What makes for a good movie? Heart-stopping chase scenes with big explosions? Is it action like this that makes for a good movie? Well no, not by itself. You also need a good plot to go along with the action. And you can’t move a plot along very well if no one speaks in the movie. That’s why the last silent movie made by Hollywood was filmed in 1935, almost 80 years ago. I’ve never watched a silent movie from beginning to end, but I’m pretty sure I’m not missing much. In fact I’d be willing to guess that your best-loved movie scenes are favorites because of the spoken dialogue not because of the action. Let me put it this way. When’s the last time you acted out a scene from a movie? Perhaps never, but I bet you have memorized a half a dozen movie lines that you like to spout at dinner parties, much to the embarrassment of your family. Yes, it’s the dialogue, the spoken word that makes or breaks a movie.
In the same way it is the spoken Word that is one of the highlights of our worship service. What we’ll be reminded of today in our continuing sermon series on Lutheran Worship is that the Word that is shared from the pulpit may come out of the mouth of a man, but it has been put there by the voice of God and so we’ll want to pay attention to it. Let’s get right to the heart of the matter as we consider the words of Jesus from Luke 10.
About six months before his crucifixion, Jesus commissioned 72 of his followers to serve as missionaries throughout Israel. Before sending them he told them that they were going out as lambs among wolves. Don’t you suppose more than a few gulped at that description? Lambs among wolves? What chance would they have to succeed in their mission? Wouldn’t it have been better for Jesus to say that his evangelists would be the wolves among the lambs? Then they would have been more apt to stride forth boldly on their mission. But they weren’t to be fierce like wolves. They were to be meek like lambs. Jesus’ point was that his disciples would not accomplish their mission by force or fear tactics. They weren’t supposed to strong-arm people into heaven. They would instead simply speak the words Jesus had given them. But not everyone would listen to these disciples and they weren’t to take this personally, for Jesus said: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
2,000 years have passed since Jesus sent out those 72 disciples, but the voice of missionaries, staff ministers, and pastors sent out by Jesus can still be heard today. You’re listening to one such small voice right now. But Jesus wants you to know that it’s not just Dan Habben’s voice you perceive, you’re also hearing the voice of Jesus, for whenever anyone speaks from the Bible it is Jesus himself who speaks.
That makes my calling as a pastor an easy one in one regard. My role as Sunday preacher is not to come up with new material. I haven’t been called by Jesus to entertain his flock, but to feed it. That’s why you receive a steady diet of the two main teachings of the Bible: law and gospel. Do you remember what the purpose of the law is? God’s commands, his “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” don’t show us how to get to heaven but reveal just how far we are from heaven. God’s law is like a GPS-enabled phone. It simply tells you where you are but doesn’t actually help you physically get to where you want to be. Therefore the law ought to crush any pride we have in ourselves the way a pinprick will quickly deflate a balloon. The law makes it clear that we are not the holy and pious people many others may think we are. So when I make you squirm in your seat because I’m touching on a command you’re struggling to keep, don’t tune me out. Remember who it is speaking to you: not just your pastor, but your God. Don’t brush off the demands of the law because to reject the Word I share with you is to reject Jesus himself.
Of course I have also been called to preach the gospel. That’s the good news that Jesus did everything to win our forgiveness and give us heaven. You can pray that I strive to preach this truth in ways that keeps this miracle of God’s love something that you continue to marvel at. Pray that I can become like the chef who learns how to cook an egg in so many different ways that his patrons never tire of eating eggs. For example we know that the good news of the gospel states that Jesus took our place at the cross and was punished for our sins. But thinking of that truth like this might give you a new appreciation for what Jesus did for you. Soon after that Malaysian airliner was lost last week, reports circulated about two men who were thought to be on that plane but were not. It turns out that their passports had been stolen and used by two others who boarded that flight and are now sadly missing with the 200 or so other passengers and crew. What a relief it was though for the family members of the two men whose passports had been stolen. For a while they may have believed that their loved ones had been lost. But such was not the case. Another who had assumed their identity was on that doomed flight.
When Jesus was convicted and sentenced as a rebel and therefore nailed to the cross, it was clear that the Romans had the wrong man. It should have been Barabbas, a real-life murderer and rebel who was sentenced to death while Jesus should have been freed. But Jesus went to the cross anyway, as if he had taken Barabbas’s passport and assumed his identity. And that’s exactly what Jesus the sinless Son of God had come to do – not just for Barabbas but for you and me as well! Jesus assumed our identity, he took on our sins and boarded that airplane-shaped piece of wood we call a cross, doomed to endure God’s hell-bent fury so that we would not have to.
Perhaps that illustration doesn’t make the gospel any more real or exciting to you. That doesn’t mean that you should dismiss it. Preachers won’t be able to wow you every week, but as I said before, you should not come to Sunday worship to be entertained, but to be fed. And you’ll have to do a bit of work to make that happen. I mean even when you go out to a fancy restaurant you still have to pick up a fork and spoon to shovel the food into your mouth right? So when you come to worship you’ll want to do your best to shovel God’s Word into your ears so that it slides down to your heart.
What can help you do that is by reading the sermon beforehand. I usually will have the sermon in your email inbox by Saturday afternoon. If you don’t want to read the sermon, read at least the sermon text before heading to bed Saturday night. Then make use of the Sermon Note questions in your bulletin while I preach. This will help you stay focused. Then when you sit around the supper table Sunday night, go through those questions as a family. They will help you not only digest what you have heard in the sermon, but also consciously encourage you to put into practice Jesus’ life-giving words.
When we’re tempted to think of God’s Word as just a collection of tired stories we’ve heard so many times before, we would do well to return to Luke 10, our text for today. There we read that when the 72 missionaries returned from their trip they were ecstatic. Many, through the Holy Spirit, had responded positively to their message, and the disciples had even driven out demons in Jesus’ name. In reply Jesus said that he had seen Satan fall like lightning. Yes, God’s Word is powerful. It drops Satan to his knees as fast and as powerfully as a bolt of lightning. Sure, God’s Word may seem “boring” at times but so does electricity, but where would we be without it? We’d be stuck in the dark. We would be much worse off if we didn’t have God’s Word. We would be stuck in the darkness of sin, uncertain of our eternal future, afraid of death and suffering. Be thankful that Lutheran worship insists on keeping God’s Word a focal point in the Sunday service.
Still, Satan will do his best to get us to think that Lutheran worship is boring. He’ll ask: “Where’s the action? Where are the jokes? Why do you bother getting up on a Sunday morning for this routine?” Yes, it is a real miracle that you’re here this morning. By nature we’d rather not listen to God. But to reject his Word is to reject salvation. So I pray that you keep coming to Sunday worship and keep looking forward to hearing the Word because whenever you do, you hear Jesus himself speak to you – to strengthen your faith in him so that you remain on this flight bound for heaven. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
Why did Jesus tell his disciples that he was sending them out like lambs among wolves?
A preacher is to feed the flock, not entertain it. What would you say then to someone who remarks: “I’ve been going to church my whole life and I can’t remember a single sermon. Why bother anymore?” (This thought was not expanded upon in the sermon.)
List the two main teachings of the Bible and explain the purpose of each.
You heard one way to illustrate the gospel in the sermon (Jesus dooming himself by taking our identity, like the two men on the doomed Malaysian Airline flight who assumed other identities not their own). Come up with another way to illustrate the gospel.
Listening to God’s Word may seem boring, but so is electricity —and yet we wouldn’t want to be without it! List three things you can do to better prepare yourself to hear God’s Word every Sunday.
