Easter 2 Sermon

We were privileged to have Rev. Charles St-Onge (Pastor and Missionary in Montreal and Missionary overseer in the Caribbean) with us today. HERE is the link to his sermon preached for us this week. Enjoy!

Phyllis Martin Funeral Sermon

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Jesu Juva

“Ladybug”

Text: Luke 24:13-35; Job 19:23-27; Acts 13:26-33

Alleluia! Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!] Alleluia!

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Philip, Harmon, Maureen, Mary, and family,

My mother had a picture of Jesus laughing in her living room. I don’t know where that picture is now - I hope I still have it. But laughter is the first thing I think of when I think of Phyllis. Whenever I went to visit her, she was always smiling and we always made each other laugh. I would tease her to get her to laugh - especially about the chocolate she always seemed to have hidden around her apartment, even though she was diabetic. And she never let me leave empty handed. She always made sure I had some goodies to take home and share with the family.

But life wasn’t all smiles for Phyllis. She had her share of disappointments, too. She hadn’t planned on her dear Harmon getting Parkinsons, and having to take of him all those years. She hadn’t planned on back surgery and bad knees. She had so hoped to see her great-grandchildren baptized, but, she said, she didn’t want to nag. And she didn’t plan on this last year and a half and all the difficulties that came after her stroke. Telegraph Road and the house “out in the country,” the car trip around the country after Harmon’s retirement, those were the good times. More recently, though, it was rough - for her, and for all of you. 

Not unlike those two disciples we heard about in the Holy Gospel from St. Luke, walking back home to a village named Emmaus. They were disappointed. Things hadn’t gone as they had hoped or planned. They remembered the good times - Jesus teaching the crowds, the healings and other miracles. They had hoped He was the one, the promised Messiah. But then there was the arrest, the rigged trial, the crucifixion, and the cruel, agonizing death of their friend. It was rough. And all they had now were the memories and the dashed hopes. Or so they thought.

But this stranger who came up to them and walked with them, he had a different perspective . . . He wasn’t sad or disappointed, but confident. All that had happened, he said, it had been written, it had been prophesied, hundreds, thousands of years before. It was how things had to be, and God worked good through it. And they began to have hope again. What they saw had been so bad. But, they had to admit, the words of the stranger, the Word of God, gave them hope.

And then, just for a moment, they saw - Jesus revealed Himself to them as the stranger that had been walking with them! He was alive, risen from the dead. He had fulfilled all the Word of God. And their sadness and disappointment was now gladness and joy!

And so it is for us here today. We are disappointed and sad, but the Word of God gives us hope. The Word of God which tells us that Jesus died in order to destroy death, so they we who die might have the hope of life again. The hope expressed by Job when he said:

For I know that my Redeemer lives, 

and at the last He will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, 

yet in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, 

and not another.

After my skin has been destroyed, he says, my flesh, my eyes, I myself shall see God, as those disciples walking home to Emmaus did for a moment. But for Job it will be for more than a moment, because his flesh, his eyes, he himself will be raised from the dead, never to die again. Because our Redeemer lives!

We sang that loud and strong on Sunday. We’ll sing it again at the conclusion of the service today. It is what gives us hope in this world of sin, disease, and death. Because we know that though we die, we too are going to rise and see God - our flesh, our eyes, we ourselves - and not just for a moment, but for eternity. Because our Redeemer lives!

And Phyllis, she loved to sing. Whether it was in the choir, or as we sat at her dining room table, or in one of her other more recent rooms at Greenspring, having a service. The psalm we spoke today, Psalm 100, said: make a joyful noise unto the Lord - that was Phyllis. And Easter hymns, like the ones we are singing today, she especially liked to sing. 

In those services, she would often express to me her worry that she was doing the right things; she knew her sins were many and great. So how thankful she was to hear again and again that she was a baptized child of God with a heavenly Father who loved her more than she knew. How wonderful for her to hear the words of absolution, that all her sins, every one of them, are forgiven in Jesus. How grateful she was to receive Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper, to eat and drink the forgiveness and life of her Redeemer.

