Concordia 2019 HIGHER THINGS CONFERENCES
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Special Issue:
Preaching Christ and Him Crucified...FOR YOU! • The Kingdom Is Yours • You Are What You Eat • Jesus Is the Death of Death—and more!
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Journey with Luther through the Gospels cph.org/gospelswithluther at cph.org/gospelswithluther
© 2019 Concordia Publishing House
H I G H E R
Contents T A B L E O F
Volume 18/Number 3 • Fall 2018
HigherThings
®
Volume 18/Number 4/Winter 2018 Bible Studies for these articles can be found at: higherthings.org/ magazine/biblestudies.html Executive Editor
Katie Hill Art Director
Steve Blakey
This issue features a collection of
Editorial Associates
Rev. Greg Alms Rev. Paul Beisel Rev. Gaven M. Mize Rev. Dr. Matthew Richard
sermons delivered by some of your favorite pastors! Each sermon was particularly memorable to preach for the contributors. Be sure to check out the catechism article by Rev. William M. Cwirla, which zeroes in on how to listen to a sermon. Also, we recommend you read the Bible passages that are the foundation for each sermon. And as you settle in, try to imagine you are hearing these words right from the pulpit. A few of these sermons are available to listen to on our website as well. We hope you enjoy each sermon as you “listen to” (read) Law and Gospel rightly preached— all Jesus—FOR YOU!
Copy Editors
Kay Maiwald Dana Niemi Bible Study Authors
Rev. Jacob Ehrhard Rev. Sam Schuldheisz Joshua Ulm ___________ Board of Directors President
Rev. George F. Borghardt Vice-President
Rev. Duane Bamsch Treasurer
Mr. Eric Maiwald Secretary
Rev. Joel Fritsche
Special Features 4 The Kingdom Is Yours
By Rev. Aaron T. Fenker Rev. Fenker is the pastor of Bethlehem and Immanuel Lutheran churches in Bremen, Kansas. He is the also the media executive for Higher Things.
6 You Are What You Eat
By Rev. Mark A. Pierson Rev. Pierson is the pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Long Beach, California. Besides being a regular author for Higher Things Magazine, he is a contributor to the books Making the Case for Christianity and The Resurrection Fact. He would like to note his indebtedness to the many great preachers he has heard and learned from over the years.
9 Jesus Is the Death of Death
By Rev. Donavon Riley Rev. Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota. He is also the online content manager for Higher Things.
10 There’s No Shame in Baptism
By Rev. Harrison Goodman Rev. Goodman serves as the pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Carroll, Nebraska. He is a current contributor to the Sermons FOR YOU podcasts at Higher Things.
12 Your Personal Jesus
By Rev. Gaven M. Mize Rev. Mize is the pastor of Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hickory, North Carolina. He is also the author of Beauty and Catechesis and serves on the doctrinal review team for Higher Things.
14 It’s Not Fair!
By Rev. Richard Heinz Rev. Heinz is the assistant vice president for Mission & Ministry at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, Illinois. He is also the worship coordinator for Higher Things.
22 Is There a Wolf in Your Pulpit?
By Rev. Dr. Matthew Richard Rev. Richard is the pastor of St. Paul’s Church in Minot, North Dakota. He is the author of Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 12 False Christs. Rev. Richard serves on the doctrinal review team for Higher Things.
25 Beautiful Feet
By Rev. Mark Buetow Rev. Buetow is the pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in McHenry, Illinois. He is a long-time writer for Higher Things and the author of The Catechism Prayer Book.
Regular Features 28 Catechism: Liturgical Catechesis: The Readings and the Sermon
By Rev. William M. Cwirla Rev. Cwirla is the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights, California, as well as a president emeritus of Higher Things. Known for preaching and recognizing a good sermon when he hears it, he has elected to devote his regular spot to teach us how to be hearers of the Word preached!
30 Bible Study: Jesus is the Death of Death
Be sure to check out this sample of one of our student Bible studies which links up with Rev. Donavan Riley’s article on P. 6.
