Lent 1
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series IX, Cycle B
Theme of the Day
God lovingly calls His people in various ways for response, while providing confidence, comfort, and joy.
Collect of the Day
After a reference to the flood and how God used it to save the chosen as well as how the Father preserved the Son from temptation, petitions are offered requesting our renewal in baptism as well as to provide protection from evil and Satan. Justification by Grace, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Classic View of the Atonement are prominent themes.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 25:1-10
* A lament song attributed to David, which is a prayer for deliverance from personal enemies.
* Includes a confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness (vv. 6-7).
* The affirmation of Justification by Grace includes a concern with the practice of the religious life (Sanctification). It seems that the forgiven sinner is led by God (vv. 5, 8-9).
Sermon Text and Title
"Nature Is the Loving Lord's!"
Genesis 9:8-17
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To extol the beauties of nature (Creation and Providence) as testimonies to the love and care of God, stimulating both joy and renewed ecological appreciation.
2. Exegesis (see Baptism of Our Lord)
* Part of God's covenant with Noah after the flood.
* The covenant is not just with Noah and his progeny (with human beings) but with every living creature (vv. 8-10). Preservation of the natural order from a flood or the powers of chaos is pledged (vv. 11, 15).
* A rainbow will function as a sign of this covenant (vv. 12, 17). Ancients imagined the rainbow as a weapon of the divine warrior from which the lightning of arrows were shot (see Psalm 7:12-13; Lamentations 2:4).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Attention must be given to both the doctrines of Creation and Providence, and how they fit together.
* Martin Luther noted how the terrors humankind and the created order faced in the flood set the stage for appreciating the benevolence of God revealed in this covenant:
How much more difficult it is for a conscience that has experienced God's wrath and the terrors of death to let comfort come in! These experiences remain so firmly entrenched later on that a heart becomes fearful and terrified even in the face of kindnesses and comforting words. It is for this reason that God shows Himself benevolent in such a variety of ways and takes such extraordinary delight in pouring forth compassion, like a mother who is caressing and petting her child in order that it may finally begin to forget its tears and smile at its mother.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 2, p. 145)
* The rainbow should remind us, he adds, to give thanks to God (Luther's Works, Vol. 2, p. 148).
* About the rainbow John Calvin writes: "It is the work of God alone to perfect faith; but He does it by such instruments as He sees good…" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. I/1, p. 299).
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* Assess whether the US and other nations have done anything substantial to implement the agreement of the December 2009 United Nations meeting on the environment held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
* Google the latest information on nuclear waste, global warming, and environmental racism (dumping trash in poor neighborhoods in which African-American or Hispanic-American citizens are the majority). Do not overlook the fact that America is responsible for a disproportionate share of the waste.
* See the statistics on how few American Christians are willing to make sacrifices for the environment in this section for the First Lesson, Epiphany 1.
5. Gimmick
We all know the story of the flood. We even know a little bit about the covenant God made with Noah after it ended, about the significance of the rainbow. But we don't know all the details, to the detriment of our responsibilities to care for creation and the joy the created order can give.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* After the flood, God appeared to Noah and his sons, blessing them with the promise of fertility and promising them that all animals would be food for them, but with strictures against murder (vv. 1-7).
* Then our lesson commences with God establishing a covenant with Noah, his descendants, and with every living creature. He promises never again to bring about such a flood (vv. 8-11). This is where the rainbow becomes relevant. It will function as a sign of this covenant (vv. 12-17).
* Call attention to how God has made a promise we sometimes forget when we just focus on understanding creation through the lens of the Genesis account. God has established a covenant not just with human beings but with all living things. We and all living things share a relationship with God! This has obvious implications for our sensitivity to the environment. It is no longer possible for us to claim that Christianity is just about God's care for human beings, about our salvation.
* Note how relatively few Christians have seemed to appreciate the importance of protecting the environment. Lent is a good time for us to repent of this inattention to the good God has done among us. But the Greek word for repentance (metanoeo) also means "change one's mind." We need to let the Bible lesson change some minds.
* It is not hard to change our minds about creation or any of the ways of God. Hang around creation, hang around God, and you get changed. He does the real work when it comes to repentance. (See the quotations by Calvin in Theological Insights of the First Lesson, Ash Wednesday, and Possible Sermon Moves for Gospel, Ash Wednesday.)
* Invite the congregation to reflect on the beauties of creation. Charles Lindbergh said it well in 1967: "In the wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia."
* His wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh echoed these sentiments, but in such a way as to sensitize we Christians to how miraculous God's ways are in nature. Remember, our lesson reminds us that the continuing preservation of creation is the result of God's promise: "After all, I didn't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like the white dogwood."
* Ask the congregation if they do not agree about the miraculous character of a setting sun, of the rebirth of nature in spring. And it is all by grace, free. The ancient Roman comedy writer Plautus expressed this profoundly: "The day, water, sun, moon, night -- I do not have to purchase these things with money."
