Month: April 2020

Let us pray: Dear Savior, as we bask in our Easter glow, we’re thankful that You have sent and are sending us additional joy in the form of fellow Christians who care enough to share with us the love You bestow.  Lord, right now we need such “pick-me-ups”, so continue to send them our way!  Amen

GRACE MERCY AND PEACE ARE YOURS FROM CHRIST, OUR LOVING LORD!

TEXT:  Luke 24: 13-35

Dearly Beloved By Christ:

          A penny isn’t worth much. Some would say we have it in circulation for book-keeping purposes only.  But it wasn’t always so.  A lifetime ago about 4 cents were worth a dollar!  It’s true!  I can still recall parking meters that took pennies.  In my lifetime the copper “wheat” penny was replaced by plastic ones coated in copper.  Sometimes kids would lay one on a railroad track and wait for it to be flattened by a train.  These were called: “bad pennies” as they wouldn’t fit in a meter or anything else.  This gave birth to the term: bad penny.  In time, folks employed that same term to certain people, whom you didn’t want to talk to and who always showed up at the wrong time.

I

          St. Luke and Cleopas, another follower of Christ, were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a small town about 7 miles away from the capital.  It was around midday.  They were discussing the amazing news from various women and even Peter about Jesus rising from the dead that morning! They couldn’t take it all in.  They were still shell-shocked from the whirlwind events of the past few days.  Was it true?  What did it all mean?  The witnesses were credible.  After all, they knew some of the women at the tomb and also the other disciples quite well.   Anyway,  they now are Emmaus bound.  Kind of like “getting out of Dodge.”  And that’s when this “bad penny” showed up.

          This fellow seemingly came from nowhere and decided to accompany them.  But, they probably just wanted to be left alone.  Wouldn’t you?  But He was adamant about engaging them.  “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”  Now, we know this fellow was  Christ.  He used His divine power to prevent them from recognizing Him.  But to them, He must have appeared as a bad penny, undesired and of not much use when it came to their wounded souls.

          Jesus seemingly reinforced this viewpoint as they quizzed Him.  Cleopas told Him about the events in Jerusalem.  He told of Christ’s death, His resurrection, and appearance to various people that morning.  Christ feigned ignorance to  it all.  To these two followers, this must have reinforced the image of a “bad penny” even more.  Moreover, they had another 6 miles to walk with him in tow!

II

          But after they poured out their hearts to him and told him the Easter story with grief and wonderment in their hearts, suddenly He came alive.  “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets (OT) have spoken!  Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter glory.’  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

          Mind you, they still did not recognize Christ.  But they began to realize that this Man wasn’t a bad penny!  He was learned and wise.  He spoke with authority and conviction.  So much so that when they approached Emmaus, they urged Him to stay and have supper with them.  And He did.

          Sometimes,  even for believers, Christ intrudes into our lives with (from our vantage point) bad timing. Usually it happens in moments of high emotions—a birth, a death, severe illness, or national emergencies.  We just want to be left alone.  We just want to brood in self-pity.  We don’t want to put ourselves out for another—especially a seeming stranger.  But Christ knows all.  He wants to focus our attention on God’s healing and hope.  He wants to give us divine truth and comfort to salve our souls.   Hence, He may appear to be a bad penny, but in reality, He’s a gigantic Bar of gold, with the entire treasury of heaven behind Him, namely the eternal forgiveness for all sins.

          So, they all sit down and prepare to eat together.  Then He took bread, uttered a prayer of thanks, broke some off the loaf and passed the pieces to them.  “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.”  It was another miracle from the resurrected Lord!  Amazing!  Yet God always has power over time and space.  He isn’t  limited by it.  For time and space are contained within Him! 

          “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”  And then, apparently without eating, they ran their version of the Emmaus to Jerusalem mini-marathon, arrived at John’s family home and the Upper Room, found the Eleven there with others and were told by them very loudly and pointedly: “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.”  To that, Luke and Cleopas added their “two cents”: a Great and Golden Two Cents about how Jesus had also walked, talked, and broken bread with them, as well! 

