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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Sunday drive to church. Pastor Wolf Mueller, this is for Sunday, July 28. Oh, I can't believe it's July 28, the year of our Lord, 2024. The 10th Sunday after the feast of Pentecost. Another glorious feast of the Lord's word today, especially with Noah and his family getting off the ark and Jesus walking, getting onto the boat. Huh? Noah's off. Jesus is on the boat in the storm. Walking in the water in the middle of the night. That's a, it's an amazing how happy Noah is to get off of that boat and how happy the disciples are for Jesus to get on the. I'm looking at the window. Jonathan has the picture, the stained glass windows on the front bulletin. Isaiah with his hand, Isaiah's hands holding up the stem of the rose of Sharon. So halfway down on the prophet side of the sanctuary, the lectern side, it'd be good to the kids to try to hunt that down and find it. But I'll pray first the collect for the day. And then we'll dig into the scriptures.
[00:01:06] Let us pray. Almighty and most merciful God, the protector of all who trust in you, strengthen our faith and give us courage to believe that in your love you will rescue us from all adversities. Through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:26] Our Sundays, especially during Pentecost, you know, sometimes when it's the festive season, the theme for the day kind of comes from the day itself. So it's Easter that gives the theme for the Easter readings and Good Friday for the Good Friday readings and Christmas for the Christmas reasons. But during the summer we really pull and build the theme off of the gospel lesson. And we continue to read through the Gospel of Mark here in year B. We read already the feeding of the 5000. And in fact, our gospel lesson from Mark six starting at verse 45 picks up after that. In fact, it's interesting and I don't know why, but Jesus sends the disciples out on the boat. He says, all right, you guys go, I'll finish up here. And Jesus himself stays and dismisses the crowd. And then he's up on the mountain to pray.
[00:02:15] And then he kind of looks down and sees the disciples fighting the storm all through the night. It looks like the weather had gotten bad. And so he's walking on the water and he pretends like he's going to walk past them.
[00:02:33] It's an amazing thing. It says he meant to pass them by, but they see him and they think he's a ghost. And they cry out and they're terrified. And he says, take heart, it's high, don't be afraid. Cheer up.
[00:02:48] He gets into the boat. The wind ceased. They were utterly astonished. This is now the second time that Jesus has managed the sea for the disciples. We had it first time a couple of weeks ago when he calmed the sea. Now he's walking on the sea. He gets in the boat, the sea is all of a sudden calm. They arrive. I think it's John that tells us, or one of the gospels that as soon as jesus gets on the boat, they're basically on the other side. Oh, this is a, I don't know if you've seen this before, but the, but the progressive interpretation of the text is that jesus knew the place so well that he knew that there were some rocks and he could walk his way on these rock outcroppings and it looked like he was walking on the sea.
[00:03:31] Oh, yo, yo, they hate those miracles. You got to look out for those, for the interpreters of the Bible that hate the miracles. But this miracle of Jesus walking on the sea, calming the sea, and they're utterly astonished.
[00:03:47] And then when they get to the other side, they get to Gennesaret, which is where jesus is going to have this dramatic exorcism, but that's not yet. And the whole countryside runs to him and he's healing them all. It's beautiful.
[00:04:04] So this is the gospel lesson with this miracle of Jesus.
[00:04:10] We're given as a parallel Genesis 9817, which is, it's sort of like a reboot.
[00:04:22] It's a lot of the same stuff that God said to Adam and Eve in the garden, I'm giving you dominion.
[00:04:31] But now we've gone through this incredible growth of humanity, this incredible fall of all of humanity, such that the Lord looks on all people and regrets that he's made them. And there's only one righteous Noah in his family, eight souls in all.
[00:04:49] And so the Lord provides salvation for Noah and his family, for his seed, his promised seed, and for all the animals. And otherwise the earth is cleansed by this washing that wipes away all this idolatrous destruction.
[00:05:10] I was reading Henry Haman about this and he said, we see the flood as this great judgment, and it is, but it is the salvation of the world, because if the Lord would have let the people go, they would have destroyed themselves.
