Sermon Illustrations for Lent 5 (2018)
Illustration
Jeremiah 31:31-34
This is a forecast of the coming of our Lord Jesus. He brings us his new covenant!
The people had broken the old covenant -- the Ten Commandments -- by their actions even after they had been saved from slavery in Egypt.
Some in our own country have been saved from starvation by a government program to provide for the poor, but some have turned to crime to make a living! Maybe they did not want to feel obligated, or maybe they wanted to be independent and find ways to make more money and forget what their country has done for them.
It says God had been a husband to them -- not a Father. In the New Testament notice that Jesus’ church is his bride! But we are also God’s children -- his flock. If we are God’s bride, then we will be raising children for him. That is our calling.
As a missionary to Nepal I was raising up children for our Lord. Would those children also be his bride one day? Would they bring more children to the Lord? Most were changed completely and thanked God every week or every day, but some were only looking for ways to get rich from their Christian brothers in Nepal or America.
God’s commands are written in our Bible, but we hope they will also be written in our hearts and minds. Memorizing the catechism is one start. But even then we should know the Lord. Some back then and today never learned to read, so they had to keep God’s word in their memory.
What a difference between knowing the Lord and knowing about him. Even seminary professors taught the pastors about the Lord. They found him in the Bible as well as in great books of learning by theologians. Shouldn’t a future pastor know the Lord before even coming to seminary? Why would he or she come to serve him otherwise?
When I was in seminary I felt that some of the professors only know about the Lord. I didn’t feel the love of God in them. But there were some who I felt knew the Lord and you could feel it in the way they treated us.
I felt the same in ministerial groups in my parishes. Sometimes those who we felt knew the Lord would meet separately for prayer times together.
Some parishioners could feel that their pastor knew the Lord by his actions and his life and his love for them. That should be the goal of every congregation and pastor. Every communion should help us remember what our Lord has done for us so that it will be written in our hearts.
Bob O.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Throughout scripture, the human relationship with God has been about covenant, about promises made and sustained to uphold relationship. Covenants are exemplified by rainbows in the sky, by children birthed, by stone tablets of rules and expectations, by staffs of healing and wholeness and now, by a law written on the hearts of the faithful and faith-filled. God wants to be imbedded within us, to be completely known by us. What a gift! We are called not just into relationship with God, but to house the law, the word, the covenants of God within us! All of us shall have the opportunity to love and know God completely. What a blessing!
We are the gift that God has prepared for the world. We are given the knowledge of God so that God’s love and grace, God’s relationship and covenants, can be known to everyone. God will be ours and we will be God. Imagine the grace that knowledge might give the isolated and the broken, the desolate and the lonely.
Bonnie B.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
This lesson stresses that with the law in our hearts, good works happen spontaneously. Martin Luther well describes these dynamics:
Mark E.
Hebrews 5:5-10
Melchizedek is a mysterious figure introduced to us in Genesis. His name means “Zadok is my King,” referring perhaps to a pagan god, but even so he honors “Most High God,” his name for the all-powerful God of Abram. He offers bread and wine, elements later associated with communion. Because we know so little about him -- he appears and disappears in the Biblical blinking of an eye -- then becomes whoever we want him to be. Hence, Psalm 110, where God promises the Davidic King that he will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek and God will cause his enemies to follow right and left. And so the author of Hebrews refers both to Genesis and the Psalm, identifying Jesus with this eternal, life giving king.
What’s sometimes overlooked is Abram’s response to Melchizedek -- he gives him a tithe of everything he owns. And what ought our response be for all God has done for us?
Frank R.
Hebrews 5:5-10
It is hard to understand suffering. Robert Fulgham writes in his book, It Was On Fire When I Laid Down On it, about a man named Alexander Papaderous. During World War II, German paratroopers invaded the island of Crete. When they landed at Maleme, the islanders met them, bearing nothing other than kitchen knives and hay scythes. The consequences of resistance were devastating. The residents of entire villages were lined up and shot. Papaderous was six years old when this happened.
His home village was destroyed and he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. When the war ended, he became convinced his people needed to let go of the hatred the war had unleashed. To help the process, he founded an institute of peace at this place that embodied the horrors unleashed by the war.
