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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is en route to a Continuing Education course. This morning for our reflection on today’s First Reading, Pastor Galler edited a sermon that was written by The Rev. Brent M. Hartwig, senior pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Iowa City, Iowa. Rev. Hartwig’s sermon was published in the current volume of Concordia Pulpit Resources (25:3), to which our congregation subscribes for the purpose of supplying sermons when Pastor Galler is not available. The edited sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you seen the commercials? The ones where apparently a reporter asks someone who has just won the World Series or the N-B-A finals or the Super Bowl, “What are you going to do next?” The answer: “I’m going to Disney World!” The first such television commercial aired on January 25th, 19-87, following Super Bowl 21: the reporter asked, “Phil Simms of the New York Giants, you just won the Super Bowl. What are you going to do next?” Phil Simms answered, “I’m going to Disney World!” And he did! They really do go to Disney World. We might apply the commercials’ question to today’s First Reading.
So, people of Israel, what are you going to do next? You have been enslaved in Egypt for 430 years to the day (Exodus 12:41). You have been sent Moses, who cried to the Lord, “Let my people go!” You have been told “No” by Pharaoh, over and over.
So, people of Israel, what are you going to do next? You have seen the plagues—the blood flowing, the flies bothering, the hail destroying, the frogs inhabiting, the animals dying, the locusts devouring, the gnats pestering, the boils hurting, the darkness blinding.
So, people of Israel, what are you going to do next? You have roasted your year-old, unblemished lamb. You have painted the doorframe with blood. You have heard the wailing throughout the night as the firstborn died.
So, people of Israel, what are you going to do next? You have left Egypt with the spoils, with their gold and silver and clothing (Exodus 12:35). You, even with the Lord’s favor, have plundered the Egyptians (Exodus 12:36). You have followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
So, people of Israel, what are you going to do next? You have walked on the dry ground with the wall of water to the right and to the left. You have seen the Egyptians who pursued swept into the sea. You have sung, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him” (Exodus 15:1b–2).
So, people of Israel, what are you going to do next?
Their real answer is clear: grumble! In today’s First Reading, we heard them say, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (v.3). Grumble, grumble, grumble. And the Israelites said, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness” (14:11–12). Grumble, grumble, grumble. You stiff-necked people, the Lord has heard your grumbling!
Of course, you do not grumble. No, never you. But you do. You grumble! You grumble . . . when the price of gas is too high and when the price of oil is too low . . . when loan interest rates are too high and when savings interest rates are too low . . . when the cost of milk is too high and when the farmers’ profits are too low.
We grumble, grumble, grumble . . . when the temperature is too high and when the amount of rain is too low . . . when the cost of cable T-V is too high and when the number of T‑V channels available is too low . . . when the calorie‑count in food is too high and the calories burned in exercise are too low.
We grumble, grumble, grumble . . . when we are bored because we have too much time . . . when we are frantic because we have too little time.
We grumble, grumble, grumble! We are worse than Goldilocks. This porridge is too hot! This porridge is too cold! Such grumbling is discontent with what God has given us! For all such grumbling, for all our sins, and even for our sinful natures, we deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment.
Even so, as we heard in today’s First Reading, the Lord says, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you” (v.4). “He commanded the skies above” (Psalm 78:23). God causes it to rain and snow, the wind to blow and the stars to twinkle. God commands the skies above. God brought manna. “And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat’” (vv.14-15).
God commands the skies above. As we heard in today’s First Reading, God brought quail. “At twilight you shall eat meat. . . . In the evening quail came up and covered the camp” (vv.12‑13).
God commands the skies above. God brought angels who we imagine filled the skies, who sang praises and, as we read in St. Luke’s Gospel account, proclaimed, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:10–12).
God commands the skies above. And there on Calvary’s hill, St. Luke wrote, “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this He breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, ‘Certainly this man was innocent!’” (Luke 23:44–47).
And, as true God in human flesh, Jesus was innocent by nature, except that He took your sins, and He took mine. John the Baptizer declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). St. Paul wrote, “[God] made Him to be sin who knew so sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Son of God breathed His last while the skies were dark.
God commands the skies above. As the darkness lifted from the skies, the morning of the third day, the women went to the tomb and found it empty. The angels there essentially said, “Why are you looking here? Jesus is among the living!” (cf. Luke 24:1, 5).
God commands the skies above. The skies were bright and filled with clouds. “‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ And when He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:8–9).
God commands the skies above. As we heard in today’s First Reading, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you’” (v.4). He did; He does. Still today. To everyone, even to all evil people, even to you and me, God gives daily bread. “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like” (Small Catechism, explanation of the Fourth Petition).
Even more than that, He gives us the Bread, the Bread of Life, the Bread “who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). He gives us Jesus. When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. So, especially in the Sacrament of the Altar, where Jesus gives us His own body with bread and His own blood with wine, He gives us life and salvation. What are we going to do next? We are going to heaven! And until then, God, Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will also with Him graciously give us all things (Romans 8:32). So see, you have nothing to grumble about, for our God rains for you!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +