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Sunday, November 20, 2005

 
Christ the King

 


 

 

 

Church Seasons Commentaries

 

Advent  Christmas  Epiphany  Lent  Easter  Pentecost
 

ADVENT - II PETER 3: 8-15a *

 

When it comes to the New Year, we in the church seem to be a bit off from the rest of the world. With the holidays still to come, it seems a bit premature to even be thinking about 2006. But in the church, we dare to be different marking the new year at least a month before everyone else. I suppose there are similarities too. January 1st is a day to look ahead, to consider our hopes and dreams for the next twelve months-to loose some weight and get in better shape, to complete that home remodeling project we've been meaning to get to for months, to repair a strained or broken relationship. So is Advent a time to hope and dream, to anticipate the birth of a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

When I was a child, I always looked forward to the day when I'd get my Lutheran Brotherhood Advent calendar during Sunday school. I'd take it home and carefully post it in my bedroom. Then on each successive day, I'd open up one of the windows to reveal the hidden picture--an animal from the stable, a shepherd, an angel. It was always fun to see what I'd find, but the real focus of my longing was always the big window at the center that held the baby Jesus. Although I knew what I'd find, there seemed to be a purpose to waiting, even for a young grade school boy like me.

The writer of II Peter calls the church to a life of "purposeful waiting". Disturbing and even frightening images of the heavens, the elements and the earth melting away are tempered with a call to faithful living today. "Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and Godliness, waiting for and hastening-the coming of the Day of God." Advent is a time for us as the church to put our priorities in perspective, to consider that the things that matter so much to us today may not matter much when Christ comes again and the heavens and the earth are made new. God means to shake us loose from or desperate attempts to defend the way things are to how, by God's grace things might be. The Advent of our God is upon us my friends. Imagine what is to come for you, for me and for the whole world. Amen.

Pastor Brian Peterson

 

 

Christmas Galatians 4:4-7*

 

Christmas is my favorite of all. When I was a child I would love the smells, and sights of the season of Christmas. My mother cooking,my grandmother rocking back and forth in her chair impatiently waiting to open presents, yelling at my mother, "Hurry up!", and my father saying "looks like Santa stopped by here last night." All the while we were listening to the delightful Christmas renditions of Frank Sinatra and Tony Orlando. But this was my plight; to find and see Santa. I was looking forward to this very visit each and every year. I was wishing and hoping for gifts from the big sears catalog wish book since the day of the thanksgiving parade and I was ready to open them because I was sure that Santa had visited our house. I mean the cookies had bites in them and the milk had had drinks taken from it. I was hoping for gifts. The true gift of Christmas is better than these selfish gifts. The true gift of Christmas is better than any Xbox, pony or Mercedes. The true gift is hope. And we see Santa with reindeer wishing us a good night hoping he will swing by with goodies. Oh we do hope.

 

At the very first Christmas, a woman gives birth to a child.  A boy, in a manger among animals in the poorest of conditions and yet, hope is restored. This is the joy of the season. Why then are we so very happy on Christmas? In this reading from Galatians, this happiness is evident in the transforming act of hope. Weare transformed from slaves into heirs. We become heirs to the kingdom of heaven. We were once slaves to the laws of this world and now we are the heirs, the sons and daughters of the Father. While before we were held captive by the material things of this world, we are set free through the birth of Jesus. Here is your savior. Here is the savior of the people. People come from miles around to see this beautiful hope-filled heir to God's gentle acts of grace and mercy. Here is the savior of the people. We are indeed free. The prophesies have been fulfilled, and soon, very soon we know what will happen. This is exciting to us because we have heard it through the prophets. Through this birth everything changes. We are no longer striving for the material things, the Xbox, the pony even though it is the cutest pony you have ever seen, or the Mercedes with key-less entry. Through this birth we are changed, everything is changed and hope, hope is restored. This hope is carried out throughout the entire Christmas season. We sing hymns filled with this Hope, this promise and are daily reminded that Hope has been restored.

SIR Steven R. Cox

 

EPIPHANY - EPHESIANS 3: 1-12 *

 

By the time Epiphany rolls around on January 6th, the world has had its fill of Christmas. People are spent physically, emotionally and financially to say the very least. On this day we in the church remember the Wise Men from the east who came to see the baby Jesus, to offer him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, priceless gifts to be sure, but their worth pales in comparison to the incomparable gift God has given us in his son Christ Jesus our Lord, "in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him" says Paul in Ephesians.

 

A mystery has been made known to us-not a whodunit kind of mystery, but a mystery that defies our reason and understanding, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us all." How can we ever adequately pay God back for what God has done for us? Nothing.

            Still, even if we can't pay God back, there is something we can give. A line from a well known Epiphany hymn asks "What can I give him, poor that I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a Wise man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him: give my heart." We shrink before the mystery, but not as those who cower fearfully in the corner. Set free from the power of sin and death, we are free to offer all that we are, all that we have as signs of God's gracious love for us. Our mission is to bear the mystery of God, the treasure of the Gospel in clay jars, to show that who we are, that what we are isn't our doing, but God's doing in us, that at last all the world may know the mystery of God's great love. Amen.

