For the first Sunday of Lent we go back to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark.

There we recall Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist.

Then we hear how the Spirit immediately drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days.

In the wilderness Jesus is tempted by Satan.

Satan is the great tempter who wants to throw Jesus off of his mission and to turn Jesus away from God.

We do not hear in Mark how he was tempted.

But we know how he was tempted because Matthew and Luke record the details of the temptation.

If you would like to study this further you can read from Matthew chapter four or from Luke chapter four.

In Luke and Matthew Jesus is tempted with food, with power, and finally with glory.

Here Satan is tempting Jesus with glory that is not from God rather it is a false glory from Satan.

Each time Jesus fights through the temptation that Satan throws at him.

And Jesus passes all three tests.

In the end the angels minister to him.

In the Bible angels are spiritual beings who work for God.

Here angels assist Jesus.

Jesus has fasted for forty days.

He has been severely tested by Satan.

Jesus is God but Jesus is also a man.

As a human being Jesus needs to recover just like any other person who experiences such trials.

The angels provide the encouragement and support that he needs to get back on his feet in order to continue with his mission.

And look what happens after the angel’s minister to Jesus.

In verse fourteen of Mark it says, “After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee.”

And why does he come to Galilee?

What does he do there?

He begins his ministry.  He begins his ministry in a place where he grew up and where the people are in need of good news.

Verse fourteen continues by saying that he was proclaiming the good news of God.

And in verse fifteen saying, “The time is fulfills, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Just two verses here in Mark but there is so much here to unpack.

Jesus has just picked up where John left off.

He is John’s successor.

He will continue in the good work that John started.

John proclaimed that there would be one who would come after him who would be the true messiah.

Here at verse fourteen and fifteen the prophetic words of John have come true.

Jesus is the One who will usher fourth God’s new kingdom.

He will be the messiah who will save God’s people.

The kingdom of God has come near and the time is fulfilled because Jesus is here.

This is good news indeed.

Why is this good news?

It is good for these three specific reasons.

The first reason is that it is the good news of hope for God’s people.

At that time, two thousand years ago, the world was a very dangerous place.

The ancient world was a very pessimistic world.

Life expectancy was short.  There was hunger and sickness everywhere.

The Romans ruled in cruel and ruthless ways.

And suddenly in the midst of this pain and suffering here comes Jesus.

He is giving hope to the people.

He is feeding people, teaching people about God’s grace, healing people, and in telling the people the good news that in him they are on the path of life rather than death.

Truly this is the good news of hope for the people.

The second reason is that it is the good news of promise.

God’s promises as they are proclaimed by Jesus in Scripture are key to our faith lives.

In his ministry Jesus will teach the people that God is more ready to give than we are to receive.

Jesus will preach about God’s grace and compassion.

At that time people thought of God as a God of rewards and punishments.

If you were good you were rewarded by God.

If you were bad you were punished by God.

Jesus teaches the people that God desires to forgive God’s people when they turn from God and that God desires to show us grace and not punishment.

How do we know that this is true?

Look to Jesus’ parables and teachings.

For example, consider the parable that Jesus teaches us in the story of the prodigal Son.

In that parable we hear of a father desperate to show love and grace for his son who has turned away from him in sinful living.

So too is God ready and eager to welcome us in his open arms of forgiveness and grace.

This is the good news of promise.

God promises to show us such love.

The third reason is that it is the good news of salvation.

In the Bible the words salvation and healing are closely connected.

Jesus not only saves us for eternal life but Jesus heals our broken hearts so that we might live victorious lives free from the fears of death, sin, and temptation.

In Christ we receive the Good News that we will be saved from all that which steals life from us.

To give us good news is the purpose and mission of Jesus’ life.

In fact, that is how Mark opens his Gospel.

If you have your Bibles nearby turn to the very beginning of Mark.

Mark chapter one verse one reads:

“This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

To believe in the good news that Jesus preached is to believe that God loves the world so much that he will make any sacrifice necessary to bring us back to God’s self even the sacrifice of God’s Son on the cross.

This new season of Lent let’s ponder the message of the Gospel which is the good news that we receive in Jesus.

May our Lenten journey take us once again to the cross where we give witness to God’s unfailing and enduring love given and shed for us in his Son, Jesus, our Lord and our Savior.

On this first Sunday of Lent this is good news for all people.

Amen.

For the next five weeks I invite us to explore more deeply what it means to practice our faith in our day to day lives.

Each week I will dig into a new faith topic.

Today I will begin with stewardship of self-care or another way of saying it might be to say the task of caring for our bodies.

The Bible teaches us that we belong to God.

In the book of Genesis, we learn that we are made in the very image of God and the Apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Knowing that we are made in God’s image and that we are temples of the Holy Spirit we are to be wise stewards and faithful managers of our bodies -knowing all the while that we are God’s.

Self-care then can be seen as spiritual stewardship or it can be seen as a faith practice.

The healthy choices that we make connects with our spiritual lives when we put the two together.

Also, the way that we value life and how we seek to protect life connects with our faith and our relationship with God.

