March 23, 2022 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Luke 22:66 “THE SEMBLANCE OF LEGALITY”

 

MIDWEEK LENT 4

March 23, 2022

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Luke 22:66

 

“THE SEMBLANCE OF LEGALITY”

 

          We are continuing to look at crucial hours in the Passion history of our Lord. Those crucial hours are times when it appears God’s plan of salvation hangs in the balance. Things could go one way or another. Today we look at a time when there was a semblance of legality. Synonyms for semblance are an appearance, an impression or a veneer. I think you get the idea. When you say something has semblance it looks like it, but it really isn’t. Here is what happened.

 

Luke 22:66 “As soon as it was day, the council of the elders of the people met together, both the chief priests and experts in the law. They brought him into their Sanhedrin.” 

 

At first glance there doesn’t seem to be anything special here. The sun has risen on the day we call Good Friday. The chief priests and experts of the law brought Jesus before the Sanhedrin, the full Jewish religious ruling council, to put Him on trial. To get a better understanding we need to know what happened under the cover of darkness before this. Jesus’ real trial. That was the one where they looked for evidence that Jesus had done something deserving the death penalty. But they couldn’t find any. That was the one where they brought witnesses to testify against Jesus, but no two of them could agree. That was the one where the frustrated High Priest finally asked Jesus if He was the Messiah to which Jesus honestly answered, “I AM.” That’s when they condemned Jesus to death, spit on Him, blindfolded Him, slapped Him and hit Him.

          So what’s up with this second trial? Ah, the semblance of legality. You see, it was illegal for the Sanhedrin to meet at night. Everything was supposed to be done decently and in order. Everything was supposed to be done out in the open. The first trial was illegal. To make it look like their decision was legal as soon as it was day they met together again. I think you can see what was going on here. A cover up. They were trying to cover their bases, cover their tracks, cover everything else you try to cover, when you know you are doing wrong. They would make it look like they had done it right. A semblance, an impression, a veneer of legality when it was not!

          Wasn’t that just awful what they did? Doing wrong and trying to cover it up? Yes it was. Just like it is awful when we do the same and we do the same, don’t we? We try to cover up our sin. Students, when you don’t have your work done and you say, “I left it home. I forgot. I did it. I don’t know where it is.” Surely nobody really says, “The dog ate it,” do they? Sometimes it is true that we forget something at home but it isn’t always. Every lie that comes out of our mouth is an attempt to cover up our sin. Why do you use social media apps that don’t keep a record of what you sent? Are you trying to hide something? Cover it up? Is there some reason you are clearing your browsing history all the time? Deleting text message conversations? It’s really quite simple. If you have to hide it, you already know it’s wrong. That’s why you’re trying to cover it up.

          But you can’t. All our efforts to cover up sin don’t work, anymore than the bums who presided over Jesus’ fake trial had it work. Their illegality is written down in the book that has the most reads ever! God knew. Just like He knows with your lies and truth shading, your snapchats, instagrams, tiktoks and deletes. The sin is there despite the semblance of legality. You can’t cover up your sin. And if you become like the chief priests and experts in the law and reject Jesus as your Savior all your cover ups will be exposed on the last day of Judgment.

          That would be a shame because while all our efforts to cover up our sins don’t work Jesus’ efforts did! That’s why Jesus let Himself be put on trial—twice! It started with the first cover up. Remember what Adam and Eve did when they first sinned? They sewed fig leaves together to try to cover themselves up when for the first time in their lives they felt shame. Then they tried to cover up their sin by hiding from God when He came to them in the garden. Then they tried to cover up their personal guilt by playing the blame game. But, more importantly, do you remember what God did? He swooped in and promised a Savior who would cover sin for good.

