Rev. Dustin ParkerWrestling with God - a safe and secure blessing!
Concordia Lutheran Church
Pentecost 11, September 4, 2001
Come Worship the Lord, for we are His people!
Ezekiel 33:7-9
† IN JESUS NAME †
As you hear the Watchman’s cry of warning, may you hear the love, the mercy, and the grace that seeks to see you resting, secured and delivered from danger and your foes of sin and death!
Communicate! A Two Part Process!
My goal for the next two months, is for us to consider that which we know, that which we rejoice in, that which causes us to gather and worship. Specifically, to consider how important it is to us, and realize that there are those out there who need, no desperately need to know these things.
To know they are welcome within these walls, to realize that God will cleanse them, if He hasn’t already, that He would welcome them to this altar, where God pours out His blessings, assuring us of His love, of His forgiveness, and bathing us in His peace.
In a class on preaching, I was told that the hardest challenge is not understanding the Biblical passage and how it portrays God’s love for us in Christ, but rather ensuring that those we preach to can understand how God’s love is shown to them. That decoding the message is only a small part of the word, but that translating it into words and concepts that can be grasped is as important. It’s a problem most pastors have, very much so my biggest challenge.
That rule is not just for pastors though. It is for each of you, and you know the challenge as well as I. For you know the love of God – that is so evident in your love for each other, and your body language as we approach the altar to share, to commune with the Body and Blood of Christ. How easy is it for you to explain that love to the waitress who serves you dinner, or the nurse who processes your paperwork, or your friend who came over to watch a football game?
We know His love, but we struggle with the words to share it; to make what we treasure so greatly not just heard, but really heard, the kind of hearing that changes lives, that brings them along on the journey, that causes them to not just come, but to joyfully come, when we invite them to Come, Worship the Lord!
So today, let’s look at the story of the watchman, not just so that we can understand it and rejoice – but that the people we are sent to show God’s love to – that they can understand it as well!
The Watchman of Israel
You and I aren’t the only ones who struggle sometimes with making things clear. Bible translations do as well. It’s one of the reasons why pastors and deacons try to study the passage in the original languages – not that the translations get it “wrong”, but sometimes doing the work can make it clearer. A great example is here in verse 7 – where we see God saying that He has made the Son of Man a watchman for the house of Israel.
It sounds like God assigned or appointed the person to be a guard over Israel, or at least some I talk to hear it this way. Many people who don’t see God as the one who calls us beloved see the church in this role – the prison where watchman/guards are assigned to keep us in line, to force peace on us, to ensure we behave.
The Hebrew could be clearer, I like translating it this way -
So you, Adam’s Son, I have given as a protector for the House of Israel – or even better, for the people who struggle with God.
For in calling those whom the watchman protects the “house of Israel”, God is referencing the story, centuries old when Ezekiel was written, where Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. A trouble-maker, known for trying to take what he wanted, no matter what it cost, or who it betrayed, Jacob wrestled with God that night - physically and spiritually. Here is how Hosea described that battle,
3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. 4 He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us— 5 the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name: 6 “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”
Hosea 12:3-6 (ESV)
God knows our struggles with Him, He knows their struggles with Him. He doesn’t give up on them, any more than He gave up on Jacob, or David, or Hosea’s wife, or Peter, or Paul. It is not wrong to struggle with God, to honestly contend with Him and to be challenged by Him.
It is for those that struggle such, that God gifted them with a watchman, a guardian. A protector who would speak for God, who would cry out that our way is leading us to death – not in order to punish us, as some would think – but to deliver us from the path we are heading down! For those who struggle, and find themselves doing wrong, we need someone to protect us, to guide us,
And the watchman is that person, a gift to us from God
The watchman is not some pastor, or some guru, for such are as likely to struggle on the way. Our Watchman is, and always will be Jesus – the One Chosen and Annointed and Commissioned for that very role. He is a gift to all, the ones who would wrestle with God.. so never give up, knowing that God will bless you – even as He blessed Jacob and all His people.
The Warning
That brings us to the word translated “warning”, and indeed we see a lot of warnings in scripture, like the ones in today’s Gospel reading. There Jesus, our watchman, warns us of the danger of sending away those children whom the Father brings to Him, and the danger of world’s temptations, even to what appears to be an extreme method of dealing with temptation, and the danger of living life in an un-reconciled position with others.
Each warning is accompanied by dire and dreadful consequences, from the warnings about millstones and cutting off body parts, and perhaps the scariest – the go and be reconciled to those you are divided from, before trying to bring gifts before God.