Martin Luther writes in his Small Catechism that we are to fear and to love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs.

From loving and protecting all of life from the unborn, to children, to adults, to the elderly we value and cherish all of life – as followers of Christ we believe that  all of life is God-given.

“It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works,” says the Psalmist.

All of life comes from God.  God is the source of all life.  So, all life is to be protected and cared for.

Because of sin it is too easy to forget that we are all made in God’s image.

We do forget.

Saint Jerome, the great theologian of the fourth century, said he whom we look down upon, whom we cannot bear to see, the very sight of whom causes us to be sick, is the same as we are, formed with us from the same clay of the earth, compacted of the same elements.

This quote reminds us of the words we hear on Ash Wednesday.

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

We may think that we have very little in common with some people but actually we have very much in common.

We are all made of the same elements and we will all return to the same earth.

For example, my neighbor who I feel is very different from me is not all that different after all.

Our bodies are made of the same materials and we will both one day return completely to the earth.

The only difference then that remains is faith.

Faith says that our bodies are more than bones and flesh and blood.

Our faith says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Our faith says that one day God through the power of Jesus will resurrect our bodies from the grave.

Again in 1 Corinthians Paul states in verse fourteen that in great power God raised Jesus from the dead and Paul continues… that God will raise us also.

One day God will create a new body for us in the resurrection.

But for now, until that day comes, we are to love and to honor the bodies that God has given us.

We are to care for our bodies and to practice self-care as a way of living our faith.

We do it as a way of saying thank you God for you have made me a temple of the Holy Spirit.

I will honor and respect this temple by caring for this body that you made.

How do we practice self-care?

How do we care for our health?

This is a topic that I have given a lot of thought to over the years hopefully you have as well.

For me thinking about stewardship of self-care begins with a monk and a cup of green tea.

I will explain.

When I was a teenager, we lived close to a monastery.

We lived in the corner of Northwest Illinois near Dubuque.

Just on the other side of Dubuque was a Trappist Monastery called New Mellerary Abbey.

My father made regular visits to this monastery often joining the monks in prayer.

On one particular visit my Dad came home very excited to tell me about a conversation that he had with one of the monks.

The conversation was about green tea.

The monk had shared that he daily drank green tea for its health benefits.

The monk explained how it was one simple way that he could care for his health each day and by doing so practice self-care.

As a young person at the time, I was probably a junior in high school, I really looked up to such spiritual people.

I thought to myself that if this monk was drinking green tea for his health as a way to care for the body that God gave him than I must too.

So, I started drinking green tea even though at the time I did not like it very much.

It is a funny little story that I remember but I can tell you that to this day I continue to drink green tea almost every day.

In fact, over time it has become my favorite beverage.

When I have this healthy drink, I think about that monk so long ago and I think about how he did that one simple thing each day to care for his health.

I think part of stewardship of self-care is in finding those little things that you can do each day to tend to your health and to your body.

Since then, I have worked to incorporate more health practices into my life but green tea was the first practice that I brought into my life that made me consider how I connect my health with my faith.

Today I thank the monk for this connection – a simple practice that reminds me of caring for the body that God has given me.

By caring for the bodies God has given us we will have energy and strength to do the Lord’s work.

Will we always do the right and healthy things for our bodies?

Of course, not I certainly am not a master at this.

But there is always God’s grace to lean on and a second chance to get back on track in caring for our bodies.

And so, for this first week of Lent I encourage us to consider ways that we might care for ourselves this temple which houses the Holy Spirit.

When you do pick up some healthy disciple connect it with your faith.

I shared how whenever I drink a healthy cup of green tea, I think about the gift of life that God has given me and how I might use this life this one life that I have to bring God glory and to further God’s work in the world.

More and more begin to take on a spirit of reverence for the life that God has given you and for the body that God has given you.

In doing so you will place yourself it an open place to discern God’s will which will be the topic for next week.

May God bless you as you practice self-care as a way of honoring and loving the life that God has given you.

Amen.

Abram is ninety-nine years old.

Thirteen years had passed since Abram’s son Ishmael was born.

Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian servant, gave birth to Ishmael when Abram was eighty-six years old according to Genesis chapter sixteen.

Now where we pick up in today’s Bible reading in chapter seventeen Abram is ninety-nine years old.

A significant age for Abram but in the book of Genesis the Bible tells of people living much longer than they do today.

In fact, later in Genesis chapter twenty-five we hear that Abraham lives to be one hundred and seventy-five.

In verses seven and eight of chapter twenty-five of Genesis we hear:

“Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years.  Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.”

With this in mind knowing that Abram will live another seventy-six years we might say that in today’s Genesis reading Abram is a man who today might be in his fifties or sixties.

So, picture a man here who is maybe 58 or 62.

At this age Abram has a powerful encounter with God.

It is an encounter with the living God that will forever change his life.

In this encounter the Lord speaks to him and says to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.  And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.”

In response to this message from God.

Abram has a very human response.

What does he do?

He falls on his face.

We can picture him on the ground his face in the dirt.

This is a response of great humility and awe before God.

There with Abram on the ground God continues speaking to Abram.