          Jesus is that Savior. But to be our Savior He would have to perfectly obey, have no sins of his own to cover up, and then let Himself be sacrificed on the cross where He would be covered with the sins of the whole world. So Jesus let the first illegal trial go on without protesting, filing a lawsuit or appealing to the Supreme Court. He did not ask Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea to call their leaders to account. He did not hire some fancy lawyer to argue his case, “If the trial’s at night, it ain’t right!” He calmly endured the first trial and the next. As a sheep before her shearers is silent, He did not open His mouth. He had work to do. A cover up. And so another crucial hour passed as Jesus walked to the cross. Another opportunity for Jesus to end His upcoming suffering but He didn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He loves you that much. And when your own crucial hour comes and you stand before God to face judgment you will have no sin. Jesus has covered them up, not with a semblance of legality but by doing things the right way, by the Book.

          And that has changed things for us.  Now instead of trying to cover our sins by lying and hiding we learn to confess them and God forgives. Instead of trying to have a semblance or veneer of Christianity about us where we outwardly do the right things we can practice true Christianity where Jesus’ love for us motivates our love for each other, where Jesus’ forgiveness of us moves us to forgive each other and where our daily living is not done to please the letter of the law but to follow the law of love. After all we get to love, because He first loved us. Amen.

 

 

March 12-14, 2022 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Luke 13:31-35 “YOU CAN’T STOP JESUS!”

 

LENT 2

March 12-14, 2022

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Luke 13:31-35

 

“YOU CAN’T STOP JESUS!”

1.     From loving you to death.

2.     From wanting to keep you close.

 

Luke 13:31-35 EHV ^“In that very hour, some Pharisees came to him and said, “Leave, and go away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.” ³² He said to them, “Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I am going to drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal. ³³ Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, because it cannot be that a prophet would be killed outside Jerusalem!’ ³⁴ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! ³⁵ Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you will say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

 

          There are some things you just can’t stop. They are too big and too powerful for you. Some of you may, for instance, take a vacation to a warmer area for Spring or Easter break. If that area includes the ocean, go into it and just try to stop the waves from rolling in. When one knocks you over and pummels you in the surf you will understand how powerless you are. You can’t stop the waves. Or take the wind. Go ahead, just try to stop it from blowing. You can stand against it and build buildings to withstand it, hopefully. But anybody who has had personal property destroyed by a tornado will tell you there is nothing you can do to stop that wind. It is too powerful. As powerful as wind and waves are there is one who is more powerful, the most powerful, one whom wind and wave obey, one whose great love you just can’t stop. Jesus!

          We see that unstoppable love of Jesus on display in our Gospel lesson today. It’s the last year of Jesus’ public ministry. It’s known as the Year of Opposition because the Pharisees, chief priests and teachers of the law have had enough. They were losing their popularity and prominence with the people as Jesus showed them trusting God, not keeping outward laws, was the way to heaven. They want Jesus out of the way. But Jesus has a job to do. And you know what? You can’t stop Jesus!

          You can’t stop Jesus from loving you to death. ^“In that very hour, some Pharisees came to him and said, “Leave, and go away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.” Did you see that? You can’t stop Jesus. Oh yes, the Pharisees tried. Jesus was in an area called Perea, doing what Jesus did. Teaching the truth. The truth that all must repent and believe in Him as Savior. Herod was the ruler of that area. Now exactly why the Pharisees wanted Jesus out of there we don’t know. Could have been their own personal jealousy. Could have been they wanted to push him to where they thought they had more power. And it is in fact possible that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. He had John the Baptist beheaded. But let’s focus instead on the love of Jesus. You can’t stop it. You can’t stop Him from loving you to death.

          “He said to them, “Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I am going to drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal. ³³ Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, because it cannot be that a prophet would be killed outside Jerusalem!” Jesus words make it clear who is in control and who is not. Herod was not. The Pharisees were not. Jesus is. He determined his course of action and that course of action was to go to Jerusalem. Why? So he could die.

