In Christ, We May Depart in Peace (Memorial Sermon for Phil Myer, Dec 29, 2012)

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Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Rocklin, California
Eve of the First Sunday After Christmas
December 29, 2012
Memorial Sermon for Phil Myer

myerphil2012.mp3

TITLE: “In Christ, We May Depart in Peace” (Luke 2: 25-32)

Family and friends of Phil, especially Bob and Gary. Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our text for today is from the song of Simeon just read, from Luke chapter two.

Philip Wilferd Myer, Jr., was born into time on July 25, 1931, in Salinas, California. He lived his life in various places, serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, and for much of his life worked in real estate development. After many struggles with illnesses, diabetes, possibly Parkinson’s Disease, and finally chronic leukemia. He lived in the Loomis area in recent years, and then in Roseville for the past year or so. He confessed his faith in the Risen Christ to Pastor Meyer and to me at different times over the years. He died in Christ on Monday, December 17, 2012, and was laid to rest at the Sacramento Valley National V.A. Cemetery in Dixon on Friday, December 21st. “‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’” (Rev. 14:13)

Simeon was an old man when the infant Jesus came into the Temple. Simeon had waited his whole life for this little baby, this child from a backwater town in Nazareth, to come to the Temple. The Old Temple build with human hands met the New Temple of flesh and blood in Jesus Christ. So it is no surprise that Simeon took this little baby into his arms and prayed:

Now, set free your servant, Master,
according to your word in peace;
because my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared before the face of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and glory for your people Israel. (Translation by A. A. Just)

Set free. Most of our translations have depart, but really set free catches the meaning. The creator Lord sets Simeon free according to His Word in peace. God’s gracious presence in Jesus is the only things that can truly set us free.

The infant Lord comes to His Temple to set His people free from the bondage of sin, death and the devil. We, like Simeon, are all in bondage. We are held in bondage by this sinful nature that clings to us and grips us with cords of death. Our world is held in this bondage. Saint Paul says that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs to be delivered from this bondage of sin. This bondage traps us, and sickness, sin, disease and death are all the tools of this ghastly enemy.

That is the beauty of the Song of Simeon, or the Nunc Dimittis, as it is often called. According to the Word of the Lord, Simeon was set free in peace. There is salvation. There is life. There is new creation and hope for all mankind. When Simeon saw Jesus, he was set free. When he saw Jesus, he saw God’s salvation for all people. There is no wondering about where God is. He is there, in the flesh of Jesus, just as was promised in His Word. Where God’s Word promises that He will be, that is where He is, not as some abstraction or warm feeling that comes and goes, but in the flesh, in our flesh.

Phil longed to be set free. Free from the sickness that had plagued him off and on for so many years. Free from worry and fear for his future. He longed for that freedom which only Christ can give. The last time I visited Phil was just the day before he died. Gary and I saw him. He was, as they say in the medical field, non-responsive. Now I have heard from several people that non-responsive is a rather odd way for Phil to be. He would often have a response to a need or a question. And he was going to tell you whether you wanted to hear it or not. But illness had, it seems, finally gotten the best of Phil.

Like Simeon almost 2000 years ago, Phil has been set free. For you see, death for the Christian is not the end, but the beginning. Phil finished his life in the loving arms of Jesus Christ. If there is one thing that we can be sure of, it is the eternal mercy of a loving God. As the Psalmist cried out so many years ago, My heart and my flesh fail me, but you are the rock of my heart and my portion forever. (Ps. 73)

Yes, God in His great mercy has set Phil free. And we who remain grieve at our loss, but we have confidence in this: Jesus Christ, who died and rose again from the dead, will raise up Phil and all believers at the last day. He has been set free, and we will see Him again in the Last Day.

Jesus said, My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. (John 10: 27-29) Phil heard the voice of his Savior, and our Lord in His great mercy has given him eternal life.

For those who do believe in Jesus, trust Him, and follow Him, well you may depart in peace, because your eyes have beheld Him. Oh, it’s not that Christians look forward to dying. Christians do not especially want to die anymore than anyone else. For some though, the hard part is not the dying, it is the struggle to go on living. So from God’s point of view, the view that both Simeon and Phil now have, any day is a good day to die, because the Christian may, indeed, depart in peace.

