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
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
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
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 23, 2024 | Sermons
Click here for a worship video for December 22
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 22, 2024
Luke 1:39-45
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Some of the most cherished and precious memories of my life are from when my wife was carrying our unborn children. I remember the first time our first son kicked in the womb. It was at a Mariners game after Amy had eaten a half-order of garlic fries. He leaped with joy for those garlic fries, and he still likes them! I remember with our second son lying on the couch in the parsonage in Winlock and Amy picking up my hand and resting it on her belly, right on the place where our son was kicking. I remember with our third son going to a performance of the Seattle Symphony with my wife, late in her pregnancy. She was wearing a little black dress, proudly protruding with seven months’ worth of baby underneath. She was gorgeous and radiant. And this wasn’t just me who thought so – she cut through the crowd like a rock star or a queen. People were pointing at her and smiling. Part of the concert was a performance of Bach’s Magnificat, so people were already excited about pregnant ladies, and they were all thrilled to see one in real life! Amy was the star of the intermission. These are some of my most cherished memories and my greatest blessings in life.
What we have in our gospel reading for this morning are some of the most cherished memories of the Christian church. Many of the world’s most respected Biblical scholars believe that Saint Luke, who set about to write an orderly account of the life of Jesus based on eyewitness testimony, wrote the verses we hear today based on conversations he had with Mary herself as she shared her cherished memories with him. And these memories are full of blessings! And these blessings are not only for Mary. These memories are full of blessings for all of us.
After learning that she would bear a child, Mary went to visit her aunt Elizabeth, who was herself six months along with a miraculous pregnancy, having conceived in her old age. When Mary arrived at Elizabeth’s home in the hill country of Judea, the baby Elizabeth was carrying leaped in her womb. We have here, preserved in scripture, the precious memory of a baby kicking. The unborn, grapefruit-sized prophet, John, was already doing his job of pointing to the unborn, pea-sized savior, Jesus. This led Elizabeth to proclaim the first of three blessings: “Blessed are you among women!” she said to Mary.
Now think about this blessing. Mary was not wealthy. She was not powerful. She was a poor girl from a small village. If she had an Instagram account, she wouldn’t have much to post about with the hashtag “blessed!” And yet, Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you among women.”
Mary is unique in the way she is blessed. We’ll hear more about that in a minute. But this memory is a blessing for all of us, because it tells us that God chooses people who are not the most obvious candidates for blessing. God calls those who are not necessarily wealthy or powerful. God notices and loves people who are not the “influencers” of their time. And so, God’s blessing falls upon us as well. Our often-unnoticed lives are not unnoticed or unimportant to God! God blesses us too. God blesses you.
And here is how God blesses you: he has come to you in Mary’s child. For the second blessing proclaimed by Elizabeth to Mary is: “And blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Elizabeth knew who Mary was carrying. She said so in no uncertain terms. “Why has this happened to me,” she continued, “that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Mary was carrying the Lord, a term which, for two Jewish women, meant one thing only. It meant Mary was carrying the Lord God himself! That is what this term Elizabeth uses means! And so Mary is uniquely blessed among women in that she is the mother of God.
Here we have what is the heart and the scandal and the wonder of Christianity: That the Lord of all creation, the One who established the entire universe, came into it as a cluster of fetal cells in Mary’s womb. “Blessed is the fruit of your womb,” Elizabeth proclaimed. Blessings, indeed. For by coming into the world in this way, God has become Emmanuel, God with us. In all our humanity, in all our frailty, in all our vulnerability, God has come to be with us.
Elizabeth then said to Mary, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Martin Luther once preached a sermon where he said there were three miracles in this chapter in Luke’s gospel. The first miracle, he said, is that a virgin would conceive. This wasn’t a huge deal, really. After all, God created the world out of nothing – surely he could have a virgin conceive! The second miracle is that God became a human being. This was a much bigger miracle, no doubt about it. But the third miracle, Luther said, was that Mary believed it – and Luther said that this third miracle was the biggest miracle of all! Mary trusted the word of the Lord! Mary had faith! She trusted the promise! “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
This third miracle continues to happen today. It is happening right now as God speaks his word to you, stirring you to faith, inviting you to believe, calling you to trust in his promises. What God conceived in Mary’s womb continues to be conceived in your ear and in your heart as God puts his word in there, telling you that he is near to you, nearer than you might think or feel. He has come to you in the Lord Jesus to forgive your sin, to show you his great love for you, and to assure you that you belong to him forever. Blessed are you who believe that there will be a fulfillment of what has been spoken to you by the Lord!