Deaconess Ellie Corrow Rev. D. Carl Fickenscher Mr. Bob Myers Rev. Chris Rosebrough Mr. Kurt Winrich ___________
Executive Council Deputy Executive/ Conference and Retreats
Sandra J. Madden Media Executive
Rev. Aaron T. Fenker Business Executive
Connie Brammeier Development Executive
Erica Jacoby
Marketing Executive
Patrick Sturdivant Higher Things® Magazine ISSN 1539-8455 is published quarterly by Higher Things, Inc., PO Box 156, Sheridan, WY 82801. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the executive editor of Higher Things Magazine. Copyright 2018. Higher Things® is registered trademarks of Higher Things Inc.; All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States. Postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. For subscription information and questions, call 1-888-4826630, then press 4, or e-mail subscriptions@higherthings.org. (This phone number is only used for subscription queries.) For letters to the editor, write letters@higher things.org. Writers may submit manuscripts to: submissions@ higherthings.org. Please check higherthings.org/magazine/ writers.html for writers’ guidelines and theme lists.
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You Are What Yo By Rev. Mark A. Pierson
Old Testament Reading: Exodus 32
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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You are what you eat. My parents said this when I was a child, hoping it would get me to choose fruit over French fries, or spinach instead of Skittles. It never worked. It only gave me a mental image of oversized junk food with arms and legs. The threat was disarmed by the silliness of it all—and of course I never saw any of my friends turn into a can of Coke or a bag of Cheetos. But there is a grain of truth baked into this old saying, and in more ways than one. You are in fact what you eat, because when the food you consume is digested it gets incorporated into your body’s cells— what you eat and drink literally become a part of you, and so they affect what you are, and who you are. This is true of our Christian life as well. We live in a world where Happy Meal Worship and Finger Lickin’ Good Theology are far more popular, quick, and easy to get our hands on and to stuff our faces with than a good, steady diet of hearing, reading, singing, and praying the Word of Christ, and receiving His Body and Blood in the Supper. Jesus tells Peter to feed His sheep, but He does not tell Peter to open a trendy chain restaurant where you can build your own religious buffet. Thankfully, like loving parents who give their kids what is good and healthy, our Heavenly Father knows our needs and how best to satisfy our hunger and thirst for righteousness. We do not need catchy slogans; we need salvation. We do not need plate after plate of empty Christian calories; we need the spiritual super food of God’s holy Word. What we eat matters, and so the words we use in our preaching and teaching matter, the
words in the liturgy and in the hymns matter. For we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. But just as the right kind of food can give life, the wrong kind of food can bring death. This is seen most clearly in our Old Testament reading, which has one of the most iconic images in the entire Bible: Moses on Mount Sinai, standing with the stone tablets of the Law, one in each arm, carrying the Commandments down the mountain to God’s covenant people, to reveal to them the good and holy will of their good and holy God. And what happens next is an anticlimactic plot twist of biblical proportions. You likely know the story but imagine if you had never heard it before. These Hebrews, who suffered as slaves for over 400 years—who begged and pleaded with God for Him to finally do something—at long last have their prayers answered. The God Yahweh waged war against all the gods of Egypt and won. This God picked a fight with Pharaoh to set His people free and won for them their freedom. The Hebrews witnessed miracle after miracle: their firstborn sons were saved by the blood of the Passover lamb—which they ate, and they walked across the Red Sea on dry ground while Pharaoh’s army was drowned to death in a watery grave. They came to the mountain where Moses met God in the burning bush, and with their own eyes they saw holy fire descend from heaven with smoke and thunder and lightning. But after Moses is gone a little too long, the Hebrews get frantic. They forget all that God’s done for them and
