she was healed.
[00:20:35] And Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? So that this healing is not accomplished by the choice of Jesus.
[00:20:48] I mean Jesus knows all things but it's not like he looked at the woman and said, okay, now you're healing. But rather that touch of that faith which believed that Jesus had the strength to heal, just reached out and touched his garment. It's amazing.
[00:21:02] I don't know of another healing like that. We have it in the apostolic, in the book of acts, when the shadow of the apostles will heal people, or Paul's handkerchief will heal people. It's kind of the.
[00:21:14] This is where the Catholic Church wants to get their doctrine of relics from. But there's something amazing about this, that Jesus doesn't know who it is who touched me? And the disciples says, look, the crowd is pressing around. What do you mean, who touches me? They're in this throng. There's got to be dozens of people who are touching Jesus. They're kind of pushing their way through the crowd. What do you mean, who touched me? But this touching of this woman is of a different sort. It's the touch of faith. It's the one who believes that Christ is the one who can deliver.
[00:21:45] And Jesus looks around to see who had done it. And the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him. So that Jesus is looking around, who did that? Who touched me? And the woman says, oh, boy. So she falls down, and she tells him the truth. And he says to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Be healed of your disease.
[00:22:02] So that he commends her. He connects the word to the power and the healing so that it's an even increase of her faith. And notice how Jesus, Luther loves to preach about this, how Jesus gives the credit of the healing not to himself, but to faith.
[00:22:21] That's pretty amazing. But it seems like this whole business, the rigmarole with healing this lady and trying to figure out who it was, who knows how long it took. In the meantime, the girl at Jairus house, Jairus daughter dies.
[00:22:40] So a servant comes from his house, and while Jesus is dealing with this other lady, the servant comes and tells Jairus, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher?
[00:22:53] And you got to be thinking that Jairus is.
[00:22:56] Could not we have hurried? Was this not an emergency enough? And this is maybe helpful for us to think of, because we, you know, we are always tempted to consider things to be an emergency, but Jesus does not. He will raise the dead. There's no emergencies with him.
[00:23:17] He hears this conversation, and he turns to Jairus and says, don't fear. Just believe. Only believe.
[00:23:26] And he takes Peter, James, and John, those three, and they come to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and he sees the commotion, and he says to them, why are you making commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him.
[00:23:43] You can see it. I mean, these so synagogue rulers he would have had a pretty big home there in Capernaum. He would have had a lot of people. He would have been kind of the center of the community, so that a lot of people would have gathered even to comfort them while the girl is so sick, and then especially to mourn when the news starts to get out that the girl had died. And so they're all weeping, but Jesus says, she's not dead, she's asleep. And they immediately start to laugh at him. What a fool. They say, I wonder if I should read. Maybe I'll find it in a little bit, if we've got some time. That Luther's sermon on this is marvelous, because he says, okay, you have two sets of eyes here. In fact, I'll find it. This is where, I think, one of the clearest points, where Luther says, we have to look at things with the eyes of Jesus. Hold on a second. I don't know why I tell you guys to hold on a minute. I just pause the recording. No time passes for you. Me, I, in the meantime, found this sermon, and this is just a beautiful, beautiful section.
[00:24:48] So it's talking about how they see reality with two totally different sets of eyes. Everyone in the house sees the girl who's dead, but Jesus looks and says, no, she's sleeping. And I read some of Luther's sermons. These words which the Lord here speaks. The maid is not dead, but sleeps. We should diligently study. They are words of comfort, for which, if they could be purchased, we should cheerfully give all that we possess in order that we might retain, understand, and believe them as they were intended. Who could look upon a dead person as though they were lying upon a bed asleep, and so change his vision as to consider sleep to be a death? Would have reason to be proud of a peculiar science, not understood by anyone else. But we see an experience in ourselves and others that the more reason holds sway over a person, the less he believes and the more he's inclined to laugh. As we here see the people mocking the Lord, saying, should this man be able to raise the dead unto life, he must be out of his mind, because he considers the dead person to be asleep and capable of being awakened by the touch of a hand. The wisdom of God is so high that human reason considers it to be altogether foolishness. Suppose a child of yours had died, and I would tell you it is not dead. Do you not see that it's merely asleep that can be awakened by a finger? Would you not regard me as mocking you in your grief and ask me not to trouble you. The very same thing the people here tell the Lord Jesus. Therefore learn from this gospel lesson. That in the sight of Christ, death is nothing more than a sleep, as we here behold him awakening the dead made by the touch of his. And as from a mere sleep, sickness is also no sickness before him. As seen in the other example, the woman was very sick, but whose sickness had to cease and depart as soon as she came to Christ and touched his garment. Thus the Lord deals also in other infirmities. And distresses the blind to apply to him for help receive their sight. Sinners are justified, the lost are saved. He indeed deals with us wonderfully. His words in our eyes seem not only vain, but even contrary to the fact. Before the eyes of all others, the maid was dead. But before my eyes, Christ says she lives and is asleep. David is in his own eyes, and in the eyes of all men, a poor shepherd. But before me he is a king. And all of you who believe in me are poor sinners in your own eyes. But before me you are great saints, and like the angels of God. For only a word is necessary. And sin, disease and death must pass away and make room for righteousness, life and health. As I speak, so all things must be.
[00:27:24] Oh, the Lord God here makes use of a marvelous word. When he says of the maiden, she's not dead, but sleeps, which words are a great falsehood in the eyes of the world. If he had merely said, she sleeps, the people could have taken it to be the sleep of St. Michael, which lasts till the day of judgment. But he says in plain words, she is not dead, but sleeps. In your estimation, in your eyes she's dead, but before me she lives.
[00:27:50] And in order that you may behold the truth of my words, I awaken her by the touch of a finger. As you are accustomed to awaken your children from sleep. In short, we are taught here not to look at our need according to human reason with carnal eyes, but with the eyes of faith.
[00:28:04] These are eyes which, when they behold sin, death and hell. Can nevertheless say with assurance, I see no death, feel no sin. I am not condemned. But behold in Christ nothing but holiness, life and salvation. Oh, what a sermon. Can you believe that?
[00:28:17] I better print this off for you guys tomorrow. What a beautiful, beautiful text. So that we. So that when Jesus says to the girl, she's not dead, but sleeping, this is teaching us to see the world and ourselves in a totally different way. Oh, may God grant it.
[00:28:31] May God grant it. All right, now, I've gone way over. So hopefully you're not circling the block. Hebrews. We're going to continue with Hebrews in Bible class. We'll have a little presentation from the Concordia high School, know about what's going on there at the beginning of beginning of Sunday school, and then we'll be into it with Hebrews. So God be praised for that. See you in a few minutes. God's peace be with.