“LIGHT IN THE DARK AGE” JUDGES 2.6–23; 21.25, Lent 3 March ‘19

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The message from God’s Word this 3^rd Sunday in Lent is taken from Judges 2:6-23 & 21:25 (READ TEXT), it’s entitled, “Light in the Dark Age,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                Some places in this world are really undesirable. The best most people can say about them is that they are good places to be from. Then, too, certain times in history might be considered good to be from, such as periods marked by economic calamity or war. A study of history tells us how bad these periods were. A lot of folks living through those terrible times also knew how dark their days were, and they kept hoping all along to get out of the mess as soon as possible.  Our text comes from this sort of era, a 300 year or so “dark age” in the history of Israel called the period of the judges. In many ways the tone of those times is summed up by the last verse in the book of Judges, which says: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). 

3.                Jesus Christ is the Light of the world (John 8:12). He came to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). The One who saves us also brought light and salvation into that very dark period of the judges. On this Third Sunday in Lent, as we say, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD” (Psalm 25:15), we rejoice that he brings light and salvation into our dark times and places too. 

4.                How did the period of the Judges get to be so bad? In the last sermon we examined the end of the Book of Joshua, and noted the people professing their devotion to the Lord who had brought them and their fathers out of Egypt. They also expressed their determination not to follow the gods of the people of the land in which they were starting to dwell. This generation that Joshua led into the Promised Land stood out as extraordinarily faithful. These people had been born during Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. They paid close attention to God’s judgment and forgiveness in one incident after another. Our text from the Bible’s next book, Judges, tells what happened when Joshua and then that faithful generation died, and a new generation came onto the scene. 

5.                Members of this new generation were different. They were impatient in their hope for things that were completely out of the question. Their egos were also fragile. They wanted desperately to be liked. Whatever their ages, spiritually they amounted to a bunch of adolescents. They acted like adolescents too.  When some of the last pockets of Canaanite opposition proved difficult to root out, various Israelite tribes of the new generation simply stopped trying. In some places they decided to enslave the Canaanites rather than killing them. This procedure seemed more humane to the Canaanites. Someone might have even said it was more loving that way. Thinking like this spreads fast: “Hey, the tribe down the road isn’t driving out the Canaanites there. Why do we have to drive them out here?” After a while, it became easy to say, “Well, the last leader of our tribe never said we had to drive the Canaanites out. Why should we start doing so now?”

6.                The new generation of Israelites was attempting to improve on God’s Word, which is always dangerous. God’s people should always remember that true good works are what the Lord commands, not what we invent. The 16^th century reformers had to remind people that true love is what God says it is, not what we would like. They pointed out that it’s wrong for us to forsake the responsibilities into which the Lord has placed us to go, say, into a monastery and take up a set of responsibilities that he hasn’t commanded.  Because the new generation of Israelites wouldn’t listen to his Word, the Lord ceased driving out the nations before them. He wouldn’t fight on their side. In fact, he was going to fight on the side of their enemies. God was going to leave these people around the land to test Israel. He has left many things in our environment that test us too. We don’t have precisely the tests Israel faced, but tests to challenge God’s people abound in our day too.

7.                For example, when churchgoers are surveyed, it’s amazing how many of them say that all religions are really praying to the same God, only using different names. If we want to be liked by people around us, it can prove tempting to join in this way of thinking, even though it’s quite the opposite of what God’s Word says.  Or consider the high percentage of churchgoers who tell surveys that they think every person has the right to determine his own destiny. They might be thinking mainly about rights under the law in this country. When this kind of thinking spills over into our relationship with God, though, it sets us up with misguided wishes. These can make us quite impatient with the lot in life that he has seen fit to give us. Likewise, in surveys lots of churchgoers say that everyone has a right not only to freedom but even to prosperity. Misguided wishes on top of impatience and wanting ever-so-much to be liked—all of these remain very much with us today. They were the signs of spiritual adolescence in which the Israelites of our text were arrested. 

8.                “Arrested” seems a good word to use here. For the Lord caught them in their sin, and they couldn’t avoid him. Neither can we. We’re caught, literally, in our sins. We can’t make our own destinies what we want them to be, and we certainly can’t make God what we want him to be. How arrogant of us even to try! 

9.                But, the Lord sends light into dark ages. At the time of our text, he raised up a series of “judges” to help and save his people. In fact, these judges might be called “saviors” (with a small s). Due to the rebellion and sin of the spiritual adolescents in Israel, there were periods of suffering for God’s people to endure. In these sufferings they cried out to the Lord in supplication. He sent them a judge, a “savior,” and at least for a time they had “salvation,” that is, peace and rest from their enemies. The Book of Judges records this repeated pattern in Israel: sin, suffering, supplication, savior, salvation. The book tells of twelve judges, giving the story of six judges in greater detail while gliding rather lightly over the other six. 