If the people we talk to, Monday through Friday, see God as some kind of eternal police, the guard who watches over prisoners, then these warnings come across as – if you do these things – watch out – you will be punished! And punished severely! So go to any lengths to avoid the punishment!
Yet warning in scripture is not a term of the law, but of the gospel – good news, not dire predictions. It comes from the word where we get light and illuminate, to make clear the impact. It would be as if you are quickly driving down a road in the dark and as you come around a corner – there a billion watt lights illuminating the bridge that had been destroyed. The light might burn your eyes for a moment, shocking you – yet that same light saves you from destruction. They serve to warn you, to cause you to be redirected to safety
And that is why the Father gave us Jesus, the watchman for people who struggle with God. That He would engage them in the struggle, and show them how to struggle without risking life, here or enternally!
Our blood-guilt was required of the Watchman.. and it was paid for we are in Him…and that “turned us”
Ultimately, even though Jesus and every prophet warns of sin, the true warning is more than a call to our changing our ways. We need more than that, for listening to God is a challenge, even in the best conditions. For we need more to change us, more than just the law – it only reveals the sin, the consequences that we deserve.
Yet in Ezekiel – we see the prophecy - that the Watchman would be responsible if the people didn’t hear – that He would need to be responsible for their blood – their blood-debt . If we look at all the prophets, we see over and over the pattern – though people have ears they can’t hear, though they had eyes they cannot see. For sin acts as a blinder on hearts and minds.
So the watchman would bear their guilt, and in His death, their penalty would be paid, their sin atoned for. In doing so, we died with Him at the cross – in our inquity, the full wrath of God falling upon it – yet in the process – even as Christ rises from the dead – so do we – delivered from death with Him. Delivered to life by the Watchman, the one whom we wrestle with, and learn to hold onto – even as He holds us close, unable and unwilling to let go of us.
A watchman who watches in care and love, for we are not His prisoners, but the people He loves, just as those we shall encourage to come and worship the Lord, for they too are the people He loves.
This is the God they need to know – who doesn’t leave us alone when we struggle, He’s the God we need to know – even as we struggle with so much of life as well. For it is when we know His peace, when we receive the blessings – even as Jaxob did – that we realize how much those “out there” need to be in this relationship….
With the Watchman, with His people,
freed from the threat of our foes, able to rest – secure in His peace… knowing He guards our hearts and minds…. For that is why the Father gifted our lives with His presence! AMEN?
Pentecost 11, September 4, 2001
Come Worship the Lord, for we are His people!
Ezekiel 33:7-9
† IN JESUS NAME †
As you hear the Watchman’s cry of warning, may you hear the love, the mercy, and the grace that seeks to see you resting, secured and delivered from danger and your foes of sin and death!
Communicate! A Two Part Process!
My goal for the next two months, is for us to consider that which we know, that which we rejoice in, that which causes us to gather and worship. Specifically, to consider how important it is to us, and realize that there are those out there who need, no desperately need to know these things.
To know they are welcome within these walls, to realize that God will cleanse them, if He hasn’t already, that He would welcome them to this altar, where God pours out His blessings, assuring us of His love, of His forgiveness, and bathing us in His peace.
In a class on preaching, I was told that the hardest challenge is not understanding the Biblical passage and how it portrays God’s love for us in Christ, but rather ensuring that those we preach to can understand how God’s love is shown to them. That decoding the message is only a small part of the word, but that translating it into words and concepts that can be grasped is as important. It’s a problem most pastors have, very much so my biggest challenge.
That rule is not just for pastors though. It is for each of you, and you know the challenge as well as I. For you know the love of God – that is so evident in your love for each other, and your body language as we approach the altar to share, to commune with the Body and Blood of Christ. How easy is it for you to explain that love to the waitress who serves you dinner, or the nurse who processes your paperwork, or your friend who came over to watch a football game?
We know His love, but we struggle with the words to share it; to make what we treasure so greatly not just heard, but really heard, the kind of hearing that changes lives, that brings them along on the journey, that causes them to not just come, but to joyfully come, when we invite them to Come, Worship the Lord!
So today, let’s look at the story of the watchman, not just so that we can understand it and rejoice – but that the people we are sent to show God’s love to – that they can understand it as well!
The Watchman of Israel
You and I aren’t the only ones who struggle sometimes with making things clear. Bible translations do as well. It’s one of the reasons why pastors and deacons try to study the passage in the original languages – not that the translations get it “wrong”, but sometimes doing the work can make it clearer. A great example is here in verse 7 – where we see God saying that He has made the Son of Man a watchman for the house of Israel.
