Monday, February 26, 2018

Second Sunday in Lent (B) 2018

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Mark: 8:33
Theme: Forewarned Is Forearmed

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Forewarned is forearmed. Perhaps you’ve said it yourself. If we know in advance the threats we will face, we have opportunity to be prepared. We can direct our energies to mitigating or avoiding the danger. If we fail to heed the warning the consequences should not be surprising. Lent is surely a good season to consider how this is true in our walk of faith. On the one hand, the Scriptures warn us constantly and clearly about the menace of sin and the consequences that follow. But on the other hand, God doesn’t fail to come to our aid, rescue, and support. Jesus, the Suffering Servant, intercedes for us. The Holy Spirit attends to us. And we are fitted with the only weapon necessary which the Bible calls “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.1”

Being forearmed, however, is no reason to be apathetic, falsely secure, or foolishly self-confident. Nearing the end of a three-year intensive apprenticeship, Jesus and Simon Peter knew each other pretty well. Peter was impulsive, but passionate and loyal. He was seldom remiss in expressing his convictions or sharing his opinions. He had confessed Jesus to be the Messiah saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”2 But now we see clearly that he didn’t know what that really meant. Peter was looking for the strident path to glory. Jesus was leading him by way of the cross. The agendas were irreconcilable. Peter would need to concede, of course, he just didn’t understand how harrowing or painful it would be. The apex is reached today when Jesus responds to Peter’s rebuke saying, “Ge behind Me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”3

Peter envisioned, in some measure, an earthly kingdom established by Jesus in which he would have a high-profile position. He felt very strongly the martyrdom of Jesus was not the way to achieve it. He was self-confident; but He was misled. The passion of his convictions didn’t prevent them from being proven false. He truly thought his assessments were godly. Herein lies an important lesson. If you have an intuition, a feeling, or a sense of what you think God is telling you or wanting you to do- perhaps you’ve seen a sign that supposedly affirms your instinct- don’t automatically assume it is the voice of God speaking to you. Anything and everything that conflicts with God’s revealed word is not a prompting of the Holy Spirit.

If I have a strong feeling that it’s okay to be unfaithful to my wife because I think the circumstances warrant it, that is not the stimulus of the Holy Spirit, but of my own selfishness. If I am convinced that it’s permissible to deceive a business partner because we haven’t been seeing eye to eye on things, that attitude is not being provoked by the Holy Spirit. If I have been hurt by someone in a relationship and now I’m plotting my revenge, my motivation is not from the Spirit, but from my sinful nature. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Commandments don’t make exceptions for me. My judgment will never be more righteous than God’s. In the context of today’s gospel account, Peter was so self-confident he actually accused Jesus of being off track. Such wrongheadedness cannot be mitigated or re-directed. It must be ousted. It must be defeated.

And this is precisely how the Holy Spirit deals with our sinfulness. He doesn’t try to refine or revise our sinfulness. He doesn’t make the best of an undesirable situation. Sin cannot be reformed, only the sinner can be. Ungodliness cannot be civilized. It must be rebuked. Conviction of the heart and will must occur so that repentance will lead to revival and new life. When you receive God’s forgiveness, He is not condoning your sin. He is not overlooking your transgressions. The Spirit works to crush your sinful motives, so that godly ones can leap to the fore. God does not tolerate sin, He atones for it.

Dear friends, our Lord goes right to the crux of the deepest concerns of existence when He says to the crowds today, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”4 Posed as rhetorical questions, they have very definite answers. It’s doesn’t matter if we have everything imaginable in this life, no one can save their own soul from God’s just wrath against sin. We have nothing to offer Him worthy of reconciliation. But Christ does, and He has offered it: His own holy, precious life. This priceless gift results in a favourable exchange for us.

The divine pardon proclaimed to you is not hypothetical or abstract. Your forgiveness was purchased with Christ’s blood, the blood from His thorn-pierced brow, the blood from His hands impaled by nails driven into a cross. It is the price of redemption rendered by the Holy Son of God. When He speaks it is with the Father’s authority. There is no caveat you can raise, no complication you can assert, no exception you can claim that He is ignorant of or too impotent to address. He’s heard all the reservations. “But my sin was different!” “I did it intentionally.” “I did it viciously.” “I don’t deserve to be forgiven because I’ve committed this same transgression so many times.” “I can’t get it out of my mind or out of my heart so that must mean I’m not forgiven.” “I’m beyond help.” No one is out reach of His mercy. Dear friends, don’t waste any time trying to assess the severity of your sins compared to others. Don’t spend a moment doubting whether you could be the lone exception. Throw yourself on the mercy of God in Christ. He welcomes you like the father welcomed the prodigal son.

