Sermon for Ecumencal Lenten Worship

Preached at St. James Lutheran, Hallam, PA on March 27, 2017
Preaching text: Ephesians 5:22-29

I wanted to switch things up a little bit in terms of the Scripture for tonight. There are two verses in Ephesians chapter 5 that speak of Christ’s relationship with the Church in terms of marriage. The first you heard; it’s about obedience. But I want to tell you the second and it’s just 3 verses later: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” I like this verse better, because it’s about love. God’s love for his people never wavers, never falters. Our obedience to God on the other hand, well that’s a bit more sketchy. I’ll be getting into that in a few minutes.

First off though, I did jokingly promise this is where we’d end up. When I first entered the pulpit for these Lenten services, I joked about how I was a Lutheran preaching preaching on a Lutheran hymn and that we’d get to the Methodists eventually. Well, I’m a man of my word and here we are looking over a hymn written partly by a member of the Wesley family. The tune is written by Samuel Wesley, grandson of Charles Wesley who was brother to John Wesley. And they were the founders of the Methodist tradition of Christianity.

In many ways, we’re in the same place. This is a in many ways a Reformation hymn; in the sense that it was written in a time of reformation and by people who are seeking to reform the Church from its errors. And that is evident from the first words of the lyrics: “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.” Why write such a line if the author did not believe that the Church had strayed from that obvious truth? That other things had replaced Jesus as the foundation of the Church.

I suppose I could go into the history of the Church during that period in time, but the simple truth is there is always something competing to become the Church’s new foundation. We just love to replace Jesus with all sorts of things. One hundred fifty or so years after this hymn was written and we’re still guilty of things its lyrics accuse us.

My friends, I’ve just about seen it all. I grew up in a church that was always fighting over something. This family hated that family, so they fought. I saw people yell at the pastor in the middle of worship. I watched my youth leader get raked over the coals publically by a Sunday School teacher who didn’t like her. We chewed through five pastors in 20 years. Constant turnover. Constant chaos. Constant conflict.

And I’ve heard stories of worse. A church that split over an argument of whether to make the carpet in the sanctuary blue or red. Does any of that sound like a place where Christ is the foundation?

But there are more insidious ways we undermine Christ as well. Less obvious than these examples, but just as destructive and disobedient (Told you I’d get back to that.) Like when we come to church to feel good about ourselves, about how right our theology is, and how wrong those people over there are. When we come and we pray for God to make us rich or successful that all those TV preachers say we will be if we’re just faithful. These are insidious because they seem like they’re about Jesus.
I can guarantee you people guilty of these talk about God and Jesus all the time, but he’s always a means to an end. Never the end all and be all of who they are.

In the end, all these sins are the same. They’re all about us. We make it all about us. What we want. What we desire. What we think. What we deserve. What we’ve earned. How important we are. And so forth. Jesus is nowhere to be found. You can say his name all you want, but that doesn’t make it about him. It’s still about us.

I did my study to become a pastor in Philadelphia. As part of my training, I had the opportunity to visit a number of a churches across the city to get a feel for the difference expressions of the Church. One of the churches I visited was this big black Pentecostal church that sits on the site of the old Connie Mack stadium. Huge place, but I remember very clearly the sermon that was preached that Sunday. Pastor gets up and amidst all the hooping and hollerin’ that marks a typical Pentecostal service, he starts preaching that “It’s all about Jesus.” It ain’t about us. It ain’t about what we want. It ain’t about how we feel. It ain’t about how right we are. It’s about Jesus. It’s ALWAYS about Jesus.

I could have preached that sermon, but as a white Lutheran I don’t dare try to copy what that man did that day. But he was right. It’s about Jesus. The hymn says as much and yet we keep trying to make it about us.

So what does the church look like when it IS about Jesus? Well, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to switch up the Scripture. It becomes about love. What did Jesus do here on Earth? He loved people. He healed the sick. Preached good news to the poor. Made the lame to walk. Fed the hungry. And invited everyone he encountered into the kingdom. A Church that focuses on Jesus does what he does. For him, it was all about them. All about other people, not himself. So too is the Church that has him as its true foundation.

