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Genesis

4:1-16

 

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.

 

In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

 

Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

(ESV)

 

 

 

Nothing In the World

Daniel the Prophet and the Three Young Men 

17 December 2012

Maintenance of the true faith among us is an apostolic mandate. The apostle Paul sharply warned the Corinthians against frittering away the true faith for a false gospel in keeping with the dictates of human reason. We sometimes like to think that our human reason is equivalent to autonomous judgment. But it is not. Our human reason is only captive to this world's principles (Gal 4:9). Our fallen intellect is a slave to the elements of human reason that reflect only Adam's perspective. God never gets a thought in edgewise, so to speak, because the human heart, will, and mind, are only evil continually (Gn 6:5). Only the miracle of God's self-revelation in Christ our Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit overturns this false thinking. Only outside of us will the truth of the gospel find us. The only alternative to the freedom of the gospel is the enslaving "autonomy" of human reason. Reason boxes us humans into a space in which there can be no God, nor mercy, nor the covering of transgressions.

 

Those who have no God will badger and berate us Christians in the midst of tragedy with the question of the presence of God. They ask, "Where is God in all this?" But they are not looking for an answer. They just want to point out God's apparent absence. They want to show Christians the black hole that exists where they think God ought to be acting and acting the way they expect. And when we reply that God's presence is a deep, quiet, and weak thing they scoff that we are being irrational. Who could believe that a Baby in a manger could resolve such unspeakable evil as this latest shooting in Newtown, Connecticut? Who could believe that a God so weak as to suffer and die could save those who are suffering and dying? Who could believe that a God who offered up His own Son for us all could also sympathize with us when we lose our children to the evil of the world?

 

On Sunday, Pastor Herbert C. Mueller, Jr. made the point that in reply to our rage and anger God does not send us a text message  made up of a three-part answer to the problem of evil. Even more unaccountably, He sends His Son. I find it remarkable that people who have no God have no answer to evil. They are baffled by it: "What could possibly cause a person to do something so heinous?" There is no good reason why there is evil. If this is so, why then do they expect a well reasoned reply from God as to what He is doing about it? Evil is a horrible thing; unaccountable, if you will. So is God's answer to it. It just is. Christ has come to bear human sin and wickedness and to redeem us back from it. Why? I don't know. My not knowing is what grace is. There is no reason in the world why God should do anything about evil. This is why He does it. His rescue comes from Him not because of us, but because of Him.

 

The new life of Christ that defeats sin and death gladly admits to sin and death within ourselves, knowing that God in His self-revelation in Christ is turning us inside out. Only the gospel can turn us outside of ourselves, away from slavery to Adam's human reason, to the Word of the God who dies on the cross taking our blame, that we might be freed. The only blame left was heaped upon Jesus as our substitute. We may not flee to our own "reasonable" assessment of death and violence, whether the death of the cross or the slaughter of Sandy Hook School.

 

We find ourselves going back to basic questions these days. Why? Because such clear outbreaks of evil force us to consider all the most fundamental human issues, God, death, life, humanity, faith, forgiveness, judgment, justice. If these things have not been taught from the pulpits of our churches then we have no resources from God to deal with the messiness of human life, with all its wickedness and depravity. If God's story is not ours, then we remain slaves of our "human reason," trapped by the human wickedness that is in our own hearts. The answers to the basic questions remains nothing in the world.

 

Martin Luther

 

"Paul adds a warning by way of precaution, saying: 'If you hold it fast-unless you believed in vain' (1Co 15:1-2). Those are hard and pointed words, and yet they are spoken in a friendly and winning tone, so that they might see how faithfully and fatherly he is disposed toward them and how concerned he is about them. He wishes to say: 'You know, of course, what I proclaim to you, if you but recall that and hold to it and not let yourselves be misled by others. You also perceive what others are proclaiming as you compare the two, unless it be that you did not hold to it but already forsook it and believed in vain, which I hope is surely not the case.'

 

"For Paul is speaking as a faithful pastor, who must do both, hope for the best regarding them and simultaneously be concerned about them. Thus he wants to comfort them lest they despair and to admonish them to return and cling to this firmly when they are tempted to fall away. Again he wants to warn them not to be unconcerned but to remember the danger and harm which failure to remain staunchly with what they heard from him entails, as if to say: 'I assure you, if you do not adhere to the Gospel and, instead, give ear to others, then my preaching was in vain and you believed in vain. Then all that was yours until now was futile and is lost, both baptism and Christ. Then you can no longer hope for salvation, and all that you did to this point is destroyed and ineffectual. That will be the result if you want to listen to those who boastfully allege to have something different and something more precious. Therefore I want to have done my duty and have a clear conscience, having warned you faithfully against incurring your own harm and ruin. Now the fault is not mine but yours if the Gospel is preached in vain and fails to produce what it should. For, as you know, I did not stint preaching to you but I gave richly of what I received, as he will state later. No, the fault is yours because you did not remain true to it. But if you did retain it, you know how and in what form I preached it to you. For I did not preach it, as they claim and say, in a human form, in accord with reason and understanding. For to proclaim it in such a worldly form, or to judge in accordance with it, surely is to destroy and surrender the Gospel entirely. And if you surrendered such a form as I preached to you, you have also surrendered the faith and with it lost everything pertaining to your salvation.' Both to say that and to hear that would be terrible; and this should be sufficient warning to hold assiduously and diligently to the Gospel preached by the apostle Paul.

 

"Behold, the apostle at the very outset wants to lead us away from all discussion and instruction of reason and direct us solely to the Word, which he had received from Christ and had proclaimed to them. And thereby he wishes to show us how to conduct ourselves and act over against all articles of faith. With regard to this I always say that faith must have absolutely nothing but the Word on its side and must permit no subtle argumentation or human ideas in addition. Otherwise it is impossible for faith to be retained and preserved. For human wisdom and reason cannot progress beyond judging and concluding in accordance with what it sees and feels or with what it comprehends with the senses. But faith must transcend such feeling and understanding or make its decision contrary to these and cling to whatever the Word offers. Reason and human competence do not enable faith to do that, but this is the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart of people. Otherwise, if a person could comprehend this with his reason, or if he were to resolve this in accordance with what is and what is not in agreement with his reason, he would need neither faith nor the Holy Spirit."

 

Martin Luther, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15, 15.1-2  

 

Prayer

When aimless violence takes those we love, when random death strikes childhood's promise down, when wrenching loss becomes our daily bread, we know, O God, you leave us not alone. Because Your Son knew agony and loss, felt desolation, grief, and scorn and shame, we know You will be with us, come what may, Your loving presence near, always the same. Through long grief-darkened days help us, dear Lord, to trust Your grace for courage to endure, to rest our souls in Your supporting love, and find our hope within Your mercy sure. Amen. (LSB 764:1, 4, 5)

 

For all the families of those who have been killed in the Newtown crime, that God would be enabled to come through the doors that human wickedness has opened in our hearts and minds and that Satan would not use this to his advantage

 

In thanksgiving to God that Michelle Kleb has been discharged from the hospital after open heart surgery and is resting at home

 

For Pastor Charles Wokoma that he might be upheld in the ministry which the Lord has given him

Art: DAVID, Gerard  Triptych of Jean Des Trompes (1505)

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