Pastor Dan
Eddy
Luke 13:31-35
Battling
Frustrations
2-28-10
P: The Holy Gospel according to the St. Luke,
the 13th Chapter:
C: Glory to
you, O Lord.
As Jesus is teaching and healing He is given a warning about His life.
This is the text for this morning’s sermon. Luke writes:
31At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him,
"Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you."
32He
replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will drive out demons and heal people today
and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' 33In
any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no
prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
34"O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,
how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her
chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 35Look,
your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until
you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
P: This is
the Gospel of the Lord.
C: Praise
to You, O Christ.
In Jesus’ Name, dear Christ Lutheran
members and friends.
I changed the title of this morning’s sermon to “Battling frustrations.” I
hope that does not frustrate you.
I.
Introduction: “Nothing frustrates me
more than…”
Speaking of frustrations. This week I got a letter from Berta’s
and my auto and homeowner’s insurance company. It said our monthly premium was
going to be doubling next month. Ouch!! Plus they had changed our insurance
agent from Scituate to someone way over in Worcester, all without warning or
consent. I couldn’t understand why. We have made no claims against our policy.
Understandably I was upset, and called my agent. She had never heard of
anything like that, but was going to check into it. Hours later she called and
said it was a huge billing error. Nothing frustrates me more than companies who
can’t properly process their bills.
Now
it’s your turn: fill in the blank. “Nothing
frustrates me more than…”
“Nothing frustrates me
more than…not being appreciated on the job, at school, at home, or for doing
hard work.”
“Nothing frustrates me
more than….when loved ones don’t take my advice and ends up hurting
themselves.”
“Nothing frustrates me
more than…when others gossip about me, attack my reputation, slander me…like
Psalm 65 described this morning.”
“Nothing frustrates me
more than….getting old, dealing with the chronic pains in my body, not having
the strength like I use to, not remembering things like I use to, not looking
as young and being as physically fit like I use to.”
“Nothing frustrates me
more than….knowing someday I will die, and not knowing when that will be or how
it will happen.”
If
you haven’t figured it out…behind every frustration is a threat…to us, our
reputation, to our lives. All similar to the threats Jesus was facing in this
morning’s Gospel lesson I just read from Luke 13. Let’s see how our Lord and
Savior addressed His frustrations and see how we can learn more, to grow more
in our faith toward Him.
II.
Jesus’ frustration, threats, and how
He battled them for you and me
First,
Jesus was being told to get out of Perea, which was
located just north of the Dead Sea and east of the Jordan River. It’s where the
country of Jordan is today. He’d been teaching there with His Disciples,
healing people, casting out demons. And Christ had been doing this all over the
region: Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, for the past 2+ years. He’d been making
real progress, building a following, healing people, converting hearts, and
saving souls.
So
you can imagine Jesus’ frustration in verses 31-32 where He has these Pharisees
warning Him that King Herod wanted Him dead. Here Jesus is doing all this good,
and the thanks He gets is Perea’s political ruler
wanted to destroy Him. Herod was not going to be upstaged by the ever-popular Jesus.
Then to add insult to injury in
verse 34, Jesus knew He was going to get the same treatment at Ground Zero for
God’s Chosen People, Jerusalem, a name which literally means “city of peace.” Jesus knew that when
He entered that city that they were not going to live up to their name as far
as Jesus was concerned. Christ was being rejected as the Messiah foretold in
the Old Testament. He was being rejected as the Son of God.
Jesus
could totally identify with the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, where the
Israelites in his day were threatening his life, because he was speaking God’s
Word of truth, just like Jesus, encouraging them to repent of their sinful
ways. But they didn’t want to listen.
Christ
compared the death threat from Herod
to the real death He would face
months later.
Nothing
frustrated Jesus more than attacks on His reputation. Nothing frustrated Jesus
more than not being appreciated for His gracious and divine work. Nothing
frustrated Jesus more than seeing so much unbelief He had among His Chosen
people, His own Jewish people, who had all the promises of God that were listed
in His Scriptures. Nothing frustrated Christ more than His Chosen People not
taking His advice and ending up hurting themselves…where their unrepentant sins
brought God’s judgment upon them, and left their house of faith desolate as
verse 34 says. Other prophets were killed because the Israelites rejected God’s
Word. Jesus would face a fate like that but on a scale like no other had or
would ever face again.
God’s
Word today is saying to you and me today, “Don’t be like them. Don’t battle life’s
frustrations on your own, with your own efforts, because they will always fail.
Know Jesus understands your frustrations, even the ones that are your fault and
mine.”
Yes, we frustrate God,
too; when we don’t follow His commandments; don’t trust in Him; don’t
appreciate His gracious work; when we don’t follow His love and we end up
hurting others. When we reject His modern day prophets (pastors) and what they
speak and when we don’t spread or speak His Word and show His love.”
However,
Jesus used the right weapons to battle His frustrations in life. His expelling
of demons and the curing of bodies described in this text were absolute
victories, but they were temporary and were forerunners to Jesus’ everlasting
work at the Cross. His current on-going actions in the text were leading to
something greater…a certain future…where Jesus said in verse 32 He would reach
His goal, despite threats to His life.
Jesus
said, “I’ll determine when I die, not
Herod.” Christ was emphatic in this
text when this was going to occur. It would be months later when Jesus rode on
a donkey into Jerusalem on that famous Palm Sunday where people were shouting
at Him “Blessed is He who comes in the
name of the Lord.” God the Father blessed His Son for you and me, because
Jesus was living His Father’s will.