What’s more, our hope does not lie in Phil being a good person. I’m sure he was a good person, in his own way. But he was also a sinner, and, like all of us, deserved nothing but eternal separation from God. But God is merciful, not vengeful. And at the Last Day, He will raise Phil and all the dead and give eternal life to him and all believers in Christ. We call that the resurrection of the body. Phil’s body, now laid to rest in that cemetery in Dixon, Phil’s body will rise again on the Last Day. That is God’s promise to Phil, and that is God’s promise to you this day.

According to God’s Word, Phil believed and was baptized. With the Word, Phil lived his life of faith. He is now singing that ancient Song of Simeon with the angels and the whole Church in heaven and on earth:

… Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy Word.
For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face
of all people; a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Thy people
Israel. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Be at peace, Phil. Be at rest, and we look forward to the day where we are reunited with you again in heaven. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

I’ll Be Home for Christmas (Christmas Lessons and Carols 2012)

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Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Rocklin, California
Rev. Todd Peperkorn
Lessons and Carols (Dec. 24, 2012)

TITLE: “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”

2012lessonsandcarols.mp3

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text for today is from the Gospel just read from St. John chapter one.

There is something about the holiday season that evokes the homing beacon in all of us. We want to go home, quite simply put. Want want things to be as they once were. I don’t know about you, but I have a fairly clear picture in my head of what Christmas is supposed to be. I know what cookies we are supposed to have. I know how things should look and feel. I know what food to eat and which carols to sing. These memories are hard-wired into our minds from childhood and even before. There is always the elusive perfection out there. And the holiday season brings it out in all of us.

EGcoverCan tGoHome

But what is in my head and reality, well, they aren’t exactly alike, or even similar sometimes. Oh, there may be bits and pieces that fit the ideal, but something or someone is always missing. It may be something missing in my heart. It may be a song or a decoration. The wrong kind of tinsel or a missing ingredient in the holiday grog, or glug, or whatever your family calls that funny drink. It may be something bigger or more important than all of that. But as Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “you can’t go home again.”

We can’t go back in time. We can’t undo the present and transport back to that hidden perfection. We can’t go home. And truth be told, that perfection of home and hearth may have never been that perfect in the first place. As children we have a remarkable capacity for forgetting what we don’t want to remember and bringing to the front what suits our purposes. You can’t go home again.

If we understand that, we begin to understand Christmas from God’s perspective. You see, many years ago we left home. We left the Garden. And when we left in our rebellion and foolishness, God’s home, our home, was never the same again. There was a gap, a place missing that could only be filled with you. God’s heart was broken for us all.

God has called and called and continued to call us home again to him. His home just isn’t the same without you. For that is your true home, in fellowship with him. It is where you belong. All of your restlessness, all of your longing for that completion, it can only be filled in Him. We search and search and try to find meaning and purpose and make things just right, but it will never work without Him.

Because of that, and because we cannot find our own way home, our Lord left His heavenly dwelling and came down to earth. He has entered into our restless hearts. He has clothed Himself in our skin and bones, so that He may lead us home in Him.

This little babe so few days old is come to us even now to calm our fears, to show us God’s love for us, and most of all, to forgive our sins and draw us back into fellowship with Him. He comes even now as a little child, as if He is saying to you, “Don’t be afraid. I’m on your side. Come and take me into your heart, into your life. For in me you will find your place, that you maybe didn’t even know was missing.”

This night is the annual celebration of the power and grace of God’s love for you. The hymns, the carols, the lights, the readings, the symbols on the tree, all of these point to the one great light, the beacon that leads the way to God in this dark and fallen world.

God has visited His people. He has come to you this night. Come and adore Him. Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again, because He has come to bring you there. You are home for Christmas, for you are home in Him.

Merry Christmas in Jesus’ name. Amen.

