by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 23, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 21
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany – January 21, 2024
Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Mark 1:14-20
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
What would you need to hear to make you immediately drop everything and respond?
For some, it might be the news that there are whales in Penn Cove or out at West Beach. I know people who, when they hear those words, the next sound you hear is their car peeling out in the parking lot! For some, it might be a call from your kid, or from your kids’ school, or, if you have kids in college like me, even just from your kids’ area code. If I get a call from Pullman, Washington, or College Station, Texas, I will drop everything to answer it! For some it might be the news that your cows got loose, or that your pregnant wife’s water just broke, or that there’s a plane leaving for Hawaii with some free seats available.
There are some things we hear which are so compelling or urgent or important or wonderful that we are willing to drop everything to respond.
In our gospel reading this morning we have four fishermen who heard something that made them drop everything and respond.
First, we have Simon and Andrew, two fishermen from Galilee. They were at work at their jobs, casting their nets into the sea, when Jesus called to them. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people!” he said. And immediately, St. Mark tells us, they left their nets and followed him.
Next, we have James and John, two more fishermen. These two were in their boats mending their nets when Jesus called to them. And right there on the spot they left their father Zebedee and their hired men and followed Jesus.
What was it that compelled these four fishermen to drop everything and respond?
Well, Jesus had come to Galilee with a compelling message. Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
These are the very first recorded words of Jesus in Mark’s gospel. They constitute Jesus’ very first sermon. Let’s take a closer look at what he had to say.
First came a wonderful announcement: “The time is fulfilled!” Jesus said. What did it mean that the time was fulfilled? There are two words in the New Testament that are translated as “time” in English. There is chronos, which is where we get words like “chronology” and “chronological.” This word refers to linear time, time which can be marked and measured. It is one o’clock and then two o’clock. It is January and then February. That’s chronos. But there’s another word for time in the New Testament. That word is kairos. Kairos refers not to linear time, but to the proper time, the right time. When a baker is baking bread, he or she knows the bread is ready to come out not just by the clock, but by the doneness, right? They look at the crust, they thump on the bottom of the loaf, and say, “It’s time.” What has been waited for has happened. That’s kairos. Jesus begins his very first sermon by saying “It’s time.” The thing that everyone had been waiting and watching for had happened. The promise that God was coming to save his people was now being fulfilled.
“The kingdom of God has come near,” Jesus continued. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God he is not talking about a place. He isn’t talking about a territory or a region or a castle. He isn’t talking about an earthly structure of some kind. He isn’t talking about an organization or a network or an institution. Instead, the kingdom of God is whenever and wherever God makes himself known. It is whenever and wherever God’s rule, God’s authority, is made manifest. Or, as one Bible scholar put it, the kingdom of God is whenever and wherever God makes a personal appearance. This is what happened with the appearance of Jesus in Galilee. God had come near!
Next Jesus called for a response. After this proclamation, this amazing announcement, Jesus said, “Repent, and believe in the good news.”
To repent is to turn around. It is to change direction. It is to change your mind, your heart, your behavior, your life.
In our first reading we heard how Jonah reluctantly went to Nineveh to call them to repent: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” he said. Here was an announcement that, much to Jonah’s chagrin, got them to drop everything and respond! And they responded by changing direction. Nineveh was a notoriously wicked city. As the capital of the Assyrian Empire, it was one of Israel’s most ruthless enemies, which is why Jonah didn’t want to go there in the first place. The prophet Nahum called Nineveh a “city of blood” and a place of “endless cruelty.” The Ninevites rejected God and God’s ways and God’s people.
But then Jonah called them to repentance, and everything changed. They changed direction. They proclaimed a fast as a sign of their turn towards the one true God. They changed clothes, with everyone, both great and small, putting on sackcloth as a sign of their changed hearts. They changed their behavior too. We hear that they turned from their evil ways. This is what it means to repent.
At least in part. You see, there’s another way of understanding what it means to repent. For the people of Israel this word had a history of being used to call the people to change their behavior, to be sure, but it had another meaning too. For the Israelites in exile, it was also understood as an invitation to return to God. It was understood as an invitation to come home, both literally and spiritually. That puts a different nuance on it, doesn’t it? What if every time we heard the word “repent,” we heard an invitation to come home? That’d get people to drop everything and respond, don’t you think?
Finally, Jesus said, “believe in the good news.” Jesus’ proclamation was not good advice; it was good news. In him, the time had been fulfilled. In him, the kingdom of God had come near. “Believe it!” Jesus is saying here. “Trust what I am saying to you! Respond to my words with faith. Respond by following me.”