And one day, to help her remember all this between my visits, I gave her an icon of Jesus as the Good Shepherd - it was still hanging in her rooms at Greenspring. And I put a little sticker on it with her name and an arrow. And I stuck it onto that icon so that the arrow pointed to the lamb on Jesus’ shoulders, and I said: Phyllis, that’s you. Yes, you’re a sinner, but Jesus died for you, Jesus has rescued you, and Jesus is carrying you. So you’re good - good now to live in His joy, and good to go whenever He will call you home, which He did last week. Sad for us, but oh, how good for her!

As a pastor, my visits with her were some of the ones I enjoyed the very most. So I’m going to miss Ladybug - as her nurses called her. As you know, it was a most appropriate name, given her love of ladybugs and the blankets with the pictures of them that adorned her bed. But appropriate also for another reason, I think. I looked up ladybugs yesterday and found out that there is a legend that ladybugs got their name because they were first called “our Lady’s birds” in the Middle Ages - a reference to the virgin Mary and the belief that these bugs were sent as an answer to prayer one year that saved their crops from a plague of pests.

Well, last week, Phyllis’ prayers were answered. Thy kingdom come . . . Thy will be done . . . Deliver us from evil. The Lord gave her a blessed end. Not blessed because it was easy or because it was the way she wanted - but blessed because the Blessed one was with her in it. The Lord who baptized her, fed her, forgave her, and blessed and watched over her every day of her life, was there for the end as well, and took her from this valley of sorrow to Himself in Heaven. Or, as we sung: 

The strife is o’er, the battle done;

Now is the victor’s triumph won;

Now be the song of praise begun. Alleluia! (LSB #464).

So now Harm-Phyl acres is no more. It was good while it lasted. It was a place of faith, a place of joy and smiles. And a place which knew trouble and struggle and hardship, too. But a new place is coming. A place where there is no hunger, no thirst, no sorrow, no sadness, no sin, no tears. Only joy and laughter. I will always remember the joy and laughter Phyllis brought me. But even more I rejoice today in the joy and laughter Jesus has given Phyllis - the life He created for her, redeemed her for, and now has called her to. A life that will never end.

That is the life He has for you, too. That He wants for all people. That what we sing today may not be just for today, but for every day - the faith and confidence we have that whenever, however, our end comes, I Know that My Redeemer Lives! (LSB #461) My Redeemer, my Jesus, alive, for me.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Resurrection of Our Lord Sermon

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Jesu Juva

“One Man”

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24:1-12

Alleluia! Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!] Alleluia!

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Death’s strong bands (LSB #458) look awful strong.

The cemetery looks very final.

And it doesn’t take much.

A tiny germ can cause it.

A misplaced step can send you tumbling to your death.

A drunk driver.

A tree limb with good aim blown down by a powerful storm.

Or maybe just old age. But that, too, is part of the curse. 

What qualifies as old age for us was just getting started for the people who lived before the flood.

And one man caused it all, Paul said today. One man. Named Adam.

Because of him there is sin.

Because of him there is death.

Because of him are all those things Isaiah mentioned today.

The sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

The infant who lives but a few days and the old man who does not fill out his days.

Or the old man, the old woman who lives, but their memories are taken from them.

Houses built and vineyards planted, but their builder and planted dead before they can enjoy them.

There is labor in vain and children for calamity.

Wolves that eat lambs and lions that devour oxen.

Death and destruction.

Because of one man. One man.

This is the life you live and the death you will die.

Life as we know it.

Mourning for loved ones lost.

Fear of our own end, and how it will come, and when.

Maybe slowly, maybe suddenly. No one knows. 

We only know that it will. Come.

Because of one man. One man. Named Adam.

But the good news that we are celebrating today is the second half of Paul’s sentence.

For as by a man - one man - came death, by a man has come also the resurrection from the dead.

