Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany – January 22, 2025

by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 21, 2025 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 22

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany – January 19, 2025

John 2:1-11

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana is more than a magic trick. It is more than an emergency catering service Jesus provided. St. John calls it a sign. Signs are important to pay attention to, right?

Whether I’m out driving, or more often when I’m out for a morning run or an evening walk, I’ve noticed more and more over the last couple of years how often people aren’t paying attention to signs as much as they should. There are a couple of spots in particular where people just blatantly and regularly roll right through stop signs. Sometimes they don’t even slow down. Sometimes I’ll yell at them as they pass by, “Nice stop, buddy!” which means the process of me turning into my dad is almost complete.

Granted, these are usually quiet neighborhoods without a lot of traffic, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect that people pay some attention to the signs! They are there for a reason! It is important, right? The problem is that they think they know what to expect. They think they know the intersection and can merely give it a glance before breezing right past the sign.

I think we sometimes have the same problem with the sign in our gospel reading for today. We often roll right past it, thinking we already know what this story is about. We hear about water turning into wine and we think of all the funny memes and clever jokes which have come from the story, and we end up breezing right past the sign. And so I am going to suggest this morning that we come to a full stop, that we take a close look at this sign.

First of all, I think it is very interesting that we find Jesus and his Blessed Mother at a wedding. So far in John’s gospel we’ve had the prologue, then Jesus is baptized, then he calls some disciples – and the very next thing he does, before he does any teaching, any ministry, any healing or forgiving, the very next thing he does is go to a wedding! Jesus and his mother, Mary, go to celebrate the blessed union of a bride and a groom. This is a detail I think we roll past too quickly sometimes, but it is significant.

Jesus’ third public appearance in John, right after his baptism and his calling of the disciples, is to attend a wedding. This shows that Jesus and his Blessed Mother saw marriage as something worthy of support and celebration. This is important for the church to stop and notice. This is something we’re called to pay attention to. It is something we are called to emulate. It is an example for us to follow as the church.

Of course, the church should be a place where singleness is affirmed as a calling for some. It should be a place where divorced people find forgiveness and compassion and mercy. It should be a place where widows and widowers find love and care and community. But alongside all of this, the church should be a place where marriage is celebrated and encouraged and supported. It is especially important for the church to teach our young people that marriage is not merely a piece of paper or merely a lifestyle choice or a social construct. Marriage is woven right into the fabric of creation! It is a holy estate that is established and sustained by God. It can be difficult at times, but it is worth the effort. Marriage is something beautiful, and it only becomes more beautiful with time. Jesus and Mary found marriage worthy of their celebration and encouragement and support, and we should too.

We are at a point in American history where the marriage rate (not to mention the birth rate) is at its lowest point in history, having fallen by a whopping 50% since 1972. This can’t help but have negative implications for society. It has undoubtably contributed to the decline of the church. Back in the fourth century St. John Chrysostom wrote: “The love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together.” I read three or four books published in the last year which say essentially the same thing, using modern sociological studies to back it up. We shouldn’t be surprised then that when that welding isn’t happening, society starts to come apart. And so if the church cares about the world, it needs to care about marriage. It needs to encourage and celebrate and support healthy, loving marriages, just as Jesus and his Mother did in Cana.

This is important to stop and notice. This first of Jesus’ signs happened at a wedding, as a husband and a wife were being joined together in this force that welds society together.

This context of a wedding is important to stop and notice for another reason too. Over and over again in scripture, the relationship between God and his people is described using the metaphor of a husband and wife, with God as the bridegroom and his people as his bride.

The lectionary reminds us of this today by giving us one example from Isaiah. As we heard in our first reading, God says to his people Israel: “You shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

There is a long history of the relationship between God and his people being described as that of a marriage, with God as the groom and his people Israel as his bride. And although this particular example paints a beautiful picture of this relationship, anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Old Testament knows that this marriage between God the groom and Israel his bride wasn’t always smooth sailing! There was one catastrophe after another!

It just so happens that at this wedding being attended by Jesus and his Mother Mary, a major catastrophe was about to take place. Mary seems to have noticed it first. “They have no wine,” she pointed out. To have run out of wine this early in the wedding celebration would have been a disaster for the couple. It was expected that the couple and their respective families would provide enough wine for the duration of the celebration. It was a way of honoring their guests and gladdening their hearts. To run out of wine would have brought shame upon them. Running out of wine would have brought the celebration to a screeching halt. Some would even have interpreted it as a bad omen on their marriage, that it was doomed to fail. It was that serious!