10.             Through these judges, the Lord was taking care of his people. For Israel was the people through whom he would bring the promised Deliverer into the world. Despite their rebellions, he wasn’t going to let them be wiped out. Nor would he allow the flame of faith to be snuffed out among them. He was having patience with them, for Christ’s sake. 

11.             But, this wasn’t the only connection between the judges and the coming Christ. The various Old Testament era judges did their “saving” work in light of the promised Savior. Israel didn’t deserve this mercy from the Lord any more than we do. He gave it to Israel of old for the same reason he has always had grace and mercy for sinners—the same reason he has grace and mercy for us sinners today—and that reason is Christ. 

12.             Significant as the similarity between the judges and Christ can be, there are striking differences too. Christ himself is THE Savior, better than any of the Old Testament judges. Unlike those judges, some of whom became notorious for various sins, Jesus remained absolutely perfect in his obedience to God. He said his food was to do the will of the Father who sent him (John 4:34). His obedience was in our place.  Jesus faced the enemies of the Lord and of his people, but unlike most of the judges he faced these enemies without an army. He took the attack of all these enemies on himself, and he triumphed over them all. He death was in our place, and his rising to life again restores us to life.  The “salvation” provided by the judges in ancient Israel was of limited scope and it lasted only a short time. But the salvation given by Jesus lasts forever. It’s a never-ending salvation, based on a once-and-for all act of deliverance, a deliverance that never needs to be repeated, by the Man who is God from all eternity. 

13.             The entire Old Testament shows that the Lord is the One who must do the saving if his people are truly going to be saved. After all, his people show time and again that they simply can’t manage it. Yet throughout the pages of the Old Testament, God shows that he wants to save through human beings. Thus, the whole Old Testament cries out for the time when God himself would become incarnate and do the saving work. 

14.             Our lives cry out for this Savior too. They cry out for hope in dark times. For as long as we are sinners in a sin-filled world, we can fall into the antics of the spiritual adolescent. The pattern of the Book of Judges—sin, suffering, supplication, savior, salvation—repeats itself in our lives when in repentance we return to our baptism and to our Lord.  Yet this pattern doesn’t become a set of doldrums. Christ’s resurrection gives us hope, and with that hope it provides a basis for patience in any trials we face right now. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote St. Peter. “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . . . In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials . . . [for you are] obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:3, 6, 9). 

15.             Like the spiritual adolescents in the text, too, our thoughts can turn wayward. But Christ assures us that our desires for various things match up as puny by comparison with what he has to give. His love toward us exceeds even our wildest expectations. St. Paul prayed that Christians “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18– 19).  Therefore, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Christ speaks comfort to people like us who want to be liked. For he gives us himself in Word and sacrament. When we have him, our heavenly King and Savior, who or what else would we want on earth? (See Psalm 73:25). 

16.             So, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). His Word remains a lamp for our feet and a light for our path (Psalm 119:105).  With our “capital S” Savior, there’s no living “under the circumstances.” In Christ, we live above our circumstances. The One who brought light and salvation into that very dark period of the judges also enlightens and saves us.  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.

“Remember Jesus’ Words” Luke 22.61–62, Lenten Midweek 3, March ‘19

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word today as we continue our Lenten midweek series is taken from Luke 22:61-62, it’s entitled, “Remember Jesus’ Words,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                What do you do to remember something? Many people use electronic memory helpers by setting an alert on their phone. Some may still use an “old school” method like putting a sticky note where it’ll be easily seen. The memory helper everyone knows but nobody really uses is tying a string around a finger. There are also unintended ways to remember things. When the smoke alarm goes off, we remember that we left something in the oven. When the chime sounds, we remember we were going to put gas in the car. Or, in the case of today’s text, when the rooster crowed, Peter remembered the words Jesus had said.  In our Lenten services, we’re looking at the way the Bible uses the word remember. So, we look for both the thought in the mind and the action that follows. In our text tonight, Peter did something when he remembered: “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly” (vv 61–62). The rooster crowed. Peter remembered the words of Jesus. Jesus’ words showed Peter his sin. And then, at the power of Jesus’ words, Peter repented. That’s our theme tonight.  God Causes His Word to Be Remembered So That People Repent.

3.                Peter had started that evening with good intentions. When Jesus said, “You will all fall away,” Peter said, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” That’s when Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” Peter disagreed. “But he said emphatically, ‘If I must die with you, I will not deny you.’ And they all said the same” (Mk 14:27, 29–31). What Peter and the other disciples were saying were only words. They wouldn’t have the power to keep them.  But, Jesus, had the power to keep his word. He would keep his word and be denied, deserted, and crucified. Even Peter’s denial was part of the prophecy from Zech 13:7, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” 

4.                It’s sad that instead of reading these verses and seeing the power of God’s Word, some read them and see an example of the weakness of God’s Word. First, they note that one place says the rooster crows twice and other places only say it crowed once. Then they add that the whole thing must be false since chickens weren’t allowed in Jerusalem. Sure enough, the Mishnah, the written version of the ancient Jewish laws, says, “It is forbidden to raise fowl in Jerusalem” (Bava Kama 7:7). So, they conclude that the Bible is wrong. 