His Flesh for You (Christmas Day 2012)

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Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Rocklin, California

Rev. Todd Peperkorn

John 1:1-14

Christmas Day 2012

TITLE: “His Flesh for You”

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel lesson from St. John chapter one, particularly verse fourteen:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

He has his mother’s eyes. How often have you heard that phrase, or one like it? Family resemblance can be striking. You don’t have to see a child’s parents sometimes to know them. You can see it in the young child’s eyes, or their nose, or the shape of their face. Family resemblance can even go beyond the little things. Big or small, weight, height, build, disposition, inclination toward music or math, or things mechanical, or whatever, all sorts of things are connected to family genes. You can tell so many things about a person by their family.

So what was Jesus’ family like? Our text proclaims a miracle: the Word, the almighty, eternal Word of God, became flesh. The creator of all things came into our flesh to be born of a virgin. He clothed Himself in our flesh, lived our life, died the death that should have been ours, and rose from the dead so that we, too, could live that new life of His. This is His life, and this is our life through baptism. As St. John says in verse 12 of our text, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” By baptism we have been adopted into this same Holy Family that had to flee to Egypt in the Judean night.

This miracle, called the Incarnation in the Church, is perhaps the greatest mystery of all time. How can eternity be contained in a little baby? How can the creator of the universe be wrapped in the clothes of a little Jewish baby in a cold, Judean night? This is one of the mysteries of the Church that we can only confess and give thanks to God for, but perhaps the greater mystery is why. Why would God deign to become man? Now there’s a question we can answer, because our Lord has told us why He came to earth. He came to earth because of His great love for us. Love so deep and rich and passionate that He could not, He would not let us die in the mire of our transgressions. He came into our flesh. This body, this flesh that God has given to each one of us, this is the flesh that we have torn and abused by sin and greed. This is the flesh that holds all of our filthy thoughts, and these are the arms and legs and eyes and mouth and ears that each one of you uses to deny and mock God, and to serve yourself rather than those in need around you. It is into this weak and sinful flesh that Christ our Lord came.

The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. Our Lord did not come into the flesh to be an earthly ruler, or as some sort of superhuman. No, he came into our flesh, and He dwelt among us. He came and was in the midst of human life. Our hurts, our sorrows, our joys, our pain, He experienced all of it. That’s the sort of God we worship. Our Lord is not far and away off in heaven, looking downing with a disdainful eye on all of our misdeeds. No, He saw our sinful weakness and rebellion, came into our flesh and dwelt among us. The Son of God entered the world of His creation to redeem it, to buy it back from Satan and the world.

So where do we find this Son of God today? Did He go back into heaven after doing all of His work to save us? Is it back to business as usual? The world today has all sorts of places to go to find God. As are now in the new millennium, we see more and more bizarre cults and religious groups coming forth with the “truth” about God. But where to we find God? John answers the question for us: The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. We know God by partaking of His flesh. We know God by knowing Jesus. Luther put it this way:

“The Son of God did not want to be seen and found in heaven. Therefore He descended from heaven into this lowliness, came to us in our flesh, laid Himself into the womb of His mother and into the manger and went to the cross. This ladder He placed on the earth so that we might ascend to God on it. This is the way you must take. If you forsake this way and try to speculate about the glory of the Divine Majesty without this ladder, you will invent marvelous matters, matters that are above your horizon; but you will do so to your very great harm.”

So where is the ladder to heaven and to God? The manger, the cross, and the empty tomb. It is only through Christ that we find God and ascend to heaven. Many people will want to speculate about God, and try to put the focus away from Christ and on to us. That is always the temptation, isn’t it? We so much want to get away from Christ and look elsewhere. A little baby in a manger is cute, but death on a cross? That’s morbid and depressing. But it is only through this cross that we can find God. Luther again put it this way, “We should hold of a certainty that when we look at Christ, hear Him, call upon Him, and worship Him, we are seeing, hearing, calling upon, and worshipping God the Father . . . For what you hear from Christ you hear from the eternal and invisible Father, because besides Christ there is no other God, nor are we to seek any other will of God. Those who indulge their own thoughts and speculate about God and His will without Christ lose God altogether.”

This is what it means to say that we behold His glory. Where is His glory? Is His glory in power, where He rules with an iron fist? Is His glory in success? As a preacher, Jesus was a failure by earthly standards. Who was left with Him when He suffered and died? No one. Does John call Him, “Behold the mighty lion who takes away the sin of the world”? No. He is the lamb, a meek and lowly creature that is easily taken and killed.

