May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your
sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. AMEN.
If
we find this box sitting on our front steps, some of us know the symbol and
that means only one thing, we have ordered something from Amazon and they have
delivered. Whether it is supplies for
the house, new clothes that we just had to have, or the latest electronics gear
that would have required us to go to Denver to get, but instead we had Amazon
deliver it to our door step. We look
forward to the mystery of what is in the box and taking it out and seeing what
Amazon sent and UPS delivered to our front door.
So
to in the Christian life, when we pray the Seventh Petition of the Lord’s
Prayer, we clearly and tangibly make our own the prayer “But deliver us from
evil.” Yet, as we pray this petition
there is a truth that is not just laid in our laps, but made our very own. Let’s pull out our bulletin insert for this
morning and read responsively as a congregation the “What does this mean?”
section. “The Seventh Petition of the
Lord’s Prayer, But deliver us from evil. What does this mean? We
pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us
from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when
our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this
valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.
As this petition sinks in, let us go to God in prayer and pray for our
deliverance from evil.
Father
in heaven, we know that we are surrounded by evil, sin and even death, but when
we pray this petition we ask You to deliver us.
And the truth is You have delivered us through what Your Son Jesus
Christ did on the Cross of Calvary and we only need to lay claim to Your
promises. Enable us to understand Your
offer of grace is for all of mankind, but especially including all of us saints
gathered here at Emmanuel this morning.
AMEN.
Living
in the parsonage next door to the church is an experience that Pastor’s not
only joke about, but at times lament. As
a young family it is interesting when Sarah, Michele and I are in the front
room of the parsonage and we hear the mail slot open and close. Sarah excitedly exclaims, ‘mail is here’ and
wants to rush to the front door and check what the postal carrier has
delivered, with the hope and anticipation that she has at least one piece of
mail with her name on it. On many occasions
she is disappointed, because it was either the wind opening and closing the
slot or she didn’t receive any mail, but on other occasions her joy is
fulfilled by having a piece of mail or better yet a package with her name on it
that is especially for her.
This
same joy that Sarah has with a piece of mail, we Christians should have when we
come and worship in God’s house, hear His Word proclaimed in the readings and
when we receive His precious Body and Blood around the altar as we will in a
few minutes. For God clearly and
unmistakably is offering us the fulfillment of the promise that we pray for in
this the Seventh Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
God is ‘delivering us from evil’, maybe not in the way we desire or
clearly understand, but God is preparing us for our entrance into His
Kingdom. When Jesus Christ came and
dwelt among us His disciples beheld His Glory, they could touch it and even
interact with Him. Unlike then we as we
gather here today at Emmanuel have the greatest opportunity to not only hear
God’s Word that proclaims life and salvation, we actually get to see Jesus.
A
few Sunday’s ago I asked my confirmation class, have you ever seen Jesus. There was the question of clarification by an
astute student saying, ‘do you mean a picture’ and I responded ‘No.’ Hence the
resounding answer was no, none of the students felt or believed they had ever
seen Jesus. Then I revealed a truth to
them. I told them that they had in fact
seen Jesus many different times and even that very morning. When we have Holy Communion or the Lord’s
Supper, we in fact believe that this is the Precious Body and Blood of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Communion,
unlike for other churches is where we actually see Jesus Christ Body and
Blood. Unlike the chicken or beef that
we eat that is clearly meat and poultry and feels like it, because either we
butchered the cow or chicken ourselves, when we partake of Jesus Body and Blood
in the Lord’s Supper it is God’s Word that makes the bread and wine His Body
and Blood like we will celebrate in a few minutes. Through the Words of Institution that Jesus
instituted on Maundy Thursday, God changes these simple elements of bread and
wine into His precious Body and Blood that gives us the greatest gift of
eternal life and fulfills the truth that we pray for in the Seventh Petition of
the Lord’s Prayer.
For
in the Seventh Petition when we pray, “deliver
us from evil” we pray for God to deliver us not only from this life, but to
the life to come, eternal life, our eternal destination of heaven. The connection of eternal life and our lives
today is clear and unmistakable and the connection with our receipt of Jesus
Christ Body and Blood we receive today around the altar is a delivery that far
outweighs what the mail carrier brings, the UPS driver or even the FedEx
delivery man puts at our doorstep. What
we receive today around the altar is a delivery upon the promises of God that
the Old Testament people believed in from the Garden of Eden through the desert
wilderness and we know was fulfilled by Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.
This
is the free grace that God offers us and delivers to us daily. But then we might ask, why then do bad things
happen to us, whether accidents, bad years of drought that cause us not to have
a crop or very little crop, paychecks that don’t cover medicine or is below the
poverty level. How can God allow this to
occur? When a question like this occurs,
and it is on a regular basis, the simplest and easiest answer is so God’s Glory
can be revealed. We experience this, not
at the hands of God, but at the hands of Satan.
God does not cause evil to occur, but as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer,
“delivers us from evil”. This is the
promise that is fulfilled for us today as we eat His Precious Body and
Blood. Our task is only to have faith in
God that His promises are fulfilled.
Clearly we may not see the fullest ramifications of fulfillment here on
earth, but with our entrance into heaven, we will behold God’s Glory and be in
God’s presence for all eternity.
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