I have some strange hobbies. I like going to weddings and eating wedding cake. I love song lyrics and google them frequently. And I love listening to sermons. I frequent church websites to see if they post sermon audio and then listen while I do kitchen chores. I love listening to my pastor, to Pastor Bill Cwirla, and to the very intriguing sermon reviews on Issues Etc. Many modern day sermons have very little to do with Christ and His life-giving gospel. I just finished reading the book of Acts and every sermon preached in that book had one message: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.” The church as no other message to share. We proclaim Christ, crucified for sinners. Or do we?
We have a series of books called The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther. They are arranged in the order of the church calendar so that the gospel reading/sermon for this past Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, was the same for us as it was 500 years ago in Wittenberg. I had the bright idea a few years ago to read Luther’s sermons as we got to them in the church year. I think I read 3 or 4 before busy-ness reared its’ ugly head and I gave up. I walk in today and Stevie is giddy, having just read Luther’s sermon for the first Sunday of Advent. Giddy, I tell you. Like ‘the best sermon he’s ever heard’ giddy. And why, you ask? Because Martin Luther knew how to preach the gospel. The gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent {in our lectionary} is Matt. 21-1-9 where Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Our king coming to us in humble and lowly means. Here’s a little excerpt from Luther’s sermon:
This is what is meant by “The king cometh.” You do not seek him, but he seeks you. You do not find Him, he finds you. For the preachers come from him, not from you; their sermons come from him, not from you; your faith comes from him, not from you; everything that faith works in you comes from him, not from you; and where he does not come, you remain outside; and where there is no Gospel, there is no God, but only sin and damnation. Therefore you should not ask, where to begin to be godly; there is no beginning, except where the king enters and is proclaimed.”
Luther takes every single detail in that Bible reading and shows how it points to Christ. Jesus tells his disciples to go and ‘loose them [the colt and the ass] and bring them to me’. Luther says that this can be understood spiritually as Jesus telling preachers to preach the gospel, which loosens the hold of the sin and the law on the ‘old man’ and finally allows Christ to take His rightful place in our lives. He likens the colt and the ass to our respective inner and outer man and goes on to describe how our outer man must bridled and led by Christ and His gospel. He says,
These are the two asses: The old one is the exterior man; he is bound, with laws and fear of death, of hell, of shame, or with allurements of heaven, of life, of honor. He goes forward with the external appearance of good works and is a pious rogue, but he does it unwillingly and with a heavy heart and a heavy conscience…….. He is a yoked animal who works under a burden and labors hard. It is a miserable pitiable life that he lives under the compulsion of fear, death and shame. The colt, the young ass, is the inner man, the heart, the mind, the will, which can never be subject to the law. But he has no desire nor love for it until Christ comes and rides on him…….
The reason Christ rides upon the colt and not upon its mother, and yet uses both for his entrance into Jerusalem, is that both the body and the soul must be saved. If, here upon earth, the body is unwilling, not capable of grace and Christ’s leading, it must bear the Spirit, upon which Christ rides, who trains it and leads it along by the power of grace , received through Christ. The colt, ridden by Christ, upon which no one ever rode, is the willing spirit, whom no one before could make willing, tame, or ready, save Christ by His grace. However, the sack carrier, the burden bearer, the old Adam, is the flesh which goes riderless without Christ; it must for this reason bear the cross and remain the beast of burden…..
Christ tells the disciples to loose them, that is, he tells them to preach the gospel in his name, in which is proclaimed grace and the remission of sins…..The gospel alone teaches us to come to Christ and to know Christ rightly.”
May we all be blessed this Advent with the coming of our King, who will loose our chains of sin, law-living, and self-righteousness.
And may we be blessed with preachers who will, in the words of St. Paul, “determine to know nothing but Christ, and Him crucified.”
Post co-written with my husband, Steve.
2:30-3:30 Grammar and Science
parker House Rolls, ten years running
a few of my favorite people
step away from the chocolate-orange dream cake
right out of the oven
a few more people I love….
the feasting begins
the carnage
the clean-up crew (my brother and sister whom i affectionately call ‘brother’ and ‘sister’)
still cleaning
we didn’t eat a thing, lookin’ slim and trim
