Concordia Lutheran Church
February 28, 20190
The Gathering
Luke 13:31-35
† IN JESUS NAME †
May you realize that God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ has gathered us, even as a hen gathers her chicks…. For that indeed is the result of His gifts of mercy and peace..
It was too early in the morning, that Monday morning sixteen years ago last month. Four thirty-one in the morning, and more than just the earth and the building anchored into it. Lives were dramatically changed, and affected for months and years to come…
January 17, 1994, 4:31 am – and the name of the city Northridge would forever be linked to a tremendous earthquake. As Kay and I were standing on Topanga Boulevard with nearly 1000 other residents of our apartment complex, we wondered how so many others were doing. No information was readily apparent, but we wondered how her folks and mine, and other people we loved and cared for were doing. As the sun began to rise, people were looking after each other, and beginning to make contact with each other.
Parents were herding their kids in their arms, not willing to even get a arm length away. As more tremors and aftershocks hit, the fathers and mothers grasped their children tighter, and even if you couldn’t hear the words, you know they were words of comfort and peace and assurance.
As we approach Lent, we become more aware of how shaken our world has become. How damaged, how fallen, how instable. It may not be that way because of plate tectonics, but of something far more damaging…sin…a world of it..
Since Adam and Eve tried to hide in the garden, as their world was shaken, God has been trying to gather His people, to cleanse them, to bring them comfort, and peace.
Problems – Some refuse to be Gathered (Law)
1. The direct approach – Herod and the Herodians
2. Jesus confronting the Pharisees
a. Instead of it being the evil herodians, its now his “friends” he challenges
b. The confrontation leads to more… pushing away..Christ’s ministry
3. Do we allow Jesus to gather us?
a. Do we realize His peace and rest that is ours? Or do we dismiss it.
b. We talk about God being our Lord, our Comforter, will we stop fighting?
In our gospel reading this morning, we see the people Jesus is trying to gather. There are two groups, the first those who directly reject him, and the second, who you think will be aligned with him, and with his work Think of them as the two brothers, tuhe prodigal, and the older brother who stays home.
Herod, and those around him, known interesting enough as the Herodians, directly and openly oppose Christ. (cool to have your followers named after you… hmm.. the dustinians doesn’t work…but the pastorians ain’t bad) We know from History these people were those who challenged the religious system and basically opposed the historic faith and practices of Israel. They worked with the Roman government closely, which kept them in power. They opposed the Pharisees, and were responsible for the deaths of many religious leaders – including John the Baptist, and according to this passage, they wanted to kill Jesus as well. It is ironic that Herod’s family had followers of Jesus who would come forth after Jesus’ death. God can still call those violently opposed to Him into a relationship with Him, and that is good news for many. He can and will gather them, as a parent gathers up their children and protects and comforts them.
Even as Herod would plot, Jesus would point out, that its not the enemies of God that kill prophets, its those who would count themselves as God’s people that. In those days, the Pharisees were what we would call Bible believing evangelicals. People mostly like us, and it we see them in today’s gospel, warning Jesus, trying to get him to go to the safety away from Galilee and Herod’s power base.
They hadn’t decided against Jesus at this point, though they had questioned Him often. Remember, Joseph of Arimethia, who gave Jesus his expensive grave, and Nicodemus were both prominent Pharisees.
Yet Jesus would point out that they would be the ones who will kill Him, that it would be the religious “believers” who would betray and attempt to get rid of God from their lives. Like Peter, who proclaimed he would never betray Jesus, like these Pharisees would be unable to consider trying to get rid of the God.
In that, they are just like…us.
We may claim that we have faith, that we trust in God, that we are good people. Yet, how often do we fail to acknowledge God’s presence in our life. How often do we yield to sin, not even bothering to strive against temptation? How often do we choose to leave God’s peace, or ignore His presence?
And so come the earthquakes in our lives, and the storms that are caused by our sin. Do we treasure the freedom God has given us, or do we dwell in the shame and guilt it has created? When those quakes hit, do we run to His arms, and His comforting presence? When others attack us, do we realize He will see us through, or do we counterattack?
Do we, like Adam and Eve, attempt to hide our shaken, broken lives, and our spiritual nakedness?
Solution – Let them have their way
1. The going to Jerusalem is definite – The march towards Good Friday is set
2. In His death, He will gather His people in Baptism (Romans 6:1, Galatians 3,)
3. The Mass – the gathering of the saints from the shaken world.
The interesting thing is… that Jesus would let the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and the Herodians and all the Jewish people, and all the Romans try to eliminate Him from their lives. He would let them kill Him, He would allow our sin to drive Him to the cross. There, he would gather us in a way we could never imagine, He would accept our sin, from Adam and Eve to those of people yet to be born.
As he leaves the Galilean Pharisees behind, and sets his mind on Jerusalem, as he heads for the first Good Friday and the cross, there is the longing expressed, and it will be expressed again on Palm Sunday, to gather the rebellious sinners, and the religious ones under his wings. To gather them and comfort them from the shaken and broken lives devastated by sin, and the consequences of sin.
And that shall be done. For in the cross, in the death of Christ we are joined, that like with Clyde and so many others that have gone before, we may someday experience the power of the resurrection from the dead. Paul said it this way, to the Romans,
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Romans 6:4-5 (ESV)
When Paul talks of the same idea to the Galatian church, he phrases it in the present tense, this is reality now..
” 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 (ESV)
We realize that, as we approach this altar, as we are gathered to share together in the feast of Christ. This is where God’s desire to gather us together and bring us comfort and peace is so clearly seen. It is where God fulfills His longing for a relationship with us, having cleansed us, healed us, and made us holy in His sight.
It seems strange, that even those things, like the cross, that we use to push away ourselves from God’s intimacy, become the very tools by which He has gathered us. But that is the nature of our loving Father in heaven.
So stop fighting, stop pushing Him away, stop avoiding Him in your daily life. Share with Him your fears and let Him comfort you. Share with God your sorrow, that He might turn it to joy, share with Him your joys as well, walk with Him, even as Adam and Eve did, in the garden..
Yes, our worlds have been shaken, by sin, and natural disasters, and illness and even death. But look to God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit and know that they have gathered us together, that we might know their presence, their love.
We are here… gathered in His peace now… relax, and know He is your God. Come to the table of peace, the table of comfort, the table of healing..and rejoice in the love!
Share in the peace of God, that inexpressible, indescribable peace of God which passes all understanding, and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
AMEN?
