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They spent 3 days searching for Jesus and then Jesus asks them a question, “_____________________?”
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Listen in to Pastor Mark’s sermon for the 1st Sunday of Christmas, 2012:
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
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And thanks to flickr and Senex Magister, for the photo.
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Filed under: Jesus' first recorded words in the Gospels, Pastor Mark Anderson, Sermon | 2 Comments »
from Pastor Mark Anderson’s blog (title and photo chosen(here) by the old Adam)
_“Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
– Matthew 16:16
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When we’ve had enough of ourselves, in whatever form it takes, we start looking around for a messiah. And when we do, they usually come in one of three pre-conceived forms: revolutionary, moral reformer or revivalist.
The revolutionary gathers up all our grudges and grievances and pummels our enemies with them, for some enemy or another is the problem. He\she leads the army of the righteously disgruntled in storming the battlements of injustice, in order that our particular form of justice may be violently forced on others. Many wanted, and still want, Jesus the revolutionary.
The moral reformer rails against the vices and corruption of the age. Society and it’s institutions are falling apart because people – other people – are misbehaving. The corrective to society’s ills may be found in the moral realignment of society and it’s values. The moral reformer wants to see moral/ethical revision extend from the board room to the bedroom. Many wanted, and still want, Jesus the moral reformer.
The revivalist sees the dilemmas of both church and state deriving from the lackluster faith of backsliding believers and stodgy religion. The world is a mess because we do not have enough energetic, sincere faith to make it otherwise. The revivalist summons us from religion set on simmer to religion turned up to a full boil. When we are serious enough about God, things will change. Many wanted, and still want, Jesus the revivalist.
There may be a place for all three of these concerns as sinners struggle to tidy up the messy world we have made for ourselves. In fact, turn on your television any day of the week and you’ll find these salvation stories being given back to you in any manner of law and order programming. But to equate one, or all three, of these with the Messiahship of Jesus is to miss the mark by a mile. Tidying up the world may make us feel more secure and better about ourselves but it will save no one.
When Peter made his confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, it was some combination of these three salvation motifs he had in mind. You probably do too. But when Jesus began to explain that the Messiah would be handed over, suffer and be killed, Peter raised a furious objection. It was then that Jesus called Peter ‘Satan’ and told him to knock it off.
Now, perhaps, we can see why Jesus told His disciples to not spread the word that he was the Messiah. For he knew that the word would aggravate the misunderstandings already in place. Then, as now, people would hear the title Messiah, Christ, as revolutionary, moral reformer or revivalist. These, in fact, are the programs of many Christian congregations.
The meaning of the title’ Messiah’, ‘Christ’ does not come from human projections of what we think needs redemption. Jesus was telling His disciples that it was, in fact, at the hands of the revolutionaries, moral reformers and revivalists that he would suffer and die.
The god of the revolutionary, moral reformer or revivalist is simply inadequate to deal with the enormity of the evil we inflict on each other. To call upon these gods in the name of salvation is like putting band aids on terminal cancer. Forget it.
The title Messiah, Christ, may rightly be given to Jesus because through His way of innocence, vulnerability, suffering and death He took upon Himself our justifications, defenses and prejudices – our devilish programs of salvation. God refused to be a party to our programs of revolution, reform or revival. He came, and still comes, in the way of mercy and grace, consigning all our works and all our ways to death on the cross in order that He might have mercy on us all.
“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
Pastor Mark Anderson’s Daily Devotional blog site
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And thanks to flickr and Jim653, for the photo.
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Filed under: Pastor Mark Anderson's blog | 6 Comments »
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From Pastor Mark Anderson’s Daily Devotional blog site
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” For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.”
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The photo above is of the baptismal font in our sanctuary. It stands centrally in the aisle and greets worshipers as they enter. Seeing it reminds of me of an event from years ago.
I was visiting a friend who had just started his ministry in a new congregation. While I was there he asked it I would help him with a project. With toolbox in hand he took me to a closet located near the altar at the side of the sanctuary. He opened the door to reveal a wooden baptismal font on wheels. An hour later we had removed the wheels and permanently attached the font to the floor just inside the entrance to the sanctuary.
