WORSHIP & PICNIC AT THE FARM THIS SUNDAY!
We will have ONE service at 11am on Sunday, August 25, and it will be held at 3 Sisters Family Farm at 938 Scenic Heights Road. All are welcome! Bring a dish to share!
Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – August 11, 2024
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 11
Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – August 11, 2024
John 6:35, 41-51
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
To begin this morning, I ask you to pray with me an ancient Christian collect, or prayer. Let us pray:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In this prayer which has been prayed by the Christian church for many hundreds of years, we ask God to help us inwardly digest the holy Scriptures. This is the language of eating. It is the language of receiving something, taking it in so that it becomes part of us. We pray that we would inwardly digest the Word so that we would receive life from it, a life that is everlasting.
Today we once again hear our Lord Jesus say, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” As Pastor Laurie concluded her sermon last week by saying, “to be continued,” we pick up right where we left off in John chapter 6, with this verse being our point of overlap. And as we continue to explore this chapter today, we hear Jesus inviting his hearers to inwardly digest who he is and what he has come to do, so that they would have life in him.
Next week we will hear Jesus get more explicit about how people are to literally eat his body and drink his blood, and so next week we’ll make some more specific connections to the literal eating and drinking of the Lord’s Supper, but for our passage this week Jesus is speaking more figuratively.
As odd as it might sound, there are many examples in the Old Testament which speak of eating the Word of God. Ezekiel was told to feed his belly with the scroll God gave him, filling his stomach with it (Ezekiel 3:3). Jeremiah was told to eat the Word of God, which became a joy and a delight to his heart (Jeremiah 15:16). The psalmist describes God’s Word as sweet to taste, sweeter than honey on the tongue (Psalm 119:103).
And so when Jesus says he is the bread of life, he is drawing, in part, on this language. When he calls people to come to him that they would never be hungry and to believe in him that they would never be thirsty, he is drawing on this language of consuming God’s Word, taking it in and inwardly digesting it, so as to be filled, so as to be strengthened, so as to be given life.
This was too much to swallow for some. (Pun intended.) As John tells us, some people complained that he said he was the bread of life which had come down from heaven. This claim was distasteful to them. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son,” they grumbled, “whose father and mother we know? How can he now say he came down from heaven?”
They were skeptical of his claims. They were just sure that they knew him, that they knew where he came from. Jesus might be the toast of the town, but they couldn’t believe he was the bread of life. To them he was just Joe and Mary’s kid. They knew where he came from – and it was Nazareth, not heaven.
But Jesus kept pushing. He kept proclaiming. He kept promising. He told them not to complain. He told them no one can come to him unless they are drawn by the Father – and then Jesus put the scent of that bread under their noses so that they would be drawn by the Father, so that they would come to him. He put his wonderful promises in their ears so that perhaps they would eat them, so that perhaps they would begin to inwardly digest them.
Jesus tells them that whoever believes has eternal life. Note well the present tense here. Whoever believes HAS eternal life. This is not only a future promise – it is a present reality. It is something happening now. Whoever believes has eternal life. Whoever trusts God’s Word has the eternal God in their life now. Whoever comes to Jesus is no longer hungry for God. Whoever believes in him is no longer thirsty for God. God has come to them in Jesus to fill that hunger and quench that thirst here and now!
Jesus then goes on to make a future promise: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.” And so this bread, this Word, this promise, is indeed a future hope as well. This bread is a living bread. It doesn’t just fill you up for a day, or a week – it continues to give life perpetually. It gives life everlasting.
As we hear this Word today, I wonder how many of us find these promises to be too much to swallow. I wonder how many a have a hard time believing it, at least at times. I wonder how many have truly inwardly digested the meaning of all of this, taking it in deeply, letting it nourish and strengthen us, letting it give us life.
Perhaps at times we are like the skeptics in our gospel reading. We think we know Jesus. In fact we’ve known of him for a long time – but we have yet to comprehend the fullness of who he really is for us.