Here we get to the back to the mystery of Christmas. The angels and all the heavenly host sing of His glory, and we sing with them. “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth.” God’s glory, bound together in human flesh, dwelling among us as one of us. Born, circumcised, lived, suffered, died, and rose again. For you. Only for you. This is His glory, that He would live the perfect life we cannot live, and die our death, so that we can partake of His glory.

St. Paul once wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Your baptism bound you to Christ’s life. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” When you were baptized, all of the fullness of His indestructible life became yours. You are bound to His flesh in your baptism. The fullness of His divine life is yours. Life, real life, is yours through this babe of Bethlehem.

Very soon we will dine at His table, and partake of His divine flesh and blood. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He dwells with us today, and He gives us Himself for divine food and drink. Here, in this holy place, we partake of His divine nature, and all of the gifts that He would bring to you through His cross and resurrection are yours. Take, eat, take, drink. The Word became flesh.

So what was the family resemblance Jesus had with His mother? And what is the family resemblance you have with Jesus, your true Brother? You have the gift of eternal life, and the name of God is upon you. May this life be yours to all eternity, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.

In the Flesh (Advent 4c, 2012)

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NewImage

(With apologies and thanks from my friend, Chad Bird)

Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Rocklin, California
Rev. Todd Peperkorn
Advent 4C (December 23, 2012)
Luke 1:39-55

12-23-2012advent4c.mp3

TITLE: “In the Flesh”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text for today is from the Gospel just read from St. Luke chapter 1.

The old and the new meet together in our Gospel today. Two women, one beyond childbearing years, the other unmarried and by all accounts before childbearing years. Yet our Lord, in His great mercy, cares for them both.

Their positions could hardly be more different. Elizabeth was the wife of a priest, an honorable and respected position and member of the religious establishment. But she and Zechariah had no children. Now today, in a land where children are a choice and not a gift, seeing an elderly couple who didn’t have children, well, it isn’t completely unusual. Not so in Jesus’ day. In our Lord’s day, children were always considered a blessing of the Lord, a gift to be received.

What’s more, Zechariah and Elizabeth wanted children. We hear a little earlier in Luke the following:

“And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.” (Luke 1:6–7 ESV)

But God had not given them children. And so they waited, and waited, and waited and waited. Like Hannah before them or Sarai before her, their prayers continued for years, decades even. And God heard their cries, and God knew, and God answered their prayers.

Mary, on the other hand, was on the opposite end of the social and family spectrum. She was a young girl, twelve to fourteen years of age or so. She did not come from a prominent family, although she had King David’s blood in her veins. She was betrothed or engaged to Joseph, but that was still some time off. Her life was before her. Potential bursting within, as only the young can have. She lived in a backwater town in Galilee, but that didn’t matter.

When the angel Gabriel announced her pregnancy to her, she received this news with faith and joy. But it doesn’t take a lot to figure that this would be, complicated, for her and for Joseph. Would Joseph believe her? Would she be shamed as an unwed mother, divorced quietly for the sake of propriety? “Let it be to me according to your word,” she said to the angel. Amen, in other words. Whatever the consequences, the messiness of the Lord’s promise to her, she would receive it with joy, and all generations would call her blessed.

So here they are in our reading today, the old and the new. The last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets meets the Messiah in the flesh.

I don’t think we can even fathom how remarkable this meeting must have been. John the Baptist, just a few short months from being born, John is in the womb of Elizabeth. In John we have Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah and Micah, all of the prophets and their words echoing in his prenatal head. Elizabeth is pregnant with anticipation for what will come forth from her womb. And John is with her.

So when Mary comes to the door and greets her elder cousin, John cannot even contain himself in his joy. It doesn’t matter that this prenatal messiah will cause his death. John leaps in his mother’s womb! In older times when a woman could started to feel the child in her begin to move, it was called the quickening. Certainly Elizabeth had felt John’s movement before, but this, well, this wasn’t just a movement, this was a symphony of joy at the coming Messiah.