* For all its occasional rage, these observations and God's promise to Noah and the things of the earth remind us that creation and the things of the earth softly caress us. Martin Luther was right when he said that the rainbow reminds us to give thanks to God (see Theological Insights). Give thanks to God, Luther says, for God who through creation caresses and pets us, assuring us that nothing, not even the rain that once flooded the earth, can destroy us. Feel the caress? (See the first Luther quote in Theological Insights.) Nature belongs to the loving Lord.
7. Wrap-Up
Seeing nature as God's, especially a God like ours who has promised to keep it forever, who like a mother caresses and hugs it, can only bring joy and peace of mind. Again Martin Luther says it so well in celebrating the joy that God intended for us in providing us with the beauties and wonders of the creation:
God wants us to be cheerful and He hates sadness. For had He wanted us to be sad, he would not have given us the sun, the moon and the various fruits of the earth. All these he gave for our good cheer.
(Weimar Ausgabe Tischreden, Vol. 1, p. 52)
The rainbows, the other miracles of nature, when understood as the child of our loving Lord, help make life a little more miraculous, a little more of a joy.
Sermon Text and Title
"A Love That Never Abandons Us"
1 Peter 3:18-21
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
While wrestling with the suffering and sense of abandonment many Americans feel, to proclaim God's astounding and persistent love (Justification by Grace), His unwillingness to lose anyone or any relationship evident in the comfort we have from our own baptisms, from the prospect of Jesus' saving work when He descended into hell, and from the knowledge that in God's sight beautify moments with deceased loved ones continue in the present.
2. Exegesis
* A pastoral exhortation (circular letter) by an elder in Rome (claiming to be Peter) to Gentile churches in Turkey (1:1; 5:1). Probably written between 70 AD and 90 AD, the later date and high-quality Greek makes it unlikely to have been written by the apostle. Exactly what then the connection of the epistle to Peter might mean is a matter of much debate in the academy.
* Offers comfort and advice to Christians who are suffering persecution (2:19-24; 3:14-15; 4:12-19). Romans expected Christians, like practitioners of other foreign religions, to practice immorality and insubordination to patriarchal social relationships. In response, the epistle calls for imitating Christ by doing good and maintains the typical Roman social order.
* Main Sections: (1) Greeting (1:1-2); (2) Thanksgiving (1:3-9); (3) Body of the letter, consisting of theological reflection on Christian identity portraying it in terms of fulfillment of prophecy (1:10--2:10); (4) Exhortation (2:11--5:11); and closing (5:12-14).
* Central Themes: (1) Sanctification and the Imitation of Christ; (2) Christology; (3) Atonement; and (4) Church.
* While counseling readers about their suffering it is noted that Christ also suffered. His suffering was for sin, bringing hearers to God (v. 18). Testimony to the resurrection is given (v. 18).
* Christ is said to have made proclamation to those in prison (perhaps to the dead in hell). Reference is made to the proclamation being made to those who did not obey during the building of the Ark prior to the flood (vv. 19-20).
* Baptism is said to save, as an appeal to God for good conscience (vv. 20-21).
* Christ has gone to glory in heaven, at the Father's right hand (v. 22).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Witness to Christ's atoning work and God's love for humanity, a testimony to God's use of baptism in saving us. Reference to Christ's proclamation to the those in prison has been construed as His proclamation to the dead in hell.
* Martin Luther tried to bring clarity to what is the heart of this text:
Believing in Him [Christ] is the thing. It is useful and gives the power that we have from this: that neither hell not the devil can take us and all others who believe on Him captive nor can they do us harm.
(Robert Kolb and James A. Nestingen, Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, p. 249)
* Elsewhere Luther made the point with reference to how Christ is present whenever He is preached:
But in addition to the preaching, He himself comes, is spiritually present and speaks and preaches to the hearts of the people, just as the apostles address their words orally and physically to the ears of the people. Then Christ preaches to the spirits who are in captivity in the prison of the devil. Thus the going, like the preaching, should be understood in a spiritual sense.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 30, p. 114)
* The Reformer then proceeded to explain how this preaching to the dead could transpire while preaching in the present time:
… we choose to interpret [preaching to the spirits in prison] in accordance with the divine computation of time, namely, that in the existence in which Christ is, those who lived in the past and those who are living today are alike before him. For His rule extends over both the dead and the living.
(Ibid., p. 115)
* Several figures in the early church (esp. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria) had gone so far as to assert that verse 20 actually referred to Christ descending to hell to preach to the dead (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 499; Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 490).
* John Wesley expressly linked the reference to baptism's role in saving us to the First Lesson's narrative of the flood:
That is, through the water of baptism we are saved from the sin which overwhelms the word as a flood. Not, indeed, the bare outward sign, but the inward grace; a divine consciousness that both our persons and our actions are accepted through Him who died and rose again for us.
