The Good Morning

The Resurrection

April 20, 2014

Matthew 28:9

The Good Morning!

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Good morning! He says it like it's any other morning. But it isn't. It's the good morning. It's the good morning just as last Friday was the good Friday. It's the morning that makes all other mornings possible. Without that good morning every other morning would be pointless and doomed.

But He greets the ladies coming from His vacant tomb with such an ordinary greeting, “Good morning!” The response to this ordinary hello is extraordinary and entirely proper. They came to Him, bowed down and touched His feet, and worshiped Him.

They worshiped their God and Savior. Since He was standing there and saying, “Good morning,” to them, they knew that the Man standing before them is their promised Savior from death. He had been dead, but He had returned from the dead and was breathing and talking and standing before them. They reached out to Him and their fingers touched His warm living toes. He was no ghost or spirit. He was their Man who had conquered the cold of Death with His own death.

II.

For us “Good morning!” doesn't seem quite adequate. This is the Morning that began the proclamation to the World that past Friday had changed the World, just as Jesus said it would.

But Jesus' ordinary greeting reminds us, perhaps, that that is how He mostly works. Ordinary words to ordinary people that cause extraordinary changes that are usually hidden under (once again) ordinary appearances.

So these ordinary women departed from the presence of Jesus and spoke extraordinary words—He is not in the tomb—to ordinary men.

III.

And we do the same. We are here in the presence of Jesus. We gather around Him in Preaching and Food. And we depart from His presence as old Simeon sings,

Lord, now You let Your servant

depart in peace according to Your word.

For my eyes have seen Your salvation,

which You have prepared

before the face of all people,

a light to lighten the Gentiles

and the glory of Your people Israel.

How extraordinary and proper to sing as you depart from the real presence of Christ. Let us depart with peace and joy. Let us go and speak extraordinary words to ordinary brothers and sisters and father and mothers and sons and daughters.

Christ sent these beloved daughters of His not to strangers, but to their fellow Christians and relatives. Let us bring the reality and comfort of His rising from death to ordinary ears of our ordinary loved ones.

This afternoon at 4 o'clock I suggest that you along with anyone else in your household turn to the Word of God and read of the events along the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Meditate on these events and ask along with Jesus what things happened on these most holy days.

Jesus will return today or perhaps this night to take us home. But if He delays and you find yourself awake in the Monday morning light, it will still truly be—for the sake of our Savior's death and the resurrection that proclaims Death's defeat—a Good Morning!

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Bread That Unites Us

Holy Thursday

April 17, 2014

John 6:57

The Bread That Unites Us

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Communion is a proper way to speak of this Holy Food that becomes more and more special the more we eat and drink. It doesn't leave us uncomfortable like earthly food or wanting more or wishing that we'd chosen something else to eat. Communion is just the right food for hungry souls that are always fighting off death, both physical and spiritual death.

It's just the right food against death because it is alive. We eat and drink our living Savior's body and blood and through all of His gifts of Baptism, Preaching, and Supper, we are united with Him. And since we are joined to Him, we are also joined to His Father, who is now our Father, who art in heaven.

Jesus would famously say to His followers,

John 14:6-11

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”

“Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time without your knowing Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own. The Father who lives in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.

When you know the Son, you know the Father. Through this vertical connection from heaven down to earth, from Jesus' holy body into our mouths, we are united to the Father, whose name is hallowed. And through Jesus' body, the Word that became flesh, His kingdom comes to you.

II.

We are fighting a common enemy, Death itself. And we have a common Savior, who crushed Death itself. So this Bread of Life also connects us to each other.

As sons and daughters of the same Son and Father in heaven, we are called to live holy lives for each other. We take and eat and then return home and enjoy our prayers together. We wake up and go about the business of life as we busy ourselves with play or go to school or stay to work at home or go out to work. There we find many chances to lose our temper or to become frustrated with the people around us. And we take many of them. But more than those actual flare-ups, we discover our real selves, demanding, bitter, and greedy for ourselves. We see the ugly rebels that we are, who only want other gods. Above all we fear, love, and trust in ourselves.

And so in Communion we seek the forgiveness that only Jesus can give. Communion isn't a mechanical cleansing of one or two weeks of our dirty laundry. It pushes our Selves out of the way, and Jesus gives us His own self.

And so in Communion we together run to Him. Hungry sinners—proud in ourselves and proud in our humility, yet this pride never satisfies us—receive the heavenly Bread of Life. And in Him, we will live together with each other, all for the sake of a heavenly Father and a beloved Son.

John 6:57

Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Jesus' Leaky Bucket

Confirmation

April 13, 2014

Psalm 25

Jesus' Leaky Bucket

In the name of Jesus.

I.

There once was a wise old man who loved collecting leaky buckets. In the morning he get up and look through his neighbors' trash and he pick up a couple of broken pails. Around lunchtime he'd make the rounds again and find a few more. Then in the evening he'd do a last check for the day and usually would rescue at least one more cracked pot out on the curb.

Most people thought he was a harmless old man who liked to collect useless junk. They didn't mind when he took their trash . . . until they found out what he did with all those cracked pots and leaky buckets and broken pails. One day a couple of kids followed him on his rounds and watched as he gathered up the hole-y buckets and took them home. He unloaded them and carefully brought them out to a huge pond and placed each one underwater.

The boys went home and told their parents and soon everyone knew that the harmless old man was dangerous. He was up to some strange plot, since he was going to all this trouble for old broken trash.

Finally someone asked him what he was doing out at his pond, and he smiled and asked in return, “Where's the one place a leaky bucket can stay full?”

II.

Gabby, you're one of those leaky buckets. And Jesus looked for you and found you and brought you to the one place a leaky bucket like you can always be full.

He submerges you in His Baptism.

He dunks you in His Absolution and Preaching.

He plunges you into His Supper.

A patched-up leaky bucket still leaks and can't carry its own water. So Jesus calls you to stay under His water until you stop breathing and He takes you home for good.

Gabby, you're one leaky bucket. But Jesus will keep you wet.

Gabby's Confirmation Verse

Psalm 25:4-5

Show me Your ways, O LORD,

teach me Your paths.

Guide me in Your truth and teach me,

for You are God my Savior,

and my hope is in You all day long.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

P.S. Thanks to Pastor W. Weedon for the image of us as leaky buckets. Listen to his full comments here: http://issuesetc.org/2013/09/19/1-the-liturgy-of-confirmation-part-two-pr-will-weedon-91913/.