We have a tendency to romanticize our memories. I know I do. As our boys come home for Christmas as young adults and Amy and I reminisce and share memories with them and the special people in their lives, I know we mostly remember the best parts. As magical as Amy’s pregnancies seem to me now, if I think hard enough, I can remember being worried – worried about money, worried about the responsibilities of fatherhood, worried knowing that giving birth is never without risk. It was indeed a wonderful time, but it was an anxious time too.
It is easy to romanticize these memories of the Christian church too, and we shouldn’t. We should remember the terrible danger Mary was in as an unwed mother in that time and place. While part of the motivation for Mary to go to her aunt and uncle’s house in the hill country was to see her pregnant Aunt Elizabeth for herself and probably to help as one of her midwives, it was also true that it was probably a pretty good time for Mary to get out of Nazareth. Once Mary started showing, there would be all kinds of rumors going around. Surely part of Mary’s motivation, then, was to avoid some of that scandal and the very real danger it brought. If she was out of sight and out of mind for a few months, the math surrounding the dates of her wedding and her delivery date would be a little more fuzzy. People would be less likely to figure things out. And so, even amidst the very real blessings, this was no doubt a time of anxiety for her.
There would have been difficulties for Elizabeth too. While she was no doubt thrilled to be expecting a child in her old age, she also probably had to endure the snickers and knowing smiles of people who were surprised to find out that their elderly priest and his wife were still…active in that way. More seriously, having a child now would also have been a sad reminder of all those lost years when she was younger and had more energy to do things with her child, when she might have expected to live long enough to see her child marry, perhaps even to become a grandmother – something that surely wouldn’t happen now. And so it had to have been bittersweet for her. There had to have been some complicated emotions around the edges of her joy, as is often the case for all of us.
But it was right into the anxiety and the danger and the bittersweet, right into the middle of these fraught situations and their complicated emotions that these blessings came: The blessing of God’s favor, the blessing of a Savior, the blessing of faith.
As Christmas comes this week, many feel immense pressure to create memories that are just so. Many people feel a lot of pressure to have things be magical in one way or another. If that’s how it ends up being for you, wonderful. For others who are experiencing grief or estrangement or loneliness, the joy of Christmas can be tainted by lots of complicated emotions. But know that the blessings of God came to Mary and Elizabeth in a complicated set of circumstances, and they can come to you that way too.
No matter what today or the next few days or the new year ahead brings for you, these precious memories of the nascent life Mary and Elizabeth carried are for you to cherish and ponder. They have been handed down to us by Mary and dutifully recorded for us by Saint Luke so that we might delight in them, that we might learn from them, that we might trust in what God is telling us through them. Whether you are young or old, a parent or childless, male or female, they are the memories we hold collectively as the church, and so they are yours.
And they tell us that God comes to and calls and notices and loves people you wouldn’t necessarily expect, people like you and me. They tell us that the Lord himself entered the world through the womb of Mary so that he could come and be with us, so that he could come to save us. They tell us that when we believe this, when we believe the word spoken to us by the Lord, we too are truly blessed.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 16, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for December 15
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent – December 15, 2024
Luke 3:7-18
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
When people come to church, I usually say something like, “Welcome!” or “Good morning!” or “Good to see you!” I am genuinely happy to see people come through the doors for worship, no matter who they are. I’ll bet you’re the same way. In fact, our Stephen Ministers have recently been serving as greeters, and I’ve never seen anything but a smile on their faces and I’ve never heard anything but sincere joy when they see people coming in to worship.
And if somebody shows up at Oak Harbor Lutheran to be baptized? Well, I am thrilled! I am ecstatic. I even get a little giddy.