(Commentary on the Bible, p. 579)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* Americans feel abandoned by their leaders, some pundits say. A 2009 Gallup poll testifies to the low level of trust we have toward our politicians (about 10% of the public trust them), lawyers (13%), business executives (12%), and even clergy (just 50%).
* More Americans than ever are living alone. One in four households are made up of just one member, up 17% from 1940.
* From 1985 to 2006 the number of people who said there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled, to 25% of the public. Apparently Facebook only broadens your network, not the depth of friendship.
5. Gimmick
The author of our lesson (explain why it may not have been Peter [see Exegesis]) was writing to first-century Turkish Christians who were suffering persecution, feeling abandoned by their society, by people they had grown up with, perhaps even by God. We twenty-first-century Christians in America do not suffer like that. Yet we still suffer and feel abandoned.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Introduce statistics in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights. Many Americans feel abandoned. Many of us are all alone.
* To those suffering, to those abandoned, the author of our lesson has a wonderful word of hope and comfort. We have someone, Christ the Lord of all, who will never abandon us! We have a love that is like the love about which Shakespeare once commented, a "Love that comforteth like sunshine."
* We are reminded that we are not alone in our suffering and abandonment. It happened to Christ, as He suffered sins for us all, making us righteous and bringing us to God through His death and resurrection (v. 18).
* Then comes an interesting tick. It is said that Christ went and even made proclamation to spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, who presumably rejected the warnings given to Noah prior to the flood (vv. 19-20). What is this prison? Many of Christianity's greatest leaders think the author of 1 Peter is referring to Christ's descent into hell.
* Express enthusiasm and excitement. Consider the awesomeness of God's love, that He would not give up on any of His creatures, not even willing to give up those who had rejected Him. Does that not give hope that He would never consider abandoning us in the midst of our trials?
* Christ rules over both the living and the dead. How comforting to consider that death has not ultimately separated us from our loved ones, because God is ruling over the living and the dead. Martin Luther sheds light on this beautiful reality. He notes that Christ preaching for and caring for the dead is simultaneous, all time is one for God in Christ. (Elaborate on the last Luther quote in Theological Insights.) How compelling to know that in Christ the moments spent with loved ones in the past are still alive as you and I live just now. (Pause, so the point can sink in.) No, we are never alone, never abandoned. We are not really separated from our dead loved ones, because in God's sight moments we were together with them are happening just now.
* Speaking of never being abandoned, note Luther's reference (in the second quotation, attributed to him in Theological Insights) that Christ is actually present in preaching. There is no getting away from Christ and the love of God.
* The author of our lesson makes the point of God's stick-to-it-iveness when it comes to us by referring to the comfort our baptisms give us. Echoing our lesson, Martin Luther wrote: "From this it follows, to be sure, that when someone comes forth out of baptism, he is truly pure, without sin, and wholly guiltless" (Luther's Works, Vol. 35, p. 32). God will never abandon us because of what we have become. Elsewhere Luther elaborated further on the security and fellowship God provides in the Sacrament: "You ask, 'How does Baptism help me, if it does not altogether blot out and remove sin?'… This blessed Sacrament of Baptism helps you because in it God allies himself with you and becomes one with you in a gracious covenant of comfort" (Ibid., p. 33).
7. Wrap-Up
Ever feel alone, abandoned, suffering in hopelessness? We are reminded that God no more abandons us than we can stop being baptized. Christ's presence in heaven and hell (vv. 22, 19-20), in all time at once, is a reminder that what is said in Psalm 139 is right: Wherever we go, God is there! Remind the flock that as they go through the week they will never be abandoned, no matter how difficult the circumstances, no matter how lonesome things seem, God's love is there! We are never alone, never abandoned. It is like the famed Christian author C.S. Lewis put it: "Though our feelings come and go, God's love does not."
Sermon Text and Title
"Turn Around: It's Urgent, but Proceed With Confidence"
Mark 1:9-15
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim the good news of Realized Eschatology, the Word that there is no time for procrastination, that the kingdom of God is breaking into our present reality, and so it manifests itself in every encounter with God and our neighbor. We can proceed with confidence, because we have God's assurance that He travels with us and sets us free from destructive patterns of the past (Justification by Grace).
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* The account of Jesus' baptism (vv. 9-11), His temptation in the wilderness (vv. 12-13), and the beginning of His ministry (vv. 14-15).
* While baptized, the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove (vv. 9-10). A voice from heaven proclaims Him God's Son (v. 12). See the Exegesis of the Gospel for the Baptism of Our Lord.
* The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days where Satan tempts Him. Angels are said to wait on Him (vv. 12-13). Many more details are provided by the other Synoptics (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13).
* After John the Baptist's arrest, Jesus begins proclaiming God's good news (v. 14). It is summarized as a call to repentance and eschatological urgency (v. 15). This is likely the oldest, most historically authentic account of Jesus' preaching.