The Ninevites and Simon and Andrew and James and John all heard a word from the Lord which compelled them to drop everything and respond. The Ninevites dropped their wicked ways. The fishermen dropped their nets, at least for now. They responded by immediately following the Lord in faith.
And now it is our turn.
Today we hear Christ Jesus say to us: “The time is fulfilled.” No matter what is going on for you in chronological time, no matter what life is like for you on January 21st, 2024, no matter what life was like for you yesterday or will be like for you tomorrow, no matter what you might be experiencing in linear time, the Lord Jesus says, “the time is fulfilled.” The time is right. The time is right for you to know his presence, his mercy, his grace, his love. That time has come. It is now.
Today we hear that the kingdom of God has come near to us. God’s kingdom has infiltrated our world. God’s presence and power has infiltrated our lives. In the midst of the brokenness of the kingdoms of the earth in which we live, God’s kingdom has entered in – not to claim territory or build a castle, not to wield earthly power, but to make himself known to us. In Jesus, God has made a personal appearance, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit he might come to rule our hearts with his peace.
Today through this living word we hear the Lord Jesus call us to repent. We are called to turn from all wickedness, as the people of Nineveh did. We are called to turn from all sin. We are called to change our direction, our minds, our hearts, our behavior, and our lives in response to his gracious call. All who find themselves in exile from God are graciously invited to come home to him.
Today we are called once again to believe in the good news. We are called to trust in God’s Word, in what Christ Jesus has said to us.
And he has said: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Jesus very first sermon continues to be so compelling, so urgent, so important, so wonderful, that we can’t help but respond to it immediately with faith – a faith that follows him, and invites others to do the same.
Thanks be to God. Amen
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 16, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 14
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany – January 14, 2023
1 Samuel 3:1-10, Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, John 1:43-51
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
All four of our lectionary readings for today testify to the fact that God knows us. In our first reading, before the young boy Samuel even knows the Lord or can discern his voice, God calls to him. God knows him. God has a plan for him, a calling on his life. In the beautiful words of today’s psalm, we learn that none of us are accidents. God himself has knit us together in our mother’s wombs, and each day that we live is known to God. Even our epistle reading, where Paul is chewing out the Corinthians for some really bad theology leading to some really bad behavior, it is revealed that God knows what they’re up to. Nothing is hidden from him. God knows how they aren’t living in accordance with their true purpose. They aren’t using their bodies to glorify God. (We’ll come back to this in a bit.)
And then there’s Nathanael. In our gospel reading for today we hear how Philip told Nathanael that they had found the Messiah – the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asked, with obvious skepticism. “Come and see,” Philip told him. Nathanael then met Jesus face to face, prompting Jesus to say, “Now here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Jesus seemed to have some insight into Nathanael’s character. He knew he was a straight shooter. He knew he was blunt, that he told it like he saw it. Jesus showed that he knew him. “Where did you get to know me?” Nathanael replied. “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you,” Jesus said.
Like Samuel, before Nathanael knew Jesus, Jesus knew him! And in that moment when Nathanael realized this, when he understood that he was known by Jesus, his heart was moved from skepticism to faith. “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel,” he said.
The fact that God knows us – really, really knows us – isn’t automatically good news for us. In fact, some of you might be hearing this and saying to yourself, “Oh no!” Some of you look a little pale and sweaty as you contemplate this idea. “You mean to say God knows even that! This is terrible! I’m doomed!” It’s true – God does know even that. God knows the you you try to hide from others. God sees deeper into us than the best version of ourselves we usually try to put on display for others. God knows what you really think. God knows what you muttered under your breath against that person who made you angry, even if you were smiling and polite on the outside. God knows how you spend your money. God knows how you choose to spend your time. God knows every thought and every action of every moment of every day. As we say in our Brief Order of Confession and Forgiveness: “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.” The fact that God knows us, by itself, is not good news!
But there is a clue right in the middle of this gospel reading which begins to point us to what is good news for us. The clue is the fig tree.
Jesus saw Nathanael under a fig tree. Now sometimes a fig tree is just a fig tree. Not every detail of every verse of scripture needs to be symbolic. However, we’re in John’s gospel – where most every detail does in fact point to something deeper!
