5th Sunday in Lent
April 2nd, 2006
The Rev. Prof. Chad L. Bird
Text: Mark 10:32-45; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:1-10
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Did I hear the word “new”? Oh, dear, that can’t be good news, can it? In many and various ways God spoke to his people of old by the prophets, and that suited me just fine, thank you. My song is love well-known, so give me some of that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.
Give me Aaron, big brother to Moses, that first high priest who was chosen, called, and appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Aaron, beset with weakness? I’d say. While Moses is atop Sinai receiving God’s laws, Aaron is down below breaking them faster than Moses can scribble them down. One Golden Calf coming right up. And when that first commandment falls, you know what happens to the rest of those legal dominoes. Yes, give me Aaron, isn’t he good enough?
Give me bulls, rams, and one-year-old lambs. Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain, was ever enough, so keep piling them on. Mute their mooing with that razor-sharp blade, let the blood drip down as the flames leap up, and send smoke signals heavenward beseeching the Lord to be gracious. What God ordains is always good, and all these offerings he himself ordained, so aren’t they good enough?
Yes, they are good enough, quite good enough, at least for those of you who prefer a guilty conscience, stained with sin. Barbeque every beast you can find on that temple altar, and that will be good enough, if you yourself aren’t afraid of the flames. And Aaron, he is good enough too, if you are satisfied with unsatisfaction, if you want a priest who cannot provide perfection, who is just as entangled in sin as you are, who can never get you into heaven but has plenty of connections down below. Yes, the old covenant is quite adequate, if salvation from sin, peace with God, and everlasting life are not really your cup of tea.
But if you desire to drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and to be baptized with the baptism with which he is baptized; if you wish to sit with him on his throne in his Father’s glory; if you want his law within you, written on your heart; if you yearn to know the Lord, to have your iniquity forgiven and your sins remembered no more; if all of that is what you want, then, behold, the days are coming, and have already come, when all these gifts have been granted to you.
The question is: Do you really want them? “Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” So we pray. Or, so we would pray, if in fact we prayed much at all. “And what exactly do you want me to do for you,” Jesus responds. “Grant us to sit, one in a 3000 square foot house, in front of a 52 inch plasma television watching our team trounce their rival. Grant us to sit, another in a 2006, fully loaded, car of our choice heading as far away from Milwaukee as possible. Grant us to sit, one and all, in tranquility, untroubled by the needs of others, by family squabbles, by health problems, by headaches at work, or by anything else that might burst the tiny utopian bubble in which we exist. That’s what we want you to do for us, Lord, ASAP.”
Lord have mercy. Will people never change? Will we always reach over the food God gives to grasp at the poison beyond? Will we always prefer to sip sea water when dying of thirst? Will we always, without fail, risk our own soul to gain whatever it is that we think will satisfy, and once we find it, and even realize how unsatisfying it really is, endanger our soul again to obtain even more?
Repent, O Christians, for after all these things the worldlings eagerly seek, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be satisfied, let him drink the cup that Jesus places to his lips, let him be baptized with the baptism with which Christ baptizes him. Let him be served by the Son of Man, who gave his life as a ransom for many, to buy you back from a life that is truly death by dying the death that truly gives you life.
For the Son of Man was delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, condemned to death and delivered over to the Gentiles. They mocked him and spat upon him, flogged him and killed him. And three days later he rose. And in those events heaven will rejoice into eternity, for in them was found that which is much better than good enough.
For in them the Father gave you Jesus, our firstborn Brother, the high priest who came in the order of Melchizedek. This King of righteousness clothes you in his own regal robes. This King of peace makes you a citizen of the New Jerusalem above. He meets you, the sons of Abraham, the soldiers of the church militant, to refresh you with a meal of bread and wine—a bread of His own flesh, to enliven your bodies with His own life, a wine of His own blood, to assuage your thirst for absolution. He does not, like Aaron and his sons, first have to offer sacrifices for his own sins, and then for those of you, but once for all and one for all, he offered up himself. He drank the bitter waters of Marah from the cup of woe, drained every drop upon that tree appointed by God; and in so doing he sweetened that liquid, turned that water into wine, and emptied his veins into the chalice that you might drink of the river of the wine of life that flows from him, the Rock of Ages. He was baptized in the Deluge of wrath and buried in the waters of the Red Sea, but rose again from that abyss to be for you the ark of salvation, to part the waters and lead you safely across, to wash away the leprosy of your sin that you might be created anew in his own image and likeness.
Let us fix our eyes on this Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, who has done everything not only “good” but “very good.” Him the Father gives us, better than Aaron; better than bulls, rams, and one-year-old lambs; better than anything this world could possibly offer. For in him, the source of eternal salvation, we gain entrance into the Holy of Holies, the celestial Eden, where life is truly as life was meant to be.