One day, Papaderous was asked, “What’s the meaning of life?” There was nervous laughter in the room. It was such a weighty question. But Papaderous answered it. He opened his wallet, took out a small, round mirror and held it up for everyone to see. During the war he was just a small boy when he came across a motorcycle wreck. The motorcycle had belonged to German soldiers. Alexander saw pieces of broken mirrors from the motorcycle lying on the ground. He tried to put them together but couldn’t, so he took the largest piece and scratched it against a stone until its edges were smooth and it was round. He used it as a toy, fascinated by the way he could use it to shine light into holes and crevices. He kept that mirror with him as he grew up, and over time it came to symbolize something very important. It became a metaphor for his life. He said, “I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world -- into the black places in the hearts of men -- and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”
Jesus suffered, but through that suffering came our redemption. A light has shined in the darkness.
Bill T.
John 12:20-33
In a 2007 national Pew Survey, 31% of Americans who pray at least several times a year said they receive definite answers to specific prayer requests at least once a month, but 23% reported seldom or never receiving a direct answer. In a national Pew Survey a year earlier, nearly half of (42%) respondents reported that they had not received an answer to their prayers. Even Jesus seemed troubled at first by God’s will in our lesson (v.27). Martin Luther offers some wise insights about apparently unanswered prayers:
A related point made in the lesson is that through giving up the things of the world we find the things of God. Augustine made this point. He would have us be on fire to despise the things of the world so that the whole of life becomes only a vapor in comparison to love for eternal things (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.7, p.287).
Mark E.
John 12:20-33
Do you garden? I sometimes do although now I live in an apartment and my gardening is limited to containers on the small patio outside my apartment. Still I have always been amazed, even as a child, that the dead looking seeds I plant can grow into blossoming plants or food for me to eat. Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” That seems to make sense to us when we think about gardening, but I will guess that the disciples didn’t completely understand what Jesus was trying to tell them. Do we?
Do we understand the giving up of our lives to have our lives? Do we understand the sacrifice of our lives for someone else? Not all of us are asked to love in a way that ends our life, but some of us dedicate our lives to the care of loved ones or the least among us. Some of us, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others spend the whole of their lives giving, sharing and sacrificing for others. Jesus is trying to tell his disciples that the expectation God has -- that we all spend our time so loving God and our neighbor that we willingly follow Jesus into service to others -- not necessarily to the death, but to the point where it can become inconvenient or uncomfortable to us. Could we do that?
Bonnie B.
John 12:20-33
This passage shows that Jesus love is for all people on earth and not just the Jews. As a missionary, I liked this passage because I was carrying God’s message to people of other lands.
The Greeks must have heard about Jesus, and so now they wanted to see him in person. They wanted a personal encounter. Only God’s spirit working in and through us could introduce those people to Jesus. They had to see Jesus in us!
The message we preached as missionaries was to bring the listeners to want to meet Jesus. All the messages from the pulpit today should make the church members want to meet Jesus and feel His presence in their lives. That is the goal of our church -- every church.
As children we loved our life on earth first more than anything else. We only wanted things that would please us like toys and food and adventures (some of which we found on TV or at Disneyland).
As a 90 year old, I find it easier to hate this life with all its physical problems and desire the life God has for me in the near future.
Jesus obviously did not look forward to his “end” with pleasure, (he even prayed that it might pass from him), but it was worth it and he wanted us to follow him even when we face our own suffering (which in most cases are not nearly as bad as what He suffered).
I am enjoying life fairly well right now but I look forward to being with the Lord one day for all eternity. It is the experience of death that I have to pass through which I don’t look forward to.
My wife and I love to travel -- even at our age. We are comfortable in our home now and we are excited about being in a new country, but the only thing we do not look forward to is that long flight to that new country! But it is the only way we can get there. It is not as bad as a crucifixion, but because of our Lord’s death and resurrection to a new life which he endured for us that we can look forward to being with him for eternity even though the journey there may not be enjoyable.
One purpose of church is to give us a hope and desire to be with our Lord one day regardless what we might have to go through to get there.
Bob O.
This is a forecast of the coming of our Lord Jesus. He brings us his new covenant!
The people had broken the old covenant -- the Ten Commandments -- by their actions even after they had been saved from slavery in Egypt.
Some in our own country have been saved from starvation by a government program to provide for the poor, but some have turned to crime to make a living! Maybe they did not want to feel obligated, or maybe they wanted to be independent and find ways to make more money and forget what their country has done for them.
It says God had been a husband to them -- not a Father. In the New Testament notice that Jesus’ church is his bride! But we are also God’s children -- his flock. If we are God’s bride, then we will be raising children for him. That is our calling.
