04162017 Easter Sunday - “By the Power and for the Glory of God that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind!!”

April 16, 2017
“By the Power and for the Glory of God that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind!!”

Audio

P – He is Risen!  C – He is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia!

Today we gather proclaiming, “He is Risen”.  We gather not in a valley, but on the mountain top, to celebrate the fulfillment of God’s Promise that was 4000 years in the making, from Creation and the promise made to Adam and Eve all the way to the Cross of Calvary!  For it is “By the Power and for the Glory of God that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind!”  We gather here to celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ as we just proclaimed that “He is Risen!”  Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind throughout our country and world, but especially including each of us gathered here at Emmanuel who Celebrate Jesus Christ victory over the grave this Easter morning!

We celebrate His and our eternal life and the abundance of it, because, Jesus Christ has risen from the dead!  And this is the ultimate bookend to the Prayer we have been considering during the Lenten season.  Jesus Christ taught His disciples the Lord’s Prayer by their own request.  Jesus by teaching them and their passing the prayer down to successive generations, has impacted mankind for the last two thousand years including each and every one of us gathered here this morning.  And our celebration today comes “By the Power and for the Glory of God that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind!!”  We gather this morning in order to give God the Glory for His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ!

If this could be boiled down to one phrase, it would be this!  “Jesus Christ died for our sin and set us free!”  No matter what man does, how man treats one another, chooses to stay seated when God wants us to stand up and fight for what is right.  “Jesus Christ died for our sin and set us free!”  This is what Jesus willingly went to the Cross of Calvary in order to offer us eternal life.  And the truth is, when we pray the final petition of the Lord’s Prayer and end with the final word, “AMEN”, the truth remains, Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead and “Jesus Christ died for our sin and set us free!”

This is why we gather on Easter, why we come to worship God and His Son and our Savior Jesus Christ.  This is why we confess our short comings and God freely forgives us our sin that we hear through the declaration of grace from Jesus Christ!  This is why we say, teach and believe the Prayer that Jesus Christ taught His disciples and that we promise to teach when we baptize in the Name of the Trinity.  This is why we proclaim when we gather for worship that we believe that Jesus Christ offers us eternal life out of His great love for us and “By the Power and for the Glory of God that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind!”

In the movie Risen, which was our Film of Faith last month, the greatest impact in the movie was felt by Clavius, when he entered the room where the disciples had gathered in the week after Jesus Resurrection.  Clavius clearly was searching not only as his job as appointed by Pilate, but Clavius soul was searching for answers as well.  With sword drawn, Clavius saw Jesus Christ and knew clearly in his heart the truth of the message we hear this morning.  “Jesus Christ died for our sin and set us free!”  And dropping the sword as he stumbled into the room in utter disbelief of what He saw before him with his very eyes.  Clavius saw Jesus Christ, the Man he saw hanging dead on the Cross on Friday, was right there in front of him.  Clavius heart of stone was melted and instantly became transformed.

This is the same invitation and opportunity, Jesus Christ makes to us today.  Jesus wants our hearts of stone, our hearts of bitterness and hatred.  Our hearts of control, our hearts that are not for Him, His mission or His ministry to be melted away and replaced with a heart of love, a heart of forgiveness, a heart of compassion and the heartfelt desire, dare I say a heart ready to stand and surely say and proclaim the Gospel and what needs said.  For today when we proclaim, “He is Risen”, we proclaim it because of the truth we need to not only hear, heed, but hold dearly like He will hold each of us when we enter into His Kingdom.  We proclaim today boldly this truth, “He is Risen” “By the Power and for the Glory of God that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for all of mankind!!” AMEN!

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Speak Your Mind

Sermon 04142013 2nd Sunday After Easter

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.