Pastor Brian Peterson

LENT  -  1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-25*

Lent is the most misunderstood season in our church year. Here we have the plight of Jesus going to the cross. The Savior of the people is going to die. Die alone, and how can anything be made better from his death. Jesus predicts it sure, but do we really listen? Are we truly aware? Lent is about this state of being alone. Lent is about being in exile. Lent is about the 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil. Lent is about suffering the way Jesus suffered. 1 don't mean that we should all go around with a crown of thorns, or carry a cross to our final resting place. No to understand the suffering Jesus went through we are encouraged to give something up. It is through this absence that we experience a suffering of sorts and become physically closer to God through the suffering Christ. Luther reminds us that we are to look at life through the suffering eyes of Jesus on the cross. We are to look at our relationships, our families, our status, our vocations, our all, through the suffering eyes of Christ.

 

When 1 was a child 1 would give things up for lent. 1 thought of it as a challenge. "I bet 1 can go the whole time without a single soda": "I bet 1 can go the entire Lenten season without chocolate and caffeine all together." "I bet 1 can give up, whatever". It wasn't until 1 was a youth director that I was beginning to become aware of the sacrificial nature about the Lenten journey. It was then that I was able to give things up that I truly missed. I gave up drinking alcohol for one lent, or sweets all together. It wasn't a challenge, it was an experience. It was hard. Sometime it worked too, and other times when it didn't, I felt guilty. I asked Decca last night about her experience with Lent, what had my wife given up. She replied, nothing. She has never given up anything for lent. I asked her why. Her father, a pastor, told her that it isn't about giving something up. Why not try to add something to your life. So she would try to add something, devote herself to something, or attempt to take on a spiritual task. Maybe it was reading or studying the bible, praying, or even service work. It was here that other things in her life were sacrificed. She may not have given up something, but through the act of adding, her intentions were focused and I am sure that something was sacrificed for these spiritual growth moments to occur.

 

Maybe this is Lent. It is not giving something up, but changing what we do, who we are, and how we act with a mind focused on Christ. Our attention is on Christ. It is through these times that we become closer to Christ. Looking at life through the suffering eyes of Jesus we are truly hum bled and penitent we will be.

SIR Steven R. Cox

 

EASTER - ROMANS 8:22-27*

 

There is a whole lot of brokenness in our world these days—in homes and families across our nation, in the halls of government where cynicism and the desire for personal gain outweighs a commitment to the common good, in faraway, forgotten corners of the world where people suffer and die from causes that are entirely preventable. 

 

At times, the brokenness seems almost too much to bear—too overwhelming, too painful, too impossible for us to do anything about, which leads to an uncomfortable question.  Where is God in the midst of it all—the suffering, the devastation, the fear?  If God is all powerful, if Jesus was raised from the dead why do things only get worse, not better?  And when it comes to prayer, why should we even bother? 

 

Something happened that early that first Easter morning, something so surprising, so stunning, so amazing mere words can hardly describe it.  Jesus died a criminal’s death and for three days, he lay in the tomb.  But on the third day, God raised him up.  “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.”  And because of what God has done through Jesus, the same can be said of us too. The message of Easter is that now days of sin and death are numbered, that the day is coming when all suffering and brokenness will cease , when Christ will come again and all the world will be redeemed.  In the meantime we meet the world’s suffering with God’s love in Christ Jesus, its deepest sighs and groaning with hope and compassion for nothing in all the world, in life or in death will be able to separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus.  Amen          

Pastor Brian Peterson

PENTECOST - ROMANS 8:22-27*

It was the disciples waiting for a sign. A time of missionary actions. There were multiple languages in a cacophony of sounds. Tongues of Fire; its Pentecost. What is Pentecost really? What is this long stretch in the church year where we aU get tired of green? It's Pentecost. We call it ordinary time, but why? What, nothing extraordinary happens? Oh no, I don't think so, we get tongues of fire and if that's not out of the ordinary, I don't know what is. This is the season of Pentecost. This is the time when the banners are bland, because no one can think of anything cool to make on the walls. Pentecost doesn't really draw a crowd. It's not really a season that points to anything, except maybe the end of the church year. This is a season that liturgically has had complications. In the early years of the church, the lessons of Pentecost would sometimes get cut short depending on where Easter fell. When the last lessons of Pentecost were cut, scholars were noticing that there was a large portion of apocalyptic texts missing from the church year. Therefore when the revised common lectionary was created the church would cut out the earlier text to preserve the eschatological lesson from the latter half of Pentecost.

 

What does this tell us about Pentecost? It's long, green, and anything but ordinary. If one was to look in the Old testament at the role the Spirit had one might see burning bushes, doves, wind, and visions. In the Gospels the role of the Spirit is usually found in and around Jesus. But in the Acts of the Apostles, we, and I do mean we, are introduced to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descends on human beings. We inherit the Holy Spirit on the first days of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is what gives our faith strength. In Romans, we find that we are not to hope for things that we can see, but hope for things that we can not see. This is faith! Through the Holy Spirit we are empowered with faith, and faith empowers the Holy Spirit. We may never see the wind, but we can sure feel the effects.

 

Pentecost - it's anything but ordinary Go Green

SIR Steven R. Cox

 

† See  'Agnus Day' -a lectionary comic strip

 

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