Because of one man. One man. Named Jesus.

Because of Him, death’s strong looking bands are broken.

And cemeteries are mere resting places.

Because of him there is forgiveness.

Because of him there is life.

Because of Him all those things Isaiah mentioned are reversed.

Heaven and earth will be made new.

Mourning and sadness will be replaced by joy and gladness.

And death will be destroyed.

Because of one man. One man.

This is the life that is waiting for us.

Life that we know not yet, but we know the promises.

We don’t know when that life is coming either.

Maybe soon, maybe a long time from now.

We only know that it will. Come.

Because of one man. One man. Named Jesus.

That is what the women discovered when they went to the tomb on Easter morning.

The knew only Adam.

So they went looking for death, but they found life.

They went looking for the old, but they found the new.

They went sad and mourning, but they left . . . well, not joyous yet, but almost.

They were still frightened, marveling, and perplexed for now.

But the joy was coming.

The joy of life.

The joy of the one man who has come to put all enemies under His feet.

And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

It is only a matter of time. Not if, but when.

For He is, the one man is, Paul said, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, not died. 

The firstfruits of those who will awaken, rise, from this sleep.

Meaning the first of many still to come.

Still to come, for while His tomb is now empty, ours are still full.

But it will not always be so.

For the day is coming when our death, too, will be destroyed.

And we will awaken from our sleep in the bed of our graves and rise from the dead as surely as He did.

Alive as surely as He is.

This one man. This conquerer. Named Jesus.

For yes, the hymn is true: Jesus Christ Is Risen Today (LSB #457).

And so we have hope for more than just this life.

For Christianity is not about improving the world and it’s not about living a blessed life, and Easter is not about starting over or trying again - if it is, then as Paul says, we are of all people most to be pitied.

That’s just putting lipstick on a pig.

Christianity is about more than that. Much more.

For it’s not about living a better life or even a blessed life, for however long your life lasts.

It’s about dying a blessed death.

It’s about living each day in the confidence of Easter.

That whenever, however death comes to us, because it will, it matters not.

Because it’s not the end and it can’t win.

In fact, it has already lost.

Because of the one man. The one man. Named Jesus.

The one man, Adam, didn’t do much for you. And what he did do . . . well, thanks but no thanks.

But what he did, we’re stuck with.

But the one man, Jesus, think of all that He has done for you.

He was born for you and lived a perfect life for you.

He was baptized for you, and has baptized you, to wash away your death-causing-sin and give you the promise of His resurrection.

He healed the sick and raised the dead - pictures of what He will one day do for you as well.

He became sin for you, so that in Him you might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

He offered His life for yours on the cross, with your sin and condemnation, and He now offers the same Body and Blood to you on the altar, for your forgiveness and salvation.

He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to reign as king.

And He isn’t going to stop until He destroys every rule and every authority and power; until He has put all enemies under His feet.

Relentless. Dedicated. Committed. 

Those are the words we would use for that today.

We simply call Him: Saviour.

That one man. Named Jesus.

That’s the vision Isaiah saw, that caused him to write what he did, what we heard today. That gave him such excitement and joy.

Because in his day, like in our day, we see so much trouble, so much destruction, so much death.

And it can rob us of the excitement and joy of life.

But Isaiah saw the reality that is coming.

The new heavens and the new earth.

The life and joy that awaits us.

Because of one man. One man. Named Jesus.

So Tuesday, we’re going to bury one of our own.

Phyllis Martin. Founding member of Saint Athansius.

And we’ll be sad, because what the one man did, that one man named Adam, showed up again last week.

His death and destruction showed up again.

But we’re also going to rejoice and sing Easter hymns, because we know she has fallen asleep in Jesus.

And the promises Jesus made to her will be fulfilled.

The Body and Blood Jesus gave to her was His pledge that her body and blood will rise from the grave.

And the sign of the cross placed upon her in baptism and repeated so many times over the years marked her as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.