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Jesus' proclamation of Realized Eschatology. In responding to Jesus' proclamation the believer actually enters the kingdom in the present and so the power of the coming kingdom begins to take effect immediately. As such, Jesus unites the present and the future. This has implications for Sanctification, as Realized Eschatology gives daily life a more clearly miraculous character. Justification by Grace is also presupposed in such good news.
* See Theological Insights for Gospel, Advent 1; Epiphany 3. Also see the third quotation by Luther in Second Lesson, Ash Wednesday regarding how Jesus unites the present and future.
* Regarding how ordinary events of life foreshadow the kingdom, Martin Luther writes: "[The kingdom comes] Whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we may believe His Holy Word and live godly lives, both here in time and hereafter in eternity" (The Book of Concord, p. 357).
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* See Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights for Gospel, Epiphany 3; Second Lesson, Epiphany 3 (on American household indebtedness); First Lesson, Advent 3.
* Google "How Many Americans Prepared for Retirement" for latest statistics on the baby boomers' lack of preparedness for that ever-nearer future reality. Likewise, Google "Americans Unemployed" for the latest statistics on that issue. At press time the figure hovered at 10%.
* Note the role of dopamine, the feel-good brain chemical, in facilitating the formation of new neural connections in the brain. This happens when we undertake new projects (Stefan Klein, The Science of Happiness, pp. 35-37, 56-58, 107).
5. Gimmick
Note it is the First Sunday in Lent, the beginning of a time of self-reflection and confession of sin. We have been through this cycle many times. Ask the congregation what we will do with it this time. We need to change (assert with passion). It's urgent!
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Note that we have a lot to confess. We can all call the litany on the numerous times we have shown anger, been unkind, hated, cut a corner. But we have also contributed to the ills of our nation. We are a nation still torn by poverty, racial and sexual discrimination (see statistics in First Lesson, Advent 3). We are nation at war, a nation with citizens who have squandered our future for the sake of the latest trinket (that we buy on time). (See statistics in Second Lesson, Epiphany 3, and Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.) No two ways about it: We and America need a change of course.
* Tell the gospel story, how after His baptism the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness (vv. 9-13). And then after John the Baptist's arrest, Jesus began to preach that the time is fulfilled, that the kingdom of God was coming near, and that the faithful should repent and believe the good news (vv. 14-15).
* God's kingdom is on the horizon; we should quit our dawdling and turn our lives around. We need to repent and hear the good news.
* Note the last point in Exegesis about the authenticity of Jesus' eschatological proclamation here. But after a nearly 2,000-year delay about the urgency of the kingdom coming, did Jesus have it wrong? Martin Luther noted that we have just been blind to the new reality, that God's kingdom has been breaking into time repeatedly ever since Jesus uttered these words. Elaborate on the quotation by Luther in Theological Insights. Where faith is present, wherever good works are done, He claimed, the kingdom of God has come! These events give us a glimpse of what eternal life will be like. They are not natural; they are miracles!
* A life lived this way makes every day more wonderful and awesome. Never again can we take faith and the good done to us or that we do as normal or mundane. Life has an intensity and excitement when the apparently ordinary things are seen as miraculous.
* In our gospel it is apparent how urgent it is for Jesus that we see this new reality (v. 15). We dare not put it off.
* Call the congregation's attention to the fact that this is not the way most of us live. We procrastinate change. Lent is a time to repent of this sloth. The Greek word for repentance (metanoia) is relevant here. It literally means to change your mind. We need to change our minds, to see things differently, and it's urgent we begin. This too creates more energy, excitement, and joy in life. A sense of the urgency of life undergirds the new insight about its miraculous power. And neurobiologists tell that the fact that it is a new insight will lead our brain to experience more joy (elaborate on last bullet point in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights).
* This mandate to repent, to get ready, is not something we must do alone. Jesus proclaims to us the good news, the gospel (v. 15.). This gospel is a word of forgiveness, a message that God does not abandon us. See this in our other lessons, as the Second Lesson speaks of Christ suffering for our sins to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:8), and our First Lesson proclaims the rainbow promise that God will never abandon us (Genesis 9:11, 14-15) despite our sin.
* This word of forgiveness is about a fresh start and breaking with the past. Reference could be made here to the quotation by Rudolf Bultmann and other observations in Theological Insights of the Gospel, Advent 1. Or the following observation by the ever-quotable Dutch botanist Paul Boese might be employed: "Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. I would go so far as to contend that forgiveness can even change the past."
* Invite the congregation to think about ways the past (habits, fears, routines) has held them in bondage, made them see life as dull routine. We are trapped by our pasts. But the loving God has brought His kingdom into our lives right now! The old order of boredom and self-doubt, of taking the good for granted, is gone.
7. Wrap-Up
Invite the flock to feel the joy and enthusiasm of life, its miraculous character. Remind them of the emergency of embracing that vision now. Turn around: The kingdom of God, faith and love experienced as miracles, is already among us, already changing our lives!
