Sermon Audio
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.
We are no different 3000 years later
In the faith based movie, Courageous, Adam, the main
character encounters a reality dreaded by all parents, the loss of a child.
For Adam, a policeman who faces dangerous situations by putting his
own life on the line daily, with this more personal loss the questions were
numerous and the answers were scarce, but the meaning and implication was very
personal and the hurt was very tangible. In the same way, our Old
Testament lesson this morning also tells of the loss of a child to a widow
woman. And Elijah, the great prophet is expected to answer her questions
of why, but also bring the woman’s son back to life. The reality is that
even Elijah knows, he cannot perform this miracle on his own, Elijah needs God.
We who gather here 3000 years later are not any different than
Elijah, the widow woman or Adam from Courageous. All of us
need God, and the church especially today needs God. But for this woman
and we who gather here, we daily doubt if the church and even if God cares.
The mother was deaf because of her reality
For the grief stricken mother, dressed in clothes that are only
worn for mourning, hunched over the lifeless body of her son, any words spoken
by Elijah would clearly fall on deaf ears. This woman isn’t listening,
she has mentally and emotionally shut down. Because her world, her child,
lay motionless in the bed. But Elijah knows his actions done by God
through him will either break this woman’s faith or enable her to see that God
does care for her and her son.
Here and now vs. eternity!
For this mother, she sees clearly the ‘here and now’, but does not
understand how her present reality connects to eternity. This woman
cannot see past her grief and fear of being alone like she was before Elijah
entered her life and the eternal implications. We who gather here today
are no different, our choices we make on a daily basis have eternal
consequences, but we, being human, lash out at our friends, neighbors and
especially our family in fear, because of the unknown or it isn’t going our
way. Whether how we will pay the farm note, put food on the table, the
clothes we wear or even how we will give back to God here at church. Our
reality, the here and now, crowds out of the picture our eternal consequences
and God’s potential impact.
Paul and the Ephesians
Enter Paul, and his letter to the Ephesians. In his letter,
Paul connects clearly and puts down in black and white what Elijah portrayed
and lived in the sight of and for the widow and as an example for us today.
Simply Paul wants us to, not lose heart, be strengthened, you will
comprehend the love of Christ, so that you will be filled with the fullness of
God. This is all about God and His promises and how God fulfills them for
this mother through Elijah and even for each of us gathered here today in the
name of Jesus Christ.
The role of the Spirit of God
The reason God continues to be interested in each of us today is
because of God’s promises, from the Garden of Eden to the desert where this
mother mourns her child to we who gather here at Emmanuel Lutheran in Goodland,
KS. The promise that God made to Adam and Eve in the Garden, the widow
and to us today was to give us the Spirit of God. God’s Spirit is inside
of us through our baptism and we can find comfort in this gift from God.
But daily we doubt God. When we are struck by the arrows that Satan
loses at us, they find their mark and we easily forget about the Spirit of God,
doubt the Spirit of God exists inside of us and wonder why we feel ‘alone’.
This widow was no different than any of us gathered here today and all of
us especially the church need the Spirit of God today in each of our lives.
God’s Spirit Strengthen’s us
And today in the most powerful way God reaches from heaven into
each of our lives and offers us His Son, Jesus Christ. Not only does God
change the playing field and landscape of our reality, he navigates us to a
different truth that is fulfilled in the Spirit of God in our lives. Just
as it was no accident that Elijah came into the widows life and prophesied
about her son’s birth, Elijah also had a purpose of showing the clear action of
the Spirit of God by raising her son from the dead. Today when we partake
of Jesus Christ precious Body and Blood, God’s Spirit enters into each of us
again to strengthen us in our daily lives.
We will comprehend the love of Christ
As God strengthens us we are enabled to see with the eyes of
faith, given to us in our Baptism into Jesus Christ life, death and
resurrection. We no longer will be blinded by the devil and society or
what is ‘accepted’ by those around us who only have an earthly perspective, but
we through our remembering our baptism will be made new through the gift of God
in Jesus Christ. When we make the decision to come forward to partake of
Jesus Christ Body and Blood around His altar this morning we will more fully
comprehend the love of Jesus Christ for each and every one of us. And
this is the same love lived out by Elijah for the widow. This event was
pointing to what Jesus Christ would do on the Cross of Calvary for all of
mankind nearly 1000 years later. And we who live 3000 years after Elijah
and the widow can be filled to overflowing with the love and fullness of God as
was promised to us and shared for and with us in our baptism and be
strengthened by God and clearly comprehend the love of Christ for each of us on
a daily basis.
So what are we to be as the church?
Yet, the elephant in the room is what does this have to do with
the church? Last week I spoke of our finding purpose for our lives.
How we need to find and have a purpose for each of us. But today,
for the church where we are gathered this morning, “what are we to be as the
church?”
One of my pastoral mentors loved the ocean and would spend as much
time there as he could and he found a picture that represented what the church
was to be. It simply was a lighthouse with its keeper standing outside of
the door of the lighthouse. The lighthouse protecting the man from the
ocean was at the center of the picture. If you were to step back and see
the full picture, a wave, not 10 feet, not 25 feet, but 75-100 feet tall was
crashing into the lighthouse on the opposite side, but the keeper was unmoved.
This picture epitomizes for me what the church can and should be.
The church is a place of safety from the waves of life that crash against
us. The church is built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and His Word.
And we should not shy away from engaging each other as well as the world
and be a beacon of what Jesus Christ did for all of mankind and offers each of
us today. We have the opportunity to show and share the Spirit of God in
our lives and be the church of Jesus Christ with a purpose which was built on
the foundation of the meal we are about to share.
Check out Pastor on the Prairie (ProtP)
Subscribe to ProtP
No comments:
Post a Comment