“Pastor, I don’t know if I’m ready to die.” More than a few people, usually elderly, have said this to me as they’re on their deathbed. Maybe it’s a hospice bed or perhaps in a hospital.

What gives the person such uncertainty that they’re not sure they are ready to die? Well it’s the thing that’s behind dying. It’s the sin and the guilt that they know of from their own life and it terrorizes consciences and hearts, bodies, flesh that knows that it’s dying. It terrorizes your body and your mind too.

Even when it’s someone else that you love, it’s a pain and a struggle because you know that the same sin that is doing that to their own body has you in its crosshairs too.

How would one know that they are ready to die? The forgiveness of sins. The taking away of the power behind death, of the body, that’s what makes a person ready. When the aged Simeon in the temple, right after the baby Jesus was born, held Jesus in his hands Simeon knew he was ready to die. He said

“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, …For my eyes have seen Your salvation.” (Luke 2:29-30)

Simeon held baby Jesus in his hands and he knew he was ready, at that moment or any moment to come, to go away in death but in peace. He had the forgiveness of sins in that little child.

When the Christian leaves the altar, the communion altar, they have received into themselves the body and blood of that child, of that sinless Son of God, then they are ready to go in death but in peace. Dear Christian depart in peace, your sins are forgiven. Amen.

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What’s in a name? What’s in a name? That’s a famous question that’s asked in one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays Romeo and Juliet. The two young people in love are asking “what’s in a name” because their names, Montague and Capulet, are keeping them from being able to be married. Their families have been at war for generations and so in that name is hostility and division.

The Christian family of God can ask the same thing, what’s in a name? But when we’re talking about the Lord’s name the answer is far more gracious, far more gifting and good. When the Lord spoke to Moses he told Moses exactly what was in his name he said

Put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them. (Numbers 6:27)

When a family of God gathers together they call upon the name of the Lord because in that name the only name that saves us from sin and death is blessing and life. And so as the family of God, having gathered in the name of the Lord, having received his blessings, as they go their way again, we go away in that name.

So the servant of the Lord speaks on the people and he speaks the name for in that name is blessing the forgiveness of sins. And in it is the peace that neither our own name nor anything in the world could give to us peace and life everlasting.

Go your way in peace in the name of the Lord, amen.

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And let these gifts to us be blessed. Those are the concluding words of what some call the common table prayer. A prayer that asks the Lord to bless the food that we are taking into our bodies that the Lord would give blessing to the food so that it would nourish us and give us strength as the food is meant to do. Sort of like saying: Lord let the food do it’s work.

After the body of Christ, the gathering of believers comes to the table and receives the food of forgiveness, the body and blood of Christ, into themselves a similar prayer takes place among the people. Sometimes that prayer has this shape to it. It says: Lord, thank you for these salutary gifts.

What a weird word, salutary. That just means means gifts that are productive, gifts that we know do things.

Then we say: Lord cause those gifts to do their work. Cause these gifts to produce faith in us that receive these blessings that unto the benefits of our souls, that increases or faith in you, and also cause these gifts to propel us in love toward others, love toward our neighbor, helping them in their every bodily and spiritual need.

Lord let these gifts do their work. Summed up nicely as Paul writes to the christians in Colossians. He says

Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, (Colossians 2:6)

Amen.

You’ve probably watched before, like I have, a little toddler go to the ground to pick up something small only to be surprised at the weight of that little object. Their eyes were fooled. They thought it would be light and easy to pick up only to have their own body kind of pulled back down toward it because of the weight.

As the church gathers to receive the body and blood, the real son of God, we sort of experience something similar. What our eyes see is very lightweight wafers and a very insignificant amount of wine and yet what we hear with our ears is what Jesus himself says as he gives this meal to his church.

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples. He said, “Take, eat, this is my body.” Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it all of you, for this is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)

Our eyes tell us there’s something insignificant here, but the weight doesn’t come from our eyes, or what we see, or perceive, it comes from Jesus own words. This bread is my body, this wine is my blood, there is weight here and it comes from Jesus weighty words given to these elements.

And the weight there is not to hold the altar down or to make sure that the white linens don’t blow away from the ceiling fans, rather the weight, Jesus, his real body and real blood are there so that the Lamb, who was given to the cross for the forgiveness of the world’s sins, is delivered very personally to you that all of your sins dear Christian might be forgiven, taken away from you in the Lamb of God. What a gracious weight that is, amen.

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Hey, look over here! If someone said that or cried out that way, maybe it’s your child or a friend, what would you expect to see?

If it was one of my children it would probably be something they just made or something they just learned how to do. If it was your friend, maybe they were going to point you to a rare bird flying in the sky.