And so we’ll rejoice in those words and promises of the one man, of Christ Jesus.

For hope in Christ will never be disappointed.

The women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning forgot those words and promises and so were disappointed and frightened and perplexed.

So the angels told them, reminded them, proclaimed to them, Jesus words and promises.

Remember, they said.

He said it, and He did it.

And what He has said to you, He will also do.

He called you His child, as you are.

He has absolved you, and you are forgiven.

And one day, that one man, that one man named Jesus, is going to say rise!

And you will.

Death will be destroyed and there will be only life for you.

Life with Him, and the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

Because of one man. One man!

Who annihilated death.

Who cast down the evil ones.

Who overcame sin.

And will empty the tombs of their dead.

One man. Risen from the dead. 

Yes, Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!] Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Easter Vigil Meditation

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Jesu Juva

“Baptized”

There is an adjective for everyone these days.

There are African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and many other kinds of Americans.

There are gay men, straight men, trans men, and a slew of other identities.

You can be rural or urban, northern or southern, east coast, west coast, or from flyover country.

There are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Greens, and more.

You are either a baby boomer, millennial, gen-xer, generation z, or whatever the next label they’ve come up with. 

Everyone is something, it seems, these days.

So what say you? How do you identify? What’s your adjective?

Tonight, we hear it loud and clear: baptized. I am a baptized child of God.

There is no other adjective or identity more important than that. For it is who God says you are, and it will last forever.

Everything else we call ourselves or others call us is of this world and life. They are how we classify things, look at ourselves, or divide ourselves. But when we pass away and when this world passes away, so will they. All of them. 

But baptized child of God you are now, and will be forever. For in baptism you were joined to Jesus in His death (which we remembered last night) and His resurrection (which we celebrate tomorrow). And so baptized into Jesus, you now transcend the things of this world, the categories of this world. Who you are in not what you make of yourself or call yourself, or what others think of you or call you. Who you are is who God has made you in Christ - namely, His child.

Tonight, we hear that again.

We will hear it stories from the Old Testament. For these stories are not just tales from yesteryear - they teach us about what our God has done, and is still doing, for us. How He is creating and re-creating. How He is saving through water. How He sent His only Son to take our place. How salvation is freely offered to all and that there is life for all who are dead in their trespasses and sins. And how the Son of God is with us through the fiery trials of life. All this because we are baptized into Christ. 

So we’ll also hear the apostle Paul preach that to us, too. That in baptism, Jesus’ Easter is our Easter, His death and resurrection, our death and resurrection. We’ll once again renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways, and we’ll confess our faith in the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And in all this, we will remember again who we really, truly are: baptized. We will feel the cross again on our foreheads, and we’ll know there is no identity better than that. Or more true and lasting.

So let us hear the Word of God again. Drink deeply of it, soak it in. Be washed in it, cleansed in it, rejoice in it. 

For this word is true and for you.

For who you are? I am baptized. A baptized child of God.

Holy and Good Friday Meditations

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Jesu Juva

Holy and Good Friday Meditations

Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18-19

OT and Epistle Meditation:

High priests passed through the curtains and into the holy of holies, into the presence of God, in the Tabernacle and the Temple.

Jesus passed through the heavens, into the presence of His Father. Our great High Priest who offered Himself as the sacrifice for the sin of the world.

He knows the onslaught of temptation, yet He did not succumb to it.

He prayed as we do, to Him who was able to save Him from death, but was He heard? He died, after all. But He was heard, for He was saved - not from death, but by rising from the dead. And so He became the source of eternal salvation, saving us from death, too. All who obey Him. All who repent and believe the Gospel. For that is what He preached, from beginning to end. Salvation by grace through faith alone. Through Him alone. 

Our suffering servant. 

The one Isaiah described.

The one who bore our sin in His body. 

The one marred beyond human semblance. 

The majestic one, yet with no form or majesty when you looked at Him. 

The one despised and rejected by men. 

