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"The Same Old Story!"
Many of you know of the joy that I have had in being able to
visit and build lasting relationships with my relatives in
Germany. But it presents its challenges as well. One of
the biggest is communication. Not just language. Sometimes
it has more to do with finding a common ground between our
two cultures, to find some connecting point, some common
experiences.
I have found just such a connection point with one of my
cousins by marriage named Markus. We call it the “same
old story.” We have discovered that in the lives most
people there are some things that are just universal. If
Markus tells his son to go to bed and the boy claims he
is not tired and then falls asleep at the table 10 minutes
later, we look at other and say: “the same old story.”
If Markus and I are told to be home at noon for lunch
and we rush in late to find his wife, my cousin Vanessa,
tapping her toe and the face of her watch, if we decide
to buy gasoline in the morning instead of tonight only
to find in the morning the price has gone up, if we…well
you get the idea. Whenever we encounter these common
experiences, we always say to each to the “same old
story.” It always puts a smile our faces.
There is another “same old story” that is common to the
experience of all people that is no laughing matter. We
encounter it again in our Gospel this morning.
The enemy Satan, well, actually, and more accurately the
enemies…the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature
have had one goal since the day the gates to Eden were
barred. That goal, simply put, is stop Jesus at all costs.
We saw it in the crafty scheming of Satan attempting to
tempt Jesus last week. We see it this morning in the
foxy plotting of the Pharisees who make a thin attempt
to get what they want by blaming Herod.
We have seen it throughout the history of the church,
in the doctrines of false teachers that led to writing
of our creeds, in persecution and governmental policies
that attempted to curb the gospel, and still do in our day.
We have seen this same old story in the efforts of
scholars, and scientists, and even pastors and professors
who have softened, twisted, and attempted to change or
even discredit the message of the Bible.
This “same old story” also seems to be happening lately,
about once a year, around this time in fact. Two years
ago it was The DaVinci Code, last year it was The Gospel
of Judas, and just like clock work, this week it will
a Discovery Channel program entitled The Lost Tomb of
Jesus that will most certainly call the resurrection
of Jesus Christ into question. Using a 27 year old
discovery that archeologists and scholars, yes, even
non-Christian scholars have dismissed years ago, they
will attempt to display what Dr. Paul Meier calls
simply “more junk on Jesus.”
It really is the same old story. But there is nothing
funny about it. There is nothing funny about it because
this “same old story” is not just happening out there,
at the hands of those people, who ever they may be.
It has been happening in the lives of God’s people.
Drifting away from Jesus and even turning out back
on his desires sadly is the commonest of common
experiences that the world has every known. Jesus
says so as he laments over the Jerusalem that has
been the place of demise of so many prophets, and
will now be the place of his demise as well.
It is common among us as well. Oh, I don’t think
that we do so deliberately. I really don’t believe
any of us get up and say: today I am going to
disbelieve, discredit, and disobey Jesus. It
happens far more subtly than that.
We encounter a passage in the Bible that doesn’t
harmonize with the way we want to see the world
and we casually dismiss it. We come across some
suffering in our own lives or in the world around
us and we, the sinful creatures, want to demand of
God, the sinless creator, why he let that happen?
We confront again the absolute truth that salvation
comes only by the blood of Jesus and begin to probe
the farthest reaches of every question trying to
find an exception to that rule that simply doesn’t
exist.
And of course there is the oldest of the “same old
stories” when the attitudes and actions of our lives
are the product of what we want and what God wants.
Stopping Jesus at all costs, that has been the goal
of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature
since the beginning. But what if it actually
happened? What if Jesus had been stopped by the
Pharisees of old? What if all those who have attempted
to discredit him were one day able to succeed? What
if our sin was too much for him to handle?
And the answer is simple…we would all be lost. No
truth could be more clear. The “same old story” is
no laughing matter. But then you see, the “same old
story” has a rival. We will call it the oldest of stories.
It is a story that precedes human time. It is the
story of a God who for reasons only he knows for
sure, decided to create a universe and on the third
planet of a tiny solar system, already knowing the
result and the cost, he decided to place a man and
woman in a garden.
The rest of the story you know. The man and the woman
rebelled against God and all these centuries later, we
have never changed. But then neither has God’s plan to
make whole again what we have shattered.
This plan is so clear in Luke’s Gospel today. Jesus
knows what the Pharisees are up to. Worse yet, he
knows that soon they will get their way. He knows
already that he will enter Jerusalem to shouts of:
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
He also knows that few short days later the chorus
of admiration will be replaced with the words:
“Crucify him!”
We know it to, for we know the rest of the story. We
know of a cross, of an earthquake, of a cold, lifeless
body placed in a stone tomb. We also know that the
oldest of stories does not end there. We know, despite
all dubious evidence to the contrary that God the Father
raised Jesus from the dead.
The women went out early to the tomb on that first Easter
morning and they found something was wrong. The stone
had been rolled away. When they looked inside, they
found…no bones, only the cloths that had once shrouded
his body.
They ran to tell the disciples. Jesus appeared again
and again. It is a fact that can be confirmed by literally
hundreds of witnesses.
We know the story. And today I want to remind you of
the result. Jesus carried out God the Father’s plan
for our salvation. Nobody and nothing was able to stop
him. The church has gathered for more than two thousand
years, week after week to celebrate this truth.
We celebrate again this morning. We celebrate forgiveness
that makes us new and whole. We celebrate God’s constant
love and action in our lives. We celebrate what God has
done, and is doing in this place. We join our congregation
around the world as we celebrate all that God has done
through Lutheran schools this National Lutheran Schools Week.
And finally, we celebrate what is yet to come. Jesus is
coming - nothing can stop him! The story of Jesus and all
that he has done is the best old story there is. Feel
free to keep telling it!
In Jesus’ Name! Amen.
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