Some Bible commentators say that “under the fig tree” is a phrase rabbis used as a metaphor for meditating on the scriptures. They believe the fig tree is a symbol or a metaphor suggesting that Nathanael had already been searching for the Lord when Jesus found him. But that’s not what the early Church Fathers thought was going on here. That’s not what the first interpreters of this text believed was happening. In a sermon on this text from the fourth century, St. Augustine argued that the fig tree in this gospel reading represents the tree in the Garden of Eden, under which Adam and Eve sinned against God. What did Adam and Eve do after sinning? They felt exposed. They felt naked before God. They felt ashamed. And so they attempted to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. For Jesus to see Nathanael “under the fig tree”, then, was for him to see Nathanael under the curse of sin. It was to see the shadows of his life under that tree, in the darkness.
This might seem like a stretch, but this is what one of the most insightful theologians in all of Christian history believed. And it wasn’t just him – other Church Fathers like Chrysostom and Gregory the Great believed the same thing!
This, St. Augustine argues in his sermon, is where Christ finds all of us. He finds us in our sin. He finds us in our shame. He finds us trying to cover things up, hiding behind fig leaves.
But he doesn’t leave us stuck there. Even knowing everything there is to know about us, Christ comes to us. Even knowing everything we try so desperately to hide, he calls us to himself. Jesus knew Nathanael completely, and still he promised him that he would see the heavens opened.
The good news is not just that Jesus knows us. It is that he knows us and loves us anyway. It is that he knows us and has come to call us out from beneath the fig tree and into a new life with him. It is that he knows us and has come to save us from our sins, thereby opening up heaven to us, drawing us into a relationship with God that begins now and continues forever. It is that he knows us intimately, with all our faults and flaws and failures, and still he comes to us in love and calls us to follow him.
Some of the Christians in Corinth seem to have believed that because Jesus saved them from their sin, that they were free to continue to indulge in it. They seem to have believed that because Jesus had saved them from the condemnation of the law, that it no longer applied to them at all.
“All things are lawful for me,” they argued. “Ah,” Paul wrote back to them, “but not all things are beneficial.” Some of the Christians in Corinth had burned their fig leaves and were now engaging in sexual immorality, thinking it was all fine now. They believed that grace meant that anything goes, that any sexual behavior was okay. Paul wrote back to tell them that they were dead wrong.
To follow Jesus is to walk in the light of truth. And the truth is, going back to our psalm for today, that our bodies are intentionally and intelligently designed. They have been made by God for a purpose. Paul points them to the purpose and meaning of sex, which is for two to become one in holy matrimony, not for one to become one with one, and then another, and then another, in various configurations at various times. When it comes to sex, the math shouldn’t be that complicated! “Your body is a temple,” Paul tells them, “Not an amusement park!”
This is by no means to say that sex is inherently dirty or bad, which is how some Christians have swung the pendulum too far the other way. After all, God invented it. God thought it up. Paul’s Spirit-breathed argument here is that sex has a purpose and a meaning from God. When it is set in the context God intended, it is holy. It is good – for by it, the two become one. When it is misused, on the other hand, you are back under the fig tree. You are in the shadows, in the darkness, under the curse of sin.
(I know this is an uncomfortable topic, but if we don’t have a little teaching around sex even when the lectionary is prodding us to do so, we end up letting popular culture set the agenda – and how is that going for us?)
But this case study in First Corinthians is not only a lesson about how Christians should regard sex. In the broader context of the letter it is another example of Jesus knowing people and loving them anyway. It is another example of Jesus coming to sinners to call them out from under the fig tree and into newness of life. Because when things got crazy in Corinth, Jesus didn’t send fire and brimstone. He sent a preacher! Jesus sent Paul, his personally chosen apostle. He sent Paul to correct them, to teach them the truth, and in so doing, to call them into the light. And by the end of the letter, Paul is showing these sinners how the heavens have been opened to them because of what Jesus has done for them.
The letter to the Corinthians is itself is an example of Jesus knowing people completely and coming to them anyway – to bring correction, to be sure, to call for a change in behavior, absolutely – but none of that could happen without there first being a love that was bigger than their sin, without a savior who came to them with grace and mercy and forgiveness.
God knows you. Yes, you – each of you here today. God knew you before you ever knew him or could discern his voice. God knit you together in your mother’s womb, personally overseeing every intricate detail, and you are wonderfully made. Each day, each moment you live is known to God.
This isn’t, by itself, good news. For it means that from God no secrets are hidden. God knows the parts of our lives that, like our ancestors Adam and Eve, we try to hide behind fig leaves. As St. Augustine once preached: “Our Lord Jesus Christ found the whole human race under the fig tree.”