The Rev. Prof. Chad L. Bird
Text: Mark 10:32-45; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:1-10
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Did I hear the word “new”? Oh, dear, that can’t be good news, can it? In many and various ways God spoke to his people of old by the prophets, and that suited me just fine, thank you. My song is love well-known, so give me some of that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.
Give me Aaron, big brother to Moses, that first high priest who was chosen, called, and appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Aaron, beset with weakness? I’d say. While Moses is atop Sinai receiving God’s laws, Aaron is down below breaking them faster than Moses can scribble them down. One Golden Calf coming right up. And when that first commandment falls, you know what happens to the rest of those legal dominoes. Yes, give me Aaron, isn’t he good enough?
Give me bulls, rams, and one-year-old lambs. Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain, was ever enough, so keep piling them on. Mute their mooing with that razor-sharp blade, let the blood drip down as the flames leap up, and send smoke signals heavenward beseeching the Lord to be gracious. What God ordains is always good, and all these offerings he himself ordained, so aren’t they good enough?
Yes, they are good enough, quite good enough, at least for those of you who prefer a guilty conscience, stained with sin. Barbeque every beast you can find on that temple altar, and that will be good enough, if you yourself aren’t afraid of the flames. And Aaron, he is good enough too, if you are satisfied with unsatisfaction, if you want a priest who cannot provide perfection, who is just as entangled in sin as you are, who can never get you into heaven but has plenty of connections down below. Yes, the old covenant is quite adequate, if salvation from sin, peace with God, and everlasting life are not really your cup of tea.
But if you desire to drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and to be baptized with the baptism with which he is baptized; if you wish to sit with him on his throne in his Father’s glory; if you want his law within you, written on your heart; if you yearn to know the Lord, to have your iniquity forgiven and your sins remembered no more; if all of that is what you want, then, behold, the days are coming, and have already come, when all these gifts have been granted to you.
The question is: Do you really want them? “Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” So we pray. Or, so we would pray, if in fact we prayed much at all. “And what exactly do you want me to do for you,” Jesus responds. “Grant us to sit, one in a 3000 square foot house, in front of a 52 inch plasma television watching our team trounce their rival. Grant us to sit, another in a 2006, fully loaded, car of our choice heading as far away from Milwaukee as possible. Grant us to sit, one and all, in tranquility, untroubled by the needs of others, by family squabbles, by health problems, by headaches at work, or by anything else that might burst the tiny utopian bubble in which we exist. That’s what we want you to do for us, Lord, ASAP.”
Lord have mercy. Will people never change? Will we always reach over the food God gives to grasp at the poison beyond? Will we always prefer to sip sea water when dying of thirst? Will we always, without fail, risk our own soul to gain whatever it is that we think will satisfy, and once we find it, and even realize how unsatisfying it really is, endanger our soul again to obtain even more?
Repent, O Christians, for after all these things the worldlings eagerly seek, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be satisfied, let him drink the cup that Jesus places to his lips, let him be baptized with the baptism with which Christ baptizes him. Let him be served by the Son of Man, who gave his life as a ransom for many, to buy you back from a life that is truly death by dying the death that truly gives you life.
For the Son of Man was delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, condemned to death and delivered over to the Gentiles. They mocked him and spat upon him, flogged him and killed him. And three days later he rose. And in those events heaven will rejoice into eternity, for in them was found that which is much better than good enough.
For in them the Father gave you Jesus, our firstborn Brother, the high priest who came in the order of Melchizedek. This King of righteousness clothes you in his own regal robes. This King of peace makes you a citizen of the New Jerusalem above. He meets you, the sons of Abraham, the soldiers of the church militant, to refresh you with a meal of bread and wine—a bread of His own flesh, to enliven your bodies with His own life, a wine of His own blood, to assuage your thirst for absolution. He does not, like Aaron and his sons, first have to offer sacrifices for his own sins, and then for those of you, but once for all and one for all, he offered up himself. He drank the bitter waters of Marah from the cup of woe, drained every drop upon that tree appointed by God; and in so doing he sweetened that liquid, turned that water into wine, and emptied his veins into the chalice that you might drink of the river of the wine of life that flows from him, the Rock of Ages. He was baptized in the Deluge of wrath and buried in the waters of the Red Sea, but rose again from that abyss to be for you the ark of salvation, to part the waters and lead you safely across, to wash away the leprosy of your sin that you might be created anew in his own image and likeness.
Let us fix our eyes on this Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, who has done everything not only “good” but “very good.” Him the Father gives us, better than Aaron; better than bulls, rams, and one-year-old lambs; better than anything this world could possibly offer. For in him, the source of eternal salvation, we gain entrance into the Holy of Holies, the celestial Eden, where life is truly as life was meant to be.
posted by Luther Memorial Chapel at
4/05/2006