feel like they’re spiritually starving to death—like their religious waiter hasn’t checked on their table for hours. So they take matters into their own hands and make for themselves an idol, a graven image, a statue of God in the form of a bull. And the thing about this is… that’s what their enemies the Egyptians had. The pagan, heathen, oppressive slave-driving Egyptians made idols for their gods, graven images in the form of animals, and one of them was depicted as a bull. So when the people give their gold to Aaron and ask him to make them gods, and Aaron gives them the golden calf and says,“Here is your God,” they are in fact saying that one god is as good as another, that there is no real difference between the God of Abraham and the bull-god of Egypt. If we think of it in terms of marriage, this is every bit as bad as if a guy had rescued a gal from an abusive relationship, won her heart through selfsacrifice and showered her with love, but then on their wedding night, when he steps out to grab a bottle of champagne, he comes back to find her in bed with the same guy who used to beat her. And what does she say in her defense? “It’s your fault for being gone for so long. Besides, what difference does it make? You two are basically the same anyway.” Certainly that analogy breaks down, but you get the point. The honeymoon between God and Israel has only just begun, and already the bride is committing adultery in the worst way possible. You can see why Moses is so angry! Even before the covenant has been ratified, it’s already broken, violated, smashed into a thousand little pieces, just like the tablets themselves. It does no good to pick up the pieces. All the Hebrew women and all the Hebrew men couldn’t put the Law back together again. What’s done is done, and there is
ou Eat no going back. The chosen people have rejected the One who chose them, and so they are served their just desserts. In his anger, Moses forces the people to swallow their statue, to ingest their idol, to feast on their false god of gold. I can only imagine him treating them like little kids who have to take their foul-tasting medicine, like it or not. As they whine and squirm and flail about, Moses holds them down, forces their jaws open, and pours their welldeserved poison down their throats. And by this, they are literally given a taste of death. For this wouldn’t be pure gold, but a mixture of gold and other metals that were toxic. Apparently, it was spread so thin between them all that it didn’t kill the whole lot of them but the message is unmistakable. The difference between the one true God and the gods of the world couldn’t be more stark, more drastic, more consequential. The God of Abraham feeds you with His own life; the others offer nothing but death. Death is the only thing on the menu when the devil and his demons are your chef and servers. And you are what you eat. God feeds you life, and you become immortal; the devil feeds you death, and you become the walking dead. Now, I’m fairly certain that you don’t have a golden calf that you bow down to, that you don’t offer sacrifices to Satan, and even that you don’t rub the belly of a Buddha to get good luck. If you do any of those things, be sure to let me know. But even though you’re a Christian and not a Hebrew, even though you live on this side of the Cross and not before it, even though you baptized believers are now the chosen people of God, you are no better at keeping God’s covenant, no better at keeping God’s Law, no better at fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things.
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There’s No Shame in By Rev. Harrison Goodman
The Feast of St. Mary (Luke 1:39-55 & Isaiah 61:7-11)
S
o I guess this is the part of sermon where I make you feel guilty so I can talk about Jesus. At least you were expecting it. We talk a lot about guilt. Way more than we ever talk about shame.