The good news isn’t just that God knows us. It is that God knows us and loves us anyway. And he proves his love for us by coming to us in Jesus, who calls us out from under the curse of the fig tree through his forgiveness and into a new life with him. By his gracious call he opens up the blessings of heaven to us, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 10, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 7
Sermon for Baptism of our Lord – January 7, 2024
Mark 1:1-4
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
The beginning of a new year is an exciting time. As we put a new calendar up on the wall or crack open a new weekly planner, we have hopes for how our days might unfold in the new year ahead. Many have longings that some things would be different than they were the year before. Many resolve to do things differently, making adjustments to their lives. It feels like a clean slate, a fresh start. There must be some reason so many people stayed up on New Year’s Eve and counted down. There must be some reason for the fireworks in cities around the world as midnight struck in one time zone after another. When a new year begins, we celebrate a new beginning.
Our gospel reading for this morning begins with people who were longing for a new start. They had a sense that God was about to do a new thing. They were preparing for the coming of the Messiah by being baptized in the river Jordan. They received John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This baptism felt like a clean slate, a new beginning.
And it was! But something even better was just around the corner. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.” John told them. “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
When the Messiah comes, John told the crowd, he will baptize not with water alone, but with the Holy Spirit – that is to say, he will baptize with the very presence of God. This will be more than a ritualized washing. It will be more than a pledge to live differently. It will be more than a human action, a human expression of faith and love and commitment. This baptism will be a pouring out of the Holy Spirit. It will be God’s work, God’s action, God’s expression of love and commitment. It will not be a baptism of water alone, but a baptism of water and the Holy Spirit – bringing the baptized into the very presence of the one true God.
And then this Messiah came, and this is precisely what happened! As St. Mark tells us, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Mark mentions it so casually, almost in passing. But something incredibly important is happening here. Jesus entered into the same muddy waters as those common sinners. Jesus, the Son of God, met them where they were in the waters of baptism. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized. He didn’t do it for himself, for his own benefit. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, a way of turning back to God. Jesus had no need for this. John’s baptism was for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus had no sin. He didn’t need forgiveness! Jesus did not need John’s baptism. So why did he receive it? In receiving John’s baptism, Jesus was coming alongside the very people he had come to save. He was present to them, present for them. And in going under the water and then rising to the surface, Jesus was foreshadowing how he would save them once and for all – by dying and rising again.
As Jesus came up out of the water, we are told he saw the heavens torn apart. Jesus’ baptism is marked by this sign of cosmic significance! The veil between heaven and earth has been breached! The distance between a heavenly Father and his fallen world has been overcome. The barriers separating a sinful humanity from a holy God have come down.
The only other time Mark uses this phrase “torn apart” is right after Jesus dies on the cross, when the temple curtain which separated the holy from the sinful was torn apart. When Jesus sees the heavens “torn apart” apart at his baptism he is getting a glimpse of what his saving work would accomplish: there would no longer be anything in the way of sinners having a relationship with the living God.
As Jesus gets this glimpse of the heavens being torn apart, the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. It was just what John said would happen. Now the Spirit was upon the waters, just as it was at the creation. God was doing a new thing! By going into that water himself Jesus changed the very nature of baptism. He infused that water with his own saving presence. He infused it with the Holy Spirit. The one more powerful than John had come, and baptism would never be the same.
God the Father looked at all of this happening and smiled. He saw his Son in the water alongside common sinners and said, “Yes!” God the Father said. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” God the Father saw the Spirit and the Son splashing in the waters, bringing about a new, more powerful baptism, and God blessed it. The Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all gave high fives to each other. (That’s not in the text, but I think it is safe to infer that this happened!)
On this first Lord’s Day of the new year, when many of us are hopeful about new beginnings and fresh starts, our attention is turned away from a new calendar and towards Holy Baptism. We have something better to place our hope in than the fact that 2023 had turned to 2024. Because you see, this baptism of which John spoke has come. It has been given to us. (If you haven’t yet received it, that is something we would be glad to remedy!)
When you were baptized into Christ, the Lord Jesus met you in those waters. When you were baptized into Christ, you were given the Holy Spirit. In Holy Baptism you were reborn as a child of God. St. Paul teaches us that when we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his death and resurrection. In other words, the gift of salvation won for us on the cross is bestowed upon us through water and word and Spirit, making us Christians, making us his own forever.