As a missionary to Nepal I was raising up children for our Lord. Would those children also be his bride one day? Would they bring more children to the Lord? Most were changed completely and thanked God every week or every day, but some were only looking for ways to get rich from their Christian brothers in Nepal or America.
God’s commands are written in our Bible, but we hope they will also be written in our hearts and minds. Memorizing the catechism is one start. But even then we should know the Lord. Some back then and today never learned to read, so they had to keep God’s word in their memory.
What a difference between knowing the Lord and knowing about him. Even seminary professors taught the pastors about the Lord. They found him in the Bible as well as in great books of learning by theologians. Shouldn’t a future pastor know the Lord before even coming to seminary? Why would he or she come to serve him otherwise?
When I was in seminary I felt that some of the professors only know about the Lord. I didn’t feel the love of God in them. But there were some who I felt knew the Lord and you could feel it in the way they treated us.
I felt the same in ministerial groups in my parishes. Sometimes those who we felt knew the Lord would meet separately for prayer times together.
Some parishioners could feel that their pastor knew the Lord by his actions and his life and his love for them. That should be the goal of every congregation and pastor. Every communion should help us remember what our Lord has done for us so that it will be written in our hearts.
Bob O.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Throughout scripture, the human relationship with God has been about covenant, about promises made and sustained to uphold relationship. Covenants are exemplified by rainbows in the sky, by children birthed, by stone tablets of rules and expectations, by staffs of healing and wholeness and now, by a law written on the hearts of the faithful and faith-filled. God wants to be imbedded within us, to be completely known by us. What a gift! We are called not just into relationship with God, but to house the law, the word, the covenants of God within us! All of us shall have the opportunity to love and know God completely. What a blessing!
We are the gift that God has prepared for the world. We are given the knowledge of God so that God’s love and grace, God’s relationship and covenants, can be known to everyone. God will be ours and we will be God. Imagine the grace that knowledge might give the isolated and the broken, the desolate and the lonely.
Bonnie B.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
This lesson stresses that with the law in our hearts, good works happen spontaneously. Martin Luther well describes these dynamics:
Our empty Law is ended by Christ, Who fills the vacuum first by being outside of us, because He Himself fulfills the Law for us; then He also fills it with the Holy Spirit Who begins this new and eternal obedience within us. (as quoted in Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, p.234)In another text Luther made it even clearer that the Christian’s good works happen spontaneously. He wrote:
All that a Christian does is nothing but fruit. Everything such a person does is easy for Him. Nothing is too arduous. (Luther’s Works, Vol.24, p.230)Neurobiology appears to vindicate the belief that good works follow spontaneously from faith. It seems that spiritual experience activates the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is then flooded with the amphetamine-like brain chemical dopamine. And when this front part of the brain is activated, human beings tend to be better able to control their feelings of depression and rage, are more empathetic, compassionate, and sociable (Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman, Why We Believe What We Believe, pp.266-267; Nicholas Wade, The Faith Instinct, pp.79-81,198,203ff.).
Mark E.
Hebrews 5:5-10
Melchizedek is a mysterious figure introduced to us in Genesis. His name means “Zadok is my King,” referring perhaps to a pagan god, but even so he honors “Most High God,” his name for the all-powerful God of Abram. He offers bread and wine, elements later associated with communion. Because we know so little about him -- he appears and disappears in the Biblical blinking of an eye -- then becomes whoever we want him to be. Hence, Psalm 110, where God promises the Davidic King that he will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek and God will cause his enemies to follow right and left. And so the author of Hebrews refers both to Genesis and the Psalm, identifying Jesus with this eternal, life giving king.
What’s sometimes overlooked is Abram’s response to Melchizedek -- he gives him a tithe of everything he owns. And what ought our response be for all God has done for us?
Frank R.
Hebrews 5:5-10
It is hard to understand suffering. Robert Fulgham writes in his book, It Was On Fire When I Laid Down On it, about a man named Alexander Papaderous. During World War II, German paratroopers invaded the island of Crete. When they landed at Maleme, the islanders met them, bearing nothing other than kitchen knives and hay scythes. The consequences of resistance were devastating. The residents of entire villages were lined up and shot. Papaderous was six years old when this happened.
His home village was destroyed and he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. When the war ended, he became convinced his people needed to let go of the hatred the war had unleashed. To help the process, he founded an institute of peace at this place that embodied the horrors unleashed by the war.