God lovingly calls His people in various ways for response, while providing confidence, comfort, and joy.
Collect of the Day
After a reference to the flood and how God used it to save the chosen as well as how the Father preserved the Son from temptation, petitions are offered requesting our renewal in baptism as well as to provide protection from evil and Satan. Justification by Grace, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Classic View of the Atonement are prominent themes.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 25:1-10
* A lament song attributed to David, which is a prayer for deliverance from personal enemies.
* Includes a confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness (vv. 6-7).
* The affirmation of Justification by Grace includes a concern with the practice of the religious life (Sanctification). It seems that the forgiven sinner is led by God (vv. 5, 8-9).
Sermon Text and Title
"Nature Is the Loving Lord's!"
Genesis 9:8-17
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To extol the beauties of nature (Creation and Providence) as testimonies to the love and care of God, stimulating both joy and renewed ecological appreciation.
2. Exegesis (see Baptism of Our Lord)
* Part of God's covenant with Noah after the flood.
* The covenant is not just with Noah and his progeny (with human beings) but with every living creature (vv. 8-10). Preservation of the natural order from a flood or the powers of chaos is pledged (vv. 11, 15).
* A rainbow will function as a sign of this covenant (vv. 12, 17). Ancients imagined the rainbow as a weapon of the divine warrior from which the lightning of arrows were shot (see Psalm 7:12-13; Lamentations 2:4).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Attention must be given to both the doctrines of Creation and Providence, and how they fit together.
* Martin Luther noted how the terrors humankind and the created order faced in the flood set the stage for appreciating the benevolence of God revealed in this covenant:
How much more difficult it is for a conscience that has experienced God's wrath and the terrors of death to let comfort come in! These experiences remain so firmly entrenched later on that a heart becomes fearful and terrified even in the face of kindnesses and comforting words. It is for this reason that God shows Himself benevolent in such a variety of ways and takes such extraordinary delight in pouring forth compassion, like a mother who is caressing and petting her child in order that it may finally begin to forget its tears and smile at its mother.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 2, p. 145)
* The rainbow should remind us, he adds, to give thanks to God (Luther's Works, Vol. 2, p. 148).
* About the rainbow John Calvin writes: "It is the work of God alone to perfect faith; but He does it by such instruments as He sees good…" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. I/1, p. 299).
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* Assess whether the US and other nations have done anything substantial to implement the agreement of the December 2009 United Nations meeting on the environment held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
* Google the latest information on nuclear waste, global warming, and environmental racism (dumping trash in poor neighborhoods in which African-American or Hispanic-American citizens are the majority). Do not overlook the fact that America is responsible for a disproportionate share of the waste.
* See the statistics on how few American Christians are willing to make sacrifices for the environment in this section for the First Lesson, Epiphany 1.
5. Gimmick
We all know the story of the flood. We even know a little bit about the covenant God made with Noah after it ended, about the significance of the rainbow. But we don't know all the details, to the detriment of our responsibilities to care for creation and the joy the created order can give.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* After the flood, God appeared to Noah and his sons, blessing them with the promise of fertility and promising them that all animals would be food for them, but with strictures against murder (vv. 1-7).
* Then our lesson commences with God establishing a covenant with Noah, his descendants, and with every living creature. He promises never again to bring about such a flood (vv. 8-11). This is where the rainbow becomes relevant. It will function as a sign of this covenant (vv. 12-17).
* Call attention to how God has made a promise we sometimes forget when we just focus on understanding creation through the lens of the Genesis account. God has established a covenant not just with human beings but with all living things. We and all living things share a relationship with God! This has obvious implications for our sensitivity to the environment. It is no longer possible for us to claim that Christianity is just about God's care for human beings, about our salvation.
* Note how relatively few Christians have seemed to appreciate the importance of protecting the environment. Lent is a good time for us to repent of this inattention to the good God has done among us. But the Greek word for repentance (metanoeo) also means "change one's mind." We need to let the Bible lesson change some minds.
* It is not hard to change our minds about creation or any of the ways of God. Hang around creation, hang around God, and you get changed. He does the real work when it comes to repentance. (See the quotations by Calvin in Theological Insights of the First Lesson, Ash Wednesday, and Possible Sermon Moves for Gospel, Ash Wednesday.)
* Invite the congregation to reflect on the beauties of creation. Charles Lindbergh said it well in 1967: "In the wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia."
* His wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh echoed these sentiments, but in such a way as to sensitize we Christians to how miraculous God's ways are in nature. Remember, our lesson reminds us that the continuing preservation of creation is the result of God's promise: "After all, I didn't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like the white dogwood."
* Ask the congregation if they do not agree about the miraculous character of a setting sun, of the rebirth of nature in spring. And it is all by grace, free. The ancient Roman comedy writer Plautus expressed this profoundly: "The day, water, sun, moon, night -- I do not have to purchase these things with money."
