First Wednesday in Lent sermon series on Amos, Restoring the Roar.

First Wednesday in Lent 2/20/13 Text: Amos 3:1-2 Title: Turned Upside Down. Have you ever been upside down when you were not supposed to be? I was one time. Penny and I were tubing down the Comal River in New Braunfels and when we went over a little dam I was not paying attention. My tube got flipped upside down with me stuck in it. The tube was a large truck tube and I could not flip it over until I drifted into shallow water. Needless to say that it was not a pleasant experience, for I thought I was a goner. There was another time I was upside down. It was in my Greek class at Seminary. I was preparing for the final exam that would say whether or not I could enter seminary. It was a pass or fail exam. You had to be able to not only read Greek text you also had to know the grammar of Greek. I was in trouble; upside down completely dependent on the mercy of the professor. It was almost as terrifying as when I was stuck upside down in that inner tube with my head underwater. You either passed or failed. Fortunately the professor had mercy on me and I passed. Amos certainly knew the feeling, but in a different way because God’s program in his book is to capsize, invert, overturn, and upend everything.An example of the prophet’s inversion is in Amos 1:3–2:16, which consists of a series of prophecies against the nations surrounding Israel. Whether in a warfare, public lamentation, court, or worship setting, prophecies against the other nations always boded well for Israel, before Amos that is. For example, in 1 Samuel 15:2–3 and 1 Kings 20:26–30, the prophetic proclamation against the enemy is matched with a specific promise of victory for Israel. From Amos 1:3 through 2:5, the prophet’s audience, in all likelihood, cheered and applauded after each neighboring nation was condemned. “Great preacher, this Amos,” was the refrain of the moment. The sermon builds to a climax as three, four, five nations are placed under divine fire. With the judgment pointing to Judah which the nation of Israel did not really care for, although they both shared in the covenant God had made with Abraham. (Amos 2:4–5) With Judah the number reaches seven. Since seven is a whole number to the people then and Amos had roundly condemned the other nations, the people of Israel were ready to say, “All is well that ends well!” It was probably time for the Aaronic benediction (Numbers 6:22–27), a general dismissal, and then the normal post-service discussion about the weather and events of the week. But Amos was not done preaching. The Lion was still roaring (cf. Amos 1:2; 3:8; 5:19). God’s wrath was about to fall upon Israel. The prophecy against Israel (Amos 2:6–16) came as a shocking surprise. They did not realize that the crimes that Amos had been prophesying about starting with Damascus and ending with Judah were in fact a noose that was getting ready to tighten around its neck! They were happy. Amos had given their enemies the what for and then all of sudden their happiness, their smugness, everything they thought they were was turned upside down. One of Amos’s most unsettling statements comes in 3:1–2. He begins this section with the words, “Hear this word that the LORD has spoken concerning you, O children of Israel, concerning the entire clan which I brought up from Egypt, saying. . . . ” They had to be thinking that exodus was a sign of God’s ongoing and eternal favor (e.g., Numbers 24:8; Judges 6:13; 1 Kings 8:51–51); that it forever guaranteed Israel’s “favored nation status” before the LORD. That is what they surely thought and then it happened. In the next verse, however, Amos flatly contradicts these expectations. He quotes God as saying, “You alone have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will visit upon you the fruit of all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Wow, that did not go over well. What do you mean Amos? We are God’s chosen people. We got a free ride to heaven, for God loves us, even as we do our own thing and in a sense they were addicted to sin, for it gave them all they needed; the good life. In like manner, we are addicted to sin. Gossip, anger, worry, laziness, excuses selfishness. You name it; it has us. Over and over and over and over again we scream, “Gotta have it, gotta have it, gotta have it!”God, therefore, also says this to us. “You alone have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will visit upon you the fruit of all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Thank God that he does not leave us with the same condemnation that Amos brought down on the people of Israel. God gave us Jesus, who was way more than a prophet, for he is Immanuel God with us, and because of Him, we have hope despite our willful rebellion. Paul says this about Jesus, “Being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing” (Philippians 2:6–7). Luther waxes eloquent: “His royal pow’r disguised He bore; A servant’s form, like mine, He wore” (LSB 556:6). And Paul continues, “He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross” As the Lord of taking things that are upside down and turning them right side up he chose fishermen instead of Pharisees, sinners instead of Sadducees, and prostitutes instead of rich and powerful. Jesus chose thorns for His crown instead of silver and gold, and spit and blood instead of sweetness and light. His choices led to torment and torture and darkness and death. Jesus experienced all the judgment of the Father, for all the sins of the world, including yours and mine. Baptized into this kingdom our lives are now even as we live in an upside down world are right side up in God’s kingdom. Once we were lost, but now we are found. Once we were blind, but now we see. And once we were dead, but now we are truly alive! Amos knows all about this upside down life turned right side up by God. He writes in Amos 3:8, “The lion roars; who will not be terrified? The Lord GOD issues a decree; who cannot but prophesy?” Amos dared to speak up about the wretched state of affairs in his country, and he did this regardless of the consequences for himself or for anyone else. As God’s spokesman in your midst, I too must speak God’s Word calling sin sin and proclaiming the healing salve of forgiveness to those who are stricken by their sin. That is my life, my joy; proclaiming God’s forgiveness to you, his chosen people. Amen.