It sounds like God assigned or appointed the person to be a guard over Israel, or at least some I talk to hear it this way. Many people who don’t see God as the one who calls us beloved see the church in this role – the prison where watchman/guards are assigned to keep us in line, to force peace on us, to ensure we behave.
The Hebrew could be clearer, I like translating it this way -
So you, Adam’s Son, I have given as a protector for the House of Israel – or even better, for the people who struggle with God.
For in calling those whom the watchman protects the “house of Israel”, God is referencing the story, centuries old when Ezekiel was written, where Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. A trouble-maker, known for trying to take what he wanted, no matter what it cost, or who it betrayed, Jacob wrestled with God that night - physically and spiritually. Here is how Hosea described that battle,
3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. 4 He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us— 5 the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name: 6 “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”
Hosea 12:3-6 (ESV)
God knows our struggles with Him, He knows their struggles with Him. He doesn’t give up on them, any more than He gave up on Jacob, or David, or Hosea’s wife, or Peter, or Paul. It is not wrong to struggle with God, to honestly contend with Him and to be challenged by Him.
It is for those that struggle such, that God gifted them with a watchman, a guardian. A protector who would speak for God, who would cry out that our way is leading us to death – not in order to punish us, as some would think – but to deliver us from the path we are heading down! For those who struggle, and find themselves doing wrong, we need someone to protect us, to guide us,
And the watchman is that person, a gift to us from God
The watchman is not some pastor, or some guru, for such are as likely to struggle on the way. Our Watchman is, and always will be Jesus – the One Chosen and Annointed and Commissioned for that very role. He is a gift to all, the ones who would wrestle with God.. so never give up, knowing that God will bless you – even as He blessed Jacob and all His people.
The Warning
That brings us to the word translated “warning”, and indeed we see a lot of warnings in scripture, like the ones in today’s Gospel reading. There Jesus, our watchman, warns us of the danger of sending away those children whom the Father brings to Him, and the danger of world’s temptations, even to what appears to be an extreme method of dealing with temptation, and the danger of living life in an un-reconciled position with others.
Each warning is accompanied by dire and dreadful consequences, from the warnings about millstones and cutting off body parts, and perhaps the scariest – the go and be reconciled to those you are divided from, before trying to bring gifts before God.
If the people we talk to, Monday through Friday, see God as some kind of eternal police, the guard who watches over prisoners, then these warnings come across as – if you do these things – watch out – you will be punished! And punished severely! So go to any lengths to avoid the punishment!
Yet warning in scripture is not a term of the law, but of the gospel – good news, not dire predictions. It comes from the word where we get light and illuminate, to make clear the impact. It would be as if you are quickly driving down a road in the dark and as you come around a corner – there a billion watt lights illuminating the bridge that had been destroyed. The light might burn your eyes for a moment, shocking you – yet that same light saves you from destruction. They serve to warn you, to cause you to be redirected to safety
And that is why the Father gave us Jesus, the watchman for people who struggle with God. That He would engage them in the struggle, and show them how to struggle without risking life, here or enternally!
Our blood-guilt was required of the Watchman.. and it was paid for we are in Him…and that “turned us”
Ultimately, even though Jesus and every prophet warns of sin, the true warning is more than a call to our changing our ways. We need more than that, for listening to God is a challenge, even in the best conditions. For we need more to change us, more than just the law – it only reveals the sin, the consequences that we deserve.
Yet in Ezekiel – we see the prophecy - that the Watchman would be responsible if the people didn’t hear – that He would need to be responsible for their blood – their blood-debt . If we look at all the prophets, we see over and over the pattern – though people have ears they can’t hear, though they had eyes they cannot see. For sin acts as a blinder on hearts and minds.
So the watchman would bear their guilt, and in His death, their penalty would be paid, their sin atoned for. In doing so, we died with Him at the cross – in our inquity, the full wrath of God falling upon it – yet in the process – even as Christ rises from the dead – so do we – delivered from death with Him. Delivered to life by the Watchman, the one whom we wrestle with, and learn to hold onto – even as He holds us close, unable and unwilling to let go of us.
A watchman who watches in care and love, for we are not His prisoners, but the people He loves, just as those we shall encourage to come and worship the Lord, for they too are the people He loves.
This is the God they need to know – who doesn’t leave us alone when we struggle, He’s the God we need to know – even as we struggle with so much of life as well. For it is when we know His peace, when we receive the blessings – even as Jaxob did – that we realize how much those “out there” need to be in this relationship….
With the Watchman, with His people,
freed from the threat of our foes, able to rest – secure in His peace… knowing He guards our hearts and minds…. For that is why the Father gifted our lives with His presence! AMEN?