III

          While our text ends there, the story does not!  Luke reports that it is right after this that Christ appears to all of them in the Upper Room.  He reinforces His great news of the resurrection and everything else that He taught them on the road.  Yes, Jesus never leaves anything to chance when it comes to working faith in our hearts. 

          Everyone loves a surprise and also a happy ending.  We need such pleasant surprises.  We crave such happy endings—especially during times like we’re currently living through.  Isn’t it nice to know that God has and gives again, today, to us, such a happy ending!  He promised that out of death would come life—and it did in Him—for us! 

          When we go through times of high emotions, they make their mark on us.  We never really forget them, do we?  Sometimes for good and sometimes for bad.  But for the Christian, God desires that the good may win out.  It does here.  The Emmaus text shows us that out of tremendous pain and uncertainty, “surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  And don’t forget, in this case, it didn’t take very long to happen, did it?  That, my friends, is what Christ and His grace gives to you, too, on this very day—the ultimate happy ending. For as the Bible says: our Savior is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”   Amen

THE PEACE OF GOD….

Pastor Thomas H. Fox

Let us pray: Dear Savior, our lives are filled with doubt and uncertainty.  So today we ask You to focus our attention on what is totally certain and true—Your love for us and Your resurrection from the grave.  For then we will have a Rock to hold onto which can never be moved.  Amen

GRACE MERCY AND PEACE ARE YOUR FROM CHRIST, OUR LIVING, LOVING LORD!

TEXT: John 20: 19-31

Dearly Beloved By Christ:

          It was a cool Spring morning.  The day was slightly overcast and the Spring ornamentals were blooming.  I drove about 30 minutes to visit an aged member who was dying in a rest home. I was contemplating what devotion to use as I said my final goodbye.  When I got there I walked into their room, as I knew where it was located.  I thought the person was sleeping.  It was cold in the room since the window was cracked.  Then I realized that they were dead.  They had died a couple hours prior and I hadn’t heard.  The attendants were keeping the body in the room, waiting for the funeral home people to arrive.  I had a prayer for their newly departed soul. That’s the closest I’ve come to being present at a death.

                                                            I

          The disciple, Thomas, was probably present  at Christ’s crucifixion.  We know John was there.  No doubt, so was his brother James.  As to the others, well, you can speculate on that.  But from Thomas’ reaction to the news of Christ’s resurrection, I think he witnessed His death.  Seeing a dead body of someone you have loved and cared for deeply is unsettling.  Seeing Christ’s body, limp and lifeless, was branded into his conscience.  That would help explain Thomas’ reaction when the others told him their good news that Christ appeared to them.  It’s hard to get over complete shock.  Such shock would also explain why he was off by himself and not with them in the upper room.

          Apparently, after a lot of cajoling, however, the disciples did convince Thomas to rejoin them.  No doubt, they told him of their joy at seeing the risen Lord.  No doubt, they recounted His first words to them: “Peace be with you!”  How often had Thomas heard those same words from His lips?  And no doubt, they also told him of Christ’s marvelous words outlining their purpose in life: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you…Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven, if you do not forgive them they are not forgiven.”  Thomas must have thought of himself and his sulky behavior and his own letting Christ down.  But here was his friends’ account of Christ forgiving him in spite of it all.  The shock of death now led to remorse, regret, and second-guessing.  So when they came and told him, he knee-jerked into questioning their words with an attitude of doubt and fear mixed together.

                                                            II

          How would you react in a similar situation?  More on point, how DO you react?  When your own eyes have seen pain, violence, and death, it’s hard to do a 180 from it.  That’s because we often cope with such pain by employing denial.  We cope by employing a certain cockiness, as Thomas voiced here.  His mind just could not take it all in.

          But, at least they got him back into the psychological safety of the group and a week later, literally today, he was in the upper room with them.  That’s when Jesus miraculously appeared in their midst!  Jesus passed through the physical reality of the locked door and solid walls to appear.  After all, He’s the Lord of all creation and isn’t bound to temporal/spatial reality like we are.  Again, Jesus uses that beautiful greeting: “Peace be with you!”  That’s Gospel.  It also actually gives to us what it says: Peace.  The pain, the anguish, the regret of the past which so weighed Thomas down, were taken away in an instant.  All that human “yuck” was replace by a calm soul.  That’s our Savior, isn’t it?