It’s not about us. It’s about Jesus. And Jesus makes it about them. And the hymn reflects that . Verse two. “Elect from every nation.” How does that happen if we’re not out there, serving, loving, telling, healing, feeding, like Jesus did? Like Jesus did himself? We are partners with him in saving the world. Not that our work does the actual saving (that was Jesus on the cross), but our work brings those he loves to him.

Some years ago, I remember reading about a couple who had gotten married. And instead of a traditional wedding reception, the two of them went with their entire ensemble to a soup kitchen and fed and served the homeless therein. It made for quite a sight. The bride in her white dress and veil, the groom in his suit, both of them scooping out the mashed potatoes for a bunch of people in desperate need.

(Pastor's note: I had some of the details wrong in my remembering of the story. But here's the link to what really happened. Still remarkable.)

That, my friends, is the Church. Christ and his bride serving a world of desperate need, side by side, bringing the Gospel to the people. That’s what it looks like when Jesus is our true foundation. Amen.

Sermon for Laurete (Fourth Lent) 2017

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on March 26, 2017
Scripture texts: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, John 9:1-7

Last week, we talked about the Apostles’ Creed and how it is a statement of identity for God. It tells us who God is, what God does, and what God is about. It is, as I stated, a summary of all the Scriptures teach us about God.

Now if you were to summarize the summary, you might say something like this: “God provides.” That pithy bit of bumper sticker theology proves true however. God does provide. He gives us life, salvation, his presence in the form of the spirit. He gives food, health, good government, family, friends, love, happiness, joy, physical possessions, or at least he tries to give these while sin often conspires to rob us of the same. Life is often a tug of war between the two, but there’s no question which side God is on. He loves us and wants us to have his joy and peace in this life and he does all in his power to see that happen.

God provides.

Our Scripture lessons today drive this home. Israel needs a good and just king after the failure of King Saul. So what does God do? He provides such a king in David, the least likely of all his brothers to be that one, surprising the prophet Samuel who has come to anoint him. Good lesson for us in that; the provision God gives does not always look like what we expect. Things are not always what they appear to be.

Our Gospel lesson drives that idea home. Jesus and his disciples encounter a man born blind and a question is asked. Recognizing the presence of sin, the disciples wonder whose sin caused this blindness. Jesus turns their question on its head. It’s not about fixing blame, but about revealing how God will provide an answer to this sin. As I’ve often argued, sin is not just simply our own wrongdoing, but it is also the wrong that is done to us by others and by life itself. It doesn’t matter who is at fault for this man’s blindness; in fact, it’s likely there is nothing to blame but the whimsies of the frail human condition. But what does matter is how God will provide for this man and then Jesus reaches down and heals him.

John the Evangelist is very keen to call miracles such as this one “signs,” a word that only he really uses in his telling of the Gospel story. Signs point out things, and in this case, he get a glimpse of who God is and what he is about. God provides. God loves. God heals. God saves. God grants his presence to us. All of those things are here present in this story. The miracle reveals God and his nature to us.

So what does all this have to do with the Lord’s Prayer, which is the focus of today’s proclamation? It’s quite obvious actually. Consider the image of God we receive from these two stories. Evidence of God’s unwavering care for his people when they are in need. God provides a king to Israel. He provides healing and salvation to a man ruined by a debilitating condition. He provides an out for those who need one.

And what is prayer but our asking for the same for ourselves?

Are we in need? Absolutely. As I pointed out early in this sermon, this tug of war that plagues our life here on Earth. The good gifts God provides for this life are often intercepted or ruined by the whimsies of the powerful or our own ill fortunes. But we have a loving God who wants nothing but the best for us. And he asks us to call on him in every need.

