Rev. Charles Lehmann + Pentecost + Acts 2

In the Name of + Jesus.  Amen.

On the day of Pentecost, the people who were assembled saw one of the most amazing spectacles in all of the Scriptures.  Tongues of fire came down on the apostles.  It was as if there were twelve burning bushes preaching to the crowd.  All of them were on fire, but none of them burned.

We might be tempted to think that if we could put on a show like that we’d have people breaking down the doors to get in.  Within a few months we’d have enough money on the bank to build a new building with all the fancy stuff that people look for in a church these days.  That’s the temptation.  We want to do what we can to grow the Lord’s church.

But the fact is that there is no church in the world, big or small, that could pull off the spectacle that happened at Pentecost.  You would need special effects that don’t even exist yet.  You would need fire to appear spontaneously in the air with no apparent source, you would need a team of translators, and you would need a way to make one person in the crowd hear one thing, and the person standing next to them hear something else entirely.  Neither Joel Osteen nor Rick Warren nor Steven Spielberg could do it. 

But fortunately for them and for us, they don’t have to.  Acts 2, verse 7 does not read, “And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Did you see those tongues of flame coming down on those guys up there?  That was totally awesome!’”  In fact, even if you were to read every manuscript of the book of Acts that exists, you would never find any record that the crowd mentioned the fire at all. You see, it is not the tongues of fire that amazed the people.  It was not the sound of the rushing wind.  If the people were impressed by what they saw, they didn’t say so.  What impressed them was that they heard the mighty acts of God in their own language.

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Exaudi + John 15:26-16:4

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Rogate + Numbers 21:4-9

In the Name of + Jesus.  Amen.

When Jonah arrived in Nineveh, he spoke one of the shortest prophecies in all of Scripture.  “Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”  After giving this word of God to the Ninevites, they did something that Jonah never expected.  They repented.  They put on sackcloth and ashes.  They begged God for mercy.

When Jonah saw all this, he was spitting mad.  He knew the score.  He knew that those who beg God for His mercy receive it.  He knew that God would rather show love to the Ninevites than pour out his wrath upon them.

That’s why Jonah had run away in the first place.  He didn’t want the Ninevites to be warned.  He wanted them to burn.  They deserved it.  But now it was all for naught.  They had repented and God wasn’t going to kill them.

Jonah still held onto a bit of hope, though.  He went up on the mountain by the city and waited for the forty days to elapse.  He wanted to be there just in case.  If God destroyed the Ninevites, Jonah wanted to be there to see it.

As you know, Jonah was disappointed.  God didn’t fulfill the prophecy that Jonah had spoken.  He showed mercy to the city.  He spared them.

If you think about the story of Jonah, our Old Testament reading ends up making a lot more sense.  The Israelites are every bit as evil and ungrateful as the Ninevites were.  God had judged Pharaoh and Egypt with ten plagues that brought the nation to its knees.  He had brought them out of the land of slavery and had promised to bring them to a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Cantate + Isaiah 12:1-6

In the Name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Eleven years ago I spent a week in New Orleans.  When you mention that city a lot of things come to mind.  Some of you probably think of the devestation that Hurricane Katrina brought and the hard work that has been done to help the city recover.  Some of you might think of Bourbon Street where sin and depravity have completely overcome the people who live and work there.  Some might think of the wonderful Cajun flavors you can enjoy in the city’s many restaurants.  Though all of those things do come to mind for me, what my thoughts immediately turn to is music.

On every main thoroughfare in New Orleans, you’ll find musicians.  They will play jazz or blues renditions of any tune you can imagine.  When they play, their faces are filled with emotion: pain, joy, grief, peace, or all of the above.  Their instrument case or hat is on the sidewalk, and if you enjoy their music, you throw in a dollar or two.  By the end of the week I was in New Orleans, the musicians knew there were lots of Lutherans around and we started hearing beautiful renditions of “A Mighty Fortress” and other hymns.

There is one song, however, that will always stick with me.  On day I was walking along Canal Street and heard at least a dozen saxophones and other instruments playing “When the Saints go marching in.”  I came around the corner and saw that it was a funeral procession.  All the street musicians were following a casket as it was carried to a cemetery.

The music was celebratory, grief-stricken, and defiant all at the same time.  The musicians were daring sin, death, and hell.  They were using their music to tell Satan in no uncertain terms that they weren’t afraid of him.

The fallen musician was not going to be dead forever.  He was going to rise again.  He was going to live and would play his music with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven forever and ever.

That is what the procession communicated.  These musicians weren’t going to let Satan have the last word.  Their music had something better to say than he ever could.  They used music to say it because music is powerful.  By hearing what a person sings, you know what is in their heart, what is most important to them, what is really at the center of their lives.

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Easter 4 + Lamentations 3:22-33
 
In the Name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Alleluia!  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

The life of a Christian is hard.  We live as children of promise.  Our Lord has gone through death ahead of us and come out alive on the other side.  Because of this we know that the same is in store for us.  We will die, but we will also live.  Our bodies will be raised to new life in Christ and, like him, we will live forever and ever.

But that’s not the way it usually feels in this life.  We often feel like the dry bones we heard about two weeks ago.  We are brittle and ready to disintegrate into dust.  Hope is difficult.  Death is all around us and sometimes we wonder where our next meal is coming from.

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Misericordias Domini + Psalm 23

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Quasimodogeniti + John 20:19-31

In the Name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Thomas gets a bad rap, and he deserves it.  He is not in the locked upper room when Jesus appears to the twelve.  He doesn’t see Jesus’ hands and side.  He doesn’t hear it when God gives the ten the authority to bind and forgive sins.  He’s not there.  He misses it all.

But that doesn’t let him off.  The disciples who are there go to Thomas and say to him, “We have seen the Lord!”  Thomas has the eyewitness testimony of ten of his closest friends.  He has no good reason to doubt what they’ve said to him.  But even so, Thomas protests.  He makes an unreasonable demand.  He says, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

When we hear Thomas’ words, we respond with shock and dismay.  How dare he?  How dare he make such demands?  He should believe what the disciples tell him.  And even if Thomas has his doubts about what the disciples did or didn’t see, he should remember what Jesus said before He was crucified.

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Rev. Charles Lehmann + Maundy Thursday + Ex. 12 & 1 Cor. 11

In the Name of + Jesus.  Amen.

We have already heard the words by which God instituted the feast of the Passover.  The first Passover was celebrated in the homes of slaves.  It was filled with expectation, joy, and sadness.  God had promised that He was going to bring His people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.  He was going to judge all of Egypt.  The night would be filled with joyful expectation for the Israelites and unprecedented grief for the Egyptians.

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