          Many people rightly declare their love to others. Children tell their parents I love you and parents tell their children the same. Husbands proclaim love to wives and wives to husbands and who here hasn’t seen a romcom parody of starstruck lovers declaring, “I love you. I love you more. I love the most!” Gag. You want to prove you love me? Die for me when I need you to. The Bible declares, “Very rarely will someone die for a righteous person though for a good person someone might dare to die.” We know that. If a mother had to die to save her own child she will do it. Most will do it. But they won’t die for someone else’s child. Those who serve us in the military and law enforcement are prepared to die in carrying out their duty. That is noble. But it’s not something any wants to do or plans to do. Except Jesus. You can’t stop Him from loving you to death. That scripture I quoted before goes on to say, “But God demonstrated his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

          We needed him to. Sin made that necessary. If Jesus does not die we all die eternally. We all get separated from God and His love forever. So Jesus loved us to death. You can’t stop Him. Pharisees couldn’t. Herod couldn’t. You can’t. To which of you did Jesus even give to the choice? Who here was asked by Jesus if you wanted his love, his sacrifice? No one. This was all Jesus. You can’t stop Him. While supposedly neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can stop the US mail, plenty of things do. But nothing stops Jesus. Neither sin nor Satan nor scheme of man. He loves you to death. You can’t stop that.

          And you can’t stop Jesus from wanting to keep you close to Him. Jesus went on to say, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her!”  Here we get a peek a Jesus’ Savior heart and it’s a big one. His heart breaks for the people of Jerusalem. He describes them as the ones that kill the prophets and other messengers God sent to them. And what did He want for such people? Justice? Punishment? Payback? No. To keep them close to Him. “How often I have wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Jesus knows He is their only hope for salvation so He wants those people close to Him. History records all the things God did to try to get His straying people to come back. He allowed enemies to harass. Plagues to decimate. Drought to cause famine, all so that the people would return to him. All because He wanted them close.

          Just like Jesus wants to keep you close and you can’t stop that. I know, I know, deep down we all really would like to have the easy life. We want everyone to like us. We want to get every job we apply for, every raise we think we deserve. We want to excel and win at everything we do and every prayer for everything we want answered with a Yes. We want only good health and only good things for ourselves and our kids. It’s not going to happen. Jesus loves you too much to do that to you. He wants to keep you close. And we all know it. It’s the hard things of life that keep us closest to our Lord. It’s guilt and shame over sin that get us running to Jesus. It’s disappointment that makes us exercise our faith. It’s the out of control that has us running to Him for help. Jesus allows those things that keep us close to him because you can’t stop Jesus from wanting you close. If we could do it perfectly we would learn to curse the good times and rejoice in the hard times because Jesus wants us close to him. You can’t stop him.

          Nor would you want to, but you can. You can’t stop Jesus, but you can stop yourself. You can stop yourself from loving Jesus in return. You can stop yourself from valuing His sacrifice. You can stop yourself from going close when Jesus pulls you closer. What did Jesus say to Jerusalem? These five chilling words, “But you were not willing.” The only worse words I can think of to hear from Jesus are the final words he will say to the unbelievers on Judgment Day, “Depart from you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” But you were not willing. Jerusalem. Jerusalem. That’s who Jesus said those word to. Not to you. Not to me. Yet.

          Brothers and sisters, let’s make that never. Jesus loves us to death. He works daily in our lives to keep us close. Let’s just stay close. Run to Him with your hurts and your problems. Run to him when you’ve fallen into sin. Look forward to dining with Him in the Lord’s Supper when appropriate. Devote yourselves to His words daily. Then look forward to that day when Jesus will say, “O Jacobi, Jacobi, I couldn’t stop loving you. How happy I was to have you clinging tightly to me. Come and join your Master’s happiness.” Amen.

 

March 2, 2022 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Matthew 26:18 ESV “I WILL KEEP THE PASSOVER!”

 

ASH WEDNESDAY

March 2, 2022

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Matthew 26:18 ESV

 

“I WILL KEEP THE PASSOVER!”

 

          This year’s midweek Lenten worship is following the theme “The Crucial Hours.” Crucial comes from the Latin word crux which means cross. Something that is crucial then is something that is necessary or critical to what comes next. You are at a crossroads and everything else depends on what happens now. Today’s crucial hour comes from a bold and decisive statement Jesus made in Matthew 26:18 “I will keep the Passover.”