Hey look over here! That’s what John the Baptist says right at the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint John. He says it when Jesus comes into the midst of the people

The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

As a church gathers in the service of Holy Communion the church sings these very words really of Saint John. Look the Lamb of God, oh Christ Lamb of God, you are here, present, to take away the sins of the world. So the church, as it prepares to receive Christ, sings of his real presence among them, behold, take in, the Lamb of God who is there for the forgiveness of the sins of the world.

God be praised, amen.

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Why does the worship, the gathering of God’s people, act like it acts? Now we take ourselves into the final service of the Sunday morning gathering of Christians called the Service of the Communion. There’s an interesting song that comes about at the beginning of that.

It sort of reminds me of when I was a young college guy. Some of my friends and I went to the big city, we went to Chicago, and we were going to go to a baseball game the next day. I had found a hotel room for us online, never been there, didn’t know what it looked like, it was just a good deal. We knew immediately when we got there that we did not belong in that hotel.

We were in ratty tattered shorts and thrift store t-shirts and raggedy backpacks and we were surrounded by people wearing Armani suits, and marble floors, it was immediately, in an embarrassing way, became apparent we were completely underdressed.

When we come to the Service of Holy Communion we sing a song called the Sanctus. It means Holy. It’s actually borrowed from the prophet Isaiah. As he is called to be the mouthpiece of the Lord, Isaiah recognizes that the Lord himself is holy and that he is not. Isaiah says:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)

Isaiah goes on to say I am surrounded by sinful people and I myself am sinful. I don’t belong here. And this becomes our song as we are about to be approached by the Lord himself. And then it transitions into another song from the New Testament as people celebrate Jesus riding into Jerusalem and they cry out Save us! Hosannah! Save us now!

What an appropriate thing for us to recognize first that the Lord is Holy and that we are unclean. And then to pray to the Lord of Heaven and Earth, that he save us now. Hosannah indeed. Amen.

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Why does the Sunday service, the gathering of God’s people, act like it acts?

Let’s specifically asked about kind of the longest prayer maybe in the whole service. Sometimes it’s called the Prayer of the Church. Probably many of you are familiar, like I am from my childhood, of this thing called a food pyramid.

It laid out a healthy balanced diet for us, talked about meats, and dairy products, and grains, and also fruits, and vegetables. It didn’t tell you that you had to eat all four of those things, or specific things in them each meal, but it gave you a scaffolding so that you knew if your diet was becoming imbalanced.

Well Saint Paul encourages the church to pray and he actually encourages it to pray in a very balanced way also. As he writes to his understudy, Timothy, he says this

Therefore I exhort (urge) first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. (1 Timothy 2:1)

Paul means for the prayer life of the church to be regular, but also for it to be balanced. So that we pray not only for the things that might immediately be on our mind and for our benefit, but so that we pray for all people, for those who are in authority and civil positions around us, for our enemies we might not otherwise want or feel like praying for. We pray for the young who have been baptized into the faith that they might grow up in that one true faith. That we pray for those who are elderly and infirm and dying that in their dying moments they might die in that same faith.

What a gracious thing, that we have a balanced prayer life, that we are taught and encouraged as the church to pray for all people. Finally it recognizes this last gracious thing that God who has given us to pray wants all men to be saved to come to a knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Why do we do what we do in a Christian gathering in worship? Let’s ask “why do we take an offering.”

Think of it this way: if a cup has only a little bit of water in the bottom of it you might need a syringe or something that you can draw it out with, but if that cup has been given so much water that it can’t even hold it, that it overflows, well that overflow becomes a benefit. You don’t have to try to draw anything out anymore it’s being pressed out by the great amount of water that’s being given to it.

This is sort of how Saint Paul talks about the church the believers, of God’s family, giving thank offerings. So he says to the Corinthian Christians

But as you abound in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us—see that you abound in this grace also. (2 Corinthians 8:7)

The offering of the church isn’t God drawing a little bit of something out of the bottom of a cup, it’s actually recognizing that the church has been given to so abundantly by God, as he gives his Son to the church, his life, and his death, and his resurrection, as he gives daily gifts, daily bread gifts, to the church in great abundance now it presses those gifts out as we overflow with them.

Now God is the one who is responsible for this overflow. He doesn’t necessarily need the gifts back to himself, he actually gives an overflow so that it can be of benefit to the neighbors around us. This overflow gives glory to God for all the gracious gifts that he has given to us, more than we need, and it also serves our neighbor as God gives us more than we can use. He makes sure that it is a blessing to the neighbors around us that others too might know of the God who is gracious to us with daily blessings and above all the God who was gracious to us in giving his Son for the life of the world.

Our cup overflows. May it give glory to God and also serve our neighbor, amen.

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Paster what a great sermon!