And so when Jesus had those six stone jars filled with water, and when he turned that water into wine – and not cheap or average wine, but the best wine – he wasn’t just doing a magic trick. He wasn’t just providing emergency catering. He was doing so much more! He was saving this couple and their families from shame. He was turning their shame into glory! They went from being almost ruined to being toasted as gracious and generous hosts! Jesus was rescuing this couple and their families from what they lacked, turning it into an abundance – not just an abundance of wine, but an abundance of joy.

This is what the prophets said the Messiah would do! He would bring a feast of rich foods and well-aged wines strained clear. He would deliver his people out of their shame. He would rescue and redeem the relationship between God the groom and his people, his bride. God would love them and cherish them and care for them in a new covenant relationship.

Israel was always running out of things, always coming up short. They ran out of patience with God. They came up short in keeping God’s commandments. Sometimes they ran out of faith in him. Sometimes they plain ran out on God altogether, jumping into bed with other gods! The prophets often described their idolatry using the language of adultery. But when the Messiah came, the prophets said, the relationship would be redeemed and restored so that the wedding feast would continue. A new covenant would be established.

Jesus wouldn’t ultimately accomplish this by turning water into wine, which is probably why he was reluctant at first to heed Mary’s request. He would ultimately do it when his hour had come. He would do it on the cross. He would do it by dying and rising again. But this miracle of turning water into wine was a sign. And this sign points to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the one God promised to send so that the relationship would be redeemed and restored and the wedding feast could continue. It was a sign that he is the one who has come to love and cherish and care for us, now and forever.

Signs are something that are supposed to provoke a reaction in us. We dare not roll past them or lazily ignore them. Signs demand a response. And the response of the disciples is instructive. St. John tells us: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

As we stop and look at this sign, we are ultimately being invited to respond the same way the disciples did. We are invited to see this sign and believe.

And here is what you are being invited to believe: God has come to you in Christ to turn your shame into glory. God has come to you in Christ to save you from whatever emptiness you are experiencing, filling you up instead with an abundance of joy. God has come to you in Christ so that just as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so shall God rejoice over you. God has come to you in Christ so that whatever is broken or lacking in your relationship with him would be restored, and the wedding feast would continue – both now and forever.

See this sign today. Come to a complete stop at it and take it all in. See the glory of Christ revealed, and believe in him.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for Baptism of our Lord Sunday – January 19, 2025

by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 20, 2025 | Sermons

Sermon for Baptism of our Lord Sunday – January 12, 2025

Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther once said, “There is on earth no greater comfort than baptism.” As much as we remember Luther as someone who was strong and stubborn, brave and brazen, he was also a human being, and so he often needed this comfort. The world Luther lived in was filled with harsh realities, just as it is today. He lived during times of plague and violent weather and social unrest. He lived at a time of deep corruption among both political and church leaders. He also had his own personal difficulties. He had strained family relationships – particularly, for a time, with his father. He frequently suffered bouts of what today we would clearly call depression. He had chronic physical health problems, especially as he aged. He experienced profound grief, including over the death of one of his children. And through all of this, he found comfort in his baptism. “There is on earth no greater comfort than baptism,” he said.

Luther was only hours old on November 10, 1483, when he was taken to his parents’ church in Eisleben and sprinkled with water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What was it about this event that brought him such comfort? What was it about this thing that happened to him so early in his life that he couldn’t possibly even remember it that made such a profound difference to him? Why would he later say, “There is on earth no greater comfort than baptism?”

The Baptism of our Lord gives us a perfect opportunity to explore this question, and in exploring it, to receive some of this comfort ourselves.

The first thing to notice in our gospel reading on this Baptism of our Lord Sunday is where Jesus is in the text. John the Baptist had been preparing the way for him. He had been proclaiming that the long-promised Messiah, the Savior of the World, was coming. He told the crowds that he wasn’t himself the Messiah, that the actual Messiah would be far more powerful than him, that he wasn’t worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. And then when Jesus appears in the text, where is he? He is with the crowds of sinners who are coming to receive John’s baptism!

St. Luke sets the scene in this way: “Now when all the people were baptized,” he writes, “and when Jesus had also been baptized…”

There is all this fanfare from John, all of this anticipation building up, and then Jesus just sort of shows up in the crowd! He is intermingled with those standing on the banks of the Jordan river. He stands in line with them, waiting to be baptized himself until it is his turn and he is baptized by John. And when he is baptized, he is washed in the same water they are, in the same way. Jesus submits to a sinner’s baptism, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.