“As for me, this is my covenant with you:  You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.  No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.  I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.  I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you through their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

And then seven verses later God continues by promising to bless Abraham’s wife Sarai.

Her name will be changed as well.

The name change is a sign of personal transformation and a sign of the promise of a new life for her.

Her name will now be Sarah, she will bear a son, who will be Isaac, and Sarah will give rise to nations and to kings.

Her new name also stresses the new role that she will have with Abraham.

For she too will serve the Lord’s purpose for God’s people just as Abraham will.

One of the most important themes that runs through the Old Testament is the reestablishment of the relationship between God and God’s people.

Or we might say the renewal of the covenant.

This is the bond between God and God’s people similar to a marriage covenant.

In this case of Abraham and Sarah God is the one who establishes the covenant between God and God’s people.

God establishes the covenant with God’s divine love and God’s promise of faithfulness to His people.

Abraham’s descendants will inherit the gift and promise of the covenant and God will continue to restore the covenant whenever it is broken.

Through faith we too are heirs of the promise.

In God’s covenant with God’s people, we receive the forgiveness of our sins, we are included in God’s family, and we receive God’s gift of shalom which is the peace and joy that we have in belonging to God.

Now Abraham is a man of great faith and God establishes his covenant with him and Sarah but Abraham is not a perfect man.

He need’s God’s grace just as much as we do.

When you read Abraham’s story in the book of Genesis you will quickly discover this.

Abraham’s behavior is sometimes erratic and questionable for a person who is the father of the nations.

But through it all Abraham’s faith in God remained.

His trust in and confidence in God remained solid throughout his life.

In fact, we can see in the Bible that his faith matured and grew as he leaned on the Lord more and more.

At times he made poor choices and decisions just like we do sometimes.

But his faith stands out as we read through Genesis and his faith made him right with God.

There is no greater example of Abraham’s strong faith in Genesis then when God tested Abraham in chapter twenty-two.

This is a Bible story that shakes us and rattles us.

It is the story of the sacrifice.

In this Bible story God said to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, who you love – Isaac- and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.”

One thing to note here is that Abraham also has another son, Ishmael but here Isaac is the one who is seen as the son of the promise.

And Isaac is the one who is to be sacrificed.

In this test we witness the maturity of Abraham’s faith.

In his life Abraham continued to grow in faith and in his relationship with God.

At this climatic moment of testing Abraham passes the test.

For he is willing to even sacrifice his son in order to obey God.

Of course, we soon see in the Bible that it is not God’s will for Abraham to sacrifice his son and that God provides a ram to be sacrificed in place of Isaac.

This Bible story foreshadows the cross of Christ.

As the ram died in Isaac’s place so too will Christ die in our place on the cross.

Jesus will give his life for us on the cross.

Jesus will give his life as a ransom for us.

Now concerning Abraham after this final test Abraham’s faith is made complete.

He is indeed a man of great faith who is the father of many nations.

In the New Testament Abraham is the model of faith and trust in God.

In our Romans reading for today we hear that Abraham grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what God has promised.  His faith was then reckoned to him as righteousness.

Again, notice what Paul says here.

Paul said that Abraham grew strong in his faith.

Over time his faith in the Lord increased as he witnesses the power and presence of God in his life and in the lives of God’s people.

In the end Abraham was made right with God through faith – his belief in the power of God to save and to redeem.

One key takeaway from the life of Abraham is that God knows our hearts and God will not give up on us.

God will continue to increase our faith throughout our lives.

In Genesis we see that it took many years for Abraham to have the faith that trusted in God above all else.

As time goes go by, we too witness more and more of the goodness and the faithfulness of God.

Our faith grows and increases in strength as we experience God’s provisions and God’s protection and care.

How true this became for us this past year.

This past year faith kept us coming back to God again and again in trust.

We believed that God was still guiding us and leading us – we believed that God’s grace was still being given to us.

God is a God of second chances and God is a God of redemption.

Our faith in God will grow and mature just like Abraham’s did and we will remain faithful to God as God is faithful to us.

We will all get there.  We will all receive the faith that trusts in Christ above all else.

It is not a matter of asking will we get that kind of faith, the faith that Abraham had, because it will happen the Holy Spirit will indeed increase our faith.

It will happen for all of us for we are all children of the promise.

Last Sunday in my sermon I spoke about the promise of good news that Jesus came to bring to us.

Again, in today’s Bible reading from Genesis we hear good news.

The covenant was established through Abraham and Sarah and we are heirs of this good news.

The promise of being welcomed into God’s family and the promise that we receive in God’s Son Jesus is for us.

Through faith we believe that our salvation comes not by anything that we have done but rather through our relationship with Christ and his grace given for us.

Here again these words from Romans chapter four:

“For this reason, it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations.”)

We too share the faith of Abraham and we too will inherit the kingdom of God given in and through Christ.  Thanks be to God!  Amen

God loves the world.

This is a key belief that we hold to as followers of Christ.

The world in this context refers to all of God’s creation from the stars to the animals to us to you and to me.

One of my seminary professors used to say that this includes even the dandelions that come up in your yard –God loves all of God’s creation.