Maybe this is silly, but perhaps we have grown cynical after all the conflicting information we’ve received over the years about which foods are good for us, which foods really give life. Margerine is healthier than butter. Oops! No, it really, really isn’t. Eggs are bad. Oops, no, just the yellow part is bad. Oops, no, actually the whole thing is good. Red wine is good for your heart. Oops! No, actually you’d need to drink 100 glasses a day to get enough of that particular antioxidant, and in the meantime all your other organs would be poisoned. Sorry! Perhaps this dietary confusion has spilled into our spiritual life. Who can we trust? What is true? What can we believe?
Perhaps we have just seen too much death to believe that it could ever be overcome by eating anything, even something called the bread of life.
In our confusion and our unbelief we find ourselves hungry and thirsty. We find ourselves increasingly shaky and weak. We find that we need nourishment and strength that comes from outside of ourselves. We need living bread from heaven.
Jesus is this bread. He is the bread we need. Jesus is the living bread from heaven. Jesus comes to us today, putting the aroma of this bread into our nostrils as the Word goes into our ears. He promises us that when we come to him we will never be hungry. He promises that when we believe in him we will never be thirsty. We will never lack God’s presence.
Jesus promises that whoever believes in him has eternal life here and now. He promises that whoever eats of the bread that is him will live forever.
We come to him not because we are good or smart or worthy. Coming to him is not a spiritual achievement or a decision we make. We come to him because we have been drawn to him by the Father. “Anyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me,” Jesus says.
That’s you. That’s what is happening right now! We are drawn by the Father to the Son through the Word he delivers to us through the Spirit. Our hearts simply follow the aroma of those promises like one follows the alluring smell of fresh bread into the kitchen.
In a sermon on this passage the early church father St. Augustine wrote: “Believe, and you have eaten already.”
So believe. Believe the good news you hear today. His promises are trustworthy and true, so believe them. Believe that the eternal God has entered into your life here and now so that you can be filled, strengthened, nourished. Believe that whoever eats of the bread that is Jesus will live forever. Believe, and you have eaten already.
Once again, let us pray this ancient collect:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – July 28, 2024
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 28
Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – July 28, 2024
2 Kings 4:42-44, John 6:1-21
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
It has often been said that a crisis doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
We have two crises in our gospel reading today, and this saying very much applies to both of them. These crises reveal to us who Christ is. They reveal to us his character, his identity. These crises reveal to us who Jesus is and why he has come.
The first crisis isn’t necessarily a life-or-death situation, but it does involve a large crowd out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat. They aren’t necessarily going to starve to death, but if you’ve ever been out in the woods with a few hangry kids, you know how dire this situation is. Things can go south in a hurry!
But before we even get to the crisis itself, Saint John (the gospel writer) prefaces the story by telling us what time of year this is happening: “Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.” It is important to understand that there are no insignificant details in John’s gospel. John mentioning that the Passover was near means something. John is intentionally framing this story in the context of this festival.
The Passover is the central festival for the Jewish people. It celebrates God’s saving help. It celebrates God’s deliverance of his people out of their captivity in Egypt. God fed them with the Passover Lamb, filling them with protein just before they began their long march towards the Promised Land. And then, along the way, when they were out in the wilderness without any food, God fed them again with miraculous manna from heaven.
Now it just so happens that there are a bunch of Jews once again living in bondage to foreign powers. Now God’s people are again out in the wilderness without anything to eat. What do you think is going to happen?
I love how Jesus toyed with Philip here, pretending to be concerned, pretending that he didn’t already know exactly how this was all going to play out. “Just look at all these people here, Philip,” Jesus said. “How are we ever going to buy bread for them all to eat?” John tells us Jesus knew what he was going to do all along, of course. Jesus was testing Philip.