The explosive language of Paul in the text above is not language that wonders at a God we can’t figure out. It is the language that marvels, wonders at the unfathomable grace of God that has not given up on this tiny world. To go a step further, it is the language of one for whom the story of Jesus, His cross and resurrection, have become defining. For not only has God not given up on this world, in Jesus He has committed Himself to this world, in justice and mercy, when there is no obligation for Him to do so.
The Gospel of Jesus, mediated through the word and sacraments, bring us into the story of God. Sacraments are the living events through which God continually comes to us and keeps us in His grace, shapes us and conforms us to the death and new life of the cross and resurrection. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are not ambiguous events, shifting sands. The sacraments are events in real time, part of the actual story, history of God’s people, where we are encountered by God’s faithfulness, through which God creates trust by extending His mercy and grace.
My friend was absolutely right in reaffirming baptism as a symbol of permanence, and to locate that symbol in a place where the worshiping community could not push baptism into a closet. Now, they would come face to face with baptism every time they gathered. They would come face to face with an unbuffered view of the self and God in the light of the cross.
As you come and go from worship, the font stands as a reminder of the certainty of God’s judgment on sin and the certainty of God’s grace and mercy. The sacrament of baptism is not a symbol, an ambiguous spiritualizing of God. Baptism is a tangible, on going God-event in which He commits Himself to the death of your old self and the bringing to life of the new you in Christ.
A movable font is symbolic of how we can make destructive even the story of Jesus. For such a practice presents us with baptism as a perfunctory ritual, removes it from it’s central place in worship, in effect rendering ambiguous and uncertain the utterly reliable certainty of God’s grace. It becomes a symbol of our ambivalence about baptism, about God, about ourselves.
On the other hand, the immovable font, the place of grace, plants God’s decision for us firmly in our midst as a worshiping community. It states clearly that grace comes before faith. It makes clear that the Church is not first and foremost a community of faith but a community of grace. For, the great story of Jesus is the story of God’s faithfulness to a disobedient, faithless, violent and corrupt world. No wonder Paul marvels at the “depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God”. For He owes us nothing. Yet, in Christ Jesus, He has given us everything. This is the utterly gracious, reliable and unshakable promise of your baptism.
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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
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Lutheran Church of the Master Corona del Mar, CA
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Filed under: Baptism, Pastor Mark Anderson's blog | 1 Comment »
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Pastor Mark’s Christmas Day sermon for 2012:
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
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And thanks to flickr and jeffweese, for the photo.
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Filed under: 2012, Pastor Mark Anderson, What God thinks of our "spirituality projects" | 3 Comments »
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We have been freed from’ the torah’. From the old way of living by the law. Freed that we might have the courage to do what we can do.
Listen in to Pastor Mark’s last midweek Advent sermon for 2012 as he reads from Romans 8 and substitutes the word, ‘torah’, for the word, ‘law’:
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
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And thanks to flickr and Paul Forsdick, for the photo.
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Filed under: Advent, Pastor Mark Anderson, Romans chapter 8, Sermon | 2 Comments »
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Sadly, for many, Baptism is a moment in time that you move away from. It is so much more than that. It is ongoing. Baptism continues all throughout life. It is a way of living out the Christian life.
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Listen to Pastor Mark’s class as he describes Baptism as lifestyle:
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
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And thanks to flickr and Ronnie R, for the photo.
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Filed under: Pastor Mark Anderson, Pastor's class | Leave a comment »
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A lot of people use their Baptism as a way to try and get themselves “off the hook”. But there is something far better that is found in your Baptism…”a new way of living”.
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Listen in to Pastor Mark’s sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Advent:
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Thanks, Pastor Mark.
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And thanks to flickr and ragtime, for the photo.