The capacity of Christ to forgive is far greater than our wickedness. The law of God reveals the depths of sin, thus opening the way to recognize the mercy of Christ. The Scripture says, “Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”5 You cannot be a greater sinner than Christ is a Saviour. Peter denied Him, yet he was restored. Thomas doubted Him, yet he was reconciled. David committed adultery and murder, and yet He was absolved. Can you really believe God is unable to forgive you?

God does forewarn us against the danger and consequence of sin. Those who hard-heartedly separate themselves from God can expect darkness and judgment. Forewarned is forearmed. Still, knowledge of the danger alone cannot save us. But God doesn’t leave us to our own resources. He doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves. We are His baptized. We dine at His table. He clothes us with His armor. The outcome of the war is not in doubt. Satan is silenced. Death is defeated. The life we have now is only a shadow of what is to come. We pray that during this Lenten season our faith will become more firmly grounded in God’s unshakeable truth, so that the prayer of St. Paul which says, “I pray you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,”6 will be realized for us too! Amen.

+ In nomine Jesu +

Second Sunday In Lent
25 February 2018
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 Ephesians 6:17 2 Matthew 16:16
3 Mark 8:33 4 Mark 8:36-37
5 Romans 5:20-21 6 Ephesians 3:17-18

Christian Burial of Margareta Hampel (Feb22, 2018)

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: John 11:21
Theme: No More Ifs


Dear family, friends, and loved ones of Margareta, Lyndon, Steven, Kathryn, Jillian, Bronwyn, Rosanne, and especially you; Cliff,

There are no more ifs, for Margareta. God has made good on His promise. She has been received into His magnificent presence. She has been released from the bonds of this mortal life. Martha had said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”1 She had hoped to spare her brother Lazarus from physical death. But Jesus had something more marvelous in mind. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.”2 Margareta lives. And she does so in a way that should be the envy of us all.

Dear friends, all of our greatest fears and hopes coalesce as we reflect on mortality. Death is a completely inescapable and ungovernable reality. We cannot circumvent it or negotiate with it. Death can be denied, but that hardly accomplishes anything. We will be subject to it. It is the inescapable punishment for sin. It’s not a subject to be avoided because it relates directly to our spiritual wellbeing.

Our sins, our failures, our regrets- the burdens carried deep in the heart about missed opportunities to reconcile relationships because we were too arrogant, too afraid, or too stubborn- what do we do with them on the deathbed? How can they be resolved? This is no theoretical concern. Deep wounds and lasting scars haunt many lives. The Scriptures warn us not to leave things too late, for our own sake and those we love. Most importantly, though, it’s never too soon to pour out our hearts to God. We cannot soften the heart or break the will of someone else. But our merciful Lord hears every plea of the humble soul. We commit things to Him. Only He can unlock doors that no human power can breach.

You see, no one can go from here to there under their own merit or power. Margareta was well-versed in the Scriptures. She knew that. Her faith wasn’t shallow or hollow or showy. She walked the walk and talked the talk. She knew life was a gift. The Scripture says, “This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son of God has life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”3 And again, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.”4


Heaven is not the stuff of fairy tales. It is a dimension far above ours where God’s presence in unmediated. How can we conceive of it, really? This existence called eternity? The Scriptures promise it is not some sort of platonic state of suspended animation. We won’t be indeterminate, free-floating apparitions. We will be resurrected. Bodily! Job exclaims, “After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes- I, and not another.”5 All of the restrictions of the sinful condition will be eradicated. No effects of decay! No inklings of apathy! No trace of anxiety! The difficulty in describing it is evidenced by the fact that the absence of evil is often the biblical focus, “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”6 There will be light and joy and peace, and an indescribable exuberance of life.

