A Podcast about Living Freely in a World Given Back to Us
Wade’s latest contribution over at 1517.the Legacy Project is now up. You can check it out here:
https://www.1517legacy.com/wadejohnston/2017/05/the-lords-dogs-arent-too-proud-to-beg/
Check out the shop, too, if you’re looking for some good books. Among others, Wade’s An Uncompromising Gospel can be found there. Lord willing, in the not-so-distant future, another book by Wade will be available with NRP, too.
Episodes 6 and 7 aren’t quite what the previous ones have been, and, we think, marvelously so. In this week’s episode we discuss physics, while next week’s covers cryptography and mathematics. Both include fun interviews with PhDs in those fields (so don’t worry, you don’t have to listen to Wade prattle on about physics or Peter regale you with mathematical formulas…we let the professionals take care of that).
But isn’t this a podcast about theology, philosophy, and history? Well, yeah, but also a whole lot more. Christ hasn’t only set us free for those disciplines, but to enjoy ALL of the world given back to us, to serve our neighbor through various vocations and fields, and to celebrate the life of the mind. That being said, keep in mind that Ben, Peter, and Wade aren’t experts in either of these disciplines, still they did manage to follow along and truly enjoyed the conversations.
Are physics and math your thing? Tune in and enjoy. Are they not your thing? Tune in and join us as we think about why we should delight even in those things that aren’t our things and give thanks for those who do explore them. And don’t worry, we’ll get back to theology and philosophy and history soon enough. In the meanwhile, we really hope you’ll join us as we let the bird fly!
As the Easter season continues, and our celebration of Christ’s resurrection and our justification with it, here’s a sermon Wade preached in 2010, back when he still used to write out manuscripts.
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
1 John 5:4-10; John 20:19-31
The Wounds of Jesus
The other day, I’m not sure why—I’m guessing because of the lessons he’d heard during Holy Week—Nicholas asked his mother why Jesus’ wounds hadn’t healed after the resurrection. He told her that when she went to heaven, she’d have to send some sort of message back to let him know if Jesus’ wounds had healed by now. Continue reading “The Wounds that Cast out Doubt”
We were honored to have Dr. Mark Braun as our guest on episode 5 of Let the Bird Fly!, where Dr. Braun discussed the intertestamental period, which is the topic of his book The Time Between the Testaments: Connecting Malachi to Matthew. While we certainly hope to have Dr. Braun on again in the future, we expect many of our listeners will be eager to hear more from him before we are able to do so. For those restless listeners, we offer some temporary relief from your agitation. Dr. Braun has been kind enough to share with us an essay he delivered in 2015 entitled Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word.
Continue reading “Braun: Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word”
We no longer live in a day where the pastor is perhaps the most educated guy in the town. We no longer live in a day where the pastor is perhaps the most educated guy in the parish. We live in an age unparalleled when it comes to information, inundated with philosophies and theologies and worldviews and narratives. Rome was a hotbed of intellectual, cultural, and religious diversity in the time of the apostles, but even the Romans couldn’t imagine all we have at our fingertips today, even in rural America, through Google, YouTube, and iTunes. So what do we do?
Well, first, we grow roots. We dig into the Scriptures, especially those books which drive home the central doctrine of the Scriptures. Genesis, Isaiah, Mark, John, Romans, Galatians, and 1 Peter are great places to start. We dig into the Catechisms. We learn the questions God would have Christians ask and the answers He has given in His Words. We learn and sing good hymns, which put sound Christian doctrine to memorable melodies. We learn to appreciate the goodly and godly traditions and practices we’ve inherited; we ask the why behind them we treasure those things that have whys that have endeared them and shaped generations of the faithful. In short, we get our feet beneath us. We settle down in God’s might fortress. We become a gospel people.
But we dare not stop there, especially pastors, teachers, and lay leaders. Our study dare not end with our graduation from seminary, college, or catechism class. We need to be in the Word, but we also need to be intellectually exploring the world into which we are called to take it. We need to remember that our brothers and sisters, our people, don’t have the privilege of a life within the fortress as many of us do. Their year isn’t defined by the church year as for many called workers. Their daily bread doesn’t come through study, preaching, and teaching of Christ and Him crucified. God has sent them out, through their vocations. They are bombarded with voices, with ideas, with questions, with challenges to their faith. We need to be able to help them. We need to have answers, and pat answers and platitudes won’t do. In fact, they will do more harm than good. That will do a disservice to the Scriptures and to Christ, their heart. That will give the impression there isn’t an answer where there really might be, or that there isn’t depth where, in truth, nothing could be deeper. Moreover, if our laypeople are going to be able to engage friends and coworkers and acquaintances with the love of Christ in the various stations in which God has placed them, they need to be equipped to speak meaningful words in a thoughtful way, in love, with clarity.