We could think of this testing as a Sunday school quiz for Philip. “Do you remember the story about the manna in the wilderness, Philip? Do you remember what God did?” This was a quiz that both Philip and Andrew failed. Even though Passover was right around the corner, they weren’t making the connection at all. They looked to the meager amount of cash they had on hand. Andrew pointed to the one person who seems to have come prepared – a boy with five barley loaves and two fish – but noted that this wasn’t nearly enough to feed this crowd. “What are we going to do?” they asked.
And then Jesus did what he already knew he was going to do. He took the boy’s five loaves and two fish and he miraculously multiplied them, distributing them to everyone there, until all were satisfied. There were even leftovers!
The people who ate this miraculous meal in the wilderness knew they had experienced more than an impromptu picnic. They knew that they had received more than a fish sandwich. They knew that they had seen a sign. They knew that this meal pointed to something important about who Jesus was. They began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who has come into the world!”
We heard in our first reading for today the story of the prophet Elisha feeding a crowd. This story features some striking parallels to what these people experienced. An anonymous donor provided some barley loaves. There was more crowd than food, and yet, all ate and were satisfied. There were even leftovers! Sound familiar? You can understand why they would think Jesus was the prophet! The same thing was happening again!
They tried to make Jesus their king, but Jesus refused and withdrew from them – he wouldn’t be a king on their terms. He wouldn’t be coopted by their agendas or their felt needs. He had bigger things in mind, bigger things to accomplish – bigger fish to fry, we might say.
They were on the right track, in a way. Jesus was a prophet, insofar as he brought a word from God. He had come to be a king of sorts, although he would be a king unlike any they could imagine, with a kingdom not of this world.
But what this crisis reveals more than anything else is that Jesus had come to usher in a new Passover, a new saving event. What this crisis of not having enough food in the wilderness reveals is God had now come to them in person through his Son. God had come to feed them in the wilderness on his way to leading them to a new Promised Land.
A crisis doesn’t build character, it reveals it, and here it reveals Jesus to be the saving God who has come in the flesh to do more saving, this time from even greater powers. It reveals Jesus to be the one who fills every hunger through the miracle of his abundant grace.
The next crisis is told much more briefly, but it reveals much the same about Jesus. The disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee at night when a storm kicked up. They were three or four miles from the shore. Boats like theirs went under in those kinds of conditions all the time, so this really was a life-threatening crisis. It was dark and chaotic and topsy-turvy. The waves heaved up and down while the disciples heaved those fish sandwiches over the siderails. Just then Jesus came walking out to them on the sea. Walking on the water was a cool trick, but it was what Jesus said that reveals the most about him: “It is I,” Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid.” I really wish Bibles would translate this better, because as it is here Jesus sounds a little bit like Mighty Mouse. “It is I! Here I come to save the day!” He has come to save the day, to be sure, but so much more is going on here with these words! This is ego ami in Greek, which literally translates as “I AM.” In Hebrew it is pronounced Yahweh.
So now it is time for you to have a little Sunday school quiz. Do you know what God said to Moses when Moses asked for God’s name? God said, Yahweh, “I AM.” And so this crisis reveals something about Jesus’ character, his identity. In the fear and chaos of that storm in the dark of night, Jesus revealed himself as Yahweh, as the Lord God, who had come close to them in their time of need. “I AM,” he said to them, “So do not be afraid.”
A crisis doesn’t build character, it reveals it. Through the Word we hear this morning God is revealing to us the truth about his Son. God is revealing to us who Jesus is, and why he has come. God is showing us that Jesus has come to be our savior, that he has come to be our Lord, that he is the Son of God who has come to be with us in the midst of the crises we experience.
Some of these crises are on a smaller scale. They are more personal. They have to do with the struggles and anxieties of daily life: “Where am I going to get the resources I need to survive?” “How am I going to make it through this day?” “How am I going to find nourishment and strength as I travel in this wilderness? What is going to sustain me?”
Other crises are on a much bigger scale. There has been election year chaos on a level we haven’t seen in this country since 1968, and we aren’t even to October yet. There is ongoing international violence, including the 12 children killed on a soccer field this weekend in a rocket attack in Israel. God is openly mocked on a global stage. Yes, you could say that life in this world has felt topsy-turvy and unstable and slightly nauseating.
These various crises, both big and small, reveal something about us. They reveal the wilderness we live in as we make our way through this world. They reveal the darkness and the chaos that kicks up and engulfs us from time to time. They reveal that we need a savior. They reveal that we need a Lord who can give us the strength and the peace and the hope that the world so clearly cannot give us.
The crises we hear about in our gospel reading, however, also reveal Christ to us. They assure us that he is the one who has come to feed our deepest hungers. They assure us that he is Lord of all creation, who ultimately has power over even the darkest, fiercest storms. They point us to the great truth that he comes to us with sacramental food and a holy Word.
Through his Holy Supper, he feeds us with miraculous food to nourish and sustain our souls. He meets us in our wilderness and strengthens us with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. (We’re going to be hearing a LOT more about this in the weeks ahead as the lectionary takes us on a deep dive into this chapter of John’s gospel.) In this meal he reveals himself to be our savior. In receiving the bread and the wine that are his Body and Blood we participate in the new Passover. We participate in the saving event of his death and resurrection.
Jesus comes to us with a Word to give us peace and calm in the midst of every storm. Whatever particular crises you might be enduring, whatever storms you might be facing, today Christ Jesus reveals himself to you through Word and Sacrament to assure you that he is God, and he is near. “It is I,” he says to you. “Do not be afraid.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2024
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 21
Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2024
Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
What was it, exactly, that Jesus saw in this crowd that caused him to have compassion for them? What did he see in them that tugged on his heartstrings?
Actually, the response Jesus has here which is described as “compassion” is technically more related to the gut than the heart. He felt their situation in his gut. He felt their need deeply, to his core. He had a gut instinct to respond.
So what was their situation? What was their need? The scriptures tell us they were like sheep without a shepherd, but what does that mean?
I know there are a handful of you out there who have actual experience with sheep, but most of us are much more familiar with dogs. So, if you don’t mind me mixing metaphors just a bit, let me tell you about an experience I had recently with a dog.
On the morning of July 5th, I went out for a run. Being the morning after Independence Day, the sidewalks and streets were covered in cardboard casings from the fireworks people had shot off. This town really, really likes fireworks, and so they were everywhere, serving as a reminder of the loud booms and cracks heard throughout the night before.
By morning it was quiet. I didn’t see anybody out on the street. There was nobody driving by. And then I saw this dog. It was running on the other side of the road. It was panting with exhaustion. Its eyes looked frantic, but not in a menacing way. It looked more sad and confused than threatening. It was pretty obvious to me that this dog had been scared by all the explosions overnight and had bolted. Who knows how long it had been running or how far it was from home? I slowed to a walk and it looked at me, its ears perking up with hope. I started to walk towards it to see if it had a tag with a phone number or something. It stopped running too, and when it did I could see that it was trembling. I spoke to it in gentle, calming tones. It looked at me with those confused and frightened eyes. Then it gave me an expression that seemed to say, “Nope, you’re not my person!” and it ran off.
Now before someone comes after me for being anti-fireworks, let me assure you that that is not the point I’m trying to make. What I’m trying to say is that THIS is what it is like to be a sheep without a shepherd! It is an experience of being frantic and frightened and vulnerable and confused. It is an experience of running madly in any direction you can just try to get away from what is scaring you. To be a sheep without a shepherd is to be lost and exhausted and desperately looking for the one you know and trust to care for you.
This isn’t just something that happens to animals. It happens to people too. It happens to people all the time. This is what Jesus saw in the people he encountered that made him respond with this gut-level compassion.