John the Baptist? Not so much, it seems. As we heard in our gospel reading for today, entire crowds of people came out to be baptized by him. And how did he respond? He said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
So maybe we don’t want John the Baptist serving as a greeter here at OHLC. But as blunt and rude as John sounds here, he is really just doing his job. His job was to prepare the way of the Lord. His job was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. And part of his work in preparing the way involved reminding people of why they need this Messiah, why they need to be saved, why they need to be rescued and redeemed.
And so John calls the crowd “a brood of vipers.” He doesn’t single out any one group or behavior – everyone gets tagged with this unsettling name. A brood of vipers is a nest of young snakes. A brood of vipers is a mass of slithering baby serpents. I’m not making this better for John, am I? To be sure, the language is unsettling, even insulting, but – it is theologically accurate! John calls those in the crowd the offspring of the serpent. He is inferring that they are the descendants of those in the Garden of Eden who followed the serpent into sin. We say the same thing in our baptism liturgy, only with more polite language: “We are born children of a fallen humanity.”
The crowds don’t argue with John. They don’t deny that they are in league with the serpent. Instead, they ask what they should do. And John tells them. If you have two coats and you see someone who has zero coats, share one of yours! Do the same with food! Don’t be greedy! If you’re a tax collector, don’t cheat. If you’re a soldier, don’t extort people and don’t be a bully.
This is not advanced ethics. All of this is already laid out in the Law. The Ten Commandments already taught all of this! None of what John teaches here is new information. None of it is complicated or extraordinary or heroic behavior. This is “Being a Decent Human Being 101.” But the fact that they need to be told to do the most basic ethical thing is revealing.
In preschool chapel recently I was teaching a lesson about the Ten Commandments and I introduced the topic by asking the kids what some of the rules are at preschool. And one of the kids said that one of the rules at preschool is “No kicking people in the head.” You would think this would go without saying, but apparently this little guy needed to be told. The rule itself, then, is revealing, isn’t it! Well, what John is saying here is just the grown-up version of that! That the crowd needed to be told the most basic things about how to conduct themselves just further reveals that they are indeed descendants of the fallen, that they are children of the serpent who deceived humanity into sin.
What John might lack in tact, he makes up for with truth. He tells the truth about the crowds, and the truth about us. John is accurate and honest about our condition, our situation. We may not be extorting people or kicking them in the head, but we too are born children of a fallen humanity – and we shouldn’t need to scratch too deeply beneath the surface of our lives to see that this is true.
In this way John is like a doctor who tells you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. John may not have the best bedside manner, but as a diagnostician he is accurate and he is honest. He announces a diagnosis. He bluntly points out the venom in our veins, and he prescribes some behavioral changes, some lifestyle changes.
But, like a good doctor does, he also goes a step further. Seeing that our condition will not ultimately be remedied by lifestyle changes – as important as those lifestyle changes are – he refers us out. Knowing that his prescription will only manage our symptoms, at best, he refers us to another. He refers us to a specialist.
As soon as people started wondering whether John himself might be the Messiah, John admitted that he wasn’t. He admitted that they were going to need help from someone else. He told them that someone who was more powerful than him was coming. He would be the expert in curing the snake sickness we have inherited. He would be the specialist in this area. John isn’t worthy even to untie the thong of his sandals. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” John said.
On the surface, this sounds like more of the same from John. On the surface, John’s words about what the Messiah will do continue to sound ominous. Fire is a symbol of judgement. John says the Messiah will come with a winnowing fork in his hand – and whatever that is, it doesn’t sound like something you want to be on the wrong end of. John says that the Messiah will separate the wheat from the chaff, with the chaff being destroyed in an unquenchable fire.
Is this a specialist with whom you want an appointment? On the surface, maybe not. But thankfully, we can interpret this language from the perspective of what the Messiah did when he came. We can interpret this language from the perspective of who the Messiah ended up being. We can interpret it through the lens of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus came, he removed the chaff from people through the fire of his love. He showed mercy towards sinners, announcing that they were forgiven. This removed the chaff, that sheath of sin surrounding and obscuring the valuable wheat within. Jesus gathered in the precious grains of wheat, restoring them to the granary of God by the fire of his grace.