It is healthy, at least every Sunday, when we celebrate the physical resurrection of Christ to think about these promises. It is part of the exercise of our baptisms. Margareta was baptized into the saving work of Jesus- His death, resurrection, and ascension- and now the baptismal covenant He made with her is fulfilled. The Good Shepherd has carried her through her earthly journey right to the end. A bodily resurrection still awaits. The apostle writes, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”7 The apostle cuts right to the heart of the matter. Without the resurrection we have nothing substantial to believe in. But remember, there are no more ‘ifs’ for Margareta. Christ has made them disappear like dew in the noonday sun.

And, dear friends, when the big ‘ifs’ of life are resolved we are truly freed to live in joyful service to others. Margareta pursued her passions with exactly this freedom and confidence. Music was one of her great loves. She was more familiar with the genius of Bach or Handel than most people are with music in general. She wasn’t just an admirer though. Margareta was an accomplished musician. When she played the organ in the Divine Service she understood she was leading God’s people in celebration of His love. When she directed the choir, she was helping to bring to life the promises of the gospel through song.

During her last years Margareta endured a time of feebleness that was uncharacteristic of the vibrant and active life she enjoyed most of her days. You’d never find her wasting time doing trivial things. She was as practical and industrious as she was spiritual. Even in her convalescence she was exercising her faith. She was eager to hear God’s Word and receive Holy Communion. She was diligent in prayer. She showed concern for God’s people in need. As difficult as her time of immobility was, it was an opportunity to reflect deeply on God’s mercy and grow closer to Cliff. She cherished every day as a gift.

Margareta was happy, too, when she was nurturing a garden or the next generation. How many trees did she plant? How many flowers did she grow? How many gardens did she nurture? Margareta not only had two green thumbs but all her other fingers as well! And how many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren did she nurture? Well, we can put a number to those of her own bloodline. But what about all the others? We might gather all the available flowers in Loxton and it would still hardly be a sufficient tribute to this woman who cherished her garden so immensely. But she would have been content also with one, solitary specimen, a rose or something else fitting, as a reminder of the singular, indispensable, death-defying love of her Saviour. He alone possesses immortality. As the Scripture says, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field…the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”8 All other supports collapse under the weight of mortality or abandon us in the hour of need.

Grief is among the trickiest and most vexing of all human traumas. Joy mixes with sorrow, loss is tempered by hope when we reflect on the death of a faithful Christian. The death of loved ones reaches us at the deepest levels of the human psyche. Nothing compares to the stinging sense of loss that occurs. No one can resolve someone else’s grief. Navigating it healthily requires divine assistance. The Holy Spirit does not fail to give it. Cliff, your beloved is out of sight, but she’ll never be out of heart or out of mind. She is filled with inexpressible joy and that knowledge will buoy the weight of your grief.

Margareta’s confirmation verse was, “Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”9 That has now come to pass. No more ifs. Thanks be to God. Amen.


+ In nomine Jesu +

Christian Burial of Margareta Anne Hampel
22 February 2018
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 John 11:21 2 John 11:25-26
3 1 John 5:11-12 4 Romans 5:8-9
5 Job 19:26-27 6 Revelation 21:4
71 Corinthians 15:14 8 Isaiah 40:6-8

Midweek Lent #1 2018

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: John 18:40
Theme: A Surprise Ending?

Dear followers to the cross,

Do you like to skip to the end? Some people are in the habit of turning straight to the conclusion of a novel to find out how it ends. A basic understanding of the storyline is usually needed to make the exercise worthwhile. There’s little use or satisfaction in knowing the conclusion if you don’t know anything about the characters and events leading up to it. Some stories have such a surprise ending that it makes following the entire narrative essential. What about the passion of Jesus, the Christ?

Pilate was the secular authority in charge, but he didn’t know how this was going to end. Pontius Pilate had dealt with the Jews before. Did he have any reason to believe this Passover would be different? Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But My kingdom is not from this world.”1 Imagine the skepticism going through his mind? Another dreamer? Another failed revolutionary? A Saviour? Why would one think so?

Did the passion of Christ have a surprise ending? Any Christian (or unbeliever for that matter) with even a rudimentary knowledge of the Scriptures already knows the finale involves the death and resurrection of the main character. It’s a pretty dramatic curtain call! Did the contemporaries of Jesus expect it? Was the betrayal, suffering, sentencing, and execution of Jesus of Nazareth something that should have caught them by surprise? Well, if they were familiar with the prophecies of Isaiah or the Psalms, one would think not.