The world in this Bible reading refers to the cosmos – meaning everything in God’s creation.

In this Bible reading John does not say God loves humans although this is certainly true.

Rather, it says God loves the world – everything that God has created God loves.

All of our hope is wrapped up in this one short statement of faith –that God loves the world.

God loves the world so much that God sent God’s son into the world not to condemn it but to save it.

This is our Christian hope.

This is a hope that will stay with us now, it will stay with us on the day that we die, and this hope will carry us even into death and beyond

We believe this.

We know this by faith.

God’s love is a gift that God wants to give us in the future and in the present time.

Right now.

God’s love is always available for us.

The new life that God wants to give to us is for us now.

Right now in this moment God’s love is here for us.

Just as Moses’ snake gave life to those who looked upon it so too will Jesus give life to those who look to him and who believe in him.

This new life is certainly the promise of eternal life in the life which will come to us in death but it is also real life here and now.

How do we understand and live out this new life that God gives to us right now?

It starts with the Spirit reaching down to us to ignite our faith.

To be faithful to be filled with faith is our God-given blessing and the way in which God shows favor and love to God’s people.

Faith has been the topic for our Wednesday Lenten services.

Each Wednesday of Lent I have been exploring a different way we might grow in faith by putting a spiritual practice into action with our day to day lives.

To be a follower of Jesus requires of us to be in a mutual relationship with both grace and faith.

What do I mean by saying that?

I mean that we need both grace and faith.

We need God’s saving grace in our lives and we need faith to believe in God’s saving grace.

God loves the world but we are not to take for granted God’s favor and grace.

God’s love, God’s grace requires of us a faithful response.

It is a both/and kind of thing.

Grace and faith –both are needed.

The Apostle Paul confirms this truth in Ephesians by saying, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.”

Through faith we believe that God loves the world and that God will save the world by grace.

This statement of belief became very real to me in my work at Gunderson Hospital.

In my preaching and in my teaching I often talk about my experience as a hospital chaplain in La Crosse.

I only did that work for three month it was only a summer internship but the impact of the work was so great that I continue to reflect on it all of these years later.

I was assigned to the hospice floor.

Gunderson is a fairly large hospital so there was never a day that passed where I did not encounter very serious situations and of course, death.

I can recall again and again coming into rooms where the patient was dying or close to death and witnessing faith and grace in action.

How moving it is to see faith and grace at work at such a time.

And it was not faith in anything it was a very specific kind of faith.

It was faith in a loving and gracious God, a God who loves the world and who loves people.

Whenever I entered a room where the person was close to death and family members were present often the faith of the people gathered at such an hour was so palpable that it would deeply move my soul.

And with the family present as I prayed that pray that I knew would be the last prayer spoken before the person died it was as if I could feel the healing power of the prayer leaving myself and going to God and to the people present.

At such a time I remember that after the visit I would have to recollect myself before meeting with another person because the spiritual power of the visit would leave a strong lingering feeling with me that I could feel deep within my soul.

It is not a feeling that I can easily describe and I am careful even now in sharing it with you because it is very personal but I speak about it now because faith and grace when they come together it is an amazing thing and it is the way that we encounter the living Lord.

That work as an intern chaplain became for me that summer at that point in my life the most powerful experience of faith and grace working together in perfect harmony.

But you do not have to work as a hospital chaplain to get this.

Now at the end of our lives to see such faith and grace at work is truly a miracle.

But in our day to day experiences God speaks grace and faith into our lives.

In fact, it is through the everyday experiences of ordinary life where we encounter grace and grow in faith.

As life continues we see the process of faith taking shape and growing with us.

We witness the many ways that God shows us grace and love in action through the course of our lives.

Our lives then became a testament to the Spirit of God working grace and faith in us.

Jesus came to restore our relationship with God.

That is why God sent Jesus.

Jesus came not to condemn us but to save us.

To be saved is to be brought back into God’s loving arms.

For God loves the world.

May God bless you this coming week as you cherish the gift of faith that God has given to you.

Don’t take your faith for granted.

It is a gift for you.  Instead grow in your faith and put your faith into action each and every day of our lives.

Look for moments of grace.  When you are looking you will find.  In life you will receive what you are looking for.

Seek and you shall find our Lord tells us.

Are you asking God for ways to grow in faith?

Are you seeking to receive grace?

Are you knocking on the door of God’s love?

If so Jesus leaves us with these words of promise:

Ask and it shall be given to you.

Seek and you shall find.

Knock and the door shall be opened to you.

May this be so for us.

Jesus enters the house of Simon and Andrew.

It is the Sabbath day.

Simon’s mother-in-law is sick.

She is in bed with a fever.

Even though it is the Sabbath Jesus immediately comes to her.

On the Sabbath it was forbidden to heal or to be healed since healing was considered a work and no work was to be done on the Sabbath.

Surprisingly, Jesus ignores this law.

Jesus takes her by the hand, lifts her up, and then instantly the fever is gone.

Then in the text notice what she does.

Right after she is healed, she serves Jesus and those who are present in the house.

Service follows healing.

