Rescue Me!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

As we have gathered together these weeks to mark the Lenten season, we have meditated on the Psalms of Trust, as they are often called. Tonight we turn our attention to Psalm 71, and we learn from the Psalmist how we ought to trust in the Lord in the face of opposition for the sake of the Word.

“In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame!”, cries the Psalmist. Whither shall you go for refuge in this world? For you are like Peter, faced with the choice of belief or disbelief: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Shall you go to the scholars of this age? They will tell you that refuge is to be found in health and wealth. They will give you prescriptions for every ailment under the sun, and then more prescriptions to counteract the prescriptions they prescribed in the first place. They will tell you to put your money in this or that or the other thing. Invest in gold; invest in farmland; invest in emerging markets; invest in “glocal” businesses.

Jesus Died for Preaching

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Word they still shall let remain

Nor any thanks have for it;

He's by our side upon the plain

With His good gifts and spirit.

And take they our life,

Goods, fame, child, and wife,

Though these all be gone,

Our vict'ry has been won;

The Kingdom ours remaineth (LSB 656.4).

The devil and his minions in the world hate the Word of God. He would love nothing more than to see the Word extinguished, or at least hidden away in some dark, dusty corner and forgotten forever. The devil can abide the Word existing, but he cannot abide His being preached, proclaimed, or believed in any real way.

The devil would be just fine with letting the Word of God out in the world, if it were retold as some sort of neat story or historical narrative. He will let scholars use it in reconstructing the timeline of the evolution of religion and philosophy. He will sit back as self-proclaimed experts in the Bible attempt to tell the world what the Good Book says, as long as it has nothing to do with Jesus, the Gospel, or actually repentance and forgiveness of sins.

Hypocrites and Their Sins

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This evening, we consider two separate episodes in St. John's account of our Lord's Passion. From both the Jewish leaders and from Pontius Pilate we learn the pattern of the hypocrisy that plagues both religious and irreligious sorts.

“Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.” What irony this is! The Jews are mired deep in mayhem and murder, so deep that they cannot think of anything but bloodlust, and yet they will not enter the house of a Gentile, lest they be defiled and not be able to eat the Passover meal.

"Blessed Be the Name of the Lord"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When life's troubles rise to meet me,

Though their weight

May be great,

They will not defeat me.

God, my loving Savior, sends them;

He who knows

All my woes

Knows how best to end them. (LSB 756.2)

Troubles come to everyone in this life. There is no escaping them. Sometimes troubles are small, sometimes they are very great. Nevertheless, you can be sure of two things – God is in control of your suffering, and He has the best end for you in mind.

However, it often – usually – happens that the ways of God are hidden from the eyes of men, especially in the midst of suffering. Consider the case of Job. Job was a man of God, given great faith, and great temporal blessings. He had land, property, flocks and herds, a large family, and a good reputation among the community. Scripture says that he was “the greatest of all the people of the east.” (1:3) All the blessings which the Lord had promised to Abraham, Job had them, and then some. And he had faith in the Lord God.

"O Wondrous Love, What Have You Done!"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Out of the depth I cry to You, O Lord.” This is where the psalmist starts, in the depths of sin and guilt. I know that what the Scripture says is true – in sin did my mother conceive me, and in iniquity was I born. I know that I have not helped matters since then. Instead, I was born into a hole of sin, and have only succeeded in digging it deeper and deeper with the shovel of my own actions and inactions. All the systems and theories and religious ideas of the world have thrown me ropes, but these have only given me length to hang myself.

The further and further down we dig in our own hearts, the more and more we realize that we are blinded by our sinful condition. We turn in circles endlessly in the pit of despair, looking for the way out, only to find that our path has been chasing our own tail. We bumble along, stumbling upon this and that, collecting artifacts from our own broken lives, ignorant both of the problem and the solution. And our pride and stubbornness keeps us from asking for help until we reach the end of the line, until we slam into the brick wall.