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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Sunday drive to church time. This is Pastor Wolf Mueller. This is a beautiful Sunday, February 25, year of our Lord, 2025, the second Sunday in the season of Lent this year. And the texts are phenomenal. So all three, in fact, all four of the texts are stunningly beautiful texts. We'll talk about them in just a little, little bit, maybe noting, first of all, that for the season of Lent, we've made a couple of adjustments. The first, maybe the most obvious, is that we switched from divine service setting three to divine service setting one. So the liturgy starts on page 151.
[00:00:42] I asked Jonathan, our church has been in the habit of rotating through the divine services, especially one, three, and four, for a number of years now. I asked Jonathan to consider a few years ago, sticking with one service, one liturgy through a couple of different seasons. So we had divine service setting three all the way through Advent and then Christmas. One of the advantages is you can see what changes in the service, what's there and leaving and coming back. Now that we're in Lent, we'll do divine service one lent and Easter, and so you'll be able to see what changes are happening through the service as well. So you'll notice as an example that the Gloria in a Celsius is omitted for the season of Lent. Also for Advent, it's a festive hymn, the hymn of the angels, and so it's dropped for the season of fasting. You'll notice also that the hallelujahs are taken away from the beginning and the end of the verse of the day. So the verse today is one of the verses from Mark, chapter eight. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. But no alleluias before or after. It's a different gospel acclamation for the season of Lent.
[00:02:08] The whole tone of Lent is a little bit more somber, and we're going to try to grab a hold of that by speaking a little bit more of the liturgy. So you'll notice today that the words of institution will be spoken and not chanted. And that's an attempt to try to grab ahold of that season of fasting, sense of Lent.
[00:02:29] Looking really quickly at the bulletin cover, you'll notice when you get into church and grab your bulletin that we have an El Greco painting, the Greek. He was in Spain, but he was from Greece, and he was a really innovative painter. This is a crucifixion. So it's Jesus carrying the cross. Sorry, not crucifixion. But Jesus carrying the cross, he's crowned with thorns. You'll notice one of the things with El Greco is that he painted in a way that it looked like the light was shimmering. It captures this idea of motion and movement. He's really unique. You can almost always recognize his style of painting. And so that's there. And the colic is another one of these.
[00:03:06] What? Normal colics.
[00:03:09] It's an address to God the Father. It has the address, the rationale, the petition and the conclusion with doxology, like Lent, all the colics in Lent, it's a prayer of humility. So we'll pray it together as we get started here. Let's pray. O God, you see that of ourselves we have no strength. By your mighty power, defend us from all adversities that may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul. Through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:03:51] Our psalm. Today is the last third of psalm 22. Now, if you get to church early, I would commend you taking a look at psalm 22. It's one of the most important psalms in the scriptures. It's the psalm that Jesus quotes from the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So, psalm 22 is the psalm that we'll hear sung on Monday, Thursday after the service when the altar is being stripped. It's really a psalm of the passion of Jesus. And I think psalm 22 has the fullest description of the suffering of Jesus in the entire Bible. But what's interesting about what the part of the psalm that we'll sing today is that in some ways it's the appendix of the psalm. It's the conclusion of the psalm, but it's after the main action has taken place.
[00:04:58] It's hard to see in most translations. I think the new king James has it clearest. But just to hear a few verses from the beginning of psalm 22. And again, we start today at verse 23, and I'll show you what that says in a little bit. But it might be very interesting to look over the psalm and you see that the first 21 verses is basically from the perspective of Jesus on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning, oh, my God, I cry in the daytime, but you don't hear in the night season. I'm not silent, but you're holy. Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted to you. You delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not ashamed. But I'm a worm and no man, et cetera.
[00:05:44] Dogs have surrounded me. I'm poured out like water.
[00:05:48] Many bulls have surrounded me. Don't be far from me. Verse 20. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life, from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth, from the horns of the wild oxen. And then the end of verse 21.
[00:06:04] You have answered me, and the tone completely changes from that point on. Verse 22, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will praise you. Verse 23, where we'll start. You who fear the Lord, praise him, all you descendants of Jacob. Glorify him and fear him, all you offspring of Israel. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted or hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him, he heard him.
[00:06:35] It's an amazing psalm. And what it captures there in that shift from verse 21 to verse 22 is the move from the suffering of the wrath of God to knowing that it's all accomplished.