* For all its occasional rage, these observations and God's promise to Noah and the things of the earth remind us that creation and the things of the earth softly caress us. Martin Luther was right when he said that the rainbow reminds us to give thanks to God (see Theological Insights). Give thanks to God, Luther says, for God who through creation caresses and pets us, assuring us that nothing, not even the rain that once flooded the earth, can destroy us. Feel the caress? (See the first Luther quote in Theological Insights.) Nature belongs to the loving Lord.
7. Wrap-Up
Seeing nature as God's, especially a God like ours who has promised to keep it forever, who like a mother caresses and hugs it, can only bring joy and peace of mind. Again Martin Luther says it so well in celebrating the joy that God intended for us in providing us with the beauties and wonders of the creation:
God wants us to be cheerful and He hates sadness. For had He wanted us to be sad, he would not have given us the sun, the moon and the various fruits of the earth. All these he gave for our good cheer.
(Weimar Ausgabe Tischreden, Vol. 1, p. 52)
The rainbows, the other miracles of nature, when understood as the child of our loving Lord, help make life a little more miraculous, a little more of a joy.
Sermon Text and Title
"A Love That Never Abandons Us"
1 Peter 3:18-21
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
While wrestling with the suffering and sense of abandonment many Americans feel, to proclaim God's astounding and persistent love (Justification by Grace), His unwillingness to lose anyone or any relationship evident in the comfort we have from our own baptisms, from the prospect of Jesus' saving work when He descended into hell, and from the knowledge that in God's sight beautify moments with deceased loved ones continue in the present.
2. Exegesis
* A pastoral exhortation (circular letter) by an elder in Rome (claiming to be Peter) to Gentile churches in Turkey (1:1; 5:1). Probably written between 70 AD and 90 AD, the later date and high-quality Greek makes it unlikely to have been written by the apostle. Exactly what then the connection of the epistle to Peter might mean is a matter of much debate in the academy.
* Offers comfort and advice to Christians who are suffering persecution (2:19-24; 3:14-15; 4:12-19). Romans expected Christians, like practitioners of other foreign religions, to practice immorality and insubordination to patriarchal social relationships. In response, the epistle calls for imitating Christ by doing good and maintains the typical Roman social order.
* Main Sections: (1) Greeting (1:1-2); (2) Thanksgiving (1:3-9); (3) Body of the letter, consisting of theological reflection on Christian identity portraying it in terms of fulfillment of prophecy (1:10--2:10); (4) Exhortation (2:11--5:11); and closing (5:12-14).
* Central Themes: (1) Sanctification and the Imitation of Christ; (2) Christology; (3) Atonement; and (4) Church.
* While counseling readers about their suffering it is noted that Christ also suffered. His suffering was for sin, bringing hearers to God (v. 18). Testimony to the resurrection is given (v. 18).
* Christ is said to have made proclamation to those in prison (perhaps to the dead in hell). Reference is made to the proclamation being made to those who did not obey during the building of the Ark prior to the flood (vv. 19-20).
* Baptism is said to save, as an appeal to God for good conscience (vv. 20-21).
* Christ has gone to glory in heaven, at the Father's right hand (v. 22).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Witness to Christ's atoning work and God's love for humanity, a testimony to God's use of baptism in saving us. Reference to Christ's proclamation to the those in prison has been construed as His proclamation to the dead in hell.
* Martin Luther tried to bring clarity to what is the heart of this text:
Believing in Him [Christ] is the thing. It is useful and gives the power that we have from this: that neither hell not the devil can take us and all others who believe on Him captive nor can they do us harm.
(Robert Kolb and James A. Nestingen, Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, p. 249)
* Elsewhere Luther made the point with reference to how Christ is present whenever He is preached:
But in addition to the preaching, He himself comes, is spiritually present and speaks and preaches to the hearts of the people, just as the apostles address their words orally and physically to the ears of the people. Then Christ preaches to the spirits who are in captivity in the prison of the devil. Thus the going, like the preaching, should be understood in a spiritual sense.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 30, p. 114)
* The Reformer then proceeded to explain how this preaching to the dead could transpire while preaching in the present time:
… we choose to interpret [preaching to the spirits in prison] in accordance with the divine computation of time, namely, that in the existence in which Christ is, those who lived in the past and those who are living today are alike before him. For His rule extends over both the dead and the living.
(Ibid., p. 115)
* Several figures in the early church (esp. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria) had gone so far as to assert that verse 20 actually referred to Christ descending to hell to preach to the dead (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 499; Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 490).
* John Wesley expressly linked the reference to baptism's role in saving us to the First Lesson's narrative of the flood:
That is, through the water of baptism we are saved from the sin which overwhelms the word as a flood. Not, indeed, the bare outward sign, but the inward grace; a divine consciousness that both our persons and our actions are accepted through Him who died and rose again for us.