One day, Papaderous was asked, “What’s the meaning of life?” There was nervous laughter in the room. It was such a weighty question. But Papaderous answered it. He opened his wallet, took out a small, round mirror and held it up for everyone to see. During the war he was just a small boy when he came across a motorcycle wreck. The motorcycle had belonged to German soldiers. Alexander saw pieces of broken mirrors from the motorcycle lying on the ground. He tried to put them together but couldn’t, so he took the largest piece and scratched it against a stone until its edges were smooth and it was round. He used it as a toy, fascinated by the way he could use it to shine light into holes and crevices. He kept that mirror with him as he grew up, and over time it came to symbolize something very important. It became a metaphor for his life. He said, “I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world -- into the black places in the hearts of men -- and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”
Jesus suffered, but through that suffering came our redemption. A light has shined in the darkness.
Bill T.
John 12:20-33
In a 2007 national Pew Survey, 31% of Americans who pray at least several times a year said they receive definite answers to specific prayer requests at least once a month, but 23% reported seldom or never receiving a direct answer. In a national Pew Survey a year earlier, nearly half of (42%) respondents reported that they had not received an answer to their prayers. Even Jesus seemed troubled at first by God’s will in our lesson (v.27). Martin Luther offers some wise insights about apparently unanswered prayers:
It is not necessary that God always hear according to my will, for then He would be my prisoner. And why should He hear our prayers if He knows of something that is better for us? (What Luther Says, pp.1095-1096)
God must often say: If I gave you what you ask for, I would be a fool, as you are. (What Luther Says, p.1097)In the same spirit the evangelical Episcopal church leader William Culbertson noted: “Be thankful that God’s answers are wiser than your answers.” In the same spirit 19th-century British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it well: “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” Another poet of the era, Jean Ingelow, adds: “I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.” Or as it said in the Black church: “God may not come when you want Him, but He’s always on time.”
A related point made in the lesson is that through giving up the things of the world we find the things of God. Augustine made this point. He would have us be on fire to despise the things of the world so that the whole of life becomes only a vapor in comparison to love for eternal things (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.7, p.287).
Mark E.
John 12:20-33
Do you garden? I sometimes do although now I live in an apartment and my gardening is limited to containers on the small patio outside my apartment. Still I have always been amazed, even as a child, that the dead looking seeds I plant can grow into blossoming plants or food for me to eat. Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” That seems to make sense to us when we think about gardening, but I will guess that the disciples didn’t completely understand what Jesus was trying to tell them. Do we?
Do we understand the giving up of our lives to have our lives? Do we understand the sacrifice of our lives for someone else? Not all of us are asked to love in a way that ends our life, but some of us dedicate our lives to the care of loved ones or the least among us. Some of us, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others spend the whole of their lives giving, sharing and sacrificing for others. Jesus is trying to tell his disciples that the expectation God has -- that we all spend our time so loving God and our neighbor that we willingly follow Jesus into service to others -- not necessarily to the death, but to the point where it can become inconvenient or uncomfortable to us. Could we do that?
Bonnie B.
John 12:20-33
This passage shows that Jesus love is for all people on earth and not just the Jews. As a missionary, I liked this passage because I was carrying God’s message to people of other lands.
The Greeks must have heard about Jesus, and so now they wanted to see him in person. They wanted a personal encounter. Only God’s spirit working in and through us could introduce those people to Jesus. They had to see Jesus in us!
The message we preached as missionaries was to bring the listeners to want to meet Jesus. All the messages from the pulpit today should make the church members want to meet Jesus and feel His presence in their lives. That is the goal of our church -- every church.
As children we loved our life on earth first more than anything else. We only wanted things that would please us like toys and food and adventures (some of which we found on TV or at Disneyland).
As a 90 year old, I find it easier to hate this life with all its physical problems and desire the life God has for me in the near future.
Jesus obviously did not look forward to his “end” with pleasure, (he even prayed that it might pass from him), but it was worth it and he wanted us to follow him even when we face our own suffering (which in most cases are not nearly as bad as what He suffered).
I am enjoying life fairly well right now but I look forward to being with the Lord one day for all eternity. It is the experience of death that I have to pass through which I don’t look forward to.
My wife and I love to travel -- even at our age. We are comfortable in our home now and we are excited about being in a new country, but the only thing we do not look forward to is that long flight to that new country! But it is the only way we can get there. It is not as bad as a crucifixion, but because of our Lord’s death and resurrection to a new life which he endured for us that we can look forward to being with him for eternity even though the journey there may not be enjoyable.
One purpose of church is to give us a hope and desire to be with our Lord one day regardless what we might have to go through to get there.
Bob O.