She is well and with her health restored the first thing she decides to do is to serve others.

Now service is the faith topic for tonight’s Lent worship.

And with the example of Simon’s mother-in-law let’s consider how service is a faith practice.

In the Gospel of Mark Jesus comes to Simon’s mother-in-law and heals her.

Then she responds to Jesus and to the healing with service.

In the same way Christ comes to us, heals us and then empowers us to serve others.

When we encounter the living Lord we are healed and then we are sent to be of service to others.

It is our response to Jesus and his presence in our lives – to live lives of service.

The word service is used many times in the Bible.

This word service is also used in many different ways but the meaning of service is always the same.

Service is done as an expression of thanksgiving for all that God has done for us.

What has God given us?

God has given us life, healing and forgiveness, and God has granted us salvation.

In response to these great gifts, we respond with service.

Service is done to build up God’s church, which is the body of Christ, and to further God’s mission in the world.

Service is done as a way to communicate the good news of the Gospel.

In this particular Bible reading Simon’s mother-in-law is probably acting in service by serving food to her guests.

But in Scripture there are many ways to serve others.

The Apostle Paul speaks about different works of service and he writes about many different kinds of gifts that can be used for service.

Paul’s concern is not in what gift that you have but rather that you recognize the gift and then respond in faith to that gift by giving it away in service to others.

In life it is easy to focus on what we can get.

Take this example:

We might think in this way… what can I get from my job, what can I get from my friends, what can I get from my family, even what can I get from my church?

Now what if we turned those questions around and starting asking these questions instead:  how can I serve others in my job, how can I serve my friends, how can I serve my family, how can I serve my church, how can I serve the Lord with my life?

Do you see the shift that happens in our lives when we turn from looking at what we can get or in what we can take to looking at our lives as a great opportunity to serve others?

What if we changed our thinking to think in this way?

What if instead of thinking what can God give to me and only take from God to thinking how can I participate with God in furthering God’s kingdom here on earth.

Remember Simon’s mother-in-law served Jesus after she was healed.

After the healing she did not say to Jesus now what more can you give me or what else can I receive from you.

No, instead she chose the path of service.

This is where sacrifice, love, and grace come in.

A life of service brings meaning, purpose, and joy to one’s life.

A life of service enables one to meet Christ.

Consider Matthew chapter twenty-five.

Here Jesus teaches us the supreme ways that we might be of service to others.

In the text he names six specific ways we might serve others:  by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, helping the sick, and by visiting those in prison.

By doing these acts of service Jesus said that we are serving and encountering him.

In life there are a wonderful variety of ways that we can serve others and minister to others so that we further the work of God in this world.

I often think about all the ways in which we serve each other in this church.

Some of the ways that we have served each other we have not engaged in since the pandemic like when we served each other at coffee hour after worship, or when we served our community by reaching out to the children with our Vacation Bible School program, or even when we served each other with our Lenten dinners on Wednesday evenings.

But there are many ways that we have been of serving each other this past year and there will be many more ways that we can serve one another in the years to come.

One exciting thing about serving as your pastor at this time in this churches history is that I have the opportunity to serve this congregation in recovery from this pandemic.

In the year to come as we slowly rise out of this pandemic, I get to help this congregation resurrect and rise to a new, healthy place in mission, in ministry, and in service.

In fact, we get to do this good work together.

We will work and serve together side by side as we come out of the pandemic in the coming year.

What will our acts of service look like in the next year or two?

That will be the process of careful discernment, heartfelt prayer, and much faith and trust.

We have faith that Lord will be our good shepherd and that he will guide us in the year to come.

Our job is to be ready and to respond like Simon’s mother-in-law when Jesus reaches out to us, heals us, and then calls us to respond with acts of service.

By faith I believe that our church is poised for new acts of service.

We will participate in God’s mission as we slowly come out of the pandemic.

Let’s be like Simon’s mother-in-law.

When the healing happens, when we receive the vaccine, and when the COVID numbers go down we will be ready to rise and to serve.

At this time may we also find new ways to serve outside of these four church walls.

There are so many ways that we can be of service to others when we ask the simple question each and every day, how might I serve?

Whenever we ask that question and when we prayerfully turn to God with that very question on our minds and hearts God will answer that prayer and will show us how to be of service.

When I was serving in my first congregation out in Tama, Iowa there was a retired man in the community who made service his calling.

He was raised on a farm and in his entire life, he never stopped serving others.

When I knew him, he was already in his nineties.

I can recall that I could not keep up with him and in all the ways he reached out to others.

He truly served others in the community that he loved.

La Vern Seth was his name and he was also deeply religious man.

His faith compelled him to reach out to others in service.

Even in his nineties he was always reaching out to people and in finding new ways that he could serve in that small community that we lived in.

He was always inviting me to be a part of some volunteer work that he was doing out in the community.

Me being in my thirties I would often have to tell him that I did not have all the energy that he had and that I could not do all that he did.

But once in a while I would join him in some service project in the community.

One memory I have of La Vern was a home visit I made one morning.

When I arrived at his house I was surprised to see a weight bench and a whole set of weights on his front porch.

