Sermon 12-1-24

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Based on the Second Lesson and Gospel for the First Sunday in Advent: 1Thessalonians 3:9-13; and Luke 19:28-40.

Silent Rocks

Well, here we are at the beginning of a new Church Year. Happy New Year — a month early. Today is the first Sunday of Advent. So I was digging around in some old sermons for the first Sunday of Advent. And the one for 2012 drew my attention. On December 2, 2012 we were a month past the re-election of President Obama. He had defeated a Republican named Mitt Romney.

So, here’s how the sermon began. “In terms of news, I think this has been one of the most bizarre weeks I have ever experienced in my life. It started with a little video clip put up on conservative website, newsbusters.org. It’s of Oscar-winning actor, Jamie Foxx, doing master of ceremonies duties at the Soul Train Awards broadcast on the BET network this past Sunday. I’ve replayed the clip several times just to get this straight and make sure of it. Foxx said, “First of all, give an honor to God (then he paused for some enthusiastic applause and then went on at full preacher-like volume) “and our Lord and Savior, Barack Obama.” He said it without any pause in between the words. There was wild applause and he waited and said again, “Barack Obama.” As the applause increased again he then began to exhort the crowd with a sentence that was cut off as the video clip ended. According to Jamie Foxx, it was a joke.

What makes something funny? A truly successful joke must strike a resonant chord of truth. If this was meant to be funny, and not simply an outrage, then Foxx apparently believes that many people perceive President Obama to have a messianic aura about him.”

Then, a little later I went on: “What’s most troubling to me . . . is the deafening silence of the media about this. It means that no one in the media thinks attributing deity to this president – even should it be in jest – is news worthy. As someone pointed out, if someone like Rush Limbaugh had led a cheer for our Lord and Savior, Mitt Romney, the media outrage would have known no bounds — joke or not. . . . Jamie Foxx not only blasphemed Jesus Christ, he insulted President Obama, the office of the presidency and the country. Why does no one see this?”

Still later, I went on: “. . . in the last 100 years peoples in the West have sought to throw off allegiance to Jesus Christ especially in the public forum. This time of the year we see this most dramatically in what has become known as the Christmas wars. For example, this week there was a hoo hah at the state house in Rhode Island. The governor refused to call the state decorated tree a Christmas tree. It’s a holiday tree – whatever that is. . . .

. . . as I warned you just after the elections, the country has turned another significant corner. The voters of Washington State, Maryland and Maine have voted so-called gay marriage upon themselves, the first states ever to do so. As I explained, if we believe Romans chapter 1, this is a symptom of rapidly increasing idolatry in our society.

So, what is idolatry and what is an idol? It is ascribing divinity to someone or something that is not the true Creator God. So, by this definition was Jamie Foxx being idolatrous in his so-called joke? Certainly.

When we check Biblical history, idolatry is the single greatest cause of disaster for the human race. For, it is [a] root of [many] other sin[s]. What happens in idolatry is fairly simple. Out of the power of speculative imagination, human beings imagine divinity and divine beings for themselves.”

In 2012, the New Atheism was flush with success through the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Hope and Change and the Transformation of America were the political themes of Marxist, Obama. It seems that twelve years later things have changed somewhat.

The promises of the new atheism never appeared. Instead, the erosion of Christianity in Britain is rapidly bringing about the Islamification of that society. Earlier this year, the threat of Islamification even led Richard Dawkins to wax nostalgic about the good old days when atheists could feel safe in a Christian society. Tell us, then, Richard. Does rabid atheistic evangelism have unintended consequences?

There are those saying that the Obama inspired Marxist revolution of the last sixteen years has run its course. People have had it with the disruption Marxism uses to collapse a conservative social order so that heaven on earth may be achieved — whatever that is. So, no more inflation, men in women’s bathrooms, social equity, America hatred and that sort of thing. No more ideological possession. The results of the November election show that enough people have had it with that sort of stuff to make a political difference. There seems to be a search for normalcy in many quarters.