There is another reason we should be willing to step outside the fortress, though. Only the gospel builds faith, but there are big questions, piercing insights, and windows into the human condition aplenty there, outside the fortress. We can understand better who we are as fallen humans and appreciate more who we are as redeemed children of God. We can learn to speak the language of the lost and understand what they’re asking, where they’re looking, and where there are openings for considerate and considered discussion. Moreover, we can have some great conversations, whether or not Jesus comes up every time, whether or not they end in a conversion, and conversation itself is a wonderful gift from God that can be good for our soul. We can be sharpened. We can be honed. We can grow in and show love without strings attached and unafraid. We can…let the bird fly, set free to listen, to talk, to care, to think in a world given back to us as gift, to appreciate what is best, to confront what is worst, to give thanks for our deliverance.
Take a listen to Episode 4 if you get a chance. Besides a lot of, well, conversation, a lot of talk about technology and some good-natured ribbing, we try to dig into the value of stepping outside the fortress and we discuss who especially should do so when, and who should maybe hunker down for a while. When you listen, don’t be shy about telling us what you think, too. We love having new voices in our conversation, from within the church and without, from all sorts of backgrounds, vocations, disciplines, with all kinds of perspective. That always makes things more fun and more fruitful. If you enjoy it, consider sharing the podcast with a friend, rating it, reviewing it, or at least tuning in again. We are digging our new venture. We hope you will, too!
(Mark 16:1-8; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8)
Luther preached on this festival of the resurrection:
“We are not preaching anything new, but always, without ceasing, about the man who is called Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who died for our sins and rose for our justification. Yet even if we were again and again to preach about and dwell upon these events, we could never really exhaust their meaning. We would remain like infants and young children, just learning to speak, scarcely able to form half words, yes, scarcely quarter words.”
The devil is a wily serpent. His venom is deadly, and death is exactly what He wants to bring us. And a serpent slithers through small holes, as you know full well from experience. He doesn’t need much room to finagle a thought into your head, start prying apart a marriage, turn your eyes green with envy, or persuade you that what is not God does indeed appear divine.
This old evil foe, this accursed serpent, had knocked down many a prophet and saint before, and he assumed he would be able to do the same with our Lord Christ. He’d grown overconfident. And at first, it certainly appeared that he’d been right, that he’d won. He sunk his fangs into our Lord and his venom did its work. Christ was true God and true man, and so He wasn’t immune. He was wounded, and wounded deeply. Satan spewed all the venom of hell, tore Christ’s flesh and tormented His soul.
Yet what did He accomplish in the end? We wouldn’t be singing glad hymns today if he’d won. No, all He did was use up his venom in futility. Christ took it all and today He is risen. He lives. He lives and He’s extracted all the venom from Satan’s fangs. He’s smashed them, made him all bark and no bite. Yes, He’s even crushed his head. And He has done all this for us. His wounds, which once brought Him such bitter pain, now are our relief and refuge. His blood, which once poured forth in anguish, now marks the doorposts of our hearts through faith and abounds for our forgiveness in His Holy Supper.
How can we go through Holy Week and not become sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that our God is mercy, that His countenance bears, not a scowl, but a tender and fatherly smile through the gospel and in Christ, crucified and now risen for sinners? We heard the Roman centurion, moved by the events of Good Friday, confess that He is the Son of God. We heard the thief on the cross beg Him for a place in Him kingdom and receive that beautiful answer, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” What a Redeemer we have, who gives paradise to sinners, who forgives even the lifelong sinner in his last hour, unable to live even one day for Him in return, that is, not in this life! And that same Jesus has died and risen for more than the centurion and thief. He has died and risen for you. He is your Redeemer as well, and all the life and hope we hear about in this season is meant for you too.
Imagine being Peter for a moment. He’d denied His Lord, and for all we know, that was the last he’d seen of him. The rooster crowed, he looked into his Master’s sorrowful eyes, and fled, weeping bitterly. Imagine the guilt that weighed him down. And all he could do was wallow in it. Jesus was dead and buried. He couldn’t apologize. He couldn’t look into his Master’s eyes to scour them for a trace of forgiveness. No, all he could do was kick himself, weep, and huddle together with the other apostles, ashamed, confused, depressed.
But what do we hear as the women arrive at the tomb today? The women are told, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.” Did you notice it? “And Peter,” the young man adds. “Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.” Imagine Peter when the women reported the news. Surely he latched upon those words. Perhaps the women, aware of his grief, emphasized them or repeated them for him. Perhaps they even embraced him, knowing the hope those two words might bring: “And Peter.” Where before it seemed only despair could result, now there was a glimmer of light in the darkness. Peter didn’t know yet what to expect for sure, but he knew he was going to meet his Lord again. “There you will see him, just as he told you,” the women were told.
How appropriate that Mary Magdalene, out of whom the Lord had cast seven demons, who’d stood at the cross with the mother of our Lord and watched Him speak words of mercy and grace even as He languished toward death, should be the one to hear this news and to share it with Peter, sinner to sinner, restored sinner to a repentant sinner desperately yearning for restoration. And that is what the church is about. That is its foundation and calling. Forgiveness, proclaimed sinner to sinner, for Christ’s sake.
On Friday, death swallowed Jesus whole, like the giant fish once swallowed Jonah. But today He’s burst its belly. Death lies in pieces. And that’s why St. Paul can taunt death in 1 Corinthians 15. That’s why we can rejoice in the face of death at funerals and even long for death when our suffering or sickness is great, while never taking it into our hands. Victory is ours. One drop of Christ’s holy blood is greater than all of the devil’s lies. One drop of His holy blood is more powerful than all the world’s sorrows. One drop of His holy blood guarantees more than all the works of men for all of human history. So great is our Lord who died, and now who has risen!
St. Paul writes, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” My friends, there are two ways to live in this world: in the light of the resurrection or in the darkness of death, which is no life at all. Christ has come, Christ is risen for you to live. So live, because His resurrection is your justification. Live, because your sins have been buried in His tomb.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! And He is risen for you. Alleluia and amen!
Does it bother you? The crucifix—does it bother you? I don’t mean this crucifix. I mean the crucifix the holy evangelists set before us today. Does it bother you? Does it seem too gruesome, too depressing? Does it bother you?
Look at what we’ve done. We’ve killed God. Who will be God now? Will you be God? Will I? That may work for a while, but what will we do when God dies, as we all will? We’ve killed God. Where do we turn now? Shall we cease praying? Shall we surrender all morality since we’ve crucified absolute Truth? Shall we despair of life and do what God did: die? We killed God. What shall we do?
Look at him. This is not he; this is a representation of that day. Look at him. Close your eyes and look through the lenses of whatever faith you have left. Look at him. Who would believe in him—weak, naked, bloody, covered in spit, sunken and dead? Look at him. There is your God, you Christian. How foolish can you be?
Nietzsche said it long ago and today it is true: “God is dead.” And Nietzsche is dead too. And we will be dead soon as well. What a world? Dirt and worms, pine boxes and makeup on a cold, lifeless face.
Does it bother you? Why should it? This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You got your way. Every thoughtless word, every carnal deed, every wayward thought—this is what you wanted. You killed God. Does it bother you? I don’t see why it would.
Will you smile as you leave church today, supposing you make the time to go, to mark the death of God? Will you leave the nave in silence but engage in trite chatter in the narthex? Will you say, “Nice sermon, Pastor,” and hurry back to Netflix or some other distraction, as if nothing happened. God died today. Do you care? Will you care? Why should you care? He’s dead, what can you do about it?
You can believe. You can believe that God cannot die, that God lives, that although he dies he lives forever, and in him you will live as well. You killed God. It is true. But it is also true that you cannot kill him. He gave up his life. He held himself to the cross—your nails cannot hold God. You killed God, and God let you kill him, that he might never have to kill you, kill you with everlasting death in the fires of hell. You killed him, and it could happen no other way.
“Go!” “Suffer!” “Die!”—these are the words we must yell today. Do not be so naïve as to think they are not, because if he does not go, suffer, and die, he cannot rise, and if he does not rise, you will never rise as well. This is what he was born to do. This is why God became man. God must forsake God. God must punish God. God must hate God, for the Son has become our sin. The Father must hate him with the burning hatred only justice and holiness knows. The Father must look on him in hatred now so that, through him, he can then look on you in love. Look at him, and be ashamed. Be ashamed of him, because he is you, and the worst part of you, the part you do your best to hide. He is your sin.
All Christians, but especially Lutherans of all people, stand and watch today—don’t turn your head! We preach Christ crucified, because if he is not crucified, you are not baptized into his death and there is no value in receiving his body and blood. But he was crucified, and you are baptized, and you will receive the very instruments of your salvation for the forgiveness of your sins on Easter: his crucified yet living and life-giving body and blood.
The disciples ran and hid. Do not do that today. Watch. See how ugly your sin is. See how beautiful your Savior’s love is. See both those things as your God hangs on your cross. Look at what we’ve done. Look at what God has done. “It is finished.” Amen!
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