Long ago, God had promised to send a new shepherd to care for his people. In the time of the prophet Jeremiah, the shepherds weren’t doing a good job of shepherding. In our first reading we heard how the shepherds were destroying and scattering the sheep. The shepherds Jeremiah is referring to are the kings of Israel. We often assume that anytime we hear of shepherds in the Bible that it is referring to pastors, but this isn’t in this case here. More about that in a bit. Here Jeremiah is talking about kings, and these kings were corrupt. Instead of caring for the sheep God had entrusted to them, they sought only their own power. Instead of providing for their sheep, they only lined their own pockets. Instead of being models of godliness, they abandoned God’s Word and God’s ways whenever it benefitted them to do so. And because of the negligence and the evil doings of these shepherd-kings, the sheep were scattered, unattended, alone, and afraid.
Through Jeremiah, God promised to tend to these wicked shepherd-kings. God promised to raise up new ones who would do a better job. And God did precisely that. God raised up shepherd-kings who were faithful and good, kings like Zerubbabel, who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem.
Even better, however, God promised through Jeremiah that he would ultimately raise up through King David’s line “a righteous branch.” God promised that this particular shepherd would “reign as king and deal wisely,” that he would “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” God promised that “In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.” God said, “This is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
What God is promising here is that he himself will come to be their shepherd. God is promising that he himself will come to be their righteousness. What Jeremiah is saying is that Lord himself will come to make things right, the Lord himself will come to save his people, to gather all who were scattered. The Lord himself will come to be this shepherd, to lead them in right pathways for his name’s sake.
And in Jesus Christ, this righteous branch has come. In Jesus Christ, this promise has been fulfilled. Jesus is the shepherd who has come to reign as king and deal wisely. He is the shepherd who has come to make things right. He is the shepherd who has come to save.
We see Jesus doing precisely this as he encounters this group of people in our gospel reading. Jesus saw the fear and the desperation in their eyes. He saw how they were lost, how they had been scattered. He saw how they were frantic and exhausted and in need of one they could trust to truly care for them. And so, scripture tells us, “He had compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus is still this shepherd. He is the shepherd-king Jeremiah promised would come. He is the shepherd we hear about in the 23rd psalm. He is the Lord who leads people to green pastures and still waters, restoring their souls. He is the shepherd who has a gut-level reaction of compassion for all who are scattered, lost, confused, or afraid. He has come to those who were like sheep without a shepherd, so that they wouldn’t be without a shepherd anymore. He is that shepherd for us. He is that shepherd for you.
We live in a time when many people feel like scattered sheep, when many people feel a little frantic. We hear loud noises coming from the booming voices of those who stir up fear in order to shore up their own power. We have recently heard loud rifle cracks of political violence, which has everyone on edge. We have widespread loss of trust in many, maybe all, of our civic institutions, which has many people feeling disoriented and confused, not sure where to turn or who to believe.
On a more personal level, we see those sad and frightened eyes over and over again in people around us who are dealing with scary stuff. We see them in parents with a sick or medically fragile kid. We see them in those battling cancer, and in their spouses who feel so powerless to help. We see it in families that have experienced the devastating impact of addiction, which has become so tragically common in our country and our congregation. We see them in those who have held the hands of loved ones as they have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and then had to learn to live without them, which is like learning to walk again.
We sometimes feel like scattered sheep, like lost dogs. We sometimes feel frantic and afraid, lost and vulnerable, desperate and confused. But we are not without a shepherd who cares for us.
Pastors are sometimes called shepherds. There’s a good reason for this. One of the most prominent images for pastoral work in the New Testament is that of shepherding. Pastors are to shepherd God’s people. They are to shepherd the congregation. But there is really only one shepherd, and that is Jesus.
Through the Doxology pastoral renewal program I have been participating in this past year I have come to view the pastor’s role of shepherding in a slightly different way. There I have been encouraged to think of pastors as sheepdogs.
Sheepdogs do indeed do the work of shepherding, but they do so by the direction of and on behalf of the real Shepherd. As sheepdogs, the pastor’s first job is to spend a lot of time looking at the Shepherd, keeping their eyes fixed on Him. Then they are to follow his lead in nudging the sheep in His direction, so that they would look at Him too.
As a sheepdog, sometimes the loud noises make me anxious too. But I know a guy! I know a shepherd. He is the only truly good shepherd. He is the only shepherd-king we can trust to care for us no matter what.
When he sees our frightened or frantic eyes, he has great compassion for us. He feels for us right down in his gut. And so he comes to us. He comes to lead us to green pastures and still waters. He comes to us to restore our souls. He comes to lead us in right pathways for his name’s sake. He comes to walk with us through the valley of the shadow. His rod and his staff comfort us. He prepares a table for us, and our cup overflows.
When you are tired, he is your rest. When you are afraid, he is your peace. When you feel lost, he will be your home.
Let us all keep our eyes on him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – July 14, 2024
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 14
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – July 14, 2024
Amos 7:7-15, Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-29
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whenever this gospel reading comes around every three years, I have a hard time saying, “The Gospel of the Lord” at the end of it. “Gospel” means “good news,” and it is hard to see any good news in this sordid story. Instead, it is filled with adultery and manipulation and shocking violence. It sounds more like the evening news than the Good News.
But that is part of the point. As scripture often does, St. Mark is holding a mirror up to the kingdoms of this world. He is holding a mirror up to society, including ours. He is holding a mirror up to the realities of sin that continue to this day.
Herod Antipas was the son of the other King Herod we hear about in the New Testament – the one who killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem after Jesus was born. Herod Junior, otherwise known as Herod Antipas, was following in his father’s footsteps. He had grown up to be a Jewish puppet king for the Roman Empire, just like his dad. His Jewishness gave the appearance of piety and respect for God’s people, but he was just a mask, behind which lurked imperial, pagan Rome.
But the mask slipped when Herod Antipas’ scandalous behavior became public knowledge. On a visit to his brother Philip in Rome, he engaged in an affair with his brother’s wife, Herodias. They both ended up divorcing their spouses and marrying each other. Many in the Jewish community were upset and angry. They didn’t like the idea of a Jewish king violating God’s commandments, especially to marry his sister-in-law. John the Baptist was brave enough to call him on it. John called Herod and Herodias to repent.
Herod, scripture tells us, found John the Baptist to be an interesting person. He actually liked listening to him. He acknowledged that he was a righteous and holy man. He even feared him to a degree. Perhaps there was some respect for God’s law that remained in a corner of his heart. Perhaps his conscience was being pricked by John’s preaching.
His wife Herodias, on the other hand, despised John. She hated John for daring to publicly call them out on their adultery. She was so mad about it that she wanted him dead. At first Herod wouldn’t go that far, but at his wife’s insistence he did go ahead and arrest John and put him in prison. (Marriage is all about compromise, right?)
But then came Herod’s birthday party. Herod invited lots of powerful people for a birthday banquet. Herodias’s daughter, who was now not only Herod’s niece but his stepdaughter too, performed a dance at the party. This dance got everyone’s attention. Given what we know about this family and about the culture of the time and about human nature in general, this was almost certainly not a ballet dance. This was not an innocent tap dance. This was very likely a young woman dancing in ways that kept the men in rapt attention. At the end of the dance, Herod made a big show in front of his powerful friends, promising to give his niece/step-daughter anything she wanted. He even offered to give her up to half of his kingdom.
Herodias saw her chance. She coached her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist. Herod was “deeply grieved,” the scriptures tell us, but he was trapped. He was trapped by his own sin, by his own foolish bravado. Feeling bound by the oaths he had made in front of his important guests, Herod gave the gruesome order. John was beheaded, and the proof was brought into the banquet on a platter.
In our first reading we hear about Amos’ vision of the Lord holding a plumb line next to a wall. A plumb line was a simple tool consisting of a string with a weight tied to the bottom. It was a common tool used for construction in the ancient world. Gravity held that string taught and true, and so it showed whether a wall was vertically straight or not. It revealed where it was out of alignment. The Lord held this metaphorical plumb line up to the wall that was Israel under King Jeroboam, showing that they were horribly out of alignment with God’s will.