[00:06:54] The moment probably happens just a few minutes before the Lord's death. Darkness has covered the face of the earth, and Jesus is enduring the wrath of God in our place. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He cries out, and then he's accomplished it. He's filled up the suffering. He's endured all that he's supposed to endure and to know that that time is over. Jesus says, I thirst. It's finished. Into your hands I commit my spirit. In other words, even before his death, he has already suffered completely all that he needed to suffer. The only thing left is for him to die.
[00:07:32] And that Psalm 22 captures the transition from the deep humiliation to the victory of the very end of the cross. The it is finished.
[00:07:47] We'll talk about this more when we get to the end of Lent and in holy week this year. But this is an amazing theological moment on the cross, and we have that in our psalm 22. So we get really the end of psalm 22 that we're going to sing today is the Lord's triumph at the end of his crucifixion. When he's won the victory, the old testament lesson goes back in Genesis. Last week we had Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Isaac. Now we go back to Genesis 17, and that's where Abram is named Abraham and Sarai is named Sarah by the Lord. And it's a pretty amazing thing. Abram means amazing father almighty or kind of excellent father. But Abraham means father of many nations. And the Lord says, your name is Abraham. I've made you the father of a multitude of nations. And then the same with Sarai to Sarah, which means princess. As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and I will give you a son by her.
[00:08:54] The thing that I would encourage you to pay attention to in the reading of this lesson is the word offspring. It's in here a couple of times. I will establish, this is verse seven. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. That word is the same word for seed, Zara. In the Hebrew, it's the same word that's there when the Lord says to the devil in the garden, I'll put enmity between you and the woman and your seed and her seed. So we see that word offspring, we should just kind of flip it in our mind and understand that it's this seed promise that runs all the way through the Old Testament. And here God is saying, that promise that I gave to Abraham.
[00:09:47] Sorry, the promise that I gave to Adam and Eve, now I'm giving it to you, Abraham, and then to Isaac and then Jacob and then Judah and then David. That seed promise travels all the way through the Old Testament. It's an amazing thing. And notice how it says in verse five here, to Abraham, I have made you the father of a multitude of nations, even though Abraham doesn't have any children yet the Lord says, you're already the father of a multitude. When the Lord says it, it's as good as done. And that's the promise that's being tested in Genesis 22.
[00:10:22] When the Lord tells him to go and sacrifice Isaac, that's that promise fulfilled and then challenged by the Lord.
[00:10:29] I was going to skip over the gradual, but maybe let us not skip it this week. This is Hebrews twelve two.
[00:10:37] One of the best, most amazing pictures in the whole scripture.
[00:10:44] Hebrews twelve one and two is the picture of running a race and coming into the stadium and the great cloud of witnesses that surround us. And then there at the end of the track is Jesus waiting for us at the finish line. Oh, come, let us fix our. Oh, remember how we say, oh, come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despising its shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[00:11:18] So that when we run this life like a race and get weary and tired and worn out, we look to the finish line and there's Jesus waiting for us. And he's endured the cross despising the shame. And has now finished this race and is waiting for us on the other side.
[00:11:44] You're wondering where this music came from. Jonathan. He doesn't like to put it in the bulletin. But Jonathan composed this, the melody for the gradual. It's really great. And we sing it. We'll sing it every Sunday in Lent. And so that you should have this verse memorized. Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse two. By the end of the season of lent. In fact, the gradual is a good time to practice singing without looking at your bulletin. Especially because the canter will sing it or the choir will sing it before you. And so it puts it in your mind. And you can practice singing without looking. That's really nice.
[00:12:19] The epistle lesson is Romans, chapter five, verses one to eleven. And if we could just tattoo that verse onto your arm so you could have it all the time, it would be worthwhile. There's so many good things in this verse. It's a verse about justification, but it's talking about the fruit of justification. We've been justified by faith. What's the result? Well, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have access by faith into the grace which we stand, and we rejoice. In fact, if you can find, rejoice in the text three times. That's as many times as I found it. But listen to what we rejoice in. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in our suffering. So that's verse two and verse three. And then at the end, verse eleven. We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:13:11] So we rejoice in the hope of glory. We rejoice in suffering, and we rejoice in God. And listen to this beautiful verse. God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So that this is how we should think of ourselves. The love of God has been poured into our hearts.
[00:13:38] If you're writing to church with someone, you can look at them and say, the love of God has been poured into your heart. Which is a nice thing to have poured in your heart. The world is trying to pour all sorts of nonsense into our heart. Anger and bitterness and fear and all. But what has God by the Holy spirit has poured his love into your heart.
[00:14:00] And then there's three stills in the next part.