When Jesus came, he took the fire of judgement upon himself on the cross. He endured the winnowing fork with his own body, taking our sin upon himself so that we would be free.
When Jesus came, he not only died for our sin, he rose again – breaking the curse of the serpent, conquering sin and death forever, raising us to new life with him.
When Jesus came, he brought with him a new baptism, just as John said. Jesus told his disciples to go to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul teaches us that this baptism joins us to Jesus’ death and resurrection, for it takes the salvation he won for us on the cross and gives it to us personally. St. Peter teaches us that this baptism “now saves you.”
This is indeed a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.
It is a baptism of the Holy Spirit because God comes to us in it. God is present and at work in it. Through it, God gives us his Spirit, that he might continue to guide us and teach us and repent us and renew us and comfort us throughout our lives. And by the power of this Spirit, truly good works begin to come out of us.
It is a baptism of fire because through it, God gives us his name – just as he did for Moses through the burning bush. It is a baptism of fire because through it, God leads us out of bondage – just as God led Israel by the pillar of fire. It is a baptism of fire because it puts good news in our hearts and on our lips, just as it did as tongues of fire fell upon the disciples. It is a baptism of fire because through it, God destroys everything that separates us from him.
John the Baptist is a good diagnostician. Jesus calls him the greatest of all the prophets. But John’s most important job is to refer us to the specialist, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Once the specialist goes to work on you, things are different. As the one who is more powerful than John, Jesus doesn’t just diagnose, he cures. His message isn’t just, “Do better!” It is “Your sins are forgiven.”
With the baptism he brings, we are no longer a brood of vipers. We are no longer children of the serpent. With the baptism he brings, we have been reborn as children of God and warmly welcomed into life with him, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 9, 2024 | Sermons
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent – December 8, 2024
Luke 3:1-6
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
The roughest road I’ve ever been on (that wasn’t a forest service road) was Cleveland Avenue in Saint Paul, Minnesota. While I was in seminary there I worked part-time at a bookstore, and I took the bus to work. There are a lot of bad roads in Minnesota due to the frost heaves that buckle the roads every year, but Cleveland Avene was the worst. This road didn’t have potholes, it had craters! I could always tell when we hit Cleveland Avenue because the bus would start to shudder. That was your signal to hold on for dear life, because next came the bone-jarring bouncing up and down. That bus bounced so hard I thought for sure the drive shaft was going to snap! I thought the windows would shatter! I thought the wheels on the bus would go flying off, flying off, flying off. It was terrible.
But then a voice would come over the intercom. The voice was shaky, vibrating, and tremulous because of the violent shaking of the bus, but the message was firm and clear: “Next stop, Como Avenue.” When I heard that voice, I knew that the rocky ride was almost over. When I heard that voice, I knew that I was almost home.
The people of Israel traveled a rocky road. They had been overrun by the Babylonians, their cities and towns decimated. They had been marched off into exile, held in captivity in Babylon. They were far from home, and longed to return. They were surrounded by foreign gods and were tempted to forsake the one true God and start worshipping these idols. It was a temptation that was too much for some. Many gave in. The people of Israel were far from home, and they were far from God. It was a rough road. It was a bone-jarring experience. They were holding on for dear life.
But then came a voice crying out in the wilderness. The prophet Isaiah came with words of demand and promise: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Isaiah called the people to get ready. He called them to prepare themselves. He told them that God was going to act. God was going to straighten out the crooked path they were on. God was going to smooth out the rough ways. God was going to make a road home.
Fast forward several hundred years. The people of Israel were home, but now they were being oppressively ruled by Romans instead of Babylonians. In our gospel reading for today St. Luke reminds his readers of what the political situation in Israel was like. He tells us the brutal Roman leader Pontius Pilate was serving as governor of Judea. He tells us the conniving, murderous Herod was ruler over Galilee. He tells us the self-serving Annas and Caiaphas were serving as the high priests. This roots the story in real history. This is not a pretend, “once upon a time” story, but something that really happened.