(Commentary on the Bible, p. 579)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* Americans feel abandoned by their leaders, some pundits say. A 2009 Gallup poll testifies to the low level of trust we have toward our politicians (about 10% of the public trust them), lawyers (13%), business executives (12%), and even clergy (just 50%).
* More Americans than ever are living alone. One in four households are made up of just one member, up 17% from 1940.
* From 1985 to 2006 the number of people who said there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled, to 25% of the public. Apparently Facebook only broadens your network, not the depth of friendship.
5. Gimmick
The author of our lesson (explain why it may not have been Peter [see Exegesis]) was writing to first-century Turkish Christians who were suffering persecution, feeling abandoned by their society, by people they had grown up with, perhaps even by God. We twenty-first-century Christians in America do not suffer like that. Yet we still suffer and feel abandoned.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Introduce statistics in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights. Many Americans feel abandoned. Many of us are all alone.
* To those suffering, to those abandoned, the author of our lesson has a wonderful word of hope and comfort. We have someone, Christ the Lord of all, who will never abandon us! We have a love that is like the love about which Shakespeare once commented, a "Love that comforteth like sunshine."
* We are reminded that we are not alone in our suffering and abandonment. It happened to Christ, as He suffered sins for us all, making us righteous and bringing us to God through His death and resurrection (v. 18).
* Then comes an interesting tick. It is said that Christ went and even made proclamation to spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, who presumably rejected the warnings given to Noah prior to the flood (vv. 19-20). What is this prison? Many of Christianity's greatest leaders think the author of 1 Peter is referring to Christ's descent into hell.
* Express enthusiasm and excitement. Consider the awesomeness of God's love, that He would not give up on any of His creatures, not even willing to give up those who had rejected Him. Does that not give hope that He would never consider abandoning us in the midst of our trials?
* Christ rules over both the living and the dead. How comforting to consider that death has not ultimately separated us from our loved ones, because God is ruling over the living and the dead. Martin Luther sheds light on this beautiful reality. He notes that Christ preaching for and caring for the dead is simultaneous, all time is one for God in Christ. (Elaborate on the last Luther quote in Theological Insights.) How compelling to know that in Christ the moments spent with loved ones in the past are still alive as you and I live just now. (Pause, so the point can sink in.) No, we are never alone, never abandoned. We are not really separated from our dead loved ones, because in God's sight moments we were together with them are happening just now.
* Speaking of never being abandoned, note Luther's reference (in the second quotation, attributed to him in Theological Insights) that Christ is actually present in preaching. There is no getting away from Christ and the love of God.
* The author of our lesson makes the point of God's stick-to-it-iveness when it comes to us by referring to the comfort our baptisms give us. Echoing our lesson, Martin Luther wrote: "From this it follows, to be sure, that when someone comes forth out of baptism, he is truly pure, without sin, and wholly guiltless" (Luther's Works, Vol. 35, p. 32). God will never abandon us because of what we have become. Elsewhere Luther elaborated further on the security and fellowship God provides in the Sacrament: "You ask, 'How does Baptism help me, if it does not altogether blot out and remove sin?'… This blessed Sacrament of Baptism helps you because in it God allies himself with you and becomes one with you in a gracious covenant of comfort" (Ibid., p. 33).
7. Wrap-Up
Ever feel alone, abandoned, suffering in hopelessness? We are reminded that God no more abandons us than we can stop being baptized. Christ's presence in heaven and hell (vv. 22, 19-20), in all time at once, is a reminder that what is said in Psalm 139 is right: Wherever we go, God is there! Remind the flock that as they go through the week they will never be abandoned, no matter how difficult the circumstances, no matter how lonesome things seem, God's love is there! We are never alone, never abandoned. It is like the famed Christian author C.S. Lewis put it: "Though our feelings come and go, God's love does not."
Sermon Text and Title
"Turn Around: It's Urgent, but Proceed With Confidence"
Mark 1:9-15
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim the good news of Realized Eschatology, the Word that there is no time for procrastination, that the kingdom of God is breaking into our present reality, and so it manifests itself in every encounter with God and our neighbor. We can proceed with confidence, because we have God's assurance that He travels with us and sets us free from destructive patterns of the past (Justification by Grace).
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* The account of Jesus' baptism (vv. 9-11), His temptation in the wilderness (vv. 12-13), and the beginning of His ministry (vv. 14-15).
* While baptized, the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove (vv. 9-10). A voice from heaven proclaims Him God's Son (v. 12). See the Exegesis of the Gospel for the Baptism of Our Lord.
* The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days where Satan tempts Him. Angels are said to wait on Him (vv. 12-13). Many more details are provided by the other Synoptics (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13).
* After John the Baptist's arrest, Jesus begins proclaiming God's good news (v. 14). It is summarized as a call to repentance and eschatological urgency (v. 15). This is likely the oldest, most historically authentic account of Jesus' preaching.