Pastors like hearing such things and and it’s nice for hearers of the preached word to think to say them as well. However, there’s another question being begged by that simple and really even well-meaning statement. Pastor what a great sermon.

And the question is: why was it great? What about that sermon was great? Was it because it made you laugh or because it made you cry? Was because it inspired you to great things or kept your attention or entertained you the entire time?

Now none of these things are in and of themselves bad, they just aren’t “the thing” that makes a Christian sermon a great sermon. St. Paul has something to say about this. He’s writing to Corinthian Christians and he’s acknowledging that there are a lot of criteria floating around what the Greeks like about what they hear and what the Jews want to hear too, but Paul says it, says it real plainly and like it is.

We preach Christ crucified. (1 Corinthians 1:25)

When a Christian sermon is a great sermon it does with words what a cross or a crucifix does without words. It simply holds Jesus and his dying right before our eyes because in Jesus and in his dying there are all your sins and all my sins, nasty and damning as they are. But even more, in those words that give to you Christ you receive nothing less than the forgiveness of all your sins that is merited by what he did for you on the cross. Your sins being removed from you as far as the east is from the west and paradise being given to you in those words.

One little line from a hymn verse summarizes the great sermon perfectly. “This the superscription be: Jesus crucified for me.” God grant preachers to preach Christ crucified and here’s to expect nothing more, nothing less. Amen.

So what’s trending? That’s the new way that we ask what is currently important to society, to the culture around us. Culture of which we’re a part. And we learn what’s trending, what’s being talked about, or what’s buzzing by figuring out what’s popular on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram.

Jesus once asked his disciples “what’s trending?”

He asked them to figure out, or to tell him, who people were saying he was. And he got the trending answers. Some say Moses, some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, or one of the other prophets. Then he asked them a more pointed question. It wasn’t about what’s trending. He asked them to tell him who they believed or who they creeded that he was.

Peter spoke up, he usually did.

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

Jesus was very complimentary, he spoke very highly of Peters answer, and this is why.

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 16:17)

Jesus spoke highly of Peter’s response because it didn’t come from the winds that were blowing around during the day, but rather Peter simply said what God said about Jesus himself.

What a glorious thing! It simply echoed God and this is what the Christian Creed’s do for the church they simply say about God what God says about himself. What valuable things for our mouths to be speaking and for our ears to be hearing to be echoing God for in that echo is life and in it is salvation. Amen.

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John 20:31

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“I just want it to be practical.” That’s a normal wish for us and in various things in our life. We want our houses to be practical, we want our clothing to be practical we want our cars to be practical.

Practical just means that we want them to serve us, to act or function in ways that are beneficial to us. You might hear Christians say the same thing about what they desire out of the Sunday morning gathering when they’re together with Christians in worship. “I just want it to be practical”

And that’s a that’s a worthy wish there too, but it helps us understand or forces us to know what practical means. I would assert, or suggest, to you that there is nothing more practical, nothing more practical that happens in that whole Sunday morning service then when the Word of God is read out loud for your hearing.

Listen to how St. John emphasizes just how practical, how active, for your benefit the word is.

These [words] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:31)

When the Old Testament lesson is read it points you and all of the hearers there to the Savior promised of God for the salvation of sinners.

When the Epistle lesson is read, a letter to the early Christian church, it shows the life of Jesus, his dying and his rising alive and at work among sinners who believe on that name to rescue them from their sins.

When the gospel lesson is read we even stand for it, often, we recognize that in those words Christ is given to us his living and his dying in his rising.

What more practical thing can there possibly be than hearing these words? St. John tells us the words themselves bring their own power they bring the power to create and sustain faith in our otherwise dead hearts so that we believe and that by believing we have life.

Have life dear Christians. Hear these words and then believing you will live. Amen.

I have little kids in my house. A number of them in fact and so each day is spent collecting things from around the house that are strewn about. Might be toys or crayons or markers or clothing we gather them all back up again and part of that gathering process, or the collecting, is often weeding out some of the things that maybe don’t need to be collected or need to be put somewhere else because they could be dangerous if I were to leave them in the reach of the little children. They could harm themselves with them.

God gives his church to pray in a similar way. To collect things that are valuable and to ask for things that would be harmful to us to be taken away. So we read in the Psalms

Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things,
And revive me in Your way. (Psalm 119:37)

During the church service one of the prayers is called the Collect. Sometimes it’s called the prayer of the day. And in it we pray in a very kind of pointed and and succinct way for the Lord to direct our eyes and our hearts to the things that he is giving us through the scriptures that are before us that day.

Often we also pray for things that would be harmful to us, our own sins or our misbelief, to be removed from us so that they don’t do harm to our faith. What a gracious and important thing to pray that God would hold before us the good things for life and salvation and take away from us the things that would harm us.

God grant it for Jesus sake, amen.

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