Let us pray!  O God, it was through Your Son’s humiliation on the Cross of Calvary that our world was lifted from sin to salvation and You rescued us from sin, death and the devil.  Grant to us clear understanding of the joy found in Your Son Jesus Christ Who is our Good Shepherd Who guards, protects and cares for us sheep in His fold known as the church.  Enable us to know You, hear Your voice and embrace Your will for our lives, for all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning.  AMEN.

When we hear the 23^rd Psalm from this morning, we are comforted by the words, the images it creates in our minds and especially the promises that God makes to each of us.  Clearly the poetic nature of King David writing this Psalm was derived from his experience in his life.  In the recent History Channel television series entitled, “The Bible” they used this Psalm when David was facing Goliath and the Philistines.  Yet, what is more important for us today is not the text itself, but the concept of relationship.

Each of the texts we have heard read this morning talk about a shepherd.  Whether it is their job description or how the shepherd feels about the sheep from Ezekiel, the promises that God makes in the Psalm of leading, protecting, providing and showing mercy or from the epistle how we are like sheep that have gone astray from 1^st Peter, or our Gospel that spells out to what degree the shepherd will go to protect and provide and how the hired hand will flee.  These texts deal with relationship between shepherd and sheep and apply to and for each of us today, not only with our personal family but also with our relationship with the church, but specifically our relationship with Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd.

If our relationship with Jesus Christ is dead, decaying, deceiving or destitute than our lives will likely be the same.  Just as when farming if the soil is not tilled between crops, nourished with fertilizer before planting, cared for during the growing season by spraying for weeds or kept from to much traffic by the tractors or combines during harvest, the yield for the crop in the future will be diminished.  Our relationship with Jesus Christ is the determiner not only of our destination of heaven or hell, but also our lives that we live on a daily basis.  When we have a good relationship with Jesus Christ as is manifest with daily prayer, scripture reading and conversations with God, our attitude and outcome of what we do will show it.  When our relationship is nearly dead, we do not have conversations, but dictations with God of ‘I want more rain’ or ‘the moisture was not enough’, our lives and especially our attitudes will be clearly disconnected from the church and God.  And our relationship with not only God Father, Son and Holy Spirit will be unhealthy, but not be what God wants it to be.  Therefore the fruit of spreading the Gospel message of Jesus Christ for those who are still in the valley of the shadow of death will be elusive, just as a good crop is with little or no preparation and our lack of faith in God.

God is calling us to a deeper relationship with Him.  This relationship is not about us and our selfish desires or our perceived need for rain, healthy crops or kids that mind us, it is about God and His blessing.  Last week we heard how God blesses us through our relationship with Him through Word and Sacrament of both Holy Baptism and Holy Communion and how on Easter we could answer the question, ‘So What’ about the resurrection.  But today we need to understand God is calling us to a deeper relationship, not only with each other, but especially with Him as our shepherd.

As a Pastor, I get calls or visits to help people.  Most people who walk through my door or give me a call think the problem is with either the other person, or they don’t have the needed information in order to succeed, whether it is marriage, work, family or their own feelings.  There are even some people who sit in the pew today and are too afraid to ask for help, because, either they are a man and they can’t show or admit weakness or lack of knowledge whether dealing with family, spouse, work or even their relationship with God.  Or to ask for help is the long held belief that there is supposedly a stigma for admitting that they are human and that they are broken and they need help.  But what I find after talking with most people is that the largest number of people who come need help with relationship.  Whether the relationship is between husband and wife, parents and children, between members of the body of Christ or even between relatives, siblings or classmates, they feel a personal disconnect or a discontent within themselves and with the person or the situation and know there is something that is askew. 

What is vastly true and unmistakable is that we live in a broken world where relationships have been broken from the entrance of sin in the Garden of Eden through the Exodus from Egypt into the promised land, to the coming Messiah and even with His disciples after His death and resurrection as well to us today.  Our world is broken and cannot be fixed by ‘self-help books’, seminars or the latest greatest self-actualization or new age exercise from the internet, television or talk show hosts, like Dr. Phil or The View.  These shows and hosts are entertaining and sometimes do have a nugget of worth, but they still miss the intrinsic aspect of relationship that is in our DNA.  It is the relationship between Creator and created, our relationship between God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we His creation that live in this world.

