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The Gospel of Matthew Bible Studies
The Gospel of Mark Bible Studies
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
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The 2nd Sunday in Lent (A) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. In preparation for the celebrations of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Pella congregation here in Sidney, you have been having guest preachers who served you in past years. And, while I have never served Pella as a pastor, I have a message for you today that focuses on an obscure but inspirational person who participated in the settling of Scandinavian Lutherans in the new world. His story is remembered on February 20th each year in the church calendar. His name was Rasmus Jensen. In 1619, one hundred years after Martin Luther began the reformation of the Catholic Church, and a year before the first Europeans are said to have landed at Plymouth Rock, King Christian IV of Norway and Denmark sent two ships, the Unicorn and the Lamprey with their 64 men to search for the Northwest Passage to India. They got as far as the present site of Churchill, Manitoba, on the western shore of Hudson Bay. They named their landing place Nova Dania, new Denmark. Locked in by ice they tried to winter across the river they had discovered there, but they were ravaged by scurvy, a devastating form of vitamin deficiency that causes bleeding, tooth loss and eventually death. They also suffered from trichinosis, and other diseases. Their Captain was Jens Munck, an experienced naval officer. Their chaplain was a Danish Lutheran, Pastor Rasmus Jensen. The captain's journal tells us: "The Holy Christmas Day, we all celebrated and observed solemnly, as a Christian's duty is. We had a sermon and Mass. On the 23rd of January the priest sat up in his berth and gave the people a sermon, which sermon was the last he delivered in this world. On the 20th of February, in the evening, died the priest, Mr. Rasmus Jensen as aforesaid, who had been ill and kept his bed a long time. Only four, besides myself, had strength enough to sit up in the berth and listen to the homily for Good Friday. (This references notes that the homily would have been read from a book of sermons for the various days of the Christian year.) In July of that year, Captain Munck sailed for home with the only two surviving members of his crew. In a nearly unbelievable feat of navigation and seamanship they reached Norway in September. His journals have been preserved and published. So, from the logs of Captain Munck, nearly 400 years later we learn about the first Christian services in Canada west of the St. Lawrence River. We learn of the faithfulness of Pastor Jensen and the very difficult circumstances in which the crew languished. And we see the piety of Christians at that time braving unimaginable risks and hardships in exploring the world new to them. We can notice parallels when we consider the courage and sufferings of the men who experienced this ordeal and today's lesson from the Gospel of John about Jesus' nighttime conversation with Nicodemus. These lessons can help us apply the teaching of Jesus to our own lives. Both stories help us to see what it means to be disciples of Jesus, to grow in our relationship to God and how our lives will be changed because of it. Each of the Bible passages read today also points out this core of discipleship. Abraham was told to pack up his family and possessions and go to a distant land where even the language was unknown to him. Where he had no assurance of being able to make a living, or even to find food. In the passage from Romans, Paul explains that Abraham, the father of Israel, lived his faith and received God's promises not by being extra good, not by establishing a successful career in this life, not by having perfect children, or planning for his retirement but by being faithful to God. Jesus' nighttime conversation with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, begins by emphasizing that knowing Jesus leads us to a one on one relationship with God. At first, Nicodemus is attracted to Jesus because of his works and signs. But then, Jesus immediately turns from these signs and healings; his own works so to speak, and tells Nicodemus that a person must be reborn. It is not the works that build the relationship to God, it is a changed person who can do Godly works. The metaphor of rebirth that Jesus uses in this passage, which is unique to the Gospel of John, has been interpreted differently through the ages in the life of the Christian church. Various religious thinkers and teachers have different ideas about whether it is a once and for all event, like our first biological birth. They wonder if it happens as a gift of God when we submit to Baptism. Some believe that we must make our own decision to accept this new birth. Some describe it as a process called sanctification that can take a lifetime. As we look more deeply into the text, it is not surprising that people have different interpretations. Jesus describes being reborn into a new relationship with God as being just as mysterious and elusive as the wind. Some translations use the masculine equivalent of the phrase that is, the interesting concept of to be begat again. To have a new father so to speak. Others translate it as being born from above. We, like Nicodemus can be tempted to take it so literally that we may miss the bigger idea that Jesus teaches. Let us think together in a new way about what it might mean to be begat again, to be born again, or to be born from above. One thing it means is that when we become followers of Jesus, he leads us into a new relationship with God, and we really can become a different person with a different perspective, perhaps in a different place, using a different language, or different social status. We are made free of our cultural bondage, not dependent on the judgments of others to gauge our success. When this happens to us it can be like traveling to a foreign country. We can be confused at first, not know what to do, unsure of ourselves. But, from a dramatic experience like this we gain a new perspective on life. We can come to realize that our own life history is only one story in a world made up of multitudes of lives. When our hearts and minds are opened like this and when we walk a mile in the shoes of other people, we become less likely to judge them and less likely to be so sure that our way is the best or only way to live. This is the path that leads us to finally learn to love others as we love ourselves, as Jesus commands. This then is part of what it means to be reborn in the Spirit. Our perspective changes from a human's eye view to a God's eye view. Jesus continues to explain his mysterious saying about being born again. He says: "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted, up, and whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him." Jesus came to change our perspective from earthly views to Godly views, and from earthly values to Godly values. This new perspective is what will save us. This is what it means to receive new life, to be born or begat again. It is like a reshuffling of our DNA, a change in our blood type, or our eye or skin color, even our gender. We can, through faith in Jesus, begin to see the world in a new way through new eyes. Nicodemus, the strict Pharisee, was changed by faith in Jesus and his teaching. Nicodemus is later heard in John's Gospel to defend Jesus and to provide the expensive spices needed for Jesus' burial, perhaps inspired by Jesus to have a new idea of rebirth even beyond death. Pastor Rasmus Jensen, ventured out with the brave and hopeful Scandinavian sailors to explore the unknown regions of North America. He went as chaplain to the crew, and brought the uplifted image of Jesus with them into the unknown land. His call was a brief one, the fate of the crew was disaster. But they lived out their faith together. He is remembered to this day almost four hundred years later as one who, from his deathbed preached about the love of God and the promises of God to give believers new life. That same hope and promise lives among us as we lift up Jesus this morning. Believers at Pella Lutheran Church have been lifting up the image of Jesus in the Sidney community for one hundred years, in good times and in bad. We have been living out the promise of rebirth from above as our membership and circumstances have changed through the generations. Wherever the winds of change take this congregation and its individual members, our faith will give us the power of new life and the courage to live with hope and joy because we dwell in the Spirit. Our faith, like Abraham's, will be reckoned to us as righteousness before God, no matter in what earthly circumstances we find ourselves. This is the Good News of the Gospel. This is what it means to be reborn. As faithful individuals and as a faith-filled community of believers when we lift our eyes to see Jesus, we are given a new life and a new vision of what success means, not by worldly standards, not by the judgments of others, or even our own judgments but according to God's plan for creation, as we love God and care for others. May we continue to keep our eyes on Jesus, and remember him now and always in all that we say and do. Amen. --------------------
Pastor Carol
Karres
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