The one bore our griefs and sorrows.  

The one stricken, smitten, and afflicted for us. 

The one wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. 

The perfect lamb led to slaughter.

All this, for you. 

That you may be His own. 

We could ask why. Maybe we should. But we’ll never understand the answer, the love. We can only see it, hear of it, and marvel at it. And we do. Tonight. That’s what this night is all about. Not mourning, not pity, not sorrow. But to marvel at the love of God, shown to us this night. That a few moments in darkness tonight yield to an eternity in light. With the one who loves you more than we could ever imagine. The one who loves you like this.

Meditation #1 (John 18:1-11):

Gardens are supposed to be places of rest and peace, of calmness and serenity. Into just such a garden satan injected sin and evil, unrest and rebellion, and so it has been ever since. And so the Garden of Gethsemane. The betrayer comes in this place of peace and prayer with his cohort of soldiers and officers. 

Jesus, though, will not play their game. He could. He showed them that He could, causing them all to fall to the ground with simply His Word. For that is His weapon, and a most powerful one at that. But then He returns to peace. For that is why He came. A world created peaceful but then plunged into not peace will become peaceful again. Through Him. 

So put your sword away Peter, He says. Wrong weapon. Cutting off ears will do not good, just as neither would cutting off hands and feet and gouging out eyes do no good in eliminating the sin that begins in our hearts and minds. Only the Word of God can do this. And He will. He goes now, just as it is written of Him.

Yet how often do we choose the wrong weapon, like Peter? Instead of the Gospel, instead of forgiveness, we strike with our own swords. No. Put your sword away. Listen to the Word. Hear Him die, that we may live. In peace again.

Meditation #2 (John 18:12-27):

Jesus is bound. Or is it Peter? Jesus doesn’t act as one who is bound, but free. Peter, though, is bound. In fear, in sin, in death. Even to the point of doing what he thought he would never do: deny his Lord. Three times.

You know how it is. So did the apostle Paul who said: The good that I would do I do not do; but the evil I do not want to do, that I do (Romans 7). Peter didn’t want to deny Jesus. It must have seemed like an out of body experience to him, like hearing someone else say those words that were coming out of his mouth. Those words he vowed he would never say.

But there is no contradiction with Jesus, no inner turmoil, no confusion. What He speaks in private He speaks in public. And His words and deeds agree. For Jesus, while divine and human, is not saint and sinner like us, but the sinless Son of God. And He will do as Caiaphas so unknowingly prophecied: He will die for the people. He will lay down His life for you. And when the day of the judgment of all flesh comes, announced not by the crow of a rooster but the blast of a trumpet, Jesus will not deny knowing you. But confess: I am one of them, and he, she, is with me.

Meditation #3 (John 18:28-40):

What is truth? That is what Pilate asked. But why did he ask it? Did he think the truth unknowable? Was he sneering at the thought of there being this thing called truth? Or did he think it didn’t matter? What is truth? What does truth matter? What difference does it make? What is that to me? Pilate would do what was expedient, what was necessary. 

It is the question many are asking in our day and age. What difference does the truth make? What is that to me? The truth is often inconvenient and messy. The truth is sometimes hard to hear. So better to do what is expedient, what is necessary, whatever I think is good and best and right for me. 

But Jesus said that He came to bear witness to the truth. It matters to Him. For the truth is the only thing that saves. The truth of our sin, the truth of our Saviour. What is expedient and necessary may help for a bit, but only the truth can help for eternity. Pilate had blinders on - he was thinking only of the here and now and this problem before him. As we often do. But Jesus was thinking of much more than that. This moment in time would serve an eternal purpose, far more important. A kingdom not of this world.

Lord Jesus, help us see that kingdom, not our own. And lead us there, in truth.

Meditation #4 (John 19:1-16a):

Behold the man! Behold what man has become. How far has man fallen. Created to have dominion over creation and care for it. Created to love and be in fellowship with God. Now, treating each other like this. Flogging. Mocking. A crown of thorns. Behold the man, and men behaving like animals.