[00:05:24] So the only hope for humanity is this rebirth, which the Lord accomplishes by this baptism.
[00:05:33] And then they're off the boat. And so the Lord is now kind of making, reestablishing things. A couple of things are different between Adam and Eve and Noah and his family. For one, Noah is authorized to eat the animals. Now, Adam and Eve and everyone between Adam and even Noah were vegetarians, but now, now they're authorized to eat the animals.
[00:05:58] So that's different. The Lord also in the making of this covenant says, hey, if anybody kills anybody else, their life is forfeit because we bear the image of God. That's also very important.
[00:06:09] But in this text, it's the Lord instituting the rainbow.
[00:06:14] I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
[00:06:20] When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant. That's between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.
[00:06:31] Now, this is, I mean, especially in our day, as we lament the loss of the rainbow as the sign of God's covenant. In fact, now it's a sign of, I don't know, despising God's covenant. But here, when the Lord institutes the rainbow as a sign of his covenant, we would think that the Lord would say, and when you see it in the sky, you'll remember my promise. And that's certainly the case. I mean, that's why the Lord is telling us, this bow in the sky means that I'm not going to destroy the earth with water.
[00:07:02] But the text tells us that God will remember. He'll see the rainbow and he will remember his covenant. In fact, verse 15, I will remember my covenant, that's between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And then verse 16, when the bow is in the clouds, I will see it, and remember I will see it, and I will remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature, the flesh that's on the earth. So that the Lord is giving us the rainbow not only as a reminder for us, but also as a reminder for himself. Can we think of that, that the Lord remembers? And there's something about the Lord's remembering that's bound up to worship.
[00:07:50] In fact, that word remember is part of the command to worship. Third commandment, remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Exodus 20, wherever the Lord says, wherever I cause my name to be remembered, there I will come to you, and there I will bless you.
[00:08:05] So there's this establishment of the remembering of goddess, which is not only our remembering God, but also God's remembering us. And so when the Lord institutes the New Testament. He says, this is take and eat.
[00:08:20] This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
[00:08:25] There's something, and I don't quite understand it, but whenever we see that remembering in the Bible, it's something more than just recalling or recollecting Orlando or bringing back to the front of our minds, or there's something about remember and worship that just goes together in the Bible. So keep an eye out for that. But here, how we can rejoice that when there's a rainbow, we can remember that the Lord is looking at it also. Can you imagine? There's been times when. Sorry, it just got me thinking about this when I've been traveling, and I'll be missing Carrie or the kids, and I'll look at the sun or I'll look at the moon, and I'll say, we're on different places on the planet, but we're looking at the same moon, you know, and there's that comfort in knowing that you're kind of looking at the same thing. Well, whenever you see a rainbow, you can think, well, God is also looking at the same rainbow, and he's thinking, I'm not going to destroy him, not at least with a flood. That's great. And it's kind of neat to think that here Jesus is getting onto the boat and Noah's getting off.
[00:09:32] The Lord rules. The epistle lesson is Ephesians three, and we come again this week to a dense text. It's only seven verses, Ephesians 314 21, but it again, is very dense, and it's, again Paul's prayer, I think. Ephesians. Paul in his 13 letters, has.
[00:09:56] Has 19 mentions of the things that he prays for. So he's always talking about what he's praying for, for the churches. This is another one. He says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according of the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. So that Paul's praying, and this is a prayer that we should all pray for each other. I especially, as your pastor, should be praying for you, that by the riches of his glory, God may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. So we all have an inner life, and we want strength for our outer lives, for sure, but we especially want strength for that inner life.
[00:10:36] So that, verse 17, Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. As far as I can tell, this is the only time that it talks about Christ dwelling in our hearts. And this is a huge theme in evangelicalism, that Christ lives in your heart. But it's true. It's a biblical truth that the Lord Jesus dwells in your heart through faith.
[00:10:57] Faith not only clings to the promise of God, but because of the nature of God's promise. He is what he says. That faith also now clings to Christ himself. And we have Christ living in our hearts, and we're rooted and we're grounded in love, and we're strengthened so that we can comprehend what's the breadth and length and height and depth and that we would know the love of Christ.