And, as far as the Christmas wars go, there really hasn't been that much lately. If I’m correct, it’s once again safe to say Merry Christmas.

Now, just as Obama was touted to be a messianic figure, we run the same danger with our new/old president elect. Mr. Trump is not the second coming of Jesus Christ. He’s made some big mistakes, like listening to Mr. Science, also known as Mr. Fauci, and leading the country into the covid fiasco. In 2020 he was punished at the polls for his mismanagement. However, Mr. Trump is not a Marxist or a Marxist sympathizer. And that’s comforting. He also seems to believe in the real Messiah. And that’s also comforting. For normalcy lies in that direction. But we need to guard our hearts against any kind of euphoric, foolish idolatry of the Obama variety.

Now, if anyone is interested in any kind of normalcy, they need to investigate something. The Christian worldview produced the most successful civilization the world has ever known. But the Christian worldview didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It came from the teachings of the Christian Church. These teachings in turn came from the Bible. And the Bible is the Word of our Creator given to us through Moses, the Prophets, the Apostles and especially through Yahweh, the Son, Messiah Jesus.

Scripture tells us that human beings aren’t just self-aware blobs of atoms. We’re spiritual creatures living in flesh and blood bodies. The bond between spirit and body is so tight that we normally can’t tell the difference. It’s only when someone dies that the division between spirit and body becomes most clearly apparent. The body remains. But the spirit is gone.

Now, just as physical food is necessary to nourish our flesh and bone, spiritual food is necessary to nourish our human spirits. The thing about spiritual food is that it can come from bad restaurants as well as good one. In fact, more people seem to enjoy going to the bad restaurants. Getting sick on bad spiritual food seems to be more exciting somehow.

We try our best here to be one of the good restaurants. It’s just plain food, good for normal living. No exotic spices. Just Word and Sacrament. Just forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. No promises of glory on earth, just faith in a Word able to carry us in the midst of life’s suffering, chaos, temptation and evil.

So, let’s grab a bite of plain food to nourish our spirits. As always, the first Sunday in Advent remembers the first coming of our Lord Jesus in triumph into Jerusalem. We call it Palm Sunday. As a descendant of David, the rightful King of Israel and Jerusalem came into the city that day. But He is so much more. The rightful King of the entire created order — seen and unseen — came into the city that day.

Jesus came in triumph. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that the crowd from Galilee that accompanied Him into Jerusalem for Passover that day hailed Him as a prophet and miracle worker. Some even hailed Jesus as Messiah, the Son of David. John tells us that Jesus was hailed as a great one because about a week earlier He had resuscitated His friend, Lazarus, from four days in the grave. News about this had gone out all over. 

Matthew tells us that on Palm Sunday Jesus immediately went into the Jerusalem temple where He drove out the business people who had been given concessions in the temple area. He drove out those exchanging Roman currency for the Jewish currency necessary to make contributions to the temple. He drove out the concessionaires who sold pre-approved perfect animals necessary for sacrifice. He said to these people in Matthew 21:13, “. . . ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you make it a den of robbers.’"

We then read in Matthew 21:14 -16, “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise”?’”

There are two things to address in this passage. First, is the wonderful things Jesus did in the temple. Blindness and lameness are very difficult for modern medicine to heal. But, with just a word Jesus performed multiple marvels of this kind. The Jewish children certainly took notice, and instinctively knew what to do. They praised the One capable of doing such marvels — the Son of David. And Hosanna means “save.” So, they were calling on Jesus to save. That the children did this is wonderful in itself. But what authority do children have?

So, second, we come to the group that had the authority — the chief priests and the scribes. They were not impressed. Why not? Well, Jesus quoted Psalm 8:2 to the leadership to explain their attitude. If we go to that verse, we’ll see that Jesus left an important part of it out of His statement. Psalm 8:2, “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you [Yahweh] have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” The leadership was not impressed because they were Yahweh’s foes, His enemies — and they probably didn’t even know it. Now, if they had accepted what Jesus said and had filled in the rest of the verse for themselves, they could have known the truth about themselves. They were the very enemies Psalm 8:2 predicts would be silenced by children. And they could have repented.