New calendars are nice, and I have a few new year’s resolutions of my own, but the truth is, your baptism is the only clean slate you’ll ever need. And this new beginning can be claimed whenever you need it. In fact, Martin Luther teaches us in the catechism that baptism has a daily significance. It sets a daily pattern of dying and rising with Christ to newness of life, a daily pattern of putting off the old sinner and putting on the new person you are in him. We are invited, indeed encouraged, to return to the promises of baptism every day, and in do doing we are born again, and again, and again.
In the new, more powerful baptism established by our Lord Jesus, we are given a well of grace and mercy and forgiveness in our lives that never goes dry. Christ continues to be found in the water with sinners. The heavens continue to be torn open, giving us access to the presence of God.
And so, no matter what the calendar says, every day, every moment lived in light of what Christ has done to you and for you and in you in Holy Baptism is a new beginning, and a fresh start.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 25, 2023 | Sermons
Sermon for Christmas Day 2023
John 1:1-14
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Christmas Eve is traditionally the time when the church tells the story of Jesus’ birth. We get Joseph and Mary and shepherds and angels and the manger. They’re all still here today. They’re in our hymns and in our creche and in our hearts.
But on Christmas Day the focus turns from the story of Jesus’ birth to a deeper dive into the meaning of Jesus’ birth. And so we move from St. Luke, whose purpose in writing his gospel was to get down an “orderly account” of the story of Jesus, to St. John, who gets right to the heart of the meaning of it all.
John begins his gospel with language hearkening back to the creation account in Genesis:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”
John sets the scene for his gospel by describing the Word that existed with God and as God from the very beginning, before creation itself came into being. This Word brought creation into existence. This Word was and is the spark of life.
This is all very conceptual, very theological. It is beautiful and powerful and important, but so far these are ideas that John is putting before us. This Word is, at this point, remote. Abstract. Distant.
But not for long. Not for long, because John goes on to tell us that this Word came into the world! The world did not know him. Many of his own people did not accept him. But the Word came into the world, and to those who did receive him, he gave them power to become children of God. In other words, they were drawn into relationship with him, a close relationship.
And then comes the most wondrous statement of all: “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
Here is the meaning of Jesus’ birth: This Word that existed with God and as God from the beginning of time became a human being. What was abstract has become concrete. What we struggle to understand as an idea or a concept has become a person. The God who is above all, and through whom all things came into being, has entered his own creation, becoming incarnate, coming to us in the flesh as an infant.
And so what can sometimes seem so distant to us has come very, very close. The Word became flesh and lived among us! In theological terms this is called the incarnation. God took on human flesh to come close to us, to connect with us, to reconcile us to himself, to draw us into relationship with him.
My wife and I got into the habit of taking walks every day when we had our dog. Sadly, our dog died this summer. But while we lost our dog, we kept the walks. We found that we enjoyed them so much that we’d keep doing them. Only now that we aren’t juggling a leash and poop bags we have made a point of holding hands on our walks.
Some of you want to say, “Aww, how sweet,” right now, while others want to groan or roll your eyes. It’s okay. We are well aware that some see us strolling hand in hand and think it’s corny or cringey. But here’s the thing we have discovered by holding hands for a half an hour almost every day – it brings us closer. There is a connection there that is deepened. If we’ve been distant from each other or preoccupied, we are suddenly more present to each other. If we’ve been snippy with each other earlier in the day and there are lingering resentments, that all fades away with that human touch. It’s hard to stay mad at someone you’re holding hands with.
Sometime after we started this practice, I came across an article about the benefits of holding hands, which affirmed everything we’d noticed since we started doing it. It even gave scientific, biochemical explanations for how holding hands can lead better overall wellness, decreasing stress, soothing anxiety, lowering your blood pressure and heart rate.
This isn’t just for married people. Holding hands is not just a romantic gesture. Last week I went to see one of our church members who is in hospice. He is now in a haze of morphine, making it difficult to carry on a conversation. But the moment he recognized who I was he put out his hand, and I held it the entire time I was there. That human touch established a connection, a closeness.
When we hear John tell us that the Word became flesh and lived among us, he is telling us that in Christ, God has come close to us. God has come to us in the flesh. God has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ to establish a deep and close human connection with us. The Word became flesh so that instead of being distant, he can be present to us and for us. The Word became flesh so that any sin separating us from him can be overcome and we can be reconciled. The Word became flesh in order to bring us the wellness that comes from his touch.