          Thomas wasn’t patient with the others when they first announced Christ’s resurrection reality.  But Jesus is very patient with him, just like He is with all of us.  Jesus doesn’t write him off.  Jesus doesn’t get angry with his slowness of faith.  Instead He gently gets right to the point as He doesn’t want Thomas to suffer any more.  “Put your finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it into my side.  Stop doubting and believe.”  How those exact words of Thomas’ previous doubt must have seared his soul?!  But they did something else, too.  They cauterized the pain of his being.  And so it is for us each time Jesus forgives us all our sins via His absolution.

          To such words of loving truth, there can be only one response, and Thomas blurts it out: “My Lord and my God.”  Those are words of complete faith and confidence.  They are words of confession as to Who is really in charge of all creation—including our entire well-being.  They are words they come from a soul infused with the realization that Christ never, ever, will leave us nor forsake us.  This encapsulates the “ahhh” moment when  surrendering our entire being to Christ and His guidance in all things consumes our whole self. 

          And finally comes the clincher: “Because you have seen Me; you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  This is not a put-down of Thomas’ need for visual proof of Christ’s divinity.  No, it is simply a statement showing us that some humans are wired a bit differently than others.  Some think with their heads while others think with their hearts. 

          Which group do you occupy?  It doesn’t really matter.  Christ loves all of us.  He died for all of us.  And He finds a way to meet us where we are at and give us His healing, His hope, His forgiveness, His joy.  He provides all of us with a purpose in life beyond holding onto personal pain.  Yes, right here we see that Jesus gave Thomas a reason for his existence beyond himself.  And by His grace, He gives us the exact same gift of grace!  All this because: “The Lord is risen!” He is risen, indeed!  Amen

THE PEACE OF GOD….

Pastor Thomas H. Fox

Let us pray: Dear Lord Christ, today is glorious!  Today we have come to celebrate Your victory over death—a victory You won for us!  And since the ultimate weapon of Satan is death and our fear of it, death need not overwhelm us anymore!  Lord, today we happily walk, nay, run, alongside Your white horse of victory.  Today we run to heaven where, because of You, we will have no pain, suffering, mourning, or tears.  O how blessed we are in You!  Amen

GRACE MERCY AND PEACE ARE YOURS FROM CHRIST OUR RISEN AND VICTORIOUS LORD!

TEXT:  Revelation 19: 11-16

The Lord is risen!  He is risen, indeed! 

          Victory!  The word rolls sweetly off the tongue!  And well it should considering what it took to achieve it.  The world’s greatest warrior, God’s Son, won us an everlasting victory on Good Friday and confirmed it on Easter.

          On Good Friday, His heart stopped.  His brain waves went flat.  His body hung limp.  With the words: “It is finished” He voluntarily gave up His life.  But how can He be victorious if He’s dead?

          By now we’ve all seen the rows of body bags on the news.  We’ve seen the refrigerator trucks parked outside hospitals.  My Friday “Wall Street Journal” had a front page picture of a large open pit where they stacked full coffins together for burial in New York’s potter’s field.  None of those images conveyed victory. Yet, appearances can be deceiving.

          “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.  With justice he judges and wages war.”  In John’s vision, this rider is not a statue.  He’s not carved from marble or bronze.  He is alive, powerful, and actively at war with the whole host of heaven following Him.  It’s Jesus!  He is no longer captive.  He’s not humiliated by soldiers.  He is no longer beaten and whipped and His head is not bowed.  And His body is not confined to a grave.  The words of Paul ring out: “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!”  And that’s what today is all about.

