Rev. Tucher

Text: Romans 8:31-39

If God Is For Us

            Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The text for the sermon this morning comes from the Epistle, which was read earlier.

            As of tomorrow, this year will be but a fleeting memory.  Radio stations are counting down the biggest songs of the year.  MTV is no doubt playing the biggest video hits of the year.  Everyone is looking at what the best of the year was.

            But with all of the good that has come, bad has come as well.  We have seen war come and go.  We’ve seen destruction, changes in the world, death of loved ones, and the list goes on and on.  For some, this is a year that we are more than ready to get behind us.  People are quick to say, “Where is God during all this?” when things go bad.  Paul says clearly where God is: for us.

            It’s funny how we try to help others.  Some give because they have more than ample.  Others give what seems like a little to us, but it represents a very large portion for those who give. 

            God too gave graciously and without hesitation or second thought.  He gave His Son, His one and only Son, over to the world so that He would die. But this death was no ordinary death – it was for us life, not death.  In our communion liturgy on the Sundays after Pentecost, we hear these words: “…through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who on this day overcame death and the grave and by his glorious resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.”  Through the giving of His Son, we have received “all things” as Paul says.

            It is because of the death of Christ that we can be brought into the kingdom of God through His body and blood.  We are now a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.”  Whatever charges anyone, whether it be death, devil or the world, make against us, they must now go through the Father who has chosen us.

            Through His Son, we now have a shield protecting us.  God stands before us with a shield to protect us.  Does that mean that no one will ever be against us?  Does it mean that no one will ever bring a charge against us?  Of course not.  What that does mean is that no one will ever be successfully against us; no one will ever successfully accuse us.  Even Satan himself, with all of his crafty ways, can try to accuse us, but because of Christ’s death and glorious resurrection, we now stand holy and blameless before God, our heavenly Father.  In order for anything to reach us, it must first go through God and it is God alone who justifies, to declare free of blame. 

            Not only do we have God the Father as our shield, we also have Christ, our advocate, who died the death for all of creation.

            To condemn a person as Paul says here, means to inform them that God condemns them and that God has sentenced the person.  Christ intercedes on our behalf.  No one has ever been accused and condemned as Christ was.  God willingly sacrificed His one and only begotten Son, so that you and I may not die, but have everlasting life.

            Christ went before God, the only one who is able to judge us and pleaded that we have already been acquitted of all charges because He has paid for them with His body and blood.  No one else could do that for us.  Christ intercedes on behalf of all of creation.  His intercession gave us life.  His body and blood, beaten and pierced, opened for us the gates of heaven.  His resurrection and ascension brought with it a permanent advocate that will say, “Sorry, I paid for this person.  You can’t have them.”

            Though the world will try its best to accuse us and beat us up, we cannot be separated from the love of Christ.  Seven different possible choices are listed as a means to separate us.  The enemies of our salvation attempt to separate us from Christ and His love, and so they press hard with all might and power to throw away faith and trust in Christ.  Life is very real and can be very cruel.  But as cruel as trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and sword can be, Paul reiterates that they do not have the power to pull us away from the love of Christ.

            These seven items are not the only thing that can separate us from God.  Separation from God can also come from ourselves, which manifests itself in various ways.  One such way is by seeking salvation in the things that we do.  This is contrary to what Scripture says.  Salvation is not found in ourselves, but in what God has done for us, namely sending His Son to be payment for our sins.  We also choose to separate us from God when we despise His Word and His Sacraments, by not coming to church to be fed with the means of grace which give to us salvation.

            It is true as the psalmist writes, “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  We suffer and we face death because Christ suffered and faced death.  We are in Christ and therefore we suffer.  It does not mean that Christ withdraws His love; no, it is the opposite.  He suffered for our lives and therefore we suffer for His life because we are in Him.

            Through these tribulations, we become conquerors through Christ who loved us.  We have strength, not only equal and sufficient, but far more than enough to overcome the preceding evils.

            If the list of seven things to separate us from the love of Christ wasn’t enough, now we have a new list of ten things to separate us.  None of these can stop God’s love from reaching and holding us.

            It’s funny that Paul lists the present and the future, but he doesn’t say anything about the things of the past.  None of that is mentioned, not even our sins, because they have all passed away.  They passed away when the water hit our forehead and when the blood of Christ hit the ground as He hung from the cross.

            What Paul tells the church of Rome is also spoken to us: we are fully assured that no condition of our existence, whether death or life; no beings, whether they be angels or principalities among men; nothing in time, whether in the present or in the future; nothing in the way of powers or forces; nothing in space, whether in the heights or the in the depths; in fact, nothing in all creation, no matter what it may be called, not only shall not, but cannot separate us and our fellow Christians from God’s saving love, His Son, by placing a barrier between us and that love so that it cannot reach us.