Why? Why would the long-promised Messiah be found embedded in the crowd in the first place, rubbing elbows with common sinners? More to the point, why in the world would Jesus be baptized by John? Why would the one who is more powerful than John be baptized by him? Why would the sinless Son of God receive a sinner’s baptism?

Maximus of Turin was one of the early church fathers. He not only had the coolest name of any of the church fathers, but we have one of his ancient sermons on the Baptism of our Lord. In this sermon he explained that Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, strictly speaking. He didn’t do it for himself. He did it for us! Maximus wrote, “The Savior willed to be baptized for this reason – not that he might cleanse himself, but that he might cleanse the waters for our sake.”

The Baptism of our Lord, which is the first public appearance of the adult Jesus in all four gospels, tells us right away what Jesus has come to do. He has come to be found among common sinners. He has come to be embedded in the lives of normal, stumbling, flawed human beings like you and me.

Moreover, Jesus came to do exactly what John the Baptist said he would do. He came to bring a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus completed John’s baptism by entering the water himself, bringing the very presence of God into the water, sanctifying it for us. As Maximus said, he cleansed the waters for our sake, taking away all the sin floating around in that muddy water once and for all. What John pointed to in his baptism as a future reality when the Messiah came was fulfilled when the Jesus consecrated the waters with his presence, with his grace, with the forgiveness he was bringing.

This is what the chaff language is all about. The baptism Jesus would bring, John said, would separate the wheat from the chaff, with the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire. This sounds a little scary on the surface of things, but note well that this is not separating wheat from barley, dividing one type of thing or person from another. Chaff is part of every grain of wheat, just as sin is part of every person’s life. What John is saying here about the baptism Jesus brings is that it will remove the chaff that obscures the precious wheat. It will remove the sin that obscures the precious image-bearing child of God inside, so that it can be gathered into the granary. Through the unquenchable – that is, ongoing – fire of judgement and forgiveness, of law and gospel, God will destroy the sheath of sin which separates us from him, so that we can be gathered in. This is about judgement, yes, but it is ultimately about being purified by grace so that we can be gathered into the presence of God.

So Jesus is found in the crowd of sinners. He enters into the muddy water himself. And when he does, the entire Trinity rejoices! The Holy Spirit descends like a dove and God the Father thunders from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.” The work of salvation, the work for which Christ came, work which will be completed only with his death and resurrection, had begun.

The Baptism of our Lord shows us what our own baptisms are all about. In our baptism, God has come to us in Christ to meet us where we are. God has come to us while we were still sinners, still vulnerable, flawed, stumbling human beings. God has come to us in water purified by the presence of his dear Son, who made that water clean for us, that we might be cleansed by it.

This is what baptism does. Baptism is so much more than merely an outward sign of someone’s commitment or decision. Baptism is God’s work. In Baptism, God actually does something to us. God cleanses us and gathers us. This is why in Romans 6 St. Paul can say that baptism joins us to the saving work of Jesus. It is why Paul can tell Titus that baptism is “a washing of regeneration” which bestows a new life. It is why in 1 Peter 3 St. Peter tells us that baptism saves us. Baptism is God’s work, not ours. It is the way in which God comes to us and cleanses us, gathering us to himself, making us his own.

This is what makes baptism such a great comfort for us. This is why it was such a great comfort for Luther, and can be for you too. Baptism is not merely a past event, but a present reality. Whether you were an infant when it happened, or an older child, or a full-grown adult, God did something to you in your baptism. God did something for you. God met you in those waters. God called you by name and made you his own. God joined you to the saving work of his dear Son, your Savior, and thereby promised to be with you forever, loving you, forgiving you, giving you new life again and again and again until the day you are welcomed into his eternal kingdom.

In our reading from Isaiah we heard that beautiful promise that God would be with his people as they walked through the waters. And not only water, but fire too! God promises that when they walk through fire, they will not be consumed. This hits a little differently right now as we have seen the staggering devastation from the fires in Los Angeles. God doesn’t promise that there won’t be floods or fires or other calamities. God promises that he will be with his people in the midst of them. He promises that these calamities will not ultimately destroy them. So too with more personal struggles, with the fiery ordeals we all deal with in life. God never promises we won’t have them. Instead, God promises to be with us in them, and God promises that they will not have the last word over us.

In your baptism, God has made these same promises to you. In your baptism, God has come to be with you. Christ cleansed those waters so that nothing will ever separate you from him. In your baptism, he has called you by name, making you his own forever.

Remember this. Especially when facing fiery ordeals. Remember this, for there is on earth no greater comfort than baptism.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Epiphany of our Lord (observed) – January 5, 2024

by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 5, 2025 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 5

Sermon for the Epiphany of our Lord (observed) – January 5, 2025

Matthew 2:1-12

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Follow the crowd.” I’m not sure anybody really thinks this is good advice, and yet we all seem to do it over and over again in one way or another.