Down on your luck? Talk to God. Sick and laid up? Talk to God. Life got you down? Talk to God. Regardless of what sin has done to you and yours, God is still out there, still loves you, and still promises the best for you. The Lord’s Prayer is essentially our call out to God to intervene directly in our lives.

“God! You promised! You love me! Fix this!”

How many times do you suppose that was prayed by those under the thumb of King Saul’s tyranny? How many times did the man born blind pray that? The answers God gave weren’t quite what they were expecting, but God did answer. It’s the same with us. We pray for the Kingdom to come, for God to bring all his promises to fulfillment. We pray for daily bread, for all that can and does sustain us in this life. And God gives and gives and gives. Maybe not in the way we’re expecting, but he does provide.

It’s interesting how Luther approaches the prayer. In most of his explanations, he says essentially, this happens whether we ask or not. The kingdom comes even without our asking. God’s will is done without our asking. Our daily bread arrives even without our asking. God’s generosity is not conditional. But the prayer focuses us on seeing that truth, that God’s provision is always and ever present in our lives. God is faithful to his people. His promises are sure.

“God! You promised! You love me! Fix this!”

Yeah, even when we don’t pray it, it’s happening. Illness got you down? God is at work. Struggling with the bills? God is at work. Fearful of the future? God is at work. He never stops loving us, never stops providing for us. He is there and always will be. Our loving father, caring for his children. Call on him in ever need. Amen.

Sermon for Third Lent 2017

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on March 19, 2017
Preaching texts: Genesis 2:4-10, 15-22, Romans 5:1-11, John 14:25-27

We’ve spent the last two weeks looking at Luther’s explanation of the Ten Commandments. We’ve learned that God has given these commandments for our benefit. We’ve remembered that they are a guide for how to live and to get along in this life. If everybody just listened, if everybody just obeyed, then life would be idyllic and perfect.

That thumping sound is the other shoe dropping. Everybody doesn’t listen. Everybody doesn’t obey. Heck, even those of us who try don’t succeed. We try but we always fall short. That, my friends, is sin and it is an unavoidable reality of the human condition. Nobody’s perfect and nobody obeys perfectly.

So what are we going to do about it?

Well, we can’t do a whole lot. Yes, we can try harder next time, but those efforts are a bit like those asymptote equations some of us learned in advanced mathematics. We can get close, but we can never reach it. You can keep pouring more and more energy and effort into improving your moral compass, but you will never reach perfection. The effort reaches futility after a while.

That hasn’t stopped people from trying. That hasn’t stopped people from ruining their lives, their friendships, their families, in a desperate effort to make themselves one micron closer to moral perfection. But it’s all wasted effort in the end. We cannot succeed in this endeavor. Not in any way that truly matters.

So then what?

Here’s the real problem. All this effort, all this energy we so often put towards achieving the unachievable is a form of idolatry in itself. First Commandment, “You shall put no other gods before me,” and yet here we have put our own strength and tenacity as the means of our salvation. Our efforts to defeat sin are, in themselves, a form of sin. Therefore, it cannot be us. We cannot create the means of our own salvation. It must come from outside ourselves. It must come from God.

Which is precisely how it works. And that brings us to the Apostles’ Creed.

The word “creed” comes from the Latin word credo, which translates “to believe.” But this creed is more than just a statement of what we believe. It answers the question “Who is this God that we worship? Who is he? What is he about?”

In that regard, it is a very thorough summary of what the Scriptures teach us about God. That he is Creator of all, and more specifically the creator of you, of me, of all people. He is the one who sends the Christ, the fulfillment of OT prophecy into the world, the only begotten son of the Father. He comes to bring us that salvation we cannot achieve on our own. He buys this salvation with his own life, death, and resurrection, and he will one day return to bring all of God’s promises to their fulfillment. And to keep us in fellowship with a physically absent deity, he sends his spirit to dwell in and among us, to encourage, strengthen, and call us to God’s purposes.