If we really want to change, we have to go to the source that can change our relationship, and that is Jesus Christ.  Two weeks ago we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and how our relationship with God through Jesus Christ was no longer only of the Son of God here on earth walking among the people of God, teaching, healing or helping.  With Jesus Christ death on Calvary, the relationship radically changed to one of pure dependence upon that one act of humility, grace and love that Jesus displayed by allowing Himself to go to the Cross.  When Jesus bowed His head the veil of the temple was torn, the connection between God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ to us was cemented and no longer nor was it ever that we could win our salvation, bridge the gap nor connect ourselves, Jesus Christ became the connection for us.  Jesus bridged the gap between God and Man for all time and all place.

With our being baptized into Jesus Christ life, death and resurrection, God the Son, changed our relationship with His Father and Him and thus with all of humanity for all time and all place.  Our daily lives filled with sin, bound to death and only self-centered could now be confessed, forgiven because of the blood of the Lamb of God and radically changed our trajectory.  No longer are we bound by our sin to death, but through the Blood of Jesus Christ offered on the Cross we are set free to have a loving forgiving relationship with the Great Shepherd and with all of God’s Children.

Because of God’s action on the Cross of Calvary our relationship can now be one of love, forgiveness and freedom not bound in sin, but freed by the Blood of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.  This freedom is why our shepherd Jesus Christ entered into the world and why He now sets us free to have a full and complete relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but also with our fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ.  Our relationship is not bound by sin, but freed by Blood.  We now can hear and heed God’s call for a new relationship with Him, but also with and for all of mankind, but especially for all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning.  AMEN.

Sermon 03312013 Easter Sunday

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.

Let us pray!  O God, You gave Your only begotten Son Jesus Christ to suffer at the hands of man and be nailed to the Cross for our redemption, but today we find the tomb empty where His body had been laid.  By His resurrection You have delivered us from our sins and overcome the power of death for us.  May we die every day to sin so we may live with You forever in Your Kingdom in the great joy of the resurrection and proudly answer doubter’s question of ‘So What?’  For Your resurrection was to free all of mankind from our sins, but especially including all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel who proclaim, “Jesus Christ as Lord”.  AMEN.

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!  He is risen indeed!!!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

This truth so accurately spoken as we celebrate this morning is doubted.  The doubt manifests itself in very strange and out of the ordinary ways.  This morning we come together as the Body of Christ to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on this Easter Sunday.  On Maundy Thursday we celebrated the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday we mourned His being nailed to the Cross, His death and His being placed in the tomb and this morning we look to the empty tomb and say, ‘So What?’

This Lent we have journeyed and heard about different people and places of Lent.  For those of you who have not been with us at our Mid-Week and Sunday services during this Lent we have seen the Cross journey from entrance to the church, the rear of the church to the front to the chancel and now to the pulpit.  We probably ask the question, ‘So What?’, but the significance is not in its mere presence, but for us this morning it is a reminder that the answer to the question, “So What?” is that it is upon the Cross that Jesus Christ set us free from sin, death, the devil, hell and damnation.

But there are still doubters here among us this morning.  Our doubt is manifest clearly by our not being here for the entire journey.  We come on Easter in our new clothes, fed with the great breakfast put on by the men and attending Easter Sunday, the one service that promises the greatest gift of mercy by our Lord and Savior Who no longer is in the grave.  And we expect that our taking one hour out of our busy life schedule is enough to ‘satisfy’ God or our parents, our peers or even our pastor that we were here to celebrate Easter.

But I again pose the question, ‘So What?’  For what reason do we believe that this one hour overcomes all of our sleeping in on Sunday morning, or going to the lake or mountains or Hays or Denver to shop, not being involved in the worship or ministry of the church or seeking to understand the entire plan of salvation by daily praying the Lord’s Prayer, daily reading the Holy Scriptures or daily seeking God’s will in our lives?