          Victory!  Death has been conquered.  Jesus had certainly died—just like those lifeless bodies in those pine boxes stacked in NY’s potter’s field.  And after death, the Roman soldier’s stabbed a spear into His heart to make sure.  Then the grave was sealed tight.  When St. John later wrote: “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin” Christ’s words: “It is finished” became our reality.  Yet one last enemy must still be vanquished.  “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”  And that’s where the empty tomb comes in.  It shows that He is more powerful than death.  He claimed His victory over that last enemy by His resurrection.  The Lord is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

          Scripture lists over a dozen different appearances of the risen Lord.  In one of them we’re told “He appeared to 500 people!”  Christ’s victory over death is not a fairy tale.  There were countless witnesses of the risen Christ.  These witnesses all testified to the truth, many dying rather than renouncing it. And this truth is especially important today as the nation and the world is gripped by fear over death.  People are coming to grips with the fact that death is inescapable.  You may spend trillions to put it off, but there is only one cure, one antidote, and that Antidote is our resurrected Lord.  Our Lord Who said: “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though they die.”  Yes, for them, “The trumpets will sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible!…the mortal will be clothed with immortality.”

          The Apostle Paul’s words there bring us back to the Lord riding that white horse.  For our Victor has the power to do exactly as He promised.

                                                                      II

          Our living Hero has all authority on the day of judgment.  “His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.  He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name if the Word of God.  The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine  linen, white and clean.  Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down nations.  ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter.’  He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.  On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

          God wants this image of a Victorious Lord etched in our minds.  He portrays our Victor with a sharp sword and an iron scepter as He carries out the fury of the Father.  Notice His robe is “dipped in blood.”  Not His own blood shed on the cross, but resulting from treading the winepress of God’s fury over Satan and human sin.  As God says in Isaiah 63:3: “I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing.”

          Why this anger and judgement?  Christ shed His innocent blood to wash away the sins of the world and demonstrate His power over death.  He dirtied Himself with our bloody guilt and thereby transferred to us His white robe of rightness with God.  This is a heavenly picture of all that.  Here in this imagery of Revelation we have Easter and judgement day holding hands…with only an instant between them!  Moreover, it also shows us that those following that Rider are safe forever!  Why?  Because the Lord is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

                                                                      III

          All those on earth who refuse to honor the Victor will be judged according to their arrogance.  All those who humbly bow their knee and accept His victory through faith will become heirs of His grace.  That means we will rise from the dead, don our new white linen robe of rightness with God, mount our white horse and joyfully sing our “hosannas”  to our Victorious Lord Christ!  All because the fear of death is vanquished and lightness of being reigns supreme.  Yes, in heaven that old order of things has been obliterated by Christ’s Easter victory!  So, let us, the forces of Light, once more proclaim our victory song: “The Lord is risen!  He is risen, indeed!”  Amen

THE PEACE OF GOD….

Pastor Thomas H. Fox 

GRACE MERCY AND PEACE ARE YOURS FROM CHRIST, OUR FORGIVING LORD!

TEXT: Luke 22: 47,48  “While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them.  He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?’”

Dearly Beloved By Christ:

          What do you think of when I say: “Trojan horse?”  Young people think of malware or spyware downloaded to a computer. Older folks think of the giant, wooden horse built by the Greeks and left as a gift for the people of Troy after the Greeks were unable to take the city during the previous 10 years of fighting.  The Trojans wheeled this horse inside the gates, left it for the night and celebrated!  But inside the horse were various Greeks warriors who then opened the gates as the Greek army streamed in and took the city.

          Our lesson outlines the tragic case of 12 men chosen by Christ to accompany Him and the 1, Judas, who betrayed Him.  He was Satan’s Trojan horse.  We’ve discussed Jesus as our Warrior during this Lenten season.  Tonight we see that: The Battle Is Personal.

                                                                      I

          We can carry mace to ward off an attacker.  We can lock our doors to prevent thieves from taking our possessions.  But how do you ward off a betrayer? 

          It was right after Jesus ate His last meal with the disciples.  They had gone to the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mt. of Olives.  There Jesus prayed.  There the disciples’ slept.  There Jesus woke them with our text telling them: “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss” as the armed soldiers and Judas found Him.  Matthew tells us that Judas went up to Jesus and singled Him out, using the traditional greeting of one friend to another–a kiss.  Judas is conniving to the end.  A Trojan horse had entered his heart.