First Sunday in Lent 2/17/13

First Sunday in Lent 2/17/13 Text: 4:1-13 Title: Did God Really Say! Our Gospel reading for this morning is on the temptation of Jesus. It is often treated, as I have done in the past, as an example of how we are to use God’s Word to defeat Satan; sort of like a “how to” guide so that we can save ourselves from Satan’s attacks. You know; read this, do that and you will be blessed here and in heaven. We turn the text, in fact I think we could safely say we turn large parts of God’s Word into a “how to” guide because we by nature want to focus on what we do instead of on what God has done for us. This misreading of God’s Word causes us all sorts of problems in life, especially in times of trouble like we are going through right now after the tornado. When you read the story of Jesus’ temptation focusing on why he resists Satan instead of reading it as a “how to” guide you see that the purpose of the temptation story is not to give us a “how to” guide, as good as that is, but to show us, as we had been doing during the Epiphany season the true nature of Jesus as God. He is above all things our Savior, our champion, because it is he alone that defeats Satan. We had no part in that victory. He did it alone. By his grace we get to share in his victory, not by using his life, or the temptation story as a “how to” guide, but by trusting in Jesus as our champion and substitute just as he trusted God the Father to provide and do for him all he had promised to do. Jesus, and this is important, walked by faith and not sight. As all of you, unless you believe you can on your own please God in some way, are painfully aware that you cannot walk as Jesus did; perfectly trusting in God the Father to do what he has promised us he will do for us. You can’t do it. I can’t do it. No one can do it. And so we are all doomed, without Jesus’ saving act, to not only living our lives here in frustration, fear, and uncertainty, but also bearing the wrath of God. That is our fate when we try to use God’s Word as a “how to book” instead of what it was written for, our salvation. We have, on our own, no more capability to overcome the devil's temptations than we do to perfectly keep God's Commandments. Our salvation depends solely upon whether or not Jesus, our champion beat the devil in our place. We just can’t do it, no matter what you want to believe or have been told by your favorite author or preacher. There is absolutely no substitute for Jesus’ death on the cross. When Jesus cried out those wonderful Gospel words, “It is finished” it was finished once and for all time. Now we, who truly believe in those words, are safe from God’s wrath. We are safe, not because it is something we do, but because of what he did. Our faith does not save us, in that it is our faith that saves, but our faith, the faith given to us by God that grasps the saving act, trusting in the words, “It is finished.” Now we can say “Get out of here Satan, for I am a baptized child of God you have no power over me.” Again, we can say that, not because of some power we have created in us, but the power of Jesus’ words, “It is finished.” It is finished because what we are witnessing in the story of Jesus’ temptation is not just a testing of Jesus, but an attack on the very identity of Jesus which continued to his dying breath. We see that in his agony the night he was arrested, the opportune time that the devil was waiting for. We see the testing by Satan, as he hung on the cross when the very people Jesus was dying for called out, as it is recorded in Mark 15:31-32 "He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." Jesus avoids the temptation, for he could have certainly come down from the cross instead descended into the jaws of death and in doing so Jesus “No” to Satan turned into God’s “Yes” to us. The account of Jesus’ temptation is thus not just a “how to book” for us because it shows us the necessity of his dying on the cross, for he was doing battle with Satan in our place. Had he turned those stones into bread, which he certainly could have done, he would have fed himself but not become a life-giving bread, manna from heaven, broken and given for us. Had Jesus willingly put himself under Satan’s authority which he could have, for he knew it would have been a sham he would not have that death-defying grip on us that no one can snatch from his nail-marked hands. Had Jesus thrown himself down, there is absolutely no doubt that angels would have protected him, for he is, how can I say it he is their boss, but they certainly would not have been able to proclaim him as risen from the dead. To be child of God is not about our resisting temptation, although we are to resist temptation. It is about trusting in who Jesus is, the Son of God, Immanuel, God with us; the one who died in our place. His victory has become our victory. And because his victory is our victory we now live our life through his life, death, and resurrection following in his footsteps and proclaiming his wonderful message of forgiveness and acceptance to those who, like us, are walking through the wilderness of life. In short, we go from one who is on trial before God to being one who is a faithful witness to the faithfulness of God. It boils down to one thing. It doesn't matter how good or bad life is going; it doesn't matter how or when the devil tempts you. The answer is always the same. Look to and hold fast to your Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. Don't look to Him as a poster-boy model of what you need to do. Nothing makes the devil happier than getting you to foolishly believe that different circumstances call for different measures and that you can actually assist in working your salvation and deliverance. Instead look to and hold fast to your perfect and complete substitute who did it all, perfectly and completely, for you. Hold fast to Son of God and his victorious and eternal proclamation, "It is finished!" In Christ, all of God's promises of deliverance, life, forgiveness, and salvation are yours. “Resist the devil," as James says in his epistle, "and he will flee from you." For it is in Christ alone, the one who is our perfect and complete substitute, that the head of the devil has already been crushed, making us no longer enemies of God, but cherished and redeemed children of our Father in heaven. There are simply no ifs, ands, or buts about the truth of that statement, for it is what it is; God’s Word. Amen