Saint Athanasius Lutheran Church

Today we enter Passiontide. The last two weeks of the Lenten season. When we began this Lenten season, our alleluias were taken away, as was the Gloria in Excelsis, the hymn of praise we sing toward the beginning of the service. Today, even more is taken away. No more Gloria Patris. And our cross is veiled. For soon, now, very soon, we will remember when our Lord was taken away from us. When He was arrested, tortured, and then crucified. Things are getting serious now.

It seems to me that selective vision was a problem for the people if Israel we heard about in the Old Testament reading today. They saw the manna, the food God was giving them, but they weren't seeing God's love, God's care, God's faithfulness -- they saw only the food they had grown tired of and now loathed. And because that's all they saw, they loathed God as well. So God wanted to help them see again, to focus their eyes on Him again. So He sent fiery serpents among the people and as you can imagine, this caused the people to change their tune pretty quickly!

For the Law, the Commandments, are good, but not if used wrongly. Not if we think that God spoke these words for us to save ourselves. For the Commandments, Jesus would later explain, are all about love. They are what love looks like. If you could love perfectly, you would live like this. So what these Commandments show us, then, is how we've fallen short. How we've not lived in the freedom God has given us.

The only good Christ is a dead Christ. The only good Christian is a dead Christian. Sadly, I don't think you will hear that from many pulpits or in many churches these days. It sounds better to say that to be a good Christian is to be a person who does a lot of good things. However, those things are defined by society at the moment. And so the Christian life is one of constant dying and rising. Dying to sin, dying to ourselves, and rising with Christ.

There are lots of men fathering children these days. Completing the biological act necessary to be a father to a little boy or little gir. But at the same time, it must be said, there are many men who father children who are not being fathers at all. Not the ones who die or who for other reasons cannot be fathers for their children, but the ones who are willfully not carrying out the responsibilities that come after the act of fathering. But it's what sin does, to us and to our world.

Peter, James, and John had traveled up a mountain with Jesus, just as Elisha had gone with Elijah. And suddenly, things change! Jesus is transfigured before them. His appearance changed. His clothes became radiant, intensely white; an unearthly white. There were no fiery chariots and horsemen from heaven -- instead, in this glory there appeared Elijah and Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Mark doesn't tell us what they were talking about, but Luke does; they were talking about Jesus' departure, His Exodus.

Stop what you're doing, open your eyes, and hear the Ward of the Lord. The people in Galilee did. And as we heard last week, they were amazed and astonished. Yes, Isaiah, they heard the kingdom of God. They saw the kingdom of God. They saw, they heard, they believed. The kingdom of God was there. In Galilee. And then it was gone. The next morning He was gone. Everyone is looking for you, Simon told Jesus. But Jesus was not in the town. He was out in a desolate place. Praying.

Some people like surprises; some people don't. Some people like everything orderly and planned out and thought through; some like to just go out and see what happens. Some people don't like when the unexpected happens; for others, it brings spice and excitement to life. So it was that day in the synagogue in Capernaum. The people went to church that day expecting the expected, the usual order, the normal teaching and kind of teaching. But what they got was astonished and amazed.

Who was the first fisherman of men? Was it Simon? Was it Andrew? Mark, in his usual pithy way, makes it sound like Jesus called them together, at the same time. The answer I want to tell you is that the first fisher of a man wasn't even a man! That the first fisher of a man was the great fish that fished Jonah out of the sea and swallowed him, after Johnah refused to go to Nineveh and preach the Word God told him to preach.

Imagine if our president, who as president has full power to completely pardon anyone he wants, went to the highest security prison we have. The place were they lock up the worst of the worst, the really bad criminals. He appears there one day with a pile of pardons. And all who come and confess may have one. But don't deny your sin. Don't tell him you're innocent and have been locked up wrongfully. If you do, no pardon for you. What do you think would happen?

Have you ever wondered what made the wise men go? Why, the star, you say. Of course. But why did they follow it? They had it all figured out. They saw this star and they figured out what it meant -- that the king of the Jews had been born. So, case closed. But no. They go. They pack up their stuff, take their treasures, and follow this star. And at the end of their journey, they taste and see that the Lord is good.