Why does God do all this? Well, it’s the old Sunday School answer. The very first thing any of us should ever learn walking in this place: Love. God loves us. He is a deity of love, his immensity so full of it that he wanted (or perhaps even needed) an outlet for it. It’s like the old 1960s anthem asked, “Don’t you want somebody to love?” Yeah, God did, so he made us.

As to that pesky issue of sin, God provided an answer for that as well. He doesn’t want us to suffer and he doesn’t want us to be separate from him (which is fundamentally what sin is, that which drives us away from God and neighbor). So he sent his Son out of love to this world to destroy sin and death forever.

And then he puts his spirit within us so that if we ever forget how much he loves us, a reminder will be forthcoming. It may come from within you, from the words of Scripture, from a friend or family member, or even a stranger. But God’s spirit will use something to encourage and enlighten you, to keep the connection between you as fresh as it can be. Constant reminders of God’s immense love.

The Christian faith isn’t rocket science. It’s God’s love for you and our trust in that love for this life and the next. That’s it. Period. End of story. Sure, we can go into details of Scripture stories or life experiences that highlight that love, but they all end up in the same place. God’s love and our trust therein. Nothing more is necessary. We struggle to believe that it’s that simple. The history of the Church is filled with our folly and efforts to make sense of what is so simple that a toddler can grasp it, all because “It can’t be that easy.” Yes, IT IS.

It’s about love. God is love. God created us in love. God saved us in love. God dwells with us in love. Love, love, love. That’s the core of it all. It’s who God is. It’s what God does. As Luther says in the Large Catechism, because of love...

God’s love in Christ is what saves us from our sin. It's what he does. It's who God is. Amen.

Sermon for Second Lent 2017

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on March 12, 2017
Preaching text: Deuteronomy 5:1, 16-21, John 3:1-17

For God so loved the world... It is fitting in many ways that we get this particular Gospel text in the midst of our exploration of the Small Catechism and even specifically the second tablet of the Ten Commandments, which we are looking at today. But those ways are not completely obvious. John 3:16 reminds us of God’s love for us and yet it’s the first tablet (the one we reviewed last week) that deals with our relationship with God himself. Tablet two is about our relationship with our neighbors and seemingly has nothing to do with our relationship with God.

Or does it?

Let me tell you a story from my life. Eleven years ago, I was growing disillusioned with being a bachelor in my 30s and frustrated by my efforts to remedy that by unsuccessfully dating local women. So I decided to take a leap of faith and signed up for eHarmony, the online dating service. It introduced me to this wonderful single mother from the State College area named Sarah. I fell head over heels.

But I knew that being in love with Sarah was not enough. Her being in love with me was not enough, but there was a third element in our relationship and that was Sarah’s two-year old daughter, Emily. I knew that if I wanted to make a marriage with this woman, I was going to have to love her little girl just as much. And that was a bit of a scary idea. Contrary to what you might see here on Sunday morning, I’m not completely comfortable with kids. Mostly because even when I was a kid, I wasn’t much of a kid. They like sports teams and the latest toys and music. I liked dinosaurs and spaceships, stars and planets. The drawback of being a nerd.

But I knew I had to try. Sarah loves her daughter, and if I’m to love Sarah I must love Emily too. And that’s how things played out. As many of you know, Sarah is my wife and has been for these last 9 years. And Emily? She’s 13 now and that says volumes I’m sure. But even at her worst in the midst of her teen angst, she too is the light of my life and I cannot imagine my world without her.

If you love something, you will seek to love that which it loves. If you love someone, you will seek to love that which they love. Therefore, if God loves the world, we, as his followers and those who love him, will seek to love the world as well. And how do we do that? That’s the Second tablet of the commandments.

As Luther sat down to explain the Second Tablet to infant Lutherans 500 years ago, he took for his model Jesus himself. For as we saw some weeks ago in the lessons from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is not content to leave the law as it is written, but he expands it in two ways. One, do not forget there are plenty of ways to “thou shalt not” that are not explicitly forbidden in the commandments.

