Daily Bread

A Sermon on John 6:22-35 and Exodus 16:2-15 for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the fall of humanity at the  garden into sin, God proclaimed this to Adam. “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

The Lord uses a very specific word that should probably surprise us. By the the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Bread doesn’t grow on trees. Wheat grows. But wheat isn’t bread yet. First it needs planted and harvested. Then it needs milled. Then it needs baked. Farmer, miller, baker. All must work. All need to eat. So bread isn’t free. It takes the combined effort of all in order have their daily bread. And this is part of the curse.

So when Jesus feeds the five thousand and gives away bread without work, they all go back to Him, looking for more. Because this is a great deal. Jesus gives bread, and they like to eat. But Jesus calls them out on it. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” In other words, there is a better bread than the one Adam and His children had to work for. There is one that comes by the work of God that not only lasts forever, it sustains the one who eats forever as well.

So naturally, the people ask, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” If this bread is as good as You say, Jesus, then we want to eat it by the sweat of our brow, just as God told us from the beginning. And there is something right about what they said and something wrong. Jesus corrects the wrong immediately. “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 

Don’t go over that verse too fast though. Or you’ll think that believing is the work. That’s not what Jesus said. This, referring to Himself, is the work of God. That is why the Father set His seal upon Him. Jesus is the work of God apart from yours, so that, with the result that you believe in Him who the Father sent. They asked Jesus which works, plural. Jesus points to the work, singular, that is His alone. 

That is why Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the one who planted the seed, and who is the seed. Jesus is the one who reaps a harvest, and is the harvest. Jesus is the one who is run through the mill and crushed. Jesus is the one who is cooked by the fiery wrath of God over sin. Jesus is the one who feeds us His own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, which He purchased with His life at the cross. And that bread of life is here today for you. 

So then, what did the people get right when they asked Jesus about the works of God? They got right the kind of bread Jesus was offering them. And that’s not something that you pastor here has always understood. You see, I like to talk about the Lord’s Supper a lot. How it’s the great feast. How it’s a heaven and earth coming together in this place. How it’s the power of God unto salvation being delivered to you. And these things are all true. But they’re fantastic, overwhelming, intense. 

What they understood the bread Jesus was offering to be was ordinary, plain, monotonous even. And they were right. Granted it took work to eat. But everyone eats. Everyone has bread of one kind or another. It might have a different shape or flavor, depending on what part of the world you’re from. But there is no culture, no civilization without bread of some kind. And it is a staple. It is eaten every day. Whether that’s four thousand years ago, or today in your supermarket. Bread is everywhere. Because it is necessary to eat. 

That’s what they were asking Jesus for. Bread from heaven, just like the manna their forefathers ate every single day in the wilderness. A bread without work, but bread all the same. Sunday through Friday, with twice as much on Friday so that they could rest on the Sabbath. Just given to them every day for forty years. Enough to sustain them for the day. The Lord provided them with daily bread, just as we pray for today. 

Jesus is this bread for us. All the other things as well, to be sure. But Jesus tells us to take, and eat, because we need what He gives to us every day. We need to be sustained. We can’t survive by going hungry from what God gives. Because the world out there doesn’t slow down for us. It puts pressure on us every day. Pushing us to either take pride in our own strength, or to despair utterly. Driving us not only to sin, but to accept sin as a good and healthy part of our lives. To teach others about the benefits of sin. The ones our world nudges us to today on us are sexual immorality of all kinds, including premarital, divorce, homosexuality, transgender issues and much more. But that’s not all. Bearing false witness. Murder of the undesired. Theft on the individual and national levels. And we’re told that we can’t say anything about it, because it’s too political? God dying on a cross was an intensely political act. 

But this level of pressure is far more than we can take. It burns through our energy. Our resilience is running on empty. And we need to eat. So Jesus says, Take and eat. Not just for the forgiveness of sins, which is so big that we cannot even fathom it. Not just for eternal life, which is so amazing that we can’t even imagine it. But so that you would have something to sustain you day to day from the assaults of the devil, the world, and our own sinful hearts. 