The answer to the question, ‘So What?’ isn’t our assuaging our conscience with our sitting in the pew for one Sunday, even if it is Easter or Christmas.  The answer to the question is that no matter what we do or have done, it is not what we do that matters.  What really matters is what God has done for us!

God has answered this question, “So What” so clearly for us today with His Son Jesus Christ life, death and resurrection.  Our actions and inactions are inconsequential.  We bring sin and death into the relationship with Jesus Christ through our sins of both omissions where we do not do the things we should and commission where we do what we know we should not do.  Our roles in this life have become to bring death because we were born and conceived in sin and are by nature an enemy against God.  But Jesus Christ in His life, death and especially His resurrection offers us eternal life freely and without question by and through our baptism.

So when the question is asked ‘So What’, we are imperfect creatures and cannot answer, but God has answered this question for each and every one of us.  By Jesus Christ offering Himself on the Cross of Calvary for you and for me God answers the question, “So What” with grace, mercy and forgiveness that is found and made manifest in our baptism into the promise of forgiveness found in Jesus Christ.  God reveals the greatest love for all of mankind with the empty tomb and now His Son, Jesus Christ risen from the dead offers all of us life and salvation and the forgiveness of sins by His innocent death on Calvary for you and for me.

But even though God has answered the question, ‘So What’, what is our response?  How do we respond to the question, ‘So What’?  Has this offer of life and salvation that we cannot earn or merit on our own with our actions and life bind us to indifference and no response?  Will you who sit in the pew today respond as you have in the past by only attending Christmas and Easter services?  Or has a miracle occurred?  Has God penetrated our hard hearts with His Gospel message?  Will you who sit in the pew this morning in honor of God’s greatest sacrifice of His Son, offer yourselves in His service for His message of salvation to be spread to the ends of the earth?  Will all of us no longer make our attendance and involvement be about us or who may see us or which person feels they have the power of control, whether over worship, the business of the church, the money the church spends or the impact we as Emmanuel Lutheran Church has in Goodland, KS?  Are you willing to stand before the judgment seat and say God’s gift of His Son, Jesus Christ was given for me and I am here to serve for Him and not myself?

These are the questions that strike nerves within us.  They cause us to respond with ‘how dare you pastor’ preach like you don’t know my life and the things I struggle with?  How dare you today of all days, on Easter Sunday question my motives, my commitment to God or my life?  But you see, I understand and I do sympathize with you.  As Pastor, I am the mouth piece of God to speak His Word in its truth and purity in all of our lives, but the message of salvation that I proclaim today of Jesus Christ for you and for me has come at a deep cost.  The cost of our salvation was Jesus Christ death on Calvary where on His journey to the Cross He suffered in body, soul and spirit.  The guards beat Him, they spit on Him, they scourged Him with metal whips, they tortured Him to such an extreme that when portrayed in the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”, even some of us out in the pews cringe and cannot and even refuse to watch.  We don’t want to admit that His suffering was as a result of our sins, what we do and even what we do not do.  But this is the depth and the amount of love God has for each and every one of us.

God suffered all of this in order to offer us eternal life.  Yet what is or has been our response?  One young lady named Morgan Doppelheuer heard all of the stories, attended church when she was younger, knew the Bible songs and considered herself a Christian.  When she was older she professed being a Christian, but lived a life and talked a language not of loving like Christ, but lying.  It was not until someone confronted her as the mouthpiece of God with the truth of her lies and lifeless Christianity that God broke her heart and enabled her to understand His love for her and rebuild the relationship God had with her and had promised her in her baptism.  This new found relationship wasn’t built on lies, but was built on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and His death on Calvary for her.