[00:11:19] So the reason why we need such strength in our inner life and why we need to have such strength in the heart is so that we would begin to grasp the greatness of the love of Christ for us, which surpasses knowledge. In other words, you can't get it any other way. You can't comprehend it. You can't understand it, but your heart has it and it begins to get a little taste of it. And this is what Paul is praying. He says all that God in his glory and power would strengthen your heart so that you may have begin to just see the tiniest corner glimpse of the fantastic, boundless love that God has for you in Christ, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Wow.
[00:12:05] So this is Paul's prayer for the church. This is my prayer. This is your pastor's prayer.
[00:12:12] All of us are praying this for you, that the Lord would grant it to us. It's beautiful.
[00:12:19] Psalm 136, one nine is our entrance psalm. I'm kind of bouncing all over the place today, but I'm in break during the digital catacombs, so I'm trying to get this in here. But psalm 136 is the great, his mercy endures forever. Psalm. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever. That's verse one. And then every verse says, and he does this and that and that. His mercy endures forever. And he also has done this, and his mercy endures forever. So it has that refrain, his mercy, his chesed endures. To the olam. The chesed Olam. Chesed Olam. It's beautiful. His mercy endures forever. We have the first nine verses which goes through creation. He hangs the stars, he controls the seas. Verse ten starts talking about how the Lord walloped the Egyptians. So we stop before we get to that business. So it's this great psalm of the Lord's power. And mercy manifest in and over creation.
[00:13:14] And we will sing together. His mercy endures forever. The hymn of the day 849. Praise the one who breaks the darkness is one of these new hymns, one of these new miracle hymns, I think.
[00:13:26] Let's see. Rusty Edwards was born in 1955. He's just a kid.
[00:13:34] This hymn looks like it was, I don't know. I don't know. Oh, 1987, maybe.
[00:13:41] It's a pretty new hymn. It seems like that in the seventies, eighties, nineties, the church felt a need for more plain old miracle hymns. And so you get a lot of hymns in this, with this theme or this genre, but it's a nice hymn. Praise the one who breaks the darkness with a liberating light. Praise the one who frees the prisoners, turning blindness into sight. Praise the one who preached the gospel, healing every dread disease, calming storms, feeding thousands with the very bread of peace. So it's a hymn of praise to our Lord Jesus, who accomplishes all of these great miracles for us. It's really, really phenomenal.
[00:14:25] So we have. Oh, man. And not only that, I mean our father, by whose name blessed be the tithe that binds. Lord, dismiss us with your blessing. Praise to the Lord, the almighty. Oh, and we get today the pop up Timothy choir. Well, this is, this is pretty nice. We've been so blessed to have Timothy with us all summer. Our music intern, this will be his last day with us, so make sure to say goodbye and thank you to him. He'll be playing the organ and conducting the choir. So this will be a very special way to send him off.
[00:14:57] That'll be, that'll be just phenomenal. And then next week, I think next Sunday, August 3, you will see in church our new vicar, Krugere. We're not going to install them next week because I'm going to be on the love boat. Carrie and I are hosting the lutheran singles cruise. Not this week, next week. So we're going to hold off the installation to the 11th. But the Kruger family will be here also, maybe just noting a couple of things about the announcements. We have the barge, the party barge, August 17. That's Saturday afternoon. It's Saturday, not Sunday this year. I appreciate the fellowship committee making that adjustment because, because Pastor LeBlanc and I can't come because of the deaf church on Sunday afternoon. So thanks for moving to Saturday. I hope that means we can all still go. That'll be a lot, a lot of fun and a bunch of other notes here. Sunday School today, by the way. We'll be continuing this theme from the digital Catacombs conference happening this week. And that is how do we get the gospel out there using all these new media means. And we'll talk a little bit about some of the stuff we're doing already, but then we'll talk about how we can look for opportunities to speak the gospel as individuals and families, and we'll think about that as well. So hope to see you soon. God's peace be with you.