That is what Jesus gives here. Bread from heaven. A manna that we don’t have to work for. A meal that keeps is going. Daily bread. With the result that you believe in the one the Father sent. And along with the food for today, every other gift that comes with it as well. 

Our Lord does indeed sustain us for each day. It isn’t always flashy. It isn’t always special. You might not notice all that much different every day you have it, but we would never survive without it. As Jesus said to them that day, He says to us as well. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” And here we are, around His table as He has called us. Receiving the food that keeps us alive, yet was not our work at all. It is all from Jesus. And it is Jesus. And He’s here for your sake.

Let us pray. Gracious Father, You sent Your Son down from heaven to be our daily bread. Sustain us in Christ Jesus our Lord, through His body and His blood. Prepare us to endure what awaits us in the world every day. And bring us at last into eternal life. Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Baptized into the Ark

A Sermon on Mark 6:45-54 for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In our Gospel lesson this morning, the disciples are once again on a boat in the midst of a storm. After their last episode, I’m actually a little surprised that they were in one at all. The last time, Jesus was there with in the boat. Jesus was there to calm the storm. Jesus made it all okay. I wouldn’t bee getting back into any boat without Jesus if I were them. 

And yet it is Jesus who told them to get in the boat and leave in the first place. This night would be the first night on he sea apart from the one who commands the sea. But if Jesus told them to go, surely they’d be okay, right? Surely another storm wasn’t just waiting for the the first chance it got without the Son of God there to stand in its way. 

However, by the fourth watch of the night, there they struggled. The wind blew so hard, they could not land. The waves grew once again, threatening to sink them to the bottom of the sea. They were fighting for their lives once more. Jesus wasn’t in the boat, but he wasn’t far away. He came walking out to them. But Mark adds a detail that isn’t in Matthew’s account: Jesus intended to pass them by. 

That one little detail worries us. It is the thing that we fear most. Because we put a lot of faith in Jesus’ promise at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Lo, I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Is Jesus with us? Or is He just watching? Because there is a big difference between those two things. And we want Jesus right there in thee middle of our lives to take all those storms away.

But there is something we need to understand. Jesus is not a helicopter parent. We know from experience that keeping children away from anything challenging prevents them from learning how to face challenges. And our world is filled with those. Parents that cannot let their child fail sets them up for a life of failure, and an inability to move past them. Children grow up. They become adults. They need prepared for when Mom or Dad aren’t there to fix it for them. Children need to learn resiliency.

Things are a little different with Christ and the disciples though. There are things they, and we cannot handle, no matter how much we learn. No matter how much resiliency we have. But Jesus does need to prepare His disciples. They need to learn resiliency for another reason. And that reason is the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Jesus knows that He isn’t going to be around in this way for them when He goes to the Father. That doesn’t mean He’s not there. But do you see Jesus like they did during His earthly ministry? I don’t. And neither did they when the cloud hid Him from their sight. 

Jesus had to prepare them for that moment, and all the earthly ones beyond. They had to get back in the boat and face the storm. He didn’t leave them alone. He didn’t abandon them. In fact, He was right there. But He wasn’t in the boat. And He wasn’t in there for their sake. For their resilience. He intended to pass them by to give them what they needed in order know that no matter what happened in the boat, they didn’t have to have a descended Jesus in order to get through. 

After all, it wasn’t about this boat, or this storm. Jesus had an entire ark being prepared for them. A boat to hold all with faith in Christ, carried through a flood of waters, and storms that would overwhelm the world. Or, as Peter would later say, “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you….” Corresponds is not the best word here. The Greek calls Noah’s flood the symbol that points forward, and Baptism the reality it points forward to. 

Not that the flood is merely symbolic, as if it didn’t exist. Over my last few weeks of traveling by car, you can see exactly what the flood did to the entire landscape From the deserts of Nevada, to the salt flats of Utah, to the hills of California. Those are the erosion marks of the flood that covered the entire world. The event is real. But it is not the full reality. It points forward to something more real, more important. It points us to Baptism, the entrance into the ark of the Church. In which, the whole number of believers are being saved. 

In this ark, we endure the storm of the world. We are being trained by wind and rain and wave. We undergo all these things in our lives, because how can we, as children of God, be ready for the world’s persecution if we have never suffered anything of our own? The less you have endured, the less you’re able to endure. They’re like muscles that grow stronger when used. And Jesus is strengthening you. Because the church has, is, and will go through difficult times. And Jesus doesn’t want you to just have a nice life, He wants you to endure unto all eternity. He descended once, in order to do the work of saving you. He died on that cross. He was buried in that grave. He rose from the dead. And He ascended with His humanity into heaven. All of it for you. 

He does not redescend until the last day. But, just like the disciples that stormy night in our Gospel lesson, He doesn’t leave you alone either. He has baptized you. He has placed a promise on you. He saves you. He puts you in this ark right here. He gives you the experience of enduring, so that you may endure no matter what washes over the boat.

So that you will endure even through dying. Through the one process we have no control over at all. We may think we can dictate the terms of dying, either by paper, or sheer force of will. But no one of us has any control over dying and death. And Satan waits for that moment most of all. But that’s the very moment that Jesus prepares you for now. Because in baptism, we have already died once with Christ. And as one monk centuries ago graffitied on his wall, “If you die before you die, then you won’t die when you die.” Or as Jesus put it, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” 

Therefore hold fast to the promise of your Baptism today. For Jesus has prepared you by this life to hold onto His promise of salvation, even in the face of death itself. Jesus does not leave you alone to face these things. He has put you into His boat. And He walks along side it, walks along side of you, the times we need Him the most. 

Let us pray. Almighty Father, Your Son prepared the disciples for the day when He went You. Prepare us also to endure the storms of life by holding fast to His promises, and remaining in the ark that You have provided for us, Your Church. Keep us safe through our dying day, and raise us to eternal life for the sake of Your Son’s death and resurrection. Through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Unprepared

A sermon on Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Mark 6:30-44 for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What had Jeremiah gotten himself into? Being a prophet for the Lord is a dangerous business. The people do not want to hear what the Lord has to say. No surprise there, it’s his job to tell them suffering is on its way. Yet Jeremiah wasn’t prepared for the backlash. He had never faced it before. What do you do when nobody likes you, and wants you gone? 

What had the disciples gotten themselves into? Jesus had sent them out two by two, without supplies, without money, and they were expected to survive off of the generosity of those who heard them teach of the kingdom of God. Some places they had to wipe the dust off of their feet when they left. And when they got back, things were so chaotic, so understaffed, that they didn’t even have time to eat. They were running themselves ragged. And they were exhausted. And for what? No one wanted to see them. They all wanted to see Jesus, the great healer and worker of miracles. Did  the disciples know that when they followed him, it would be a life like this? A life with more than they could bear, and little reward readily apparent for such work? What do you do when following Jesus is more than you can handle?

What had the people gotten themselves into? They had seen Jesus slip away in the boat with His disciples, and they knew where he was going. They all dropped everything and ran with their wives and children to beat Jesus to the place He was off to. And they did. And Jesus, gracious man that He is, felt compassion on them, and continued to do what He had done in the city. He taught them and healed them. But there was more to hear. And the hour was late. They came in such a hurry, that they had brought nothing to eat. They had no where to sleep. And going to those things was to lose out on what Jesus would give next. What do you do when following Jesus leaves you without the things you need to get by in this world? 

What have we gotten ourselves into? When most of us were baptized into Christ’s church, we were also gaining something from the world. Going to Church used to have social benefits. People used to think more highly of you if you went to any Church, even if it wasn’t theirs. You were thought to be a good person, a reliable person, a person worthy of doing business with. A person worthy of being a good friend or neighbor. It would help you get a job. It would set you with the right friends in the right places. And right now, today, that is no longer true. 

It is a social hinderance to go to church. People now look at you as suspicious. You are thought to be a bigot and a racist, even though we teach and confess that all people are of one family, and that the blood of Christ was shed for each and every person in the world. Employers don’t allow for Sunday’s off. Neither do family activities, such as sports, or arts, or community events. Neighbors close their doors. Friends stop calling. It is socially unacceptable today to believe in Jesus. Which is a shock, because even ten years ago, it was still okay. Our society changed that fast. So what do you do when following Jesus no longer gives you standing with the world, but takes it away?

Before we answer that, there’s one more piece to the puzzle we need to have. It might not seem to fit at first, but I think it does. The Church usually faces a changing world. A world that uses different avenues of attack each time it goes against the Lord. What Jeremiah saw was different than what the disciples saw. And what the people of Jesus’ day saw is different from either. Every era, the Church is playing catch up. Challenges come quickly and easily against the faith from the world. It takes time and study in God’s Word to answer them. So the Church has usually been behind, still fighting the last battle, while the Satan and the World move on to the next one. 

But Satan just made a grave tactical error. In moving the fight to a place where being in the Church costs Christians in the world is not a new battleground at all. We ourselves may not have experience with it. And if we didn’t cherish our history, we would have no idea what to do next. But the Church already has an answer for this. It already fought this battle. It already went to the Word of God and studied, and prayed, and learned. We know exactly how to fight this fight. Because we fought this exact same scenario seventeen hundred years ago. Christ and His Church won then. Christ and His Church will win this time too.

It’s today’s Gospel lesson that shows us just how to face it. After all, we’re not fighting from personal experience. We ourselves need to learn how to stand up in the midst of a world that makes us suffer for the faith. Just like the Church has done before. And to endure takes Jesus giving us rest. It takes Jesus feeding us Himself. None of us came prepared ahead of time. Not Jeremiah, not the disciples, not the crowds, not us. But there’s Jesus in our midst. Giving us what we need. 

Look at today’s Gospel lesson. Our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples. And You know. You know where these words are used. Jesus fed the five thousand men, plus all the women and children with the same words, the same bread, that He fed the disciples with on the night when He was betrayed. 

How did the early Church survive when the world imposed suffering upon them? They grabbed ahold of the God’s gift of the Lord’s Supper, and did not let go. They went to the place where Jesus said, “This is My body, given for you,” and there they found Jesus suffering at His cross for their sake. Suffering right along side them. They went to the place where Jesus said, “This is My blood, shed for your forgiveness,” and there they found His blood poured out along side of theirs. A great sacrifice that rescued us from death itself. 

When we suffer along side Jesus, guess what else Jesus shares. Resurrection from the dead, for you. A hope beyond anything this world could ever dream possible. A hope that sustained the early martyrs to stand tall, even when face to face with their soon-to-be killers. A hope that gathered around Word and Sacrament, even at the risk of losing everything in this world. And they said, “Bring it on.”

For although none of them could ever stand alone, they never stood alone. Almighty God Himself stood by their side. And He stands by your side too. It’s the Lord who gives you what you need for life. It’s the Lord who equips you with what it takes to survive. And He does it at this altar. This table. And all like it. A miraculous meal. A meal that never ends. A meal that always leaves us more than what we started with. A meal that Jesus Christ Himself says as plain as can possibly be said, “This is My body. This is My blood.” There He is. Here for you. Here to sustain you when the world lashes out. Here to uphold you when you have nothing left to stand on. Here forgive your sins when Satan accuses you. Here to cleanse your shame away when others sin against you. Those promises are found in this bread, in this cup. They’re found in your baptism. In absolution. In the His Word proclaimed. The Lord wants you to find confidence in them. Because He’s in them for your sake. 

When we work from our own strength, our own resources, our own abilities, we find that we are not at all prepared for the days ahead. But we’re not on our own. The Lord joins us where we are. Suffers for us. Endures with us. Feeds us the life of Christ Himself. In Him is a power that the world can never overcome. A strength that not even death itself can conquer. The world has been doing its worst since the fall. And all the Church has done is thrive. 

We know this battle. And if this is the way Satan wants to fight, then today is the time to be ready for new people to come in that door. Because the world is leaving a path strewn with those suffering in the wake of its onslaught. And Christ is there to pick them up. We don’t have the luxury to reach out to the well mannered, or the ideal families. Jesus is picking up the broken, the rejected, the unclean, and the desperate, and He has made room for them here. He suffers with them just as much as He suffers with us. And if history is any guide, there will be more than we are prepared for. 

And they need Jesus. The ancient Jesus who gave Jeremiah the words to speak to ears that would not hear. The Jesus of old, who sailed with His disciples to rest two thousand years ago on the other side of the earth. The Jesus who appeared to Paul. The Jesus who fed the five thousand. The Jesus who gave His body and blood on the cross for our cleansing and forgiveness. They don’t need the world today. And neither do we. Because we have Jesus Christ, Lord of all, Maker of the whole universe, right here. Do your worst, world, and bring it on.

Let us pray. Almighty Father, Your Son prepared a people not ready so that they may proclaim Your saving Word, and receive His saving body and blood. Prepare us as well to receive those same gifts, that we may be prepared to endure the world, and be raised by grace to eternal life. Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Cause of Suffering

A Sermon on Psalm 123, Ezekiel 2:1-5, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, and Mark 6:1-13 for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. From our Old Testament lesson, “Son of Man, I send you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are also impudent and stubborn. I send you to them.” From our Epistle Lesson. “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this so that it should leave me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you.” From our Gospel lesson this morning. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And, “If any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” From our our Psalm this morning, “Have mercy upon us, O lord, have mercy upon us. for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.” 

I am about to tell you something that is going to make you uncomfortable. Something that sounds wrong. Something that, if true, must reorder everything we think about God. At least it did to me when I heard it the fist time. And with a warning such as that, your guard should automatically go up. Is this new? Is this some innovation that the Church has never heard before? Is it a new philosophy that says what pastor Davis thinks rather than what Scripture says? If so, then you must throw it away.

But it is not new. It was stated clearly by the Church throughout time. Luther wrote extensively about it, but we do not read. Augustine wrestled with it, but we do not care. Paul explains it in our text today, and we put it out of our heads. Jesus experiences it, and we can’t even acknowledge it. Ezekiel experienced it, the Psalms sing of it. It is even found in Genesis, chapter 3, at the fall of man. And we never even considered it a possibility. What is this dread think that we believe cannot face? What could possibly challenge everything we know about God? What could possibly be in our faces this whole time, and we will not even notice? It is this:

God causes suffering.

No. No!, we cry. That cannot be! It is a contradiction of everything we believe. Suffering is the greatest evil of our time. Suffering is what even the unbeliever wants to put an end to. If you put God as the cause of suffering, it is the same as putting God as evil itself. Therefore that statement cannot stand.

We are far more comfortable saying that sin is the evil thing. And that is absolutely true. Therefore suffering is a result of sin. But only sometimes is that true. “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” the disciples ask Jesus. Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Who sinned, Ezekiel or his parents that he should have to preach to a people who would not listen to him? Who would reject him, ridicule him, treat him like a madman? For God is the one who sent him. Who sinned, Paul or His parents that God would send Satan with a thorn for his flesh? For God is the one who insisted it stay right where it was. 

Who sinned, the disciples or their parents, that Jesus had to tell them about shaking the dust off of their feet when a place would not listen to them? Jesus doesn’t give them what to do in that situation if there will never be that situation. You might say the people who wouldn’t listen sinned, but then why send the disciples there at all? Jesus did that. Jesus sent them. And them with no extra tunic, or bread, or money, all by His command. 

Who sinned, Jesus or His parents, that His hometown would give Him no honor? Who sinned, Jesus or His parents that He would suffer at Gethsemane, sweating blood at what was coming. Then suffer in His arrest, betrayed by one of His own. Then suffer at the hands of the only people who had the Word of God available to them. Then suffer the angry mob and the cowardice of Pilate. Then suffer the mocking and brutal beatings given by the Roman Soldiers. Then suffer the bearing of his own cross to Golgotha, being unable to physically finish it alone. Then suffer the nails, the nakedness, the suffocating crucifixion. Then suffer the turning of the Father’s favor away from the Son, leaving only the wrath of God. Then suffer death itself taking Him to the grave. If suffering is the greatest evil of all time, and impossible for God to inflict, then why did He inflict it upon Himself?

We have left our definition of suffering up to the world. We call it the greatest of evils, and as such, it should be ended by any means necessary. But how does the world end suffering? It looks into the future, as if it could, and sees suffering coming up. This child’s life will be one of suffering, therefore that child should just die now. It sees someone in the hospital suffering and we don’t know how to ease it. Therefore they are given the means to end their own lives. Or worse, are murdered outright.

Abortion, Suicide, Euthanasia. These terms are too clinical, too clean for what the world’s solution to suffering really is. The most effective way to end suffering, they have found, is to get rid of the sufferers. That way we don’t begin to suffer by seeing them. Why do you think hospitals want you to sign advance directives now? So that they have your permission to end their suffering by your death. I’m not saying that there aren’t those with good intentions. But death is the world’s solution to suffering. 

It is not God’s. The people of Israel in Ezekiel’s day suffered because of their rebellion against the Lord. Suffered from their transgressions, from their impudent and stubborn ways, and from their refusal to hear. And God brought it to them in order to save them. But they did not suffer alone. The Lord sent Ezekiel to suffer along side of them. To bear with them. To cry out with them. To share the burden together by bringing them the Word of God. Even to those who would still not hear. God caused Ezekiel to suffer so that Israel would not suffer alone apart from the Word of God.

The people of Corinth in Paul’s day suffered because of their divisions, because of the false teachings which they embraced, because of the sin they joined in with for they thought they had mastery over it. God brought them suffering in order to stop their self destruction. But He did not leave them alone in it. The Lord sent Paul to them to suffer along side of them. To bear with them. To cry out with them. To share the burden by bringing them the Word of God. Even to those who would not hear. God caused Paul to suffer so that Corinth would not suffer alone apart from the Word of God.

The people around Jesus’ hometown also suffered. All the people of Judea suffered. And Jesus sent disciples out two by two to suffer along side of them. To bring the Word of God to them. So they would not be alone. We too suffer. We like to be stoic about it. Say that we don’t care about what we suffer. Or point out the silver lining of our suffering in an attempt to make that suffering invisible to our own eyes. I can’t be a sufferer if I refuse to suffer, don’t you know. But that denies what God bring to you. And it denies who the Lord has sent to bear it with you.

The Lord sent His Son Jesus Christ to bear suffering with you. Jesus cries out with you. Willing even to be so bold as to say together with you, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He shares the burden with you by bringing His creative Word to you. He shares the burden by bringing His absolution, the forgiveness fo all sins. He shares the burden with you by washing your sins by baptism and cleansing you. And sitting you at His table to eat His own body, and drink His own blood. The Father sent the Son to that cross to suffer so that you would never suffer alone apart from the Word of God, the Word made flesh and who dwells among you.

Do you know who else suffers? Look at the person in the pew next to you. The one across from you, behind you, in front of you. They suffer too. And your suffering might just be so that they do not suffer alone either. You can be an Ezekiel, or a Paul for their sake. And they can be for you too. Our Lord doesn’t call us to fly solo on this. He has put together His Church, people who all suffer together to bear it all together, with Him at the center bearing it all with us as the family of God. And we are all family, part of the ongoing Noah family reunion that happens throughout the world. 

Apart from Christ, there is no meaning in suffering. In Christ, it means that we are too important to go through such suffering alone. And through such suffering, we come to understand what our Lord is willing to endure for our sake. We still ease one another’s suffering. We do what we can to help. We do not cause more suffering than what God has laid upon us. But suffering is part of what makes us human. It’s part of what makes God human too. And it’s what God gives in order that we would turn to Him. 

Therefore, for our prayer, we pray the words of our Psalm for this morning, Psalm 123: “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.”  Amen.