I remember thinking OK this is why he has so much energy.

He is lifting weight all these weights every day.

But later in our visit he goes on to tell me that he is mentoring a teenager down the street.

He shared that he keeps the weights not for himself but for the kid to use when he comes over.

La Vern found that the kid opened up more and engaged more in conversation after he used the weights.

La Vern passed away last year at the healthy age of one hundred.

I will always remember him and how his life was centered around service and in furthering the work of God in this world.

Whenever I think of him, even now in this moment, I am inspired and I remember to myself how important a life of service is.

One of the best things to have happened to me in my first call in Iowa was to know this very remarkable man who made service his life calling.

I am sure that there are people in your life who inspire you as well.

And we have the faithful example of Simon’s mother-in-law who was quick to respond in service when the Lord was at her house.

This third week of Lent may you look for ways to serve and then when you find those ways of service may you quickly respond in faith and in service.

We have been together now for the past six Wednesdays and tonight will be our last Wednesday together until next Lent.

At this point in Lent I am always excited about Easter with is just around the corner.

I find Holy week to be very meaningful but I must admit that there is always a bit of sadness for me when we come to this point in Lent knowing that Lent will soon be over.

I always find Lent to be such a rich and meaningful time in the church calendar.

I hope that this is your experience of Lent as well.

This Lent, because of COVID, feels a little different but it is still Lent.

During Lent we look to receive from the Holy Spirit new growth in our faith lives and we also take time to reflect on our lives and how we are using our time.

I thought that the subject of time would be a good thing to give a Lenten message on this year.

The theme of time and how we use our time comes up again and again in the Bible.

Jesus taught that we are to use our time in a way that furthers God’s kingdom and in the Old Testament we learn that we are to use our time wisely.

Time has felt so strange this past year.

Time is defined as a measured or measurable period in which all things happen.

We live with time.

Each day is marked by time.

We have the capacity to contemplate eternity but we live in time.

That is very interesting when you think about it.

And in the Bible we have both –teachings about time and teachings about eternity.

In the Bible life is described in time with days and seasons but the Bible also speaks about eternity.

Eternity is life that never ends.

In eternity there is no more time.

When I was a child, I really liked the Far Side comics by Gary Larson.

There is a Far Side comic where people are entering eternity and as they are entering eternity there is a sign that reads, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.”

As humans we live in time but we contemplate eternity.

One year ago, now for the last Wednesday Lent message I gave before COVID closed our church building I included a reference to the movie Groundhog Day to make a point about the virues of compassion and kindness.

In that movie the main character, Phil Connors relives the same day over and over.

In the movie he lives with time and eternity side by side.

An interesting concept.

It is also interesting that I referenced that movie right before COVID changed everything.

In the movie it is not until he changes his life and how he uses his time that the next day finally happens.

In the movie Phil radically changes and he discovers the true joy of focusing on others and on serving others.

You might say that he finds a way to use his time wisely -in service to others and in showing kindness and compassion to others.

In the Bible reading from Luke the rich farmer fails to find a way to use his time for that work that endures.

In the parable his only thought is of himself.

Luke clearly points this out in the reading…

He thought to himself.

What should I do?

I have no place to store my crops.

Then he said, “This is what I’ll do.

I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones.

I will store my surplus grain.

I’ll say to myself… take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry.

Notice all the references in the text that point back to the man.

It is actually a little overwhelming when you take this close of a look at the text.

The man has no thought of others.

He has given no thought for how he might use the time that he has and the life that he has been given to bring God glory and to serve others.

In the story the rich man has become poor for he has used his time to accumulate worldly goods that only hold temporay value and no value in the face of death.

You cannot take one once of gold or silver with you in death but only that which is eternal.

This parable that Jesus tells in Luke has a similar parallel with the fictional character, Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.

Both men are consumed by their own needs and how they can use their time to satisfy their own needs.

A key takeaway from the parable that Jesus tells us is that we are to live our lives and do our work in a way that serves others and brings God glory.

We turn from serving ourselves to serving others.

This does not mean we take no thought to our own needs or to self-care but it does mean a shift in how we perceive things and how we use our time from being foolish to being wise.

To be wise in this context means having the knowledge and the discernment to live in and with Christ.

We are not to use our time only to benefit ourselves or to further our own interests.

I am thinking of a Bible passage here that really speaks to this truth.

It comes from Colossians chapter three beginning at verse twenty-three:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

That is from Colossians 3: 23-24

As followers of Christ, we live our lives for the Lord and use our time wisely for the Lord while expecting and hoping for an eternal inheritance.

We do not work and use our time for an earthly inheritance as the man in the parable did but rather, we work and use our time for an eternal inheritance.

With this in mind we do not need to renounce the world for the world is created by God but it does mean that we are not to become attached to wealth and possessions in the way the rich farmer did in the parable.

His time, his energy, and his life were consumed with things of this world.

His work was for himself.

In contrast the Apostle Paul teaches us in Colossians that are lives are to be wrapped up in the work of God.

Whatever God calls us to do we are to do it in such a way that it is as if we are doing that very work for the Lord.