Friends, a part of what we have lost in the Church and in our families is the joy that can only come from a child. The joy we celebrate today comes from presents and gifts, toys that break and sugar that’s consumed. But that joy of John comes from knowing what the life of this young cousin of his would mean for the whole world.

This is where the joy in Mary’s song comes from. Mary’s song, often called The Magnificat, is a song not about Mary, but about how God has blessed this young woman. Last week we heard about St. Paul callings us to rejoice always. This week we hear how that joy came to Mary, the young virgin from Nazareth.

Today our Lord calls us to repent of our constant desire to know and understand everything. It doesn’t take long in this life to realize that there are more questions than answers. It doesn’t take long to figure out that we are not able to figure out all of God’s plans. But today we meet two women of different stations and places in their lives, In both of these women we have a remarkable example of faith. In both Elizabeth and Mary we see and hear what it means to receive the blessings of the Lord, in season and out of season.

Our God, you see, always has bigger plans for us. His plans for you truly surpass all understanding. When a ninety year old woman bears a son, and when a virgin bears the very Son of God in her womb, well, the problems and trials that we face begin to take perspective. God can take care of your problems, just as he took care of Elizabeth and Mary, and just as He promises to take care of you.

At the end of the day, this is what we know from the Scriptures: God is with His people. He is with His people today and now. He is with us not as a burning bush or a pillar of cloud. He is not seated between the cherubim or riding a chariot throne. No, God is with His people. He is Immanuel, God with us. This is why Elizabeth exclaims, “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

The Mighty One has indeed done great things for us. While we were still sinners, Christ came to justify the ungodly. When we are selfish, He gives of everything He has and is. While we gossip and bite and slice one another apart with our words, He bears His neck to the priestly blade for us and for our salvation. You may drink up your sins so that they might even consume you, but He is the very Sea that swallows up your enemies. He is the Land flowing with milk and honey. He is the judge who has become the accused for us.

He has done great things for us, and holy is His name. Newborn babes in the womb leap in His presence. Let each one of you have that joy, both young and old. Come, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and remove your sandals before the burning bush of Mary’s womb. That pregnant veil is now the Ark which holds your very salvation. But this Ark isn’t made of gold or silver. It is covered with skin and bones. And this Ark of our Lord continues for you even now, hidden under bread and wine, the very manna from heaven which is His flesh and blood.

Great things are afoot, beloved. Rejoice with Elizabeth and Zechariah, Mary and Joseph, and all the saints and angels in heaven and on earth. For God has come down to you, holy and weak, beloved and in need. Come and see, and let it be to you according to His Word.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, to life everlasting. Amen.

 

The Forgotten Emmanuel

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December 21st is the anniversary of when Kathryn and I lost our son, Emmanuel. It was 2009. And, of course, right before Christmas. Who has time to grieve when there is so much stuff to do?

While the death of Nadia always makes me wish others would remember such days, Emmanuel’s death always reminds me how quickly I myself can forget. Some grief we bury. Some pain is too close, too much to bear at the time.

For pastors, of course, the Christmas season is always a busy time of year. Sermons, bulletins, calls, Christmas programs, caroling, there are always a thousand things to pull us away from our Lord, and from anything else. Pastors don’t have a monopology on this time, either. Mothers, it seems to me, are always full of things that need doing. And holidays or Christmas breaks and the like, well, they may actually be more work for mom, not less. But the list could go on.

How do we allow the business of our lives to interfere from what the point of our lives is in the first place? I forget what is important. I forget even big things, like life and death. I get distracted or I distract myself. I run and hide. I flee from such all encompasing realities.

How many of us hide ourselves from our pain? How many walk around, hurting and wounded, in fear of being found out? How many flee at the thought of being weak?

I think that is why a name like Emmanuel is such an important one for Christians. God is with us. There is no “if” behind the name. God is with us IF we behave. God is with us IF we are good. God is with us UNTIL we die. No. It is a statement of fact. God is with us. Period. The words from Exodus come to mind:

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2:23–25 ESV)

God heard. God remembered. God saw. God knew.

That is the God of the Bible. That is the God who comforts me, even in the face of my forgetfulness and death. That is the God who would come as a little child.

-Pastor Todd Peperkorn

 

Nativity Giorgione 1507