You might be thinking to yourself at this point, “But pastor, Jesus came in the flesh a long time ago. He’s not here anymore. It’s not like we can hold his hand. He is not here in the flesh for us to touch today.”
Are you sure about that?
There is a moment in our worship service where we take hold of each other’s hands. We do it during the Passing of the Peace. You wouldn’t guess from how casual and chaotic it can be, but it is a holy moment. We, the church, are the Body of Christ, and so when we take hold of each other’s hands, we aren’t just saying “howdy.” We are connecting through human touch as the Body of Christ. We aren’t just touching each other, we are touching Him, the Word who became flesh. We are literally passing the peace of Christ!
There’s another moment in our worship service where this happens. It happens when the bread of the Lord’s Supper is placed in the palm of your hand. The Word becomes flesh as Christ’s body is given for you. When you touch that bread, you touch Him. When you take hold of that bread you are taking hold of him. And when you take hold of him, you are deeply, personally connected to Him. He is truly present for you. Any difficulties or troubles in the relationship melt away through his forgiveness. His touch makes us well.
The story of Christmas is something we hear once a year, but the meaning of Christmas is evident Sunday after Sunday. In fact, the meaning of Christmas shapes every moment of our lives as we come to see that God is not far off, not distant, not merely a concept or an idea, but is close, living among us, full of grace and truth. The meaning of Christmas is that in Jesus Christ the Word became flesh so that he might take your hand in his – today, and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 25, 2023 | Sermons
Sermon for Christmas Eve 2023
Luke 2:1-20
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
What are you getting for Christmas? When you are young, this seems like the most important question in the world this time of year. Will you be thrilled? Will you be disappointed? This week I heard someone on a podcast talking about a Christmas back in the 1980s, when he was ten years old. He thought for sure that those small, rectangle-shaped presents under the tree were the Nintendo game cartridges he so desperately wanted. He tore them open on Christmas morning only to find that they were different sets of flash cards. Math flash cards. Forty years later, you can still hear the disappointment in his voice.
What are you getting for Christmas? When you’re an adult the question is almost taboo. You’re not supposed to care. The most virtuous thing you can say is, “Oh, I don’t need anything. Don’t make a fuss. Oh, you shouldn’t have.” By and large, this reflects a maturity of sorts. It shows that you are no longer seeking happiness in products or possessions. You have come to see that the true joy of Christmas is not found in the material things you might get. And that is good.
But you have to admit it – when you see a gift and there’s a tag with your name on it, it’s a pretty great feeling! It gives you a little thrill, right? And it isn’t really so much the thing inside – whatever it may be. It is simply the fact that someone gave something to you. It is that you have been thought of. It is that someone cared enough about you to wrap something up and put your name on it.
It doesn’t even have to be a gift with wrapping and a bow – even going to the mailbox and seeing your name on an envelope containing a Christmas card instead of yet another bill is a wonderful thing. It is sheer grace. Instead of asking for something from you, it simply regards you. It blesses you. It is a gesture of goodwill towards you, for you.
It isn’t necessarily greed or narcissism that makes all this such a thrill. It can be those things, for sure, but it can also simply be our human longing for connection, our longing to be known, our longing to be loved.
What are you getting for Christmas? There is a gift being given tonight. It is a gift from God. It is the gift of God. And it has your name on it.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, the birth announcement went out. This birth announcement did not go out to kings and queens, to those with power and prestige. This birth announcement did not go out to the wealthy, to those who were the most prominent and respected. This birth announcement did not go out to the priests in the temple, to those who were the most spiritual or religious or devout. The birth announcement went out to shepherds. It went out to shepherds while they were at work, while they were putting in their shift in the fields, watching over their flocks by night.
This birth announcement came as a gift, and it had their name on it. This gift was for them! The angel giving this birth announcement said, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
We don’t even know the shepherds’ names. They were nobody in particular. And so they represent everybody! The shepherds represent you. As you hear this birth announcement, the gift is given to you. The angel said this was good news of great joy for all people, and so this gift has your name on it.
What are you getting for Christmas? “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior.” A savior is one who saves. The gift is the gift of salvation. The gift is the gift of God’s grace – for he has regarded you, he has seen you, he knows you, and he has come to you in the infant flesh of his Son to save you, to make you his own.
“Do not be afraid,” the angel said to the shepherds. You don’t need to be afraid either. You don’t need to be afraid of this birth announcement from God, this message. God has not come to intimidate you. God has not come to frighten you into obedience. God has come to you in the most non-threatening way possible – as an infant. God has come to you as a baby so that instead of being afraid you would look upon him with love and with joy and with awe.