Behold your King! That’s what Pilate said next. We have no king but Caesar, the chief priests answered. Just as Old Testament Israel rejected God as their king in favor of having an earthly king, so again. Sad. Sad then, and sad now.

Normally, Pilate would have been happy to hear such allegiance to Caesar. But not now, not here, not like this. It didn’t make sense. The Jews had always resisted Caesar and his rule, not exalted him. So now he was out of options. He had tried. Jesus was not guilty. He said it three times. He meant it. He knew it. But what is truth, right? That’s just not always how the world works. Sometimes, well, duty calls. So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. The guilt was theirs, not his. At least, that what he wanted to believe . . .

Meditation #5 (John 19:16b-24):

Each of the soldiers got a piece of Jesus, a piece of His clothing, to take Him with them; a souvenir. Or was it payment for services rendered? Well, it was according to Scripture and the prophets, so it had to be so. 

Jesus has garments for us, too. But not of linen or flax, seamless or not. He clothes us with His righteousness. The righteousness He earned here, on the cross, for us. That we might never be naked, never without His righteousness before God, but clothed in His purity. And this clothing He has for the whole world. It is not divided up or cast lots for - a little Jesus here, a little Jesus there. But all of Jesus for all of us.

And so we take Him home with us, having recevied Him here in His Word. And in the end, He will take us home with Him, too. To live with Him forever.

Meditation #6 (John 19:25-30):

It is finished.

The pain is finished.

The suffering and agony is finished.

The bleeding is finished.

The mocking and taunting is finished.

The forsakenness is finished.

The humiliation is finished.

The darkness is finished.

The atoning for the sin of the world is finished.

The breathing is finished.

The dying is finished.

The life is finished.

The redemption is finished.

The old testament is finished.

It is finished.

And it is beginning.

The rest is beginning.

The new testament is beginning.

The resurrection is beginning.

The forgiveness is beginning.

The restoration is beginning.

The exaltation is beginning.

The joy is beginning.

The light is beginning.

The victory is beginning.

The giving is beginning.

The kingdom is beginning.

The feasting is beginning.

The life that will not end is beginning.

It is beginning.

For He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. He handed over the Spirit. To us, the Church, His Bride. So for us, too, it is finished. The old life, the old man. And it is beginning. The new life, the new man. For in Christ, you are a new creation.

Meditation #7 (John 19:31-42):

It was the day of preparation for the Sabbath, for the Passover. But this was also the day God had been preparing for since the beginning. The day all the types and prophecies had pointed to. When the shepherd would die for the sheep. When God would die to save His creation. When we would see the love of God in all its height and width and length and breadth. A love bigger than we could ever imagine.

So the body of Jesus is laid in a tomb. But not by any of the twelve, as we might expect; one last, loving act. No, it is a man named Joseph instead. And Nicodemus. Perhaps it is better that none of the twelve did it - cannot now accuse them of faking the resurrection. 

But who is Joseph? We don’t know much about him. But Nicodemus we know, we’ve met before. And he seems like a new man. He came to Jesus at night the first time, as John said. Now, he is different; bold. Perhaps the words of Jesus came true for him and he was born again, born from above. Perhaps he looked at the cross as his ancestors had looked at the bronze snake on the pole, and believed. And believing received life.

Would we have been so bold? Hard to think so. We fail and fall at so much less. But we, too, look at Jesus on the cross and believe. Believe Him the Son of God. Believe Him the promised Messiah. Believe Him our substitute. And that is enough. With such faith the poison of the serpent’s bite is thus healed and we do not die. Through the water and the blood that flowed, too, are we given life. We are washed. We eat and drink. And we are new men and women. Born from above. Born from the one who came from above, but descended to us, that we who have descended into sin, might rise with Him. 

And you have. That’s what this night is all about. The dying of the Life, and the living of the dead.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.