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Jesus' proclamation of Realized Eschatology. In responding to Jesus' proclamation the believer actually enters the kingdom in the present and so the power of the coming kingdom begins to take effect immediately. As such, Jesus unites the present and the future. This has implications for Sanctification, as Realized Eschatology gives daily life a more clearly miraculous character. Justification by Grace is also presupposed in such good news.
* See Theological Insights for Gospel, Advent 1; Epiphany 3. Also see the third quotation by Luther in Second Lesson, Ash Wednesday regarding how Jesus unites the present and future.
* Regarding how ordinary events of life foreshadow the kingdom, Martin Luther writes: "[The kingdom comes] Whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we may believe His Holy Word and live godly lives, both here in time and hereafter in eternity" (The Book of Concord, p. 357).
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* See Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights for Gospel, Epiphany 3; Second Lesson, Epiphany 3 (on American household indebtedness); First Lesson, Advent 3.
* Google "How Many Americans Prepared for Retirement" for latest statistics on the baby boomers' lack of preparedness for that ever-nearer future reality. Likewise, Google "Americans Unemployed" for the latest statistics on that issue. At press time the figure hovered at 10%.
* Note the role of dopamine, the feel-good brain chemical, in facilitating the formation of new neural connections in the brain. This happens when we undertake new projects (Stefan Klein, The Science of Happiness, pp. 35-37, 56-58, 107).
5. Gimmick
Note it is the First Sunday in Lent, the beginning of a time of self-reflection and confession of sin. We have been through this cycle many times. Ask the congregation what we will do with it this time. We need to change (assert with passion). It's urgent!
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Note that we have a lot to confess. We can all call the litany on the numerous times we have shown anger, been unkind, hated, cut a corner. But we have also contributed to the ills of our nation. We are a nation still torn by poverty, racial and sexual discrimination (see statistics in First Lesson, Advent 3). We are nation at war, a nation with citizens who have squandered our future for the sake of the latest trinket (that we buy on time). (See statistics in Second Lesson, Epiphany 3, and Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.) No two ways about it: We and America need a change of course.
* Tell the gospel story, how after His baptism the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness (vv. 9-13). And then after John the Baptist's arrest, Jesus began to preach that the time is fulfilled, that the kingdom of God was coming near, and that the faithful should repent and believe the good news (vv. 14-15).
* God's kingdom is on the horizon; we should quit our dawdling and turn our lives around. We need to repent and hear the good news.
* Note the last point in Exegesis about the authenticity of Jesus' eschatological proclamation here. But after a nearly 2,000-year delay about the urgency of the kingdom coming, did Jesus have it wrong? Martin Luther noted that we have just been blind to the new reality, that God's kingdom has been breaking into time repeatedly ever since Jesus uttered these words. Elaborate on the quotation by Luther in Theological Insights. Where faith is present, wherever good works are done, He claimed, the kingdom of God has come! These events give us a glimpse of what eternal life will be like. They are not natural; they are miracles!
* A life lived this way makes every day more wonderful and awesome. Never again can we take faith and the good done to us or that we do as normal or mundane. Life has an intensity and excitement when the apparently ordinary things are seen as miraculous.
* In our gospel it is apparent how urgent it is for Jesus that we see this new reality (v. 15). We dare not put it off.
* Call the congregation's attention to the fact that this is not the way most of us live. We procrastinate change. Lent is a time to repent of this sloth. The Greek word for repentance (metanoia) is relevant here. It literally means to change your mind. We need to change our minds, to see things differently, and it's urgent we begin. This too creates more energy, excitement, and joy in life. A sense of the urgency of life undergirds the new insight about its miraculous power. And neurobiologists tell that the fact that it is a new insight will lead our brain to experience more joy (elaborate on last bullet point in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights).
* This mandate to repent, to get ready, is not something we must do alone. Jesus proclaims to us the good news, the gospel (v. 15.). This gospel is a word of forgiveness, a message that God does not abandon us. See this in our other lessons, as the Second Lesson speaks of Christ suffering for our sins to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:8), and our First Lesson proclaims the rainbow promise that God will never abandon us (Genesis 9:11, 14-15) despite our sin.
* This word of forgiveness is about a fresh start and breaking with the past. Reference could be made here to the quotation by Rudolf Bultmann and other observations in Theological Insights of the Gospel, Advent 1. Or the following observation by the ever-quotable Dutch botanist Paul Boese might be employed: "Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. I would go so far as to contend that forgiveness can even change the past."
* Invite the congregation to think about ways the past (habits, fears, routines) has held them in bondage, made them see life as dull routine. We are trapped by our pasts. But the loving God has brought His kingdom into our lives right now! The old order of boredom and self-doubt, of taking the good for granted, is gone.
7. Wrap-Up
Invite the flock to feel the joy and enthusiasm of life, its miraculous character. Remind them of the emergency of embracing that vision now. Turn around: The kingdom of God, faith and love experienced as miracles, is already among us, already changing our lives!