Christ has compassion on all of us,
describing Himself as a mother bird protecting her
baby chicks, as verse 34 says. He sacrificed Himself like the mother bird found
by a ranger after a forest fire at Yellowstone National Park. The mother bird
was found literally petrified in ashes, perched on the ground. When the ranger
knocked over the dead bird with a stick, three tiny chicks scurried out from
under their dead mother’s wings. She had been keenly aware of the impending
disaster, and had carried her offspring out of the tree to its base so they
could live, protecting them from the scorching fire and toxic smoke. She could
have selfish and flown to safety but refused to abandon her babies. This mother
had remained steadfast in the frustrating fires. She had been willing to die,
so those under the cover of her wings could live.
Jesus
battled frustrations, taking on the biggest frustration, our sin, our mortality,
facing death on His own terms. He would reach His goal…completed at the Cross
and shown to us when God the Father brought Him back from the Dead on Easter
morning. We will fully realize this completion at the End of Time where we will
experience perfection. A perfect body. A perfect life, with no more frustrations.
And
yet it has to be frustrating that people then and now are unwilling to be
protected from everlasting death…by Christ Jesus’ love and sacrifice.
(Cross Pieces: Bring out
three nails and a spear)
The weapons that brought Him
death…the cross, three nails and the spear were the weapons that
bring you life…and immortality to life.
So
this morning we are going to give you three nails as Cross Pieces to hammer
into your cross, along with a spear. If you didn’t get a cross or a name
plate…see me after worship and we will set you up with one. And remember if weren’t for these weapons
of death for Christ, you would not have forgiveness of sin. If it weren’t for
these weapons of death that killed Jesus…you would not have the power over
death. These weapons brought an end to all of God’s frustrations with you and
me.
Now
please don’t frustrate God by rejecting the weapons He used to give you life.
Live to battle your everyday frustrations with the Lord by your side, because
the Lord Jesus Christ has taken care of the biggest frustrations of sin, death
and condemnation.
III.
The battle belong to the Lord where He
uses us to be His loving weapons to help others
So
how is God in this text asking you to live? Luke’s Gospel brings out the
humanity of Christ better than any other Gospel. The idea is if this man wasn’t
God, by golly He should be, and if He is…this is the way we must act.
So
battle your frustrations by living courageously for Lord, and live Christ’s
teachings we help others battle their frustrations. How did you and our
Disciples’ Band just sing that? “In heavenly armor (that’s your
faith/Christ in your heart) we’ll enter
the land (that’s the life out there)…the
battle belongs to the Lord,” not you or me, but to the Lord. “No weapons that’s fashioned against us
will stand, (not death, not gossip, not this sin fallen world, not demons) because the battle belongs to (who?) the Lord.” “We
sing glory, honor, and power and strength to the Lord.” In other words,
trust the Lord Jesus by using the weapons He gives us everyday to defeat death
and give life…which is our brains and mouth; our feet and hands. We possess
Christ’s loving attitude as we look for opportunities to serve others
individually and through this congregation, because He is in our hearts.
We
defeat our frustrations, when we look to Christ’s example as He showed it in
the text and helps live in our everyday life, not concerned about the threats
to our life and reputation, but concerned like a mother bird for others. He was
blessed by God the Father, and we are blessed when we call upon His name in
faith like we discussed last week. His Name is now our name. This means…we live
life more bravely, courageously, battling all frustrations.
So to put this thought in
perspective, if you only had one year left to live (like Christ did at this
point in His earthly life) what would you like to do for others before you
died? Notice I didn’t say what you would like to do for yourself, but what
would you like to say and do for others? What would you do for the Lord and His
Church? Who would you reach out to with the weapons to conquer the frustrations
of this life? What things would you do to show that you have been given the
weapons to conquer the frustration of death?
Would you work to help battle
bullying that is happening in our schools all over Massachusetts and in our
South Shore Communities…with its frustrating influences on spreading gossip,
especially through texting and Facebook, hurting
people’s reputations and even contributing to teenagers taking their lives like
what happened in South Hatley?
Or
would you go down and visit the myriads of people who live lonely frustrating
lives in our nursing care facilities where many have hardly any visitors…not
even family members….who think God has abandoned them. By the way, this is
something I am encouraging our Friday Morning’s Men Bible study group to do,
not to abandon God, but to visit those frustrated with loneliness, getting old
and facing death?
Or
what about the frustrating neighbor who thinks you’re chasing the afterlife
here on Sunday mornings, while he sits home and sips his coffee and read his
paper? How will you reach out to him?
How
would you approach these and the other frustrations of life if you only had a
year left to live? That’s just it…we don’t know if we have even a year left…so
why not do these acts today? Are you going to let the threats of death
frustrate you loving others more?
IV. Conclusion….Weapons of death;
weapons for life
The weapons that brought death to
Jesus brings you life in Christ Jesus…The weapons of death for Christ means
death has no power over you, even if you don’t know when that death will be. If
Jesus didn’t die, we would have never received those gifts of forgiveness,
power over death, or life everlasting.
Can I let you in on a little secret?
I checked at the end of the Bible…and for all who have faith in Christ Jesus…if
that’s you then guess what? In the End, we win….battle over…frustrations gone
for eternity, thanks to the Blessed One who comes in the Name of the Lord.
Amen.