But things worked out the way the prophets foretold. Therefore, that episode in the temple forebode the conflict that would arise that week between Jesus and the Jewish leadership. Of course, this led to Jesus’ execution. 

But, Jesus’ execution led to an even greater triumph — the undoing of Adam’s Original Sin and all its consequences. By His death on the cross, Jesus created a pathway back to Yahweh and His righteousness for the entire human race. And three days later the power of what Jesus had done was revealed to the world by His empty tomb. His triumph was proclaimed by the six hundred or so people who saw His resurrected, immortal human body with their own eyes. Forty days later, a dozen or more eye-witnesses saw Jesus ascend into the realm we call heaven. And it’s from heaven that prophets and angels declare that Messiah Jesus will return in final triumph. Getting complete victory over His enemies both in heaven and on earth is what Jesus’ return — His final triumph — is all about. It’s also about gathering His people to Himself.

Jesus made an interesting statement in Matthew 24:31, “‘And he [the Son of Man] will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.’” The four winds are the four earthly directions. If Jesus used a couplet when He said “one end of the heaven to the other,” then the two statements mean the same thing — everyone on earth. However, if by “heaven” Jesus meant the unseen realms, then at His triumph Jesus may be gathering in other creatures that are His, along with us. Or He may be referring to the souls of those who have departed this life. In any event, it will be thrilling to be made righteous at last and to be with all who will be gathered in Yahweh’s righteousness on that Day. As the old song goes, “I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.” It will be great to be on the winning side.

Indeed, St. Paul expressed this in our second lesson when he said in 1Thessalonians 3:13, “May he [the Lord] strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”

But this brings up a desperate problem. In order to be blameless and holy at the Lord’s triumphal appearing, we have to pass through this world with all its problems, doubts, temptations, fears and suffering. Certainly, the Lord will have to strengthen our hearts. For, how will we be blameless and holy on that day without His intervention? How will we be able to stand in the presence of Him and His holy ones from the other dimensions? 

As always, the Lord’s strengthening comes back to the forgiveness of sins. For, where Yahweh entirely removes sin, only His righteousness remains. And Yahweh’s willingness to forgive sin always comes back to Jesus’ perfect sacrifice for sin that atones for all the damage we do to Yahweh by our sinning. Forgiveness always comes back to Jesus’ perfect sacrifice for sin that entirely satisfies Yahweh’s wrath against us. Holding fast by faith to the Jesus who sacrificed Himself for us on the cross gets us in the Lord’s triumphant procession on the Day He returns. And faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the gift of Lord Holy Spirit.

It’s great to be on the winning side. But Yahweh’s winning side is a little strange — or maybe a whole lot strange. Way back in the day, when I was a freshman in college, Mountain Dew soft drink was being introduced into the Metropolitan New York area. So driving my old beater to college one day, WABC or whatever I was listening to on the AM car radio went to commercial break. In those days Mountain Dew radio commercials consisted of two hill billies talking about their exploits. In this case the one fellow was talking about a fight he’d gotten into recently. Bragging, he said, “And I took my chin and broke the other fellers’ fist with it.” I almost drove off the road laughing. Humor makes things stick to memory. So, as you can see, I’ve never forgotten it.

In any event Jesus could brag about the same thing. On the cross, He took His chin and broke the devil’s fist with it for our sake. And this all began with His triumphal entry into Jerusalem that spring morning in the week before Passover. Luke 19:37-39, “37 As he was drawing near — already on the way down the Mount of Olives — the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ 40 He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.’”

So, shall we join their cries of Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord? That’s what normalcy is all about. And if we’re quiet about it, we’ll start to hear rocks talking to us. Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the ESV.