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It makes sense, though. Guilt is louder. Shame burrows deep down inside. Guilt won’t shut up. Guilt has to deal with fault. It will argue all day about why it’s not my fault. Guilt is a contest. I’ll talk long enough until I convince myself you have more of it than I do. Shame. That goes deeper. Shame honestly doesn’t care whose fault it is. Shame is when you actually start to believe your own dumb arguments about why it’s not your fault, but you still feel like garbage. Shame cuts so deep that even when it actually isn’t your fault it still doesn’t matter. Shame is the secret weight around victims’ necks. Abuse. Assault. Rape. You can find people who wear these burdens like scarlet letters. We tell them all the same thing: “It’s not your fault.” They know that, objectively. Still, shame is so heavy they need support groups just to try and carry it together. Shame hides so deep that there doesn’t seem to be a way to get rid of it so it won’t come boiling up every time you see something that reminds you of the thing you don’t even want to name. Call it “the incident.” Don’t call it anything at all. Still, it only seems to take a face. A car. A smell. It rips open old wounds that won’t heal right. That’s because talking about whose fault it is doesn’t help with shame. It’s not that simple. So here’s Mary, the Mother of God, the Theotokos (God-bearer), blessed among women. Except more people are concerned with what happened in her bedroom than any other human being alive. Today’s atheists didn’t
invent the jokes about her lying to Joseph. She heard them all. You can tell me she never spared a thought for any of them. She just smiled serenely like every painting we’ve ever seen. You can claim that she had perfect self-esteem while people called her every disgusting and degrading word for a woman they could think of. That reminding herself this wasn’t her fault made those words hurt less. That she never lost sleep over it. That even though she didn’t want this or ask for it, an angel said it was hers to bear so she never once wavered or sinned. But I doubt it. Maybe it’s because the Scriptures say all have sinned. Maybe it’s just that I know I don’t deal so well with shame myself. I just can’t help but wonder if Mary didn’t feel the same way. I’ll never know though. The Bible doesn’t say she felt ashamed. Then again, neither do we admit it when we feel it. Shame traps things down. That’s what’s so demonic about it. Shame traps the Gospel in this room. Shame is the wall the devil builds between Gospel promises spoken to you in church and the rest of your life. You can hear God-given, potent words: “In the stead and by the command of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Say Amen. Fine. I’m forgiven. But still you think about it all day. Still, you won’t sleep tonight. Still, you’ll dwell on it years later. Bottle it up. Shove it deep down. Carry it.
So while we can’t stop talking about guilt, we’ll do almost anything to avoid talking about shame. We are so content with hiding it that to have it exposed again is a fate worse than death. I actually mean it. There are some things we would rather die over than have ripped open for the world to see. It’s a fate worse than death. Shame is the hell we drag around inside us on earth. Who do you really think deals in shame? I don’t think the point of this religion is to leave you feeling dirty about your body and worse about your soul. I think God knew everything that Mary would bear and sacrifice. Every hurt she’d feel. Every shame she’d carry. And I think He wanted something else for her. It’s found in the promise He made to her through the prophet Isaiah, 700 years before she was born. “Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy” (Isaiah 61:7). I think this promise is so potent that the Holy Spirit who called Mary to faith wrote a hymn so full of peace she sang it even as everything fell apart around her. We call it the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” The hymn isn’t about how great Mary is. It’s not that Mary considered herself so humble or even that she considered God so gracious. It’s that God regarded her. In favor. In mercy. In love.
Baptism Which honestly sounds terrible. When it comes to shame, that’s our worst fear. I don’t want anyone to see it. I’d rather talk about looking humble. I’d rather talk about why it’s not my fault. I still feel like trash, but I can at least pretend that nobody sees it. Except God does. He rips it open for all to see. He hangs it on a cross for you. Jesus bore it there for you. He died for you. Not just for your sin, which He calls forgiven, but for your shame, too, which He calls cleansed. He bore all of it for Mary, and for you. He made a promise to you, too. “Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion.” This is His promise, His everlasting covenant. He will erase your shame and give honor and justice. Just don’t start from your shame and work backward to God. You’ll never be clean enough to approach Him. Start from the cross. He made Himself low enough to approach you. To save you. To bear you. Even your shame.“I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.” This is who you are now. Baptized. You are what He has made you to be. Holy. Worthy of love. If you are what God says you are: holy and precious, work forward from there. God says His holy ones deserve a double portion because they were bought with such a price. Not gold or silver, but the blood of God which washes away that which you’d rather bury. You don’t need to carry it around anymore. Leave it at the cross where it hangs naked. It’s finished. You wear white robes now. You are baptized. Whatever anyone would say, God speaks louder. So even now, Mary is truly blessed among women, and alive in Christ. Even now, you are not the sum of what you
hide, but the same thing that blesses her: Jesus. When old Adam can’t sleep because of shame, drown him daily in those waters so that the new man may rise and live before God righteousness and purity forever. Find peace in these waters that daily make you clean. Holy. Worthy of love. Amen.
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