Yet, there is more involved here than an intellectual grasp of events and circumstances. Descending from the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus told Peter, James, and John not to tell anyone what they had seen “until the Son of Man is risen from the dead. So, they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.”2 So, we can say that they were kept from properly understanding it until the resurrection. Not until then did the Holy Spirit pull the blinders off their eyes. And not until Pentecost did they really see clearly with the eyes of faith.

We can hardly fault them. We know the entire story, yet clarity of faith- which is such an exceedingly precious gift- is still so easily clouded with doubt, skepticism, and apathy. Such, dear friends, is the power of sin. Satan is forever seeking to turn our gaze from the cross, to countless other distractions. Faith must remain anchored to a certainty that is always external to ourselves. God is unfailing. No one else, nothing else is. Our God is not of human making. Pilate poses the question, “What is truth?”3 We have nothing to do with such cynical philosophizing. Jesus provides the answer. Truth is not whatever we’d like to make of it. A God made in our own image is not a God, but an idol. Christianity is not about constructing your own definitions of morality, security, and beliefs about the here and now, and the hereafter and pinning God’s name to them. You may have noticed that it is increasingly popular to reinterpret or sideline what the Bible says in the interest of appealing or succumbing to the prevailing culture. You can misrepresent God’s word to make it say pretty much anything all.

But the truth is still true even if nobody believes it. Lies are still lies even if everybody believes them. Lent does not involve a mental exercise in which try to make a big chronological leap into the ancient past and attempt to identify with the topic under discussion. And this is not what Jesus was teaching when He said in the institution of the Lord’s Supper, “Do this in remembrance of Me.4 The historical details of the passion of Jesus are critical information, to be sure. Yet, we don’t receive the benefits of His redeeming work by trying to go back to the cross and reconstruct the circumstances. The crucified and risen Lord comes to us. Repentant hearts are always greeted by Him. He meets His baptized with compassion and forgiveness.

Still, in Lent we desire even more fervently both clarity of faith and certainty of conviction. Sin wages a war of attrition and we need to be renewed. Included in every prayer to be cleansed with the forgiveness earned at the cross is the plea of Thomas, “Show me Your hands and Your side.”5 He does exactly that when He offers us His body and blood in the sacrament. He does exactly that when the promise of absolution is publicly proclaimed. He does exactly that when our hearts are set at ease by His comforting words of compassion.

It doesn’t mean our faith doesn’t lose perspective anymore. We tend to see things with a very narrow focus according to what is troubling us at the moment. So, we might ask… Where is the gentle Jesus when we need Him? Where is the strong deliverer? Where is the patient pastor? Where is the seeking shepherd? Yet He knows when we need discipline as opposed to coddling. He knows when we need comfort instead of condemnation. He’s not a Saviour we can sculpt according to our own whims. He’s a Shepherd who tends to us according to our actual needs. The Suffering Servant is the Risen Saviour, is the Ascended Lord, is the Reigning King. The events of redemption cannot be parceled into stand-alone segments. The love of God is not subject to compartmentalization. Neither is our Saviour. Your Redeemer hung upon a cross and rose from death. Those events alone qualify Him to meet your every need.

On Palm Sunday jubilant crowds welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem with high expectation. It seems surprising then, that our Passion Reading ends with the release of Barabbas, a criminal. Things were about to get very interesting. Perhaps you’ve wondered whether your own life will have a surprise ending? Well, hopefully your life will have many pleasant surprises in the future, but there are likely to be some difficult ones too. God knows and will be present with you through all circumstances. But we know the final chapter involves resurrection to eternal life in the heavenly realms. Knowing the ending doesn’t make the journey to that point less relevant, but more exciting. Does your vocation still matter? Do your relationships still matter? Do the daily opportunities you have to walk with people in the brokenness of their lives still matter? Very much in every way! We are not in doubt about the truth like Pilate was. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life6. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end7.

+ In nomine Jesu +

Midweek #3 in series Lent 2018
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 John 18:36
2 Mark 9:9-10
3 John 18:38
4 Matthew 22:19
5 See John 20:25
6 See John 14:6
7 See Revelation 22:13