However, we end up using our time we do it with Jesus.

Whatever work we end up doing with our lives we do it for Jesus.

I know that this past year has been difficult but I hope that this past year has also given to you some blessings.

This past year has forced us to consider how we spend our time, our days, our months, our lives.

With the slower pace of this past year one blessing that I received is the extra time to really get deeper into God’s Word.

Even though studying and reading Scripture is part of my job in fact, it is a main part of my work I must admit that often with the pace of life and the speed of life sometimes I don’t always get into the Bible during the week in a way that I would like to.

Sadly, too often deeper more in depth Bible study gets pushed to the end of my to do list during the work week.

But this past year with the slower pace of life, with some many things being cancelled, and with things slowing down a bit because of COVID I decided to commit extra time to digging deeper into God’s Word.

This was truly a blessing and I ended up spending more time in the Bible especially with many of the Old Testament books that I usually don’t take the time to study.

I know that if it were not for COVID this past year I would not have done this.

Part of using time wisely is in finding ways to slow down.

When we slow down, we are able to reflect upon that which is most important.

Then when we know what is most important, we are then to use our time for what really matters.

This is a different kind of a time that we are living in right now.

But my prayer is that we use this time in way that brings God glory and that we are using this time in a way that serves others.

When we consider our lives, we discover again and again that it is in using our time wisely where we find true joy and true peace and real meaning for our lives.

This is why the man in the parable ended up finding no life at all.

He did not know the secret to life which is actually not a secret at all.

The secret to life is found in thinking about others.

This is the opposite experience of the man and because of this God makes a dramatic announcement.

God says to the man in the parable, “You fool!  This very night your life will be demanded from you.”

The word life here can refer to both life or soul.

It has a very deep meaning in this context.

The life of a person or the soul of a person is the essence of a person.

It refers to one’s true self.

This man lost his soul, his true self by only thinking of himself and in getting lost in the things of this world.

And because of this his time is all used up.

But for those who seek to serve others and who do their work as if they are doing it for the Lord -then they have discovered true life and they are living from their deepest and truest self-according to Jesus.

In using our time wisely as the Lord leads us we will find our lives refreshed and renewed.

True life is found when we use our time wisely in a way that pleases the Lord.

May God bless us this last week of Lent before Holy Week as we seek to discern how to use the gift of time that God has given.

Amen.

Each year I find this Sunday to be one of the most moving and powerful Sundays in the entire church year.

There is a dramatic spiritual movement that happens during the service.

From the celebratory entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to his passion and death on the cross we experience both the joys and the suffering of this holy Sunday.

Today on this Palm and Passion of our Lord Sunday I invite us to reflect more deeply on the meaning of the cross.

Through the forty days of Lent we journey with Jesus to the cross.

All of the Sunday Scripture readings during Lent point to that journey.

And here we are on this last Sunday right before Easter Sunday where we hear of Jesus’ death and crucifixion.

Today a little earlier in Mark we recalled a very different scene.

Here the people are so excited about seeing Jesus.

Some put their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from trees.

They place these cloaks and branches right on the road as Jesus comes by as a way of honoring him.

But then just four chapters later in Mark we witness Jesus dying on the cross.

For Christians the cross changes everything.

On the cross we receive a new revelation.

This new insight reveals to us the very nature and character of God.

On the cross we come to see that God is present in suffering and that God is present even in death.

And although today is not Easter we always see and understand the cross in light of the resurrection and especially in light of the resurrection promise.

What are these promises?

Simply… that in suffering there is redemption.

That in suffering there in new life.

That in suffering Christ is present.

Jesus’ suffering and passion on the cross leads us to a deeper understanding of suffering.

The cross does not give us an answer to the question of why there is suffering in the world but the cross does lead us to a changed and renewed and transformed life.

Whenever we pick up our cross and follow after Jesus we do so knowing that the cross is ultimately the doorway to new life.

In the end the cross of Jesus is not about suffering and death although it is that for sure.

The cross must always be understood in the light of the resurrection.

The cross is ultimately about a love that holds no matter what.

It is about a relationship that holds no matter what.

It is about a bond that never breaks.

On the cross we come to see that love is stronger than death, that Jesus’s suffering and passion is more powerful than sin and evil, and that the evil one cannot cause Jesus to be broken or to cause Jesus to break his hold on us –for he will never let us go.

The evil one will not have the last word instead Jesus’ love will.

The resurrection promise that Jesus will overcome our suffering, deliver us from evil, invite us into the gift of new life, and stay with us forever is our hope on this passion of our Lord Sunday.

This is certainly the good news of the gospel on this day.

Jesus is indeed the true divine warrior king who did not come down from the cross but rather he stayed on the cross.

This is the true miracle.

For on the cross he gives his life for his own.

In his despair, anguish, and pain Jesus chose to stay on the cross.

He did this because he is faithful to you and to me.

He will even give his life for us in this awful way of the cross in order to stay in relationship with us.

The relationship holds.

All the forces of darkness and sin cannot severe our relationship with him.

Our bond to Christ remains.