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Filed under: Baptism, Pastor Mark Anderson, Sermon, Using religion to get "off the hook" | Leave a comment »
from Pastor Mark Anderson’s Daily Devotional blog site
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December 15, 2012
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Someone once said that in any community you can name there is enough suffering going on to “freeze the blood”. Suffering, after all, is an all-purpose word that covers everything from toothaches to the Holocaust. When the sum total of all forms of suffering are considered, it is too much to contemplate. Most of the time, for the sake of our own psychic survival, we manage to keep the sheer magnitude of the suffering around us out of mind. Most of us, for example, do not walk around fixated on the fact that more people die in a single day in Africa from starvation and Aids than all the casualties on 9-11.
But every so often the questions of suffering and evil, which always lie close at hand, are forced upon all of us in a way we cannot ignore. 9-11 forced the question upon us as Islamic terrorists unleashed their hatred. Most recently we have been confronted with the slaughter of innocent school children together with some of the adults who worked with them. As the story unfolded we learned that the young man responsible had also taken the life of his mother. When it was over he had also taken his own life.
In a world of interrelated suffering and where global communication makes us all participants, how are we to speak of God’s involvement in this interrelated web of suffering? Why doesn’t God do something? And if intervention is not going to be His way, then why not just obliterate the entire planet and put us all out of our misery? These are questions being discussed this morning, world-wide, as I sit here writing.
These questions of human suffering and evil will accompany us to our last day. At the same time our Christian faith does not leave us completely in the dark where the ‘why’ question regarding God is concerned. We do not receive iron clad answers, but we do receive the material with which we may profitably struggle with the question, for struggle with it we must.
The Book of Genesis tells of the flood which destroyed a sinful humanity. When it was over, God made a promise that He would never take such action again. In other words, God imposed upon Himself a restraint, a limit. No matter how evil humanity was, God’s way with the world would not be to overpower it with force. The innocent suffering and death of Jesus are the clearest expression of God’s intent to enter into and participate in the suffering of the world. This way of facing suffering and evil, the Bible tells us, has broken the power of evil, anticipating the end of suffering. Still, human freedom will be misused and abused and certain kinds of suffering will be the result.
The ‘Why’ questions that come out of such suffering do not all run in the direction of God. Asking ‘why’ can also serve to mobilize human efforts to address the conditions and circumstances that resulted in such terrible suffering and death. For there are many instances of suffering that have little mystery attached to them. The causes may be discerned and solutions reached. This latest episode will undoubtedly cause us to examine many issues: school safety, the responsible care and use of firearms, being alert to those who exhibit the symptoms of anti-social, destructive behavior, and so forth.
There is also the question of what we do with suffering. How do we handle it? Do we simply shake our fist at the heavens, lamenting in grief and bitterness? There is a place for that, no doubt. At the same time, suffering can take us outside of ourselves and into the suffering of others. Suffering can make us more aware of the fragile, vulnerable character of life and motivate us to stand with others in their suffering while seeking ways to alleviate it.
There are no risk-free zones in this life. Suffering can, and will be a companion. As we ask the tough questions of God and of ourselves it may be helpful to look again at the Cross and the man there who also cried out, ‘Why?’ For there we see not only a fragile man who walked in faith with God, we also see a fragile God, who walks in faith with men and women and who, in the deepest sense, knows and participates in our suffering.
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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
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Filed under: Pastor Mark Anderson's blog | Leave a comment »
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With all the hustle and bustle and pressures of the Christmas season, we might want to look at the opportunities that may lie just around the next line for the cashier:
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Thank you, Pastor Mark for your midweek Advent sermon for 12-12-12.
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And thanks to flickr and Lindsay_NYC, for the photo.
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Filed under: Advent, Pastor Mark Anderson, Sermon | Leave a comment »
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Is your Baptism a ticket to Heaven?
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Listen to Pastor Mark’s class where he discusses this notion and what Baptism actually is, and does:
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Thank you, Pastor Mark.
And thanks to flickr and sbengineer, for the photo.
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Filed under: Baptism, Baptism as a ticket to Heaven, Pastor Mark Anderson, Pastor's class | Leave a comment »
The Old Adam Lives! 