As Jesus himself said, it’s not enough to not murder someone, but don’t hold anger and hate towards them in your heart either. To desire a possession of your neighbor’s is both to covet something (forbidden by the later commandments) and is virtually the same as theft. To presume the worst of someone is the same as lying openly about them. To disobey lawful authority is the same as defying your own family.

And the really fun one here is commandment #6. There are a whole lot of ways you can commit adultery that do not involve one’s reproductive organs at all. Last week, I mentioned the idol of productivity and how we can work ourselves quite literally to death. That idolatry can drive us away from our family and spouse as well. We can commit adultery with our job. Or with our hobbies. Or with a bottle of booze or a bottle of pills.

Loving is avoiding those things as best we can. To love our neighbor is to strive, as much as possible, to not cave into those temptations.

The second way Jesus (and Luther) expands on the commandments is to remind us that it is not merely enough to “thou shalt not” the bad things, but “thou shalt” do the good things as well.

Don’t just don’t steal, but work to protect your neighbor’s prosperity. Don’t just don’t murder, but work to improve your neighbor’s well-being. Don’t just don’t lie about people, but presume their good intentions and act accordingly.

In many ways, you can sum up the second tablet by a phrase I’ve come to live by, and to avoid using profanity in church, I’ll put it this way. Don’t be a...jerk.  Don’t be a jerk to people. Treat them with respect and dignity. Even if they’re a jerk to you, don’t be a jerk back.

We are called to be better than that. We are called to love those whom our God loves. And yes, they aren’t always nice to us. They don’t always show us the same respect. But God puts up with a lot more and sometimes he puts up with a lot from us who should know better.

For God so loved the world... In the original Greek of that passage in John, the word used for “world” is κοσμος. The universe. Everything and everyone. That’s a tall order. But if we love God, we will strive to love those that he loves. And the Second tablet shows us how. Amen.

Sermon for First Lent 2017

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on March 5, 2017
Preaching text: Exodus 20:1-11

(Pastor's note: Here begins a sermon series on the Small Catechism. This is in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.)

From the Small Catechism...

The First Commandment.
Thou shalt have no other gods.
What does this mean?
We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

The Second Commandment.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God that we may not curse, swear, use witchcraft, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

The Third Commandment.
Thou shalt sanctify the holy-day.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it.

Sermon

“We are to fear and love God...” Luther begins every explanation of the Ten Commandments with those words. But do you ever ask yourself why we should fear and love God? Luther doesn’t seem to address that in his explanations, presuming our loyalty and trust in God is a foregone conclusion. But should it be? I mean, what has God done for us lately?

Okay, I know that sounds a mite shocking, even a bit blasphemous, so let me put it another way. Why should we fear and love God? Well, have you counted your blessing lately? Taken stock of the joys and triumphs of your life? Have you smiled at a sunny day or at the wagging tail of a puppy-dog or at the pictures of your children and grandchildren lately? Have you enjoyed a good meal or the scintillating plot of a bestseller or film? Have you laughed at a good joke? Have you enjoyed the company of good friends? All those things and so many more are reason enough to “fear and love God.”

They are all things that God has given to us and they stand as evidence of God’s good will towards his people. Sure, not every moment of life is sunshine and rainbows, but neither is life utterly devoid of joy and pleasure either. God seeks what is best for his people. He hungers to give us joy and happiness. He loves us. And just as we do with those we love, our friends and family, he wants to take care of us as we do them.

It therefore stands to reason that God is displaying this same care and compassion towards us when he gives us his law and commandments. These rules are not here simply to arbitrarily inconvenience us. They are here to help take care of us, to keep us out of trouble, and to give us joy in life.

What is known as the “first tablet” of the Ten Commandments is the topic of today’s sermon. It’s the first three commandments and the ones that are about our relationship with God himself.

“You shall have no other gods.”