Our lives are now caught up in his life and in death –when that day comes for each one of us we will enter into glory.

For because of the cross in death we will be with God and now in life, the life that we know and experience know, we will be with God.

It was a great suffering that Jesus endured but it is an even great redemption that he offers to us.

Today we place our faith in this truth.

Tomorrow begins the most sacred week of the entire year.

This coming Holy Week I invite you to ponder and to meditate on the meaning of this week.

Sometimes it can help to create a picture in your head of Jesus’ last days on earth leading up to the resurrection.

And so in additional to reading Scripture this week I encourage all of us to watch a film on the life of Jesus and the telling of his passion and death on the cross.

There are many good films out that on the life of Jesus.

I really like the movie Son of God that was made in 2014 with Christopher Spencer as the director of the film.

A member of the church that I was serving at the time gave me a copy of the movie and I watched it and found it to be a very good telling of the life of Jesus.

But there are many good movies about Jesus to watch this Holy Week.

I also invite you to come to our Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services at the church.

This coming week has the potential to make a powerful impact on our faith lives when we intentionally chose to follow Jesus even to the foot of the cross.

Let us not be like the disciples who abandoned Jesus during his crucifixion only later to return to Jesus.

Let us stay with him and this week may we ponder the meaning of his passion and his suffering on the cross.

For his suffering leads to our redemption and to a new divine revelation on the meaning of suffering and death.

His despair in Gethsemane and his cry on the cross now opens the way to life and salvation – love wins on the cross.

Amen.

A man and a woman were talking about faith.

The man said, “I have faith but sometimes I don’t.”

The woman responds, “That’s odd because I don’t have faith but sometimes, I do.”

Today is Good Friday, the day on which we remember Jesus’ crucifixion.

This day is also known as Holy Friday or Sorrowful Friday or God’s Friday.

This day is the most solemn day of the entire church year.

On this day we must ask a question.

How do we understand our faith in light of crucifixion?

On this day our faith is greatly stretched and challenged maybe even to the breaking point.

Even for those who mock faith or for those who feel that they have no faith at all -all of us, no matter who we are, all of us most still come to some kind of decision in how we understand faith.

A close friend of mine who claims to have no faith at all has, in his life, has wrestled with faith.

He has struggled with faith questions.

He has given thought and even reflection to his faith.

It is inevitable.

As humans we naturally ask those difficult questions to life’s larger mysteries.

True some may ponder those questions more than others.

Some many even try to ignore those faith questions but they are always there.

The questions do not go away -simply because we do not pay attention to them.

For those few people who followed Jesus to the foot of the cross some two thousand years ago they were shocked to see their Lord crucified.

Jesus was to be God’s anointed one who would heal and save God’s people.

Suddenly, at the cross Jesus’s followers needed to make sense of something that made no sense.

And in the years and decades after his death Christians struggled to find meaning in Jesus’ passion, crucifixion, and finally death on a cross.

Surely, this could not have been God’s will?

And probably many thought that it could not possibly be God’s will.

But then a revelation came to the people and this revelation has stayed with Christ’s followers for two thousand years.

No matter how we interpret the cross or Jesus’ death we know one thing for sure.

And this one thing has untied Jesus’ followers throughout the ages.

The cross and the sufferings of Jesus revealed to us the depth of God’s love for us.

The cross revealed to us that God will try by any means necessary to reach us and to draw us to himself.

How much does God love us?

God reached out his arms on the cross in and through Jesus and said, “I love you this much.”

In additional to this great truth the cross also revealed to us that Jesus is faithful to us no matter what -Jesus’ faith in us never dies.

As humans our faith is often weak.

Doubt settles in to easily and it is too easy to give up on faith.

But Jesus is faithful to us even to death on a cross -his faith in us will never end.

He believes in us -the cross has proven that this is true.

And lastly, the cross revealed to us that Jesus is with us in our suffering, in our pain, and in our grief.

All of us suffer in unique ways – no one can escape life without pain, loss, or grief.

To live is to know suffering.

The Lord knows the ways in which I have suffered in my life and the Lord knows the ways that you have suffered in your life.

Jesus knows what it feels like to experience complete despair and even abandenment from God.

On the cross he yells:  Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani…

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.

Jesus understands our doubts because he has been there.

At the cross he was there.

Now we can go to him and share with him all of our concerns, our worries, our grief, even our doubts because he understands us.

In Jesus we have a savior who is faithful to us always.

And we have a savior who will do anything necessary to reveal his love for us.

We can put our faith in him and we even can give him our doubts.

For Jesus is with us even there in our darkness and in our doubts.

For the cross has shown us that even doubt need not be the end of faith.

Rather it can be the starting place, maybe even an open door to a new life with Jesus.

This is the meaning of Easter.  A new life with him is possible.

In prayer we come to Jesus and we bring all of our baggage, all of our wounds, all of our struggles knowing that Christ meets us there.

Remember, always remember that behind the cross is the empty tomb.

Do not stop at the cross.

Do not let your faith journey end at the cross.

Look at what’s behind the cross, look at what happened three days later, and also look behind your doubt and you will see that it is faith.  Amen.