            It’s easy to think that we’re alone through all this.  But we know that we are not alone, for Christ has gone before us to prepare the way for us.  He, along with God the Father, stands before us to protect us, to ensure that nothing separates us from Christ.  On this New Year’s Eve, as we look for the passing away of 2006 and the ushering in of the 2007, know that God the Father, with the Son, has given us life everlasting.  Regardless of what may happen in the coming year, know that if God is for us, who can be against us?  The answer is no one and nothing, because we cannot be separated from God because of Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection.  Amen.

            And now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

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Text: Luke 2:1-20

The Promised Savior Comes

            Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.  The text for the sermon comes from the Gospel which was read earlier.

            A roaming reporter stopped six people on the sidewalks of New York City and asked, “What is the most important happening in history?”  Five replies from two men and three women were as varied as might be expected.  “The settlement of Jamestown by the Englishmen.”  “The defeat of the Saracens at Tours.”  “The splitting of the atom.”  “The defeat of the Japanese.”  “The invention of the wheel.”  The sixth answer came from a fourteen-year-old school boy, “The birth of Jesus Christ.”  If we have the insight of the fourteen-year-old schoolboy as well as his wisdom, we will know at this moment that we find ourselves celebrating an event that has been called the greatest in human history since the creation of the world.  It is a holy day as well as a holiday.  It is Christmas!

            A number of weeks ago, Pastor Firminhac and I took the confirmation classes to see The Nativity Story.  In the movie, there was a man who was proclaiming the prophecies of the Old Testament, that one day, there would be the arrival of a King, the coming Messiah, who would save the world.  Joseph and the pregnant Mary were walking the streets on their way to Bethlehem for the census and heard this man’s cries of the promised Messiah.  Meanwhile, somewhere in the East, the three wise men embarked on their journey to find the coming Messiah in Bethlehem.  They were learned men who had studied the prophecies of the Old Testament to better understand the Messiah that was promised of old.  They had found the signs pointing them to the Baby in the manger.  The world of the first Christmas was ready for the great birth.

            Some 2000 years later, Christmas is come for us.  But are we ready?  It’s hard to be ready for Christmas when you still have presents to buy, cards to send out, and parties to attend.  That is the whole reason for Christmas, isn’t it?  That is what the world wants you to think. 

            Just this past week, as I was watching Monday Night Football, they showed downtown Indianapolis, namely the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.  Every year, they string upwards of fifty strands of lights to make it resemble a Christmas tree.  But one of the announcers, when referencing it, called it a “holiday” tree.  Several years ago, Wal-Mart got in trouble for telling people “Merry Christmas” as they left the store.  They had to change it to “Happy Holidays” for fear of getting sued by non-Christians.  More and more, we have taken Christ out of Christmas.  But when looking at our Gospel reading, there are no cards, no parties to attend.  There is only the story of a man and his betrothed wife who is pregnant, on their way to Bethlehem to register for the census.

            As the shepherds are minding their own business, they get a special visitor, one who delivers a wonderful message which they had been waiting for and expecting, if they didn’t know it: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” 

            This is the message which the people of Israel had been waiting for.  This is the message that we have been waiting for.  From the moment that Adam and Eve were displaced from the Garden of Eden, a promise of a Savior was given to them: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  The book of Isaiah is filled with prophecies of the coming of Christ.  “He was despised and rejected by men…Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”

            This is truly what Christmas is all about.  The birth of Jesus gave to us “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  We now have a way to be forgiven of the sins which we cause.  We now have life everlasting.  We are once again made sons and daughters of God, the Father. 

            At Bethlehem, the best we could ever know became real.  There the great event in history occurred that has changed the face of all of life: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  God has spoken through the prophets stating that salvation was to rest on nothing less than God revealed in human form.  This was the one thing that all men could understand. 

            Unfortunately, this is the one thing that we seem to have forgotten.  The focus goes from the child born in the manger to Christmas cards, parties and gift-giving and receiving.  Jesus has been put on the back-burner, if we even remember Him at all.  The saying that “Jesus is the reason for the season” is true only in so far as it is because of Jesus that we do all the things we do during the month of December.  We all know that Christmas is the celebration of Christ’s birth, but we do not always keep in mind the meaning of the event.  It was not just the birth of another child.  It was God becoming enfleshed in Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary.

            Following the messenger’s announcement of the great and mighty wonder, suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased!”  Now heaven and nature may sing Gloria in Excelsis!  Now angels and archangels and all the company of heaven may laud and magnify His glorious Name, evermore praising Him and singing and confessing and teaching and believing that this Baby is the King of king, the Lord of lords, the Savior of the world, the Redeemer of the lost, and the Word who has become flesh and dwelt among us.  By the gracious working of the Holy Spirit through this Word, you and I may believe that this Jesus in an animal’s feeding trough is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you may have life in His Name.

            Let our focus be on what Christmas is all about.  It is not about the commercialization that we have made it to be.  It is not about the gifts and the parties and the like.  It is about a baby who was born.  This baby grew up in stature of a man.  This man willingly gave His life so that you and I should not die, but have everlasting life.  As the hymn says, “Christ, the Savior is born!”  Let us rejoice in the Gift of all gifts which have been given to us, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us, amen.

            Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.

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