My goodness, I could probably preach a thousand sermons on this one alone. This is one is first for a reason; it’s the hardest one of all of them to obey. Oh, it’s easy to not bow down and worship Odin or Zeus or some deity of another religious understanding. That’s not the problem for the most part. In fact, I suspect God has less trouble with the people who do pray to those deities than he does with those who bow down to gods of their own fashion.

Gods of greed and anger and lust and selfishness. These are far more dangerous idols than any figure of another religion. These are gods we make ourselves and they are invariably self-destructive. Gods of lust destroy marriages. Gods of greed destroy families. Gods of anger destroy societies. Gods of selfishness destroy everything. And yet time and again, we turn to them. We run to them to avoid our problems in life. We run to them thinking they will save us. If I only had more money...If I only had that hottie as a wife (or lover)...if I only I could just punch that creep in the mouth...if only I could make the world work the way I want it.

Down those roads lie disaster. God knows that. No good has ever come of our following such gods. You can lay nearly every problem of this world at the feet of our wanderings. We are to fear and love God, Yahweh, Jehovah, however we might name him, because he is the one and only God who can truly give us what we need. No other, despite our frequent beliefs to the contrary, can satisfy.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
This is about more than what language we choose to use, about more than whether we choose to say “gosh darn it” or the other thing. It’s about taking God for granted, about using his name to bring about things in this world for our benefit alone.

When we turn God into a cosmic Santa Claus, we use his name in vain. Oh, Lord, if only I had a million dollars...(Hey, there’s that god of greed again.) I swear to God I didn’t do that (when we know darn well we did.) That’s using his name in vain. Share this picture on Facebook and God will bless you. That’s a popular one these days, but yes, it too is using his name in vain.

It’s disrespect. It’s using God to benefit ourselves alone, to get out of trouble, to change the world to help us alone, with no care for others or for God himself. It’s not taking his love and care for us seriously. It’s taking advantage. It’s taking God for granted. It’s being a jerk to God. He’s done so much for us, given us life, salvation, blessings beyond count. How could we be so thoughtless?

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”
You know it’s funny. I know these commandments were first handed down thousands of years ago, but this is one we Americans desperately need to watch out for. You see, speaking of our idols and other gods, we Americans have one somewhat unique to ourselves: productivity. We want to be productive at work. We want to accomplish everything. No matter the consequences.

We never take a break. We never stop to smell the roses. That question I asked towards the beginning of this sermon about counting our blessings. How many of us actually do that more than once in a great while? Well, I did it last Tuesday but I’ve just been so busy lately. There’s the problem. We will work ourselves to death if given half a chance.

The Sabbath is a moment to take a breath, a pause, a break, a chance to relax and remember what really matters in life. And it ain’t how productive we are. It’s in relationship with God and others. It’s in joy and happiness and satisfaction with life. The old cliche is true. No one goes to the grave saying “Boy, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” And yet that’s precisely how we live our lives.

God wants what is best for us. We see that, if bother to take that break (and we should...often), in all the wonders he gives us. Joy, love, peace, the salvation of his son, and so much more. This is what it’s really about. God loves us. God wants what is best for us. God wants to take care of us. And he gives us his law to see that happen. If only we’d listen from time to time. Amen.

Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2017

Preached at Emanuel Lutheran Church, Freysville, PA on March 1, 2017
Preaching text: Psalm 46

How many of you saw President Trump’s speech before Congress last night? It was quite a speech. He was definitely trying to fulfill his somewhat jokingly-made promise that “we will have so much winning that...you may get bored with winning.” According to him, we’re going to do everything. We’re going to get rid of crime, give everyone healthcare, defeat ISIS, create millions of jobs, strengthen our military, and rebuild our infrastructure. We’re going to have our pie in the sky and eat it too.

Image from CNN.com

We may or may not like or agree with our new President, but you can’t say the man isn’t ambitious. In truth, his speech last night was a fundamentally American speech. We are the greatest nation on Earth. Nothing can stop us. We can do anything. We cannot be defeated. We cannot be stopped. We are invulnerable, invincible, undeniable. We cannot lose. No setback cannot be overcome. No enemy that cannot be defeated. No difficulty that cannot be removed. From us as a nation to each one of us as individual citizens, we are unstoppable.