5.                People have defended the Bible by saying that “rooster crow” could refer to a man speaking, as a woman might refer to her husband as “that old rooster” in unflattering terms. A more reasonable explanation is given by the Bible itself in Mk 13:35, where it says the return of Christ might be “in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows.” From that, it appears that an identifiable time, about three in the morning, was known as “when the rooster crows.” Did Peter hear an actual rooster crow and then remember what Jesus said, or did he remember what Jesus said by three in the morning? I like an idea people have raised that Jesus actually sent a rooster, especially where there weren’t supposed to be any roosters, to bring Peter to repentance.  God Causes His Word to Be Remembered So That People Repent. 

6.                What about us? What does God send to us so that we remember his Word and repent? In one sense, God sends a rooster to us. If “rooster crow” could mean a man speaking, we could say that the pastor speaking God’s Law is like a rooster crowing. That’s not very flattering, so I hope it’s not the thing you remember most from this sermon. But the preaching of the Law is a necessary part of preaching God’s Word, and that Word still has the power to do what God sends it to do. We learned in our catechisms that the Law is a mirror to show us our sin. God’s Law is held up in front of us, and it has the power from God to show us what we’re really like . . . how sinful we are . . . how we have sinned against God in “thought, word and deed.” As St. Paul said, “through the Law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). James used the mirror illustration: “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like” (James 1:23–24). 

7.                This fits well with our focus on the word remember in the Bible and how it involves both the thought in the mind and the resulting action. When we see our sins in the mirror of the Law, the resulting action is to repent. Failure to repent upon hearing God’s Law is like looking away from that mirror and forgetting what we look like, because we’d rather not know. But then we’d still be in our sins. So, God sends the Law to lead us to repentance. We’d probably like a more memorable thing, like a rooster crowing, rather than a pastor preaching, but it’s God’s Word with God’s power, and the Word works. We may not go out and weep as Peter did, but we do come here and confess our sins. 

8.                Well, so far we’ve heard about repentance, but the Bible says, “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed” (Lk 24:47). Repentance and forgiveness go hand in hand. When God leads people to repent and confess their sins, God, “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9). God didn’t go to Peter and rub his nose in his denial or make him pay for what he did. God forgave and restored Peter. In fact, most scholars note a relationship between Peter’s denying Jesus 3 times and Jesus reinstating Peter 3 times in John 21: “Feed my lambs . . . tend my sheep . . . feed my sheep.” Instead of shaming Peter or disowning him or making him win back his credibility, Jesus said to him the same words he said before—when Jesus had first called Peter: “Follow me” (Jn 21:19). There was no need to rub Peter’s nose in his denial. There was no possibility of doing that, because what God forgives is gone. The denial was gone. Sin is forgotten. No action is taken. There’s no judgment. It was by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but also from personal experience, that Peter could write: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Pet 5:6). It may have been the bitter tears shed between his denial and his restoration that made Peter personally understand what he wrote for others: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Pet 5:10). 

9.                That crowing sound of the Law is a good thing for us, because God has given power to the Law to show us our sins and bring us to repentance. Where God works through his Word of the Law to bring genuine sorrow for our sins, there is forgiveness of those sins in the Word of the Gospel. Where there’s forgiveness, there’s not just an empty hole or clean slate. In our case, an empty hole could just be filled back up again with sin or a blank slate filled again with filthy words. It’s similar to what Jesus said about an unclean spirit who had been cast out of a person and then went looking for a new place to live “and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there” (Lk 11:24–26). No! When God forgives our sins, he doesn’t leave us empty to allow more sins to move back in, but instead fills us with his Holy Spirit. God restores us. We sing a hymn like that: “Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest, And make our hearts Your place of rest; Come with Your grace and heav’nly aid, And fill the hearts which You have made” (LSB 499:1).  God Causes His Word to Be Remembered So That People Repent. 

10.             More and more cities have ordinances that allow people to keep chickens. But, because of the  noise, most of them don’t allow roosters. Jewish law didn’t allow roosters in Jerusalem. But the Romans were in town, and history says they liked omelets more than they cared about Jewish laws. So, it might have been a Roman rooster that crowed for Peter. A rooster caused Peter to remember the words of Jesus to repent and receive forgiveness and to be restored as a forgiven servant of God. God does what it takes . . . and he has done it again tonight. He has sent his Word to bring us to repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. Amen.  The peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.