But the naming of all these figures from real history also serves to remind everyone what a difficult time this was for the people of God. Just as had happened in Babylon, they were under the thumb of their enemies. Just as happened in Babylon, many had turned away from the one true God and were increasingly comfortable with the pagan gods whose statues were popping up all over Israel. Just as happened in Babylon, many were compromising their faith in order to make a buck, in order to ingratiate themselves with their oppressors. Those who remained faithful faced a particularly rough road. It was a bone-jarringly difficult time. God’s people were holding on for dear life.
But then came a voice. Then came a new prophet. Then came John the Baptizer. St. Luke describes him as a new Isaiah. John came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. He called the people to turn away from those other gods. He called them to turn towards the one true God, the God who loved them, the God who had rescued their ancestors, the God who was coming to save them. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
As God’s people today, we often travel a rough road. Our lives often look like a crooked path, zigging this way and zagging that way. Oftentimes it feels all uphill. Sometimes life is a bone-jarring experience. Sometimes we feel like we’re holding on for dear life.
But today we hear a voice. Today through the living Word of God, we hear the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. God speaks to us today through the prophet John, via the writings of St. Luke.
Today we are called to repentance. To repent means to turn. It means turning away from sin. It means turning away from all the false gods we find ourselves serving. We may not be praying to a statue of a Roman deity, but we might well be putting our trust in things that are not God. Maybe we’re serving the god of politics, making it the be-all and end-all of our lives. Maybe we’re serving the god of home entertainment. Maybe we’re serving the god of Jack Daniels or the god of money. The most common false god of all is the god of the self, thinking we are the center of the universe, the independent arbiter of right and wrong, and the definer of our own realities. To repent is to turn away from all of this. It is to turn away from the chronic idolatry that plagues our lives. It is to turn away from sin.
To repent is also to turn towards. It is to turn towards the one true God. It is to turn towards the God who loves us and forgives us, the God who rescues and saves us, the God who joyfully receives us through his grace and welcomes us home to him.
To repent is not merely an exercise of the will. It is much deeper than that. Repentance is what happens when God’s Word comes to us and shakes us up. It is what happens when God gets our attention, when God “repents us” away from our sin and towards himself. This is what God is doing for us today as he has called and gathered us by the Holy Spirit to come and hear his voice.
This voice also calls us to prepare. “Prepare the way of the Lord,” the prophet says. As Christmas approaches, many of us are preparing our homes for the holidays. We decorate. We spruce things up. We do a little extra cleaning so things look nice for our guests. Similarly, we sometimes think the preparation we’re called to here involves sprucing ourselves up, cleaning up our bad habits, decorating our lives with a few good deeds here and there. This isn’t wrong, exactly. Perhaps that’s exactly what the Holy Spirit is prompting in you as you are “repented.”
But to prepare the way of the Lord is not just about cleaning up your life. It is about handing your whole life over to God – even the messy parts, especially the messy parts! It isn’t just about cleaning your room, it is about making room. It is about making room for him in our lives. It is about making room for him in our lives by setting aside time to be in his Word, time to be in prayer. We prepare the way of the Lord by making room in our lives for worship. We add extra worship services on Wednesdays during Advent for just that purpose. We are preparing not only our homes, but our hearts. We are preparing not only for Christmas, but for Christ.
For many people, life in general, and perhaps the holiday season in particular, feels like a ride down Cleveland Avenue. It is filled with a lot of bone-jarringly difficult moments. It feels like things are about to snap, about to shatter, about to break. Sometimes we feel like we’re holding on for dear life. Sometimes it feels like the wheels are about to fly off.
But then comes a voice.
The prophet John doesn’t just call us to repent. He doesn’t just call us to prepare. He also gives us a promise from God. He promises us that all the rough ways will be made smooth. He promises us that home is just around the corner. He assures us that the day is upon us when all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
With these words, John is pointing us to the coming savior. He is pointing us to Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. He is pointing to Jesus, who comes to us with forgiveness, life, and salvation. With the coming of Jesus, we have a smooth and straight path home to God, where we find true hope, true joy, and true peace, today and forever.
Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