The problem is, of course, real life doesn’t work that way. We are vulnerable. We can face defeat. There are setbacks that cannot be overcome. There are enemies that we cannot defeat. And as we gather this night to mark this Ash Wednesday, we are here to speak to one such thing that cannot be overcome: the power of death.

This night, probably more than any other event in the Christian calendar, is as fundamentally unAmerican as you can get. Death is the one thing we haven’t beaten. We can’t beat it and we don’t know what to do about that. As a result, our culture is very neurotic about death. We see it as defeat, as loss, and that’s something we Americans don’t deal with well. We try to pretend it away. Imagine it’s not real or that somehow we’ll dodge its inevitable touch. But it is real and it does come for each one of us.

It comes most obviously to us in the form of physical death: The stopping of the heart, the cessation of brain activity, the departure of the soul. But death has other forms. The loss of a job is a form of death. A failed exam in school is a form of death. The break up of a relationship is a form of death. The collapse of a business is a form of death. Bankruptcy is a form of death. Disease, injury, failure, all are ways death can touch our lives. All are things not easily overcome, if at all. In fact, many have argued that the reason Trump was elected was because of the presence of so many of these in lives of our citizens. Death is everywhere. Can our President do anything about it? He certainly promises it. Can he deliver? I doubt it.

No one could. Death is not an enemy we can defeat. This broken world is not something we can fix. These are existential problems beyond us. And yes, it is unAmerican to admit that we cannot do something, but this is the simple truth. We can’t do this. Not the President. Not you or me. Not anyone. Death is too powerful. It will take a god to stop it.

Thankfully for us, that’s precisely what has happened.

Five hundred years ago, at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, death was very real for that handful of German educators and priests who had started the rebellion against Rome. Martin Luther knew that, at any moment, the Inquisition could come and burn them all as heretics. But he had read in the book of Romans that if “God was for him, who could be against him?” and that he was “more than a conqueror through him who loved us.” So he took those sentiments and a copy of another Scripture, Psalm 46, and wrote what is now the quintessential Protestant hymn “Ein Feste Burg” or as we know it in English, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

He wrote it not just for himself and his inner circle of Reformers. He knew that death was real for any who followed him and for anyone in general. So it wrote the hymn not in the style of high Latin like most of the church hymns of his day. Instead, he wrote it in the style of the music of the local tavern and in the language of the people, accessible to all to learn and sing. He wanted them to know that it would take a God to defeat death and that is precisely what we have.

The hymn illustrates the battle between good and evil as a conflict between God and the devil, with we of humanity as the prize. That’s again not terribly American to see ourselves as passive participants in this, but the hymn essentially reveals us as the damsel tied helplessly to the train tracks while Snidley Whiplash and Dudley Do-right duke it out. God is our champion. He fights to save us. He fights to win us for himself. And HE is invulnerable and invincible and all powerful. He can and will win this fight for our sake.

God will defeat death for us. And he has, through his son Jesus Christ. He who was born of a virgin in a manger, who lived and taught us the truth of God in sermon and parable, who healed the sick and the dying, and who went to the cross. He defeated death by embracing it, allowing it to take him as inevitably as it takes all us humans. But it could not hold him forever and on the third day, the stone rolled away, winning not just for himself, but for all of us. Resurrection is ours!

This is the message of “A Mighty Fortress.” Yes, death is real. Yes, death is powerful. But we have a champion who is greater still, who fights and dies and rises again for our sake. As we are gathered here on this Ash Wednesday to hear those frightful words, “Dust you are and to dust you shall return,” remember also that death has met its match. Christ Jesus stands with us in life and against all the forms that death takes in this world. We truly can overcome it all, not by our own doing, but by our champion. By our God. By our Christ.

Amen.