Similarly, in his preaching John the Baptist was holding a plumb line up to Herod Antipas and Herodias. He showed them how they were out of alignment with God’s commandments. First they violated the first commandment to have no other gods, which led to violating the tenth commandment against coveting another’s spouse, which led to violating the sixth commandment against adultery, which led to violating the fifth commandment against murder. Before John was done in by their violation of the fifth commandment, he called them to repent, to be realigned.
And now this Jesus whom Herod had heard so much about was sending out preachers. They, too, were preaching repentance! Herod thought that John, whom he killed, had come back to life! He was haunted by John. He was convicted by the plumb line of his preaching.
This is how God’s Word works. It is like a mirror, or a plumb line, for all who hear it. As we hear this sordid story today we can certainly make some connections to things happening in our own time. The Bible isn’t shy about showing us our world as it really is in all its wickedness and debauchery and violence.
But God’s Word holds a mirror, or a plumb line, up to us too. It shows us where we fail to live in alignment with God’s will. This story reminds us how certain sins are often handed down generationally. It shows us how insidious sin is – not just in the halls of power, but in our daily lives. It shows us how for us, too, the commandments are like dominoes in that once one falls, others soon follow. It shows us how desperate we are to be in control of our little kingdoms, how desperate we are to save face in public, how desperate we are to silence those voices which call our actions into question. It shows us how we often end up feeling trapped by sin with no way out. Did we not just confess that we are in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves?
On the surface this story sounds like an unwelcome and R-rated anomaly in the lectionary. It sounds like an episode of Game of Thrones, or perhaps Desperate Housewives of Ancient Israel. But there is good news in it. There is good news in the fact that it is precisely into this reality in which we all live that Christ has come. It is this world that God so dearly loves, quite in spite of itself. It is this world and its fallen human race that Christ came to save – not ultimately with a mirror or a plumb line, but with a cross.
You see, this story, as strange and out of place as it might seem, is not only showing us how out of alignment the world is; it is already anticipating how God would go about setting it right. Mark includes this story in his gospel to begin to point us to the cross. He tells this story because it so powerfully foreshadows what Jesus would endure in order to bring salvation to a broken world. Jesus, like John, made many people mad for calling them out on their sin. Jesus, like John, would be arrested. Jesus, like John, would be brutally executed by a reluctant official who was bowing to the pressures of a crowd. Jesus, like John, would be laid in a tomb.
Before all this, when Jesus sent out his disciples to preach repentance, Herod thought that Jesus was John, raised from the dead. Herod was wrong on the details, of course, but he was saying more than he knew. His mistake was actually a clue of sorts, a clue foreshadowing what would come. Because after Jesus’ own brutal execution, he did rise from the dead! The grave could not hold him. The ugliness of this world could not keep him away. Jesus was raised from the dead in order to bring us back into alignment with God through the forgiveness, life, and salvation he has won for us through his death and resurrection.
There is good news here in this story. It is lurking in the background, but it is there – and it is for you. The good news for you is this: no matter how depressingly sordid the TV news gets, there is nothing new under the sun – and it is precisely this broken, sinful world that our Lord loves and came to save. This should help us all to live in hope in spite of all the depressing headlines.
Furthermore, no matter how sordid or sinful or messy or painful or soap-opera-y your own story might be, it isn’t too much for Jesus. No matter how out of alignment your life has been or might be today, Jesus has come to bring you back into right relationship with God through his forgiveness, which he continues to pour out for you abundantly. As St. Paul tells us in Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.”
Christ has come to redeem you from the sordid parts of your story. By his death and resurrection he has conquered sin and death in order to give you his kingdom, which comes with a new life and a new hope and a new future.
This is the gospel of our Lord.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church