          Here are a few facts about Judas: 1. He had been the treasurer of the group from the beginning and had embezzled money.  2. Satan had entered his heart and moved him to betray Christ for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. 3. Just hours before, Christ had told all of them that “one of you will betray me.”  Thus fulfilling a prophecy in Ps. 41:9 and yet Judas didn’t heed this warning.

          What a sad life.  Obviously Judas struggled with sin.  Obviously greed was the “in” to Judas’ heart.  Judas sold His Lord for the price of a slave.  Yet Jesus willingly became a slave to him in order to buy forgiveness from God for his very soul!  The irony of it all is beyond compare.  None of the disciples knew Judas would betray Jesus.  They all wondered if it might be them when Jesus first raised the subject.  “Is it I Lord” they asked.  That’s because they knew their weaknesses.  They knew they were sinners and struggled with it, just like you and me.  Yes, the battle is always personal, isn’t it?

                                                                      II

          When the soldiers came Peter was the first to stand up—and fight for his Lord.  He drew his sword (the French later called it: La Malice) and hacked off the ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest.  But then he also fled.  He lingered in the shadows, followed them to the High Priest’s palace, gained entrance, and when challenged denied his Lord with cursing and swearing.  Judas wasn’t the only Trojan horse!  Peter also was a betrayer. He possessed the Trojan horse of fear in his heart.  Satan used it to turn Peter against his God-given faith.

          Satan knows your Trojan horse and also turns it against you.  St. Paul says it well: “In my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”  Yes, we’re all under Satanic attack and “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  It may be guilt from the past.  It may be temptation on the internet.  It may be spiritual apathy or laziness.  It may be a sloppy prayer life.  Satan uses whatever it takes and always attacks your weakest point.  Trojan horses reside in all of us.

                                                                      III

          But the good news is that we have a Warrior who helps us fight and fend off such sneak attacks!  I agree with St. Paul who says: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in Christ Jesus, our Lord!”

          Remember the old hymn: “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”?  Remember the line: “For I am weak, but He is strong”?  Jesus fights our battles with us, alongside us, and ultimately for us!  Since He’s triumphed over His betrayer, He can and does know exactly how to triumph over ours!  He handled all  human betrayal on the cross, saying, praying, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”  Love always conquers evil and Satanic power!  That’s the message  of God’s Friday.  And because He loves His children, He also up-armors us with the same weapons that conquered the betrayer—namely, the cross followed by the empty tomb.  For “death has been swallowed up” in His victory.  Additionally, He gives us His Holy Word of truth, the sword of the Spirit, to ward off demonic attacks.  And one of those “other-worldly nuclear bombs” is the Holy Supper.  For in it He gives to us His strength, His power, His hope, His joy, His victory—the forgiveness of sins hidden under bread and wine.  He gives us the best He has to offer: His genuine body and blood for total, Godly forgiveness. 

          Tonight for the first time in my ministry we will not receive communion on Maundy Thursday.  Satan has briefly succeeded via the corona virus to make that happen.  But, I can tell you this: the first Sunday back to church we WILL celebrate the Lord’s Supper!  We will join in God’s “up-armoring” us once again!  Meanwhile, God’s other spiritual warfare weapons will take up the slack.  Your baptism will and does equip you to ward off the betrayer.  God’s Holy Word of truth will shove him away.  Absolution will vanquish him, too.  Someone once asked Dr. Luther why did God give us three means of grace, the 2 sacraments and the Word, when only one would suffice?  Luther responded by saying: “God’s not stingy with His grace!”  God wanted you to be totally comforted of final victory and by giving you three means of grace, He cemented that fact in your minds!  So, tonight we launch 2 nuclear bombs against Satan.  But in a few weeks we’ll add the final one—just to make sure, to further comfort you, of ultimate victory.  Amen

THE PEACE OF GOD….

Pastor Thomas H. Fox