“Follow your heart.” This is the theme of just about every Disney movie ever made – many of which I enjoy very much – and it seems to be the guiding principle of our age. Sometimes following our heart, or our gut, or our instinct, is helpful. Other times, not so much. After all, as scripture tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick – who can understand it?” So, there’s that.

“Follow the science.” This is something we’ve heard a lot of over the last few years. Science is affirmed as a good thing, generally speaking, in the Lutheran Christian tradition. It is seen as a good way to deepen our understanding of God’s creation. It is seen as a tool for serving our neighbors. However, the field has become alarmingly politicized in recent years. Exaggerated claims are used to advance agendas. Inconvenient findings go unpublished. Competing studies vie for our attention. All of this makes it harder than ever to know what to believe.

Follow the crowd. Follow your heart. Follow the science. These are the guideposts that often influence our lives.

These are the guideposts which seem to have influenced the magi as well.

The magi followed the crowd, at least in a way. In their journey from the east, probably Persia, they are sure to have followed major thoroughfares. We often see the magi depicted as traveling across a barren desert alone, but it is more likely that they followed trade routes, which were safer and faster and teeming with people.

The magi followed their heart, their gut, their instinct. They knew they were headed to Israel to worship a newborn king, and their gut led them to Jerusalem. That seemed to be the right place to go. It was the big city. The temple was there. The current king resided there. Their heart told them that surely this would be where they would find the newborn king.

The magi followed the science. “Magi” is where we get the word “magic,” but these magi were not magicians who learned illusions and tricks and sleight of hand. These were astrologers. They were the scientists of their age. They looked to the skies above and made complicated calculations which they believed could guide them. And when they saw a new star at its rising, signifying for them the birth of a new king, they followed it.

These magi, or wise men, followed the crowd. They followed their heart, their gut, their instinct. They followed the science. And where did these guideposts lead them? It led them to Jerusalem –  not Bethlehem! It led them to Herod – not Jesus!

You can almost hear the Holy Spirit saying, “Recalculating, recalculating….”

It wasn’t until they heard a word from scripture that these wise men found what they were looking for. Herod consulted with the chief priests and the scribes about where the Messiah was to be born, and these students of the Word came back with a passage from Micah, chapter 5:

“‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”

Herod, with a dark ulterior motive, shared this word with the magi, and now the wise men showed true wisdom as they trusted this word. The star now alighted over Bethlehem, and they followed it to Jesus. Overwhelmed with joy, they entered the house. They saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they knelt down in homage and worshipped him, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

In writing about the detour of the wise men to Jerusalem, Martin Luther wrote:

“Why did the star not take the Wise Men straight to Bethlehem without any necessity of consulting the Scriptures? Because God wanted to teach us that we should follow the Scriptures and not our own murky ideas.”

There are many kinds of knowledge, many types of intelligence – and God can use them! God DID use them to draw these eastern astrologers to worship his Son! These guideposts at least got them in the vicinity! But what ultimately got these wise men where they were trying to go was the scriptures, the word of God.

So too for us, there can be ways to pursue knowledge that is helpful. You can be smart as a whip and ask a lot of questions. Christianity is not anti-intellectual!  But to be truly wise is to follow the scriptures and not our own murky ideas. The scriptures lead us to the deepest spiritual truths about ourselves and our world.

Today these very scriptures lead us to the Christ child, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.

The scriptures lead us to the newborn king, who was given a tribute of gold by the wise men, which was a common way to honor a king.

The scriptures lead us to the one who is our great high priest, our great intermediary between a holy God and a sinful humanity. The wise men gave Jesus frankincense, which was burned by the priests in the temple as their prayers and sacrifices rose up to God.

The scriptures lead us to the one who is our savior, to the one who would give himself for us as an atoning sacrifice. The wise men gave Jesus myrrh, which was a fragrant ointment used to prepare bodies for burial.

The scriptures show us foreigners worshipping Jesus – Gentiles, non-Jews, eastern astrologers! – which tells us that Christ has come for everyone. He is Lord of all. He is the savior for people of all lands and cultures and languages and races and backgrounds.

Our own murky ideas can lead us astray. But today we join the wise men on their course correction as the scriptures lead us to Christ, who is our king, our priest, and our savior.

Let us join the wise men in worshipping him. Let us join the magi in offering our gifts. And let us commit ourselves today to following the scriptures, that we too might know the overwhelming joy he brings.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church