This same relationship God is calling us to have this morning.  God clearly with His resurrection is offering us the opportunity to have the greatest relationship with Him and with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ here at Emmanuel.  God’s greatest desire is for us to respond in faith and not only believe in the resurrection, but respond to the doubters and those who are lost that we encounter who ask the question, ‘So What’ with the firm belief in God’s plan of salvation.  A truer statement has never been said, ‘Today is and can be the first day of the rest of your life.’  How are you going to respond to God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ offered for all of mankind including all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this Easter morning?  We can change our lives and show our love for God by how we answer the question, ‘So What’ with our lives as a living sacrifice in honor of God’s sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ for you and for me that we celebrate with all of us saints here at Emmanuel this Easter Morning.  AMEN.

Sermon 04082012 Easter Sunday

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.

Let us pray, Jesus Christ You have risen from the dead.  You have set us free from the bonds of sin, death and the devil.  May we be set free from that which binds us and understand our freedom is the gift of eternal life You freely offer to each of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this Easter morning.  AMEN.

He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  Alleluia!

When Voldemort came to Hogwarts with Harry’s lifeless body, and suddenly realized that Harry was not dead, but alive, the joy that surged through Harry’s friends changed the landscape of the movie and what the power of the Resurrection Stone was of the Three Deathly Hallows.  Yet for us today, this Easter morning, our landscape changes as well.  We do not have a ‘Resurrection Stone’, but we have something more powerful and more meaningful for each and every one of us.  We have a risen Savior, Jesus Christ.  From the Garden where He was betrayed to the chambers of the Chief Priest and Elders to Caiaphas then to Pilate, Jesus Christ journey ended being led to the Cross on Golgotha and then died and was buried in a new tomb.  But Jesus Christ, Lord of the World, died and rose from the dead to set You and me free.

Jesus Christ is Risen!  Jesus Christ as He had predicted came to Jerusalem, entered riding on the colt the foal of a donkey.  The people expected His coming as King to set them free from the tyranny of the Romans and renew the Kingdom of God promised to the people of Israel.  But Jesus Christ came to set us free from something more profound and which bound us for all eternity, our sins.  In Jesus Christ setting us free from our sins, He accomplished what no animal sacrifice, and no other death could do.  Through His atoning sacrifice of His own life on Calvary for you and for me, Jesus Christ has set us free from the bonds of sin and eternity.  Jesus Christ in true suffering servant fashion endured Hell here on earth to set us free from our sins and rise on the third day in complete fulfillment of the plan of salvation for all of mankind.  Jesus Christ in rising from the dead looses the bonds and shackles that we live in and with and frees us to proclaim long and hard, “Jesus Christ is Risen today!!!  Alleluia”

For Jesus Christ is risen from the grave.  The cloths which were wrapped around Jesus lifeless Head and Body are neatly folded in the tomb and the stone that closed the entrance is rolled away.  Jesus Christ now in His resurrected and perfect Body, no longer marred and disfigured, is recognizable with the pierced Hands, Feet and Side is risen from the grave for you and for me.

Jesus Christ is risen and we are free.  The sins that bound us we are set free from.  The eternal consequence of Hell that we deserve, we are set free from.  We are set free by the innocent Blood of Jesus Christ that was spilled by the soldiers, the nails the spear and in our receiving the sacrament this morning we are set free and given eternal life by Jesus Christ for you and for me.

Today is Easter, but for four young ladies we also celebrate First Communion.  Today Alexis, Danielle, Kaylee and Sydney receive for the first time a foretaste of the feast to come.  They receive the precious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, given and shed for them for the forgiveness of sins for the first time.  In their receipt of Jesus Christ they receive the gift of eternal life that was promised to them when they were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  In their receiving the Lord’s Supper they understand in a more tangible way the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the joy of the resurrection we celebrate this morning.  In, with and under the Bread and Wine, which is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ they receive the forgiveness of sins offered by Jesus Christ for them and for each of us.  For Jesus Christ did not come into this world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him and His sacrifice for our sins on the Cross of Calvary that frees all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning.  Jesus Christ is risen today!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  AMEN.