You don’t need to be afraid of this baby. In fact, because of this baby, you don’t need to be afraid about anything anymore! You don’t need to be afraid of your past, your sins, your failures, your regrets – for in him all is forgiven. That’s exactly what this savior has come to do, to forgive you! Yes, even for that. The daily anxieties about life that we all wrestle with dissolve away when we remember to lay them at his manger, remembering that because of this child, this Savior, we have God walking with us through everything that life can throw at us, giving us strength, giving us peace, giving us hope.
Because of this baby you don’t even need to be afraid of death, for he has come to defeat even our greatest fear. He has overcome death so that we might live with him forever.
“Do not be afraid,” the angel said. This is part of the gift. We don’t have to be afraid about anything anymore. He’s got us. He is God with us.
What are you getting for Christmas? God has remembered you. God has regarded you. God has blessed you with a gift. This gift from God is the gift of God. With the birth of Jesus God has given you himself, so that you would know the love of God in your life. God has cleared away every barrier to a relationship with him, a relationship where you are known completely and loved eternally. There is absolutely nothing standing in the way of this relationship. It comes as a gift, and make no mistake about it – the tag has your name on it.
This season brings with it a lot of hopes, a lot of expectations, a lot of longings, a lot of pressures, a lot of emotions, a lot of disappointments. But as we sang earlier in our service in O Little Town of Bethlehem: “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” The “thee” there, of course, is Jesus, the Christ child, Emmanuel, God with us. His birth is good news of great joy for all people.
You may not think you need anything for Christmas this year, but God has seen your need for healing and for hope. God has seen your need for forgiveness. God has seen your need to be known and loved. God has seen the fears from which you need to be delivered.
And so for Christmas this year, God gives you the gift of a Savior, the gift of his Son – born for you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 12, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a sermon video for December 10
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent – December 10, 2023
Mark 1:1-8
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Preparing for Christmas gets more and more sentimental for me every year. We pull out the bins with all the Christmas stuff the day after Thanksgiving and begin to unpack the special things we’ve been storing all year. There is the ornament I made for Amy our first Christmas together, crafted from driftwood from the beach where we got engaged. There are the holiday recipes in my mother’s handwriting. There are the Santa pictures from back when our three boys were little and sweet instead of tall and sarcastic. With every passing year, these things become more and more precious to me. As the bins are unpacked and each item finds its place in preparation for Christmas, our house is transformed into a den of warmth and peace and comfort.
In our gospel reading for today we are invited to prepare for Christmas, but in a radically different way. Instead of bringing out what is precious to us, we are called to bring out the things that trouble us, the things we are ashamed of, the sins we’d rather leave packed away. Instead of warm sentimentality, we are splashed with the cold waters of John’s call to repentance. We will get to comfort, so stay with me, but to get there we must first be made uncomfortable.
We will be spending much of the liturgical year ahead in the gospel of Mark. Today we find ourselves at the very beginning of his gospel: chapter one, verse one. St. Mark begins his account the life of Jesus not with angels and shepherds and a baby in a manger, like St. Luke. He doesn’t begin with wise men visiting the Christ child, like St. Matthew. He doesn’t begin with profound theological statements about the Word becoming flesh, like St. John. Mark begins his gospel at the Jordan river. He begins with a call to repent, a call to confess our sins, bringing them out into the open, putting them on full display.
Mark begins with John the Baptist – or as he is more accurately described in Mark’s gospel, John the baptizer. After all, this is not about denominational affiliation. John the Baptist isn’t like Jeff the Lutheran or Doug the Presbyterian. John was a baptizer. John’s job was, in part, to prepare the way of the Lord with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This was not yet Christan baptism, as John himself says. It was, rather, a ritual of repentance. It was a ritual signifying a confession of sin and a return to God, a return to faithfulness. It was a ritual that was also used for Gentile converts who came to faith in the God of Israel. And now, at this moment, it was a ritual of preparation for the coming of the Lord.
People from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem were going out to the river Jordan to confess their sins. They went out to the river not with their precious treasures; they went with their dirty laundry. They went to the river with the things that troubled them, the things they were ashamed of, the sins that they would rather have kept packed away. They brought their sins to John the baptizer.