[00:14:05] While we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Verse six, verse eight. God showed his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And then verse ten. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, so that we're weak and more we're sinners and more we're enemies and still Christ dies for us. So that Paul is saying, look, you think that you have to do something to earn God's love and affection and kindness or do something to get him to be kind to you when you were weak, no. When you were a sinner, no more when you were his enemy, he died.
[00:14:41] For if while we were his enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more. Now that we're reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Oh, it's amazing. Really amazing. And then the last text is Mark, chapter eight. This is the who do men say that I am? In Mark? It's verses 27 to 38. Jesus.
[00:15:04] It's a turning point in the ministry of Jesus.
[00:15:07] He's taken his disciples as far away from Jerusalem as he'll ever take them. He's way up by Caesarea Philippi, but not in the city. He's in the foothills of Mount Hermon, way up north by Dan, the headwaters of the Jordan river. So think way north of the sea of Galilee, way out in the wilderness.
[00:15:30] And he asks his disciples, who do men say that I am? And they give various different answers. Some say that you're John the Baptist risen from the dead or Elijah or one of the prophets. Who do you say that I am?
[00:15:43] And Peter answers, you are the Christ.
[00:15:47] This is the first time that Jesus is recognized as the Christ by a human. In the Gospel of Mark, up to this point, the only people who confess him as Christ are the demons. But now here Peter confesses it. Now we remember what happened is that Jesus turns to Peter and says, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood haven't revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven and on this rock I'll build my church. That's not in the reading from Mark. And probably remember we said that the gospel of Mark is Peter's gospel.
[00:16:24] Mark was with Peter in Rome in prison when this was composed. And so the stuff that makes Peter look good doesn't really show up. It's mostly the stuff that makes Peter look bad that happens next, because then Jesus begins to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise again. And he said this plainly, now we're going to have three times in Mark and Luke and Matthew that Jesus teaches them that it's necessary for the Christ to suffer. And this is a completely revolutionary idea of the Christ, especially to the disciples. Now. It's there in the Old Testament, but they didn't see it. Everyone was expecting the Christ to be strong, to be a political ruler, to be a leader, to be a soldier, to sit on the throne of David. I mean, if David, Saul killed his thousands, David is tens of thousands, then the messiah will kill his hundreds of thousands, that he would go to Jerusalem to suffer and to die. It's like they don't even get to the resurrection part because of this humility. And Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke him. And why? The key is in verse 38, where Jesus says, whoever's ashamed of me and of my words, and this adulterous and sinful generation of him, the Son of man also will be ashamed when he comes in glory with his father, with the holy angels.
[00:17:56] So that Peter was ashamed of the idea that Jesus would be humble and lowly and suffer.
[00:18:04] But that's why Jesus came.
[00:18:07] That's who the Christ is, the one who suffers for us, to forgive us, to bring us through the troubles of this life, to the joys of life eternal. So that's the great and wonderful promise of this text.
[00:18:24] What a text.
[00:18:25] The hymn of the day.
[00:18:28] I am always trying to talk people into having this hymn as a funeral hymn. It's him. 708 in LSB. Lord, thee I love with all my heart. And I think we might have it in the funeral plan for Marjorie Heaton, whose funeral will be next Saturday, March 2.
[00:18:49] Service at eleven. I believe we'll announce it after the service today to the note at the time. Lord, thee I love with all my heart. It's this prayer that goes all the way through this life, all the way through death, and all the way to the resurrection. And we'll sing it back and forth between the, between the congregation and the choir. And amazingly, the choir will start the third verse, and then we'll join in at the resurrection. And then from death awaken me that these mine eyes with joy may see o son of God, thy glorious face my savior and my fount of grace, Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend and I will praise thee without end.
[00:19:34] It is a marvelous prayer. It grabs that idea from the story that Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus. Remember, the rich man dies and goes to hell. And Lazarus dies and goes to Abraham's bosom. The angels carry him to Abraham's bosom. And this is this prayer that when I die, that let your angels carry me to Abram's bosom, bear me home, that I may die unfearing.
[00:20:01] What an incredible, incredible hymn. So don't miss the hymn. It'll come at you as a beautiful hymn. But make sure to meditate on the words of that hymn as well.
[00:20:12] Boy, there's a lot here. All right, that's probably good for this drive to church. You're probably there already. Sunday school will be great today. We're going to have Dylan Smith is going to be teaching on Joel. So that'll be. That'll be a lot of fun. And baptism, Lord willing, in the early service for two children. So that'll be great as well. So hopefully we'll see you very soon. Drive safe. Happy Sunday. Drive to church. God's peace be with you.
[00:20:41] Bye.