          At first glance that might not seem to be a crucial statement or decision. When Jesus said it, it was the day appointed to celebrate the Passover Feast so why wouldn’t Jesus do that? Every Jew did that every year. OK, it was not every Jew who kept the Passover and there were plenty of years that the people missed. There were years that nobody celebrated the Passover. Nobody kept it. But Jesus did. Always. Why is that important?

          The Passover was one of the required worship feasts in the Old Testament ceremonial law. It commemorated the time God rescued the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. In the 10^th and final of the horrible plagues God sent on Egypt the firstborn male in every household in the land of Egypt died unless the blood of a sacrificed lamb was smeared on the doorframe of their house. When the angel God sent to kill all the firstborn males saw that blood of the lamb, he passed over that house. No one died. Celebrating the Passover gave every Jewish family the chance to look back and remember what God had done for them.

          But the Passover was more than a look back meal. It was a look ahead meal too. God filled it with pictures of what the promised Savior would do. Bitter herbs pictured the bitterness of sin. After the lamb was served at the meal sweet came, picturing the joy of heaven. And then of course there is the Lamb itself that is crucial to the Passover. Everything before the Lamb is bitter, sad, reminding of slavery. Everything after the Lamb is happy and joyful. But in order to get to the happy and joyful you have to have the lamb, the perfect lamb, the sacrificed lamb. Because we have the benefit of New Testament glasses it is easy for us to see how the lamb of the Passover pictured Jesus. Without Jesus all you have is the bitterness of sin. With Jesus the sweetness of heaven. All of that contained in the Passover meal.

          That’s what Jesus would celebrate. He would keep the Passover, again. As he had each year before this as required by God’s law. He needed to do that so he could really keep what the Passover pictured. For that Jesus needed to be perfect and perfectly obey all of God’s commands. Most of the time wouldn’t cut it. Only when it was convenient would not do it either. He had to be better than us.

          You know how it goes with us as we strive to keep God’s commandments. I will keep the 2^nd Commandment and keep God’s name holy, unless I’m surprised or hurt then out comes “Oh my…!” and we blatantly break the commandment instead of keeping it. I’ll keep that 3^rd Commandment and put worship of God first, as long it fits into my schedule. As long as the kids don’t have activities, as long as I’m not tired, as long as…but I’ll keep it another day.  I’ll keep that 5^th Commandment, at least outwardly by not murdering anyone but man is it fun to be mean and make fun of my classmates, my brother or sister, my teacher or parents. You know I guess we don’t really keep any of those commandments. It’s just we don’t break some as badly as others.

          But Jesus did keep all of those commandments and many more. All of the ones required of any Jewish man at His time and He kept them perfectly. Why? So He could be the perfect Lamb that the Passover pictured. So that John the Baptist could point to Jesus and honestly say, “Look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” So that when it comes time for people to be punished for their breaking of God’s commandments God can pass over us and not hand down the guilty verdict we deserve and the punishment that goes with it. For that to happen Jesus had to keep this final Passover.

          And so this is what happened. “On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”¹⁸ He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him the Teacher says, ‘My time is near. I will KEEP the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” ¹⁹ The disciples did as Jesus commanded them and prepared the Passover.” That’s what makes this a crucial hour. Jesus know His time to suffer and die was near. Jesus knew his time to suffer hell was near. If anybody had a legitimate reason to say, “I’m too busy or too tired to worship,” it was Jesus. If anybody could ever legitimately say I’m too busy it is Jesus on Maundy Thursday. But it is crucial that He keep it. So you hear his resolve. ‘My time is near. I will KEEP the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” And keep it He did, and more. He used that time to comfort and teach his disciples. He used it to pray for them and all believers. He used it to provide a replacement meal that doesn’t just picture Jesus, it is Jesus as He gives us His true body and blood to prove to us again He has forgiven our sins. Thank you Jesus!

          Thank you Jesus for keeping the Passover. Thank you for coming to this crucial hour and thinking of us. We have more crucial hours to look at this Lenten season. Let’s keep the Lenten worship as our way to thank him.      Amen.