John was dressed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. In both his diet and his dress he was conjuring up the prophet Elijah. He was like one of those people who go to Comicon conventions dressed as their favorite character. Only John wasn’t engaging in cosplay. He wasn’t just playing dress-up. John was indeed an actual prophet. He was the last and the greatest of the prophets, because he had one foot in the old covenant and one foot in the new kingdom. He straddled the end of the old world and the beginning of the new. He embodied the prophets of the past while being the herald of the age that was now dawning. John announced the coming of everything the prophets before him had promised. He dressed in the clothing of a prophet to announce the arrival the One the prophets said would come – the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord.
John prepared the way of the Lord by calling people to repent, to receive his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, and the people prepared the way of the Lord by confessing their sin. They confessed their idolatry, all the ways they put their trust in something other than God. They confessed the ways they had lived as though they were their own gods, making themselves their highest authority and their highest good. They confessed their need for control and their lack of faith. They confessed their negligence in honoring God with lives that were holy, lives that were set apart for his service and lived in obedience to his will. They confessed the ways they had failed to love God with their whole heart and mind and strength, and their neighbors as themselves. The people prepared the way of the Lord by bringing this all out into the open, confessing their sin.
As we hear this gospel reading, this is what we’re invited to do too. This is what we’re invited to do every Sunday of course, but we are especially invited to repent, to confess, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of our Lord. This is uncomfortable, perhaps. It pushes us to look at the ways we have sinned. It pushes us to confess the ways we have turned to other gods, especially the god of the self. It pushes us to confess the ways we have grasped for control rather than living by faith, the ways we have been negligent in holiness, the ways we have failed to love God and one another. This isn’t warm, fun stuff. It makes us vulnerable. But it is how we prepare.
I went to see a dermatologist this week. We have a history of skin cancer in my family, with my sister having battled melanoma twice now, so I try to stay on top of it. It had been a couple years since I’ve had a full screening, but recently my barber noticed some things she thought I should have looked at, so it was time to go in. And when you go in for a skin cancer exam, you have to show them everything. I had to strip down to my skivvies and put on a hospital gown, which he then pulled back as needed in order to examine pretty much every square inch of my body, pointing out spots to his assistant along the way so she could get a look and make notes. It was not warm. It was not pleasant. It was uncomfortable.
Now imagine that I had refused. Imagine that I said, “No, I’m going to keep covered up,” or “No, I’m not showing you that.” How in the world would he then be able to help me? It was uncomfortable, but it was only by showing him everything that he can do his job of diagnosing me and making me well.
Confessing our sin puts us in a similarly vulnerable position. It isn’t comfortable. But we can do so because we know that this Lord of whom John speaks is coming to help us. He is coming to be our savior! We prepare for his coming by confessing our sin, especially by showing him our trouble spots, so that he can do the job he has come to do in making us well. This Lord is bringing a forgiveness even greater than John’s. This Lord is bringing a baptism not of water alone, but of water and Word and Spirit. This Lord comes to make us well by restoring us to God forever.
Soon we will celebrate this Lord’s birth. We prepare ourselves spiritually by repenting, by turning away from everything in our lives that is not godly. We prepare ourselves by confessing our sin, bringing it out so that he can cure it with his grace, which is what he is coming to do. This is precisely why he was born. He was born for you. He was born to be your savior. He was born so that all would be well for you in your relationship with God.
Listen to how Isaiah describes the coming of the Lord:
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, tell her that her penalty has been paid….Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain made low…then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed…Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up and do not fear…See, the Lord comes…he will feed his flock like a shepherd….he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”
St. Mark, sacrificing prose for brevity, puts it far more simply when he writes: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
“Comfort, comfort my people,” says our God. There is a comfort that is far deeper than anything we pull out of Christmas bins, as precious as those things can be to us. There is a warmth that is warmer than sentimentality and nostalgia. Even with the splash of cold water we get from John the baptizer this morning, this comfort and warmth is ours as we see that the coming of the Lord is good news. You see, God in Christ has made a pathway straight to you, so that you would know his forgiveness, his mercy, his love. The Lord comes to feed his flock like a shepherd, to gather us in his arms and carry us in his bosom. He comes with a forgiveness and a baptism far greater than John’s, as John himself was quick to note.
And so today we are empowered to confess our sin. Today we are empowered to repent. Today we are empowered to show our trouble spots to this Lord of ours, who comes to us even now to heal us with his forgiveness, to comfort us with his grace, to wrap us in the warmth of his great love. Today we are empowered to show him everything, trusting that through his saving work, he will make us well.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
